Part 3 (1/2)

'Your valet rushed to my house yesterday evening with news of your arrest, but they would not let me see you until this morning. I had to bribe the turnkey to be left alone with you for ten minutes.'

'This whole place is run on bribes and favours.'

'Tell me what happened,' said Christopher, shocked at his brother's condition. 'Your valet said that officers came to your house.'

Henry put a hand to his brow. 'It's been like a descent into h.e.l.l.'

'Have you been badly treated?'

'I've been everything, Christopher. Manacled, fettered, browbeaten, bullied, interrogated, humiliated and even threatened with torture. Had I not had sufficient money to buy a room of my own, they'd have tossed me in with the sweepings of London. Can you imagine that?' he asked with a flash of his old spirit. 'Me, Henry Redmayne, a man of delicate sensibilities, locked up with a seething ma.s.s of thieves, cutthroats and naughty ladies, all of them infected with maladies of some kind or another. They'd have torn me to shreds as soon as look at me.' He stared down at his stockinged feet. 'I had to give my best shoes to the prison sergeant - the ones with the silver buckles - so that he'd spare me from being chained to the wall.'

'I'll protest strongly on your behalf.'

”There's no point.'

'Even a prisoner has certain rights.'

'Not in Newgate.'

'It's not as if you're a convicted felon,' argued Christopher. 'You're simply on remand. When this whole business is cleared up, you'll be found innocent, released and able to resume your normal life.'

'Normal life!' echoed Henry gloomily. 'Those days are gone.'

'Take heart, brother.'

'How can I?'

'We'll help you through this nightmare.'

'It's too late, Christopher. The worst has already occurred. The very fact of my arrest has blackened my name and, I daresay, cost me my sinecure at the Navy Office.'

'Not if you are completely exonerated.'

'Nothing can exonerate me from the torment I've suffered so far,' moaned Henry, running his fingers through the vestigial remains of his hair. 'I was arrested in front of my valet, taken by force from my house, questioned for hours by rogues who had patterned themselves on the Spanish Inquisition, deprived of my wig and most of my apparel, then flung into this sewer. By way of a jest, the turnkeys pretended to lock me next door.'

'Next door?'

'Can you not smell that noisome reek?'

Christopher nodded. 'It's the stench of decay.'

'They made me see where it came from,' said Henry, glancing at the wall directly opposite. 'In the next cell are the quartered remains of three poor wretches who were executed earlier this week. They are being kept there until their relatives can get permission to bury what's left of them. The turnkeys took a delight in pointing out that there were no heads in the cell. They'd been parboiled by the hangman with bay-salt and c.u.mmin seed so that they would not rot. Those heads have now been set up on spikes for all London to mock.' He grabbed his brother. 'Do not let that happen to me, Christopher. Save me from that disgrace.'

'Only those found guilty of treason suffer that indignity.'

'They'll do their best to pin that crime on me as well.'

'Nonsense!'

'There's nothing they like more than to see a gentleman brought down,' wailed Henry. 'I'm like one of those bulls they had at the frost fair, a n.o.ble animal forced to its knees by a pack of sharp-toothed mongrels. I can feel the blood trickling down my back already.'

'Enough of this!' said Christopher, determined not to let his brother wallow in self-pity. 'Our main task is to get you out of here today.'

'There's no chance of that.'

'Yes, there is. I'll speak to the magistrate who committed you.'

'I'm more worried about the judge who'll condemn me.'

'The case will not even come to trial, Henry.'

'It must. The law will take its course.'

'Only if there's enough evidence against you,' argued Christopher, 'and, clearly, there is not. A gross miscarriage of justice has taken place here. You'll be able to sue for wrongful arrest.'

'Will I?'

'Yes, Henry. The charge against you is preposterous.'

'They do not seem to think so.'

'Only because they do not know you as well as I do. What better spokesman is there than a brother? You have your faults, I grant you - and I've taken you to task about them often enough - but you are no murderer, Henry. I've never seen you swat a fly, still less raise your hand against another man.' 'I do not always reign in my temper,' confessed Henry.

'All of us have lapses.'

'Not of the kind that lead to arrest.'

'I'd be surprised if you even knew the murder victim.'

'But I did, that's the rub. I knew and loathed Jeronimo Maldini.'

'Maldini? Who was he?'

'The man they found in the river.'

Christopher was startled. ”The fellow they had to cut out of the ice?'

'According to report.'

'But I was there at the frost fair when the body was discovered. Good Lord! What a bizarre coincidence we have here! Is that what has brought you to this pa.s.s? I did not even realise that the man had been identified yet. It was one of Jonathan Bale's sons who actually stumbled on the corpse. The lad was frightened to death.'

'So was I when four constables came knocking at my door.'

'What was name again?'

'Maldini. Jeronimo Maldini.'

'And you disliked him?'

'I detested the greasy Italian,' said Henry petulantly. 'At one time, I made the mistake of going to him for fencing lessons but we soon fell out. Our enmity began there and grew out of all proportion.'