I looked up at the constables as they slowly turned their gaze on me. They were silent, awe-struck by the enormity of my blasphemous crimes.
7
Of the details of my incarceration I have scant memory. Perhaps the ignominious shock of being placed in the charge of the constabulary had combined with the cumulative fatigue wrought in my constitution, to temporarily overthrow the balance of my reason. I recall a voice faintly like my own answering the various questions. put to me, though at a distance, as if overhearing some street conversation of only mild interest. The censorious, scowling faces of the Law's guardians passed in front of me, yet they too were far removed; from an angle somehow slightly above, I listened to them reciting the impressively long list of misdeeds attributed to my person – desecration of a holy place and criminal blasphemy chief among them – and heard their gruff comments on my vacant inattention, as though they were Smithfield porters describing a particularly unattractive carcass of beef. Only when I was at last placed in a cell, entirely alone upon a cold stone shelf jutting from a damp wall, did some realization sink upon me that the dream-like nature of my experiences had eroded through to reveal a grim reality. The dark cell was actual, my presence therein equally so; something with bright eyes and soft pattering feet regarded me from a drain-hole in the centre of the floor before scurrying away. I could hear someone close by singing with drunken, inarticulate glee, the voice echoing from the walls until the thump of a wooden truncheon upon flesh produced a cry of pain and subsequent silence. By various follies I had reached this nadir; I wrapped my arms about myself to ward off the chill of the gaol's foetid air, and, with chin heavy upon my breast, contemplated my misery.
At some point, though I knew not how many hours of imprisonment had passed, the heavy door creaked open and a gaoler with keys jangling upon a ring entered; he tossed a bundle upon the bench beside me and withdrew without speaking. I roused myself to investigate, and found it to be a set of my clothing. The explanation of its arrival hither was provided by the appearance of the faithful Creff's face at the small barred grille set into the door; he strained to look inside the cell, as if forced to stand on tip-toe in the corridor outside. "Mr Dower, sir," he called. "They told me-" The comfort of his familiar visage disappeared, and I heard the gaoler ordering him to move away. "Here, you-" His voice faded as further prodding was applied. "Watch what you're doing with that stick – ruddy blackguard…"
I exchanged the tattered vestment for my own garments, the accustomed attire of my second-best suit restoring my appearance, if not my spirits. There was some comfort in the thought that I could at least await whatever fate was in store for me garbed as a gentleman, and no longer masquerading as a bogus cleric.
I had not long to wait. The door presently opened again, sending a wash of light across the dank confines of the cell. I looked round and saw not the gaoler's stolid figure, but rather that of Scape. His clerical costume had likewise been discarded; I saw him restored to the over-rich finery in which I had first seen him at my shop. In the cell's gloom his blue-glass spectacles seemed two dark, unreflecting holes in his pallid face.
"Rise up, Dower, old fellow. " He smiled and made a grand gesture with his cane, as if he were about to commence the conducting of an orchestra in some opera seria overture. "Come on, up and at 'em – the hour of your deliverance is at hand."
The appearance of this figure, now fixed in my mind as the bellwether of the troubles that had come upon me, further oppressed my spirits. "Please go away," I said, shrinking back upon the bench. "Haven't you brought me enough grief?"
"Grief? Hey, lighten up-"
I ignored his protest. "Your reasons for coming here are of no interest to me. I would prefer to remain undisturbed while I await whatever judgment will be deemed appropriate by the bench." Stoic, with the little dignity I had left to me, I turned my face away from the door.
My words brought a derisive snort from Scape. "Yeah, well, you can just forget that crap. It's been taken care of already – old Bendray's gone for your bail, so to speak. He's got more strings to pull than the average Lord. You're being released in his custody – that's why I came down here to get you."
So the apparent architect of my travails – or at least a good part of them – was Lord Bendray, then. The title sparked as little recognition as had the name. I could envision no reason why a member of the nobility would be engaged in the absurd vandalism of a church, of which I was now falsely accused; no reason other than sheer insanity, that is. Perhaps this Lord Bendray was of those much-gossiped-about bloodlines, where generations of inbreeding and later bibulous riot had gone to produce a congenital weakness of mind? At any rate, I had no wish to have further involvement with him, even though my own freedom was used as bait. I was about to reiterate this point to Scape when I saw that the bright-eyed creature that had looked at me from the cell's drain-hole had now become bold enough to investigate the toe of my boot with its small naked paws. It scurried away when I leapt with an involuntary shudder from the bench.
"That's right," said Scape, linking his arm with mine. "You can trust us – really." He pulled me towards the brightly lit corridor.
"But-" My protests collapsed; the cell's darkness drove me into the hands of my enemies. The gaoler, markedly more respectful now, placed a twine-bound bundle in my arms. As he led us away, I recognised it as my clothes, still damp from the river, retrieved from the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe. Beneath my prodding finger I felt the circular outline of the Saint Monkfish coin inside my wadded-up waistcoat.
Outside the grim walls, I stood blinking in the morning sunshine that, at various points in my nocturnal quest, I had despaired of ever seeing again. Scape opened the door of a brougham – the same I had seen outside Saint Mary Alderhythe – and guided me up into it. No sooner had I sat down than I became aware of the vehicle's other occupants. Seated across from me were the enigmatic Lord Bendray and, restored to her feminine finery, Miss McThane. I endeavoured to ignore the signal of her lowered lashes and slight smile as Scape found his place next to me and the brougham jolted into motion.
I gazed out the carriage's window at the London streets passing by. A one-legged crossing-sweeper hobbled out of our path and tugged respectfully at his cap; perambulating costers and stall-keepers alike were arranging their merchandise for their customers' inspection; the city buildings and population had regained that apparent reality of which the vertiginous night had robbed them. This bright diurnal world had seemed a phantasm, existing only in deluded memory, when the dark waters had been swirling over my head or I had been running from the church where piscine physiognomies gaped in horror at a clanking priest and choir; now those night events slid together in confusion as I tried to recall them. I was too exhausted to sort the real from the false; sanity often consists of knowing what not to think about.
I looked up from my fatigued musings as, with his brown-spotted hands folded over the head of his cane, Lord Bendray leaned his cadaverous face towards me. "I wanted to express my deep appreciation to you," he said in a septuagenarian quaver. "For taking upon yourself the blame ensuing from our little, ah… church social. Hehheh-heh." His amusement at his own witticism evoked a spasm of coughing that lasted nearly a minute. He dabbed at his phlegm-spotted lips with a handkerchief before speaking again. "I had always received excellent service from the senior Dower, but had never expected such loyalty from the son as well."
I had not the slightest idea to what he referred; I had never seen the name Bendray in any of my late father's account books. As to the night's events at Saint Mary Alderhythe, it now seemed the path of wisdom to dissociate myself from them by proclaiming my ignorance about what intent, if any, lay behind them. "I'm sorry, your Lordship," I said coldly. "I don't-"