The corridor was dark, lit only by one candle sat on a small round table twenty yards ahead. We walked as quiet as we could on the polished floorboards, aware of the dark faces watching us from the massive portraits that hung high on the dark wainscoted walls. The candle and table stood at the foot of the small staircase that led up to Hewitt’s parlour. I put a hand on the banister and withdrew it quickly. Something sharp. It was the spiky tooth of a grinning serpent, monstrous and twisted, carved into the wooden rail. Composing myself, I turned to the others and signalled silently that they should remain, hidden in cold, black shadows. I climbed the stairs. They creaked. I knocked on the door and entered, closing the door behind me swiftly.
‘You are lucky to find me in, I’ve just returned.’ Hewitt stood by the fire looking at me. ‘It is raining now, I see.’
I walked towards the heat of the fire. Steam started to rise from my clothes.
‘Your manservant told me you were expecting me.’
‘I thought you may come again,’ Hewitt said slowly, ‘one last time.’
‘What did you think I’d come for?’
Chuckling, he scratched his head vigorously. Flames from the fire wriggled and danced. He spoke quickly, rubbing his right thumb on his left palm. ‘You think I killed John Giles. You think I sent Mottram and Wilson to kill you. You may even think I killed Anne Giles.’
‘Did you?’
‘Opportunity is whoredom’s bawd.’
‘What kind of answer is that?’
‘The only one you will get from me. I told you last time you came that this is not your affair. I gave you clear warning. Instead you came to the Exchange to observe me, to spy on me.’
‘Did you send Mottram and Wilson to kill me?’
‘It is as good to be in the dark as without light.’
I snorted. Pompous indulgence. ‘Who was John Giles blackmailing if not you?’
‘I could write you a list, but I will not.’ Hewitt spoke with quiet amusement in his voice. He poured himself a glass of wine without offering one to me. He sat, sighing as he fell back into the soft leather upholstery.
‘You are a devil.’
‘Speak to me like that again and I will have your throat cut,’ Hewitt answered lazily. I couldn’t think of a suitable riposte. He sipped unhurriedly at his wine. ‘I take no pleasure in Anne Giles’s death, much less that it was you appointed to investigate it, but I’m no different to any of the others that work the Exchange. Look at me, Lytle.’
I looked.
‘What do you see?’
‘Your face.’ Like the skin of a dead animal hung out to dry.
‘Every face at the Exchange is the same as this face, Lytle. Do you understand?’ He let me look upon him a moment longer before sitting back.
I realised, startled, that he was surely talking about William Hill. Why? I shook my head, confused. ‘How does that excuse you from telling me what I would know?’
‘I don’t need an excuse.’
‘Was it you that sent Mottram and Wilson to kill me?’
‘If it had been me, would I tell you?’ He was playing with me.
‘You’re hung one way or the other.’
‘Enough!’ He snarled, jerking forward, his white face scowling, black eyes fixed on mine.
I walked towards the door.
‘Goodbye.’ Hewitt sat back again, fingers arched, contemplative. ‘Don’t come back.’
I opened the door to Dowling and his colleagues, who bounded up the stairs, boots crashing thunder on the wooden boards. Hewitt leapt to his feet, crouched, legs spread. His head jerked to look at me, outraged and incredulous. I tried to avoid his gaze.
‘I think you killed Anne Giles and John Giles, and tried to kill me. So I am going to take you somewhere where you may be persuaded to make your confession.’
‘You would do what?’ Hewitt almost laughed. ‘By whose authority?’
‘By my authority.’
‘Lytle. You … are … mad.’ He paused to scrutinise my nervous expression. ‘Quite mad.’
I signalled to Dowling. He and the others bound Hewitt with rope. Hewitt made a couple of token movements to resist but was still overcome with astonishment. Only when Dowling wrapped a cloth around his mouth did his eyes flash. He tried to kick out, but it was too late. He stopped quickly, unwilling to make a fool of himself. The three of them carried Hewitt down the narrow stairs and I followed close behind. All of us were uneasy now, unsure of ourselves, and the cold, murderous, furious sparks flying from the cold flints of Hewitt’s eyes did nothing to comfort us. We left the house quickly, as fast as we could, and hauled Hewitt into the back of a coach we had left parked by the front door.
I think I said somewhere earlier in this narrative that I had never been into Alsatia and never would. That was my view at the time, which I had shared with Dowling. He responded by telling me that it wasn’t so bad, that he knew a couple of fellows that lived inside its boundaries. This remark had surfaced in my mind the night I had formulated the great plan. So now we would take Hewitt there and keep him at a place known by one of Dowling’s fellows.
Alsatia was a swarming, stinking nest of rats. Every house was split into twenty or more tenements, each tenement housing up to ten men each. There lived debtors, cheats, liars, forgers, thieves and murderers, living in cellars, in kitchens, first-floor rooms and garrets. There lived rufflers, who made their living pretending to be old, maimed soldiers, begging from royalist commanders who they claimed to have served. Strowling morts pretending to be widows. Fraters who collected money for hospitals, keeping the money for themselves. Polliards and clapperdogeons, who used children to extort money from wealthy passers-by. Tom O’Bedlams, thieves that feigned madness. Anglers that earned their name fishing through open windows with a rod and hook. It was a dangerous place policed by gangs of ten or more, burly thugs armed with poles and knives that stood for the only law that applied there. Worse than The Exchange. Just.
We stopped on Fleet Street at the mouth to Shoe Lane. I watched nervously the characters that wandered in and out the tops of the narrow alleys that led down into Alsatia, dirty rogues, walking slowly and without haste, masters of their territory. The streets were narrow, doors were public thoroughfares, and the noise from within tumbled out loud and crude. The area swarmed. Houses so overfilled and overpopulated that the sewage formed a thick river that covered the width of the street. This was the dirtiest and unhealthiest district in the whole of London.
Dowling strode over, having been stuck in conversation with the driver of the coach. The coach rumbled forward gently and came to a stop at the top of Salisbury Alley.
‘We all four go together, Harry, it’s safer that way.’ Dowling took my jacket in his hand and shook his head sorrowfully, gazing at my oldest and least fashionable clothes. Still they might as well have been the King’s robes. Snatching my jacket out of his hand I pushed him forward, I had no appetite for discussing it. We paused at the top of the alley and looked down. Walls closed in on either side of the running sewer. Faces stared out from doorways and windows.
‘Right, let’s take him.’ Dowling and one of the others hauled Hewitt out onto the street and pushed him forward. Someone had put an old linen bag over his head. We walked with purpose following Dowling into the maze. I didn’t try and avoid the eyes of the dirty flea-bitten wretches that stared at me with greedy malice, but I didn’t hold their gaze long either. I tried to look unworried and disinterested, as if I was on my way home after a day at work. Dowling led us onwards, marching forward, keen not to linger. My boots sank into the filth with every step I took and I felt the shit seep through the leather and into my stockings and soak up my hose. Every face in every window, every body on every street corner, turned to watch us walk by. Conversations died, laughter stopped, arguments were postponed. Suspicious faces, frowning countenances, beetled brows, low murmurings. People here had all day to do nothing very much.