Part 28:
While the sudden energy to clean the dust yard in Maiden Lane roused the old squaddie that was Wickham into a state, his comrade and partner that was Younge of Clerkenwell, sobered himself out of the depressed condition which the combined influences of drink and unrequited love had served to make him vulnerable to the old soldier's schemes.
As he began to return to usual self, Younge realised the evils of the schemes, and the probable cruelty it would do to the Reynolds's, of whom he had always heard nothing but good. Even from Old Darcy, when the miser was alive, there had been praise for his servants, who helped run the dust yard and raised the children he grew to hate and dispossess. And now, since the Reynolds's inherited his fortune, they were known for being all that was liberal and generous around their old neighbourhood, doing what they could to improve the living conditions of their employees.
It further deepened his guilt, the thought that he would deprive these good people of the means to continue their charitable endeavour, by entering into a partnership with Wickham. The old soldier had little planned to do with what money he could blackmail out of the Reynolds's that did not involve enriching himself.
Younge could not imagine what he would do with such a fortune, except improve his shop and the lives of people he knew. The fortune would not alter his lonely life, it would not give him the hand of the woman he loved. If knowledge of his actions were ever made public, his reputation would surely be ruined. He had no motive for this scheme other than his verbal, drunken agreement to a partnership with Wickham, whom, Younge was certain, would be glad to keep all the money to himself.
In short he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. With this in mind, Younge sent a note to the Reynolds's, with the intention of apprising Mr Reynolds of the nefarious scheme, and, if it were possible, help him keep his inheritance, thus redeeming himself from the evils Wickham colluded him into. The note was short and succinct, containing very little beyond a name, directions and the request to see Mr Reynolds at his premises in Clerkenwell as soon as possible. Younge preferred to tell the man in person of the sin about to be committed against him, it was the honourable thing to do.
"Well I lost no time," Mr Reynolds remarked when he arrived, closing the shop door behind him. "I know an urgent summons when I see it," he added, gesturing to the note he held in one hand with the other.
Mr Younge brought them both a cup of tea, courage for himself and calming for his guest, taking sip of his before he began. "Before starting, sir, I have to ask we be in confidence."
Mr Reynolds nodded. "I suppose that sounds fair."
"I have your word and honour, sir?" Mr Younge challenged.
"Good fellow, you have my word," Mr Reynolds assured him. "How you can have that without any honour, I don't know. I've sorted a lot of dust in my time. I never knew the two things go into separate heaps."
"Very true, sir, very true," Mr Younge agreed. "Mr Reynolds, I have to confess I fell into a proposal of which you were the object and oughtn't to have been. I was in a crushed state at the time, having recently being subjected to a romantic disappointment."
"Quite so, Younge," Mr Reynolds offered understandingly.
"That proposal was a conspiracy," Mr Younge revealed, "against you, sir. I ought at once to have made it know to you, but I didn't, Mr Reynolds, and I fell into it. Not that I was ever hearty in it and I viewed myself with reproach for having turned out of the paths of science in to the path of.." he paused, seeking an appropriate name, at last settling on making his own, "...Wickhamery."
At the lock in Lambton, the schoolmaster finished eating and, having endured an atmosphere akin to a dead man being served his last meal for long enough, said a short, almost curt farewell to his host, before rising from his chair and heading for the door. Outside the greeting of the weather was little better, the cold air that signalled the onset of winter touching his skin with all the comfort of an executioner preparing him for the hangman's noose. Collins had felt the hemp close around his neck ever since Jenkinson announced what news came before him down river. The brief pleasure experienced in delivering violence upon the lawyer Bingley faded quickly in the face of such gossiping reprisals.
Doubt now resided where the pleasure had once been housed, and a larger nor more grandiose estate could not be conjured into being. Hindsight guarded the entrance to the room in which it was housed, beside memory, who replayed the act over and over again in his mind until Collins began to comprehend the depth of failure to which he had sank.
He realised now, that he had let his passionate nature rule his better judgement. That he should not have attacked Bingley that night, but waited, until there was no possibility that someone would rescue him from the violent blow that he dealt to him. Emotion had always been his enemy, the window to his soul that harboured his hopes and dreams of archiving something better than his dreary drudge of a life. Now emotion was his hangman. He had once said to her that she would be the ruin of him, certain that she would save him from this. But because of his passion, he had let her damn him forever.
Collins was an apprentice to this craft. Murdering may need no training, but the aftermath required a mastery which he, like any first timer, lacked. Nothing had prepared him for the conflict waging within his mind, just like no one had forewarned him of the evils that would hinder his escape. He had realised that such violence required planning, demanded that he conceal not just the act but his involvement in that act, but it had not occurred to his passionate inflamed mind that such concealment might be seen through. That by choosing to pin the blame on someone else, he would lay himself open to detection. It was true what the Inspector said, that murder lay within anyone. What was also true that one murderer can usually recognise another, long before they are even aware of it.
Jenkinson was one such man. When Philips accused him of robbing a sailor, and a live sailor at that, he had known that the sailor paid the price for making such a accusation. Nor that the sailor had not been the first or by any means the last. There was the sailor who gifted him William Darcy, the young man travelling home to claim his fortune and his bride.
Jenkinson knew from the moment he met that sailor, that the seaman intended to kill William Darcy and pocket the inheritance. That was why he followed him to the lodging, waited for the sailor to attack William Darcy, and then he would attack the sailor, robbing him of the inheritance he desired to plunder. Pinning the blame on Gaffer Philips took no great craft, just as he realised now that it would take nothing from Collins to do the same to him.
So Jenkinson waited for the schoolmaster to leave the house, then quietly rose from his chair and crept outside to follow him. Retribution was within his mind, even though he yet to have the proof required as justification. Evidence was not needed for his own peace of mind, nor for the schoolmaster's, or even the court. It was the threat of evidence, that would lead to courts which he needed in order to achieve his ends.
Without that threat, he could not profit from this act, just as he had profited from all the other murders committed in his name, albeit by his own hand. He knew that if it came to court, it would be the word of a rogue against a schoolmaster, but he also knew that would never get that far. For the schoolmaster would be too terrified to rely on his profession to prove his innocence, too consumed with the doubt and fear that his victim and his lady waited in the wings to testify against him.
With this scheme in mind did Jenkinson follow the schoolmaster, down the path that ran along side the river, far from his lock until the respectable dwelling was hidden by the greenery which surrounded hunter and prey both. Into his greenery did the rogue advance, using what pockets he could find to conceal himself when the schoolmaster abruptly halted, where from he observed his former guest divest himself of his clothes he had taken such care to make so similar to the ones Jenkinson wore, and then descend into the river.
"Not thinking of killing of yourself, schoolmaster," Jenkinson murmured, for he recalled the man's face when he told him of the news concerning the lawyer being recovered by Miss Bennet. He might not know the details of the relationship between the schoolmaster, the lawyer and Gaffer's niece, but he knew a black humour when he saw one, and Collins had worn such a murderously expression of that metaphorical garment since the news was relayed. "Not before I've squeezed the last penny out of yer!"
Instead of proving such an assumption true, and ridding the rogue of the profit he felt he deserved in payment of being framed for another murder, Collins began to wash himself, his body shivering under the assault of the cold water, causing his host some relief. No stranger to such customs of cleanliness in others, the lock keeper continued to watch as the man finished his ablutions and retrieved the clothes he had been wearing only minutes before.
He bundled them together and threw the bloodstained attire into the river, before dressing himself in his usual black school clothes, the uniform Jenkinson had seen when he first encountered the man, before he left London for his lock, receiving five shillings for his trouble of saying that he had witnessed the lawyer Bingley's kindness to Gaffer's niece.
"I see what you're doing," Jenkinson murmured, his eyes travelling the path of that bundle, knowing, thanks to his trade craft around water, where it would end up and how long he could wait to retrieve the bundle of evidence. "Trying to throw your crime on me. Well, we shall see about that, t'otherest. We shall see!"
Mr Reynolds quietly listened to everything that Mr Younge had to reveal, about the discovery of the Darcy Will among the dust heaps, the reading of it, and the quest to find out whether it was of a later date than the one officially recognised, and the plan to rob him of what they could by blackmail. He was not surprised that Wickham was behind it, but the lack of such emotion disgusted him all the more.
Vindictiveness seemed to run like a hereditary disease within that family, tainting one generation after the other, settling to deprive one Darcy scion after another. The latest heir of the Darcy fortune was a deserving young man who did not need to experience more hatred than what his miserly father had already bestowed on him, causing even further grief to himself, his wife and Mr and Mrs Reynolds.
"Now look here, Younge," Mr Reynolds remarked when the tale reached the end. "If I have to buy Wickham out, I shan't buy him any cheaper for your being out of it. Might you pretend to be in it till Wickham was brought up and then hand over to me what you'd been supposed to have pocketed?"
Mr Younge shook his head. "No, no I don't think so, sir."
"Not to make amends?" Mr Reynolds persisted.
"Well, it seems to me, the way to make amends for having got out of the square, is to get back into the square," Mr Younge reasoned.
"And by the square you mean?" Mr Reynolds asked.
"The right, sir," Mr Younge elaborated.
Mr Reynolds sighed. "I suppose there's no doubt as to the genuineness and date of this confounded Will?"
Mr Younge shook his head. "None whatsoever."
"And where might it be deposited?" Mr Reynolds asked.
"Its in my possession, sir," Mr Younge revealed.
"Is it?" Mr Reynolds' gaze widened. "Now for any liberal sum of money that could be agreed, Younge, would you put it in the fire?"
"No sir I wouldn't," Mr Younge replied.
"Or give it to me?" Mr Reynolds pleaded.
"That would be the same thing," Mr Younge pointed out.
As Mr Reynolds began to despair of finding a solution to this matter, he heard the sound of singing, from someone making their way up the road.
Younge made to destroy all evidence of the presence of his visitor, removing the tea from the table nearby to the vicinity of the fire once more. "Hush! Here comes Wickham. Hide behind the young alligator in the corner, and judge him for yourself." He gestured to a beast which Wickham had long regarded with apprehension, and therefore would not care to examine more closely, thus discovering his comrade's decision to desert the latest scheme of revenge upon the Darcys. "Get your head well behind his smile," he instructed. "He's a little dusty, but he's very like you in tone. Are you alright, sir?"
"Yes," Reynolds just had time to reply before Mr Younge had to shut the drapes to conceal the animals, just as the shop bell struck, and Wickham entered.
"Partner, how's our stock in trade?" Wickham asked as he prowled the shop floor, sparing only a glare towards the exhibits he had long since tired of seeing. "Still safe, partner? With all your friends watching over it?"
Mr Younge noted the stress of slight fear upon the word 'friends' and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that his quick concealment had succeeded, before he retrieved the document and showed it to his new visitor. "Nothing new, Mr Wickham?"
Wickham nodded angrily. "Yes, there is. That foxy old grasper and griper!"
"Mr Reynolds?" Mr Younge sought to confirm with a glance to the alligator, from which behind that foxy old grasper and griper peered anxiously over the meeting, trying to judge in a fresh light a man he had once taken pity over and offered employment.
"Mister be blowed!" Wickham scoffed at such a title applying to the man who had disturbed him so rudely this morning. "Dusty Reynolds sends his dust carts at dawn to wake me up. He's clearing those mounds to get the better of me. When I see him put his hand in his pocket, I see him taking liberties with my money! Flesh and blood can't bear it. No I go further, a wooden leg can't bear it. His nose shall be put to the grindstone for it!"
"How shall you do that, Mr Wickham?" Younge asked, with another discreet glance in the direction of the alligator.
"I propose to insult him openly!" The old squaddie cried. "Then, if he offers a word in return, I'll say, add another one to that, you dusty old dog, and you're a beggar! I'll break him. I'll drive him. Put him in harness, bear him up tight! The harder he's driven, the higher he'll pay! And I intend to be paid highly, Mr Younge, I promise you!"
"You speak quite revengefully, Mr Wickham," Younge observed, and which Mr Reynolds noted with regret concealed behind the alligator.
Wickham shrugged as though such a motion could shake such evil emotion and notions from him. "Perhaps I've allowed myself to brood too much. Be gone dull care! I'll be seeing you afore long. But let it be fully understood that I shall not neglect bringing the grindstone to bear and putting Reynolds's nose upon it until the sparks fly off in showers."
The old squaddie left the premises, leaving Mr Younge to glance at Reynolds, who waited for the sight of the soldier to disappear from view before he emerged from behind the alligator. For quite some time did he remain in the shop with Mr Younge, as both silently contemplated how they would foil this product of vengeful scheming without laying themselves open to further losses which the law would require.
At the school in which Collins taught, the man to whom that name belonged stood before his black board, his chalk in his hand, writing down the multiplication tables for a fresh intake of boys, who sat behind tables in his classroom, waiting for his instructions. But his mind not within his body, instead it was far away from him and his pupils, and far away from London, travelling upriver towards that place where there lay evidence of the violence which he had visited on the lawyer Bingley.
When he returned to London there was more news awaiting him in the newspapers; that the lawyer was on his death bed at a local Arms, in the village of Lambton, Derbyshire. Bingley may not be wealthy man by himself, but as the heir of his wealthy, if some what unconventional father, by choosing to have his children earn the money they would inherit, he held a reputation that required such attention by the press as to whether he still lived.
Details on the nature of his attack were still sketchy, but the reporters who wrote the newspapers had the joy of making up their own version of events, with all the gruesome violence and gothic horror such an age gloried within. Nothing yet as to the identity of the attacker, but Collins knew that it was only a matter of time. For Jane Bennet had retrieved the lawyer from the river, the same woman to whom he had first made his threat of wishing violence upon Bingley, all those weeks ago.
Not once did his mind believe that Jane would keep her silence. The estate of doubt still resided within him, acquiring more and more acreage to its name as he continued to think and rethink over the act, and what he should have done, as opposed to what he did do.
If I had hit him more from behind he would not have seen me, he realised silently, his hand hovering over the board, chalk poised to write out the next sum. If I had finished the job before throwing him in the river, he would not hover between life and death as he does now. Even now, he grinds me down. Even now, she ruins me along with him.
"Sir? Sir?" A boy called him out of the dark thoughts and back to the classroom. Silently he turned round to attend to his inquiry.
