Chapter 10
“You need to talk to Sir Nathaniel Conant about these reports I’m seeing from his informants,” Lord Jarvis told Sidmouth as he and the Home Secretary walked briskly across Margaret Street toward Westminster.
“They need to focus less on complaints about the price of bread and falling wages, and more on the Radicals’ calls for heads on pikes and blood running in the streets. ”
Sidmouth reached up to tighten the red wool scarf around his neck.
The day was miserably cold, with thick dark clouds pressing low on the city and a bitter wind that howled through the eaves of the ancient palace before them.
“Conant says that, from what he’s hearing, things like the price of bread and lack of political representation are what the Radicals talk about. ”
“And what, pray tell, has reality to do with anything?” said Jarvis, his voice dripping contempt.
“Does the Chief Magistrate seriously imagine we are ignorant of the sources of popular discontent? These reports will be presented in court as evidence at the treason trials. And you can’t convict a man of treason and cut off his head for complaining about the price of bread.
Conant needs to see this problem rectified. Immediately.”
“Yes, my lord. If you’d like—” He broke off, a shadow of concern crossing his features as he became aware of a familiar stout man with a florid complexion and a blobby nose descending on them.
Now in his late fifties or early sixties, Sir Samuel Toole was a steadfast High Tory who’d known Sidmouth for more than thirty years, since the days when both men had been newly elected members of the House of Commons.
Normally a neat, fashionable dresser, the man now had a disheveled, dazed look about him, his eyes red and puffy from what must have been hours of private weeping.
But for the moment all that soul-destroying grief had been tucked away somewhere out of sight, with the unbearable feelings of loss and pain channeled into a determined outpouring of raw rage.
“My lord,” said the dead man’s father with a quick, bobbing bow toward Jarvis.
“My apologies for the interruption, but something must be done.” He turned toward Sidmouth.
“Do you know, Henry? Do you know what Bow Street has done with my son? Turned him over to some dirty, lowborn Irishman, that’s what they’ve done! ”
“Samuel,” said Sidmouth in a low, soothing voice. “I know it’s difficult to bear, but Bow Street tells us there is no finer anatomist in all of London than Paul Gibson. If anyone can determine what happened to Marcus, it’s Gibson.”
“What happened to him? We already know what happened to Marcus! He’s been murdered, that’s what happened to him.
What do they think my son is going to do?
Sit up and tell this anatomist who killed him?
That Irish piece of filth is cutting Marcus up!
Cutting on him.” Toole’s voice broke, his jaw trembling for one unguarded moment before he clenched his teeth.
“Have you seen him? Have you seen what some villain has done to my boy? He doesn’t even look human anymore, Henry. He doesn’t look human!”
Jarvis cleared his throat. “My sincere condolences on the loss of your son, Sir Samuel. Please rest assured that we intend to see whoever is responsible caught and punished to the full extent of the law.” He threw the Home Secretary a meaningful look. “When you’re free, Sidmouth.”
He was walking away when he heard the dead man’s father say, “Why would someone do something like that, Henry? Why?”