The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [115]
Quietly, Townsend said, ‘She won’t be able to tell you whatever it is you want to know.’
Without looking up, Pyke continued to stroke the old woman’s head.
‘What do you plan on doing with her when we get to London?’
‘Do you mean where do I plan to take her?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have made arrangements. She will be well looked after.’
Townsend nodded. ‘But what did we go through all of this rigmarole for?’
‘You mean how do I intend to profit from this action?’ This time, Pyke looked at his old acquaintance.
‘Exactly.’
Pyke glanced down at the old woman. ‘I don’t.’
Townsend stared at him as though he didn’t believe or couldn’t comprehend what Pyke had told him. ‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘I mean I don’t have any such plans.’
Edmonton had gone to work with impressive but, from Pyke’s point of view, alarming haste to propagate his own version of the robbery. By the following evening, the story had colonised the front page of the London Chronicle. The luridly written account announced that twenty thousand pounds had been stolen at gunpoint from a stagecoach transporting money to the provinces. It did not mention which bank the money belonged to. The report claimed that one of the robbers had been shot and killed but two accomplices had escaped and were currently being pursued by the new police. It identified Pyke as one of the suspects and announced that an unknown benefactor had posted a reward of five hundred pounds for information leading to Pyke’s capture and the return of the stolen money. Pyke was described in the report as an armed and highly dangerous convicted murderer who had stabbed and killed his own mistress and who should be approached with extreme caution. The report concluded with an inaccurate account of his criminal exploits and listed a number of addresses where he might be hiding.
Pyke was under no illusions about the magnitude of the task he now faced. It would be hard, if not impossible, to move anonymously through a city where every police constable and every man and woman - every coiner, dock worker, scavenger, canal digger, harvest worker, river pirate, embezzler, dustman, chimney sweep, butcher, swindler, publican, pickpocket, ballad singer and dog stealer - would be looking to collect the five hundred pounds reward.
Certainly he had not counted on Edmonton’s response being decisive, and he now wondered about the wisdom of revealing his identity to the brother. He had wanted the fat lord to know that he had taken his money, if only to engage his accomplice - Jimmy Swift - in a more direct confrontation. Now, though, he would have to contend with half the city as he did so.
Having arrived back in London and established Emily’s mother in a private apartment with her own nurse, Pyke travelled across the city under the blanket of darkness and was met at the gate at the bottom of the garden by Jo and ushered into the back of the Islington town house. Thankfully Jo did not try to engage him in conversation or discuss her recent visit to his garret, nor did he confront her with his own suspicions about her. These would have to wait for another occasion.
But something had changed.
In the upstairs drawing room, Emily did not embrace him, nor could she bring herself to look at him. Pyke stole a glance at Jo and wondered what the girl had told Emily about their encounter in his garret, once again kicking himself for his stupidity, and for having ruined his chances with Emily over what had amounted to the mildest of flirtations. He listened, chastened, as Emily described how news of the robbery had sent her father into the most violent rage she had