The Devil’s Acre

Sam stood back up, unable to disagree. He stalked across the room to the window. It gave a clear view of the Colt premises, slotted neatly between Bessborough Place and the rusting iron cylinders of the Pimlico gasworks, with Ponsonby Street running across the front. The machines had stopped for the day but lamps still twinkled at the windows, and barrows of coal were being wheeled in through the factory door from a barge moored over at the wharf, ready for the following morning. At last, after countless setbacks, it was starting to look like a decent operation – a viable prospect. But just as there was a chance of some real progress, this had to go and happen. Sam didn’t have the time for it, quite frankly, not when there was so much pressing business to attend to. A raw ache of vexation pulsed through him; it felt as if his forehead was about to burst open like a ripe boil.

Noone was at his side, arms crossed, a trusted lieutenant ready to draw up a plan of action. ‘It was no robbery,’ he said. ‘Ben Quill ain’t the sort to have anything of value on him – leastways, nothing that’d warrant a working-over like this. Any thief worth his salt would see that.’

‘So what’s your theory, Mr Noone?’

‘Ben and his Irishman were targeted. Hunted down.’ Noone’s voice was insistent. Sam realised that despite his usual stony composure, the fellow was angry; fire-spitting furious, in fact. ‘This is a message, Colonel – these cocksuckers knew exactly who they were beating on.’

Sam almost asked who might do such a thing, but found he could easily summon several suspects to mind. ‘I’m inclined to agree. We’ve been denied the one man who is vital to the factory’s continued operation. They just about got the engine going this morning without him, but any problems to be seen to or fine-tuning to be done and…well, to be blunt, Mr Noone, we’d be in a proper goddamn fix.’ Struck by a notion, he turned to address the engineer. ‘Were they Bulls, Mr Quill? Were your attackers Englishmen?’

Quill attempted a nod, and tried to lift his unbandaged arm. ‘Aye, Colonel, so I believe. They knew I was an American, too, and cursed me for it.’

‘Adams,’ Sam pronounced. ‘Has to be. He’s trying to trip us up.’

‘We must meet this, Colonel,’ said Noone. ‘It can’t go unanswered. You give the word and I’ll gather up some men – pound these motherfuckers flatter’n hammered shit.’

Sam eyed the watchman carefully. This was where the trouble could start. One poorly chosen word and Walter Noone would be out breaking skulls on the streets of London, gratifying that well-known taste for inflicting pain. The Colt Company would be made to leave London in disgrace, and the nay-sayers back in Connecticut would be proved entirely correct. It was a crucial moment, in short, and a firm hand was required.

‘Don’t you be telling me what I should or should not do, Mr Noone,’ he snarled. ‘And keep your poundings to yourself. Such measures ain’t necessary just yet.’

Noone remained impassive. He wasn’t best pleased, but he was still a soldier at heart and could take an order. ‘Then we must at least permit our Yankee boys to wear their own pieces when they’re outside the works. They must be allowed a fighting chance should they be attacked as well.’

Sam shook his head, growing impatient now. ‘I’ve been making pistols for long enough now to know that if you let our men wear ‘em in the streets of London they’ll damn well get used. It surely don’t need to be pointed out to you that should a Colt Yankee gun down a half-dozen Bulls in their own capital city it’ll go very badly for us, regardless of the circumstances. I’ve been telling these people that the Colt revolver is a peacemaker, Mr Noone. I can’t be seen to be wrong on that.’

The gun-maker rubbed his brow, trying to relieve the pressure beneath. It was useless; bourbon whiskey was required as a matter of urgency. He lowered his hand into his pocket, wrapping his fingers around the stiff screw of Old Red that lay within.

‘Stay alert,’ he instructed. ‘Patrol the lanes around the factory and this lodging house. If you see anyone skulking about, you chase ‘em off with my blessing – but hold your goddamn horses, d’you hear? There’ll be a better way to manage this than the spilling of blood.’

The Colt barouche cut across two lines of traffic, sweeping up to the pavement. Sam wiped at the window with his glove, clearing a small rectangular block in the film of condensation that covered it. They were on the edge of Leicester Square, a region of the city which he knew well. During the Great Exhibition two years previously he was to be found there on an almost daily basis; it housed several of London’s largest and most popular shooting galleries, and was thus the prime spot to give practical demonstrations of a gun-maker’s wares. The building he was looking out at now, however, was an unfamiliar one. They’d come to halt before a set of smart double doors, flanked by glowing gas-lamps and sheltered beneath a striped awning that was fast filling with rainwater. An ornately engraved brass plaque identified this as the entrance to the Hotel de Provence – the designated meeting place.

Sam glanced across at Mr Lowry, who was sorting papers in the barouche’s shadowy confines with his customary air of keen efficiency. The gun-maker was pretty satisfied with this young fellow – yet more testimony, he thought, of my skill when it comes to selecting my people. The London secretary was possessed of a cool, understated cleverness, and was already quite committed to the Colt Company. He was prime manager material, in short, the sort who might be given a serious post a few years down the line. Of course, there was still a fair bit of shaping and schooling to be done before then.

‘Now you stay sharp in there, Mr Lowry,’ Sam told him as he prepared to exit, raising his voice over the steady drumming of rain against the carriage roof. ‘I don’t know quite what to expect from this fellow, but I’ve yet to encounter a politician who ain’t a slippery shark. You be sure to make a damn close record of what’s said, for our future reference. And I needn’t tell you that if he so much as hints at what befell our Mr Quill and his mick last night, you’re to deny everything.’

‘Naturally, Colonel.’

Hopping out across an overflowing gutter, Sam rushed up to the hotel’s doors and pushed his way through. Someone took his coat and hat and directed him towards the restaurant. It was a long, warm saloon, overlooking the illuminated frontages of the various exhibition rooms and billiard halls that fringed Leicester Square. Lively conversation buzzed all around, much of it in French; Sam recalled that the southern part of Soho was home to a great many citizens of France, displaced by the revolutionary upheavals in their own country. An effort had been made to create what he supposed was an authentically Parisian atmosphere, which meant plenty of polished brass and plush crimson upholstery, well-groomed, supercilious waiters with tiny moustaches, and large paintings of idyllic country scenes across the walls. A number of the diners caught sight of Sam; heads turned, and that familiar ripple of recognition ran through the room.

The Honourable Lawrence Street, MP, was waiting at a table at the rear of the room, that weird white-blond hair of his shining against the restaurant’s biscuit-coloured wallpaper. The little man was working his way through a newspaper with a cold, systematic air, a pair of silver-rimmed glasses perched upon his nose. As Sam approached he folded it away and stood – awkwardly puppet-like as before – to shake the gun-maker’s hand.

‘And who is this?’ he inquired, eyeing Mr Lowry with some suspicion.

‘My private secretary,’ Sam replied, ‘one of the Colt Company’s Englishmen. I hope you don’t object.’

Street made no comment. He removed his glasses and tucked them inside his waistcoat.

A yellow rectangle appeared in the corner of Sam’s sight; the Colt barouche was cruising past the restaurant’s wide windows, its mustard panels glittering in the wet evening.

‘That is quite a vehicle, Colonel,’ the Honourable Member remarked as he sat back down, gesturing towards the other chairs set around his table. ‘It would be a lie to say that I’d seen a finer one this year.’

‘I spend more time in that there carriage than I do in my bed, Mr Street,’ Sam said, signalling for a waiter. ‘An uninterrupted ride across this city is an out-and-out impossibility, what with the omnibuses and the hackney cabs and all the goddamn livestock, so I feel it’s best to be comfortable while I wait. Now, would you kindly tell why you wished to see me?’

‘Straight to the business at hand, as always.’ Street compressed his lips into a tight smile. ‘Very well. A couple of matters recommend themselves to your attention. Firstly, I feel it is my duty to inform you that your enemies, alarmed by the great leaps of progress recently made within your factory, have begun to organise themselves.’

Sam sat up. ‘Not that bastard Bob Adams?’

Street paused thoughtfully for a second, as if making a mental note. ‘No, Lady Cecilia Wardell. You remember her from the reception at the American embassy? She has gathered several supporters around her, Evangelicals I’ve heard, and aims to cause you whatever difficulty she can.’

The gun-maker snorted dismissively. A waiter had arrived at his side. ‘What’s it to be, then, Mr Street? Champagne, ain’t it, with you Bulls?’

‘My thanks, Colonel, but I require nothing.’

Sam ordered bourbon for himself. After the waiter had retreated, he asked to know what the other matter was.

The Honourable Member made a small adjustment to his shirt-cuffs. ‘I have heard, Colonel, that you are a great believer in the power of endorsement by a famous name. It has come to my attention that a prominent foreign celebrity is in London – someone whom I believe it would benefit you to befriend.’

Now this was more interesting. ‘Who is it?’

‘A freedom-fighter in the true American mould,’ Street said, delaying the disclosure for a few seconds – attempting, in his low-key way, to build a bit of anticipation. ‘Lajos Kossuth, the rightful regent-president of Hungary.’

The gun-maker made no effort to hide his disappointment. Was this meeting to be a complete waste of his time? ‘Well, how about that,’ he muttered, pushing back his chair and crossing his arms.

Street was unconcerned by this reaction. A flicker of insight passed across his features. ‘You know him already.’

Sam sneered up at the ceiling. ‘I met Mr Kossuth in the Turkish town of Vidin, Mr Street, shortly after he’d been obliged to flee his homeland and the vengeance of the Austrian Emperor. I was travelling around Europe at the time, acquiring patents and the like, when it came to me that I might find a customer in the Sultan. That gaudy little parrot turned me away – a decision he’ll live to regret. Anyways, I had a week or two to spare, there was talk of trouble on the Hungarian border, I had some guns to shift, so I decided to head on over and see what was what. One day I happened to find myself in the same place as the renowned Lajos Kossuth. Naturally I paid him a call.’

Street was wearing that tight smile again. ‘You wander the world a good deal, do you, Colonel?’

‘Such is the lot of the gun merchant. Conflict don’t come to him, most of the time, so he must go to it – sniff it out as best he can.’ The whiskey arrived in a cut-crystal decanter, accompanied by a single squat glass. Sam reached for it and poured his first drink. ‘At any rate, I quickly came to realise that Mr Kossuth and I could do no business together. All he had to offer in exchange for my arms was some fine ideals and a good deal of long-winded speechifying. This is often the trouble with revolutionaries and freedom-fighters, Mr Street, in my experience. They just ain’t a decent prospect for custom.’

The Honourable Member nodded. ‘Well, poor Mr Kossuth is still rather impecunious, I’m afraid. I’ve heard that he is obliged to reside at present in a barrack house in Clerkenwell, in fact, as the guest of a chapter of Chartists.’ This was said with a measure of both pity and disgust, as if it was akin to setting your bed in a sewer. ‘Nevertheless, Colonel, I feel that it could be useful for you to give him a private tour of your factory.’

Sam fixed this queer little man with a long, careful look. Had Street been making promises to the Hungarian exile? Was Kossuth perhaps under the impression that discounted or even free weapons would be offered to him by the Colt Company, so that he could arm his scattered cohorts and reestablish his vanquished republic? This was something that would have to be set straight right away.

‘Much as I respect Mr Kossuth and his struggles,’ the gun-maker said slowly, ‘I must point out that such tours are only worthwhile when there’s a chance of a goddamn sale as a result of it.’

Street set his hands together on the tabletop with the air of someone about to embark upon an explanation. ‘I take it, Colonel, that you are aware of the ever-increasing belligerence between Russia and Turkey, and the bullying conduct of Russian diplomats in Constantinople?’

Sam indicated that he was. His interest in the grievances that lay behind this deepening dispute was limited – something to do with the supposed entitlement of Orthodox Christians living within the Ottoman Empire to Russian protection. It all sounded entirely contrived to him, a mere excuse for a bit of the sabre-rattling of which these ancient empires were so very fond. He was keeping a close watch on it, though. From where he stood, it was a pretty promising situation.

‘Great Britain has taken against Tsar Nicholas,’ the Honourable Member continued, ‘as he is unquestionably the aggressor, and every Briton shares an instinctive loathing of oppression of all kinds.’

For a moment, Sam considered saying a few words about the British and oppression, but managed to hold his tongue.

‘Lajos Kossuth, also, is a notable victim of Russian antagonism. It was the Tsar’s alliance with the Emperor of Austria, and the assistance of his massive armies, that enabled the easy rout of Mr Kossuth and the dismantling of his young republic. The regent-president remains a famous and popular man. If he were to visit your pistol works, the press would be certain to attend, and in significant numbers. A great many Englishmen would read of your support for him. It would serve as an effective demonstration of the Anglo-Saxon bond we discussed at Buchanan’s.’ Street met Sam’s eye. ‘In addition, you would find that Mr Kossuth has allies of real influence. Being seen to show sympathy for his plight would send out a clear message to these people. It would show them that they can trust you – that you are their kind of fellow.’

Sam knocked back his drink. Something else was going on here, for certain; the Colt Company was being used for some deeper purpose. He looked over at Mr Lowry. The secretary was studying Mr Street with subtle distrust. Street was working a scheme – they both saw it. But whatever the Honourable Member might be plotting, Sam got the sense that the success of his factory was part of the plan. It was worth playing along for now.

‘Very well, Mr Street,’ Sam said, reaching for the whiskey, ‘I’ll see what I can arrange.’