The Devil’s Acre

The smile slipped a little. ‘I – I beg your pardon?’

Richards dug a bent cigar end out of a coat pocket and made a great show of getting it alight. ‘Killed a fellow with a hatchet back in forty-two, in Manhattanville,’ he said as he struggled with a match. ‘There was a disagreement over money, apparently. They were in business together, you understand – and as you’ve seen already, a Colt will really go the distance when business is involved. Victim’s name was Adams, coincidentally enough.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘And that’s not all. Dearest brother John went on to chop the body up, if you can imagine such a thing. The mad blighter then stuffed the parts into a packing-case and sent it by steamer to New Orleans.’ Richards sucked on the cigar, quickly filling the carriage with smoke. ‘But the case started to pong halfway down the Mississippi. It was an unusually hot summer, I’m told, and the killer had scrimped somewhat on the salt. The gruesome contents of the case were duly discovered, and traced back to John within the week.’ Richards stopped his tale here, deliberately savouring his bent cigar.

He has me, Edward thought with mild aggravation; I must ask. It seems that I might have underestimated the Colonel’s press agent. ‘What happened to him? Did he hang?’

Drawing in his long legs, Richards grinned around his cigar in wolfish victory. ‘Ah, well, that’s where it gets really good. On the eve of his execution, as they were putting up the gallows in the prison yard, he stabbed himself through the heart. It is said that our own dear Colonel, eager to spare the family the shame of a public hanging – and thus protect his own emergent business interests – both brought him the knife and talked him into this last desperate act.’ He took the cigar from his lips. ‘These Colts are a ruthless lot, Mr Lowry – as merciless with each other as they are with the world at large.’

Down in the street, a door opened; Richards looked towards the tailor’s shop and then quickly opened the window on the carriage’s other side, tossing out his cigar. Colonel Colt was coming back.

The yard of the Colt factory was a narrow, cobbled valley between two block-like buildings. A week earlier, during Edward’s first visit, it had been almost deserted; but now it positively thronged with people, as many as three hundred of them by his estimation, replacing the empty silence with an incessant, excited chatter. They stood in a ragged line that stretched along the flank of the right-hand building and ran all the way back to the main gate on Ponsonby Street. Of both sexes and all ages, this multitude formed a great specimen box of the London poor, ranging from well-washed working folk keen for honest labour, through the dry drunkard and the hard-up gambler, to various incarnations of beggary. Edward realised that Colt’s London machine operatives were to be drawn from this unpromising pool. Even the best among them seemed a long distance from the skilled artisans traditionally charged with the manufacture of firearms. This, he saw, was the principal secret of the Colonel’s revolutionary method of production: his patented pistol-making machines needed only the most ignorant and inexpensive of workers to run them.

The Colt carriage halted next to the stone water trough that stood in the centre of the yard, the Colonel jumping out in what the secretary was coming to realise was his customary fashion. He followed as quickly as he was able; Richards, who had somehow contrived to fall asleep once more during the twenty-minute journey from Savile Row, showed no sign of waking.

Down on the cobblestones, Edward took in the factory for a second time. It was an unlovely place, to be sure, given over completely to the efficient fulfilment of its function. The two buildings – the manufactory itself on the right, where the engine and the machines were housed, and the as-yet vacant warehouse opposite – were entirely undecorated, the walls blank brick, the windows small and grimy, the many chimneys nothing but crude stacks. Yet the enterprise had a sense of scale about it, of sheer purpose, that was unmatched by the other factories that clustered around the reeking thoroughfare of the Thames. Turning to face the gates, Edward looked across the river to the collection of potteries and breweries scattered along the southern bank. These squat brown structures seemed little better than shacks, at once ancient and impermanent, fashioned from the muck of the shore. The premises of the Colt Company, by comparison, seemed a site for truly modern industry – the kernel of a mighty endeavour.

Beside him, the two chestnut mares who were pulling the Colt carriage snorted impatiently, eager to be unharnessed so that they could drink at the trough. Edward noticed that a dozen or so of the American staff Colt had brought with him were standing by the large sliding door that opened onto the forge, surveying the line of potential recruits. Dressed in corduroys, flannel waistcoats and squat, round-topped hats, and liberally smeared with engine grease, they appeared less than impressed by the noisy English crowd hoping to join their revolver factory. The Colonel was going over to them, walking rapidly as if keen for the company of his countrymen after a half-day spent with Edward and Alfred Richards.

A whisper of recognition went up from the queue of applicants as Colonel Colt strode over the yard. All rowdy conversation stopped; every head turned towards the famous Yankee gun-maker. Hats were doffed and curtseys dropped, as if in the presence of a great lord or clergyman. A handful of the bravest bade the Colonel a very humble good afternoon.

Colt ignored them. Reaching the forge door, he beckoned to a huge brute of a man, larger even than he was, with the blunted, leathery face of a prize-fighter; Edward recognised him as Gage Stickney, the factory foreman. A good-natured exchange began, the Colonel asking for details of the morning’s enrolment. Soon all the Americans were shaking with hard, masculine laughter. Looking on, Edward became rather conscious of the smart Englishman’s top hat and frock-coat that set him apart from both the pack of chortling Yankees and the shuffling mass of aspirant Colt operatives. The pistol case was still under his arm. He wondered what on earth he was to do with it.

There was a colourful curse behind him, the ‘r’ of ‘bugger’ slightly slurred; Richards, in descending from the carriage, had caught a button on the door handle, one side of his coat lifting up from his gangling frame like a fawn-coloured bat wing. In a doomed attempt to pull it free, the press agent ripped the button away completely. He grunted with satisfaction, as if this had been his aim.

‘Don’t know what they’re looking so deuced pleased about,’ he declared, nodding towards the Americans. ‘The last I heard our engine was barely strong enough to animate a sideshow automaton, let alone a sufficient quantity of machinery to occupy this blasted rabble.’

Edward considered the press agent for a moment, thinking with some distaste that this wretched fellow was actually the closest thing he had to an ally at the Colt Company. ‘I’m sure that the Colonel is not given to displays of undue confidence, Mr Richards.’

Richards showed no sign of having heard him. ‘You see that Yankee over there,’ he murmured archly, angling himself away from the Americans, ‘standing a little apart from the rest?’

It was immediately obvious to whom he was referring. The man was smaller and leaner than the others, and the oldest of the group by a clear decade, his skin scored with scar-like lines that bisected his hollow cheeks and spanned his brow in tight, straight rows. He was dressed in a dark blue cap and tunic, creating a distinctly military effect that was augmented by the high shine of his boots and the precise cut of his greying beard. While his companions laughed with the Colonel he continued to regard the ragged assembly of applicants with the fierce focus of a terrier.

‘Mr Noone,’ Edward replied. ‘The factory’s watchman, I believe.’

‘And a chap with the very blackest of reputations. I’ve heard it said that the Colonel risked losing several of his most trusted people back in Connecticut when he took the villain on – threatened to walk right out, they did, so low is the regard in which our Mr Noone is held among certain of his countrymen. But the Colonel wanted him – said he was right for the post, a fellow who could be counted on to defend one’s interests at all costs.’ Richards paused significantly. ‘At all costs, Mr Lowry.’

Edward fixed the press agent with a probing look. The scoundrel wants me to beg for more information again, he thought, as I did with the Colonel’s axe-murdering brother. Well, I shan’t; I won’t hear any more of his plaguing stories. He stated that he was going to take the pistol case back up to the factory office, walking past Richards towards the tall sliding door that served as the main entrance to the factory block. Before he’d taken more than a couple more steps, however, there was a flurry of rough shouts from inside the building. Three men, Scots from the sound of it, marched out to the centre of the yard, bawling curses against Colonel Colt and his Yankee contraptions. All three were drunk, and from what they were yelling had just been turned away by those enlisting the factory’s personnel. Seconds later Mr Noone, the watchman, was upon them, backed by a couple of other Americans. They collared the malcontents and hurried them over to Ponsonby Street, administering hard kicks to their behinds as they reached the gate.

This spectacle was greeted with laughter from the line; as more people turned to take it in, Edward noticed a lively-looking young woman in the plain yet respectable clothing of a domestic servant away from her place of employment, waiting in the queue with several others in similar dress. She was smiling wickedly at a remark made by one of her companions – a smile that made him smile as well to behold it. In the middle of her left cheek were two small but distinctive marks, side by side and oddly even. As she turned back towards the factory door, her smile fading, their eyes met. For a single clear moment they both stood in place, contemplating each other.

Then Colonel Colt called out his name, clapping his hands together as he headed back to the carriage. Edward smoothed down a twisted lapel and went over to join him.

2 (#ulink_38061415-7549-5f3f-bbeb-f9c3a198fc2a)

Sam took the steps of the American embassy three at a time. Ignoring the grand brass knocker, he hammered on the door with his fist. It opened just an inch or two, as if in caution, so he gave it a hearty push, causing it to connect violently with the forehead of the unfortunate footman on the other side and send him staggering back into a floral arrangement.

‘Ice, right now,’ Sam instructed as he strode past, flicking a shilling at his victim. ‘That’ll see you right.’

The servants were coming at him, taking little bows, their eyebrows raised all the way up in that queer English manner, but he would have none of it. Deftly, he weaved around them and loped up the main staircase, arriving in an emerald green hall with the doors to the main reception room directly ahead. It was an apartment designed to make a man not born to splendour feel small and worthless: columns, chandeliers, fancy pictures, gold leaf by the yard. Nonplussed, thinking that the effect was rather aristocratic and decidedly un-American, Sam turned his attention to the other guests. His mood improved immediately. The crowd was a grey one, and sombre-looking. This, he knew well, tended to denote the presence of some serious political authority. He also registered a handful of smart naval coats and crimson jackets, adorned with medals and sashes of various hues. Generals, admirals and politicians, rounded up in one place: prime hunting ground for a sharp gun-maker.

A voice bleated at his shoulder. Irritably, Sam turned to see a persistent flunky asking for his surtout, his hat and his name; he supplied them, not bothering to disguise his impatience. He was announced to the company, and met their attention with a scowl.

‘Take it in, you blasted Bulls,’ he muttered under his breath as he attempted to flatten his curls. ‘I shall have you yet.’

Mr Buchanan, the newly appointed American minister in whose honour the reception was being held, approached to welcome him, looking pretty damn distinguished with his neat white hair and high starched collar. ‘It pleases me greatly,’ he declared, ‘that such a singular personage as Colonel Samuel Colt, perhaps the most famous American presently in London, can find the time to attend this modest gathering.’

Sam knew Jim Buchanan a little from Washington and their handshake was cordial enough. The minister was no businessman, though, and could not disguise his personal feelings. That oblong face with its prominent chin and small, mild eyes was easy to read: he considers me vulgar, Sam thought with some amusement, and is concerned that I might put lordly noses out of joint with my brash manners. They exchanged a few words about Buchanan’s new post.

‘I was on good terms with Mr Lawrence, your predecessor,’ Sam said. ‘He was a man prepared to extend whatever help he could to an honest American trying to achieve something in this damnably slow-paced country.’

‘Indeed,’ Buchanan replied carefully.

Sam saw at once that the fellow didn’t want to give any sense of an understanding between them – to put himself in a position where he might be asked to overstep some invisible barrier of diplomatic protocol. This was a predictable attitude. The new minister was renowned for his aversion to risk, to anything that might attract critical attention; a general habit of life that had been fostered (or so it was rumoured) by his secret preference for male companionship in the bedchamber.

Taking Sam’s arm, Buchanan guided him over to a large group of men and women whose colourful dress and openness of manner marked them as Americans. There was a round of introductions, and not a single name Sam recognised. Binding them all was the false sense of familiarity that one so often encountered among countrymen brought together abroad. Their conversation was concerned entirely with Franklin Pierce, the new president, and the tragic accident which had befallen his family between the election and his inauguration; they were relating the details, Sam couldn’t help but think, with a certain ghoulish pleasure.

‘Crushed to death, the boy was, within the president’s sight!’ one lady pronounced, her eyes open wide. ‘The railway carriage rolled over onto its side, you see, and the child had been leaning from the window – oh, I can’t bear to think of it!’

‘Pierce is a broken man, they say,’ opined the fellow next to her. ‘Barely made it through his oath. Sits in the Oval Office all day long with the curtains drawn, paralysed with grief for his lost son.’

Sam quickly concluded that none of these blabbering fools was of any use to him. He looked over at the silver-bearded John Bulls conferring in other parts of the room and prepared to break away.

Another of the ladies, moved almost to tears by Pierce’s tale, intercepted him. ‘How can a man recover from such a blow, Colonel Colt? Can he at all?’

His departure checked for a moment, Sam paused in thought. ‘Of matters concerning dead children, ma’am, I really cannot say,’ he answered. ‘But it’s going to be a tough time indeed for those of us that might have been intending to do business with our government. That’s one reason why you find me here in London, setting up a new factory. Speaking frankly, though, my hopes for a Pierce presidency were always low. I’ve known the fellow for a number of years, from his army days. Far too fond of the bottle – and I reckon he’s reaching for it now, with a new dedication, in order to take the edge off his sorrow.’

Buchanan, a close ally of the Pierce administration, pursed his lips in disapproval, and tried to jog the startled group on to a fresh subject – some vacuous fixture of the London social season about which he’d developed a sudden fascination. Sam took this opportunity to move off. Refusing a flute of champagne – the stuff played merry havoc with his gut – he sauntered to the centre of the reception room.

The gun-maker had made ample preparation for occasions such as this. Just before leaving Connecticut he’d furnished himself with a folio of portrait engravings of the foremost British politicians. On the voyage over, with time on his hands, he’d memorised the various configurations of thinning pates, furrowed brows, bushy white chops and belligerent jowls; and by the time he landed in Liverpool he could put a name and role to every aged face. It had irked him to discover that they had all switched their posts about since his last visit. Lord John Russell, scourge of the Catholics, was no longer Prime Minister, but Leader of the House, whatever that meant; disappointingly, Lord Palmerston, a man about whom Sam had heard many good things, had lost the Foreign Office and was now Home Secretary. The Earl of Aberdeen was currently at the helm, and a dull dog he appeared. Sam got the sense that the present British Government was an uneasy coalition of men who would trample each other down in a flash if the chance arose. It hurt his head to think about this for too long, though, and he wished that these scheming nobles would just stay put for a while and see if their achievements didn’t rise accordingly.

For perhaps half a minute he saw no one of consequence. Then it struck out at him – one of the first half-dozen portraits from his folio, coloured and brought to life. A sober-looking fellow, bald as a knee but oddly childlike about the face: it was Lord Clarendon, Palmerston’s replacement as Foreign Secretary. And by God, the person beside him, fat-cheeked and jovial, was none other than Lord Newcastle, the Secretary of State for War. These were the very men he needed. Sam was considering how best to introduce himself when they shifted about, in response to the arrival of someone else behind them; and there was his friend Tom Hastings, the elusive Keeper of the Ordnance, addressing Clarendon with obvious familiarity. Sam’s blood stirred; his nostrils flared. This was a proper piece of good fortune, and he would seize it with both hands.

Hastings, a stooped old turtle decked out in a naval uniform, saw him approach and smiled warmly. Sam noticed for the first time that he had the most enormous ears, from which greyish hair sprouted in bunches. There was little in his thoughtful face that hinted at his distinguished naval past; Commodore Hastings had served under Nelson, had taken Bonaparte into his last exile, and had been single-handedly responsible for every major scientific advance in British naval cannonry since. Sam didn’t know too much about any of this. It was enough for him that the aged Commodore had influence, a passion for all things gun-related and a demonstrable predisposition for Colt.

‘My dear Colonel, what is this I hear about you and Clarence Paget?’ Hastings whispered discreetly, moving away from his companions to greet Sam. ‘You pointed a pistol at him, in his own rooms? Can this be true?’

They shook hands. Hastings was plainly delighted to think of Paget being threatened with a gun; the two men were fierce rivals of long standing.

‘Not exactly, Tom,’ he replied. ‘We disagreed, is all.’

Hastings grinned. ‘A subject best saved for another time, perhaps.’ He directed Sam towards the ministers. ‘Here, come and meet these fine gentlemen.’

Clarendon and Newcastle were somewhat reserved, as might have been expected, but they proved open enough to Sam’s conversation and soon became curious to learn more of the revolver factory at Bessborough Place and its many innovations. Sam invited both to take a tour, thinking that he would send them each a pair of the finest engraved Navys that same night. It was looking good, in short, very good indeed; then an English lady, clad in black silk and lace, appeared between the ministers.

‘Excuse me, Lord Clarendon – Lord Newcastle – Commodore Hastings,’ she said with an incline of her head, her voice surprisingly deep and full of confidence.