6.

 

He came up between the stall and the booth just as the ring of desperadoes were about to close round Casanova and the girl. His sword already drawn and with one arm protectively about the latter, whitefaced with terror, Casanova had backed towards the wooden side of the big confectionery stand as some protection against attack from behind. Uttering a bloodcurdling yell Nick plunged between two of the bullies to the other side of the girl and jabbed his sword at the nearest thieving cove.

‘Do you stay tight between us,’ he shouted to the girl, who had turned to him in bewilderment, followed by a grateful gasp, while Casanova, his eyes gleaming, threw him a word of thanks. ‘Merci, mon brave.’

‘Have no fear,’ Nick answered with jaunty encouragement and the air of an expert fencer, though he had never held a sword in anger in his life before, and proceeded to cut and thrust with the wildest enthusiasm. The gang of cut-purses had drawn back momentarily in face of this unexpected show of resistance. But Nick caught the glint of a dagger and waving his sword windmill fashion, was about to leap forward to dispose of this threat.

‘Non, non. Ne l’ondoyer pas. Lounge — lounge,’ Casanova, translating for Nick’s benefit: ‘Do you not wave your sword. Thrust — thrust.’ Illustrating the action, Casanova lunged to the attack, his skilful blade spitting forth like a snake’s tongue. There were yelps of pain, and, Nick, following his mentor’s instructions, the ruffians were now bunched together to be forced across into a crude canvas shelter over the entrance to the stage at the back of the booth.

‘Sacré Nom,’ exclaimed Casanova, as Nick’s sword neatly transfixed one rascal in the fleshy part of his shoulder, bringing forth an agonized yell and a spurt of blood, ‘he has a flair for the game.’

With a devilish grin on his face Nick leapt forward. ‘Do you watch this swordplay, Signor Casanova,’ he yelled. He slashed at the ropes holding up the canvas structure which, with cracks and tearing sounds, suddenly collapsed. There were muffled shouts and curses as the trapped bullies fought each other to extricate themselves from the canvas, then more up-roar and curses from within the booth itself as the actors and some of the audience rounded upon the interrupters of the play.

A little while later Nick had guided Casanova and the girl, both recognizing him from Dr. Zodiac’s booth and deeply grateful for his brave intervention, to a nearby tavern against St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Sitting at the windows of the first-floor room, crowded and the air thick from many tobacco-pipes, fumes of beer and wines, they overlooked the fair. Returning the stolen handkerchief, Nick explained how it had sent him after them. Casanova had presented his alluring pink and white, blue-eyed companion as Marianne Charpillon. They drank their small beer spiced with bitter cucumber, and Casanova’s attention was diverted by a trio of young men seated nearby, ridiculously attired in absurdly small cocked hats, large pigtails and very tight-fitting clothes of striped colours, each carrying tall walking-sticks ornamented with tassels. ‘Why, they are wearing two watches from their fobs. How can they indulge in that absurdity?’

‘They are dubbed macaronis,’ Nick explained. ‘And they wear two watches to show what o’clock it is and what o’clock it is not.’

Then a fellow with a great scar across his forehead picked out a pair of pocket-pistols and laid them beside him on the table. ‘And who would he be?’ Casanova asked Nick in a low voice.

‘Do you hear the waiter call him ‘Captain’? He is a man of considerable reputation amongst birds of the same feather and resolute as any who cocked a pistol upon the road. He fears no man in the world but the hangman and dreads no death but choking.’ Nick’s gaze shifted to another customer before whom was a glass of champagne and a platter of oysters. ‘That man,’ he said, ‘handles false dice and cards with much dexterity and will drain the pockets of a large company in but a few minutes. You see him wearing his country cloth coat, all over dust, as if he had come a fifty-mile journey, though he has only travelled from St. Giles’s. Being a rare talker he could outflatter a poet, outhuff a bully, outwrangle a lawyer and out-face truth.’

Nick took a drink of his beer and Casanova placed a hand upon his sleeve. ‘What has been your employment in the world that you are so well acquainted with its scandalous society?’ The question was casual enough, but Nick intercepted a look between Casanova and the girl which, though it occasioned little surprise, set his wits more atingle.

‘Let us say,’ he answered easily, ‘there is no sharper nor cut-throat but I am wary of him. For that matter,’ after an imperceptible pause, ‘no Bow Street Runner’s disguise could fox me, nor any police informant either.’ He broke off with an indrawn hissing breath and Casanova saw in the crowd immediately below them who it was had attracted his attention. The huge towering figure with the black bandage beneath the shadow of his three-cornered hat. Accompanied by a short, lean man close beside him he moved slowly, before his dominating approach the milling throng falling back. ‘Speak of the devil,’ Nick muttered.

‘Who is it?’ The strange, enormous creature and his companion, whose spectacles glinted in the flaring lights, becoming lost to view, Casanova turned to Nick.

‘Mr. Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate,’ Nick grated. ‘The Blind Beak himself.’

‘He is blind? And yet he is a magistrate?’

At the other’s puzzled expression the girl vouchsafed an answer. ‘He is well known in London, people crowd his police court; they say that, stone-blind though he is, when a crime is committed he will visit the scene himself to question those concerned at first-hand.’

As if she felt Nick’s gaze upon her she fell silent abruptly, while Casanova’s eyes over the rim of his glass studied Nick with an odd intensity. He might be any age twixt twenty and thirty, the Venetian conjectured, idly speculating upon what vicissitudes and quirks of destiny had contributed to the sardonic humour of his look. He glanced at Marianne Charpillon, but her face was turned away, idly bent apparently upon the crowd.

It was with an elaborately casual air that Casanova took three playing cards from his pocket, placing them face downwards on the table. Nick’s gaze flicked to the cards and back to Casanova, who leaned forward murmuring quietly: ‘Your hands, however much you have used them, you have taken pains to keep well cared for. It is said a card-sharp may make his fingers more delicate by treating them with chemicals, but that seems a dubious practice. A Venetian sharper will rub his finger-tips with ointment or creams to add to their sensitivity.’

Now Nick glanced at his hands and then grinned frankly, picked up the cards from the table, looked at them and threw them down so they fell face upwards; queen of diamonds, ace of hearts, ten of clubs. Casanova turned to the girl, who eyed the cards disinterestedly. ‘Cherchez la femme,’ he urged.

Nick took up the three cards with his left hand, holding them so their faces were hidden. He transferred a card to the right hand, leaving the other two where they were, a finger separating them. He showed Marianne Charpillon the bottom card, the queen. ‘Remember well where it is.’ He turned the cards again, passed the right hand holding the card to the left, which he placed on the table, passed the left hand to the right where apparently he placed the bottom card, then returning to the left appeared to put the top card down beside that on the table. The girl found herself fascinated by the dexterity with which Nick handled the cards. She fixed her eyes upon the first one he had put down while he slowly shifted all three cards round. ‘Find the lady.’ Unhesitatingly she pointed to the card she had kept under the unwavering gaze. Nick turned the card up and she gave a cry of surprised dismay. It was not the queen of diamonds.

‘Fortunate you had not wagered on it,’ Casanova commented. ‘Very neatly done,’ he complimented Nick at whom the girl was staring. Casanova then took the cards, his hands flashing with magnificent rings, and went through the same manoeuvres Nick had performed. ‘Mark well where she is,’ showing the girl the queen of diamonds as Nick had done. Again she concentrated her attention upon the cards, and closely as Nick watched did not perceive the exact split second when Casanova placed the top, not the lower card, the queen on the table. ‘Cherchez la femme,’ and Marianne Charpillon picked up the card, looked at it and threw it down in disgust. ‘Foolish and simple game,’ Casanova laughed, ‘but thousands of dupes lose money by it and will ever continue so to do, so long as these exist.’

He slipped the cards back into his pocket, considered his highly polished nails for a moment, turned to the girl, whose attention appeared again abstractedly bent upon the crowd, and leaned forward to Nick. ‘By a curious coincidence, it so happens I am in need of someone in my service such as yourself.’ Nick remained silent, but behind his half-veiled gaze his brain seethed at the prospect of this sudden opportunity of gratifying his hopes but a little while since as far off realization as a distant star, together with a shrewd speculation touching what lay behind this implied invitation. He waited for the other to put his offer into words. ‘And you care to attend my house in Spring Gardens, Pall Mall, later this evening you may secure a change from your present employment. Come at nine o’clock.’

With a nod to him, Casanova, together with the girl, who gave Nick a faint smile, rose. Nick watched them make their way out of the room. From the window he saw them mingle with the crowd so swiftly, never glancing back either of them, they became lost to his sight.