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SIX

The Downfall of Mr Frank Jollison as Brought About

by Mr Nicholas Raspero

5:30 PM, Saturday 7 May 1544 A.F.

Nicholas took Angela’s carriage and went towards the Burke Tavern. His only decision had been to scout the Burke Tavern, find out if that was indeed where Jolly lived, and see what he could find out. Then he would decide what to do. One idea that occurred to him as he flew along in Angela’s carriage was to sit Jolly down in the middle of the street in the worst area of town with piles of Jolly’s money around him and leave him to the tender mercies of those who lived in the worst area of town, but that was only a thought.

He parked near the Burke Tavern and made his way to it. He stepped inside and looked around him. There were not too many people around at this time but seeing Tagalong sitting nearby, Nicholas beckoned him over.

‘Mr Raspero, we meet again,’ Tagalong said. Seeing that Nicholas was very deliberately not looking at him but gazing across the room, Tagalong turned to follow Nicholas’s gaze. Nicholas was looking at where the men who had attacked Angela were sitting, enjoying a drink and a smoke; they were looking over at Nicholas with mocking smiles. ‘They were granted bail immediately, Mr Raspero and they —’

‘Come with me, Mr Longman,’ Nicholas said brusquely and set off for the side, where he had already identified the wand protection as being at its heaviest. He went through an alcove, his approach observed by others present in the Burke Tavern but not challenged. If Jolly had a visitor it wasn’t their business. Nicholas came to a door and scanned for wands behind it. There was one wand in the space beyond. He opened the door without delay and stepped through, beckoning for Tagalong to follow. As Tagalong followed Nicholas closed the door, took Tagalong’s wand and bound and gagged him so swiftly Tagalong had no time to make a sound. He left Tagalong on the floor while he made his way to where the wand was and stepped through a door. He was in a kitchen, and the man sitting with his feet up on the table looked at him with his mouth open in surprise. This was not a promising start to their fight for Jolly’s man, given also that he was clutching a huge tankard of beer in his hand. He had not even moved before Nicholas had taken his wand and it was not long before Nicholas had the man, now dripping with beer, tied up and gagged.

Following where the wand protection was heaviest, Nicholas made his way along the corridor and stepped through a curtained doorway into what must be, judging from the luxury, Jolly’s private quarters. He returned and helped Tagalong to come with him by the simple expedient of throwing him down the corridor and then through the door into Jolly’s private quarters. The gagged Tagalong protested at his treatment but his protests were muffled. Nicholas bound Tagalong to a chair.

Nicholas looked around for where the wand protection was thickest and found the safe behind the painting of the volcano. It was a Basing safe; it had no handles, presenting only a smooth charcoal-grey shiny surface to the observer. It was the most expensive safe on the market, its selling price justified by its widely believed claim that it was next to impossible to break into. Nicholas had it open in less than ten seconds. It was a very large safe, full of money in bank notes, documents, notebooks, jewellery, and various other items. The safe was divided into two compartments, with the notebooks neatly lined up on the top shelf. Nicholas cleared Jolly’s desk by sweeping everything off it onto the floor in one wave of his wand, gathered the notebooks with another wave of his wand, and went and sat down at Jolly’s desk to look through them. He knew all too little of what Jolly was about and he needed to know more.

Nicholas opened the first notebook that came to hand and started to leaf through it. There were names followed by various comments: highly personal comments, more names of servants with additional comments, references to points of access in various houses, a listing of information of a technical nature such as encoding ciphers and bribes given and received or refused. Nicholas did not bother to read all of it; he picked up the next notebook and leafed through it. He was getting the general idea. He ungagged Tagalong and started to read out these names, asking who they were. Tagalong was very obliging and had no hesitation in telling Nicholas more than he needed to know. Nicholas gained the understanding he sought of what the notebooks were about: they were detailed accounts of some of the wealthiest and most powerful grandees of New Landern which could be used for a variety of purposes such as blackmail, breaking and entering and all sorts of other mayhem. There was also one small notebook, barely the size of the palm of a hand, which was divided into two parts, one headlined Friends, one headlined Enemies. Nicholas pocketed this notebook while sitting behind the desk in such a way that the watching Tagalong couldn’t see what he was doing.

Nicholas pointed his wand at the fireplace, where the fire was already set, as it had been in Angela’s apartment, given the unseasonably cold weather today, and set it alight. He waited for it to catch, adding more wood. When the fire had started to burn properly, Nicholas added the notebooks one by one.

‘May I enquire as to why you are burning these notebooks, Mr Raspero?’ Tagalong asked, his voice shaking a little. He could guess what their contents were and he was privately appalled at the wanton destruction of items of such incredible value. They were not a different kind of money, they were a different kind of printing press with which to make money. Tagalong was shocked, shocked beyond measure at the barbaric destruction which he was obliged to witness of those unbelievably valuable notebooks. He felt that the crouching figure by the fire was like a force of destruction beyond reason on the other side of a line which represented sanity, and when Tagalong considered all the crimes which he could have committed with those notebooks, he could have wept for the world he had lost. As Nicholas had ignored his question he repeated himself a little plaintively, ‘May I enquire as to why you are burning those notebooks, Mr Raspero?’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Nicholas said.

‘I assure you I have an excellent comprehension of many matters pertinent and germane to the subject under discussion,’ Tagalong assured him readily.

‘Be quiet or I’ll gag you again,’ Nicholas told him.

Tagalong said nothing further.

Once all the notebooks were merrily burning, Nicholas returned to the safe. He emptied its contents and took them to the desk. There were wads of strada banknotes, worth perhaps nine hundred and seventy thousand or so, a variety of documents, jewellery, a broken child’s toy which Nicholas assumed had some personal significance for Jolly, and letters. Nicholas started looking through the documents. He was not able to understand the meaning of any of the terms he encountered in these documents so he enlisted Tagalong’s help again. Certified Assets Restricted Funds, Consolidated Financial Trading of the Baskets of Listed Depository Receipts, Asset Backed Securities of Bond Issuer Indentures, Short-Term Securities Tendering of Financial Residuals, Direct Registration Securities of Collateralised Commodities Spread, and many other such terms which Nicholas found incomprehensible.

Tagalong also found them incomprehensible but without hesitation he set forth to pretend that he did understand these terms. It was not just that lying was second nature to Tagalong, if not even perhaps his first nature; it was also that Tagalong had always found it useful to pretend to know things he didn’t and he was not going to change his ways now. As it happened, he had once spent an entire dinner under a false name in the company of financial traders and his retentive memory now came up with some of what he had heard on that long-ago occasion. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said with an outwardly complete assurance of knowing such things as well as he knew his own name, ‘Certified Assets Restricted Funds are cross-sectional share holdings of a designated turn-around system as determined by the debt-service coverage ratio of convertible bonds. Consolidated Financial Trading of the Baskets of Listed Depository Receipts forms the bond equivalent covenant of the adjusted preset value of Certificates of Amortised Revolving Debt. And so on, as one might suppose, Mr Raspero.’

Tagalong had said all this nonsense with such an air of confidence that Nicholas was completely taken in by his performance. A thought struck Nicholas then and he gave Tagalong a look but said nothing further at the time. He shuffled through the documents until he came to the Total Assets Valuation as of 1 May 1544 A.F. He looked up at Tagalong with a speculative look in his eye and read out this term with the accompanying figure of 19,325,547 strada.

Tagalong, all of a sudden, felt seasick. He knew of the enormity of the wealth of the wealthy but to hear this cold hard figure was staggering.

Nicholas looked briefly at the letters, ascertaining that they were personal in nature and therefore either incriminating to others or of sentimental value to Jolly, who was already a dead man as far as Nicholas was concerned, and threw them into the fire. He walked over to Tagalong and said nothing for a moment, while he gave Tagalong a long look and then said, ‘Mr Longman, you talk too much. It’s time you listened. Now, in the kitchen,’ Nicholas pointed in the direction where the kitchen was, ‘there is a man who is bound and gagged. You may either join him in the kitchen where you will remain excluded from the subsequent events of tonight or you may remain in this room where important developments will be taking place. Which do you choose?’

‘Naturally, Mr Raspero, I would be only too honoured to continue to enjoy the benefits of your esteemed and —’

‘There are three conditions which apply,’ Nicholas interrupted. ‘Firstly, you talk too much. Just say what is necessary. Got that?’

‘I will curb my natural loquacity given the —’

‘Secondly, you will not pretend to be less intelligent than you are. Got that?’

‘I assure you, my dear Mr —’

‘Thirdly, you will choose between a continued loyalty to Jolly, or a participation in a scheme of things that is not in Jolly’s favour.’

Tagalong said nothing for once after hearing this, but his eyes shifted to all the money on the table. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.

‘Now we begin,’ Nicholas said. ‘I demand satisfaction from you for the deception which you have practised on me. Do you accept my challenge?’

‘Mr Raspero, I can only beg pardon for —’

‘Do you want to go to the kitchen?’ Nicholas said furiously. ‘Any failure to answer any of my questions and you will spend the rest of the night having no idea of what is happening. Now, answer me: do you accept my challenge, yes or no?’

‘No, Mr Raspero. I ask you to —’

‘You are not a gentleman, are you, Mr Longman?’

‘I am indeed a gentleman, sir. I have fallen on hard times, Mr Raspero, lamentably so, but —’

Nicholas gagged him. Tagalong made muffled protests for a while. Nicholas waited, organising his thoughts. Tagalong fell silent after a while so Nicholas resumed speaking, ‘I will explain to you what I am about. You will then demonstrate an ability to participate in my scheme, in which case you might well profit from tonight’s developments, or you will fail to demonstrate any intelligence, in which case I will remove you to the kitchen and you will play no further role. I will remove your gag now. If you still have the sense you were born with, you will not babble and you will confine your comments to only those which you judge I will find of interest. Now, let us see whether you do indeed have any intelligence.’ Nicholas ungagged Tagalong.

‘I shall endeavour to fulfill all your expectations, Mr Raspero,’ Tagalong said and carefully stopped there.

‘Jolly has many men working for him, does he not?’

‘Yes, Mr Raspero.’

‘How many?’

‘That is difficult to say. Anything from one to ten thousand, depending on how you count them. This is because —’

‘I get it. Bribed officials and the like now and then.’

‘Yes, Mr —’

‘If a flying carriage were to fall on Jolly tonight, who would take over running all this?’

‘There is no clear successor to Jolly, Mr Raspero. He is not a man who tolerates rivals or successors.’

‘If I were to sit Jolly here in this room, tied to a chair, bound and helpless, and bring his top lieutenants into this room, and leave them all here together with all this money before them, would they free Jolly and continue to serve him, or would they make another choice?’

Tagalong paused. He looked at all the money on the table. More than twenty million strada! ‘There is a lot of money on that table, Mr Raspero. But Jolly commands a lot of loyalty. It is not an easy question to answer.’

‘What would you decide to do yourself, Mr Longman?’

Tagalong thought about this. He thought about himself, he thought about his situation, and he thought of what answer Nicholas wanted to hear. ‘I would choose to turn against Jolly, Mr Raspero,’ he said, thankful that Jolly was not there to hear him, ‘but only if his downfall was guaranteed. Jolly is not a man to lightly cross.’

‘Let us reason from first principles, Mr Longman,’ Nicholas said. ‘Jolly’s time has come and gone. This is simply the way things are at this time. Therefore, someone has to take over from Jolly. But who should it be? Who would you nominate as a candidate, Mr Longman?’

‘Naturally, Mr Raspero, it is clear to me beyond rhyme or reason that you stand aligned to the vertical, such that to you alone amongst —’

‘Try again, bozo,’ Nicholas interrupted. ‘Think harder. Jolly’s successor has to be at least something like him. I am nothing like him. Give me a name.’

‘May I ask how long I may have to deliberate on such an important matter, Mr Raspero?’ Tagalong asked with his very best manners.

Nicholas sighed at the difficulty he was having in getting Tagalong to see his own interests. ‘What if you took over from Jolly, Mr Longman?’ Nicholas asked.

Tagalong laughed. ‘Alas, Mr Raspero, I fear that such a development, despite being unheralded, although even if heralded by a comet emblazoned with the letters of my name, would nonetheless —’

‘If Jolly’s lieutenants fight amongst themselves, and none of them see you as being a rival, your chances of taking over are very good. All you have to do is be the last man standing.’

Tagalong’s visible amusement showed how little persuaded he was by this argument. He was an educated man but not educated enough. Nor had he properly grasped the strategy Nicholas had outlined. Although in the coming weeks and months he reflected often on what Nicholas had said.

Nicholas appeared to have given up on this idea, but, in fact, he knew that he had already planted the idea in Tagalong’s mind and now it was time to implement his strategy in such a way that Tagalong would not himself realise what was going on. Tagalong might well be an expert in how to deceive people but Nicholas knew how to get things done. ‘If you were to select those of Jolly’s men who might go against him in return for getting their hands on all his wealth, what names would you come up with?’

Tagalong thought about this. ‘Pay, Fitzroy, No Tin, Kassie, Pastime — perhaps. But with no clear successor, they might well fight amongst themselves. Jolly might play them against each other. Do not underestimate Jolly, Mr Raspero.’

‘Suppose that I supervised their discussion, thus requiring them to discuss the matter as reasonable men?’

Tagalong licked his lips. He would either be dead tonight, or rich and free from his servitude to Jolly. The stakes were as high as they could be. ‘You are a man who might well succeed in such a task, Mr Raspero. Naturally, I hope that as I am to participate —’

‘Where would these men be who you mentioned?’

‘Pay and Kassie are in the Tavern at this very moment,’ Tagalong said. ‘No Tin was last with Jolly. The others could be anywhere, maybe not even in New Landern for all I know. Jolly is a man with international interests.’

Nicholas walked to and fro thinking things over. Tagalong waited, unable to keep from looking discreetly at all the money on the table. A love-struck teenager could not have been so secretly attentive. Nicholas looked about him until his attention was caught by a tapestry on the wall. The tapestry showed a man being tortured in a cellar by ten monsters — the detail of the tapestry was lurid and red and stomach-churning — Jolly liked to observe the reactions of people on seeing this tapestry for the first time, for their reactions gave him one of the several measures of their character that he sought to know. Nicholas took down this tapestry with a wave of his wand and settled it over the table to hide Jolly’s treasure from sight. He gagged Tagalong again and carefully inspected his bonds. He took down a nearby cloak and ripped it into strips with which he tied the chair Tagalong was tied to so that Tagalong was unable to move this chair an inch. Then he left the room. He re-wrote the wand protection on the door leading into Jolly’s quarters so that now only he would be able to open it again and left the tavern. He took the flying carriage back to Angela’s apartment. He knew by now exactly what he was going to do to Jolly.

8:00 PM, Saturday 7 May 1544 A.F.

Nicholas’s prisoners were exactly where he had left them, although judging from their slight disarray they had made determined efforts to free themselves. Angela was making insistent noises through her gag; Nicholas ungagged her to learn that she was very eager to answer a loud call of nature. Nicholas untied her but at the same time fastened a wand to the back of her lower skirts. He then brought her to her feet and led her away to the bathroom where he left her alone. He then monitored the location of the wand in the bathroom — after being stationary for a while as Angela went about her business, it then moved in such a way as to take it beyond the physical space of the bathroom in a diagonally sloping trajectory. Nicholas, waiting outside the bathroom by a window, opened this window and jumped outside, landing gently on the ground and leaning back against the wall. Angela emerged cautiously from a secret opening in the wall, the very bricks moving aside to form an exit from which her head and shoulders emerged, followed by the rest of her as she tumbled onto the ground. She rose to her feet and brushed herself off and then caught sight of Nicholas and froze in shock, her mouth and eyes wide open. With a wave of his wand Nicholas had the bricks back in place; with another wave of his wand he flipped Angela up and through the open window; with another wave of his wand he flipped himself back up through the open window, which he then closed. Turning Angela around he took back the wand he had attached to her and shepherded her back to the living room where his other prisoners awaited.

Nicholas tied and gagged Angela again; Hugo was making insistent noises through his gag so Nicholas ungagged him only to learn that Hugo was very keen to answer his own call of nature; Nicholas gagged him again and ignored his request, but it gave him an idea which he was later to put to use. He untied Jolly and his five men from their chairs but left them bound. Applying his wand combinations to the karns by which they were tied, he took them to Angela’s carriage in a succession of stages by throwing them along the ground, down the stairs and out into the garden to where the carriage was parked. He returned to Angela’s living room, checked that Angela and Hugo were tied securely to their chairs then left, locking Angela’s front door with a combination that would not be easily unlocked and then flew Angela’s carriage back to the Burke Tavern.

Like a bucket with a hole slowly losing water, Jolly’s temper was ebbing away as a sense of his predicament began to sink in. It was clear to him that Nicholas had not gone to the authorities; it was clear to him that Nicholas had some idea of what he was about given his purposeful behaviour, and it was clear to him that Nicholas had no intention of making peace with Jolly given the way he was throwing Jolly around like a sack of potatoes. Furthermore, the physical restraints which Jolly had laboured under all this time had by now become real; that is to say, Jolly could no longer ignore the all-too-obvious fact that he was a prisoner. Jolly no longer felt like a king but all too much like a subject of speculation.

Nicholas landed Angela’s carriage between the river and Jolly’s quarters in the Burke Tavern, entered Jolly’s quarters by a side door, checked that Tagalong was still in place and that all was as it should be, then brought Jolly in and tied him to a chair with a deft wand combination. There was only Tagalong and Jolly there to see what he was doing as Nicholas took a jug of water and carefully poured it about Jolly’s lower person to make it appear as if Jolly had wet himself (this was the idea which Hugo had inadvertently given him earlier). Jolly protested this treatment through his gag while Tagalong watched everything that was going on with a frightened look of erratic calculation in his sideways looking eyes. Nicholas brought the other five men into Jolly’s room and sat them down on the floor along the wall, still tied up. In the meantime Jolly had seen the wide open door of his empty safe; by now his temper had completely drained away and for the first time he began to feel faintly fearful. He tried to attract Nicholas’s attention as Nicholas closed the side door but without success; Nicholas ignored him. It was to Tagalong that Nicholas now turned his attention.

8:45 PM, Saturday 7 May 1544 A.F.

‘Now is the time for you to make your choice, Mr Longman,’ he told Tagalong after having removed his gag. ‘You may decide to continue to be loyal to Jolly, in which case I will remove you to the kitchen, where you will play no further role in this matter, and you will certainly receive no profit, no matter what the outcome, or you may choose to consider yourself to be no longer subject to the command of Jolly, in which case you may remain here and profit accordingly. Now make your choice, Mr Longman: are you still loyal to Jolly, or are you not?’

Tagalong looked anything but talkative at that moment. All too aware of Jolly’s eyes burning into his face, he licked his dry and cracked lips and said, ‘I would hope for an outcome that may suit us all, Mr Raspero.’

‘You are to be commended for your loyalty to Jolly even at the very end,’ Nicholas told him. ‘I will now take you to the kitchen, where you will remain until you learn what the outcome has been from whoever comes to free you from your bonds.’

‘No!’ Tagalong said as Nicholas began to untie the strips of cloth that held his chair in place, ‘I will stay, Mr Raspero, in the hope that —’

Nicholas gagged him then and continued with his task. Tagalong’s protests, while muffled, were insistent and desperate. Nicholas paused, looked at him and said, ‘I will ungag you and you will have one last chance. If you understand me blink your eyes.’

Tagalong blinked his eyes furiously.

‘You will say that you are no longer loyal to Jolly, or you will go to the kitchen. Now: make your choice.’ Nicholas ungagged him.

‘I am no longer loyal to Jolly,’ Tagalong said loudly, clearly and defiantly.

‘Then there is no longer a need to restrain you,’ Nicholas said and unbound Tagalong, who regained his freedom as if he didn’t know whether to make a run for it or not. Jolly made muffled noises through his gag, but Nicholas ignored him. ‘We have already discussed how this shall continue,’ Nicholas said to Tagalong, whose eyes flickered toward Jolly, ‘and now you shall act accordingly. You will go out into the tavern and find three or four men who might well be capable of being successors to Jolly. You will bring them in here so that we can all discuss the matter further.’ Nicholas returned Tagalong’s wand to him. ‘Now go!’ He pointed his wand out the doorway and opened the door when Tagalong reached it, then closed it behind him.

Jolly was making insistent noises through his gag but Nicholas continued to ignore him. He tracked the progress of Tagalong’s wand, and tracked the return of Tagalong with three wands accompanying him. Nicholas flipped himself up to stand with his feet on the transom above the door frame; as the transom was a wooden strip only a few inches wide Nicholas turned sideways to line up along the wall. Tagalong entered below his feet, followed by three men who moved out through the room looking at Jolly, then back at Tagalong. What followed was not so much of a fight as a slightly confused melee: Nicholas dropped down behind them, all three of their wands sailing through the air into his left hand. Their own cords jumped out of their pockets and wrapped themselves around their wrists and ankles even while they found themselves sitting down heavily, their backs against the wall, still trying to catch up with what was going on. Tagalong had remained motionless with his hands raised slightly and spread out above waist level to signify his non-fighting capacity. Nicholas moved out into the centre of the room and contemplated his latest captives.

‘Who are these men, Mr Longman?’

‘This is Pay, Kassie, Pastime,’ Tagalong replied, gesturing towards each man in turn. ‘No Tin here might do as well,’ he suggested, pointing to one of the five men who had been with Jolly at Angela’s apartment.

Nicholas dragged each of the four men who had been named to their feet one by one. He untied them but kept their wands. They kept looking across at Jolly with an air of disbelief; it was not yet a case of seeing is believing for the sight of their dreaded chief, bound and gagged, was clearly a sight that they could not believe.

‘Pay attention, everyone,’ Nicholas declared loudly like the master of proceedings at a circus. ‘This is going to be interesting.’ He then drew back the tapestry which lay over Jolly’s treasure on the table, exposing to their lustful gaze the intimacies of Jolly’s personal and very private riches.

These men did not avert their eyes from the sight; quite the contrary. Pay and No Tin even licked their lips. They feasted their eyes on the strada bank notes, greedily looked at the documents and jewellery and other items, then back at the strada bank notes. Those bank notes they understood and the jewellery as well. Nicholas watched them watching these goodies, while Tagalong warily watched Nicholas from the side. Jolly was making frantic noises through his gag, but no-one was paying attention.

Nicholas placed the tapestry back over the treasure, hiding it from their sight. They came back to themselves in that crowded room, looking around as if wakening from a dream. Now Nicholas made his next move, hoping that he had gauged it right. He ungagged Jolly. If Jolly pleaded with Nicholas now, Jolly was finished.

‘Mr Raspero,’ Jolly said as calmly as his panic would allow, ‘we have surely continued as far as is necessary with this foolishness. I truly understand the gravity of the offence I have caused you. I entirely withdraw the threat I have made, which indeed I did not make, not even inadvertently. This is a misunderstanding, which has grieved you and I can only apologise for what I have done, because it was not done, not even by mistake. Whatever recompense you require, it shall be rendered to you without delay.’

‘You sound as if you’re begging me for mercy,’ Nicholas said contemptuously.

All eyes in the room were now on Jolly. ‘Certainly not, Mr Raspero,’ Jolly said, but his composure was visibly impaired as his eyes flickered towards his men who were watching him impassively. The fact that he had apparently wet himself had not escaped their attention. ‘I only trust to your inherent good sense, that I withdraw this mistaken threat, your awareness that I will make full restoration of all that has caused you offence, that I understand without reservation that indeed you have cause to feel unjustly treated, indeed you —’

Nicholas gagged him then, and turned to the other men in the room and considered them. They were a bunch who would look at home in a dark alley, he thought. They were evil men who were governed only by fear, and what fear did they have of Jolly now? He could leave Jolly in their hands without a backward glance. Jolly was making ever more frantic noises through his gag but again no-one was paying attention to him. ‘It is time for a successor to arise in the place of Jolly,’ he told them. ‘Or perhaps the enterprise which Jolly runs may be divided up between you, so that all four of you can continue in the place of Jolly. Now is the time to decide how you shall continue your lives as criminals of the New Landern demi-monde.’

Nicholas lifted the tapestry again and began to look through the documents. ‘Only two men in this room understand the meaning of these documents. One of them is Jolly, still begging for mercy over here,’ Nicholas gestured contemptuously to Jolly, so their eyes swivelled to regard Jolly, still making noises through his gag, ‘the other is Mr Longman, standing over here.’ With another gesture, Nicholas drew their attention to Tagalong. All eyes swivelled to Tagalong, who nodded with an immediate air of assurance in confirmation of Nicholas’s verdict. ‘But what are these documents? Ah, that is an interesting question, much more interesting than you realise. You lack education, you lack knowledge, and you are ignorant thugs, are you not? So let us examine what we have here. Here is a Short-Term Securities Tendering of Financial Residuals document which is worth three million, four hundred and twenty five thousand strada.’ Nicholas held the document up in front of their disbelieving eyes. ‘Yes, you heard me correctly. I am holding three million, four hundred and twenty five thousand strada in my hands right here.’ Still more disbelief. ‘You are so stupid that you don’t even know how stupid you are, do you?’

The four men looked back at Nicholas without expression. Nicholas noted, however, that they did not look hostile. They were fascinated, in their own thuggish way, by what he was saying, even if they did not fully understand it. Nor could men as low as this be insulted by a man holding the wand and offering them more money than they had dreamed possible.

‘There is a total of 20 million strada here, one million in cash, 19 million in these documents. If you want to have access to all of this money, then you will require the services of Mr Longman here,’ Nicholas told them. Tagalong nodded with the same air of assurance as before. ‘He may well choose not to explain these things to you, because he will wish to strike a deal with you concerning his own role in subsequent developments.’

‘That is so,’ Tagalong eagerly said, ‘I must reserve —’

‘Shut it!’ Nicholas told him harshly, adopting the vernacular of his current circumstances. Tagalong shut it. ‘We now turn to the last closing stage of this drama.’ Nicholas threw the document back on the table. ‘You will all look at me.’ They all looked at him. ‘I do not expect to be bothered by any of you ever again. If I am, I will see to it that those who serve you are given the same choice concerning your fate as I have given you concerning the fate of Jolly. Furthermore, not one of you will trouble Miss Ashton again. I will take it as a personal offence if anyone troubles her for any reason whatsoever. Stay away from her. That is all. You will decide who is to be the successor of Jolly, or whether or not you will divide up his business between you.’ Nicholas drew back the tapestry again and threw it to one side and said, ‘This fortune belongs to the successor, or successors, of Jolly here.’ With a gesture he drew their attention back to Jolly, who looked at Nicholas and made muffled noises through his gag, clearly wishing to speak at that very moment. Their attention did not linger long on Jolly, however, for it swiftly returned to the fabulous fortune sitting on the table. Nicholas untied the men still sitting on the floor, and then returned all their wands to them at the same time. He was standing by the side door by this time, and as they took hold of their wands, he turned and walked off through the doorway, closing the door behind him. He tracked their wands, but as he had expected, no-one came after him. No-one was going to leave all that money behind with the others. Besides, by now they all had a very healthy respect for Nicholas’s wandfighting ability. For whatever reason, Nicholas was not pursued as he returned to Angela’s flying carriage.

10:10 PM, Saturday 7 May 1544 A.F.

As he flew the Wolstone back to Angela’s apartment, he reflected that Jolly’s chances were not good. If he had miscalculated, and Jolly was freed, he would have to deal with whatever situation he encountered as it arose, but Jolly was not likely to live to see the sun rise on another day.

Angela and Hugo were still tied up in place. Hugo made desperate noises through his gag, more eager than ever to go to the bathroom. Nicholas untied them and let Hugo go with a wave of his hand. As far as he was concerned hostilities were over.

Nicholas sat down himself and pulled up a footstool. He considered Angela for a moment, while she considered him in her turn. It was very likely the reaction to everything that had happened, but for a moment Angela seemed to him like a wounded bird that needed to be sheltered and nursed back to health. She was an undeniable beauty, and he was struck by the fact that had she been a painting he would have contemplated that painting for a long while. He felt protective of her for no reason at all that he could identify, given that she had done her best that very day to bring him down, and yet he did not pause to reflect on the undeniable fact that he had already taken steps to protect her without having given any thought at the time as to what he was doing. Everything had happened so fast; he had done what he had done in the time and place of a world revolving rapidly under his feet.

‘What is the nature of your relationship with Jolly, Miss Ashton?’

Angela looked down at the fan in her hands and said, ‘He has been a kind benefactor to me. After my mother died when I was fifteen, I entered service as a lady’s companion with Mrs Farrar. When I chose to go on the stage, Jolly was kind enough to help me to do so.’

‘Kind is not the right word, Miss Ashton. There is no kindness in a man like Jolly. He had another motivation to help you, did he not?’

‘Where is Jolly now, Mr Raspero?’

‘Most likely in the afterlife.’

Angela looked up at him on hearing this. ‘Did you kill him, Mr Raspero?’

‘No, but I left him in the hands of men who will. Jolly is probably dead by now. If not, it is only a matter of time.’

‘I do not understand you, Mr Raspero.’

‘I left him tied up surrounded by piles of his money in the company of his men. They can free him, or kill him and take all that money for themselves. You can guess the odds, Miss Ashton.’

‘They would not kill him, Mr Raspero.’

‘It was a lot of money, Miss Ashton.’

‘How much money, Mr Raspero?’

‘Twenty million strada.’

‘Twenty million strada?’ Miss Ashton gasped.

‘One million in cash, the remaining money in a variety of financial documents.’

‘What kind of financial documents, Mr Raspero?’ Angela asked. She was finding this conversation fascinating. Her eyes glowed and she sat upright with her fan held loosely in her hands.

‘Oh,’ Nicholas said, trying to remember, ‘Convertible Adjustable Preferred Stock, that kind of thing.’

‘Was it by par value or by cash flow?’ Angela asked eagerly.

‘Probably,’ Nicholas said with a vague wave of his hand. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is that Jolly will be succeeded by one or more successors, who will now run the show. Jolly will no longer be around.’

Angela could not conceive of a world in which Jolly was not running the show. ‘I trust you will excuse me if I express skepticism, Mr Raspero. Jolly is not a man who is easily cast aside as readily as you seem to think.’

‘He was begging me for mercy before I left. Trust me, Jolly is finished.’

‘I cannot doubt your veracity, Mr Raspero, but neither can I believe what you say.’

‘I left him bound and gagged, Miss Ashton. Tell me, how is Jolly to give orders when he is gagged? And if he cannot give orders, how is he to be obeyed by those who have twenty million strada in front of them as theirs for the taking? If you understand what I am saying to you, then you understand the gravity of Jolly’s predicament, and you understand why he was begging me for mercy before I gagged him and left.’

‘I cannot conceive of a man like Jolly begging for mercy.’

‘Then you do not understand that he was pond scum, Miss Ashton. Nor do you understand that he is in the hands of men who are also pond scum, which Jolly himself understood only too well. They only obeyed him out of fear. They have no reason to obey him now. Jolly will not live through this night. I have no doubt whatsoever concerning this point.’

‘Perhaps you are right, Mr Raspero,’ Angela said, still unable to believe a word of it. For her to be told that Jolly would be overthrown was like being told that the sun would not rise tomorrow.

‘I have one more matter to discuss with you, Miss Ashton, before I leave you.’

‘And what is that, Mr Raspero?’

‘You have my sympathy, Miss Ashton. I wish you to know that I go my way bearing you no ill feelings.’

‘That is very kind of you, Mr Raspero.’

‘Perhaps. But I have taken certain steps to express this sympathy.’

‘Certain steps, Mr Raspero?’

‘I made plain to the thugs who will succeed Jolly that you are not to be harmed in any way. I made it clear to them that if any harm were to come to you, I would make them suffer for it. It therefore follows, that they will leave you alone.’

‘But why have you done this for me, Mr Raspero?’

Had Nicholas answered truthfully at that moment, he would have said that he didn’t know. As it was, he dodged the question by saying, ‘You have been obliged by Jolly to obtain secrets concerning Zavanna, Nieves, Hudson and Foxley, have you not? This was the kindness of Jolly to which you referred earlier. Well, you will no longer be obliged to perform such a service again. You may make your own way in life, Miss Ashton, without recourse to any other will but your own.’

Angela said nothing, but looked down at her fan. She could not take all of this in at once. A world without Jolly? Making her own choices? Never again being threatened with having to go back to Madame Marlene’s?

‘I leave you now, Miss Ashton,’ Nicholas said, getting to his feet. ‘One day I hope to see you on the stage.’ With that he left, after writing his name and address on a piece of paper and leaving it on her coffee table.

He set off on foot into the cool dark night. Judging by the stars, he thought it must be not long before midnight. He thought of Angela as he walked along. She was a puzzle, he thought. She spoke so well, she had such grace and refinement and beauty, yet it seemed that she had been the mistress of wealthy men in order for Jolly to gain inside information on these men.

He wondered why she had done what Jolly had told her to do. She had played the whore for him. There must have been a reason. Perhaps it was a noble reason, perhaps not. Perhaps she had done this for herself, perhaps not. He had no way of knowing, and he reflected that he probably never would know.

He would make a point of seeing her on stage when he could, he told himself. That would be interesting. Besides, he had never seen a play. He thought of make-believe as he walked off into the night, the stars like bright white candles made of sparkling frost glittering brightly above him.