At three the next afternoon Katherine stood with her two supporters in a small spinney a few hundred yards from Mr Highson’s front gates. Would Black Jack Standon come after all? Was she placing her trust in the highwayman’s pride and arrogance too high?
Then there was a crackling of broken branches behind them and he walked out of the trees, the reins of a handsome bay gelding looped over his arm. Nick’s horse, Katherine thought. Now was perhaps not the best time to ask for it back.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Standon,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘May I introduce you to John Morgan and Miss Pilgrim.’
‘G’day.’ He nodded to the others. ‘You know what you’re doing, I hope, because if this is a trap I’m not going easily and who’s to say who will get in the way of these.’ He pushed back the edges of his greatcoat and Katherine saw the butts of two large horse pistols.
John stepped forward belligerently, but she put a detaining hand on his arm. ‘It is all right, John. Mr Standon, here is a plan of the house Miss Pilgrim drew after her visit yesterday. Mr Highson will be in his study, John will be with me, but will stop at the door so we are not interrupted. You have the article?’
The highwayman grunted and patted the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘Pity to hand it back to him.’
‘I have compensated you for it,’ Katherine said firmly. ‘We have a bargain, have we not?’
‘You’re a cool one,’ he said grudgingly. ‘What’s your lay, then? Gentry morts aren’t commonly found slumming with highwaymen.’
‘My lay, as you put it, is simply to get my husband out of Newgate, Mr Standon. I find it surprising how cool one can be when an innocent life is at stake.’
‘All right, all right, there’s no cause to rub it in,’ he grumbled, looking uncomfortable. ‘How was I to know the cove had no way of proving who he was?’
‘Then let us not delay. The sooner we do this, the sooner an innocent man will be free.’ It will work, she told herself fiercely. It must work—the consequences of failure were too awful. ‘Come along, Jenny, John. You, Mr Standon, need to be on the far side of the house.’
It was a distracted young lady who rang the bell at the magistrate’s front door a few minutes later. Katherine found she did not have to act. Sheer nerves left her pale and trembling and her voice shook. The footman, somewhat grey and bent, admitted that Justice Highson was at home and might be willing to speak to the young lady who was so eager to report yet another outrage upon the King’s highway.
He showed them through to a small, rather neglected salon, and returned a few moments later to announce that Mr Highson would be pleased to speak to Mrs Lydgate.
‘Thank you so much,’ Katherine said graciously, emerging from behind her handkerchief and bestowing a dazzling smile upon him. ‘Come along, Jenny.’
She swept into the study, Jenny at her heels and, as the door closed, faintly heard John’s voice announcing that he would stay just here outside the door in case his mistress needed him.
Mr Highson proved to be middle aged, rotund, somewhat choleric of complexion and neglectful of his dress. He brushed away a small cloud of snuff and surged to his feet as Katherine entered. ‘My dear Mrs, er … Lydgate. How may I serve you? My man said something about a highwayman, ma’am. You must not alarm yourself, we laid the notorious rogue by the heels very recently; he is awaiting an appointment with the hangman even as we speak.’
‘I fear … oh, dear!’ Katherine waved her handkerchief somewhat wildly in front of her face. ‘I fear I am about to faint! Some air, I beg of you …’ She sank picturesquely into Jenny’s waiting arms, carefully blocking the magistrate’s route to his desk as he hurried towards the window. It was very possible he kept a pistol in the drawer. ‘Oh, more, sir, throw it open, I implore you, I feel quite …’
She could feel Jenny’s suppressed giggles and kicked her sharply as Justice Highson threw up the sash with an effort and stepped back. ‘There, ma’am. What the devil!’
Jack Standon was over the sill and into the room before the outraged magistrate could do more than recoil from the window against Katherine. She threw her arms around him and clung.
‘Never fear, ma’am,’ he gasped, trying to disentangle himself. ‘I will save you from this ruffian!’
Katherine felt positively guilty; the poor man was bravely shielding her from the threat she had brought into his house.
‘Mr Highson, sir,’ she said, ‘do you not recognise this man?’
‘Of course I do,’ he snarled. ‘It is that rogue Standon who held me up …’ His voice trailed away as he stared at Black Jack, then twisted to fix Katherine with a shrewd look. ‘Black Jack Standon is in Newgate gaol. Just what are you about, young lady?’
‘My husband is in Newgate,’ Katherine said, clinging firmly to his arm. ‘This is the real Black Jack, the man who held you up. Please, sir, may we all sit down and I will explain everything?’
Reluctantly the magistrate allowed himself to be pressed into a chair while Katherine recounted the story as Nick had told it to her. She explained how she came to be married to him, trying to ignore the look of shock on his face at the sordid story.
‘Well,’ he grunted at last. ‘That is some tale, my dear. Now then, you, speak up. Is this the truth?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Black Jack dug into his pocket and laid a pocket watch on the desk. ‘I’ve sold the rest, but I took a fancy to this. Pretty thing, as you’ll remember I said to you at the time I took it.’
Mr Highson reached out his hand and picked up the watch. His fingers closed tightly on it. ‘This was my father’s,’ he remarked in a neutral tone before tucking it into his waistcoat pocket. ‘And what has this lady paid you to tell me this tale?’
Katherine stiffened indignantly, but Black Jack met the magistrate’s eyes with equanimity. ‘Just the price I put on the watch. No man goes to the gallows for Black Jack Standon. I have my pride. How was I to know the swell cove had no way of proving who he was?’
There was a long silence, then the magistrate said, ‘When is he due to hang?’
‘The day after tomorrow, sir.’ Katherine could feel the room swimming before her eyes. She had convinced him, she knew it.
‘Do not faint on me now, ma’am,’ he said firmly. ‘We have a journey to make tomorrow and I must get some paperwork in order.’ He turned a shrewd eye on the highwayman towering over them both. ‘I presume you have no intention of surrendering to me?’
The dark man grinned, showing a set of blackened teeth. ‘You have the right of it there, Mr Justice. I think I’ll go and rob a coach or two, just to let them all know that Black Jack’s back. Good day, ma’am—you tell your husband he’s a lucky man.’
‘You’ll end on the gallows,’ the magistrate prophesied grimly as the highwayman stepped over the sill.
‘Happen I will, sir,’ he responded equably and was gone.
‘You believed me, Mr Highson?’ Katherine demanded. ‘You will come to London with us and clear my husband’s name?’
‘Yes, my dear. I will write a deposition and get it sworn in front of one of my colleagues in town and we’ll be off tomorrow. Your young man will be glad to see you, I will be bound.’
‘He is not my young man—’ Katherine began, then broke off at the twinkle in Mr Highson’s eye. ‘I wish I could let him know now. He must be so—’ She broke off again and took a moment to compose herself.
‘Well, today is Sunday so he will have had the distraction of the Condemned Sermon,’ Mr Highson said. ‘That at least gets them out of their cells, although I doubt it could be characterised as light entertainment.’