Death and the Chevalier by Robin Blake

Author:Robin Blake [robin Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Jim Fingers, Prince of Flicks, was the most notorious highwayman that the north-west could boast of. He was also sometimes called the Cheshire Turpin, and for the last five years he’d been liberally plundering the roads anywhere between Carlisle and north Wales.

The legend of the Prince of Flicks, or (by his true name) Shamus Fingal O’Higgins, was known from end to end of our region. The man had more aliases than the devil, and as many disguises, and the tales of his exploits passed from mouth to mouth as fast as the breeze. Twice he had escaped from captivity at Chester Castle, the second time dressed as a woman and on the very eve of his hanging. Once he had held up the carriage of Lord Derby himself, and relieved her Ladyship of her jewels, some of which he gallantly returned the next day, along with a single red rose. He was a notorious womanizer, rake and sportsman. He had entered his horse Pirate in a stakes for fifty guineas on Lord Egerton’s course in the Wirral, won in a canter and galloped straight on and over the horizon before he could be apprehended. He was handsome, daring, a deadly shot and, when he chose, a charmer. In short, people (not excepting some of those he robbed) loved the fellow.

O’Higgins had been born in County Kildare. He grew up a horse-coper and, as time went by, became a horse thief and then a thief in general. He crossed the Irish Sea to try his luck in Liverpool and, after a year of successful plundering, removed to London in search of bigger prizes. In London he got his nickname, but also received a check to his career. The water in that pond was too hot, and too full of big fish with sharp teeth, so Jim Fingers returned to the north-west where he could be sure of being the only pike in a pool of carp. He flourished as never before. Magistrates and constables had chased him, tracked him, tried to trap him, but always he slipped from their grasp.

And we, just a few moments ago, had been in conference with the man himself. I am not in general bedazzled by glamour, but I now felt pleasure, retrospective pleasure, at our meeting. Many people like to think propinquity with glamour lends glamour of itself. They are deluded. You are not a changed person, and certainly not a better person, after having a passing encounter with fame. But it is undoubtedly a leg-up for your self-regard when you have a good story to tell in the coffee house.

‘I am surprised he lost his sangfroid just now,’ said Luke. ‘He is said to be cool under all provocation.’

‘How on earth do you know him, Luke?’

‘I saw him at a prize-fight – Hayrick Harrison against the Nottingham Gnasher at Liverpool. I sat behind him in the pit and heard him letting slip who he was. He’d bet on the Gnasher, and whereas most people

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