Chapter One

Three years ago a trunkful of papers was found in the attic of a manor house near the village of Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds.

Scholars brought in to authenticate them soon realised they tell the story of one of the most adventurous lives of the nineteenth century.

What follows is that story.

CHAPTER ONE
IN WHICH TOBY WEY BECOMES A FUGITIVE

As Toby Wey approached London in the early hours of April 10th, 1824, the silhouetted spires of the city seemed like so many bony fingers beckoning him towards his doom.

With good reason.

Toby was then fourteen years old and, along with the most notorious British criminal of the time, the hideously maimed, psychotically violent “Dog-Face” Jack Shepherd, had just played a key role in a robbery which was as daring as it was bizarre.

It had involved the use of a creature, widely believed to have supernatural powers, known as The Mechanical Turk.

Having masterminded the robbery, Jack was now carrying a thousand pounds worth of diamonds stolen from the guests at a stately home in Essex called Hampton Hall.

Or that’s what he believed.

In fact there was a secret about the contents of the bag, which only Toby knew.

He also knew that, when the bag was opened, the secret would cost him his life.

He was, therefore, desperate to get away from Dog Face Jack before this happened.

Which is the reason why, as they rode into the city Toby looked hopefully up at creaking shop signs close above their heads and wondered if he was tall enough to grasp one and pull himself straight up from the horse, with the object of swinging himself from there to a rooftop before Jack to rein in his mount . But the moment Toby began to shift on the crupper, testing the possibility, the robber hissed into his ear. “You’ve got no choice except staying with me. And you know why?”

To make sure Toby was listening, Jack gripped the boy’s earlobe between thumb and forefinger, and Toby felt Jack’s nails almost meeting through the flesh. “Because if anybody finds out what you done in Essex tonight – you’ll swing for it. Just like them.”

And Jack pointed to the iron cages that dangled beside the forest of masts in the River Thames. Inside each was the rotting body of an executed pirate.
 
Toby made no further attempt to escape from the horse, and shortly afterwards they came an area known as Jacob’s Island, where Jack swung them both off, grasped Toby firmly by the shoulder and hustled him down a dark alley.

The alley soon degenerated into a muddy track, which skirted the edge of a stream winding its way down towards the river. The stream stank of raw sewage, which is what it mostly was. They passed a brick archway giving onto a tavern from which came the sound of drunken singing. Then the path became a wooden walkway before degenerating into a slimy flight of rickety steps leading to a wooden bridge over yet another rancid stream. Everywhere Toby saw crumbling tenements behind whose candle-lit window-holes (the glass long being gone) sat dark, motionless figures, lost in misery.

Finally they halted before a pile of rubble where half a building had fallen away. Toby assumed Jack had taken a wrong turn, but instead he called out “A man’s a man for a’ that!” There was a pause, and then, without warning, a whole section of brickwork swung back to reveal the entrance to a dark tunnel.

 Into which Jack and Toby vanished as if they had never been.