Ikey was aware that he had finally come to the end of the line, which, in this event, was dangerously close to the end of a rope. All of England was braying for the noose to be placed around his scrawny neck, the public having believed the scurrilous twaddle in the penny sheets. Ikey's nefarious plans to undermine the very throne of England itself with fake currency, its distribution undertaken by a gang of international Jews and spread across all the capitals of Europe, was discussed in even the poorest netherkens. All of London wanted the case dealt with in a summary manner and damn the due process of the law. 'Hang the Jew bastard now!' was the popular call of the day. There were even some among the better classes who paid a reserve price for a window overlooking the scaffold erected in Newgate Street outside that notorious gaol. The only question which remained was the date on which Ikey's execution would be celebrated.
In Ikey's mind, though, there was a more urgent need in his life than the business of avoiding the hangman. He must, at all costs, contact Marybelle Firkin and retrieve the letter of credit for delivery to the bankers Coutts amp; Company before the seven days for its presentation expired. Ikey faced what appeared to be an impossible task. He had just three days to lodge the note in person and found himself trapped, a prisoner of His Majesty, locked in a guarded cell.
Moreover, and to Ikey's enormous chagrin, if he failed to present the letter of credit and lost the money he would not even be permitted to enjoy the satisfaction of shopping Silas and Maggie the Colour. To inform on them would be to indict himself as surely as if he had been caught with the bill paper in his possession. Ikey, for once in his miserable life, had been simply and elegantly foiled by a man with a mind like a suet pudding and a woman who wore wooden clogs.
However, having paid much for it in a lifetime outside the law, Ikey was possessed of a good mind for legal procedure. He knew that in England a man could be sentenced in a magistrate's court to be transported for stealing half a crown or a fat goose. But should he be able to afford the costs involved in a rigorous defence in a higher court, he had a much greater chance of avoiding transportation even though the crime committed be a hundred times more extravagant in its nature.
Ikey comforted himself that it could be argued by a good barrister that the two fake five pound notes found in the lining of his coat might well have been planted, the offending and obvious tear in his coat being the evidence to show how simply this might have been done without his knowledge.
This argument, if successful in casting some doubt in the mind of the judge, could be further supported by a timely stroke of great good fortune. Abraham Van Esselyn, who had taken full advantage of his twin afflictions and admitted nothing in his trial, had been sentenced to fourteen years transportation and had hanged himself in Cold Bath Fields Gaol just three days previously. The deaf mute, never able to share the joy of social intercourse with his fellow man, had finally decided to take his leave of the silent world around him. Ikey's defence could therefore proceed unencumbered by evidence of collaboration with his erstwhile partner.
Ikey's case could be built around the premise that he, a simple man, inexpert in the ways of machinery, was merely the landlord of the premises, unaware that amazing works of counterfeiting longtails were being created by the Frenchy foreigner, a deaf mute unable to communicate in the English language. Ikey had merely knocked on the door of the basement premises, accepting the rent due to him in an incurious and routine manner early each Friday morning.
Similarly, Mary Abacus had declared Ikey to be her landlord and her testimony had implicated him in no other way. It was on this issue of being the duped landlord for both prisoners that Ikey's case would depend. In this way the burden of proof lay with the prosecution and, as always in such cases, the silver tongue of an expensive advocate could be used to its greatest effect.
It was a neat enough argument, though as an initial defence Ikey knew it had little chance of working at his first trial in the magistrate's court. Here he would almost certainly be indicted. The scuttlebutt in the penny papers would have long since pronounced him guilty.
However, in the Court of Appeal at the Old Bailey where a fair trial could be guaranteed, and in the hands of a good barrister, this argument could be made to seem most compelling, or, at the very least, it would cast some doubt on the serious nature of the case against Ikey.
Ikey had just three days to contact Marybelle Firkin and lodge the letter of credit. To a man of less fortitude this might have seemed somewhat of a forlorn hope. But Ikey had been in more than one tight spot in his life and, in his mind, formulated a plan which, with Bob Marley no longer his go-between, depended almost entirely on Hannah, her coachman father, Moses Julian, and two carefully selected members of Ikey's own family. The first was an uncle who happened to be of similar age to Ikey, with a striking family resemblance around the eyes and nose. He possessed a small reputation as an actor and a slightly larger one as a broadsman, a card sharp, cheating at cribbage being what he did during the frequent 'resting' periods of his capricious career. His name was Reuban Reuban, a moniker which would have been better suited to a more illustrious thespian. Though he affected the manners of an actor, he was clean shaven and dressed sharp. The second was Ikey's cousin, a young tailor by the name of Abraham Reuban. Actor father and tailor son both had cause in the past to be grateful to Ikey and resided near the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket, this being in close enough proximity to No.59, the Strand, the home of the bankers Coutts amp; Company.
To bring to fruition his plan to lodge the credit note on time Ikey was obliged to tell Hannah of its existence. She would therefore know soon enough the extent of the funds Ikey was proposing to transfer to New York. This was a major concern to Ikey. If Hannah suspected that he had been funding his escape without her knowledge she would not reveal her part of the combination to the Whitechapel safe, which, of course, amounted to a great deal more in value than the nineteen thousand, four hundred pounds he was sending to New York.
Ikey would therefore need to concoct a story which convinced Hannah that the credit note was to their mutual benefit. He would have to persuade her that he had gone to Birmingham at great danger to himself, when he could just as easily have escaped to America immediately he knew of the raid. He would express in most compelling terms his reason for not so doing, his only thought having been to add to the funds they would have when she joined him with the children in New York.
Alas, his escape had been thwarted by his betrayal and premature arrest and it was Hannah who was now free to act in the matter of their mutual fortune. He would convince her that he must escape in order to lodge the letter of credit with Coutts amp; Company and so ensure the money would be transferred to New York.
Hannah, Ikey felt confident, would co-operate. Her greed would convince her as well as the knowledge that Ikey, should his escape prove successful, would not leave her without the prospect of his share of the Whitechapel safe. Their mutual assurance lay in each keeping their part of the combination secret from the other.
On her arrival at Newgate, Hannah was escorted by the keeper himself to Ikey's cell, being quite puffed by the steep stairs. Outside the door of the cell sat a turnkey, a large, slack-jawed, vacant looking man with very few teeth, chosen no doubt for his strength and not the wit at his command. Hannah waited for the gaol officer who had acted as her guide to depart before she fee'd Ikey's guard a fushme.