Chapter One
London, 1909
When I became involved in the life and death of William John Stone, First (and last) Baron Ravenscliff, I was working as a journalist. You note I do not say I was a journalist. Merely working as one. It is one of the better kept secrets of the trade that you do have to be quite serious if you wish to have any success. You spend long hours hanging around in pubs, waiting for something to happen, and when it does, it is often of no great interest. I specialised in court cases, and so lived my life around the Old Bailey, eating with my fellows, dozing with them during boring testimony, drinking with them as we awaited a verdict, then running back to the office to knock out some deathless prose.
Murders were the best, of course. “Railway Trunk Murderer to Hang.” “Ealing Strangler Begs for Mercy.” They all had nicknames, the good ones, anyway. I made up many of them myself; I had a sort of facility for a snappy phrase. I even did what no other reporter did, which was occasionally to investigate a case from the very beginnings; I spent a small portion of my paper’s money on policemen, who were then as susceptible to a small inducement-a drink, a meal, a present for their children-as they are now. I became very able at understanding how the police and murderers worked. Far too good at it, in the eyes of my grander colleagues, who thought it squalid. In my defence I can say that it was an interest shared with much of the newspaper-buying public, who loved nothing more than a good garrotting to read about on a Sunday morning, just before going to church to think about love for one’s fellow man. The best thing was a beautiful young woman, done to death in a particularly horrible way. Always a crowd pleaser, that.
And it appeared that it was because of some expertise of mine that I came across Lord Ravenscliff. Or his widow, from whom I received a letter, one fine April morning, asking me to come and see her. This was about a fortnight after he died, although that event had rather passed me by at the time.
“Anyone know anything about Lady Elizabeth Ravenscliff?” I asked in the Duck, where I was breakfasting on a pint of beer and a sausage roll. It was fairly empty that morning; there had not been a decent trial for weeks and none in the offing either. Even the judges were complaining that the criminal classes seemed to have lost their appetite for work.
My enquiry was met with a communal grunt that signified a total lack of interest.
“Elizabeth, Lady Ravenscliff. Do get it right.” It was George Short who replied, an old man who was the very definition of a hack. He could turn his hand to anything, and was a better reporter blind drunk than any of his fellows-including me-sober. Give him some information, and he would write it up. And if you didn’t give him some information, he would make it up so perfectly the result was better than the truth. Which is, in fact, another one of the rules of journalism. Fiction is generally better than reality, and is usually more trustworthy.
George, who dressed so appallingly that he was once arrested for vagrancy, put down his pint-his fourth that morning, and it was only ten o’clock-and wiped his stubbly chin. Rather like the aristocracy, you can tell a reporter’s status by his clothes and manners. The worse they are, the higher up they are, as only the lowly have to make a good impression. George had to impress no one. Everyone knew him, from judges down to the criminals themselves, and all called him George, and most would stand him a drink. At that stage I was more than a beginner, but less than an old hand-I had abandoned the ill-fitting black suit and was now affecting tweeds and a pipe, aiming at the literary, raffish look which, I thought, quite suited me. Few agreed with my opinion, but I felt rather splendid when I looked at myself in the mirror of a morning.
“Very well. Elizabeth, Lady Ravenscliff, then. Who is she?” I replied.
“The wife of Lord Ravenscliff. Widow, rather.”
“And he was?”
“A Baron,” said George, who sometimes took the rule about giving all relevant information a little too far. “Given a peerage in 1902, as I recall. I don’t know why, he probably bought it like they all do. John Stone was his name. Money man of some sort, I think. Fell out of a window a couple of weeks back. Only an accident, unfortunately.”
“What sort of money man?”
“How should I know? He had money. What’s it to you, anyway?”
I handed him the letter.
George tapped his pipe on the heel of his shoe and sniffed loudly.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Stone’s Fall
by Iain Pears
Copyright © 2009 by Iain Pears.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Spiegel & Grau
Copyright © 2009
Iain Pears
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-385-52284-7
