‘I just try to copy Sir Roger,’ said the other, modestly. ‘Now he were a real speaker and no mistake. All I can do is hold an audience. Sir Roger could inspire them. It were a treat to watch him.’

‘Did he realise that he’d been spied on from the room above?’

‘He thought it were very likely. It’s what happened in Manchester with them Blanketeers. Agents were sent from London to keep a close eye on them. That’s where the order would have come for them to be attacked by dragoons.’

‘That would have been the local magistrates’ doing, surely?’

‘They were instructed by the government.’

‘Do you have any proof of that?’ asked Peter.

‘Sir Roger did.’

‘So who actually dispatched agents to keep people under surveillance?’

‘The Home Secretary.’

Peter was astounded. ‘Viscount Sidmouth?’

‘That’s what Sir Roger believed.’

‘Then I wish I’d met him because I’d have been able to tell him that it was highly unlikely. I happen to know the Home Secretary quite well because I was employed by him during the war to gather intelligence in France. I found him a decent and humane man,’ said Peter, ‘and he’s been very helpful to me.’

Hooper shrugged. ‘I can only say what I were told.’

‘Then you’ve been misled, I’m afraid. Any political meetings broken up and any marches prevented were victims of the local magistracy. They are the people to blame, Mr Hooper. I give you my word that the Home Secretary wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.’

Though Peter spoke with passion, Hooper was unconvinced.

‘Maybe it’s time you did go back to London, sir,’ he said.

Harry Scattergood differed from the rest of the thieves who infested London. The majority of them stole in order to feed and clothe their families. Crime was a matter of survival. There were others whose exploits were more lucrative and who spent their ill-gotten gains on luxuries they couldn’t otherwise have afforded. Very few of them actually saved what they’d earned by the fruit of their brains and the quickness of their hands. The concept of insurance was foreign to them. Their lives were based on a philosophy of steal and spend.