The Man Who Was Jekyll and Hyde by Rick Wilson

could in a very trifling degree add to his supposed happiness. See the advertisement from the Sheriff-Clerk’s Office [ reproduced in the previous chapter ].

    So where was Brodie fleeing to? According to a later-disclosed letter to his brother-in-law, his eventual intention was to reach New York where that American clergyman, primed by his Scottish colleague, would gather him up. The letter ended: ‘Let my name and destination be a profound secret for fear of bad consequences.’
    The hounding actually began on the Tuesday, when George Williamson, King’s Messenger for Scotland, was ordered to track down Brodie and, after vainly checking out his known Edinburgh haunts, set off along London Road to learn from coachmen and post-boys along the route that the fugitive had made his way to the southern capital via Dunbar, Newcastle and York, latterly on the Flying Mercury light coach. From that vehicle’s coachman he learned that Brodie (obviously already being cautious) had disembarked in London at the foot of Old Street, Moorfields, instead of going all the way to the Bull and Mouth terminus.
    That was where the trail went cold for Williamson, though before giving up after eighteen days – and blaming himself – he had checked out most of London’s ‘billiard tables, hazard tables, cock-pits, tennis courts and other likely places’ and, acting on information that Brodie was making for the Continent, ‘pushed my inquiries as far as Margate, Deal and Dover in expectation of seeing him’ – but simply didn’t. Oddly enough, though, he had been right on the scent and only a few metres away from his quarry a couple of times as Brodie later reported that he saw Williamson twice ‘but although countrymen usually shake hands when they meet from home, yet I did not choose to make so free with him, notwithstanding he brought a letter to me ’ .
    This was confirmed at Brodie’s subsequent trial when Williamson – speaking as a witness – revealed that he had some knowledge of a London lawyer-contact of Brodie’s called William Walker and had even visited him during his quest at the suggestion of the now alerted and very interested Sir Sampson Wright, chief magistrate at Bow Street justice office, ‘at whose desire I called upon Mr Walker, solicitor-at-law in the Adelphi, and inquired for Mr Brodie. He told me he was bad, and that I could not see him. I said I had a letter for him and wanted only to deliver it; but Mr Walker replied that it might perhaps be dangerous to allow me to see him.’
    The extent of the Bow Street Runners’ interest in the runaway Scot was confirmed by the latter himself, who said later: ‘I saw my picture [his description in newspapers] exhibited to public view, and my intelligence of what was doing at Bow Street Office was as good as ever I had in Edinburgh.’
    Brodie also confessed to having had ‘some hair-breadth escapes from a well-scented pack of bloodhounds’. So where had he been holed up? By not sanctioning access, it was clear that Walker knew, and that he wasn’t Brodie’s only contact in London; that, despite having lived most of his life 500 miles away in Scotland, the fugitive was well enough connected down south to be accommodated by ‘an old female friend who kept me snug and safe in her house within 500 yards of Bow Street’ for ten days after his arrival.
    Having been primed by a letter of introduction (and paid?) from north of the border by Brodie’s cousin Milton, Mr Walker took very good care of Brodie too, lending him twelve guineas and arranging for him to be shipped out of London to the Continent, so being one of the ‘some persons’ referred to in the Lord Advocate’s address – and abbreviated telling of the escape story – to the jury in the Deacon’s trial:

    I would, in the next place, gentlemen, have you to attend to the prisoner’s