17.
It was nearing a quarter to ten and there was no sign of John Valentine at the Princess Hotel. The last to arrive and join the proceedings were Tom ‘Muddy’ Waters and ‘Hellfire Jack’ Walters.
No one was quite sure how the pair had got wind of the secret meeting, but didn’t really matter anymore, it was the least of any current concerns.
“Valentine has no real time for me,” Sarah Bainbridge confessed, “apart from the fact that I am useful to him; offering shelter, hiding him, covering up for him.”
“We have had some truly great times together,” she continued, “but fundamentally, he is a liar and a cheat. And I’m afraid that I don’t share the faith you all have, that he will even turn up tonight. I never really did.”
Dr. Kebbel, of course, was one of the few who held the same opinion as Sarah, that John Valentine was very, very likely to have organised a meeting with all in sundry, specifically to not show and be literally miles away already.
“So,” he began, “you say that Constance Frost was the one who informed you that John himself had told her to pass on this information?”
“That is correct Maurice,” Sarah replied.
“And where is Miss Frost?” The doctor wished to know.
“She was feeling poorly and stayed behind in Willis Street,” replied Sarah. “She said that she could also keep an eye on things for me, which I thought a good idea.”
Kebbel was suddenly suspicious. And little did he know, that he had every right to have been. Constance was out the door within 20 minutes of Sarah leaving and straight away, made her way through town and down toward the Railway Station.
He turned to Murphy and directly addressed him.
“You’d better have a scout around outside. If you see him, usher him around to the back entrance.”
“If I sees ‘im,” replied the ratter. “If I even recognise ‘im more like.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Sarah suddenly remembered. “I cut his hair, once I’d seen the poster-ed lamp posts all about town. And he shaved off his beard….”
As was usual, Waters and Walters sat alone, just out of earshot, formulating scandalous opinions of their own.
“I told you Valentine would be in the thick of all this,” ‘Muddy’ vociferated. “Valentine and his bloody whisky.”
“It sounds totally phenomenal,” ‘Hellfire’ replied, in astonishment. “It’s even killing people!”
“This is just too good to be true,” ‘Muddy’ came back. “I feel that we are about to be part of history. Jack Walters, I drink your health. Looks like tonight is the night that old Valentine may finally be brought to justice.”
“A short metaphoric statement concerning the counting of chickens and their hatching springs to mind,” declared ‘Hellfire’, who always remembered some advice given him by ‘Doc’ Holliday, some years back; “Never assume anything, my quick to draw friend. Never take anything for granted.”
John Valentine had doubled back along the waterfront, in search of Tia Kawai. Physically, the Maori lad was much bigger and more solid than Jack and the element of surprise was going to be his first weapon.
He soon saw the silhouetted frame of the younger man, skulking back toward Brooklyn Hill. Valentine chose a spot by the seawall and as Tia Kawai passed him, with almost military trained precision, he whirled behind him and plunged a small knife right into the middle of his back.
Taken by surprise, Tia Kiwai gasped with shock at a strike he was not expecting. He was unable to reach around and remove the imbedded knife. Valentine put his hand into the pocket of his victim and retrieved the envelope of money he’d parted with.
He then put his right foot in the small of Tia Kawai’s back and with one thrust, sent him crashing into the cold harbour water below. He showed little by way of any remorse.
It was moments such as these where he even surprised himself, but there had been periods of his life where ‘tough and hard’ would be a gross understatement. He may often have appeared a little flaky on the surface of things, but John Valentine certainly knew how to handle himself.
He only had scant memories of his childhood, growing up in Ballsbridge, in the 1850’s. The township was a small settlement (belonging to the absentee landlord, the Earl of Pembroke), on a major road linking Dublin city with the port at Dalkey.
Times were tough for the family. Ireland was in the grips of its own version of the more widespread European ’Potato Famine’, where starvation and disease was offset by heightened sectarian tensions between Protestant and Catholic.
Young John - or Jack as his parents called him - did recall a lot of fisticuffs between kids in his neighbourhood, taking a few hidings, but learning more than a few tricks of his own in self defence.
His grandfather, Felix Valentin (1811-1859), of French descent, had moved to Dublin from Galway in ‘Black ’47', owing largely to the depravation and having little food upon the table.
The Valentin’s - being a Protestant family - were further thrown into turmoil when John’s father, James Lee Valentin (1832-1876) married Esther Jane Kelly (1834-1901), a young Catholic girl, who was employed by and resided in a nearby workhouse.
Jimmy Valentin worked in a gunpowder factory until the death of an uncle allowed him an opportunity to learn how to distill alcohol. At some point around 1860 (neither he himself, nor any other administration who attempted to access the information, could come up with any date as a certainty), he took off with his bride and emigrated to New Zealand.
Records did show a James & Esther Valentin at least registering and paying fares in full, from Liverpool to Boston, but somehow they ended up in Sydney, Australia, before arriving in Wellington, date also unknown. Young John, an only child, was around seven or eight years old.
The family (now ‘Valentine’) first hunkered down in Thorndon, where Jimmy initially took work as a baker. The city area of Wellington, had served the pioneer immigrants well, but having exceeded 5,000 inhabitants, was becoming overcrowded.
Jimmy Valentine had his mind set on buying a plot of land in an area to the south-east, which was soon to be developed and called ‘Newtown’.
Expansion had been mooted for over a decade. As it was flat land, Newtown was an attractive prospect. A canal running from the waterfront to the Basin Lake at the end, was intended for barges to deliver goods to newly-built warehouses.
But what was known as ‘Wellington's miniature Venice’ vanished, when the 1855 geological upheaval struck and the flax and boggy ground, fed by the Waitangi Stream and flowing off the slopes of Mt Albert, was raised considerably.
The small feeder streams had been reduced to shallow pools and Jimmy would prosper greatly from this. He knew a thing or two about moonshining and was also aware that the frontier tents and shacks of colonial New Zealand, were full of unmarried males.
Simply put, living conditions (for those who’d given up society and helped pioneer a new land) made drinking more attractive. More than one British observer (upon visiting the new territory), had noted the colonial propensity for getting “sodden with alcohol”.
Back home in Blighty, it was the opinion of gentry that the colonial New Zealander was “very fond of getting drunk”. And any new excuse for celebration - such as anniversary days, race days, the end of shearing - was leapt upon with much vigour.
Many in frontier jobs, worked miles from a pub. When paid, they would go to town and drink away their wages. Upon occasion, it would last for days. It was considered a mean thing to drink alone, yet meaner still, not to drink at all.
What was most fortuitous for Jim Valentine, was that these colonial drinkers did not drink beer, but spirits and fortified wines like sherry and port, which had more powerful effects. Most alcohol was imported though, with importers promoting these higher volumed drinks; brandy, rum, gin, whisky.
Jim had always planned to legally make a local whisky, but permissions were never granted after application. Importers, particularly, placed pressure upon the authorities to deny his requests, with big brother already earning a whack, through import taxes being added onto the price of the bottle.
Whalers and sealers had always distilled liquor, until it was outlawed in 1841. The Distillation Act 1868 legalised the practice, but when the duty on local spirits was raised in 1874, the industry collapsed.
But the market then opened up for illegal production. Beer consumption had increased and was now some real competition. Plenty of consumers still clambered for some ‘fire water’. Jimmy Valentine was good at his craft and soon had for himself, a growing clientele.
His son, John, had no formal education, apart from spending 1867 as a senior student at the new Wellington College. John was not one for social standards or acceptance. He preferred his own company to that of the establishment and sought the company of strangers as oft as he could.
Following in the unlaced footsteps of his father, he also became a dab hand at making moonshine. In fact, he was more into the science of distilling than his parent and even early on, it was obvious that his superior techniques produced a finer brew.
This was a good thing. In 1876, when his father had a heart attack and died, John - at the age of 24 - simply took over the business and carried on.
He continued to supply all of his fathers regular customers - and then some - but was also able to have the whisky sold in hotels around the city, most notably, through Charles Edward Suisted, at the Princess Hotel, where ironically - back in the real world - a meeting of sorts was in progress.