The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner Read online

  “Is it not the saddest thing?” she asked. “If you had heard poor Miss Hamilton cry out, Henry, you would have done anything to ease her pain. I tell you, it was wrenching. I could never duplicate it.” She pitched her voice low and tried anyway. “ ‘Oh, Richard. Richard …’”

  “Very touching, I'm sure,” Morton said. “There is only one problem….”

  Arabella raised one perfect eyebrow.

  “His name was not Richard.”

  Chapter 2

  You don't believe me, do you?” Arabella demanded as soon as she had shed her wrap. They had come to her lodgings in Theobald's Road.

  “Don't believe what, pray?” Morton did not care much for her mood, which was combative and testy.

  “About the jarvey.”

  “You said he was frightened near to death and fled without demanding his fare, which I admit is suspicious.”

  “Do not mock me, Henry Morton,” she said coldly.

  Morton regarded her seriously. She really was the most beautiful woman. “You should not knit up your perfect brow so.”

  “I shall crochet it if it pleases me.”

  Morton wanted to take her in his arms—somehow wanted it even more because he knew the timing was not right at all. Instead, he dropped into one of her comfortable chairs, and caught sight of himself in a looking-glass: a big man, large-boned, and lean from years of Gentleman John's brutal “toughening.” His brow was too heavy to appear refined, but his jaw was strong. Arabella said he had the eyes of a poet, whatever that might mean. “Soft and soulful,” he guessed, but dark and inquisitive was his own assessment—too inquisitive.

  “It is odd,” he said more seriously. “Why was the jarvey so frightened, do you think? Could it have been merely the fear the poor feel when they think some accusation might be leveled at them? Glendinning died in the man's carriage, after all. Did he fear that these nobs would blame him in some way? If only for negligence?”

  Arabella did not take a seat, but instead paced across the small sitting-room. Morton watched her go, hungrily, his own feelings not in tune with the mood. “No, I think it was something else.” She struggled to give voice to what was in her mind. “It…it was not that kind of fear, Henry,” she said at last.

  Morton suddenly found himself listening. He was not sure why. As though his own feelings had been deafening him to what Arabella had been saying. Like most people of her profession, Arabella was an acute observer of human nature, and Morton had come to trust her intuition.

  “I'm sure you're right,” he said, “but it seems unlikely I will find him now. We might offer a reward for him to come forward.” There were some thousand hackney-coach licences granted in London, not to mention those who plied the trade unsanctioned.

  Arabella stopped her pacing. “Four-seventeen,” she said firmly.

  For a moment Morton stared at her blankly, then his face lit in a smile. “The coach number?” he said.

  “Of course! After what I saw, you did not think I would forget to note it? Mr. Morton, you do me a disservice.”

  “Not at all, my dear. Many a Bow Street officer has cursed himself after the fact for not noting a hackney number in the heat of the moment.” He smiled at her, hoping his praise would ease the tension between them. “I shall find the man tomorrow, and speak with him, if you think it worthwhile.”

  “I do, but don't wait until tomorrow. I tell you, Henry, this jarvey will be gone by then. He was that frightened. Gone, and then you shall never find him.”

  To Morton's distress she went directly to the door, opening it like a matador flourishing a cape. “I will reserve tomorrow evening for you,” she announced. “You may fetch me directly after my performance and tell me that I was absolutely right. That this young jarvey did know something more, and that the death of Mr. Richard Glendinning, or Halbert, if that was his name, was suspicious in the extreme.”

  “But, Arabella…”

  But Arabella would brook no argument.

  She did give in a little as he passed, favouring him with a most promising kiss—but it was a promise for the future, not this night.

  Morton found himself out on the street, his mood alternating between amusement and chagrin. Arabella Malibrant had him in thrall, as she did much of London at the moment. At least he was not alone in his thralldom.

  There was nothing for it but to locate this worthless jarvey and find out why he bolted from Lord Darley's door—for innocent enough reasons, Morton suspected. And if he could not find the driver of coach 417…Well, he did not care to consider the price he would pay for failure.

  The mists in the still-dark streets were heavy, and his footfalls echoed dimly in the muffled silence.

  He could not go to the Hackney-Coach Office in Essex Street, to find out who held licence number 417, until it opened in the morning. But Morton had an idea that such a visit might not be required. He'd made this kind of enquiry before.

  He walked the few blocks to the theatre district, where it took only a moment to locate a familiar coach driver.

  “Evening, Willam.”

  “Evening, Mr. Morton. Where might I carry you, sir?”

  “I'm not sure myself. I'm looking for a jarvey who was about in four-seventeen this evening.”

  The driver nodded and stroked the stubble staining his chin. “Well, Mr. Morton, most of the licences in the low four hundreds be in the hands of innkeeps in the City. Beyond St. Paul's, sir.”

  “The City it is, Willam,” Morton said, tugging open the coach door. The warmth of a bed—first Arabella's and now his own—receded into the cool, distant hours of the morning. Sleep would be brief, if he managed any at all. Morton had an early, and unpleasant, appointment to keep: the hanging of a man and wife.

  Finding coach 417 was not as easy a task as Morton had hoped, and, as always, the Londoners' natural suspicion of the police did not help. Finally a stableman Willam knew suggested they try the Scotsman Blenkinsop, proprietor of the Three Georges, Cheapside.

  The courtyard of the Three Georges was silent and still when Morton arrived, the shapes of a dozen or so coaches filling most of its dark space. Only a small number would be out at this hour. But those that were would surely be due back soon, to let the day drivers take them.

  The Runner found the ostler in the stables, cleaning harness by the dim light of a smoking lantern.

  “Four-seventeen?” The wizened little man stood and released a small groan as he bent his spine, his hands pressed into the small of his back. “Oh, aye, Constable. That be one of ours.”

  “He in yet?”

  “Nay. Be the only 'un that ain't. Should be here soon enough, though.”

  “I'll tarry, then,” said Morton. He paid Willam his fare, and, tucking his baton of office into his belt, took a cheroot from his frock-coat pocket. The old ostler bore the lantern over and offered him a light.

  “Mind the hay,” he muttered as he shuffled back to his task, reseating himself with a sigh. “Come a cropper, has he, our Ralph?”

  “Oh, nay,” replied the Runner.

  The other looked a little disappointed.

  “Yorkshireman. Never know wif them, does one?”

  Morton blew out a puff of smoke, and nodded sagely. “Not so bad as an Irishman, though,” he said.

  “Nay,” agreed the other readily.

  “You know this cully, driving four-seventeen?”

  The ostler shook his head. “Keeps to hisself. Know his name, that's all. Ralph Acton.”

  But time was never to be wasted, so as Morton smoked, flicking his ashes out into the cinder-yard, he kept up an easy conversation with his new informant, while the latter went on with his labour. The stableman's views, the success of the trade he was in, the personalities, the gossip and wrongdoings of his neighbourhood—all were fodder for Henry Morton's casual curiosity, and the other man was glad enough to tell. Most people, the Runner had always noticed, were happy to talk about even the most mundane details of their own lives. What was rar
e was someone prepared to listen; even a “horney” like Morton would sometimes do.

  Perhaps three quarters of an hour passed in this way, before hooves and the rattle of wheels were heard, approaching from the east.

  “Here he be, Constable.”

  Down Lothbury Street now slowly came clopping the tired horse, behind it the dark bulk of the coach, the hunched shape of the driver above.

  Morton tossed away his fag end and sauntered out into the yard. The sallow, grey-jacketed man who looked down at him as the coach drew up knew at once what Henry Morton's profession was.

  “Coach four-seventeen?”

  The jarvey grimaced and jerked his head rudely downward toward the number plate nailed to the side of the carriage.

  “Tell us about this gentleman you let down at Port-man House, Mayfair, earlier this night.”

  The man blinked in surprise, then blurted out: “Wot of him? Bilker never paid!”

  “The dead are notorious shirkers, Ralph,” Morton said dryly.

  “He was drunk, is all!” the jarvey protested. His voice had an irritating whine.

  “And you didn't stay to collect your fare? Come down here.”

  “See here, you've no call to—” the driver began to object, but got no further. Morton reached up and jerked the man from his seat by his scruffy lapels and slapped him roughly back against the side of his coach, so that the little vehicle swayed and squeaked on its springs and the horse snorted and shook its harness. But the Runner's voice, when he spoke, was even.

  “A dead man was found in your carriage this evening and the circumstances under which he died were not so innocent, now, were they, Ralph Acton?”

  The little man began to shake. He kept opening his mouth as though to speak but no words followed.

  Well, well, Morton thought.

  “Speak up, lad. I'm all that stands between you and a cell at Newgate, for if you're honest with me I'll let you go home this night, and no one will be the wiser. Lie to me, and you'll meet the Magistrate at Bow Street, and then no one will care what happens to you. No one but you. You do care, don't you, Ralph?”

  The little driver nodded.

  “Good. Now, from where did you fetch him?”

  All the coachman's resistance had fled. He gave off, at close range, a sharp, sour stink of unwashed clothes and fear.

  “Picked him up in Spitalfields,” he wheezed.

  “Spitalfields. Where?”

  “At the tavern there, in Bell Lane, by the brew'ry.”

  Henry Morton frowned in surprise. “What—the Otter? That flash house!”

  The jarvey mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Did you find him up at the Otter?” And Morton gave him another shake. The driver's imperfect memory was beginning to be intriguing.

  “Seems so,” the coachman muttered. “Appeared a common enough public house to me.”

  “You know bloody well it's a flash house,” observed Morton. “Or you'd have told me the name straight off. What was the man's condition when he boarded your coach?”

  “He was half-seas over. Careens out of that public, and tells me where to take him. Fast as me poor nag can manage.”

  Morton stared at him thoughtfully a moment more, then released him and stepped back, dusting off his hands a little. Then he put his right hand casually into his frock-coat pocket. The pocket where gentlemen would generally keep their silver.

  “So the man was alive… ?”

  “I told you so, yer honour.”

  “… and moving under his own power when he entered your coach?”

  The jarvey looked particularly anxious, his eyes on Morton's buried hand. But he answered.

  “Happens, maybe, some culls about the Otter helps him out. A bit. He were right cut. But he were sober enough to tell me the address in Mayfair.”

  “These culls—did they take anything from him?”

  “Not as I saw. But they could have done, couldn't they?”

  “Who were they?”

  The man shrugged, glancing down at the cinders. He was terrified: Morton could see that, but it wasn't Henry Morton that inspired the fear, now. There was something else. Arabella had been right.

  “Did you know, Ralph, that someone tried to kill this same gentleman earlier today?”

  The jarvey looked up, eyes flaring from fear. He shook his head in denial.

  “Why didn't you stay at Portman House?” Morton pressed.

  “They was all saying he was dished,” said the man. He shrugged. “I thought they might be looking to blame someone….” he said weakly.

  “Why would they blame you?”

  “That's the way of things, ain't it? Blame the one wot's least able to defend hisself.”

  The jarvey was keeping something back, but Morton doubted he could be made to tell. There were things in London more frightening than a Bow Street Runner, or even Newgate Prison.

  He was satisfied, however, that Acton had only driven Glendinning from Spitalfields to Mayfair. The coachman had no part in whatever had happened—but something had indeed happened.

  “Where do you dwell, Ralph Acton?”

  Acton hesitated.

  “The innkeep knows where to find you, does he?”

  The jarvey's shoulders sagged. “Off Cartwright Square,” he said. “Up the east alley.”

  Morton mulled it over a moment more. “What is it you're not telling me, Ralph? You know who these men were?”

  “Nay, nay. They were no one to me.” The jarvey shifted from foot to foot.

  Morton stared hard at the man, but it had only the effect of causing him to shift more rapidly. The Runner drew out his hand, with a single shilling in it, which he turned reflectively in his fingers.

  “I will find out what happened to Mr. Glendinning, Ralph, you may be sure of that. Now, you heed me. I'm Henry Morton of Bow Street and I know who you are and where to find you. If any of this proves false you can be sure you'll see me again.”

  “T'ain't false,” said the man, low and bitter.

  Henry Morton held out his hand and dropped the coin into Acton's open palm. “No, it isn't all false, that's certain. It's what you aren't telling me, Ralph; that's what worries me. For you know how things work—you said it yourself. If Glendinning didn't die a natural death, they'll be looking for someone to swing for it. If you're hiding as much as I think you are, that could be you, Ralph, for you'll look guilty, won't you? You might wish you'd told me the truth then. Think on it.”

  Chapter 3

  For the second time that morning, Morton set off in search of a hackney-coach, though on this occasion he was perfectly indifferent to any number-plate it might bear. The air, for the time of year, had fallen cool, and the Runner tugged up his collar against the chill. Morton was normally fastidious in his dress, but that morning he had donned a stained and ancient greatcoat that would allow him to escape notice in a crowd. Where he was going, Bow Street Runners weren't welcome.

  The hour was not so early that the wheels of commerce hadn't begun to turn, and on Shaftesbury Morton found a hackney-coach disembarking its fare.

  “Number four, Bow Street,” Morton called out, and settled back in the seat. He closed his eyes and felt that odd sensation, as though sinking, that lack of sleep brought on during moments of respite. He remembered the hackney-coach driver he'd spoken with earlier, and wondered again what Ralph Acton had been hiding.

  Morton drifted into an odd dream where he wandered lost through dim, ruinous alleys, noisome and narrow. Wraith-like inhabitants lurked silently in the shadows, eyes sunken and hostile—and fixed on him.

  The Runner awoke as the carriage rocked to a stop. The facade of the Bow Street Magistrate's Court loomed out of the gloom. A figure loitering on the stair stepped out into the faint morning light.

  “Morton?”

  Morton pushed the carriage door open. “Yes, come along, Jimmy. We've something to see to.”

  The coach swayed as the newest Bow Street Runner pull
ed himself aboard and settled opposite Morton in a dissonant squeaking of carriage springs. In the faint light Morton could barely see his young colleague, but his great bulk could be sensed. Morton rather liked Jimmy Presley: a costermonger's son, strong as an ox; someone you'd like to have at your side if things got roiled. But Jimmy was still finding his way, still coming to understand he had some decisions to make about the kind of officer—and the kind of man—he wanted to be. It was to this end that Morton had arranged their morning's outing.

  Presley leaned forward a bit, out of shadow, and in the soft grey light appeared even younger than his twenty-some years: broad-faced and boyish.

  “Have we a profitable bit of business lined up?” he asked, and smiled.

  “Profitable? Perhaps. But not in the usual sense.” Presley raised an eyebrow.

  “Have you ever been to a hanging, Jimmy?”

  The young man's voice faltered a little. “Nay, Morton, I've not. Nor ever wished to.”

  “Well, that is about to change. We're off to Newgate to see those sad cullies, the Smeetons, dance on air for their sins.” Morton eyed his companion. “Mr. Townsend did me the favour of taking me to witness the hanging of the first criminals I ever nabbed. ‘Best to see what your efforts have wrought, Morton,’ he said. ‘If you haven't the stomach for it, then you'd better find yourself another trade.’ It is a part of your education that I thought George Vaughan might neglect.”

  Vaughan was another Runner, and apparently Presley's mentor at Bow Street.

  Jimmy Presley said nothing, but turned away from Morton, toward the window where the city of London was emerging from the dark of night into the grey of day.

  Some distance from Newgate they were forced to continue on foot; the crowds were too thick for the coach to make progress. Morton cast his gaze up at the watery overcast, and wondered if the sky would shed tears for the Smeetons, and any other unfortunates who would come out the “debtors' door” that day.

  Morton noticed that Presley carried his baton, the gilt top gleaming in the dull light. “I'd put that out of sight,” Morton said, nudging him. The older Runner had his own baton tucked away in a pocket inside his greatcoat.