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

  “Spare me your alchemical lore, Mr. Morton,” the Chief Magistrate told him.

  “The death was suspicious,” repeated Henry Morton.

  As Sir Nathaniel Conant mused, his glance shifted from Morton to Vaughan to Presley. The impression came unbidden into Morton's mind that there was something more than he entirely grasped going on amongst the people in this little room. But he was far from understanding what it was. An intuition, a vague feeling, was all he had.

  “Very well,” decided the Chief Magistrate. “I will summon Sir Charles Carey and we'll go to Portman House together to view the remains, after I adjourn my court for midday. Send word to Lord Arthur not to make any arrangements until our arrival. We shall need to speak with the man's family. Offer my condolences and ask if they would wait upon us there at, what? Half noon?”

  Morton dipped his head in acquiescence. The Magistrate moved on to another topic.

  “The matter of the two Smeeton miscreants… went off duly?”

  A curious way to ask if being suspended by a rope around the neck had had its usual effect, Morton thought.

  “It went off…” he answered bleakly.

  “There was some difficulty?” asked Sir Nathaniel, in response to Morton's unspoken reservation.

  “The condemned man made certain accusations from the scaffold.”

  George Vaughan released a snort of contemptuous laughter, but Morton noticed that Jimmy Presley only looked rather pale.

  “It is hardly the first time,” remarked the Chief Magistrate.

  “He named the officers of police involved in his capture,” went on Henry Morton. “He accused us of profiting from his death and his wife's, of bringing them about, even, for our own gain. He cursed us and claimed that his wife was innocent—”

  “Innocent!” scoffed George Vaughan.

  “The populace seems to be predisposed to listening to such cant,” Sir Nathaniel said. “But we have our duties to attend to.”

  Morton joined in the little chorus of agreement. But then, as they all began to rise and reach for their hats, he said: “I should say, Sir Nathaniel, the hostility toward us is strong this time. Decent and respectable common-folk are angry, and this makes the rabble bold. I caution you, Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Presley: We should be on our guard.”

  George Vaughan shook his head. “You be on your guard, Mr. Morton, if you think you have reason,” he said. “I have none.”

  Chapter 5

  Jimmy Presley came up beside Morton as he stood at the little writing-stand in the Public Office antechamber, drafting his note to Lord Arthur Darley.

  “So,” the younger man said with an effort at carelessness, “Mr. Vaughan tells me that every fumbler who meets the hangman claims his innocence and blames us.”

  “Well, Jimmy, that's not precisely true,” responded Henry Morton sympathetically, setting down his quill and reaching for the blotter. Presley stared in a distracted way out the latticed window onto Bow Street.

  “They're always innocent when they're in the dock at the Old Bailey, of course. But by the time they come out the debtors' door, it's often a different matter. I've only heard of accusations like Smeeton's once or twice before.”

  “But now the people believe they really were. Innocent.”

  The great roar of disapproval and anger came back into Morton's ears, the heated words flung out, the red faces of the men surging against the barricade below the scaffold. He looked thoughtfully at his young colleague for a moment, and then went back to his writing.

  “Ah, well, Jimmy,” he remarked evenly. “Maybe George Vaughan's right. A man's not for this calling if he gives a fig what ‘the rabble’ believe.”

  But the young man looked distinctly unhappy anyway, so Morton went on.

  “You and Vaughan had the Smeetons dead cold to rights. They were seen on the premises the day before the robbery, looking it over. They turned up at the place right on time in the middle of the night, jemmy and skeleton keys to hand, and they used them. As neat and tight a case as you'll get in a year.”

  “Then why didn't the people see that… that there was nothing else to be done?” Presley couldn't quite name the thing he had so recently had a part in bringing to pass.

  “The people, as you style them, really aren't very fond of us, Jimmy, let's be plain about that. They don't like the police system, and they especially don't like the Bow Street Runners.” Morton smiled a little. “They'd rather live in a green and pleasant England where the constables are all unpaid, and where stout yeomen seize upon malefactors and are only incidentally rewarded for their efforts. Unexpectedly, as it were, and all the while blushing and pulling their forelock and saying they'd have done it anyway, m'lord, reward or no. I can't really blame them. I'd like to live in an England like that, too. Better still, why not an England where there are no thieves like the Smeetons? No murderers. No whores or vagrants. And no need for police, either.”

  Presley grimaced, and slapped his newly acquired baton restlessly against his gloved hand, saying nothing.

  “I've noticed that people don't mind when the navy men get their bounty for the French ships they capture,” Morton went on. “They're heroes. But when a Bow Street man gets his pittance for gaining the conviction of a proven criminal, that's ‘blood money.’ How often have you heard it said that we'll chase a man into the City and nab him there where the rewards are greater? Some days I think there's more sympathy out there for the flash crowd, Jimmy, than there is for you and me— until a man gets robbed. Then he'll speak to us a little more respectfully—at least for a day or two.” Morton stopped. His resentment on this subject was like to get out of hand, and Presley didn't look as though he were listening.

  “But, Morton, there was just something about the way…” It came out in a little rush, and then the young man paused, as if suddenly aware of the implications of what he was saying. “About the way we caught 'em,” he finished, very low.

  Morton felt a slight tickle run down his spine, and he turned to look hard at his companion.

  “It was just so… neat, how we knew exactly,” Presley murmured. “Exactly where and when to find them, and exactly what they were going to steal.”

  “Your peacher told you all that, didn't he? Where would we be without our informants?”

  And of course, those informants got paid, too.

  “He wasn't my peacher,” confessed Presley unhappily. “I'd never met him before that night, I mean, the night when you and I nabbed the Smeetons. In fact, I've never met him, ever.”

  Morton stared. If Jimmy Presley hadn't helped develop the information that led to the arrest, he didn't deserve any more of the credit—or the reward money— than Morton himself did. But Presley and George Vaughan had received seventy pounds each. Morton was given only twenty, for participating in the final arrest.

  “Vaughan let them believe I was part of it, so that I would get the appointment to be a Runner. He and I were friendly-like, when I was in the Worship Street Patrole, and he said he wanted to have me as his brother officer. He told me, after, what to testify.”

  Morton considered carefully. As his own role in the matter had been limited, he had not attended much of the Smeetons' trial. He had never heard the testimony of the two other Runners on the subject of their informant. But, really, the informant was hardly crucial; the panel, for example, was unlikely to insist that his or her identity be revealed. The Smeetons had already broken into the draper's shop when he and Presley moved in. Someone had betrayed them, sure enough, but that was as common as theft itself in this city. It was their bad luck that they couldn't trust their underworld friends, and that the owners of the shop they'd chosen to burgle belonged to a prosecution society, so that the rewards offered were substantial enough to make it worth extra effort on the part of an officer like Vaughan.

  “George Vaughan just told me he had this peacher,” Presley went on in a numb voice, “and he told me where and when I was to show up and arrest them.”

&nb
sp; “Well, that's normal enough, Jimmy. But you're mad to testify to something—anything—in a law court that you don't know to be true yourself. They'll give you a rope of your own for that.”

  Presley nodded miserably. “Aye, aye. But it was just to be this one time, so that I would get the appointment.”

  “Well, in any case,” Morton's voice relaxed, “the information Vaughan gave you was correct. He wanted you to have the chance to perform the arrest, and I happened to be in the Office that evening, so we did it together.”

  “Nay, not exactly.” And Presley, looking wretched, seemed to turn a shade paler. “You see, Morton, hearing what that cull said…up there, has made me turn it all over in my mind again.”

  “What do you mean, not exactly?”

  “I asked George Vaughan to come with me, to make the arrest. Two officers, you need two officers. Isn't that normal?”

  Morton nodded, watching him steadily.

  “But George Vaughan didn't want to do it. He says, ‘No, you go by Bow Street before and get Sir Galahad there, and take him.’”

  “Sir Galahad,” murmured Morton bleakly.

  “You, Morton. I suppose you know that's what he calls you. And he knew you were at Bow Street. Then he says, in a voice as if he wasn't talking directly to me, or really, as if he didn't care if I heard, he says, ‘They'll never doubt him.’”

  “And what,” said Morton, rather coldly now, leaning back and regarding him, “did you think that meant, Jimmy?”

  Presley avoided his gaze, and looked again out the window. “Some sort of a joke between you, I suppose,” he muttered. “That's what I thought then.”

  “And what do you think now?”

  “I don't know.”

  They both stood silent, rapt in very different trains of thought. Henry Morton was remembering the night of the Smeetons' arrest. Why indeed had he been at Bow Street? Was it not some tip, now that he thought on it, that Vaughan had casually given him? The chance of a rich piece of work from some wealthy barrister, who was supposed to be coming to the Office to hire a Runner? The barrister had never appeared, but the Smeeton matter had turned up instead, to the solid benefit of his pocket. Morton saw now that something he had been avoiding, something he had not even really admitted to himself he was trying to avoid, was in a fair way to becoming unavoidable.

  He had never doubted that George Vaughan, like quite a few other Bow Street men over the years, took more money for his services than the statutes specified. That he took bribes, and favours from low women, and had disreputable friends among the flash crowd he was supposed to be policing, Morton had long assumed. But what was emerging in Presley's account was something more, something on rather a larger and uglier scale.

  Presley looked up at him now, appealed to him, Morton thought.

  “Take heed, Jimmy,” he finally replied, low and full of meaning. The other stared back at him, his face working with suppressed feeling.

  “There's nothing to be done now about the Smeetons, that's sure,” Morton continued. “But it's time for you to do some thinking. Men like George Vaughan might dance a fine jig on the right side of the law, thinking they'll never misstep, but if Sir Nathaniel ever gets proof of it, Vaughan'll be dancing at Beilby's Ball instead. And I'll tell you this, George Vaughan will throw them anyone he can to save his own neck. Don't let that be you, Jimmy. I'd hate to see that. I'd regret it more than I can say.”

  Chapter 6

  When Morton boarded Sir Nathaniel's carriage the Chief Magistrate nodded to him over the edge of a neatly folded newspaper.

  “We are without the coroner, I see,” Morton observed.

  “We shall collect Sir Charles as we go.” Sir Nathaniel turned his attention away from his reading, letting the paper drop, then striking it once with the backs of his fingers. “Have you seen what Peel has to say of us, Mr. Morton?”

  The thief-taker shook his head.

  Sir Nathaniel lifted the paper. “Before Parliament yesterday. The Runners are, and I quote, ‘a closely knit caste of speculators in the detection of crime, self-seeking and unscrupulous.’ He admits that they are sometimes ‘daring and efficient,’ but only ‘when it coincides with their private interest.’” He let the paper drop again. “Mark me, Mr. Morton, we shall see an end to the present system of rewards and incentives, and sooner than some might wish. I for one have wearied of defending the reputations of my Runners.” He shook the paper once. “And while this is being spoken in Parliament, we have Mr. Vaughan and Jimmy Presley out proving that Mr. Peel is right on every count!”

  Sir Nathaniel turned his attention to the passing scene. The sunlight falling into the carriage illuminated the Magistrate's long, pale hands, still clutched tightly around the morning news. After a moment he turned back to Morton. “I regard you as a person of principle, Mr. Morton, and I'll not say that for all your colleagues. You're an adept at your profession, yet I'd like to believe you take no more than is your due for it.”

  “I thank you for your confidence,” murmured the Runner.

  “You and your comrades have interrupted affairs of honour before?”

  “Many times.”

  “Then tell me, sir, how much does it cost a man to fight a duel in the environs of London and not find himself before a panel of Magistrates?”

  Morton smiled a bitter inward smile, though he regarded his superior with a level gaze. How much, indeed. Who was doing the dueling? Who was doing the arresting?

  The Chief Magistrate had been in his position at Bow Street for a little more than a year. He would stay perhaps another year or two, and then go on to another government appointment, courtesy of some other well-connected friend. Henry Morton would work with men like George Vaughan and Jimmy Presley all his life.

  Did Sir Nathaniel realise what he was asking of Morton?

  “Whenever I've interrupted a duel, sir, I've brought the principals before my Magistrate, you may be sure. But occasionally we do find that reconciliations have occurred before our arrival. Perhaps apologies have been tendered. Gentlemen do occasionally resort to their own better instincts. In such cases a warning is all that's required—indeed, there is little more we can do.”

  Sir Nathaniel gazed at him for a moment, shook his head, and leaned back in his seat.

  “Very well, Mr. Morton,” he replied coldly.

  Sir Charles Carey, the coroner, was waiting for Sir Nathaniel and Morton on his front step and they went directly on to Portman House. After they had viewed the body in the small sitting-room, Lord Arthur Darley introduced them to Sir William and Lady Caroline Glendinning in his library. The dead man's parents were already dressed in silken mourning suits, cut to a style of the last century more commonly glimpsed now in the country than in London. Both had powdered hair. They sat on Lord Arthur's elegant sabre-leg chairs with a rigidity that Morton guessed reflected both repressed grief and a deep distaste for the conversation they were about to endure.

  “I'm sure that the gentlemen from Bow Street do not require Lady Caroline's attendance,” murmured Darley in considerate tones.

  “Thank you, Lord Arthur,” she replied, “but I will stay.”

  Sir Nathaniel cleared his throat.

  “The question before us is whether or not my officers should be directed to make further enquiry into this unhappy event.” Sir Nathaniel glanced at Morton. “It is Mr. Morton's opinion that your son's death is of a somewhat… anomalous nature. His whereabouts before his arrival at this house last night are… uncertain, the causes of mortality… imperfectly understood.”

  Morton could see the effect of these words on Lady Caroline. It was the first she had heard of such things, he felt sure.

  Lady Caroline raised a handkerchief to her mouth. “But what are you suggesting?”

  “Only that the matter might bear looking into,” Sir Nathaniel said.

  “I do not mean to distress you, Lady Caroline,” Morton said, fearing Sir Nathaniel was being too delicate. He addressed both parents. “I'
m quite certain we know where your son was before he took a carriage for Portman House, and it was a particularly notorious criminal den, where—”

  “How can that be, sir?” Sir William interjected. “What are you suggesting about my son? That he consorted with criminals?” Like his wife, he had a faint north country or Scots accent.

  “Indeed not, sir. Your son is said to have been a man of character. That is why I have suggested we look into this matter a little more. What was Mr. Glendinning doing in such a place just before his end? And what might have happened to him there?”

  “You are very certainly misinformed, sir!” Sir William cried. “My son was a gentleman. A man of letters. Not an habitué of low houses.”

  Morton started to respond, but Sir Nathaniel cut him off with a gesture. “Your son's character is not in question, Sir William, let me assure you. But it is very suspicious that he fought a duel in the morning and… died later the same day.”

  “His honour had been impugned and he defended it,” Sir William said, drawing himself up a little, proud of his son. “His untimely passing was a sad coincidence. Nothing more.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Sir Nathaniel, “but we do not know what caused this untimely passing.”

  “I have spoken to the surgeon who attended poor Halbert upon his arrival here, and I am satisfied that there was nothing untoward about his death. His constitution was ever delicate,” Sir William said. The pride disappeared from his face, however, and he slumped down a little. His wife reached out and gently placed her small hand over his.

  Their son was dissolute, that is what they believed, Morton realised. They thought he'd drunk himself to death in a bawdy house, and they wanted it to go no further.

  “Sir,” Morton said. “I was present at the time of this surgeon's examination and can tell you that it was less than thorough. Your son did not choke. I am quite sure of it. A proper examination might tell us the cause…of this unfortunate event.”