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

  “Such a thing hardly seems necessary, Mr. Morton,” Sir Charles Carey interjected, “if, as you admit, a medical man has seen to it already. You are hardly qualified to overrule him.”

  Lady Caroline gave the coroner a sad look of gratitude.

  Morton felt his anger rising. The Glendinnings did not want their son's name sullied. And bloody Sir Charles did not want to commission an autopsy and risk finding nothing—in which case the King's Bench might refuse to pay the fee, leaving Sir Charles to cover it himself. He and Morton had fought this battle before.

  Morton made an effort to keep his eyes straight ahead and his voice level. “It is, Sir Charles, the Chief Magistrate's decision to make.”

  For the first time Sir William looked straight at Morton. His voice was icily deliberate.

  “I know you, fellow, for what you are. You seek to profit from my son's death. And if there were no crime, where would you find your thirty pieces of silver?”

  He looked back to Sir Nathaniel.

  “There will be no investigation, sir. Lady Caroline and the rest of my family have suffered enough. I forbid it.”

  “You will pardon me, Sir William, but in cases of possible felony—”

  “I forbid it! I will not cooperate with it. I will not prosecute it, even if you produce a case. There was no felony, and your little flock of carrion-crows will not pick over my son's good name to the benefit of their pockets!”

  He rose quite suddenly, drawing up his wife after him, and with her leaning on his arm, they went out.

  The four remaining looked one to the other as Morton seethed inwardly. Thirty pieces of silver! That the man who risked getting his skull cracked in parts of London these people had never seen should get slapped across the face with such an insult…! And by a man who had achieved his place in the world by being born under the right blanket!

  “Mr. Morton,” Darley said quietly. “Are you so sure?”

  Morton scowled and nodded. “I spoke with the driver of the coach who brought Glendinning here. Mrs. Malibrant's intuition was correct. Something untoward happened. I am certain of it.”

  He noticed Sir Nathaniel staring at him thoughtfully at that moment, and did not like what he read into that gaze. Doubt. Doubt that Morton himself had contributed to in the carriage on their way here. And that Sir William's accusation had only encouraged.

  “Lord Arthur,” the Magistrate said, bowing to Darley.

  Out on the walk, as they awaited their carriage, Sir Charles Carey turned on Morton.

  “You know perfectly well, Mr. Morton, that the lords of the King's Bench do not approve of idle inquests!”

  “I saw that man within a quarter hour of his death, sir, and he did not die of choking.”

  “A doctor examined him before you, sir,” the coroner fumed. “And you would have me hire another to draw the same conclusion. I will not do it.”

  “So it is about your expenses, is that it?”

  Sir Charles balled his hands up into tight little fists and his face turned suddenly red. “And can you guarantee me, sir, that at the end of quarter sessions I will be reimbursed for the expense of hiring a surgeon? No, sir, you cannot. The Chief Justice will scrawl needless over the writ, and I shall be out of pocket every shilling of it. Would you care to pay for it yourself?”

  “Gentlemen, enough!” Sir Nathaniel glared at his two companions until they fell silent. Then he said: “There will be no inquest, and no investigation of this death.”

  The two men looked at him, their expressions in stark contrast.

  “You have no evidence, Mr. Morton. Glendinning's constitution was delicate, he drank too much, perhaps in reaction to the earlier events of the day, and he died. If we investigated every man who died of drink in London we should do little else. No, we will chase this no further. His family have sorrow enough.”

  “They are trying to protect his character,” objected Morton. “They don't want it known that he was at the Otter—”

  “That is probably so,” Sir Nathaniel interrupted. “Would you? I expect their fine Halbert was something of a bounder. It is enough that they shall have to live with this knowledge; there is little need for the world to know.”

  Their carriage drew up and Carey climbed in, smiling in triumph.

  “Nonetheless, I think a brief visit to—”

  “You shall do nothing of the sort, Mr. Morton! That is all I have to say on the matter, sir. Devote your energies to that theft of antiquities from Burlington House.”

  Morton's impatience with the previous interview boiled over, and he replied with poorly judged asperity.

  “There is no point in any further investigation into that particular matter. The thieves have the goods secured. As I have explained before, there are very few ways for them to make a profit on such unusual material. They, or their fence, will have to sell it back to the owner. There is nothing for us to do but wait for them to make contact, place a notice in the newspaper, or use some other familiar device. I have no appetite for more fruitless digging in the cold ashes of this crime.”

  It was the second time that day Morton had refused to cooperate with his Magistrate. Sir Nathaniel turned on him.

  “You have no appetite for it? You will develop the taste, sir, and I'll thank you not to speak back to me in this manner!”

  Sir Nathaniel climbed into the carriage beside Sir Charles and pulled the door sharply closed behind him, leaving Morton standing by the kerb as the coach jounced once, then went deliberately on its way.

  Chapter 7

  You may begin by admitting I was right,” Arabella said as she caught sight of Morton in her mirror. He had just let himself into her dressing cabinet backstage at the Drury Lane Theatre. She continued applying her face powder with studied care.

  “You were undoubtedly right, Mrs. Malibrant,” Morton said mildly. “About what, pray?”

  Arabella smiled, but then recomposed her face. “Do not try your charm on me, Henry Morton. You doubted me, and should not have. Is that not what you have come to say?”

  “I never doubted you for a moment,” Morton said, pulling up a joint-stool. “You are never wrong. Not even the time you had me nab the footman for stealing Lady Ellington's bracelet. He just did not have it in his possession at that moment—or ever, if my memory serves.”

  “I do not claim always to be right,” she said, crinkling up her brow.

  Morton laughed. “Nor do you ever admit to being wrong, but in this case, my dear, I believe you were right. Though no one but you and me seems to believe it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I don't know. I told them that I had it on good authority from Mrs. Arabella Malibrant, but they seemed not to care. I was somewhat taken aback.”

  Arabella's frame of mind had apparently improved, and she only made a little grimace in response to this sally. “I hope you challenged them all to duels. Who were these doubters, pray?”

  “Halbert Glendinning's parents, Sir William and Lady Caroline; my Magistrate, Sir Nathaniel Conant; the coroner, the ever-worthless Sir Charles Carey. I am not even certain your Lord Arthur believes me.”

  “Oh, he is not mine,” Arabella said quickly. For a moment she concentrated on her eyebrows.

  Morton watched the transformation. He always marveled that what looked so garish up close became something quite ethereal at a distance.

  “Do you know,” she said, sitting back and examining her efforts with a critical eye, “they used to whiten the face with lead powder, but now folk say it is poisonous and like to kill you. Do you think we could convince Mrs. Siddons to try it?”

  “Certainly she is no rival to you.”

  “Hmm,” Arabella responded, beginning now on her lips. “It was Rokeby, of course,” she said.

  “Who had everyone using lead powder?”

  “Who killed Glendinning. Or had him killed.”

  “He is the obvious choice,” Morton agreed, “if Glendinning was indeed killed.”

>   “He was. Rokeby is a rogue, and a murderer, too. I wish someone would shoot him, but he seems to shoot them all first. Could you not shoot him, Henry?”

  Why this sudden antipathy toward Rokeby, he wondered. “Officers of police are not allowed to duel. It is illegal, if you remember.”

  She raised her eyebrows, angled her face this way and that, and then turned in her chair to look at Morton. “You look worried, Henry. What is it?”

  “It is something Jimmy Presley said to me this morning. Do you remember the Smeetons?” He proceeded to relate his conversation with the younger Runner, and then what he'd learned from the jarvey, and lastly the interview with the Glendinnings and his altercation with Sir Nathaniel.

  “Why is this affair with George Vaughan any concern of yours? If he is corrupt, what of it? It is not for you to police your fellow officers, surely.”

  Morton drew a long breath. Arabella was not one for taking on the responsibilities of the world. Let others worry about their own transgressions, or the sins of their brothers. Arabella was only concerned if such sins touched her or someone of her circle. Beyond that the world might cheerfully annihilate itself, Morton was sure.

  “What is it Rokeby has done to you, my dear?” Morton asked on impulse.

  “Me? Nothing. I should never be so foolish as to succumb to such calculated charms. But I know several women—I cannot name them—toward whom he has been most cavalier. If no man can shoot him I might have to do it myself.”

  “He would not duel with a woman.”

  “Oh, I would not use anything so crude as a firearm,” she answered sharply.

  Morton smiled and shook his head. “The formidable Mrs. Malibrant.”

  “Why, so I am. But I am surprised to see you here this evening.”

  Morton did not like the sound of this, nor the tone. “You promised this night to me,” he said, his suspicions growing in spite of himself.

  “Tomorrow night, Henry. I am otherwise committed this night.”

  “I'm quite sure we agreed to this night.”

  She knew his memory was almost infallible. Morton was somewhat famous for it in police circles.

  “Could I have misspoken myself?” she asked innocently. “Well, let us not make a Trafalgar of it. Tomorrow night I will pledge to you. No, truly, Morton. Don't look at me so.”

  Morton continued to look at her just so.

  “Very well, I confess. I committed myself to two engagements on the same evening. It was a mistake honestly and innocently made. A lapse of memory—not everyone's is so perfect as yours.”

  “Lord Arthur?”

  She nodded sheepishly.

  “Is he not married?”

  “In name only—his wife lives in the country. Their children are grown. Now, Henry, you know we have always agreed…”

  Morton held up both his hands, rising to his full height. “Do not waste this soliloquy on me, who knows it by heart.”

  But the room was small and she put herself between Morton and the door, her absurdly made-up face close to his, green eyes gazing out from a field of cool, white Lille powder.

  “Tomorrow night I promise to you—no, Henry, I promise. And there will be no mistakes.” She watched his face to gauge the effect of her pledge. “Now don't go running off—I have something for you.” She searched around her table and finally produced a leather-bound volume.

  “There; by your pugilistic friend, Byron.”

  “Hardly a friend,” Morton protested weakly, too aware that she patronised him. It was the new book, Hebrew Melodies.

  She pressed it into his hands, and he felt his fingers close around the smooth calfskin. New volumes of poetry were rare, and expensive, pleasures.

  “Will you stay for the performance?” she asked softly.

  Morton wondered if anyone ever refused the wilful Arabella.

  “Through the first act, at least.”

  “Well, come see me then and we can visit until curtain call.”

  There was a knock on her door just then—alerting Arabella to her entrance. She leaned forward to kiss Henry, remembered her face paint, and smiled as only Arabella could. Then she was out the door and hurrying off to her assignation with a full house of admirers.

  Morton looked down at the book in his hands, opened it to the title page, and there, in a fine, legible hand, found:

  To Mrs. Malibrant:

  Whom I have long admired from afar.

  Byron

  Morton laughed. He could do nothing else.

  Chapter 8

  Morton sat reading Byron's newest work, though his concentration flagged. Not enough sleep the previous night, what with Arabella sending him off to find that worthless jarvey. And then her “forgetting” all about their engagement. She hadn't forgotten at all, she'd just had a more interesting offer. Why did he even…?

  But there were reasons.

  He sighed and tossed down the poems, picking up the morning Times again and running his eye down the close columns of advertisements. Had he simply missed the inevitable little notice that indicated the thieves of Lord Elgin's antiquities were prepared to sell them back to their owner? At least he'd have that to lay at Sir Nathaniel's feet.

  Not that the swag was very much: a few scraps of carved marble pilfered from the casually guarded heaps of the stuff in and about a shed in the inner courtyard of Burlington House. Elgin's supposedly magnificent collection, shipped back from Greece, was gathering dust there as the government tried to decide whether to purchase it and thus whether—and this was much worse from the point of view of those parsimonious gentry—to spend the money to build a proper museum to house it. A British Museum. What an extravagance.

  Sir Nathaniel Conant was, by and large, a man Morton esteemed. He was perhaps a bit naive in the ways of the criminal classes, but he would learn—if he stayed at Bow Street long enough. It bothered Morton to have offended him, and he rather badly wanted to make it right.

  Despite combing the columns twice, Morton found no reference to the missing marbles. In disgust, he opened the paper to news of the more common variety. That fraud Mesmer had died, apparently. “The discoverer of animal magnetism,” the editor named him. Morton snorted. He'd thought the man dead for years, so obscure had the once-celebrated doctor become.

  Inevitably he found his way to the accounts of Wellington's army and the looming conflict on the continent. The reports were several days out of date, of course; news from Belgium and France never appeared less than three or four days after the events. The Times, however, was usually fairly reliable and gathered information from disparate sources.

  The foreign news was gathered under various headings. DUTCH MAIL, or FLANDERS PAPERS. Official accounts invariably appeared under the headings WAR DEPARTMENT or OFFICIAL BULLETIN, the latter sometimes subtitled “Downing Street.” Nothing new here.

  But under the banner FRENCH MAIL Morton found a brief item originating from Paris regarding “the Emperor” (the Times itself, unlike its continental correspondents, never honoured him with this title but always called him “Buonaparte”). “It is creditably believed that the Emperor left Paris on June 12…” Morton read, and then paused.

  Everyone knew that the allies were gathering their armies for a thrust into France, and here was Napoleon leaving Paris, perhaps for Ostend, it was speculated. Morton felt a small, cold wave of apprehension wash through him. What if “the Emperor” had no intention of waiting for the allies to combine their forces?

  But obviously Wellington would have better intelligence than the Times, Morton thought, and turned his attention back to the paper, poring over the various reports.

  As he read, his manservant Wilkes slipped into the room, collecting the remains of Morton's tea. Wilkes had been rescued by Morton little more than a year ago. For many years he had served in a prominent household, but then had developed a noticeable shake in his hands—the palsy, it was feared. Morton had taken him on out of kindness. But there was also a part of the Runner—a
part he was not unaware of—which took some satisfaction in employing as a gentleman's gentleman a man who had served an earl. Morton himself was only a “ha'penny gentleman,” someone who wasn't born to the life, but used his barely adequate income to keep up the appearance.

  Fortunately Wilkes's condition had not seemed to worsen with time, and though he did break a bit of glass-ware now and then, Morton found him otherwise beyond criticism. And he learned a great deal from Wilkes, a great deal about gentlemen and their habits—not all of it flattering. Which also rather pleased him, in a different way.

  He and the old man had developed an odd… friendship. Morton could think of no other word for it. They had come to like each other. They did not, after all, have class standing between them.

  Which is why Wilkes could say, as he did now, “You look troubled, sir.”

  “Do I?” Morton asked, then let the paper fall. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I am.” He gestured to a chair. “Have I spoken to you about George Vaughan?”

  “A fellow Bow Street man?”

  “Yes.” And Morton found himself repeating the concerns he had earlier shared with Arabella. His manservant's response was rather more satisfactory.

  “You think this man Vaughan corrupt, sir,” Wilkes concluded.

  “Oh, yes, he's corrupt. But I would have said only in the manner and degree of his time. What Jimmy Presley's story suggests is something more.”

  “Perhaps you should speak to Sir Nathaniel.”

  “Yes, I likely should. Though do not forget that young Jimmy Presley was also involved—as was I, for that matter, for Jimmy and I made the arrest. It was all very tidily arranged.” Morton shook his head. “I doubt we could make a case of it. I'm sure Vaughan could produce someone claiming to be his informant in the matter, and who could gainsay him? Certainly not the Smeetons, that is certain. No, if Vaughan did arrange the whole thing he managed it carefully. And Jimmy Presley might be in more trouble than Vaughan—after all, he swore to things of which he had no direct knowledge.”

  As Morton gazed down into the rain-washed street below, the old man asked: “And this other matter, sir— of the young man who was killed?”