The Thief-Taker moabsr-1 Page 8

  “Mr. Hamilton,” replied Morton in a civil manner, “I greatly appreciate your receiving me, at what must be a difficult moment.”

  Another slight bow greeted this speech.

  “I am an officer of police,” Morton went on, “and have been commissioned to make some enquiries into the death of Halbert Glendinning.”

  Peter Hamilton cleared his throat. “But it is my impression, Mr. Morton, that the Bow Street Magistrate has spoken with Sir William and Lady Caroline Glendinning, and that they have declined to have this matter enquired into further.”

  “I am fulfilling another commission, Mr. Hamilton, for a private party-partly with a view to clearing away any unfortunate imputations that might cloud Mr. Glendinning's name. I gather that you and he were close friends?”

  Peter Hamilton breathed deeply, as though restraining strong feelings. As Morton watched him, waiting, he could see how his face, with its broad brows and large, soft eyes, did after all show a resemblance to Miss Hamilton's, even if his voice and manner were strikingly different.

  “Who has given you such a commission, Mr. Morton?”

  Morton had not forgotten what Miss Hamilton had said about the concerns of her family and friends.

  “I am not at liberty to say, but you may trust it is at the command of one who wishes Mr. Glendinning's name well. Such proceedings are common and entirely legitimate.”

  “It seems a bit irregular to me, considering the wishes of Halbert's own family.”

  “Which is why I have been asked to carry out my enquiry with the utmost discretion. Did you not think it odd, Mr. Hamilton, that your friend was involved in a duel in the morning and then died the same evening?”

  Hamilton considered a moment-perhaps debating whether to answer at all. “Well, I suppose, Mr. Morton,” he remarked, “that life is full of strange coincidences, most happier than that one, thankfully.” The man gestured to a chair and then sat himself. He sighed heavily. “But yes, it is odd, as you say.” He looked directly at Morton then. “Do you believe there is reason to think Halbert's death… questionable?”

  Morton nodded.

  “But did a surgeon not see him and pronounce it to be of natural causes?”

  “He did, but I was there as well and thought his examination less than methodical. I also discovered that Mr. Glendinning had come to Portman House from a particularly odious establishment.”

  Hamilton looked down, nodding. “Yes,” he said, “I had that from Lord Arthur.” He shook his head sadly. “I shall miss Halbert terribly. And poor, poor Louisa…” He looked up at Morton, appealingly. “By all means, let us erase any doubts about his passing. It shall be difficult enough for us all to get over as it is. But always to wonder if there was foul play… How may I assist you, Mr. Morton?”

  “I am given to understand you were his second in the duel with Colonel Rokeby.”

  Hamilton nodded.

  “What was this duel about?”

  The other man stared back at him for a long moment.

  “Colonel Rokeby,” he said very deliberately, “made remarks, in public, of a character no gentleman may brook. Halbert Glendinning issued a challenge. However, as you are perhaps aware, your colleagues,” and here Hamilton's graveled voice betrayed a hint of anger, “intervened, and prevented satisfaction.”

  Morton tried to conceal his surprise. Glendinning had challenged Rokeby! That verse of the dead man's poetry came back to him, with its tone of despair and pessimism. It will find you soon enough.

  “What was the subject of these ‘remarks’?” he asked Peter Hamilton.

  Hamilton took a breath and let it out in a tired sigh. “They made reference to Halbert himself, and to my half-sister, Louisa. You will forgive me if I do not repeat the remarks themselves.”

  Morton nodded. “Where did Mr. Glendinning go after the duel was interrupted? Do you know what he did with that day?”

  “Not with all of it, no. After the duel, Halbert and I parted immediately, agreeing that we would see each other again at Portman House that evening. He was exhausted, and shaken, and I urged him to return to his rooms and rest. I had never seen Halbert so, Mr. Morton, so I stopped in on him later that day, to be certain he was well. His manservant said he was asleep, and I thought it best not to wake him. I never saw him again until they bore him up the steps at Lord Arthur's. Have you spoken with his manservant? Perhaps he knows more.”

  “I haven't yet, but I shall.”

  Hamilton closed his eyes for a second. “Before the duel I looked at Halbert thinking it might well be the last time I saw him alive. But after it was interrupted I trusted the danger past. And then…”

  “Was Mr. Glendinning skilled with a pistol?”

  The man shrugged. “I never got a chance to see. When he requested I be his second I asked him if he was confident, and he claimed he was.”

  “Had he no idea who Colonel Rokeby was? The man is as proficient a killer as you will find, Mr. Hamilton.”

  Peter Hamilton nodded grimly. “The Colonel's reputation had preceded him.”

  Morton waited, but Hamilton said no more. His silence seemed a kind of testament to his late friend's courage. Or perhaps to his desperation.

  “I am told that Mr. Glendinning was normally a man of moderate habits, as regards strong drink,” prompted Morton after a moment.

  “His habits were those of… many gentlemen, in this regard.”

  “His family seem to feel he was rather less the bon vivant than many gentlemen.”

  Hamilton smiled wanly. “His family did not, of course, know his every action. He gave them no overt cause for concern, in his domestic manners.”

  “But, from time to time, outside the circle of polite company, his behaviour was… less restrained?”

  “He was a young man, Mr. Morton, given to the habits of young men. But I never felt that his dedication to such pleasures would bring him to ruin, as it has so many.”

  “Had you ever seen him drink himself insensible?”

  “No, although I confess, I have seen Halbert imbibe enough that he required some assistance on stairs and entering carriages.”

  Morton decided to go back to the duel. “You are familiar with Colonel Rokeby, I take it?”

  Hamilton scowled. “Yes, he courted Louisa's favour for a short while. But she quickly saw through to his true nature.”

  “Do you think her rejection of him could have led to a desire for revenge?”

  Peter Hamilton raised his hands slightly in a gesture of helplessness. “It is hard for me to say. The Colonel's words were… cruel and rather calculated, I think, when I look back on it. Certainly they indicated a bitterness and resentment. I suppose it's not impossible. Perhaps even likely, when one thinks of it.”

  “Where were these provocative remarks of Colonel Rokeby made?”

  “At a private dinner at the Guards Club.”

  “Were others present?”

  Hamilton had risen and walked a few paces, agitated. “Some few officers, whose names I cannot recollect. Perhaps I never did know them.” He turned and faced Morton then. “Mr. Morton, I hope you will excuse me. We are to travel to Sussex today, Louisa and I, to attend Halbert Glendinning's funeral. I would certainly be pleased to continue this at another time….”

  Henry Morton rose.

  “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Hamilton.” Morton bowed and started for the door.

  “Mr. Morton?” Hamilton looked at him, his eyes glistening slightly. “What do you think befell my friend?”

  “I do not know for certain, Mr. Hamilton, but I think it likely he was poisoned,” Morton said flatly.

  “If you were to catch the miscreant who did this, would you have any hope of conviction?”

  “It depends, Mr. Hamilton. There would have to be very hard evidence, as our only authority on poisons is not much credited by their lordships of the Old Bailey.”

  Peter Hamilton took this in for a moment.

  “I do hope you find th
e man, Mr. Morton.” He paused, and then the hint of passion returned to his voice. “And if it is Rokeby, I hope you hang him.”

  The hired horse shambled along, its tired head hanging low, occasionally taking swipes at tufts of orchard grass along the margin of the path. Dragonflies hovered in the warm still air, the blur and glitter of their wings awhir in the soft morning sunlight. Morton let the horse have its head as the path plunged down a small embankment, the beast's shoulders bunching up and rocking him from side to side as each hoof landed hard.

  The path ran on smoothly then, and arrived at a crude gate. Morton let himself through, and emerged from the trees onto a narrow lane. A half hour along this and the weathered roofs of a small village appeared among oaks and massive beech.

  His mother's cottage was the last dwelling but one as you rode south of the town. It lurked behind an unkempt, ancient hedge of laurel, thick spirea, and hawthorn. Morton gave a boy a coin to water his horse, and mind it while it browsed by the stream. Pushing open the creaking gate, he entered the garden.

  For a moment he stood, staring around at the tangle of flowers and weeds, colours tumbling one over the other, out of the borders of the beds and onto the gravel path. He could hear the rasp of something scraping in earth, and then a softly rendered old country air. Morton cleared his throat.

  Rebecca's face appeared among the hydrangea, a straw sun hat pushed onto the back of her head. Her startled expression gave way to a smile, and she brushed back a strand of hair with a soil-stained hand.

  “Well, if it isn't Gentleman Jim! 'Enry!” she cried. “Oh, I've forgotten your h'aitch,” she added, laughing. It was an old jest, a reminder of a woman they'd once known.

  She came out of the garden bed, wearing a farm labourer's boots, the skirts of her dress hitched up a little into a sash. There was a smudge of brown beside her freckled nose, which wrinkled up as she smiled. She kissed him lightly on both cheeks, rising up to her toes to do so.

  “Don't take my hands,” she said, “they're all over dirt from the garden. But you've come just in time. Something is thieving my carrots.”

  “Is it a person?”

  She gazed thoughtfully at the rows of vegetables. “No, I suspect it isn't.”

  “I fear my skills are limited to the apprehension and prosecution of men.”

  “What is the point of having a thief-taker for a son if he can't protect even your garden? Oh, well. I shall have what the thieves leave, I suppose.”

  His mother led him to a small table set beneath the trees, and Morton lowered himself, with some misgivings, into a decrepit wicker chair. His mother disappeared inside to make tea, and Morton sat watching her pass back and forth before the window. She had once been a very comely young woman, and some echo of that remained as she aged. Not that she was old-only seventeen years older than Morton himself. But her life had been a hard one.

  Still, her hair, now silvery white, retained its lustre, and her face was not deeply wrinkled, but etched instead by myriad wire-thin lines. Through the window, she still appeared youthful, for she had so far avoided the stooping and slowing that overtook people as they aged.

  A moment later she emerged. “Kettle's on,” she announced, and lit in the chair opposite. The sun dappled down through the leaves onto her face and dress.

  “How's your new thatch?” Morton asked.

  “It's as good as magic. Not a drop can find its way through.” She bobbed her head to him. “And I thank you again.”

  “You shouldn't thank me, Mother.”

  “Then you shouldn't bring it up,” she said, and Morton laughed.

  From some distant corner of that summer afternoon a cuckoo called, and both Morton and his mother fell silent, listening. He looked up and found she was gazing at him, her face shadowed now by her hat brim.

  “You've grown to look remarkably like your father,” she told him. Morton's reaction to this did not go unnoticed, and she reached out to press her now scrubbed fingers to his wrist. “But let's not speak of the devil,” she added.

  Tea was soon made, and they sat drinking Old Gunpowder as around them bees hummed and pushed their determined way into trembling blossoms.

  “I've been engaged in the most lucrative commission of my career,” Morton said, realizing how awkward that sounded. The problem was he wanted to leave his mother some money, but her pride wouldn't abide it. Not unless he could convince her it wasn't money he needed himself.

  “The tailors of London will rejoice,” she said.

  “I'm not really such a dandy. You've just not seen the way gentlemen are dressing in London these days. But I've no need of another frock-coat or pair of breeches.”

  His mother played with the tassel of her shawl. “No doubt you'll find some use for it,” she said quietly. “Do you still see your actress?”

  “When time allows,” Morton admitted.

  His mother raised her cup and saucer, but said, “She does not treat you as you deserve.”

  “No mother's son has ever been treated as he deserves,” Morton replied, and saw her quick smile before she sipped her tea.

  “And what of Mr. Townsend?”

  “He is well.”

  “You'll take him my regards?”

  “Indeed, just as I'm sure he would have sent his, had he known I would visit.”

  Setting her cup on the table, his mother leaned her head against the high back of the chair, closed her eyes, and inhaled the fragrance of her garden. “I worry about you, Henry,” she said. “You don't know what it's like to be a parent and have your only child chasing about London after footpads and murderers.”

  “It's the footpads you should be concerned for,” Morton said.

  She smiled. “But even so, I wish you'd gone into the church as we'd planned.”

  “The church was never a plan I was party to. Anyway, you forget that I had to leave the university when Lady Beaufort died.”

  “I forget nothing, Henry,” his mother said-and it was true. It was from her that he'd inherited his remarkable memory and whatever wit he might claim. From his father he got only his appearance, apparently.

  “It was unfortunate that she didn't live a few years more.”

  “I'm only sorry that she didn't die sooner,” Morton said.

  His mother opened her eyes. “Now, Henry, where would we have been without her?”

  “I don't know. Someplace where you wouldn't have had to atone for your ‘sin’ twice daily. Someplace where we wouldn't have had to shoulder the blame for her brother's transgression.” Morton took up his cup, calming himself. “But it's all past,” he said.

  His mother grinned suddenly. “You don't miss your evening Bible readings? What of the inestimable-and inexhaustible-works of Hannah More? I can hear you reading them still. Did a word ever register in your mind?”

  “I do remember being particularly struck by the word ‘salubrious,’ one day,” Morton said. “Evangelical literature, however, did give me a great desire for other books. Any other books. And it taught me to pray. ‘Please Lord,’” Morton intoned, “ ‘deliver me from the writings of Hannah More.’”

  His mother cuffed him gently on the arm, but laughed. “Amen,” she said. And then more seriously: “But you received an education you should not have otherwise.”

  “Yes, I suppose I should thank her for that-incomplete as it was.”

  This promise of education had been the reason his mother had swallowed her pride a dozen times a day. It was the chain that had bound them both to that cold, proud woman. Pride, Morton noted, was a sin, yet the supposedly pious Lady Beaufort had exhibited it in a manner and degree that Morton had never before encountered.

  In Lady Beaufort's house, however, no one else was allowed pride. Certainly not his mother-or Morton. Lady Beaufort had found them, when his mother had been forced to leave her employment after being got with child by her much older and more worldly employer. She had been sixteen.

  She had had no family to go to. Only this remote a
nd haughty widow-sister to Morton's blood-father-who took her on out of charity and to see her atone for her wickedness. Which Rebecca did twice daily, kneeling and asking God for forgiveness, while Lady Beaufort looked on. And then any number of times more in the way she was treated. She had stayed because of the promise that her son-Lady Beaufort's bastard nephew-would receive an education. That a position would be secured for him in some small parish. That he would have some kind of legitimacy in the end.

  But Lady Beaufort had died and no provision had been made for either Henry or Rebecca Morton in her will.

  “It is odd, isn't it?” Morton said. “The twists and turns of a person's life?”

  His mother turned her head a little toward him, widening her eyes. “If we'd not met John Townsend, you mean?”

  “I suppose. Or to go back one step; if Lady Beaufort hadn't been robbed.”

  “Yes, and if the old crone hadn't suspected us,” his mother said bitterly, “as though we'd ever given her cause to think us thieves.”

  The scarlet face of a panting girl appeared over the gate at that moment, and then the gate sagged, and a small, serious boy lifted his head into view.

  “It's time, ma'am!” the girl gasped. “Mamma's screaming something terrible and said to beg you hurry.”

  Morton's mother swept up out of her chair. “I am sorry, Henry. But I must bring another howling human into this world of misery. I pray that you won't be chasing after this one in a few years' time.”

  She hurried into the house, and emerged a moment later carrying a cloth bag. She drew up before Morton, looking suddenly as though a tear might fall. Reaching out a hand, she straightened the lapel of his frock-coat.

  “Look at you,” she said, her voice rich and deep. “Turning yourself out so. But even with your perfect manners and your educated talk you'll not fool them for long. Remember that, Henry. They'll always find you out.” She put her cheek against his, then kissed him quickly and went out through the gate, taking the frightened children in tow.

  Morton stood for a moment looking at the opening in the hedge. Then he gathered up the remains of their tea and carried it inside, leaving some small sum of money on the tray.