The Thief Taker (26 page)

B
EFORE LEAVING FOR
Sir Bartholomew Grey's residence, Agnes considered her appearance for once. She donned her finest garb: a bodice and skirt of gold-colored wool that deepened the amber of her eyes, a clean lawn collar that nicely emphasized the curve of her breast. She regarded herself in the looking glass on her dressing chest and saw that her eyes had a fierce gleam in them. No matter what anger I rouse in the Blanchards, I shall get to the root of this, she thought. Even servants are entitled to justice and to know the truth.

She dressed her hair in a tight knot and dipped a forefinger in egg white and vinegar to coil a single fat ringlet over one shoulder. She bit her lips and pinched her cheeks, things she had not troubled herself to do for many years. Then, so that no one should remark on her finery and question her destination, she swathed herself in her cloak before she slipped into the night.

It was raining softly and she avoided the puddles. There were no stars, but by the moonlight filtering through the wafting clouds she could see there was still some traffic about. Agnes took shelter in a doorway and waited. A carriage and four trotted past, spraying muddy water, then came a hackney with a pair of passengers, then several more equipages. Before long, Agnes's boots and the hem of her cloak were drenched and there was still no sign of an empty carriage. Suppressing her frustration, she waited a short time longer, until at last a free hackney came by. She hailed the driver and settled back on the cold seat.

The carriage reeked of tobacco smoke and damp. As it jolted its way toward Cavendish Street, Agnes clutched the door frame and stared through the rain-speckled window. Pedestrians muffled against the weather hurried into doorways. She saw barefoot beggars cowering in corners and drunkards sprawled in the gutter. She listened to the distant curses of watermen, and the occasional cries of the watch, and tried not to think of the risk she was running and why Thomas had deceived her.

Presently the carriage lurched past the elegant façades of Cavendish Street. Lanterns burned on each side of the entrance to Sir Bartholomew Grey's house, and through the fanlight blazed a large chandelier, heavily swagged with droplets of crystal. The windows on either side of the hall were dark—was this because the curtains were drawn or because there was no one within?

Telling the driver to wait, Agnes stepped out and knocked at the door. A liveried footman wearing a powdered wig answered, bowing and clicking his heels as he bade her a lofty good evening. Agnes saw that his uniform—deep crimson velvet with gold epaulets and shining silver buttons, and without a single bald spot anywhere to be seen—was ten times more splendid than the Blanchard livery. Despite her best gown, she felt drab by comparison.

“Good evening. I have come to visit Sir Bartholomew Grey,” she said with as much hauteur as she could muster.

The footman puffed his chest and stared. “Are you expected, ma'am?”

“A matter of urgency has arisen. There was no time to forewarn him.”

He folded his arms and raised his chin. “Then I doubt he will see you. He is currently occupied at the card table.”

Agnes had come too far to be cowed by a spotless velvet suit. “My good man,” she said, drawing up to her full height, “the fact that I have no appointment is neither here nor there. Go to your master, and inform him a Mrs. Agnes Meadowes desires a moment of his time. She has been sent by Mr. Blanchard and Justice Cordingly, on a matter of grave importance concerning his wine cooler.”

The footman dropped his arms to his sides. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then, thinking better of it, closed it wordlessly. Bowing again, briskly and more deeply than before, he ushered her in and departed through a double door, without allowing her a glimpse of what lay within.

Agnes strode about the hall, anxiously waiting. The fire was unlit, the stone floor shiny with polish yet inhospitable. How many housemaids had spent hours scrubbing and buffing here until their arms ached? she wondered. A bracket clock on the mantelpiece ticked with agonizing slowness. She regarded a row of marble busts of Roman emperors ranged on columns. She began to pace the corridor, unsettled by the curious sensation that the ranks of blank alabaster eyes saw through her ladylike posturing and disapproved. Then she caught sight of the wine cooler. It stood resplendent on a marble-topped commode, flanked by a pair of blazing candelabra.

So Thomas had been here. Perhaps he was here still. She ran her hands over the sides of the great object, her fingers brushing over dolphins and mermaids' tresses, and the smooth musculature of Neptune's arms and the prickle of his trident. She was uncertain whether she hoped or feared that Thomas had gone. She was not ready to confront him.

Just then, her eye alighted upon the marks set in a line on the flat rim. There was the leopard, the lion, the letters
NB
for Nicholas Blanchard, and
P
for the year. Had these letters been transposed? She recalled the way Thomas had ascertained the tampering on the salver. She breathed on the shining surface around the marks. It remained perfectly smooth; there was no ridge to indicate that the marks had been tampered with. No doubt Thomas had introduced the whole business of duty dodging simply to divert her from the truth.

The footman reemerged. “Sir Bartholomew will spare you a moment of his time in the saloon.” He rang a bell, and a short while later a second footman arrived and carried off her cloak and gloves. Nervously she flattened her collar and smoothed her skirt. When she was ready, she nodded. The first footman threw open the double doors and stood to one side, bowing slightly, arm outstretched. “This way, ma'am.” Heart pumping, Agnes entered.

The room was lit by a chandelier twice as large as the one in the hall, and furnished with carved gilt-wood sofas upholstered in vivid green silk, and mahogany commodes with marble tops. One wall was punctuated with two long windows draped in gold damask. Opposite was a grand marble fireplace, and suspended above was a large dark painting of naked women drinking wine and cavorting with swarthy muscular men, some of whom appeared to have goats' legs, and horns on their heads.

She was no more than a foot across the carpet when the footman cleared his throat. “Mrs. Agnes Meadowes, sir,” he announced in a ringing tone, before retreating backward and closing the doors behind him. Agnes was overwhelmed by a flood of panic. She saw the folly of this visit and longed to retreat.

But Sir Bartholomew was seated at a card table in the center of the room. Seeing Agnes standing stock still on the carpet, he rose and held out his hand. “Mrs. Meadowes,” he said slowly, with an air of perplexity. “I have heard something of you from Mr. Williams, who left here only an hour since. He never said you would come calling on me in person. You are the family cook, I understand. What brings you out at this time of night?”

He was stout and florid of complexion, with a bulbous nose, small blue eyes, and a slightly receding chin. He was formally attired in a silk jacket of dark purple damask, black velvet breeches, and an old-fashioned full-bottomed wig. Cards and ivory tokens were strewn across the table. A black lace fan with silver sequins lay at the empty place facing him. On a sofa nearby a book lay open.

“I have come, sir, to ask a favor of you.”

Sir Bartholomew's ruddy countenance flickered with unease. “Blanchard said nothing of any favors. Do not expect to take advantage of me, just because you recovered something of mine that should never have been lost in the first place. And if it's a position you are after, I have to tell you I already have a French chef.”

“I do not seek to take advantage,” said Agnes, as her pulse sturdied. “Or a post. Only answers to certain questions.”

Grey rested his hand on the table, as though bracing himself against an unfavorable onslaught. “Questions on what subject?”

“Three murders took place around the time your wine cooler went missing. But unlike it, those lives can never be recovered. All I ask is your assistance in finding the killer and bringing him to justice.”

Sir Bartholomew Grey got up and began to pace around the room. “I suppose your aim is worthy. But it strikes me that a woman of your position should not be meddling in such matters. Why has Blanchard never mentioned this? I assumed he would inform the justice, who would pursue the villainous thief. Tell me his name and I'll have him apprehended directly.”

“The thief's name is Harry Drake,” said Agnes, “a professional housebreaker, who operated with the connivance of the thief taker Marcus Pitt. But as for apprehending the pair—you need not concern yourself over that.”

“Why?”

“Drake is dead, and Pitt is in the roundhouse awaiting committal.”

“Then I confess myself baffled, Mrs. Meadowes. What more do you want?”

Agnes smiled sweetly. “As I said, the murders are all connected to the theft of your wine cooler. But I don't believe either Drake or Pitt was responsible for them; I think it was someone inside Blanchards'. The break-in was not fortuitous. Drake was instructed on what to steal—he entered knowing that the wine cooler was the most valuable item Blanchards' had ever made and that Mr. Blanchard would pay a sizable sum for its return. That sum was doubtless to be shared between the three conspirators.”

“You mean Drake, Pitt, and the anonymous traitor would all have shared in the reward?”

“Precisely.”

“But the money was recovered, I understand. So the plot was foiled.”

“Only in a material sense,” Agnes countered levelly. “There are still three murders that Justice Cordingly has little inclination to pursue. The murders of a servant girl, an apprentice, and a housebreaker do not apparently merit the same justice as the robbery of someone of means.”

Uneasily, Sir Bartholomew nodded. “But did not Pitt commit the murders?”

“I do not believe so; he tends to keep himself distant from his crimes—though he must know who did.”

Grey pulled up another chair and offered it to Agnes before sitting heavily in his own. “Then leave the matter in my hands. Justice Cordingly is an acquaintance of mine. If Pitt has been apprehended, it will be no hard task for one of his constables to wheedle out the identity of the traitor inside Blanchards'.”

“I'm not certain Cordingly will do so when he learns the range of Pitt's influence. I think the chances of Pitt remaining in custody and revealing who employed him are remarkably slim.”

Grey began to pile the counters into perfect columns. “Do I take it you have another scheme?”

“Perhaps,” said Agnes, sitting erect, head held high. “But first I should like to ask you about another matter, which I believe may somehow have a bearing on these events.”

Sir Bartholomew nodded and waved his hand, signaling her to proceed. Agnes drew a deep breath. “What I should like to know, sir, is what you can tell me of the background of the craftsman who made your wine cooler, Thomas Williams.”

“Surely you do not suspect that Williams, one of the most talented silversmiths of my acquaintance, could be a cold-blooded murderer?

“I think there is more to him than we know.”

“I very much doubt it. His father is a craftsman of the highest skill. He supplied me with much of the plate for my house in Newcastle. Thomas is his second son; he served his apprenticeship under his father, but wanted to better himself and thought London was the place to do it. He asked me for assistance in finding a suitable master who might offer him a place as a journeyman. I was happy to assist and mentioned him to Theodore Blanchard, who was in need of additional help following the retirement of his father. And so he was taken on.”

“Are you familiar with the family mark?”

“Naturally. As I said, I have been a patron of the father's for many years.”

Agnes pulled the heart-shaped box from her pocket and handed it to him. “Is the mark on this his father's?”

Sir Bartholomew took up a magnifying glass from a nearby side table. He plucked the box off Agnes's palm and held it between forefinger and thumb close to the candelabra, turning it and raising and lowering the glass to gain the best view of the marks.

After a while he nodded, then put the glass and box down on the table. “Yes, as far as I can tell the initials are his father's mark. And the extra mark, the one that resembles three small turrets, shows the box was made in Newcastle.”

Hearing Riley's account thus partially confirmed, Agnes's spirits plunged. Thomas had deceived her. Her dismay made her reckless. “Were you aware of the engagement between Thomas Williams and Rose Francis, who was kitchen maid for Lord Carew and then moved to the Blanchards'?”

“A kitchen maid?” Sir Bartholomew looked at her as if she were mad. “You cannot suppose I involve myself with maidservants. My housekeeper takes care of such matters.”

“Do you know Lord Carew?”

“He is a casual acquaintance of mine.”

“But you never set eyes on the girl?”

Sir Bartholomew adjusted his cravat, and blew his nose noisily in a lace-edged handkerchief. Then he began to pace again. “As I've told you, no. I assume you are not suggesting they conspired to aid Pitt to steal my wine cooler, or that Williams committed the murders. What motive would he have?”