The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (25 page)

“That is rather noble of you, Mr. Hamilton,” Morton said. “After all, the world is hardly fair.”

“No, it is not,” Hamilton agreed, his manner very serious. “Were it fair, Louisa would not suffer so. She would be with the man deserving of her heart and—” He looked up suddenly, as though surprised to find Morton standing there listening. He tried to smile. “And I would find myself addressed as Uncle, I suppose.”

“May that yet come to pass,” Morton said.

The other dipped his head. But the mute unhappiness in his face seemed to suggest that Miss Hamilton's brother took little enough comfort in the thought.

It was late afternoon by the time Morton reached the confectionery of Mr. Amos Wardle. The place was just where Valentine Rudd had told him it would be, in the better part of Whitechapel—though Whitechapel all the same— a modest enough establishment, but sporting the new lowsilled windows at the front to allow prospective buyers to view a selection of the goods without having to leave the street. This was a clever innovation, Morton thought, but surely a lure to the flash men, especially in this neighbourhood. He wondered how many of these broad and tempting windows had been broken in London to date.

Wardle's shop was busy, and Morton saw the man himself helping his clerks tend customers at the far end of the counter that ran the length of the room. He made his way casually through the place, his baton tucked inconspicuously under his arm, until they were face to face. It was when the confectioner looked up that Morton remembered him: the fat man who'd brushed past him in guilty haste at the front door of the Otter on Morton's first visit. Wardle's small mouth drooped open in dismay. He apparently remembered Morton, too. Two worlds the man was usually able to keep separate had suddenly come together.

“Ssss…” He seemed to struggle to get his first word out. Morton watched him in silence, one eyebrow unsympathetically raised, waiting.

“Ssss…sss…” Amos Wardle changed strategies, his face red with the effort. “C-c-can I be of ass-asss-sistance, suh-suh,
sir
?”

“I expect you can, Mr. Wardle.”

“Wh-whom have I the h-h-honour…?”

“Henry Morton. Bow Street.”

The fat man's face suddenly shone with perspiration. He nodded hastily, thought to speak again, couldn't, thought better of it, nodded again, then raised a section of the counter and came out into the shop. He gestured to Morton to follow, and waddled rapidly to the back of the room where he opened another door, holding it for Morton to enter first.

They stepped into a small, heavily furnished parlour, in what were clearly the private apartments occupied by the shop owner and his family. With an anxious glance out at his customers, Amos Wardle pulled the door closed behind them, then hurried on and closed the other door that led into the rest of the house. Without waiting to be asked, Morton took a chair and folded his arms, looking coolly around him. Dogs, a Dutch still life, and, perhaps more significant given the predilections of the master of the house, a crude representation of the Spartan youth of both sexes at exercise, boys and girls alike stripped and glistening. His portly host hovered, struggling with what seemed to be the first words of various offers of hospitality.

“Sit down, sir,” Morton cut him off.

Wardle obeyed, eyes lowered. But Morton waited until he had raised them again, and given the Runner a look of dread. Behind the back door they were both suddenly aware of female voices, laughter, and the clatter of dishes.

“I believe you frequent the Otter House in Bell Lane, Mr. Wardle.” It was not a question.

Amos Wardle breathed out. “Softly, sir, please.”

“You are an habitual indulger in its…” and Morton
let every particle of his disgust enter his voice “… pleasures.”

Wardle sagged back into his chair, and there passed over his countenance a curious expression, of defeat and yet, somehow, relief. He nodded, and quietly said:

“Very well, sir. Very well.” His difficulty with speech seemed to have vanished.

“Very well, what, Mr. Wardle?”

“I know your business here,” the other muttered. There was another burst of feminine merriment from behind the paneling, which seemed to make Wardle shrink even deeper into his overstuffed armchair. “Let us be quick about it, before my wife comes in. What will buy your peace?”

Morton regarded him, his jaw tight with revulsion. And, of course, this was what they all thought of the Runners.

“I want something other than gold,” he replied. For the moment, he might as well keep the fear of blackmail in the fat tradesman's mind.

Wardle gaped at him in a kind of dim, hopeless panic. What could Morton mean? What unimaginable price could the Runner be about to propose?

“That house is a legal house, sir,” Wardle protested faintly. “I've every Englishman's right to go where he pleases. The Otter is not unknown to you people. It has always been left in peace.”

Morton looked thoughtfully at him. Had not Joshua said something like this upon their first meeting? Some suggestion of Bow Street's knowledge of the Otter. Did some Runner indulge in its secret pleasures? Morton did not even like to think who this might be. What would he do if he met someone like Townsend there? Or worse— Sir Nathaniel?

“I haven't offered you harm, Mr. Wardle.” He smiled, with a soft and quite unmistakable menace. “Have I?”

Amos Wardle pulled at a handkerchief and wiped his gleaming face.

“I know it to be a vice in me,” he abruptly started to confess. “I know it, sir, and I will tell you I take no pride in it. I abuse my understanding when I do such things, and I abuse my person, too, which my God gave me as a clean and perfect vessel for my spirit.”

Henry Morton stared in contemptuous surprise as the man persisted.

“I know it is a low and vulgar indulgence, and that it shames me. I am a respectable man, sir, and a good supporter of my family. I am an honest man of trade, and except for this one matter I've no other vices. I have tried to prise myself away from its… seductions. But it has been unavailing. It is like strong drink to me. I cannot do without it. And Mrs. Wardle would never understand that. She is… she is a virtuous woman, sir. And she…she…is everything to me; the partner of my soul!” He had recourse again to his handkerchief, and loudly blew his nose and wiped at his watering eyes.

Morton continued to regard him in distaste. It was a sin, but only a sin in his own regard. As if he himself were the only person who could be harmed by it—to this particular father, the children meant nothing.

“I haven't the slightest concern for the well-being of your rubbishy little soul, Mr. Wardle,” he said harshly. “I am only interested in some information you can provide. Do so properly and fully, and I shall gladly leave you in peace.”

Wardle looked up hopefully. Morton's insults did not touch him. Deliverance was all.

“Were you in the Otter Friday evening last?”

The man had only to think for a moment. “Yes, yes, I was. I…I am, most nights.”

“Did you see there a young gentleman, aged perhaps five-and-twenty, and darkly dressed?”

And finally, a simple, prompt answer.

“Yes. I recollect him. He sat at the table Bill usually sits at.”

“He was drinking brandy?”

“Yes. Yes, in fact, we stood each other to a round.”

Morton's heart speeded up at his good fortune.

“You spoke to him?”

“Yes, sir. Only for a few moments. There's not too many gentlemen to be seen in the Otter, and I thought to be civil.” Wardle seemed to react as Morton's features hardened into an incredulous stare, and hastened to explain. “I assumed he was there for… the same reason as I. There were not too many places to sit down, either. I had come down… from above,” and here Wardle looked ever more uncomfortable, and cleared his throat, “and the other table was taken by some low folk or other. I wanted to wet my whistle and I asked if I might join him. I ordered him a brandy, as I saw that was his pleasure. And so he ordered an ale for me, as that was mine. And we had a few words.”

“Concerning what?”

“I asked him which of the little—” Wardle looked embarrassed, then hurried on, “but he said he was not there for that purpose.”

Morton looked at him closely. “Did you believe him?”

“Yes, sir, I did. He was rather a shy young gentleman, and seemed unwilling to talk about the matter. He merely said no, such was not his pleasure, he was simply there to meet some folk, and they were late.”

“Some folk?”

“Yes. Some gentlemen, I think he said.”

“Did he name them, these gentlemen?”

“No, sir.”

“What else was said?”

“Very little, sir. He was not talkative. I drank my ale and presently went back upstairs. When I came down a time later, he was still there, still alone. I went out then, sir, and came home.”

“What o'clock was that?”

Wardle thought, his mouth open. “Could not have been later than half nine, sir.”

“How did he seem to you? Did he seem drunk?”

“No, sir, certainly not when I spoke to him. When I came down the second time, he was sitting a bit lower in his chair, and staring, blank-like. He seemed not to see me, and I did not trouble him, but just went home.”

Morton pondered. “Was the Otter busy that night?”

“ 'Twas perhaps moderately so, at first. As I said, the tables were taken. But when I left it was nearer empty.”

“Who is this Bill fellow? Is he the owner there?”

“It may be. Folk there talk very respectfully to him. I never had words with him myself. No one ever told me who he was.”

“How do you know my people are aware of the Otter? What made you say that?”

Wardle looked at Morton in surprise. “Well, if you know nothing of it, Mr. Morton, then perhaps I'm mistaken.”

“Something made you believe this,” Morton said in irritation.

“Folk there say it,” vaguely replied the shopkeeper. “I cannot remember when I heard it first. I have always understood it to be so, that the house was under the protection of… some constables or members of the Patrol.
That is why I go to that particular house—for I've always believed I was safe from… you people. I—I presumed there was…” his voice dropped “…a consideration involved.”

The house paid off someone from Bow Street, or perhaps some members of the Foot or Horse Patrol. At any rate, it appeared the Otter had a protector. Such arrangements were rumoured to exist with ordinary inns, and even sometimes with flash houses. But for a place such as the Otter, its profits stained by the most disreputable of all London vices? And now, out of the same house, a possible murder.

Then Amos Wardle said something very striking.

“Everyone knew. All the regulars. They only kept it from fools like Smeeton.”

“Like
whom
?”

Wardle saw he had said something more significant than he knew, and that it may have been a mistake. His stutter returned.

“Th-th-that cove who was huh-huh-
hanged
. He came in, but the folk there laughed at him behind his back. They t-t-told him nothing. They all ss-ss-
said
he'd be hanged someday, he was such a cull.” Wardle smiled weakly. “And he was, wasn't he?”

M
orton set out on foot westward along
Whitechapel Road, his mind teeming with the implications of what he had just found out. He needed exercise, and air in which to think. Glendinning had not been drinking heavily; he had been waiting for someone—more than one person. He had not been whoring; he had probably never been to the Otter before. He may have died unaware that it was children one found up those stairs. The young country gentleman had been given an address and an hour. He might not even have known how infamous a street it was, or what part of the city it was in. He had simply given the instruction to the jarvey, and found himself in the tender care of Joshua and Bill and the flash men. But who had sent him there, and under what pretext?

Damn that vanished note! Could it have been the key?

And what was this about Smeeton?