The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (36 page)

Beadwell looked vexed, and glanced over at Sir Nathaniel Conant. But the Chief Magistrate stayed silent, as if he could not trust himself to speak. He merely stared darkly at Vaughan.

“I confess,” Francis Beadwell began, “that I share some of Sir William's doubts on this matter. A female child of such age, and such a… background, is indeed a slender reed upon which to build. I don't know if she could have been coached to say such things, but certainly she is a cunningly clever girl. Her… unfortunate profession must count strongly against her in the mind of any upright man. This Police Court needs more solid, impartial evidence. Lacking such proof, I do not see how I can recommend any charges be laid except the obvious one against Mr. Morton for theft.”

William Parsons nodded agreement. Sir Nathaniel sat glowering but, Morton realised, his views must
essentially be the same. He might want the outcome to be otherwise, but he could not possibly allow himself to believe the word of a child prostitute.

The room had fallen eerily silent.

“The prisoner is to be bound over for trial, then,” sighed Beadwell, “on the charges of—”

“My lords!” Jimmy Presley had risen, striding out into the open floor. His whole manner was stiff and awkward, like that of a furious child.

“What is it, Mr. Presley?” Francis Beadwell asked.

“It was me that pinched the Smeetons, man and wife, and I didn't note it at the time but it was not quite as square as it all seemed. Mr. Vaughan gave me all the information and told me to say that it came from my informant, so that I might get my appointment to Bow Street. I thought he was helping me, but I don't think that now. He told me to bring Mr. Morton along and even arranged to have Morton here at number four so that I'd not have to search about for him. ‘You go by Bow Street and get Sir Galahad,’ he said. That's what he called Morton. And then he said, ‘They'll never doubt him.’”

The three members of the panel stared at him in disbelief. “Are you admitting that you gave false evidence in my court?” Sir Nathaniel demanded, incredulous.

Presley's gaze darted around the room, everywhere but to Sir Nathaniel. With a sinking heart, Morton realised Presley had spoken before he'd thought. A roar was growing in the room as the audience began to clamour in anger and excitement.

“Aye, he did for the Smeetons, just as we said!” someone cried out.

George Vaughan was adding his voice to those besieging the panel. “My lords! My lords! What has this to do—”

Beadwell and the clerk were calling for silence, while Sir Nathaniel continued to sit motionless, staring at Vaughan. It was only then that Morton caught sight of Arabella. She was pointing to Lucy, and calling out something.

“My lord!” Henry Morton shouted.

“Peace! Peace!” cried Francis Beadwell. “Mr. Presley, resume your place! This is not to the issue just now. We are not here to discuss the Smeetons, and to raise up the passions of this city again.”

Presley unwillingly obeyed, but a scattering of voices continued to sound in the room.

“Nay, nay, you'll not have
that
!”

“You'll not have him heard, will you!”

“My lord…” Morton continued desperately to try to make himself heard. “My lord! My witness has not done.”

“Mr. Morton, we have ruled on the value of the testimony of this—”

“Not testimony, my lord! She—”

“I have the paper,” piped Lucy in a small, clear voice.

“No more of this—” scornfully began George Vaughan.

Suddenly Sir Nathaniel Conant rose at his desk. He brought his hand down with a crash.

“Quiet!”

And now there really was a startled silence. The Chief Magistrate heavily lowered himself into his seat again, and turned toward Lucy. “What paper, maid?”

“Maid!” scoffed George Vaughan, low and bitter.

“
Silence yourself, sir!
” Sir Nathaniel roared in a thunderous bellow of pent-up fury. The stillness of the courtroom deepened into a frightened hush. Lucy looked pale, but stood her ground, perched still on her
chair in the witness dock. The Chief Magistrate's voice was slightly unsteady as he once more asked: “What paper have you?”

“The letter, my lord. That the gentleman had. The swell dressed all in dark clothes.”

“Mr. Glendinning?”

“Yes, my lord.” And Lucy reached into the reticule she had kept tucked tightly under her arm the entire time. From it she removed a small volume, which Morton recognised at once as Arabella's Byron. With childish concentration she applied herself to the string tied around it, releasing the many bits of paper stuffed between its leaves. Her small fingers nimbly searched through these for the one she needed.

“Miss Hamilton told me not to forget to show it to you,” Lucy breathlessly explained. “And I almost did forget!”

“Miss Hamilton?” gruffly wondered Sir Nathaniel.

“Miss Louisa Hamilton,” quietly explained Henry Morton, “the fiancée of the late Mr. Glendinning.”

“How did you come by this letter?” the Chief Magistrate asked Lucy.

“I was doing my cleaning, the morning after. It was on the floor under his table, in the sawdust. The gentleman must have dropped it. I took it because I like to have things to practise reading.”

“Pass it to the clerk, girl. Mr. Smith, if you please.”

As the reedy man got up from his desk and stepped to the witness box, Henry Morton turned his eyes toward George Vaughan. There was little obvious change in the other Runner's secretive countenance, but Morton saw the almost imperceptible sag in the shoulders, the calculating look in the eyes. Vaughan knew what was in this letter. And he knew what it meant.

“Let it be noted,” said Sir Nathaniel Conant, taking up the document, “that the witness has produced a letter of normal dimensions, addressed on the outside, in a firm, adult hand, to Mr. Halbert Glendinning, Oxford Street.” He unfolded the paper and turned it over.

“It is dated Friday, ninth June, 1815, and reads as follows:

Glendinning—

All is arranged. Go to the Otter public house, by the old brewery in Bell Lane, Spitalfields, at nine-thirty tonight. This is our man Vaughan's ground, and he will meet us there. He will require twenty sovereigns, of which R. will already have provided ten.

“It bears no signature,” concluded Sir Nathaniel in a businesslike voice which said much for the change in his mood. He turned his eye on Vaughan.

“I believe, sir, that you told this Police Court that you had never been in this house,” the Magistrate said very deliberately. “I believe that was your testimony?”

Vaughan said nothing. He could certainly have objected, Morton thought, that the note, too, must be fabricated evidence. But the other Runner understood as well as Morton what Sir Nathaniel's view of things now was. Such an objection would be bootless here. No doubt he was already thinking of his strategy of defence at the Old Bailey.

Sir Nathaniel looked at the note again, and seemed to wonder aloud. “But who wrote this?”

Young Lucy, attentive in the witness stand, took it upon herself to answer. “The man who had Mr. Glendinning dished,” she matter-of-factly proposed, and then shrugged to indicate she didn't know who that was.

But Morton knew.

E
vents ran very quickly then. Sir Nathaniel
ordered Morton released, and the same irons were used to bind George Vaughan—a proceeding Morton watched with a mixture of grim satisfaction and foreboding. For himself, freedom and vindication. But for his profession, and for Bow Street? The British public's worst fears had been confirmed.

Sir Nathaniel stood behind his desk regarding a contrite-looking Jimmy Presley and told him he could thank his Maker that he'd not been standing in the witness dock when he made his admission of giving false evidence.

Almost as soon as his hands were free, Morton took from his pocket the sheet of paper Wilkes had brought. Hastily he ran his eye down Stretton's list of the captains who had served at Albuera—Captain Frederick J. Dennis. Captains M. Moss and Richard Davenant. Captains Thomas Russell and Francis Galsworthy. Captain Peter Hamilton.

Morton stared at the name a moment and then closed
his eyes. He opened them to find Townsend by his side, clapping him on the back.

“John,” he told the old Runner. “I will thank you a thousand times over for this day and more, but there is a matter, more than urgent, that I must attend to. Will you do me the great favour of finding Mrs. Malibrant and telling her to meet me at number seven Hanover Square? Can you do that?”

“It seems a small enough favour, providing she is still here. But what shall I say this is all in aid of?” Townsend asked.

“I cannot tarry to explain. In truth, I pray that I am wrong.”

Morton grabbed Presley's arm, and the two pushed their way out the back of the Bow Street office, and into the nearest hackney-coach.

“What is this about, Morton?” Presley asked, but before Morton could explain, their carriage turned into High Holborn and found the way choked with people: a great flowing current of them with back eddies in every door and before every public house. Such a cacophony rose from this mass that it was like standing next to falling water.

“What's the matter?” Morton shouted.

“Haven't you heard?” the man nearest Morton's window bellowed. He waved a mug of ale, a drunken grin fixed on his florid face, jumping up on the spoke of a wheel of their now stationary carriage. “
Bony's beaten!
Wellington stood him off on a hill south of Brussels, and the Frenchers have all fled home!”

“Nay, ye gabbling ninny!” the man beside him shouted in a thick Scots burr. “It's but a rumour! The whole daft toon's turned out to celebrate a rumour! Nobody really kens aught at all!”

Morton looked over at Presley, who shook his head. Who knew? But whether it was true or not, Hanover Square was still a good distance off and they were stuck here in a flood of people, like a coach foundering in a ford.

“Let's leg it,” shouted Morton over the bedlam.

They bounced out of the carriage, forcing a path through the crowd, Presley waving his baton, although this only seemed to amuse the few who noticed. They struggled ahead, setting their shoulders to the press, and finally made their way against the stream of humanity across Charing Cross and into the relative backwater of Sutton Street.

Everywhere they went people were out and in a high spirit. Kegs were rolled from inns and opened on the cobbles, publicans serving ale and cider by the dipper. Children seemed to be underfoot at each step, and twice Morton kicked at dogs that barked and snapped about his ankles, their dispositions seemingly affected by the madness around them. Soho Square was impassable, and they were forced south to Old Compton. Assemblies in Piccadilly and on Regent were thicker than they had yet seen, so it was a long and almost random route they followed to their destination, pushing, bulling, running when they could, diverted repeatedly by impassable throngs.

When they finally arrived, Hanover Square seemed almost hushed by comparison, the crowds apparently having gravitated to nearby Regent and Oxford streets. Morton and Presley were panting from their efforts as they pulled the bell.

No one answered.

Morton swore an oath, and stepped back into the street to look up at the windows. They stared blankly back at him.

“No one seems to be home,” Presley said, employing the sensible action of trying the door handle. It was locked.

“We'll have it down, Jimmy,” Morton said.

“Morton…”
Presley cautioned.

“I will take responsibility.”

Sensible of his tender shoulder, Morton and his young colleague stood side by side and kicked hard near to the lock. On their third try the jamb splintered; the door suddenly swung free.

Morton pushed in, calling out as he went, but only his own voice echoed back. The house seemed unnaturally still and silent after the chaos of the streets. The sun slanted in the windows and spread over the floor in perfect squares and shining rectangles. Dust motes spun in the angled light.

Morton did not like the feel of the place.

They found the rooms upon the ground floor empty, and Morton mounted the stair, almost afraid to speak or make a noise. The silence rang hollowly in his ears.

At the stairhead he smelled something faintly acrid, like a fire smouldering in a hearth that did not draw. The first room they looked into was empty, and seemed so perfectly ordinary that Morton almost wondered if his fears were unfounded.

But then he opened the next door and found Peter Hamilton, dressed in his habitual black and lying awkwardly upon the carpet. A stain of drying blood dyed the carpet around him, and a dueling pistol lay near to hand.

“Dear Jesus…” Jimmy Presley whispered. “Who's this cove?”

“His name was Peter Hamilton,” Morton said softly.

“Did he do himself, do you think?”

“Perhaps,” Morton said.

“This is what you expected to find?”