The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (5 page)

Vaughan dropped his eyes to his reading again. “Don't go spreading it abroad, Mr. Morton. We'll have the gentry in here wanting our places.”

“Isn't that the truth, Mr. Vaughan. The envy of the world, we are.” Morton sank into a chair and picked up a
Hue and Cry
.

“I hear you took our Mr. Presley out to see a necktie party,” Vaughan said from behind his paper blind.

Morton did not respond.

“There's a pair won't be stealing away the living of hard-working shopkeepers,” Vaughan went on.

Presley kept his face hidden behind his sheaf of paper.

“No, they won't be doing that,” Morton agreed, and glanced at the first page of his own journal. “I hear I missed a show yester morning out on Wormwood Scrubs…?”

Presley let forth a small, forced laugh, looking over at Vaughan, who continued to flip through his paper. “A bit of target practice, was all. Pair o' cullies, though. Couldn't hit the stable door if their lives depended on it! And it cost them dear, didn't it, that little stroll on the grass!” He laughed again, but it sounded forced and artificial. Morton wondered what Vaughan had been saying to the young man.

“Did it?” asked Morton. He had no opportunity to say more, however, as the side door opened and the Chief Magistrate, Sir Nathaniel Conant, strode in, followed by his clerk and several helpers. The early session of Bow Street Police Court had just gone into recess.

But the “beak” wanted to know about the duel, too.

George Vaughan was smoothly reassuring. “No blood spilt, my lord, and no harm done. Mr. Presley and I were on 'em before they'd taken up the matter in earnest.”

Sir Nathaniel Conant leveled a hard gaze at the veteran Runner, but the latter met his eye steadily. “I am informed, Mr. Vaughan, that shots were fired.”

“Well, sir, if so, it must have happened before we arrived, which I can hardly credit.”

The Magistrate scowled as he lowered himself into his seat behind the polished satinwood writing-table, a massive man hunched over a delicate stick of furniture.

“How did you know of it?” he demanded.

“Mr. Presley received a tidy little warning,” Vaughan said. “An abigail came by—”

“Who?”

“A lady's maid, my lord. And Mr. Presley took charge of the matter, promptly found me, and was good enough to carry me up to the Scrubs with him. Most commendably direct, he was.”

“Who was she?”

Morton caught just a flicker of a glance from Presley to Vaughan before both men shrugged.

“Didn't say,” answered Presley. “Nor named who sent her, neither.”

“And the principals in this affair were…?” Sir Nathaniel looked from one Runner to the next. “Morton? Were you part of this?”

“Nay,” said Henry Morton. “I was in Whitechapel all morning.”

“Mr. Vaughan?”

“A Mr. Halbert Glendinning,” said Vaughan. “Up against our Colonel Rokeby. Seconds: for Glendinning, a Mr. Hamilton. For Rokeby, his toady-man Pierce, as ever.”

While they spoke, Sir Nathaniel's factotums busied themselves about the chamber. Briefs and order papers were stacked in the cabinets lining the wall behind the Magistrate; the wig was lifted discreetly from his head; a goblet of Madeira was decanted and placed comfortably to hand on the table.

He sipped his wine. “This bloody man Rokeby's killed five times; isn't that what's said?”

Morton noticed a look of considerable surprise pass over young Presley's face at this. But then he swiftly composed himself again.

“At least.” Morton himself quietly answered the question.

“And you did nothing?”

“We warned 'em very firm, Sir Nathaniel” was Vaughan's ready retort. “I'll warrant they took our meaning, too.”

“Oh, aye, I'll warrant they did. I'll warrant there was some handy giving and taking.”

Vaughan's eyebrows raised as though this suggestion of impropriety impugned his honour.

Perhaps Sir Nathaniel realised he had overstepped a bound as well. If he was going to make accusations against a Runner they would have to be in a court of enquiry. The Magistrate swallowed again from his glass and one of his assistants whispered urgently in his ear.

Presley caught Morton's eye and with a small grin rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. The little gesture, Morton realised, did not go unnoticed by the portly man seated behind the table, who then returned his attention to the Runners.

“No felony was committed,” said Vaughan evenly. “We performed our proper duty.”

“What was it over, this duel?” the Magistrate asked, ignoring Vaughan's defense.

“Mere idle talk, sir. Hot words, is all,” replied Presley disdainfully, but Vaughan drew himself up and eyed the Magistrate darkly.

Sir Nathaniel Conant regarded him a moment, reflecting. “In future, sir,” he said coldly, “when men discharge weapons at one another, you are to arrest them and bring them before this Police Court, as a case of attempted murder. The panel, not you, shall be the judge of the seriousness of the infringement on His Majesty's peace.”

“As you say, my lord,” drawled George Vaughan.

There was enough defiance in this laconic response to make the Chief Magistrate hesitate an instant, but not quite sufficient to draw him into further confrontation.

“There is a complication,” announced Henry Morton. All their eyes went to him. “Last night, the same day as his interrupted duel, Mr. Halbert Glendinning turned up dead.”

“Cor!” blurted Jimmy Presley. Sir Nathaniel Conant stared.

“What on earth do you mean, sir, ‘turned up dead’?”

“I mean, my lord, that he arrived at a social function in a hackney-coach, and he was dead when the footman opened the door.”

George Vaughan cleared his throat. “I heard he was drunk. Choked on his own puke.”

It was now the turn of the other three to look in surprise at him.

“You know of this, too?” demanded Sir Nathaniel.

“Town's full of it, my lord. I had it from an informant of mine—member of the serving class, but reliable.”

“Was this person there?”

“Spoke to one who was, appears.”

“I admire my brother officer's sources,” remarked Henry Morton a bit sourly, “but I was in Portman House last night myself, and I am less certain the man's death was natural.”

George Vaughan looked at him wordlessly, but it was evident to Morton that the man was far from pleased to be contradicted. Nor was this the first time the two of them had been at odds.

“Why?” demanded Sir Nathaniel Conant.

“There are several suspicious circumstances,” Morton replied. “He had not choked on his vomit, as his mouth
and throat were clear of it. He was young and in apparent good health. But more to the point, not only had someone aimed to kill him earlier that morning—our notorious Colonel Rokeby—but he had come to Portman House from one of the worst criminal dens in London. I tracked down the hackney-coach driver who brought him, and the man was frightened out of his wits. Something transpired at this flash house, and I think the driver knows or suspects something of it. I gave him a bit of time to mull it over.”

“Which flash house was this?” grunted the Chief Magistrate.

“The Otter House, Bell Lane, Spitalfields. I think there should be an investigation, my lord, and the coroner called in to authorize a postmortem examination.”

Sir Nathaniel scowled in distaste. “And what is it you think happened to him, Mr. Morton?”

“I am not sure, sir, but it seems very likely he was murdered, and it would not be difficult to guess who had this done.”

The Magistrate eyed him. “Have you a witness?”

“I have not. Not yet.”

Sir Nathaniel shook his head. “A man who frequents a house like that,” he remarked, “courts such a fate. And perhaps deserves it.”

“Lord Arthur Darley, his host, assured me that Glen-dinning was a man of modest deportment, and excellent character, not given to such … practices. The body, incidentally, lies at his house for the moment. I asked him to wait upon our warrant.”

“What are you suggesting we do?” Sir Nathaniel demanded impatiently.

Morton drew breath. “I would like to have Sir Benjamin—”

“Oh, your precious Brodie, again,” scoffed Vaughan with a glance at the ceiling.

Sir Benjamin Brodie was undoubtedly England's foremost, indeed single, expert on poisons, and had lectured on the subject with great authority in London, as well as at Cambridge. But Henry Morton was the only man at Bow Street who believed that such knowledge could be of use in police detection, and Sir Nathaniel had had only too much experience with the fate of Morton's supposed “evidence” at Sessions Court. Never once had their lordships accepted it, and he'd had to listen to many a stern lecture on its inadmissibility. The simple truth was that there was no reliable test for the presence of even a single kind of poison in a dead body. Quack chemists had completely muddied the waters, rendering any such claims doubtful. Convictions were only ever obtained with direct, corroborating testimony.

“Spare me your alchemical lore, Mr. Morton,” the Chief Magistrate told him.

“The death was suspicious,” repeated Henry Morton.

As Sir Nathaniel Conant mused, his glance shifted from Morton to Vaughan to Presley. The impression came unbidden into Morton's mind that there was something more than he entirely grasped going on amongst the people in this little room. But he was far from understanding what it was. An intuition, a vague feeling, was all he had.

“Very well,” decided the Chief Magistrate. “I will summon Sir Charles Carey and we'll go to Portman House together to view the remains, after I adjourn my court for midday. Send word to Lord Arthur not to
make any arrangements until our arrival. We shall need to speak with the man's family. Offer my condolences and ask if they would wait upon us there at, what? Half noon?”

Morton dipped his head in acquiescence. The Magistrate moved on to another topic.

“The matter of the two Smeeton miscreants… went off duly?”

A curious way to ask if being suspended by a rope around the neck had had its usual effect, Morton thought.

“It went off…” he answered bleakly.

“There was some difficulty?” asked Sir Nathaniel, in response to Morton's unspoken reservation.

“The condemned man made certain accusations from the scaffold.”

George Vaughan released a snort of contemptuous laughter, but Morton noticed that Jimmy Presley only looked rather pale.

“It is hardly the first time,” remarked the Chief Magistrate.

“He named the officers of police involved in his capture,” went on Henry Morton. “He accused us of profiting from his death and his wife's, of bringing them about, even, for our own gain. He cursed us and claimed that his wife was innocent—”

“Innocent!” scoffed George Vaughan.

“The populace seems to be predisposed to listening to such cant,” Sir Nathaniel said. “But we have our duties to attend to.”

Morton joined in the little chorus of agreement. But then, as they all began to rise and reach for their hats, he said: “I should say, Sir Nathaniel, the hostility toward us is strong this time. Decent and respectable common-folk
are angry, and this makes the rabble bold. I caution you, Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Presley: We should be on our guard.”

George Vaughan shook his head. “You be on your guard, Mr. Morton, if you think you have reason,” he said. “I have none.”

J
immy Presley came up beside Morton as he
stood at the little writing-stand in the Public Office antechamber, drafting his note to Lord Arthur Darley.

“So,” the younger man said with an effort at carelessness, “Mr. Vaughan tells me that every fumbler who meets the hangman claims his innocence and blames us.”

“Well, Jimmy, that's not precisely true,” responded Henry Morton sympathetically, setting down his quill and reaching for the blotter. Presley stared in a distracted way out the latticed window onto Bow Street.

“They're always innocent when they're in the dock at the Old Bailey, of course. But by the time they come out the debtors' door, it's often a different matter. I've only heard of accusations like Smeeton's once or twice before.”

“But now the people believe they really were. Innocent.”

The great roar of disapproval and anger came back into Morton's ears, the heated words flung out, the red
faces of the men surging against the barricade below the scaffold. He looked thoughtfully at his young colleague for a moment, and then went back to his writing.

“Ah, well, Jimmy,” he remarked evenly. “Maybe George Vaughan's right. A man's not for this calling if he gives a fig what ‘the rabble’ believe.”

But the young man looked distinctly unhappy anyway, so Morton went on.

“You and Vaughan had the Smeetons dead cold to rights. They were seen on the premises the day before the robbery, looking it over. They turned up at the place right on time in the middle of the night, jemmy and skeleton keys to hand, and they used them. As neat and tight a case as you'll get in a year.”

“Then why didn't the people see that… that there was nothing else to be done?” Presley couldn't quite name the thing he had so recently had a part in bringing to pass.