The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (16 page)

Rokeby became very still. “Do you suggest—?”

“I suggest nothing!” broke in Morton. And then more evenly: “I merely do my duty, and at this moment I am looking into the activities of Mr. Glendinning on the day of his death. You dueled with him—men from Bow Street witnessed it. For that alone you could be brought before a Magistrate. But I have no intention of doing so unless you refuse to cooperate. Do you refuse?”

This was a bluff, and Rokeby did not answer but only regarded Morton with those famously cold and steady eyes. An image flashed before Morton of those same eyes staring at him down a gun barrel.

Morton took silence for acquiescence. “There was a dinner here, at this Club, where Mr Glendinning took offence at some remarks of yours. What was said?”

All of Rokeby's responses were prefaced with long, contemptuous pauses. “In fact,” he eventually said, “I have no notion what led that gentleman to consider himself offended. I believe him to have been some manner of fool.”

“Did you not make light of the name of Miss Louisa Hamilton?”

Just a flicker of expression might have traveled across Rokeby's mask of a face. He drew on his cigar. “If ever I had occasion to speak that lady's name,” he replied, “it will have been with exactly as much gravity as it deserved.”

“Then you did offer such insult before Mr. Glendinning?”

Rokeby stared unflinchingly at Morton. “The first time I ever laid eyes on that fop, Glendinning, he was standing at twenty paces' distance, shaking like a leaf. He was not present at any dinner in this Club. And if you have come here to suggest otherwise…” Rokeby stopped, seeming suddenly to check his temper. Killers could not afford such emotions—if they could afford any emotions at all.

But Morton's own anger was rising. “If I have come to suggest otherwise, what, Colonel? Would you challenge me to a duel? I will arrest you if you do.”

“Gentlemen,” Rokeby said, “have only to do with other gentlemen.”

“Of course.” Morton was unable to keep an edge of mockery from his reply. “And how do gentlemen deal with insults from their inferiors? They thrash them, is that not it? I can be found at Jackson's in Bond Street every Thursday night… Colonel.”

And without allowing Rokeby either the last word or any further demonstration of his indifference, Morton brushed rudely past him and strode out.

M
orton was still turning this interview
over in his mind when the hackney-coach drew up before his lodgings. But he was startled from his reverie by the sight and sound of his landlady, sallying out into Rupert Street to meet him, berating him and shrilling incoherently.

“For God's sake, Mrs. Budworth, tell me what this is about.”

“None of your rough language, sir! I am a lady, even if you be no gentleman! I do not habituate the places you and your filthy police do, nor, as my Saviour blesses me, shall I ever!”

“Calm yourself, Mrs. Budworth. And speak plainly.”

“You have deceived me, with your fine clothes and your fine airs! But all the while you were going about London-town hanging poor, guiltless folk, and ripping the hearts from the breasts of widows and grieving parents!”

“Madam, I've never ripped a bodily organ from anyone, least of all a
widow
. I have been slandered.”

“You have not! Not a tittle, sir, no, you have not! And now you bring the rabble of folk upon us screeching and hooting and offering harm to my house! I'll not endure it! You'll leave me, sir, upon the instant!”

By now Morton's manservant had heard the commotion and descended, his face set in a stately expression that Morton instantly suspected of concealing a certain amusement.

“Wilkes! Can you give me some idea what this is about?”

“Mrs. Budworth has been alarmed, sir,” Wilkes said.

“I can see that! What has alarmed her?”

“What has alarmed me!” cried his landlady in deep indignation. “What has alarmed me!”

“A mob of ruffians have only this half-hour departed, sir. They have thrown cobblestones, broken some windows, and threatened worse,” Wilkes added.

“They said they would fire me!” cried Mrs. Bud-worth, almost in tears now with consternation and fright. “They said they would burn my house to the ground!”

Morton looked from her to Wilkes, demanding explanation.

“So they did, sir,” agreed Wilkes. “They found you out somehow and threatened their revenge upon you.”

“And upon me!” cried the landlady. “Who've never so much as—”

“Revenge for what?” demanded Morton in frustration.

“Oh, for the hanging of their comrades, sir, the two late miscreants named Smeeton.” Wilkes was rather enjoying himself, Morton could see. The old man had taken on an air utterly different from his normal manner in order to impress Mrs. Budworth. “These disorderly
folk claim to believe these innocent of the crimes for which they were condemned. I fear, sir, that they publicly impugned your motives as an officer of justice. They implied an undue interest in monetary gain.”

Morton sighed with disgust as Mrs. Budworth thrust herself before him, her face red and her eyes fairly popping with rage.

“You was a
horney
! And you never said it!”

“How much damage was actually done, Wilkes?” enquired Morton. “You will be fully compensated, you may be sure, Mrs. B.”

“I may be sure! I may be sure!”

And Henry Morton reached with resignation into his pocket for a down payment.

There could be no question of being driven away, but Morton was deeply irritated to find his dwelling place had been discovered—and by a mob! It had been one of his best-kept privacies. It was true that he was occasionally visited by his informants from the London under-world—but only by those few he considered reliable. How had the mob found him? And, he wondered, were they serving Vaughan and Presley the same way?

Presley they could probably locate easily enough, although the young Runner's dwelling and relatives were as poor as those who would attack them. But Vaughan was another matter. Even Morton hadn't the slightest idea where, or in what style, George Vaughan dwelt.

The whole idea of assailing the homes of officers was new. Protests had usually only happened at the hangings themselves, although on one or two occasions people had hurled refuse and angry words at the front door of number 4 Bow Street. Now and again, as he had
warned Presley, assaults had also been made against officers in the street.

Thought of that conversation made Morton's heart sink. He saw that, despite his own warning to his brother officers, he had been trying to forget about the Smeetons. But it was becoming difficult.

He dispatched Wilkes to Bow Street to warn Presley and Vaughan, and then to arrange for the tradesmen needed to replace the broken windows. Then he had another placating conversation with Mrs. Budworth, whose anger was considerably soothed by the medicine of a few more sovereigns.

Arabella arrived later and found a thoughtful Morton alone at table, eating a cold supper. He offered her some but she declined, then sat across from him stealing morsels from his plate with her fingers, and smiling mischievously.

“But what was your sense of Rokeby? Did he act like a man who'd committed murder?” she demanded as she nibbled on a bit of his mutton.

“Well, after all, he has. Several times.”

“I mean, did you think he was hiding something?”

“Rokeby is always hiding something—his low birth, to begin with. But whether he was hiding anything about Glendinning, I cannot say. What seemed more important to me was his reaction to Louisa Hamilton's name, and there he did betray a little emotion.” Morton paused to swallow a final piece of bread. “There was definitely anger. But whether there was enough…” He looked at Arabella and shrugged.

“You should have had me with you. I could have told you in a moment.”

Morton smiled and wiped his mouth with his napkin. It was one of Arabella's more endearing qualities, he
thought—this complete and utter confidence in her “intuitions.”

“Perhaps the most interesting thing was that he bothered to speak to a Runner at all,” he remarked. They rose and went into the other room. “I certainly could not have compelled him to. What did he expect to get out of it? Did he want to know how much Bow Street knew?”

Arabella tilted her head in thought at this, but said nothing.

She reclined on Morton's scroll-ended divan, her lovely chin propped on one hand, and Morton sat opposite, smoking a cheroot and tranquilly admiring her beauty in the lamplight. The translucent gleam of her skin, the gracious curve of her stretched-out form. How good it was to be at peace with her again, to think of her only as he most liked to do. To remember last night, and anticipate another such.

“And what of you, Mrs. M.? How go your enquiries?”

She crinkled up her eyes in the delightful way she had. “I have made only a little progress as yet. I cannot simply knock on a door, wave my baton of office, declare I'm from Bow Street, and begin asking questions. I must drink tea and gossip and listen to women prattle on about their insufferable children. Dear God, Henry, some of these women!” She pushed back her thick red hair with a languid hand. “But I have learned a few things. Halbert Glendinning was well enough respected in his own circle. There are a few who believe he had some real talent for verse. He was destined for a military career—the Glendinnings have been Royal Navy for generations—but his constitution wasn't up to it. At Oxford he fell in with the literary set and made something of an impression on his tutors, if his friends are to be believed. A little over a year ago he began paying
visits to the Hamilton home—at first to see Peter Hamilton, with whom he had been vaguely acquainted for some years, and later…Well, you know whom he sought out later. Nothing earth-shaking there. Louisa, however, is another story.” She met Morton's eye. “There is a rumour that some number of years ago she was under the care of Dr. Willis.”

“Who?”

“Dr.
Willis
. The one who treated old King George, when… you know, he was talking to the plum trees and so on.”

Morton stared. “Are you saying she was mad? That I have taken two hundred pounds from a woman who is not of her right mind?”

Arabella shrugged. “I could find out no more than that. Her mother, and this is no rumour, self-murdered years ago—when Louisa was a girl. The Hamilton children, Louisa and Peter—who was the product of a first marriage—were raised apart, by relatives. Their father went into retirement after the death of his second wife, and was almost never seen by his children. And it seems his death was dubious too: He drowned, and no one can say if it was really an accident.” Arabella shook her head. “Not a family blessed with calm nerves, one would have to say.”

Morton rose and stepped about the room in agitation. He remembered the veiled woman who had visited him two nights before: her odd way of looking at him and her slightly wandering eye. But she had not seemed mad….

Arabella followed his movements closely, green eyes glistening in the lamplight.

“And what of Richard?” he turned and asked. “Have
you found out if that was her pet name for Glendinning?”

She shook her head. “No one has ever heard it was.” She drew her lower lip between her teeth, and stared past him. “But you know, Henry, there is another moment of intense…
emotion,
when women have been known to call out the wrong man's name.”