The Piccadilly Pickpocket

by Karen Charlton

  ‘Good grief!’ said Read.

  If Woods was surprised to see Lavender’s companion, he didn’t show it. ‘Mornin’, Magistrate Read. I’ll travel on the outside.’

  ‘’Ere!’ the driver said, as Woods clambered up onto the perch beside him. ‘Passengers travel inside – not wi’ me.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Woods replied. ‘I’m not a passenger; I’m a police constable.’

  ‘You don’t smell like a police constable.’

  ‘Oh, we come in all sorts of different flavours.’

  Smiling, Lavender closed the window and sat back in his seat. The vehicle jerked into motion.

  ‘So that’s what he has been doing for the past two days,’ Read said, thoughtfully. Lavender just nodded.

  Their journey down Jerrmyn Street and Market Lane was slow. Dawn was breaking over the high brick chimneys that spewed soot and smoke out across this labyrinth of burrows and the streets had already filled with people and carts delivering goods. The shop-keepers were outside their premises opening up for business and sweeping away the puddles of the previous night’s rain. The narrow thoroughfares became even more constricted as the traders piled wicker baskets and earthenware pots containing their goods outside their doors on the street.

  ‘The girl said that it was a brown door next to haberdashers,’ Read said as they approached the entrance to Norris Street. ‘On the top floor.’

  But they didn’t need to remind themselves. The moment they turned into Norris Street they knew the exact establishment where the thief lived.

  The brown door next to the haberdashery gaped wide open onto the street and a large, animated crowd was gathered outside. In the middle of the crowd, an elderly woman stood screaming hysterically. Her shocked and pale-faced neighbours buzzed around like agitated insects, trying to comfort her.

  Lavender leapt down from the cab and raced across the wet cobbles towards them. Woods was by his side in an instant. Lavender fished out his brass-topped tipstaff from his coat pocket and held it aloft as they forced their way to the front of the crowd.

  ‘Detective Lavender – Bow Street police!’ he shouted.

  ‘My! That were quick!’ said a man in the crowd. ‘We’ve only just sent for a constable.’

  ‘What’s happened, here?’

  ‘They’ve murdered ’im!’ The elderly woman shrieked. ‘They’ve killed my lovely Mr. Trevelyan!’

  ‘Who have?’

  ‘Murder!’ screeched the hysterical woman again. ‘Murder! Murder in my lodgings!’ Two women reached out to comfort her.

  ‘T’were a gang of rogues,’ someone informed Lavender. ‘Three of them, there were.’

  ‘’Tis the Shiels gang,’ Woods murmured under his breath. ‘Damn their eyes.’

  ‘They pushed their way into ’er ’ouse and killed ’er lodger,’ a woman told them.

  ‘When?’

  ‘A few minutes ago. They’ve legged it now, though.’

  ‘Which way did they go?’

  There seemed to be some confusion among the crowd at this point but eventually a woman with a baby wrapped in her shawl pointed a trembling finger down the street. ‘I sees them go!’ she said. ‘Down there – towards Haymarket.’

  Lavender and Woods set off after the gang but they had barely gone five hundred yards into the maze of narrow alleyways before they pulled up at a junction where three lanes converged.

  ‘It’ll be impossible to find them on foot in this labyrinth,’ Woods growled.

  Lavender nodded. ‘They’ll be scampering back to their rat holes in St. Giles.’

  ‘We’d be better to split up – or better still, get back in the cab, drive to the rookery and head them off,’ Woods suggested. He turned on his heel to return to Norris Street.

  Lavender grabbed his arm and restrained him. ‘Let’s leave them for now,’ he said. ‘Townsend and twenty officers from Bow Street are already in the rookery. With any luck, Conkey Shiels will run straight back into their open arms.’

  Woods’ one good eye widened with surprise then he scowled. ‘I hope they catch them – the murderin’ bastards!’

  They returned to the snuffer’s lodgings and found that the distraught landlady had been coaxed into a neighbour’s house but most of the crowd still lingered outside.

  Magistrate Read was already upstairs examining the scene of the crime. The dark, low-roofed bedroom had been ransacked by the gang. The bed was overturned, the mattress slashed, and the contents of every cupboard and drawer had been hurled onto the wooden floorboards.

  The thief’s body lay prostrate among the debris of his life. Read had covered him with a threadbare blanket. A dark, stain had spread across the woollen cloth and there were pools of blood on the floor.

  ‘His name was Henry Trevelyan.’ Read’s voice was dull and emotionless. ‘He was from Truro and had been in London for about six weeks. His landlady said he was the best of tenants: neat, tidy and clean.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Lavender asked.

  ‘It looks like he was stabbed through the heart,’ Read said. ‘A doctor will be able to confirm it. He’s already gone cold.’

  ‘How did they get in?’ Lavender asked.

  ‘Apparently, the landlady was in the habit of leaving the front door off the latch and the thugs let themselves in. The first thing she knew about any trouble was when she heard banging and shouting from upstairs. She peered through a crack in the door to her own rooms and saw three men thundering down the stairs. She hastily retreated and locked herself in her apartment. Only when she was sure they had gone did she come up here and discover Trevelyan dead on the floor.’

  Woods lifted a corner of the blanket and studied the dead man’s pale face and blank staring eyes. ‘Yes, that’s him.’ His voice was gruff. ‘That’s the snuffer. He caused me a lot of grief – but he didn’t deserve this. Poor sod.’

  ‘There’s no honour among thieves,’ Read replied curtly.

  ‘’Tis a rough justice,’ said Woods.

  ‘Does he have any family in London?’ Lavender asked.

  ‘Not that the Landlady knows. She said he was a quiet man with no friends, who kept himself to himself. She wasn’t even sure where he worked – although he had told her that he had lost his position recently and was seeking new employment.’ Lavender grimaced. It was exactly the scenario he had imagined. ‘He always paid his rent on time,’ Read continued.

  Lavender moved a pile of clothing and the shattered water jug with his foot. ‘It looks like the Shiels gang turned this place over, looking for that pocket watch.’

  ‘I wonder if they found it? Or if Trevelyan told them where it was?’ asked Woods.

  At the mention of the watch, the subdued magistrate suddenly seemed to come back to life. ‘We need to search this place before the doctor and the undertaker get here,’ he said. ‘The pocket watch may still be here. The landlady said that the attack was quick. They might not have had the time to search thoroughly if Trevelyan had proved stubborn and uncooperative.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why they stabbed him,’ Woods said. ‘He wouldn’t give them what they wanted.’

  ‘And if they have got the watch?’ Lavender asked, as he bent to pick up the upturned bed frame. Woods took the other end and they lifted it together.

  ‘Let’s just hope that Townsend and the men are still in the rookery and catch this gang when they return to their bolt-hole,’ Read said grimly. ‘Otherwise we will never see it again.’

  Woods moved over to the window, pulled back the heavy, dark green drapes to let in more light and forced open the window. Lavender was grateful for that. The smell of congealing blood always made him nauseous and the whole house stank of boiled cabbage and kippers. Although he suspected that some of the fishy odour emanated from Woods’ old jacket.

  ‘What’s so special about this damned watch of the prince’s, anyway?’ Woods asked, as he turned back. ‘Why is every cove, policeman and news reporter in the city tryin’ to get their hand
s on it – and why such a large reward?’

  Read hesitated for a moment then sighed. ‘It was given to his Royal Highness by Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert.’

  Woods’ eyebrows rose with surprise. ‘His mistress?’

  Read nodded. ‘It has sentimental value for him.’

  Woods shook his head sadly. ‘I thought that were long over,’ he said. ‘Especially since the Prince married some years back.’ Lavender just frowned.

  They set to work and searched through every nook and cranny of the room. Stepping carefully around the body, they shifted the furniture and pulled up loose floorboards. They also checked the backs and undersides of the cheap wooden furniture for loose panels and secret drawers.

  Trevelyan didn’t have much in the way of personal possessions: a small empty trunk; his shaving equipment; a pack of playing cards and a couple of battered, well-thumbed books. Woods grunted angrily and scowled as he picked up Trevelyan’s snuff box. Lavender hid his smile and continued to sift through the mounds of horse hair that had spewed out of the slashed mattress. ‘Check the chimney, Ned,’ he said.

  Woods got down on the floor and explored the inside of the cold chimney for secret ledges, while Lavender picked up Trevelyan’s clothing and went through the pockets and linings. The man had had a plain taste in clothes, Lavender decided. Nearly everything he owned, from his woollen socks to his shirts, was brown. He inserted his hand into Trevelyan’s coat pocket and a sharp pin, attached to some wooden object, stabbed into his hand. Cursing, he sucked away the trickle of blood and carefully returned his hand into the pocket. He pulled out a bobbin of dark-green cotton with a sewing needle pushed through the thread on the side.

  He frowned and glanced back at the body and the pile of clothes now heaped on the end of the bed. Most of Trevelyan’s clothes had been patched, darned or repaired, so it was no surprise to find thread and a needle among his meagre possessions. But dark green thread? He picked up some items of clothing and checked again. The repairs had been carried out in small, neat stitches with brown thread or wool that matched the material.

  Read glanced through the window, into the street below and sighed. ‘The undertaker is here,’ he said. ‘I’ll go downstairs and meet him. You men carry on.’

  When Read left, Woods withdrew his head from the chimney and stood up. A small shower of soot rained down into the hearth. ‘It looks like those murderin’ buggers have got away with that damned watch,’ he said, angrily. He wiped his large, soot-blackened hands on his jacket. ‘We’ve turned this place upside down and that pocket watch isn’t here.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Lavender said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Lavender walked over and handed him the bobbin of thread. ‘Sewin’ cotton?’ Woods asked.

  ‘Yes. He’d dropped it into his coat pocket and must have forgotten that it was there.’

  ‘Has he been darnin’ his clothes?’ Woods looked at the pile on the bed.

  ‘Not his clothes,’ Lavender said. He heard Read’s footsteps on the wooden staircase outside; the magistrate was returning. ‘They’re repaired with brown thread.’

  Woods’ frown deepened and he glanced round the room. ‘Then what? What were it used for?’ he asked.

  ‘The window drapes,’ Lavender said and he stepped back, away from his constable. Woods remained in the same spot with the thread still in his out-stretched hand.

  Read came back into the room. He looked pleased and a bit breathless. ‘I’ve left the undertaker downstairs with the landlady. He’ll be up in a moment. And I’ve just received a message from the clerks at Bow Street. It’s good news. Townsend and the others have arrested the Shiels gang – and they’ve also found Little Beau. So at least we now have all the murdering, thieving rogues in custody.’

  ‘That’s excellent news, sir,’ Lavender said.

  ‘But there’s no news about the stolen watch. It doesn’t sound like the gang had it on them – or if they did, Townsend didn’t send word.’ He sighed. ‘We might as well give up this search. I don’t think that pocket watch is here.’

  ‘Constable Woods has just made a discovery,’ Lavender said. ‘He was just about to tell me its significance.’

  Read glanced up sharply. ‘What have you got, man?’

  Woods’ jaw dropped and he threw Lavender a startled glance.

  Read moved towards Woods. His sharp eyes fell on the bobbin of thread in the constable’s outstretched hand. ‘Sewing cotton?’ he asked.

  For a moment, it looked like Woods had gone dumb. His mouth opened and closed like that of a fish. Then he said, slowly: ‘I were just wonderin’…’

  ‘Yes, spit it out, man.’

  ‘I were wonderin’ why Trevelyan would have green sewin’ thread?’

  The magistrate frowned. ‘What is the significance of that? It must be for some repair, surely.’

  ‘I thought it might be the window drapes, sir.’

  ‘The drapes?’

  Read swiveled round and stared at window, framed with the heavy, green material. Woods moved across and stood between the drapes with his back to the window. He picked up one in each hand and lifted them from the floor. ‘I were wonderin’…’ he said, as he raised and lowered each drape slowly. ‘I were wonderin’…’

  Go on, Ned, Lavender thought silently. You can do it.

  Framed against the window, with a drape in each hand, Woods looked like a marionette dangling from two jerking green strings.

  ‘…if they’d been repaired.’ Suddenly the light dawned in Woods’ eyes. ‘And I think, sir, that this left drape is heavier than the right.’

  Read rushed forward and hauled up the voluminous hem of the left-hand drape. ‘You’re right, constable!’ he exclaimed. ‘And there’s a repair at the bottom. Quick! Open it up. Perhaps Trevelyan hid the watch in the lining.’

  Woods pulled out his pocket knife. Read held the heavy material steady while Woods sliced open the fabric. When Read inserted his hand into the folds of the cloth, Lavender heard the soft chink of metal banging against metal as the magistrate fished around among the lead weights used to weigh down the drapes.

  Read beamed with delight. ‘You’re right, Woods! Oh, well done!’

  Carefully, Read extracted a long silver chain from within the material. At the end was a gleaming pocket watch. He let the watch dangle down towards the floor and the men stared at it mesmerised as it reflected back the soft light of the morning sun.

  ‘Well done, Constable Woods!’ Read’s voice was thick with relief and satisfaction.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Lavender. Before the magistrate could protest, Lavender moved swiftly forward, lifted the dangling pocket watch, flicked open the casing and read the inscription inside.

  Read hastily snatched it back. ‘I’ll take care of this,’ he said.

  There was a huge celebration in The Nags Head that night. Every officer involved in the successful dawn raid on the rookery crammed into the ancient and smoky tavern. They were in a jubilant mood. Their laughter rebounded off the low-beamed ceiling with its chandeliers of dripping tallow candles.

  Detective Townsend positioned himself beside the fireplace and told anyone who would listen, over and over again, how he had hauled Little Beau out from the beneath the floorboards of Timon Robert’s cellar by his heels. ‘That sister of Roberts’ – that trollop Lola – cursed me like a docker and whacked me with an iron pan at the same time – but I held fast! There was no way the little whiddler would escape from old John Townsend.’

  Lavender sat quietly in a corner with a glass of brandy, enjoying the laughter and excitement of his colleagues. Behind the bar, tiers of mirrored shelving displayed a wide range of brandies and other spirits in a wonderful array of glass bottles that glittered in shades of emerald and sapphire. The glass and the mirrors gave the impression that the smoky tavern and the crowd of officers were twice as large. Lavender took a long drink from his glass, sat back and undid the buttons of his great coat. As the brandy
warmed his innards, he felt the tension ease from his tired body and mind.

  It had been a long day. Trevelyan’s brutal murder had saddened him but he knew that he couldn’t have done anything else to save him. Despite Trevelyan’s death, they’d still had a good outcome to the case. And, as an added bonus, an outspoken little tavern wench would be lifted out of a miserable life of casual prostitution when she received her share of the reward money. Although what Sarah Benson would say when she learned that she now had to share the reward with Constable Woods as well as himself, he couldn’t imagine. But there would still be plenty of money for her to set herself up in business. He had no doubt that Miss Sarah Benson would make a respectable and successful businesswoman. His mind flashed back to that other young girl he had seen this week; the child, whom his evidence had sent to New South Wales. He hastily pushed her out of his mind. His job had its compensations as well as its tragedies, he decided.

  When Ned Woods arrived at the tavern, he was instantly surrounded by a large, noisy group of drunken officers who slapped him on his back and plied him with liquor. Woods was a popular member of the horse patrol and everyone was delighted at his return to favour. The news had quickly spread around Bow Street that Ned Woods had found the missing pocket watch.

  Detectives McManus, Vickery and Donaldson suddenly appeared at Lavender’s table with their drinks and pipes.

  ‘We need to get away from Townsend.’ Vickery pulled up a stool across the uneven flag-stoned floor and sat down.

  ‘Yes,’ Donaldson agreed as he relit his pipe. ‘If I hear once more how he wrestled that dwarf to the ground, I think I’ll vomit down me breeches.’

  ‘Yet the word is,’ said McManus slyly. ‘That it was your intelligence, Lavender, that led to the raid.’

  ‘It might have been,’ he said, smiling. ‘With some help from Ned Woods.’

  ‘And we’ve also heard that some little tavern wench – a sweetheart of yours – led you and Old Read to the snuffer.’