Thick As Thieves

by Joan Smith

  "Frank Ketchen, of Bow Street, Miss Denver,” he said, and shook my hand. “I borrowed this disguise to fool Tom."

  As he spoke, he darted to the window and closed the curtains. Next he checked to see that all the doors were secure. He was a little gray slug of a man with thinning gray hair and brown circles around his sunken eyes. That “slug” referred to his complexion; in movement he was like a fly, darting hither and thither. He looked as if you could blow him over with a flip of your fan, but he carried a gun, and assured me he could shoot the eye out of a pigeon at a hundred paces.

  He was to be on guard indoors in case Tom came before we returned. Richard's watchman patrolled the grounds each niht.

  I asked Ketchen if he required anything to assist his vigil. “Coffee. Strong, black, and lots of it,” he said. “I would be obliged if you'd tell your servants they are to take orders from me, in case of an incident."

  I called Ruthven and gave the order for him to relay. I also ordered Ketchen's coffee. Ruthven suggested a flask for Richard and me to take with us. He was that thoughtful sort of butler. At last Ketchen sat down, but not to rest. He drew out a notebook and took a description of my silverware. I could only describe the flatware, as I did not know what else had been taken. “Oh, and one painting,” I added. “Not valuable."

  "Subject of said picture?"

  "An old man. Just his head,” I replied, and described the gilt frame in more detail.

  "Occupants of house?"

  "Jimmie Polke, footman."

  He even asked to see Polke's note and inquired whether the scribbling was Polke's. “I am not an expert. It certainly looks like his writing. It is written on my stationery."

  "Any criminal record? You'd be surprised how many robberies are done by servants."

  "He has been with my family for fifteen years without stealing so much as a teaspoon."

  "That you know about,” he murmured under his breath, and jotted down “No known criminal record” beside Polke's name.

  The sixty minutes between our decision to leave and our actual leaving seemed more like six hours, but at last the carriage was waiting. I snatched up a closed pitcher of coffee and my bonnet and we were off. I was surprised to see Richard's traveling carriage and a team of four, when we were only driving a mile out of town. I said, “Would your curricle not be faster and less bother?"

  "We would not drive a curricle all the way to London at night. We do not want Tom to suspect our trick. Let him see we are setting off on a journey."

  "I had been looking forward to a ride in the open carriage,” I complained, but got into the lumbering coach and had to settle for an open window.

  Richard was in a feverish state of excitement, as I was myself. “This might be the break we have been waiting for,” he said, smiling softly to himself. “You will be a heroine, Eve."

  "All I did was get myself robbed. You are the hero, sir. It was your idea to have Tom rob me, and also your idea to make this mock trip to London to entrap him."

  He smiled modestly. “I set my mind to it that I wanted to catch Tom, not only because he robbed me, but because he sets a bad example. He gives young men the idea they can steal with impunity, making a laughingstock of the law. Since Bow Street seemed powerless to catch him, I decided to give it a go. Mind you, Ketchen will want his share of the glory. It will mean a promotion for him, I should think. Some of the stolen gems carry a reward on their heads."

  "We should give the money to charity, Richard. There are so many people less fortunate than we."

  "I would like to do something for homeless children. Education is the magic key to lift them out of a life of misery and eventually crime."

  That was the sort of noble mood we were in, feeling we were a couple of heroes, out to save the world. We drove north for a mile through the dark night, peering out the window at frequent intervals to see we were not being followed.

  It was a suitable night for danger and intrigue. A fingernail of moon and a sprinkling of infinitesimally small stars looked lost in the enormity of the black heavens above. They did little to illuminate the countryside. A wind soughed through the trees by the border of the road. It sounded human—a sigh, or a moan.

  Before we had quite decided whether to establish an orphanage or a good day school with the reward money, we came to the crossroad that had been settled as a good place to turn the carriage around. The horses slowed nearly to a halt. As we were halfway into our trip, I decided to take advantage of the slow pace to pour us a cup of coffee.

  "My groom is going to drive in here and back the team out, since the road is too narrow to make a turn,” Richard explained. The team slowly made the turn.

  "It is a very narrow side road, and with a ditch on either side. If you had driven your curricle—"

  "John Groom can turn this rig on a penny,” he replied complacently. The team began to back up.

  The next sound was a wild whinnying from the team, and a shout of “Whoa! Steady, lads!” from John Groom, as the carriage leaned precariously into the ditch.

  "I daresay John Groom cannot see that penny in the dark,” I said.

  Richard stuck his head out the window and hollered, “Pull ahead and try again."

  The nags moved forward, and we slowly eased out of the ditch. “Why do you not continue along this road until you come to a farm, and turn in the normal way?” I suggested.

  "I don't see a farm up ahead. There are no lights."

  "Farmers would be in bed at this hour. There must be a farm, or why would there be a road?"

  "It would take too long.” Again the jingle of the harness and shuffle of hooves indicated that the horses were being backed up, although the carriage did not immediately move.

  "The horses are frightened. Give them a touch of the whip,” Richard called out the window.

  There was a gentle crack from the whip, and the team moved more quickly, pushing the carriage right into the ditch this time. It did a half turn in the air, throwing me against the door. Richard tumbled down on top of me, cursing a blue streak.

  "You're hurting my arm!” I shouted, trying to extract it from beneath his shoulder.

  He tried to get up, but had difficulty as my door was acting as the floor of the carriage, and there was very little foot room. John Groom came to our aid. The other carriage door was in the roof position, looking up at the sky. The groom heaved the door open and gave Richard a hand out.

  "How are the nags?” was Richard's first concern. Never mind that I was lying in a painful heap on the floor.

  "I stopped them before they followed the cart into the ditch. They're right as rain."

  "We'll see if we can tilt the carriage upright and have them pull it out,” Richard said.

  "Would someone mind pulling me out!” I shouted crossly.

  Richard reached down and gave my sore arm a yank. I howled. “Careful! You nearly broke my arm when you fell on it."

  I reached up with my good arm, knocking over the pitcher of coffee, spilling the entire contents into my lap. And it was quite hot, too. “Help! I'm scalded!"

  Richard gave a mighty heave, and I came sailing up through the door in the ceiling, dripping with hot coffee, and cursing almost as proficiently as Richard had done. “For God's sake, watch what you are about! Between my broken arm and my dislocated shoulder from that yank and scalding coffee—"

  "Sorry.” He reached out and daubed at my sodden gown. “It doesn't feel so very hot,” he said apologetically.

  "Well, it is, and furthermore, both arms hurt like Hades."

  Richard swooped me up in his arm and handed me down to John Groom, who was standing on the ground. “Put her over there,” Richard said, as if I were a sack of grain. He tossed his head toward a clump of trees, to indicate my resting place. He had at least the courtesy to accompany me, and take off his jacket to form a bed on what felt like a patch of nettles.

  As soon as he determined that I was not in actual danger of expiring, he and John Groom went to te
nd to the carriage. I just sat, watching. My fuming anger turned to amusement as they struggled. First they tried to do it by sheer manpower. After a deal of grunting and heaving, they unhooked the team to get a better grasp at the carriage. When this effort failed, they unsuccessfully endeavored to harness up the team in some new manner that gave them greater “leverage.” There was a deal of talk of “leverage.” Nothing worked. That carriage was there to stay until a team of stout bullocks came to rescue it.

  Eventually I became bored with the show, and decided to be well again. I put on Richard's coat, as the wind on my wet gown made me chilly, and joined them.

  "I daresay Tom has come and gone by now,” I said. I do believe Richard had forgotten all about him. There is something about a gentleman's horses and carriage that take precedence over everything else. “If you had taken the curricle as I suggested ... I wager it really could turn on a penny."

  "The team could have done it. It is the demmed dark that caused the problem."

  "Did you think the sun would be shining at midnight?"

  "It is only ten-thirty."

  "We have been gone at least an hour. Let us hope Ketchen is more effectual than—” He turned an icy stare on me. His face looked like an angry gargoyle, carved in stone.

  "You are only a mile from town,” John Groom said. “You could hoof it back, and send help from Brighton. I'll stay with the rig."

  Richard thought about that for a moment. “Are you able to walk, or would you rather sit in the carriage?” he asked me.

  "I don't usually walk on my hands. There is nothing wrong with my legs. The sooner I see a doctor, the better. I can hardly sit in a carriage when the seats are at right angles to the floor. I believe there is some law to that effect—the Law of Gravity, I believe they call it."

  "What you might do,” the groom suggested, “is stop at the first inn and ask them to send help."

  Richard nodded. “Take good care of my cattle. There is a pitcher of coffee in—"

  "On my gown, actually,” I reminded him, and turned to walk down the road alone.

  Richard caught up with me after a moment. The first hundred or so paces were taken in utter silence, as we mentally nursed our grievances. I cradled my right elbow in my left hand. The elbow was not broken, but it truly was sore.

  "How is the arm?” he asked, in a suitably apologetic tone.

  "The doctor will know whether it is broken."

  "I am sorry, Eve. Here, I'll make a sling from my cravat."

  "That is not necessary."

  He insisted on doing it. He yanked off his cravat and tied a great white strip of muslin around my neck, gently inserting my arm in it. “There, that will hold you till we can get you to a sawbones."

  "Careful, Richard. If you hurt any other part of my anatomy, you will be stark naked by the time we get home. I have already got your jacket and cravat."

  "Serves me right. It is all my fault. I should have brought the curricle."

  "Or at least driven forward until you found a proper place to turn around."

  "Did the coffee burn you very badly?"

  "The blisters won't show. They are on my—torso,” I said vaguely.

  He looked at me in alarm. “Are you sure you should be walking? I could run ahead to the inn—"

  "And leave me here alone? The way our luck is running, I would be set upon by Black Bart.” Bart was the most infamous highwayman that year.

  We trudged on a little farther. “I wish I had worn walking shoes. I feel every pebble in these thin-soled slippers."

  "I fear my Hessians would be too large. Would you prefer to walk through the fields?"

  "No. Thank you."

  After another little silence he said, rather sheepishly, “I daresay we will look back on this one day and laugh."

  "I daresay. I wonder what I will find more hilarious: rolling in the ditch, your appalling language, or being dumped under the tree like a sack of potatoes."

  Richard gave over trying to lure me back into a good humor and said bluntly that in future he would be wary of lemons wearing the rind of sweet oranges. I was obliged to retaliate that I would be on the alert for Greeks bearing gifts of real estate.

  Eventually we came to an elegant inn that catered to the gentry. “Thank God it is a decent place,” he said, as we approached the door. The hostler in the yard gave us a very squinty look.

  The patrons in the lobby did more than squint. They said quite audibly to the clerk, “I thought this was a decent inn!"

  The uppity little clerk treated us like the commoners we resembled. “You are in the wrong place, folks. The Pig and Whistle down the road caters to your sort."

  It was difficult to maintain any countenance when I caught our reflection in a mirror: me in my old, stained gown with the brim of my bonnet mashed out of shape, and Richard sans jacket and cravat, with his hair all tousled about. His boots were dust-laden, and his shirt covered with grease from the carriage. Even our faces were dirty.

  Richard assumed his angry gargoyle expression and said, “Shut your face or I'll remove your teeth. I want to hire a rig to take us to Brighton."

  "We don't hire out dog carts,” the uppity clerk said, tossing his nose in the air.

  Richard drew his purse out of his pocket and emptied a wad of bills on the counter. A scattering of gold coins clattered noisily after. Then he reached across the counter and lifted the clerk up by his shoulder pads until his feet dangled in the air. “Are you familiar with the name Black Bart?” he growled, glaring into the man's frightened eyes. The clerk swallowed a couple of times and nodded his head. “Then you'll have a story to tell your kiddies, if you're man enough to sire any kids, and if you live that long. I'm Black Bart, and you're going to get me a rig from your stable. Now!"

  This speech emptied the lobby faster than if he had shouted, “The Black Plague!” Customers flew in all directions.

  The clerk reached out and hit a bell that rested on the counter. Richard let go of his jacket, and the man fell to the floor with a thump. A page boy darted forward in response to the bell.

  "This gentleman would like a rig to go to Brighton,” the clerk said, in a strangled voice. “Right away.” Behind Richard's back, I saw him mouth the words “Black Bart!” The page boy goggled in delight. It is really a shame that these youngsters make heroes of common criminals.

  "And a team to draw my carriage out of the ditch,” Richard said. “You'll find it half a mile north.” He picked up a gold coin and nipped it at the page boy, who snatched it out of the air and disappeared, grinning from cheek to cheek.

  "How much do I owe you?” Richard asked the clerk.

  "No charge, sir. A pleasure to serve you, sir."

  Richard shoved a bill of an inordinately large denomination at him and took me by the arm to leave. “He'll have a constable after us, Ri—Bart,” I warned.

  Richard turned back to the clerk. “You wouldn't be fool enough to go doing that, lad?"

  "No, sir. No, sir!” I think he crossed his heart, but perhaps he was just clutching at it. Certainly he looked as if he might have a stroke at any moment.

  "Good lad.” Richard grinned menacingly, and we left.

  "Did you ever consider a life on the stage, Richard?” I asked in a weak voice when we were out the door.

  "It was easier than trying to convince him we're respectable."

  "Yes. It makes one realize clothes do make the man. Perhaps we should spend the reward money on new jackets for the poor children. Except that there will probably be no reward."

  He drew out his watch. “It is only a quarter past eleven. We might still catch Tom."

  The ostler brought forth a spanking whiskey drawn by a pony.

  "I paid enough for a proper carriage!” Richard objected.

  "Never mind, Bart. It is good enough."

  He assisted me into the whiskey, hopped into the driver's seat himself, and we were off. “He did not believe you were Black Bart, or he would have provided a better rig,
” I said. “He probably thought you were just a dangerous lunatic."

  "I wonder what he thought of you,” Richard retaliated.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We reached Brighton without incident. As we could not drive up to the house in the whiskey, Richard left it a block away and we walked via the back road to my house. At some point during our absence, Ketchen had had all the lights put out, which made good sense. Tom would not try to enter until everyone was in bed.

  We crept from bush to bush through the garden without encountering Richard's watchman. It seemed impossible it was only hours ago I had entertained society here. Now all was dark and quiet.

  When we reached the house, our trials continued. The back door was locked, and we disliked to make any racket, in case Tom was waiting in the shadows, or in the house itself.

  "How can we get in?” I whispered. “I did not bring my key with me."

  "I wonder if Aunt Grieve's key is still on the ledge over the door.” He reached up and, amazingly, found it.

  "You should have told me it was there! Anyone might have found it."

  "No one did, so there is no harm done,” he said blandly.

  He slid the key into the lock and opened the door. With so little moonlight, the kitchen looked like a cave, save for the glimmer of pots hanging on the wall. We crept along quietly, heading for the stairs that would take us up to the house proper.

  Richard's elbow bumped against a bowl on the table and sent it flying. It was Cook's bread, set out to rise. The wad of dough flew out and hit me in the face. It felt like a huge, soft hand. I stifled a scream and pulled it off. It was nothing short of a miracle that the bowl landed silently in a basket of laundry.

  We reached the door, and Richard pushed it open. He took just one step into the darkness beyond, before he was felled by a stunning blow. All I could see was a shadow moving above him, then he disappeared.

  Naturally I assumed Tom had got in, had heard us, and struck Richard down. I stepped back, feeling around for a weapon. You would think in a kitchen equipped with all manner of cleavers and knives, one could come up with a better weapon than a teapot. In the darkness, and in my haste and fear, however, it was the teapot that my fingers encountered, and it was the teapot that I raised to go after Tom. I swung blindly into the doorway, and connected forcefully with a head. A hollow one, to judge by the echoing sound.