The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner

by T. F. Banks

The surgeon looked startled, but Morton did not quite know how to read his expression. “I had not thought of that. But I suppose, as you say, it is true. I had quite forgotten about the other. Or rather, had forgotten her misguided preference for him. That milk-livered soldier.”

  “Richard Davenant.”

  “Yes. I believe that was him.”

  “You were, in fact, there at his end?”

  “At Albuera, during the peninsular campaign. Yes. I was regimental surgeon to the Thirty-fifth at the time. But he was dead when he got to me. Just like this other one.”

  “Why do you say he was milk-livered?”

  “He ran from the enemy.”

  “How do you know this, Mr. Bromley?” A growing dislike had put a certain coldness into Morton's tone, of which the other man, in his apparently habitual illhumour, seemed oblivious.

  “He had a bullet squarely in the back of his head. He was supposed to be advancing. What conclusions would you draw, sir?”

  “In a battle, surely many things are possible.”

  “They who brought him in confirmed it.”

  “You did not examine Davenant where he fell?”

  “Nay, sir,” snapped Robert Bromley. “It was not my role to go where the shot fell. Would you have me amputating limbs under cannon fire?”

  Morton looked steadily back at him without answering.

  “Sometimes,” the surgeon went irritably on, “the men would wrap a fellow up in a blanket or some such matter and carry him back to me. The army discouraged it, as the folk who did this were often shirkers. They carried some ‘beloved’ comrade back, and then, strangely enough, never quite returned to their rightful places in the firing line.”

  “Was Richard Davenant carried back to you this way? You just said he was dead already.”

  “It was a battle—if you had ever been in one you would know that much is lost in the confusion. Perhaps he still had a faint pulse when he reached me. But it didn't last long.”

  “Could he speak?”

  “No, sir, of course he could not, any more than you could under the same circumstances.” The little man put his fingertips together and stared up at the ceiling. “Some of his fellows were blubbering and making a great show of their grief about him, but it was clearly a ploy. The truth soon came out: The man had blanched at the sight of the French, and bolted, shamefully, at the moment of greatest peril. I've told others this, sir, and I'm weary of telling it. He was far from the only one. Some of these puffed-up tin soldiers, with their fine uniforms and their lies of glory, they weary me. I've seen them when they've not been so proud, sir. I've heard them scream and beg when I've had them on my table and taken a leg from them, or an arm. And I've seen many a wound that no one ever got from charging the enemy direct. No, sir, anyone who has been where I have been and seen what I have seen knows how rare true bravery is. And I will tell you something about the men who possess it, sir. They tend also to be the men with the best blood and purest pedigrees. The old, true stock of England. Not ill-bred bastards or the sons and grandsons of tradesmen and grasping, time-serving Scottish interlopers!”

  Morton found himself wondering, not in a cool impersonal way, how a swiftly delivered uppercut would affect this vicious little doctor's opinions. He had already intimated Morton was a shirker—though apparently aiming this insult elsewhere—and passed judgement on sham gentlemen.

  What were the real sources of Bromley's resentment? Could he have imagined himself a rival for a woman like Louisa Hamilton? But there were so many other possible reasons. A more plausible sweetheart stolen by one of these same tin soldiers. Or the fact that he could never have been a soldier himself. The Duke of York's height requirement, though hardly stringent, would certainly have eliminated this near-dwarf.

  The man, at any rate, was cramped, bent, fairly curdled within by his hatreds, his jealousies. They reeked from him, like an offensive odour. Morton could barely stand to be in the little man's presence, and found his own anger welling up.

  “In so great a battle I'm surprised that you remember the death of Richard Davenant. There must have been so many.”

  “I knew Davenant somewhat,” Bromley admitted grudgingly.

  “And did not like him.”

  “I didn't know him well enough to like or dislike him. But he was known to me by reputation.”

  “Who was it told you that Richard Davenant had run?”

  Bromley threw up his hands. “I was hardly on a social footing with the whole Thirty-fifth Regiment of Foot!” he snapped back with what seemed unnecessary vehemence. But then, “It was some captain or other. I'd only recently been posted to the Thirty-fifth, and did not stay long. I went to the First Guards after that, which is a much better regiment in every respect.”

  A more fashionable one, at least, Morton reflected. And coincidentally enough, Rokeby's regiment. “Colonel Fitzwilliam Rokeby was not also in the Thirty-fifth Foot at that time, by chance?”

  “To my knowledge, the Colonel has always been a member of the First Guards. Now, sir, if you please. I have much better ways of using my time than in idle discussions.”

  Morton made no move to leave.

  “You disapproved of Miss Hamilton's impending marriage to Mr. Glendinning?” he asked.

  “I disapprove of any comely woman throwing herself away on a coward.”

  “How do you know Glendinning was a coward?”

  “It was all around town that he went out to meet Colonel Rokeby and near swooned from his fear.”

  “Unlike you, sir, who would go out to meet a man like Rokeby as though it were a ride in the country?”

  The surgeon's face suddenly turned red. “What are you saying, sir?”

  “That if you ever found the dark eye of a firearm peering at you, Mr. Bromley, I daresay you would be as frightened as young Glendinning. And if you don't think so, send a friend to call on me and I will aim a pistol at you and prove my point. Good day to you.”

  Morton gravitated back to the Golden Apple for his midday meal. Jimmy Presley wasn't there, but it was the haunt of several Runners and he had not been sipping his bitters long when a familiar voice interrupted his meditations.

  “Now what is Henry Morton on to, going about London looking so thoughtful?”

  Morton glanced up to find John Townsend smiling down on him benevolently.

  “The people of London aren't used to men looking so contemplative, Morton; you will confound them. Perhaps frighten them. You might even make them wonder, if they still be capable of it.”

  Morton gestured to a chair and the venerable Townsend settled himself. Morton smiled, and only partly from the pleasure of Townsend's arrival. The eccentric veteran had turned out his short, corpulent person in the most peculiar collection of ill-fitting clothing, some of it once very fine, none of it even remotely in harmony. But although he certainly was no dandy, Morton had always thought he had the face of a stoic philosopher.

  Morton liked John Townsend immensely, and not just because he had begun at Bow Street as his protégé. The old man exhibited such courtly charm, and such an avuncular concern for all his younger colleagues, that Morton invariably found himself cheered in the man's presence. And despite his apparent oddness, Townsend was still the most effective Runner Bow Street had ever known—even at his great age, he was formidable. He knew the city and its denizens like no one else, and was familiar with both princes and flash men. He was usually present when the Prince Regent entertained, and when His Highness gambled John Townsend held his money, releasing it as required. It was rumoured, of course, that the old Runner had accumulated a great fortune over his many years of profitable service. And it might even be true. But Morton also knew the strength of Townsend's integrity.

  “So, Morton, what is it that has sent you so deep into this foreign region of the mind?”

  “I am reflecting on the place of coincidence in the lives of men.”

  Townsend grinned. “Now there is a fitting subject for an inquisitive m
ind,” he said, twisting around and searching, for the publican, apparently. “But I suspect you aren't really being so philosophical…. There's something more specific in Henry Morton's thoughts, if I know the man at all.”

  Morton sipped his beer again and released a grunt of agreement. “Did you hear about the duel at Wormwood Scrubs the other morn?”

  “The one Mr. Vaughan and young Presley so rudely interrupted?”

  “The very one. But did you hear that the man who had challenged Rokeby died that same evening?”

  “Well, rumours of such a thing reached me,” Townsend said. “And that is your coincidence?”

  “Only in part. The man, whose name was Glendinning, was about to become engaged, perhaps that very evening. The woman he was intent on marrying had been formerly spoken for, but her previous gentleman was killed at Albuera in the year eleven.”

  “Ah, both her paramours died tragically,” Townsend said.

  “Yes, but even that is not the whole of the coincidence. The surgeon who saw her first man die in Spain was also present the other evening, when Mr Glendinning arrived dead in a hackney-coach.”

  “Well…!” Townsend said enthusiastically, and raised the brimming glass the barkeep had just brought him. “To coincidence!”

  “But it goes even deeper than that. After her first fiancé died, the lady briefly indulged, then spurned, Colonel Fitzwilliam Rokeby, who was the duelist who stood against Glendinning. And later this surgeon, who saw her first man die in Spain, transferred to Rokeby's own regiment.”

  Townsend sipped his ale and considered a moment, his eyes losing focus. Just when Morton had begun to worry that age had chased their conversation from the old Runner's mind, he stirred. “Well, Morton. Coincidence and I have an uneasy accord. She is like an out-of-pocket relation. When she comes rapping at my door on rare occasions, I am as ready as anyone to tolerate her presence. I do my best to accommodate her, even welcome her, in fact. But when coincidence starts to become too familiar, to appear too often…Well, I find her a more and more disagreeable companion. What you have here is coincidence dropping by a little too often even to be offered tea, if you take my meaning.”

  “I have been thinking the same thing. But what it means I cannot yet fathom.”

  The veteran Runner produced a long-stemmed pipe and tobacco pouch and motioned to a servant to bring him a lamp. He lit his pipe reflectively, obscuring himself in cumulus. “Was Rokeby in Spain?” he asked.

  Morton gazed at him thoughtfully. “Well, Mr. Townsend, I cannot answer that question. He is in the First Guards. But somehow the idea of Rokeby involving himself in anything as unprofitable or disagreeable as a real campaign seems unlikely.”

  “First Guards were in Spain, mind you,” remarked Townsend. “But I can tell you one thing, Morton,” he said, emitting a luxurious puff of scented smoke, “you've something more than coincidence, here. I am confident you will sort it out if you persist. However, you should take care about this business with the lady. You should take care. I'd not have any ill befall my favourite young colleague.”

  “It seems a reasonable enough commission,” said Morton after a moment, “and 'tis very well rewarded.”

  “Oh, I daresay. But your Magistrate warned you away from it, did he not? He is not pleased with you now, and may become even less so. And it appears to involve you in a matter of vengeance, which is always, in my experience, an unpredictable and dangerous sort of a matter. Perhaps it is the revenge of the lady upon Rokeby, or Rokeby upon her. Or perhaps it is the revenge of some other person entirely, upon one or both of them. But in any case, 'tis a question of the passions, of woman and man, and such things are ever treacherous.”

  Morton said nothing, but felt a certain sense of the world moving around, as though Townsend had seen something he had not considered. Could he be in danger?

  “This new lad, Presley,” Townsend went on after several slow, satisfied puffs and a swallow of his ale, “what do you make of him?”

  “Jimmy has a future at Bow Street, I think.”

  “Well,” Townsend drawled, “not if he takes after our Mr. Vaughan, he doesn't. Now, Presley seems friendly to you, Morton; perhaps you should have a word with him. George Vaughan already has a follower or two too many at Bow Street.”

  Morton gazed at him in sober silence. Townsend clearly knew of the bribe paid by the duelists on Worm-wood Scrubs. Had Sir Nathaniel even alerted him, asking Townsend the same questions he had put to Morton as they rode to meet the Glendinnings? And what had Townsend answered, Morton wondered.

  Just then the door opened, admitting two men in a quick fan of light. Beside the bar a muttering conversation ensued. This grew in volume and began to flit from table to table like flame passing down a street, from one house to the next to the next.

  “What is it?” Morton said to a man returning from the bar.

  “Haven't you heard? Bonaparte fought the Prussians before the Duke of Wellington could join them, and he beat them, beat them terribly, at a town called Ligny. The Prussian marshal, Blücher, was killed, and what's left of his army is running for the Rhine.”

  “Dear God,” murmured Morton.

  “Yes,” the man said, “and the Austrians are nowhere to be seen. Now there's just the Duke left in the field against him.” He shook his head. “We'll see what the British soldier is made of now.”

  As the man went off to his table Townsend eyed Morton. “Do you know what our Duke calls his brave British soldiers, Morton?”

  “I do not.”

  “He calls them ‘the scum of the earth—the very scum of the earth.’”

  Chapter 20

  So, you told Rokeby you would arrest him if he challenged you, then proposed he meet you at Gentleman John's for fisticuffs. And after that you challenged the little surgeon to a duel?” Arabella was both incredulous and delighted.

  “I did not challenge him to a duel, I only said he might challenge me.”

  Arabella laughed. “Ah, well, that's all right then. Colonel Rokeby, I understand, is not extended this same courtesy?”

  “You are intentionally refusing to understand,” Morton said, exasperated and a little embarrassed by what he was admitting. “You are being forward and…and…I could not allow Rokeby to challenge me, because I am a Bow Street officer and mayn't duel, for it is against the law, but Bromley would never have the temerity to challenge me, because he is a fainthearted little man.”

  “That is all very convenient,” Arabella said quickly. “The duelist may not challenge you but the coward may, though of course he won't, for he is a poltroon.”

  “It is exactly this kind of thing,” Morton fired back, “that sent young Glendinning out to fight Rokeby.”

  “Is that what it was? Confronted with reason, he was driven to dueling?”

  Morton threw up his hands. “That bitter little surgeon is like many a man who has never faced a loaded firearm—he believes in the myth of courage. I have had a pistol primed and aimed at my heart, and I can tell you there are only two kinds of men who don't know fear in such situations: those too stupid and insensible to realise what might happen, and men like Rokeby, who are unnatural, born without capacity for either fear or conscience. I could not bear the little—” Morton stopped before he used an extremely impolite term.

  Arabella clapped her hands together and laughed. “Oh, Morton, you do charm me when you are so … human.”

  “And I am usually somewhat less than human, I collect?”

  “Oh, no: You are more, and it's madding.”

  Morton shook his head. “Well, I shall try to be less perfect in future, as you find my faults so captivating.”

  They were at Arthur Darley's, Arabella as a somewhat scandalous guest, and Morton on paid duty to keep watch over the ladies' precious baubles. Morton had at first been inclined to refuse employment with Lord Arthur, thinking that the aristocrat was sending him a less than subtle message about their relative places in the world, but then he had decided
he would accept, and show not the slightest sign of intimidation.

  Lord Arthur, however, had greeted Morton as a welcome guest, been more genuine and gracious than Morton had any reason to expect, and left the Runner wondering what exactly he had fallen into. One would think Lord Arthur unaware that they were competing for the affections of the same woman. They were competing, were they not? But if one went by Darley's behaviour one would be forced to conclude they had come to some gentleman's agreement to share the lovely woman in question. Did gentlemen make such agreements?

  Morton still could not fathom it.

  Lord Arthur's guests were not quite typical of fashionable society. Poets, painters, and rather scruffy-looking journalists were as common as lords and ladies, and there was a certain paucity of soldiers. The scraps of conversation he overheard suggested, furthermore, that the military news was not foremost in their minds. Instead, they were talking about Lady Caroline Lamb's latest indiscretion and the rumours she was writing a novel about her affair with Byron.

  As he mingled in the chattering rout, Morton had more than once been engaged in conversation himself— he was, after all, dressed as a gentleman—and when it came out that he was a Bow Street Runner, he even encountered some polite interest, as well as the usual hints of embarrassment and distaste. One writer of a certain celebrity had questioned him at length, listening raptly to Morton's stories of criminal ingenuity.

  Now, however, as Arabella was visibly summoning up her wit to continue teasing him, Morton noticed with relief another man hovering nearby, clearly wishing to speak with one of them. It was Peter Hamilton, Louisa's half-brother.

  “Mr. Morton, may I have a word with you when you are quite free?”

  Arabella gave them both a fetching smile and swept off.

  “Mr. Hamilton,” Morton said, giving a slight bow. The man was dressed in black, though Morton knew that this was as much fashion as a sign of mourning.

  The man looked warily over his shoulder to be sure that they could not be heard. “Mr. Morton, may I ask you again who has engaged you to look into Halbert Glendinning's passing?”