T.F. Banks: The Thief-Taker

“Hmm,” Arabella responded, beginning now on her lips. “It was Rokeby, of course,” she said.

“Who had everyone using lead powder?”

“Who killed Glendinning. Or had him killed.”

“He is the obvious choice,” Morton agreed, “if Glendinning was indeed killed.”

“He was. Rokeby is a rogue, and a murderer, too. I wish someone would shoot him, but he seems to shoot them all first. Could you not shoot him, Henry?”

Why this sudden antipathy toward Rokeby, he wondered. “Officers of police are not allowed to duel. It is illegal, if you remember.”

She raised her eyebrows, angled her face this way and that, and then turned in her chair to look at Morton. “You look worried, Henry. What is it?”

“It is something Jimmy Presley said to me this morning. Do you remember the Smeetons?” He proceeded to relate his conversation with the younger Runner, and then what he'd learned from the jarvey, and lastly the interview with the Glendinnings and his altercation with Sir Nathaniel.

“Why is this affair with George Vaughan any concern of yours? If he is corrupt, what of it? It is not for you to police your fellow officers, surely.”

Morton drew a long breath. Arabella was not one for taking on the responsibilities of the world. Let others worry about their own transgressions, or the sins of their brothers. Arabella was only concerned if such sins touched her or someone of her circle. Beyond that the world might cheerfully annihilate itself, Morton was sure.

“What is it Rokeby has done to you, my dear?” Morton asked on impulse.

“Me? Nothing. I should never be so foolish as to succumb to such calculated charms. But I know several women-I cannot name them-toward whom he has been most cavalier. If no man can shoot him I might have to do it myself.”

“He would not duel with a woman.”

“Oh, I would not use anything so crude as a firearm,” she answered sharply.

Morton smiled and shook his head. “The formidable Mrs. Malibrant.”

“Why, so I am. But I am surprised to see you here this evening.”

Morton did not like the sound of this, nor the tone. “You promised this night to me,” he said, his suspicions growing in spite of himself.

“Tomorrow night, Henry. I am otherwise committed this night.”

“I'm quite sure we agreed to this night.”

She knew his memory was almost infallible. Morton was somewhat famous for it in police circles.

“Could I have misspoken myself?” she asked innocently. “Well, let us not make a Trafalgar of it. Tomorrow night I will pledge to you. No, truly, Morton. Don't look at me so.”

Morton continued to look at her just so.

“Very well, I confess. I committed myself to two engagements on the same evening. It was a mistake honestly and innocently made. A lapse of memory-not everyone's is so perfect as yours.”

“Lord Arthur?”

She nodded sheepishly.

“Is he not married?”

“In name only-his wife lives in the country. Their children are grown. Now, Henry, you know we have always agreed…”

Morton held up both his hands, rising to his full height. “Do not waste this soliloquy on me, who knows it by heart.”

But the room was small and she put herself between Morton and the door, her absurdly made-up face close to his, green eyes gazing out from a field of cool, white Lille powder.

“Tomorrow night I promise to you-no, Henry, I promise. And there will be no mistakes.” She watched his face to gauge the effect of her pledge. “Now don't go running off-I have something for you.” She searched around her table and finally produced a leather-bound volume.

“There; by your pugilistic friend, Byron.”

“Hardly a friend,” Morton protested weakly, too aware that she patronised him. It was the new book, Hebrew Melodies .

She pressed it into his hands, and he felt his fingers close around the smooth calfskin. New volumes of poetry were rare, and expensive, pleasures.

“Will you stay for the performance?” she asked softly.

Morton wondered if anyone ever refused the wilful Arabella.

“Through the first act, at least.”

“Well, come see me then and we can visit until curtain call.”

There was a knock on her door just then-alerting Arabella to her entrance. She leaned forward to kiss Henry, remembered her face paint, and smiled as only Arabella could. Then she was out the door and hurrying off to her assignation with a full house of admirers.

Morton looked down at the book in his hands, opened it to the title page, and there, in a fine, legible hand, found:

To Mrs. Malibrant:

Whom I have long admired from afar.

Byron

Morton laughed. He could do nothing else.

Morton sat reading Byron's newest work, though his concentration flagged. Not enough sleep the previous night, what with Arabella sending him off to find that worthless jarvey. And then her “forgetting” all about their engagement. She hadn't forgotten at all, she'd just had a more interesting offer. Why did he even…?

But there were reasons.

He sighed and tossed down the poems, picking up the morning Times again and running his eye down the close columns of advertisements. Had he simply missed the inevitable little notice that indicated the thieves of Lord Elgin's antiquities were prepared to sell them back to their owner? At least he'd have that to lay at Sir Nathaniel's feet.

Not that the swag was very much: a few scraps of carved marble pilfered from the casually guarded heaps of the stuff in and about a shed in the inner courtyard of Burlington House. Elgin's supposedly magnificent collection, shipped back from Greece, was gathering dust there as the government tried to decide whether to purchase it and thus whether-and this was much worse from the point of view of those parsimonious gentry-to spend the money to build a proper museum to house it. A British Museum. What an extravagance.

Sir Nathaniel Conant was, by and large, a man Morton esteemed. He was perhaps a bit naive in the ways of the criminal classes, but he would learn-if he stayed at Bow Street long enough. It bothered Morton to have offended him, and he rather badly wanted to make it right.

Despite combing the columns twice, Morton found no reference to the missing marbles. In disgust, he opened the paper to news of the more common variety. That fraud Mesmer had died, apparently. “ The discoverer of animal magnetism ,” the editor named him. Morton snorted. He'd thought the man dead for years, so obscure had the once-celebrated doctor become.

Inevitably he found his way to the accounts of Wellington's army and the looming conflict on the continent. The reports were several days out of date, of course; news from Belgium and France never appeared less than three or four days after the events. The Times, however, was usually fairly reliable and gathered information from disparate sources.

The foreign news was gathered under various headings. DUTCH MAIL, or FLANDERS PAPERS. Official accounts invariably appeared under the headings WAR DEPARTMENT or OFFICIAL BULLETIN, the latter sometimes subtitled “Downing Street.” Nothing new here.

But under the banner FRENCH MAIL Morton found a brief item originating from Paris regarding “the Emperor” (the Times itself, unlike its continental correspondents, never honoured him with this title but always called him “Buonaparte”). “It is creditably believed that the Emperor left Paris on June 12…” Morton read, and then paused.

Everyone knew that the allies were gathering their armies for a thrust into France, and here was Napoleon leaving Paris, perhaps for Ostend, it was speculated. Morton felt a small, cold wave of apprehension wash through him. What if “the Emperor” had no intention of waiting for the allies to combine their forces?