T.F. Banks - The Thief-Taker

“But, from time to time, outside the circle of polite company, his behaviour was… less restrained?”

“He was a young man, Mr. Morton, given to the habits of young men. But I never felt that his dedication to such pleasures would bring him to ruin, as it has so many.”

“Had you ever seen him drink himself insensible?”

“No, although I confess, I have seen Halbert imbibe enough that he required some assistance on stairs and entering carriages.”

Morton decided to go back to the duel. “You are familiar with Colonel Rokeby, I take it?”

Hamilton scowled. “Yes, he courted Louisa's favour for a short while. But she quickly saw through to his true nature.”

“Do you think her rejection of him could have led to a desire for revenge?”

Peter Hamilton raised his hands slightly in a gesture of helplessness. “It is hard for me to say. The Colonel's words were… cruel and rather calculated, I think, when I look back on it. Certainly they indicated a bitterness and resentment. I suppose it's not impossible. Perhaps even likely, when one thinks of it.”

“Where were these provocative remarks of Colonel Rokeby made?”

“At a private dinner at the Guards Club.”

“Were others present?”

Hamilton had risen and walked a few paces, agitated. “Some few officers, whose names I cannot recollect. Perhaps I never did know them.” He turned and faced Morton then. “Mr. Morton, I hope you will excuse me. We are to travel to Sussex today, Louisa and I, to attend Halbert Glendinning's funeral. I would certainly be pleased to continue this at another time….”

Henry Morton rose.

“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Hamilton.” Morton bowed and started for the door.

“Mr. Morton?” Hamilton looked at him, his eyes glistening slightly. “What do you think befell my friend?”

“I do not know for certain, Mr. Hamilton, but I think it likely he was poisoned,” Morton said flatly.

“If you were to catch the miscreant who did this, would you have any hope of conviction?”

“It depends, Mr. Hamilton. There would have to be very hard evidence, as our only authority on poisons is not much credited by their lordships of the Old Bailey.”

Peter Hamilton took this in for a moment.

“I do hope you find the man, Mr. Morton.” He paused, and then the hint of passion returned to his voice. “And if it is Rokeby, I hope you hang him.”

The hired horse shambled along, its tired head hanging low, occasionally taking swipes at tufts of orchard grass along the margin of the path. Dragonflies hovered in the warm still air, the blur and glitter of their wings awhir in the soft morning sunlight. Morton let the horse have its head as the path plunged down a small embankment, the beast's shoulders bunching up and rocking him from side to side as each hoof landed hard.

The path ran on smoothly then, and arrived at a crude gate. Morton let himself through, and emerged from the trees onto a narrow lane. A half hour along this and the weathered roofs of a small village appeared among oaks and massive beech.

His mother's cottage was the last dwelling but one as you rode south of the town. It lurked behind an unkempt, ancient hedge of laurel, thick spirea, and hawthorn. Morton gave a boy a coin to water his horse, and mind it while it browsed by the stream. Pushing open the creaking gate, he entered the garden.

For a moment he stood, staring around at the tangle of flowers and weeds, colours tumbling one over the other, out of the borders of the beds and onto the gravel path. He could hear the rasp of something scraping in earth, and then a softly rendered old country air. Morton cleared his throat.

Rebecca's face appeared among the hydrangea, a straw sun hat pushed onto the back of her head. Her startled expression gave way to a smile, and she brushed back a strand of hair with a soil-stained hand.

“Well, if it isn't Gentleman Jim! 'Enry!” she cried. “Oh, I've forgotten your h'aitch,” she added, laughing. It was an old jest, a reminder of a woman they'd once known.

She came out of the garden bed, wearing a farm labourer's boots, the skirts of her dress hitched up a little into a sash. There was a smudge of brown beside her freckled nose, which wrinkled up as she smiled. She kissed him lightly on both cheeks, rising up to her toes to do so.

“Don't take my hands,” she said, “they're all over dirt from the garden. But you've come just in time. Something is thieving my carrots.”

“Is it a person?”

She gazed thoughtfully at the rows of vegetables. “No, I suspect it isn't.”

“I fear my skills are limited to the apprehension and prosecution of men.”

“What is the point of having a thief-taker for a son if he can't protect even your garden? Oh, well. I shall have what the thieves leave, I suppose.”

His mother led him to a small table set beneath the trees, and Morton lowered himself, with some misgivings, into a decrepit wicker chair. His mother disappeared inside to make tea, and Morton sat watching her pass back and forth before the window. She had once been a very comely young woman, and some echo of that remained as she aged. Not that she was old-only seventeen years older than Morton himself. But her life had been a hard one.

Still, her hair, now silvery white, retained its lustre, and her face was not deeply wrinkled, but etched instead by myriad wire-thin lines. Through the window, she still appeared youthful, for she had so far avoided the stooping and slowing that overtook people as they aged.

A moment later she emerged. “Kettle's on,” she announced, and lit in the chair opposite. The sun dappled down through the leaves onto her face and dress.

“How's your new thatch?” Morton asked.

“It's as good as magic. Not a drop can find its way through.” She bobbed her head to him. “And I thank you again.”

“You shouldn't thank me, Mother.”

“Then you shouldn't bring it up,” she said, and Morton laughed.

From some distant corner of that summer afternoon a cuckoo called, and both Morton and his mother fell silent, listening. He looked up and found she was gazing at him, her face shadowed now by her hat brim.

“You've grown to look remarkably like your father,” she told him. Morton's reaction to this did not go unnoticed, and she reached out to press her now scrubbed fingers to his wrist. “But let's not speak of the devil,” she added.

Tea was soon made, and they sat drinking Old Gunpowder as around them bees hummed and pushed their determined way into trembling blossoms.

“I've been engaged in the most lucrative commission of my career,” Morton said, realizing how awkward that sounded. The problem was he wanted to leave his mother some money, but her pride wouldn't abide it. Not unless he could convince her it wasn't money he needed himself.

“The tailors of London will rejoice,” she said.

“I'm not really such a dandy. You've just not seen the way gentlemen are dressing in London these days. But I've no need of another frock-coat or pair of breeches.”

His mother played with the tassel of her shawl. “No doubt you'll find some use for it,” she said quietly. “Do you still see your actress?”

“When time allows,” Morton admitted.

His mother raised her cup and saucer, but said, “She does not treat you as you deserve.”

“No mother's son has ever been treated as he deserves,” Morton replied, and saw her quick smile before she sipped her tea.

“And what of Mr. Townsend?”

“He is well.”

“You'll take him my regards?”

“Indeed, just as I'm sure he would have sent his, had he known I would visit.”

Setting her cup on the table, his mother leaned her head against the high back of the chair, closed her eyes, and inhaled the fragrance of her garden. “I worry about you, Henry,” she said. “You don't know what it's like to be a parent and have your only child chasing about London after footpads and murderers.”