T.F. Banks - The Thief-Taker

“Did I not say I had given it to another woman?” Morton smiled.

Arabella burst out laughing.

“Can you keep her safe awhile?” he asked. “I have much that must be done if I am to prove my innocence.”

Mrs. Malibrant nodded once, staring down at the child who still held hard to her book. Morton wondered who would end up with it.

“Would you like to stay awhile with me?” Arabella asked the girl.

Lucy gazed up wide-eyed. “If you please, m'lady.”

Arabella flashed a smile at Morton. “Do you hear, Henry? She thinks me a lady.” And then to Lucy, “Do you know, I once was a countess.”

Lucy nodded, willing to believe anything of this vision before her.

“And yet another time a duchess. I was even a queen, though it was a brief reign. The critics pierced me with their quills and I vowed never to be a queen again.” She offered her hand. “I think Christabel is making breakfast. Are you hungry?”

Lucy took the offered hand, but with her other kept the Byron behind her back. Apparently she knew something of exiled queens.

Arabella shot another bemused smile at Morton. “Be off, Morton. I think young Lucy and I shall be the best of friends.”

“But I fear for you if you stay here. George Vaughan will be looking for me-and her-and he is still a Bow Street man. If he was to appear at your door again there would be nothing you could do. Can you take her to Darley? Vaughan would never dare to look for her there.”

Arabella considered. “I don't know what Arthur will say to harbouring fugitives… but yes, I will go to him.” She looked at Morton, examining his torn and muddied clothing, his haggard face, and for the first time he glimpsed the depth of fear the actress was hiding.

“Henry?” she said quietly. “Do come back to me.”

Morton leaned forward and kissed her, and for a moment she clung to him, before he ran off into the bustling morning.

Morton found a hackney-coach in Red Lion Square. The long ride out to Sir Nathaniel Conant's suburban villa in Camden Town took an eternity, and the further delay while Morton knocked up the porter and waited until the Chief Magistrate was ready was almost as maddening.

Sir Nathaniel finally received him, wigless, in his modest study. Morton guessed that the visit had interrupted the Bow Street Magistrate's breakfast. The older man's eyes smouldered, but he was too much the gentleman to commence with shouting or reproach, or to complain about the earliness of the hour.

“How is it you are at liberty, sir?” he demanded. “I ordered you held until this morning's hearing of your matter.”

“I… procured my temporary freedom, sir, in order to obtain proofs of my innocence. But I am here, as you see, and am surrendering myself to your pleasure.”

“This had better have been done at Bow Street.”

“I did not do so because there are those at the Public Office who helped fabricate the evidence against me in the first place. I could hardly trust my new information to their hands.”

Sir Nathaniel stared at him coldly. “I have little patience for these tales, sir. I will certainly not abide their recitation at this hour and in this place. You shall have your hearing, as originally scheduled, where you may make whatever claims you please.”

Morton strove to keep his composure. Time was slipping away.

“I ask you to hear only this much. I've uncovered crucial evidence-evidence not merely to exonerate me, but that will reveal exactly the depth and extent of corruption in the Bow Street Public Office.”

The Chief Magistrate had opened his mouth to issue another rebuff, but Morton's last few words made the older man reconsider. He bent his head and frowned, and stepped for a moment about his room, pondering. At length he looked up at Morton.

“If not for Mr. Townsend, I should refuse to countenance any of this. But he interceded on your behalf. Mr. Townsend all but swore an oath on his good name that you are not guilty of the crimes you have been charged with, and Mr. Townsend's oath I take seriously. His alone amongst the lot of you.” Then he said: “What is the nature of this supposed evidence?”

“If you go now to the Otter House in Spitalfields you'll find it-but speed is all. Take a force of constables-men Mr. Townsend recommends. You will need men in numbers, because the folk in that flash house will defend themselves with desperation once they know that their Bow Street protector cannot save them. He-”

Sir Nathaniel interrupted him. “Name no names, sir! Not until you testify at your hearing. And then if you do, beware that you don't slander your colleagues without proof, as it will go hard for you.”

“If I am unable to demonstrate my innocence, sir,” said Henry Morton, “it will go quite as hard as can be.”

“What shall I find at this Otter House?”

“There will be at least these two things. Firstly, in a concealed storeroom behind the staircase, you'll uncover a variety of stolen goods.”

“We might well find the same on a warrant to search any flash house.”

“But amongst these goods is an element of the sculpted antiquities stolen from the Earl of Elgin's collection at Burlington House.”

“Very well. But you may have left or placed it there yourself. This flash house may be a place of your own resort.”

“The second source of intelligence to be found at the Otter,” continued Morton, steadying himself, “is a fully competent witness, who is prepared to testify as to what he has seen in that place. His name is Joshua, and he is the barkeep in that establishment.” Morton hoped desperately that he was right in this: that Joshua would be willing to give evidence.

The Chief Magistrate grunted. “A respectable kind of witness.” But his tone softened.

Morton went on. “He will swear to the origins of the goods in the house. Even more important, he will swear to the name of its true protector, the name, that is, of the Bow Street officer who really does control and profit from that place. He will swear also to the kinds of crimes that-”

“That is quite enough.” Sir Nathaniel's harsh voice was resigned now. He had listened. Henry Morton fell silent.

The Magistrate paced back and forth in silence a few moments more, his eyes down, and his hands clasped behind his back. Then he stopped and straightened himself, looking at Morton.

“I will instruct Mr. Townsend to assemble members of the Horse Patrol and go to this house on a warrant which I will sign myself. I will instruct these officers to proceed to the Otter House and make a search for precisely the goods you make reference to. They will also seek out any persons in the place who might provide information. Not merely the one whom you seem to believe will do you good. We'll see what they all have to say.”

“But we must go quickly, this very moment, before the iron goes cold.”

Sir Nathaniel Conant frowned, and then without further speech went out to give the necessary instructions to his household. Even so, it was some minutes more before the horse was harnessed and he and Morton were safely into his gig and headed for London.

The Magistrate chose to take the longer Saint Pancras road, in the hopes of seeing the incoming Horse Patrol from the north, but this manoeuvre proved fruitless. No other constables were encountered on the whole journey, despite Sir Nathaniel's spending several long minutes questioning the toll men at the Battle Bridge Gate as to their whereabouts.

“Damned useless system of patrol,” he muttered as he climbed back up into the carriage. “Where would a man be if he was in any real need?”

Other than this, however, the Chief Magistrate kept a bleak silence throughout, and Morton made no further attempts to engage him in conversation. The portly man sat immobile as a rock, his jaw set, gaze fixed ahead, his hands gripping the traces hard.