T.F. Banks: The Thief-Taker

But then he opened the next door and found Peter Hamilton, dressed in his habitual black and lying awkwardly upon the carpet. A stain of drying blood dyed the carpet around him, and a dueling pistol lay near to hand.

“Dear Jesus…” Jimmy Presley whispered. “Who's this cove?”

“His name was Peter Hamilton,” Morton said softly.

“Did he do himself, do you think?”

“Perhaps,” Morton said.

“This is what you expected to find?”

“No. No, this is not what I expected, but perhaps I should have.”

A polished mahogany box lay capsized on the desk, its lid hanging open, the small locking mechanism twisted and broken. Across the desktop lay a scattering of loose papers. This small autumn of fallen white leaves spread onto the floor, where it seemed the wind had swept them here and there. Morton stopped and retrieved several pages, glancing at them quickly.

“What've you there?” Presley asked.

“Poems,” Morton said. “Love poems.”

He turned and went back out into the hall. He felt a chill within, a sudden loss of feeling, of contact, as though the essence of Henry Morton had been cast free of his attachment to his physical being. He walked as though in a disturbing dream. The appearance of objects was not quite right, as though illuminated by a strange, flat light.

“Morton…?” Presley said, looking at him oddly. But Morton did not answer.

Before opening the door to Louisa's sitting-room, he knocked gently. When there was no answer he put his hand on the doorknob, but still hesitated.

“Shall I look for you, Morton?” Presley asked softly.

Morton shook his head, took a quick breath, and opened the door.

She lay there in the soft light filtering through the trees outside, her hair wafting gently in the small breeze that found its way through the open casement. Morton turned away.

“Here's the matching pistol,” Presley offered. “Did they both do for themselves, do you think, or did one murder the other first?”

“I don't know, Jimmy,” Morton whispered. He leaned heavily on the back of a chair. “Better I had found nothing,” he muttered. “Better to have failed in my commission than to have caused this.”

Sounds came from the stairs just then. Voices calling, and then Arabella and Darley appeared, stopping, horrified.

“Dear God, Henry-!” Arabella said, but nothing more. Darley took her arm and drew her out. Morton and then Presley followed. They met Townsend and, unexpectedly, Sir Nathaniel, on the landing.

Presley nodded toward the room and the Bow Street men went in. Darley eased Arabella into a chair where she fanned herself with his hat, her white skin paler than Morton had ever seen. They heard Sir Nathaniel exclaim something from inside the room, and then he, too, emerged.

“Who is this woman?”

“Louisa Hamilton,” Morton answered. “She was Hal-bert Glendinning's fiancee.”

“There is a gentleman, too,” Presley said, gesturing to the other door.

Sir Nathaniel poked his head in and emerged looking very grim. “I came along to offer my apologies-and find this…. What the devil has happened here, Mr. Morton?”

But Morton was already on the stair, and then out into the street and into the light that filtered through the trees in the square.

Morton sipped the tea that Arabella had made. They could hear Nan moving above, seeing to the bodies of her master and mistress. The maid had come in not long after, a basket on her arm, having been sent on errands by her mistress-errands that had been difficult to discharge in the town gone mad.

The sight of Louisa had buckled her knees, and Morton and the other gentlemen had left her in the care of Arabella, hearing only the muffled sobbing and keening from above. But then some part of her, some part born of intense practicality and a lifetime of service, had set her to work, laying out the corpses, aided by Darley's silent butler.

A messenger arrived from Bow Street then, bearing the letter Lucy had produced in court-the one directing Halbert Glendinning to the Otter.

“I'll take it up,” Arabella said, and went softly up the stair. A moment later she was down again, nodding to Morton.

“It is his hand,” she said, passing the note to Morton.

“Perhaps now you can tell us what went on here,” Sir Nathaniel said.

“I am not entirely sure myself,” Morton replied. “The dead man was Peter Hamilton, Louisa Hamilton's half-brother. As I guessed, he wrote the note that Lucy read in court this morning-and was the man who commissioned George Vaughan to poison Halbert Glendinning.”

Morton had not returned into himself completely, but still felt the odd distance, the unsettling inner quiet and emptiness. But the others were gazing at him.

“It is for the most part conjecture,” he continued, “but I think matters shook themselves out so: Peter Hamilton was obsessively and jealously in love with his half-sister. The poems, which obviously he had kept locked in the mahogany box, were all written to her or about her. The entire tragedy sprang from his unnatural passion.

“Hamilton was at Albuera, though he claimed to have been ill with fever in Lisbon at the time. Wilkes brought me a list of the officers who fought in the battle, and Captain Peter Hamilton was among them. That is what finally alerted me. I believe he shot Miss Hamilton's first fiance, Richard Davenant, in the heat of battle. And, if that was not enough, he then spread rumours to blacken the dead man's good name. The regimental surgeon, Bromley, was his confederate in this, for there was no one like that vicious little doctor to go after a man who could not defend himself.” Morton looked out the window to the bright day beyond. Hanover Square remained unnaturally quiet. “Bromley would not reveal Hamilton as the source of these rumours, for Hamilton was his brother-in-arms, and I suspect sent him patients from among the quality.

“I do not know what went on between Louisa Hamilton and her half-brother. And I do not care to speculate. But in due course, after Davenant's murder, Louisa met another gentleman. Lord Arthur told me that he thought Miss Hamilton and Glendinning were about to announce their engagement, and perhaps that was true, though there were always thoughts of Richard Davenant in her mind, which is why she cried out his name that night on the steps of Portman House, when Glendinning was found dead.” Morton stopped to marshal his thoughts a moment, looking at the solemn gathering. He took up his story again.

“Peter Hamilton told Glendinning that Rokeby had slandered his bride-to-be-the Colonel had once courted her briefly-and probably pushed Glendinning into sending Rokeby a challenge. No doubt he believed Rokeby would do for Glendinning, and he likely would have, had Presley and Vaughan not interrupted this duel.”

“There you are,” whispered Sir Nathaniel.

“Vaughan, of course, turned the opportunity to account. He demanded a bribe not to prosecute the two parties. But George Vaughan was quite the man for recognising larceny in another's soul. And somehow, I would guess, he saw it in Peter Hamilton-or perhaps it was the other way around. The corrupt Bow Street Runner was too obviously the man Peter Hamilton needed. However it occurred, Hamilton paid our good Mr. Vaughan to murder Glendinning. But not just murder him-he wanted to destroy him in the eyes of his sister as well. So one of them hit upon the scheme of poisoning the man and sending him to Lord Arthur's in a carriage. The little surgeon Bromley just ‘happened’ to be there.” Morton turned to Darley. “You said he had come with someone else, Lord Arthur, and I am willing to wager that it was Peter Hamilton.” Darley shrugged, ready to concede the point.