The Thief Taker

by Janet Gleeson

  Outside, the light on the river was yellowish and the tide was high—choppy brown water lapped over the wharf. Gulls wheeled and cried, gusted by the wind. Harry Drake sniffed the air and felt a drop or two of rain sting his cheek. There was a storm coming, he thought to himself and smiled. Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he prowled into the city streets.

  By the time the bells of St. Dunstan’s pealed five and the sun sank behind the rooftops of Blackfriars, Harry Drake’s business was, by and large, satisfactorily concluded. In place of the valuables, his pockets now contained two gold sovereigns and two silver shillings. The quickening wind flogged his back but the storm had not yet properly arrived, nor had the dark hour for which he waited. Until then, he decided to pass the time pleasurably. First, he required food; a meat pudding and gravy was what he fancied. And afterward, perhaps a sating of a different kind—a visit to Dolly’s in Cheapside. With this sequence settled in his mind, Harry Drake headed homeward.

  It was twilight by the time he carefully descended the steep stairs so that the rotten wood did not creak and betray his presence. He gently opened the door like a man who wishes to see what lies within before he is observed. There was no window in the cellar. The only light was afforded by three tallow stubs arranged on a wooden board in the middle of a circular table. Through the smoky glow he made out the figure of his daughter, Elsie, with her crimson woolen shawl wrapped about her shoulders. She was sitting by the hearth with a broken wicker basket at her side. The opening door caused a gust, and as the candles flickered, Elsie flinched. Seeing her father’s skulking shadow, she nodded mutely and returned to her occupation.

  She was building the fire, as she always did at this hour, whatever the season, for warmth never penetrated here. She picked out morsels of coal and wood from her basket, wiped off the worst of the mud, then stacked them in the fireplace as delicately as if she were constructing a house of cards. When the mound was high enough, she ignited it with a splint lit from one of the candles, then puffed until she felt dizzy and the first hesitant sparks caught fire.

  Harry Drake took a horsehair blanket from his bed and wrapped it about him. As he watched his daughter’s painstaking efforts, his belly growled. The minute Elsie sat back on her heels, he ordered, “Leave off that! I want food—now.” He thrust a shilling toward her. “Go to the chophouse. Get me a mutton pudding and a quart of ale. Straight back, no dawdling, mind, ’less you want a leathering.”

  Ten minutes later she was back, jug in one hand, steaming pudding in the other. She banged them on the table and clattered about to find crockery and a spoon. Harry gulped down the ale, then wiped the spoon on his shirtsleeve and heaped it high with a cascade of suet pastry, fat, gristly meat, and gravy. He crammed its dripping contents into his mouth, chewed, gulped, and drank several times more before his eye strayed from his dish to his daughter, who had resumed her position squatting by the fire. “Where’s your dish, girl? Fetch it quick, or you’ll go hungry.”

  Elsie scrambled to her feet and took a pewter saucer and a chipped stoneware mug down from the mantel shelf. She watched unblinking while he pared off a sliver of pudding and congealed gravy, spooned it onto her saucer, half filled her mug with ale, and thrust both toward her. He was sitting on the only chair in the place, so she perched on an upturned coal bucket to eat.

  “So,” said Harry Drake when there was no morsel left. “See anything today?”

  Elsie shrugged. “Nothing different. I was there by six. Shop opened at seven-thirty by one of the apprentices. The two journeymen was there soon after. The gentleman from next door came round eight.”

  Harry Drake nodded, then knitted his brows. “When I happened by, I caught sight of you talking with someone, then running off. What was that about?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Elsie thought of Agnes, of the pie she had bought with her coins, and of the purse still hid in her pocket and the snatched orange she had eaten, rind, pips, and all. “Wasn’t no lady. Only a servant going at me for sitting on her step.”

  “Not a servant of the Blanchards?”

  “No, Pa. I ain’t careless. Nor stupid neither.”

  Harry picked at his teeth with the point of his pocketknife. “My business there will be done this night. Tomorrow get back to the river. We are low on fuel. And see what else you can find.”

  Elsie nodded, holding the palms of her hands out to the fire. The flames were the same color as the orange.

  Chapter Three

  GENERATIONS of Blanchards had lived and worked in Foster Lane, and their grandly appointed shop had once been London’s most fashionable silversmith. The street lay at the heart of the profession that had established the family’s fortune. Here stood the great Goldsmiths’ Hall, and craftsmen in gold and silver worked and prospered as they had throughout the centuries in the neighboring streets of Cheapside, Gutter Lane, Carey Lane, and Wood Street. The family house next door had been equally sumptuous, for the Blanchards had always considered themselves as being a cut above the craftsmen of other trades. At dinner, they ate off silver plate, with a dozen of the best beeswax candles burning in a pair of Corinthian-columned candelabra. This was no extravagance, argued Nicholas Blanchard: a well-appointed table was a canny business practice. When customers were invited to dine, nothing rivaled serving a perfectly roasted duck on a great oval platter, or a pyramid of syllabubs in trumpet vases, or pickles in scallop shells, to spur commissions.

  Theodore Blanchard, Nicholas’s only son, felt less certain of the need for ostentation. A year ago, after much prevarication, Nicholas had turned over the running of the business to him. But when Theodore had reviewed the accounts and order books, he had found that the seemingly thriving enterprise was far from profitable. Trade in small silver was dire. With one notable exception—a gargantuan wine cooler—no special commissions had been placed for months. Theodore had instigated economies: limited his entertaining; ordered his wife, Lydia, to reduce the household expenditures.

  But when Nicholas got a whiff of these thrifty measures, he questioned his son’s pessimistic view of the accounts. If the Blanchards were in financial difficulties it could be due only to Theodore’s inexperience and inefficiency. Perhaps Theodore would prefer his father to resume control. Meanwhile, whether there were three or thirty at table, he would see his tureens and platters set out, and be reminded of what he had created.

  On this particular late January evening, there were no guests at the dark mahogany dining table; the family were dining alone. Theodore took his seat between Nicholas and Lydia, while John, the footman, removed the domed lid of the tureen by its acorn finial, and ladled out the almond soup.

  Theodore’s appetite was always formidable, and now he slurped a spoonful, savoring the creamy sweetness, noting that Mrs. Meadowes had expertly prevented the soup from curdling and had seasoned it to perfection with a mélange of nutmeg, pepper, bay, and mace. Then he turned to his father. “I wonder, sir, whether you have given further thought to our conversation a week ago?”

  Nicholas Blanchard’s gaunt, heavily lined face regarded his son. “What was its subject?”

  “Moving our business to a more fashionable part of the city. As I made clear to you before, one reason our custom has dwindled is that the city has spread westward. Other craftsmen have begun to decamp. There are now several highly prosperous workshops in Soho.”

  “And good luck to them,” replied Nicholas. “But rest assured, I shall not follow. Since time immemorial the craft has been centered on this very spot. Why should I want to move?”

  He continued in the same vein as he had last week and the week before that, and on every other occasion that Theodore had proposed alteration of any kind.

  Theodore gulped, and discounted every word. “That is all very well, Father, but nothing stays the same indefinitely. Fashions change, cities alter. The name of Blanchard is not held so high as it once was. If we do not acknowledge as much
, and search for a remedy, our business will founder and land us bankrupt in the Fleet. It is my solid belief that our trade would be greatly expanded if we moved west to one of the newer environs. Cavendish Square or St. Martin’s Lane, perhaps.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “What would be the purpose of decamping? So that each day hours are wasted in traveling to and from the hall for pieces to be stamped? So that we lose sight of our rivals and they gain the advantage on us?”

  “We have received few sizable commissions in the past months.”

  Nicholas fixed his steel gray eyes on his son. “What of Sir Bartholomew Grey’s wine cooler? The most valuable object we have ever made!”

  “Yes sir, but that is the exception—and at the present time, in my opinion, it is unlikely to be repeated.”

  Nicholas dropped his knife and fork on his fish plate with a clatter. “How many other silversmiths can boast such a commission? I have said all I wish to on this matter, Theodore. You know my opinion. It is founded on thirty years’ experience. Ignore it at your peril and do not expect it to change.”

  Outside a steady rain had begun to fall. Theodore could hear windows sashes rattling in their frames. The footmen cleared away the dishes from the first course and replaced them with clean ones. Mr. Matthews replenished the glasses with burgundy. Theodore sat morosely, shoulders slumped. He tried to make conversation with his wife and picked over his dish of jugged hare (usually one of his favorites) with a spoonful of cauliflower pickle. But either the hare was too rich or his appetite had been soured by his father’s intransigence. And Lydia was not in a communicative mood. After replying to his inquiries after their children, she fell silent.

  Chapter Four

  DURING THE NIGHT , the gale turned so powerful that the lanterns in Foster Lane were all extinguished. A watchman was paid by various craftsmen to patrol the street and deter any villainy, but at two in the morning, reasoning that no villain would venture out in such inclement conditions, he decided to pass the rest of the night in his bed.

  When the city bells chimed half past two, the moon was obscured by a cover of cloud. No one saw Harry Drake step out of Dolly’s whorehouse in Cheapside, where he had spent half a sovereign most enjoyably, and creep toward the shadows of Foster Lane. Along the way he darted into a passage and collected a cart, borrowed for the evening from a rag-dealing acquaintance. The cart was empty and easy to push, although the wind hampered his pace. Some minutes later, Harry Drake reached the Blanchards’ premises, where he had observed Elsie running off the day before. He left the cart nearby, and huddled in a doorway opposite, his eyes fixed on the Blanchards’ shop and his heart thumping in his chest. The wind eddied down the street, moaning like a dying man. But Harry Drake was unperturbed, recalling the information he had gleaned from his daughter, which conveniently supplemented what he had learned elsewhere.

  There were three apprentices who slept in the basement of the shop, each of whom had a four-hour watch. They started at eight, twelve, and four o’clock. The apprentice on duty was usually found in the first-floor showroom, keeping guard over the most highly prized pieces of silver, including the one for which Harry had come. He looked up at the three large windows that pierced the first-floor frontage. In one he discerned a yellowish dancing glow of candlelight and an indistinct form. This, Harry assumed, must be the apprentice keeping watch, seated in a chair. Harry had an hour and a half until the apprentice’s colleague came to relieve him. What was he waiting for?

  Harry took a strip of black cloth from his pocket and wrapped it like a bandage over his nose and mouth, tying it behind his head so that only the slits of his eyes were visible. From another pocket he extracted a length of rope, which he wrapped several times about his fist. Then he dipped into his trouser band and brought out a long-bladed knife. Clutching this tightly, he stepped out from his cover.

  On one side of the Blanchards’ doorway was the wide, bay-fronted shopwindow, but it was the narrower sash window at street level on the other side to which Harry Drake turned his attentions. He inserted the knife blade between the upper and lower sections of the frame. It was an easy matter to jiggle the blade and give it a swift twist so that the catch sprang back. Harry pushed up the sash, took out a file, and made quick work of a pair of iron bars. He flung his long legs over the sill and slid inside the downstairs showroom.

  For a moment, Harry Drake sat on the floor in the pitch darkness to catch his breath and listen. Tension prickled in his spine. He began to unwind the rope from around his knuckles. If the apprentice upstairs had heard his entry, he would hear footsteps on creaking boards, and would be ready. But save for the complaining groans of the gale, he detected no sound.

  He removed his hobnail boots and, holding them in one hand, inched forward silently. When he reached the corridor by the front door he put down his boots, then groped his way along the hallway. He slowly mounted the stairs, setting his feet close to the wall so that not a squeak would betray his presence. At the top there were four doors leading off to the left and right of the landing, but he spied the telltale thread of candlelight beneath only one of them. He inched open the door. This was the most perilous moment. He must creep up on the apprentice and silence him before the boy had time to cry out.

  The apprentice was seated before the dying embers of the fire. A burned-down candle stub flickered on a table beside him. His head had lolled forward limply; there could be no mistaking, he had fallen asleep on the watch. He could not have made the task any easier if he had tried.

  Harry Drake did not dither for an instant. With the stealth of a pirate, in three strides he had gathered a turn of his rope about each fist and positioned himself directly behind the unsuspecting apprentice. He seized the crown of the boy’s head and yanked it back so that his neck would be elongated for one swift twist of the rope.

  He expected a quick gurgle and a struggle, not the sight that confronted him. But the apprentice’s lips sagged open and his tongue protruded from the dark hole of his mouth, swollen and dark. His eyes were wide open and bulbous, as though something had surprised him. Something had surprised him. He was not sleeping. He was dead already, throat cut from ear to ear so deep that his windpipe was severed and his head hung on by no more than a few sinews.

  Harry Drake released his grip on the apprentice’s head, but the sudden movement caused a new torrent of blood to spurt over the floor, as dark and thick as gravy. He was reminded of the pudding he had eaten earlier that night, and his intestines writhed at the thought of it.

  He moved away from the corpse, stepping over the pool of blood that was oozing wider as he watched. He picked up the candle stub from the table and held it aloft, anxiously surveying the silverware displayed about the room. His eyes flickered over all manner of chandeliers, dishes, tureens, and ewers and halted on a hefty sideboard by the door. There sat a massive oval vessel, over three feet long and two feet wide, as big as the copper basin his mother had used for boiling her washing. Only this was not a washing copper.

  It was made of silver, adorned with mermaids, dolphins, tritons, and a pair of stampeding horses dragging a naked Neptune from the foamy waves. It was Sir Bartholomew’s wine cooler—the most valuable item ever made in the Blanchard workshop; the largest piece of silver seen in the city of London for many a month; the prize that Harry Drake had come to steal.

  He unbuttoned his coat and took out a length of sackcloth, which he laid over the wine cooler then tucked under each scalloped leg in turn, sighing pleasurably at the weight. It was as heavy, he reckoned, as Nelly the whore, who had clung about his waist earlier that night. Putting his hands under the cloth, he grasped the receptacle around Neptune’s torso and a mermaid’s breast, and careless of whether or not the staircase creaked, hurried downstairs. He recovered his boots and unbolted the door. Then, as brazenly as if he were Sir Bartholomew Grey himself, he went out into the stormy street.

  Chapter Five

  ROSE FRANCIS EMERGED surreptitiously from the kitc
hen door into the darkness of Foster Lane. The gale still blew, but for several minutes her mind was so taken up with thoughts of the step she had just taken and the rendezvous ahead that she paid little attention to the wind or her surroundings. But in the time she reached Cheapside her cloak billowed about, the lanterns on the shop frontages were all extinguished, signboards swayed eerily in the wind, and clouds gusting across the moon made the street grow disconcertingly dark. She heard the sound of footsteps a short distance behind her. Leather soles on cobbled streets, following the same route she had taken.

  She hesitated, clutching her valise and lantern, uncertain whether to turn and look or pretend she had heard nothing and proceed. Perhaps by some misfortune it was the watchman, whom she had hoped to avoid. The bells of St. Paul’s had recently chimed three. On this bitter night, at such an hour, she had expected to find the streets deserted. And she was quite alone, apart from the person behind her.

  Rose peered over her shoulder, holding her lamp aloft. As if to help, just then the clouds cleared and silver moonlight fell across the street. Some twenty yards behind, near the great cathedral, she thought she glimpsed a shape. She was unsure whether it was a man or a woman, but the figure seemed to be of large to middling build, and dressed in a cloak that flapped about like hers. It was not the watchman—the figure carried no lamp or torch. Just at that moment, another cloud scudded over the moon and the figure melted into the dark.