The Thief Taker

by Janet Gleeson

  “It is possible, I suppose, that she somehow assisted in the robbery and was killed after serving her purpose,” said Williams.

  “Duty dodging may have played a part,” returned Agnes. “Mr. Matthews told me Rose was caught handling a salver without any convincing excuse—the same one that you examined.”

  “Hmm. I should say an affair of the heart was more likely behind it.”

  Agnes said nothing for a moment and gazed instead at the great dome of St. Paul’s, which loomed above the diminutive rooftops. Viewed from such close proximity, it seemed to belong to another city, a place built on a different scale entirely. Was it Sir Christopher Wren’s intention, she wondered, to cow spectators with architectural puissance and majesty, and thereby ensure their submission?

  “I did presume, like you, that a man lay behind it,” she said. “But now I have changed my view. Perhaps love is not involved here. Rose lacked modesty and had an appetite for the opposite sex, but little need for romantic affection. Put together with the salver and the money in her possession, she may have run off as a result of her involvement with duty dodging and Riley.”

  “You believe that having dabbled in a minor duty fraud, Riley suddenly grew more ambitious and organized the theft of the wine cooler, killing both Rose and the apprentice?”

  “Don’t you think him capable?”

  “Perhaps,” conceded Thomas. “But in my experience a craving for physical affection does not preclude a desire for romance. Rather the reverse.”

  Agnes was uncertain how to respond. She had steered herself onto unsteady ground, where her naivete must be plainly apparent. Was this a preamble to his own improper intentions? she wondered. Thanking God for the dark night, which obscured her flaming cheeks, she avoided this argument.

  “Let us ignore Rose’s physical desires for one moment, Mr. Williams. I told you of Nancy’s account that Rose had twenty sovereigns hidden under her mattress. Elsie says she never found the money, but I do not give her denial much credence. I still believe it possible Rose accumulated that sum from her duty-dodging scheme with Riley. That would give her enough money to live independently of men, for a few months at least. I hazard, therefore, that she was fleeing a threat of some kind. Perhaps she found out Riley’s plan regarding the burglary and decided it was too much for her. Maybe she feared if she refused to help Riley he might turn against her, so she ran off, but he caught up with her.”

  “It is a possibility, I grant you,” said Thomas Williams as they stopped outside a scuffed door halfway along Bread Street. “But to tell the truth, I do not believe she and Riley could have accumulated such a sum from duty dodging.”

  “But you told me yourself the duty on the wine cooler would have been thirty pounds.”

  “Yes, but as I said before, that was an unusually large commission. Nothing close to its size has been made for months, and the wine cooler itself was far too conspicuous for Riley to risk avoiding duty. And Mr. Theodore Blanchard has charge of the accounts.”

  Frustrated by his disbelief and her own lack of expertise in the subject of silver as well as love, she averted her eyes. “God willing, we shall discover the truth when the wine cooler is recovered, Mr. Williams.” Then she brushed away a strand of hair that the wind had blown across her lips, turned to her son, and giving his small hand a squeeze, said, “Here we are, Peter.”

  Ten minutes later, Agnes was sitting in a comfortable parlor before a blazing fire with Peter on her knee. The room was simply furnished with two armchairs, a settle, and a circular wooden table. On the mantel shelf stood a jug in the form of a cow, a figurine of a shepherd and shepherdess, and a pair of plain brass candlesticks. Mrs. Tooley would approve, she thought. The homely surroundings were all she could hope for.

  Thomas was in the kitchen, helping Mrs. Sharp, a placable, buxom, middle-aged woman with sandy hair and shrewd gray eyes, prepare refreshments. Above the rattling of the windows, Agnes could hear the gentle murmur of their voices drifting through the door. A few minutes later they returned to the parlor, Thomas carrying a tray full of wine and glasses.

  “Here, Peter, this will warm up those chilly bones of yours. There’s milk and honey and nutmeg and a little ale in it,” Mrs. Sharp said, handing him a cup of hot posset.

  “Say thank you to Mrs. Sharp,” said Agnes fondly.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Should you like to stay here?” Agnes asked.

  “Yes, Ma, if Mrs. Sharp let’s me, I think I should be most content.”

  “And you’ll be good and do Mrs. Sharp’s bidding.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Of course he will,” interjected Mrs. Sharp. “I know a well-behaved lad when I see one. And Edward will be glad of a playmate.”

  “So, Mrs. Meadowes, didn’t I tell you we’d find an answer?” said Thomas with a smile. “Mrs. Sharp says ten shillings a week for Peter’s keep is most satisfactory.”

  “I hardly know how to thank you, madam,” said Agnes, rising and beaming with relief.

  “Never mind that, Mrs. Meadowes. Sit down, please do. I’m only glad to be of assistance. Mr. Williams has told me the circumstances. ’Tis a crying shame to hear of any respectable mother separated from her child as you are forced to be.”

  “The lady who had care of Peter was kind enough. There was never a day’s problem till now.”

  Mrs. Sharp folded her arms over her capacious bosom. “Twickenham is some distance. At least here he will be closer. Tell me, why do you not leave service and start an ordinary chophouse or something of the kind? I cannot conceive how I could endure any position that necessitated my being separated from my Edward.”

  Agnes had never contemplated what else she might do if she did not cook for the Blanchards. “Are we not all servants in one way or another, Mrs. Sharp? Do not all of us endure restrictions? I daresay on occasion Captain Sharp makes requirements of you that, given a choice, you might prefer to avoid.”

  “I heartily wish Captain Sharp would make more requirements of me,” responded the landlady mischievously. “But he is away at sea for months at a time and I am mostly left to my own devices. That is why poor Edward has yet to get himself a brother or a sister.”

  At this, Thomas’s mouth began to twitch with the suspicion of a smile, and Agnes turned scarlet and looked at her wine, wondering if this were quite the place for Peter, after all. She sensed that beneath Mrs. Sharp’s warmth lay a measure of disapproval, that she deemed Agnes somehow wanting as a mother. This was not a view Agnes had ever held, and she found herself unsettled by it.

  “Let’s drink a toast to the resolution of your worries and your son’s happy stay here,” said Thomas, breaking the silence and handing round the glasses. “Here’s to your very good health, Mrs. Meadowes—and to Peter’s.”

  Agnes rarely touched wine or spirits, but she swirled it in her mouth, enjoying its soothing sensation.

  Later, when the bottle was empty and Agnes’s cheeks had colored, Peter began to yawn and rub his eyes. He would sleep that night in a truckle bed in Thomas’s room and move in with Edward Sharp in the morning.

  Thomas went up to light the fire and make up the bed. When Agnes arrived with Peter a few minutes later, Thomas ushered them into his room. The room was not yet warm, and had a masculine smoky smell that Agnes did not find unpleasant. The wine had made her rather dizzy and eased her embarrassment. All the same, she averted her eyes from Thomas’s bed.

  Agnes undressed Peter, tucked him beneath the coverlet, and kissed his forehead. She snuffed out the candle so that the only light came from the orange flames in the hearth. “Sleep well, Peter. Be good and do as Mrs. Sharp bids you. I’ll visit tomorrow evening, if I can.”

  As soon as she got up to leave, Peter grew fretful. His eyes, which a minute earlier had been heavy with sleep, opened wide, and he begged her to stay.

  Agnes sat down on the bed, stroking Peter’s hand gently. She was aware of Thomas standing by the fire, watching her. When Peter fell
asleep, Thomas moved forward and took her by the arm. She presumed he was about to help her find her way in the darkness, but he drew her close, pressing his lips to hers. Part of her knew she should resist, but part of her welcomed the embrace. She had not experienced such sensations for many years. What was the purpose, Agnes thought suddenly, in pretending she had not missed them? It was as futile as her pretense that she did not mind her separation from Peter. She could smell the earthy scent of his clothes; warmth emanated from his body. After the first moment of shock, Agnes abandoned all thoughts of pulling away and kissed him in return.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  AGNES WAS MAKING liver pudding when Nancy stepped out of the scullery bearing her housemaid’s box. She was wearing Rose’s better working dress, a yellow-and-green striped cambric. It fitted her surprisingly well. Agnes noticed that there was no perceptible swelling about Nancy’s waist beneath the folds of her skirt, but she seemed broader in the hips. This confirmation of Philip’s assertion strengthened Agnes’s resolve, and she assailed Nancy with unusual forthrightness. “Did you think I would not suspect you were lying?”

  “Pardon me?” said Nancy, swiveling round.

  “I said I believe you to be a liar.”

  “What do you mean, Mrs. Meadowes?” Nancy looked at her in astonishment. “It is most unjust of you to accuse me of any such thing.”

  “Some things you have told me concerning Rose may have been true, but others were wide of the mark—deliberately so—weren’t they? You said them to cast a slur on Rose because you were jealous of her, and, I presume, to deflect attention from your own predicament.”

  Nancy slapped a defiant hand on her hip. “What predicament?”

  Agnes eyed Nancy’s belly. “I think you know what I mean.”

  “You’ve got no proof. Nor any right to speak to me like that.”

  “On the contrary, you have given me all the proof I need. Rose Francis was never in the slightest way tidy. You were forever saying how sluttish she was and complaining of the mayhem she created. But when we looked through her things they were all as neat as a sixpence. The only possible reason for that was that you’d been through them already. Perhaps that, rather than oversleeping, was the reason you were late down for your duties that morning. And as for my right to accuse you—Mrs. Blanchard herself has asked me to look into what happened to Rose.”

  “We all know what happened to her—she got her neck slit.”

  “But we do not know who slit it or why. Perhaps it was your hatred that drove her away, Nancy. Perhaps she could take no more of you meddling with her possessions, stealing her correspondence, quarreling with her.”

  Nancy looked perplexed. “No, ma’am, you malign me, I done nothing like that. She irked me now and then, but I liked her well enough, I swear. I wouldn’t do nothing to—”

  “Don’t feign ignorance, Nancy. Or would you prefer that I suggest that Mrs. Tooley search through your possessions? She already has her suspicions regarding you. Rose told her you were jealous, and that you took a letter and left it in the drawing room to cast her in a bad light. And John says a stolen letter was the cause of your fight. But I think you took something else of hers as well. Her purse, perhaps? No wonder she wanted to leave.”

  “’Course I never took the purse. Would I have mentioned it if I had?”

  “Then was it another fabrication?”

  Nancy scowled. “No, it was not. There was money right enough.”

  “Why then did you quarrel?”

  “I told you before, it were nothing.”

  Agnes would not be fobbed off. “I don’t believe Mrs. Tooley has yet noticed your secret, although I hazard if she did she would not view it kindly.” She disliked threatening the girl, given her predicament, but Nancy was not the type of girl to succumb to an appeal to her finer feelings.

  “No, ma’am, don’t do that—you know what she’s like,” said Nancy, round-eyed with fear.

  “Then I repeat, what else did you take?”

  “It were a letter, like you said.” Nancy gave a sullen shrug. “It were nothing but a bit of fun. Patsy told me Rose had been laughing at me with Philip behind my back. And he and I was friendly, till she came.”

  “But that incident took place a week ago. Why did Rose wait till Monday to confront you?” As soon as she asked the question, Agnes realized that Rose would not have waited. “That was the second letter you took, wasn’t it? Not the one you left in the drawing room, but another. That was what the fuss was about. What was in the letter, Nancy? Where is it now?”

  Nancy raised her chin defiantly. “It ain’t as if it was anything much. I only found it ’cos the room were in such a mess, with all her things falling out of the cupboard, and Mrs. Tooley got mad at me on account of it. She set me to tidy it ’cos she were afraid of Rose’s tongue. And I found it lying under her bed.”

  “Do you have it still?”

  “It’s nothing what’ll tell you who slit her throat.”

  “Go and fetch it.”

  By the time Nancy was back, Agnes had lined the pudding basin with dough. Nancy handed her a sheet of paper. “Here you are.”

  Agnes wiped her fingers on her apron and took it. The letter was dated the day before the robbery and Rose’s disappearance.

  Dearest Rose

  I am much pleased to learn of your change of heart. I will wait for you at the Red Lion at five-thirty tomorrow morning. Our tickets are bought and our passage from Dover arranged. God willing we will be in Calais that night. I need not say how greatly I look forward to that moment.

  Yours in affectionate expectation,

  The letter was written in a clear strong hand, but the signature was an illegible squiggle, and there was no mention of an address. After Agnes read it several times, Agnes stood for a moment lost in thought.

  How deluded she had been in ignoring her first instinct that it was an affair of the heart that had caused Rose to run away! But why would Nancy have taken the trouble to steal a letter belonging to Rose, once she had read it? She must have had another purpose.

  “Did you wait up that night for Rose to leave and follow her?”

  “No, ’course not. I was glad to see the back of her. Why would I go after her?”

  “Did you see her go?”

  “Yes, but there ain’t no crime in that.”

  Agnes slowly began packing her basin with chopped liver. “You believed this note was written by Philip, did you not?”

  “’Course not.” Nancy blushed scarlet. “That thought never came into it.”

  Agnes could see she was lying. Nancy was aggrieved that Rose had come between her and Philip, and was further distressed to find herself with child. What effect would the letter have had on her if she believed he had written it to arrange an elopement? Had she hoped to entice Philip into marrying her? This seemed unlikely. Philip had a lowly post, which he would lose if he wed. But perhaps in her distress she had believed she could persuade him to seek other employment where marriage was not prohibited. Agnes placed a circle of dough on top of the meat filling, carefully sealing the edge with her fingertips. “If you believed this letter was from Philip, and that Rose was about to run off with him, you might have felt impelled to follow and stop her.”

  “That’s not only daft, it’s downright impossible.”

  Agnes cut a hole in the top of the crust to allow the steam to escape. “Philip had gone out earlier that night to the Blue Cockerel, but you were not to know that. If Rose left before he returned, you might have followed her, assuming she was on her way to meet him. You might have killed her in order to prevent her taking Philip away from this household and you.”

  Nancy shot her a sly look. “I told you it couldn’t be. I never thought he wrote that letter.”

  Agnes’s hands grew hot. She pressed too hard on the dough, making it sticky. “Oh, and why is that, pray?

  “Answer me. How did you know this wasn’t Philip’s hand?”

  There was a
long silence, then Nancy began to giggle.

  “’Cos Philip don’t have no hand save a cross. He don’t know how to write, do he?” Nancy went off, humming with satisfaction.

  Agnes, infuriated and shamed in equal measure, deliberately scraped the dough off her fingers and summoned Doris to help her. And when she put the pudding in the steamer and scalded her arm, her temper only worsened. It wasn’t only Nancy’s cutting tone that disturbed her, or the letter that she had just stowed in her drawer. She would never have accused Nancy if she had not kissed Thomas Williams last night. He had stirred up sentiments long forgotten. Now she thought of the scent of Thomas Williams’s room, the wiry feel of his hair, his warmth, the carvings on his headboard, her hair and laces undone. Doubt overwhelmed her. Nothing appeared uncomplicated, and suddenly she was uncertain of which path she should take.

  PHILIP MARCHED INTO the kitchen from the yard, dressed in his leather apron. “Letter’s come from Mr. Pitt this morning, Mrs. M. It was addressed to you. You heard what it says yet? Don’t suppose you know where my gloves have got to? Mr. Matthews is after me for losing ’em.” He helped himself to a sliver of pheasant from Agnes’s bowl.

  Agnes moved the bowl away from him. “Get away. How do you know the letter was from Mr. Pitt?”

  “It came while I was clearing the dining room fireplace. A special messenger brought it, Mr. Matthews was there and dealth with it, but I heard your name and Marcus Pitt’s mentioned. Suppose that means you and I’ll be going back to see Pitt soon.”

  “Perhaps,” said Agnes, feeling a prickle of apprehension. I haven’t seen the letter. But I daresay we shall discover its contents soon.”

  “Go on, Mrs. Meadowes. Can’t I ’ave summat to eat? I’m half starved. What about that drumstick—there’s only pickings on it.”