The Thief Taker

by Janet Gleeson

  “And deprive myself of the pleasure of your company?”

  Agnes tossed her head. “Whatever your reason for this arrangement, I don’t delude myself I had anything to do with it.”

  Pitt laughed. “Then if you want the honest truth I shall give it you. Once the money is handed over I make a habit of ensuring all transactions are properly concluded. I won’t be with you when you recover the wine cooler. Should a constable stray into the vicinity, it would not do for me to be found with a large sum of money on my person and stolen property in my presence. Nevertheless, I shall observe proceedings from a distance—and if anything goes amiss you may be assured steps will be taken to rectify it.”

  Agnes shuddered, recalling poor Elsie’s fears that Pitt would sacrifice her father if he deemed it expedient to do so. What Pitt meant was that he lived and prospered by the terror he engendered in those around him. “Whatever the reasons for your presence, I assure you I have no intention of duping you, Mr. Pitt. My only desire is the same as yours—to recover the wine cooler and trouble you no longer.”

  Pitt laughed mockingly again. “But therein your desires differ dramatically from mine, madam. Your pretty face and charming ways made an impression upon me. I had hoped from the tone of your letter that our acquaintance would continue. Or was that merely a contrivance to make me more eager to assist you?”

  Knowing that she was now on perilous terrain, and that it would be prudent to affect at least some modicum of interest in him, Agnes answered with care. “It was no contrivance to say our future depends entirely upon how the business is concluded. For as I told you, I am a widow reliant upon my trade. Any person who helps secure my position, I will naturally regard with warm sentiments.”

  “Then I shall hold you to your promise, Mrs. Meadowes.”

  Some minutes later, the carriage slowed and Agnes judged they were in the vicinity of the bridge.

  “Now we are a safe distance from Foster Lane, you are at liberty to open the curtain if you find the darkness distressing,” said Pitt.

  Agnes pulled back the velvet awning. They were in a narrow alley, lined on either side with tall, decrepit, windowless buildings, with a maze of small courts leading off. The pedestrians were shabbily dressed and gawped with unseemly interest at their elegant carriage. The buildings might be abandoned warehouses, she thought. If only she could get a glimpse of St. Paul’s, or a church spire or some other landmark with which she was familiar, she might form a more exact impression of her whereabouts, but the low carriage roof and the narrow way obscured the skyline.

  Agnes turned to Pitt. Half of his face remained in shadow. His expression was distant, unreadable; he sat erect and alert in his seat, his long slender fingers curled over the knob of his cane, as if he were prepared to act at a moment’s notice. “Where are we?” she said, sitting forward and gripping the edge of her seat. “Why have you brought me here?”

  “Have patience. You’ll discover where you are in good time. Each of us knows the other’s requirements. Provided you have brought what I asked, you will be safe and your master’s wine cooler will be returned within the hour.”

  Agnes might have remonstrated further, but just then the carriage lurched to a halt. They were in a deserted alley scarcely wide enough for a single carriage. All she could see was decrepit wooden walls, a broken window, a shadowy doorway with a pile of dung mounded to one side. She tried to push down the glass so that she could gain a better view, but Pitt put a restraining hand on her arm. “Best not do that, my dear. In time you may admire the surroundings at your leisure. But not just now, eh?”

  He tapped his stick sharply on the window. Grant descended, and a minute later his greasy, pockmarked face peered in on Pitt’s side. Pitt leaned forward. “Is he still hooded up top?”

  “All the way since Cheapside.”

  “Any sign of our friend yet?”

  “No sir—but it may be he’s there before us.”

  Pitt regarded his pocketwatch.

  “One of you go and look.” He gave the strongbox a nudge with the toe of his boot. “Meanwhile, I’ll need help with this.” Pitt turned to Agnes. “The key, if you please, Mrs. Meadowes.”

  “I was ordered to hand it to you only when I saw the wine cooler,” she returned stoutly.

  Pitt smiled, lowering his eyelids. “And so you shall, so you shall, madam,” he said soothingly. “But as I said, I make a point of never being in the same place as stolen property. You have nothing to fear, provided you do as I ask. Now hand over the key that I may count the contents.”

  “But that is not what Mr. Blanchard ordered me to do. He said I must see the wine cooler first,” countered Agnes bravely.

  “Don’t be rash, Mrs. Meadowes. Blanchard doesn’t know how my business works. And he didn’t want you to vex me, did he? Hand me the key and your worries will cease. The wine cooler awaits you, even now.” When Agnes still resisted, he drew closer and whispered, “Then perhaps I should look for it myself. There are only a certain number of places a lady may secrete a key upon her person.”

  “How dare you!” cried Agnes. But instead of yielding, her fingers unthinkingly reached into the pocket of her cloak to find the knife she had put there last night.

  “Then surrender the key. I repeat, there’s not much I don’t know about a lady’s secrets. I wager I’ll find it in an instant.”

  Agnes’s fingers closed about the handle of the knife. As Pitt’s face loomed over her, she thought of her husband drunkenly assailing her, and steeled herself. “Get away from me or I won’t—”

  “Won’t what, my dear?” Pitt laughed joylessly as he slipped a hand inside her cloak, splayed his fingers over her breast, and squeezed as though testing the ripeness of a peach.

  She held the knife blade against his invading hand. “I won’t be responsible for my actions. I dislike being imposed upon, Mr. Pitt. Draw back now, or the knife might slip.”

  Pitt gasped at the sight of the cold metal blade and Agnes’s sudden resolve and snatched his hand away. His lips drew tight and his eyes gleamed unnaturally bright, the pupils tiny peppercorns of black. “All right, Mrs. Meadowes. A very clever game. But pretty though you are, don’t think I have brought you here just for conversation. Perhaps you’d like it if Grant assisted in persuading you to be more obliging.”

  Agnes, trembling, did not answer. Tears welled at the back of her eyes. She was enraged with herself for allowing this to happen. Why had she not just given him the key? He could easily break open the strongbox if he was so inclined. The battle she had fought with him, she realized, was needless. Nevertheless, she consoled herself. It was a victory of sorts to have caused him consternation. She fumbled for the ribbon at her neck. “Very well,” she said, slicing the ribbon with the knife and flinging the key to the floor of the carriage, “if this is what you want, then take the wretched thing.”

  Glowering, Marcus Pitt unlocked the giant padlock, removed the hasp, and threw back the lid. Agnes watched as he ran his fingers through the sea of gold, then emptied the coins onto the floor of the carriage and counted them back into the box. His muttered counting and the way he deliberately ignored her seemed infinitely more frightening than his threats and advances.

  When he had satisfied himself that the box contained the required sum, Pitt snapped the lid shut, locked it again, and put the key in his pocket. Then he opened the carriage door and summoned Grant with a tap of his cane. “Well?” he said.

  “A word if you please, sir.”

  Pitt stepped out. Snatches of their conversation drifted in to Agnes.

  “He was there…,” said Grant.

  “Then you must…”

  “But I never…And how…”

  “I repeat…”

  From their tone, Agnes judged that something unexpected had taken place. The conversation lasted for so long that Agnes’s curiosity overcame her fear. She slid across to Pitt’s side of the carriage to try to make out more. From behind the curtain she could see Gran
t in full flow, facing Pitt. His face was flushed with agitation and he was gesticulating wildly. She could see only the back of Pitt’s long cloak and his silver-topped cane, which he was twirling thoughtfully. When eventually Grant stopped, Pitt made some staccato remark that sounded like “You must get it, then,” and jerked his head in the direction of the carriage. Grant nodded and stepped round the other side. Agnes guessed that he was coming for her, but from the vibrations behind her she judged that he was delving about in the basket at the rear of the carriage. When she summoned the courage to look out the window again, there was no sign of him. All she could see was Pitt pacing about, still rotating the silver-topped cane in his hand.

  A good ten minutes passed, during which Agnes watched from her window, listening intently for any sign of what was to come. But nothing happened and no one outside the carriage spoke a word. Eventually, she heard the heavy crunch of Grant’s footsteps returning. Her door was thrown abruptly open and the steps were let down. “We are ready for you now. Descend, if you please, madam,” said Grant.

  Agnes did as he bade, and Thomas Williams was summoned to join her. While she waited for him to clamber down from his platform next to the driver, she noticed that Grant’s greatcoat sleeves were filthy—the dark red cloth was almost black and there were damp patches on it. His hands and face were smeared with dirt. He looked as though he had been digging in a coal pit.

  Williams had traveled with a hood over his head. The driver had removed it just before letting him descend, and he was still blinking and looking dazed from the sudden daylight when Pitt addressed them. He signaled to a dark narrow passage leading off to the left between two buildings.

  “A short distance down there is a terrace of three houses by the river’s edge. The door of the last building is unlocked; enter it and you will find the wine cooler waiting for you.”

  Pitt spoke coldly, avoiding Agnes’s gaze. In trying to obey Theodore’s order she had slighted him. She wished now that she had not acted with such foolish haste. But the words were spoken, the knife had been brandished; and she was sure that somehow or other he would demonstrate his displeasure.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  AGNES PLUNGED DOWN the nameless passage, closely followed by Thomas Williams. She sensed that even if he had not heard their exchange, he must have noticed her unspoken strain with Pitt. She knew that in their precarious circumstances, it would be wise to improve matters between them. But she still burned when she remembered his clumsy remarks, and with the shock of Pitt’s assault she was not in the mood to soften her manner one jot.

  There was not a living soul to be seen. How was it possible, she wondered, to find such a deserted spot in the largest city in the world? With each step, Agnes half expected Pitt or Grant to jump out at them. She tried to tell herself that if Pitt wanted to exact revenge, he was unlikely to do so while his business might be jeopardized, and while she was protected. Any attack would surely come once her role in this business had played out and she was alone. Nevertheless, she remembered Pitt’s words—that he always stayed in the vicinity to make sure the stolen property was returned, but kept himself concealed. She peered apprehensively into every shadowy gap. Was he watching even now? she wondered.

  For his part, Thomas appeared untroubled by their predicament and impervious to her coolness. He spoke no word until they had passed a large decaying warehouse and the passage widened. “Have you any idea where we are?” he said eventually, gazing around for a familiar landmark or a street sign.

  She started at the sound of his voice, then recovered herself. “Did you not glean any detail of interest during the journey?”

  “Not a thing. The hood was placed over my head before we left Foster Lane, and the coachman never spoke a word to me, apart from telling me to sit tight. But it doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was Pitt’s intention to confuse us and make us fearful. It gives him the advantage, helps him conclude his business with a minimum of fuss.”

  In that case, Agnes thought, he has certainly achieved his aim.

  The passage suddenly opened onto an expanse of marshy wasteland beside the river. Traversed by a stinking sewer, the ground was littered with discarded rubbish: weeds, broken bricks, old bones, rotten wood, a mound of rubble, the mangled carcass of a cat. Rats scurried boldly about in the murky water. A row of dilapidated houses with boarded-up windows overhung the water’s edge. The buildings had been shored up by wooden pilings, and in between these supports, the structure sagged like a necklace. In the sky wheeled a dozen or more gulls, their cries carried off like clouds of smoke in the gusting wind.

  Agnes walked down toward the water and Thomas followed. The tide was high. Far off to the left, they could see a fleet of fishing smacks beating their way upriver into the wind. To the right several coal barges were moored; the men who lowered their brown sails resembled industrious ants. Faintly visible beyond the curve of the river were the great pillars of London Bridge and the jagged outline of its shops and buildings.

  Agnes turned toward Thomas. “We have traveled east when I thought we had gone south. I warrant from the smell and the gulls we are not far from Billingsgate market,” she said.

  Thomas nodded inscrutably and looked back toward the row of decrepit houses. “The place he means us to go must be there,” he said, striding ahead to the last door in the terrace. “Let us see if the entrance is unlocked as he promised.” He drew his sword, turned the handle, and pushed. The door creaked on its rusty hinges and juddered open.

  It led into a dingy narrow passage, with broken stairs rising off to the left and two doors leading off to the right. Thomas pushed open the door of the first room with the point of his sword and glanced in from the threshold, holding his sword aloft. Agnes was forced to wait behind, where she could not see a thing. Then he swiftly closed the door and progressed several steps along the corridor toward the second doorway.

  Doubtless, Agnes thought, he expected her to follow. But Pitt’s assault had left her angry and distrustful of everyone. She wanted to survey the place independently and make certain she was not being duped. Reopening the door to the first room, she peered in. The boards on the windows made the interior cavernous and shadowy, but there were enough chinks of light to see that the room was small and unfurnished, and that there was a large damp patch on the floor. The room reeked of soot, which emanated from a mound of black debris in the empty fireplace. There were also sooty smears leading from the fireplace across to the damp patch on the floor and thence to the door.

  For several minutes Agnes could hear Thomas’s footsteps pacing about next door. The pungent smell of soot suggested that it had recently fallen down the chimney. From the marks leading across the floor, it appeared that someone had recently entered this room. Both these details might be explained if that person had concealed something up the chimney—a valuable item, perhaps, something that could not be left on open view in an unlocked house. Agnes remembered the sooty marks on Grant’s coat when he had returned to the carriage. And she had felt him rummage about in the basket behind before he left. Had the wine cooler been in the carriage all along? And had Grant deposited it here for them to recover? But if so, thought Agnes, that meant Pitt had risked being caught with money and stolen property on his person—a situation he claimed he avoided at all costs.

  And why would he hide the wine cooler in such an inaccessible place? After all, once the money was paid, he wanted it to be found. Perhaps something else of value had been concealed here, that Pitt wanted to remain hidden.

  Agnes went over to the fireplace and peered up the flue. It was wide enough, she judged, to hide something sizable. She groped into the chimney, dislodging soot and rubble so that she was forced to turn away her face and press her cheek to the chimney breast. Still she could feel nothing untoward, nothing to explain the mound of soot or the smudge marks.

  At the farthest limits of her reach, the chimney seemed to bro
aden out sharply, forming a ledge inside. Suddenly her fingers brushed against an unexpected obstruction, a substance that was neither stone nor soot but wood—two planks wedged across the ledge. Further fumbling exploration revealed that they were supporting something. Whatever it was was wrapped in some variety of coarse hairy fabric—sacking, she concluded. Agnes prodded and felt something hard inside.

  With renewed determination, Agnes tried to dislodge the planks and then haul the sack and its contents free, but the wood was securely wedged After some minutes she was forced to abandon her efforts.

  Just as she had stepped away, Thomas’s head poked round the door; the expression on his face was less stern than before—relief mingled with bemusement. “What on earth are you doing, Mrs. Meadowes?”

  “There’s something hidden in the chimney,” she said, tasting granules of soot as she spoke. “Grant had soot on his clothes when he returned to the carriage. Perhaps it is something of value.”

  Williams shook his head. “Whatever it is, it cannot be the wine cooler; that was what I came to tell you—I have found it hidden in a closet in the room next door.”

  “Nevertheless, there is something here. There are planks supporting it. I tried to remove them, but I can’t reach them. I think we should discover what it is.”

  Thomas heaved a sigh. “Very well. Let me try.”

  Agnes watched him gingerly push his sword up the chimney.

  He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “How far up is it?”

  “As far as you can reach.”

  Thomas’s face reflected his disbelief, and his regret at having to dirty his jacket. But then his weapon hit an obstruction and his eyes lit up. He retracted his sword and felt with his hand. “It feels like a sack, and whatever it contains, it is a sizable object.”

  Thomas bent his knees and gave a sharp upward thrust with his arm. A cascade of rubble and soot tumbled to the hearth, along with two wooden boards, and a section of brown sacking. Half the sack was now wedged in the chimney, bound by a cord.