Mr. Colquhoun nodded in agreement. “Very well, Mr. Pickett, I believe you can find the Brundy warehouse in Cheapside. Near Queen Street, if memory serves.”
“Thank you, sir,” Pickett said, and turned to go.
“Oh, and John,” the magistrate’s voice called him back.
“Yes, sir?”
“Be careful of any dogs that may cross your path, will you?”
Pickett acknowledged this verbal hit with a rueful grin and a wave of his bandaged hand, then set out on foot for the City.
* * *
Upon reaching the warehouse of Brundy and Son, Pickett stepped inside and blinked in amazement. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he found himself standing in a cavernous room filled with row upon row of shelves, each one stacked floor to ceiling with bolts of fabric in every color of the rainbow, and of every pattern from demure floral prints to bold Greek key designs. He collared the first person he saw and, in a voice echoing weirdly in the vast space, requested a word with Mr. Brundy.
“I hope you’ve got a good set of lungs, then,” came the reply. “They’ll have to be, for him to hear you all the way in Lancashire.”
“He isn’t in London, then?” Pickett asked, deflated.
“Didn’t I just say so? He lets young Ethan come to Town twice a year to handle all the London business. If you want one of the Brundys, you’ll have to make do with him.”
Pickett castigated himself for not making it clear at the outset precisely which Brundy he wished to interview. Privately, he considered Ethan Brundy rather young to be trusted with the London side of what was apparently a very large business concern but, remembering how frustrated (and, yes, insulted) he’d often felt by disparaging references to his own age, he resolved to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt. “Very well, where can I find him?”
“He’ll be in his office.”
The man jerked his thumb toward the back of the warehouse, but made no offer to accompany him. Pickett thanked him for the information, and set out in the direction he had indicated. Thankfully, he met Mr. Brundy halfway, coming toward the front of the building as Pickett headed toward the rear. Each sighted the other at exactly the same time, and both stopped in mutual recognition.
“Mr.—Pickett, is it?” Brundy asked in the same unrefined accents Pickett had noted the day before. “Nancy Robinson’s intended?”
“Yes and no,” Pickett said, grimacing at the thought that by claiming him as her “young man,” Miss Robinson might have prejudiced young Brundy against him. “I should like a word with you, if you can spare a minute.”
“Aye, if you’ll follow me,” he agreed, eyes bright with curiosity as he led the way to the small office carved out of one corner at the back of the warehouse. He closed the door, shutting out the din on the other side, then seated himself behind the desk, leaned back in his chair and propped his booted feet on its scarred surface. “Now,” he said, his voice strangely loud now that it no longer echoed, “what do you want from me?”
“I should like you to tell me what you know about George Robinson.”
“Wanting inside information on your future papa-in-law, are you?” Ethan Brundy grinned knowingly, and something about his smile was so engaging that Pickett wanted to smile back in spite of the fact that the fellow had entirely the wrong idea about him and Miss Robinson.
Pickett shook his head. “No, I’m not. That is, I do want inside information on Mr. Robinson, if you have any to give me, but not on his daughter’s account. In fact, I’d never laid eyes on Miss Robinson until yesterday.”
Young Brundy let out an appreciative whistle. “Fast worker, aren’t you?”
“Look here,” Pickett said impatiently, “I’m not really courting Miss Robinson. She only said that because she doesn’t want to be pressured into marriage with you. I’m sorry if you had hopes in that direction, but there it is.”
Brundy sat up abruptly with his feet on the floor, staring at Pickett in astonishment. “And ’oo said I wanted to marry ’er?”
“Well, no one, exactly,” Pickett admitted. “But apparently Mr. Robinson has some idea of broaching the subject with your foster father—a sort of business merger, as I understand it, as well as a personal one.”
“ ’e’ll catch cold at that, ’e will,” Brundy predicted confidently. “Mr. Brundy is quite ’appy with ’is business just the way it is. As for me and Nancy, well, I’m sure she’s a very nice girl, but I ’aven’t the least desire to marry ’er.”
He spoke so emphatically that Pickett drew the logical conclusion. “I take it your affections are engaged elsewhere?”
“No,” Brundy confessed cheerfully. “In fact, I ’aven’t yet met the woman I’d like to marry, but I’m in no ’urry. I figure I’ll know ’er when I see ’er.”
“If only it were that easy,” Pickett muttered.
“What do you mean?” asked the weaver, much struck. Clearly, any such complication had never occurred to him.
“Only that the lady might have other ideas,” Pickett pointed out with some asperity, nettled by the younger man’s easy confidence.
“In that case, I’ll ’ave a bit of work to do, won’t I?” young Brundy said, undaunted.
There was nothing Pickett could say to this. He’d known (as Mr. Brundy had put it) from the moment he’d seen Lady Fieldhurst standing over her husband’s dead body—but he also knew that he could work his fingers to the bone, and it still wouldn’t make him an eligible match for her. He hardly knew whether to wish Brundy luck in his courtship of the theoretical female of his choice, or to hope she led him a merry dance, if for no other reason than to shake the fellow’s extraordinary self-assurance.
“That’s as may be,” he said, “but I didn’t come to discuss your marriage prospects—or mine, for that matter. I came to learn what I could about George Robinson.”
“Right you are, then. What do you want to know?”
“What sort of man would you say he is? Is he honest?”
Mr. Brundy seemed to have no doubts on this head. “Me foster father wouldn’t do business with ’im if ’e wasn’t.”
“And yet he—your foster father, that is—insists on being paid up front, and in cash,” Pickett pointed out.
“Aye, but ’e’s that way with everyone. ’E’s a shrewd ’ead for business, ’as old Mr. Brundy, but tough as an old boot, ’e is. Some of ’is ideas are a bit old-fashioned, but ’e won’t ’ear of changing them.”
“So this isn’t a business practice reserved for George Robinson?”
“Lord, no! I can’t tell you the brangles we’ve ’ad over it—that, and other business practices, for that matter.”
“I see,” said Pickett, mentally crossing George Robinson off his list.
“Say, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your interest in George Robinson? Setting aside ’is daughter, of course.”
Pickett struggled with his conscience. If Miss Robinson were to be believed, her father was going to considerable lengths to make sure no one knew about the recent robbery. And yet, it was impossible to solve a crime while keeping secret the fact that one had been committed. The shopkeepers on either side, for instance, had answered Pickett’s questions readily enough, but had almost certainly drawn their own conclusions as to why he was asking them. And why shouldn’t they? If there was a robber at large, he couldn’t blame them for wanting to know, so they might take whatever precautions they could.
“There was a robbery at Mr. Robinson’s shop on Christmas night,” he said at last, laying all his cards on the table, “and I was summoned to investigate. I’m with Bow Street,” he added by way of explanation.
“Are you, by Jove?” exclaimed Brundy. “I’d always thought you fellows were older.”
Pickett was accustomed (though by no means resigned) to hear disparaging remarks about his age, but he would be hanged if he would allow such comments from a fellow several years younger than himself. “Look, let’s reach an agreement before we go any furth
er, shall we? You don’t make any unwanted observations about my age, and I won’t make any about yours.”
“Fair enough,” said the weaver, with a rueful grin that gave Pickett to understand he was not the only one plagued by such remarks.
“As I was saying, about this robbery—there’s no evidence of forced entry, but a considerable amount of money was taken from the safe. Between you and me and the lamppost, it appears to be the work of someone inside.”
“There you are, then,” declared Ethan Brundy, spreading his hands. “If I were a betting man, I’d put me money on that fellow Andrew.”
Pickett had reached the same supposition, but he was well aware that his magistrate was not an admirer of unsubstantiated hunches. “Do you mind telling me how you came to that conclusion?”
“Plain as a pikestaff, innit? ’e’s ’ead over ’eels for Nancy, but ’asn’t a chance of marrying ’er unless ’e comes into money from somewhere. ’Tis only natural ’e’d be tempted.”
Pickett took instant exception to this assumption. “I beg to differ! I was once apprenticed to a coal merchant, and it never crossed my mind to steal from him in order to marry his daughter!”
“Aye, well, we can’t all be the paragons you Bow Street men are,” Brundy said by way of apology. “I grew up rough, you know—in the work’ouse ’til I was nine.”
“Tell me about rough,” Pickett retorted, bristling. “I grew up picking pockets in Covent Garden.”
“I never knew ’oo me father was,” recalled Mr. Brundy, with a soulful look in his brown eyes.
“I knew who mine was, for it was he who taught me how to pick pockets. And a good thing, too, or else I’d have starved after he was transported to Botany Bay.”
“All right, then,” Brundy pronounced, “you win.”
“Win what?” asked Pickett, all at sea.
The ‘ ’ard cheese’ competition,” the weaver explained, as if it should have been obvious.
Until that moment, Pickett had not realized he was jealous of the younger man’s rosier prospects. Nor, now that he had been made aware of it, was he proud of the fact. He gave a sheepish little laugh. “I beg your pardon. I had not meant—”
“Never mind that,” Brundy said, dismissing Pickett’s apology with a wave of his hand. “I’ll admit, though, to being curious as to what your da thinks of you working for Bow Street. Seems to me ’e might consider that you’ve gone over to the enemy.”
Pickett nodded emphatically. Now that the uncomfortable moment of self-realization was past, he found he could confide things in Brundy that no one else, not even his sympathetic magistrate, could begin to understand. “He would, which is why I’ve never told him. I send him half of my wages every month, though, and if he wonders where I’m earning it, he’s never written to ask.”
“If ’e knew, would ’e still take it?”
Pickett gave a snort of derision. “My da, turn down more than two quid a month? Surely you jest!”
In spite of his humble origins, Ethan Brundy possessed a mind as quick as Pickett’s own, and from this bitter statement deduced a very fair estimate of Pickett’s earnings—accurate enough, in any case, to know that they were scarcely sufficient to support two separate households in anything approaching comfort. “But you fellows are sometimes given rewards for solving cases, aren’t you, over and above your regular wages?”
“We are, but I—I don’t usually share them with Da.” It was his guilty secret, this hoarding of the rewards that occasionally came his way. He told himself it was because his father would demand the details of exactly how he’d come by ten or even twenty pounds all at once—assuming, of course, that these riches survived the six-month voyage without being stolen by the ship’s passengers, many of whom were transported criminals themselves. If he were honest, though, he carefully squirreled away these larger sums, as if he might someday accumulate enough to make him an acceptable husband for Lady Fieldhurst. Brushing aside this forlorn hope, he said aloud, “In any case, Mr. Robinson has offered no such incentive, and it’s unlikely that he would be inspired to reward me for depriving him of an apprentice.”
“Per’aps not, but ’e might feel grateful to you for saving ‘is daughter from marrying that same apprentice, especially if ’e turned out to be a criminal,” Brundy observed. “ ’Tis a pity you can’t plant enough money in the safe to tempt the robber—’ooever ’e might be—to ’ave another go at it.”
“Y-yes,” Pickett said slowly, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the desk. “Yes, it is.”
Chapter 8
In Which John Pickett Proposes a Scheme
“You want to what?” demanded Mr. Colquhoun, when his most junior Runner arrived in Bow Street breathless with exertion, having run most of the way from the City.
“I want to break into Mr. Robinson’s shop,” Pickett repeated eagerly. He took advantage of his magistrate’s momentary speechlessness to explain. “If we can somehow contrive to make sure the safe contains a large sum of money—or at least make certain persons think it contains a large sum of money—perhaps our robber would be willing to try again. But I would break into the back room myself sometime after the family had gone to bed, and I would be lying in wait for him. I could catch him in the act.”
“I don’t doubt your sincerity, John, but—” Mr. Colquhoun broke off, words apparently failing him.
Pickett’s face fell. “I wouldn’t take anything, sir, if that’s what worries you. I won’t even open the safe, only the back door. I made you a promise ten years ago, and I’ve kept it.”
“It isn’t that—” the magistrate began. And nor was it—at least, not exactly. He had every confidence in John Pickett’s integrity. And yet . . . who could say how a man, any man, might respond when confronted with sufficient temptation? Let alone a very young man with a criminal background who dared to love a lady who was, at least in the eyes of Society, as far above him as the stars above the heavens—and whose affections had remained constant in the face of demands that would have made many an older and wiser man turn tail and run. No, to a man capable of such steadfastness, the keeping of a ten-year-old promise should be no very great challenge. It was not John Pickett’s morals, but his own judgment he doubted. If he were to discover after all these years that his trust in and, yes, affection for the lad had been misplaced, he was not at all sure he could bear it. He was quite certain that John Pickett would fail to recognize the distinction, however—which was probably just as well, since he could not have explained it in a way that made any sense, even to himself.
On the other hand, he had not seen his protégé so animated in many weeks—since before the annulment business, in fact.
“Oh, very well,” he conceded grudgingly, and was rewarded with a radiant smile from the young man—a smile all the more dazzling for being so rarely seen.
“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it, I—”
“You just be careful, and mind you’re not taken up by the watch,” growled the magistrate, cutting off Pickett’s protestations of thanks. “A pretty fool I’ll look, if one of Bow Street’s principal officers is arrested for breaking and entering.”
“I will—that is, I won’t be, sir, I promise.”
“And the dog?” Mr. Colquhoun gestured toward Pickett’s bandaged hand.
“I’ve thought of that, sir, and I think I know a way around it.”
“Hmmp,” was the noncommittal reply. “Now, if you intend to be capering about at all hours of the night, you’d better take yourself off and try to catch forty winks while you can.”
“Yes, sir.” Pickett agreed readily enough, but showed no sign of leaving.
“Well, what is it?”
“Er, there remains the question of how to bait the trap with enough money to tempt a thief, sir.”
“You just leave that to me. Now, be off with you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pickett, and reluctantly took his leave, recognizing that his magistrate had no intention of confiding i
n him just how this feat was to be accomplished.
“Reckless young cub,” Mr. Colquhoun grumbled, watching him go. Raising his voice, he called, “Mr. Maxwell! I’m going home to share a quick nuncheon with my wife. I should be back within the hour, but until I return, you’re in charge.”
This practice was so unusual that Janet Colquhoun was hardly more surprised than Mr. Maxwell had been.
“Why, what a pleasant surprise,” she said, lifting her face to be kissed. “What brings you home so early?”
“Is it so unusual for me to want to partake of a crust of bread before my own hearth, in the bosom of my own family?” he responded, bending to give her a peck on the cheek.
“Well, yes,” came the candid reply.
Ignoring this assertion, he bent a critical gaze upon her soft cashmere morning gown with its fashionable high waist and frill of white lawn at the neck. “Janet, my dear,” he said, “how long has it been since you had a new dress?”
* * *
In the meantime, Pickett did not go straight home, but stopped first at a butcher’s shop and bought three somewhat scrawny lamb chops. When he reached Drury Lane, he presented these to Mrs. Catchpole, his landlady and the proprietor of the chandler’s shop over which he resided, cutting off her exclamations over his bandaged hand.
“It’s fine, really it is,” he assured her. “But look what I’ve brought. If you’ll cook two of these for my dinner, you can have the third for yourself,” he offered.
She regarded him warily, but curiosity soon won out. She took the package, untied the string, and spread the newspaper wrappings. “Bless my soul!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Aye, I’ll cook them for you, Johnny, and a nice potato to go with them besides. We’ll dine like the Lord Mayor himself tonight, just see if we don’t!”
Privately, Pickett rather doubted this, but thanked her nonetheless (thinking rather guiltily that he should have made such a gesture before, and without ulterior motives, seeing it meant so much to her), then climbed the stairs to his own flat. Here he pulled the curtains tight to shut out the light, then shed his coat, waistcoat, and cravat before sitting on the edge of the bed and taking off his shoes. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, then stretched out full length on the narrow bed and pulled the oft-darned blanket up to his chin, all set to snatch what sleep he could in preparation for the night’s clandestine activities.
Waiting Game Page 6
