The Thief-Taker moabsr-1

by T. F. Banks

  There was a blow now on the other side of that wooden barrier, and a grunt of effort. Muffled voices. Morton raised his finger for silence. He leaned close to the girl.

  “Lucy, you show me where the tunnel is. And you come with me. They'll not be happy with you when they know you've helped me.”

  “Oh, no, Joshua will tell them it's all right. Joshua's my friend.”

  “Joshua will come away with us also. Later. But for now, you must come.”

  She stared intensely at him a moment, then scrambled off to one corner of the room. Morton followed, thinking she was going to show him the tunnel. But that was not her purpose. Out of the obscurity she produced her treasure. Tied round with string, stuffed full of other papers: Arabella's copy of Hebrew Melodies.

  Morton shook his head. He realised he still held the sculpture and set it down. It had to be found here. To carry it with him would only compound his difficulties.

  There was a rending, squeaking sound behind him. The men on the other side of the door were prising apart its boards.

  “Show us the tunnel now, Lucy,” Morton whispered urgently. Obediently, the child scrambled across to the far corner of the room and started yanking at a heap of stacked-up bales of cloth.

  “I watched them once, when they used it,” she explained as Morton motioned her aside and began the work himself. “They didn't know I was here. This is one of my secret places. There are ever so many spots in this house only I know about, where I can hide.”

  “Have you ever been through?” whispered Morton. She shook her small head.

  In a few moments, Morton had made a space. Behind it stood a flimsy piece of deal. Lifting this aside, he found himself looking into a dark hole hardly more than two feet high and the same width. A gush of dank, foul air spewed out of it. He recoiled. They would not even be able to take her weak little rushlight in its awkward holder. But there was nothing for it.

  “Go first,” he whispered, “and I will cover us up again.” He glanced at her as he spoke, thinking how frightening this must be for a child. But Lucy crawled in promptly, practised at the motion, her Byron still in hand. Morton followed with difficulty, worming his way forward on his belly. He knew immediately that there was no question of twisting his large frame about inside in order to try to cover up the entrance behind them. He would have to leave it open. It would have taken their pursuers but a moment to discover their means of escape in any case. Speed now was everything.

  Crawling forward, he felt the walls of the tunnel on each side. They seemed to be shored up with wooden posts, like the walls of a mine shaft. The floor was earthen and wet.

  His face bumped into the soles of Lucy's shoes in the darkness. “Keep going, girl,” he urged.

  “But I can't see!” She sounded frightened now.

  “It's all right, child. There's nothing to fear.” He struggled to keep desperation out of his voice. “But keep going, Lucy, or we'll be caught and they'll kill me sure.”

  He heard her scuffle and he crawled after. He had to slew forward on his elbows, dragging his legs behind him, the space was so tight. A little wave of near-panic shuddered through him. It was like being buried alive. And suppose their enemies were coming toward them from the other end? He'd told the girl all was well. But what might happen to her in the dark?

  After about ten yards he could feel brick instead of wood beside him, and the space seemed to be opening up above.

  In the total darkness he could hear Lucy whimpering in terror.

  “Lucy, girl, Lucy,” he whispered, trying to grope forward. “What happened? Where art thou?”

  “I fell!” The invisible voice was tearful.

  “Stay where you are, child. I'll come up to you.”

  He was on his knees now, reaching ahead with his hands. Could he even perhaps stand? The surface below him was rough stone now, not earth. Somewhere in the obscurity before him Lucy was crying. He advanced cautiously, trying to find her in the darkness.

  But careful as he was, he could not control himself as he went over an invisible edge. He lost balance, and his arms lunging out to the side for support suddenly found nothing. He toppled forward, chin first, down what seemed to be a short flight of steps, and landed on top of the child, who squeaked with alarm. He felt his face land against her gritty hair, and their skulls knocked audibly together.

  “Good Lord!” he breathed, extricating himself, and feeling for her with his hands. “Have I hurt thee?”

  A long pause. Then a small doubtful voice said, “No, sir.”

  He had her by the elbows and stood up, lifting her with him, setting her upright-he hoped-on what appeared to be a fairly level floor. He reached around until he could find her hand, then pulled her close beside him.

  “You've served us passing well, Lucy,” he whispered. “A brave bit of exploring. Now I shall go first, and you keep near me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you still have your book?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He groped forward. At a guess, he imagined them to be in the cellar of an adjoining house. He must find the way out quickly, as it could only be a matter of moments before the men in the Otter understood what had passed and came racing around to the exit of their tunnel. If they had not done so already.

  He started to his right, and moved in what he hoped to be a straight line until he reached a wall. Then he began to trace this. No blind groping in the centre of the room. Somewhere on the perimeter there must be what he was looking for.

  It took them perhaps a minute and a half-an eternity. A door frame, a knob. Morton tried to turn it, but could not. He felt for a bar, but there was none. He hesitated a moment. If this was only a closet or another dead end, he ought not to waste time on it. But there was no way to tell, except by going through. He positioned Lucy behind him, told her to stay perfectly still, and released her hand. Then he lunged forward, shoulder first, slamming hard into the door.

  It gave way on his second assault, and he went sprawling through, his left shoulder stabbed with a fierce flash of pain as he crashed heavily and loudly down on it. But to his inexpressible relief he knew he was out in the open air. There was faint light, the sky, the dark shapes of buildings on all sides. Gasping as he pulled himself to his feet, he staggered back through the now visible doorway to retrieve Lucy.

  They hurried out into what seemed to be a small cinder-yard. Twisting round, Morton located the high bulk of Constitution Brewery behind him, which meant that they had come out of the Otter House on the northeast side, and that the row of houses before them probably faced on White Street. But there were people coming; he could hear their feet pounding behind the wall that divided this yard from its neighbour. He hurried ahead, pulling Lucy along with him, but unsure of where he was going, or whether he was rushing away from danger or toward it.

  They crossed the wide yard and started to squeeze down the narrow alley between two houses. This, too, was dark, and almost as bad as the tunnel, but at least the safety of the street beckoned beyond it. If only they could get there before Bill got to the far end, they would be in the open, with a chance of other people being by, even a hackney-coach perhaps, and some hope of life.

  But an inner sense told Morton they would not make it in time. Perhaps the barely audible sound of running feet, or just some intimation, some deeply working calculation of the number of seconds it would take the men on the other side of the houses to turn the corner and come around in front. Halfway down the alley there was a door frame, set a bare foot or so into the brick wall. Morton pulled Lucy into its shadows with him and desperately tried the handle. It was locked firm, with that immobile feeling that suggested a heavy bar on the inside. There was no time. Men were entering the far end of the alley.

  Flattening himself against the door, pressing the girl close against it, Henry Morton laid his face against the wood and tried not to look.

  They brushed by, literally within inches. Three men, hurrying. They needed only gl
ance into the shadows, or reach to touch the dark space beside them as they slipped past, and they would have found their prey. But they didn't.

  Almost as soon as they were past, Morton pulled Lucy out and went on toward the street. He prayed there were no more coming after, that they would not meet them head-on before they got to the mouth of the passage. A few terrible seconds of anticipation…and then they were out into the open. There was no one there. Not a soul, nor a coach, nor anything. He needed another quick decision now. Which way? Where was the nearest busy thoroughfare, and the hope of escape from this dreadful quarter?

  He picked his right hand, eastward and away from Bell Lane, thinking to reach the nearest cross street and then get down into Whitechapel. Running as fast as little Lucy could go, he headed toward the next corner. As they ran he tried to listen for the sound of pursuit, for the echoes of other feet than their own. He tried not to look back.

  They were only a few strides from the corner when the first shot was fired. Lucy gave a little panted shriek, and then with the second shot she fell, her small hand wrenching out of Morton's grip.

  Henry Morton bellowed, and staggered to a stop, half-falling himself and propping himself up with one hand. He scrambled up and rushed back, seized her up bodily, flung her over his back, and began to run again, her weight bouncing with agonising stabs of pain on his injured shoulder. A few moments of violent effort brought him around the brick wall of the nearest building and into cover. Only then could he dare to think what might have happened. A great wave of unfamiliar emotion was rising in him. If she was dead…

  As soon as he set her down on the road, she bounded back up, panting and gazing at him with bright eyes, her Byron still clutched tightly in her small hands.

  “I tripped when I heard that noise!” she gasped. “I'm sorry!”

  He could say nothing but only nodded at her repeatedly. It was, after all, not surprising that Bill had missed. Pistols were highly inaccurate at any range above a few paces. Morton seized her hand again; in a few moments more, they were safe amongst the eddies of predawn traffic on broad Whitechapel Road.

  Chapter 33

  Morton had to hammer on Arabella's door for a very long while before a drowsy Christabel opened the peek hole. “Oh, Mr. Morton!” she said. “We were wakened earlier by Bow Street men searching for you.”

  Morton glanced anxiously back. Streaks of yellow and pink had begun in the east, but the street was still empty. “I have no doubt of it. Now let me in quickly before I'm seen.”

  There was an agonising moment of hesitation, and then the door swung open. The maid stepped aside, gazing suspiciously down at Morton's companion. “I'll call Mrs. M.,” she said, and hurried off upstairs.

  Morton led Lucy through into the parlour and set the tired little girl down in the centre of the sofa, where she perched uneasily, gaping about her. For his own part he paced back and forth in agitation until Arabella arrived.

  “Morton!” she cried. “They were here, and said you had escaped and-” The words died on her lips as she spotted the waif, and for a moment she stared open-mouthed. “And who might this be, pray?”

  “This is Lucy. She saved my life tonight.”

  Morton saw different feelings struggle in his mistress's handsome face, and waited rather anxiously to see whether maternal softness would win out.

  “She has my Byron!” she said.

  Lucy clutched the book even more tightly and gazed up at the actress with a mixture of defiance and awe.

  “Did I not say I had given it to another woman?” Morton smiled.

  Arabella burst out laughing.

  “Can you keep her safe awhile?” he asked. “I have much that must be done if I am to prove my innocence.”

  Mrs. Malibrant nodded once, staring down at the child who still held hard to her book. Morton wondered who would end up with it.

  “Would you like to stay awhile with me?” Arabella asked the girl.

  Lucy gazed up wide-eyed. “If you please, m'lady.”

  Arabella flashed a smile at Morton. “Do you hear, Henry? She thinks me a lady.” And then to Lucy, “Do you know, I once was a countess.”

  Lucy nodded, willing to believe anything of this vision before her.

  “And yet another time a duchess. I was even a queen, though it was a brief reign. The critics pierced me with their quills and I vowed never to be a queen again.” She offered her hand. “I think Christabel is making breakfast. Are you hungry?”

  Lucy took the offered hand, but with her other kept the Byron behind her back. Apparently she knew something of exiled queens.

  Arabella shot another bemused smile at Morton. “Be off, Morton. I think young Lucy and I shall be the best of friends.”

  “But I fear for you if you stay here. George Vaughan will be looking for me-and her-and he is still a Bow Street man. If he was to appear at your door again there would be nothing you could do. Can you take her to Darley? Vaughan would never dare to look for her there.”

  Arabella considered. “I don't know what Arthur will say to harbouring fugitives… but yes, I will go to him.” She looked at Morton, examining his torn and muddied clothing, his haggard face, and for the first time he glimpsed the depth of fear the actress was hiding.

  “Henry?” she said quietly. “Do come back to me.”

  Morton leaned forward and kissed her, and for a moment she clung to him, before he ran off into the bustling morning.

  Morton found a hackney-coach in Red Lion Square. The long ride out to Sir Nathaniel Conant's suburban villa in Camden Town took an eternity, and the further delay while Morton knocked up the porter and waited until the Chief Magistrate was ready was almost as maddening.

  Sir Nathaniel finally received him, wigless, in his modest study. Morton guessed that the visit had interrupted the Bow Street Magistrate's breakfast. The older man's eyes smouldered, but he was too much the gentleman to commence with shouting or reproach, or to complain about the earliness of the hour.

  “How is it you are at liberty, sir?” he demanded. “I ordered you held until this morning's hearing of your matter.”

  “I… procured my temporary freedom, sir, in order to obtain proofs of my innocence. But I am here, as you see, and am surrendering myself to your pleasure.”

  “This had better have been done at Bow Street.”

  “I did not do so because there are those at the Public Office who helped fabricate the evidence against me in the first place. I could hardly trust my new information to their hands.”

  Sir Nathaniel stared at him coldly. “I have little patience for these tales, sir. I will certainly not abide their recitation at this hour and in this place. You shall have your hearing, as originally scheduled, where you may make whatever claims you please.”

  Morton strove to keep his composure. Time was slipping away.

  “I ask you to hear only this much. I've uncovered crucial evidence-evidence not merely to exonerate me, but that will reveal exactly the depth and extent of corruption in the Bow Street Public Office.”

  The Chief Magistrate had opened his mouth to issue another rebuff, but Morton's last few words made the older man reconsider. He bent his head and frowned, and stepped for a moment about his room, pondering. At length he looked up at Morton.

  “If not for Mr. Townsend, I should refuse to countenance any of this. But he interceded on your behalf. Mr. Townsend all but swore an oath on his good name that you are not guilty of the crimes you have been charged with, and Mr. Townsend's oath I take seriously. His alone amongst the lot of you.” Then he said: “What is the nature of this supposed evidence?”

  “If you go now to the Otter House in Spitalfields you'll find it-but speed is all. Take a force of constables-men Mr. Townsend recommends. You will need men in numbers, because the folk in that flash house will defend themselves with desperation once they know that their Bow Street protector cannot save them. He-”

  Sir Nathaniel interrupted him. “Name no names, sir! Not unti
l you testify at your hearing. And then if you do, beware that you don't slander your colleagues without proof, as it will go hard for you.”

  “If I am unable to demonstrate my innocence, sir,” said Henry Morton, “it will go quite as hard as can be.”

  “What shall I find at this Otter House?”

  “There will be at least these two things. Firstly, in a concealed storeroom behind the staircase, you'll uncover a variety of stolen goods.”

  “We might well find the same on a warrant to search any flash house.”

  “But amongst these goods is an element of the sculpted antiquities stolen from the Earl of Elgin's collection at Burlington House.”

  “Very well. But you may have left or placed it there yourself. This flash house may be a place of your own resort.”

  “The second source of intelligence to be found at the Otter,” continued Morton, steadying himself, “is a fully competent witness, who is prepared to testify as to what he has seen in that place. His name is Joshua, and he is the barkeep in that establishment.” Morton hoped desperately that he was right in this: that Joshua would be willing to give evidence.

  The Chief Magistrate grunted. “A respectable kind of witness.” But his tone softened.

  Morton went on. “He will swear to the origins of the goods in the house. Even more important, he will swear to the name of its true protector, the name, that is, of the Bow Street officer who really does control and profit from that place. He will swear also to the kinds of crimes that-”

  “That is quite enough.” Sir Nathaniel's harsh voice was resigned now. He had listened. Henry Morton fell silent.

  The Magistrate paced back and forth in silence a few moments more, his eyes down, and his hands clasped behind his back. Then he stopped and straightened himself, looking at Morton.

  “I will instruct Mr. Townsend to assemble members of the Horse Patrol and go to this house on a warrant which I will sign myself. I will instruct these officers to proceed to the Otter House and make a search for precisely the goods you make reference to. They will also seek out any persons in the place who might provide information. Not merely the one whom you seem to believe will do you good. We'll see what they all have to say.”