Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

“I have a niece staying with me, a good-tempered friendly little creature who fell fathoms deep in love with a most unsuitable gentleman and was barely prevented from ruining herself. Mignon is very wealthy, did I say?”

Sir John, watching the various expressions that played across his visitor’s bewitching face, was thoroughly bemused. “No,” he replied, somewhat wistfully.

Lady Bligh leaned forward and rapped his knuckles. “Stop woolgathering. It is a matter of no small consequence that Mignon made so unfortunate a choice.”

“What have your niece’s indiscretions to do with me?”

The Baroness set aside her teacup and moved to stand beside the Chief Magistrate’s desk. “Nothing. As yet.” 

Sir John gazed up at her, taking in every detail of that extraordinary beauty from her disheveled hair to her inquisitive little nose. “Tell me what troubles you,” he said, and took her hand.

Dulcie leaned back against his desk. “I had a caller this morning, Ivor Jessop, with a boon to beg.” A faint smile hovered around her mouth. “Begging, I might add, is something the Viscount is quite unaccustomed to. He is a very haughty young man, though I know nothing worse of him than that he once threw an inkwell at a waiter’s head.”

“What has Jeffries to do with your niece?” asked Sir John. The Chief Magistrate, though he did not deign to waste his time in frivolous pursuits, was by birth a member of the
ton
.

“Again, very little, as yet.” Dulcie settled more comfortably against the desk. “The Viscount came to see me in behalf of Leda Langtry. You recall Leda, I’m sure.”

Sir John knew full well that he was being manipulated. He gave up the struggle and abandoned himself to enjoyment of the interview.

The Press had a nasty habit of heaping odium on Bow Street, particularly in the matter of blood money, bounty paid to informers and thieftakers for denouncing culprits. Payments of blood money threatened to reach the awesome sum of £80,000 that year alone. Bow Street Runners were often accused of sending men and women to their deaths for the sake of a reward. “Leda Langtry was imprisoned for a libel that she wrote and will stand trial at the next session,” Sir John said.

“Libel!” Lady Bligh sneezed, so ferociously that hairpins went flying across the room. Sir John wondered what his subordinates would think upon discovering them. “I sympathize with the Luddites myself,” she sniffed. “The poor men believe that the machinery they smash has done them out of their jobs.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Sir John. “It wasn’t Leda’s sympathy with the rioters that landed her in Newgate, but the fact that she chose to write of our Regent with a pen dipped in bile.”

“Poor Prinny,” sighed the Baroness. All London knew that the Prince Regent nourished a long-standing
tendresse
for Lady Bligh. “These robberies. What do you propose to do about them, John?”

“There’s very little we
can
do when we have neither description nor trace of the culprit to follow.” Lady Bligh’s thoughtful expression caused the Chief Magistrate’s flesh to crawl on his bones. “I’ve had my best men on the case and they’ve learned nothing, Dulcie. Don’t think that you may do better. I forbid you to interfere.”

“Interfere?” The Baroness looked wounded. “Unfair, John! I
never
interfere.”

“No, you merely follow your nose where it may lead you, and that’s generally into trouble.” Her reproachful expression, not to mention low-cut neckline, inspired him to say things he probably should not. “We have had recourse to our Criminal Record Office, but without result.”

“Your best men.” Lady Bligh tapped her fingers on his desk. “Who might those be, pray?”

That there was a purpose to this conversation, Sir John never took leave to doubt. Heaven forbid that he ever encountered the crafty Baroness in the witness box. “Townsend and Sayer were diverted briefly from their duties concerning the Regent. Neither discovered anything. Ruthven had no better luck, though he’s my leading expert on bank robberies and forgery. Nor did Vickery, for all his expertise in tracking down and recapturing escaped prisoners of war.”

“Bank robberies,” mused Dulcie. “I do not believe your culprit, as you call him, has yet committed a bank robbery.”

“As yet?” Sir John was suddenly alert. Lady Bligh might be exasperating and capricious, but there was no denying that she possessed formidable foresight. “What are you trying to tell me?”

The Baroness slid off his desk, sending his senses pleasantly reeling with her heady perfume. “If I meant to tell you something, John, I would do so without roundaboutation.” She turned to look out the window and the Chief Magistrate remembered belatedly to exhale. “You have not seen fit to utilize Crump’s talents in this affair?”

 Sir John scowled. “To my mind, Crump’s most outstanding achievement has been the apprehension of an enterprising couple who fought a duel in two balloons.”

“You refer to the criminal in the singular.” Lady Bligh stared somberly into the street below. “I suspect you are mistaken. I suspect also that you undervalue your enterprising little Crump. He may arrive at the truth via circuitous routes, but arrive at it he does.”

Sir John remained briefly silent, drinking in the sight of Dulcie bathed in sunlight like a lissome purple-haired nymph. He moved to stand beside her at the window. “Very well. If you think it so important, I will put Crump on the case—not that I anticipate he will achieve any better result than his predecessors.”

“Dear John!” Dulcie touched his arm. “It is so good of you to indulge my whims. Now, we have had a pleasant conversation, but it is time to get down to business. There is an errand that you may execute.”

Who but Lady Bligh would dare order the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street Public Office to execute her commissions as if he were a footman? Succumbing to temptation, Sir John lifted his hands to tidy her coiffure. “What errand?”

Dulcie drew back to look up at him, her lively countenance alight with mischief. “Why, to conduct Leda home from Newgate, of course. Your wits are sluggish today! What else would I ask?”

The Chief Magistrate glowered at her. “Take care, Dulcie! The Regent’s wishes cannot be denied.”

Lady Bligh drew forth from the bosom of her gown an official-looking document. “As if I would think to do such a thing. This is an order for Leda’s release. I think you will find it all it should be.”

Sir John held the paper, still warm from contact with her body, as if it might momentarily burst into flame. “Where did you get this?”

“From Warwick. I did not think it wise to apply to Prinny, poor man. He is very nearly dying of a disgraceful debauch, having sent for George Coleman to come from the King’s Bench Prison to entertain him. A pity, is it not, that a dramatist and theatrical manager should be imprisoned for debt? They sat up all night carousing until Prinny was literally dead drunk and had to be carried to bed. Sir Walter Farquar has saved his life, but at the cost of twenty-seven ounces of blood.” The Baroness touched her handkerchief to her nose. “To further poor Prinny’s distress, he is being dunned in the streets for his debts and the
most
discreditable stories about him are going the rounds of society.”

“I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to humbug me!” said Sir John. “How did you persuade Warwick to give you this release?”

“Warwick was not in the least anxious to be of assistance, as you can imagine, but he soon saw the advantage of cooperating with me. I have certain information in my possession, the publication of which would make life most uncomfortable for him.”

“You would,” retorted the Chief Magistrate. “This mania of yours for collecting damning information may well land you in serious difficulties one day.” He was haunted by the thought.

“Piffle! Life would be very dull indeed, did I leave other people’s business to them and confine myself to my own.” Dulcie brushed idle fingers along the windowsill. “Are you thinking I should have applied to you for assistance? I could not. It was you who committed Leda to Newgate, after all.”

“So it was.” For a man who deprecated Lady Bligh’s involvement in what might be logically considered his affairs, Sir John was unaccountably relieved. “Save me your further blandishments. I will see Leda safely home. In return you might tell me what Ivor Jessop has to do with her, and why you are so interested in this recent outbreak of robberies.”

“So I might.” Lady Bligh adapted an attitude every bit as provocative as those employed by the lightskirts who plied their trade in Covent Garden’s narrow streets. “Much as it distresses me to refuse you, in this case I think I must. But you are very kind to oblige me about Leda. I am very, very grateful to you.”

“All the same,” said Sir John, “I would vastly prefer to see that particular troublemaker remain behind bars.”

Dulcie stepped back, drawing the hood of her cloak over her again unruly curls. “Oddly enough, so would I.” By the time the Chief Magistrate thought to question this startling statement, the Baroness had gone.

Chapter 3

Crump sauntered along the busy streets of the West End, passing by the fencing rooms in St. James’s Street and Gentleman Jackson’s Bond Street boxing saloon, as well as shops and smart hotels dedicated to serving the aristocracy. The haunts of the
ton
roused not envy but resentment in Crump. While walking in Mayfair he would call to mind the filthy slums and unlit streets of Westminster and Lambeth, those mazes of tumbledown houses and fever-ridden alleys where half-naked children played in open sewers and well-dressed gentlemen dared not venture even in daylight.

Crump was a rotund, jovial-looking man with observant blue eyes and a balding skull adorned by a scant fringe of black hair. He was also one of that select group known commonly as the Bow Street Runners. And a good one, he thought, despite Sir John’s current annoyance with him, an annoyance inspired wholly by the fact that Lady Bligh, during the wretched Arbuthnot business, had not only placed herself in danger but had outwitted him. Crump twirled his gilt-headed baton. A race apart were the aristocracy, with blue blood flowing in their veins, and the Baroness Bligh was even further removed from the commonplace. She was as silly as she was lovely, deplorably frivolous, conspicuously crazy, and she furthermore possessed a happy knack of falling on her feet. It was to Lady Bligh that he owed his present engagement; due to her influence with the Chief Magistrate, Crump was at last to try his hand at solving these daring robberies, the most recent of which had taken place at White’s Club. Crump thought he would call at Bligh House later on to express his gratitude, there to be regaled by the Baroness with tidbits of tittle-tattle from high society, and just possibly to learn what had prompted her intervention in his behalf.

He had been in the tavern across from Bow Street headquarters, sipping geneva and making the acquaintance of pickpockets, housebreakers and others of their ilk, when Sir John summoned him. The Runners were condemned for their practice of frequenting flash houses, for keeping company with thieves, but there were no few advantages in acting the part of a spy. In such places, where careless tongues were rendered further incautious by libations of gin and ale, an enterprising thieftaker could gather a wealth of information and locate criminals, earning a comfortable share of government reward money for himself.

It was not an easy living. Government rewards were divided between the prosecutor, witnesses and the arresting officer. Parliamentary rewards, paid by the government to anyone who brought a criminal to justice, were on a sliding scale of £10 for a shoplifter to £40 for a highwayman. Little wonder that some constables and watchmen ignored minor misdeeds in hope that the felons would become sufficiently emboldened to commit more serious felonies. Crump agreed with Sir John that the system was both inadequate and unfair.

His purpose, however, was not to lament injustice but to investigate a crime. Crump peered up at White’s handsome and well-proportioned narrow brick facade, at the Corinthian pilasters beyond which wealthy lords gambled deeply night and day. It would be a sharp set-down for his fellow Runners, mused Crump, if
he
solved this perplexing series of crimes. Townsend in particular needed taking down a peg; the man who had left a career as a costermonger to serve under Sir John Fielding had now gained fame for his habit of dressing in the same manner as the Regent. Crump glanced once more at the building before him, noting the unusual absence of the bow window set, the most prominent of whom was the irreverent Beau Brummell, and approached the front door.

Crump’s entrance into this particular bastion of the aristocracy was one that he would long remember, and not for the warmth of the welcome he received. The doorman gazed upon him with raised eyebrows, apparently struck dumb; the hall porter, of a more timid disposition, gasped and looked ready to swoon; while the turbaned Negro page, whose duty was to collect hats and coats, snickered.

The doorman recovered his voice. “ I believe that you seek the tradesmen’s entrance, my good man. If you will proceed around the building—” His words ended in an abrupt expulsion of breath, occasioned by the application of Crump’s gilt-headed baton to his midriff.

“Aye, so you’d like to think, laddie.” Crump flourished a card identifying him as a peace officer on the staff of the Chief Magistrate, Bow Street.

The doorman wore a face of perfect horror. “I’ve been engaged through the usual channels,” advised Crump. “Kindly conduct me to the owner of this establishment.”

  The doorman recovered sufficiently to close the door. “That I cannot do, Mr. Raggett being prostrated by the theft of his silver plate. Instead you will have to deal with Mr. Throckmorton.”

Crump’s smile was jovial. “Very well. But first you will conduct me through these premises and acquaint me with the various means of access. Before we set about investigating a robbery, my lad, we must ascertain whether entrance was effected by some outside agency, or whether it was committed from within.” His bright eyes alighted on the hall porter. “Which happens more often than you might think, servants being every bit as susceptible to temptation as the criminal class.” The porter blanched and leaned for support on the smirking page. A bright lad, thought Crump, and filed away the observation for future reference.