The Thief Taker (29 page)

A
GNES WENT PALE.
“Philip, whatever are you doing here?”

“Come to offer my heartfelt sympathy and, more important, practical assistance.” He closed the door behind him. He was wigless and hatless, dressed not in livery but in his street clothes—a smart blue woolen cloak, black breeches, and leather boots, all of which were spattered with fresh mud, but looked new. “Mrs. Sharp told me about what happened. She came to Foster Lane and told Mr. Matthews that Mr. Pitt had taken your son. Mr. Matthews said we ought to offer you assistance. I knew this was where you would come since I'd accompanied you here before, so I said I'd come.”

“I see,” said Agnes quietly. “You are most kind. But I already have Mr. Williams to help.”

“I know—I saw him outside just now. But he alone is no match for all Pitt's cronies. Furthermore, he asked me to tell you he has gone for the constable and will arrive directly.”

Agnes took this in. Why had she felt compelled to resolve matters in such a foolhardy manner, without giving Thomas so much as a hint as to who she believed might be guilty? Was this a last remnant of the reserved person she once had been? Philip, meanwhile, showed little urgency about his commission. He examined the book-lined walls, then picked up items from Pitt's desk. A silver inkwell, a goose quill, a candlestick, a box containing sealing wafers. “Nice things, ain't they, Mrs. M.? Think he'd miss one or two, now he's in the roundhouse?”

She made no reply. She was conscious of his hands, flecked with dark hairs; of his long, strong fingers picking up the objects and turning them over. What else had those fingers held? “Give me back my son, Philip. It will help your case. You will never escape now, but I will do what I can to assist if you release him unharmed.”

“What? Have you gone soft in the head? I told you, I'm here because Mr. Matthews sent me to help you find him.”

“I doubt that. But Mr. Williams is waiting for my signal. I have only to cry out and he will come.”

“I told you he isn't there. Come, should we not begin our search for Peter at the top of the house?”

“Why? Aren't
I
what you wanted? Or is it that you plan to dispose of me by shoving me off the roof?”

Philip's amiable expression vanished. “I told you, Mrs. Meadowes, I don't mean you harm. I am here to help. Why won't you listen?”

She had waited for this moment to confront him, but now she hardly knew what to say. She thought of Rose as Elsie had described her, running for dear life across the mudflats. She thought of Noah Prout's murder, and Harry Drake's decapitated body. She threw up the window sash and shouted into the deserted street, “Thomas! Come now and help me search for Peter!”

As she bellowed, a powerful arm wrapped about her neck. Philip spoke slowly in her ear. “Whatever are you doing, making such a spectacle of yourself, Mrs. Meadowes? Thomas isn't there. I told you, didn't I? And you have me to help you.”

“You may kill me, but you will not deceive me. Elsie saw you that night chasing Rose—she will identify you. Where is Peter?”

Philip laughed bitterly. “Then if the girl betrayed me, I fancy some misadventure might soon befall her. Quiet, Mrs. Meadowes. No more questions. Let's go and look for Peter together. And remember, you brought all this on yourself. I am only here to help.” He shifted his grip to her arm and began pushing her toward the door.

Agnes twisted to face him. “My desire was only to uncover the truth. A woman who worked for me, and of whom I was fond, met an untimely death—is it so surprising I should want to discover what became of her?”

“Fond!” cried Philip, spinning her back and pushing her up the stairs by the arm which he held in a firm grip. “There's a joke. You was never fond of anything save duty.”

Agnes paused. Perhaps you were right once, but not any longer, she thought. “Then I have become fond of Rose since her death. She was not perfect, I grant you, but she didn't deserve to be killed.”

“'Course not—a veritable tragedy, it was.”

They reached the first landing.

“I'm not entirely green,” retorted Agnes hotly, thinking of the pair of them in the larder. “I know you killed Rose in a jealous rage, and Noah Prout and Harry Drake.”

Philip squeezed her arm tighter. “Now you're going soft again. Why would I kill Rose when I loved her? Why would I kill any of them?”

“Because the poor girl wanted no more to do with you. You don't like being turned down, do you?”

Philip pushed Agnes roughly up the next flight of stairs. “I was demented, was I? That's rich. I would've married her. Is that a crime in your book? There's any number of women want me, only not you 'cos you're cold as granite, and not her. Even with money I wasn't good enough for her.”

“And so you followed her.”

“I went after her to tell her I loved her. What I'd done for her, how rich we'd be in a week or two's time. But instead she shamed me. Treated me like I was nothing. No other woman ever done that. And she had money all along—she offered it to me to leave her alone. It was that that done for her. Trying to pay me to go—like I was her lackey.”

They had reached the third-floor landing, a long corridor with doors opening on each side, dimly lit at the far end by a garret window darkened with grime. Philip shoved her to the window, yanked open the latch with his free hand, and flung open the casement. “Look out there.”

Beyond the jagged black gables stretched the wide curve of dull gray river. Silhouetted against it, seated on a parapet like a frail bowsprit on a ship, sat Peter. His mouth was bound. A blindfold had been tied around his eyes, ropes about his ankles and wrists. But there was nothing to stop him falling. Agnes opened her mouth to call out to him, but found she could utter no sound. What if I startle him? she thought. If he moves an inch he will fall.

“Let me fetch him,” she whispered.

“All in good time. I have told him he will be quite safe so long as he behaves himself and doesn't move. Of course he can't see, so he doesn't know where he is. So, Mrs. Meadowes, feeling less meddlesome now?”

“Ssh,” whispered Agnes. “Don't let him hear or he might move.”

He ignored her. “All I desired was Rose and the means to support her. You, of all people, should comprehend. Yet with every turn you obstructed me. You spoiled my scheme. I lost Rose and the money I was due from Pitt.”

“My meddling had nothing to do with Rose spurning you,” whispered Agnes hotly. “You might deceive yourself that you acted for love, but in truth you were propelled by other, darker motives—jealousy, greed, and fear.”

On hearing this, he lunged at her and closed his hands around her neck. Agnes reared back her head, crashing against the window frame. From the corner of her eye she saw Peter move, as if he were straining for the source of the sound.

Philip increased the pressure about her neck and she tried to pry his fingers away. After a minute or two, sensing her waning strength, he let go with one hand and reached to his pocket. He gave a sharp flick of his wrist and a blade sprang out from its handle, gleaming in the dim light. “And now, since you are so very curious, I shall show you how I killed them so easily. Here is Mr. Matthews's spare razor; he leaves it in his pantry drawer, and never remarks when I borrow it. When you left the wine label in the drawer I knew I would have to silence you. But I presume that was your intention. To let me know you had found me out. Look how sharp it is.”

Still holding Agnes firmly by the neck, he waved the blade in front of her face and sliced it down an inch from her cheek. A thick lock of hair fell onto her breast. Philip was speaking again, but his voice seemed to be fading. Somewhere below, she thought she heard the sound of voices, footsteps. She tried to wrench away and scratch his hands; she tried to say that of course she had not intended to threaten him by leaving the wine label in the drawer. But at every sign of resistance, Philip shook her, banging her skull viciously against the wall and laying the blade flat against her neck.

Agnes felt her eyeballs bulge and her tongue swell over her teeth. Blood pounded in her neck and forehead so she could barely hear him. She was aware only of echoing shouts, footsteps growing louder, pain, and fear.

He pressed his mouth to Agnes's ear and asked her which way she preferred to die. Which way? Blade across the throat, or strangulation? Which way?

“Philip! What the devil are you doing?” a voice boomed through the fog.

Philip gave a start and turned to see who it was. “Keep away,” he muttered. “There's business here in which you are not involved.”

“I prefer to avoid trouble where I can, but I am here to help Mrs. Meadowes, and I don't like to leave her in this disorder.” Over Philip's shoulder, Agnes caught a glimpse of Thomas Williams as he drew his sword and ran Philip through.

For an instant Agnes was unsure what was real and what she had imagined. But as Philip's legs buckled under him, and blood gushed from his mouth, she came to her senses. She turned wordlessly to the window. It was no dream. Peter was still sitting there.

Holding her finger to her mouth so that Thomas would not call out, she opened it, and tried to heave herself through. But the sill was too high.

Thomas pulled her gently to one side. He jumped up onto the ledge and squeezed his way out. Silently he inched his way on all fours toward the parapet. All the while Peter remained immobile, straining to hear. When Thomas was two feet away, Peter must have heard a faint rustle behind him. He half turned his head and went as if to move forward. Agnes closed her eyes. She opened them again just as Thomas grabbed him unceremoniously about the waist and dragged him back to safety. “There now,” he said, without removing the blindfold. “I've your mother waiting for you inside. Let's go and see her, shall we?”

Thomas lifted the shivering child through the window. Agnes carried him past Philip's body and down the two flights of stairs to Pitt's room before she untied his blindfold and bindings and embraced him.

“I went in a carriage with Philip,” he said, his ribs heaving with sobs. “After we went in the boat, he said we would play a game and he would bring me to you, if I let myself be blindfolded. But why did he leave me out there so long in the cold?”

“It's all right,” she said as lightly as she could, breathing in the scent of his damp hair. “It's over now. He has gone. He won't trouble you again.”

“J
EALOUSY,” SAID
A
GNES,
“is as cruel as the grave. It leads men and women to desperate lengths, to commit untold evil. Philip could not reconcile himself to the fact that Rose's affections had cooled for him. He was a handsome fellow, with an appetite for women of all shapes and sizes.” She glanced at Doris, and then at Nancy. “And he was accustomed to having any girl he chose.”

She was holding forth during the servants' breakfast, having arrived back too late the previous night to apprise anyone that Philip was dead. She was exhausted, her neck was bruised, her limbs ached. But despite everything, the Blanchards still had to be fed and the household was still a kitchen maid short, and now a footman. She had risen at seven as usual, but before beginning her duties had searched Philip's things. Secreted in a corner of his chest she had found a note from Marcus Pitt, arranging a meeting for the payment of his “commission.” There was also a small leather purse containing fifteen gold sovereigns. The rest of Rose's money, Agnes presumed, had been spent on the new attire he had been wearing yesterday.

She looked around the table. Mrs. Tooley was pale-faced. In a minute or two, thought Agnes, she'll reach for her salts and want a lie-down. Curiously, however, Agnes no longer resented her weakness.

“If he had the pick of us all, why in heaven's name did he waste time on someone who didn't want him?” asked Nancy. She was brittle as ever, but she had a gleam in her eye. What was it? Agnes wondered. Anger that Agnes had not believed her story about the purse? Guilt at her involvement? Fear for herself and her unborn child?

“Because being spurned was new to him—and bothered him deeply. He convinced himself he loved her, and pestered her repeatedly to take him back. And Rose, as we all know, could be unkind on occasion.”

“Unkind—that's putting it mildly,” said Nancy. “She was a hard jade and I don't care who knows it.”

Agnes sighed. Not very long ago she had harbored just such jealousy and bitterness. “Rose didn't care if she hurt Philip because she too had been hurt in love. She and Thomas Williams had become engaged when he came to London to work for Blanchards'. When Rose's father died suddenly, she was obliged to seek work, and found a post as a maid to Lord Carew. But Rose detested life as a servant. She begged Thomas to marry her early so she could stop working, and when he refused because he was worried about his own position, she broke off the engagement.”

“Then she'd no reason to feel sorry for herself, had she? She only had herself to blame.”

“Quiet, Nancy.” Doris broke in with unusual authority. “Let us listen to what Mrs. Meadowes has to say before we hear your thoughts on it.”

“She was a headstrong girl,” said Agnes. “After the quiet of Newcastle, London must have turned her head. Like Philip, she enjoyed the company of the opposite sex. She thought that with all the eligible men in London she would not find it hard to persuade someone else to marry her. But then a month or so later she realized it was not going to be so easy, and asked Thomas to take her back.”

“Then if she was after Thomas, why take up with Philip and Riley?” asked Nancy.

“Because Thomas was still uncertain about his position. And being determined and impatient, Rose couldn't wait. She set about trying to make him jealous. She flirted with Riley, and then she turned her attentions to Philip. But her plan misfired. After a few months, Thomas told her that he no longer trusted her and would never change his mind.

“By then Rose had tired of Philip. But he convinced himself he was smitten with her. So much so that he asked her to marry him. Rose laughed at him and told him he was an idiot even to think he could support a wife when he was only a footman, and said he knew as well as she that servants were not allowed to marry.”

“And the man in the street?” said Mrs. Tooley, dabbing her eyes with the effort of taking so much in. “Was he another follower?”

“He was her brother,” said Agnes. “He returned from abroad, and only then discovered what had become of his father and sister. He was aghast to find Rose living as a servant. After all, she was an educated girl. He suggested that she come and help him in a school he intended to open in France. I think that was why she cooled toward Philip. She wanted to tell Mrs. Blanchard—there was no other reason for her to have taken such an interest in her comings and goings. But in the end, possibly because she would never be listened to with sympathy, she decided against it.”

“I don't understand,” said Mrs. Tooley. “Do you mean to say Rose had nothing to do with the robbery after all?”

“Oh, no. She was the reason it happened. Somehow Philip got wind of her intention to leave. Perhaps he overheard you, Mrs. Tooley, ticking her off for talking to a strange man in the street. Then there was the letter Nancy found. In any case, he became desperate to change her mind. Remember, Rose told him they could not marry because he couldn't provide for her.

“He looked for a way to make money quickly. Being a friend of one of the apprentices, he visited the workshop frequently and knew what was happening there. He heard about the wine cooler—the most precious item Blanchards' had ever made. It must have seemed a God-given opportunity, and so he devised a scheme to steal it.”

“But did he not feel disloyal for ruining the family that gave him employ?” said Patsy. “I always thought him such a deferential fellow.”

Agnes nodded, remembering Philip dressed in livery, handsome, the perfect servant. “He had a capacity for deference, I do not deny that, but underneath he resented the restrictions of his position much as Rose did.”

Agnes caught John exchange an uneasy glance with Mr. Matthews. Perhaps, she thought, they are worried I might let slip their plans for the celebrations to mark John's coming of age, and the pilfering that has gone on to fuel them.

“But how did he set about orchestrating the scheme?” said John.

“Unlike you, John, Philip frequently passed his evenings in the alehouses of this part of the city. He claimed he was in the Blue Cockerel on the night of the robbery. In such places Pitt's reputation as a preeminent thief taker is well known.” Here Agnes was unable to conceal her disapproval. “The business of thief taking relies upon a vast retinue of informants. It would not have been hard for Philip to establish contact with one of them and then arrange a meeting with Pitt.”

Agnes took a sip of tea. Disturbing images crowded her thoughts; of Pitt, holding her captive, pressing himself on her; of Philip's hands about her neck; of Peter blindfolded on the edge of the roof. She blinked, looked up again, took a breath.

“Pitt and Philip agreed that the reward for the wine cooler's return would be split between the pair of them and a fee would also be paid to Harry Drake, who would carry out the robbery. But Harry Drake was a greedy man, and when he saw that Philip was employed in the house of a silversmith, he had the foolish idea of extracting further money from him. On the night that Elsie came to take the message for Pitt, she saw her father waiting in the street, signaling to someone at the house—Philip, who was in the dining room at the time, threatening to reveal his identity unless he paid for his silence. Philip pretended to agree.

“Philip must have taken a wine label from the dining room—I found it in Drake's pocket and returned it to Mr. Matthews's drawer. I fancy Drake must have protested that the wine label wasn't valuable enough to buy his silence. So Philip said he would find something more, and arranged a meeting later that night at the house where Drake was guarding the wine cooler. Only instead of taking more valuables to Drake, Philip decapitated him.”

John glanced again at Mr. Matthews, who asked, “But why did Philip need to murder the apprentice? Why not simply incapacitate him?”

“I asked myself the same question. I believe it was because he had only just learned that time was short. Rose's plan to leave was more imminent than he had first realized. If the apprentice was not silenced, his scheme would be more perilous. The apprentice might overpower Drake, in which case the scheme might fail and Rose would be gone before he had made himself rich. He was unwilling to take that chance.”

Nancy turned scarlet. “It was him what egged me on to take the letter that was sent her. I only did so to make him notice me.” She grew suddenly tearful, one hand resting protectively on her belly. “And then I meant to put it back, only she discovered it was missing and flew at me. I thought he'd lose interest in her once he knew she was going. How was I to know he'd kill her on account of it?”

“You have no need to blame yourself,” said Agnes gently. “He was expert at using charm and flattery to get what he wanted. I too was misled by him in a way. The truth was there all along, but it took me a while to see what it was.”

“How did you discover it was him?” said Mr. Matthews, his gaunt old face resembling that of an Old Testament prophet. “I never would have thought him capable of such devilry. You must have probed in places you were not entitled to go.”

“It was the boots that made me first suspect,” said Agnes, avoiding his pointed remark.

“What boots?”

“The morning after the robbery and Rose's disappearance, I found a pair of boots on the kitchen table. Philip was in your pantry. Although he confessed to having been out that night, he pretended he did not know what had happened to Rose and said the boots weren't his.

“I thought no more of it, but when I found the gun in the cellar I decided that the culprit was most likely one of the menservants. Who else would have an opportunity to hide the gun there? And then I began to reflect upon what Philip had told me of his relationship with Rose. He pretended there was nothing between them when she left, but when Nancy confessed that she had taken the letter, I thought she would not have done so unless she had a purpose, and that purpose was most likely turning Philip against Rose. Philip said he had passed the night at the Blue Cockerel, but while the landlord recalled seeing him, he had no notion when he left.

“When Elsie told me she didn't know who had taken her in the carriage, but that it wasn't one of the menservants, I confess I was baffled. But then I realized that while she would have recognized Mr. Matthews or John, she had never laid eyes on Philip.”

Mr. Matthews ran his hand across his venerable head. “But the time you went to Mr. Pitt's house, Philip accompanied you. And I thought you met Elsie there.”

“That is true, but Grant insisted that Philip wait outside. Had he not, perhaps Elsie would have observed him and identified him sooner as the man she had seen chasing Rose by the river.”

“I still do not believe that Rose was as innocent as you say,” protested Nancy. “What of the salver I found her handling?”

“That was nothing to do with her. Theodore had established a duty-dodging scheme with Riley—cutting marks from one piece and putting them in another to try and save duty, in order to finance a move to the west of the city. I doubt it earned him much, but he yearns for a life free of his father's influence. But none of it had anything to do with Philip and his evil scheme, or Rose's determination to leave.”

Mrs. Tooley took a noisy sniff of her salts. Her hands were shaking. “I have a replacement maid arriving this morning. I sincerely hope she's more manageable than Rose Francis.”

At this, Nancy and Doris bombarded her as to the age, appearance, and background of the new arrival. Then everyone fell silent for a moment, and Mr. Matthews coughed and rose. The sternness in his eyes had returned. “I thank you for enlightening us, Mrs. Meadowes. When you have finished your breakfast, I should like a further word in private.”

 

A
GNES KNEW
as soon as she entered the pantry what he would say. Rose's purse and a folded paper lay on his table. She was gratified to note that he could not meet her eye. “I am sorry,” he said. “The decision of which I am about to inform you is not mine. Sir Bartholomew Grey came to call on Mr. Blanchard, Senior yesterday, and told him of your visit. Even had you not removed a letter that was not addressed to you from my office, I have no recourse. You will be paid a week's notice. To assist you with your child, I should like to add this to that sum.” And he handed her Rose's purse.