Maggie MacKeever (6 page)

He was not yet ready to devote himself to private commissions, decided Crump. “Lord love you, guv’nor, I know I’m not cow-handed!” he said benignly, demonstrating that the Chief Magistrate’s somewhat grudging apology had not gone wide of its target. “But all I can recall about Blood-and-Thunder is that he had some connection with a milliner. Which milliner and what connection, I never found out! She could have been his mother, or his sister, or his ladybird; there’s no way of telling now. At any rate, we needn’t worry about it till we know it’s certain he
has
come back.”

“Need we not?” Sir John raised his heavy brows. “May I recall to you the Parliamentary inquiry we have just—barely!—survived? And that a member of our own Foot Patrol was convicted of conspiring very lucratively with a well-known thief? The Committee concluded that a severe system of police would be inconsistent with the liberties of the people—but how long will that decision stand if we are hit with another plague of burglaries, especially if they are enacted by a rascal who eluded us long ago? And if a true police force is implemented, Crump, both you and I will be out of a place. You begin to grasp the urgency of the matter, I think.”

What Crump grasped was the fact that he might well be soon obliged to concentrate wholly on private inquiry work. “I doubt there’s reward money in it,” Sir John added, setting the seal on his Runner’s distress. “Unless, which is unlikely, you can still catch him with some of the stolen goods. I am not assigning you to this old case. Instead, I want you to learn the truth of this rumor. I hope you will indulge me in this whim.”

Crump emptied out his pipe on the windowsill and shoved it into his pocket. “No reward money,” he gloomily echoed. “You’re mighty certain, guv’nor, that Blood-and-Thunder
has
returned.”

Sir John’s tone was no more cheerful. “I am not so lucky that the rumor may be false. We dare not risk ignoring it, Crump. And any investigation you conduct must be on the
qui vive,
lest everyone from the Secretary of State down to the beadle of St. Bride’s learns that Blood-and-Thunder is out and about again. Don’t forget that the rascal is a very slippery customer; he has already wriggled off your hook once.”

That circumstance, Crump was unlikely to forget. “There’s a precious lot of milliners in London,” he remarked.

“So there are.” By his subordinate’s observation, and obvious chagrin, Sir John was ignobly cheered. “You will be kept busy, I think.”

Crump preferred to be kept busy in other manners, like the private commission which he had on very good authority was about to be offered him, concerning a claim to an extinct title, and along with it dormant funds. The fee for such an undertaking would keep him for several months in tobacco and waistcoats. Since application for such work was made through Sir John, Crump dared not set up his superior’s back.

He cleared his throat. “A precious lot of milliners,” he repeated. “Seems to me, guv’nor, that we both know someone very suited to such work.”

The Chief Magistrate looked briefly wistful, before his eyebrows beetled into a deep scowl. “No! Absolutely not! Under no circumstances is she to be involved in this. We cannot afford to find ourselves in the middle of a three-ring circus display.”

It was true that the party whom he had mentioned was prone to make monkeys of the denizens of Bow Street, and Crump reluctantly abandoned his scheme. “If I was to undertake this little whim of yours, guv’nor,” he delicately inquired, “would it mean I wouldn’t be available for a private commission, was one to present itself?”

The Chief Magistrate was not an unfair man, merely one on whom the responsibilities of his office had taken a deep toll. No one knew better than Sir John the inadequacy of his Runners’ official salaries; even the additional money provided them by government rewards seldom totaled more than an annual £30. Consequently, and against his better judgment, he said, “If your services are requested; I won’t stand in your way—providing you can convince me that you are making progress on my business. Does that answer your question, Crump?”

“Aye, guv’nor, it does.” Crump was already halfway out the door. Once outside, he proceeded more slowly down the stairway and out into the street. Of habit, his footsteps carried him to the tavern viewed so clearly from the window above.

It was an old building, constructed partially of powdered flaking brick, its drab walls bearing ancient advertisements for soap, cure-all pills and physics, combs and pomades and snuff. Crump sat down at a table, prepared to seek a degree of solace in beefsteak and oyster sauce, washed down with stout. Despite the impression he’d given his Chief Magistrate, the Runner had no intention of tramping from milliner to milliner in search of one who had a relative or lover a great deal more enterprising than was prudent. The number of such shops in the city was staggering, females of every station being constitutionally unable to endure existence without access to folderols and furbelows. Crump had visited a few milliners himself, result of his acquaintance with a dollymop with a fondness for laces and bows.

For a few moments, Crump’s thoughts lingered upon that little dollymop. During their last encounter she had pined for stockings of fashionable silk, nonsense his pocketbook could not stand.

The Runner shook his head. There must be some means by which he could discover whether this rumor regarding Blood-and-Thunder had any basis, and at the same time allow himself sufficient freedom to pursue the private commissions which enabled him to enjoy his pipe tobacco and his eye-catching waistcoats—aye, and his little dollymop. Hard on the heels of that thought, Crump’s least favorite among all the Bow Street personnel stepped into the tavern, a young man of nondescript features, anxious expression, and an irremedial habit of tripping over his own feet.

Samson Puddiphat! Crump grimaced so severely that the owner of the tavern wondered if the Runner had taken a sudden dislike to his beefsteak and oyster sauce. Then the Runner’s features assumed their usual genial expression, and he gestured expansively with his fork.

In response to that gesture, Puddiphat made his way to Crump’s table, after disengaging himself from a table that had put itself in his way. “Pleased to see you, Mr. Crump!” he enthused.

“Aye, I’m pleased about it myself, laddie.” Puddiphat’s eternal desire to please was one of the several things that most annoyed Crump. “Rest yourself.” He gestured toward a chair.

Looking very gratified, Puddiphat did so, with careful attention to the saber which he wore with his greatcoat. These items constituted only part of the uniform of the Bow Street Horse Patrol. In addition, Puddiphat wore blue trousers, white leather gloves, boots with steel spurs, and a scarlet waistcoat. It was a costume that looked excellent on horseback, during the dark hours of the night when Puddiphat and his fellows patrolled the roads leading into London. Crump was not impressed, however, with the appearance of the uniform in a tavern in midday. But Puddiphat was never seen in any other garb. More than once Crump had uncharitably wished Puddiphat might do himself an injury with the saber he always wore.

Confidentially, he leaned forward. Looking even more gratified, Puddiphat followed suit. “Tell me, laddie,” Crump murmured, “do you still have a hankering to better yourself?” It was no special secret that Puddiphat yearned to exchange his saber for a Runner’s Occurrence Book.

Chapter Six

Milliners were also very much on the minds of Lady Davenham and her cousin. Sir Malcolm Calveley, who stood outside the shop of one such artist, located in busy Oxford Street. “You need not come in with me, Malcolm, truly!” insisted Lady Davenham, giving her escort a little shove. “It will not take me long, I assure you. I know exactly what I want.”

Sir Malcolm cast a knowledgeable eye over Thea’s walking dress of white cambric muslin, worn with a chip straw bonnet and a green sarcenet pelisse. “I know you do, and that is why I intend to accompany you. I am obliging you by attending this rout you have planned—”

“Wretch! It is in your honor,” interrupted Lady Davenham. “If you are thinking someone will recall that old tittle-tattle about why you left England, I wish you would not; a thousand other scandals have come and gone since then.”

“—and in return you must oblige me by attending to my good advice in the matter of your dress,” continued Sir Malcolm, ignoring her protest. “Allow me to give you the benefit of my vast experience in this, Cousin, and I shall cease to feel guilty that I have uprooted you from your bucolic setting.” She did not appear convinced. Craftily, he added: “Unless you
wish
to display yourself to all of fashionable London looking like a dowd.”

A dowd? Lady Davenham frowned at her reflection in the shop’s plateglass window. Certainly she did not wish to look a dowd. Nor did she wish, as was all too easy with her generous figure, to look like Haymarket-ware. This desire, she explained to her cousin. “Fiddle!” he retorted, and whisked her through the door.

Inside the elegantly appointed showroom, Sir Malcolm paused to take stock. Several stylish ladies were engaged in inspection of a swansdown muff divided into compartments by bands of white satin, and comparing its attractions with those of a muff of Barbary goatskin. Mediating the discussion was a sharp-faced, middle-aged female wearing a gown of lilac merino with a scalloped hem, half-boots of plum-colored kid buttoned on one side, and a cornette of colored satin trimmed with blonde. Sir Malcolm had not exaggerated his knowledge of feminine fashion. Immediately, he recognized a milliner. Inexorably drawing his cousin with him, he approached Madame le Best.

Madame was not without experience of her own.
“Pardon!”
she said to the chattering ladies, as she detached herself. Monsieur was no stranger to such establishments as hers, she thought, and inquired what service she might provide.

“We are come on behalf of my cousin, Lady Davenham,” Sir Malcolm responded; since Madame le Best was no pretty lass, he was merely polite. Feeling a trifle giddy, Madame gazed upon Monsieur’s alleged cousin, whose expression was at once rebellious and chagrined. “Lady Davenham is in need of a gown for a rout. I have a special sort of gown in mind for the occasion. You were recommended as one who could provide a garment such as I require.”

“As you require?” interjected Lady Davenham, who was not of a mind to stand meekly by while arrangements were made on her behalf. “What of my requirements, pray?”

Sir Malcolm turned on her ladyship the full impact of his smile. “Do you not want to be all the crack, my Thea? Certainly you do, if only to please me!”

Too well did Lady Davenham recall her cousin’s habit of having his own way. “It doesn’t sound very comfortable,” she responded skeptically.

“Comfort!
Voyons!”
interjected Madame le Best. Monsieur’s cousin, was this lady? Madame thought not. But it was not her habit to inquire into the relationships between her customers and their gentleman friends. Lady Davenham’s costume, she dismissed as provincial. The figure within that costume was less easily overlooked. “Milady is very near perfection,” the milliner murmured.
“Très magnifique!”

Sir Malcolm also gazed upon his cousin, who did not appear to appreciate the compliment. “A diamond of the first water!” he solemnly agreed. “I have it on good authority. She would be even more
magnifique
if you could convince her to abandon her corsets! Yes,
/
know as well as you they’re not the fashion, but you must persuade
her
of that. And while you are at it, you must also persuade her that she will appear to excellent advantage in the gown I wish her to wear, because if she does
not
wear it, I will suffer so keen a disappointment that I will be unable to attend her rout.”

Lady Davenham was not best pleased to be reminded of the underhanded methods by which her dashing cousin contrived to have his own way. “Wretch!” she muttered, as she walked to the table set between japanned chairs and buried her flaming cheeks in the most recent edition of
The Ladies’ Monthly Magazine.
Sir Malcolm went on to describe the requisite garment in exact detail, without the least evidence of remorse for having put his companion out of countenance.

Madame le Best was not surprised to find Monsieur knowledgeable; she had recognized an expert on matters sartorial as soon as she set eyes on his slate-gray coat and yellowish-brown vest of matelasse fabric, blue-gray breeches, and Hessian boots. Monsieur had spared no expense to provide himself with the best. Nor, from the gown he was describing, did he intend to stint on his cousin—cousin? Lady love! “Milady is very fortunate,” Madame remarked.

Sir Malcolm recalled the latest encounter between milady and her husband, during which Vivien had waxed enthusiastic about his determination to invent a reaping machine. To date his lordship’s efforts in that line had not been successful, although he had managed to avoid the more nightmarish repercussions of his attempts to couple horse traction with a system of moving knives. “Milady is not so fortunate as you may think,” he replied. “I will be frank with you, Madame le Best: milady seeks to attract the attention of, er, a certain gentleman who fails to, ah, appreciate her better qualities.”

“Oh,
là!”
murmured Madame, rolling her eyes heavenward: Here was as farfetched a tale as she’d heard in many days. Few gentlemen would be sufficiently shortsighted as to fail to appreciate milady’s ‘better qualities,’ no matter how provincial her attire; and Madame wouldn’t wager a brass farthing that Monsieur cared a fig for any gentleman but himself. Brass farthings put Madame in mind of payment. She mentioned a sum. Monsieur did not protest, didn’t even quiver an eyelid. Monsieur must be very wealthy, deduced Madame. Enthusiastically, she embarked upon a discussion of the relative merits of cord and braid and bands of self-material as trimmings for milady’s gown.

Lady Davenham, meantime, had grown heartily bored of
The Ladies’ Monthly Magazine;
had turned her attention instead to a bonnet modeled on a classic helmet, and a beaver creation fashioned after a man’s top hat. She still was not certain how her cousin had persuaded her to visit this fashionable shop. Thea was perfectly content with her own dressmaker, uninspired though that good woman’s efforts might be. To drape herself about in the highest kick of fashion—or to undrape herself, as the fashion was—was only to call attention to herself. Yet she did not want to be a dowd, either, especially on the occasion when she reintroduced her dashing cousin to the
ton.
Malcolm was accustomed to the company of sophisticated, worldly females—very sophisticated and worldly, if one believed the
on-dits
about the Princess Borghese. Thea supposed she could endure being made fashionable, at least for one night.