The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner Read Online Free

it had only the effect of causing him to shift more rapidly. The Runner drew out his hand, with a single shilling in it, which he turned reflectively in his fingers.
    “I will find out what happened to Mr. Glendinning, Ralph, you may be sure of that. Now, you heed me. I'm Henry Morton of Bow Street and I know who you are and where to find you. If any of this proves false you can be sure you'll see me again.”
    “T'ain't false,” said the man, low and bitter.
    Henry Morton held out his hand and dropped the coin into Acton's open palm. “No, it isn't all false, that's certain. It's what you aren't telling me, Ralph; that's what worries me. For you know how things work—you said it yourself. If Glendinning didn't die a natural death, they'll be looking for someone to swing for it. If you're hiding as much as I think you are, that could be you, Ralph, for you'll look guilty, won't you? You might wish you'd told me the truth then. Think on it.”

Chapter 3
    F or the second time that morning, Morton set off in search of a hackney-coach, though on this occasion he was perfectly indifferent to any number-plate it might bear. The air, for the time of year, had fallen cool, and the Runner tugged up his collar against the chill. Morton was normally fastidious in his dress, but that morning he had donned a stained and ancient greatcoat that would allow him to escape notice in a crowd. Where he was going, Bow Street Runners weren't welcome.
    The hour was not so early that the wheels of commerce hadn't begun to turn, and on Shaftesbury Morton found a hackney-coach disembarking its fare.
    “Number four, Bow Street,” Morton called out, and settled back in the seat. He closed his eyes and felt that odd sensation, as though sinking, that lack of sleep brought on during moments of respite. He remembered the hackney-coach driver he'd spoken with earlier, and wondered again what Ralph Acton had been hiding.
    Morton drifted into an odd dream where he wanderedlost through dim, ruinous alleys, noisome and narrow. Wraith-like inhabitants lurked silently in the shadows, eyes sunken and hostile—and fixed on him.
    The Runner awoke as the carriage rocked to a stop. The facade of the Bow Street Magistrate's Court loomed out of the gloom. A figure loitering on the stair stepped out into the faint morning light.
    “Morton?”
    Morton pushed the carriage door open. “Yes, come along, Jimmy. We've something to see to.”
    The coach swayed as the newest Bow Street Runner pulled himself aboard and settled opposite Morton in a dissonant squeaking of carriage springs. In the faint light Morton could barely see his young colleague, but his great bulk could be sensed. Morton rather liked Jimmy Presley: a costermonger's son, strong as an ox; someone you'd like to have at your side if things got roiled. But Jimmy was still finding his way, still coming to understand he had some decisions to make about the kind of officer—and the kind of man—he wanted to be. It was to this end that Morton had arranged their morning's outing.
    Presley leaned forward a bit, out of shadow, and in the soft grey light appeared even younger than his twenty-some years: broad-faced and boyish.
    “Have we a profitable bit of business lined up?” he asked, and smiled.
    “Profitable? Perhaps. But not in the usual sense.” Presley raised an eyebrow.
    “Have you ever been to a hanging, Jimmy?”
    The young man's voice faltered a little. “Nay, Morton, I've not. Nor ever wished to.”
    “Well, that is about to change. We're off to Newgate to see those sad cullies, the Smeetons, dance on air fortheir sins.” Morton eyed his companion. “Mr. Townsend did me the favour of taking me to witness the hanging of the first criminals I ever nabbed. ‘Best to see what your efforts have wrought, Morton,’ he said. ‘If you haven't the stomach for it, then you'd better find yourself another trade.’ It is a part of your education that I thought George Vaughan might