Waiting Game (8 page)

“As I was saying, about this robbery—there’s no evidence of forced entry, but a considerable amount of money was taken from the safe. Between you and me and the lamppost, it appears to be the work of someone inside.”

“There you are, then,” declared Ethan Brundy, spreading his hands. “If I were a betting man, I’d put me money on that fellow Andrew.”

Pickett had reached the same supposition, but he was well aware that his magistrate was not an admirer of unsubstantiated hunches. “Do you mind telling me how you came to that conclusion?”

“Plain as a pikestaff, innit? ’e’s ’ead over ’eels for Nancy, but ’asn’t a chance of marrying ’er unless ’e comes into money from somewhere. ’Tis only natural ’e’d be tempted.”

Pickett took instant exception to this assumption. “I beg to differ! I was once apprenticed to a coal merchant, and it never crossed my mind to steal from him in order to marry his daughter!”

“Aye, well, we can’t all be the paragons you Bow Street men are,” Brundy said by way of apology. “I grew up rough, you know—in the work’ouse ’til I was nine.”

“Tell me about rough,” Pickett retorted, bristling. “I grew up picking pockets in Covent Garden.”

“I never knew ’oo me father was,” recalled Mr. Brundy, with a soulful look in his brown eyes.

“I knew who mine was, for it was he who taught me how to pick pockets. And a good thing, too, or else I’d have starved after he was transported to Botany Bay.”

“All right, then,” Brundy pronounced, “you win.”

“Win what?” asked Pickett, all at sea.

The ‘ ’ard cheese’ competition,” the weaver explained, as if it should have been obvious.

Until that moment, Pickett had not realized he was jealous of the younger man’s rosier prospects. Nor, now that he had been made aware of it, was he proud of the fact. He gave a sheepish little laugh. “I beg your pardon. I had not meant—”

“Never mind that,” Brundy said, dismissing Pickett’s apology with a wave of his hand. “I’ll admit, though, to being curious as to what your da thinks of you working for Bow Street. Seems to me ’e might consider that you’ve gone over to the enemy.”

Pickett nodded emphatically. Now that the uncomfortable moment of self-realization was past, he found he could confide things in Brundy that no one else, not even his sympathetic magistrate, could begin to understand. “He would, which is why I’ve never told him. I send him half of my wages every month, though, and if he wonders where I’m earning it, he’s never written to ask.”

“If ’e knew, would ’e still take it?”

Pickett gave a snort of derision. “My da, turn down more than two quid a month? Surely you jest!”

In spite of his humble origins, Ethan Brundy possessed a mind as quick as Pickett’s own, and from this bitter statement deduced a very fair estimate of Pickett’s earnings—accurate enough, in any case, to know that they were scarcely sufficient to support two separate households in anything approaching comfort. “But you fellows are sometimes given rewards for solving cases, aren’t you, over and above your regular wages?”

“We are, but I—I don’t usually share them with Da.” It was his guilty secret, this hoarding of the rewards that occasionally came his way. He told himself it was because his father would demand the details of exactly how he’d come by ten or even twenty pounds all at once—assuming, of course, that these riches survived the six-month voyage without being stolen by the ship’s passengers, many of whom were transported criminals themselves. If he were honest, though, he carefully squirreled away these larger sums, as if he might someday accumulate enough to make him an acceptable husband for Lady Fieldhurst. Brushing aside this forlorn hope, he said aloud, “In any case, Mr. Robinson has offered no such incentive, and it’s unlikely that he would be inspired to reward me for depriving him of an apprentice.”

“Per’aps not, but ’e might feel grateful to you for saving ‘is daughter from marrying that same apprentice, especially if ’e turned out to be a criminal,” Brundy observed. “ ’Tis a pity you can’t plant enough money in the safe to tempt the robber—’ooever ’e might be—to ’ave another go at it.”

“Y-yes,” Pickett said slowly, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the desk. “Yes, it is.”

“You want to
what?
” demanded Mr. Colquhoun, when his most junior Runner arrived in Bow Street breathless with exertion, having run most of the way from the City.

“I want to break into Mr. Robinson’s shop,” Pickett repeated eagerly. He took advantage of his magistrate’s momentary speechlessness to explain. “If we can somehow contrive to make sure the safe contains a large sum of money—or at least make certain persons
think
it contains a large sum of money—perhaps our robber would be willing to try again. But I would break into the back room myself sometime after the family had gone to bed, and I would be lying in wait for him. I could catch him in the act.”

“I don’t doubt your sincerity, John, but—” Mr. Colquhoun broke off, words apparently failing him.

Pickett’s face fell. “I wouldn’t take anything, sir, if that’s what worries you. I won’t even open the safe, only the back door. I made you a promise ten years ago, and I’ve kept it.”

“It isn’t that—” the magistrate began. And nor was it—at least, not exactly. He had every confidence in John Pickett’s integrity. And yet . . . who could say how a man,
any
man, might respond when confronted with sufficient temptation? Let alone a very young man with a criminal background who dared to love a lady who was, at least in the eyes of Society, as far above him as the stars above the heavens—and whose affections had remained constant in the face of demands that would have made many an older and wiser man turn tail and run. No, to a man capable of such steadfastness, the keeping of a ten-year-old promise should be no very great challenge. It was not John Pickett’s morals, but his own judgment he doubted. If he were to discover after all these years that his trust in and, yes, affection for the lad had been misplaced, he was not at all sure he could bear it. He was quite certain that John Pickett would fail to recognize the distinction, however—which was probably just as well, since he could not have explained it in a way that made any sense, even to himself.

On the other hand, he had not seen his protégé so animated in many weeks—since before the annulment business, in fact.

“Oh, very well,” he conceded grudgingly, and was rewarded with a radiant smile from the young man—a smile all the more dazzling for being so rarely seen.

“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it, I—”

“You just be careful, and mind you’re not taken up by the watch,” growled the magistrate, cutting off Pickett’s protestations of thanks. “A pretty fool I’ll look, if one of Bow Street’s principal officers is arrested for breaking and entering.”

“I will—that is, I won’t be, sir, I promise.”

“And the dog?” Mr. Colquhoun gestured toward Pickett’s bandaged hand.

“I’ve thought of that, sir, and I think I know a way around it.”

“Hmmp,” was the noncommittal reply. “Now, if you intend to be capering about at all hours of the night, you’d better take yourself off and try to catch forty winks while you can.”

“Yes, sir.” Pickett agreed readily enough, but showed no sign of leaving.

“Well, what is it?”

“Er, there remains the question of how to bait the trap with enough money to tempt a thief, sir.”

“You just leave that to me. Now, be off with you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Pickett, and reluctantly took his leave, recognizing that his magistrate had no intention of confiding in him just how this feat was to be accomplished.

“Reckless young cub,” Mr. Colquhoun grumbled, watching him go. Raising his voice, he called, “Mr. Maxwell! I’m going home to share a quick nuncheon with my wife. I should be back within the hour, but until I return, you’re in charge.”

This practice was so unusual that Janet Colquhoun was hardly more surprised than Mr. Maxwell had been.

“Why, what a pleasant surprise,” she said, lifting her face to be kissed. “What brings you home so early?”

“Is it so unusual for me to want to partake of a crust of bread before my own hearth, in the bosom of my own family?” he responded, bending to give her a peck on the cheek.

“Well, yes,” came the candid reply.

Ignoring this assertion, he bent a critical gaze upon her soft cashmere morning gown with its fashionable high waist and frill of white lawn at the neck. “Janet, my dear,” he said, “how long has it been since you had a new dress?”

* * *

In the meantime, Pickett did not go straight home, but stopped first at a butcher’s shop and bought three somewhat scrawny lamb chops. When he reached Drury Lane, he presented these to Mrs. Catchpole, his landlady and the proprietor of the chandler’s shop over which he resided, cutting off her exclamations over his bandaged hand.

“It’s fine, really it is,” he assured her. “But look what I’ve brought. If you’ll cook two of these for my dinner, you can have the third for yourself,” he offered.

She regarded him warily, but curiosity soon won out. She took the package, untied the string, and spread the newspaper wrappings. “Bless my soul!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Aye, I’ll cook them for you, Johnny, and a nice potato to go with them besides. We’ll dine like the Lord Mayor himself tonight, just see if we don’t!”

Privately, Pickett rather doubted this, but thanked her nonetheless (thinking rather guiltily that he should have made such a gesture before, and without ulterior motives, seeing it meant so much to her), then climbed the stairs to his own flat. Here he pulled the curtains tight to shut out the light, then shed his coat, waistcoat, and cravat before sitting on the edge of the bed and taking off his shoes. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, then stretched out full length on the narrow bed and pulled the oft-darned blanket up to his chin, all set to snatch what sleep he could in preparation for the night’s clandestine activities.

He awoke some time later to find the room in shadows and, when he pulled back the curtain, found that dusk had fallen. He had no time to lose, if he was to visit Mr. Robinson’s shop before that establishment closed for the night. Shoving his feet into his shoes, he snatched up cravat and knotted it hastily about his neck, then hastily donned his coat and waistcoat before heading back out, locking the door to his flat behind him.

“Going out again?” exclaimed Mrs. Catchpole in some dismay, hearing his footsteps on the stairs.

“Only for a little while,” he assured her. “I’ll be back in plenty of time for those lamb chops, believe me! Although,” he added, seeing a potential pitfall, “I will have to go out again, quite late, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll try to be quiet so as not to wake you up, but please don’t be alarmed if you should hear me.”

She made the usual halfhearted complaint about how he needed a wife (predicting confidently that any woman worth her salt would soon put an end to his rackety ways), and offered once again, without much hope, to introduce him to her niece Alice, but let him go with no further protest.

He arrived at George Robinson’s shop in Piccadilly to find the shop’s inventory much depleted. The counter was littered with wooden spools that had once held ribbons or lace, and several of the tables (including the one he had seen freshly stocked with muslins from Brundy and Son only the day before) were practically empty. As for the linen-draper and his daughter, they—indeed, the entire staff—appeared to be in a state of imperfectly concealed excitement, although whether their underlying emotion was pleasure or distress, he could not tell. The answer, as it turned out, was both.

“The biggest single order we’ve ever had,” Nancy Robinson confided eagerly. “Over a hundred pounds, all told.”

“W-what—? Who—?” Pickett stammered.

Fortunately, Miss Robinson had no difficulty understanding the questions that Pickett could not quite wrap his tongue around. “A fine Scottish lady and her three grown daughters, all buying fabrics for new clothes for themselves and their children.”

“Scottish, you say?” echoed an enthralled John Pickett, recalling the large and noisy Colquhoun family.

“Aye, and so funny their accents were! And they paid in cash, mind you, so I think they must be very rich, don’t you?”

“Undoubtedly,” agreed Pickett, struggling to hide a smile at his magistrate’s ingenuity.
Leave it to me
, indeed!

“Only it was too late to take it to the bank, so all that money must stay in the safe until tomorrow morning—which has us all a little nervous, after what happened last time.”

“Yes, I can see how it might,” Pickett said.

“Do you think we should post a guard overnight?” she asked, struck by sudden inspiration.

“
No!
That is, no, Miss Robinson, I don’t think that will be necessary,” he amended, a bit more moderately. “I would gladly stay and stand guard myself, but I already have plans for the evening,” he said with perfect truth. “Still, I can’t imagine anyone would take such a risk a second time, not so soon after the first.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said doubtfully. “But I confess I should sleep easier if you were to look things over while you’re here.”

As this dovetailed perfectly with his own plans, he readily agreed. He allowed her to lead him through the door into the back room, where he tested the locks of both safe and back door, all the while calculating what tools might be most effective for breaching them. At last, having satisfied both his own ends and those of Miss Robinson, he took his leave and returned to his own lodgings to make preparations.

Back at his two-room flat in Drury Lane, Pickett made his preparations with the solemnity of one preparing for a sacred rite. He checked the coal-scuttle on the hearth and, finding the bottom of it covered with a thick layer of black dust, removed the bowl and pitcher from the washstand and set the coal-scuttle in its place. He next turned his attention to the bureau drawers where his meager wardrobe was stored, selecting the oldest (and therefore the dingiest) shirt he owned and laying it out on the bed. A pair of black breeches came next, followed by black stockings and a black cravat. He suffered a small pang upon removing his black tailcoat from its peg on the wall. It was the best he owned, and usually reserved for court appearances at the Old Bailey; he could only hope that it would suffer no irreversible ill-effects from the indignities he was about to inflict upon it. If his hopes were doomed to disappointment, however, perhaps Mrs. Catchpole might be persuaded (for something in addition to the modest sum he paid her above and beyond his monthly rent in exchange for laundering his clothing) to work some magic with damp tea leaves and fuller’s earth. In any case, he had no choice. The black tailcoat joined the other garments on the bed.