The Masters of Bow Street Read Online Free PDF

looked more than his thirty-nine. He was dressed in the height of fashion, with a wide-skirted coat of wine red and dark-green trousers caught by garters of rich gold; the tops of his shoes were of pale-brown leather and his shirt frills at neck and sleeves gave him the look of a dandy. His three-cornered hat of green velvet was on a chair. He wore no wig and no make-up and was as immaculate and authoritative as a man could be who had driven across London’s dusty streets. When John entered he was by the window looking out on the vegetable market of Covent Garden, where a few stall holders lingered although customers were few, for the freshest fruit and vegetables were always gone in the early morning. A group of men were gathered, some standing, some kneeling on the cobbles, praying. Two drunkards sat outside the alehouse, one man’s breeches unfastened.
    The room in which William waited was above the hallway and much the same size, with a fire glowing, comfortable chairs set about the brick fireplace, two walls lined from floor to ceiling with books which had a well-read look; most were lawbooks. The broad, uneven floor boards were strewn with Indian and Persian rugs of rich colours. Set in one corner was a huge couch which seemed to have been squeezed under the plaster ceiling and now helped to support it.
    William Furnival turned slowly and deliberately as his brother entered and closed the door. John’s breathing was normal now, and he was smiling very differently from the way he had smiled at Mrs. Braidley.
    ‘Good afternoon, Will,’ he said.
    ‘John,’ said William without preamble, ‘you must stop this lunacy. You’ve seen Jackson hanged as you always said you would. Now you must stop it.’
    ‘So I must,’ John said, his lips arching. ‘And is this just your opinion, brother, or that of all my brothers and cousins combined?’
    ‘I speak for all,’ William declared.
    ‘Then you speak for a host,’ replied John dryly. They eyed each other, men so different that it would be easy to believe they came from different parents, William sharp featured and dark and with a slight cast in one eye. ‘Sit down, Will.’
    ‘There is no alternative but for you to give up this dangerous work,’ William insisted. ‘No alternative at all.’ He moved nearer the fireplace but did not sit down although John raised the skirt of his coat and lowered himself into the chair farthest from the fire. ‘We are all of the same mind. At Tyburn today I have it on the most reliable information that you were within an ace of being killed.’
    ‘You should change your informers or go to watch events for yourself.’
    ‘Go and see that - that rabble? That mob of thieves and cut-throats who make sport out of seeing men swinging? Faugh! The very thought makes me want to vomit!’
    ‘Nevertheless, you should go, some time,’ declared John. ‘Among the rabble you may see grief and sadness and good men striving. You might also find a little humility—’
    ‘I’ll never go to Tyburn to see a hanging and you know it,’ interrupted William. ‘John, I tell you the time has come to resign your appointments, except any you hold directly under the King, and come back to the House.’
    ‘Ah, the House of Furnival,’ echoed John. ‘The precious guild, the beloved bank, the venturesome ship-owners, the goldsmiths and the silversmiths. The makers of fortunes.’ He placed his big hands on the arms of his chair and looked up at his brother. ‘I do not believe it is the life for me, Will. I prefer to be the Chief Magistrate of Westminster.’
    ‘You even lie to yourself,’ William rasped. ‘There is no Chief Magistrate of Westminster.’
    ‘You are not quite right. Chief Magistrate may be a courtesy title but surely well earned. After all, I am a justice of the peace for the City of Westminster, the counties of Essex, Surrey and Hertfordshire, and by your leave I have been even’ - his voice was laughing but his eyes were serious