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

driver the address of the Bow Street Magistrate's Court, not wanting anyone in the crowd to hear.
    The two Runners settled themselves into the poorly padded seats, not saying a word. Morton wondered if Presley was cursing him silently. The young man had pulled his baton from his belt and now sat with it across his knees staring at it quietly.
    The older Runner tried to recall what he'd felt toward Townsend the morning they had made this same journey. He'd not felt anger, that was certain, but then he'd respected Townsend enormously, and still did. He wasn't quite sure that Presley held him in the same regard.
    The boy had to see it, Morton told himself. This was how the criminal classes were kept in check. And how the Bow Street Runners made their living—from rewards for convictions. And some of those convictions led to hangings—too many, some thought. Not near enough, others insisted.
    Presley leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He remained like that for some time, his big hands rising to cover his face a moment, and then falling away.
    “It's an ugly business, Jimmy,” Morton said solicitously.
    “Aye. There they were alive one minute, and dead the next. Limp as rags…”
    “I was talking about our business: thief-taking.”
    Presley reached back and knocked on the small sliding door that separated them from the driver. “I'll step down here!” he called out, and then to Morton, “I'll walk the rest of the way.”

Chapter 4
    A t the Bow Street Magistrate's Court Morton began asking around to discover who had interrupted Glendinning's duel, and was surprised to learn it had been Presley, accompanied by George Vaughan.
    Morton found the two Runners with their faces buried in copies of Hue and Cry and The Morning Chronicle . As he dropped his gilt-topped baton into the umbrella rack beside theirs, the two looked up and nodded.
    “ 'Tis a leisured life these Runners live,” Morton said.
    Vaughan dropped his eyes to his reading again. “Don't go spreading it abroad, Mr. Morton. We'll have the gentry in here wanting our places.”
    “Isn't that the truth, Mr. Vaughan. The envy of the world, we are.” Morton sank into a chair and picked up a Hue and Cry .
    “I hear you took our Mr. Presley out to see a necktie party,” Vaughan said from behind his paper blind.
    Morton did not respond.
    “There's a pair won't be stealing away the living of hard-working shopkeepers,” Vaughan went on.
    Presley kept his face hidden behind his sheaf of paper.
    “No, they won't be doing that,” Morton agreed, and glanced at the first page of his own journal. “I hear I missed a show yester morning out on Wormwood Scrubs…?”
    Presley let forth a small, forced laugh, looking over at Vaughan, who continued to flip through his paper. “A bit of target practice, was all. Pair o' cullies, though. Couldn't hit the stable door if their lives depended on it! And it cost them dear, didn't it, that little stroll on the grass!” He laughed again, but it sounded forced and artificial. Morton wondered what Vaughan had been saying to the young man.
    “Did it?” asked Morton. He had no opportunity to say more, however, as the side door opened and the Chief Magistrate, Sir Nathaniel Conant, strode in, followed by his clerk and several helpers. The early session of Bow Street Police Court had just gone into recess.
    But the “beak” wanted to know about the duel, too.
    George Vaughan was smoothly reassuring. “No blood spilt, my lord, and no harm done. Mr. Presley and I were on 'em before they'd taken up the matter in earnest.”
    Sir Nathaniel Conant leveled a hard gaze at the veteran Runner, but the latter met his eye steadily. “I am informed, Mr. Vaughan, that shots were fired.”
    “Well, sir, if so, it must have happened before we arrived, which I can hardly credit.”
    The Magistrate scowled as he lowered himself into his seat behind the polished satinwood writing-table, a massive man hunched over a delicate stick of