The Thief-Taker : Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner by T.F. Banks

plenty of customers yesterday, and how was he to remember—
    “He drank more than was good for him,” Morton interrupted, “and someone from this house helped him into his coach.” Joshua's rheumy eyes flickered over to the other table, to the man who had warned him that Morton was police. The other man stared back impassively now, saying nothing. His companion gazed off as if distracted.
    “Plenty of coves as drink too much,” said Joshua.
    “Yes, but this man stood out. You don't get his sortoften—very finely dressed, like a dandy. I've no doubt you remember him.”
    Another flicker of the eyes in the direction of the other table. At the other table, the same impassive stare.
    “I don't recollect him. But I haven't always been here, have I?”
    “He left by hackney-coach. The driver took him from your very door.” Morton decided to bluff. “He said one of the men who helped him into the coach was the publican.”
    He watched the man's eyes, which slid away toward the others. “I don't recollect such a man.”
    Morton turned in irritation to the second table.
    “What about you two? Did you see the gentleman?”
    “We wasn't here yesternight,” responded the burly man.
    “No, I'm sure no one was here,” Morton muttered. “And why would that be, I wonder?”
    He did not offer to pay for his brandy as he stood, and the keep did not make any effort to remind him of it. For an officer of police to pay for something at a flash house would be to grant it a degree of legitimacy, and neither Morton nor any of his brother officers ever did. An honest house was quite another matter.
    “If I were a cully, like some I see here tonight,” he announced generally, “I'd give some serious consideration to my liberty and my livelihood, and to what I might be able to do to help the officers charged to keep His Majesty's peace. I'd take some time, for example, to think over what passed here yesternight, so that I could tell them next time they asked. Because they'll be back to ask again, sure.”
    “This here's a lawful house,” objected Joshua. “And Bow Street knows it, even if you don't.”
    “I am Bow Street,” said Morton.
    To this Joshua grunted unintelligibly and the men at the second table both looked mutely down into their mugs again.
    Well, he could get no more from them. He gave his hat a brief, contemptuous brush with one hand, as if to rid it of the contagion of their presence, and went out.

Chapter 10
    M orton was restless after his visit to the troubling streets of Spitalfields, and had consequently not been in his bed nearly as long as he might have liked when Wilkes woke him to announce that Miss Hamilton's maid Nan was waiting to speak with him.
    “Damnation,” the Runner mumbled emptily, and swung his feet over the side of his bed. Wilkes had at least thought to accompany these tidings with a hot bowl of café au lait— many of Morton's tastes in the pleasures of life were defiantly Gallic—so while he sipped he asked:
    “Did she say anything interesting last night, this abigail?” Morton assumed that Wilkes had entertained the servant in the kitchen while he'd talked to her mistress.
    “She is discretion dressed and walking, our Nan,” replied Wilkes. “Actually, sir, she made it rather clear that any man who served a mere police constable was beneath her notice. She was not about to tell me anything.”
    “Well, I wonder what hope I have. Being the mere police constable himself.”
    A few minutes later Wilkes ushered the visitor into the parlour. Morton very politely saw her to a chair, offering refreshment as he did. His attentions were received with minimal courtesy, and a barely civil refusal to taste his food or drink.
    Nan was a slim woman of middle years with a sharp, long-nosed, narrow countenance. She was well dressed in an Indian muslin day dress, over which was artfully arranged a silken blue pelisse and cape with, of course, the proper black mourning ribbons. Morton guessed