Manon appeared with her wine and began to coax a little of the liquid through her mistress’s lips.
“The jewels were given to me,” I told Skroggs with passable indifference, “and being little inclined to wear them, I resolved to consult Mr. Rundell, of the Ludgate Hill concern. Was it he who required you to call in Sloane Street?”
“You might say so.” Skroggs chuckled. “He’s no flat, Ebenezer Rundell — and well aware as how a receiver of swag is liable to hang. You won’t find him going bail for no havey-cavey mort with a load of gammon to pitch. He come to Bill Skroggs quick enough.”
I studied the man’s pitiless countenance, and for the first time a chill of real apprehension curled in my entrails. I understood little enough of the man’s cant to grasp the full meaning he intended, but had an idea of Mr. Rundell consulting his voluminous ledgers, so close to hand, and finding no record of the Lady Mary Leigh or the Duke of Chandos’s ancestral jewels.
“If you would ask how I came by such a fortune in gems,” I answered calmly, “I am ready to admit that the tale I told Mr. Rundell was false. There is a lady in the case, who does not wish it known that she desires to sell these pieces. I cannot offer you her name, as I should be betraying a confidence.”
The Bow Street Runner threw back his head and howled with laughter. Clem Black joined him in expressions of unholy mirth. I stared at the two men, bewildered. What had I said to send them into whoops?
“Betraying a confidence!” Skroggs repeated, almost on the point of tears. “A lady in the case!”
I rose from the sopha. “Pray explain yourself, Mr. Skroggs. This deliberate obscurity grows tedious.”
He left off laughing as swiftly as tho’ a door had slammed closed. “You had these gems off a dead woman, Miss Austen, and we mean to know how.”
“A dead woman?” I repeated, startled.
He reached into the box and drew out an emerald brooch, in the figure of two mythic beasts locked in combat: the gryphon and the eagle. I had glimpsed the device only a few hours before — on a stately black travelling coach bound for Hans Place.
“Good God,” I said, and sat back down abruptly, my legs giving way at the knees.
“Now,” Bill Skroggs said softly, “why don’t you tell us all about it, eh? What’s this confidence you don’t care to violate? — That you slit the Princess Tscholikova’s throat, and left her for my lord Castlereagh to find?”
Chapter 10
Banbury Tales
Thursday, 25 April 1811, cont.
ELIZA GASPED AT THE RUNNER’S WORDS, AND BURST into tears; Manon broke into a torrent of French, gesticulating with wine glass and vinaigrette; and as she advanced on Bill Skroggs, his partner moved to the drawing-room door and closed it firmly, his broad back against the oak.
“It was you gave the jewels to old Rundell,” Skroggs said, pushing Manon aside as he approached me, “and you who have a story to tell. I’ll give you a quarter-hour, Miss Austen, by my old pocket watch; and when the time’s sped, it’s off to Bow Street.”
I have rarely found occasion to wish that among the myriad professions pursued by my brothers — clergyman, banker, sailor, and gentleman — at least one had embraced the Law. In truth, the few country attorneys thrown in my way have been prosy individuals, devoid of humour, exacting as to terms and precise as to verbiage, with a lamentable relish for disputation. In this hour of desperate peril, however, I yearned devoutly for a hotheaded barrister in the family fold: one who might knock Bill Skroggs on his back with a single blow, before serving notice that his sister was not a toy for the magistrate’s sport. What I detested most in the Runner’s manner was his easy assurance of my venality — no hint of sympathy or doubt lurked in those hard, pale eyes. Innocence was unknown to Bill Skroggs; in his world every soul was guilty of something. His exultation was like a hound’s that has caught the fox between its teeth. In this I understood the depth of my danger.
Some fleeting thought of Sylvester Chizzlewit coursed through my brain — but such an exquisite gentleman would surely be dining in his club at this hour, and beyond the reach of supplication. Eliza was no support in my hour of need: a lady who has had recourse for fifty years to fits of the vapours, hartshorn, and burnt feathers cannot be expected to show steel in extremis. I should have to attempt to offer Skroggs the truth, and turn the snapping dog on a rival scent.
“You labour under a grave misunderstanding, Mr. Skroggs,” I observed, “and one that is likely to cost you your prize money.[11] I know nothing of Princess Tscholikova or her death—”
“But you know these rubies and emeralds, and you were cool enough to tell a Banbury story to old Rundell. Isn’t that right, Mr. Black?”
“Acourse it is,” Clem Black agreed.
“Miss Austen purported to have inherited the swag from the Duke of Chandos, only Rundell had seen the jewels before, and noted the occasion in his ledger. The jewels belonged to Princess Evgenia Tscholikova, who departed this life on Tuesday last. Rundell had the cleaning and resetting of her gems four months since.”
“Acourse he did,” Clem Black agreed.
“I have already admitted I told Mr. Rundell an untruth,” I interjected unsteadily. “I regret the necessity that argued such discretion. An acquaintance begged my sister, Mrs. Austen, to broker the valuation and sale of these gems — and I agreed to stand as their owner. We assumed them to be solely and entirely the property of our friend.”
“This would be another Banbury story, Mr. Black,” Bill Skroggs intoned wearily.
“Acourse it is,” Clem Black agreed.
“Oh, you stupid man,” Eliza burst out. She sat up as swiftly as a cork bursting from a champagne bottle. “Can you not see that Jane and I are distinctly un-suited to the murdering of the Princess? She was a Long Meg of a woman — built on queenly lines — and neither Jane nor I is much over five feet! We should have had to stand on a footstool to cut the poor creature’s throat, and the idea of either of us possessing the nerve—”
“Ah, but there is a Mr. Austen to be considered,” Skroggs said with avuncular kindness. “It’s a gang of thieves I think of, Mr. Black, with murder on the side.”
“Acourse it is,” Clem Black agreed.
“The Austen party is ideally situated in the neighbourhood of Hans Town, a hop and a skip from the Princess’s door — Henry Austen being known to the lady, perhaps, as a man of business much inclined to lend his blunt to nobles whose purses are to let. Let us suppose he visits the Princess in Hans Place to discuss the matter of a loan, sympathises with the poor lady’s embarrassed circumstances, so far from home — kills her when her back is turned, makes off with the jewels — and puts his respectable spinster of a sister and his jumped-up countess of a wife on to the job of selling the loot.”
Eliza gasped. “Jumped-up countess! I’ll have you know I am everywhere received, Mr. Skroggs, among the highest members of the ton! The friends who might end your career in the wink of an eye are legion—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said crossly, “but none of this is to the point. What you suggest is absurd, Mr. Skroggs, because the jewels were given to us by a Frenchwoman of our acquaintance, the celebrated opera singer Anne de St.-Huberti, and if you wish to understand how she came by them — I suggest you enquire of her husband, rather than Eliza’s. I can well imagine the Comte d’Entraigues slitting any number of throats.”
11
Bow Street Runners were not public servants but professional thief-takers more akin to our present-day bounty hunters. They typically worked for a percentage of the value of any stolen goods recovered; this was their “prize money.” As the jewelry belonged to Princess Tscholikova, presumably her family would pay the reward once the gems were recovered. This pursuit of gain made Bow Street Runners typically less interested in justice or the guilt or innocence of those they pursued, and more intent upon the simple recovery of goods. Although they were empowered to arrest suspects and bring them before the magistrate, justice was for the court to determine. —