Morton took the opportunity to seek out Arabella. He itched to bring her his splendid tidings, and imagined in advance her enthusiasm, how the news would sweep away the unpleasantness of the previous evening.
But she wasn't at home. And of course Christabel would not tell him where she was.
At this little reverse all his vexation came burning up again and their argument began to repeat itself in his brain. Blast it, but she had promised him yesterday evening! Perhaps he might be willing to share her affections, but he'd not be pushed aside at her every whim, or at Darley's slightest convenience.
Without any fixed pretext, Morton found himself gravitating in the direction of Bond Street and Grosvenor Square. Perhaps he was going to Jackson's, to take out his frustrations on some gentlemanly sparring partner. Some lady-killing poetic lord even. But he had already had a fistfight today, and in fact he knew perfectly well what his real destination was. Before long he stood in the gathering dusk, gazing up at the lighted windows of Portman House.
“You are acting the fool,” he murmured. “The bloody fool. This is what women do to men in this world, and you know it well. You see it when it happens to other men. Do you suppose it's different for you?”
He was just about to go on his way when the door opened. Lord Arthur Darley came nimbly down the stairs, waving to Morton as though he were his dearest friend in all the world.
“Ah, Mr. Morton! What an unlooked-for pleasure. Do come up,” Darley said, crossing the street as though Morton were not of another class of society at all.
Morton could hardly refuse now, and accompanied Darley silently up the stairs. “You have just missed Mrs. Malibrant,” Darley told him, “and she will be unhappy to learn it. She was most set on seeing you today. I don't mean to pry, Morton, but I got the impression you'd had a quarrel. And poor Mrs. M. felt an awful guilt about it.”
Morton shrugged. “Something of the sort.”
Darley ushered Morton into the very room where he had first seen Halbert Glendinning lying, like a man dressed for a funeral. Morton soon found a snifter of smuggled cognac in his hand, and Darley served himself the same. They settled into chairs, Morton regarding his host rather warily. Why was the man so completely at ease?
“To the birds of the air, Mr. Morton,” Lord Arthur said suddenly, raising his glass.
Morton must have looked puzzled.
“A beauty we can admire but never possess, Morton. I hope you feel as I do.”
“Aye,” Morton said, and then broke into a wry grin. “What choice have we?”
They both chuckled and tasted their cognac. They sat and talked, then, almost like a pair of old friends, strangely comfortable with each other. Darley asked about Morton's search for Glendinning's murderer and the Runner found himself telling all that had occurred.
“That was a stroke of luck, finding the villain who attacked you. If he can tell you who sent them to assail you-assuming it was related to Halbert's death-then you might well have discharged your commission, and with great dispatch, too. Perhaps that will lift the gloom from Louisa Hamilton.” Darley raised his glass in salute. “Well done, Morton.”
“If it turns out so neatly. Nothing ever seems sure in my profession.”
“What kind of life would it be if everything was certain? I daresay, Morton, that you could have picked yourself a tame occupation, and had yourself a comely and constant wife. But you have chosen otherwise, and I must tell you, there are many who would envy you. No, there is much good to be said of uncertainty; believe me.”
When he returned to number 4 Bow Street, the Public Office seemed unusually deserted. Then one of the clerks came running across the way from the Brown Bear, telling him he was wanted, that there was something amiss.
Inside the Bear the atmosphere was sullen. People were gathered in the gloom, sitting around tables, speaking in near whispers. Not the usual mood, that was certain. Jimmy Presley met him at the bottom of the stairs, his face full of consternation.
“Morton! There you are, at last,” the young Runner said. “You'll not like what you'll see here.”
“What's this?”
Presley beckoned for him to follow and pushed his way upward toward the second floor, where Bow Street, incongruously, rented lockup rooms for its overflow prisoners.
“It must have just happened….”
On the stair men stood smoking and speaking quietly, though they went silent when they saw Morton and Presley. The hallway above was choked with police and flash men and their fancy women. Sir Charles Carey emerged from one of the rooms, accompanied by a stranger.
“Waste of bloody-” he was saying, but then spotted Morton. “Well, Mr. Morton, you won't be arguing with the surgeon this time,” he said as he passed.
Morton stopped in the doorway. The pock-faced man lay on the floor, arms akimbo, eyes glazed and gazing upward, mouth lolled loosely open. The dull light from a dirty glass chimney illuminated a pool of blood, quickly skinning over with brown.
“Sliced his pipes,” Presley muttered at his elbow.
Morton took a long breath. “Who? Who did this?”
“Don't know. Bloody patrole was on watch, but he was in some back room looking to get poxed.”
“Who was in here with him?”
“He was by himself.”
“And no one saw anything?”
“Oh, I expect plenty saw, but you know this crowd. Won't be telling us, now, will they? Mr. Townsend's been sent for, but I doubt even he will find a soul with a tongue. No, this one's gone, Morton; anything he had to tell he'll be telling St. Peter.”
Henry Morton banged a fist on the door frame in exasperation. It was certainly true that the whole matter of holding prisoners at Bow Street lacked system. They sometimes “wandered off,” because no clear arrangement had been made as to who would watch them. Occasionally men even died at the hands of fellow prisoners in brawls. But no one had ever broken into a locked room and slit a prisoner's throat.
“One of us should have stayed with him,” Presley muttered regretfully, and Morton nodded in grim agreement. Easily enough said now.
Evening Police Court was in session. Morton no longer had anything to bring before the Magistrates, but if he waited, he could speak to Sir Nathaniel Conant when he emerged in about two hours' time. He could start to tell the Chief Magistrate some of his ideas about the Smeetons, about Bow Street and the Otter. The subject would have to be broached sometime.
But Morton decided against it. He still had so little in the way of concrete evidence to present. And Sir Nathaniel's first question would be about the assignment he had given Morton, and he had nothing at all to tell the Magistrate in that matter.
Evidence. It was proving hard to find-and even harder to keep.