When Morton boarded Sir Nathaniel's carriage the Chief Magistrate nodded to him over the edge of a neatly folded newspaper.
“We are without the coroner, I see,” Morton observed.
“We shall collect Sir Charles as we go.” Sir Nathaniel turned his attention away from his reading, letting the paper drop, then striking it once with the backs of his fingers. “Have you seen what Peel has to say of us, Mr. Morton?”
The thief-taker shook his head.
Sir Nathaniel lifted the paper. “Before Parliament yesterday. The Runners are, and I quote, ‘a closely knit caste of speculators in the detection of crime, self-seeking and unscrupulous.’ He admits that they are sometimes ‘daring and efficient,’ but only ‘when it coincides with their private interest.’” He let the paper drop again. “Mark me, Mr. Morton, we shall see an end to the present system of rewards and incentives, and sooner than some might wish. I for one have wearied of defending the reputations of my Runners.” He shook the paper once. “And while this is being spoken in Parliament, we have Mr. Vaughan and Jimmy Presley out proving that Mr. Peel is right on every count!”
Sir Nathaniel turned his attention to the passing scene. The sunlight falling into the carriage illuminated the Magistrate's long, pale hands, still clutched tightly around the morning news. After a moment he turned back to Morton. “I regard you as a person of principle, Mr. Morton, and I'll not say that for all your colleagues. You're an adept at your profession, yet I'd like to believe you take no more than is your due for it.”
“I thank you for your confidence,” murmured the Runner.
“You and your comrades have interrupted affairs of honour before?”
“Many times.”
“Then tell me, sir, how much does it cost a man to fight a duel in the environs of London and not find himself before a panel of Magistrates?”
Morton smiled a bitter inward smile, though he regarded his superior with a level gaze. How much, indeed. Who was doing the dueling? Who was doing the arresting?
The Chief Magistrate had been in his position at Bow Street for a little more than a year. He would stay perhaps another year or two, and then go on to another government appointment, courtesy of some other well-connected friend. Henry Morton would work with men like George Vaughan and Jimmy Presley all his life.
Did Sir Nathaniel realise what he was asking of Morton?
“Whenever I've interrupted a duel, sir, I've brought the principals before my Magistrate, you may be sure. But occasionally we do find that reconciliations have occurred before our arrival. Perhaps apologies have been tendered. Gentlemen do occasionally resort to their own better instincts. In such cases a warning is all that's required-indeed, there is little more we can do.”
Sir Nathaniel gazed at him for a moment, shook his head, and leaned back in his seat.
“Very well, Mr. Morton,” he replied coldly.
Sir Charles Carey, the coroner, was waiting for Sir Nathaniel and Morton on his front step and they went directly on to Portman House. After they had viewed the body in the small sitting-room, Lord Arthur Darley introduced them to Sir William and Lady Caroline Glendinning in his library. The dead man's parents were already dressed in silken mourning suits, cut to a style of the last century more commonly glimpsed now in the country than in London. Both had powdered hair. They sat on Lord Arthur's elegant sabre-leg chairs with a rigidity that Morton guessed reflected both repressed grief and a deep distaste for the conversation they were about to endure.
“I'm sure that the gentlemen from Bow Street do not require Lady Caroline's attendance,” murmured Darley in considerate tones.
“Thank you, Lord Arthur,” she replied, “but I will stay.”
Sir Nathaniel cleared his throat.
“The question before us is whether or not my officers should be directed to make further enquiry into this unhappy event.” Sir Nathaniel glanced at Morton. “It is Mr. Morton's opinion that your son's death is of a somewhat… anomalous nature. His whereabouts before his arrival at this house last night are… uncertain, the causes of mortality… imperfectly understood.”
Morton could see the effect of these words on Lady Caroline. It was the first she had heard of such things, he felt sure.
Lady Caroline raised a handkerchief to her mouth. “But what are you suggesting?”
“Only that the matter might bear looking into,” Sir Nathaniel said.
“I do not mean to distress you, Lady Caroline,” Morton said, fearing Sir Nathaniel was being too delicate. He addressed both parents. “I'm quite certain we know where your son was before he took a carriage for Portman House, and it was a particularly notorious criminal den, where-”
“How can that be, sir?” Sir William interjected. “What are you suggesting about my son? That he consorted with criminals?” Like his wife, he had a faint north country or Scots accent.
“Indeed not, sir. Your son is said to have been a man of character. That is why I have suggested we look into this matter a little more. What was Mr. Glendinning doing in such a place just before his end? And what might have happened to him there?”
“You are very certainly misinformed, sir!” Sir William cried. “My son was a gentleman. A man of letters. Not an habitue of low houses.”
Morton started to respond, but Sir Nathaniel cut him off with a gesture. “Your son's character is not in question, Sir William, let me assure you. But it is very suspicious that he fought a duel in the morning and… died later the same day.”
“His honour had been impugned and he defended it,” Sir William said, drawing himself up a little, proud of his son. “His untimely passing was a sad coincidence. Nothing more.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Sir Nathaniel, “but we do not know what caused this untimely passing.”
“I have spoken to the surgeon who attended poor Halbert upon his arrival here, and I am satisfied that there was nothing untoward about his death. His constitution was ever delicate,” Sir William said. The pride disappeared from his face, however, and he slumped down a little. His wife reached out and gently placed her small hand over his.
Their son was dissolute, that is what they believed, Morton realised. They thought he'd drunk himself to death in a bawdy house, and they wanted it to go no further.
“Sir,” Morton said. “I was present at the time of this surgeon's examination and can tell you that it was less than thorough. Your son did not choke. I am quite sure of it. A proper examination might tell us the cause…of this unfortunate event.”
“Such a thing hardly seems necessary, Mr. Morton,” Sir Charles Carey interjected, “if, as you admit, a medical man has seen to it already. You are hardly qualified to overrule him.”
Lady Caroline gave the coroner a sad look of gratitude.
Morton felt his anger rising. The Glendinnings did not want their son's name sullied. And bloody Sir Charles did not want to commission an autopsy and risk finding nothing-in which case the King's Bench might refuse to pay the fee, leaving Sir Charles to cover it himself. He and Morton had fought this battle before.
Morton made an effort to keep his eyes straight ahead and his voice level. “It is, Sir Charles, the Chief Magistrate's decision to make.”
For the first time Sir William looked straight at Morton. His voice was icily deliberate.
“I know you, fellow, for what you are. You seek to profit from my son's death. And if there were no crime, where would you find your thirty pieces of silver?”
He looked back to Sir Nathaniel.
“There will be no investigation, sir. Lady Caroline and the rest of my family have suffered enough. I forbid it.”
“You will pardon me, Sir William, but in cases of possible felony-”
“I forbid it! I will not cooperate with it. I will not prosecute it, even if you produce a case. There was no felony, and your little flock of carrion-crows will not pick over my son's good name to the benefit of their pockets!”
He rose quite suddenly, drawing up his wife after him, and with her leaning on his arm, they went out.
The four remaining looked one to the other as Morton seethed inwardly. Thirty pieces of silver! That the man who risked getting his skull cracked in parts of London these people had never seen should get slapped across the face with such an insult…! And by a man who had achieved his place in the world by being born under the right blanket!
“Mr. Morton,” Darley said quietly. “Are you so sure?”
Morton scowled and nodded. “I spoke with the driver of the coach who brought Glendinning here. Mrs. Malibrant's intuition was correct. Something untoward happened. I am certain of it.”
He noticed Sir Nathaniel staring at him thoughtfully at that moment, and did not like what he read into that gaze. Doubt. Doubt that Morton himself had contributed to in the carriage on their way here. And that Sir William's accusation had only encouraged.
“Lord Arthur,” the Magistrate said, bowing to Darley.
Out on the walk, as they awaited their carriage, Sir Charles Carey turned on Morton.
“You know perfectly well, Mr. Morton, that the lords of the King's Bench do not approve of idle inquests!”
“I saw that man within a quarter hour of his death, sir, and he did not die of choking.”
“A doctor examined him before you, sir,” the coroner fumed. “And you would have me hire another to draw the same conclusion. I will not do it.”
“So it is about your expenses, is that it?”
Sir Charles balled his hands up into tight little fists and his face turned suddenly red. “And can you guarantee me, sir, that at the end of quarter sessions I will be reimbursed for the expense of hiring a surgeon? No, sir, you cannot. The Chief Justice will scrawl needless over the writ, and I shall be out of pocket every shilling of it. Would you care to pay for it yourself?”
“Gentlemen, enough!” Sir Nathaniel glared at his two companions until they fell silent. Then he said: “There will be no inquest, and no investigation of this death.”
The two men looked at him, their expressions in stark contrast.
“You have no evidence, Mr. Morton. Glendinning's constitution was delicate, he drank too much, perhaps in reaction to the earlier events of the day, and he died. If we investigated every man who died of drink in London we should do little else. No, we will chase this no further. His family have sorrow enough.”
“They are trying to protect his character,” objected Morton. “They don't want it known that he was at the Otter-”
“That is probably so,” Sir Nathaniel interrupted. “Would you? I expect their fine Halbert was something of a bounder. It is enough that they shall have to live with this knowledge; there is little need for the world to know.”
Their carriage drew up and Carey climbed in, smiling in triumph.
“Nonetheless, I think a brief visit to-”
“You shall do nothing of the sort, Mr. Morton! That is all I have to say on the matter, sir. Devote your energies to that theft of antiquities from Burlington House.”
Morton's impatience with the previous interview boiled over, and he replied with poorly judged asperity.
“There is no point in any further investigation into that particular matter. The thieves have the goods secured. As I have explained before, there are very few ways for them to make a profit on such unusual material. They, or their fence, will have to sell it back to the owner. There is nothing for us to do but wait for them to make contact, place a notice in the newspaper, or use some other familiar device. I have no appetite for more fruitless digging in the cold ashes of this crime.”
It was the second time that day Morton had refused to cooperate with his Magistrate. Sir Nathaniel turned on him.
“You have no appetite for it? You will develop the taste, sir, and I'll thank you not to speak back to me in this manner!”
Sir Nathaniel climbed into the carriage beside Sir Charles and pulled the door sharply closed behind him, leaving Morton standing by the kerb as the coach jounced once, then went deliberately on its way.