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

neglect.”
    Vaughan was another Runner, and apparently Presley's mentor at Bow Street.
    Jimmy Presley said nothing, but turned away from Morton, toward the window where the city of London was emerging from the dark of night into the grey of day.
    Some distance from Newgate they were forced to continue on foot; the crowds were too thick for the coach to make progress. Morton cast his gaze up at the watery overcast, and wondered if the sky would shed tears for the Smeetons, and any other unfortunates who would come out the “debtors' door” that day.
    Morton noticed that Presley carried his baton, the gilt top gleaming in the dull light. “I'd put that out of sight,” Morton said, nudging him. The older Runner had his own baton tucked away in a pocket inside his greatcoat.
    Presley looked a bit surprised, but slipped his baton into his belt and pulled his coat over it. They jostled their way along Newgate to within sight of the prison. Here the crowd grew very dense, and Morton and Presley had to force their way forward.
    “Look to your purse, Jimmy,” Morton warned in a low voice.
    “Here?” Presley turned toward Morton, wondering if the older Runner was practicing on him.
    “Oh, aye. Within sight of the hangman.”
    A few paces farther on, Jimmy waved a hand downthe street. “Look at them! There must be ten thousand, if there's a man.”
    “Twenty-five, even thirty thousand, it's said.” Morton pointed up Ludgate Hill, past St. Sepulchre's Church. “Not so many years ago they had a panic here—no one knows what set it off—but when all was said and done nigh on thirty people had been trampled to death: men, women, and children. Scores more lay injured. But the very next day the crowds were back—just as large—as though it hadn't happened at all. Oh, they're great admirers of our work, Jimmy.”
    This did not elicit even a smile from Presley.
    Morton nodded to the houses lining the street across from the blind edifice of the prison. There were people sitting high up on the roofs. “Two sovereigns it would cost you for such a view.”
    “Nay!” Presley protested.
    “It's the truth. Three guineas to watch from a window.”
    Pie-sellers and grog men began their bark, and a low, continuous rumble rose from the crowd pressed into the street before Newgate Prison.
    Earlier, dray horses had pulled the wheeled gallows into position and carpenters and their assistants had set the posts in place and erected barriers around the black-draped base.
    At a quarter of eight the City Marshall made his slow way on horseback through the pressing masses. Following on foot were the officials of the prison, the court, and the police. Immediately, parents began passing their children forward over the heads of the crowd so that they would be assured of a view.
    Morton and Presley were still some way off, but their height allowed them to see. The younger Runner drew along breath, and looked around, as though searching for a means of escape. It was a cruel thing Morton was doing, dragging this young man to such a spectacle.
    The chimes of St. Sepulchre's started to sound the hour, and were answered by the dim ringing of the solitary bell deep within the walls of Newgate. The black debtors' door swung open and a party emerged onto the platform.
    “Hats off! Hats off!” people began to cry, not out of respect, Morton knew, but so that no one's view should be blocked.
    Before the sombre party came the Ordinary clergyman, in full canonical dress.
    “There he is,” Morton said softly to Presley. “The man who enriches himself by publishing the Calendar .” The clergyman used his privileged position to record—or invent—an endless stream of lurid last confessions. “The man in the dandy green jacket is Calcroft, the hangman. See the flower in his buttonhole? He says that as he's not an undertaker he won't dress like one. Oh, he's a rare wit, he is.”
    People in the crowd began to shout and jeer; Calcroft tipped his hat to