Free Jack, Knave and Fool by Bruce Alexander Page A

mother, who’s terrible ill and old. He went for the rest of us. But that left us shorthanded for this job, so I posted a notice and several answered. Roundtree looked the best of the bunch, and he’d had journeyman’s papers for twelve years, so I hired him. In truth, he wasn’t a bad worker. But I rue the day I set eyes upon him.”
    “But nothing about him that would help me find him?”
    “Well, he lives in a terrible place in Half-Moon Passage, a den of thieves and whores.”
    “I know the place. I’ve been there.”
    “And —oh, let me think a bit —he’s from Lichfield. That’s where his journeyman papers was from.”
    “I knew that, too.”
    “Beyond that I cannot help you.” He shrugged. “Sorry, young fella, it seems we was both his victims.”
    As I thanked Mr. Cullen, the butler appeared suddenly at my elbow —materialized, rather, in a somewhat ghostly manner. He opened the door, making it plain that my time had run out. Having no alternative, I accepted that and had no retort to the whispered envoi with which he sent me out into the cold.
    “Losing a prisoner,” said he, then made a series of sucking pops with his tongue which I shall hereby render, “tdk, tdk, tdk, tdk. “

THREE
In Which I View
an Unholy Sight
in a Churchyard

    There was naught to do but return to Bow Street and inform Sir John of my failure. That I did, seated before him in his chambers, shoulders drooping and all apologetic. I told not all in detail, leaving out the device by which he distracted my attention as too shameful to admit, and said merely that Thomas Roundtree had cozened me and won my confidence until he knocked me down, fled inside the room, and locked me out. Then, describing how I had forced my entry, I told how I had raced to the open window and caught my last glimpse of him, running down the foot passage for the street. Yet more to tell, I gave an account of my visit to the residence of the Lord Chief Justice and all that I had learned there.
    Sir John listened silently through all, his face so impassive that I was unable to draw any hint from it of his response to this matter which embarrassed me so sorely. At last when I had done, he spoke. “I would not blame myself overmuch in this if I were you, Jeremy,” said he. “I no less than you misjudged the fellow. Did I not say that he seemed ‘docile’?”
    “Well, yes, but …”
    “These things happen from time to time. In this instance he will have been the cause of his own misfortune. He will wish many times over that he had served that month in the Fleet Prison, for when he is caught, he will be dealt with far more severely. Yet I daresay his intention in returning to his place in Half-Moon Passage was to recover that vase along with his tools.”
    “You see it so? Mr. Cullen, the chief carpenter, said they had searched the room thorough.”
    “Perhaps Mr. Roundtree is cleverer at hiding than Cullen and his family are at searching. A floorboard perhaps? I recall you bund quite a treasure beneath the floor in one house in Half-Moon Passage. Was it, by any chance, the same one?”
    “No, Polly Tarkin’s was two houses closer to the Strand. This one was in even worse repair.”
    “You don’t say so,” he mused. “Sometime another great fire or wind may come and take all such ancient and decrepit buildings. London may indeed be the better for it.” He paused. “You might go back for another look about his place. There might be there some hint of where he might have gone.”
    “Back to Lichfield perhaps,” I suggested.
    “Possibly—though I doubt it. There was Lichfield in his voice, though a strong layer of London atop it. I would venture that he has been here years, rather than months. In any case, I shall write the Magistrate of Lichfield, whoever he be, and ask that Roundtree be held for us, should he make an appearance there. We shall see. There are more urgent matters before us.”
    “And what are they, sir?”
    “I should like