On a Desert Shore Read online

  “No, we were fortunate.” Smugness warmed the merchant’s tone, and Chase wondered just how much money Garrod had made from this one shipment. If he’d grown rich from his sugar plantations, he must be vastly wealthier now that he was a director of these docks, an alderman for the City of London, a former member of Parliament, and the Agent for Jamaica.

  When Chase didn’t comment, Garrod said, “I am interested to hear more of your profession, sir. Am I correct in thinking it one that requires a sharp wit rather than a young man’s strength? A happy circumstance in your case.” He pointed at Chase’s knee with his cane.

  How had Garrod known about his old injury? Chase had left his own walking stick home today, for the summer heat had alleviated much of his usual stiffness. Garrod’s letter had asked for him by name, but this was not in itself unusual because the Runners all had individual reputations, their exploits often described in the papers. Still, Chase suspected someone had spoken of him to this man. This suspicion was confirmed when Garrod added carelessly, “At the Battle of the Nile, was it? How did it happen?”

  His injury wasn’t something Chase cared to discuss. “You are well informed, sir.”

  Garrod made a gesture that took in the busy coopers hammering at all manner of casks, hogsheads, and barrels that had been damaged in transit—a gesture that included the weighers, measurers, and excise men; the thicket of masts in the dock; and the score of lighters and barges moving goods from ship to shore. He laughed. “Don’t you think I have to be?”

  He had a point. Chase had noted the man’s not-quite-masked assessment, as if Chase had been brought in to audition for a role on the stage. Well, what did Garrod see? A plainly dressed, beak-nosed, harsh-featured man. John Chase knew he had blunt manners and an untidy appearance. He had eyes still keen but hair gone gray after years of battling thieves, murderers, and swindlers. By his next birthday he would have lived a half century, which seemed an age to him, especially when he remembered the twenty years in the Royal Navy that had come before he ever picked up his Bow Street tipstaff. Too old to bandy words or play games; he knew that, too. “Tell me why I am here,” he said.

  “All in good time, all in good time. I must beg your patience. First, accompany me on a brief tour, and you will be satisfied. But I’ll ask you to keep your tongue between your teeth should we encounter a small surprise along the way.”

  Chase stopped on the pavement. “A surprise? You are mysterious, Mr. Garrod.”

  The merchant turned back when he saw that Chase hadn’t followed and frowned. “This way, sir.”

  He led the way toward the warehouses, pausing so that Chase could admire the foundation stone and its inscription, then conducting him into a brick warehouse with spiked iron windows on the lower floors. After they climbed the staircase to look over the tightly packed bags of coffee, they descended to the lower floors. Chase took a few paces down the rows of hogsheads, his boots sticking to the boards where sugar had leaked. “Impressive,” he said, but he walked back to the exit and stood waiting.

  They descended the stone steps together, the narrow space too close for Chase’s comfort. He watched Garrod’s beringed hand gliding down the banister, the jewels sparkling in the dimness.

  After a moment Garrod turned his head toward Chase and smiled. “I see you have your own mind. I expect that’s a good thing in a Runner, though perhaps not always?”

  He could not mistake Garrod’s meaning. Chase did his job and did it well, but he had never managed to ingratiate himself with his superiors. Often he went his own way without asking for anyone’s help, and often he paid the price for that stubborn independence. He had, in fact, resigned from Bow Street recently and been reinstated. He said, “Having my own mind—and the freedom to act upon it—is one of the only things I care for in the world, sir.”

  “Spoken like a true Englishman, Chase.”

  They had reached the cellar, which reminded Chase of nothing so much as a crypt. In this confined space, the sickly smell of the spirits was overpowering, and it was difficult to see in the gloom.

  Garrod spoke, his voice loud enough that several men working nearby looked up. “No fire is permitted anywhere in the docks. We must do all possible to avoid a conflagration, whether by arson or accident.”

  Chase nodded. Rows of casks stretched into the darkness beyond his line of sight, the dim figures of the coopers fluttering around them like moths. He noticed that Garrod stepped slowly and glanced at each face as he and Chase went by.

  Still in that same lecturing tone, Garrod went on: “Several thousand pipes of rum are stored in this one warehouse, and we have built new rum sheds with vaults for the better storage of our spirits. Enough comes through these docks to make the Thames into punch.”

  They passed several massive columns and some enormous vats with propeller agitators that were used to amalgamate the various types and strengths of rum. “We’ve had some issues,” Garrod was saying, “with settlement in the structure of these warehouses, so we’ve refitted some of the falling timber posts with cast-iron. You there,” he called to a man who was kneeling on the ground, apparently engaged in examining the wood, “our guest would like to ask you a few questions.”

  Chase had opened his mouth to snap off a retort to Garrod’s officiousness when he took a closer look at the workman leaping nimbly to his feet. He was a tiny man no more than five feet tall with a haggard, ghostlike face; pointed, elfin chin; and anxious, ever-moving eyes that missed nothing. He met Chase’s gaze with glee; then his eyes slipped away.

  It was Noah Packet, Chase’s occasional spy, criminal world connection, and friend. Packet was a thief by profession, a pickpocket, a file, a gallows bird, a cutpurse—a thief in a fortress expressly designed to keep predators like him out.

  ***

  “Turning over a new leaf?” Chase asked. Packet had slipped into the corner of the administrative building, where Chase sat waiting after Garrod had been drawn away to consult with a dock official. Packet, likely breaking the rules of his employment, had followed Chase and Garrod into this area and was lucky to have caught his friend alone.

  When Packet merely smirked in return, Chase went on. “You’ve found God? Turned respectable? Maybe you’re plotting a rig to go down in the history books? Got the gentleman fooled, do you?”

  “Nah,” said Packet, “he’s a downy one. He knows what’s what.”

  “Well?”

  “You could say it goes back to my blue coat. You know, the one that got itself ruint, thanks to you.”

  A few months before, while assisting Chase with another inquiry, Packet had taken a beating and spoiled his new coat. The coat had been bright blue with brass buttons. It had seemed a strange choice for a pickpocket, making its owner entirely too conspicuous, as Chase had enjoyed informing him, not to mention that it was an oddly luxurious possession for a petty thief. Now Packet, in his character of dockworker, was dressed in drab cotton trousers and a canvas jacket, a dusty, red handkerchief knotted about his scrawny throat.

  Chase said, “The ‘gentleman in the shipping line’ you told me you did a favor for. You earned the money for that coat from Hugo Garrod?”

  “I always knew you was a downy one too. Told Mr. Garrod as much.”

  Chase took a long pull of the grog that a clerk had served him and set the glass on the table with a thump. “What the devil does the West India Company want with a thief in its sanctum?”

  “I got my uses.” Packet sounded aggrieved. “I never met a bunch o’ coves so mortal scared of a spot of pilfering. Spoils the perfection of their operation, see? So they bring me in to keep my glims open and report back. Easiest job I ever had. I walk around with my hammer and my memorandum book and pretends to be inspecting the floors or tapping the pillars. They’s paying me a tidy sum for my trouble.”

  “Pilfering?”

  “Don’t think it could amount to much. A p
iece of mahogany in the trousers or a lump of sugar in the pocket.”

  “How would a thief convey stolen goods out of the docks? The defenses look tight.”

  “That’s what Garrod means to know, but I expect someone’s been greased in the palm to look the other way. They’s to be stopped,” Packer said in a pious tone.

  “By you?”

  “I got my eye on a few of the bastards. Never fear. I’ll deliver on my promise.”

  “Good lord, Packet. You mean Garrod trusts you? He must be touched in the head.”

  The little thief looked hurt. “That ain’t nice, Chase. He trusts me. I already told you—he pays me. Ain’t I a man of honor, same as you?”

  In some ways he was, Chase reflected, which was one reason why Chase had always liked him. They’d met soon after Bow Street had employed Chase in ’01. Packet had already been known as a minor offender, and Chase had fully intended to see him arrested if he could. Instead they’d formed an association of sorts, which Chase had often found useful in his work when Packet ferreted out stray morsels for him. Besides being good company for a tavern carouse, Packet was a positive genius at reading men’s characters, at understanding human motive and duplicity. Duplicity, Chase reflected, was Packet’s specialty, and on that thought he leaned back, stretching out his booted feet, purposely avoiding the thief’s eager look.

  “Rather a coincidence, isn’t it,” he said conversationally, “you happen to be employed by the same gentleman who summoned me here today for reasons unknown? And this gentleman so well informed about my naval career and my recent problems at Bow Street? Now, who would know about that?”

  Packet gave his hoarse laugh. “You told me yourself when you was half seas over one night. Well, as drunk as you ever gets.”

  “That’s right I did. I see you’ve put my information to good use.”

  Packet’s gaze flittered away and came back. “Garrod’s got a job for you, Chase.” When no reply was forthcoming, he went on. “Mind, I can’t tell you exactly what it is, only it’s something to do with his daughter. Got her for sale in the Marriage Mart, and let me tell you there’s plenty lining up to take a crack, what with her governor’s brass. But I hear she ain’t quite the thing, somehow. Strange little bird.” He tapped his forehead.

  “Daughter? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Queers me. Rumor was she was all set to marry her cousin, Garrod’s heir. But the match has gone sour, and they say Garrod ain’t best pleased with his heir neither.” He added succinctly, “Debts.” He flicked a glance at Chase, as if to discover whether dropping further tidbits might sweeten the atmosphere between them.

  “Go on.”

  “Ain’t got much more, except that everyone is on pins and needles wanting to know how Garrod means to leave his blunt. Likes to keep them jumping, which strikes me as a risky game. Not a happy family, you might say. As for that girl—I caught a peep at her one time when she come out of a fancy party—a hunted rabbit. Traffic weren’t moving. The folk in the street a-gaping at her papa’s carriage, a huge thing, all over gilt with fancy paintings on the panels. ‘Emblematic figures of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America,’ or some such rot. You ain’t never seen nothing like it, let me tell you.”

  “This girl have a mother?”

  “Not one she owns to in polite company. Don’t seem quite civilized, if you ask me.”

  “She is Garrod’s natural daughter?”

  “You might say that.” Packet pursed his lips and made a little tsk of disapproval. “The mother was a slave on one of Garrod’s plantations. He set her free. Left her behind in Jamaica and brought the girl over here when she was this high.” The arm he extended from his hip ended in delicate fingers with dirt caked under the nails.

  Digesting this, Chase chose not to be sidetracked. “None of which explains why you blabbed your mouth about me or how Garrod found you in the first place. It doesn’t fit.” He frowned.

  “Why get your dander up? You’ve helped me out now and again, and here’s me returning the favor. I put a word in his ear, see, and not just for you but for that gentry-mort friend of yours.”

  Chase drained his grog and stood up to rest his hands on Packet’s slight shoulders, pressing hard and squeezing. “I must be touched in the head too, for I can’t recall why I ever kept company with you. You mean Mrs. Wolfe? What has she to say to this?”

  Packet peered up at him owlishly. “Don’t be like that, Chase. I thought you’d be glad to see me on the square.”

  “Mrs. Wolfe?” said Chase, squeezing harder.

  “I told you. I done a turn for her. You told me she ain’t been in high fettle since that husband of hers took hisself off. How’s a poor female to get her bread, I ask you? All I done is show Mr. Garrod that pamphlet she wrote, and he recalled the stories about her in the papers. He thought of the rest.”

  Having endured a brush with notoriety and a royal scandal, Chase’s friend Penelope Wolfe had fought back by publishing a pamphlet to set the record straight about her father’s dealings with a certain courtesan and the son they had conceived—Penelope’s brother Lewis. Chase thought the pamphlet well done, but he wouldn’t tell her that. He knew she had needed the money, a woman alone with a daughter to raise and now a young brother to establish in a career. She had defended Chase’s conduct in the last inquiry, attacking his critics.

  Penelope had written a new kind of account of a sensational murder—one that sought to do more than raise the hairs on the back of readers’ necks, one that tried to locate the heart of a crime in understandably human motives. And, as a result, she had made powerful enemies in government and the press. But, knowing her, Chase feared that the success of this pamphlet would inspire her to write others that would only draw her further into hazardous territory. She would look at him with those brown eyes and insist that justice had been denied, or that a truth had been hidden that only she with his help could uncover. He doubted whether their other friend Edward Buckler could restrain her either.

  Before Chase could elicit more, Garrod entered the room. Catching sight of Packet, he rapped out, “Get back to work, you fool. Do you want to be seen talking to him? You’d be no use to me anymore.” His face had darkened.

  “Sir.” Packet shook off the grip on his shoulders, winked at Chase, and was gone.

  “Will you have a seat, Mr. Chase?” The color staining Garrod’s cheeks faded, and he was again the polished gentleman. He conducted Chase into a comfortably furnished office.

  As they arranged themselves in two armchairs, Chase considered telling Garrod something of Packet’s history, then rejected the idea. It was nothing to him, after all, if the West India Company chose to employ a thief, and if Packet was to be believed, Garrod knew what he was about. “You’ve suffered some thefts here?” he ventured instead.

  Garrod stiffened. “We’ve struck at the root of the plunder, but must be ever vigilant. Terrible, the losses we once endured. Brazen females used to come on the quays and carry off sugar and coffee in their aprons. We’ve nothing like that to contend with these days.”

  “You yourself were a prime mover behind the construction of these docks? I am told they were financed through private subscriptions.”

  “I got involved soon after I returned from abroad. Now you’ve seen what English ingenuity, the advancement of science, and the public spirit of men can accomplish.”

  It was more than time to push Garrod to the point. Chase said, “I’m told you require my services. It was Packet who mentioned my name to you?”

  “True enough. He showed me a story in the newspaper about you and Mrs. Wolfe. She has caught my imagination, you know. I wholeheartedly admired your defense of her—true chivalry on the part of you and that barrister who won her brother his freedom.” He slanted a quick look at Chase. “I understand Mrs. Wolfe’s husband is still playing least in sight?” His smile deepened.

>   Again, the man was well informed. Jeremy Wolfe had fled London to escape debtors’ prison. Because the sudden gleam in the merchant’s eyes when he pronounced Penelope’s name raised Chase’s hackles, he changed the subject. “You are a busy man, Mr. Garrod, as am I. Tell me about your problem.”

  Garrod took the watch from his fob pocket and sat fingering the chain. He took a few breaths and rubbed his chin. At length he said, “Your friend Packet will have told you something of my daughter’s history? She has everything, Chase. Scores of beautiful gowns, jewels, fashionable parties, a phaeton to tool around the park, and yet she spends her days hiding in her room. I had thought her future assured but now—”

  “A betrothal?”

  “To her cousin Ned. Or to any one of the young sparks I’ve paraded in front of her. As I said, she has everything, but I’ve never seen a girl so miserable.”

  Inhaling another sharp breath, Garrod continued. “Her chaperone—the daughter of an earl to whom I paid an exorbitant fee, mind you—couldn’t control the girl. Why, Ned’s sister Beatrice took to the fashionable set far better for all she is above thirty! Marina’s behavior caused comment. She either lurked in the corners at parties or hid in some ladies’ withdrawing room until time to go home. I thanked God when it was over.”

  “Perhaps she is shy or homesick,” said Chase, his interest caught. “She was born in Jamaica, sir?”

  “This is her home. Marina has been properly educated to fill her station. She remembers nothing of her life on the island.”

  Chase was unconvinced. The past did not release its hold so easily. He wondered if Miss Garrod resembled her mother and whether this resemblance set her apart in English society. He wondered too at the closed expression on Garrod’s face when speaking of his child. It seemed unnatural somehow. “Are you sure of that? It may be she misses a mother’s care.”