“Is it Eliza? She is — unwell?” I managed.

Madame shook her head. “It is the Runners. Bow Street is in the house!”

Chapter 9

The Gryphon and the Eagle

Thursday, 25 April 1811, cont.

“FETCH ME INK AND PAPER, AND I SHALL REQUIRE the hackney to carry a note to Henry,” I told madame — but before she could hasten on her errand, a barrel-chested fellow in a dull grey coat and a squat, unlovely hat had barred the passage behind her.

“What’s all this?” he demanded, surveying me with a pair of eyes both sharp and small in a pudding face. “Are you the mort what’s visiting from the country?” 1

“I am Miss Austen. This is my brother’s house. And who, my good sir, are you?”

The question appeared to surprise him. Perhaps the better part of his interlocutors were too stunned at the awful sight of a Runner — the terrible gravity of the Law, and Newgate’s dire bulk rising before their eyes — to enquire of the man’s name.

“Clem Black,” he said. “Of Bow Street.”

“So I understand.” I took off my bonnet and set it carefully on the table in Eliza’s hall. “What is your business here?”

I spoke calmly, but in truth was prey to the most lively apprehension on the Henry Austens’ behalf. There could be only one explanation for the presence of a Clem Black in the house: my poor brother was even more embarrassed in his circumstances than his partner James Tilson could apprehend. Perhaps there had been a run on the bank. Perhaps Austen, Maunde & Tilson had discovered a discrepancy in the accounts. Perhaps Henry — so recently installed in this stylish new home, with its furniture made to order and its fittings very fine — had felt his purse to be pinched, and had dipped into the bank’s funds without the knowledge of his partners.

But at this thought my mind rebelled. Not even Henry — lighthearted and given over to pleasure as he so often was — would violate the most fundamental precept of his chosen profession. When it came to the management of another man’s money, Henry was wont to observe, a banker must be worthy of his trust.

“You’re a cool one, ain’t ye?” Clem Black said with grudging admiration. “The other gentry mort[10] is indulging in spasms and such. If you’d be so good, ma’am, as to come with me—”

I bowed my head and preceded him into Eliza’s front drawing-room, where so recently the crowd of gentlemen and ladies had stood, in heat and self-importance, to listen to Miss Davis and her brood in the singing of their glees. Eliza was reclined upon a sopha, Manon engaged in waving a vinaigrette beneath her nose; but at my appearance my sister reared up, her countenance quite pink, and said, “Ah — not Henry. I had hoped— Still, it is probably for the best. We may delay the unhappy intelligence as long as possible. Jane, I have wronged you — and I cannot rest until I have assured you that the injury was unknowingly done.”

“Hush, Eliza,” I murmured, and joined her on the sopha. “What has occurred?”

“That man” — she inclined her head in the direction of a second Runner I now perceived to be nearly hidden by the drawing-room draperies, his gaze roaming Sloane Street as it darkened beyond the window — “that man has quite cut up my peace. Indeed, indeed, Jane, I should never have undertaken the errand had I suspected the slightest irregularity!”

“Eliza, pray calm yourself. Manon — leave off the vinaigrette and fetch some claret for la comtesse. You, sir — can you account for the extreme distress and misery you have occasioned in a most beloved sister?”

The man at the window turned. At the sight of his face I drew a sudden breath, for its aspect was decidedly sinister. Two pale agates of eyes stared full into my own; a pair of bitter lips twisted beneath a lumpen mass of nose; and the left cheek bore the welt of an old wound — the path of a pistol ball, that had barely missed killing him. He was not above the middle height, but gave an impression of strength in the quiet command of limbs that might have served a prize-fighter.

“You are Miss Jane Austen,” he said.

“I am. But you have the advantage of me, Mr.—”

“Skroggs. William Skroggs. I am a chief constable of Bow Street. Do you know what that means?”

“I am not unacquainted with the office—”

“It means,” he said softly, advancing upon me without blinking an eye, “that I have the power to drag you before a magistrate, lay a charge, provide evidence, and see you hang, Miss Austen — all for the prize of a bit of blood-money, like. I’ve done the same for thirteen year, now, give or take a day or two, and I find my taste for the work only increases.”

He was trying to frighten me. I stared back at him, therefore, without a waver, my hands clasped in my lap. “Do not attempt to bully me in my brother’s house, Mr. Skroggs. His friends are more powerful than yours. Be so good as to explain your errand and have done.”

The corners of the cruel mouth lifted. “With pleasure,” he said, and lifted a wooden box onto Eliza’s Pembroke table.

I recognised it immediately. I had carried it myself into Rundell & Bridge, playing country cousin to Eliza’s grande dame.

“How did you come by those jewels?” I demanded sharply.

Bill Skroggs — I could not conceive of him as William — halted in the act of opening the lid. “Amusing,” he observed, with a leer for his colleague Clem Black, — “I was just about to pose the same question to Miss Austen myself.”

I glanced at Eliza in consternation. She was propped on her cushions, eyes closed, a handkerchief pressed to her lips. It was possible she had fainted; but certain that she had no intention of crossing swords with the Runners. It was left to the novelist to weave a suitable tale.

Manon appeared with her wine and began to coax a little of the liquid through her mistress’s lips.

“The jewels were given to me,” I told Skroggs with passable indifference, “and being little inclined to wear them, I resolved to consult Mr. Rundell, of the Ludgate Hill concern. Was it he who required you to call in Sloane Street?”

“You might say so.” Skroggs chuckled. “He’s no flat, Ebenezer Rundell — and well aware as how a receiver of swag is liable to hang. You won’t find him going bail for no havey-cavey mort with a load of gammon to pitch. He come to Bill Skroggs quick enough.”

I studied the man’s pitiless countenance, and for the first time a chill of real apprehension curled in my entrails. I understood little enough of the man’s cant to grasp the full meaning he intended, but had an idea of Mr. Rundell consulting his voluminous ledgers, so close to hand, and finding no record of the Lady Mary Leigh or the Duke of Chandos’s ancestral jewels.

“If you would ask how I came by such a fortune in gems,” I answered calmly, “I am ready to admit that the tale I told Mr. Rundell was false. There is a lady in the case, who does not wish it known that she desires to sell these pieces. I cannot offer you her name, as I should be betraying a confidence.”

The Bow Street Runner threw back his head and howled with laughter. Clem Black joined him in expressions of unholy mirth. I stared at the two men, bewildered. What had I said to send them into whoops?

“Betraying a confidence!” Skroggs repeated, almost on the point of tears. “A lady in the case!”

I rose from the sopha. “Pray explain yourself, Mr. Skroggs. This deliberate obscurity grows tedious.”

He left off laughing as swiftly as tho’ a door had slammed closed. “You had these gems off a dead woman, Miss Austen, and we mean to know how.”

“A dead woman?” I repeated, startled.

He reached into the box and drew out an emerald brooch, in the figure of two mythic beasts locked in combat: the gryphon and the eagle. I had glimpsed the device only a few hours before — on a stately black travelling coach bound for Hans Place.