you like me to return?’
‘I have ordered the carriage for half-past six o’clock. If you wish to come earlier, perhaps at six, the boys will be having their supper and I’m sure you could join them.’ There was a delicious touch of pink to her pale complexion, and she began to speak faster. ‘I would ask you to dine with us, but my husband prefers to sit down at a later time.’
I bowed my acknowledgement of her condescension and a moment later said goodbye. When the door of the drawing room was safely closed behind me, I dabbed my forehead and felt the sweat. I was terrified by the strength of my own desire.
I walked slowly down the stone steps to the hall. Loomis was waiting at the bottom. As I drew nearer, he gave a gentle cough.
‘Mr Frant desired me to ask you to step in and see him on your way out, sir.’
I followed the servant to the book-room at the back of the hall. He knocked at the door, opened it and announced me. Mr Frant was seated at his bureau, as he had been on the other occasion I had visited him here. This time, however, my welcome was altogether more cordial. He looked up from a letter he was reading, and a smile spread across his pale features.
‘Mr Shield – I am rejoiced to see you. Pray sit down. I will not delay you long.’ He folded the letter and locked it away in a drawer. ‘My wife informs me that you rendered us a considerable service the other day.’
‘It was nothing of consequence, sir,’ I said, embarrassed that the Frants were making so much of the incident.
‘Nevertheless, I am obliged to you. Tell me, would you describe to me exactly what occurred?’
I explained that an older boy had sent Frant and Allan upon an errand – I did not judge it prudent to enlarge upon its nature – and that the man had approached them on their way back. I added that I had been fortunate enough to witness the moment when the man accosted the boys.
‘What exactly did he do, Mr Shield?’
‘He took Charles by the arm.’
‘Why would he do that if he were a beggar? Would he not ask for money instead?’
‘I think it likely his wits were disordered, sir. He had been drinking. I cannot say whether he intended to offer violence or whether his design was simply to attract the boys’ attention and demand money. Young Allan tried to drag Charles away.’
‘A brave lad. The man was carrying a stick, I understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And he offered you violence?’
‘Yes, sir, but it didn’t signify – I had a stick myself and I fancy that even without it I would not have been in difficulties.’
‘My son told his mama the man was somewhat larger than you.’
‘True, sir, but on the other hand I am somewhat younger.’
Henry Frant turned aside to sharpen a pencil. ‘Would you indulge my curiosity a little further and describe him?’
‘He was well above the middle height and had an ill-trimmed beard. He wore blue spectacles, and a blue coat with metal buttons and I think brown breeches. Oh, and a cocked hat and a wig.’ I hesitated. ‘There’s one more thing, sir. I cannot be absolutely certain, but I believe I may have seen him before.’
‘The devil you have. Where?’
‘In Southampton-row. It was on the day I came to collect your son when he first went to school. I took Edgar Allan to his parents’ house on the way. The man was loitering, and asked me when I was leaving if that was Mr Allan’s, and then he hurried away.’
Frant tapped his teeth with the pencil. ‘If he were interested in Allan’s boy, then why should he attach himself to mine? It makes no sense.’
‘No, sir. But the two boys are not unlike. And I noticed the man stooped to look at me.’
‘So you formed the impression he might be short-sighted? Perhaps. I will be candid, Mr Shield. A man in my situation makes enemies. I am a banker, you understand, and bankers cannot please everybody all the time. There is also the point that a certain type of depraved mind might consider stealing the child of a wealthy man in order to extort money. This attack may be no more than a chance encounter, the casual work of a drunkard. Or it may be that the man was more interested in Mr Allan’s boy. But there remains the third possibility: that he nursed a design of some sort against my son, or even in the long run against myself.’
‘To judge by what little I have seen of him, sir, I would doubt that he could put any design successfully into action, apart, perhaps, from that of raising a glass or a bottle up to his lips.’
Frant gave a bark of laughter. ‘I like a man who speaks plain, Mr Shield. May I ask you not to mention what we have discussed to my wife? Speculation of this nature must inevitably distress her.’
I bowed. ‘You may depend on me, sir.’
‘I take this kindly, Mr Shield.’ Frant glanced at the clock on the mantel-shelf. ‘One more thing, for my own private satisfaction I should like to meet this fellow and ask him a few questions. Should you come across him again, would you be good enough to let me know? Now, I must not keep you any longer from your half holiday.’
He shook hands cordially with me. A moment later I was walking down to Holborn. My mind was in a whirl. There is something intensely gratifying about being treated civilly by people of wealth and indeed fashion. I felt myself a fine fellow.
Perhaps, I thought as I strolled through the autumn sunshine, my luck was changing. With Mr and Mrs Frant as my patrons, where might I not end?
THE AFTERNOON UNEXPECTEDLY changed its course as I was walking down Long Acre on my way to Gaunt-court and Mrs Jem’s six shillings, the balance of the price we had agreed for my aunt Reynolds’s possessions. I stopped to buy a buttonhole and, while the woman was fixing it to my lapel, I glanced over her shoulder along the way I had come. I saw some twenty-five yards away, quite distinctly, the man with the bird’s-nest beard.
As if aware I had recognised him, he ducked into the shadow of a shop doorway. I gave the girl a penny and hurried back along the street. He plunged out of the doorway and blundered into one of the side roads leading down to Covent Garden.
Without conscious thought, I set off in pursuit. I acted upon impulse – partly, no doubt, because Mr Frant wanted to know more about the man, and I welcomed an opportunity to oblige Mr Frant. But there was both more and less to it than that: I was like a cat chasing a rope’s end: I chased the man not because I wanted to catch him but because he moved.
The market was drawing to its close for the day. We pushed our way into a swirling sea of humanity and vegetables. There was a tremendous din – of iron-shod wheels and hooves on cobbles, of half a dozen barrel organs, each playing a different tune, of people swearing and shouting and crying their wares. Despite his age and weight and condition, my quarry was remarkably agile. We zigzagged through the market, where he tried to conceal himself behind a stall selling oranges. I found him out, but he saw me, and off he went again. He leapt like a hunter over a wheelbarrow full of cocoa nuts, veered past the church and swerved into the mouth of Henrietta-street.
It so happened that there was a pile of rotting cabbage leaves on the corner and this, quite literally, was his downfall. He slipped and went down. Though he tried at once to scramble up, his ankle gave way and he sank back, swearing. I seized him by the shoulder. He straightened his spectacles and looked up at me, his face red with exertion.
‘I meant no harm, sir,’ he panted in that absurdly deep voice. ‘As God is my witness, I meant no harm.’
‘Then why did you run away?’
‘I was afraid, sir. I thought you might