The mention of this name brought an expression of great uneasiness into Jimmy’s sharp countenance. ‘I don’t know him! Never heard of any such cove!’
‘Oh yes, I think you have!’ said Sir Richard.
‘I ain’t done you any harm, guv’nor, nor intended any! I’ll cap downright –’
‘You needn’t: I believe you.’
Jimmy’s spirits began to lift. ‘Dang me if I didn’t say you was a leery cove! You wouldn’t be hard on a cull!’
‘That depends on the – er – cull. Which brings me, Mr Yarde, to the third course I might – I say, might, Mr Yarde – pursue. I can let you go.’
Jimmy gasped, swallowed, and muttered hoarsely: ‘Spoke like the gentry-cove you are, guv’nor!’
‘Tell me what I want to know, and I will let you go,’ said Sir Richard.
A wary look came into Jimmy’s eyes. ‘Split, eh? Lord bless you, there ain’t anything to tell you!’
‘It will perhaps make it easier for you if I inform you that I am already aware that you have been working in – somewhat uneasy partnership – with Mr Horace Trimble.’
‘Cap’n Trimble,’ corrected Jimmy.
‘I should doubt it. He, I take it, is the – er – flash cull – whom you referred to last night.’
‘I don’t deny it.’
‘Furthermore,’ said Sir Richard, ‘the pair of you were working for a young gentleman with a pronounced stammer. Ah, for a Mr Brandon, to be precise.’
Jimmy had changed colour. ‘Stow your whids and plant ’em!’ he growled. ‘You’re too leery for me, see? Damme if I know what your lay is!’
‘That need not concern you. Think it over, Mr Yarde! Will you be handed over to Captain Trimble, or do you choose to go as you came, through that window?’
Jimmy sat for a moment, still gently rubbing his throat, and looking sideways at Sir Richard. ‘Damn all flash culls!’ he said at last. ‘I’ll whiddle the whole scrap. I ain’t a bridle-cull, see? Whatyoucalls the High Toby. That ain’t my lay: I’m a rum diver. Maybe I’ve touched the rattler now and then, but I never went on the bridle-lay, not till a certain gentry-cove, which we knows of, tempted me. And I wish I hadn’t, see? Five hundred Yellow Boys I was promised, but not a grig will I get! He’s a rare gager, that gentry-cove! Dang me if I ever works with such again! He’s a bad ’un, guv’nor, you can lay your last megg on that!’
‘I am aware. Go on!’
‘There’s an old gentry-mort going to Bath, see? Lord love you, she was his own mother! Now, that’s what I don’t hold with, but it ain’t none of my business. Me and Cap’n Trimble holds up the chaise by Calne, or thereabouts. The necklace is in a hiding-place behind one of the squabs – ah, and rum squabs they was, all made out of red silk!’
‘Mr Brandon knew of this hiding-place, and told you?’
‘Lord love you, he made naught of that, guv’nor! We was to snaffle the necklace, and pike on the bean, see?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘Lope off as fast we could. Now, I don’t hold with violence, any gait, nor that stammering young chub neither. But Cap’n Trimble looses off his pops, and one of the outriders gets it in the wing. While the Cap’n’s a-covering the coves with his pops, I dubs the jigger – opens the door – and finds a couple of gentry-morts, hollering fit to rouse the countryside. I don’t take nothing but the necklace, see? I’m a peevy cove, and this ain’t my lay. I don’t like it. We pikes, and Cap’n Trimble he pushes his pop into my belly, and says to hand over the necklace. Well, I does so. I’m a peevy cove. I don’t hold with violence. Now, the lay is that we take them sparklers to that flash young boman prig, which is taking cover down here, with a regular green ’un, which he gets to know at Oxford. All’s Bob, then! But I’m leery, see? Seems to me I’m working with a flash file, and if he makes off with the sparklers, which I suspicion he will, my young chub don’t tip memy earnest. I forks the cove. Bristol’s the place for me, I thinks, and I gets on to the werry same rattler which you and your nevvy’s a-riding in. When that harman from Bow Street comes along, I thinks there’s a fastner out for me, and I tips the cole to Adam Tiler, as you might say.’
‘You placed the necklace in my nephew’s pocket?’
‘That’s it, guv’nor. No harman won’t suspicion a young shaver like him, I thinks. But you and he lopes off unbeknownst, and I comes to this place. Oh, I knew you was a peevy cull! So I touts the case, see?’
‘No.’
‘Runs my winkers over the house,’ said Jimmy impatiently. ‘I see your young shaver at this werry window – I should have remembered that you was a peevy cove, guv’nor.’
‘You should indeed. However, you have told me what I wish to know, and you are now at liberty to – er – pike on the bean.’
‘Spoke like the gentry-cove you are!’ said Jimmy hoarsely. ‘I’m off! And no hard feelings!’
It did not take him long to climb out of the window. He waved his hand with cheerful impudence, and disappeared from Sir Richard’s sight.
