A Thief’s Justice by Douglas Skelton EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:Douglas Skelton
- Language: English
- Genre:Historical Thrillers
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
London, 17 February 1716
The air was heavy with candle smoke, and though the temperature beyond
the foggy windows was plunging, this upstairs room was warm thanks to a
fire blazing in the grate and the proximity of gamblers standing at, or
wandering between, the gaming tables. There were cries of delight and
groans of exasperation as bets were laid, cards dealt and money won and
lost. Those women present either perched themselves beside the man of
their choice or wafted around the room along with the tallow fumes, flirting
here, enticing there, settling on a cull with the bunce to pay for a tupping.
Servants weaved around the patrons, delivering drinks and food or stopping
to trim the wicks of candles editing excessive smoke.
Jonas Flynt had left the piquet table, his winnings safely within the
pocket of his long dress coat, and wandered the room, his gaze seldom far
from the game of hazard at a long table against the far wall. He had kept an
eye on it all evening, for he was not in this room atop the Shakespear’s
Head Tavern for sport alone. He stopped just short of the long table to
observe a squat fellow in a long powdered wig replete with ringlets, his
blue velvet jacket grasping his frame as if it did not wish to let go, his pale
brown waistcoat unbuttoned. He swirled the dice cup in his right hand as
though he were an apothecary concocting a salve, while his left rested
protectively on the pile of coins before him. Men with money riding on his
throw waited with bated breath, hope, even dread, etched upon their faces,
which flickered in the yellow candlelight.
A man who Flynt vaguely recognised gave him a brief nod.
‘He’s declared six as his main,’ he informed Flynt in a low murmur,
though he had not asked. Flynt nodded his thanks nonetheless and watched
the dice tumble down the table.
‘A four and two,’ declared a man on the opposite side of the table,
already taking money from those around him. Clearly he had wagered on
the little man making his mark. Throwing a six or a twelve were winners. If
the dice had revealed any total other than those, then the gambler would
have been paying out rather than raking in.
‘The beak has been throwing lucky bones for an age,’ the man told Flynt.
‘I ain’t never seen a run like it, Captain Flynt.’
So the man knew his name, but Flynt could not dredge up his in return.
He prided himself on a memory for faces but this man’s features were only
faintly familiar. His use of ‘captain’ placed him as one of the fancy, or at the
very least one who lurked around the fringes. But then, there were many
who knew him in this world, if by reputation only.
He searched his memory
and finally came up with the name Ned Turner, a crimp with whom he’d
transacted business back in his high toby days on the heaths around the city.
A good fence was necessary to those who made their living on the roads
and Turner had been an honest dealer
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