Jack Maggs Read Free

door, a brass door knocker, a fan light, and such was his excitement to behold this property that the left side of his firmly sculpted face was soon visibly quivering.
    A dog cart came travelling pell-mell down the street towards Long Acre with its driver, a young man no more than twenty years, standing upright in the seat. All the visitor’s attention was on the house, until the moment the driver cracked his whip.
    Then Jack Maggs jumped out of his skin. He stepped out into the road, and raised his stick as if he intended to chase the offender and punish him, but a moment later he was a perfect gent, presenting himself on the doorstep of 27 Great Queen Street with his distress reduced to a small flickering on his left cheek.
    Jack Maggs Esquire removed his hat and grasped that brass knocker. He knocked quickly, firmly, but politely.
    When there was no immediate answer, he knocked again. And then, a minute later—Rap-rap-rap.
    It was not possible that there was no one home. The caller was well-informed about the residents of 27 Great Queen Street. There was a butler in this house, a housekeeper, a cook.
    He stepped back onto the edge of the roadside so he might look up at the high windows. He observed their dark and curtained aspect with agitated eyes, then, turning impulsively, he opened the little gate leading down to the servants’ entrance.
    It was at this moment that Mercy Larkin came to the parlour window of the house next door. Mercy was the kitchen maid, by title, but being the only maid in that confusing household, was presently arranging her employer’s small library of books where he liked them set—upon the little cedar dresser with the oilcloth square atop it.
    She saw the man she would soon know as Jack Maggs descending the steps to the servants’ entrance of Number 27. He had come, so she imagined, to take Mrs Halfstairs’s examination for the post of footman. The moment she saw him, she knew he was the one. He had the right size, the right legs, but was at the wrong address.
    Then Jack Maggs turned and caught her eye. It was not really a footman’s face, or no footman she had ever seen. She stood at the parlour window, her duster in her hand, and shivered.
    Jack Maggs had not the least knowledge of Mercy Larkin, Mrs Halfstairs or the rest of Mr Buckle’s chaotic household, but as he shut the area gate behind him he saw the maid was still staring at him. He saw her pale skin, her pretty ringlets spilling out from under her cap. Had you asked him his impression of her appearance, he would not have heard your question. He had been spotted. He felt the rough rope of Newgate round his neck.
    He descended the last steps, escaping her gaze. With his broad back pressed against the wall, he could look into the kitchen. It was his profession to recognize an empty house when he saw one, and this house was like a grave. And yet he knocked, tapping and scratching against the pane.
    “Excuse me down there.”
    He resisted the urge to flatten himself further against the wall, but rather stepped out where the maid could inspect him.
    “All’s well,” he smiled. It was an easy smile, and his teeth were very good and regular. “I’m expected.”
    “They’ve gone,” the maid said, staring at him very hard. “No one home but draughts and mice.”
    “Gone?” he said hoarsely.
    “You’ve come to see about the footman’s position, am I right now?”
    The stranger smiled.
    “It’s Mr Buckle’s residence you were wanting,” she suggested.
    “Gone where? Where have they gone? I am expected.” He ascended the stairs to the street.
    “Gone to Calais,” she said. “The Spanish Main. How would I know? The gentleman didn’t have the manners to inform me of his destination.”
    The stranger was now at the top of the area steps, and Mercy could see that he had a twitching palsy in his cheek. He put his hand to it.
    “Sometimes,” Mercy continued, “they send a servant in a coach, but no one stays for