A Conspiracy of Paper

TWENTY-FOUR

I SAT IN MY uncle’s study staring at the mug of mulled wine that stood steaming on the table beside me. I had already moved most of my things to the room that I had been given on the second floor. I had already thought about my location strategically; Miriam’s room was located on the third floor, so while I had no cause to walk by her door, she had cause to walk by mine. I had only to wonder precisely how aggressive a widow she was.

In the meantime, my mind focused more upon the events of the day. Isaac had made the wine too hot, and in his efforts to handle the hot pewter, my uncle had already spilled a healthy amount on his austere brown coat. He hardly seemed to care, however, just as he hardly seemed to care that I had lost our only copy of A Conspiracy of Paper. “It would be better if we still had it,” he had said with a shrug, “but these men, they killed your father to keep him silent. If you escape with only having it stolen, perhaps that is not so very terrible.”

It had taken a great deal of courage, and two glasses of scalding wine, for me to confess the loss to my uncle. It was a confession that had hurt, for I felt that I had failed in my responsibility to my family, and this failure tasted far too much like the time I had run away from my father. But Uncle Miguel had only clucked in concern, asked me about my injuries, and uttered a blessing to thank God that I had not been further injured. I tried to put myself in his place, to imagine how he should feel, and I in no way could understand why he cared not about the loss of the manuscript. I wished that I could banish the suspicions conjured by his composed spirits, but I could only think that it no longer mattered to him if I found my father’s killer—if it had ever mattered.

He sat across from me, eyeing me with concern as his fingers cautiously probed the hot silver handle of his mug. “I fear,” he said, “that this inquiry of yours grows too dangerous.”

The pain throughout my body had begun to subside into a dull ache. My legs and my neck were both stiff, and my head pounded horribly. “I can hardly stop now,” I said, hoping to draw him out. “Does not this violence confirm our suspicions?”

“This family has suffered too many losses,” he said as he shook his head. “I cannot look quietly on while you are threatened as well.”

“I don’t understand. You wanted this inquiry. Has something happened to make you change your mind? Has Mr. Adelman convinced you?”

He laughed. “Adelman,” he said, as though the name were enough to explain his mirth. “You think me so easily persuaded by Adelman?”

“I could not say,” I mumbled. I thought about what Sarmento had told me—that my father hated Adelman. And I thought about how my uncle welcomed him at his table for Sabbath dinner. “We cannot just walk away from something because it is dangerous, Uncle.”

“That is precisely why we should walk away. Because it is dangerous. But”—he held a hand in the air—“you know your business more than I. I would not presume to tell you how to proceed or how to take care for your own safety. I merely wished to say, Benjamin, that I will not have you press on, put yourself in harm’s way, on my account.”

I could longer remain silent. “Why do you maintain a friendship with Adelman, a man who was my father’s enemy?”

He thought to laugh, but held his laughter back, as though it would offend me. Perhaps it would have. “Who told you he and your father were enemies?” He did not pause for an answer. “Mr. Adelman and I have had dealings since he arrived on this island. Your father cared not much for his involvement with the Company, it is true, and he was a man who could little trouble himself to conceal his feelings, but they were not enemies. Merely cool acquaintances.”

Perhaps I had misunderstood my uncle. Perhaps he did only wish to see me stay clear of danger. My uncle, unlike my father, was not a coward, but I knew him to be cautious, to guard his position in the community with care, to wish always to say the right thing before the watchful eyes of our Christian neighbors. His concern made me feel ungenerous for doubting him.

Intending to change the topic, I cleared my throat and took a gulp of wine, which had cooled enough that it was pleasingly hot. “Would you object if I wished to escort Miriam to the theatre?”

He shifted uneasily in his chair. “I am not certain that the theatre is the best place for a woman such as Miriam. Perhaps some other social event,” he suggested.

“You are very protective of her,” I observed.

“She has grown up in this house since she was hardly more than a child, and she married my own son. I feel I have a great responsibility toward her.”

“A responsibility to keep her from the theatre?”

“To keep her from harm,” he corrected. “You know the sort of elements that haunt the theatre, Benjamin. And you know what a delicate thing a lady’s reputation is. To be seen simply talking with the wrong man can ruin her forever. You would not want that, I’m sure.”

“Of course not,” I said nervously. Uncle Miguel’s eyes hung upon every change in my face.

“I shall be direct with you, Benjamin. I notice that you have developed a certain fondness for Miriam. I have not inquired of the matter with her, but I believe she may have it within her to feel the same. You know that she has other suitors, but I do not believe she cares for any of them, and as I say, I wish for her happiness. But I am not such a fool as to send her off in a love match with a man who cannot do her justice.”

“I see.” I nodded, wishing nothing so much as that this conversation had never happened.

“It would be inappropriate to consider you as a suitor in your current state, but there are always options. You may know that I still have need of an agent in the Levant, and since Aaron’s death, I have not found a suitable substitute. You would have to travel a great deal, but there are many opportunities to earn a substantial fortune for both yourself and your family. And, as I’m sure you know, Miriam has one hundred a year settled on her, which should provide an initial level of comfort in establishing a household.”

“Miriam has a hundred a year?” I nearly blurted out. While it might be difficult to maintain a luxurious household upon such an amount, for a woman who had no concerns of food or rent, it was an enormous sum. I could not think why Miriam had needed to borrow money, nor why she had tried to deny that she ever made the request. “Does she receive this money now?” I asked.

“Of course. She receives quarterly payments. She received the last one only a few weeks ago. Why do you ask?”

Why did I ask, indeed. “Your offer is very generous, Uncle.” I took another drink of my wine and pushed myself to my feet, feeling the ache as I did so. “I do not wish you to think me insensible to what you propose. But I know that I am not the right man to be your Turkey merchant. And though the prize you offer is an estimable one, it shall do me little good if I am so far away.”

My uncle stood as well, and placed a hand gently upon my shoulder. “I am perhaps not the most observant man, Benjamin, but I do notice some things. Miriam chose not to travel with Aaron for certain reasons. I am not sure she would feel the same way about you. In any case, I hope you will consider what I offer you. It stands whether you marry or no. I should very much like to see you within the family trade.”

I bowed at my uncle, even as I condemned myself for the formal politeness I offered in return for his generous warmth. But I had no wish to live and trade amongst a pack of turbaned Turks, and I had less of a desire to slip so easily into the role of my dead cousin.

THE NEXT DAY I awoke to find myself stiff from the beating I had taken of Wild’s men, and the area around my right eye was purple and swollen. My uncle had already left for the warehouse by the time I came downstairs, so I sat at the breakfast table with the two ladies of the house. My aunt inquired if I had taken to fighting in the ring again. Miriam stared at me with a kind of horror.

After breakfast I followed Miriam to the parlor, where she had begun leafing through the newspapers. I could not but feel that there was a coolness in her demeanor, and I suppose there was in mine. I knew that I had no right to resent her for having a lover, but I resented her all the same. I think I wanted her to behave somehow to make my resentment disappear or to make it grow. I knew only that I cared for her and that her intrigue with a man I knew to be a rascal tormented me.

“You are to be part of the family in earnest now,” she said to me.

“My uncle has graciously permitted me to stay here during a difficult period.”

She turned a page. “He is a generous man, then.”

I stared at her. “Have I somehow offended you, Miriam?”

She looked up at me. “You know something of the social politenesses. Have you?”

Had she somehow learned about my following Deloney? If she had, would she dare confront me? I could hardly think so. “I cannot think that I have, madam.”

“Then,” she said, “it is likely you have not.”

I had no mind to play these games with her. “If you decide otherwise,” I said, “I can only hope that you will inform me of my transgression so that I may make amends.”

“You are too good,” she said, and looked back at her paper.

I had too much to do to press on, so I simply bowed and departed. I believed the hour was sufficiently seasonable, so I quit the house and made my way to Balfour’s lodgings, but I was told by his landlady that he no longer resided there. “The gentleman is now lodged with his mother,” she said. “I thought I knew his type, and I was sure I would have to call the bailiff were I ever to see the rent from the likes of him. But he gives me all what he owes me not three days ago and bids me pack up his things and send them to his mother, he says. And that’s what I done.”

I retrieved Balfour’s new address and thanked her for her time. I then hired a chair to his mother’s town house on the Tottenham Court Road. The footman had me cool my heels for well over an hour in a neatly decorated parlor before Balfour whirled into the room, looking about for something or another, which at last he placed in his pocket before turning to address me. He had, I noted, already made an appointment with a tailor, for he had traded his fine but worn suit of clothes for something much finer and newer. He wore a brownish outer coat with a burgundy waistcoat beneath, lined about the sleeve with ample gold stuff. His shirt was of the finest and cleanest white silk, and even his wig—much in the style of his old wig—was quite full, well proportioned, and properly groomed. Balfour was a new man, and he had the clothing to bespeak his newness.

“What do you want?” he asked, as though he had not known I was there and had not noticed me until that moment. He proceeded to a bookshelf, where he pretended to busy himself by searching out a volume. “And how dare you come here with that mark upon your face, looking like a brawling street ruffian.”

I thought I should like to show him how a brawling street ruffian behaved, but I concentrated on the matter at hand. “I am come to report on my progress.”

He tapped his foot, but did not turn to face me. “How dreadfully dull. Did I not ask you to stay away from here?”

“If you would prefer, we may retire to a coffeehouse to continue our business.”

“Business, is it?” He turned around to look at me, his face screwed into an expression of superior scorn—practiced for many hours before the mirror, no doubt. “That is unaccountably presumptuous, don’t you think? And why should we have business together, may I ask?”

“You did engage my services, Mr. Balfour,” I said, careful to keep my tone even.

Balfour snorted. “I suppose I did such a preposterous thing, didn’t I? Well, I repent of it now. Mother and I have mended our rift, and I need no longer trouble myself with sordid matters of stock-jobbers and Jews.”

He looked about quickly, anxious to find a definitive word to end our conversation, but I was not willing to let him go so easily. I could not say why he wished to dispose of the matter, or even that I cared, but I did think that he might have information I could use. “Tell me,” I began, as though we had been having a pleasant conversation all along, “do you know if your father had any dealings with the South Sea Company?”

“I cannot say I know or care,” he told me impatiently. “I really must demand—”

I chose not to let him demand. “Mr. Balfour, I am now absolutely convinced that my father was murdered, but I have found no evidence connecting his death to your father’s. If you wish to uncover the truth of this matter, then I shall need your cooperation at the very least.”

“My father was a silly sod,” he said. “An overreaching merchant, and nothing more. No one would bother himself to kill him. It’s time for you to depart, Weaver.”

I rose slowly. “You are no longer interested in recovering the funds you believe stolen of your father?”

“It always comes down to money with your people, does it not, Weaver? Tell me, have you heard about the little Jew fellow who tumbled to his death from the balcony of the theatre at Drury Lane? The manager kindly presented the poor, grieving mother with a bag of silver to show his regret. ‘But, sir,’ the Jewess said, ‘you must also give me a half shilling, for little Isaac saw only half the show, so he should have half the price of his ticket refunded.’ ” He burst out laughing, but it was a forced laugh. I stood impassive.

Balfour studied me for a moment and then walked to the door. “Like any other tradesman, you may submit your bill for the work you have performed. Now, I am sure you will excuse me, as I have an appointment to keep.”

I wondered how far I could push Balfour and what I would gain should I choose to continue pushing him. His rapprochement with his mother had clearly terminated any desire he had to learn of his father’s death. Was I now but an embarrassment to him? A reminder of a few dreadful months when his future was in the balance? Or had he learned something he did not wish me to know? Perhaps the connection between his father and mine was not as friendly as I had once suspected. Balfour was weak; his independence was gone, and his wealth rested in the hands of a mother for whom he cared little—a mother, I could only assume, who would torture Balfour as the price for his regained wealth. I saw I had little to lose by attempting to make him yield.

“I care nothing for any petty discomforts my inquiry brings you. And I should also remind you, sir, that I look into a matter of murder, and if you have any information that might aid my inquiry, you must offer it. If not here, or in the private place of your own choosing, then perhaps in one of His Majesty’s courts.”

Balfour studied me, and in a moment of strength that I had not been sure he possessed, he chose to disregard my warning. “Get out of my house, Weaver. I have no more business with you.”

“Very well.” I rose and tucked my hat under my arm. “I see I shall find no cooperation from you. That is your choice, but I can assure you that I am now independently interested in the death of your father, and I intend to continue my inquiry.”

“Frankly, Weaver, you may go to the deuce for all I care. What I require is that you stay out of my way.”

I smiled and stepped forward until I stood close to him—too close for his comfort. I stared, hovering over his frame. “And how do you propose to stop me, Mr. Balfour, if I should choose to do otherwise?”

Balfour stammered as he struggled to speak. “I promise you, this rudeness shall not again be tolerated.” He took a hasty step backward and struck the wall abruptly, frightening himself. “You think yourself the only man in London who knows how to defend himself? Do you think that because it would be beneath a gentleman’s honor to call you out to a duel that there are no means left to dispose of a wretch like you? Try my patience no longer, Jew. Get out.”

“You will hear from me again,” I said, as I placed my hat upon my head. “The moment I have more questions for you.”

I left Balfour standing in mute amazement, clutching his hands and certainly thanking the powers of the universe that our altercation had been without witness. For my part, I could not easily forgive this rodent who had set me upon so dangerous a course only to lose interest and obstruct my path. My anger with Balfour was so profound that I knew I should be distracted all day if I did not strike out at him, so on the way home I visited a bailiff to whom I was unknown. Assuming a false name, I swore out an arrest warrant for Balfour for the amount of fifty pounds. Nothing would come of the arrest—it would be thrown out of the courts immediately—but I took great pleasure in thinking of his confusion when spirited away from a public place by some ruffian, locked in a sponging house where he would remain until a lawyer could be procured to make the entire matter disappear.

IN PERPETRATING MY TRICKERY upon Balfour I was not aware that I was participating in a bit of irony set up for me by fate. As I walked the streets, attempting to divine the meaning behind Balfour’s rudeness, I noticed that there was a fellow some twenty feet back working to keep apace with me. When I first noticed him, I was not certain that he truly followed, so I increased my pace, dodging hastily between a woman pushing a cart of vegetables and an oyster woman crying her wares. From the peripheries of my vision I saw this fellow struggling to keep me in sight. My pursuer was shockingly tall, perhaps six feet and a half, and monstrous thin as well. His clothes were adequate and neat, like those of a respectable tradesman or lower servant, and his face had been recently shaved. In truth he appeared nothing like the sort of miscreant that Wild engaged in his employ, but the cove followed me for some reason, and, with my late-night encounter with the hackney coach still fresh in my mind, I would believe him as dangerous until he proved otherwise.

Keeping him at a distance as best I could, I slipped into an alley that I knew to have no other point of egress. It made its way straight for some hundred feet or so, and then with a sharp turn, ended another twenty feet on. The alley was a filthy affair, as people in the surrounding houses here emptied their privy stools from the windows above. Rats squeaked noisily as I quickly trotted my way through the filth, which clung about my boots and stockings. I concentrated on my goal; I pretended that I smelled nothing. I had no care for disgust, for the piles of excrement and pools of piss would serve as an effective ally, provided my pursuer’s stomach turned while mine remained calm.

And so it worked, for he entered the alley slowly, his own thin leather shoes providing not nearly the protection of my sturdier boots. I heard him as he trudged onward, cursing quietly as he waded toward me. Having passed the bend, I could not see him, but I listened to each slow, painful, repulsed step. I heard him slip, a splash, and then a volley of muttered oaths. If he had anything like the knowledge I had of the Covent Garden streets, he knew the alley to be a blind one and that he must find me cornered in the end. And so he moved on, suppressing a gag, startling at rats, wincing at the cold of his submerged feet. At last he rounded the darkened corner, and unable to see, he took a few steps forward, which was precisely what I had been waiting for.

I jumped down from the narrow walls above where I had lodged myself, and where this fellow had passed directly under me without noticing my presence. As I landed directly behind him, filth splattering the two of us, I pulled my pistol from my waistcoat and pointed it square in the fellow’s face.

“Now, my shitten friend,” I said with a sneer, “you will tell me who you are and why you follow me, or you will rot here unnoticed until the rains wash all away.”

He moved to drop to his knees, but soon thought better of it, and instead staggered to and fro, holding his hands together in supplication. “Don’t kill me, Mr. Weaver, sir. It’s my first time, it is, and I only want to do right.”

Taken aback, but still cautious, I asked who he was and why he followed me.

“I work for Justice Duncombe, sir. The justice of the peace, he is. He’s sent me to fetch you. It’s me first time for that, sir, as a constable.”

“And what does the justice want with me?” I asked, still waving the pistol in his face, though now more absently than maliciously.

“He wants you before his court, he does,” the poor constable sputtered, tears in his eyes. “You’re under arrest, you are.”

JUSTICE JOHN DUNCOMBE was something of an anomaly in London’s corrupt legal system. He was a trading justice, to be sure, and would sell a verdict for even a slight consideration rather than pass an opportunity to augment his income. Yet if there was no bribe to be lost he did not, like so many other trading justices, shirk his responsibilities or rule with arbitrary cruelty. Rather, unfettered by the bonds of corruption, he chose to pursue true justice vigorously and often wisely. It was said of John Duncombe that the corruption of justice was his business, but the pursuit of justice was his pleasure.

I could not say if it was for business or pleasure that Duncombe had brought me into his rooms on Great Hart Street. I waited in anticipation, along with the constable, both of us attracting looks of derision from whores and pickpockets, until Duncombe called us before his bench.

He held his court in a largish space attached to his own lodgings upstairs. Perhaps previous tenants had once used the room for balls or other such entertainment, but now it merely housed only the most wretched of the London streets. The judge sat behind his imposing desk toward one end of the room, surrounded by his constables and clerks and servants. His desk was covered with a pile of documents, a few legal books strewn about, and a large bottle of port wine, from which he frequently refilled his glass. At the height of the afternoon, such as it was, the court was not full of the most wretched that could expect to pass through its doors. Duncombe’s custom was to handle first thing in the morning the nightly crop of prostitutes, the drunkards, the late-night mischief-makers, house-breakers, footpads, and the other criminals rounded up by the night watch.

During the day, a judge like Duncombe would attend to business held over from these criminals—such as reviewing the case of a vagrant he had committed to a few weeks of labor in Bridewell—or he would take depositions or review matters of somewhat larger consequence as they trickled in before him.

Duncombe was an aging, jowl-heavy man, with small eyes and an enormous bewarted nose. He remained in possession of only a small number of teeth, and his face collapsed grotesquely about the mouth area, giving him a look of an empty satchel dangling below a yellowing wig. I watched, but could not hear as he spoke to a woman who stood before him. She was young, filthy from the kennel of the streets, and her clothes did little more than cover the most delicate secrets of her female anatomy. Duncombe asked her questions with a stony face. She replied with sobs. Finally the justice made a pronouncement of some sort, and the woman fell to her knees and thanked God loudly. One of the constables came by and helped her to her feet and led her out as she praised Duncombe wholeheartedly. I hoped her happiness boded well for me.

“Mr. Benjamin Weaver?” he pronounced my name loudly so that his voice would carry. Duncombe scanned the courtroom until his eyes landed on me. He refused to establish any intimacy with me, though he knew me well; I frequented his court as a witness when I brought forth prigs I apprehended and visited him with some regularity to obtain warrants and to procure a constable for arrests, but Duncombe cared not much for thief-takers, and he believed I must be as dishonest as most of that trade.

“Step forward,” he intoned. “But not too much forward, if you please.”

I approached the bench and attempted to ignore the laughter around me.

“How came you to be so befouled?” he asked me. “You have frequented this court, but I believe this is the first time you have done so while covered with kennel water.”

“As I walked down the street, your honor, I found that I was pursued by a strange man. Not knowing him to be an officer of this court, I thought my life in danger. I sought shelter in an alleyway, which was, unfortunately, notable only for its filth.”

He regarded me gravely. “Do you always run from strangers, Mr. Weaver?”

“This is London, your honor. Who that wishes to stay alive does not run from strangers?”

Those who had heard my retort laughed with appreciation. Even the judge smirked a bit.

“I call you here in the matter regarding one Kate Cole, who is to stand trial in two weeks’ time for the crime of murder. Your name has been implicated in this case, and I have been asked to take your deposition.”

I believe my appearance betrayed nothing of my shock, but I felt as though I had been once again struck from behind by Wild’s ruffians. I like to think that I put my life as a criminal behind me in part because I could not condone the immorality of a criminal life. While that is true to some extent, it is no doubt equally true that as a thief-taker I did not expose myself to the haphazard rulings of the legal system. I mean no disrespect to the gentlemen of the bench, but it is no secret that our system of justice, praised throughout Europe for its severity and its swiftness, is a terrible and fearful thing, and no man, guilty or innocent, wishes to stand before it.

Thus my fear was well justified. Had I never in my life heard of Kate Cole nor knew the slightest thing of what the judge spoke, it would in no way guarantee I would not wind up dangling at the end of a rope at Tyburn Tree. I knew I would have to proceed slowly and carefully. “I have nothing to depose,” I said, trying hard to look tired and confused. “I have no knowledge of this matter.” It was a ticklish business, and while I did not like perjuring myself before the law, I felt I had no choice. To tell the truth in this matter would be to compromise Sir Owen’s anonymity, which I had promised to protect. All I could do for the nonce was to attempt to gain more time.

“You have never heard of Kate Cole?” the judge asked skeptically.

“Never,” I said.

“That rather saves me some time, then, doesn’t it?”

And it was then that I knew that this was a financial matter, not a juridical one. Duncombe would not have dropped the deposition so quickly were it justice instead of silver he chased. I took this development ill; if Duncombe was being paid to involve me in this, then any bribe I might offer, and that he would accept, would do me little good. It was the rule of trading justices to take bribes from all parties but to favor the most powerful. I was no match for Wild in this regard.

“I shall indicate that you deny all knowledge of this person and her crimes,” Duncombe said. “However, you must be informed that her trial is to take place at the Old Bailey in exactly two weeks’ time, and that you must be prepared to be called as a witness for the defense. You are not to leave London between now and that time, for this court might have need of you again. Do you understand, Mr. Weaver?”

I nodded. “I believe I understand quite clearly, your honor.”

“Then it is my advice that you bathe.”

With that Duncombe dismissed me, and after offering a sympathetic clap on the shoulder of my miserable constable, I left the justice’s offices with a feeling of dejection. In my mind I could see myself standing before the bar at Kate Cole’s murder trial. And while I was willing to lie before someone such as Duncombe, I did not feel willing to perjure myself at a murder trial in the Old Bailey. Should it come to that, I would be forced to tell the truth, and I was therefore obliged to let Sir Owen know what turn events had taken.

Duncombe had said that I was to be a witness for the defense. That meant that it was not Wild, but Kate, who had offered my name, for there was no reason why Wild would want to see a woman defended whose conviction would yield him forty pounds. Yet I could not fathom how Kate could have learned of my name, or if she had, what she had to gain by involving me without first seeking me out. She surely understood that I was anxious to keep my name out of her trial and would have gone to great lengths to do just that. It was possible that Wild had indeed thrown my name into the matter in order to play me against Kate. Was it his hope that he could hang Kate and ruin my reputation with a single stroke? I could not even begin to guess. Elias had advised that I inquire into these matters using probability, not facts, but for probability there needed at least to be logic, and here I could find none.