A Conspiracy of Paper

FOUR

I EXPERIENCED A wide mixture of feelings the next day as I awaited Sir Owen’s arrival. I was gratified that I had been able to retrieve his pocketbook so rapidly, but I was also apprehensive about Jemmy’s death. I replayed that instant a hundred times in my mind, wondering if I had missed an opportunity to extricate myself from my danger without taking a life. I could not see that I had acted too quickly or too rashly, but I remained shaken and in no small way concerned.

I continued to doubt my decision to let Kate walk free, for were my name to be drawn into the matter too long after the incident, my hesitation to come forward should certainly appear as guilt. It was not yet too late for me to tell my tale to the magistrate if I wished. I had spent time as an outlaw and I had lived among outlaws—I did not choose to turn a woman over to hanging simply because I believed it the most expedient path.

You can see then, reader, why Mr. Balfour’s pronouncement that my father had been murdered left me so vulnerable, for the events of the previous night had certainly heightened my sensibilities. It took near an hour after Balfour’s departure for me to calm myself, and just as my feelings had begun to settle, Mrs. Garrison showed in Sir Owen. I had contacted him early that morning to let him know the pocketbook was in my possession, and when he arrived he strolled in with unbridled jollity. Approaching my desk, from whence I stood to greet the baronet, he clapped me heartily on the arm as if I were one of his gaming partners.

“This is good news, Weaver,” he said, bouncing himself happily upon the balls of his feet. “Good news, indeed. These shall be the best fifty pounds I have ever spent.”

I unlocked the desk drawer, removed the pocketbook, and held it out to him. He grabbed it as I have seen tigers on display in Smithfield snatch their daily meat. Indeed, I thought there was something like hunger as he unclasped the leather strip that bound the book and began to thumb anxiously through the loose pieces of paper contained therein. I sat down, trying to appear as though I did something other than peer at the book’s contents. Sir Owen had been injudicious to carry the book about him—I spotted the banknotes he had spoken of; had Jemmy or Kate known what they were, they surely would have used them as cash, but Sir Owen took no pleasure at their safe return. As the baronet neared a complete review of the contents of the book, he grew increasingly apprehensive, turning pages with greater urgency. The look of exuberance left his wide face, and only the outline of his jolly countenance remained upon his now-ashen features.

“It’s not here,” he muttered, starting again from the front of the book. He turned the pages so rapidly I should have been surprised had he found anything at all. I do not even think he still looked; panic now drove him to continue turning the leaves. “Not here,” he said again. “Not here at all.”

I had no idea what it was he could not find, but I felt a pressing concern. I had presumed that once the baronet left my rooms he would have his book upon him, and the matter would be closed. That no longer appeared to be the case. “What is missing, Sir Owen?”

He froze for a moment and then confronted me with a cold glare. I had been so used to seeing the baronet cheerful and merry that I had not considered that, like all men, he could know his share of rage. The severity of his gaze told me that he suspected me of taking whatever it was that he missed. In truth, I had not even looked through his book but to determine that it was indeed his. I admit that if the evening had not ended in violence, I would surely have been tempted to examine the contents more closely, and I might even have given in to the temptation, but the taint of blood upon my hands inspired me to remain sinless in all other respects.

Yet, as Sir Owen studied me, I felt myself awash in guilt—the guilt that only the innocent feel when under close scrutiny. It is an inexplicable thing. I have been guilty of many things in my life, and when confronted I always faced my accusers with calm assurance. Now, under Sir Owen’s condemnatory gaze, I colored and grew anxious. The book, after all, had been my responsibility. Had I dropped something? Had I not been sufficiently diligent in searching Kate’s room? My mind examined every possible avenue of failure.

It was this senseless guilt he responded to. Sir Owen’s eyes narrowed. He stood up so as to raise himself to an intimidating height. “Do you seek to trifle with me, sir?” he asked in a low growl. I could smell his sour breath from where I sat.

I felt the muscles in my face shift from aimless guilt to burning indignation. Now that the accusation had been uttered, I arose to a more defiant stance. I realized, however, that my reputation would not be served by any visible display of anger, so, calming myself, I met Sir Owen’s accusation directly. “Sir, you said you came on the recommendations of many gentlemen. I defy you to find one who would impute that I had deceived him in any way, under any conditions. Do you wish to give me the lie?”

I must say with all humility that, though no longer in my prime and certainly no longer the man I had been when I fought in the ring, I cut an imposing figure. Sir Owen shrank from me. He took a step back, and lowered his eyes. He did not, apparently, wish to give me the lie at all. “I am sorry, Mr. Weaver. It is only that there is something yet missing. Something to me more valuable than all the information and banknotes in this book.” He sat back down. “Perhaps it is my own doing. I should have made certain you knew to look for it.” He lowered his face into his cupped hands.

“What is this thing that you have lost?” I asked in a gentler tone. Sir Owen had softened—almost broken—and I considered it prudent I soften as well.

He looked up, despondence inscribed upon his once-jovial features. “It is a bundle of papers, sir.” He cleared his throat and attempted to regain his calm. “Papers of a personal nature.”

I began to understand the situation more clearly. “Is there anything else missing, Sir Owen?”

“Nothing of importance.” He shook his head slowly. “Nothing I can see.”

“And would someone inspecting your book know these papers were valuable to you?”

“Someone would who knew enough of me. And such a man would know how much I would value their return.” He thought for a moment. “But there are several pages, and this person would have to read everything. And, as I say, this person would have to know much of my private life.”

“Yet,” I mused aloud, “surely anyone literate enough to know the value of a packet of private letters would know the value of the banknotes yet in your book. Are any of your banknotes missing?”

“I think not. No.”

“It seems to me unlikely that the papers have been intentionally taken,” I reasoned. “For who would steal the papers and then neglect these notes? Is it possible that these papers might have fallen out? That they might not have been clasped securely within the book?”

Sir Owen reflected upon this observation for a moment. His face was suddenly creased with lines, and his eyes were bloodshot. “It is possible,” he said. “I cannot say for certain how rough things became with the whore, you know. And once my goods were in her possession, she may not have known to be careful. They might have fallen out, certainly.”

“But you think it unlikely?”

“Mr. Weaver, I must have these papers returned.” Sir Owen crossed his legs and then crossed them back the other way. “I shall give you an additional fifty pounds to retrieve them. One hundred pounds if you can do so within twenty-four hours.”

I had ample use for the money, but I saw now a greater opportunity for service. If I could remedy Sir Owen’s matter, I knew, he would not be illiberal in his praise of me thereafter. “You offered me before fifty pounds for the return of your pocketbook and its contents. I have not yet fulfilled the contract. I shall find these papers, sir, and ask nothing more of you.”

Sir Owen brightened a little. “Did you, by any chance, inspect the area around which the book had been stashed, or among my other belongings?”

“Sir, there was no time. I am afraid my encounter with the woman went somewhat shakily.” I proceeded to inform Sir Owen of the previous evening’s adventure. This confession was unguarded, but I felt the need to secure the baronet’s trust. And I knew that he understood his implication in this matter quite clearly, for I could not be brought forward for punishment without exposing Sir Owen’s secret. He listened to my story with grave concentration. “Gad,” he breathed. “This is a serious dilemma. You know that this whore must never speak. She must not be permitted to drag you into a trial, and you must not drag my name into it. You understand that such a thing cannot happen.” His voice rose with increasing levels of panic. “I cannot allow that such a thing could ever happen.”

“Of course,” I said, as if soothing a child. “You have made it clear that your privacy is of the utmost importance, and I shall treat it as such. In the meantime, I believe I have imparted unto Kate the importance of keeping silent and leaving London. There is little to fear on that head.” I overstated the case, but it was important that I resolve the baronet’s anxieties. There would be ample time to manage Kate Cole should she prove unruly. “We must concentrate now on finding your property. If these papers have fallen out of your book, or happened to be among any other possessions, then they are still among Kate’s goods now, wherever that may be.”

Sir Owen let out an exasperated sigh, and seeing him to be in need, I stood up to gather for him some refreshment. “Might I pour you some wine?”

He looked flushed. “I fear wine will not do the business, sir. Have you any gin?”

I had not. I knew too well the insidiousness of gin from the unfortunates with whom my trade brought me into almost daily contact. Cheap, flavorless, and potent, it ravaged both the minds and bodies of countless thousands in London, and I ill-trusted my indulgent nature with so powerful a poison. Instead, I offered Sir Owen a dram of a Scottish liquor that my friend Elias Gordon had brought me back from his native land upon his last visit. Sir Owen sniffed the dram glass with hesitant curiosity, squinting at the liquor’s sharp, malty odor. Absently nodding as I warned him of the drink’s great strength, he proceeded to probe it with his tongue. What he found excited his curiosity, and he then swallowed the contents with a mighty gulp. “Wretched,” he said after screwing his face into a look of both disgust and a kind of surprised enjoyment. “The Scots are certainly animals. But it does the business.” He helped himself to another glass.

I took my seat again and studied Sir Owen carefully, attempting to gauge his mood. His agitation thickened the room like summer humidity, and I wished to comfort him, though I knew not how. I could not imagine the nature of these documents, but I assumed the baronet feared some knowledge contained therein falling into the wrong hands. “Sir,” I began hesitantly, “I wish to retrieve your private papers. I do not think all is lost. I have many contacts in London; I can find Kate Cole, and she can bring me the documents. But,” I said slowly, “I must be able to recognize this packet when I see it. I must be able to tell I have your papers, sir. And that I have all of them.”

He nodded. “I see that I am exposed before you, Mr. Weaver. My own foolishness, many times over, has put me in this situation, and now I must rectify it. So be it.” He straightened himself into a posture of fortitude. “I shall have to trust you.”

“I assure you that I shall never reveal your secrets.”

He smiled as to show his faith in me. “Do you, Mr. Weaver, trouble yourself with the matters of fashionable life—marriages and those sorts of affairs?”

I shook my head. “I fear my business does not leave me the time for pursuits of that nature.”

“Then you will not have heard that in two months I am to be married to the only daughter of Godfrey Decker, the brewer. Decker is a rich man, and his daughter comes with a considerable portion, but I care nothing for the wealth. It is a love match.”

I awkwardly offered a sympathetic nod. I wished to avoid any appearance of cynicism, but while I considered Sir Owen to be a man of many feelings, I was not convinced tender love was among them.

“There has been some talk,” he continued, “for it is scarce a year since my late wife, Anne, passed on. You must not think that I was, or still am, unaffected by her loss. I loved her very dearly, but mine is a susceptible heart, and in the loneliness that comes with a widower’s state, Sarah Decker has brought me much contentment and happiness. Yet the passing of my wife is no simple matter, sir, for she died of a disease that she contracted of me.” He paused for a deep breath and then turned away. “A disease that I, in turn, contracted of an amour.”

“I understand,” I said after a moment, wanting to fill in the silence but feeling foolish for having said anything at all. Sir Owen would hardly be the first fashionable gentleman in London to have clapped his own wife. I shall not understand why so many men refuse to take the trouble of procuring the armor of sheep intestines to guard against Cupid’s most pernicious arrows.

“I had always responded so well to the treatments the surgeons offered, but the disease proved too much for Anne’s delicate constitution. Perhaps because she knew not what she had and waited too long to seek help.”

I had no skills to find the right words and I could only wait for him to continue.

“I fully intend to reform my behavior once married to Sarah,” Sir Owen continued. He sniffled a little and I thought I saw something vaguely tearlike in his eye. “I am a changed man. The papers that are missing testify to that. It is a series of letters, Mr. Weaver, between me and my dear, lost Anne, in which I express in damningly unambiguous terms the nature of my transgression and a spirited and sentimental desire to reform. A reader of these letters would quickly discern the nature of her disease and the nature of its contraction. I have tried very hard to conceal this information from Sarah, who is a virtuous young woman of exceptional delicacy. Should she learn of the contents of these letters, I fear she would sever our connection. And if some unscrupulous villain were to learn of the contents, he would have me at a terrifying disadvantage.” He poured himself another dram of the Scottish liquor. “I can only hope the letters remain sealed. I kept them about me wrapped in a yellow ribbon, with a wax seal bearing the imprint of a cracked shilling. A broken seal I should see as the worst news in the world.” He lifted the glass and swallowed hard.

“I cannot risk these letters falling in with a man like Wild. He should rake me over the coals before returning to me what is mine. But your reputation precedes you, sir. I believe you to be the only man in London who has both the knowledge and the integrity to retrieve what I have lost.”

I bowed at Sir Owen. “As it is a matter of delicacy, you are certainly right to come to me rather than to have gone to Wild.”

“You see why I am very much in your power.”

“As I am in yours,” I returned. “For you know of my involvement in a man’s death. We are thus beholden to each other, and neither man may fear the indiscretion of the other.”

He brightened considerably at this observation, and I must confess that I was no longer horrified that the matter was not yet concluded. I even felt somewhat relieved. Had I returned the pocketbook and its contents been intact, then the matter would have been resolved. I would have had to wait to learn if there would be any consequences of Jemmy’s death. Sir Owen’s missing letters gave me license to involve myself in the matter once more. I could not say if this involvement would prove to my benefit, but by taking action I would feel less powerless.

“I shall begin my search for these letters immediately,” I told Sir Owen, “and this search shall be my first priority until they are recovered. If I have any news, sir, any news at all, I shall not hesitate to send it to you.”

Sir Owen rolled the glass between his hands. “Thank you, Weaver. I flatter myself that I shall see my letters soon. You do understand, sir, that if you must ask questions of any of these scoundrels, you should make no reference to what these papers contain.”

“Of course.”

“My happiness, you see, is in your hands.” He turned to my window and stared outward. “Sarah is such a lovely woman. So very delicate.”

“I am sure you are a most fortunate man.” My words sounded to me hollow platitudes.

After making certain there was nothing else of use Sir Owen could tell me, I showed him out and began to formulate a plan of action. I decided the most effective course would be to visit some of the unpleasant institutions I knew of, in which the dark engineers of the underworld convened to discuss their business and unburden their minds in fellowship. Such a place was a gin shop on Little Warner Street, near Hockley-in-the-Hole—a place equally repulsive to the senses of smell and sight, for it was so close to that fetid sewer known as the Fleet Ditch that it was not uncommon for the entire place to be flooded with the sickening scent of kennel and waste. This gin house had no proper name, and the sign above it was merely a faded image of two horses drawing a cart—a remnant of a previous shop. Among its patrons, the house was known as Bawdy Moll’s, for its proprietress was an affectionate and buxom woman whose onset of middle years she combated with an excess of concupiscence and a minimum of attire.

I entered Bawdy Moll’s in the early afternoon; the place was then far less inhabited than in the busy nighttime hours, when impoverished men sought refuge from their lives in pints of gin sold for almost nothing. A penny or two was enough to transport the most miserable of sods to a painless realm of drunken oblivion. In the afternoon, however, the shop served a more sporadic sort—perhaps the petty thief or pickpocket seeking refuge from a job turned sour, the beggar who had chosen to surrender his pennies for drink rather than food, or the out-of-work laborer who preferred to face a senseless stupor rather than a heartless London that would care not a whit for his starvation.

There were also the visitors who came each Monday and Thursday to see the bullbaiting. On other days one could find a variety of different exhibits to be seen in Hockley-in-the-Hole. In my younger years, I had been one of them, for before I had taken to fighting exclusively with my fists, I had been part of a troupe of sword-fighters who demonstrated for paying crowds the noble art of self-defense. Such things are no longer seen today, but as a young man I had marched about the city amidst a troop of fighters clad in our poor and tattered estimation of military uniforms, drums a-beating, while boys passed around handbills detailing the thrills of our shows. During my days sword-fighting at a ramshackle outdoor theater near Oxford Street, I would risk life and limb with another man as we demonstrated our daring skill with our swords, each of us trying to best his opponent without doing him any serious harm. Despite our efforts to spare one another, I was usually bloodied and covered with cuts by the end of a performance, and I have many a scar upon my body to testify to these exploits. When the theatrical manager asked me if I wished to earn my bread by fighting with fists only, I confess I was delighted at the prospect of so painless an employment.

I suppose I was prone to reminisce about those awful times, but the gin house quickly reminded me of what life engendered in that part of town. Bawdy Moll’s had few windows, for her patrons had no wish to see the world around them, and they had less of a wish for the world outside to look in. I braced myself against the stink as I saw Bawdy Moll, who stood behind the counter talking excitedly with a haggard-looking cutpurse whose name I knew but whose acquaintance I had never sought. They both hovered over a pile of papers that from where I stood I recognized as tickets for the illegal lottery that Moll, like so many tavern-owners in that part of the city, ran from her place of business. The drawings were always biased, rigged, and small, and the revenue from them added handsomely to Moll’s purse.

Moll wore her hair high, in a grotesque parody of the ladies’ fashion. Her dress opened wide at the neck to reveal an ample if withered bosom, and the paint upon her face bespoke a woman who believed these artificial and conspicuous colorings had power not to deceive but to blind, for her skin put me in mind of bark ready to drop from the tree. Grotesque as she was, Moll was well loved, and she frequently provided me with valuable news of back streets and thieves’ dens.

Upon my entrance the cutpurse looked up from his conversation with Moll and scowled. I heard the words “Weaver the Jew,” but I could discern no more. It was often hard for me to ascertain my status among such men. I had friends within the armies of prigs, but I had enemies too—and I knew that their master, Jonathan Wild, encouraged no fellowship between their ranks and me. I assumed this man to be a fellow who took Wild’s advice to heart, for as I approached Moll he finished hard his pint of gin—throwing back a quantity that should have caused a healthy man to lose his senses—and stalked into the dark shadows of the gin house where there were always piles of straw for the poor and the desperate to crawl into and sleep off their poison.

“Ben Weaver,” Moll called out as I approached, as always speaking more loudly than she needed. “A glass of wine for ya, then, me ’andsome spark?” Moll knew enough that I would not partake of gin, and I accepted with good humor a glass of her vinegary wine, of which I sipped only enough to be polite.

“Good day to you, Moll,” I said as she rubbed my arm with a leathery hand, her sausage-like fingers clinging absently to me. There was no getting what one wanted from this woman without indulging her need to feel desirable. “I trust your pleasant company keeps your business healthy?”

“Aye, business is brisk. A penny a glass is a small business, it is, but counting the coins is a fine enough occupation, I reckon.” She gently pulled at the tie of my hair. “How many of them would it take to buy yer company, I wonder?”

“Not many,” I said with a smile that would have been unconvincing in a better-lit room, “but I find I have little time at the moment.”

“Yer always a busy man, Ben. Ye must make time for yer pleasures.”

“My business is my pleasure, Moll. You know that.”

“That’s right unnatural,” she assured me with a coo.

“What news,” I responded, as though it were the perfectly correct response to her amorous oglings, “have you heard upon the street?”

I cannot claim to be astonished that the first news upon her lips was of Jemmy’s death, for word of a murder spread like the French pox in London’s dark quarters. “ ’E was shot dead, ’e was. You knew ’im?”

“I met him but briefly,” I told her.

“ ’E wasn’t much, I reckon, but ’e ’ardly deserved to be shot like a dog, such as ’e was. Like a dog.” She scratched her head. “ ’E wasn’t much smarter’n a dog, though, was ’e? And vicious too, with a taste for young girls—young, I say—whether they would or no. Now that I think on it, gettin’ ’imself shot down was just the thing for a bastard like ’im.” She shrugged at her own observation.

“Who shot him?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

“ ’Is ’ore,” she leaned forward and spoke in what I can only describe as a shouting whisper. “Kate Cole’s ’er name. Jemmy and Kate kept a buttock an’ twang together, but if anyone was to shoot anyone I would have thought ’e’d ’ave done ’er in, not t’other way, for she ’ad a few other coves what she kept, and she even spent a night or two with Wild ’imself.”

“She was Wild’s whore?”

“Well, who ain’t? I won’t say I ’aven’t ’ad a tumble with the great man meself, but Jemmy was a man quick with his anger, and if Wild’s to keep his prigs in line he oughtn’t to make them want to kill ’em. All’s the more wonder that ’e done what ’e done.”

“And what has he done?” I asked.

“Why ’e’s ’peached ’er, ’e ’as. Wild turned ’is own ’ore in. Now I’ve seen ’im do it many a time and often with a prig what ’e couldn’t trust no more, but to ’peach a woman what you’ve swived not a week before shows a lack of”—she fumbled for a word—“manners, I should think. Now the poor lass is sittin’ in Newgate. How long before she gets what all women get there, I wonder? All those men there, looking for distraction. I got it sure enough in my day.”

My innards writhed as I listened to Moll’s cackling speculations, for if Kate had been arrested she would have no reason not to speak of my involvement. It was true that though she had no idea who I was, she did know what I had been after, and if she had only the slightest grain of cunning she would know that the goods I had sought were the key to her surviving the next hanging day.

“What does Kate have to say about all this?”

“I should ’ardly know.” Though I could see little humor in the question, Moll burst into an uproarious laugh that sounded to me like a seagull’s cry. “I suppose ye better go down to Newgate and ask ’er yerself what opinion she has of the matter.”

Such was my intention. So, doing my best to conceal my panic before Moll, I made some small chat with her for a little while, pretended to seek information on a house broken into, and then made my first convenient escape.