A Conspiracy of Paper

SIX

RATHER THAN RETURN HOME I went immediately to the vicinity of Bloomsbury Square, where my friend Elias Gordon took a lodging he could ill afford on Gilbert Street. I was younger in those days, and required little in the way of assistance, but at times when I could not adequately serve one of my patrons without some aid, I was accustomed to calling on Elias, a Scottish surgeon and a trusted friend. I met Elias after my last fight, when I had so permanently damaged my leg. It had been during my third pitched battle with Guido Gabrianelli, that Italian whom I had beaten twice before and whose beatings had earned me so much notoriety.

Gabrianelli had come from Padua, where he was known as the Human Mallet or some other such rot uttered in his native and effeminate tongue. I had boxed against foreign men before; Mr. Habakkuk Yardley, who arranged my fights, loved a match against foreigners, for Englishmen gladly paid forth their shillings to see one of their countrymen—or even a Jew they could pretend was a true Englishman—fight a Frenchified dandy. There was something rather leveling about the conflicts of fists—Jews became Englishmen and all foreigners became Frenchmen.

This Human Mallet Gabrianelli arrived in England, and without so much as inquiring of me or Mr. Yardley about arranging a pitched battle, he proceeded to publish the most infuriating notice in the Daily Advertiser:

It has come to my attention that there is a Boxer on this island who is credited with the strength of a Samson—one Benjamin Weaver, who calls himself the Lion of Judah. But if he claims he can beat me, I call him the Liar of Judah. In my native Italy no one dares fight me, for I break every opponent’s jaw with my fist. Let us see if this Weaver has the courage to match his strength with mine. Standing ready and at his service, I am

Guido Gabrianelli, the Human Mallet

My fellow-fighters and I were astonished at the belligerence of this foreigner. It was no uncommon thing for boxers to take out provoking notices in this paper, but one usually waited until a conflict had produced a grudge—to begin a relationship with a grudge was a very preposterous thing. But Mr. Yardley saw that there was silver in Gabrianelli’s absurdity, and that these flamboyant boasts should draw us a pretty crowd. So while he made arrangements with this worthy, I replied in kind, taking out my own advertisement, which Mr. Yardley had advised me to make as provoking as I could.

Let Mr. Gabrianelli, this fighter from Italy, be aware that I am ready and eager to box with him at a moment’s notice. I do not doubt the veracity of his claims that in his native land he breaks every opponent’s jaw with his fist, but Mr. Gabrianelli ought to be advised that here he will be fighting men of grit, and I have reason to doubt that he could break a Briton’s jaw with an anvil. Should Mr. Gabrianelli be reckless enough to agree to the challenge he has proposed, I heartily hope all natives of this Island will attend to see what happens to foreigners who come to these shores to make idle boasts to,

Ben. Weaver

This fight became the talk of the votaries of the art of pugilism, and it proved to be better attended than we had dared to hope, bursting to its very capacity Mr. Yardley’s theatre in Southwark. Indeed, the take at the door was in excess of one hundred and fifty pounds, of which Yardley took a third and the fighters each a third.

Gabrianelli arrived looking like a game-enough boxer. I had seen this man once before, and that at a distance, as he paraded about town in his silly red suit, dandified with stuff and ribbons, and from the look of him I thought any Briton at all should be able to fell the Italian with no greater weapon than his breath. Now, stripped as we both were to naught but our breeches, stockings, and pumps, I could see he was a man of some muscle. More than that, he had a frighteningly bestial quality about him, for beneath his freshly shaved head, his back and chest were matted with thick black hair like an ape of Africa. The crowd, too, had been expecting a silly fop who knew not enough to remove his wig for the match, and many stared in mute amazement at this shaggy creature as he lumbered back and forth along his end of the ring, flexing the muscles of his chest and arms.

My concerns, at least for this fight, proved groundless. Once the battle began, Gabrianelli lashed out with a powerful blow to my chin. It came quite suddenly, and it hurt tremendously, I admit, but I made a show of demonstrating to the cheering crowds that my jaw was not broken. I turned my back to my opponent and slapped my own face lightly on either side, which gesture awarded me an uproarious cheer.

Gabrianelli attempted to sneak up behind me, to take advantage of my antics. I knew my behavior was dangerous, but it pleased the crowd, and thus it pleased Mr. Yardley, who was never ungenerous with bonuses for his best fighters, just as he was merciless to his fighters who lost too often. In any event, I ducked just in time to evade a powerful blow of this Human Mallet, and taking advantage of my crouched position, I lashed out with a right fist pointed directly to his gut, cutting upward just as I made contact, in the hopes of lifting him into the air.

I succeeded. It is no idle boast that I sent him reeling backward, as though blown by a great gust of wind, until his feet met the railing of the ring, and he tripped over, falling onto an eager gathering of spectators, who joined in the fun by beating him down until he grew quite intertwined with the thicket of legs. The crowd was now wild, and I raised my hands in victory, even as I taunted Gabrianelli to return to the ring. He lay motionless for only a second, and then he stirred, rising to his feet, his mouth agape with confusion. When he turned to look upon me, I saw that his face, along with much of his bald head, had turned a blinding crimson, and he began waving a fist about him in a challenging manner, shouting something in his own whimsical language.

Mr. Yardley, a notorious fighter in his own day, now grown fat and jolly, called to me from below, “I think he’s challenging you, Ben.”

“Challenging me to what?” I inquired with some difficulty, for my jaw had already grown sore from the blow it had taken. “This is a boxing ring. What more of a challenge could he desire?”

As it happened, he wished to challenge me to a duel of blades. It seemed that in Italy, one never strikes an opponent in the stomach. It is considered unmanly. There, I suppose, they simply strike one another in the face all day—making it no surprise that these jaws of theirs shatter so routinely. Gabrianelli believed that I had committed an outrage and refused to step into the ring again with a man who knew no honor. I was thus declared a winner, and Mr. Yardley narrowly averted a riot, for the crowd began to murmur with rage that they had paid a shilling to see only three punches thrown. By announcing that their admission fee had paid for them to witness proof of the strength of the Briton over the foreigner, Yardley saved his neck and our proceeds.

My reputation only grew as a result of this match, and while I continued to fight, and quite frequently win, all about the city—in Smithfield, Moorfields, St. George’s Fair Grounds, as well as Yardley’s theatre at Southwark—Gabrianelli crawled off to lick his wounds and to learn that in England boxing is more than just an endless volley of jaw-pummeling. After spending some months sparring in the British fashion, he sent me another challenge, which I happily answered. Gabrianelli had improved his skills, but I found him still weak about the middle section. He struck me in the jaw. I returned in the stomach. He launched another peg to my face, and I to his middle. This continued, almost monotonously, for a quarter of an hour, until out of pure spite I aimed a blow as hard as I could to his chin, sending him down on his back. I ran over, ready to serve him more of the same, though I could not believe that his jaw had taken any more punishment than had my hand, for Gabrianelli had a solid chin, and it hurt far less to punch him about the middle. Further blows, fortunately, were not called for, for he lay still, his arms high above his head, his legs curled up like a baby’s. It was a position from which he did not stir for a full half an hour.

When Yardley and I received our third challenge of Gabrianelli, we little thought to accept it. It was unclear that the crowd would pay to see me beat this man a third time, but while we hesitated, Gabrianelli assaulted us with insulting advertisements almost daily, first calling me coward and buffoon. I laughed these insults off, but when he changed his tack to calling me a coward from an island of cowards and a British buffoon, the most laughable kind of buffoon in the world, Yardley believed these insults should produce a sufficient interest in the match. Indeed, the crowds did turn out for this third fight. I had grown overconfident of my abilities to defeat this man, which was foolish of me, for I knew Gabrianelli to have some true skill; I had tasted myself the power of his blows. But I believed too strongly in my own previous victories, and the bets placed on the fight echoed my confidence, for the odds that I should lose were placed at twenty to one.

My opponent had trained for this fight. I later learned that he had spent hours allowing men to strike him in the stomach, hoping to build an endurance. Now, when I began, as I had before, with a frenzied assault upon his middle, he manfully withstood my blows. He continued with his own strategy of pummeling me about my face, and I, with an equally masculine resolve, withstood his best. We beat each other fiercely for the better part of an hour until my naked skin glistened with sweat and his black hair clumped in ugly tangles about his body. This fight lasted so long that I believe the crowd began to grow restless, for by the end we circled one another listlessly, as though underwater, aiming blows, or slowly avoiding them.

It was then that he hit me. It was a marvelous and artful punch, one I did not believe him to have in reserve. He aimed directly at my jaw, and in my weariness I did not see it coming. Or rather, I did see it coming, but I could not quite remember what to do about a punch aimed full to my face. I watched it sail toward me like some demon bird, until he struck me hard upon my chin. I remember thinking, as a hot, obscuring whiteness clouded my vision, and I lost all sense of balance, that I should be the object of unceasing ridicule if my jaw should indeed be broken. My concern was misplaced, for my jaw survived the day with only a severe swelling, but the force of Gabrianelli’s blow knocked me backward and quite out of the ring in a mirror image of our first match.

I cannot easily describe what I felt—confusion, horror, shame, and a kind of focused agony so intense that I could not even tell if it was pain at all or something entirely new to my experience. At first I could not quite locate its source, but as my vision cleared, I noted with the kind of calm acceptance that sometimes befalls the victims of misfortune that my left leg lay at the most damnable angle. Upon flying from the ring, my right foot had caught upon the very edge of the stage, and I landed hard upon my left shin, which broke in two separate places.

As the shock of the moment wore off, my torment, the likes of which I hope never to know again, rendered me insensible, and I must rely on Elias’s account of what happened next.

Then a complete stranger to me, Elias Gordon had chosen, in a gambler’s panic, to bet a hundred pounds against the favored fighter. When I landed against the ground in a twisted heap, he had jumped up and shouted “Two thousand pounds!” at the very top of his voice. I do not believe he had ever been in possession of so massive a sum before, and overwhelmed with the possibilities that my misfortune had provided for him, he arranged with Mr. Yardley that he should tend to me himself at no charge. My supposed friend, Yardley, was agreeable, for Elias expressed some concern over the injury. The break was serious enough that he considered my life to hang in the balance for the next few days, and should I live, he doubted that I should ever walk again, and fully dismissed the idea that I should ever fight again. Like all medical men, Elias perhaps exaggerated the dangers of my condition, so if matters turned out badly his predictions would prove accurate, and if I recovered he should appear a miracle worker. Mr. Yardley listened to Elias’s evaluation and pronounced that it was all one to him and that he had no regard for ruined fighters; I never saw the man again but when he came to deliver my share of the proceeds.

Elias, however, made my recovery his only concern; he stayed with me in my rooms almost every night the first week, to make certain my fever did not carry me off. It was a testament to his skills as a surgeon that I can even walk at all, for most men to suffer damage of this severity can move about only with the aid of crutches or must bear the indignity and torment of amputation. As I lay under his care, growing fond of this whimsical Scotsman, I confess I felt the greatest envy of him. My livelihood had been wrested from me, and here was a man gifted at his craft who had procured enough money that he could set himself up in the proper style and never want for bread again.

Elias, unfortunately, like my new acquaintance, Sir Owen, had a taste for the pleasures of the town—he also had a bit of poetry in him. Just a bit, I say, as anyone who had read his volume of verse, The Poetical Surgeon, would agree.

Elias never explained to me how he spent that money—no doubt he had squandered it in endless and unmemorable bouts of whoring, gaming, and poetic composition—but after I recovered from my injury, and spent my darker years away from London, I returned and called upon my old friend to find him as jolly as ever, dressed in the fashionable style and following after the amusements of the town—but for all his gaiety, he was entirely penniless.

Elias was something of a fop, I suppose, but a thoughtful one—if the thinking fop is no contradiction of terms. I knew him to be a surgeon of uncommon skill, but he was none the most devoted to his art. Had he spent as much time pursuing surgery as he did women, I believe he might have been the first name in fashionable society, but his love of his craft could not compete with his love of his pleasure. Elias was friends with every bawd, whore, and merrymaker in town. Whores, I suspect, liked me because I was pleasant and courteous, and perhaps because they found my Hebrew physiognomy entertaining. They liked Elias, however, because he spent all of his money among them and therefore he was an honored guest in every bawdy house in London.

This dissolute manner of living left him happy but short of ready money. Consequently, he was always eager to offer me assistance for a few pounds thrown in his direction.

In light of Elias’s lax attention to his surgical arts, I was surprised to learn he was about the town assisting a patient when I called on him, so I cooled my heels in the parlor of Mrs. Henry, his landlady. She was a delightful widow; once, I suspect, quite pretty, but now, past thirty-five, she was in the autumn of her beauty. Yet she had charms aplenty to keep me occupied in a parlor, and as I had often detected a fondness she harbored for me, there was no small amount of gratification in passing the time with her.

“Have you some particular business today?” Mrs. Henry asked me as we sat together. She stared bluntly at my head.

I had all but forgotten that I wore a wig. I should have forgotten entirely, but for the unusual warmth of this autumn afternoon. “I had need to appear the great gentleman for a matter of business in which I am currently engaged,” I explained.

“I should very much like to hear more of it,” she told me, as her servant wheeled in the tea things. I found Mrs. Henry to have a most complete service. Tea had not yet reached its stature of domestic necessity, but Mrs. Henry was enamored of the drink, and her tray held a variety of charming china. The drink she poured was a strong blend that she told me had been sent by a brother who was in the East India trade.

“I am employed upon a complicated if uninteresting affair,” I told her evasively, while gently indicating that I wanted none of the sugar she was poised to drop into my tea.

“Do Hebrews not eat sugar?” she asked me with a genuine curiosity.

“As much as anyone, in the abstract,” I told her. “This Hebrew too much enjoys the taste of tea to have it compromised by a cloying sweetness.”

She squinted in confusion, but she handed me the dish just the same. “Can you tell me about this employment?”

“I’m afraid not, madam. I am operating under strict confidentiality at present. Perhaps when the matters are resolved I may be able to inform you—omitting proper names, you understand.”

She leaned forward. “You must learn so much in your line of work that others do not know.”

“You make it seem far more interesting than it is, I assure you. I suspect a woman in your position to have more knowledge of the doings of the town than ever I could.”

“Then should you ever require information, I hope you will not hesitate to ask it of me.”

I thanked her for her kindness just as Elias appeared, to Mrs. Henry’s evident disappointment. He entered the room wearing a scarlet waistcoat, with a royal-blue frilled shirt beneath. His wig was over-large, almost a relic of fashion since past—a bit spotty in places and excessively powdered. It draped onto his angular face, which, like the rest of his body, was thin and marked by sharp and unexpected protrusions of his skeleton. Elias’s trousers had an obvious tear above the left knee, and though they were similar enough to attract no undue attention, I could not help but notice that his shoes were not of precisely the same color. Yet my friend walked in with the dignity of a returned conqueror and the self-assured stance of a favored courtier of Charles II’s day.

“It is so very warm outside, Mrs. Henry,” he said to his landlady, waving an indigo-colored handkerchief at her. “Lady Kentworth nearly fainted, though I took scarcely a thimbleful of blood from her. She has the most delicate constitution, you know. Hardly prepared for this kind of weather in October.” Elias had been marching toward Mrs. Henry, no doubt prepared to pay her in gossip what he could not afford her in rent, but he saw me offer him a slight smile from my tattered but comfortable armchair. “Oh,” he said, as though I were a debt collector. “Weaver.”

“Have I reached you at a bad time, Elias?”

Remembering himself, he forced a smile. “Not at all. Merely a bit out of sorts from this dreadful heat. You must be, as well. Shall I bleed you?” he asked, recovering from his momentary confusion by displaying the kind of impish grin he reserved for the moments he wished to harass me with either railleries or requests for ready money.

Elias thought my refusal to undergo phlebotomy was perhaps the most entertaining thing he knew of, and he jibed at me constantly. “By all means, bleed me,” I said. “And perhaps you would like to remove my organs for me and place them in a box. Where they will be safe.”

“You mock modern medicine,” Elias noted as he strolled across the room and seated himself, “But your mockery does not lessen the value of my surgical skills.” He turned to Mrs. Henry. “Perhaps some tea, madam.”

Mrs. Henry flushed and then stood, holding her body unnaturally erect. She smoothed out her skirts. “You expect many honors, Mr. Gordon, for a man who has not honored me with the rent this quarter. You may pour it yourself,” she said as she left the room.

Upon her departure, I asked Elias how long he had been bedding his landlady.

He took a seat across from me and removed a snuffbox, taking a delicate pinch. “Is it so obvious, then?” He turned to inspect a painting upon the wall, that I might not witness his embarrassment. Elias always preferred that I should think of him as successful with only the most beautiful young ladies of the town. Mrs. Henry was still handsome, but hardly the sort with whom Elias wished to be identified.

“I have never heard of a landlady refusing to pour tea for a tenant upon any other grounds,” I explained. “I assure you, Elias, I have myself negotiated rent in a similar fashion.”

“Gad!” he nearly snorted snuff about the room. “Not that virago with whom you now rent, I hope.”

I laughed. “No, I cannot say that I have had the honor of sharing an intimacy with Mrs. Garrison. Do you think it worth a try?”

“I have heard you Hebrews to be lascivious,” Elias said, “but I have never seen any evidence that you lacked judgment.”

“Nor have I with you,” I told him, hoping to make him feel at ease with my discovery.

He set aside his snuffbox and arose to pour himself a dish of tea. “Well, it’s been a pleasant arrangement, you know. She’s not a terribly demanding mistress, and the money I save in rent is useful.”

“Elias,” I said, “these private matters are always fascinating, and I should very much like to hear about your amorous conquest of all the landladies in London, but I have come upon business.”

He returned to his chair and took a cautious sip of the hot drink. “A very bewigged business, I see. What occupies your thoughts, Weaver—your overly phlegmatic, in want of being bled, thoughts?”

“Quite a bit, in fact. I have a complicated matter to attend to, and a ticklish one to set aside before I can address it.” Feeling invigorated by Mrs. Henry’s excellent tea, I took the time to tell Elias not only of my unexpected encounter with Balfour but also of my troubles in retrieving Sir Owen’s pocketbook. I felt perfectly at ease confiding in Elias, for though he loved gossip more than any man I knew, he had never betrayed a confidence when I had asked for his silence.

“I am not at all surprised to learn that Sir Owen Nettleton should find his life complicated by whores and the French pox,” Elias assured me with a smug twitch of his eyebrows.

“You know him, then?”

“I know the principals in fashionable life as well as any man in this metropolis. Besides,” he added with the practiced look of the sly rogue, “who do you think it is that has treated Sir Owen each time he finds himself clapped?”

“What can you tell me of him?”

Elias shrugged. “No more than you might imagine. He holds a large and prosperous estate in Yorkshire, but his revenue in rent is no match for the costs of his pleasures. He’s a notorious bawd and a womanizer—an exceptionally vigorous one, even by my standards. I shouldn’t be surprised if he had tried every whore in town.”

“He takes no small pride in his prolific dealings with the ladies of the street.”

“These men of wealth must do something to fill up their time. Now, who is this jade who took his things? I wish to know what goods your little misadventure has taken out of circulation.”

I gave him her name.

“Kate Cole!” he exclaimed. “Why, I’ve tasted of her wares—no poor wares are they, either. You’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good whore, Weaver.”

“Am I the only man in London not to have swived this Kate Cole?” I gasped.

“Well, I should not think it too late,” Elias said with a grin. “She must owe you something if you’ve purchased for her a room in the Press Yard. You could buy tumbles for a year on what a month in the Press Yard will cost you.”

I opened my mouth in order to change the topic, but Elias, as he often did, took command of the conversation. “This matter of Balfour, now that is interesting. I can only imagine your disorder when you heard him speak so of your father’s death. You will certainly contact your uncle now.”

Elias knew of my estrangement from my family, and indeed he had often urged me to approach my uncle. He, too, had spent several years in the displeasure of his father. Elias had been in attendance at Saint Andrews University when his father had learned of malicious, if entirely accurate, accounts of my friend’s many debaucheries. This knowledge had produced a rupture between Elias and his family, and rather than continuing in studies that would have led to a career as a physician, Elias was forced to leave and take up as a surgeon—without burdening himself by attending to the usual seven years of apprenticeship. After many years of no communication, Elias had managed to resolve the difficulties with his family, if not entirely, then at least to the point where he received a quarterly remittance. This arrangement seemed to me to be to everyone’s advantage, for Elias’s older brother, to whom the family estate should descend, was a sickly fellow, and the family patriarch wished to at least be on amicable terms with Elias should fate decree that he become the scion. I could easily relate to Elias’s difficulties as a younger son, for my elder brother, José, had always appeared to my father to be destined for greatness, while I, the bearer of the congenital defect of having been born four years after him, had been made to feel like an expendable appendage.

I recounted for Elias the details of my conversation with Balfour, and my friend became less interested in mending for me the rupture with my family than in learning more about what Balfour believed to be the true story of these deaths. “I must say, Weaver, that this inquiry is indeed unusual. How will you find a murderer whom no one has seen or even believes exists?”

“I do not know that I can. But I must look to Kate Cole first, I think.”

“Kate Cole is devilish less intriguing, I assure you, than your phantom murderer. But you are right—we must attend to these letters, and that shall certainly give me time to think on how we are to proceed with finding this killer.”

“I say, Elias, you are an enthusiastic sort. Balfour is hardly paying me so much that I shall be able to share excessively with you.”

“You wound me, sir. You think it is only money I am after. I find the challenge stimulating, you know. But I assume your wealthy baronet shall be able to reward me more generously than your impoverished parvenu.”

“My wealthy baronet has so far proved himself generous.” I now had Elias’s attention, and explained to him that I was in a bit of a bind and required him to play a role for me.

“It sounds shockingly exciting,” he said, his eyes sparkling at the thought of this adventure.

“Oh, I hope not too exciting.”

I had concocted a delightfully simple plan to retrieve Sir Owen’s letters of this prig Arnold. I would enter the Laughing Negro dressed as a porter. Kate Cole had no doubt spoken to Arnold of a muscular gentleman, and I did not want to complicate things by having him suspect me to be the man who killed Jemmy. Elias, whom no one would accuse of being overly muscled, would enter and speak to Arnold, explaining that he was the owner of the letters. I had authorized him to give up to twenty pounds for their return, though he was to start with five pounds, for I still clung to some small hope that this business of the pocketbook would not run me into debt. If I could profit but a few pounds, and Sir Owen, in turn, was to speak well of me in public, then I would have good reason to consider my efforts well expended.

I had advised Elias that when dealing with this thief he was not to use Sir Owen’s name—for there was a good chance that he had not read the letters, or at least not read them all the way through. I was sure Sir Owen’s contrition and his widow’s sentiments were too dull for a common thief. In any event, even if he knew the letters were not Elias’s, I could not imagine him refusing the coin on a matter of principle.

I arrived at the Laughing Negro near seven in the evening. I easily spotted a man with coppery whiskers and bristly hair several shades darker than his beard. One eye was a cold and penetrating blue, the other lay dead in his skull. This was the man Kate had described to me. He sat at a table with four other men, each as dangerous in appearance and as foul in grooming habits as he. They were a miserable and drunken lot, grimly rolling a few dice back and forth across the table at one another. I paid for a pint of yeasty ale and sat as nearly behind him as I could, selecting a spot from which I could best observe Arnold and his companions without appearing to do so.

Elias came in precisely as I told him. His fanciful attire—all bright reds and yellows—rendered him the object of the room’s attention, and the scrutiny instantly made him uneasy. I judged his discomfort a useful thing, however, for a gentleman in such a place should be uneasy. I had withheld from him Kate Cole’s description of Arnold that he might have no expectations of the man. He thus inquired of the counterman, who pointed him to the fellow we sought.

Elias slowly walked over to the table, time and again putting his hand on his hangar and then removing it. I was careful not to watch him too closely, not wanting to risk any eye contact between the two of us. He approached Arnold and stood before him. “Are you, sir, one Quilt Arnold?” he asked in the loud, declamatory voice of a stage-play hero.

These men let out a round of guffaws before Arnold looked up, unable to fathom what this peacock could want with him. “Aye,” he said, making no effort to hide his amusement. “I’m Arnold, me lud. What of it?”

“Yes,” Elias said in a voice that bespoke his apprehension. “I am told by a woman called Kate Cole that you have something of mine. A packet of letters bound with a yellow ribbon.”

Arnold raised one bushy eyebrow. “She tell you this before or after she gone to Newgate?”

“Have you the letters or no?”

The rogue showed him a large, yellow grin. “That’s your business, is it, me lud? Well now, since it’s your goods upon me, I’m glad to tell ye I got ’em,” he said, patting his jacket. “I got ’em right ’ere. You’ll be wantin’ them, then. Is that right?”

Elias straightened his posture. “That’s right.”

Arnold had none of Elias’s desire to transact the business rapidly. He patted his jacket again. He whispered something in the ear of one of his friends and then laughed a ghastly dry laugh for a full minute. Finally he turned back to Elias. “Ye don’t mind that I blew some snot in ’em, do ye?”

Elias shook his head, doing his best to appear calm, and perhaps even irritated. “Mr. Arnold, I’m sure your life is uneventful enough that you feel the need to prolong this transaction, but I have business elsewhere. Now I want the letters back, and I shall give you twenty pounds for them.”

I winced, and I was sure Elias inwardly did the same. He had misspoken, and if Arnold wished to haggle, there was no money with which to do it. Were I to stand up and offer Elias extra coin, of which I had little upon me, he would know the business was more complicated than it appeared, and he might withhold in the hope of more money yet.

“Any man who’d be willing to pay twenty pounds for a few pieces of paper,” he said, leaning back in his chair and extending his legs, “would be willing to pay fifty. Since they belong to ye, if you see what I mean.”

Elias surprised me with his courage, for Arnold was an imposing-looking villain. “No sir,” he said. “I do not see what you mean. I come not to haggle with you. I shall give you twenty pounds for those letters or snot rags is all they will be to you.”

Arnold thought about this for a moment. “You know what, me lud, I don’t think a gentleman like yourself would come to a shithouse like this and talk to a shitten prig like me for a few folds of paper wrapped in a dainty if they was only worth twenty pounds. How about ye stop talkin’ to me like I’m some whore what ye can swive and throw a few shillings at. Give me fifty pounds. And then maybe—maybe I say, because it depends on me mood—maybe I’ll give ye the shitten papers. And then again maybe I won’t. So when ye give me my money, me lud, be polite about it.”

Elias had blanched with terror, and a filigree of blue veins now bulged at his temples. Arnold was unpredictable, and there was no telling how far he would push his antics. I understood then that there was no answer for it—I had no choice but to step in. Pushing my chair aside I stood and approached him. “Excuse me,” I said. “I could not help but overhear what you were saying to this gentleman, and I wonder if you are aware of this?” And with a rapidity that astonished even myself, I removed from my belt a dagger, grabbed Arnold’s left hand, which I pressed down to the table, and jabbed the dagger down hard, slicing through his hand and landing deep in the soft wood beneath.

Arnold let out a howl, but I quickly clamped a hand down over his mouth and removed a second dagger from my boot, which I held to his face.

I glanced hurriedly about the room, taking in as much information as I could in but a fleeting instant. The barkeeper looked over at me as he wiped down a glass. A few of the men about the Laughing Negro looked on. They cared only so much as the show intrigued them. I had no worry that a kindly stranger would rise to defend this brigand, but I had been concerned about his companions. Arnold’s friends, however, made no moves. They sat stiffly, glancing at one another, exchanging looks of befuddlement while they tried to decide, no doubt, if should they wait to see what happened or if they should depart. I could tell from the way they pushed their bodies back into their chairs that they had no wish to interfere. Such were the friends men like Arnold made.

Elias had taken a step backward. He looked so pale one might think he had been stabbed. His limbs trembled noticeably, but he attempted to hold himself straight and present the demeanor of a dangerous buck. Although Elias had not the temperament for the situation in which we found ourselves, I knew I could trust him to acquit himself honorably.

I looked back to the table. There was less blood than I would have thought, for the blade itself stemmed the tide. A thick pool did begin to appear around the blade after a moment, and trickled down upon the filthy table. I shifted slightly, so the issue of Arnold’s veins would not drip upon my boots, and I pressed down hard as I moved, feeling the heat of Arnold’s gasping breath upon my hand. Grabbing his face tighter, I waved my dagger before his good eye. “You are in pain, and I understand that, but I have no more patience for this. You will reach into your pocket with your one good hand and remove the papers we seek. This gentleman here will give you twenty pounds, just as promised. If you do anything else, if your friends make any moves, I shall not kill you, but I shall carve out your good eye and turn you to a beggar. Now you can give us what we want and receive a sizable profit for it, or you can lose everything you have in this world.”

Arnold’s friends exchanged glances once again. They now had hope that their friend would, notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the transaction, earn his twenty pounds.

With his good hand, Arnold tried to reach into his pocket, but he had to stretch across his body and by the way he twisted his face the pain must have been horrific. Finally, against the weight of my hand, he slammed his teeth together and grabbed a purse from his pocket, and in a jerky and agonized motion, threw it upon the table.

I told Elias to look inside, and he did, taking out the packet of letters. They were as Sir Owen had described—a thick bundle bound with a yellow ribbon and sealed with a wax imprint. I had him hand them to me, and I quickly counted that there were four separate packets, each a half-inch or more thick. Even in the flurry of the moment, I could not but smile to think what a prolix correspondent the libertine baronet turned out to be.

I placed the bundle in my pocket and told Elias to hold down Arnold’s hand as I pulled out my dagger. Now the blood began to flow with an unchecked burst. Arnold slipped from my grasp and dropped to the floor, uttering low, growling noises.

“Give him the money,” I said to Elias.

I could see the way he thought behind his shifting gray eyes. Why?

“Give him the money,” I said again. “That was the bargain.”

There must have been something about the way I spoke that ended the argument, for Elias sighed, agonized about letting go of the twenty pounds unnecessarily, and dropped the purse upon the table. Each of Arnold’s companions reached forward to grab it.

Elias looked ready to make a running escape, but I shook my head at him. There was no need to run. Arnold lay defeated, and no one would trouble us. I considered drinking an ale before I left to show my contempt, but I had no one to gratify but myself, and the drink was not to my liking. Instead I smiled with grim satisfaction and held the door for Elias as we departed.