A Spectacle Of Corruption

CHAPTER 20

I HAD NOT THOUGHT to return myself so soon to Vine Street, but I went there that night, unwilling to waste any more time. I was close to something, and I knew it, and I felt that Yate’s widow might have the answer. I found her with her baby asleep in her arms, hovering over the fire of the stove. Littleton was there too, looking not a little provoked to see me once more. He answered the door with a pewter dish of peas and mutton fat in one hand, a hunk of bread gripped in his mouth.

“For a man with a hundred and fifty pounds on his head,” he observed, while clenching the bread with his teeth, “you find your way to this part of the city with an alarming frequency.”

“I am afraid I must speak to Mrs. Yate,” I said. I pushed my way in without waiting to be asked.

Mrs. Yate looked at her baby and cooed and rocked and kissed. She hardly looked up to glance at my face.

“That baby don’t even know you’re there.” Littleton spat his bread onto his plate. “Set it aside and talk to Weaver that he might be out of here the sooner.” He turned to me. “I don’t want them cony-fumbles from the magistrate’s office coming in here and saying we gave you shelter. It ain’t personal, you understand, but you’re not a safe man to be near these days. I know you got your business, so go about it and be gone.”

I pulled a chair closer to the widow and sat. “I have but one thing I must know. Mr. Yate paid a visit to Dennis Dogmill just one week before he was killed. Have you any knowledge of why they met or what they discussed?”

She continued to coo and kiss and rock. Littleton kicked her chair, but she ignored him.

“Please,” I said. “It is important.”

“It don’t matter to me, important,” she said. “It don’t matter as I can’t tell you what I don’t know, and they can’t do nothing to me if I don’t know.”

“Who can’t?” I asked.

“No one. No one can say I said nothing. I didn’t say nothing because I didn’t know nothing.”

“What is it you did not say?” I asked, urgently but gently.

“Nothing. Ain’t you heard me?”

“Aye, he heard you,” Littleton said. “He heard the worst bit of lying that ever escaped from human lips since Eve lied to Adam. Tell him what you know, woman, or there will be more trouble for all of us.”

She shook her head.

Littleton walked over to her and knelt beside her. He put his hands on the baby. “Listen to me, love. They can’t do nothing to you for just knowing what Yate knew, but if you don’t tell Weaver what he wants to know, they might come and take the baby away and put it in the workhouse, where it ain’t going to live but another day or two before it dies, longing for its mother.”

“No!” she shrieked. She pulled the infant to her chest and rose from her chair, quickly walking to the corner, as though she could defend the creature from any evil in the world so long as it was hidden.

“Aye, it’s true. If you don’t help him, he won’t be able to help you, and Jesus knows what will happen to the baby there.” Here Littleton turned to me and winked.

I opened my mouth to object, for as much as I wished to know her secrets, I could not countenance such cruel extortion. But before I could speak, Mrs. Yate had already surrendered.

“I’ll tell you, then,” she said, “but you must promise to protect me.”

“I swear to you, madam, that if you should face any harm because of what you tell me here tonight, my life and my strength will be at your disposal, and I will not rest until you and your child are safe.”

This declaration, romantical as it was, seemed to soothe her considerably. She returned to her chair. Silence once more descended upon us, and I saw Littleton begin to utter something, no doubt harsh, but I held up a hand. Her words would come, and I saw no need to terrorize her more.

My supposition proved sound, for a moment later she began to speak. “I told him,” she said, “I told him it would come to no good, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He thought what he had learned was like gold, and if he could but reckon how to manage it, we would be rich for his efforts. I knew he was wrong. I swear to you, I said he would be dead before he was rich, and I was right.”

“What did he know?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He wanted to meet with the Parliament man. The blue-and-orange man.”

“Hertcomb,” I said.

She nodded. “Aye. Walter thought he was the one who should hear about it, but the fellow wouldn’t meet with him. Dogmill would, though. Walter didn’t trust Dogmill, not for a moment. He knew what Dogmill was, but it was clear that it was talk to Dogmill or talk to no one, and he couldn’t let his dream of getting rich slide. So he went to talk to Dogmill.”

“What did they speak of? What did he believe would make him rich?”

“Walter said he knew of someone who was not what he was supposed to be. That there was one of the orange-and-blue fellows who was really with the green-and-white side. He knew the name, and he figured Dogmill would want to know the name too.”

I rose to my feet. If I had understood correctly what I had just heard, I could not remain still for long. “Do you mean to tell me that Mr. Yate knew there was a Tory spy among the Whigs?”

She nodded. “Aye, that’s right.”

“And Mr. Yate knew the name of this spy?”

“He told me he did. He said it was an important man, and the orange-and-blue fellow would shit himself to death if he knew there was a Jacobite among them.”

Littleton put down his pipe and stared. “A Jacobite?” he asked.

She nodded. “That’s what he said. That there was a Jacobite that was one of them, and he knew the name. I can’t claim to know much about things of the government, but I know being a Jacobite will get you hanged, and I knew that if a man pretends to be one thing and is a Jacobite instead, he’ll do a lot worse than kill a porter on the quays to keep his secret.”

Littleton and I stared at each other. “Not merely a Tory but a Jacobite spy,” I said aloud, “among the Whigs.”

“An important Whig,” Littleton said. He turned to Mrs. Yate. “I wish I’d listened to you, love, for some things are better not to know.”

“Aye,” she said. “And after Mr. Dogmill come here himself, I thought I should never say a word of this to anyone.”

“What is this?” Littleton spat. “Dogmill come here? When?”

“Just after I laid Walter to his rest. He come and pound on my door and tells me that he can’t say if I knew what Walter known or not, but if I do and speak of it to anyone, he’ll see me in the ground next to my husband.” She stared at Littleton. “He grabbed me then in a place that’s none of his business and told me that a poor widow belonged to any man that wanted to take her, and I should remember that if I wanted to stay alive.”

I expected to see something more of a rage in Littleton, but he only looked away. “The laws belong to those which have the money,” he said softly. “They can do what they please and they can take what they want- or at least they think so.” He rose and walked over to Mrs. Yate and planted a kiss on her cheek. “You’ve been hardly used, my love. I won’t see it happen again.”

If I found Littleton’s calm impressive, I could not say I shared it. With each passing day, the idea of fleeing the country appealed to me more.

No amount of questioning revealed more information. Mrs. Yate knew neither the name nor the station of the spy, only that he was an important Whig. After I had fully interrogated her, she retired to bed and Littleton uncorked a bottle of surprisingly drinkable claret. The need to drink wine exorcised all earlier needs to rid himself of my company.

“How could Yate have learned of this?” I asked.

Littleton shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s plenty of boys on the quays that raise a glass to the king across the water, but that’s all talk that comes from the bottle. I can’t think that Yate had any great connections with the Jacobites that he could learn a secret like this.”

“But it seems he did.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “And now what? What will you do with this knowledge that you wrung from me woman?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I will do something. I knew that I would have to find something to frighten Dogmill, and I believe I have discovered it at last- at least I have discovered what it would be. I am close, Littleton. I am very close.”

“You’re close to death is what you are,” he said. “I just hope you don’t take the rest of us with you.”