A Spectacle Of Corruption

CHAPTER 7

THERE WERE some curious glances at the Turk and Sun when I took a room there that night. From my livery they must have concluded that I had run away from an unkind master, but as I paid my reckoning in advance with ready cash, there were no questions put to me, and I was shown to my room with reasonable cheer.

I intended to do nothing with Elias’s medicine, but in a fit of restlessness I chose to administer the dosages, and though I spent an hour or more in the greatest discomfort, I confess I felt mightily cleansed thereafter and slept longer and deeper than I likely should have otherwise, though my dreams were a wild and incoherent jumble of prisons and hangings and escapes. After I had voided my body I called for a hot bath, that I might wash away the vermin of the prison, but they were soon enough replaced by the vermin of the tavern.

The purges had the effect of leaving me enormous hungry, however, and in the morning I ate my breakfast of bread and warm milk with great relish. Then, still in my footman’s disguise, I began my journey to the home of Mr. Ufford, who I hoped would be able to shed some light on my troubles. As I walked the street, now in the light of day, I felt the most unusual sensation. I was at liberty but not free at all. I had to remain in disguise until… until I hardly knew what. I would have thought that I must prove my innocence, but I had already done that.

I could not dwell upon these difficulties fully, for they made me far too uneasy. I wanted only to keep occupied, and I believed that Ufford might well have information to aid me. I found, however, that when I presented myself at his door, the priest’s serving man showed no sign of granting me admittance. To a third party, our encounter would have appeared very much like two dogs evaluating each other, each wishing nothing but the worst for the other lest his rival receive too many caresses from their master.

“I must speak with Mr. Ufford,” I told this fellow.

“And who are you, that you must speak with him?”

I certainly could not tell him that. “Never mind who I am,” I said. “Let me speak to him, and I promise you your master will tell you that you’ve done right.”

“As to that, I shan’t allow you to enter based on that promise of someone when I don’t know who it is,” he said. “You will give me your name or you will go. Indeed, I think it very likely you will do both.”

I could not allow a meeting of such vital importance to be prevented by this fine fellow’s sense of duty. “You will find that I’ll do neither,” I said, and shoved him aside and forced my way past him. Having not previously been in any room but the kitchens, I had no idea where I might find Mr. Ufford, but I fortunately heard voices coming from down a hallway, so I made my way there, with the servant all the while close behind me and pulling at my shoulder the way an untrained lapdog nips at its keeper.

I burst into the room where Ufford was sitting and sipping wine with a young man of not more than five and twenty. This fellow was also dressed in the humorless blacks of a churchman, but his clothes were of an inferior cut. Both men looked up in surprise as I forced the door open. Perhaps Ufford’s expression might be more fairly characterized as fear. He leaped from his chair, splashing wine upon his breeches, and took three steps backward.

“What is this?” he demanded of me.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the servant said. “This rogue pushed his way past me before I could stop him.”

“I am sorry that doing so was necessary,” I said to Ufford, “but I am afraid I need to speak with you urgently, and the normal channels are not open to me just now.”

Ufford stared at me with disbelief until something seemed to slide into place inside his brain, and he recognized me despite my costume. “Oh, yes. Of course.” He coughed like a stage actor and brushed at the stain. “You will excuse me, Mr. North,” he said to his guest. “We will have to continue speaking of our business another time. I will call on you tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Certainly,” the other murmured, rising to his feet. He looked harshly at me, as though I had arranged this little scene for no purpose but to embarrass him, and then he glared at Ufford. I make no special claims to know the secrets of the human heart, but I could not doubt that this Mr. North hated Ufford, and violently so.

Once he and the servant had left, Ufford came over to me, tiptoeing as though to perform the degree of stealth this meeting required. He took my hand most gingerly and hunched over. “Benjamin,” he said in a hushed voice, “I’m glad you’ve come.”

“I don’t know that such precautions as whispering are strictly required,” I said in something short of my normal volume- for quiet is contagious-“unless your servant is listening at the door.”

“I hardly think so,” Ufford said in a now very loud voice, all the while skulking toward the door with his arms stretched out like a bird’s wings. “I know I can count on Barber to conduct himself as befits his station. I need not even check on him.” With that he threw the door wide open to reveal an empty hallway. “Ah,” he said, when he’d once more pressed the door shut. “You see? Safe after all. No need to worry. Though I suppose there is every reason for you to worry, isn’t there. But let us not worry for now. Come, a glass of wine, to restore your spirits. You do drink wine, I hope? I know many men of the lower sort never take it.”

“I drink wine,” I assured him, believing I should have to take a great deal of it to endure this interview. Once he had handed me the glass and I took my seat (he never invited me, and appeared a bit out of sorts when I lowered myself unbidden, but I could not trouble myself for such niceties now), I gestured toward the door with my head. “Who was that man?”

“Oh, that was just Mr. North. He is the curate who serves in my parish in Wapping. He’s resumed his preaching duties since I’ve started receiving those notes. Have you made any progress in discovering the author?”

I stared at him. “You do understand, sir, that I have been otherwise absorbed.”

“Oh, yes. I understand that. But I also understand that you made a promise to me, and a promise remains a promise though the fulfilling is more difficult than we anticipated. How shall you ever raise yourself if you are deterred from performing the services you have contracted to perform?”

“At this particular moment, I am much more concerned with avoiding swinging from a halter than I am in raising myself. But as it happens, I am now prepared to return to your affairs, as I believe that the discovery of the author of those notes will shed some light on my own predicament.”

“I hardly think that a fit reason to pursue the work I paid you to perform. Is not the satisfaction of a job performed incentive enough? In any case, I should like to know what predicament you refer to.”

“The predicament of my having been convicted of a murder I did not commit,” I said very slowly, as though the sluggishness of my speech might help him to understand me better. “I cannot but suspect I was tried for that man’s death because I intended to discover the author of those notes.”

“Oh, ho!” he cried. “Very good, sir. Very good. A murder you did not commit. We shall play that little game if you like. You will find me agreeable in that.”

“There is no game, sir. I did not harm Walter Yate, and I have no idea who did.”

“Was he perhaps the author of those terrible notes? Could that be why some unknown person- and who could say who this person might be?- meted out justice upon his lowly skull?”

“To my knowledge, Mr. Ufford, Walter Yate had nothing to do with those notes.”

“Then why on earth would you have abused him so cruelly?”

“I’ve told you, it was not me. But if I find out who did kill him, then I believe I shall find out who sent you those notes.”

Ufford scratched at his chin, contemplating my strange words. “Hmm. Well, if you believe that this inquiry of yours will discover my harasser, then I suppose it is an acceptable use of your time. I think it is quite all right if you proceed thus, so long as you don’t lose sight of your true aims.”

I had, by this time, reached the conclusion that responding directly to Ufford’s words was a waste of time, so I thought it best to attempt to set the agenda myself. “Have you received any more such notes?”

“No, but as I have not been preaching, I have tricked the writer into believing he has got what he wanted.”

I don’t know that I could have distinguished between the trick and the genuine article, but perhaps that was my own weakness. “Mr. Ufford, did you have any particular encounters with Walter Yate, or have any reason to believe that there might be some link between this man and the notes you had received?”

“Yate was by far the most agreeable of those fellows. I met with him once or twice, you know, and though he rejoiced in my benevolent interest in the porters, he never seemed to believe that my words would do him any good. You see, such men have no idea of the power of speech, and for them to believe in rhetoric is like believing in magic, for it is something they cannot hold in their hands. But he and I shared no particular intimacy, if that is what you mean.”

“And what of Billy Greenbill?”

“That fellow was far less likable. He would not meet with me, and he called my man names when I sent him.”

“Tell me,” I said at last, “about your interest in the current election.”

He looked at me curiously. “I could hardly have thought it any concern of yours. Jews don’t have the vote, you know.”

“I am aware that Jews don’t vote, and never do we vote less than when we are escaped felons. I ask about your interest, not mine.”

“I am a great admirer of the Tories. That is all. I believe that the porters will be far better off under the Tories than the Whigs, for these Whigs care only to use men like rags and wring them out when they are done.”

“And you want the porters to understand that and support Mr. Melbury?” I asked.

“That’s right. Melbury is a good man. He believes in a strong Church and in the power of the landed families.”

“But what good will the support of Wapping laborers do him? They cannot vote. And even if they could, Wapping is nowhere near Westminster. It is the other side of the metropolis.”

He smiled. “They hardly need to vote to make their presence felt, sir. If I can deliver these boys for Melbury, I will not only have done some good for the Tories, I will have robbed the Whigs of a weapon.”

I understood now. The porters were to be roughs for Melbury. That, at any rate, was what Ufford desired. They could intimidate voters at the polling station. If need be, they could riot. Ufford’s desire to help them was only to make sure that when they were used, they were used for the Tories.

I thought little of this plan, but I had small incentive to lecture him on his ethics- nor to inform him that upon the docks I had heard these same porters chanting against Jacobites, Papists, and Tories- all of which suggested that his efforts, thus far, had failed. Instead, I returned to matters more pressing.

“Sir, has it occurred to you that the letters you received might have come from Dennis Dogmill himself? This tobacco man, after all, has the most to gain from seeing any labor combination fail. I met with him but once, and briefly at that, but he seemed to me not above any sort of threat of violence.”

Ufford chuckled softly. “I do not love Mr. Dogmill, who is a notorious Whig, but I must bring to your attention that he is a John’s man.”

I had no idea of his meaning. “A John’s man?”

“That is to say, he attended Saint John’s College at Cambridge, which I attended myself, though at an earlier date. You may not have observed the many ways in which that letter I showed you bespoke a lack of education, but the flaws were painfully obvious to me, and I can promise you no man from Saint John’s would write thus.”

I let out a sigh. “It might well be that he wrote thus in order to deceive you, or that he had the letters written for him by a man who had not the honor of attending your college.”

He shook his head. “I am certain I heard that Dogmill was a John’s man, and so what you say is unthinkable.” He held up a hand. “Wait a moment. Now that I think on it, I recall that he was cast out of Saint John’s. Yes, indeed he was. He was cast out for some act of violence or another. You may be right about him after all.”

“What was the act of violence?”

“I don’t know, precisely. I understand he was hard with one of his tutors.”

“Any man who is hard with a tutor could certainly pen a threatening note with poor spelling,” I said, by way of encouragement.

“It is certainly possible,” he agreed.

“And as I presume he does not dirty his own hands with things like killing porters, have you any knowledge of who his brutal instrument might be? Does he have any particular relationship with one rough or another? A man who might always be by his side?”

“I hardly know the man enough to answer your question. Or any of your questions. Do you think the law might persecute me for allowing you into my home?”

I could see he had begun to grow uneasy and thought it time to change subjects. “What of your Mr. North?” I asked, by way of concluding.

“Oh, he is also a John’s man. That was the reason I took him on as my curate. I can always rely on a John’s man.”

“I meant something else entirely. Do you think he might have some notion of who I am and, if so, can be depended upon to say nothing of having seen me?”

“As for knowing you, I cannot say. Did he know you before your current troubles? I did not first recognize you in your new clothes, but I cannot speak for another man. As to his remaining quiet, I can make my demands of him and he will certainly obey my orders. I do not give him thirty-five pounds a year to no effect, and a man with four children shan’t discommode his source of income.”

“I must ask you one more thing. During my trial, one of the false witnesses who spoke against me mentioned a Mr. Johnson. Do you know anyone of that name?”

He shook his head with an urgent violence. “I’ve never heard of anyone with that name. Indeed, I have not. It is a very common name, and there is no telling how many thousands of men may answer to it.”

“I was hoping you might know of a Mr. Johnson with some particular connection to the matter of your notes or of Mr. Yate.”

He shook his head again. “I do not. Did I not just now say it?”

I cannot say that I believed him to be lying, but neither was I entirely convinced he told me the truth. My uncertainty was such that I thought it best not to burn my bridges, as the saying goes, over this enigma, which as yet meant nothing to me. I had no way of knowing how largely Mr. Johnson would figure in these events. I merely stood and thanked the priest for his time. “If I have further news or questions, I will call on you again. Please ask your man to be less rigid with me in the future.”

“I do not know that my parlor is the best place for us to meet,” he said. “And as to my servants, it would be very hard if I could not ask that they approve my visitors for me.”

“Then it will be very hard,” I said.

As for Ufford’s hired curate, Mr. North, I thought there might be some good in talking to him immediately. Ufford thought fit to make his speeches from his church in Wapping, but North lived there, and he would have a far better knowledge of the goings-on among the porters. I therefore took a hackney to his neighborhood, hoping he would have arrived home by that time. It took some inquiring to learn of the location of Mr. North, but I received directions soon enough and was on my way.

And a sad way it was. Here were unpaved streets full of refuse that flowed like a great brown river. The stench of rot and filth was everywhere, but children played in this soil all the same. Men staggered about in a gin stupor, and women too, some clutching babies with utter carelessness. And should an infant dare to cry out, it got but a few drops of its mother’s gin for its trouble.

Liveried footmen did not visit regularly in that neighborhood, so my appearance generated a fair amount of notice from gawking children in tattered clothes and wizened women who pursed their mouths and squinted at me. But like a haughty footman, I paid these folk no mind and continued about my business, dusting off the dirt and dung that the lowlies flung in my direction.

I learned something far more interesting while rooting around those streets, however. My escape from Newgate had now become generally known, and had grown into something of a celebrated tale. I did not believe that the daily newspapers had been granted enough time to publicize the event, but already wandering peddlers shouted out their broadsides and ballads recounting my adventures. I learned of this in the most astonishing way- by hearing a ballad singer calling out “Old Ben Weaver’s Got Away” to the tune of “A Bonny Lass to a Friar Came.” I grabbed a copy at once and read the lyrics- the most wretched drivel, I assure you. They were accompanied by a woodcut depicting a man- who resembled me only in that he had arms and legs and a head- leaping naked from the roof of Newgate as though he were a great cat who could safely land from any distance. How had the tale of my nakedness circulated? I could not say, but information flows through the veins of London, and there is no stopping it once it starts.

My encounter with Mr. Rowley was spoken of as well, but these broadsheets, which were composed for the poor and lowly, celebrated my acts as the revenge of the repressed against his ill users. I took no small satisfaction in this, and in the way in which my escape was described, with much admiration and wonder. Benjamin Weaver, these articles said, smashed through two dozen doors, singlehandedly defeated a score of guards- using only his fists against their firearms and blades. He leaped from (and to!) great heights. No lock could hold him. No constable could defeat him. He was a strong man, a master of escapes, and an acrobat all combined. These accounts sometimes veered toward the fantastical and depicted me fighting armies of villainous Whigs and corrupt Parliamentarians- not to mention violent Rome-inspired Papists.

Though these versions of my adventures were fantastically exaggerated, I now flatter myself that had not a celebrated prison-breaker by the name of Jack Sheppard emerged a bit later, escaping from prison half a dozen times in a variety of extravagant fashions, my own acomplishment would be far better recalled than it is today.

Yet, while I delighted in my name being spoken of with such admiration, I saw that there can be no good without a touch of bad. My championship came with a steep price, for the ballad seller informed me- without ever once suspecting to whom he spoke- that a hundred and fifty pounds had been placed on my head. I was somewhat gratified that I should fetch so mighty a sum, but I would have traded that gratification for a greater hope of being left to my own devices.

Mr. North lived in one of the better houses on Queen Street, though even the best house on Queen Street was a mighty poor house. The edifice was cracked and crumbling, the stairs so damaged as to be almost impassable, and most of the front windows had been bricked to avoid the window tax. The landlady showed me to his chambers- two rooms on the third floor of this feeble building- and I found him at home with his wife and four small children, who made the most appalling noises. Mr. North greeted me at the door. I now had the opportunity to study him more closely than I had before, and I saw that his black coat was worn and patched, his white cravat stained, his wig unpowdered and disordered. He appeared, in short, a meager representative of his church.

“You were just with Ufford. What do you want?” he asked me, treating me in a surly fashion no doubt because of my livery. I thought it mighty unkind of him to look down upon a man of my supposed station, but I was not there to become his friend.

“I beg a moment of your time,” I said to him. “In private, if you please.”

“On what business?” His impatience made him appear older than his relatively meager years. He knit his brow and bared his teeth like a cur.

“On business of the utmost importance, which can only be discussed in privacy, and not with your landlady lurking just out of sight, listening to us.” I repressed a smile at the sound of her shuffling a few steps down.

“You must tell me more than that,” he insisted, “if I am to grant you audience.”

“It concerns Mr. Ufford and his connection to a great crime.”

I don’t believe I could have said anything else half so effective. He ushered me into the back room, a small sleeping chamber that he evidently shared with the entirety of his family. There was but a large mattress on the floor, piles of clothes, a few chairs cobbled together of broken things. He stepped out, said a few words to his wife I could not hear, and then rejoined me and shut the door. With the door shut I felt ill at ease in that poorly lit room, smelling of sweat and fatigue.

“Speak your business, then.”

“What do you know of Mr. Ufford’s relations with Walter Yate and a tobacco man called Dennis Dogmill?”

He narrowed his gaze. “What is this?”

“Can you not answer the question?”

He blinked at me a few times, and then his eyes widened to the size of apples. “You’re Weaver, aren’t you?”

“My name is immaterial. Please answer the questions.”

He took a step back, as though I might attack him. I could hardly blame him, what with the press full of accounts of my prison breaking and ear severing. “Ufford told me he had hired you to find out who was sending him those notes. You must be very dedicated to continue your inquiry even though you are fleeing from the law.”

“I am fleeing from the law because of that inquiry,” I said. “I have killed no one, and I believe that if I can find out who sent those notes, I may discover the true killer and so unsully my name.”

“I am afraid I don’t see how I might be of use to you. I have never been invited to concern myself in Mr. Ufford’s projects, and I have never wished to be invited either, for his ideas are fantastical and his thinking inept. He would have you believe, I am sure, that he is out to help the laboring man because he is a Christian, but Mr. Ufford cares to help the poor because he believes that the poor, if content, are more easily herded.”

“You do not agree.”

“I am not in a position to agree or disagree,” he said, “being of the poor myself. An education at one of our nation’s universities may confer knowledge, but it does not confer wealth- and certainly not wisdom.” He paused for a moment. “Can I offer you something to drink? I haven’t much of quality, but a man on the run for his life must build a powerful thirst.”

I declined the offer, preferring to continue with my inquiry.

He cleared his throat. “Then allow me to take a drink for myself, for I find this conversation not a little disordering, and it leaves my throat uncommon dry.” He stepped out of the room, took a pewter mug of ale from his wife, whom he kissed on the cheek and murmured to affectionately. He then smiled thinly, returned to the sleeping chamber, and closed the door.

“Do you know,” I asked, “if Mr. Ufford had any dealings with Griffin Melbury?”

“Melbury,” he repeated. He took a sip from his mug. “The Tory standing for Parliament? I suppose he may have. They are both Tories, so it is possible they may have had some business together, but I could say nothing of its exact nature. Though I must inform you that my understanding of Mr. Melbury is that he has honorable intentions, if you understand my meaning, and that might not appeal to Mr. Ufford.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you at all.”

“Oh, just that Ufford is rather, shall we say, dissatisfied with our current monarch.”

I admit freely that I did not understand politics so well that I could be absolutely certain of North’s implication. “Please don’t be coy, sir. Say precisely what you mean, so there will be no misunderstanding.”

He smirked. “I don’t know how much clearer I might be. Mr. Ufford is, in all likelihood, a Jacobite. He supports the old king. Do you understand?”

“As he is a Tory, that should be no surprise. I was under the impression that Tories and Jacobites were mere variants of the same thing.”

“Ha,” he said. “That is what the Whigs want you to believe. In reality, they are quite different. Tories are High Church men who want to see the Church restored to its great days of power. They tend to represent old money, old power, privilege, that sort of thing. In general, they are counter to the Whigs, with their Low Church ways, all latitudes and laxness. Jacobites, on the other hand, want to restore the son of James the Second to the throne. You do know that James the Second was forced to flee for his life some thirty-five years ago?”

“I’d heard something about that,” I said sheepishly.

“Yes. James was a Catholic, and the Parliament would not stand for a Catholic to take over the throne. So James fled, and now there are those who wish to see his line returned to power. Mr. Ufford is very likely among them.”

“But if Ufford is a Jacobite, and Jacobites are not one with the Tories, why does he support Melbury, the Tory candidate?”

“These Jacobites always masquerade as Tories. And if the Tories win the upcoming election, the Jacobites will almost certainly see this as a sign that the people are tired of Whigs and our current king. Westminster is a particularly important election, since it has the largest popular franchise in the country. What happens in Westminster may well determine the fate of the kingdom, and it seems as though Ufford wants to have a say in that.”

“And does this connect with his interest in the porters?”

“I believe it has occurred to him that all these laborers are selling their life’s blood to a pack of heartless Whigs. He therefore believes their anger could be turned against these Whigs and harvested for a Jacobite invasion. These porters, in his mind, could be turned into ready soldiers for the Pretender.”

“And if Mr. Ufford’s Jacobitical project were discovered,” I observed, “this parish would need a new appointee.”

North shrugged. “That is true, but I would not fabricate a story of treason because of the distant chance I should find myself in Ufford’s post. Were he arrested, more like than not I should be wanting employment entirely. I merely tell you what I believe to be true- that Ufford wishes to fire up the porters to the cause of the Pretender.”

“From what I have seen, with their riotous cheers against Papists and Tories, they have not shown themselves to be Jacobitically inclined.”

“I don’t believe Ufford has won them over sufficiently to learn of their politics or discover just how malleable they might be. I’m sure you are well aware that the poor, the suffering, and the hopeless are inclined to Jacobite sympathies- not because they have any notion of how the Chevalier is supposed to make a better king than George, but because George is the king now and they are unhappy. It therefore makes perfect sense to them that they would be better with a different monarch. I believe it is this inclination that Mr. Ufford intends to draw upon. But I will thank you to say that you have not heard as much from me.”

“Come now. You cannot fear these men. They have been trying to regain the throne for nearly thirty-five years and have nothing to show for it. How fearsome can they be?”

“They may not have regained the throne, but in thirty-five years I promise you they have learned a thing or two, mostly about how to operate in secret and how to protect themselves. They’re everywhere, you know, hidden from sight, operating with secret codes and passwords and signs. And you must recollect that these are men who can be hanged for their beliefs. They have survived this long only by their skill in concealing themselves from peering eyes. Take my advice, Weaver. Stay clear of them.”

“Or what shall happen to me? What have I to fear that has not already transpired?”

He laughed. “Your point is well taken.”

“And what of Melbury? You say he has no knowledge of this scheme?”

“I cannot speak to what he knows or does not know. I cannot even say for certain that Ufford is a Jacobite; it could be no more than a rumor that dogs him. I can only say that I find it hard to believe, from what little I know of him, that Melbury would countenance such a plot. He strikes me as the perfect species of an opposition politician, not a man who plots treason. Of course, I am only guessing, but my rather limited experience of Melbury is that he is an ardent defender of the Church and would not relish seeing the country fall into Romish hands.”

“Of course. Are you a Tory yourself?”

“I am not a party man of any stripe,” he said. “Politics is for men who make their living in such activities or who have no living to make. I am not so lucky as to belong to either category. I minister to a large parish and do so for thirty-five pounds a year. I haven’t the time to concern myself with who is in Parliament and who opposes the king. And I don’t possess the franchise, so my opinion is immaterial. But I do support the idea of a strong Church, so I would most likely be drawn to the Tory party.”

“Have you ever heard of a man called Johnson?” I asked. “Perhaps in association with Mr. Ufford, perhaps not.”

“I had a neighbor named Johnson when I was a boy in Kent, but he was killed in a fire some fifteen years ago.”

“I don’t think that is who I mean.”

He shrugged. “It is a common name, but it means nothing in particular to me- and I can think of no Johnson in Ufford’s circle.”

I could see that my questions here would yield little bounty, so I thanked Mr. North for his time and began to excuse myself.

“Are you certain,” he said, “you would not care for a drink?”

“I am certain,” I told him.

“Perhaps something to eat, then. I imagine it must be difficult for you to find the time to take a meal in your current crisis. My wife and I have not much, but we would be glad to share with you what little is on our table.”

“I would not think of so presuming upon you,” I said. And then I paused, for I could see no good reason why a man of such little money would insist on giving food and drink to a stranger wanted by the law. There was, however, one ill reason he might do so. It suddenly occurred to me that they might not have been words of love he had whispered in his wife’s ear.

For an instant I thought to strike North hard in the face for his treachery, but that would prove a waste of my time. More than that, I understood it was no treachery to his way of thinking. He did not know me and owed me no loyalty. I was but an escaped murderer to him, and if a man with four children and a painfully meager salary sees an opportunity to secure four times his yearly income by doing his duty as a British subject, he cannot be called to account for acting as most any man would.

I merely turned from him, threw open the door, and rushed through the front room, terrifying Mr. North’s wife and children as I pushed my way past. The priest’s lady must have known what was at issue, for she stood before me and attempted to block the hasty departure from her home of 150 pounds’ worth of escaped felon. Having no time for genteel respect for the softer sex, I merely shoved her aside and began to make my way down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time.

As I approached the landing, I could see a pair of constables just entering the house, pistols drawn. They only had time to look up before I threw myself at them and knocked both down like pins on a bowling green. Somewhere the landlady screamed, but I could not devote any attention to her and could only hope that she did not take it in her mind to do something heroic like strike me on the head with a kitchen pot.

The two constables were momentarily dazed, so I took advantage of their confusion, and of their wearing hair rather than wigs. That is to say, I grabbed each by his locks and knocked their heads together soundly and with enough force to render them useless to the world and to themselves. With the two men agreeably slumped, I helped myself to their pistols and dashed out into the street.

A cold rain had begun to fall in thick sheets, blown by a hard and cruel wind. The weather worked well to my advantage, for it limited visibility. Still, I thought, as I tucked away my newly got pistols, my footman’s disguise was no longer of any use.

I could only hope my next excursion would be more profitable than my last. During my trial, both witnesses against me had admitted to condemning me only because they were in the employ of Arthur Groston, so I thought I would see what the man had to say for himself.

After my arrest, I had sent Elias out to learn what he could from his ample connections among the legal men of the metropolis. Though he was no ruffian and feared to question low men, he nevertheless screwed up his courage and discovered it was widely believed that there would be eyewitnesses who could provide proof of my guilt. We both found this passing odd, since there could hardly be witnesses to an event that had never taken place. I could only conclude that these witnesses had been paid for, and I sent Elias to treat with the dozen or so most notorious purveyors of false testimony.

The method I devised was simple. Elias would inquire of the possibility of hiring witnesses to speak in my defense. We knew that if any of these men had already paid witnesses to appear against me, they would be forced to decline, lest the gentleman face the wrath of those who hired him. Of the men to whom Elias spoke, only Groston demurred, and so we knew at once that he was our man.

This worthy kept a stationer’s store off Chick Lane that offered a variety of pens and papers and blank books, in addition to a few lurid pamphlets and romances. The bulk of his income surely came from his alternate trade, and it was one he was in no way embarrassed to promote. A painted sign hung in the window: EVIDENCE.

I approached cautiously, for I thought it entirely possible that the Riding Officers might have anticipated this move on my part, but I have long since discovered that very few men truly understand the nimble art of the inquiry. The deft thieftaker must anticipate his prey’s movements, but most of these fellows know only how to react once the prey is found.

The interior was a small shop, crowded with clutter and detritus and dusty sheaves of paper. The space was quite small- only ten feet in length, five in width- in which a customer might move without facing a counter that separated the proprietor from the rest of the store.

I had seen Groston about town, though he and I had never met. He was a younger man than was usual in his trade, not yet into his middle twenties, and of lean but strong build. He wore his natural hair, which hung down in stringy clumps, and there was a half-week’s growth of beard on his pointy face. Though not generally of a physiognomic temperament, I had never once set eyes on this weaselly fellow without feeling a strong dislike.

“Good afternoon,” he said, not bothering to raise himself from where he sat, at table with a glass of thin red wine. “How can I be of service to you? Are you interested in goods material or immaterial?”

“I am in need of evidence,” I said, “and the sign in your window suggested that I might procure it here.”

“That you can. Tell me what plagues you, and you will find that I am in all ways prepared to provide you with the assistance you crave.”

I approached the counter and, in doing so, advanced upon a rather unpleasant scent. Mr. Groston himself smelled unwashed, and there was a chamber pot nearby that was so recently used it fairly gave off heat like a stove. None of this made me more inclined to be gentle with the fellow.

“There has been a death,” I said. “A murder.”

He shrugged. “These things are apt to happen now and again, sir. It is better that we not trouble ourselves more than we have to.”

“You and I are of a similar way of thinking,” I assured him. “But I require witnesses to clear my associate.”

“You would be surprised,” Mr. Groston told me, “how easily a man of my talents might find those who suddenly recall having seen what no one might have before suspected they had seen. You need only provide me with the details, and I shall find these witnesses for you.”

“Very good,” I said. “The man in question is named- um, Elias Gordon, and he is accused of having killed a man called Benjamin Weaver.”

Groston raised his eyebrows. “Oh, ho. Weaver’s dead, is he? Well, that is the best news I’ve heard in epochs.” For the first time he looked up at me and met my eyes. I could only assume that he knew my face from about town as well as I knew his, and at once he realized the error he had made. “Oh,” he said.

“Yes. Now, let us talk, Mr. Groston. We must begin with your telling me who hired you to provide the witnesses at my trial.”

He moved to back up, but I lashed out quickly and grabbed his wrist.

“I won’t answer any of your questions.”

“Do you think you might reconsider,” I asked, “if I held your head in that chamber pot long enough that you risked drowning in your own kennel?”

Rather than await his mulling over this hypothetical, I moved around to his side of the counter, grabbed him by his greasy hair with one hand, and forced him downward with my other, that I might try the experiment. This was a tricky business, you understand, because I did not wish to have any of his refuse splash on me, but it was not a terribly difficult thing to shove his head in the pot and keep him there for more than two minutes- all without a drop of his nastiness tarnishing my costume.

When I felt his struggling diminish to a dangerous degree, I pulled him out and tossed him on the floor. I took a step back, lest he shake himself off like a dog and send his refuse flying. But Groston only lay there panting and coughing and wiping at his eyes.

“You blackguard,” he wheezed. “Are you mad to use me so?”

“Perhaps it is a shitten way to treat a man, but as I have already used you thus once, I do not it think it so outrageous that I do so again. Now, let me ask you again: Who is it that bought those witnesses?”

He stared at me, not sure what to do, but when I took a step toward him he reasoned that he had better tell me all. “Damn you for a dog!” he shouted. “I don’t know who he was. Just a fellow, and one I ain’t seen before.”

“I don’t believe you,” I told him. I reached out, grabbed his hair, and held him down for another dunk. This time I kept him contained a bit longer than was wise. He thrashed and shuddered and pushed against my hand, but I did not relent until I felt the fight begin to die out of him. Then I yanked him free and tossed him on the floor.

He stared at me with wide eyes while he hacked a filthy mucus. His first efforts at speech were aborted by a heaving cough, and he nearly vomited but somehow did not. This time he managed to find his voice. “Go to the devil’s arse, Weaver. You nearly drowned me.”

“If you disoblige me by refusing to answer my questions,” I explained, “it hardly matters to me if you be living or dead.”

He shook his head. “I told you, I don’t know him. I never saw him before. He was just a fellow, you know. Not tall nor short. Not young nor old. Neither mean nor great. I hardly remember nothing about him but that he handed me a fat purse, and that was enough for me.”

I grabbed him once more by the hair and began to drag him toward the chamber pot. “You’ll not be coming out so soon this time.”

“Stop!” he shrieked. “Stop it! I told you! I told you everything! You want me to make up a name? I’ll do it, if you just leave me be.”

I let go of him and sighed, for I had begun to suspect that he had spoken the truth. Perhaps I had suspected so all along but had only relished the opportunity to punish him. “Who is Johnson? The witnesses both said I used that name.”

He shook his sad and beshatted head. “I don’t know who he is. The man what hired me only said that the witnesses must say you spoke that name to suggest that you were his agent.”

I took a step nearer to him and he shrieked again. “Leave me,” he cried. “That’s all I know. It is all I know, I tell you. I don’t know no more. Except-”

“Except what?”

“He told me that should you come looking for him, to give you something.”

I stared in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

“Just that.” Groston stood up and wiped the kennel from his face and over his head, so it ran down the back of his neck. “I thought it most strange. I asked him why you should come here; was it not more like the case that you should be hanged? He said there was always a chance, and if you did come by I was to give you something. They kept on dying, but he give me money to buy a fresh one every day, just in case.”

“What are you talking about? Dying? A fresh one?”

He held up his hands. “I told you, I don’t know no more than that. I don’t want to regret telling you so much as this, but it’s what he said to do, and I don’t know no more than it.”

“What is it? What did he tell you to give me?”

He fumbled behind his counter, looking for something, muttering to himself that he hadn’t bought a fresh one today or the day before either, but there was surely one here. I kept a close eye on Groston for fear that he would produce a weapon, but none was forthcoming. At last he found what he sought and presented it to me with a shaking hand.

“Here,” he said. “Take it.”

I did not have to take it. Taking it was immaterial. It was the thing itself that mattered, the message of it. What had been left for me was a white rose. This one was wilted and drying, but it lost none of its potency for all that. A white rose.

The symbol of the Jacobites.