The Devil's Company

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DEPARTED FROM CRAVEN HOUSE THAT AFTERNOON, HOPING NO ONE would notice my absence and Mr. Ellershaw would not call for me again. As per my arrangements, I met Elias at the Two Schooners Tavern on Cheapside, where he had ordered a pot and a meal, which I presumed I would be called upon to pay for. When I sat down, he was wiping the last of the grease from his plate with the last of his bread.

“Are you certain this matter will not turn difficult for me?” he asked.

“Reasonably certain,” I assured him.

I reviewed the plan, which I believed to be rather straightforward and easily accomplished—at least his end of it. Elias then wiped his face and departed to travel the short distance to Throgmorton Street, where the Seahawk kept its offices. I ordered a pot, which I allowed myself to drink over a third of an hour, and then paid the reckoning and made my way to the offices myself.

I entered the building and found myself in a large open room with several heavy writing desks where several clerks were currently at their labors. I noticed a door over to my left, which I believed led to Mr. In-gram’s office. I had contacted him earlier that day—using Elias’s name—to request an appointment. At that moment, Elias would be inside, attempting to secure insurance policies on several very elderly sea captains. Mr. Ingram, for his part, would be engaged in a rather lengthy effort to deny Elias, all of which gave me the time I required to attempt our scheme.

I approached the nearest clerk, a stooped-over gentleman of later year, his eyes obscured by bulky spectacles. He wrote in a hasty yet vastly neat hand in an opened ledger book, and he did so with such intensity that he failed to notice me as I approached.

“Ingram,” I said to him.

He continued to avoid looking up at me. “Mr. Ingram is indisposed at the moment. If you wish to wait or leave your card, sir.”

“No,” I said quietly.

Perhaps it was too quiet, for he did not respond. I, in turn, thought it prudent to accentuate my displeasure with a slap to his desk. “Ingram!” I said once more.

He set down his pen and scratched at his nose with an ink-stained finger, flattened from years of scrivening. “Mr. Ingram is with a gentleman right now,” he said, the concern evident in his voice. Indeed, his fellow clerks must have heard the concern as well, for they all ceased their labors and looked at me.

“I suggest you retrieve him,” I said.

“’Tis not our style of conducting business within these walls,” he answered.

“It ought to be your style when I come calling.”

“And who are you?”

“Ah, it’s Mr. Weaver, as I recollect.”

I recognized the figure descending the stairs. It was none other than Mr. Bernis, the same prim little gentleman who had accosted me at the Portuguese eatery to inform me that my life was now fully insured. He hurried over to me and shook my hand—I say he shook it and not we shook, for I hardly participated in any manner.

“So very good to see you once more, sir. How may we assist you?”

“I have come to demand that you tell me the names of the men who have insured my life.”

“As I explained to you earlier, we cannot reveal that information. There is an element of confidentiality that—”

“Confidentiality be damned,” I answered, not a little harshly. Indeed, the clerk took a step backward, as though blown by the force of my vehemence. “I will know it.”

“Sir,” he said. I must give credit to poor Mr. Bernis. He was not a large man or overly inclined to the martial spirit, yet in the defense of his company he stepped forward and put a hand upon my arm.

I, in turn, picked up the poor fellow and cast him down upon the desk of the bespectacled clerk. The two of them tumbled together in a maelstrom of limbs and papers and spilled ink. I hoped most sincerely that I did not hurt the man, who was only doing his business, and I made a note that I must send him a gift in compensation, but there were more important matters to attend to than the delicacy of his feelings. “I will speak to Ingram!” I shouted, and made my desperation known by approaching another desk and wiping its surface clean with a great sweep of my arm.

As I had hoped, the room had now become a scene of chaos. Several of the clerks, one of whose face dripped with ink, ran toward the stairs. Papers were strewn here and there, and they all shouted at once, including poor Bernis, who had arisen from his sad tangle to call out In-gram’s name most plaintively. I added my own voice to the chorus, shouting the name with far more malice.

My efforts had the effect I most desired, for the door to the inner office opened and its occupant emerged—a man of below-average height but trim of figure, with broad shoulders and a barrel of a chest. He was no doubt at least fifty years old, yet despite his age and stature, and indeed, despite the commotion, which must have come as a shock to his eyes, he held himself with a dignified bearing.

From behind him I saw Elias rise from his chair and move slowly toward the door, which he intended to close. I needed to make certain Ingram did not observe this effort, so I stepped forward, my index finger extended, and jabbed at him, coming just short of laying upon him a humiliating poke to the chest.

“My name is Weaver,” I said, “and several men have taken out insurance policies upon my life. I demand to know their names and their business, or you will answer for it.”

“Lewis,” he shouted to one of the clerks, “fetch the constable!” A young man, cowering near the staircase—too afraid to move closer, too interested to retreat—scrambled to his feet, dashed past me as though I might bite him, and left the rooms.

It was no matter. There would be no constable present for another quarter hour at the earliest, and I had no intention of remaining so long. “All the constables in the world shan’t help you,” I said. “I have made my demand, and I will be answered, one way or the other.”

“You have been answered,” he said. “You have my apologies, but we cannot give you the information you request. I desire you take yourself from here, lest your reputation be damaged by your actions.”

“My reputation is secure,” I answered, “and if I use it to level accusations upon you and your company, you will be the sorrier for it.”

“I will be the sorrier,” he informed me, “if I betray the confidence of those I serve by revealing what I have no obligation to reveal.”

Our exchange continued in this manner for another several minutes until I noticed that the door to Ingram’s office was once more opening. Here was the signal that Elias and I had agreed upon; it marked the time I must remove myself from the premises. I did so, with threats that they would not remain unpunished for these outrages.

Then I departed to the selfsame tavern where Elias and I had met earlier. I ordered another pot and awaited his arrival, which came far sooner than I had anticipated.

“I used the chaos of your visit as a reason to excuse myself,” he told me, “but I cannot but suspect that Ingram or one of the clerks will realize my visit was in conjunction with yours and will understand our deceit.”

“Let them understand it,” I said. “So much the better. They cannot act upon it, for they shan’t desire the world to learn their books can be so easily violated. Now, did you obtain the list of names?”

“I did,” he said. “I know not what it means, but it cannot be good.” He removed from his pocket a scrap of paper, upon which was written three names I had never before beheld.

Jean-David Morel

Pierre Simon

Jacques LaFont

“Perhaps you notice something about them,” he said.

“These are all French names.”

“Just so,” he agreed.

“The French, I have been made to understand, are beginning to assert themselves within India, and it is not unlikely that, in order to achieve their ends, they must act against the East India Company. That much I comprehend. What I do not comprehend is why they should believe their success depends upon mine—to such a degree that they must insure my life.”

“That is but one interpretation. There is another, and I believe it may be far more likely, I am grieved to say.”

“They know I will soon be dead, they see no reason not to profit from it,” I said.

Elias nodded solemnly. “You had enemies enough before this, but I suspect, Weaver, that your situation has now been revealed to be even more dire than we had supposed.”