The Devil's Company

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HE MESSAGE SENT TO ELLERSHAW WAS OF NO CONSEQUENCE, BUT the information that I intended to meet with Elias was of far greater moment. I had to make a decision. My enemy knew what I planned, which thus far was not much. Did I lie back and wait, in hopes of catching him at his tricks, or did I strike first and thereby hope to gain the upper hand? Had I the twin luxuries of time and freedom I might have opted for the former, but I could not be away from Craven House as long as I wished, and therefore chose the latter option. I would act on the information I had gained by meeting with Blackburn, and in doing so I would hope that primacy of acquisition afforded me some advantage. I therefore sent my messages again, more successfully, and attempted to get what little sleep I could.

The next morning, after taking great pains to see that no one followed me, I took an early coach to Twickenham, a journey of some two hours, and then waited two hours more in a public house for the second coach to arrive, this one carrying Elias. It was certainly possible that an enterprising villain would have someone keeping an eye on my friend, and as Elias would not be quite so quick as I to observe such a person, I thought it safest if we did not travel together. Once he walked into the tavern, I felt reasonably certain that we had arrived safely.

He insisted upon a meal and a few drafts of beer to help shake off the lethargy of the journey, and once he had satisfied himself we asked directions and headed for the home of Mrs. Absalom Pepper. Everyone was familiar with the new homes on the graciously tree-lined Montpelier Row, and we found her with little difficulty.

Here our journey required some luck, for I had not sent a note ahead, and there were no guarantees that Mrs. Pepper would not be out upon visits, or making purchases, or on a journey for all I knew. But these anxieties, to my relief, were unfounded. Heloise Pepper was indeed home. Our knock was met by a quiet and unattractive girl of some sixteen or seventeen years who suffered from plain equine features and disfiguring scars from the smallpox. She led us into a sitting room, where we were soon met by a handsome woman of some twenty-five years, dressed in widow’s weeds, to be sure, but rarely has anyone donned the garb of mourning to greater advantage. The black of her attire was offset by the matching raven hues of her hair, arranged in a comely if slightly disarrayed bun, and through the darkness of cloth and tresses shone a face of porcelain and bright eyes of a remarkable mix of green and brown.

Elias and I both presented our most polite bows, his deeper than mine, for he offered her the very special bow he reserved for pretty widows with large annuities.

“My name is Benjamin Weaver and this is my associate, Elias Gordon, a noted surgeon of London.” I added that fact in the hopes she would think we were here upon some medical matter. “I pray you forgive the intrusion, but we have rather urgent business, and it is our hope that you will be willing to answer some questions concerning your late husband.”

Her face brightened considerably, and her color rose with pleasure. It was as though she had been waiting, hoping against hope, that someday strangers might knock upon her door wishing to ask about her husband. And now, here we were.

Yet there was a hesitation too. A calculated caution, as though she had to remind herself to be careful, the way a child must remind himself to fear the fire. “What do you wish to speak of regarding my dear sweet Absalom?” she asked. She held to her chest a coat that she was in the process of mending, but I observed that she now gathered it in a bundle and appeared to rock it as though it were an infant.

“I know his death must be painful for you, madam,” I continued.

“You cannot know, sirs,” she said. “No one who wasn’t married to him could know what it is to lose him—my Absalom, the best of men. I can tell you as much as that. If that is what you wish to know—was he the best of men?—then you have your answer. He was.”

“Indeed, the nature of the man is part of what we wished to ascertain,” Elias offered, “but not the whole.”

Cleverly done, I could not help but silently observe. In so praising the man and hinting at some purpose designed to celebrate his grandeur, Elias had effectively flung wide the gates for inquiry.

“You gentlemen must be seated,” she said, gesturing to her moderately appointed sitting room. The furnishings were not the best, but they were neat and well looked after. She then asked the dour serving girl to bring us some refreshment, which turned out, much to Elias’s pleasure, to be a sprightly wine.

I took a small sip but no more. I had already had my fill of drink and did not wish to allow my thinking to become clouded. “Madam, what can you tell us of your late husband, of your lives together?”

“My Absalom,” she said, rather dreamily. She set down her glass so there would be nothing spilled by the force of her sigh. “You know, my father did not wish me to marry him. He could not see him as I did.”

“And how did you see him?” Elias managed, setting aside his wine for a moment.

“As beautiful. My mother saw it, mind you, but she also wished me not to marry him, for she was jealous of his beauty. Absalom was the most beautiful man there ever was, and he was full of kindness and goodness. My father said he only wanted to marry me for my dowry, and it’s true that the money didn’t last long, but only because Absalom had great dreams.”

“What sort of dreams?” I inquired.

She smiled at me in a way both tender and pitying, a smile a clergyman might give to a simpleton who had inquired of the nature of God. “He was to make us rich,” she said.

“In what way?”

“Why, with his thoughts,” she informed us. “He was always thinking, always working something out upon his papers. And surely he must have had some important thoughts, for that is why I have the annuity. Even my father would be impressed by it, if he would but speak with me, but he has not endured a word from my lips since Absalom lost the dowry money. Then all he said was that he knew this and would have told me that, but surely Absalom was right and he can look down with forgiveness from heaven.”

“As it happens,” Elias said, “it is in part because of this annuity that we have come to see you.”

The smile dropped from her face. “I see what this is then. But I must tell you gentlemen that I have no shortage of suitors already, and none are wanted. A widow with an annuity is like an untended sweetmeat for the flies, if you will pardon me for being so blunt, but I am not here to be picked at. I have been married to Absalom Pepper, you see, and I cannot endure the thought of being married to another. I know how you gentlemen are. You think an annuity that goes only to a widow is money wasted. To me it is a celebration of Absalom’s life and spirit, sirs, and I shan’t see it soiled by giving my hand to another.”

“You quite misunderstand us,” I offered in a hurry. “Though I cannot blame any man for seeking your attention, annuity or no, such is not our business. We are here to discuss the business of the annuity, madam. You see, we wish to know of its origination.”

Here the beatific glow of self-satisfaction, the radiant power of one who has touched the hem of a saint, dissolved at once. “Do you mean to say there is some difficulty? I was assured that the annuity would last for the duration of my years. It is not right that it should change now, sir. It is not right, and you may depend upon it. One of my suitors is a man of the bar, and though he has no chance of winning my favor, I know he will go to any lengths to serve me. I promise you, he shall see to it that no crime of this sort is countenanced.”

“I do beg your pardon,” Elias cut in. “I regret to have given you cause for alarm. My associate meant nothing of the sort. We have no power over your annuity and wish you no harm on that head. We merely wished to see if you could explain why you are entitled to it. Why has this money been settled upon you?”

“Why?” she asked, growing ever more agitated. “Why? Why should it not? Is that not the way of the silk weavers?”

“The silk weavers?” I burst out, though I knew I should have held my tongue. “What has this matter to do with them?”

“What has it not to do with them?” Mrs. Pepper retorted.

“Madam,” Elias cut in, “we were under the impression that your annuity originated with the East India Company.”

She stared as though we had offered her the gravest insult imaginable. “Why ever would the East India Company pay an annuity to me? What had Mr. Pepper to do with such men as those?”

I had thought to say this was what I hoped she could tell us, and I believe the words were upon Elias’s lips as well, but he too refrained. What, after all, could be gained by asking a question so obviously answered?

“Madam, we are clearly operating under a false impression,” Elias said. “Can you tell me whence the annuity does come?”

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s the silk weavers’ guild. After Mr. Pepper died, they sent a man to me who said that, as Absalom was a member of the guild and as I was his widow, I was entitled to a death benefit. You must swear you ain’t taking it away.”

“Allow me to explain,” I said. “You see, madam, we represent the Seahawk Insurance Office, and there was a clerical error with one of our claims relating to the East India Company. I will work with all my efforts to make certain the claim does not come into jeopardy, you understand. It is merely a matter of remaining orderly with the records. In any event, we believed the annuity came through the Company, but our records may be even more confused than we thought. Let me assure you that nothing you say will harm the security of the annuity. You can only aid us in better organizing our management of it.”

Now she appeared somewhat mollified. She took from her breast a locket and studied the picture inside, a picture of her late husband I could not doubt. After whispering a word or two in the jewel’s direction and placing a loving finger upon the image, she replaced it and turned to us. “Very well. I shall try and help you.”

“I thank you,” I said. “Now, if I understand you, you say this annuity is part of a common benefit provided for members of the silk weavers’ guild?”

“That is what I was told,” she said.

The very notation stretched the boundaries of the absurd. One hundred and twenty pounds a year for the widow of a silk weaver? Such men were lucky to earn twenty or thirty pounds a year, and while I knew the linen men formed combinations and looked after one another, they had no guild that I had ever heard of. It was good for me, however, that I had a contact among their number, the very same Devout Hale whose riotous impulses I had put to work in first getting me inside the East India Company. I could only hope he would be able to serve me once more—this time with information.

“Just so the matter may have no more confusion,” I said, “your husband was a silk weaver in London. Is that right?”

“That’s right. Aren’t you one as well? You said you were a weaver, did you not?”

I chose to disregard the question and allow her to continue with her misunderstanding. “Madam, you must know what your husband earned in his trade. Did it not surprise you that he would have a death benefit worth so many times his annual income?”

“Oh, he would never discuss anything so base as money,” she said. “I only knew that he earned enough for us to live well. My father persisted in his belief that a silk worker was no better than a porter, but did not my Absalom buy me clothes and jewels and nights at the theater? A porter indeed.”

“There are many degrees and levels of expertise among the silk workers, of course,” I said. “Perhaps you could tell me more of the capacity in which Mr. Pepper worked in the silk weaving trade, so I might—”

“He was a silk worker,” she said, with brusque finality, as though I somehow soiled his name by making such inquiries. And then, with a lighter tone, “He would not trouble me by speaking of his labors. He knew he did rough work, but what of it? It earned our bread, more than our share for our happiness.”

“As to the East India Company,” I said, “you know of no connection with your husband?”

“None. But as I said, I did not pry into matters of business. It would not have been seemly. You say there is no danger to my annuity?”

Though I hated to cause so agreeable a lady distress, I knew I had no choice but to present myself as her ally against possible attack, for if I wished to speak to her again, I wanted her to speak with eagerness and honesty. “I hope there will be no danger, and I can assure you I will do all in my power to make certain you continue to receive the sum.”

ON THE COACH on the way back, Elias and I spoke in quiet voices, for we shared the vehicle with two older tradesmen of unusually severe countenance. They smoked me for a Jew almost at once and spent the bulk of the trip staring malevolently. On occasion, one of them would turn to his companion and say something along the lines of, “Do you like sharing a coach with a Hebrew?”

“I never love it,” his friend would respond.

“It does not answer,” the first would say. “It is a low way to travel, indeed.”

They would then return to their malevolent staring until enough time had passed to engage in another terse exchange.

After perhaps three or four of these exchanges, I turned to the gentlemen. “I make it my habit never to toss from a moving coach a man who is above forty-five years of age, but each time you open your mouths, you cushion that scruple by approximately five years. By my calculations, and based upon your appearance, the next time you speak so rudely, I will be fully empowered to toss you without a second thought. And as for the coachman, you need not worry about his interfering. A few coins will answer his concerns, and as you know, we Hebrews have no shortage of the ready.”

Though it was unlikely that I would actually throw a man hard by seventy years onto the road, the threat of such a punishment rendered these wits silent. Indeed, they appeared thereafter reluctant even to glance at us, which made conversation somewhat easier.

“Heloise and Absalom,” Elias mused, directing my attention once more to the matter at hand. “It is a most unpropitious conflation of names, and a poem I should hate to read.”

“Mrs. Pepper hardly seemed to note the evil omens, so enchanted was she with her late husband.”

“One wonders what sort of man he must have been,” Elias mused. “Indeed, beyond his personal charms, I cannot think why the Company would pay his widow so handsomely.”

“It seems to me rather obvious,” I said. “They have done something horrific, and they wish to keep the widow quiet.”

“A fine theory,” Elias agreed, “but there is a problem with it. You see, if the Company had offered her ten or twenty or even thirty pounds a year, the story of a guild annuity might have been creditable. But one hundred and twenty? Even blinded by an inflated sense of her late husband’s worth, as is surely the case, the widow cannot truly believe that such beneficence is standard. So if the Company has somehow engineered the death of that fellow, why would it behave now in such a way as to draw attention to the very irregularity of it?”

His question was a good one, and I had no easy answer. “Perhaps the Company’s crime is so great that it favors a smothering benevolence to any masquerade of veracity. Perhaps the widow knows this guild is not the source but wishes to perpetuate the fiction of Mr. Pepper’s superiority to all other men.”

Elias mulled upon the notion but had no sound conclusions, and we agreed that we would see no logic of it until we were able to learn more.

BACK IN LONDON, I sought out Devout Hale, for he, I hoped, could clarify the role played by Pepper among the silk weavers, but I could find no trace of him at his usual haunts. I left word everywhere and then returned home, where I found none other than the duck-faced Edgar awaiting me. Many of his wounds had begun to heal, though his eye remained blackened and, of course, the gaps remained where his teeth once stood.

“I’d like a word with you in your rooms,” he said.

“And I’d like you to leave,” I countered.

“I won’t, and you can attempt to shove me off if you like, but I suspect you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in your own neighborhood.”

He had the right of it, so I reluctantly permitted him to come in, where he informed me that Mr. Cobb had reliably heard that I had not attended Craven House that day. “The word is that you claim ailment, but you look quite well to me. I see no sign of blood flowing from your arse.”

“Perhaps you would care for a closer inspection.”

He made no response.

“I was indisposed,” I now attempted, “but I have begun to feel better, and I went for a walk in the hopes of clearing my head.”

“Mr. Cobb wishes me to assure you that no clever tricks will work upon him. You’ll be at Craven House on the morrow, sir, or he’ll know why. You may depend on it.”

“You’ve delivered your message. Now be off with you.”

“Mr. Cobb also commands that I ask if you have grown any closer to discovering aught of the name he gave you.”

“No, I have learned nothing.” I knew well how to look like the very model of veracity when telling the greatest of lies. I had no concerns of having betrayed myself by my demeanor, but if Aadil worked for Cobb, and the somewhat veiled contents of my message had been understood, it was possible that my enemy had spoken with the Widow Pepper and knew what I knew. Possible, I thought, but unlikely. I knew not what Aadil was nor to what end his allegiances stretched, but I did not believe they were to Cobb.

“It had better be so,” Edgar said. “If he learns that you withhold information, there will be terrible consequences, and you’ll have cause to regret them. I don’t doubt it, and neither should you.”

“Get on with you then. I’ve heard your message.”

Edgar did, indeed, depart. I was both relieved and disappointed to have an encounter with him that did not conclude with violence.

I HAD THOUGHT MY DAY ended and indulged myself in a glass of port by my fire, attempting, as best I could, to think of nothing—to forget the day’s events, revelations, and questions, that I might better prepare my mind for sleep. It may well be that I dozed off in my chair, but this slumber was abbreviated by a knock upon the door. My landlady informed me that there was a boy below with a message, and he believed its contents could not wait.

With some consternation I arose, angry that what little quiet in which I might indulge had been so destroyed, but when I descended the stairs I saw at once that the boy was of the Hebrew nation. I recognized him from my uncle’s warehouse, and by the reddening of his eyes I knew without looking what his note said. I nevertheless took it with a trembling hand and read its contents.

It came from my aunt, written in her native Portuguese, for in her hour of despair her uncertain English had perhaps abandoned her. And it said what I most feared. My uncle’s pleurisy had struck him another blow, and from this one he had not recovered. It came hard and fast, and though for an hour he had struggled most heartily to breathe, his strength could not match the power of the affliction. He was dead.