The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

The previous night I had not been so abstemious with drink as might be desired of a man in pursuit of reform, but I nevertheless awoke early and with an eagerness I had not known in years. I had before me a remarkable day because I had things to do. I had not had things to do in years. I’d had things that needed doing, that ought to get done, that had better be taken care of, but they were usually of the if not today then fairly soon variety. I had safely hidden away the stolen message inside an orphaned second volume of Tristram Shandy; the silver ball itself sat upon my desk like a monument to all that had changed in my life. I was alive and vibrant and I had things to do, monumental things, and I intended to do them.

Of the greatest importance was a visit to the City Tavern to begin my quest for William Duer. It seemed to me he was at the heart of everything. It was his man, this mysterious Reynolds, who had arranged to expel me from my home. Hamilton had identified him as a mischief maker, and the note I had recovered the night before seemed to allude to him. Granted, the D might well have been another man, but I did not think so. Hamilton had assured me Duer was not to be found in town, but I was not confident Hamilton had been honest on that score, not when the mere mention of the name Reynolds sent him into spasms of rage.

Trading would not begin at the City Tavern for several hours yet, however, so before going there I thought it best to visit the address Hilltop had given me. Thus, at ten, Leonidas met me at my rooms, and together we made our way south to the boardinghouse on Evont Street. The voyage from the heart of Philadelphia to Southwark was like witnessing, all at once, a youthful face wither into age. The redbrick houses, first stately and well-maintained, were, a block later, turned ramshackle and ill-kept. A block or two after that they became wood frame, and, soon after that, little more than shacks. The prim men of business and frenetic speculators and wealthy Quakers gave way to the laboring poor, to Papists and Presbyterians, to curious foreigners from Poland or Russia or other alien lands, to free Negro cart men crying out oysters and pepper pot. Some of these were dressed in the same plain garb one might find on a white man, but some of the women wore brightly colored and curiously patterned scarves upon their heads, the vestigial remain of savage origins.

Leonidas kept his head straight ahead, but I had the distinct impression that he knew some of these people and the odd feeling he did not like being seen with me. Indeed, we were not three blocks from our destination when a Negro boy of fourteen or fifteen, wearing heavy green woolen breeches and a ragged outer coat, came running up to him. “Ho, there, Leon, this the man that own you?” he asked, in a sort of singsong voice.

“Run along,” Leonidas said, very quietly.

“Hey, white man, why you not let him go when you promised?” the boy asked me.

Leonidas made a shooing motion, and the child, mercifully, ran off.

Evont Street was wide and well traveled but unpaved, and thus full of filthy snow and mud and animal leavings. Pigs roamed freely and grunted their courage at passing carriages. The boardinghouse-poorly kept, with peeling paint and splintering wood-was on the corner, facing the far more quiet Mary Street, but that offered it no air of repose or peace. It was a wretched place for wretched people, with boarded windows and a visible hole in the roof.

The woman of the house answered our knock. Here was a haggard creature of some thirty years, quite old-looking, with gray hair and heavily bagged eyes that bespoke her bone-weariness. Her three small children stood behind their mother and gazed at us with the empty expression of cattle.

“We seek an Irishman who may live here,” I said. “Tall, hairless, red-whiskered.”

“Ain’t no one like that lived here,” she said.

“Then you’ve never seen him?” I asked.

She said nothing and had the distinct look of a woman attempting to make up her mind. Leonidas pushed ahead of me. “Have you seen him, Mrs. Birch?”

Her face did not exactly brighten, but it became a degree less sour. “Didn’t see it was you back there, Leon. Is this him, then?” she asked, pointing at me.

“Yes, it’s him.”

She eyed me critically.

“Have you seen him?” Leonidas asked again. “It is important.”

She nodded. “I seen him. He come by here looking for my landlord, but he ain’t been by for a while, and so I told him.”

“And who is your landlord?” I asked.

“Who was my landlord, more like: a wretch named Pearson. Almost cost me my livelihood too, with him losing the property, but the new fellow is letting me stay on at the same rent.”

I nearly took a step back in surprise. “Let me clarify, if you please. Pearson owned the house but owns it no longer?”

“He sold it, and right quick too, like he was in some sort of hurry,” she said.

“When did this happen?” Leonidas asked.

“Two weeks ago the new landlord arrives, telling me he now owns the house and that Pearson has been selling off his properties.”

This was the sort of matter I could better investigate back in the heart of town, perhaps even at the City Tavern. I thought it unlikely that this woman would know the specifics of Pearson’s finances, but it seemed to me interesting that he was selling off property. “What of the Irishman?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I should tell you anything,” she said. “Pearson ain’t my landlord no more, but even so he’s not a man to cross.”

“A moment, if you please, Mrs. Birch,” Leonidas said. He stepped forward into the house with her, and I heard them speak in hushed tones for a moment. Once I heard her say missing! in a loud and gleeful voice, but I could make no more of it.

When they emerged, Leonidas turned to me and announced in a businesslike manner that Mrs. Birch would be happy to tell all in exchange for one British shilling.

“I have no money, so you pay her, Leonidas. Be so good.”

He reached into his coat, but the woman stopped him. “Is he going to pay you back?”

“Very likely not.”

“Don’t forget I’ve reformed,” I said.

“Very likely not,” Leonidas said again.

“Then don’t pay me nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to take no money from you.”

I looked at Leonidas. “Why are people so nice to you?”

“Because I am kind to them,” he said.

“Fascinating,” I muttered, and it was. To the woman I said, “Now that we’ve worked out these pesky money matters, can you tell me what I wish to know?”

She nodded. “Pearson would use one of the rooms in the house. He discounted my rent on account of me not being able to rent it out myself. He kept it for a delicate kind of business, and though I didn’t much care for it happening under my own roof, I was in no position to object, if you take my meaning.”

“He brought a woman here?” I asked. “He strayed from his marriage vows?”

She laughed. “He invented whole new ways to stray from his marriage vows. He only came here with one girl; Emily Fiddler’s her name. I told the Irishman too, ’cause he come looking for Pearson. I tell him that Pearson don’t live here, don’t even stay here, he just uses the room for his special girl.”

“And what is so special about this Emily Fiddler?”

A distressed sort of grin crossed her face. “You’d have to meet her to understand.”

S he directed us to a house not far away on German Street. It was a better sort of place than that from which we’d come, in superior repair, not so reeking of desperation and decay. Seeing me look upon it, Leonidas said, “I suppose Pearson never owned this one.”

We knocked upon the door, and the serving woman, upon hearing our request, sent me (without Leonidas, who was sent to the kitchen) to a sitting room, where I was met by a not unattractive woman in her early thirties. She had dark hair, large emerald eyes, and lips of unusual redness against pale skin. She was a bit plump perhaps, and her nose a bit too thin, but she must have been spectacular ten years earlier.

“I am looking for Miss Fiddler.”

“I am she,” the woman said, with the charming tone of a lady who knows her business. “Have you been referred to me?”

“As it happens, we have,” I said.

“Then by all means let us talk business. Let me call for tea.”

There was something in her tone, something jaded and eager, like the crier at a traveling show, that put me on my caution. The room, which had seemed perfectly charming to me, now took on a less agreeable cast. The furnishings, which were neat, were also quite old, and not in the best repair: chipped wood, tattered upholstery, fringed pillows. The windows were covered with gaudy red curtains, laced with gold chintz. I had the strangest feeling that we were children playing at being adults.

“Miss Fiddler,” I began, “I have just come from a Mrs. Birch, who formerly rented her home from a Mr. Jacob Pearson. I am told you know him.”

She smiled, quite lasciviously, I thought. “Of course. I know him well. He is always a good man with whom to do business.”

“Is that so?” I asked.

“And would you care to do business as well?” she asked.

Were I less used to female charms, I would most certainly have blushed, so saucy was her tone. “I will certainly discuss business with you.”

“I speak for her when it comes to matters of money, but in the end I cannot influence her when it comes to preference. You understand me. You are a handsome man, Mr. Saunders, but you are also bruised in your face, and that may frighten her. In the end, the arrangement must please her, or there can be no business at all. I must also tell you that in order to indemnify all parties, money may be exchanged in my house, but the business, shall we say, must be transacted elsewhere. You must have somewhere to take her.”

A lesser man would have inquired what, precisely, the deuce she was talking about, but I had ever thought it best to let these things unfold upon their own terms. “May I meet her?”

“Of course.”

She rang a bell.

I had already surmised that while this lady might have been a Miss Fiddler, she was not the Miss Fiddler with whom Pearson had a relationship. My guess was that this lady was a relative-an older sister or cousin or aunt-who functioned as the younger woman’s bawd.

In a moment a pretty young girl entered the room, looking like a younger version of our hostess. The girl had the same dark hair, the same eyes the color of brilliant summer grass, the same red lips and snowy skin, the same too-narrow nose. She, like the older lady, was a bit inclined to plumpness, but she wore it well, for her weight was well located in precisely the places a man likes a woman to accumulate herself. She wore a simple white gown, low cut to expose her large breasts. She curtsied, saying nothing, gazing upon nothing with a kind of amusement, as though nothing were a perpetual show staged for her entertainment.

I rose and bowed. “You must be Emily. May I ask you some questions?”

She smiled but said nothing. There was nothing rude or defiant in her silence, rather a kind of uncomplicated absence. The serving girl now wheeled in the tea things, and the cart was rickety and squeaked and rattled, producing an atmosphere at once comic and ominous.

“May I ask you some questions about Mr. Jacob Pearson?” I asked the girl.

She curtsied again, but the older woman shifted in her seat as though she too was uncomfortable. She sent her serving girl away with a flick of her hand. To me she said, “Did Mr. Pearson tell you much about Emily?”

“He only spoke of her great beauty,” I said quickly, “and he did not exaggerate.”

“You are a man of taste, sir. You may direct your questions to me.”

The girl now said something that sounded very much like Peah-soh. Her voice was deeper than I would have anticipated, and the sound was low and nasal, as sad and dull as a cow’s mournful lowing.

I turned to her. “I beg your pardon.”

Her face opened into a wide grin. “Peah-soh,” she keened.

All at once it was clear to me, and I cursed myself for a fool for not seeing it sooner. “My God. Is the girl a simpleton?”

Miss Fiddler did not respond to this vehemence. “I thought you knew. Yes, she was born that way, and when her parents died last year and left her in my care, I knew not what to do with her. But as you can see, she is very pretty, and she does not object to her duties.” She leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “She rather relishes it. You are not going to be one of those men to lecture me, are you?”

There was a depth of inhumanity here that even I found too diabolical to contemplate, but this was not the time for useless lectures. I was getting close to learning something, and along the way I was both elated and horrified to discover that Cynthia’s husband was more of a beast than I could have imagined.

To the elder lady, I said, “I am not one to judge. One man’s monstrosity is another man’s diversion. For my part, Miss Fiddler, I would delight in bedding an idiot-vastly amusing and all that-but that is not why I’ve come. It is on government business, and I do hope that when I come to report my findings to the President and his advisors I have only information to tell him, not the nature of the people who could not help us. You understand me, I think.”

She nodded, now of a more sober deportment. “I see all too clearly what you are after.” She waved Emily out of the room. “Ask me your questions.”

“Did a tall hairless Irishman come here looking for Pearson?”

“He came,” she said, “but there was nothing to tell him. We never do business here, as I told you, so Pearson, other than our first meeting, was never a guest in my home. I explained that to the Irishman, and he left almost at once.”

“Almost,” I said.

“He asked if I would hold a letter for a friend,” she said. “He gave me five dollars to take the note and said I would receive another five when its rightful owner came to collect it.”

“I am the rightful owner,” I said.

She laughed. “I doubt that, as you did not know of the letter before now.”

“Miss Fiddler,” I said, “I presume you will have no objection to giving that letter to representatives of the United States government.”

“Of course I would not, were I still in possession of it,” she said. “But I gave the letter away three days ago to the last gentleman who came in search of it.”

“The last gentleman,” I repeated.

“A slender young man with a beard who also claimed to work for the government. Lavien, I believe he called himself. Is he a colleague of yours?”