The Whiskey Rebel

Ethan Saunders

The new day brought much to think about and reflect on, but the first order of business was to finish my conversation with Duer. He had promised to meet me at the City Tavern, so that was where I traveled in the morning. There I found the trading room in an uproar of chaos that made my previous visit seem a scene from Easter prayer. Men were on their feet shouting at one another, red in the face. Two rather bloated gentlemen stood close enough that, in the heat of their exchange, they made each other’s faces slick with spittle. Clerks scrambled to keep track of trades, but the quick trades and angry progression made their task impossible, and most were filthy with hastily applied ink.

I watched, not knowing what to think, like a street gaper watching the aftermath of a terrible accident. I stood that way some minutes until I noticed someone now next to me, a bespectacled older fellow with gray hair and a gray beard.

He looked at me with some amusement. “Not certain what to make of it?” he asked, in accents that betrayed Scottish origins. “If this is your first time at trade, and it might be from the looks of you, you’ve chosen a bad day.”

“Not my first time, and I’m not at trade. I’m merely curious. What has happened?”

The Scotsman gestured with the back of his hand toward the room in general and at nothing in particular. “Bank shares are down, for the first time in some months. They were trading at 110 just a few days ago, but today they’ve dropped. They were trading at under 100 for a while, but there are some bargain hunters that have raised the price to 102, last I saw.”

“Are you a trader in bank issues?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I am merely an observer, like you, lad.”

I looked at the fellow again. There was something familiar about him I could not place, as if he was a man I’d never met but heard spoken of more than once. He, like Lavien, was bearded, and that was unusual enough, but otherwise he seemed unremarkable, a serious, scholarly-looking fellow in a gray suit-none the best, but not terribly bad.

“Do you know Duer?” I asked him.

“Oh, I know him.”

“Where does he sit? I don’t see him.”

The man laughed. “He’s not here. The rumor is he’s gone back to New York on the early express coach. He has fled, as they say, the scene of his crimes.”

I felt myself tense as disappointment and anger coursed through me. I ought to have made him speak to me last night when he’d been in my grasp. It seemed to me that Duer was a most effective liar. He had, after all, fooled me.

“He owes you, doesn’t he?” the Scotsman said. “I can see the disappointment.”

“Not money, only his time,” I said, affecting calm. “You mentioned he fled his crimes. What crimes do you mean?”

He gestured at the room once more. “This chaos. Before leaving, he let it be known that there are some who have borrowed from the Bank of the United States who won’t be able to pay what they owe. He cast a bomb of chaos and then fled the explosion.”

“Why?”

The man shrugged. “Perhaps he is shorting bank stock. Perhaps he wishes to buy cheap. Perhaps he merely likes to keep the markets unpredictable, since a man of Duer’s sort thrives upon chaotic markets.”

“But he’s not here.”

“Some of these men act secretly as his agents. It is not necessarily a good thing to be, but when the most powerful trader on two exchanges asks a man to be his agent, he cannot say no. If he refuses, he turns his back upon opportunities. But to Duer, these men are no more than firewood-to be used, burned, and then swept away.”

I looked around the room once more and saw no one I knew, no one who could help explain these matters more clearly. The man with the beard was now engaged in watching some trades, and I troubled him no more. Indeed, every man was now trading or watching with rapt attention as men sold their shares of bank issues or bought in the desperate hope that the price would recover. All were standing and talking and trading. All but one. It was the frog-faced man in his brown suit and sour countenance. He traded nothing but sat hunched over a small piece of paper, writing something-I could not see what-in a small hand, as pinched as his expression.

I did not like this fellow showing himself, again and again. And it was then that something occurred to me-why the gray-bearded man had seemed to me familiar. I stepped outside, where Leonidas sat with a group of other servants, and called him aside, telling him what I needed of him.

“She won’t like it,” he said.

“It is of no moment. Bring her.”

He nodded and departed at once. I had no watch any longer, but it was yet early. Trading would continue for the next hour and a half, so I returned inside, all the while keeping my eyes upon the man with the gray beard and the man with the frog face-two figures who seemed to be of increasing importance in my life, though in both cases I could not say why.

Half an hour later, Leonidas returned, telling me he had brought whom I had asked. I went to the door, and my landlady, Mrs. Deisher, stepped inside the threshold, but no further. I did not want her to be seen, and I received a bit of good luck here, for the bearded man was absorbed in watching a trade.

“Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Deisher, but this is important.”

“I am ready to give help, but I never like to have your Negro, to have him drag me from my home, as though abducting me.”

Leonidas shrugged. “Insisting is not abducting.”

“Leonidas apologizes,” I assured her. I gestured to the gray-bearded man. “Have you ever seen him before?”

She opened her mouth, raised her arm in a point, and was no doubt about to scream. In a single movement, I lowered her arm and clamped her mouth shut. “Let us be subtle, my good woman. Do you know him?”

“Yes,” she said. “That is Mr. Reynolds, the one who came to my house and paid me to admit you no more.”

I sent them both away and waited, drinking my porter, watching. The man with the frog face glanced over toward me now and again, but the bearded man did not. At noon, when the trading came to a conclusion, the bearded man took a fresh piece of paper from the leather envelope in which he stored his things and proceeded to write out a lengthy note. He then folded it into a small square and placed it inside something, though I could not see what. He rose and left the building.

In a moment I stood and left as well. Out upon the street, Leonidas remained where he had been before, sitting with the servants, but he pointed right, and so I proceeded to follow, just in time to see my quarry make another right upon Walnut Street. I remained distant, and the streets were sufficiently crowded and chaotic, with their usual press of people and beasts and wayward carriages, that to survive a man must look ahead of him and could not afford to look back. Thus I tracked him easily and observed again that he made another right upon Fifth.

This street was far less crowded than Walnut, and I hesitated as he approached the entrance to the Library Company building. I thought he might go inside-and, if so, I don’t know what I might have done, for there could be no way to follow without revealing myself. But he passed the entrance and then stopped for a moment by a large tree on the far side of the library. He leaned against it for a minute and then hurried on.

I knew enough of human nature and instantly ducked behind a watch house, for no sooner had he taken his first few steps than he turned around and looked behind him. He had, I knew, deposited something. He might have stifled the urge to look around while walking toward his goal, but, once having completed it, he could no longer resist the temptation. Fortunately, I had anticipated this move; I saw his body stiffen, I saw him begin to pivot, and so I hid myself effectively. I waited a moment as he went on, and then I did nothing more than take a seat upon a nearby wall.

I let a full half hour pass and then approached the tree I had observed the gray-bearded man molesting. It had a hole in it, and when I gently reached inside I found something that seemed to be the size and shape of a rock but was infinitely lighter. When I pulled it out, I saw it was a cunning container meant to look like a rock but made of painted wood, with a sliding device upon the bottom. When I opened it, I found a piece of paper, no doubt the one I had seen him write on before leaving. It was another message in the eminently breakable code but far longer than the others I’d seen, and I had no choice but to retire to the nearest tavern, where I called for pen, ink, and paper.

The code had changed, and I could not simply apply the letters I previously recollected, but it was still a Caesar cipher and quite breakable. In the end, it was well worth the effort. Much had been mysterious to me, but now vast amounts were laid open, and at last I had some inkling of what was transpiring. Almost certainly, I knew far more than Lavien.

I read and reread the message. Its contents meant I had to do something I would almost certainly have preferred to avoid, for now I would have to go see Hamilton once more. But before that I would have to deal with the note itself.

I met with Leonidas at the Man Full of Trouble and showed him the message, which I had transcribed for him.

Being unable to communicate with you directly is becoming increasingly difficult, as there is much to report. Fortunately, I am growing adept with the codes. As you must know by the time you read this, P has returned to Philadelphia; he pretends that nothing has transpired, but Duer used him monstrous ill, and it cannot be undone. The BUS will feel it soon enough, and Hamilton has no notion of it. As for L, he is a dangerous physical presence, but he is not nearly as clever as he believes. He thinks the business is isolated, and he will not learn otherwise until too late. You were overly concerned about S, who is a blunderer and a drunkard. He knows nothing about P and shall learn nothing. As for Mrs. P, she knows nothing of the impending ruin, and, once faced with penury, I am certain you may have her to use as you like.

He stared at my transcript for a long time and then at me. “What does it all mean? There is some plot here, but I cannot even begin to fathom it.”

“Neither can I,” I said. “As near as I can tell, there is a scheme to hurt Pearson, and consequently the bank. Somehow Duer is involved, but it is hard for me to determine if he is a primary actor or some sort of unwilling victim.”

“Yes, yes, yes. But that is nothing. The bank and Pearson and the rest be damned, Ethan. This is about you, somehow. Whoever these people are, they mock you, call you names, and plan to make Mrs. Pearson a whore.”

“Are you saying you think I ought to go to Lavien with this?”

“By no means,” said Leonidas. “This is yours, Ethan. This is your burden to bear, and you must see it through as you see fit. If there is a conflict between your needs and the Treasury’s needs, you may be sure Lavien will not give a fig for yours-or about Mrs. Pearson’s, for that matter. I say that with respect for him, for I do think him honorable, but his honor, his sense of duty, must put his service to Hamilton above service to you-or to Mrs. Pearson. You know it. Whatever is to be done, you must do it alone.”

“Entirely alone?”

“It is not as though I have a choice, but you know you may depend upon me.”

“And if you did have a choice?” I asked. “If I were to free you right now, would you continue to stand by me in this until the end?”

“You won’t,” he said.

“But if I did.” I don’t know why I chose to press the point at that moment, but his concern for me placed me upon the precipice of informing him that he was free already.

“I don’t know,” he answered earnestly. He met my eye and did not waver.

I appreciated his candor. How could I not? Yet he put me in a difficult position, for he was the only man I could trust entirely, and I could not do without him. So long as this crisis continued, I would have to keep the truth from him. He could not yet know he was a free man.

Leonidas sensed I was lost in thought and leaned forward to distract me. “What shall you do about the note? Do you plan to watch the tree?”

I shook my head. “It’s not practical. Someone would have to watch it at all times, and there are only two of us.”

“Then you’ll put it back before they discover you’ve taken it?”

“No,” I said. “I want them to know I’ve found it.” I took a fresh piece of paper and wrote out a short note to replace the one I took. My note said only, I am coming to find you. “Let them ponder that,” I said.

“What if they come to find you first?”

“Then they shall save me a great deal of trouble.”

I did not know if Hamilton would see me again. Once was charity, twice a nuisance; a third time might prove an outrage. I had no illusions about my reception, but then he could have no illusions about me. If I wanted to see him, I would see him. Perhaps I would wait for him on the street or visit him in his home. He knew me. He knew if I wished to speak with him, I would make it happen. For that reason, he admitted me right away.

He sat at his desk, which was covered with four or five high piles of neatly stacked papers. He had a quill in one hand and a near-empty inkpot by his side.

“I am very busy, Captain Saunders,” he said.

“So am I. It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

He set down the pen. “What can this be about? Mr. Pearson has returned, so I know you don’t visit me upon that score.”

“You know I do, and that Mr. Pearson’s return is not an answer but another question.”

“I seem to recall asking you not to involve yourself in this matter.”

“I recall that too, but you and I both know you did not mean it. You would much rather I ran an inquiry parallel to that of Lavien. You will yield far better results if you have two men competing for the same ends. I will not say you engineered this competition, but you cannot regret it. Now let us end this dissimulation. You wish me to proceed, don’t you?”

He looked at me directly. “No.”

“Of course you do. There is too much in the balance. Perhaps it is time for you to tell me why you wished Lavien to find Pearson in the first place. Why is he of interest to you?”

“It is a private matter.”

So he said, but I began to think it must be a public matter. There was no personal connection I could divine, so there was but one obvious reason Hamilton might take an interest in Pearson. Given what the bearded Scotsman had told me this morning about defaulted bank loans, I could but conclude one thing. “He has borrowed money from the bank, hasn’t he?”

Hamilton blinked and looked away. “I suppose he may have.”

“How much?”

“The bank was, in its conception, my idea, and I take an interest in its operation, but I do not run the bank, and I do not take an interest in its day-to-day operations. I doubt that even Mr. Willing, the bank president, could tell you about individual loans without resorting to files. You cannot expect that I, who am far more removed, can summon such information instantaneously on any possible borrower.”

“No, I don’t expect you to know any possible borrower. I do, however, expect you know about this one. How much?”

He sighed. “He has borrowed fifty thousand dollars.”

“Good God, you give that much to a single individual?”

“It was for investment and development. You have seen how the city thrives under bank money. Pearson is a respected dealer in real estate, and he presented us with a specific plan for developing land to the west of the city.”

“But he hasn’t done it, has he? You received word that not only was Pearson not buying and developing land, he was losing the properties he already had. You don’t keep an eye on the day-to-day minutiae of investment, nor does the bank president, I’ll wager. No one was going out to Helltown to see if Pearson was developing it. He was a respected man of business, and it was safe to assume he was doing what he said. But then you receive word that his properties are being foreclosed, and you learn that no one knows where he is. Suddenly fifty thousand in bank funds may have vanished. Can the bank withstand such a loss?”

“Of course it can. It is a serious loss but there are systems built into the bank’s charter to enable it to weather defaulted loans.”

“Easily?”

“It is never easy.”

“It is never easy,” I said, “because what you fear most is Jefferson and his faction getting word of this. That is the issue, isn’t it? Your bank has just launched and endured a rocky first half year with wildly fluctuating share prices. Now, it will be said, it is granting loans to the personal friends of the bank president, loans that will not-cannot-be repaid. You know what they will say: that the bank is an engine of the northern money men to feed their own greed.”

Hamilton nodded. “That is, indeed, what they will say. That is part of it.”

“There is more?”

“You will keep this quiet?”

“Of course.”

“There is also the method of the bank’s funding, the whiskey excise. Jefferson ’s faction will waste no time in saying that we tax the poor men of the frontier to pay for the irresponsible spending of the rich. That is what they will say.”

“And the truth?”

“The truth is that the Bank of the United States is a large bank that makes large loans, so of course it is of direct benefit to the rich. There are smaller land banks that benefit small landholders, and that is what they should do, but projects that benefit the rich also benefit others. Had Pearson done with the money what he was supposed to do, he would have built properties, which would have employed men and caused goods to change hands. Those buildings would have provided housing, space for shops and services, for the growth of the economy. That benefits all, rich and poor.”

“Clearly that is not what happened with Pearson. Now he has returned, what has Lavien learned about the fate of the money?”

“Very little. Pearson won’t answer any questions.”

“And, I suppose, you haven’t given Lavien permission to break his elbows or cut off his feet. Not with someone so prominent.”

“Pearson is clever,” said Hamilton. “He has openly refused to appear at the bank to explain the status of his loan, and he knows we dare not press the matter, lest it become public knowledge that a loan of this magnitude is in danger. I’m sure Pearson knows that that scoundrel Philip Freneau, who writes Jefferson ’s newspaper, has been sniffing about, asking questions. If Freneau learns the truth, he will use it to ruin us all. Jefferson and his men would gladly sacrifice the national economy if only to prove I am wrong and they are right.”

“Which is why the bank has not seized Pearson’s assets. To keep this from becoming a scandal?”

“Yes. While there is the chance of a quiet repayment of all or even some of the loan, we prefer to avoid a public fiasco that will only feed Jefferson ’s public animosity toward the bank. Until we know more, we will have to find other means of discovering what Pearson is up to.”

It seemed to me that, whether it was what he intended or not, I was those other means. There was no reason not to press it. “What of Duer?”

“What of him?”

“What is the link between Duer and Pearson?”

“None that I am aware of,” he said.

I thought about the note I had found in the tree stump. Duer has used him monstrous ill, and it cannot be undone. That was, in itself, of no consequence. Let these men ruin one another to their heart’s content; it was nothing to me. And yet there was obviously more to it. The BUS will feel it soon enough, and Hamilton has no notion of it. All this was a scheme to harm the bank. Pearson was but a tool, Cynthia but a casualty.

“Who would like to destroy the bank?” I asked.

Hamilton sighed. “Destroy it? Jefferson, I suppose.”

“No, not malign it, or see it fail, or rejoice in its adequacies. Jefferson wishes to find political advantage. Who wishes to destroy it by his own hands?”

“No one,” he said. “No one who could.”

“And if anyone could, who would it be?”

“The rabble,” he said. “The rabble prompted by Jefferson would see it destroyed. The western rustics, filled with democratical ideas by Jefferson, would rather go to war than hand over a penny in excise taxes. Things are not so complex as you imagine, and you cannot see that only because you have been out of the game too long.”

It seemed to me they were far more complex than I could imagine. That was the difficulty.

I f I was going to attempt to chip away at this complexity, the first thing I had to discover was the nature of the secret and financial relationship between Hamilton and Duer’s man, Reynolds. I might well have told Hamilton more if I could have better trusted him, but so long as he was secreting purses of gold to men of this sort, I would have to hold fast to my secrets. More to the point, I needed to know why the men who acted against me, and acted against Cynthia, wished to point me toward this man. Reynolds worked for Duer-that much was certain-but it now seemed to me that the bearded Scotsman, who was so clearly involved with the threat against the bank-wanted to make certain I noticed Reynolds and perhaps was set against him.

It was time to approach directly. Thus, that night I walked to Reynolds’s house and knocked on the door. It was later than good manners generally allow for a stranger to call, but this was an unsavory neighborhood, and lights were on. I would take my chances.

When no one answered, I knocked again, and then a third time. At last I heard footsteps upon stairs, and a woman’s voice cried out from inside, asking who called.

“Captain Ethan Saunders, on behalf of the United States Department of the Treasury,” I responded, with only slight exaggeration. This was no time to be shy. “I must gain entrance.”

The door opened. Standing there, in a state of very appealing dishevel, was possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Yes, I know this narrative is crowded with beautiful women-Mrs. Pearson, Mrs. Maycott, Mrs. Lavien, Mrs. Bingham. We might form a cricket team of beautiful women. I cannot help it if they are the ones who excite my notice and so trouble myself to describe. Yet how beautiful are they? Mrs. Pearson is undeniably lovely, but it is my feeling for her that elevates her to so exalted a level. Mrs. Maycott is a bit weak in the chin, to tell the truth, but she is mysterious and poised. Mrs. Lavien has that Hebrew look about her which some may find unappealing.

This lady was beautiful, and not because her demeanor or exotic race or a longing heart provided an added advantage to elevate her. No, here was a creature of perfection, like Milton ’s Eve, the ideal of female loveliness. Her fair hair was wavy and in a state of wild disorder. Her eyes were large and so blue it was almost shocking. Her cheeks were red and round and molded to perfection. Her teeth as white as new snow, her lips the color of roses. Shall I go on? It is tedious, I know, but it is important that I make it clear that in part and in sum this was a woman, I believe, utterly without equal in the United States, possibly in the world. Those who would, in years to come, judge the frailty of a man enchanted with her, knew nothing of her astonishing charms. The man did not live who, given the opportunity to love her, would have turned aside.

“Madam, will you marry me?” I asked.

She laughed. She wore a loose gown, quite recently thrown on. It was rather generous in its presentation of décolletage, and her bosoms, large and full, moved very agreeably.

“I am afraid I am already married, sir.”

“Then I shall take my own life,” I said. “Before I do so, I would speak to a Mr. Reynolds. Does he live here?”

Her face darkened just a little. “That is the name of my husband, sir. He is not at home.”

That slovenly brute with his scarred face and lupine demeanor was the husband of this creature? How did she endure it? How could the world endure it? Under normal circumstances, I would almost certainly have inserted myself in this lady’s life to better her state, but I had other things that demanded my attention, foremost being Cynthia. I would focus on the beast and not the beauty. “I must find him.”

“He is not in town at all,” she said. “May I ask what this involves? Did you mention the Treasury Department, sir?”

“I work for Colonel Hamilton at Treasury.” Reform does not extend to lies of this sort.

“And what will you with my husband?” There was now something rather unkind in her tone, and I did not like it. I wanted her to be charmed again.

“I merely wish to talk with him about Mr. Duer,” I said, grinning amicably. “It is about that gentleman, and not your husband.”

“I see.”

“When will he return?”

“I cannot say.”

“And where has he gone?”

“He doesn’t tell me.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “you would care to invite me inside, and we can discuss this further.”

“Another time,” she said, as though she did not mean it, and closed the door.