by David Liss
He turned slowly, set the cup down, and rose to greet me, managing the task only by keeping one frail hand pressed hard on an ornate walking stick, an elaborate dragon’s head composing the top. Even with the stick, each step was labored and sluggish, as though he waded through water. Nevertheless, he embraced me warmly and gestured for me to take my chair. “’Tis well you’ve come, Benjamin. Fortuitous, I suppose. I was going to call upon you.”
“Joseph said as much.”
He filled an identical pewter cup with the rich smelling port and gave it to me with a wavering hand. Even with much of his face covered by his neatly trimmed beard, I observed his skin to be dry and sallow and his eyes sunk deep in their sockets. “There is something you might be able to help with, but I presume you have your own business, so let us hear from you first, and then I will trouble you with my difficulties.”
The words came slowly and with a rattling hollow sound as he drew a painful breath. For the past several months, my uncle had been suffering from a pleurisy that would lay him low with labored breathing and great pain in his chest. It would bring him, so we feared, to the very brink of a piteous end, and then, having so terrified him and those who cared for him, it would relent and his breathing would return to what we now thought of as normal—though it was far more constrained and troubled than it had been before the onset of the illness. Though he received frequent visits from a fashionable physician of good reputation, endured regular bleedings, and had each order for the apothecary filled at once, he continued to decline. Little would help, I believed, but a quitting of London, whose air was too filthy in the winter months for any man with diseased lungs. My uncle would not hear of it, however, being unwilling to relinquish his business, arguing that his trade was all he had done for his entire life, and he knew not how to live otherwise. Indeed, he supposed idleness would kill him faster than labor and soiled air. I believed my aunt still occasionally made an effort to work her entreaties upon him, but I had long since quit, believing that the argument did him harm and no expostulations I might offer would put him in a different frame of mind.
I watched him shuffle with old man steps to sit again at his large oaken desk, which sat before a well-tended fire. My uncle was not a tall man, and in recent years he had waxed plump like a good English merchant, but since growing ill this summer, much of that weight had melted like ice under the sun.
“You don’t appear well, Uncle,” I said.
“That is no kind way to begin a conversation,” he said, with a thin smile.
“You must entrust Joseph with more duties and tend to your recovery.”
He shook his head. “There may be no recovery.”
“I will not listen—”
“Benjamin, there may be no recovery. I have accepted that it is so, and you must too. My duty to my family is to make certain that I leave behind a thriving business, not a vortex of debt.”
“Perhaps you might summon José,” I proposed, referring to my estranged brother, with whom I had not spoken since we were boys.
My uncle’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly, and for a moment he appeared to be the healthy man I recalled from only half a year earlier. “You must be worried indeed to suggest such a thing. But, no, I have no wish to trouble him. He has business and a family of his own in Amsterdam. He cannot abandon his life to put my affairs in order. And I assure you I have will and strength enough to do what I must. Now, what is it that brings you here? I pray for the sake of domestic peace that you come not on your aunt’s request, for I endure her pretty speeches enough at home.”
“She had no need to instruct me, as you have seen. But I hesitate to add to your troubles, sir.”
“Do you think you would not add to them if you refrain from letting me help you when I can? In sickness I see more clearly than ever that little matters beyond family. If I can assist you, it will give me pleasure to do so.”
I could not but smile at his generous spirit. Only a man of my uncle’s good nature could make it seem as though I aided him when I asked for help. “I find myself in trouble, Uncle, and though I wish not to add to your burdens, I fear you are the only person to whom I can turn.”
“Then I’m glad you’ve come to me.”
I, however, was not. On many occasions he had, suspecting my finances were none too mighty of stature, made it clear that he was ready to provide any assistance I might require. For my part, I made it a habit to refuse these offers, even on occasions when I was sneaking about the city to avoid capture by bailiffs with warrants sworn out by some exasperated creditor or other. Yet here was a new matter. This was not a case of my spending more than I earned—who of my station was not guilty of such an indiscretion?—but of my having been trepanned so vilely that I could not resolve my troubles without assistance. It made it easier to ask for money because the need was not my fault, but it was still no easy thing.
“Uncle,” I began, “you know I have always loathed the thought of presuming upon your generosity, but I am afraid I find myself in the most awkward of positions. I have been wronged, you must understand—sorely wronged—and I require a loan of some funds to undo the crime that has been perpetrated against me.”
He pressed his lips together in an unreadable expression, perhaps sympathy, perhaps physical pain. “Of course,” he said, with far less warmth than I had anticipated. Here was a man who ever sought to thrust a purse in my hand. Now that I asked for it, he demonstrated reluctance. “How much will you require?”
“It is a great deal of money, I’m afraid: twelve hundred pounds. You see, a man has contrived to fabricate a claim of debt against me, and I need only pay it to relieve myself of danger. Once so free, I will be able to discover the mischief and, I believe, recover the sum—”
I stopped because I saw my uncle’s face had gone pale. A silence fell upon us, broken only by his labored wheezing.
“I see,” he said. “I had anticipated something more on the order of thirty or forty pounds, perhaps. I could even manage as much as a hundred, if need be. But twelve hundred I cannot do.”
It was a large sum, but his hesitation surprised me. He dealt quite regularly with far larger sums, and he had extensive lines of credit. Could it be that he didn’t trust me?
“Under usual circumstances, I should not hesitate to give you what you ask and more,” he said, a loud rasp now entering into his voice, a sign, I had come to know in recent months, of his agitation. “You know I ever seek the opportunity to offer you aid, and I rankle at your refusal to let me, but there has been a catastrophe in my affairs, Benjamin. It is for that reason I thought to call you. Until this knot is untangled, I can’t produce any sum of that sort.”
“What knot is this?” I asked. I felt something uneasy churning within me. Some vague shape began to appear from the fog.
He rose to poke at the fire, working up, I presumed, the strength to tell his tale. After a minute or so of jabbing logs and sending sparks flying, he turned back to me. “I recently brought in a large shipment of wines—a very large shipment indeed. I import Portuguese wines as a matter of course, as you know, and there are one or two shipments each year to stock the warehouses and keep them full. This was one of them. As always, I purchased insurance upon the cargo to protect against this sort of thing, but it has done me no good. You see, the shipment arrived as it was supposed to, was delivered to the Customs House, and was registered there accordingly. Once it was unloaded, the maritime insurance ended, for the goods were considered safely delivered, but now they have disappeared.”
“Disappeared,” I repeated.
“Yes, the Customs House claims they have no record of my shipment. They claim my records are false, forged. Indeed, they have threatened me with prosecution if I choose to press the case, emphasizing as they do so the little justice members of our nation can expect in this country. I cannot understand it. I’ve dealt with these people for decades, you understand, and I have always provided the necessary payments to keep the customs men my
friends. I’ve never heard a word of complaint from them, that I did not do my share or any such thing. I received no evidence that they were dissatisfied with my generosity. And now this.”
“They toy with you? They hold your cargo hostage?”
He shook his head. “There is no implication of anything of the sort. Indeed, I have spoken to my longtime contacts there, men I consider nearly friends, men who hate to see me harmed because they have grown fond of my payments. They are as perplexed as I am. But the result is, Benjamin, that until this cargo can be discovered I am in rather severe debt. I have letters of credit being called in, and it is taking an inordinate amount of shifting and accounting maneuvers to keep from being discovered and ruined. If it were a few coins you required, it would make no difference, but I cannot discover anywhere a spare twelve hundred pounds. Removing such a brick from my edifice would make the building collapse.”
“But the law,” I proposed.
“I have begun legal proceedings, of course, but you know how these matters are. It is all delay and blockage and obscuring. It should be years, I think, before there is any answer from the law.”
I took a moment to consider what I heard. Was it strange that my uncle should find himself in considerable debt at the same moment I did as well? No, it was not strange at all, it was design; I had no doubt of it. As Cobb had gone to such lengths to make clear, his nephew, Tobias Hammond, worked for the Customs House.
“Do you think, Benjamin, I could prevail upon you to look into this matter? Perhaps you could discover what has happened, and with that knowledge we might force a resolution more quickly.”
I slammed my hand hard against his desk. “I am sorry this has happened to you, Uncle. You have been ill used on my account. I see now that someone has undone your business to keep me from receiving relief.”
Briefly I told him of my dealings with Cobb, in part because I wished to know if he had any familiarity with these men and could tell me something of them. In truth, though, I wanted to explain to him all that had passed in the hopes that he would not judge me too harshly for whatever role I might have played in creating these troubles for him.
“I’ve never heard of either of these men. I can make inquiries if you’d like. If this Cobb has so much money to squander on making you his subject, he must be known.”
“I would appreciate anything you might tell me.”
“In the meantime,” he said, “you must discover what it is he wants.”
I hesitated for a moment. “I am not eager to do so. I cannot bear that I should be a puppet on his strings.”
“You cannot fight him if you don’t know who he is or why he would work so diligently to render you toothless. In revealing to you what he has in mind, he may also reveal to you the secret of how to defeat him.”
IT WAS GOOD ADVICE and I could not ignore it, at least not for long. Nevertheless, I was not yet prepared to return to Cobb. I wanted more counsel before I did so.
I made arrangements to meet my friend and frequent collaborator, Elias Gordon, at a coffeehouse called the Greyhound off Grub Street, where I expected to find him inside with a newspaper and a dish of chocolate or perhaps a drink of some more considerable strength. Instead, I observed upon my approach that he was outside the coffeehouse, standing on the street, ignoring the snow that fell with increasing strength, and speaking most heatedly with a person I did not know.
The man with whom he engaged in this hot discourse was far shorter than Elias, as most men are, but wider and more manful in build—indeed, as most men are. Though dressed a gentleman in a fine-looking greatcoat and an expensive tie periwig, the stranger’s face was red, his chest puffed out, and he spoke with the venom of a cornered street tough.
Elias had many fine qualities, but managing street toughs, or even rude men of breeding, was not among them. Tall, gangling, with long limbs too thin even for his slender form, Elias had always managed to radiate not only poise but a kind of good humor that I had many times observed the ladies found to their liking. So too did men and matrons, for Elias had, despite his humble origins in Scotland, risen to become a surgeon of some note in town. He was oft called upon to drain the blood and tend the wounds and pull the teeth of some of the best-situated families in the metropolis. Nevertheless, as with many men skilled at ingratiating themselves, he would inadvertently make enemies along the way.
I hurried forward to make certain that Elias would come to no harm. A man who has made his living through his fists learns perforce that other men do not love to be treated as children and overprotected, so I would make no overt threats to his enemy. Nevertheless, I hoped my presence would give some pause to any hasty violence.
The streets being mostly clear of all but pedestrians, I had no trouble crossing, and I soon found myself by Elias’s side.
“Again, sir,” he said, affecting a deep bow that caused his tie periwig to lurch forward, “I had no knowledge of your connection to the lady, and I am most sorry to have given you grief.”
“You will be most sorry,” said the other. “For first I shall pummel you like the street rubbish you are, and then I shall make certain that no lady or gentleman in the city allows so pernicious a Scots conniver as you into his home again.”
I cleared my throat and stepped forward, inserting myself between the gentlemen. “May I inquire the nature of this dispute?”
“Damn your eyes, I know not who you are, but if you are a stranger, be gone. If you are a friend of this knave, keep quiet lest I make my displeasure known to you as well.”
“This is a terrible misunderstanding,” Elias said to me. “A deuced mishap, is all. I formed an attachment to a most amiable—and chaste, let me say, very chaste—young lady, who it appears is engaged to marry to this gentleman here. May I present Mr. Roger Chance? Mr. Chance, may I present Mr. Benjamin Weaver?”
“Damn you, Gordon, I have no interest in meeting your friends.”
“Oh, but you may know Mr. Weaver’s name, for he is a celebrated pugilist—most skilled in the arts of violence and now famous as a ruffian for hire.” I may have been reluctant to insert myself into the fray, but Elias, it seems, was not reluctant to assert my qualifications. “In any event,” he continued, “this young lady I met—well, she and I formed a friendly but purely chaste—I believe I mentioned that—attachment. We merely discussed philosophical principles of interest to inquiring young ladies. You know, she showed a very keen understanding of Mr. Locke….” His voice trailed off as he, perhaps, came to understand the absurdity of his claim.
“And did these philosophical principles involve the removing of her petticoats?” Chance demanded.
“She had a question of anatomy,” Elias explained weakly.
“Sir,” I ventured, “Mr. Gordon has offered his apologies and pled ignorance. His reputation is known—”
“Reputation as a rascal!” Chance exclaimed.
“His reputation is known as a man of honor, and he would never have imposed upon an understanding between a man and a woman had he known it to exist.”
This was perhaps the greatest nonsense I had ever uttered, but if it would preserve my friend, I would deliver it most earnestly.
“This coward refuses to duel,” Chance said to me, “so I shall have no choice but to beat him like a dog.”
“I never love to duel,” Elias said. “Perhaps I can offer you some medical services as restitution.”
Though I am Elias’s friend, I cringed at this suggestion, and Chance was about to answer it as it deserved when a rumbling sound interrupted our discourse. We all at once attended to the noise; though we as yet saw no cause, we nevertheless witnessed the surprised shouts of pedestrians, whom I saw fleeing from the roadway farther up Grace Church Street. Seconds later, the first of several phaetons came careening toward us.
Icy as the streets were—and thickly populated by pedestrians, vehicles, and occasionally cattle—they made a poor surface for a phaeton race, yet such races had become all the rage
that season, possibly because it had been an exceptionally icy winter and conditions were accordingly dangerous, appealing to the reckless pleasures of the rich, young, and idle. Thus far I had heard of as many as ten innocent Londoners killed and one racer severely wounded in these antics, but as these gladiators tended to be offspring of the better families in the kingdom, little had been done to curb the mayhem.
Elias and I instinctively pushed back to the buildings as the first of the phaetons whipped by, and Mr. Chance did the same, though he kept distance from us, lest we believe that we were allies in adversity.
I could not help but curse the foolishness of this sport. Even upon rural roads, where a small carriage driven by a single man and propelled by a single horse might race without risk to others, these vehicles were hardly built for high speeds. The driver stood in the open carriage, and the slightest bump could send a man flying to his doom. As the phaetons tore past us, each driven by a sniveling lordling or haughty young squire, I had cause to lament that none of these men had yet met with so deserving a fate.
After the cluster of phaetons passed, we let out a sigh as a single community, and many of the pedestrians began to go about their business. All, however, was not over, for there was one more adventurer, a young man in a green and black machine who had apparently fallen behind and now raced furiously to catch up with the pack.
“Out of my way, damn you all!” he cried as he came charging through the now-repopulated streets. Again, the pedestrians ran to press against the walls, but one little boy, not five years old, appeared to lose both his way and his mother and stood directly in the phaeton’s path.
It is easy to think that a man with whom one has a disagreement must be a villain, but such is often not the case, and now I observed that Elias’s enemy, Mr. Chance—whom I must point out, lest ill be thought of me, was the closest of all of us—darted forward, taking not an instant to assess the risk to his own person, and lifted the boy out of danger. He spun with the child in his arms, and set him down out of the phaeton’s way. At least it should have been out of the way, but the fool of a driver careened too far toward our side of the road.