by David Liss
“Oh, yes. We cannot miss the opportunity. You must do everything he requests of you. Take his position, of course, but you were wise, oh, so wise, to claim to need to think on it. Gives it a bit of verisimilitude, you know. But you must go to him in a day or two and take what he has to offer.”
“To what end?”
“That doesn’t matter just now,” Hammond said. “You will learn when we wish you to learn. For the moment, your only task is to get Ellershaw to like you and trust you.”
“Perhaps we should be more particular now,” Cobb said. “I should hate for Mr. Weaver to lose an opportunity because we have not told him the reason for his presence.”
“And I should hate for our plans to crumble to dust because we have spoken too soon,” Hammond replied.
Cobb shook his head. “It is more dangerous to leave so important an agent directionless.”
Hammond shrugged at this point, more a condescension than a concession “Tell him, then.”
Cobb turned to me. “You will have many tasks to accomplish while at Craven House, but perhaps the most significant is to discover the truth behind the death of a man named Absalom Pepper.”
It would seem that they had hired me to conduct an inquiry. For some reason, this revelation cheered me. At least now I was upon familiar ground.
“Very well,” I said. “What can you tell me about him?”
“Nothing,” Hammond snapped. “That is the difficulty of it. We know virtually nothing of him, only that the East India Company arranged for his death. Your task is to find out what you can of him, why the Company viewed him as a threat, and, if possible, the names of the particular people who committed the crime.”
“If you know not who he is, why should you care—”
“That,” Hammond said, “is not your concern. It is ours. Your concern is to do what you are told and keep your friends from languishing in prison. Now that you know what you must do, listen well to how you must do it. You may not ask questions of this matter, not in Craven House or anywhere. You may not speak the name of Absalom Pepper unless someone raises the name unbidden. If you violate these rules, I will hear of it, and you may depend that I will not let the crime go unpunished. Do you understand me?”
“How am I to discover anything of this man if I may not conduct an inquiry?”
“That is for you to sort out, and if you wish to redeem your friends I suggest you work hard at making that discovery.”
“Can you tell me nothing more of him?”
Hammond let out a sigh, as though I tried his patience. “We are led to believe that the East India Company arranged to have him attacked late at night, and accordingly he was beaten most likely to death. If not so, then it was the drowning that killed him, for he was tossed into the Thames and there abandoned to his fate. As is often the case with such unfortunates, he was undiscovered for many days, and by the time he was retrieved, the water creatures had nearly devoured his extremities, though his face remained sufficiently intact and he was accordingly identified.”
“By whom?”
“Damn you, Weaver, how am I to know? What little information I have is based upon intercepted correspondence. It is all I know.”
“Where was he found?” I asked. “I should like to speak to the coroner.”
“Are you deaf? I told you we know nothing more. I cannot say where he was found, where he was buried, or any other such detail. Just that the Company had him killed and we must know why.”
“I shall do what I can.”
“See that you do,” Hammond said. “And do not fail to recall your restrictions. If we learn you have spoken this man’s name aloud, we shall declare our business with you finished, and you and your friends may all live happily together in your imprisoned state. Do not forget this warning. Now, go off and do as you are told.”
I hardly knew how I could do as I was told, but I had no choice, so I took my leave and returned to my rooms for the afternoon. The confinement did little to soothe my anxiety, but I had nowhere to go and nothing to do, and the entire metropolis had begun to feel alien and dangerous to me.
As it grew dark, I went outside to St. Mary Axe, where there was an inn that catered to the dietary requirements and preferences of Portuguese Jews, and there I ordered my dinner, for though I was not hungry I was determined to eat in order to maintain my strength and wits. Several of my fellows called to me that I might join them, but I dismissed their offers with requisite politeness, declaring that I wished to dine alone. These men knew my character well enough and understood that though I could be a merry and sociable fellow, I might also be of a brooding disposition, and no one deployed excessive effort to force me to be good company. For this consideration, I was most grateful.
I had not been sitting five minutes when a gentleman entered who caught the attention of the whole room. He was an Englishman, dressed in a plain suit and prim little wig, and he kept clutched to his side a leather envelope. He appeared quite out of his element and, indeed, frightened to be surrounded by so many Jews. He spoke a word to the proprietor, and that good man, with evident hesitation regarding my desire for solitude, pointed toward me.
The Englishman hurried over. “You are Mr. Weaver, yes?”
I nodded.
“Your landlord, sir, said I might find you here.”
I nodded again. I concluded at once that this fellow had come to hire me for my thieftaking services, and by Cobb’s decree I would have no choice but to send the fellow off.
It was soon revealed, however, that I need perform no such task. “My name is Henry Bernis, sir. May I impose upon you for a moment?”
I again nodded, keeping my face sullen and hard, for I had no desire that he think me in too convivial a humor.
Bernis studied me for a minute. He stretched out his neck to look at one side of my head and then the other. “Might I beg you to stand for me.”
“What is it you want, sir?”
“Come, now. On your feet. Let’s have a look at you.”
I don’t know why I complied, but I felt a strange curiosity, so I stood. He asked me to turn around, but I refused. “I shan’t dance for you,” I told him.
“Oh, heavens. No dancing. None of that. No cutting capers or prancing about. I just wish to make certain you are healthy. To protect the investment. May I view your teeth?”
“You haven’t hired me yet,” I pointed out. “You have not yet told me what you want, and a thieftaker is not a horse, sir. I shan’t be used as such, not even if the king himself wishes to hire my services.”
“Hire you? Heavens, no. I haven’t any desire to hire you. What should I want with a thieftaker?”
I sat down. “I haven’t any idea, but you are starting to irritate me, Mr. Bernis, and if you don’t make yourself better understood, you are going to be in need of a surgeon to set your bones.”
“Please, no threats,” he said. “I hate them. And no violence whatsoever, if you please. Any time you engage in violence, you risk your own safety, and we cannot have that. You must protect yourself from harm, good sir, I beg of you.”
“By the devil, what do you want?”
“You shan’t offend me by swearing, sir. It offers no harm to you or to me, and if a man be damned for swearing, what of it? The next life is no business of mine. I care only for your well-being in this one. Now, you have not been sick of late, I trust?”
“No, but—”
“Any injuries of a permanent sort? I am aware of the broken leg that took you from the ring, but that was some years ago. Anything of a similar nature since?”
“No, and I don’t think—”
“You are not planning any trips abroad, are you?”
“No, and that’s the last question I’ll answer until you tell me what you want.”
“I merely wish to ascertain your health.”
“Whatever for?”
“I am sorry. Did I not say? I work with Seahawk Insurance Office. I am merely making certain we haven’t
made a mistake.”
“Insurance? What do you tell me?”
“No one quite knew it was happening—a matter of too many clerks not speaking to one another—but it seems we have sold three insurance policies with your name attached in the past few days. We merely wished to make certain that there was nothing deceptive planned against us. But I must say that you seem in remarkable health.”
“What sort of policies?” I demanded.
Mr. Bernis wrinkled up his face. “Why, life insurance, of course.”
I knew well the business of insurance, for my uncle used it to protect his shipments. I knew less of life insurance, but I had heard something of it. I knew it to be a form of gambling in which people might bet on the longevity of a famous person, such as a pope or a general or a king. I also knew that policies were bought to protect an investment, so that if you were a merchant who sent an agent abroad, and this agent had particular skills, you might insure his life, so that if he were killed or stolen by Turk pirates, the merchant could be compensated for his loss. I hardly knew why anyone would buy a policy against my death.
“Who bought this?” I demanded.
“I cannot tell you that, sir. I don’t know myself, to be honest, though if I did, I could not reveal that information. I merely wished to ascertain your health, which looks to me quite good. I thank you for your time.”
“Wait a moment. Do you mean to tell me that there are men, multiple men, who have laid out money to the effect that they will benefit if I die?”
“Oh, no, heavens, no. Nothing like that. No one should have invested in your death. That would be monstrous, sir, most monstrous. No, these men have laid out money so that they will not suffer losses if you die. That money is not a wager, sir, but a protection of their investment in you.”
I could ascertain from his simper that this was mere fluffery. I had hit it right the first time.
“Who holds these policies?”
“As I mentioned, I do not know. In any event, I am made to understand that the policyholders wish to keep their business a secret. I respect that, and I think you should too.”
“I think I shall be paying your offices a visit,” I said.
“I don’t think you ought to waste your time. It is all quite legal, and you’ll find it is our policy not to reveal such things.”
“So one man may take out such a policy on another man and not have to answer for it? That is diabolical.”
“How can it be diabolical when it is the law?” he asked.
And, indeed, his question contained such oceans of absurdity that I had no answer for him.
CHAPTER NINE
HE NEXT MORNING, AFTER A BRIEF EXCHANGE OF NOTES, I RETURNED to Craven House, where despite my appointment I found Mr. Ellershaw already engaged in his office. He motioned me inside, where he entertained a trio of gentlemen, dressed most exquisitely in widely flaring coats, widely cuffed sleeves, and ornate embroidering—one with gold, the other silver, the third both and a black thread as well. Each of them handled samples of fine Indian calicoes, which they passed along back and forth, commenting most minutely.
Ellershaw introduced me to the men, whom I recognized as fashionable figures of the metropolis, one the heir to a large earldom, another the son of a wealthy Sussex landowner, the third a young duke himself. They took no notice of me at all, even when Ellershaw pointed to the prints upon my wall, remarking how fantastical it was that I should be in his prints and in his office simultaneously. These men, however, would not be distracted and studied the cloths with all the interest of a milliner.
“These are very fine,” the young duke said, “and I thank you very much for your gift, Mr. Ellershaw, but what does it signify for you? Our wearing this shall not change how matters stand.”
“I want a run, sir. I want that you should appear in public in these new cloths and make it known that you will wear what you can when you can. I wish more than anything that the three of you, so dressed, will create a mania to drain out the contents of our warehouse before Christmas.”
“That is a good joke,” the duke said. “To make the beau monde shell out a pretty penny upon what they can wear only for another month? Yes, I like your joke tremendously.”
The earl’s heir laughed. “I’ll set my tailor to work at once, and I shall be in these new things by the end of the week.”
The men thanked one another and there were many words of approbation before the trio departed.
Ellershaw walked over to his writing desk, where he removed one of his brown nuggets from the bowl and cracked it between his teeth. “That, Weaver, is what I call the Holy Trinity.” He laughed at his joke. “Those buffoons could appear in public wearing only the bearskins of an American savage, and within three days there would not be a gentle-man in London out of bearskins. I have a group of ladies who serve a similar purpose. So I must congratulate you. You have been in my employ not ten minutes, and you have already discovered the great secret of the India cloth trade at home: give your goods away to a few fashion-able people who have the power to set trends, and the trend is set. The new style is written of in the papers and the monthlies, and soon the provinces hear of them, and they clamor for our cloths. They beg us—beg us, I tell you—to sell them our goods for whatever price we care to name.”
“It sounds most agreeable,” I told him.
“It is the business of the modern world. You are still close enough to being a young man, I daresay. When you were born, men brewed their own beer, women made their own bread, sewed their own clothes. Need drove commerce. Now all of those things are bought, and only the most backward of bumptious fools would think to do their own baking or brewing. In my lifetime, thanks to my own work in the Indies, it is not need but desire that drives commerce. When I was a boy, a man might kill for silver enough to buy a morsel to feed his family. I cannot recall the last time I heard of such a thing, but the week does not pass where we do not hear of some heinous crime because a man wanted silver to buy a new suit or a jewel or a fashionable hat or bonnet for his lady.”
I applauded his role in giving rise to such progress.
“It is the growth of industry and wealth, and that is the greatest progress the world has seen. And this growth can have no limit, for there are no limits to the Englishman’s capacity. Or yours, I suppose.”
We took our seats amiably. Not wishing to appear overly susceptible to self-love, I attempted to avoid casting my gaze too often over the prints on the wall depicting the exploits of my own life. It is, nevertheless, a curious thing to find oneself memorialized in such a fashion, and while it was in a particular sense gratifying, I also found it excessively disturbing.
“So you’ve chosen to be one of our brotherhood here at Craven House, to serve the Honorable Company, as we style it,” Ellershaw said, while he chewed his mysterious kernel. “That’s just the very thing for you. A rare opportunity, Weaver, one not to be missed. For both of us, I believe. You see, I sit on the subcommittee that oversees the warehouses, and I believe I shall earn the approbation of the Court of Proprietors when I inform them I’ve brought you along. Now, let’s go have a look about, shall we?”
He led me down the hall and into a small and windowless closet, where a young man sat at a desk poring over a stack of papers and making notations in a complicated ledger. He was only in his early twenties, but he looked studious and dedicated, and his brow wrinkled with bookish labors. He was also, I noticed, rather slight in build, with drooping shoulders and remarkably thin wrists. His eyes were filigreed with red and the bags underneath were of a bluish black complexion.
“The very first thing I must do is introduce you to Mr. Blackburn,” Ellershaw said, “lest he hear of you on his own and come demanding explanations. I want you to have no surprises, Mr. Blackburn.”
The young man studied me. He had a more severe face than I had at first realized, possessed of something of a predatory nature, an impression augmented by a large beakish nose that hooked sharply. I wo
ndered at what personal cost he labored, for he possessed a beleaguered expression one is more like to see in a man twice his age. “Surprises lead to three things,” he said, holding up three fingers. “First, inefficiency. Second, disorder. Finally, diminished returns.” With each of these, he clutched the finger of his right hand between the thumb and forefinger of his left. “I do not love surprises.”
“I know it, and so I have done what I could to keep you informed. This is Mr. Weaver. He will be working for me, overseeing the watchmen on the premises.”
Blackburn reddened a little. At first I thought this was some inexplicable embarrassment, but I soon realized it was anger. “Working for you?” he demanded. “Now? How can you have someone new come to work for you now? The Court of Proprietors has not approved any such post, and no posts can be funded without their approval. I don’t understand this, sir. ’Tis most irregular, and I cannot think how I am to account for it in the employment ledger.”
“Irregular, to be sure,” Ellershaw agreed, his voice all soothing tones, “and because the Proprietors have not discussed it, Mr. Weaver will, until further notice, receive his pay directly from me.”
“Payment from you?” Blackburn demanded. “There are no East India employees who are paid directly by other employees. I have never heard of this. How shall I make note of it? Is this to be a new entry in the books? A new sort of book? A special book just for this, sir? Are we to have new books every time a member of the Court takes a whim into his mind?”
“I had thought,” Ellershaw said, “to leave Mr. Weaver unmentioned in the books altogether.” It struck me that Ellershaw kept his voice remarkably even. To my surprise, though Blackburn was evidently the subordinate, he was the one demanding explanations.
Blackburn shook his head and held up two fingers. “Two things, sir. First, no one is unmentioned in the books.” He tapped one of the folio-size volumes, bound in a very grave sort of black leather. “Everyone is in the books. Second, if we begin to make exceptions, write rules as the notion takes us, then these books are for nothing, and my work is for nothing.”