The Devil’s Company: A Novel

by David Liss

The scholar said nothing.

  “Whether you are a man of one of the universities or no is not my concern. It is my concern that you have been observing me and that you meant to stop that boy from delivering my correspondence. Now, will you tell me who employs you?”

  “I shan’t tell you anything.”

  As it happened, I believed him, nor did I particularly think that knowing it was Cobb or Ellershaw or anyone else would much change my plans, so rather than try to force him to speak, I knocked his head against the ground until he was unconscious. I then searched his things and found little except for a ten pound note issued by the very same goldsmith whose notes Cobb used to pay me.

  I looked up and saw the boy had not yet departed but stood still in fear. “Give me the notes,” I said. “If there’s one villain about, there may be another. I shall arrange to have them delivered differently.”

  The boy gave the notes to me and ran off, leaving me alone in the street. I held them in one hand and continued to stare at the still form of the scholar, wondering if I had lost my temper too soon with him and whether he might have had more to tell me. The subject was perhaps moot, however, for in an instant I felt a hand upon the back of my head, pushing me hard into the snow and sludge of the road. I went down, though not hard, and recovered myself in a moment, though a moment too late. When I looked up I saw the figure of a man running off with my notes in hand.

  IN AN INSTANT I was on my feet and after the thief, but he had already gained a considerable advantage. I could see him far ahead, a bulky man who moved with improbable grace. I, on the other hand, having years before broken my leg most severely, could not run with the same speed, and I feared that, despite the most diligent effort and my determination to ignore the pain of my old wound, the villain would escape.

  He turned and ran to Virginia Planter Hill and was about to enter upon the Shadwell, which I considered a stroke of good fortune. The street was wide and well lighted but would be largely deserted this time of night and I might have some small chance of overtaking him there.

  As I struggled to gain upon him, or at the least not lose him entire, he ran onto Shadwell but in an instant threw himself back, nearly toppling over, as a speeding phaeton barreled past him, its driver shouting an insult at the man he almost destroyed.

  Now again on his feet, he crouched like a great cat, and when another phaeton had nearly passed him, he leaped out and into it, giving the driver cause to let out a startled cry, just audible over the trample of hooves and the roar of wheels. What manner of man, I wondered, is so reckless with his life that he would attempt to leap into a speeding phaeton? It enraged me, for his having done so necessitated that I do the same.

  I redoubled my efforts for speed as another phaeton passed, and another yet; it seemed to be as many as eight or ten involved in this race. Reaching Shadwell just as the straggler of the group came upon me, I was determined not to lose it. In the dark I could see it was green with gold stripes, one in the symbol of a serpent. I had just time enough to realize that this was the same machine that had run down Elias’s accuser some days ago, a man who would have run down a child if not for that worthy’s intervention. The phaeton was driven by a self-absorbed coxcomb, a man who considered his foolish race more important than human life. And he must be my companion, for I hurled myself in the air, hoping most earnestly to land inside and not be caught under his wheels.

  In that, at least, I was successful. I landed hard in the phaeton, crashing into the driver, who let out a little shriek.

  “What madness is this?” he demanded, his wide eyes reflecting the light of street lanterns.

  I stood quickly and took the reins from him. “You are a fool, a monster, and a poor driver as well,” I said. “Now be quiet lest I shove you out.”

  I spurred the horse hard with the whip and discovered it was capable of greater speed than its owner would allow. The man suffered, I saw, not from a lack of power but a lack of courage, for as the horse increased in its velocity he let out another little shriek.

  “Slow down!” he cried, in a voice that cracked like dropped crystal. “You’ll kill us!”

  “I observed you run down a man a fortnight ago and respond with nothing more than a laugh,” I called to him, making myself heard above the hooves and the rush of cold air. “I hardly think you deserving of mercy.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To overtake another man,” I said. “And, if time permits, to punish you.”

  I raced hard and recklessly, urging the horse on to speeds most unsafe, but I had little choice. I passed one of the other phaetons, whose driver looked upon me and the cringing man at my side with the greatest confusion. I passed another after that, and then a third. If I had a mind to, I thought, I might win this race.

  Ahead of me, the phaetons turned the corner onto Old Gravel Lane and slowed accordingly. If I were to overtake my letters, however, I would have to set aside my concern for safety, so I slowed hardly at all as we turned. As the phaeton turned up on one side, I clutched the reins with one hand, reached out with the other, and grabbed my unhappy passenger, pushing him toward the elevated side of the conveyance. This had little effect, but little was enough, for though we came close, we did not tip. In the process of rounding the turn, we passed three more of the racers, so that there were now only three ahead of us.

  The horse appeared to be as excited as I that we had survived my foolish maneuver, and it found more reserves from which to draw as we began to close on the remaining racers. As we narrowed the gap, I saw that it was not the lead phaeton but the one behind it that contained two men. Knowing I would do what was required to stop it, I hit the reins again, hoping the horse would obey—or could obey, for that matter. I knew not what capabilities the horse yet possessed, but while the first phaeton increased its lead, the one with two men began to slow, so that I raced alongside it. I moved us closer, and though it changed with each bumpy instant, the space between us varied from as much as four feet to as little as two.

  The men in the opposing phaeton shouted at me, but I could not hear them and had no desire to take time to try to understand. With the cold wind blowing hard against my face, I once more put the reins in my left hand and reached down with my right, hoisting the coward to his feet.

  “Take the reins,” I shouted, so he might understand me. “Keep as close to him as you can. If you fail or defy me you shall answer for it. If I wish, I can find you by the marks on your phaeton, and I promise you do not want me to come looking.”

  He nodded. Once too afraid to drive recklessly, now too afraid not to, he took the reins and attempted to hold the horse steady. I crept toward the edge of the phaeton, bracing myself as best I could. I knew I ought not to try it. The two phaetons moved too rapidly, the distance between them changing each instant. I have done many foolish things over the course of my life, I thought, but nothing so foolish as this endeavor, destined to fail, destined to end in my destruction. And yet if I did not do it the enemy would escape with my notes, and he would know far more than I wished him to know. I could not let my schemes turn to dust and see my uncle in debtor’s prison, so I sucked in a breath of air and leaped into the void.

  Why I did not die, trampled under hoof and wheel, remains a mystery, but somehow, at the very moment of my leaping, my phaeton lurched toward the other, giving me extra power, and the other lurched toward mine, giving me less distance to cross, and so it was that I landed hard in the conveyance alongside, crashing hard into the man holding the reins.

  I presumed him to be the letter thief and knocked him aside, grabbing the reins and forcing the animal into as sudden a stop as I might contrive. Only by bracing my feet against the bottom did I keep myself from flying forward. My fellow passengers were not so well prepared, however, and they went flying from the machine.

  It was again thanks only to the ordering of providence that neither was trampled by the other racers, and it was owing only to the callousness of these men that none of the
other contestants thought to stop and help their fellows. Once the horse had ceased its motions, I jumped out and ran back some twenty feet to find the two men huddled close together by the side of the road. A crowd had gathered to jeer at them, having no love for phaetoneers.

  They appeared pathetic and bloodied but to my best guess not seriously hurt. However, I did not know how long that state would last.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pistol. A light snow had begun to fall, and I feared that even such moisture as that might ruin my ability to fire, but I hoped that in their state they would not think of such things. “Which one of you stole my papers?” I demanded.

  “It wasn’t us,” one of them shouted.

  “It was one of you. Yours was the only phaeton with two men aboard. Now, who was it?”

  “It wasn’t us,” the other one echoed. “He’s telling you the truth. The other fellow was as strong as Hercules. He tossed me from my phaeton into Johnny’s, here. We tried to tell you. If you hadn’t ruined everything, we’d have caught him.”

  Silently I replaced my pistol, hardly able to believe I had gone to such lengths for nothing. I had risked my life to stop the wrong carriage, and now the villain had escaped with my letters.

  “He was a Hercules!” The man repeated, wiping the blood from his nose with his lace sleeve. “A great black-skinned Hercules with scars upon his face. I’ve never seen anyone like him.”

  I had. I had seen someone like him far too recently, and before this affair was over, I would make Aadil pay. In the meantime, he knew far too many of my secrets and he had got the better of me, and I knew not which upset me more.

  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 wi
ll 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?”