A Conspiracy of Paper bw-1

by David Liss

  As I had moved the boy, I noticed that a pair of gentlemen looked up at my proceedings with uncommon interest, but I could pay them no attention now. I turned my attention to this little thief, who was, as I had suspected, quite young. He was also thin, poorly dressed, and the owner of a surprisingly unpleasant odor. “You want something from my purse, do you?” I asked.

  I admit that his courage impressed me. “Aye. What ’ave ye?”

  I let go, took a step back, and reached into my purse. “Here’s a tuppence,” I said. “I want you to run an errand for me. If you do it right, I’ll give you a shilling.”

  He turned around slowly. “A’right then, sir. Let’s see the money.”

  Now one of the two gentlemen began to shout at me. “You’re not going to let him run off, are you?”

  “If you were so interested in his apprehension, why did you not assist me?” I spat back.

  “I wasn’t interested in his apprehension, but in your apprehending him. That’s what I wagered.”

  “Don’t whine about it,” his friend snickered. “You’ve lost, Harry. Now pay up.”

  Such are the sort of men one encounters in front of White’s Chocolate House.

  I turned from these gamblers to the boy, to whom I gave Elias’s address and a brief message and sent him off, hoping he would return in the expectation of a shilling rather than settle for his tuppence. I expected Elias would be at home, as I believed that his recent celebratory expedition would have left him financially unable to enjoy many late nights for a week or so. While my thieving errand boy was gone, I kept a watchful eye upon the door to be certain that Mr. Deloney did not depart, and I kept an eye on my surroundings as well, unwilling to be taken as a cull a second time. It seemed to me an interminable wait as I paced back and forth upon St. James’s Street, watching, as with each moment of increasing darkness the strollers of Covent Garden became more vicious and desperate in appearance. At last, within the hour, Elias appeared, the boy on his tail.

  “Where’s me shilling?” the young thief demanded.

  “And mine?” Elias echoed. “I deserve something for this imposition.”

  I tossed the boy his shilling.

  “What about me ’angar?” he asked.

  “You will only use it to perpetrate more robberies, and with your skills, you should soon perish at the end of a rope.”

  “It beats perishin’ of ’unger,” he told me petulantly.

  “Fair enough,” I agreed, and tossed him his weapon. It was an easy toss, but he missed and chased it as it bounced upon the roadway.

  I turned to Elias. “I’d like to take a turn about White’s, and I can think of no better companion than you for such an expedition.”

  He clapped his hands together like a child. “That’s splendid news. I’m sure you know that one must have money to enjoy White’s,” Elias assured me. “Or let me rephrase that,” he said with a grin. “One most likely has money, but I believe two require it.”

  “I shall pay your way,” I assured him.

  “It is my pleasure to serve you, Weaver. Allow me to introduce you to London’s foremost gaming academy.”

  I paid the small entrance fee for the two of us, and we thus entered into the strange world of London wagering. Places such as White’s, with their desperation and joy and suspense, are but miniatures of ’Change Alley, and indeed as much can be won, or, more likely, lost, at a card table in a single evening than in an entire season of stock-jobbing.

  Though it was early in the evening, White’s was already quite full of pleasure seekers who huddled about large tables strewn through the room, playing at faro or ombre or simpler card games, rolling the hazard dice across tables, or any of a variety of house ventures that I could not fathom. The room smelled thick of tobacco and strong beer and sweaty clothing, and boomed with conversations too loud and too cheerful, occasionally punctuated by cries of glee or groans of wretchedness. Handsome young women, who I suspect may have had other duties, served a variety of drinks to the patrons, but among them I saw none of the chocolate of which this business’s name bespoke. And what stood before me was only the main room of White’s. I knew there were small rooms all about me for private gatherings, high-stakes games, and rendezvous with ladies.

  “Now,” Elias said to me, “what new adventure of yours brings you to this place? I do not believe you are hard on your luck and wish to raise a few guineas.”

  I chose to say nothing to Elias about Miriam. I had no interest in hearing any more of his observations on widows and pretty Jewesses, so I merely told him I had followed a suspicious gentleman to this place.

  “And what is this man that he made you suspicious?”

  “I didn’t like his look,” I replied impatiently as I scanned the room.

  “That will leave you following half of London,” Elias muttered, none too pleased with my evasion. “Well,” he said, “perhaps this is my good fortune as your philosophy master, for there is no better place for you to see the laws of probability better displayed than in a gaming house.”

  “If such laws are so apprehensible, why do so many men lose?”

  “Because they are fools and know no better. Or, like me, they are ruled by their passions rather than their minds. And yet we have tools to beat the odds. It is astonishing to me, you know, this new world of philosophy in which we live. For the first time since the Creation itself we are truly learning how to think about what we see.” He paused for a moment. “How best to demonstrate?” he wondered aloud.

  He then excused himself for a moment, which was all it took for him to find a gentleman willing to engage in a simple game of chance with us. He was a hollow-cheeked fellow of indeterminate age, who slouched at a small table, large enough only for four men. His arm guarded a pewter mug of punch as though one of us might attempt to rip it from his protection.

  “This gentleman has agreed to play with us,” Elias told me. He then turned to our friend. “What return will you give on a simple coin toss?”

  “Fifty percent,” the man droned, “betting a pound.” He sipped his punch.

  “Very good. Give me a pound, Weaver.”

  A pound! He was daring enough with my money, but I had no wish to argue in front of this stranger. Reluctantly, I gave him the coin.

  “Now, our friend here is going to toss the coin into the air, and you must guess, before it lands, if it be heads or tails.”

  Before I had a chance to object, the coin was in the air, and I called heads. It landed in the dealer’s hand, but Elias gestured for him to hold off uncovering it. “What do you think were your chances of being right?”

  “One in two, I should think.”

  “Precisely.” He nodded to the gamester, who revealed that I had guessed correctly, thus winning ten shillings. With a slowness that revealed his reluctance, he opened his purse and counted out the ten coins.

  “Now we do it again,” Elias announced.

  He signaled the man to toss the coin once more, and I again called it heads. I was right once more.

  Elias grinned, as though his wisdom were responsible for my luck. “You have guessed heads twice in a row. Do your chances diminish if you were right the first time?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So you have the same chance of getting a thousand throws right if you guess heads every time?”

  “I believe I understand. That the chances of heads coming up every time are smaller than the chances of both heads and tails coming up. But in the end, the coin has only two sides, and each toss must be a matter of one in two. Though I suspect that the more one tosses the coin, the greater the chances of the two sides coming down in the same number.”

  “Quite right,” he said. “Now, let us take your money and turn to cards. We shall play the same game, only guess whether the card be black or red.” Elias removed from his coat a deck of cards, which he shuffled, fanned, and presented to me.

  Our companion pulled a card and asked me my opinion; I told him r
ed. He turned the first card over, and it was indeed red. With a look of disgust, he handed over the ten shillings.

  “Great gad, Weaver. You’re the luckiest man who ever lived.”

  “I’ll say so,” our friend told us. He bowed and disappeared into the crowd.

  Elias wistfully watched him depart. “Oh, rabbit it! But I suppose he has taught us what we need to know. Now let me ask you, can you continue to bet upon red as you might upon heads?”

  I considered this for a moment. “There is no limit but chance to the number of times a card might turn up, but there is only a particular number of red or black cards in a deck.”

  “Precisely.” Elias nodded, clearly pleased with my answer. “There was a time, and not so very long ago, that even an experienced cardplayer would always think of the chances as one in two, no matter what the deck had produced so far. But we have learned to think differently, to calculate possibilities. If two black cards have already been produced, the chances are slightly less than one in two. If you have produced twenty black cards and five red cards, the chances are now significantly greater on each turn of producing a red card. To me this idea is obvious, but two hundred years ago, it would not have occurred to anyone—not a living man, you understand. It does not even now occur to most gamesters, but it must occur to you, Weaver, if you are to outsmart whoever has committed these crimes, for guessing the motivation of your fellowman is no different from guessing the face of a coin or card. You must only determine what is likely and act upon that supposition.”

  “In the meantime, I must catch up with that gentleman.” I spotted Deloney at one of the gaming tables. He had a look of no great joy on his face, and I could only assume that the cards had not been turning up as he might like. “That’s the man I seek.” I pointed.

  “The devil,” Elias breathed. “Why, that’s Philip Deloney.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course. He’s the sort of man who makes a point of showing himself at all the most fashionable events, and by coincidence, so am I. He has attempted to interest me in projects from time to time—I recall he had one for building a series of canals to connect the metropolis to the rest of the island, but I never overly much trusted his wares.”

  “He must sell dubious projects indeed if you would not bite,” I observed.

  “It’s the man, you know. Never buy from someone who cannot manage his own affairs, for how could he, of all people, have discovered a likely project?”

  “Perhaps you could introduce me,” I suggested.

  “I shall require a few shillings.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To keep myself occupied while you converse with your suspicious wastrel.”

  I handed Elias my winnings, and he then led me over to Deloney, whose face was now red with anguish. It took a few moments for Elias to secure his attention, but at last Deloney looked over in his direction, and Elias rewarded him with a bow.

  “Mr. Deloney. I trust the cards are treating you well.”

  “You trust badly, Gordon,” he grunted. “I am cursed this evening.”

  “Allow me,” Elias continued, paying no attention to Deloney’s mood, “to introduce my friend, Mr. Benjamin Weaver.”

  Deloney muttered something by way of greeting, and then turned to me again. “Are you not that buck I’ve seen in the ring?”

  I bowed. “That was some years ago, but I did spend time as a pugilist.”

  “You’ve cleaned yourself up now, haven’t you? Turned gentleman, I see. Now, perhaps you’d like to do me a favor and beat this fellow into submission.” Deloney gestured to a diminutive and ashen man of advancing years who stood with a deck of cards in hand. They played some sort of game I did not know; it involved Deloney’s guessing the numerical value of a certain number of cards. And guessing rather badly, if his opinion was any measure.

  “Say, Gordon—” He turned to Elias; but Elias had already slipped off to a backgammon table, where he insinuated himself with a group of young sparks. “Well”—Deloney turned to me—“you wouldn’t have an extra guinea upon you?”

  “Your luck is about to turn, then?”

  “It is. I would consider a loan of one guinea between gentlemen to be of the greatest service, and I should be pleased to pay you back at any time after this evening.”

  I smirked only a little at his sudden decision to think of me as a fellow-gentleman, but I showed him nothing of my thoughts, and with affected good cheer handed him the guinea. Deloney’s face betrayed some surprise, even suspicion at the ease with which I gave up the coin, but he took it all the same and set it down upon the table.

  The dealer began to lay out cards, and Deloney gave orders to indicate that he either wished another one or wished the dealer to reshuffle. I cannot say I understood the game, but I understood the look upon his face as the dealer slapped a king down upon the pile and collected the guinea.

  Deloney shrugged and began to walk away from the table, but he spoke to me as he did so, indicating that he wished me to follow suit. “That’s the difficulty with playing these high-stakes games—one rarely plans on it, you know, and doesn’t bring enough of the ready to cover the expenses. I believe you will agree, Mr. Weaver, that a loan of two guineas is hardly more of an imposition than a loan of one, and should you feel kind enough to advance me this sum, it should be my great honor to buy you a glass of punch.”

  I could see there was no talking to this man without surrendering the coin. I handed over my last guinea, afraid to calculate the small sum I had remaining. He smiled, held it in his hand as though to gauge the weight, and then called to a passing strumpet for two glasses of punch.

  “I think of myself as something of a physiognomist,” he said, “and I can see that you are a man of honor. Give me your hand, sir. I am glad to have made this acquaintance.”

  I shook his hand. “As am I. For as you yourself noted, I am rather new to the world of fashion, and should welcome the experience of a man such as yourself, who, I can tell from one look, is vastly familiar with such things.”

  “You pay me too much of a compliment. But I do enjoy spending my time in places such as White’s. It is such a wonderful entertainment, even when one loses.”

  “If I may be so indelicate, you must have at your disposal a vast sum in order to lose at a place such as this.”

  He bowed again. “I flatter myself that I am sufficient.”

  “I suppose I too am sufficient,” I ventured, “but a man must always strive to be better. Yet I no longer wish to labor for my money. You know, Mr. Deloney, what I should like more than anything else is to find myself a pretty lass that comes with as pretty a fortune.”

  Deloney smiled. “You are a well-enough-looking man. I see no reason that you should not be able to find such a lass.”

  “Ah, but fathers and such. Always wanting their daughters to marry into money. And while I am comfortable, I assure you, I am by no means in a position of opulence.”

  “Widows,” Deloney announced. “Widows are the very thing. They are in command of their own fortunes, you know. And they are not bound by the strictest bonds of virtue as are young ladies with their fathers. Though I have broken some of those shackles, I assure you.”

  He laughed heartily, showing me a mouth full of teeth that I wished to see scattered about the floor. Was it for this scoundrel that Miriam had asked to borrow money of me—that she might support his gaming? The thought was too humiliating to yield anything but rage, yet I wished to learn more of Deloney, so I laughed along with this man I wanted only to pummel.

  Just then our lass returned with our two glasses of punch. She curtsied deeply, that we might enjoy a better view of her bosoms, which jutted forth from her bodice. Deloney was so transfixed by the sight that he did not even flinch when she announced that the punch cost a shilling a glass. He handed her the guinea, which she clutched in her long, charming fingers.

  “If you allow me to keep this coin,” she cooed, “I shall make it
worth your while.”

  Deloney reached out and stroked her chin with his knuckles. “I’ll take the coins, my sweet, but I shall seek you out before I leave, and perhaps we may reach an understanding.”

  She giggled as though Deloney had displayed unprecedented wit, and then reluctantly handed over the remaining nineteen shillings.

  I took a sip and watched her disappear though the crowd. The punch might have been overpriced, but they poured rum generously, and it felt hot and comforting as it went down. A few such glasses and any man might cheerfully mortgage his house for an extra hand of whist.

  Deloney drank deep of his punch and grinned at nothing I could discern.

  “Widows,” I said, in the hopes of continuing my line of inquiry. “Have you such a widow at your disposal now?” I kept my voice controlled and even.

  “Several, I promise you. Several. I have just come from extracting funds of one of them. So very pretty and so very gullible. She’s a charming Jessica whom I have made to believe I should liberate from her Shylock.” He paused. “As I recall, you are yourself a member of that ancient race of Hebrews, are you not? I hope you take no offense at the conquest of your women.”

  I managed a hearty enough laugh. “Only so long as you don’t object to my conquest of your Christian ladies.”

  He joined me in my laughter. “Oh, there are more than enough of those for everyone.” He gulped at his punch. “I have devised the most absolutely clever method in the world to convince her to hand over to me enormously pleasing sums of money.”