A Conspiracy of Paper bw-1

by David Liss

  Sir Owen, however, did not look comforted. Gone was the avuncular warmth I had recognized from our earlier meetings. His tight-lipped scowl bespoke agitated nerves, and he looked at the door several times each minute.

  “This is an unpleasant business,” Sir Owen said. “You promised me to keep my name out of this affair, Weaver.” He absently ran a finger over the handle of his mug.

  I was still quite stiff, but I attempted to affect the air of a man relaxed and in command. I had often learned that, like a player upon the stage, the way I held my body could affect the emotions of those to whom I spoke. “I promised to do all I could, and I intend to keep that promise, but I cannot lie before the court, or I could very well face murder charges myself. Sir Owen, this matter has grown larger than either of us had anticipated, and I believe that the prudent course is now to prepare for the possibility that I may have to mention your name in court. I am certain that with the proper preparation you can ensure that no serious damage—”

  “Your job is to protect those who hire you,” he grumbled, without looking up. “You must do what it takes. Is it more money you want?”

  “Really, Sir Owen, you shock me with these accusations. I have served you as best I could at every turn.”

  “I wonder,” he said absently, “how do you explain this woman’s sudden ability to name you in this matter? You told me that she had no knowledge of who you were or where to find you.” He sat upright and drank hard from his mug.

  “That is true,” I said, “but it seems that Wild has found out, and I cannot but assume that Wild is behind this mischief.”

  “Wild,” he spat. “He will see us all undone. I was a fool to trust you in this, Weaver. You are, if you will forgive me for saying so, a short-tempered Jew who thinks with his fists. Had you not shot anyone, none of this would have happened.”

  I had no patience for Sir Owen’s sudden unpleasant and accusatory mood. He had been jolly enough when I had shot Jemmy down in the street—so long as the shooting never need trouble his quiet. “It is true that had no one been killed there would be no need for a murder trial, but one might add that had you not been careless with your papers none of this might have happened.”

  I had thought to anger him, unbalance him perhaps, but my accusation only served to make Sir Owen believe in his own authority. He straightened out in his chair, and he regarded me with cold eyes. “You forget yourself,” he said quietly. “You have brought far too much trouble upon your head, and mine as well, by sneaking about where you have no business. How do we know that it is not the South Sea that is behind this sudden turn with the whore? The Company would certainly like to see you silenced in any way possible. All this sneaking about, looking to see who killed your father. Could it not wait until the business with the whore was done?”

  I was about to speak when I stopped myself and thought on what Sir Owen had said. “How do you know of that matter?” I asked in a calm voice, hoping to reveal nothing.

  I watched Sir Owen carefully for any sign of confusion, but he exhibited nothing but exasperation. “Who in London does not know that you are poking about into Balfour’s self-murder? It is no secret that you are stirring up trouble for the South Sea Company, and I heartily fear that you are stirring up trouble for me at the same time. What kind of a man are you, anyway, to keep your father’s name a secret? We sat among men of parts talking about Lienzo and you never said a word. Did you wish to embarrass me in my own club, Weaver? Is that what you are about?”

  “If you are embarrassed,” I said calmly, “it is your own doing.”

  Sir Owen clenched his teeth. “You are an irresponsible rascal to involve me in your sordid matters. I wish you had kept me out of it, for they will surely drag me into the gutter beside you.”

  As Sir Owen grew increasingly belligerent, I thought it best to let him rant, ignoring his unkind observations about Jews in general and me in particular until he quite wore himself out. Finally he assumed a more reasonable posture. “I shall speak to men I know who are not without some small influence. Perhaps I can do something to keep you from being summoned at this trial. In the meantime, you must give me your word that should you be summoned, you will not speak my name or in any way connect me to your shooting that man.”

  “Sir Owen,” I said in a calm, quiet voice, “we must do what we can to see that it does not come to that, but I cannot make that promise. I shall hold my tongue as long as I can safely do so. I do not know that your name will never be asked of me. The court may not consider it of importance on whose behalf I sought out Kate. But if forced to speak in whose name I acted that night, I shall not be able to refuse. Is there no way to inform your wife-to-be, Miss Decker, of some small notion of your past—just enough to steel her against any unpleasant rumors she may encounter?”

  I chose the wrong thing to say. Sir Owen’s fist clenched and his jaw tightened. He stared at me in disbelief for what seemed like ages. “What would you know of a refined lady’s sensibilities?” he sputtered. “You know nothing more than whores and gutter rubbish.”

  Perhaps I should have been more sensitive to a man in his position, but I could not find it in my heart to feel sympathy with Sir Owen’s accusatory tone. I had done all I could do and more in his service. His expectation that I swing at Tyburn to show my loyalty was hardly just, and his accusations about the women in my life inappropriate, to say the least. “Is there not,” I asked calmly, “something in your gospels about only the sinless casting stones, Sir Owen?”

  He stared full at me. “We have nothing more to discuss,” he said, and hastily departed.

  · · ·

  SIR OWEN’S PANIC left me confused, but not entirely dejected. He was, after all, on the verge of a public embarrassment—one that could jeopardize his upcoming marriage—and I felt that he was right in suggesting that I was in no small part to blame. I was more concerned with how this unfortunate chain of activity had been set into motion and what I could do to set it right. I thought it logical that Jonathan Wild had been the man to bring me into Kate Cole’s business, but again the question remained why. Sir Owen had suggested that it might be the Company itself that had tossed me, and the baronet along with me, into harm’s way, and that was a possibility I could not ignore.

  I believed there was but one person who could explain these matters to my satisfaction, and so once again I made my way to Newgate prison to speak to Kate Cole.

  After I passed through the terrible Newgate portal, and in exchange for a few coins, the warder led me to the Press Yard, where Kate’s room lay. The turnkey there explained to me that Kate had asked to take no visitors, but that was a request a few shillings soon dispensed with.

  The room itself was surprisingly pleasant—it had a reasonably comfortable-looking bed, a few sitting chairs, a table, a writing desk, and a wardrobe. A small window allowed for a modicum of light to trickle in, but not enough to render the room sufficiently bright—even in full daylight—and a superfluity of cheap tallow candles cast streaks of black soot against the wall. Scattered about the room were empty flagons and tankards, pieces of half-eaten joints of meat, and stale crusts of white bread. Kate had been living well off her remittance.

  If, however, she had been making the purchases of a gentlewoman, she knew not how to live as one. She wore new clothes—no doubt procured from the money I left her—but they were horribly soiled with food and drink, wrinkled as though she had slept in them, and smelled distractingly filthy. The lice she had acquired during her nightmarish hours on the Common Side of the prison had stayed with her, and they fairly crawled about her skin like anxious pedestrians on a busy street.

  Kate showed no small amount of displeasure at seeing me in her doorway. She greeted me with a scowl of broken teeth and promptly turned away, unwilling to look me in the face.

  The turnkey appeared at the threshold. “Will ye be wantin’ anything, then?” he asked.

  “A bottle of wine,” Kate hissed. “ ’E’s paying for it.”
She pointed to me.

  He politely shut the door.

  “Now, Kate,” I began, taking one of her wooden chairs and turning it to face her, “is this any way to treat your benefactor?” I sat down and awaited her reply, gently pushing away with my foot an uncovered chamber pot.

  “I’ve nothing to say to ya.” She pouted like a child.

  “I cannot imagine why you are angry with me. Have I not set you up in ease and taken you out of harm’s way?”

  Kate looked up slowly. “Ya ’aven’t taken me out of the gallows’ way, nor Wild’s neither. So if that’s what ya ’ere about, ya kin be damned, for I ’adn’t a choice, ya see.”

  “What precisely are you saying to me, Kate?”

  “That it was Wild, it was. It was ’im that ’ad me ’peach ya. I weren’t to say nothing, but Wild, first ’e said as ya was to see me ’ang, but when I told ’im it weren’t true, ’e then told me that ’e would see me ’ang and that ’e ’ad more pull with the judge, ’e did, than ever ya did. So that’s what ’appened an’ ya kin do with it what ya will.”

  I was silent for a moment, attempting to put it all in perspective. Kate was breathing hard, as though that speech had taken all her energy. I suppose part of it had been rehearsed—she had to know I would pay her this visit.

  It was at least some small progress to learn that it was Wild who had involved me in Kate’s case. It did not mean that Wild was behind the murders of Balfour and my father, but it did mean that he had been far less than honest when he asserted that he was willing to suffer me as a rival so long as I went after the South Sea Company.

  There were simply too many unrelated pieces of information for me to sort it all out, perhaps because my sorting method was flawed; Elias had chastised me for thinking of each element of the inquiry separately. How, then, might I consider the relationships between the disparate elements?

  I was here to speak to Kate about Wild, but perhaps I should speak to her about something else, for there was still one enigma at the center of my inquiry—Martin Rochester. He had supposedly hired the man who ran down my father, and it seemed as though every man in ’Change Alley knew something of him. But it was Wild’s assertions about Rochester that most interested me, for the great thief-taker had been determined to convince me of Rochester’s villainy while at the same time providing me with no useful information. Now, here I was with Kate—Kate who knew at least something of Wild’s business and who had no love for her master. Perhaps I could learn from her what share of these crimes belonged to Rochester.

  The turnkey returned and provided us with a bottle of wine. He demanded the outrageous price of six shillings, which I paid because it was more convenient to do so than to debate the matter.

  Kate grabbed the bottle from my hand, uncorked it, and took a long swig. After wiping her mouth with the back of her hand she looked at me, certainly debating whether or not to offer me any. I suppose she considered that she had done me too much harm to make amends with small gestures, so she kept the wine for herself.

  I let her take another drink before I spoke. “Do you know a man named Martin Rochester?”

  “Ooh,” she screeched like a rat pressed beneath a boot, “now it’s Martin Roch’ster that’s in it, eh? Well I’ll not be put upon by the like of ’im. ’E’s caused me enough trouble, ’e ’as.”

  “Then you know him?” I asked anxiously. I felt my heart should burst with excitement. Could it be that I had finally found someone who was willing to admit to more than a vague familiarity with this enigmatic man?

  “Oh, I know ’im all right, I do,” Kate said indolently. “ ’E’s as mis’ble a bastard as Wild, and twice as smart ’e is, too. What’s Roch’ster got on this?”

  I could not believe my luck. I was astonished that Kate should speak of her acquaintance with this man so casually. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “But I grow convinced that if I can find him, I can make both of our lives easier. What can you tell me about him?”

  Kate opened her mouth, indeed she began to make some noises, but she caught herself, and her lips spread into a carnivorous smirk. “Ya still ain’t told me what Roch’ster is to ya.”

  “What is he to you?” I demanded. “What do you know of him?”

  “I know ’im well, I do. Very well indeed.”

  “You’ve met him, then?” I asked. “Do you know where he can be found?”

  “Oh, I met ’im, sure. But ’e can’t be found if ’e don’t wan’cha finding ’im, I kin tell ya as much. That’s ’is stock an’ trade, it is. ’E’s an ’ard one.”

  “Can you tell me anything that might make it easier for me to find him?”

  She shook her head. “Only that ya’d better find ’im before ’e finds ya.”

  “Can you describe him to me?”

  “Oh, I reckon I could.”

  “Then please do.”

  Kate looked at me with a gleam in her eye. I could see she had an idea she thought remarkably clever. “Why don’t we say I’ll do that after I’m set free?” She flashed a wine-stained grin at me.

  “I am willing to pay for any information that will help me find Rochester.”

  “I’ll wager yer willin’ to pay, but while yer willin’ to pay, I’m rottin’ in jail, ain’t I? Ya keep tellin’ me what ya want, but if I give ya everythin’ that ya want then I don’t got nothin’, and I’m sure to be carted off to Tyburn. So from now on, ya just think about all the things ya want of me, and I’ll be ’appy to ’and ’em over once I walk outta Newgate.”

  “Kate,” I said, feeling my body clench with anger, “I don’t think you understand how important this is.” I thought about Wild’s interest in my inquiry, and his efforts to drag me into Kate’s trial. There had to be some link between these two matters, but I knew not what it was. Rochester was the elusive figure behind my father’s death, and he had some connection with Wild. I believed that if only I could learn more of it, I would understand many of the mysteries that plagued me.

  Kate, however, showed no interest in my concerns. “I care nothin’ for yer troubles, and I know full well that it’s Wild what’s be’ind mine. And I know there’s nothin’ with Wild and Roch’ster, so there’s nothin’ ya can say or do to Roch’ster to ’elp me.”

  I attempted to reason with her for near another quarter hour, but she would not budge. I thought of evicting her from the cell I had provided, but that could do me no good. So I left her, determined to try again and determined to think of something that would offer me the leverage to make her speak.

  THE NEXT DAY I received a message to meet Virgil Cowper at Jonathan’s. I arrived a quarter of an hour before our planned meeting time, but found him at a table by himself, huddled over a dish of coffee.

  “What have you found?” I asked, sitting across from him.

  He hardly even looked at me. “There is no evidence that Samuel Lienzo ever subscribed to any South Sea issues.”

  I cannot claim this information greatly surprised me. Considering what I knew of my father’s stance about the Company and the Bank of England, I should be surprised to learn he had been a stock-holder.

  “However,” he continued, “Mr. Balfour is another case altogether. He had owned stock worth more than twenty thousand pounds.”

  I knew not how successful a businessman Balfour had been, but twenty thousand pounds was an astronomical amount to invest in but a single fund. And if that fund should prove ruined, I should think nearly any investor should prove ruined too.

  “You said had owned,” I thought aloud. “He did not own, then, at the time of his death?”

  “I cannot comment on the time of his death, but the records show that Mr. Balfour bought his stock near two years ago and sold it again fourteen months later—about ten months ago. The stock rose not insignificantly in that time, and he made himself a handsome profit.”

  If Balfour had sold his stock ten months ago, then his transaction with the South Sea Company had come and gone ten months before h
is death. How, then, could his supposed self-murder be linked to the Company?

  “To whom did he sell?” I inquired.

  “Why, he sold back to the Company, sir,” Cowper cheerfully informed me.

  That was hard luck, for had he sold to another individual, I could trace that person. Once again the trail ended with the Company, and once again, I could think of no next step.

  “I did come across another name,” Cowper then informed me. He smiled crookedly, like a thief upon the street offering to sell a costly handkerchief cheap.

  “Another name?”

  “Yes. Related to one of the names you gave me.”

  “And what name is that?”

  He ran his index finger along the bridge of his nose. “It will cost you another five pounds.”

  “And what if this name means nothing to me?”

  “Then you have wasted your five pounds, I should think.”

  I shook my head, but I counted out the coins all the same.

  Cowper quickly pocketed them. “The name I came across is also Lienzo. Miriam Lienzo—address listed as Broad Court, Dukes Place.”

  I worked my jaw over nothing. “That is the only Lienzo you found?”

  “The only one.”

  I could not even take the time to consider what it meant that Miriam owned South Sea stock. With Cowper here, I needed to be sure about my father and Balfour.

  “Is there another possibility?” I inquired. “About the other name, Samuel Lienzo?”

  “What sort of possibility?” He affected a laugh and then stared without interest at his coffee.

  I thought on how I could word my idea. “That he thought he had stock when he did not.”

  “I’m sure I do not understand you,” Cowper said. He moved to drink from the dish, but he could not bring himself to place it to his lips.

  “Then let me be more precise. Is there a possibility that he owned forged South Sea issues?”