by David Liss
“Mr. Weaver, over there you see my nephew, Mr. Tobias Hammond, a dedicated servant of his majesty at the Customs House.”
Hammond bowed stiffly. I rose and returned the greeting.
“He is employed at His Majesty’s Customs House,” Cobb reiterated.
“Yes,” I answered.
“I merely wished to point out his affiliation with the Customs House,” Cobb said.
“Yes, Uncle,” Hammond answered. “I believe he understands that.”
Cobb turned back to me. “Though, as you say, I have never heard a believable word uttered to impeach your honesty, I hope you will not mind that I bring in a pair of witnesses to see that I am entrusting twelve hundred pounds to your care. I expect you will return it no later than Thursday morning with whatever winnings you should earn off it. As these winnings will be collected through my own machinations, I trust you will not claim a percentage of them for yourself.”
“Of course. I can return the money to you that very night, if you prefer. I should be more comfortable having it in my possession for the briefest period possible.”
“Lest you be tempted to steal it, I suppose?” He let out a laugh.
“It is a great deal of money, so of course I shall be tempted, but I have ever been used to mastering my temptations.”
“Uncle, are you quite certain this is wise?” asked the nephew, Mr. Hammond of the Customs House.
“Oh, it’s the thing,” Cobb answered.
Hammond screwed his awkward face into an even more unappealing mask of discontent. He turned to the servant. “That will be all, Edmond.”
Edmond, I thought. Cobb had called him Edward. Once the servant had left, Mr. Hammond regarded me with hard brown eyes.
“I understand that Mr. Weaver has an acceptable reputation,” he said, “but it cannot be a sound practice to trust any man with this sum, more than he could hope to gain honestly in many years.”
“It is a substantial sum,” I agreed, “but stealing it would mean I must hide myself, abandon my good name, and have no prospects for future income. Furthermore, if after this employment word should spread that I had been entrusted with this sum and that Mr. Cobb’s trust was safe, then my future income can only grow. It would be a poor investment indeed for me to act the thief. Nevertheless, this is Mr. Cobb’s plan and not my own. I did not ask to be so entrusted, and I shall not insist upon it.”
“I should have him sign a note if it were my money,” Hammond observed.
“If it were your money, you could do as you like, as I shall do with mine.” Cobb spoke entirely without bitterness. Indeed, there was a certain good nature to his tone, as if he were unfamiliar with pique. “What means papers when we have witnesses? It is all one, and I believe no paper can stand the surety of Mr. Weaver’s reputation.”
“As you like, sir.” Hammond bowed and retreated.
Mr. Cobb spent the next half hour or so telling me more of what he knew of the dealer and of Bailor and what I was to say when I defeated him. I left confident that I could earn my five pounds without fail, but I also felt uneasy, for no man can have upon him twelve hundred pounds in negotiable bills and feel at ease. I wanted only to do what was asked of me and return with all deliberate speed.
As I left the house I saw the servant waiting by the door to watch me leave. He had an air of suspicion in his eye and seemed to want to make certain I did not steal anything on my way out. I hardly knew why I should choose to do so when his master had entrusted me with so much ready money.
Before leaving, I turned to him. “Mr. Cobb called you Edward, but Mr. Hammond called you Edmond. Which is it?”
“Edgar,” he told me, closing the door upon my face.
GIVEN EVERYTHING I KNEW of the plot Cobb had set forth, I came to one likely conclusion: The dealer had betrayed the plan to Mr. Bailor. He was, as I understood it, the only person besides Cobb, Hammond, and myself included in the secret; also, as he controlled the cards, no one else could have orchestrated things to so bad a result. He might well have offered some sort of amiable distribution of funds with Bailor. I thought to go find the scoundrel and pummel a confession from him before returning to Cobb’s town house, but my good sense held me back. It was certainly true that the dealer might have changed the outcome to favor Bailor, but I could not prove it, and I needed more information in order to proceed. That the dealer’s complicity was the most likely explanation did not make it the only explanation. I had seen animosity toward Mr. Cobb from both his servant and his nephew, and it was at least possible that one of them also had a hand in things.
To salvage my honor, I concluded I had no choice but to return to Mr. Cobb, tell him all that had happened, and volunteer not only to recover his funds but also to discover how his plan had gone wrong. There was much I did not know about the man, and I could not vouch for his prudence. It might be, I thought, that he was too foolish to keep quiet about the scheme beforehand. It is possible Bailor might have found out from a friend or some such thing, and it seemed unwise to pursue any course without further information.
I knocked on the door and the servant opened it at once, greeting me with his bill-like lips pressed into a sneer. “Weaver the Jew,” he said.
“Edgar the child-strangling bootlick whom no one regards sufficiently to recall his name,” I answered, for I was angry and tired and had no wish to play games with the man.
He showed me once more into the sitting room, where this time I did have to wait—perhaps three quarters of an hour—and every tick of the standing clock struck me like a blow. I felt very much like a man waiting for the surgeon to remove his kidney stones: I dreaded the operation but understood its inevitability and wanted it started that it might be over the sooner. At last Edgar returned and invited me into the parlor. Mr. Cobb, dressed in a sedate brown suit, stood in anticipation, smiling with the eagerness of a child who anticipates a sweetmeat. Sitting in an armchair across the room, lumpy nose lost in a newspaper, lurked Mr. Hammond. He raised his eyes toward me but then returned to his reading without comment.
“I trust you have news, sir,” Cobb said. His hands clenched and unclenched.
“I do,” I told him, when he sat, “but it is not good news.”
“Not good news.” The smile flickered. “You do have the money to return?”
Now my presence captured Hammond’s interest. He set down his newspaper and glared at me, his eyes, like the reluctant head of a turtle, just visible from under his bob wig.
“I am afraid I do not,” I told him. “Something went quite wrong, sir, and though I do not love to offer excuses for myself, the matter was beyond my ability to alter. It is possible you may have been betrayed by the dealer, for the cards he gave me did not answer, and after the failure, he showed no signs of distress. I have given the events of last night a great deal of thought, and I believe—”
“It’s as I predicted,” Hammond said evenly. “The Jew has taken your money.”
“It’s been lost through perfidy,” I replied, making the utmost effort to avoid sounding either haughty or wrathful, “but not mine, I assure you.”
“Very likely you would tell us otherwise.” Hammond harrumphed.
Cobb cooled his ardor with a look, however. “If you had stolen the money, I very much doubt you would be here to tell us of it.”
“Bah,” said Hammond. “He wants his five pounds in payment on top of what he’s stolen. There’s a rascal for you.”
“Nonsense,” Cobb said, more to me than his nephew. “Nevertheless, you do appear to have lost it, which, while a less contemptible offense, is hardly a forgivable one.”
“I did lose it, and though I cannot blame myself, I consider myself both wronged and nearly involved. I assure you that I shall not rest until we discover who—”
“You assure me?” Cobb asked, something dark slipping into his voice. “I entrusted you with that money, and you assured me you would not betray my trust. Your assurances, I fear, may not answer.”
/> “Anyone might have predicted this outcome,” Hammond observed. “Indeed, I believe I did so myself.”
“I did not betray your trust,” I told Cobb, feeling myself growing hot. I had been as wronged as he and did not like his implications. “I must point out that it was your plan in which the trouble manifested itself. But that is no matter, for I am determined to—”
Cobb broke in once more. “My plan, says he. You are turning out to be a saucy fellow, Weaver. I’d not have thought it. Well, you may be as saucy as you like, but, once we have concluded with your efforts to lay this loss at my doorstep, you will accept that you owe me twelve hundred pounds.”
Hammond nodded. “Quite right. He must repay at once.”
“Repay? I must first learn who took it from you, and I will need your help. If you will take some moments to answer my questions, I believe we can discover who is responsible.”
“What effort is this to screen yourself?” Hammond demanded. “You vowed to return the money this morning. Edward and I heard you say as much. Let us not see you attempt any base tricks now. You have either stolen or lost a great deal of money, and you wish to put my uncle to the question. That is great nerve, if you please.”
Cobb shook his head. “I’m afraid my nephew has the right of it, Mr. Weaver. I should be undone in my finances if I were to ignore this debt. Sadly, I must demand you return the money now, this morning, as you agreed. If you cannot, I will have no recourse but to swear out an arrest warrant.”
“An arrest?” I spoke more loudly than I should have preferred, but my passions were beginning to wriggle loose of their tethers. “You cannot be serious!”
“I am most serious. Can you pay of your own funds or not?”
“I cannot,” I said, my voice as hard and resolute as the last words of a highwayman upon the gibbet. “And if I could, I would not.” I might expect Cobb to be unhappy with how events had transpired, but I never imagined he would treat me in this fashion. It was his other man who had failed him. Still, I recognized that he had me in a ticklish position, for he possessed witnesses who would swear they heard me promise to return the money, and I could not do so.
Thus, matters being as they were and Cobb making demands such as he did, I began to feel the tingle of suspicion. There was more to this than I understood. Cobb had made certain that the witnesses heard my agreement to return the money, but they had not heard—at least that I could swear to—the details of the evening at Kingsley’s.
“Are you suggesting,” I asked, “that I must find such money or go to prison? How can that possibly be in your interest when I am not the one who cheated you and, if I am imprisoned, I cannot recover what you’ve lost?”
“Nevertheless, it is the situation in which you find yourself,” Hammond said.
I shook my head. “No, this is not right.” I did not speak to the justice of these matters, but rather to their orderliness. Why should Cobb insist that I pay him now, that moment? The only reason I could devise left me nearly breathless with astonishment. I could not but conclude that the dealer had been working with Cobb and so had Bailor. The money was not lost at all. I was.
“You say that you wish me to pay or go to prison,” I said. “And yet I suspect you are on the verge of proposing a third option.”
Cobb let out a laugh. “It is true that I should hate to see a man of your talents ruined by such a debt, a debt he could surely never pay. I am therefore willing to let you, shall we say, work the debt off, much as transportees work off their debts through their labor in the New World.”
“Quite right,” Hammond agreed. “If he cannot return the money, and he does not wish to go to prison, he must take the third choice—that of being our indentured servant.”
I rose from my seat. “If you think I will countenance such treatment, you are mistaken. You shall see, sir, that I am not about to endure your contrivances.”
“I shall tell you what I see, Mr. Weaver,” Hammond answered, rising to meet my height. “I see that your preferences in this matter don’t signify. Now take your seat and listen.”
He returned to his seat. I did not.
“Please,” Cobb said, in a cooler voice. “I understand you are angry, but you must know I am not your enemy, and I mean you no harm. I merely wished to secure your services in a more reliable way than the usual.”
I would listen to none of it. I hurried past him and into the hall. Edgar stood by the door, grinning at me.
From behind me, Cobb said in an easy and calm voice, “We shall work out the details upon your return. I know what you must do, and I expect you to do it, but when you are done, you will return to me. I’m afraid you have no other choice. You will see that soon enough.”
He spoke the truth, for I had no choice. I thought I did. I thought I had a difficult choice, and I went to pursue it, only to discover that my situation was far worse than it already appeared.
CHAPTER THREE
T WAS NO LATER THAN MIDMORNING WHEN I LEFT COBB’S HOUSE, but I staggered in the streets as though I had drunkenly removed myself from an alehouse or bagnio in which I had reveled all night. I therefore made all efforts to master myself, for I had no time for beating my breast like Job to lament unjust suffering. I knew not why Cobb should have gone to such considerable trouble to make me his debtor, but I was determined to remain ignorant until I was no longer in his power. Once I had cleared myself of his debt, let us say, and knocked him upon the floor with a blade to his throat, I should be happy to inquire as to his motives. If I asked while he could threaten me with arrest, I should scarce be able to endure the feeling of being his supplicant.
Supplication, nevertheless, would be the order of the day, and though I could not bring myself to live in Cobb’s power, there were, I told myself, more benevolent forces in the world. I therefore endured the expense of a hackney—reasoning that a few coppers could hardly alter the shape of my now monstrous debt—and went to that rank and foul part of the metropolis called Wapping, where my uncle Miguel maintained his warehouse.
The streets were too clogged with traffic and peddlers and oyster women for me to dismount directly before the building, so I walked the last few minutes, smelling the ripe brine of the river and the only slightly less ripeness of the mendicants around me. A young boy wearing a tattered white shirt and nothing more, despite the bitter cold, tried to sell me shrimps that had likely turned sour last week, and their perfume sent my eyes to tearing. Still, I could not help but observe with pity his bloody and coal-encrusted feet, filth frozen into his flesh, and out of an eleemosynary impulse I dropped a coin upon his tray, for I thought that anyone desperate enough to try to sell such rubbish must be on the very brink of starvation. Only after he walked away, a little gleam in his eye, did I realize that I had fallen into his very trap. Was there anyone left in the metropolis, I wondered, who was what he appeared?
I expected to be assaulted by the usual chaos of business when I stepped into my uncle’s warehouse. He earned his respectable income in the trade of importer and exporter, calling upon his connections with the far-flung communities of Portuguese Jews throughout the world. He would bring in all manner of goods to sell—ambergris, syrup, dried figs and dates, Dutch butters and herrings—but the bulk of his trade was in the acquisition of the wines of Spain and Portugal and the sale of British woolens. Here was a trade I could much admire in so near a relative, for every time I visited his house I could anticipate a gift of a fine bottle of port or Madeira or canary.
I was accustomed, upon entering the warehouse, to being bombarded with countless men in the process of moving boxes and barrels and crates from this place to that, intent upon their work and as confident in their destination as the myriad ants of a swarming colony. I expected the floors to be stacked high with receptacles, the smell of the building to be full of the richness of spilled wine or the sweetness of dried fruit. Today, however, only a few porters milled about, and the air in the building was thick and humid, heavy with the scent of Bri
tish woolens and with something more pernicious as well. Indeed, the warehouse appeared to be cold and nearly empty, and few of his regular laborers went about their business.
I glanced about, hoping to see my uncle, but I was instead approached by his longtime assistant, Joseph Delgado. Like those of my family, Joseph was a Hebrew of the Portuguese nation, born in Amsterdam and moved here as a child. To the casual observer, he would appear as nothing but an Englishman, however, for he dressed like a man of the trading ranks and wore his face cleanly shaved. He was a good fellow, one I had known since I was a boy, and he had ever had the kind word for me.
“Ah, young master Benjamin,” he cried out. I had always taken amusement in his addressing me as though I were still a child, but I understood it well. He did not like to call me by my assumed name, Weaver, for I had taken it when I’d fled my father’s house as a boy and it was a marker of my rebelliousness. He could not understand why I refused to return to the family name, Lienzo, so he would call me neither one nor the other. In truth, now that my father was dead and I had grown to live on such familiar terms with my uncle and aunt, the family name no longer sat ill with me. However, the world knew me as Weaver, and I earned my bread based upon my reputation. There was no turning back.
I took his hand in greeting. “It has grown quiet here, I see.”
“Oh, aye,” he said gravely. “’Tis quiet indeed. Like a graveyard quiet.”
I studied his weathered countenance as a dark mood fell over him. The lines and crevices of his face appeared now gulfs and jagged valleys. “Is there some trouble?”
“I reckon that’s why your uncle called for you, ain’t it?”
“My uncle didn’t call for me. I came on my own business.” Then, seeing the hidden implication in the words, I thought I had cause to fear the worst. “Is he unwell?”
He shook his head. “No, not that. He is no more distressed than his usual. Things are bad enough. I wish only that he would entrust to me—or someone, I care not who—more of the trade. I fear his responsibilities harm his health.”