The Devil's Company (14 page)

TWO DAYS LATER I received a visit from Edgar, who wordlessly handed me a letter and then withdrew. His contusions had healed somewhat, but he nevertheless appeared badly used and was in no disposition to make friendly conversation with me.

In the privacy of my rooms, I opened the note and discovered the instructions Cobb had promised would be forthcoming. I was now to contact Mr. Ambrose Ellershaw of the East India Company, the man whose document I had stolen, and explain that, in the course of some unrelated thieftaking activity, I had happened upon the enclosed report. Recognizing the papers to be of likely importance to their rightful owner, I now wished to return them.

I took no pleasure in jumping to do Cobb’s bidding, but I did believe that moving forward in this matter was superior to not moving at all. Perhaps I would soon have a clearer sense of what I was to do and why Cobb was so anxious that I should be the one to do it.

I situated myself in a coffeehouse where I was known and sent the note as Cobb desired, instructing Ellershaw to send any answer to that location. I would pass the afternoon, I decided, reading the newspaper and sorting through my thoughts, but I had hardly an hour to myself. The same boy I sent out returned with an answer.

Mr. Weaver
,

I am delighted beyond words to hear you have the documents you mentioned. Please come see me at your earliest convenience, which I hope will be this day, at Craven House. I assure you that your delivery and your urgency will be rewarded as they deserve, being the way friends are treated by

Amb. Ellershaw

I finished my dish of coffee, headed immediately to Leadenhall Street, and once more made my way to Craven House and the East India yards, though this time my approach was more direct and less dangerous. A guardian at the door—a handsome young fellow who, by his accent, had recently arrived from the country and could count his good fortune at finding such easy employment—allowed me to enter without molestation.

In the light of day the East India house appeared to be nothing so much as an old and unlovely building. It was, as we now know, outgrowing these old quarters, and the structure would be rebuilt in not many years’ time. For the nonce, however, it was spacious and indicated little of its purpose other than the paintings upon its edifice—a great ship bordered by two smaller ones—and the outer gate, which suggested that none but those with purpose might enter.

Inside, I found the house to be full of activity. Clerks rushed from here to there with bundles of papers pressed to their chests. Runners moved from the house to the warehouses, checking on quantities or delivering information. Servants scurried this way and that, delivering food to the hungry directors who labored tirelessly in the offices above.

Though I knew well where to find Ellershaw’s office, I inquired for the sake of appearances and then climbed the stairs. I found the door closed, so I knocked, and my actions were met with a gruff call to enter.

Here was the same room I had explored under cover of darkness. Now, in bright daylight, I saw that Ellershaw’s desk and bookshelves were of the most ornately carved oak. His window offered him an expansive view not only of the warehouses below but of the river in the distance and the ships upon it that brought him riches from so far away. And while in the darkness I had seen only that his walls were covered with framed pictures, now, in the afternoon glare, I could see the images.

At last I began to gather some understanding of why Cobb had so desired that I, and I alone, should deliver to Ellershaw his missing documents. I still had no idea what Cobb wanted of me and where his manipulations might lead me, but at least I understood why he required that it should be I, and no other, who engaged with Ellershaw.

Not all his pictures, mind you—for many depicted scenes of the East Indies—but many of them had a single focus. There were some dozen woodcuts and prints upon one wall that celebrated the life and exploits of Benjamin Weaver.

They spanned the course of my career. Ellershaw had a print of my early days as a pugilist, when I first made a name for myself. He had a print of my final match against the Italian, Gabrianelli. He even had a rather absurd rendering of me escaping without benefit of clothing from Newgate Prison, a consequence of my unfortunate involvement with parliamentary elections from earlier that year.

Mr. Ellershaw was, in short, an aficionado of the life of Benjamin Weaver. I had met men in the course of my work who recalled me from my days in the ring, and I flatter myself by observing that more than one of these recalled my fights with reverence and regarded me with special notice. I had never before met a man who seemed to collect images of me the way some odd fellows will collect bones or mummies or other curiosities from afar.

Ellershaw looked up from his work and an expression of pleased surprise came over his face. “Ah, you’re Benjamin Weaver. Ambrose Ellershaw at your service. Do sit down.” He spoke with a curious amalgam of gruffness and amicable cheer. Observing that my eyes went to his prints, he colored not a little. “You can see I’m no stranger to your doings, your comings and goings. I know full well about Benjamin Weaver.”

I sat across from him and offered a weak smile. I felt both awkward to be engaged in this charade of returning what I had stolen and embarrassed by his enthusiasm as well. “I am gratified and surprised by your attentions.”

“Oh, I have seen you fight many times,” he told me. “I even witnessed your final match against Gabrianelli—that was the night you broke your leg, you may recollect.”

“Yes,” I said stupidly, for I wondered how he thought I might somehow forget breaking my leg in the boxing ring.

“Yes, quite a sight, the breaking of your leg. I am glad you are here. May I see it?”

I own I showed the greatest surprise. “My leg?”

“No, you blockhead,” he barked, “the report. Give it me!”

I hid my surprise at the insult and handed the documents to him.

He opened the packet and examined the contents with evident approbation, leafing through the pages as though to make sure all was in order and nothing missing. He then took from a ceramic bowl, painted in red and black in the oriental design, a hard brownish thing that he placed in his mouth and began to chew methodically, working at it as though it tasted both horrible and unspeakably delicious. “Very good,” he mumbled, through his chewing. “Not a thing out of order, which is rather fortunate. Should have been a bit of work to replace. When I discovered it missing, I thought, Here is an opportunity to see Weaver at work in his newer capacity, but I was not entirely certain I had not left these at my country house. I had a servant searching, and I was awaiting his report every moment when I received your note instead. How very fortunate. Where did you find this?”

I had a lie prepared, so I answered with easy confidence. “I was in the process of apprehending a notorious dealer in stolen goods when I came across a number of personal items. When I saw these documents, I perceived them to be of significance, and I felt their owner would be happy to see them again.”

“Indeed I am,” he said, continuing to work his brown nugget with his back teeth. “Very good of you to make so free as to bring them to me. That is the great gift of this island to the rest of the world, you know: our freedom. No arsenal and no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.”

“I had not thought of that,” I told him.

“Now, what can I offer you in compensation for your efforts?”

I mimicked giving this matter great thought. “The papers have no intrinsic value of their own, and I am used to receiving a guinea for the return of such an item, but as you did not employ me to search for your papers, and as finding them took no more effort than the actions for which I was already employed, I cannot in good conscience demand payment. I ask only that if the East India Company, in future times, requires the services of a man of my skills, you will not hesitate to call upon me.”

Ellershaw appeared to chew over the matter along with the strange wad of brownness, which by now had coated his teeth with a sepia film. He twisted his face into an unhappy frown. “Oh, no, that won’t do at all. Not at all. We cannot leave things hanging this way.”

I thought he should say more, but the conversation came to an abrupt end as he suddenly stopped speaking and winced, as though in the most sudden and excruciating pain. He gripped the side of his desk, clenched his eyes, and bit his lower lip. In a few seconds, the worst of it appeared to have passed.

“The damnable trouble. I must take my emulsion.” He pulled at a tasseled rope that dangled beside him, and in the distance I heard a bell ring. “What sort of employment do you seek?” he asked me.

I laughed dismissively. “I am fortunate enough to have no shortage of men in need of my talents, sir. I did not come here to beg employment of you at this moment, only to request that if, in the future, a need should arise, you might consider me your man.”

“That won’t do at all. I am too delighted to have met you at last to let you walk away on such uncertain terms. I know you are a man of some pride, a fighting man and all that. You won’t admit your needs, but it must be of some trouble to have to live from one found employment to the next.”

“It has never been a trouble before.”

“Of course it has,” Ellershaw explained, with an indulgent smile. “And look at you, sir. You put a good face on it with your clean suit and such, but any man can see you a Jew without too much squinting. It must be a terrible burden for you.”

“It has been a tolerable burden thus far.”

“And though it be a terrible burden, you still enjoy the freedom of an Englishman, almost as though you were one yourself. Is it not a glorious thing? Freedom is, as you must know, the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace, whether it be the market for Indian textiles or stolen watches, I suppose.”

“I honor your opinion on that subject.” I glanced longingly at the door.

“But as for being a Jew, I suppose that is another matter. Burdens are not part of freedom, of course. We must be free despite our burdens. Yet this whole Jew business—I am sure it prevents you from having serious congress with gentlemen, but I promise you that I am not of that sort. I don’t care about it, I tell you. I don’t care you look a Jew or have come here as little more than a beggar returning my stolen papers. It signifies nothing to me, and shall I tell you why?”

I begged that he would do so.

“Because I have seen you fight in the ring, sir. I know what sort of man you are, even if the rest of the world only spits upon you.”

“Begging your pardon,” I began.

He would not yield his pardon. “To the world, sir, you are but a lowly sneak thief, not suited to sweep their chimneys, but I see in you something far better. Indeed, I have something of an idea of what to do with you. Would you like to hear it?”

I would have to wait to hear of that idea, however, for there was a light knock, and before Ellershaw could answer the door swung open and a serving girl entered with a tray in her hands. Upon the tray rested a pot of some steaming liquid that smelled of mushrooms and lemons. I should hate tremendously to have had to drink it myself, but it was not the strange tea that held my interest. The girl caught my notice, for this creature, hunched over and meek as any female drudge in a house full of brusque East India men, was no other than Miss Celia Glade, the bold woman who had handed me the documents in that very room.

Miss Glade set the bowl on Mr. Ellershaw’s desk and curtsied at him. She gave me not a glance, but I knew full well she recognized me.

In the light of day, I observed I had underestimated her beauty. She was tall and remarkably well made, and her face was full both of round softness and sharp cheekbone. Her forehead was high, her lips red, her eyes as black as emptiness itself: a blackness to match the dark of her hair, which set off the delicate paleness of her skin. Only with great difficulty did I prevent myself from staring, either out of confusion or delight.

“Perhaps you would like to have Celia bring you something to drink,” Ellershaw said. He spat the remains of his nugget into a bucket upon the floor. “Do you take tea, sir? We have tea, you may depend upon it. We have teas you have never tried, never heard of, teas hardly a white man outside the Company has ever heard of. We have teas we import for our own use here, far too good for selling or wasting upon the general public. You would like such a tea, would you not?”

“I am quite well,” I assured him, wanting only for the girl to leave the room and give me a moment to think. I had imagined her before some kind of feminine clerk. Now she showed herself to be a mere servant. How, then, did she so handily know the location of Ellershaw’s documents, and why had she been so quick to surrender them to me?

Ellershaw, however, would not be stopped. “Of course you want tea. Celia, bring the man a pot of the green tea from the Japans. He will like it very much, I’ll wager. Mr. Weaver is famous as a great pugilist, you know. He is now a great thieftaker.”

Miss Glade’s black eyes widened and her face colored. “A thief! That’s something terrible is what that is.” She no longer spoke with the clarity and diction of a woman of education, as she had when we first met. I considered the possibility I might have mistaken the breeding in her voice during our encounter, but I dismissed the notion in a trice. The girl was something other than what she pretended, and she knew I was as well.

“No, you silly girl. Not a thief, a thieftaker. Mr. Weaver tracks down thieves and brings them to justice. Is that not right, sir?”

I nodded, and now, feeling a bit bolder, I turned to the young lady. “Indeed, that is only part of my work. I am practiced in revealing all manner of deceptions.”

Miss Glade looked at me blankly, which I supposed was the appropriate response for her. “I’m sure that’s very good, Mr. Ward,” she said, with utter obsequiousness, but not missing the opportunity to deploy the false name I’d given her during my nocturnal thieving.