The Devil's Company (3 page)

He was a well-appointed servant, there could be no doubt of it, for his livery was crisp and clean—almost a martial style to it. For all that, he was also an odd-looking fellow, with eyes far apart and a disproportionately small nose set over comically protruding lips, so he resembled nothing so much as a confused duck—or, at this moment, an angry and confused duck.

The boy he grabbed could not have been more than eight years of age, and his clothes were so ragged I believed nothing but soil and crust held them together. His coat was torn, and I could see he wore no shirt beneath it, and his pants exposed his arse in a way that would have been comical upon the stage or revolting in an adult mendicant. In a child, it merely summoned feelings of deep melancholy. The boy’s boots were the most pathetic thing of all, for they only covered the tops of his feet, and once the monstrous servant elevated the child, I could see his filthy, calloused, and bloodied soles.

The other children, equally tattered and filthy, shouted and danced about, calling names and now pelting the man with rocks, which the servant ignored like a great sea monster whose thick skin repelled assaulting harpoons. The boy in his clutches, meanwhile, turned a bright purple in the face and twitched this way and that like a hanged man at Tyburn thrashing the morris dance.

The manservant might have killed him. And why not? Who would prosecute a man for killing a thieving orphan, the sort of pest that hardly merited more concern than a rat? Though, as my reader will learn in the pages to follow, I am, when circumstances dictate, able to adopt the most plastic of morals, the strangulation of children rests firmly in the category of things I will not tolerate.

“Set the boy down,” I called. Neither the urchins nor the footman had seen me, and now all turned to look as I approached the scene. I held myself erect and walked purposefully, for I had long since learned that an air of authority carries far more weight than any actual rights of office. “Set the child down, man.”

The servant only sneered at me. He could perhaps tell from the simplicity of my clothing, and from observing that I wore my natural hair and no wig, that I was of the middling ranks only and no gentleman to be obeyed without question. Nevertheless, he heard the tone in my voice, and I trusted it contained something of command. Rather than intimidate him, however, it seemed only to make him angry, and for all I could tell he squeezed harder.

I observed that the child had not many seconds of life left in him, and I could not long delay further action. I therefore unsheathed my hanger and held it toward him—pointed precisely at his neck. I meant business, and I would not hold it like a fool making an idle threat.

“I’ll not let the boy suffocate while I determine if you take me seriously or no,” I said. “In five seconds, if you have not freed the boy, I will run you through. You are mistaken if you think I’ve done nothing so rash in the past, and I expect I shall do many more such things in the future.”

The servant’s eyes turned now to slits beneath his protruding forehead. He must have seen the glimmer of truth in my own eyes, for he at once slackened his grip, and the boy fell two feet to the ground, where his comrades came upon him and swept him away. Only a few of them bothered to glance back at me, and one did a sort of officious bow as they all moved backward to the periphery of where we stood—close enough to observe us, far enough that they might escape should the need arise.

The man continued to regard me, now with murderous rage in his eyes. If he could not strangle a boy, perhaps, he thought, he would take his chances with me.

I made it clear I gave no mind to such a thing and sheathed my blade. “Off with you, fellow,” I said. “I’ve no words for a base creature who would delight in cruelty to children.”

He turned to the now-distant boys. “You’ll stay out of the house!” he cried. “I know not how you gain entry, but you’ll stay out or I’ll strangle every last one of you.” He then condescended to turn his waterfowlish face to me. “Your sympathy is wasted upon them. They are thieves and villains, and your thoughtless actions today will only embolden them to further tricks.”

“Yes. Far better to kill a child than embolden him.”

The servant’s wrath melted into a kind of simmering anger that I believed must be his version of neutrality. “Who are you? I’ve not seen you before on this street.”

I chose not to give my name, for I did not know if my prospective employer wished to advertise his association with me. Instead, I gave the name of the man himself. “I have business with Mr. Jerome Cobb.”

Something again shifted in his countenance. “Come with me, then,” he said. “I’m Mr. Cobb’s man.”

The servant made every effort to achieve a more appropriate expression, and so seem to bury his resentment, at least until he could measure my significance to his master. He brought me inside an elegant town house and bade me wait in a sitting room full of chairs and settees of red velvet with gold trim. On the wall hung several portraits with thick golden frames, and between each a lengthy mirror made good use of the light. Silver sconces jutted from the walls, and an intricate and enormous Turkey rug covered the floor. From the house and neighborhood I clearly observed that Mr. Cobb was a man of some means, and the interior showed he was a man of some taste as well.

It is ever the way of rich men to have their lowly servants, such as myself, cool their heels for unreasonable lengths of time. I have never understood why it is that the men who unambiguously hold all of the power in the kingdom have to prove their power continually—I know not if they wish to prove it to me or themselves. Cobb was not like these men—not like them in many ways, I was to discover. He made me wait less than a quarter of an hour before he came into the sitting room, followed close behind by his glowering servant.

“Ah, Benjamin Weaver. A pleasure, sir, a pleasure.” He bowed at me and gestured that I should return to the seat from which I had sprung. I bowed at him and sat.

“Edward,” he said to his man, “get Mr. Weaver a glass of some of that delightful claret.” Then he turned to me. “You do take claret, don’t you?”

“Only if it is delightful,” I answered.

He smiled at me. Mr. Cobb was indeed a smiling sort of man. He was in his later forties, stout in the way of such men and, I thought, handsome, with a lined face and bright blue eyes full of sparkle. He appeared jolly enough, but I had long since learned to be suspicious of jolly men. Sometimes they were what they appeared, and sometimes they were men who used the affect of good humor as a disguise to mask hidden cruelties.

Once Edward had placed the claret in my hands—it was, indeed, delightful and was contained in an ornate crystal goblet with a ribbed bowl, engraved with what appeared to be dancing fish—Cobb sat across from me in a red and gold chair, sipped at his wine, and closed his eyes with pleasure. “I have heard much approbatory discussion of you, Mr. Weaver. You are said to be the very man for finding lost things. It is also said of you that you know how to disguise yourself well. No small trick for someone about whom the papers have had so much to say.”

“A gentleman might know my name without knowing my face,” I said. “It is only the keenest of eyes that will recognize a face out of context. The properly chosen wig and coat will see to that. I know of such matters from experience.”

“Your expertise in such things has been well reported. Consequently, I have a task I’d like to ask you to perform for me, which will require that you present yourself in disguise. It is an evening’s work only and demands little more than that you go to a gaming house, drink and consort with whores, and play at cards with money not your own. I will pay you five pounds. What say you?”

“I say that if every man could make five pounds from behaving thus, there would hardly be a debtor in London.”

He laughed and proceeded to tell me about Bailor, a card cheat who had defrauded Cobb in the most outrageous fashion during a game of cacho. “I can abide losing,” he said, “and I can even abide being made to look the fool for doing so. However, when I learned that this Bailor is a Gypsy cozener, I could not abide that. I must have my revenge on him.” Cobb then told me what he had in mind. Bailor would be at Kingsley’s the next night. Cobb had already struck a bargain with the cacho dealer, so no more of me was required but that I draw attention to myself and entice Bailor to engage me in a challenge. Informed as I was of Bailor’s dislikes, we easily agreed that I should go dressed as a foppish Scotsman. Cobb was nearly ready to hug himself with pleasure. “The trap shall be so easily sprung, I only wish I could see it for myself. But I fear my presence would alert him, so I shall stand down.”

I then raised the issue of funds, and Cobb said he would make things easy on that score. He opened his pocketbook that rested near to his disposal and withdrew an impressive stack of banknotes. “Here are twelve hundred pounds,” he said, though he made no indication that he wished to place them into my hands. “You must lose a bit here and there to entice him, but I wish the final blow to be as near to a thousand as you can make it.” He continued to clutch the notes.

“You concern yourself, perhaps, with the safety of your money?”

“It is a great deal more than I am paying you.”

“I believe, in even the most negative reports of my reputation, you have never heard it suggested that I am a thief or a cheat. I give my word that I shall deal with your money as you request.”

“Yes, of course.” Cobb rang the little bell on the table next to him.

The servant entered the room once more, this time with a dour man of approximately my age, which is to say, close to but not quite thirty. He had either a low forehead or his wig was pulled down too low, though I suspected it was the former, for he had other deficiencies of countenance—a nose too large and lumpy, sunken cheeks, a receding chin. He was, in short, a most unattractive man, and along with the servant they composed a pair of most unpleasant faces. I do not much hold to physiognomy, but something in their ugliness told me that their characters were stamped on their faces.

“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.