The Devil's Company (6 page)

Elias had many fine qualities, but managing street toughs, or even rude men of breeding, was not among them. Tall, gangling, with long limbs too thin even for his slender form, Elias had always managed to radiate not only poise but a kind of good humor that I had many times observed the ladies found to their liking. So too did men and matrons, for Elias had, despite his humble origins in Scotland, risen to become a surgeon of some note in town. He was oft called upon to drain the blood and tend the wounds and pull the teeth of some of the best-situated families in the metropolis. Nevertheless, as with many men skilled at ingratiating themselves, he would inadvertently make enemies along the way.

I hurried forward to make certain that Elias would come to no harm. A man who has made his living through his fists learns perforce that other men do not love to be treated as children and overprotected, so I would make no overt threats to his enemy. Nevertheless, I hoped my presence would give some pause to any hasty violence.

The streets being mostly clear of all but pedestrians, I had no trouble crossing, and I soon found myself by Elias’s side.

“Again, sir,” he said, affecting a deep bow that caused his tie periwig to lurch forward, “I had no knowledge of your connection to the lady, and I am most sorry to have given you grief.”

“You will be most sorry,” said the other. “For first I shall pummel you like the street rubbish you are, and then I shall make certain that no lady or gentleman in the city allows so pernicious a Scots conniver as you into his home again.”

I cleared my throat and stepped forward, inserting myself between the gentlemen. “May I inquire the nature of this dispute?”

“Damn your eyes, I know not who you are, but if you are a stranger, be gone. If you are a friend of this knave, keep quiet lest I make my displeasure known to you as well.”

“This is a terrible misunderstanding,” Elias said to me. “A deuced mishap, is all. I formed an attachment to a most amiable—and chaste, let me say, very chaste—young lady, who it appears is engaged to marry to this gentleman here. May I present Mr. Roger Chance? Mr. Chance, may I present Mr. Benjamin Weaver?”

“Damn you, Gordon, I have no interest in meeting your friends.”

“Oh, but you may know Mr. Weaver’s name, for he is a celebrated pugilist—most skilled in the arts of violence and now famous as a ruffian for hire.” I may have been reluctant to insert myself into the fray, but Elias, it seems, was not reluctant to assert my qualifications. “In any event,” he continued, “this young lady I met—well, she and I formed a friendly but purely chaste—I believe I mentioned that—attachment. We merely discussed philosophical principles of interest to inquiring young ladies. You know, she showed a very keen understanding of Mr. Locke….” His voice trailed off as he, perhaps, came to understand the absurdity of his claim.

“And did these philosophical principles involve the removing of her petticoats?” Chance demanded.

“She had a question of anatomy,” Elias explained weakly.

“Sir,” I ventured, “Mr. Gordon has offered his apologies and pled ignorance. His reputation is known—”

“Reputation as a rascal!” Chance exclaimed.

“His reputation is known as a man of honor, and he would never have imposed upon an understanding between a man and a woman had he known it to exist.”

This was perhaps the greatest nonsense I had ever uttered, but if it would preserve my friend, I would deliver it most earnestly.

“This coward refuses to duel,” Chance said to me, “so I shall have no choice but to beat him like a dog.”

“I never love to duel,” Elias said. “Perhaps I can offer you some medical services as restitution.”

Though I am Elias’s friend, I cringed at this suggestion, and Chance was about to answer it as it deserved when a rumbling sound interrupted our discourse. We all at once attended to the noise; though we as yet saw no cause, we nevertheless witnessed the surprised shouts of pedestrians, whom I saw fleeing from the roadway farther up Grace Church Street. Seconds later, the first of several phaetons came careening toward us.

Icy as the streets were—and thickly populated by pedestrians, vehicles, and occasionally cattle—they made a poor surface for a phaeton race, yet such races had become all the rage that season, possibly because it had been an exceptionally icy winter and conditions were accordingly dangerous, appealing to the reckless pleasures of the rich, young, and idle. Thus far I had heard of as many as ten innocent Londoners killed and one racer severely wounded in these antics, but as these gladiators tended to be offspring of the better families in the kingdom, little had been done to curb the mayhem.

Elias and I instinctively pushed back to the buildings as the first of the phaetons whipped by, and Mr. Chance did the same, though he kept distance from us, lest we believe that we were allies in adversity.

I could not help but curse the foolishness of this sport. Even upon rural roads, where a small carriage driven by a single man and propelled by a single horse might race without risk to others, these vehicles were hardly built for high speeds. The driver stood in the open carriage, and the slightest bump could send a man flying to his doom. As the phaetons tore past us, each driven by a sniveling lordling or haughty young squire, I had cause to lament that none of these men had yet met with so deserving a fate.

After the cluster of phaetons passed, we let out a sigh as a single community, and many of the pedestrians began to go about their business. All, however, was not over, for there was one more adventurer, a young man in a green and black machine who had apparently fallen behind and now raced furiously to catch up with the pack.

“Out of my way, damn you all!” he cried as he came charging through the now-repopulated streets. Again, the pedestrians ran to press against the walls, but one little boy, not five years old, appeared to lose both his way and his mother and stood directly in the phaeton’s path.

It is easy to think that a man with whom one has a disagreement must be a villain, but such is often not the case, and now I observed that Elias’s enemy, Mr. Chance—whom I must point out, lest ill be thought of me, was the closest of all of us—darted forward, taking not an instant to assess the risk to his own person, and lifted the boy out of danger. He spun with the child in his arms, and set him down out of the phaeton’s way. At least it should have been out of the way, but the fool of a driver careened too far toward our side of the road.

“Clear the road, rascal!” he cried to Chance, but the thought of slowing his horse apparently never occurred to him, and so it was that he charged directly into the man who had so recently been the savior of an innocent boy.

Chance spun and was able to avoid the hooves of the horses, but he was nonetheless knocked to the ground, where he slid away from the phaeton. He did not slide enough, and one of its wheels rolled directly over both his legs. The driver of the phaeton turned, saw what he had done, and spurred his horse farther away. The onlookers shouted and reached into the gutters for turds to hurl, but he was far too fast for their missiles to strike home.

Mr. Chance uttered the most pitiable of cries, but then fell silent and lay like a broken geegaw in the street. Elias rushed forward and first examined the man’s face, to determine if he lived and then if he was conscious. Seeing that he was alive though dead to the world, he then examined his legs. He ran his hands down each one, and they came up covered with blood. Elias’s face grew dark with concern.

“One leg merely has contusions,” he said. “The other is quite broken.”

I nodded, trying to think nothing of the pain of the thing, for I myself had suffered the breaking of a leg—a wound that ended my career as a pugilist. Elias had tended to me, however, and though many thought I should lose the limb outright, or at the very least never walk again, he had nursed me to near full recovery. I doubted his enemy, even if sensible, could understand his good fortune in his surgeon.

“Help me get him inside!” he shouted to me.

Together we took the man into the tavern and set him down upon a long table. Elias then gave a boy a list of supplies and sent the young fellow to the nearest apothecary. During this dismal period of waiting, the unfortunate Chance became sensible and cried out in the greatest pain. Elias fed him small sips of wine, and after a moment he managed to utter a few words.

“Damn you, Gordon,” he said. “If it comes out that you killed me so you would not have to duel, then you shall hang for it.”

“I confess it had been my plan,” he answered, “but now that you have discovered it, I shall have to formulate another.”

The jest appeared to confuse Chance, who swallowed more wine. “Save my leg,” he said, “and I shall forgive your crime.”

“Sir,” Elias said, “I am so awed by your bravery and sacrifice in saving that boy that I promise I shall comply with your challenge upon your recovery, if the prospect of shooting me full of lead will encourage you to heal the sooner.”

The man then lost consciousness, mercifully so, I thought. Soon thereafter, the boy arrived with Elias’s equipment, and he went to work setting the wound and then delivering the man to his home. I shall not have occasion to speak of Chance in this history again, but I will tell the curious reader that he made a near full recovery, and thereafter sent Elias a note expressing that the debt between them was, in his mind, paid. I do not know if such a thing would have transpired had I not talked Elias out of sending Mr. Chance a bill for the services rendered and expenses laid out. Nevertheless, I believed Elias had the better bargain.

Once all was over, we sat in an alehouse while Elias calmed himself and recovered his spirits. He was mightily tired from his exertions, and in him such fatigue always led to a strong appetite for food and drink. He hunched over his plate, eating quickly of cold meats and buttered bread, talking excitedly between bites. “A rather funny business, don’t you think, all this fussing about women?
Oh, you have ruined my wife! Oh, you have ruined my sister! Oh, you have ruined my daughter!
Can they not leave me alone?”

“Perhaps,” I proposed, “you might consider being more prudent before bedding any more women. It may be inconsequential to you, but clearly it is not inconsequential to the men with whom they must deal. I suspect your presence is felt long after you’ve departed.”

He grinned. “I like to think so.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. Surely you cannot imagine that these women can go back to their happy lives once their husbands or brothers or fathers have discovered their dalliances. Have you no concern for that?”

“Really, Weaver, you are being rather a bore about this. It’s not as though these women don’t understand the nature of their actions. If they choose to have a bit of fun with me, why should I deny them the pleasure?”

It would have been easy to explain why, but every bit as pointless. Elias had no ability to refuse women, even plain and ungainly ones. He had never had any restraint in this matter for as long as I’d known him, and it would be foolish to imagine that any efforts on my part would alter his behavior now.

He looked at me, as though awaiting more lecturing, and when he did not receive it he swallowed a mouthful of chop. “Well, Weaver, you wanted to see me about something before. I own there was a bit of a distraction, but we can discuss the business now. Good a time as any.” He gulped down some ale. “I expect you need my assistance in some inquiry or other. I’m happy to provide it, but you ought to keep in mind I laid out all my ready on the surgical equipment for Chance. Pay my reckoning, and you shall have my full attention.”

I was hardly a man with an excess of cash, and I resented his proposing this arrangement only after ordering heartily, but I lacked the will for argument, so I acquiesced.

“Can you listen or are you too disordered by the day’s events?”

“I cannot say,” he answered. “You had better make the tale interesting.”

“Oh, I think this one will not fail on its own merits,” I said, and began to recount to him all that had happened, from my first meeting with Cobb to my most recent encounter with my uncle. During the course of my tale, Elias ceased to eat. Instead he stared, half at me, half at nothing at all.

“Have you ever heard of this Cobb?” I asked when I was finished.

He shook his head slowly. “Never, which I think you’ll agree is remarkable. A man of that sort, with so much money—it seems impossible that I should never have heard of him, for I know everyone who is known.”

“You appear to be too stunned to eat,” I observed. “I admit that my tale is strange, but you’ve heard stranger. What, then, startles you so?”

He pushed the plate away, apparently experiencing an unprecedented loss of appetite. “As you well know, Weaver, I’m not a man who likes to live within his means. That is why the Lord invented credit, so we can use it. And I am, in general, quite good at managing my affairs.”

Discounting those times that I’d been called to rescue him from sponging houses after an arrest for debt, he was generally correct, and I said as much.

“I’ve discovered that, in the past few days, someone has been making a point to purchase my debts. Not all that I owe, mind you, but a good amount. As near as I can tell, some three or four hundred pounds’ worth of arrears has been consolidated into a single hand. I’ve been wondering why, and why this person hasn’t contacted me, but I believe I now understand.”

“Cobb pursues my friends,” I mused. “Why? You could not relieve my burden with him, so your debt will not make the difference. Why should he wish you to owe him?”

Elias seemed now to recall his appetite, and he brought his plate closer. “I don’t know,” he said, giving the meat a stab with his knife, “but I think it might be wise to find out. Sometime before I am arrested, if you please.”

CHAPTER FOUR