David Liss - The Devil's Company

“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.

“Weaver , you ninny,” Ellershaw said to her. “Now go bring him his green tea.”

She curtsied and left the room.

My heart beat heavily as I felt the thrill and panic of having escaped-but escaped what, I hardly knew. I could not concern myself with the matter for now, however. I had first to discover what it was that Ellershaw would do with me, though I operated under the severe disability of not knowing what Cobb would have Ellershaw do with me. What if I should do the wrong thing? I could not worry myself with that, for if Cobb had not told me he could not hold me responsible.

Ellershaw took a sip from the steaming bowl the girl had brought him. “This is monstrous stuff, sir. Absolutely monstrous. But I must take it for my condition, so you shan’t hear me complain, I promise you, though it tastes as though brewed by the very devil.” He held out the bowl. “Try it, if you dare.”

I shook my head. “I dare not.”

“Try it, damn you.” The tone of his voice did not quite match the harshness of the words, but I misliked it all the same, and I should never have endured this treatment were I in possession of the freedom Ellershaw so extolled.

“Sir, I have no wish to try it.”

“Oh, ho. The great Weaver afraid of a bowl of medicinal herbs. How the great have fallen. This bowl is the David to your Goliath, I see. It has quite unmanned you. Where is the girl with that tea?”

“It has only been a moment,” I observed.

“Already taking the sides of the ladies, are you? You’re a wicked man, Mr. Weaver. A very wicked man, in the way I have heard that Jews are wicked. Removing the foreskin, they say, is like removing the cage from the tiger. But I like a man who likes the ladies, and that Celia is a rather tasty morsel, I think. Do you not agree? But let us stop this foolishness, for you won’t advance in Craven House if you can think of nothing but getting under the skirts of serving girls. Do we understand each other?”

“Absolutely,” I assured him.

“Let us turn our attention to the matter at hand. I have not had much time to consider it, but tell me, Mr. Weaver, have you ever thought of working for a trading company rather than being an independent such as you are, struggling from day to day, wondering where the next bite of bread might be found?”

“I had not thought of it.”

“It has just come to my mind, but I wonder how it is that these papers could have gone missing. You know, there was a riot of rotten silk fellows the other night, and my guards were all occupied in jeering at the ruffians. It might be that, in the excitement, one of those rogues could have slipped in and taken this.”

Ellershaw cut too close to the truth for my comfort. “But why should they take these papers? Was anything else taken?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I know, it hardly sounds plausible, but I can think of no other explanation. Even if I am wrong, it little alters the fact that we have dozens of low types guarding the premises, but no one who truly supervises them. The ruffian who inspects a departing laborer to make certain he has stolen nothing is himself the next day inspected by the very fellow he previously examined. The Company, in a word, is vulnerable to the treacheries and inadequacies of the very men charged with protecting it. Thus, I have the idea, at this very moment, that you might be the fellow to be head of the guard, if you will, to keep your eye upon them and make sure they are up to no mischief.”