David Liss - The Devil's Company

I stifled my first impulse, which was to say I harbored grave doubts that our children’s children should praise us for beating old men and violating old women. Instead, I took a deep breath and lowered my eyes deferentially. “Sir, you do not speak of a tribal leader among the Indians. You speak of a well-respected member of the House of Commons. You cannot expect the crime to go unreported. And even if you could be guaranteed of your success, I cannot condone such barbaric usage of anyone, particularly the aged-and I could most assuredly never participate in such a thing.”

“What? You haven’t the stomach for it? I thought you more of a man than that. This is the world we live in, Mr. Weaver, full of deceits and treachery. You must be the one to wield the club, or you will be thrashed by it. I have told you what I wish, and you are my servant; therefore, you will do as I say.”

Once more I found myself faced with a conundrum: Actions that would preserve my place conflicted with actions that would preserve my soul. I might have had a difficult time convincing Cobb that I could not bring myself to beat a warehouse worker, but I would have to believe that even he could not expect me to engage in shameless violence and rape-if for no other reason than that such crimes must be pursued and, if traced to me, must surely be traced to him.

It occurred to me that this might be precisely a bit of curious luck. I had no choice but to walk away from Ellershaw, and Cobb could not blame me for doing so. Perhaps I indulged in unreasonable optimism, but such was all I had at my disposal.

Forcing my face into a cast of steely determination, I rose from my chair. “I cannot do what you ask, nor can I quietly countenance such a thing if you assign the task to another.”

“If you defy me in this, you must lose your position here.”

“Then I will lose my position.”

“You do not wish to make the East India Company your enemy.”

“Better the Company than my conscience,” I answered, and turned toward the door.

“Hold!” he said, now rising from his chair. “Hold, do not go. You are right. Perhaps my methods are too extreme.”

I cursed silently, for my hopes were cruelly, if not unexpectedly, dashed. Nevertheless, I turned. “I am glad to hear you rethink the matter.”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe you are in the right here. Nothing quite so brutal, then. But we shall think of something, Mr. Weaver. You may depend upon it.”

ON MY WAY to the warehouses, I began to consider the larger situation. One moment I served Cobb, another moment Ellershaw, and a third myself. That is to say, I walked a precarious line, and though I would wish to have no master but myself, I understood that I must be a toad-eater, at least in some small degree, if I were ever to do any good. I loathed feeling powerless above all things and yet, with my friends’ lives hanging by precarious threads, I must at least assume the appearance of subservience.

How to endure such a thing and not fall into despair? The answer, I believed, lay not in resisting my would-be masters but rather in setting out upon my own projects. I must learn what Forester hid in his secret warehouse. I must discover Ellershaw’s plans for surviving the impending Court meeting-and very possibly discover more about Ellershaw’s daughter. Such a path could be a blind alley, but many of the major actors in my little drama-both Ellershaws, Forester, and Thurmond-had spoken of her in ways that intrigued me, and though she appeared but an irrelevancy, I had long ago learned that pulling at loose threads could cause the curtain to unravel.

Mrs. Ellershaw appeared to believe that her husband wished to know her daughter’s location, though he made precisely the opposite clear. It seemed to me likely that Mr. Ellershaw’s interest in the girl must have been other than fatherly, and her marriage might have been an effort to escape as much as a pursuit of the heart. That being the case, her mother would clearly wish to protect her whereabouts.

One thing struck me, however. Mrs. Ellershaw feared that her husband had learned the truth . Not that he had discovered the daughter’s address or wished to discover it. No, she believed there was a hidden truth of which Ellershaw was ignorant, which meant that the intelligence he had now provided me might well be false or incomplete.

As for Forester, it would seem he not only disliked Ellershaw but had reason to hate him-namely, his dalliance with Mrs. Ellershaw. Did he hate his lover’s husband to the extent that he would betray him with Thurmond for the pleasure of it? I doubted it. Rather, it seemed to me that Forester had some business that depended on the failure of Ellershaw and perhaps even the Company itself-though I was at a loss as to what that might be. I did, however, suspect that it had something to do with the secret warehouse level Carmichael had spoken of, and I knew I would have to discover the contents of that room.

As always, Aadil kept a close watch on me throughout the day, his ugly scarred face studying my every move with Oriental single-mindedness. But toward evening I managed to remove Carmichael to a private corner on the pretense of scolding him for some imagined failure.

He was so earnest a fellow that when he obeyed my summons to meet in the back of the warehouse, he appeared downcast and apologetic before I even spoke a word.

“Have no concern,” I said at once. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I merely set out the rumor in order to engineer our time together.”

“That’s a relief, Mr. Weaver, as I think well of you and would have you think well of me.”

“Indeed I do. You’ve proved to be a diligent worker and a useful guide to the warehouses.”

“I hope to remain so,” he said.

“I hope you will remain so as well,” I said, “for what I am now about to ask of you is not strictly within the bounds of your duties. I wish for you to show me the location of Mr. Forester’s hidden cargo and to help me gain access.”

His mouth parted slightly, but he said nothing for a moment. Finally, he shook his head. “It is a very dangerous thing you ask. Not only might I lose my place, but I should earn for myself the enmity of that beast Aadil. I don’t want that, and if you are wise you won’t want it either.”

“I understand it is a risk, and yet I must see the contents of that room, and I cannot do it without your assistance. You will be rewarded for your efforts.”

“It ain’t about the reward, don’t you mind that. It’s about not losing my place. You might be the watchmen overseer, but if Aadil or Mr. Forester wants me thrown out without what they owe me, there’s nothing that will stop them.”

“I won’t let that happen,” I told him, wondering, as I spoke, precisely how I would prevent it. I told myself that if Carmichael ’s position should come under attack because of his assistance to me, I would make certain he would not suffer for it. I had enough friends and influence that, at the very least, I could secure him a position of equal income elsewhere.

He studied me, perhaps appraising whether or not my optimism was well founded. “To be honest, Mr. Weaver, I’m scared to go against them.”

“I must learn what’s in there. If you won’t help me, I shall find someone who will, But I would prefer it to be you, as I believe I can trust you.”

He took a deep sigh. “And so you can, sir, so you can. When shall it be?”

I had an appointment I would by no means wish to miss for that night, so we made plans to meet behind the main warehouse at the strike of eleven on the following night. Against his protests, I placed a coin in his hand, but in doing so, I feared I had only weakened his resolve. Carmichael, I recognized, wanted to help me because he liked me. If I became yet another employer, his trust diminished, and I needed such trust as I could muster wherever it would be found.