David Liss - The Devil's Company

In short, I began to see what I had already suspected-namely, that if his concern with order was not a form of madness, it was, at the very least, a dangerous preoccupation, perhaps caused by some sort of humoral imbalance. It also became clear to me that when I pressed him for examples of Company errors, he declined to speak any ill of the doings at Craven House. He might well hate disorder when he found it, but his loyalty was fierce. I would have no choice, then, but to loosen his tongue some other way.

I excused myself, telling him I wished to relieve myself but hated to do so in public. I believe he understood and applauded my sentiments and so I left, not to make water but instead to make opportunities.

I entered the kitchen, where I found the serving girl assembling a tray of drinks. “I wish to apologize for my acquaintance’s rude behavior before,” I said. “He is rather taken with neatness in all things, and I am sure you meant no harm.”

The girl curtsied. “You are very kind to say so.”

“It is no kindness but only common manners. I would not have you think I approved of his treatment of you. Indeed, I know him from my business, and rather than being a particular friend, he is a kind of rival to me. Tell me, what is your name, my dear?”

“Annie,” she said, with another curtsy.

“Annie, if you would offer me a favor, I am certain to reward your kindness.”

She looked a bit more skeptical now. “What sort of favor have you in mind, then?”

“My acquaintance is of rather too sober a disposition. He judges his ale too carefully, and yet I should very much like to loosen his tongue. Do you think you might be able to add a bit of gin to his ale? Not so much that he might notice, but enough to give his spirits an encouraging nudge?”

She offered me a sly grin but immediately wiped her face blank. “I don’t know, sir. It doesn’t seem right to play so upon a gentleman’s ignorance.”

I held up a shilling. “Now does it seem right?”

She took the coin from my fingers. “It does indeed.”

Back at the table the girl brought us our fresh pots. Blackburn and I talked more of indifferent matters, until he finished his tainted ale and began to demonstrate in his speech and movement that the gin was doing its business. I saw I had my opportunity before me. “For a man who has such a profound hatred of disorder, Craven House must be a difficult place to labor.”

“At times, at times,” he said, a slight slur coming over his words. “There are all sorts of wretched doings there. Papers filed in the wrong place or not at all, expenditures made without proper accounting. Once,” he said in a hushed voice, “the night-soil man was murdered upon his way to perform his tasks, and the pots were not emptied that night. The lot of them were content to let their pots sit the next day without emptying. The whole lot of them, a bunch of filthy savages.”

“Wretched, wretched,” I said. “Is there more?”

“Oh, aye, there is more. More than you would credit. One of the directors, I won’t say his name, but I’ve heard-mind you, I don’t know that it’s true-but I’ve heard he uses his shirttails to clean himself and then just goes about his business with them, all soiled as they are.”

“But surely all of the Company men cannot be so terrible.”

“All of them? No, not so terrible as that.”

The girl came and took away our emptied pots, replacing them with fresh. She offered me a sprightly wink, so as to inform me she had plied the same trick with this as she had the last.

“I think that strumpet likes me,” Blackburn said. “You saw that wink, did you not?”

“I saw it.”

“Aye, she likes me. But I’d not lie next to that, not unless I could see her take a bath first. Oh, I like to watch a woman bathe, Mr. Weaver. That’s what I like best of all.”

While he drank, he continued to inform me of other crimes against hygiene. I allowed this to continue while he consumed the better part of his fortified drink, but hearing the slur in his voice grow increasingly more pronounced, and suspecting that the conversation might soon escape my ability to shape its contours, I pushed forward, I hoped not too forcefully. “What of other matters? What of the slovenliness you implied in areas beyond personal grooming? Matters of accounting.”

“Accounting errors, indeed. Rampant, is what that is. Everywhere and all the time. You’d think they were possessed of invisible servants, magical ghosts to clean up their little messes, the way they act. And not always errors,” he said, with an unmistakable twinkle.

“Oh?”

“Indeed, your very own man-but I say too much.”

“You say too much not to continue. It would be the most cruel form of torment not to finish your thought. As we are friends, you must go on.”

“Just so, just so. I take your point. It is like the series, is it not? Once begun, it must be concluded. I believe you have learned that lesson now.”

“I have. And you must tell me more.”

“You press me strongly,” he observed.

“And you demur like a coquette, I think,” I said, as good-naturedly as I could. “Surely you don’t want to leave me upon the rack.”

“Of course not. No, I suppose I may tell you a bit more.” He cleared his throat. “Your patron-whose name I shan’t mention for one cannot be too safe-once approached me with a scheme to liberate from the books a considerable sum for his own use. It was a scheme he had already managed, so he said, with the cashier general, and he required my assistance in disguising the sum from the eyes of posterity. He had some tale of its being for an important Company project, but as he could say no more than that, I knew at once that the project was surely gaming or whoring. Needless to say, I denied him.”

“Why so?”

“Why indeed? In part because it would be a unspeakable crime to make free with the books. But there is another aspect to cooperation I found most instructive. The former cashier general, a fellow called Horner, aided your patron one too many times for his continued presence to remain comfortable. He therefore found his loyalty rewarded with an assignment to toil his remaining days in Bombay. To avoid such favors, I eschewed being so faithful a servant. I do not believe the Indies would agree with me.”

“But what of this missing sum? Did Ellershaw do without?”

“Oh, no. I found the sum missing soon enough. A rather gross effort was made to cover the trail, but it could not fool me.”

“Did you speak out?”

“In a company where loyalty is rewarded with exile to the most monstrous clime on earth, I hardly wished to evidence disloyalty. Rather, I took the opportunity to disguise the effort so well that no one else could ever find it. I would not willingly commit a crime, sir, but I saw no harm in smoothing things over once the crime had taken place.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “Such entertaining tales!” I exclaimed. “Surely there must be more.”

“Well,” he said, “there has been a thing or two I haven’t liked before now-before this Greene House affair, as I style it-but I can’t say much on things of the past.”

“I beg you tell me.”

He shook his head.

I decided the time had come for a strategic disregard of Mr. Cobb’s orders that I must inquire into the death of Absalom Pepper, yet never speak his name. He had said I must not raise the subject myself, but my interlocutor was now growing disoriented with spirits, and I believed I could disguise the matter should it come to that.

“Do you speak of the Pepper business?” I asked him.

His skin turned pale and his eyes widened. “What do you know of that?” he asked quietly. “Who told you?”