David Liss - The Devil's Company

I had much to do. I knew of Pepper’s dealings with the mysterious Mr. Teaser, as I knew him to be married to three different women-and I should hardly have been surprised if I were to find more. But why did Cobb care about Pepper? What was Pepper’s relationship with the East India Company-or with Cobb, for that matter? How was this all connected to Forester’s plot or Ellershaw’s need to overturn the 1721 legislation? Did Celia Glade’s presence mean that the French had a hand in all of this, or had I merely stumbled upon a spy-no doubt one of hundreds scattered across the metropolis-who collected information and sent it home, where wiser heads would determine if it had merit?

I had no answers and threatened to find no answers. I only knew I was tired and that an innocent and helpful man, the good-natured Carmichael, had died because of all this double-dealing. I wanted no more of it. Perhaps it was time to cease resisting Cobb. My efforts to undermine him and find his truths for my own purposes had granted me nothing but the imprisonment of one friend, and I would not risk the imprisonment of more.

I had been considering these matters and working myself into a very high state of agitation and anger. It was for this reason, then, that I could hardly understand, let alone manage my emotions, when I entered my house and found a visitor awaiting me in the drawing room.

It was Cobb.

I FELT NO GREAT CONCERN for his well-being, but I immediately noted that he looked unwell. He appeared drawn and quite agitated. He rose as soon as I entered the room, and, holding his hands together, he took a few tentative steps toward me.

“I must speak with you, Weaver. It cannot wait.”

I will not say the rage I felt toward him disappeared, but curiosity stayed my temper. Edgar, after all, had been ready to thrash me for sending a boy to Cobb’s house. Now Cobb himself appeared at mine.

I therefore directed him to my rooms, that we might enjoy privacy, and there, once I had lit my candles, I poured myself a glass of port, and chose not to invite him to join me, though his hands twitched and his lips trembled, and I saw he wished for a drink of something bracing above all things.

“Your presence here surprises me,” I told him.

“It surprises me as well, but there is no helping it. I must speak with you man-to-man. I know you have had cause to feel anger toward me, and you must believe I wish things could have been otherwise. Hammond suspects you are holding back, and so do I. But I come here without him to plead with you to tell me what you have not already told us. I do not threaten you or your friends. I just wish for you to tell me.”

“I have told you all.”

“What of him ?” he asked, and whispered the name: “Pepper.”

I shook my head. “I have learned nothing of his death.”

“But what of his book?” He leaned forward. “Have you learned anything of that?”

“Book?” I asked, rather convincingly, if I may say so. Cobb had made no mention of the book, and I thought it wisest to feign ignorance.

“I beg of you. If you have any idea where it can be found, you must get it to me before the Court of Proprietors meeting. Ellershaw cannot be allowed to have it.”

It was a convincing performance on his part, and I confess I felt a moiety of compassion for him. But a moiety only, for I did not fail to recollect Mr. Franco in the Fleet, and though Cobb might be a pathetic figure at the moment, he was still my enemy.

“You must tell me about this book. I know nothing of it. Indeed, sir, I resent you sending me upon this quixotic quest, chasing after a man of whom I may not speak, and now, I discover, in search of a book no one has mentioned. Perhaps I might have been done with you already if you had only told me of this book.”

He looked into the black of my window. “The devil take it. If you have been unable to find it, it cannot be found.”

“Or,” I suggested, “perhaps, if Ellershaw knows what this book is and why you value it, he has it already, possessing the advantage of knowing it when he sees it. I cannot even say that I have not held this book in my hands, for I know nothing of it.”

“Do not torment me so. Do you swear you know nothing of it?”

“I tell you I remain ignorant.” It was an evasion, but if Cobb noticed it, he gave no indication.

He shook his head. “Then that will have to do.” He rose from his chair. “It will have to do, and I will have to pray that things stand as they are until the Court meeting.”

“Perhaps if you told me more,” I suggested.

He either did not hear me or could not. He opened my door and took himself from my home.

WHEN I ARRIVED at Craven House the next morning, I was informed at once that Mr. Ellershaw wished to see me in his office. I was fifteen minutes late, and I feared he might use the opportunity to chastise me for my failure to observe form, but it was nothing of the kind. He was in his room with an officious-looking younger man who held a measuring tape in his hands and a dangerous-looking bunch of needles in his mouth.

“Good, good,” Ellershaw said. “Here he is. Weaver, be so kind as to let Viner here measure you, would you? This will be just the thing. Just the thing for the Court.”

“Of course,” I said, stopping in the middle of the room. In an instant, the tailor was whipping the measuring tape about me as though it were a weapon. “What is this for?”

“Arms up,” said Viner.

I raised my arms.

“Worry not, worry not,” Ellershaw said. “Viner here is a miracle worker, are you not, sir?”

“A miracle worker,” he agreed, mumbling the words through his pins. “All done here.”

“Very nice. Now be off with you, Weaver. You’ve something to do, haven’t you?”

AADIL DID NOT SHOW himself that day, and I began to wonder if he would show himself at all. He must have known I had seen him, and now he could no longer pretend to be a disinterested if hostile worker and no more. He had played his hand too openly, and while I had no doubt he would continue to serve Forester, I suspected his days of doing so at Craven House had come to an end.

I planned that night to pursue my final unexplored link to the seemingly charming Pepper-that is to say, his Mr. Teaser, whom his Twickenham wife had set me upon. I no sooner was ready to leave the India yard when Ellershaw, once more, requested me.

In his office, again, was the very efficient Mr. Viner. Efficient, I say, because he had already managed to construct a suit based on the measurements he had taken that morning. He held out to me a neatly folded pile of clothes of light blue cast, as Mr. Ellershaw stood observing in an absurd posture, showing off a suit of exactly the same color.

I understood at once, recalling-and regretting-my own suggestion that this feminine cloth be turned into masculine suits. Ellershaw had taken my notion to heart and chosen to grab the domestic market in the only way possible, should his efforts fail.

“Put it on,” he said, with an eager nod.

I stared at him and I stared at the suit. It is difficult for me to explain just how precisely absurd he looked, and how absurd I was sure to look by his side. These cottons would surely make pretty bonnets, but a suit of robin’s-egg blue for a man-a man who was not the most absurd dandy-could hardly be imagined. And yet, as I stood there, I knew I could not very well say that such a thing was not to my taste. I could hardly turn my nose up at it, however aesthetically practical but socially and morally abhorrent.

“It is very kind of you,” I said, hearing the weakness in my own voice.

“Well, put it on, put it on. Let’s see if Viner is up to his usual good work.”

I looked about the office. “Is there some place for me to change?”