David Liss - The Devil's Company

IN THE HACKNEY, ELIAS CONTINUED TO SHAKE HIS HEAD. “HOW COULD you not tell Franco was a spy?”

“He gave me no reason to suspect him. Indeed, I believe most of his actions were sincere and as he would choose to behave, so in no way did he seem like a man dissimulating.”

“And where to now?”

“There is a last bit of business,” I said, “if only for my own satisfaction.”

We went to the Throwers Arms tavern, where Devout Hale sat with his boys, drinking quite amiably. I should have thought he might have fled, might have been concerned that I would come looking for him, but he only smiled at me when I entered. He sent his companions away, and we sat at his table. I then introduced Elias, and the two men made some talk about scrofula. Elias plied the older gentleman with his wisdom until I could endure no more of the congeniality.

“Enough of this,” I said, slapping my hand upon the table. “Did you think I would learn nothing of your ruse?”

“Of what?” Hale asked most unconvincingly.

“Let me speak plain, then. You betrayed me and your own men. I gave you a book that would bring the East India Company to its knees, and you handed it to Ellershaw. Why would you do that?”

He looked down, unable to hide his shame. “Judge me not too harshly. It is my sickness that led me astray. I told you I was desperate for a cure, and I traded the book for that. I approached the men of the Company, and they assured me I would get a private audience with the king. It was but a book, Weaver, a nothing to me who cannot read. Surely you cannot blame a sick man for trading something he cannot use or understand for something that can save his life.”

“No, I suppose I cannot blame a man who does such a thing. Your decision seems to me flawed but understandable.” I sipped at my beer. “Except for one thing. How would you know to give the book to the very man who most wanted it? There are many men, many directors at the East India Company. Why Ellershaw?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. A coincidence, I suppose.”

“No, it wasn’t a coincidence,” I said. “You have been working with Ellershaw for some time now, haven’t you?”

“Of course not. That is absurd.”

“Is it? I did not make sense of it at first, but when I learned that the East India Company had some silk workers in its employ, I should have known you would make yourself available, for you made it clear that you were so desperate for a cure you would do anything, take any risk. When today, at the Court of Proprietors meeting, Ellershaw held up that book, I knew you had quite made him. He did not need it to destroy his rival, but it was a nice success to play out before the Court. You betrayed the future of your cause for the gratification of an East India man.”

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed at me.

“What?” Elias asked. “Your men know nothing of your living upon Company silver?”

“Of course,” he said, rather quickly. “They don’t turn their backs on money, no matter if it come from the East India or elsewhere. It is an uncomfortable arrangement, but it is one they have come to accept.”

I rose to my feet. “I beg you to listen, men of the silk trade. Is it true that you know Mr. Hale is in the pay of the East India Company?”

All eyes were upon me. I believe I would have been damned for a blackguard liar had not Hale risen to his feet and hurried to the door as quickly as his sickened condition would permit him. A half dozen of his men followed him. I doubted that Hale would get very far, and the only question was what they would do to him once they caught him. He was a sad man and a sick man, and he had sold out his boys for a false hope of a magic cure. There would be rough music, I had no doubt of it, but I also had no doubt that Hale would live to accept his reward of the king’s touch and to discover the falseness of the hope.

ELIAS AND I THOUGHT it best to move to another tavern and found one not too far away, where we sat with our pots and our contemplation.

“I approve your cleverness in discovering Hale’s treachery,” he said, “but the truth is, Weaver, I find it to be too little and too late. I cannot help but feel that we have been here before.”

I raised one eyebrow. “What do you say?”

“Well, this isn’t the first time this has happened,” he said. “You become involved in some inquiry, and it is clear that there are great forces out there trying to manipulate you, and despite your best efforts in the end you are manipulated. Maybe some of the more reprehensible people are punished, but those with power get precisely what they want. Does that not bother you?”

“Of course it bothers me.”

“Is there no way to be more vigilant?” he asked. “You know-to prevent this sort of thing from happening so regularly?”

“I suppose there is.”

“Then why have you not availed yourself of it?”

I looked up at him and grinned. “Who says I haven’t?” I finished my pot and set it down. “With so many spies and so much manipulation involved, I could not but be aware that there were those who would turn it to their advantage if I let my guard down for a moment. As ever when dealing with men of such power, there is only so much one can accomplish, but I believe I have done my best to thwart them.”

“But how so?” he asked.

“Finish your pot, and you will find out.”

WE TOOK A COACH to Durham Yard, where we once more knocked on the door and were greeted by Bridget Pepper, Ellershaw’s wife’s daughter. She was chief, I now believed, among those I had styled the Pepper widows. Elias and I were shown inside, where we waited but briefly before the good woman entered the parlor.

“Good afternoon, madam,” I said. “Is your husband home?”

“What cruel joke is this?” she asked. “You know quite well that he is dead.”

“I thought I knew that quite well,” I explained to Elias, but with the intention that she listen as well. “It was one of the few basic truths I was given by Cobb, but then I began to wonder. With so much deception about, how did I know Pepper really was dead? What if Cobb lied to me, or what if Cobb had been lied to? Given that we know he had a traitor in his midst, I now believe it to be the latter.”

“So Pepper is not dead?”

“No. It was part of the agreement he reached with the East India Company. He would give up the plans-plans they knew he would never be able to duplicate on his own because, as one of his other wives explained, he lost ideas the moment he wrote them down. In exchange for this sacrifice, he would be permitted to remain married to this young lady here. And perhaps something else: a new life abroad, I suspect. You must truly love him, to remain by his side despite his-shall we say-excesses.”

“I know not why you should defame his memory and torment me so,” she said. “He’s dead. He’s dead.”

“I wonder,” I said. I removed something from my pocket and showed it to her. “I wonder if this is the sort of thing that might bring him back from the grave.”

With my warmest smile, I showed the young lady the octavo containing the plans for Pepper’s engine.

“WHAT DID ELLERSHAW HAVE?” Elias asked me, as we walked to the back of the house.

“The first book I received from the lady in Twickenham,” I said. “It appeared remarkably similar in form and content, and there was no way to tell the plans it contained were abortive. Indeed, it looked to me so much like the true plans, that had there not been a slight imperfection on the calfskin of the other, a mark in the shape of a P , I would not have been able to tell them apart.”

In the back of the house, Mr. Pepper sat with a book and a glass of wine. He rose to greet me. “I must admit,” he said, “I had some vague hope this was a possibility, but it was never more than a vague hope. You are indeed an impressive man.”