David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

Only look at the works of the poets, and you will see it. There is always the Jew, and there is the Jew’s daughter or the Jew’s wife. This truism is perhaps most blatant in Mr. Granville’s famous Jew of Venice, in which the pretty daughter, Jessica, need only leave her villainous Jew father and embrace her Christian lover in order to shed all vestiges of her Hebrew past. Miriam, to deploy the terminology of the natural scientists, as a woman was but a body in the orbit of the most powerful man to whom she attached herself. Marrying a Christian allowed her to become English; more than that, it necessitated it. It has happened that Jewish men marry English women, and each partner maintains the erstwhile religion. It cannot happen with a Jewish woman, and so it did not.

Elias, however, was far more interested in why Melbury would wish me harm. “If you have done him no wrong, and presuming that you are right and that his wife has not incited a hatred, why would he wish to destroy you? And perhaps more important, how could he possibly tell Piers Rowley how to conduct himself?”

“As for the latter, I presume that Rowley owes some sort of allegiance to the Tories, and that Melbury is a patron of one kind or another. The judge made it clear that in anticipation of the upcoming election, men must gravitate as their loyalties demand and act accordingly.”

“Indeed they must.” Elias cocked his head. “I had forgotten that you were no politician, Weaver, which is why the story is utter nonsense. Rowley owes nothing to the Tories. He is a Whig, sir. A Whig, and one known to be aligned with Albert Hertcomb, Melbury’s opponent in the upcoming race.”

“I know who Hertcomb is,” I said sullenly, as I took a sip of my drink, though I had only learned of the fellow because I had heard a newspaper story about him read aloud at a tavern a few days before my arrest. “Rowley insisted that my arrest and hanging were somehow vital to the Tory cause, so why-?” I stifled my own question as I recalled the nature of the story to which I had listened. “Wait a moment. Is there not some connection between the Whig candidate, Hertcomb, and Dennis Dogmill, the tobacco merchant these porters hate so much?”

Elias nodded. “I am surprised you know that. Yes, Dogmill is Hertcomb’s patron and, as such, Hertcomb has been instrumental in the passage of several bills that favor the tobacco trade in general and Dogmill in particular. He is also Hertcomb’s election agent.”

I slammed my hand upon the table. “Let us use your wondrous ideas of probability and see what we know. A priest spoke up for the rights of the porters who unload Dogmill’s tobacco and then received a threat, warning him to cease his actions. Next, a leader of the labor agitators is killed, and I am arrested for the crime. The judge at my trial, a Whig, does all in his power to convict me, but when his feet are to the fire, he blames a great Tory. When I approach a location where any searcher might hope to find me, it is guarded by men of the Riding Office, who ought to concern themselves with smuggled cargo rather than escaped murderers. Given the generally acknowledged corruption of customs officers, who are said to be in the pockets of the most powerful merchants, I believe I can deploy the mechanisms of probability and determine the identity of the villain.”

“Dennis Dogmill,” Elias breathed.

“Precisely. I should love to see him swing after the rude treatment he meted out when I tried to speak with him. He must be the man. There is no other person who would want to see Walter Yate dead, have the power to make another man hang for the crime, and want to set me against Griffin Melbury.”

Elias studied my face. “You must be disappointed,” he said, “to discover that Melbury is very likely not your foe.”

I admitted to myself that he was right, but I would not give him the satisfaction of saying so. “Why should I be?”

“Come now, Weaver, you have been out of sorts this last half year, ever since you learned that that pretty cousin of yours had joined the Church and married Melbury. I cannot but think you would take some delight in the thought of exposing him for a villain. After all, if Melbury were hanged, Mrs. Melbury might marry once more.”

“I have more things to concern myself than affairs of the heart,” I said weakly. “For now I shall content myself in almost certain knowledge that Dennis Dogmill is my enemy.” I was not so content at all, and I had not yet entirely abandoned the notion that Melbury might not be somehow involved- or perhaps that I could involve him.

“Dogmill is well known to be cruel and sour,” Elias agreed, “but if he did have Yate killed, why should he seek to harm you of all men? The docks are swarming with the lowest fellows on earth, men who would hardly know how to speak a word on their own behalf, who would offer no worthwhile defense of themselves, and who would certainly not have the mettle to break from Newgate. Why assign blame to a man whom he must know would fiercely resist this usage?”

I shook my head. “I agree that it does not seem wise. I had little chance to learn anything of the matter of the threatening notes. I was arrested at the very beginning of my inquiry, so it cannot be that Dogmill wished to silence me, for I have nothing yet to say. I believe this question must be the key. If I can learn why Dogmill wished to punish me, I can discover some way to prove myself innocent.”

He frowned skeptically. “And how will you do this?”

“Tomorrow I shall go to Ufford and see if he can offer me any more information. And there are a few others I must seek out. For now, I must get my sleep.”

“I will leave you then.” He rose and replaced his hat, and then turned to me. “One more question. Who is this Johnson fellow the witnesses against you were speaking of?”

I shook my head. “I’d forgotten about that. The name means nothing to me.”

“Very strange. That young fellow, Spicer, appeared particularly eager that the world should associate you with this Johnson.”

“I thought so too, yet I know no one by that name.”

“I suspect you may yet,” he prophesied- and, as it turned out, quite correctly too.

We then determined another tavern where we might meet the next night. As he prepared to leave, however, Elias hesitated for a moment and then extracted a small purse from his coat.

“I’ve brought you an enema and an emetic. I hope you will be wise enough to use them.”

“I really must get some sleep.”

“You’ll sleep better if you cleanse yourself. You must trust me, Weaver. I am, after all, a medical man.” With that, he departed, leaving me to stare at his generous gift.

THERE WERE some curious glances at the Turk and Sun when I took a room there that night. From my livery they must have concluded that I had run away from an unkind master, but as I paid my reckoning in advance with ready cash, there were no questions put to me, and I was shown to my room with reasonable cheer.

I intended to do nothing with Elias’s medicine, but in a fit of restlessness I chose to administer the dosages, and though I spent an hour or more in the greatest discomfort, I confess I felt mightily cleansed thereafter and slept longer and deeper than I likely should have otherwise, though my dreams were a wild and incoherent jumble of prisons and hangings and escapes. After I had voided my body I called for a hot bath, that I might wash away the vermin of the prison, but they were soon enough replaced by the vermin of the tavern.

The purges had the effect of leaving me enormous hungry, however, and in the morning I ate my breakfast of bread and warm milk with great relish. Then, still in my footman’s disguise, I began my journey to the home of Mr. Ufford, who I hoped would be able to shed some light on my troubles. As I walked the street, now in the light of day, I felt the most unusual sensation. I was at liberty but not free at all. I had to remain in disguise until… until I hardly knew what. I would have thought that I must prove my innocence, but I had already done that.