David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

The method I devised was simple. Elias would inquire of the possibility of hiring witnesses to speak in my defense. We knew that if any of these men had already paid witnesses to appear against me, they would be forced to decline, lest the gentleman face the wrath of those who hired him. Of the men to whom Elias spoke, only Groston demurred, and so we knew at once that he was our man.

This worthy kept a stationer’s store off Chick Lane that offered a variety of pens and papers and blank books, in addition to a few lurid pamphlets and romances. The bulk of his income surely came from his alternate trade, and it was one he was in no way embarrassed to promote. A painted sign hung in the window: EVIDENCE.

I approached cautiously, for I thought it entirely possible that the Riding Officers might have anticipated this move on my part, but I have long since discovered that very few men truly understand the nimble art of the inquiry. The deft thieftaker must anticipate his prey’s movements, but most of these fellows know only how to react once the prey is found.

The interior was a small shop, crowded with clutter and detritus and dusty sheaves of paper. The space was quite small- only ten feet in length, five in width- in which a customer might move without facing a counter that separated the proprietor from the rest of the store.

I had seen Groston about town, though he and I had never met. He was a younger man than was usual in his trade, not yet into his middle twenties, and of lean but strong build. He wore his natural hair, which hung down in stringy clumps, and there was a half-week’s growth of beard on his pointy face. Though not generally of a physiognomic temperament, I had never once set eyes on this weaselly fellow without feeling a strong dislike.

“Good afternoon,” he said, not bothering to raise himself from where he sat, at table with a glass of thin red wine. “How can I be of service to you? Are you interested in goods material or immaterial?”

“I am in need of evidence,” I said, “and the sign in your window suggested that I might procure it here.”

“That you can. Tell me what plagues you, and you will find that I am in all ways prepared to provide you with the assistance you crave.”

I approached the counter and, in doing so, advanced upon a rather unpleasant scent. Mr. Groston himself smelled unwashed, and there was a chamber pot nearby that was so recently used it fairly gave off heat like a stove. None of this made me more inclined to be gentle with the fellow.

“There has been a death,” I said. “A murder.”

He shrugged. “These things are apt to happen now and again, sir. It is better that we not trouble ourselves more than we have to.”

“You and I are of a similar way of thinking,” I assured him. “But I require witnesses to clear my associate.”

“You would be surprised,” Mr. Groston told me, “how easily a man of my talents might find those who suddenly recall having seen what no one might have before suspected they had seen. You need only provide me with the details, and I shall find these witnesses for you.”

“Very good,” I said. “The man in question is named- um, Elias Gordon, and he is accused of having killed a man called Benjamin Weaver.”

Groston raised his eyebrows. “Oh, ho. Weaver’s dead, is he? Well, that is the best news I’ve heard in epochs.” For the first time he looked up at me and met my eyes. I could only assume that he knew my face from about town as well as I knew his, and at once he realized the error he had made. “Oh,” he said.

“Yes. Now, let us talk, Mr. Groston. We must begin with your telling me who hired you to provide the witnesses at my trial.”

He moved to back up, but I lashed out quickly and grabbed his wrist.

“I won’t answer any of your questions.”

“Do you think you might reconsider,” I asked, “if I held your head in that chamber pot long enough that you risked drowning in your own kennel?”

Rather than await his mulling over this hypothetical, I moved around to his side of the counter, grabbed him by his greasy hair with one hand, and forced him downward with my other, that I might try the experiment. This was a tricky business, you understand, because I did not wish to have any of his refuse splash on me, but it was not a terribly difficult thing to shove his head in the pot and keep him there for more than two minutes- all without a drop of his nastiness tarnishing my costume.

When I felt his struggling diminish to a dangerous degree, I pulled him out and tossed him on the floor. I took a step back, lest he shake himself off like a dog and send his refuse flying. But Groston only lay there panting and coughing and wiping at his eyes.

“You blackguard,” he wheezed. “Are you mad to use me so?”

“Perhaps it is a shitten way to treat a man, but as I have already used you thus once, I do not it think it so outrageous that I do so again. Now, let me ask you again: Who is it that bought those witnesses?”

He stared at me, not sure what to do, but when I took a step toward him he reasoned that he had better tell me all. “Damn you for a dog!” he shouted. “I don’t know who he was. Just a fellow, and one I ain’t seen before.”

“I don’t believe you,” I told him. I reached out, grabbed his hair, and held him down for another dunk. This time I kept him contained a bit longer than was wise. He thrashed and shuddered and pushed against my hand, but I did not relent until I felt the fight begin to die out of him. Then I yanked him free and tossed him on the floor.

He stared at me with wide eyes while he hacked a filthy mucus. His first efforts at speech were aborted by a heaving cough, and he nearly vomited but somehow did not. This time he managed to find his voice. “Go to the devil’s arse, Weaver. You nearly drowned me.”

“If you disoblige me by refusing to answer my questions,” I explained, “it hardly matters to me if you be living or dead.”

He shook his head. “I told you, I don’t know him. I never saw him before. He was just a fellow, you know. Not tall nor short. Not young nor old. Neither mean nor great. I hardly remember nothing about him but that he handed me a fat purse, and that was enough for me.”

I grabbed him once more by the hair and began to drag him toward the chamber pot. “You’ll not be coming out so soon this time.”

“Stop!” he shrieked. “Stop it! I told you! I told you everything! You want me to make up a name? I’ll do it, if you just leave me be.”

I let go of him and sighed, for I had begun to suspect that he had spoken the truth. Perhaps I had suspected so all along but had only relished the opportunity to punish him. “Who is Johnson? The witnesses both said I used that name.”

He shook his sad and beshatted head. “I don’t know who he is. The man what hired me only said that the witnesses must say you spoke that name to suggest that you were his agent.”

I took a step nearer to him and he shrieked again. “Leave me,” he cried. “That’s all I know. It is all I know, I tell you. I don’t know no more. Except-”

“Except what?”

“He told me that should you come looking for him, to give you something.”

I stared in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

“Just that.” Groston stood up and wiped the kennel from his face and over his head, so it ran down the back of his neck. “I thought it most strange. I asked him why you should come here; was it not more like the case that you should be hanged? He said there was always a chance, and if you did come by I was to give you something. They kept on dying, but he give me money to buy a fresh one every day, just in case.”

“What are you talking about? Dying? A fresh one?”

He held up his hands. “I told you, I don’t know no more than that. I don’t want to regret telling you so much as this, but it’s what he said to do, and I don’t know no more than it.”