David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

“Agreed,” he said pointedly. “But what sort of clothes shall they be?”

I sighed impatiently. “I suspect you already have an answer to that question.”

“I suppose my tones suggest as much,” he said happily. “You see, I fear that as you go about your business now, it is only a matter of time before you are recognized and apprehended. I believe I may have discovered a way to avoid so unhappy an outcome.” He paused for a dramatic sip. “Do you recall how last year at Bartholomew Fair we saw the show of that man Isaac Watt?”

I thought back to that boozy day as we stood thick in the malodorous crowd, watching a most dextrous little man perform wondrous trickery before an eager and bibulous crowd. “The fellow who made coins disappear and fowl appear and that sort of thing? What of it? Who cares for a fair showman now?”

“Just listen to me for a moment. After we observed his performance, I became interested in learning the mysteries of legerdemain. I wished not so much to know the secrets behind his various tricks- I had no desire to perform wonders myself. Rather, I was curious as to what principles allowed for the tricks to work. From my reading, I have learned that much of what happens is based on the principle of misdirection. Mr. Watt comports himself such that you cannot help but watch what his right hand does. By doing so, he may use his left hand with impunity. Because no one is looking for or at the left hand, it may engage in all kinds of mischief unseen, even though it operates in the open.”

“All very interesting, and if the might of the king of England were not seeking to end my life, I might share your passion for this subject. But right now I fail to see how it will help me,” I said.

“I believe we should hide you using the principle of misdirection. We will use these four hundred pounds you’ve stolen to obtain for you new clothes, wigs, and a fine place to live. You will choose a new name, and you may then walk among the elite of this city unmolested, for no one will ever think to look there for Benjamin Weaver. You may greet a man who has seen you in the flesh a dozen times, and he will think nothing more of you than that you look somewhat familiar.”

“And if I need to engage in some rough questioning? Would not this foppish version of me hesitate to slap a man until his eyes bleed?”

“I should think he would. That is why you- the true you- will also appear from time to time but in Smithfield and St. Giles and Covent Garden and Wapping, all the most wretched parts of the city. Precisely the sorts of places, you understand, where a desperate man would be expected to hide himself.”

I admit I had begun to lose interest in what I thought was nothing more than another of Elias’s philosophical maggots, but here my eyes went wide. “They will be so busy looking for my right hand, they won’t think to watch what mischief my left hand performs.”

He nodded sagely. “I see you understand.”

“Ha!” I shouted, and slapped the table. “Elias, you have earned your drink,” I told him, as I took his hand and shook it with great enthusiasm. “I think you have come up with the very thing.”

“Ah, well, I thought so too, but I’m glad to hear you say it. How will you proceed?”

“For now, I will take a room here.”

I then called for a pen and piece of paper, and together we made a list of a dozen or so inns with which we were familiar but where we were unknown. We agreed we would meet every third day at this time at these taverns, moving down the list one at a time. Elias, of course, would be certain to see to it that no one tracked him through the streets.

“As for tomorrow,” I said, “meet me at the sign of the Sleeping Lamb on Little Carter Lane.”

“What is there?” he asked.

“Why, the right hand is there. And we shall see what sort of glove to put upon it.”

Ihad asked Elias to meet me at a shop where a tailor named Swan plied his trade. I had long found him sufficiently competent and good-natured (which is to say, no more than necessarily pressing about my credit) for some years when he approached me- perhaps a year and a half prior to these events- to tell me that he now required my services. It would seem that his son had been making merry with some friends in none the best part of the metropolis- namely, Wapping, near the wharves- and he had taken himself too much to drink. For that reason he had not been so nimble as his companions when the press-gang came upon them, and Swan’s son had been taken into service in His Majesty’s Navy.

As my reader knows, a boy of the middling ranks, apprenticed to a tradesman, is not the sort usually preyed upon by the press-gangs, so Mr. Swan made every effort to have his son found and released, but at each step he received only denials and dismissals; nothing could be done, they said. Such assertions are never true. These men only mean to say that nothing could be done that was worth the trouble of saving a tailor’s son from serving his kingdom at sea. Had Swan been a gentleman of five or six hundred a year, quite a bit could have been done. As it was, they turned him away impatiently and assured him that the lad could not be found but that surely he would only be better off for his time aboard ship.

When tapped by the grieving father, however, I found there was much to be done, including contacting a gentleman I knew in the Naval Office who had once hired me to retrieve some silver stolen from his house. He was good enough to make inquiries, and the boy was discovered and released only hours before his ship was to have left port.

Some six months later I visited Mr. Swan to have a new suit made and found him more fawning than usual. He applied considerable care and attention to measuring me, insisted upon only the finest of materials, and made certain I had my fill to eat and drink while he waited upon me. When I returned to retrieve the suit, he announced that there would be no charge.

“This generosity is hardly necessary,” I told him. “You paid me for the services I rendered, and there is no further obligation between us.”

“But there is,” Swan said, “for the ship my boy would have served on, I have recently learned, was lost in a storm with all hands. So, you see, our debt to you is greater than you knew.”

This gratitude he felt toward me made me inclined to put my faith in him. I could not but assume that Mr. Swan, like all men, would prefer to have an additional hundred and fifty pounds- such as my head might now bring- to his name, but he had shown me already that he valued loyalty more than money and believed himself in my debt. As much as I could trust any man, I could trust him.

Ihad sent Swan a note to advise him of my arrival, so he met me at the door and ushered me inside. My tailor was a short man approaching hard on the elderly, thin, with long eyelashes and large lips that looked to have been flattened by a lifetime of pressing pins between them. Though his skills were above reproach, he had no interest in finery for himself and wore instead old coats and torn breeches, caring only for the appearance of his customers.

“Your friend is already here,” he said. “You’ll ask him to stop talking to my daughter.”

I nodded and suppressed a smile. “I must thank you again, sir, for agreeing to offer me assistance in this matter. I cannot say what I would have done if you had refused me.”

“I would never do anything so treacherous. I will do anything in my power to help you restore your good name, Mr. Weaver. You need only ask it. Times are hard, I won’t deny it. Since the South Sea sunk, men aren’t buying clothes like they used to, but times are never too hard to help out a true friend.”