David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

“I should think you would look favorably on the Whigs when the man who married your cousin’s pretty widow runs as a Tory. You once took it into your head to marry her, did you not?”

I glared at him. “Don’t think to take liberties with me, Mendes.”

He held up a massive hand. “Stay your temper, friend. I meant nothing by it.”

“No, you did mean something. You meant to prod me to see how I should react. Prod me again on this matter, and you’ll know- dogs or not- I am not to be made sport of.”

He nodded solemnly, a look- almost of remorse, I must say, settling onto his misshapen face. “Then let us go back to the matter at hand. Why have you been singled out to hang for Yate’s death?”

“I cannot even speculate. It seems there would be countless other men who would have made more convenient victims, so I can only conclude that Dogmill chose me for some purpose relating to my inquiry.” Here I told him of my service to Mr. Ufford.

“Ufford has been making trouble with the porters,” Mendes said, “and he is a known Jacobite, but that hardly seems reason enough for Dogmill to wish you to hang. You say you learned nothing about these notes, but it would be reasonable to suspect that Dogmill thinks you’ve learned something- and he would rather see you dead than reveal it.”

I shook my head. “Then why not slip a blade into my back when I am not looking? Why not have my food in prison poisoned as I awaited trial or have a guard smother me in my sleep? There are a hundred ways to kill a man, Mendes. You know that. A thousand, if he is in Newgate. Arranging for a trial and bribing a judge to misdirect a jury hardly seem the most effective. I am not convinced that what has happened to me is a mere effort to keep me silent.”

He gazed into his glass thoughtfully. “You may be right, but it is nevertheless true that Dogmill wished that these things should befall you. Wild believes you must be dangerous to Dogmill in some way, and he is willing to offer you protection in exchange for learning the truth. But now you tell me you don’t know. That’s bad news, Weaver, because if you cannot hold something over Dogmill, you will be on the run for the rest of your life, and with a hundred and fifty pounds on your head, the rest of your life may prove to be a sadly short period of time.”

“Why would Wild offer me protection? What is Dogmill to him?” I asked.

“Well, that is another matter. Wild supports the Whigs in general, but not this one. Dogmill has had the quays under his thumb for some time now. A lot of business can be conducted on the quays, but it is impossible to move in with Dogmill there. He has too many Parliamentarians working for him, and he has the Customs in his pocket.”

“Yes, I’ve already had to dodge a pair of Riding Officers who were on my trail. Is it not a bit of a contradiction for customs men to be working for an importer?”

“A rather convenient one. Half the men employed by the customs office receive bribes from him. When his ships arrive in port, these fellows remove a significant measure from his hold before the true inspector comes to assess the value. This is a fine practice they call hickory pucker. Dogmill then pays duties based on only a fraction of his cargo.”

“A little bribery is one thing, but to use the armed constabulary of the Customs is quite another. How can I hope to act undetected?”

Mendes shrugged. “It’s brazen, but unsurprising. Dogmill has the wealth to bribe whom he likes, including many open-handed fellows in the Commons. His slaves in Parliament recently pushed through legislation that allows significantly lower duties for tobacco men who pay all their assessments within six months, meaning that, because he is wealthy in the first place, he pays far fewer taxes than merchants who have to borrow their wealth and then sell their goods before paying their duties. So he cheats the government at both ends.”

“Is it not a little sanctimonious for Wild to look down upon such cheating?”

“I don’t know that he looks down on it. I suppose he admires it. I merely meant to inform you of the sort of enemy you face. Dogmill is a bad man, Weaver, you may be sure of that; it is not every scoundrel that Wild hesitates to cross. It is not merely his power that Wild fears, it’s his rage. The man was cast from his school at Cambridge for torturing his tutor. One day Dogmill could no longer accept the tutor’s demands of a Latin memorization or some such nonsense, so he horsewhipped him as though he were a servant. I have heard of three instances in which he’s beaten men to death with his fists. Each time, the magistrate dismissed the matter as self-defense, for Dogmill insisted that he had been attacked. But I know from a reliable witness that, in one of these attacks, Dogmill was accosted by a beggar looking for a bit of copper for bread. Dogmill spun around and beat the fellow in the skull until his head was quite broken.”

“I believe myself equal to a man who beats down beggars.”

“I have no doubt you are. I only warn you that he is vicious and unpredictable. All the more reason why Wild should like to see him gone.”

“I suppose, with Wild’s own smuggling vessels, he wants Dogmill out of the way to gain a better grasp on the quays.”

“That is it exactly. A few years ago, I made some inquiries on Wild’s behalf with a few of the more powerful men on the parish boards. It soon became clear that no one dared to cross Dogmill in this regard. And he let us know that if we tried to interfere with his business, things would go hard for us.”

“So Wild testified in my favor because he could do so while pretending to know nothing of Dogmill’s involvement in Yate’s death.”

“Precisely.”

“And that is why he sent the woman with the lockpick.”

Mendes leaned in. “Wild told me about the woman. He said you must have set it up. Her technique, he reported, was rough but adequate.”

“Come, Mendes. Am I to believe that you and your master were not behind this woman?”

“Wild is a man who loves to boast, and I am one of the few people to whom he can boast freely. If he did not commend himself for that action, I can promise you he was not behind it.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

He shrugged. “Believe what you will. I cannot make you see the truth of it, but surely you must admit that if Wild had done you this favor, there would be nothing gained by refusing to acknowledge it.”

I could not but see his logic. “Then who?”

“I don’t know. I would suggest that finding this woman, or finding who sent her, may help you discover what it is that Dogmill thinks you know.”

I took a moment to consider his words. “What do you know of a man called Johnson? One of the false witnesses at my trial said that I announced myself to be in his service.”

Mendes shook his head. “It means nothing to me.”

“And what of Dogmill’s roughs? I find it hard to believe that the foremost tobacco merchant in the city goes about murdering porters on his own. He must have fellows he deploys for his dirty work.”

Mendes shook his head again. “I would think so myself, but I have never heard of any such men. Surprising though it may be, I have concluded that he does indeed go about murdering porters himself. Dogmill has no fear of violence. He relishes it, and if he was of a disposition not to entrust his crimes to the silence of some ruffian or other, he might well have killed Yate with his own hands.”

“And he might not have,” I observed.

He grinned wickedly. “True enough. I suppose I don’t know very much at all.”

A moment of silence passed between us, for it seemed as though there was little more to say.

“Very well.” I drained my glass and stood. “Thank you for your time.”