David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

Until the time he met his fate at the end of a hangman’s noose, I don’t know that Wild ever came as close to death as he did at that moment- and I include in my reckoning the incident in which Blueskin Blake famously stabbed him in the throat. In an instant I had kicked closed the door and withdrawn a pistol from my pocket. I came within an inch of discharging it directly into his head.

But I paused. I believe it was the look on Wild’s face: one of utter composure. It suggested to me that either Wild had not come to harm me or he had come so fully prepared to harm me that he had nothing to fear. In either case, I was eager enough to avoid adding another charge of murder to my troubles that I hesitated.

“Put it away,” he said to me, as he drank from his pot of ale. “If I wanted you taken, you’d have been taken by now. As it is, you’re of far more use to me free than you would be in chains. And you’re sadly mistaken if you think a hundred and fifty pounds is enough to turn my head.”

I lowered my pistol and approached the table. Mendes had already produced me an ale. “You’ve nothing to fear,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me you were bringing him here?” I asked Mendes, still not ready to sit.

Mendes remained impassive. With Wild around, he was no longer his own man but the thieftaker’s puppet. I would get nothing from him. “He did not tell you,” Wild said, “because you would not have come.”

It was true enough, but it did not, in my mind, excuse the deception. Still, I had no one to blame but myself. As much as I should have liked to have trusted Mendes, I knew he was Wild’s creature, and I could not be surprised that he would bring his master to meet me. The only question remaining was why.

Wild had about him a manner that was so comfortable and at ease that any man who showed himself to be anxious must think himself pitiable. This great thief had the strange ability to make every man believe in his corrupt authority, and I found that, though I knew what he was, I believed it too if I was not careful. I therefore clenched every muscle in my body in resolve to resist his strange charms.

“Let us not trouble ourselves with these niceties.” I held myself straight in the effort to create a false authority of my own, but the thin smile on the thieftaker’s lips told me that I had not done a very good job. “I have been uneasy with your involvement in my troubles since your appearance at my trial.”

“Have you?” he asked. His features were so sharp and angular, I thought they should shatter under the pressure of his smile. “Would you be easier if I had spoken ill of you, as you had no doubt anticipated?”

“I should have been less surprised, certainly.”

“I am sorry to have surprised you, but I should think you would be more grateful. I set aside whatever differences we might have had in order to do you a good turn. You and I are used to scrambling after the same prize- or, worse, being opposed to each other. But in this matter I am your greatest friend.”

“I am under no illusions that you did so for any reason but to serve yourself. Mr. Mendes has made me aware that you have no love for Dennis Dogmill, and you relish the idea of my doing him harm.”

“True enough. I suspected his involvement the moment I heard Yate was dead. And Mendes tells me you have no knowledge of the woman who passed you the housebreaking tools. Is that right?”

“I still believe it was your doing,” I said, though I was not sure I did.

He laughed. “You may believe it if you like. It must certainly make you angry to think me that much involved in your rescue. But I had no hand in that little scheme.”

I shook my head. “Then what is it you want? Why have you come here?”

“Only to offer you assistance, Weaver. Faith, I am no friend of the Tories, any man can see that, but this Dogmill and his lapdog Hertcomb are a plague upon my business. I should support Cardinal Wolsey if he ran against Hertcomb and made Dogmill his enemy. I thought for certain that this race was all sewn up for those villains, but then you come along and make the situation far more interesting. So long as you are running about town, knocking over ruffians and searching for the truth, it is good news for me. For that reason I am happy to assist you.”

I spat out a bitter laugh. “And if I should fail, good riddance to me. If I should succeed, you imagine I will be in your debt.”

He tilted his head just slightly, a mild gesture of agreement. “You have always shown yourself a reasonable man, Weaver. I have no doubt that a good turn done now might yield some fruit in the future. So I have come to see what I can do for you. Some money, perhaps?”

I scowled in contempt. I would not have Wild offering me money like a generous uncle. “I have no need of your money.”

“It spends quite as well as another man’s, I promise you. But as to your means, your judge-thieving methods seem to work out quite nicely for you. Though I must say that Rowley has always been a pliable fellow. I am sorry to see you’ve driven him into convalescent retirement.”

“I’d always believed him reliable as well. Why should he turn on me as he did?”

“It is an election season,” Wild said complaisantly. “They were dangerous enough when elections were held every three years. Now that they are every seven, the prize is worth a great deal more, and men will go to far greater lengths in support of their party or, I should say, their interests. Rowley only did what was required of him by Dogmill. There is no more to it than that.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Wild turned to Mendes. “It appears that our friend has been corrupted by his encounters with the South Sea men. Now he believes everything deeper than the appearance. You’ll never clear your name if you look for hidden plots and intrigues. The answer is on the surface, I promise you. It is but Dogmill’s greed.”

“And what can I do about it? Dogmill has power over every judge in Westminster.”

“I hardly know what to say,” Wild said, with a mischievous grin. “What are you doing about it now?” When I said nothing he added, “Other than killing fellows like Groston, I mean.”

I shifted uneasily. “That’s why I wished to see Mendes. I didn’t kill Groston.”

“Never laid a hand upon him, I suppose.”

“I gave him what he deserved, but no more than that. But whoever is behind Groston’s death will surely move against the two witnesses who testified against me at my trial.”

He nodded. “Mendes should be able to track them down without difficulty. Would you like to speak to them when we find them?”

I nodded. “Yes. I won’t have these sods killed just so that my enemies can pin more deaths upon my chest. And there is always the chance they might have information that could be of use.”

“Then we shall find them straightaway,” Wild assured me. We next took a moment to figure a means whereby they could contact me. “Is there any other way we might serve you?” he then asked.

I was now full of regret that I had trusted these men so far as I had, but these were trying times and I would resolve the tangles I made in the future. “No,” I said. “If you do that, it should suffice.”

AS ELIAS had promised, news of Matthew Evans’s alleged arrival appeared in the London Gazette and a few other papers of note, so even while the Whig papers condemned Benjamin Weaver as a murderer and the Tories defended him as a maligned victim, the Tory Tobacco Man was making his glorious debut. While villains murdered men in my name, I remained a fugitive, and it struck me as almost frivolous that I had to see to the obligations of my private masquerade.