David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

During that time Melbury’s lead had suffered serious attrition, but there could be no doubt it would now recover, for the sentiment in Westminster was one of dissatisfaction with Dogmill’s influence. The rioters had been a gamble, and a bold one, and the Whigs had hoped to ruin the Tories’ lead. But it had only strengthened their cause, and for that I was grateful. I now had little doubt that once Melbury sat in the House, he would do all he could to serve my cause and send his old enemy to ruin.

As the day was Thursday, I spent my time preparing to take myself that night to the tavern mentioned by the Riding Officer. Here was a risk, for I had no choice but to depend that he had followed my advice and fled the metropolis rather than face my wrath. I would, nevertheless, take precautions, the most significant of which was that I thought it best to attend to my business as Matthew Evans, not as Benjamin Weaver. If the Riding Officer had not held his tongue, the men there would be keeping watch for an escaped felon, not a finely dressed gentleman. Of course, because they looked for me in particular, they might well see through my disguise more easily than men not seeking me out. Nevertheless, I was determined to take the chance.

For all my determination, however, I did not entirely believe I would learn very much by going to this tavern. I already knew that Dogmill bribed the Customs men. The world knew it, and the world did not care. What, then, would I discover? The one thing I hoped to learn was the identity of the agent who paid the Customs men. This person might well be Dogmill’s primary tough, the fellow who executed the violent orders. I held out the faint hope that I might that very night learn the identity of the man who had actually beaten Walter Yate to death.

I took a seat in a dark corner, ordered a pot, and hoped to make myself as unnoticed as I might. Here was no difficult task, for the Customs men busied themselves with their own concerns.

They began to arrive at eight in the evening, as they had been advised to do. I understood well how they were being used, for this was an all too common bit of treachery perpetrated upon the laboring man. On rare occasion their wages would arrive at eight as they had been promised, but most times they would not arrive until eleven, so there was nothing for them to do in the time of waiting but eat and drink. For this consideration, the tardy paymaster would receive from the tavern keeper a little something for his troubles.

After nearly two hours I grew impatient and even considered abandoning my position, but I found that my patience was well rewarded. Some few minutes after ten, a man arrived and was greeted by the cheers of the customs men. They drank a bumper to him, and after he distributed wages all around, they drank another. They even bought this fellow a drink and treated him as though he were a king in his own right rather than an underling merely performing his master’s service.

It was Greenbill Billy. The leader of the labor combination worked in the service of the very man he claimed to resist.

My meeting with Greenbill now began to make far more sense to me. He had asked me what I knew of Dogmill’s involvement, not to discover for himself but to measure my own understanding. He had urged me to take my revenge against Dogmill, not in the hopes that I would act but rather so he could report back to his master on my willingness to do so.

I now observed him among the Customs men. He was good enough to let the men buy him a few drinks, but he appeared eager to move on afterward. Though they begged him to stay longer, he tipped his cap and bid them good night. I wasted no time and was out the door after him in an instant. To my relief, he took no hackney but appeared content to walk to wherever it was he was intending to go. I might have followed him to learn where he went. I could then pursue him on my own terms at my own leisure. But I had already enjoyed my fill of waiting and deferral. I would wait no longer.

When Greenbill walked past an alley, I broke into a run and knocked him hard in the back of the neck with both my hands clasped together. I had hoped for a bit of good luck here, that he would fall face forward and not catch sight of me, and this time the dice rolled my way. He fell into the alley’s filth- the kennel of emptied chamber pots, bits of dead dogs gnawed on by hungry rats, apple cores, and oyster shells- and I pushed him down hard, knocking his head into the soft earth. Desperate for some way to maintain my anonymity, I then ripped the cravat from around his neck and hastily wrapped it around his eyes. Using one knee to keep his arms pinned, I tied the blindfold tight and only then rolled him over so that his face was out of the muck.

“You seemed mightily keen on yourself at that tavern with the Customs men,” I observed, affecting an Irish accent. I did so both to protect my identity and to create a likely fiction as to the identity of his assailant- that is to say, a Jacobite agent. “You are not so keen on yourself now, are you, my spark?”

“Mayhap not,” he said, “but at the tavern I was not blindfolded and wallowing in shit. It’s hard to be keen on yourself when you’ve got that working against you.”

“You wallow in far worse than shit, friend. I have been watching, and now I know your little secret.”

“Which one is that? I’m burgeoned with so many, you know, I doubt you can have learned them all.”

“That you are in the service of Dennis Dogmill. I believe that revelation might ruin your reputation among the porters.”

“And so it would, boglander,” he admitted, “but at least it would make it inevitable that Dogmill would find a more dignified post for me. You think to frighten me by revealing that little tidbit. Why, you’d be doing me a favor. So go ahead and do your Irish worst, Dear Joy. We’ll see who benefits and who ends up with nothing for his trouble but a dish of boiled oats.”

In a move I had learned during some of my less honorable performances as a fighter, I rolled him over and grabbed his arm, which I bent hard behind his back until he yowled quite unhappily.

“It’s the Scots that are famous for their oats,” I told him, “not the Irish. And as for my worst, well, bending your arm isn’t nearly so bad as what else I have in mind. So now that you see I’m in no mood for nonsense, perhaps you’d like to answer a few of my questions. Or do I have to give another demonstration of my earnestness?” And I pushed hard against the arm.

“What?” he shouted. “Ask me and be damned.”

“Who killed Walter Yate?”

“Who do you think, you blockhead?” he growled. “I did. I knocked the fellow over with a metal bar and killed him as he deserved.”

I remained stunned in silence. I had been seeking the answer to that question for so long now, I could hardly believe what I had just heard. A confession. An admission of guilt. We both knew I could do nothing about it. Without two witnesses, the confession had no value in a court of law, even assuming I could find an honest judge. But it meant something to me to know that I had finally learned the answer to so pressing a question.

“Did you do it under Dogmill’s orders?” I asked.

“Not in the way you mean, Teague. Things ain’t always so clear.”

“I don’t understand.”

He sucked in some air. “Dogmill said to take care of Yate, so I took care of Yate. I don’t know if he meant for me to kill him or not. I don’t know if he noticed Yate was dead or not. He only knew that a man he wanted out of the way was gone, and that was enough for him. Dogmill’s a great merchant, and to him it don’t matter if the likes of us live or die. We’re not real men to him, only vermin to be brushed away or squashed- it don’t matter which. It only matters to him that we trouble his quiet or we don’t.”