The Devil's Company (53 page)

I could not speak as to Mr. Hammond’s ability to extract information. I could, however, rejoice that Edgar had just now told me precisely what I wished to know: Hammond was still asleep.

“Has anyone ever observed,” I asked, “that you look remarkably like a duck? The truth of the matter is, I have always been kindly disposed toward ducks. When I was a boy, a good-hearted relative brought me one as a present. And now, years later, I meet you, the very image of that duck, and I cannot help but think that we ought to be friends. Come, let us set down our weapons and go find ourselves a pond where I may eat bread and cheese by the shore and you may paddle upon the waters. I shall be happy to toss you bits of crust.”

“Shut your foul mouth,” he snapped. “Hammond will be able to question you just as effectively if you have a lead ball in your leg.”

I did not doubt it. “One moment. There are three facts about the life of the duck that I consider to be of great importance to the matters at hand. First, the female duck makes for a particularly tender and caring parent. Second,” I began, but the truth was I did not have a second point. One point sufficed, for I deployed the advice of Mr. Blackburn, who had instructed me upon the rhetorical device of the series. Having informed Edgar that there would be three points, I knew he would remain in expectation of the remaining items. Thus I had the opportunity to surprise him with something else.

In this case, I surprised Edgar the servant and French spy with a powerful blow to his stomach. In my fanciful thoughts, a blow to the nose or mouth, one likely to produce blood and flying teeth, would have been more satisfying, but a blow to the stomach produces the reflex of doubling over. And that meant that even if he managed to fire his pistol, he would be firing down rather than forward.

As it happened, he did not fire, and though he did not let the pistol fall from his grasp, I had it out of his hand before he had even reached the ground. I slipped it into my pocket and, just as Edgar began to push himself upward, I leveled a kick, this time to his ribs. He slid a few inches along the floor and dropped his dagger, which I collected and quickly used to cut several lengths of rope from his bed canopy. These were used, as my practical-minded reader might guess, to bind Edgar’s feet and hands. During this process I leveled a few more blows to his abdomen, not out of cruelty or malice, but because I wished to keep him unable to call out until I was able to gag him.

At last I cut a swath of cloth, which I used to do just that. When he was fully incapacitated, I stood up and towered over him. “The ironic thing,” I said, “was that you originally observed that I would not be able to quip my way out of my predicament. Now, as for your fate, I see no need to do much at all with you. You perhaps wonder if I will inform the King’s Messengers that you are here. The answer is, I shall not. Crooked Luke and the rest of the boys will be having their way with this house at some point tomorrow, and I shall leave them to deal with you.”

Edgar grunted and struggled against his bonds, but I affected no interest as I left him.

ONE FLOOR UP and into the bedroom. Events went quickly and smoothly. As promised, Hammond was asleep, and it took no great effort to overpower him. I held his chin in one hand and pressed the tip of Edgar’s blade into his chest with the other. It was deep enough to draw blood and to hurt, quite badly from the look upon Hammond’s face, but no more than that.

“Give me the plans,” I said.

“Never.” His voice remained calm and even.

I shook my head. “Hammond, you chose to employ me. You knew who I was when you brought me into your scheme. That means you know what I am willing to do. I will cut off fingers, gouge out eyes, extract teeth. I don’t believe you are made of stuff to endure these torments. I shall count to five, and then we will find out.”

And so we would have, and he must have known it, because he did not even wait for me to begin my count. “Under my pillow,” he said. “It hardly matters if you have the original. A fair copy is already out of the country and, with it, the power to destroy the English East India Company’s textile trade.”

I chose not to tell him that his copy had been intercepted and that he now surrendered the last hope of his mission succeeding. Instead, I set the blade down, kept a cruel grip on his face, and reached under the pillow to retrieve the rough calfskin volume—an octavo much like the one I had already seen. It was, according to one of his widows, the sort of book that Pepper favored, and a quick flip through, to observe the many schemes and intricate details, told me this was precisely the thing for which I had been searching.

Hammond, however, showed an unexpected display of strength. He quickly maneuvered away from me and then darted to the other end of the room. I slipped the book into my pocket and removed a pistol, but in the dark I could not guarantee much in the way of aim. The fact distressed me but also offered me some comfort if it was a pistol that he himself was after.

I moved forward and caught a better look at my adversary. He stood in the darkness, his night clothes draped around him loosely like the ethereal nimbus of a spirit, and his eyes were wide with terror. He raised his arm and for a moment I thought he brought forward a pistol. Indeed, I nearly fired before I saw it was no weapon but only a small glass vial.

“You may shoot me if you like,” he said, “but it will answer little. I have already died, you see.” The vial fell to the ground. I suspect he should have liked a dramatic shattering of glass, but instead there was only a weak bounce.

I have been called a cynical man in my life, and perhaps it was unkind of me to wonder if he merely pretended to have swallowed poison. I would certainly take no chances on that score.

“Is there anything you wish to tell me before you meet your maker?” I asked.

“You blockhead,” he spat. “Can you not discern that I have taken this poison so that I can’t be made to tell you anything?”

“Of course,” I said. “I ought to have considered that myself. Perhaps, in your remaining time, you would like to offer an apology? An encomium upon my virtues?”

“Weaver, you are the devil himself. What sort of monster mocks a dying man?”

“I have little else to do,” I said, keeping the pistol trained on him. “I cannot take the chance that you are tricking me and have taken no poison at all, and I can hardly engage in cold-blooded murder and shoot you. I am forced to wait and watch, and I thought perhaps you might wish to use your final moment to converse.”

He shook his head and sank to the floor. “I am told it works quickly,” he said. “I don’t know how much time there is for conversation. I will tell you nothing of our plans, what we have hoped to accomplish or what we have already done. I may be a coward, but I will not betray my country.”

“Your country or the new French East India Company?”

“Hah,” he said. “You have the right of it. The days of serving one’s king with honor are done. Now we must serve his chartered companies. But if I cannot tell you of my nation, I can tell you of yours, and how you have been played for a fool.”

“And how is that?” I asked.

Mr. Hammond, however, was unable to respond, for he was already dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

HERE WAS NOW, I BELIEVED, LITTLE REASON TO FEAR FOR MR. FRANCO. Much trickery and scheming still abounded—I had no doubt of that—but the French were finished for the moment, so Mr. Franco need no longer fear for himself or his daughter. Still, Elias, my aunt, or myself might yet be tossed into debtor’s prison.

Mr. Franco was free to travel home by coach, though I declined to join him. It was late, I was exhausted in both body and spirit, and the next day would tax me even further, but I had one stop to make before I could retire. Everything would be resolved within a day’s time, but to ensure that it was resolved to my liking I would have to order things with particular care.

I therefore took a coach to Ratcliff Highway and, in the darkness of the quiet morning, when even the cries of London were reduced to whines and whimpers, I entered the very tavern where the clerk Mr. Blackburn had told me so much of value. Indeed, it was only in recent hours that I had come to understand the full extent of his information.

I found the tavern keeper, whom I recollected to be Blackburn’s brother-in-law, and, he recollecting me, I was able to overwhelm his natural caution and persuade him to inform me where I might find his relation. It was never his custom, he explained, to reveal a man’s home without his permission, but he saw no harm in revealing his place of business, and so he explained that the good clerk had taken a temporary position with a brewer of some note who wanted his books to be set right. Mr. Blackburn, I was told, was most eager to perform his task speedily and well, and could be found in the offices as early as seven o’clock.

I took my breakfast with the good man, partaking of some still-hot bread procured from a nearby baker and a bowlful of raisins and nuts, washed down with a crisp small beer. Then I made my way to New Queen Street, where I found the good Mr. Blackburn in a small windowless closet, surrounded by a pile of innumerable accounting and ledger books and appearing as happy a man as ever I’ve seen.

“Why, it’s Mr. Weaver,” he said. He rose and bowed at me from as comfortable a distance as he could manage. “As you can see I have landed upon my feet, sir, in the manner of a cat. The Company may attempt to smear my name, but the truth will out, and I believe the good people I now serve will tell the truth.”

“He’s a marvelous good clerk,” one of his fellows shouted, with evident humor.

“Our books have never been so well ordered,” called another.

I knew at once that Blackburn had found employment where both his services and his peculiarities could be enjoyed, and so I felt less uneasy on the score of his losing his former place. “I am relieved to hear you are so happy.”

“Prodigious happy,” he assured me. “These books, sir, are a disaster. It is as though a hurricane of numbers and errors has struck them, but they shall be made right. It is something of a pleasure, I must say, to find that the difficulties here are no more than mistake and ignorance—”

“Woeful ignorance,” called one of his fellows.

“—and not malice,” Blackburn finished, in a far quieter voice. “There are no cozening deceptions here, no secret expenditures and tricks meant to disguise any manner of mischief.”

“It is on that score I’ve come to see you,” I told him. “I have a question about a matter to which you once referred. Do you recollect that you spoke of a time when my patron asked you to disguise the loss of a certain sum from the books, and when you refused, you found the sum taken all the same?”

“I recall it well,” he said. “Though for some reason I do not recollect telling you.”

I chose not to dwell on that point. “Can you tell me the sum?”

He considered the request briefly. “I suppose they can do me no more harm than they have already.”

So he told me what I wished to know, and it was at that moment that my suspicions were confirmed and I believed I understood everything. Yet there was one more theory to test. The day would prove if I had the better of my enemies, or whether they were far more clever than I could even now perceive.

NEXT, I MADE MY way to Spitalfields, where I knocked repeatedly upon a door until it was, at last, answered by a meek creature whose nature I could not identify as servant, daughter, or wife. I explained that my business was of the most urgent sort and could not wait. She explained that men such as he needed their rest, and I retorted that what I brought was better than any night’s sleep. At last my will proved stronger than her defenses, and she invited me in. I sat in a dimly lit and dingy parlor, without refreshment, and attempted to resist the urge to sleep.