A Conspiracy of Paper (15 page)

She nodded grimly. “Yes, that is why I was surprised you noticed him in that capacity. Mr. Sarmento has expressed some interest to my uncle, but he is far more concerned with pursuing matters of business than matters of a domestic nature. Frankly, Mr. Sarmento is more puzzling and repulsive than Mr. Adelman. He is a self-interested and I think deceitful creature. So is Adelman, but at least he is involved in Court politics, and deceitfulness is, I should think, required. What excuse can Mr. Sarmento offer for scurrying about like a rodent? Frankly, I imagine he wishes to replace Aaron in Mr. Lienzo’s heart, so in that sense he is your rival as much as Mr. Adelman’s.”

I chose to ignore that jibe. “He has property enough to make his match?”

“His family is not unsuccessful. They would offer to settle him, I believe, once marriage negotiations are under way. But his family would benefit far more than yours.”

“And what does my uncle think of this rodent?”

“That he is an able man about the warehouse, that he keeps my father’s business ordered, and that, should Sarmento decide to strike off on his own, he should be difficult to replace. I do not believe this sentiment is the same as wishing to stare across a table at him at breakfast each morning for the rest of his life.”

“It is a tricky business, placing a son’s widow upon the marriage market, I suppose.”

“Indeed,” Miriam said dryly.

“And to whom do you cast your eye, may I ask?”

“To you, of course, Cousin,” she said, the words flying instantly off her tongue. I suspect she regretted her flippancy the minute she spoke, and there was a period of profoundly confusing silence in which I neither spoke nor breathed. Miriam let out a nervous laugh, perhaps suspecting she had taken too great a liberty. “Do I presume too much? We should perhaps spend two or three such afternoons thus before I may be flippant with you with impunity. I shall be serious, then. I cast my eye on no one. I am sure I am not ready to become another man’s property. I have few freedoms right now, and I do not know that I want to surrender those I have. Perhaps I desire more freedoms, and I think they should be more readily attained here than in some other man’s house.”

I said nothing for a moment, for I felt myself still hot in the face over the unexpected exposure of the pleasure I took in her company. It took some time before I finally opened my mouth to speak, but I was cut short by the arrival of my aunt and uncle, who cheerily breezed into the room, poured themselves some wine, and told us stories of their youth in Amsterdam.

TEN

T
HE SUN WENT DOWN
, and the Sabbath was over. After dinner I retired with my uncle to his study, where we finally came to the business of discussing my father’s finances at the time of his death. Like my uncle’s private closet in his warehouse, this room was lined with ledgers and maps, but here he also kept histories, travel books, and even some memoirs—all, I suspected, important to an understanding of the places with which he traded. The walls of the room not covered with bookshelves were a distracting clutter of maps and prints he had taken from broadsheets or pulled out of inexpensive pamphlets. Almost all available wall space was covered; parts of prints and woodcuts overlapped one another. Some were pictures of important men, such as the King, or of scenes of domestic life or of trade or of a ship upon the ocean. It was a dizzying array, but Uncle Miguel took pleasure from the endless variety of images.

He sat behind a desk, and I pulled a chair up close that I might hang upon his words. I suppose because contacting my uncle had been such a difficult matter for me, and because he had delayed this meeting for a full twenty-four hours, I believed that he would have things to say that would prove tremendously illuminating.

“The problem is not that your father kept inadequate records,” my uncle began. “He kept copious records. He simply organized his information inadequately. He knew where everything was, but no one else did. It would be a project of months, maybe years, to organize his papers and then cross-examine everything against the issues in his possession at the time of his death.”

“So there is no way of learning whether or not his holdings were disordered, as Balfour claims his father’s were.”

“I fear not. At least not directly. But he was involved in something curious shortly before his death, and it is for this reason that I first became suspicious about this accident. Your father had a true gift for the funds, you know—almost a prescient ability to predict their rise and fall. He liked to discuss the funds with me—about how much this one or that was worth on the current market. I think perhaps I was the only man he could talk to and not fear I would act prematurely on his advice, and thus cause an unpredicted flux in the market. Then, shortly before he died he grew quiet and changed the subject when I asked him what he worked upon. I know that he met several times with Mr. Balfour, but Samuel never told me of their business. That the two of them should die only a day apart—I think you can see why I am suspicious.”

“If I am to make any progress in this inquiry, I must have a better sense of these issues in which he involved himself. I must confess that my father never told me much about his business, and I never cared to learn much of the doings of Exchange Alley in general. What are these funds you speak of? How do they work?”

My uncle settled into his chair, and smiled like a pedant. “The process is quite simple. If you were to find yourself in need of more ready money than you had in your possession, there would be several options open to you, such as borrowing money of a goldsmith or a scrivener. Governments, particularly when they fight wars, often find themselves short of the money they require to pay their troops, manufacture their weaponry, and so forth. In the past in this country, and even today in nations oppressed by absolute monarchs, a king could demand that his wealthy nobles ‘lend’ him money. If the king never paid the money back, there was not much these nobles could do. And once the monarch died, heirs would usually refuse to honor any predecessor’s debts.”

“So this money was not lent but extorted.”

“Precisely. And when the powerful landowners are oppressed by their monarch, it is ever a dangerous circumstance. When King William took the throne away from the villainous Papist, James II, thirty years ago, he immediately made war against the French in order to prevent that nation from gaining mastery of Europe. To pay for these wars, he used the Dutch method of raising revenues. Instead of demanding that men pay the Crown cash, he offered the opportunity to turn cash into investment. When the Kingdom wishes to pay for a war, money can be acquired by selling issues—promises to pay back a certain amount with a particular interest. If you invest one thousand pounds into an issue that promises to pay 10 percent interest, you receive one hundred pounds per year. After ten years, the government has repaid your loan, but you continue to receive an income. Now, this might be a bad investment for someone who has only a thousand pounds in the world, but if a man can spare the money, then the funds provide a regular and dependable source of revenue. More dependable than land, for a landowner’s rents may fluctuate depending upon the economy of the countryside and the bounty of the harvest. Investments in the funds are guaranteed.”

“But for how long?” I inquired. “For how long does the state continue to pay out that hundred pounds a year?”

My uncle shrugged. “It depends on the issue, of course. Some are for sixteen years, some a little more, some a little less. Some issues are life annuities, so as long as the holder is alive, the interest arrives yearly.”

“But if the annuitant dies before the loan has been paid back . . .” I began.

“Then it is a good deal for the Treasury, yes.”

“Is it possible that my father was killed in order to prevent some sort of loan repayment?” I asked, though I considered such a thing unlikely. It was a poor government that murdered its lenders.

My uncle laughed softly. “It is true that King Edward the First expelled the Jews from this island because he did not wish to repay his loans, but I think that things have changed somewhat in the past five hundred years. I think it unlikely that the Treasury or its agents would be so violent in its efforts to reduce the national debt.”

“Adelman spoke to me the other night of reducing the national debt,” I noted, not intending to speak aloud.

“It is a concern upon many men’s lips.”

“Yes, but I grow curious when it is upon the lips of a man who wishes to silence me. Your friend Mr. Adelman requested that I discontinue my inquiry, and that makes me wonder what he has to hide.”

My uncle hardly appeared to hear me. “Adelman is a complex creature. I do not think murder is among his practices, however. He can get what he wants otherwise.”

“And how shall he get Miriam, Uncle?”

He smiled impishly—the kind of smile that made me sad to have been away from him so long. “By her consent, I should suspect, Benjamin, which does not appear to be forthcoming. No, Adelman has reasons of his own, I’m sure, to ask you not to look into these matters, and I’m certain they relate to his fear that the businessmen of the coffeehouses might panic if they should hear disagreeable rumors. You see, Adelman holds an unusual place in the South Sea Company. He is not one of its directors, at least not officially, but he has secretly invested in the Company, on the order of tens of thousands of pounds—perhaps even more.”

“I still do not understand why my inquiry should concern him.”

“I have left much out, I see. The state does not itself broker these loans. Rather it has been the responsibility of the Bank of England to collect the money and manage the disbursal of interest. In exchange it receives certain monetary considerations from the Treasury as well as the possession of large sums of money, which, if only temporarily, may be put to use by the Bank. Now the South Sea Company has been trying to take some of this business away from the Bank.”

“So, the Company and the Bank are both competing for the same trade—that of brokering government loans?”

“Correct,” my uncle said. “And as I told you, when King William’s wars were fought against the French, a great deal of money had to be raised, and raised quickly, and the government offered very attractive loans, such as those that I mentioned—yielding 10 percent for life. Now there is a great agitation in Parliament, which sees the debt of our fathers as the inheritance of our children. So the South Sea Company has proposed a reduction in the national debt by setting up stock conversions. One such conversion, though a very small one, took place earlier this year. Holders of government issues were offered the opportunity to exchange their annuities for South Sea stock. The Treasury gives the Company money for the stock, which eliminates a long-term debt.”

“This South Sea Company must be very profitable if men would exchange something guaranteed to earn a high interest.”

“Oddly, it is not profitable in the least. Its success is something of a fable of the new finance.” He leaned forward and glanced at me, pleased, as always, to play the role of instructor. “Like the other trading companies, the South Sea Company was formed to hold exclusive trading rights to a particular region—in this case, the seas off of South America. Unfortunately, interference from Spain has left these rights void of much value. The Company attempted to make a profit a few years ago in the unpleasant trade of Africans for labor in South America, but from what I have heard, their inexperience in these matters made the business both unprofitable and even more cruel for the cargo than is usual.”

“If it does not trade, then what does it do?”

“It has been making itself into a bank to rival the Bank of England—that is to say, attempting to participate in the funding of the national debt. And the Company has been growing in power. The stock has done very well of late, and yielded far more than these 10 percent annuities, and so it seems like a good exchange. But there are many who do not believe the conversions are sound, for in order for the stock to be profitable, the Company must make money and pay the stockholders dividends. If the company fails to be profitable, then the stock is worth nothing, and men who held government issues—real wealth—suddenly discover that they own nothing. It would be as though you woke up to discover your land had turned to air.”

“That is why Adelman wishes to scare me off this inquiry? Because of a stock conversion?”

“I expect that Mr. Adelman fears your inquiry will cause a public outcry of murder and intrigue within the funds.”

“You disagree?” I asked.

“Mr. Adelman has long been a friend of this family, but that does not mean that his interests and mine must always be the same. He wishes the South Sea Company to do well. My motive is justice. If these interests cannot co-exist, I am unwilling to step aside.”

“I admire your spirit, Uncle,” I said, for I saw a fierce determination in his face that earnestly made me wish to serve him.

“As I admire yours, Benjamin. Were Aaron alive, I know he would not hesitate to take upon himself this inquiry. Now you must stand in his shoes.”

I could but nod. I believed that if Aaron were alive, he should wedge himself in the wardrobe rather than step onto the streets in search of a murderer, but if my uncle wished to remember his son as a valiant man, I would not take that image from him.

“I think perhaps we should retrace our steps,” my uncle continued. “The magistrate who looked into your father’s death gave naught but a harsh reprimand to the coachman who ran down Samuel. I do not believe this driver, this Herbert Fenn”—and here my uncle paused to mutter a curse in Hebrew—“would have committed this act of his own accord. If this was murder, then the coachman was in someone’s employ. I shouldn’t think a man of your wile would have so much difficulty making this coachman say more than what is in his best interest.”

“Yes, I had thought of that,” I said, “and I aim to seek him out.”

My uncle offered me another smile, one not so sweet. “The conversation should not be too pleasant for him. You understand?”

“It may disincline him ever to speak again.”

He leaned back in his chair. “You’re a good man, Benjamin. You will find your way yet.”

“Let us suppose,” I continued, “that I get nowhere with this coachman. Can you think, Uncle, of any enemies my father might have had? Anyone who either stood to benefit by his death—or perhaps someone who bore a grudge sufficient to motivate revenge?”

My uncle smiled at my ignorance. “Benjamin, your father was a prominent stock-jobber. The entire nation hated him, and there are thousands who drank a bumper to his death.”

I shook my head. “I do not concern myself with matters of finance, but I fail to see why my father should be so despised.”

“For many Englishmen, these are very confusing times. Our family has been engaged in finance among the Dutch for a number of years now, but it is new to the English, and many see it as very dangerous, a replacement of the glory of the past with a new and honorless greed. Much of it is fantasy, naturally. It is always so when men remember the past and use it to condemn the present. But there are those who recall fondly a time when an English King was an English King, and he was chosen by God rather than by Parliament. Similarly,” he said, taking a guinea from his purse, “they remember when gold was gold. Its value was contingent on nothing, and all things had value that could be measured in precious metals. Gold and silver, if you will, were the stable center of value, around which all things orbited—much as the natural philosophers have described the workings of the sun and the planets for us.” He waved me over. “Now,” he said, “take a look at this.”

I walked to his desk and he showed me a banknote written for the value of one hundred and fifty pounds. It originated with the Bank of England and had been made out to someone I had no idea of, but this man had signed it over to another gentleman, who had signed it to a third, who had signed it to my uncle. “Which would you rather have?” he asked me. “That guinea or this note?”

“As the note is worth more than a hundred times the guinea,” I said, “I should rather the note, provided you sign it over to me.”

“Why should you require I sign it to you? If it is worth one hundred and fifty pounds, then that is its value. How can my signature vest it with value?”

“But it is not one hundred and fifty pounds in the way that this coin
is
one guinea. That note is merely the promise to pay one hundred and fifty pounds. It is nonnegotiable, and as it is signed to you, it is a promise to pay it to
you
. If you sign it to me, then the promise is to me. Unsigned, it should be difficult to get the promisers to agree to pay it.”