A Conspiracy of Paper (3 page)

I resumed our perambulation, hoping movement would bring Sir Owen to a more relevant topic of conversation.

“And you’re a game-enough-looking spark,” he continued. “I would wager you are a man who likes his pleasures. I can assure you I am. I shall be bold with you. I like gambling, and I like whores. I like whores very much, sir.”

Pressed on by his spirit, I said, “And do they like you, Sir Owen?”

For an instant I feared I had offended him, but he burst into a laugh as thick as a dish of chocolate. “They like my money tremendously, Mr. Weaver. I can assure you of that. They like it as much as the masters of the gaming houses. For all men—and women too—like money. I like money,” he droned, losing his thoughts as a group of pretty young ladies crossed our path, all a-giggle over a broken parasol.

“As you like whores,” I offered in assistance.

He snapped his fingers. “Quite right. Whores. Yes, well my fondness for whores has gotten me into a bit of trouble, I’m afraid.” He paused to laugh at a joke he thought of. “But I don’t need a surgeon. Not that kind of trouble. Not this time. You see, I had an amorous encounter last night with a whore not content to be a simple whore, not content to earn an honest living for an honest tumble. It seems I took upon myself a bit too much wine, and this little jade took upon herself every possession I had.” Sir Owen cut short his narrative to bow deeply to an excessively painted lady who displayed an elaborate dress of greens and yellows and wore her hair piled high, after the Hanoverian style. She took some small notice of the baronet, and continued on her way. Sir Owen then proceeded to explain to me that he had been lured into taking a walk with the whore after, as it happens, he had been weakened with spirits, which he had been encouraged to drink far beyond even his considerable measure. When he awoke in an alleyway, his coat, watch, shoes, sword, purse, and pocketbook had been taken. “I’m not a man who carries a grudge,” he assured me. “I am willing to let her keep all—but I must have my pocketbook back. It has much in it that is of value to me—and to me only. It is very important that I retrieve it, and that I do so as soon as possible.”

I thought about this for a moment. “Do you know this whore’s name or where I might find her?”

He grinned. “When I was a young man, the parish vicar always told me that being a whoremonger would be my undoing, but this is precisely where being a whoremonger has done me service. I know her name, indeed, for I have seen her going about her trade, if before last night I have not had the displeasure of knowing her, shall we say, intimately. I think perhaps in her way of whoring, men seldom return for more. Her name is Kate Cole, and I’ve seen her many a time at an alehouse called the Barrel and Bale. I believe she takes a room there, but I am not certain.”

I nodded. I’d never heard of this whore, but there were thousands of her trade in London. Even a man of Sir Owen’s enthusiasm could not expect to know them all. “I shall find your Kate Cole for you, then.”

He proceeded to describe her looks to me in great detail—giving me more information than I should necessarily require to find a woman in a full state of dress. “I trust,” he then said, lowering his voice, “that I need not discuss discretion with you at any great length. Surely a man in your position understands the needs of a man in my position.”

I told him I understood perfectly, though I wondered why he should choose to parade about the park with me if he desired secrecy.

Sir Owen surprised me by guessing my thoughts. “I do not mind that the world knows I’ve been to see you, or even that I’ve been to see you for your help in recovering stolen goods. But I would prefer that you say no more. It is none of the world’s business what I have had stolen or how I lost it.”

“I agree entirely,” I told him with a reassuring nod. “I think you will find all men I have dealt with will attest to my discretion.”

“Splendid. If men wish to speculate what it is I do with you, let them,” he said haughtily. “If they profane my name, they will certainly answer for it, for there’s not a man in London who would dare offer me insult. I am, I assure you, no mean swordsman,” he told me as he theatrically gripped the handle of his hangar, “and I’ve spent more than a few dawns at Hyde Park defending my honor.”

“I take your meaning,” I told him, although I did not. Did he mean to boast or to offer a warning? “I do have a further question,” I proceeded. “Sir Owen, may I ask why you do not seek out Mr. Jonathan Wild, for he is the man most sought in the matter of stolen goods.” And he would no doubt be far more likely to return the goods with all haste, I added silently, for this whore was almost certainly in his employ, along with so many of London’s thieving whores.

“Wild is a thief,” he said in a measured voice, “and everyone in London knows it—at least they know it if they are not fools. A man like you—I am certain you know it. I believe this whore to be in his stable of thieves, and I’ll be damned to hell for eternity, sir, before I pay money for what is rightfully mine to the very scoundrel who took it of me in the first place. I tell you, I know not how London considers him a public servant, when he is nothing but a mountebank whose elaborate tricks have left him rich and the city fleeced.” His face had by now turned a deep ruddy color. Conscious that he had grown overly warm, he took a moment to compose himself. “Tell me,” he said more coolly, “what should you ask for the recovery of a pocketbook?”

“Have you any banknotes within it?” I inquired.

“Yes. I think about two hundred and fifty pounds.”

“My fee, Sir Owen, is usually one guinea for an item such as a pocketbook and then 10 percent of the value of the notes. I shall round it off to an even twenty-five pounds.”

“That is certainly what Wild would charge as well, and I shall have none of it. I’ll pay you twice as much as Wild would ask, for I want my money to land in an honest man’s hands. You will find this whore for me, and return to me my pocketbook and its contents, and I shall pay you fifty pounds. What say you, sir? Surely a pugilist like yourself is not afraid to cross Wild’s path?”

I felt an exuberance at the thought of so enormous a fee, for like almost everyone else in London, and indeed the nation itself, I maintained some uncomfortable debts. And like the Earl of Stanhope, our First Lord of the Treasury, I had grown considerably skilled at paying off a creditor here and there that I might avoid ruin and still maintain myself in a fashion I could not, in the strictest sense, afford. Fifty pounds would make an enormous impact on my little share of ready money, but even if the thought of so much money made me giddy, I showed Sir Owen only my cool determination. “I delight in crossing Wild’s path,” I promised him. Though Wild and I had met only once, our competition was a vigorous one, and I enjoyed nothing more than tracking down the goods his men stole. I made it my policy, when possible, to avoid impeaching thieves in Wild’s employ, for their master had no similar scruples, and my mercy toward these prigs had earned me some little gratitude.

Sir Owen smiled broadly. “I like a man of your spirit,” he said, and then grabbed my hand with a wrenching vigor.

I smiled as I governed my hand’s retreat from Sir Owen’s enthusiastic grip. “I shall make every effort to retrieve your possession with all haste and contact you the moment I have any news to report.”

Sir Owen stepped to the side of the path to let a handsome collection of young couples pass us. “I like you, Weaver,” he said. “I have never been a bigot in matters of religion, and now I can see why. What signifies whether or not a man eats pork? Get me my pocketbook, and I shall say you are as good a man as any and better than most.”

I sensed that I had been dismissed, so I bowed to Sir Owen and allowed him to walk over to a group of gentlemen of his acquaintance. I turned to make my way home, fired by a fierce determination to resolve Sir Owen’s matter as quickly and as efficiently as I might. I had such confidence in my skills that I considered his pocketbook as already in my possession. In my sanguine mood, such as I was, I could not have known that the business would erupt so dangerously.

THREE

I
T
SHOULD HAVE BEEN
a simple matter. I dressed the part of a gentleman—ostentatious coat and sword, overflowing wig, gleaming silver buckles upon my shoes. I had learned to appear the perfect gentleman when, in my less scrupulous days, I had spent some time traveling about the country working as what we called a
spruce prig
. I would present myself to a landlord like a gentleman, rent a furnished lodging with no more security than my appearance, and then proceed to clean the place of everything of value. Now, with more honorable motives, my task was to imitate a man of means in the service of undoing theft, and this task called for a particular sort of gentleman. I therefore put some padding about my midsection, making myself look more inclined to fat than muscle. Knowing that the evening would call for drunkenness, and that drunkenness was indeed the enemy, I fortified myself as best I could. I first took down as much cream as I might hold, for it would help to absorb the spirits I drank. Next I gargled with wine, and spilled some about my clothing, giving myself the scent of a man who required little more to render him senseless. Having thus prepared myself, I hired a hackney to take me to the alehouse, sat myself down in a well-lit spot, and boisterously called out for wine.

The Barrel and Bale was what one might expect of such places in the more colorful parts of town. It was near the river, close by the Temple Bar, but its patrons were mainly porters and journeymen, sprinkled with a few Templars looking for relief from their studies of the law. I stood out in this place, but I was not conspicuous. They had seen my type before—indeed, they had seen my type in Sir Owen. So with few eyes upon me, save those who wondered how they might become better acquainted with the contents of my purse, I sat at my table and watched the mixture of life circulate. The alehouse was full, but not packed as such places can get. The smell of filthy bodies and cheap perfumes and thick, choking tobacco made a man labor for each breath. I heard no music but that of the shrill laughter of women and the shouts of men and the unmistakable clatter of dice upon the tabletops. A wounded soldier insisted on standing upon his chair every quarter hour and howling forth a bawdy song about a one-legged Spanish whore. He bellowed with little regard for tune until his friends dragged him down, and, in the jovial manner of such men, beat him until he was quiet.

My refined readers may only know of these places from reports they have read, but I had traveled through suchlike dark havens many times before, and I had little difficulty disregarding the turmoil around me. I had a mind for business, and as the baronet had given me a description of the woman I sought, I scanned the room repeatedly, trying hard to appear a drunk in search of company. I tried too hard, I think, for I had to turn several women of Kate Cole’s profession away. A man such as I was, who looked well-moneyed and, if I may be so bold, was far more attractive in person than the more usual patron come in search of companionship, could always depend upon finding favor among the ladies.

The one I sought, according to Sir Owen, was not more than nineteen, she had bright red hair, a fair and freckled complexion, and a prominent mole upon the bridge of her nose. Finally I saw her sit down at a table and engage in a conversation with a vicious buck who, by his look, could have served himself well in the ring. He was a tall, wide, muscular piece of flesh, with a face misshapen into an immutable scowl. I could see that the back of his hand revealed the mark of a branding, so I knew he had run afoul of the law at least once in his life—no doubt on a matter of theft, but I should have been surprised if that had been the only crime to his credit.

I could not guess the whore’s connection to this ruffian, and I feared she might be bespoken for the night. But I thought it unlikely that a woman like that would allow a gentleman with a purse to be long disappointed, so with a variety of looks and smiles I made it plain that I had a liking for her, and I hoped that any business she might have with this fellow could be dispatched quickly.

My wishes were gratified. In less than a quarter of an hour, the ruffian stood up and left the premises, and I began to stare hard at Kate, looking at her in the most uncivilized and lascivious way imaginable. She was not shy of my meaning and lost no time removing herself to my table, where she sat down very close to me. Placing a hand upon my leg she leaned forward and whispered, allowing her breath to caress my ear, that she should like a glass of wine.

My enthusiasm was genuine, though not the kind she would have anticipated, and affecting a great drunkenness, I called for a bottle of the sour piss the Barrel and Bale was proud to serve.

Up close I could see that Kate was a woman not without charms for gentlemen who are so inclined, but she had the kind of hard, hollow look of the street about her, and that was always for me enough to tame my more lickerish passions. I had no amorous feelings for women I could not trust with my purse should I doze off. Moreover, Kate was badly in need of a washing, and her dress, while tight about her pleasing shape, was soiled with the leavings of customers gone by. The once-ivory muslin was now yellowish brown, and her plain tan stomacher had grown so filthy as to almost want delousing.

“You are a very pretty lass,” I told her, slurring my words enough to allow her to believe I had already had more than my fill of spirits. “I could not help but notice you, my dear,”

“And what didcha notice?” she asked me coyly.

I confess that I had a bit of the libertine about me in my younger years, and even in this matter of business, I could not resist the temptation to win over this woman. It was a great weakness of mine, I suppose. So many of my friends enjoyed conquering only women they found charming, but I felt some need that women should find
me
charming.

“What did I notice about you?” I repeated back to her. “I noticed the redness of your lips, the whiteness of your throat, and the delicate curve of your chin”—I reached out and rested my hand against the side of her face—“and the marvelous line of your cheekbones. You look to me like a glorious and sensual angel in an Italian painting.”

Kate squinted at me. “Most gen’men say they likes me arse.”

“You were sitting upon it when I noticed you,” I explained.

Satisfied, Kate laughed and returned to her drink.

I joined her, gulping my wine, and allowed Kate to encourage me to drink more. Even when I drank in great quantities I rarely lost my head to spirits, but the cream in my stomach safeguarded me well. To my dismay, it had begun to turn sour, and it took some concentration to keep this unfortunate mixture of liquids in its place. I gritted my teeth together and disregarded my unease, acting the drunken fool, shouting, stumbling upon my words, and once, falling over in my chair.

“Ya get full of wine easy, don’cha, me big man,” she said with a smile of irregular teeth. “What ya need is a good walk, yer do. Clear your ’ead. And if we ’appen to find ourselves a quiet spot, what’s wrong with that, eh?” She gave my upper arm a good squeeze and then paused briefly to consider the resistance of muscle where she had anticipated a more pliable kind of flesh.

After fumbling through my purse to pay the reckoning, all the while making sure that Kate could see that there were many more coins to be had, I walked with her into the October night. It had grown cool with nightfall, and pulling her close to me, I let Kate lead me through a winding maze of London back alleys. I understood that she sought to disorient me, and though I was far less cloudy with wine than she believed, she had me all but entirely confused within a few minutes, for she knew well the dark and labyrinthine streets. I could only be certain that we stayed near the river and walked in the direction of Puddle Dock.

It was late and quite dark, and close to the river as we were it should have been dangerous for us to walk in that way. A strong wind blew the fetid Thames stench into my face. Kate clung to me for warmth as much as to entice me on in a direction she knew no sober gentleman with any valuables about him would willingly venture. Even a man skilled in the art of self-defense avoids any excursion into the dark streets upon the river, for in a time when gangs of violent thieves, a dozen or more strong, freely roamed the city, a man could offer himself or his companion but little protection. A young woman with a staggering gentleman upon her arm must have appeared a delicious target; I could only assume that the scurrying we heard around us bespoke footpads and prigs who knew Kate and understood what she was about, for there were surely others out who crept close enough to inspect us, but they always walked away, and sometimes with a laugh. Once a group of linkboys surrounded us, attempting to aggravate Kate into agreeing to pay one of them to light our way, but she had an acquaintance with these urchins and dismissed them with a few affable quips.

Finally she took me down an alley until we were almost at the dead end and in near-total darkness. We were perhaps ten yards in from the entrance and only a few feet away from the end. The alley was narrow and gave of the cool of the surrounding stones; the ground below us was wet and foul odors drifted up from the puddles of putrid water and the moldering garbage that littered the ground. We discovered a wooden crate set against the wall almost for our convenience, and I could scarce believe that in this part of town an item that might fetch at least a few pence would not be salvaged and sold within minutes of its abandonment. Indeed, I should not have believed it, but more concerned with Kate, I dismissed my curiosity almost at once.

“No one’ll bother us ’ere,” she said. “We can get some privacy.”

I followed silently, her willing partner in the lusty adventure. I must say that I little understand those gentlemen who take pleasure in a hurried dalliance in a damp alley or under a musty bridge. Yet, were men to forswear such outdoor delights, I believe that half the whores of London would be forced to turn to the workhouses.

I sat down upon the crate and let my head fall to the side. Kate stooped down and offered me a kiss just to the side of my lips. She was a clever one, for she wanted to learn if my intoxication overpowered my desire. If I had pulled her closer and directed the kiss, she would know I had at least some of my wits about me yet.

I did not move.

“You’re not planning on falling asleep before we get to know one another better, are ya?” she asked, hoping I would do just that. She knew her business, Kate Cole. Some thieving whores would have made their move at that instant, but she stood quietly, watching me for a good five minutes, letting me, as she believed, fall into a deeper, more certain sleep until she was sure my repose would be uninterrupted. She then knelt before me and began unbuttoning my coat, her fingers nimbly reaching for the fob of my watch. Kate had a great talent, I noted with hesitant admiration, for she too had been drinking wine, but the spirits affected her not at all; her fingers dexterously danced about my middle, and I knew that if I did not act with haste I would be forced to demand the return of my watch along with Sir Owen’s pocketbook.

With a rapid and violent burst that I had calculated to both shock and unbalance Kate, I arose, knocking her down into the filth of the alley. She fell backward, as I had intended, and she only kept herself entirely off the ground by holding herself up with her arms behind her. Her position was to my advantage, for she could make no moves quickly. I, meanwhile, removed an imposing pocket pistol I was certain always to have about me and pointed it directly toward her. “You’ll excuse the ruse, madam,” I said. “I can assure you your charms are not lost on me, but I’ve come on another gentleman’s business.”

“You bastardly gullion,” she breathed. Even in the dark, I could see her eyes shifting as she calculated. Who was I? What was my business? How might she gain the advantage?

I held the pistol in my steady hand. My face bespoke calm and determination. Whores and thieves tended not to respect authority or law or even danger, but they respected terror, and nothing filled street filth with terror so rapidly as an enemy who displayed a mastery of his passions. “This need not become more than a simple matter,” I said in an even tone. “Let me explain our business. Last night you met a gentleman and had an adventure much like the one you were planning with me. You took a number of his goods, and he wants them back. Give me this man’s property and I shall leave you unharmed. He knows who you are, but he won’t swear out an arrest on you should you cooperate.”

If Kate felt terror, she did not show it. She sucked on her bottom lip like a pouting child. “An’ what if I say you was a liar and I weren’t near no one like a gentleman last night? Then what?”

“Then,” I said calmly, “I’ll beat you until you’re bloody and unconscious, search your room until I find what I am looking for, and when you wake up you’ll find yourself in Newgate prison with nothing to look forward to but the next hanging day. You see, you are in a bit of a situation, my dear. Why not be helpful so I may proceed with my business?”

I hope my reader recognizes that I had no desire to harm this woman, for I never choose to inflict violence upon that sex. I have, however, few scruples about the threat of violence, and with the more delicate sensibilities of the female constitution, threats are generally all that I require.

Not so in this instance. “I should help so you can proceed with your business, I should?” she repeated with a wicked smile. “Your business is getting yourself dead, and I’ll help with that’n plenty.”

It was at that moment I realized that I had underestimated Kate Cole’s operation, for the sound behind me was that of a pair of heavy boots moving forward from the shadows. In an instant I knew that Kate did not work alone, and that at least some of the footsteps I had heard belonged to her partner. This operation was one they used to call the buttock and twang: a whore would lure a drunken victim to a secluded place, and if the wine failed to do the business, the twang completed the task. I, though armed, found myself at a severe disadvantage, for I did not dare turn my back on Kate, but I had to turn, and turn quickly, to face my as-yet-unseen adversary.