A Spectacle of Corruption (19 page)

The stairs of the house were broken and treacherous, and those parts remaining intact were often covered with old clothes or piles of newspapers or empty beer buckets. I should hate to have to make a hasty exit from such a place.

The door I sought was on the third landing, and when I knocked a distractingly pretty woman, small in stature but finely shaped, answered without hesitation. She wore a loose-fitting gown that did little to conceal the treasures of her form. Her hair, which tumbled out beneath her bonnet, was so pale as to be almost white, and the features of her face were rounded and delicate. She looked as much a doll as a breathing woman.

“Do I know you?” she asked me. Her voice was sweet and soothing, but it quivered, too, when she spoke. Her eyes, of a gray so dark as to be on the cusp of black, focused on nothing in particular, as though she were afraid to look too much at my face.

“I beg you, allow me in and we shall talk of it,” I answered. I had expected her to want more persuading than that, but to my surprise she stood back and let me step inside.

The room was dark, with one lamp lit, but there was enough light for me to see that it was cluttered and ill kept. I could smell old beer and sour wine, and older and more sour clothes. I stumbled my way to an old chair, whose originary legs had all been replaced with mismatched wood, and sat in response to a lazy flick of her hand.

“You do not recognize me now?” I asked her, as I stepped into the light of her single flame. She stared at me while lowering herself into an old barrel that had been adapted into a chair.

“I do,” she said. “I do now, and I’m not surprised to see you, for I believed you must come at last.”

“I did not kill your husband,” I said, holding my palms upward in a gesture of—I don’t know what. Something benevolent, I suppose. “I had never met him before, and I had no reason to wish him harm.”

“I know it,” she said softly. She looked to the floor. “I never thought you had done. I was at your trial and heard all.”

“I am glad that you say so, for I would be very grieved if you thought me guilty. You must know that we are all of a single purpose. We both want justice for your husband.”

She shook her head. “There can be no justice. The world ain’t right, Mr. Weaver. I see that now. I once reckoned it was, but that was just foolishness. A woman like me don’t have a chance, and Walter never had a chance neither. I thought he did before. I thought that Judge Rowley was a kindly man to do Walter such a turn, but I see he is no less wicked than the rest of us.”

I leaned forward. “I don’t understand you, madam. What good turn had Rowley ever done your husband?”

“What good turn? Why, he saved him from the gallows is what he done. Not a year and a half ago, sir, when Walter stood before Rowley on charges of socking tobacco. That Dogmill said Walter took two shillings’ worth, though he never done no more than what every man who worked his ships done: collect the gold dust, as they call the loose leaves that fall out of the hogshead. And maybe now and again he’d dip in with his hand, but what of it? That’s the way it’s always been done—since time immemorial, he always said. But then Dogmill has Walter taken by the constables, and a month later he is facing trial for his life. They wanted to hang him, they did, for two shillings’ worth of tobacco scraped from the deck of a ship.”

I blinked hard, as though to banish the confusion. “But Rowley sided with Mr. Yate?”

“He did, sir. Dogmill sent a thousand witnesses to lie, sir, saying that Walter was a bad man who wanted nothing but to steal so he could be lazy, but Rowley looked after Walter, the way the law says he should have done for you—but he didn’t.”

It would appear that Rowley once took his responsibilities as a judge more seriously than he had at my trial, all the more surprising because, in the case of Walter Yate, he sided against a Whig like Dogmill—particularly when it appeared he had sided against me
because
of Dogmill. Could it be that he was less of a political creature then, or that now the imminent election made his obligations to party stronger than his obligations to the law? “Do you have any idea why the judge behaved toward me as he did?”

“I don’t have no ideas at all. Not anymore. When Walter got set free by the jury, I thought all was right in the world. We had two little boys then, and my husband was at liberty and clear of the law. But that don’t last. Now both those boys is dead and our new baby has no true father, for Walter’s been struck down and no one cares who done it.”

“I care,” I promised her.

“Only because you want to save your own flesh. No, don’t make a protest. There’s no harm in it. Walter was nothing to you while he yet lived. There’s no reason you should trouble yourself of his death but that his death has troubled you.”

I looked into her coal-gray eyes. “Walter Yate saved my life. Had he not acted valiantly in his last minutes, I should be dead now too. Finding the man who killed him is more to me than my own safety.”

She nodded slowly, as though the news that her husband had saved my life were the sort of thing she heard all the time.

I took the blank look upon her face as permission to proceed with my inquiry. “Did Mr. Yate ever say why he thought Dogmill had decided to pursue him in particular in this charge of socking? It is, as you say, something done by nearly all porters.”

She laughed. “It were obvious, weren’t it? Walter wanted to rally the men so that Dogmill couldn’t abuse them no more. He wanted to make his peace with Greenbill Billy and try to get the wages to rise, but Dogmill wouldn’t have none of it. I said to him it were better he worried about his family than the porters, but he said he had to do his duty, and so he put them before us, and he ended up the way I always knew he would. There are things made for great men, and small men oughtn’t to bother with them.”

“Such things as labor combinations?”

She nodded.

“Did he trouble himself with other affairs of great men? For example, had you ever known your husband to demonstrate an interest in political matters?”

“He said once that he would have liked to have made enough money to pay his scot and lot and then vote in an election.”

“But was he involved in any way in the election that has only now commenced?”

She looked down so that I could not see her face. “Not that I ever heard of.”

I took a moment to collect my thoughts. “Do you know what has happened to his gang of porters since his death? Have those men joined with Greenbill, or have they found a new leader?”

Mrs. Yate looked up once more, and even in the dim light of the room I could see the blood rush to her face. She opened her mouth but could not speak.

“They will never join with Greenbill,” a man called out, answering in her stead, “and so they have a new leader.”

I nearly started from my chair. In the darkness of the threshold stood a tall figure, ruggedly built, silhouetted by the cheap tallow that burned behind him. It took only a moment for me to recognize him as John Littleton, looking far more self-assured than he had in Ufford’s kitchen.

I half rose and bowed in greeting.

He nodded at me. “Rest assured,” he said, rather jauntily, “that Yate’s boys will stand firm against Greenbill Billy—and against Dogmill too.”

“And whose boys are they now?”

He laughed with an easy confidence. “Why, they’re Littleton’s boys now. There’s one or two other things what were Yate’s that are now Littleton’s. We do what we can to honor the man.” He winked at me with evident humor. Whatever had happened to make him the gang’s leader, it had turned Littleton into a new man.

Mrs. Yate met my eyes for an instant, a silent pleading for my understanding. I attempted, by means of my facial expression, to show her compassion, though I fear I only showed indifference.

“Go to the other room, lass,” Littleton told the widow. “The baby is stirring and wants its mother.”

She nodded and retreated, softly closing the door behind her.

“Good to see you looking so healthy,” Littleton told me as he lowered himself into his chair. Behind him, I noticed, were a series of wicker cages that appeared, as I squinted in the dusk of the room, to hold rats. Littleton, I recalled, had mentioned that he earned some coin as a rat catcher. I knew now that he employed that all too common trick of unleashing his own rats that he might be employed to remove them, which a skilled ratman could do with little more than a whistle. Such men could earn a nice bit of silver catching the same rats dozens of times over.

“Good to see you looking so prosperous,” I said dryly.

“Aye,” he answered. “There are those what would call me callous, taking up Water Yate’s place among the men, taking his place with his pretty wife. But someone had to step in, do you see? I couldn’t let Greenbill Billy have his way with those boys. Would Yate have wanted that? I don’t think so. And I could not let any cruel bastard have his way with Anne.”

“You are surely generous,” I said dryly.

“I see what’s happening behind those shifty Jew eyes of yours, Weaver. You think maybe I helped in getting rid of Yate so I could have his woman and his place too—that I’m a wicked godgel-gut who would take what isn’t his any way he can get it. Well, you were there, and you know it ain’t true. I had nothing against Yate but that I thought his wife was pretty, and I never fancied myself as leader of the gang until the boys insisted I become so. It was right moving. We sat in a little gin house down by the quays and talked about what would happen next. One fellow stood and suggested we throw our lot in with Greenbill, but he was answered with many fine blows to the face, I can tell you. Then another stood and said that I should lead them, that of all the men there only John Littleton knew aught about labor combinations. I tell you, Weaver, I had a tear in my eye.”

“It sounds very stirring.”

“Oh, you may mock if you like, but it was powerful touching. And you think it were easy for me? I was beat nearly to death once for standing at the head of a labor combination, and I vowed never again. All I wanted was to earn my shillings so I could eat my dinner and drink my pot. But this is bigger than me. I’ll be beat to my death this time if I have to. That’s my resolve, so you had better say nothing to me of your suspicions.”

“I did not say I suspected anything of you.”

“Well, I would if I was you,” he said, with a devilish grin. “I’d think me a bastardly stallion, out to get the doxy and the socket. But you oughtn’t to, ’cause I had nothing to do with what happened with poor Yate, the Lord rest him.”

“Do you, by any chance, know who did?”

“Of course I know who bloody well did. It was Dennis Dogmill, who else? Meantime, Greenbill Billy stands by and laughs because now his gang will be in better shape for the next job, or at least that is what he hopes. But the two of them will run afoul of each other before long, I promise you. It’s only a matter of time before Dogmill gives Greenbill what Yate got.”

“It may be that Dennis Dogmill had Yate killed; he surely did not come down to the quays and beat the fellow with a metal pipe. Who did?”

“I would not put anything past that one. It could well be he did the work himself, though I haven’t heard about it this way or that.”

“What about this Greenbill? Might he have thrown his lot in with Dogmill?”

Littleton let out a snorting sort of laugh. “Not likely, friend. They may both of them rejoice to see Yate dead, but they could hardly have come to terms on the execution of such a monstrous deed. Of course, anything is possible, isn’t it. And now that I think on it, I haven’t heard of Greenbill showing his poxy marketplace in the past couple of weeks.”

“It seems as though he may be hiding, then.”

“He might be doing just that.”

“Any thoughts on where a fellow like that would hide?”

“Might be anywhere, you know. This basement or that garret. So long as he has a punk to fetch his food and drink for him, he don’t need to see the light of day for a while, now, does he?”

“And if he is not guilty of killing Yate, why should he fear to see the light of day?”

“He might be guilty of far more—or far less, for that matter. Just different, is all. Most likely, if you ask my opinion, he’s afraid that what killed Yate will get him next. Dogmill, he might reckon, will want to do away with the both of them, and the gangs be damned.”

“I think perhaps I shall go looking for him. If he suspects Dogmill is after him, he might have good reason for thinking so. Any thoughts on where to begin looking?”

“Well, you might try asking around the Goose and Wheel. Those are Greenbill’s boys there. They won’t be too happy to give you much information about him, though, not if he don’t want to be found. They will, however, be happy to beat you over the head and take you to the magistrate for the bounty. But you know your business.”

“I do.”

“Well, if I hear anything of Greenbill, I’ll be sure to let you know. Where can I get a message to you?”

I laughed. “I will find you in a little while. You can tell me what you know then.”

He returned the laugh. “You can trust me more than you think.”

I nodded, but I had not lived so long by believing anyone who spoke such words.

CHAPTER 14

I
HOPED
I could find this Greenbill Billy, who was surely the creature of my true enemy. For the moment I assumed that person to be Dennis Dogmill, but as I could not pursue that line of inquiry, I chose the only one available to me.

I waited until nightfall and then headed to the docks and to the Goose and Wheel tavern. The space was fortunately lit with few candles, and the interior was a stew of filthy bodies and foul breath. The sick, sterile smell of gin had permeated the tables, the benches, the dirt floor, and even the walls. Only the wholesome scent of tobacco made the air breathable.

I approached the barman, an unreasonably tall fellow with narrow shoulders and a nose that looked as if it had been broken once for each year of his life. Though I have no love for the drink, I ordered a gin lest I draw more attention to myself, and sipped it cautiously when the pewter pot was set before me. At a penny a pint, the barman had still chosen to water it down.

Sliding over a coin for my liquor, I nodded at the barman. “You know Greenbill Billy?”

He stared at me hard. “Everyone knows Billy. Except you, which means you got no business with him.”

“I don’t think he would say as much. He’d thank you for pointing me in his direction. You know where I can find him?”

He sneered. “Nowhere, for the likes of you. What do you want anyhow, coming in here with your questions? You with the constable’s office? You want to make us look fools?”

“Yes,” I said. “That is why I came here. Particularly, I wanted to make
you
look the fool. I believe I am succeeding quite admirably.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Well, you ain’t no coward, I’ll say that for you. How about you tell me your name and where you can be reached, and if I see Billy, which I may or may not, I’ll tell him you was looking for him. How does that sound to you?”

“That sounds to me like I’ll never find Billy.” I dropped a pair of shillings into my pint of gin and slid it back toward him. “Surely you can think of some way I might reach him.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t know precisely. He’s been scarce the last week or so. I heard he’s hiding out, that the law or some like is after him. But maybe his woman knows.”

“Where do I find her?”

“On her back, most like,” he said, and guffawed heartily at his own joke. After a moment, he contained his mirth. “Lucy Greenbill is her name. Has a room in the cellar of a house over on the corner of Pearl and Silver streets. It ain’t where Billy lives, but they ain’t truly married in the more legal sense of these things, though she took his name as if she were. But she’ll know where he is as well as anyone and better than some.”

“Better than you, to be sure.” I said.

“I done my best. What’s your name, anyhow, in case he comes looking for you?”

I thought of what Elias had said, of the advantage of being seen in such places. “My name is Benjamin Weaver,” I said.

“I heard that name somewhere before,” he said.

I shrugged and began to take my leave, a bit disappointed that my fame was not sufficient for him to have known the name at once.

“Sod me!” I heard him shout after a moment. “That’s Weaver the Jew. Weaver the Jew’s here!”

I don’t know if anyone heard him over the din, but I was outside and three streets over before I dared to slow down.

K
eeping to dark and snowy streets as best I could, I made my way to the house where the barman had told me I might find Lucy Greenbill. I did not bother to knock on the door, in no small part because I doubted that it would withstand so forceful an effort on my part. Here was one of those old houses, rushed into standing after the great fire of 1666, that year of wonders. These buildings, thrown together so awkwardly, now appeared perpetually on the verge of toppling. The pedestrian passed them at his own risk, for they shed bricks the way a dog sheds fleas.

I pushed open the door and found a foul space, cluttered with the bones of long-ago meals, a full chamber pot, and rubbish of all sorts strewn about. There was but one lamp lit, and I heard naught but silence except for the rustle of rats among the refuse. I could only guess that no one was home, but I wished to take no chances. For that reason, and to give my eyes a moment to adapt properly to the darkness, I moved with deliberate slowness. Soon I found the stairs, and I began to make my way downward.

Here my best efforts at stealth were squandered, for I could do nothing to keep silent as I moved down these old and creaky boards. I could with more ease have descended a set of stairs made of dry bread crusts, and as I feared, my movements betrayed me. Someone stirred down there. I saw a small light and smelled the smoke of cheap oil.

“Is that you?” I heard a woman’s voice cry out from below.

“Mmm,” I agreed.

As I descended, I could see that the decor of the upper rooms was shared by those below. Trash everywhere, torn broadsheets, a pile of soiled linen.

The cellar was but a single room, not particularly large. The floor was of dirt, and there was little enough on it: an old straw mattress, a single chair, a table with no legs on which the oil lamp sat. Mrs. Lucy Greenbill lay on the mattress, wearing, I might add, nothing at all.

Lest my reader think this tale about to turn as salacious as the scandalous works of Mr. Cleland, I should observe that she was none the most attractive of women—far too thin, with bones jutting out this way and that from her flesh, which, despite her lean frame, hung loosely in those places it was not stretched. Her eyes were enormous, such as might have been stunning on a more vibrant face, but she had the look of a gin drinker, so they were sunken deep into her skull. This pitiable creature had all the signs of those made slaves to that vile liquor: Her nose appeared shriveled and flat, her skin dry and lifeless, so she looked more the death’s-head than the temptress. But even if her shape been more pleasing to the eye, I believe her actions might have undone nature’s good works, for she lay there picking over clothes, piled off to one side of her naked form, and plucking off lice. She then proceeded to put them in her mouth, snap them between her teeth, and spit out the bloody skins.

“Don’t be too long now, Timmy,” she said.

“Timmy,” I repeated. “Surely Mr. Greenbill would be surprised to hear of you lying without clothes and awaiting someone called Timmy.”

Lucy bolted upright and prepared to scream, but I knew better than to let her. I leaped over from the stairs and, with a quick hop, found myself on the floor next to her with one hand over her mouth. A flash of pain shot through the old wound in my leg, but I bit my lip and determined to show no weakness.

“I realize this is an awkward position for you,” I said, trying to sound more menacing than distressed, “and I will allow you to dress yourself, but you must promise not to make noise. You’ve seen I move quickly, and I will be upon you in an instant if you defy me. Before you decide to utter another sound, you must choose whether you would prefer to conduct our business, which I promise will do you no harm, with or without clothing on your body.”

I did not wait for her to respond. I merely let go and allowed her to back up hurriedly and toss her gown over her head, which she wiggled into most quickly. Now that we were both more comfortable, she moved over to her legless table and reached out with one shaking hand for a pewter cup, which from the sharp scent of it was filled with gin.

“What do you want?” she asked me, as she took a swig hearty enough to fell a man of my size. In the light of the oil lamp I could see her face more clearly. Her cheekbones were pronounced but her jaw slack, giving the impression that the lower part of her face was but an empty bladder that hung upon the upper. When she spoke I could see she had but few teeth in her head, and those were broken or filed down almost to the root. And there was a deep scar on her left cheek, which had been hidden from me upon my entry to her room—a massive
H,
carved by a thick blade.

“Who did that to you?” I asked.

“My husband,” she said defiantly, as though daring me to find some fault with a man who would carve letters into his wife’s flesh.

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“To mark me for a whore,” she said proudly. “Now tell me what you want.”

“I want to know where I might visit this honorable husband of yours.” I discovered myself unwittingly rubbing a hand against my aching shin and stopped at once. “He is proving a difficult man to find.”

“He’ll kill you for coming in here, and he’ll do worse if you think to do me injury. And for all that, who are you?”

“My name is Benjamin Weaver,” I said.

“Oh, Jesus save me!” she cried, and took another step back. She clutched her pewter gin cup to her breast as though for a moment confusing one savior with another. “You’ll kill him, won’t you?”

I took a step forward to match her retreat. “Why should I do that?”

“That’s what you do, ain’t it? You kill porters. Everyone says you are Dennis Dogmill’s man, and you come to kill those who stand against him.”

“You would be wise not to listen to everyone. They are none the most truthful sources. If Billy wishes to resist Dogmill, he will find no better friend than me.”

“Then what do you want with him? You ain’t looking for him to become a friend.”

“I want to ask him some questions.”

“What if he don’t want to answer?”

“I find that most men I put to the question choose to answer sooner or later.”

“Like Arthur Groston?”

I felt a chill run through my body. I forgot at once about the pain in my leg. Why should Billy Greenbill’s wife have heard of my dealings with the evidence broker? “What do you know of him?”

“That he’s dead. That you killed him.”

I struggled to control my surprise. “Last I saw Groston, he was healthy enough. Who told you I killed him?”

“Marry come up, everyone says it’s true. They say you held his head in a pot of sir-reverence until he drowned.”

“I did not drown him, but I did stick his head in a shit pot.”

“You tell me that and you think I’ll let you know where Billy is?”

“I’ll find him in the end,” I said. “You may depend on it. If you are the one who tells me where to find him, I’ll make certain you are compensated for your efforts.”

She took a more restrained drink from her mug. “How is that, compensated?”

“For one thing,” I said, “I won’t mention Timmy to him. For the other, I will give you some silver.”

She blinked at me. “How much silver?”

Why quibble? I thought. It was, after all, the judge’s money, and I knew it would take a mighty sum for her to overcome her fear of angering Greenbill. “Five shillings,” I said.

I might as well have offered her the kingdom of the Incas. She put a hand to her mouth and pressed the other against the wall for support. “Show me,” she whispered.

I reached into my purse and retrieved the coins, which I held out in my hand for her. And so she traded her lord for my silver. If she noticed any parallels to the behavior of certain figures in her scriptures, she did not choose to mention them to me.

B
illy Greenbill, she had told me, was staying in the garret of a house only a few blocks away on King Street. I thought it sound to wait until it was much later, for I had no intention of walking in on Billy and his friends while they were awake. Therefore, I found a quiet spot by the river and merely sat, with one hand on a pistol at all times. No one disturbed me, though I heard the rustling of footsteps once or twice.

When it was far into the small hours of the morning, closer to dawn than not, I returned to the house Lucy had indicated and quietly forced open the lock. All was quiet and dark, as I had hoped, and I made my way up the stairs as soundlessly as I could manage. At the very top, the entrance to the garret, I made ready with my blade and gently tested the door. It was, mercifully, unlocked, so I gently turned and forced open the door.

There was but one candle burning. Had there been more, I should have been alerted to the scene that awaited me. But I had the door open and I had taken preliminary steps before I realized what lay there for me. A half dozen men, each with blades and pistols, were awake and sitting on chairs. And grinning.

The door shut behind me.

“Weaver,” one of them said. “I wondered what was taking you so long.”

I glanced at him. He was my age or older, with an unshaved face and thick lips that made him look the result of an unholy union between a laborer and a duck. “Greenbill Billy,” I said.

“At your service, or I should say that you are at mine.” One of his men rose and took from me my sword and both my pistols. None the most thorough, these fellows did not think to examine my legs for any extra blades I might have on my person.

“I presume,” I said, “that Lucy was advised to tell me to come here.”

“Exactly. We’ve been waiting for you for some days now, and I can tell you that we’re glad you’ve come, for we’ve been getting as mad as shitters from sitting in this room.”

“And now you plan to capture me and collect your reward?”

“That would be preferable, but if we have to kill you we’ll do that too.”

“Why?” I asked. “What am I to you that you would have to go to such lengths to harm me?”

Greenbill grinned, and even in the dark I could see his teeth were a horror. “Why, what you are to me is a hundred and fifty pounds, that’s what. Now, what are the condolences that you’ll come with us all quiet-like while we bring you to the magistrate and collect our booty?”

“And what shall pass if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, we can take you there with blood coming out of your head as much as not. Now, do you think you’ll come along nice and easy?”

I shrugged. “I made my way from Newgate before. I don’t doubt I will do so again.”

He laughed. “You’re mighty sure of yourself, ain’t you? But that’s their problem, not mine, so let’s be on our way, shall we?”

It is a poor thieftaker, I have found, who requires weapons to defend himself. Weapons are always preferable, but if a man must use his fists to save his life, he ought not to hesitate to do so. Two of his men approached me, no doubt with the intention of each taking an arm. I allowed them to think I would submit, but when they were positioned just as I liked, I caught the arm of each under my own armpits and pressed down and then jabbed upward sharply with my elbows. I caught both in the face, and they reeled backward.