A Spectacle of Corruption (20 page)

Billy wasted no time. He raised his pistol at me, so I reached out for one of his compatriots who, having realized that the situation was not to his liking, had just begun a dash for the door. I grabbed him by his shoulders and spun him toward Billy that I might turn this coward to a human shield. Billy either had not the time to check his fire or did not care to do so, for he sent a ball into his friend’s shoulder.

Certainly it boded well that in the space of a few seconds I had dispensed with three of the six men. I could only hope the next few seconds would unfold so favorably. With his pistol fired, Billy, for the moment, was without protection, so I rushed at him, but one of his attendants jumped on my back to pull me down. It was not the most effective technique to use in a deadly fight, but it served the purpose of allowing Billy to dash for the door. My assailant was now riding atop my back, one arm crooked across my throat to suffocate me. I backed up hard into the wall, but he was still not dislodged. If anything, he strangled me with added fury, so I repeated the same move, trying hard to hit his head. I did so with ample force this time, for the fellow slid off me and to the floor, where he joined the ranks of his wounded comrades.

Billy and his remaining unharmed companion were nowhere to be seen. They had either fled for their lives or gone to fetch reinforcements. I could hardly afford to wait around if they were to raise the hue and cry, but I did not dare let so ripe an opportunity pass without learning what I could. One of the men whose faces I had smashed lay on his side, curled and whimpering. I gave him a nudge with my foot to let him know that I was now interested in having a discussion.

“What is Billy’s interest in me?” I asked.

He said nothing, and having little time to misuse, I attempted to find some more persuasive method of questioning. I placed my foot on his throat and repeated the question.

“I don’t know,” this fellow said in a raspy voice, full of bubble and froth. I could only guess that I had done some damage to his teeth, perhaps his tongue too. “The money.”

“The money? The reward money?”

“Yes.”

“Did Billy kill Yate?”

“No, you done that.”

“Who is Johnson?” I had asked this question so many times, I despaired of ever receiving any sort of answer, but here I found myself quite surprised.

“I don’t know his real name,” he told me.

“But you know who he is?”

“Of course I know who he is. Everyone knows who he is.”

“Not everyone. Tell me.”

“Why, he’s an agent for the Pretender, of course. No one knows his real name, but that’s what they call him.”

“Who calls him that? Who?”

“In the gin houses. When they drink to the true king’s health, they drink to his health too.”

“And what’s he to do with me?”

“How should I know your business better than you do?”

I could not but allow that it was a good question.

Below I heard the scuffle of feet, and a watchman’s whistle blow. I could ill afford to waste more time with this fellow, so I hurried down the stairs as best I could while making certain that Billy did not lie in wait for me. But he had gone to look for safety. I would have to find some other way of tracking him down. And I had other things to concern myself with as well. For example, I wished to know why, at my trial, whoever had hired Arthur Groston to produce witnesses against me had wanted to establish that I was an agent of the Pretender. It seemed clear to me now that my conviction for killing Yate was but one part of a much larger scheme in which my name and my life were to be destroyed forever.

H
aving narrowly escaped with my life and liberty, I was in no mood that night for more ill news, but I discovered upon returning to my rooms that my day was not yet done. A note awaited me, and it indicated the most urgent revelation.

I had not thought anything of Greenbill’s wife’s words, but it would seem I was remiss in my dismissal. The note I received was from Elias, who had received word from a fellow surgeon. Apparently Elias’s friend had been asked by the coroner to examine the body of Arthur Groston, who had been found murdered—presumably by Benjamin Weaver.

CHAPTER 15

E
LIAS’S NOTE
proposed a meeting for breakfast. I knew he believed the situation dire if he thought it worth his while to rise early in the morning, so I was prompt in meeting him at the agreed-upon time. He, alas, was not quite so punctual, and I was drinking my third or fourth dish of coffee by the time he arrived.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said, “but I was up frightfully late last night.”

“So was I,” I said. “I had a rather inconveniently timed ambush.”

“Oh. Well. That does sound unpleasant. But look here—er, Evans—there’s something of a situation with this Groston business. He was murdered, you know, and the whole world is aware that you—which is to say that Weaver fellow—had something against him.”

“I had less against him than whoever hired him—and I will surely find it difficult to learn who that was now. How was he murdered? He was not drowned in a privy pot, was he?”

Elias looked at me doubtfully. “I must say, in all my years as a surgeon, I have never before had that particular question put to me. As it happens, no, he was not drowned in shit. Is there some reason for thinking he might have been?”

I decided not to illuminate him. “How did he die, then?”

“Well, I’ve a friend who is often tapped by the coroners of London and Westminster to examine bodies that may have been murders. When he came across Groston, he thought it best to contact me, knowing of our friendship. The body had been sitting for some days before discovery, so it was in none the best shape for examination. Nonetheless, the surgeon had determined that someone struck Groston repeatedly in the face with a heavy object, and then, once the fellow was down, strangled him for good measure. It was a bit brutal.”

“And your friend thought you should know simply because I spoke of Groston at my trial?”

“No, there was more. You see, a note was found by the body. He was good enough to copy it for me.”

He handed over a piece of paper on which was written:
I binjimin weever the jew done this god bless king james and the pope and grifin melbrey.
I handed it back to Elias. “You must be certain to thank your friend for having corrected so much of my spelling.”

“Gad, can you not be serious? This is all rather grave.”

I shrugged. “I don’t believe Groston had any more information for me, so I cannot claim to be sad at his death. As to the note, I hardly imagine that anyone might believe me to have authored this gibberish. Whoever wrote this must be remarkably dull.”

“Or?” Elias said.

I shifted in my seat as his point became clear to me. The note was
too
dull,
too
absurd to convince anyone. “Or remarkably clever, I suppose. You are suggesting that it might as well be a clever Tory as a brutish Whig.”

“No one but the most excitable roughs will ever believe that you would write a note blessing the pope. No real plotter, certainly no real Romish plotter, would do such a thing. But what if Groston was killed in order to create the illusion of a conspiracy?”

“So the Tories kill him, and make it look like the Whigs killed him in an effort to harm the Tories. That is a mighty deep game.”

“Probably too deep for the Tories. They are, after all, but a political party, and not the sort of men to engage in this level of mischief.”

I understood his meaning. “The Jacobites?”

“Hush,” he snapped at me. “Don’t speak that word so loudly in my presence. I’m a Scot, don’t forget, and easily a target for accusations. But yes, I do believe they may be behind this. Whigs and Tories may well do a bit of rioting and wrecking, and things may get ugly when they get angry with one another, but cold-blooded murder is, as yet, not a party tool—not even in election time. Some of these Jacobites schemers, however, are a bit bolder. If they believe that causing the Whigs to lose a seat in Westminster might inspire the French enough to fund an invasion, you may be sure there is no shortage of men willing to bash the faces of a hundred Grostons rather than let the opportunity slide.”

“Why mention me at all? Jacobites are no friends of the Jews. Do you not find all this a bit unusual? The Whigs have always been criticized for their excessive toleration of Jews and nonconformists, and the Tories have always railed against Jews and dissenters gaining too much power.”

“I don’t think it signifies anything but opportunism,” he said. “Piers Rowley, a Whig appointee, unjustly made certain of your prosecution, and you defied him by escaping. No one could have predicted it, but you have become an anti-Whig rallying cry whether you wish to be or no. And you know how the English are. If they decide they want to hate Jews one minute and embrace them the next, they will do so and never notice their hypocrisy.”

“Damn these plottings,” I murmured. “First the white rose that Groston gave me, and now there is more.” I told Elias about my encounter with Greenbill and his gang, and of one of the porter’s underlings informing me that Johnson was a well-known Jacobite.

“It would seem,” Elias said thoughtfully, “that someone sought to implicate an alliance between you and the Jacobites even before your trial became a political cause. Who would want to do so? Not the Jacobites, surely.”

“No,” I said. “My enemy must be someone who hates me and Jacobites equally.”

“Once again, we must turn to Dennis Dogmill,” he observed. “And once again, we cannot even say why he should wish you ill, nor can we say who the woman who aided your escape might be. There are still far too many questions, Weaver, and no answers.”

“I like it no more than you. I cannot even think what I must do next.”

He shrugged. “You might hope they don’t kill anyone else in your name.”

“But they will,” I said. “And I know whom they will kill too.”

His eyes widened. “The witnesses against you from the trial?”

I nodded.

“But why? What harm can they do?”

“I don’t know, but they can be killed without disturbing anyone of note, and their deaths can easily be blamed on me.”

“Weaver, you seem to be facing far more than you can handle. This is by several degrees more severe than the death of a laborer. There is something at work here that smells of a genuine assault against the nation. The Jacobites are gathering their forces, and they are using you to screen themselves. You must go to the ministry and tell all. They will protect you.”

“Are you mad? It was the government’s party that condemned me to death and set all this in motion. For all I know, it is the government itself that wanted to link me with the Jacobites. And even if there are not powerful Whigs behind all of this, if I should choose to go to them now, how can I know they won’t pin the conspiracy on me? They might happily hang me at Tyburn and count their votes without troubling themselves to wonder who is guilty and who is not. You know full well they might prefer to take advantage of the moment than actually see justice served.”

“Yes, yes. You are right, there. They would gladly string you up so they could point to you and say,
Here is a Jacobite plotter. We’ve proven the threat is real.
So what will you do now?”

“Find the witnesses first and be there when the killer comes for them.”

I
hated once more to call on Mendes, but circumstances were such that I had no choice, and as there were lives other than my own in the balance, I thought it improper to stand upon ceremony. I therefore wrote to him, asking that he meet me at his rooms that night—with the request that he send his reply to a coffeehouse I had previously designated. When I went to retrieve my messages I found that Mendes had written back, indicating that he did not believe it would be safe for us to meet at his home, and instead asked me to lease a room in the back of a tavern of my choosing, and then let him know when and where. I took care of this task immediately and sent him the information, though I was now on edge, for I could not think why his rooms would not be safe. Had someone discovered our previous meetings? Did an enemy of mine keep Mendes under surveillance?

I would have to wait to learn. At the appropriate time I changed out of my Matthew Evans costume and then slipped out the window into the alley. It would have been far easier, and far safer, simply to stroll there like a gentleman, particularly since the papers reported that Weaver had been seen in some of the more unpleasant parts of town. But even though Mendes had proved himself a most worthwhile ally, I could never think of confiding all my secrets to him.

I was glad I had taken the precaution, for I soon discovered I had trusted Mr. Mendes perhaps more than I ought. When I walked into the room I had rented, I found him waiting for me, but he was not alone.

Jonathan Wild was by his side.

U
ntil the time he met his fate at the end of a hangman’s noose, I don’t know that Wild ever came as close to death as he did at that moment—and I include in my reckoning the incident in which Blueskin Blake famously stabbed him in the throat. In an instant I had kicked closed the door and withdrawn a pistol from my pocket. I came within an inch of discharging it directly into his head.

But I paused. I believe it was the look on Wild’s face: one of utter composure. It suggested to me that either Wild had not come to harm me or he had come so fully prepared to harm me that he had nothing to fear. In either case, I was eager enough to avoid adding another charge of murder to my troubles that I hesitated.

“Put it away,” he said to me, as he drank from his pot of ale. “If I wanted you taken, you’d have been taken by now. As it is, you’re of far more use to me free than you would be in chains. And you’re sadly mistaken if you think a hundred and fifty pounds is enough to turn my head.”

I lowered my pistol and approached the table. Mendes had already produced me an ale. “You’ve nothing to fear,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me you were bringing him here?” I asked Mendes, still not ready to sit.

Mendes remained impassive. With Wild around, he was no longer his own man but the thieftaker’s puppet. I would get nothing from him. “He did not tell you,” Wild said, “because you would not have come.”

It was true enough, but it did not, in my mind, excuse the deception. Still, I had no one to blame but myself. As much as I should have liked to have trusted Mendes, I knew he was Wild’s creature, and I could not be surprised that he would bring his master to meet me. The only question remaining was why.

Wild had about him a manner that was so comfortable and at ease that any man who showed himself to be anxious must think himself pitiable. This great thief had the strange ability to make every man believe in his corrupt authority, and I found that, though I knew what he was, I believed it too if I was not careful. I therefore clenched every muscle in my body in resolve to resist his strange charms.

“Let us not trouble ourselves with these niceties.” I held myself straight in the effort to create a false authority of my own, but the thin smile on the thieftaker’s lips told me that I had not done a very good job. “I have been uneasy with your involvement in my troubles since your appearance at my trial.”

“Have you?” he asked. His features were so sharp and angular, I thought they should shatter under the pressure of his smile. “Would you be easier if I had spoken ill of you, as you had no doubt anticipated?”

“I should have been less surprised, certainly.”

“I am sorry to have surprised you, but I should think you would be more grateful. I set aside whatever differences we might have had in order to do you a good turn. You and I are used to scrambling after the same prize—or, worse, being opposed to each other. But in this matter I am your greatest friend.”

“I am under no illusions that you did so for any reason but to serve yourself. Mr. Mendes has made me aware that you have no love for Dennis Dogmill, and you relish the idea of my doing him harm.”

“True enough. I suspected his involvement the moment I heard Yate was dead. And Mendes tells me you have no knowledge of the woman who passed you the housebreaking tools. Is that right?”

“I still believe it was your doing,” I said, though I was not sure I did.

He laughed. “You may believe it if you like. It must certainly make you angry to think me that much involved in your rescue. But I had no hand in that little scheme.”

I shook my head. “Then what is it you want? Why have you come here?”

“Only to offer you assistance, Weaver. Faith, I am no friend of the Tories, any man can see that, but this Dogmill and his lapdog Hertcomb are a plague upon my business. I should support Cardinal Wolsey if he ran against Hertcomb and made Dogmill his enemy. I thought for certain that this race was all sewn up for those villains, but then you come along and make the situation far more interesting. So long as you are running about town, knocking over ruffians and searching for the truth, it is good news for me. For that reason I am happy to assist you.”

I spat out a bitter laugh. “And if I should fail, good riddance to me. If I should succeed, you imagine I will be in your debt.”

He tilted his head just slightly, a mild gesture of agreement. “You have always shown yourself a reasonable man, Weaver. I have no doubt that a good turn done now might yield some fruit in the future. So I have come to see what I can do for you. Some money, perhaps?”

I scowled in contempt. I would not have Wild offering me money like a generous uncle. “I have no need of your money.”

“It spends quite as well as another man’s, I promise you. But as to your means, your judge-thieving methods seem to work out quite nicely for you. Though I must say that Rowley has always been a pliable fellow. I am sorry to see you’ve driven him into convalescent retirement.”

“I’d always believed him reliable as well. Why should he turn on me as he did?”

“It is an election season,” Wild said complaisantly. “They were dangerous enough when elections were held every three years. Now that they are every seven, the prize is worth a great deal more, and men will go to far greater lengths in support of their party or, I should say, their interests. Rowley only did what was required of him by Dogmill. There is no more to it than that.”