The System of the World (63 page)

“I have plied him with tea, and given him a brief look round the place—not letting him see any of the good bits—and then advanced from tea to brandy. He is drinking it three doors down, in that shop where the plasterers were finishing up yesterday.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hoxton,” Daniel said, putting a hand on the door to go out.

“You are welcome,” Peter Hoxton said, in a guarded way, “but I must say, if I had known, when Fate brought us together, what sort of persons you associate with, I should never have pursued the acquaintance.”

Daniel exited smiling. His expression changed over to one of surprise as a second carriage—a battered hackney, its wheel rims thumping from dents and clotted horse-turds—came up Coppice Row at reckless speed, and halted, in serial and ramshackle style, just ahead of Mr. Threader’s. The door flew open. Out stepped a red-faced, white-haired, black-suited Nonconformist. Immediately behind him came a small man in breeches, waistcoat, &c., of a more conventional cut, though made of materials so florid as to be almost tribal. And behind him came a common-looking bloke who was even bigger than Saturn. He stayed behind to flick coins into the outstretched palm of the coachman.

“Brother Norman. Mr. Kikin. What a pleasure,” Daniel said, moving to intercept them before they could reach the door of the clock-shop, and further damage Saturn’s esteem for him. “I had not been notified that our Clubb was to meet to-day; but I welcome you to Clerkenwell Court, and I shall welcome our Treasurer too, when I have run him to ground.”

“Mr. Threader is here?” said the astonished Mr. Kikin, and cast a comical look up and down Coppice Row. This was then mimicked by his bodyguard, who had taken up his usual station behind Mr. Kikin’s shoulder.

“Why?” demanded Mr. Orney; but just then the door of a vacant storefront burst open, and out came Mr. Threader, already red in the ears from brandy.

“I haven’t the vaguest notion of why
you
two are here,” he proclaimed, “but since you are, I hereby call to order an emergency meeting of the Clubb for the Taking and Prosecution of the Party or Parties responsible for the Manufacture and Placement of the Infernal Engines lately Exploded at Crane Court, Orney’s Ship-yard,
et cetera
!”

“First order of business: selecting a shorter name,” Mr. Orney suggested.

“The first order of business, as ever, shall be the Collection of Dues—presuming as always that you are still solvent, Mr. Orney.”

“If news from Westminster is true, it is not
my
solvency that bears examination—
Mr. Threader
.”

“It is of Parliament that I would discourse—which is why that is to be the
second
order of business—those Members who arrived
late
must wait their turn.”

“How can we be
late
for a meeting that was called
after we arrived
!?”

“Gentlemen,” Daniel said, “I fear we are disturbing our neighbors in Hockley-in-the-Hole. May we—please—take this inside?”

I
T MIGHT ONE DAY
serve as a pub or coffee-house, but for the nonce it was an empty room, freshly plastered, strewn with straw. The walls were white, darkling to overcast gray in the corners where still-damp plaster emitted palpable warmth and a nostril-stinging fragrance. The Clubb set up an impromptu Parliament there, using overturned buckets as chairs, and an upright barrel as lectern. These were improvised by Saturn and Mr. Kikin’s bodyguard during the time that Mr. Threader raked in the Dues with all the weighing, biting, and microscopic examination of coins, and injurious commentary, that had become a Clubb custom. Then it was time for Mr. Threader to take command of the barrel. As he all too soon discovered, this was empty, and when struck with the fist emitted a tremendous boom, useful for rhetorical effect.

“When a Ship of Force appears before the breakwater, and lobs a mortar-shell
(boom)
into the town
(boom),
you may be certain of two things: first
(boom)
that the enemy has been laying its plans for many months in advance; second
(boom)
that more
(boom)
mortar
(boom)
shells
(boom)
are shortly to follow
(boom boom boom).
”

“More brandy, Mr. Threader?” suggested Mr. Orney; but Threader ignored him.

“Yesterday,” continued Mr. Threader, “the notorious leader of the Faction dropped
(boom)
a bomb
(boom)
in the House of Lords, discomposing the awful dignity, and shattering the traditional somnolence, of that August Body!”

“I have heard it said that if there were a way to invest in Apoplexy, one could have gotten rich in Westminster yesterday,” said the Russian.

“As you are a Foreigner, sir, your amusement, like your person, are tolerated even if not welcomed. Those of us who live here must consider it
soberly
.” He shot Orney a warning look to nip in the bud any plays on the word. “To revisit my similitude of the Ship and the Mortar-Shell, we must ask, how long has Ravenscar been planning this? And where will the next
(boom)
shell
(boom)
fall
(boom)
?”

“It’ll fall on your head if you keep striking that barrel-head,” Mr. Orney muttered.

“I have heard that yesterday was a lively one indeed for the South Sea Company, and doubtless for your enterprise, Mr. Threader,” Daniel said. “In fact, such must be the demands upon your professional services, that I am astonished to find you here. Yes, Comstock has put Viscount Bolingbroke on the spot regarding that Asiento money. But what has that got to do with our Clubb?”

“It has been a strange fortnight for men whose business is to handle money,” Mr. Threader said.

“Thank you for sharing that reflection with us, sir,” returned Mr. Orney. “How does it bear on the very reasonable question just asked by Brother Daniel?”

“Men have been gathering up guineas, removing them from circulation, paying for them with French coins or other specie. It is all part of a subtile and covert investigation of the coinage, set afoot, ’tis said, by Bolingbroke.”

“I move,” said Daniel, “that we suspend Mr. Threader’s remarks, and move him away from the Barrel, until such time as he professes a willingness to divulge, plainly and tersely, why the hell he is here; and in the meantime that either Brother Norman or Mr. Kikin take the Barrel and explain why
they
are here.”

This motion passed by acclamation. Threader turned his back on all of them, a sullen gesture that elicited some hooting. Orney rose to speak; and in his Nonconformist get-up, standing before a barrel on a straw-covered floor, he looked for all the world like an itinerant preacher-man convening a barn-load of rustic believers.

“Though hangings might yesterday have been the talk of the Newgate-Tyburn axis, and the vanished Asiento money the sensation of Westminster and the City, the great happening of the day in Rotherhithe was the arrival—I shall employ dry understatement, and call it
startling
—of a Russian war-galley. She rowed here direct from St. Petersburg. To judge from the number of available places on her benches, she was driven with a speed fatal to several oarsmen; and the diverse large-caliber holes in her hull attest to at least one encounter with the Swedish Navy. At any rate, she got here, and now graces one of my docks, for she wants repairs. No sooner had she been made fast to my pier than several furry emissaries came down the gangplanks and fanned out into the city—”

“Rats?” guessed Mr. Threader.

“Russians,” said Orney, “though of course there were some rats, too. One of the Russians brought a message to Mr. Kikin. Another brought one to me.”

“No doubt the Tsar is running low on warships, and wants to know
when you will be finished with those you are supposed to be building for him,” said Mr. Threader.

“Oh I
am
building them, sir,” Orney returned, “notwithstanding the best efforts of Infernal Engine-makers.”

“I applaud you, Brother Norman,” Daniel said, “for being the first man to say anything that is actually relevant to this Clubb’s purpose.”

“What shall your answer be, to the impatient Tsar?” Threader asked cruelly.

“Progress is being made,” Orney said, “though I do confess it would be made
faster
if my fire-office would deign to make good on the losses for which they were supposedly insuring me.”

“A-
ha
!” exclaimed Mr. Threader, satisfied.

“Why should your fire insurer not compensate you for what was plainly
a fire
?” Daniel asked.

“The policy that I bought from them contains an exemption for fires consequent to Acts of War. They have taken the position that the ship was set fire by
Swedish
incendiaries.”

This was too much for Mr. Threader, who put both hands over his face to stifle a guffaw. Mr. Orney’s deadly adversary he might be in nearly every regard; but in their hostility towards the insurance industry, the two men were as blood brothers. “Oh yes,” he burst out, “a Londoner can scarce set foot out of his house nowadays without being set on fire by a roving Mobb of Swedish Incendiaries!”

“I think you have made your predicament clear, Brother Norman,” said Daniel. “You require that the Clubb achieve its stated goal, so that you may claim the money you are due from your insurer; complete the ships; and escape the wrath of the Tsar.” He turned now to the Muscovite. “Mr Kikin, are you at liberty to disclose the import of the message brought to you yesterday?”

“His Imperial Majesty made some references to Mr. Orney. To relate these now were redundant,” said Kikin. “He takes the side of the insurance company in suspecting Swedish Incendiaries.” A pause to clear his throat and inspect his nails as another juicy spate of laughter escaped from behind the hands of Mr. Threader. “His Imperial Majesty then wrote, or I should say, dictated to his scribe, a surpassingly bizarre discourse concerning some gold plates, which he desires ardently, notwithstanding the fact that they have been, in some sense, damaged; and he puts it all down to a fellow named Doctor Daniel Waterhouse—a name I never dreamed I should stumble across in an official communication from the Tsar of All the Russias.”

“It’s a long story,” Daniel said, to end the long and profound silence
that ensued—for Mr. Kikin’s revelation had left even Mr. Threader dumbstruck.

“The Tsar has a long memory—and a long reach,” Kikin reminded him.

“Very well, it’s like this,” Daniel said, and flipped open the latch on the little card-case he had been carrying around. At Bridewell he had dropped off the blank cards made this morning, and swopped them for ones that had been punched by Hannah Spates, and audited by the clerk. He displayed one to the Clubb, holding it up to a window so that light would shine through the holes. “As you can see, to describe it as
damaged
reflects an error in translation or transcription—what the Tsar meant was that it would have a lot of holes punched in it.”

“It is hardly the first strange request that His Imperial Majesty has made,” said Kikin. Indeed, the Russian was taking this much more matter-of-factly than Orney or Threader, who were so befuddled that they almost looked frightened.

Daniel said, “By the time that Brother Norman has this galley ship-shape, which will be—?”

“A week,” said Orney. “God willing.”

“By then I shall have damaged quite a few more, and they shall be ready to ship to St. Petersburg. If the Tsar is pleased by the results, the project in question may then move forward. But as this has nothing to do with the Clubb, let us set it aside for now.” And he literally did, putting the card back in the chest and setting it aside.

“Well, if we’re to speak no further of Brother Daniel’s entanglements in Muscovy,” said Mr. Orney, “perhaps Mr. Threader would now care to explain his presence.”

“I would speak to the Clubb of an Opportunity,” said Mr. Threader—who had finally composed himself and re-established his customary dry and dignified mien. He was gazing pensively out the window, and so did not witness the other members rolling their eyes and glancing at their watches. After a pause for effect, he made a half-turn and began looking them in the eye, each in turn. “Dr. Waterhouse has raised the possibility that the Infernal Device that nearly killed him and me in Crane Court, might not have been intended for either one of us—but rather for Sir Isaac Newton, who was known to frequent Crane Court late of a Sunday evening. This hypothesis was roundly hooted down at our previous meeting, and I shall be the first to confess that I was extremely skeptickal of it. But everything has changed. In the Clubbs and coffee-houses of the City, one name is now on every tongue: Jack the Coiner. At Westminster, in Lords, and in Star Chamber, who is the man they speak of? The
Duke of Marlborough? No. Prince Eugene? No. It is Jack the Coiner. At the Tower of London, rumors abound that Jack the Coiner goes in and out of the Mint at will. Why is my lord Bolingbroke investigating the fineness of Her Majesty’s coinage? Why, because he fears it has been adulterated by Jack the Coiner. Why has Sir Isaac Newton suffered a nervous collapse? Because of the mischief committed against him by Jack the Coiner. Now, I ask you men of the Clubb: supposing, for the sake of argument, that we credit the extraordinary hypothesis of Dr. Waterhouse as to the intended victim of the first Infernal Device: what man would have a motive to assassinate him whose charge it is to prosecute all coiners, and send them to Tyburn to be torn apart? Why, a coiner! And among coiners, which would command the resources, which would have the cunning, to build and to place an Infernal Device?”

Kikin and Orney were silent, sullenly declining to participate in Threader’s call-and-response.

“Jack the Coiner,” said Daniel dutifully—since it was, after all,
his
hypothesis.

“Jack the Coiner. And therein lies the Opportunity I spoke of.”

“An opportunity to have our throats slit from ear to ear?” Mr. Orney inquired.