A Spectacle Of Corruption Part 16

"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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ma.s.sive H, H, carved by a thick blade. 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 wh.o.r.e," 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 s.h.i.+n 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 s.h.i.+t 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 s.h.i.+llings," 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.

Billy 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 s.h.i.+tters 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 pa.s.s 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.

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 s.h.i.+eld. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sailant 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 pa.s.s 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.

Having 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.

ELIAS'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. 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 s.h.i.+t. 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d bless king james and the pope and grifin melbrey. I binjimin weever the jew done this G.o.d 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." 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 auth.o.r.ed this gibberish. Whoever wrote this must be remarkably dull."

"Or?" Elias said.

I s.h.i.+fted in my seat as his point became clear to me. The note was too too dull, dull, too 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." 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."