A Spectacle of Corruption (23 page)

“I have heard something of her ability to reach understandings with gentlemen.”

The music being over, I had no choice but to end our dance. Miriam and I had exchanged some hard words. We had fought and we had each said unkind things. Though she was yet married, I somehow could not but rejoice in what I believed to be a considerable success.

CHAPTER 17

T
HE NEXT DAY
I made my way to a local coffeehouse and began my now-usual ritual of scanning the papers to learn what they had to say of me. The Whig papers were full of tales of Benjamin Weaver and his murder of Arthur Groston—murdered, it was suggested, as part of a plot orchestrated by both the Pretender and the pope. I should have found the accusation laughable had I not understood that most of the Englishmen who heard these claims did not find them so very absurd. There was no bugbear as frightening as the pope and his schemes to take away British liberties and replace them with an absolute and totalitarian regime, such as that which governed France.

The Tory papers, however, cried out with rage. No one but a Whig or a fool—which is much the same thing, they said—could believe that this note was authentic, that Weaver would leave a penned confession with the body. The anonymous author claimed to have corresponded with me in the past—certainly possible—and could assert that both my spelling and style were superior to those found in the murderous epistle. Someone, he claimed, though he stopped short of saying who, wished the world to believe this was a plot against the king when it was truly a plot against Tories.

It is, in general, an odd thing to reach some measure of fame and see one’s name bandied about in the newspapers. It is quite another to see oneself turned into a chess piece in a political match. I should call myself a pawn, but I feel that does some disservice to the obliqueness of my movements. I was a bishop, perhaps, sliding at odd angles, or a knight, jumping from one spot to another. I did not much like the feel of unseen fingers pinching me as I was moved from this square to that. It was in some ways flattering that this party or that might want to make me its ally or even its enemy. It was quite another that men, even unsavory men, might be killed in my name.

Such were my thoughts when I noticed that a boy of eleven or twelve years called out a name Mendes and I had chosen to use. “I ain’t to ask your true name,” he told me when I tipped him, “but to ask you if you might be expecting something from Mr. Mendes.”

“I am.”

He handed me the paper, I handed him a coin, and our transaction was finished. I opened the note, which said the following:

B.W.,

As you requested, I’ve made some inquiries, and I’m told you may find both men living in the same house, one belonging to a Mrs. Vintner on Cow Cross in Smithfield. Such is what I have heard, though I must tell you that my source all but came to me and struck me as overeager to provide the information. In short, you may find yourself being lured to this location. I leave it to your management. Yrs., &c,

Mendes

I stared at the note for some minutes, all the while suspecting that the person who was luring me to this location was Wild himself. Nevertheless, I felt confident that with a bit of caution I might be equal to whatever trap was laid for me. Consequently, I returned to Mrs. Sears’s house and transformed myself once more from Evans to Weaver. I then took myself to Smithfield and, after making an inquiry or two along Cow Cross, found the home of Mrs. Vintner.

I spent some time circling the premises to determine if anyone might have it under a watchful eye. I saw no sign of this. Certainly, enemies might lurk inside, but I would cross that bridge, as it is said, when I came to it.

I knocked upon the door and was greeted by an elderly lady who appeared both cheerful and frail. After a moment of conversation in which I ascertained that the two men, Spicer and Clark, were within doors, I felt confident that if ruffians or constables lay in wait for me, this lady knew nothing of it. She struck me as a simple, kindly woman incapable of duplicity.

I therefore followed her instructions to the fourth floor and waited for a moment before knocking upon the door. I heard no creaking of the floors, no shuffling of bodies. I smelled no amassing of bodies. Again, I felt confident that I might walk into the room without fear of attack. I therefore knocked and was told to enter.

When I did, I found Greenbill Billy waiting for me.

“D
on’t run,” he said quickly, holding out a hand as though to stay my fleeing. “There’s none here but me, and after the pummeling you gave my boys last time, I don’t have any inkling to try to take you myself. I only want a convocation with you, is all.”

I looked at Greenbill and tried to read his expression, but his face was so thin, his eyes so far apart, that nature had already affixed upon him a permanent countenance of astonishment. I knew I could not determine any more on top of that. I also knew, however, that if he wished to speak with me, it would be on my terms.

“If you want to talk to me, we’ll go somewhere else.”

He shrugged. “It’s all analogous to me. Where shall we go, then?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there. Speak not another word until I address you.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. He was very wide in his frame but surprisingly light, and he resisted me not at all. With him in advance that I might monitor his motions, I marched him down the stairs and through Mrs. Vintner’s kitchen, which smelled of boiled cabbage and prunes, exiting at the back of the house, which opened onto a little lane. There were no signs here that anyone watched us or planned to move against me, so I pushed Greenbill out to Cow Cross. My charge went merrily, with a silly grin upon his face, but he said nothing and questioned nothing.

I took him to John’s Street, where we hired a hackney with relative ease. In the coach, we continued on in silence, and the hackney soon brought us to a coffeehouse on Hatton Garden, where I shoved Greenbill inside and immediately hired a private room. Once we were secured with our drink—I never even entertained the idea of trying to obtain information from him without providing for his thirst—I chose to continue our chatter.

“Where are Spicer and Clark?” I asked.

He grinned like a simpleton. “That’s the thing, Weaver. They’re dead unto mortification. I heard it this morning from one of me boys. They’re lying in the upstairs of a bawd’s house in Covent Garden, with notes about their bodies saying you done it.”

I remained quiet for a moment. It could be that Greenbill had concocted this story, though I could not imagine why. The question was how he knew and why he cared to tell me of it. “Go on.”

“Well, word come down that Wild put it out that the two of them were to be found, and it didn’t take no clever thinking to realize who it was what wanted to see them. So after I heard they got killed, I thought I’d sit up in their rooms and wait for you myself. Not to take you for the bounty; I won’t try that again, I promise. No, though I tried to play you a decrepit turn before, I hoped I might now ask for your help.”

“My help in what?”

“In not getting killed, mostly. Don’t you see, Weaver? Folks you don’t much care for or who done you wrong since your trial are getting killed so as it can be blamed on you. As I laid ambush on you, it seemed to me I’m next.”

There was a certain logic to what he said. “And you want what of me? That I should protect you?”

“Nothing suchlike, I promise. I don’t know that you and I could much endure the confabulation of the other. I only want to hear what you know and think and see if that will keep me alive—or if I’ll have to leave London to effect that end.”

“You seem to know a great deal about all of this already. How were Spicer and Clark killed?”

He shook his head. “I hadn’t got those details. Only that they was killed and you were meant to have done the killing. No more than that. Except—” He looked off into the distance.

“By gad, Greenbill, this is not a stage play. Don’t think to be dramatic with me, or I’ll show you your bowels.”

“Now there’s no need for longitude. I was getting to it. With the bodies and the note they found a single white rose. If you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. What I don’t know is how you have all this information if you did not kill them—or Groston and Yate.”

“I got ears with which to be licentious, don’t I? I got loyal boys who tell me what they think I ought to know.”

I smiled. “How can you be so certain I didn’t do what these notes claim?”

“It don’t make sense, is all. You come hunting me down before to see what I know about it. Hardly seems to me that you done it.”

“And who do you think
has
done it?”

He shook his head again. “I haven’t any ideas whatsoever. That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

I studied his face in an effort to measure the degree of his dishonesty, for I could not believe that he was entirely honest in his claims. And yet I saw no reason not to proceed. “I cannot prove what I say, but it is my belief that the man behind the death of Yate, and therefore the other deaths, must be Dennis Dogmill. To my reckoning, there can be no other man who would want to see Yate dead and who would want to create havoc to be blamed upon the Jacobites—and the Tories by extension. Dogmill gets to remove Yate and promote the election of his man, Hertcomb.”

“Ha!” He slapped his hands together. “I knew it had to be that villain. He’s had it out for us gang leaders all along, you know. I ain’t surprised he went for Yate. But don’t it seem strange that he didn’t go after me first, what with my being more powerful and such?”

“I hardly know his reasoning. It seems to me that you must keep yourself apprised of Dogmill’s doings. Have you heard aught of this?”

“Not a word,” he told me. “It’s as quiet as can be. I ain’t heard nothing, which is why what you say surprises me. Believe me, I spend more than a share of my time keeping an eye on him and his doings. I can’t claim to have loved Yate, but he was a porter’s man like me, and if Dogmill goes about killing us, I want to know.”

“Would he have some reason for wishing an ill to Yate and not to you?”

“Yate was but a girl in pants, you know. He hardly knew how to press back against Dogmill. As for me, I held my ground with that fiend. I told him
no
when I meant
no,
and he understood the words when they come from my mouth and into his ear. I’m the man on the quays, Weaver. I’m the man who looks after the porters and tells Dogmill to heave to when he says there’s to be no more picking up the loose tobacco or no more taking a moment to catch the breath. I can’t see him going for Yate and not for me.”

I could little determine if Greenbill’s objection merely reflected his pride or if he had something of value to offer. “You cannot think of any reason for Dogmill to harbor a particular anger toward Yate?”

He shook his head. “It don’t make sense. Yate gave way under pressure, he did. Dogmill would’ve liked to have seen all the porters under Yate. Now he has to worry about them all working with me, and he can’t much like that. Besides, how would he have done it? Yate was killed in the midst of my boys. None of us saw him do it. None of us saw Dogmill—and you can best believe we’d have seen that villain in all his vapidity.”

“Surely he must have an agent to do his violent work.”

“None that I ever saw,” Greenbill said. “Believe me, we’ve had many a dealing with him that felt sour as a lemon, and he never once presented a rough or a Swiss to do his bidding. He thinks himself man enough to pummel and punch, and if there was any killing to be had, he’d have it for himself. Anything otherwise don’t come in line, to my thinking.”

I thought it well that my life did not depend on his thinking. I found it hard to believe that Dogmill would risk being seen about on such murderous errands, but it did seem odd to me that he never hired roughs on his own.

“And how is it you have Wild asking questions for you and such?” Greenbill now demanded to know. “I heard he put in a word on your behest at your trial, too. Have you and he come to be friends?”

“That would overstate the case. Wild and I are not friends, but he seems to bear some dislike for Dogmill. He offered to help me find Clark and Spicer, but I shall not seek his assistance again.”

“Quite wise, that. You don’t want him turning you in for the bounty.”

“Only a scoundrel would do that,” I agreed.

“An unkind characterization, but I shan’t dispute it. The posthumous question is what you will do now. Will you take out Dogmill?” he asked eagerly. “That should be a pretty piece of revenge. If he done what you say, cutting his throat should answer.”

It would seem that Greenbill wanted to turn me into his private assassin. I would exact my revenge on Dogmill, and Greenbill would be left with no real rival and no central authority in the tobacco trade. “I have neither the means to do so nor the desire.”

“But you can’t let him ruin you and go about sullying your name.”

I saw no reason to perpetuate this conversation. Greenbill clearly had no information for me, and I should gain nothing by entertaining his encouragement for murder. I thought for a moment to urge him to do the job himself, but then I thought he might take me up on it, and Dogmill would be of no use to me dead. I therefore stood and invited Greenbill to finish his ale and depart at his leisure.

“That’s it, then? You won’t do the manly thing with Dogmill?”

“I’ll not do as you suggest, no.”

“And what about me? Do I stay in London or flee?”

I had by now reached the door. “I see no reason for you to flee.”

“If I stay, don’t you think Dogmill might kill me?”

“He might,” I conceded, “but that is no concern of mine.”

I
had no love for the two men who had testified against me at my trial, but neither did I take pleasure in the news of their deaths. That the murderer should think fit to put the blame on my shoulders provided me with more reason for worry. And while I was reluctant to credit the words of a man like Greenbill, I found troubling his belief that Dogmill could not be my man.

There was but one person I knew of who might be of some small use to me. I therefore waited until darkness had just fallen and then, dressed as myself rather than as Mr. Evans, I slipped, via the window and alley, out of Mrs. Sears’s house and made my way to visit Mr. Ufford.

This time Barber, the manservant, admitted me at once, and gave me such a cold look that I determined I could not prolong this stay, for if he knew my true identity I cannot believe he would have hesitated to inform the nearest magistrate—whether in accordance with or in defiance of his master’s wishes, I could not say.