by David Liss
“Most men,” I said, “are willing to part with a few pounds if it will save the life of a person they love. And it is you who are threatened here, not me. It is time you recognized that.”
“You think I have nothing more to show for myself than bluster?” he asked. “You’ve tasted a small portion of my wrath, you may recall. But I have more than that.” He turned to Hertcomb. “Have Mr. Gregor walk in.”
Hertcomb rose and disappeared for a moment, only to return with a tall thin gentleman in tow. He smiled at me and took a seat.
“You know this gentleman, I believe?” Dogmill said.
“I do,” I answered, for the gentleman in question was Elias Gordon.
“Mr. Gregor here is willing to swear out an arrest warrant for the theft of some notes you took from his home in Jamaica. So you see, you are very much in my power.”
“Would you do what he threatens, Mr. Gregor?”
Elias was nervous, but he appeared to be enjoying himself. There was something of the dramatic in this performance, and he could not help but indulge. “I think you know quite well what I am willing to do,” he said.
I did know, for he had already done it. He had convinced Dogmill of the urgency of the danger against Grace. I had wanted the matter resolved at once, and Elias had strolled into Dogmill’s house to make certain this would happen.
“You see, you have no options,” Dogmill said. “You must do what I tell you, or you will be destroyed.”
“Well,” I said, “as that is the case, we may yet work for ourselves a compromise. I am willing to forgo any demands of wealth, given the dire nature of my situation. What say you to exchanging your sister for some mere information. Does that trouble you so much?”
He blinked a few times as he attempted to make sense of my proposal. “What information?” he demanded.
“Information regarding Walter Yate,” I said.
Here Greenbill turned flush and something I could not quite identify flashed across Dogmill’s face. “What should I know of it?”
I shrugged. “Something, I hope, if you wish to see your sister again.”
“Why is this important to you?” he demanded.
“Idle curiosity,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “If you tell me why you had him killed, and a few other details, I shall free your sister. It is as simple as that.”
“I had him killed?” Dogmill repeated. “You must be mad.”
“Perhaps I must.” I finished my wine and set down the goblet. “I shall be off, then. You may leave a note here in the next forty-eight hours if you should happen to change your mind. If not, you can depend upon never seeing Miss Dogmill again.” With that I rose to my feet and began toward the door.
Greenbill now walked over to block my way.
“I shall not let you leave,” Dogmill said to me. “I cannot endure that my sister is in your hands, and you shan’t leave here without telling me where she is. You may speak of all the forty-eight hours you like, but one way or another, sir, this will end tonight.”
I smiled at him, a pitying sort of smile. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that I work alone. Mr. Gregor can attest to my cleverness, I believe.”
“He is remarkable clever,” Elias said. “You had better hear him out.”
Dogmill glared at him but turned back to me. He bit his lip while he attempted to think of what he could say to make me remain in this room on his terms rather than mine, but in the end he came up with nothing. Thus far, my plan continued to work.
“Speak your wretched proposal,” he said at last, “and hope it saves your life.”
“Very generous. Now, you must know that if I do not return to my set meeting place at a given time, my associates have instructions to move Miss Dogmill to a location they have not told me of. If they do not hear from me in one day, they are to remove Miss Dogmill from the miseries of this world. You may, therefore, threaten to torment me until I reveal what you want to know, but I believe myself strong enough to last until the first time of crisis that I mentioned, and once that time has passed, you will never be able to find your sister again unless I am at liberty and wish for you to find her. So I tell you, sir, get your dog from my path. Either treat me like a man now or be resolved to do so another day, but I shan’t endure this bullying.”
Greenbill stared at me, and Dogmill at Hertcomb. Hertcomb stared at his shoes.
Finally, Dogmill let out a sigh. “Damn you, you rogue. I shall tell you what you want, but you must know that it can do you no good. If you wish to use this information against me, it will be worth nothing, for the testimony of a single witness has no weight in court, and the testimony of a man such as you is worth less than nothing.”
“Perhaps,” I said, resuming my seat, “but that is my concern and none of yours. I only wish to hear what you have to say for yourself in the matter regarding Walter Yate. You have my word that if you speak to me openly and honestly, you will see your sister’s safe return this night.”
At long last, Dogmill took a seat at the table, and Hertcomb sheepishly joined him. Greenbill, for his part, remained at the door, looking very much like a goose awaiting the season of the Christian nativity.
“You had Walter Yate murdered by your friend Billy, here,” I began. “Is that not so?”
Dogmill smiled thinly. “Wherever did you get such an idea?”
I returned the smile. “From Billy. A few nights past, I knocked him down, affected an Irish accent, and asked him a question or two. He was most accommodating.”
“I don’t care what this blackguard says,” Hertcomb interjected. “You may depend that gentlemen do not engage in murder and deception. That is the province of the likes of you.”
“If you are so troubled, Hertcomb, I will tell you that I am sorry I wounded your tender heart,” I said, “but your heart has nothing to do with this. Gentlemen are much more brutish creatures than you would allow.”
Dogmill, for his part, was glaring at Greenbill. I could see what happened inside his churning Whig mind. Why had Greenbill not confessed this mysterious nocturnal interrogation? That he had not done so had put Dogmill at risk, and I could not but doubt that he would, in exchange, provide Billy with very little shelter.
“I don’t know what this rough told you, but you may depend that he had very little to do with Yate’s demise. It is true that he had been causing difficulties for me, but I only asked that Billy silence him. I never specified how that might happen.”
“Surely you must have known that murder might be one method used.”
“I never thought about it. I neither knew nor cared, and frankly I still don’t. I cannot say why you do.”
“I have my reasons, I promise you. Do you mean to tell me that Billy never once spoke of his dealings to you?”
“We spoke of it. What is it to you? Do you think to confuse the world with these tales that no one will believe? Do you think that if you cannot extort me into paying for my sister’s safety you can do so in order to protect me from scandal? You know me not at all if you think that.”
“I know you as well as I care to,” I said. “I only want now to know your motivations. Why did you have Yate killed?”
“I asked Greenbill to remove Yate from my sight,” he corrected, “because the fellow was a nuisance and a troublemaker. He and his labor combination with its communist notions was too great a danger to my business.”
“Come, now. Was there not some matter of Yate’s knowing of the existence of a Jacobite spy among the Whigs?”
For once, I believe I had truly unbalanced Dogmill. “Where did you hear that?”
“Your problem, Dogmill, is that you have no regard for laboring men. You think them no more than beasts to be driven and tormented and consumed. But unlike beasts, these men have the gift of speech, and they talk freely. By listening to them one can learn a great deal.”
“Perhaps it is so, but I shan’t listen to leveling cant from an abductor of women.”
“I prefer to t
hink of myself as a redistributor of wealth,” I said, thoroughly enjoying this role I had adopted. “But you have evaded the question. Did you believe that Yate knew of a Jacobite spy?”
“He came to me and told me that he knew of one, and he wanted money from me in exchange for revealing the name. In other words, he was but a vile extorter, much like yourself.”
“And did you come to terms with Mr. Yate?”
“Of course not. I do not deal with men who resort to extortion.”
“No? Not even when they are your own men? Did you not have Mr. Greenbill here send threatening notes to a priest named Ufford?”
Dogmill and Greenbill exchanged looks.
“You are mightily well informed,” Dogmill told me, “though I cannot imagine what this information will do for you. I had him send a note or two to the meddling Jacobite priest. What of it?”
“As to that, you need not concern yourself. But let us return to the matter of the Whig conspirator. You were content that you should never learn his identity?”
“I did not believe that Yate knew anything. He only wished to squeeze some money from me.”
“But you had him killed regardless.”
“This is but a matter of semantics. If I send a man out to fetch me a new snuffbox, would you call me to account if the man knocked down an innocent to steal what I had sent him to buy? Now, you’ve asked me your questions, so let me ask mine. When shall I see my sister?”
I said nothing.
He stepped forward. “Listen to me. I have indulged you; now you will tell me what I want to know. When shall I see my sister?”
I must have waited too long to answer, because he slammed his palm down on the table. “I have had enough of this,” he said. “If you think I shall simply let you walk out of here in the hopes that you return my sister unharmed, you are sadly mistaken. I thought to beat the information out of you, but I cannot risk anything so bold, so we shall instead take a ride to the magistrate’s office. You’ll soon find you have little to gain by remaining quiet.”
“Perhaps,” I said merrily. “But on what charges shall you bring me to the magistrate? You cannot prove that I have done anything with your sister.”
“I have these letters,” Dogmill said, slamming them down on the table.
I felt that the moment to reveal all was now at hand. “Those letters reveal both less and more than you have realized.” I picked them up and held them out to Dogmill. “Examine them once more, if you please. I hope that if you look at all four at once, you will notice something you have not before observed.”
Dogmill looked at them and then Hertcomb. Both shook their heads. They saw nothing.
“Perhaps I did a better job than I realized,” I said. “Look at the hand.”
And then Dogmill’s eyes went large. He moved from one sheet to the next, until he had examined all four letters. “They are written in the same hand. It is disguised in each, but it is the same hand.”
“In truth,” I said, “I wrote those letters. They are a fabrication. The gentlemen you contacted never received your messages.”
“You speak nonsense,” Dogmill stammered. “Mr. Gregor here can testify to that.”
Elias rose and walked over to where I stood—no doubt so that he would stand less of a chance of being pummeled by Dogmill.
“Mr. Gregor,” he explained, “is also not what he seems, and is here to bear witness to something far different. So, you see, we have two men now to testify to what has been said. Your case is much harder than you’ve suspected.”
I grinned at Dogmill. “Your lovely sister was kind enough to provide me with the notes you wrote to your Jamaica acquaintances, and my friend Mr. Gordon was good enough to impersonate a Jamaican you have never met in the flesh. Of course, Miss Dogmill is unharmed and was never in any danger. She is not my victim but my confederate. I asked her to remain hidden for a few days, that I might be able better to perpetrate this fraud. You will find her with her cousin on Southampton Row. You may rest assured that she removed herself there voluntarily and without duress. Her sole aim was to assist me in my plans.”
“And why should she do so?”
“Because she is fond of me,” I said.
“She is fond of an impostor, though I have no idea who you be in truth. A Jacobite spy? The one they call Johnson?”
I laughed. “Nothing so remarkable, I assure you.”
“Then say who you are and speak what you want. I grow tired of this masquerade.”
I then leaned forward slightly, removed my hat, and plucked off my wig, allowing my natural hair to fall back behind me. “You used your influence to see me wrongly convicted. I will now ask that you use your influence to have that conviction overturned.”
It was Greenbill who recognized me. “I thought I knowed you from somewhere,” he said. “It’s Weaver.”
Dogmill’s jaw dropped. “Weaver,” he repeated. “Under our nose all this time.” He now looked at Greenbill and back at me. And he smiled. “Well, you’ve got yourself a bit of a problem, Weaver. You see, if it’s evidence exonerating you that you sought, you are a man short, for you cannot stand witness in charges leveled against you. Your friend’s testimony in this matter won’t serve you much good if he cannot corroborate it. Your voice will count for nothing, as you are implicated in these matters, so you might as well have remained hidden and far from me. I think I shall resolve this evening by bringing you to a magistrate, collecting a nice bounty, and forgetting about you. My sister might have been beguiled by you, but her sympathy won’t save you from the hangman.”
It was then that the door opened, and, as per our arrangement, Abraham Mendes walked in. He had no weapons drawn, but there were pistols visible in his pockets. He meant to make an impressive entrance, and with his bulky form and ugly scowl he did just that.
“No,” said Mendes, “but my oath will. I heard all that was said, and I’m afraid you’ve got some difficulties now, Dogmill, for you’ve two men who will substantiate Weaver’s claims, and all the Whiggish courts in the world can’t deny justice now.”
I could not restrain a simper. “Your position is not so strong as you once thought.”
“Mendes.” Dogmill spat. “This is some ruse by Jonathan Wild, then?”
“Mr. Wild ain’t complaining, but Weaver asked me to stop by, and I did it as a favor to him mostly.”
“You see, the matter is quite turned now,” I said. “I think you should look rather shabby before the courts when you have Mr. Wild, the thieftaker general, sending his lieutenant to testify against you.”
“It is a sad thing,” Mendes observed, “much like the tragedies of the stage. Once all of this is revealed, Mr. Melbury will have the advantage.”
Greenbill’s lips trembled, for he understood at once that he was to stand sacrifice for his master’s whims. “You bleeding curs,” he said. “I’ll negotiate your throats in my hands.”
“I for one,” I announced, “am getting quite tired of your misuse of words.”
He grinned. “Well, I do it on purpose, don’t I? It puts the likes of you quite off the mark in estimating me.”
“I don’t feel as though I’ve missed the mark,” Mendes said. “As you’ll find out when you come to your uncomfortable end at the bottom of a rope.”
“The only uncomfortable end is your arse, you buggering Jews,” he said, and raised his pistol at Mendes, fully prepared to eliminate my corroborating witnesses. Hertcomb and Dogmill shouted out, and with good reason—it is never wise to fire a pistol at such close quarters unless one be utterly indifferent to whom it might strike—and Elias opened his mouth in a pantomime of horror. Greenbill for all I knew was full of such indifference, but the rest of us were not, and we all dropped to the floor—all of us but Mendes, who appeared utterly indifferent to the prospect of a ball in his chest. The lead, however, hastily fired by an unsteady hand, missed its target entirely, lodging itself instead in the wall, where it propelled outward a nimbus of dust an
d smoke and chips of wood.
We all of us breathed our relief, but the duel was but half over. Seeing that Greenbill had spent his shot, Mendes retrieved a pistol from his pocket and returned fire, far more successfully than his opponent. Greenbill attempted to dodge the ball, but Mendes had either a better hand or better luck, and his adversary went down upon the floor. Within seconds a pool had begun to form around his neck.
He pressed his hand to the wound. “Help me,” he gasped. “Damn you all, get me a surgeon.”
We remained motionless for a moment, for there was not a superfluity of sympathy for Greenbill in that room. Mendes could hardly have cared if a man who had just tried to shoot him should be gathered to his fathers, Dogmill must surely have realized that the blackguard was of more use to him dead than alive, and I, for my part, felt that this man had received no more than he deserved.
“Is no one going to fetch a surgeon?” Hertcomb asked at last.
“What’s the use?” Dogmill said. “He’ll be dead before one gets here.”
Elias had only now recovered his senses. “I’m a surgeon,” he recalled, and began to rush toward the fallen man.
“No.” Dogmill stood between Elias and Greenbill. “You’ve done enough harm for one night. Stand back.”
“He’s a surgeon,” Mendes said, with apparent boredom. “He’s not lying. Let him through.”
“I presume he’s not lying,” Dogmill said, “but he will have to pass me to administer to that man.”
Elias turned to me, but I was disinclined to interfere. Here, after all, was more evidence against Dogmill if we needed it, and as to the porter—well, I could not but think that he deserved no better than he got.
Greenbill, groaning in pain as he was, seemed to understand that Dogmill stood between him and his only chance at life. He attempted to say something but could not, and his breath began to come out rasping and wet. We stood in silence for three or four minutes, listening to Greenbill’s gurgling breath, and then there was silence.
