by Jon Clinch
“It was indefinite.”
“I did not mean it to be. I assure you of that.”
Of course you did, thinks Marley.
“When Ebenezer suggested that I should leave you a note, I just…”
“You were in a hurry. You didn’t think.”
“Precisely,” says Balfour. “Thank you for your understanding. At any rate…”
And here, Marley knows, is where it will begin.
“Recently, in the course of my work, I have come upon some information that I believe you’ll find of great interest.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Great interest, you say?”
“Very great.”
“Would this information be related to my business affairs?”
“Closely related.”
Which in truth comes as a relief to Marley. Although he has been as cautious as possible, his personal affairs—complex and colorful as they are—might bear up even less well to scrutiny. “I’m surprised you didn’t take this up with Ebenezer.”
“Well, yes. That is a fair question. As it happens, the matters at hand do not touch on the firm of Scrooge & Marley. They concern you only.”
“I don’t understand. My affairs are tightly bound with those of your brother-in-law.”
“Which is why I come to you, Jacob, as I would come to a member of my own family.”
“I am the one who has come to you, Harry.”
“Of course,” says Balfour, flustered right on cue. “The important part… what I meant was—”
“You intend to behave toward me as if I were family.”
“Yes.”
“And I thank you for it.”
Balfour flashes a smile then stands to retrieve an expanding leather case from a nearby bookshelf. “I’m sure there are good reasons for everything I’ve discovered. Perfectly sound explanations for all of it.”
“Certainly.”
Balfour opens the case. “I never let this collection out of my sight,” he says. “I’d hate to have it fall into the wrong hands.”
Marley nods.
He withdraws several documents, by no means the entire contents of the case. “I wanted to discuss this evidence with you before any… action might be taken.”
“Evidence? Action?”
“In good time.” He hands the documents to Marley.
They prove to be a varied lot of ordinary commercial paper—deeds, contracts, transfers, bills of sale. They are executed in any number of hands and inks, and they are signed and stamped and sealed as custom and law require. Their condition and apparent age vary greatly. They are forgeries, of course, forgeries one and all, of such high quality that at first glance Marley does not recognize them as the work of his own hands.
“What have these to do with me?”
“The firms, man! The firms!” He puts down the case and leans in to show Marley exactly what he is talking about, an indicative finger leaping eagerly from page to page. “Squeers & Trotter! Barnacle & Sons! Honeythunder & Grimwig!”
Marley purses his lips and marvels. “Why, these gentlemen are all my tenants,” he says.
“As are Dodson & Fogg, the solicitors behind every single one of these transactions!”
“But what of it? What have they done? Have they perpetrated some crime?”
“There is only one crime that interests the West Africa Squadron,” says Balfour. “You know very well what it is.”
“You don’t think…”
“I do.”
“Then I shall have a word with them. I can hardly be providing accommodations for a cabal of slavers and thieves.”
“In due time, Jacob, in due time. I shall send men around for them at the proper moment. Meanwhile, we must keep this between ourselves.”
“Of course.”
“Not a whisper.”
“No.”
“Not even to Scrooge.”
“No.”
“And stay on the lookout.”
“I will.”
“Watch for any irregularity.”
“Irregularity?”
“Some alteration of business practices, perhaps. A change of ownership. Worst of all, the closing of one of these businesses entirely.” Here he reaches into the case again, and withdraws a single document. “That’s what happened to these fellows.”
The document is a genuine one, recording the settlement of an insurance claim filed by Nemo & Hawdon against their lost cargo ship, the Marie. Marley takes it in both hands and with effort holds it steady.
“The ship sank, the claim was settled, and they closed their doors,” says Balfour. “They simply vanished without a trace. You do recall them, of course—these fellows Nemo and Hawdon?”
“I do.”
“I suspected as much. For in addition to acting as their landlord, you entered with them into certain other business dealings. According to the records.”
“I did.”
“Not unlike the additional dealings you had with these other disreputables. Honeythunder, Grimwig, and the rest.”
Only the smallest and most hesitant of nods from Marley.
“That said, might you recall exactly where the two principals—Mr. Nemo, Mr. Hawdon—went after they quit business?”
“I fear that I never knew.”
“Hmm. That’s a shame, really. Their trail has gone quite cold. I had hoped you might produce something that could set us on them again.”
“I am sorry.”
“Think nothing of it. My agents are unearthing new information all the time. Slowly, quietly, I am putting the picture together.” He takes the settlement paper and returns it to the leather case. “We have just learned, for example, that the Marie was never wrecked at all.” He gives Marley a hard look. “Quite the contrary. She was rechristened in secret and sold to an America firm. The entire business was a fraud from start to finish.”
“A fraud, was it? Hence your interest in Nemo and Hawdon.”
“Heavens, no. Fraud is a matter for the police, not for the West Africa Squadron.”
“I see.”
“Our aim is far larger, and our means are equal to it. I can tell you in confidence that the Marie—now the Mariel—is at this very moment moored off the Slave Coast, giving up her secrets one by one.”
“Best of luck to you, then,” says Marley, as if he means it. The room seems to have gone cold around him.
Balfour tucks the case beneath his arm, stands up, and returns to his desk. “One more thing before you go,” he says.
Marley rises too. “And that would be?”
“The investigation will take its course in the months ahead. Such connections as exist among these villains—and others like them—will be revealed. The business will end, I assure you, with exposure and disgrace and imprisonment.”
“I should hope that you are correct.”
“I am,” says Balfour. “And with that in mind, I counsel you as I would counsel a brother seated at my own hearth. Look to your affairs, Jacob. Clean your house. It’s time.”
* * *
The halls are empty when Marley makes his exit. Empty and cold and echoing.
He lingers in an abandoned square as the sun goes down and the lights go up. Clinging to the shadows, he watches the building and he waits. At last Balfour appears, bundled against the cold, that leather case gripped tight beneath his arm. He was telling the truth about that—how he guards it with his person. As for the rest of his tale, who knows how much was gospel and how much was guesswork? Marley cannot say.
He follows Balfour as he makes his way home along the riverfront, trailing along the street behind him in the scattered darkness, and when the man is safely behind his own door—there are signs of gaiety within, piano music, the shout of a happy child, a surprising glimpse of the profile of Ebenezer himself—he turns away into the darkness, for work awaits him yet.
Supposing that Balfour is telling the truth and that the Marie does indeed
lie in irons off the coast of Africa, what then has become of her crew? They’ve been arrested, no doubt. Arrested and brought home to stand trial and face their punishment. This surely won’t be the first time some of them have seen the inside of a prison. All the same, it’s unlikely that the courts will find reason to charge them all. As captain and first mate, Grommet and Flee will certainly be held. But the rest of the Marie’s crew—from her laudanum-addled surgeon and her one-eyed carpenter down to the ruined run of her common seamen—will likely be let go. Some of those individuals may have even bought themselves clemency by testifying against one another, or against Bildad and Peleg, their fictitious employers. Fictitious Americans, at that. Marley congratulates himself that having made them so was a stroke of brilliance. Letting Balfour chase them for a while will buy him time.
Going over these things in his mind, Marley passes a house or two where he could find shelter for the night and even a kind of commercial comfort, but he strides on. At an intersection he encounters a carriage spilling out its burden of high-spirited celebrants onto the frozen street, and he inquires of the driver as to his availability for hire. Soon enough, his mind racing far faster than the carriage, he is at his own gate. He pays the man to wait—overpays, really, out of necessity and a manufactured semblance of the Christmas spirit—and admits himself. Once inside the house, he makes for his secret workshop without delay.
The time has come for Bildad and Peleg, his two imaginary Quakers, to commit their final act.
It is to take the form of a letter—a letter he has been composing in his mind all the ride home. He settles upon his stool, chooses a sheet of the highest-quality vellum, and uncorks a pot of his customary disappearing ink. The message he has in mind uses elevated language and a bit more of it than most businessmen would find necessary, and it employs the biblical thee and thou so beloved by individuals of Bildad and Peleg’s sect. It is worded so as to be doubly and triply clear to even the most ignorant reader, and it concludes with an assurance of payment sufficient to get the attention of any man in London.
When the ink is dry he folds the sheet and seals it within an envelope addressed using ordinary ink in that same careful hand, and then he addresses a second, larger envelope into which he inserts the first. This he directs to himself—not himself, of course, but the individual whose role he shall play in the hours to come—and then, after he has given it signs of wear and transit, he returns to the carriage.
* * *
The denizens of this dockside tavern are in a boisterous mood as Christmas Eve ebbs away into Christmas morning. The arrival among their number of a tall, slender, and anonymous gentleman goes unnoticed until he makes his way to the bar and quite loudly orders drinks all around.
“To what do we owe your generosity?” asks the barkeep in the silence that ensues.
“Credit the Christmas spirit!” says Marley. “That, and instructions from certain wealthy Americans.”
“Wealthy Americans,” sneers some ingrate. “What sort of wealthy Americans would buy a round for the likes of us?”
“The sort with an interest in locating the crew of the Mariel.”
A gasp or two.
“Now, would any of those gentlemen be among us this evening?”
“Gentlemen,” scoffs the barkeep.
“I’m being kind,” says Marley. “Generosity is the soul of the season, is it not?”
The barkeep occupies himself.
“By disputing their gentlemanly character, sir, are you suggesting that these persons are known to you?”
“The crew of the Mariel? By God, yes.”
“And have you an idea where I might find them?”
“One or two might be upstairs, sleeping it off,” he says with a thrust of his head. “First room on the left.”
Marley goes. In the room he finds a bed and in the bed he finds an ancient skeleton clad only in ragged trousers and a moth-eaten stocking cap. He locates a candle and lights it and positions it so as to ascertain whether the skeleton is yet breathing. Why yes, yes it is. He taps it upon the shoulder and steps back.
The skeleton sits up, blinking against the candlelight.
“You’ve served aboard the Mariel?”
“I have, sir.” The skeleton stretches its long jaws in a shuddering yawn.
“Name?”
“Stitch, sir. Edgar.” The skeleton squints.
“Duties?”
“Cabin boy, sir.” The skeleton adjusts its old bones.
“Cabin boy. Seems unlikely.”
“Many aspects of the Mariel was unlikely, sir.”
Marley sets the candle on a rickety table alongside the bed and draws up a chair. He places upon his knee the set of envelopes he has prepared. “Are you in contact with your shipmates, Mr. Stitch?”
“Them as remains in the vicinity.”
“I assume that some have hired on with other ships?”
“Some. Work is terrible hard to find, sir.” Stitch fastens his hollow-eyed glare upon the envelope, his lips moving as he reads what is written there. “You’d be Mr. Micawber, then?”
“The very same.”
“I know you. Leastways I know your name.”
“Then you know of my connection with Mr. Bildad and Mr. Peleg.”
“I do. Captain Grommet cursed you as regular as he cursed them.”
An apologetic smile from the amiable Mr. Micawber.
“The captain’ll be off to Newgate soon enough. I suppose you know.”
“I do.”
“Flee as well. Some others.” A tear seems to be coalescing in Stitch’s eye. “Them old bastards’ll die in the nick.”
“I can do nothing for them,” says Marley. “However, I have a fair proposition for you, and for any of your shipmates whose purses may seem a bit light at the moment.”
Stitch dabs at his eyes with the wretched bed linens.
Marley opens the outer envelope and withdraws the inner. “For the veterans of the Mariel,” he reads from its face. “That would be you.”
Stitch takes the envelope and draws out its contents into the candlelight. The vellum is blank, bearing here and there only the faintest imprint of a quill’s touch. “You’re a cruel man,” says Stitch, his hopes dashed. “A cruel man working for men who are crueler still.”
“Despair not, friend. For reasons of confidentiality, my employers make a practice of sending their most sensitive orders in this way.” He commandeers the paper by one corner and draws it toward the flame. “ ’Tis disappearing ink, you see.” Stitch’s eyes go wide as the letters appear, and when the sheet seems ready to erupt into flame Marley pulls it away. He peruses it quickly before handing it over.
Stitch reads the message once, twice, and then once again for good measure. His eyes go wide. “That’d be a heap of money for such a job, Mr. Micawber.”
“I should say—and the same pay for every man who has a hand in it. The owners must quite desire the thing done.”
“Not a pound up front, though?”
Marley takes the letter, turns it his way, and studies it. He shakes his head. “No, not a pound, and I must say that I’m not surprised. You know how these affairs go. The funds change hands when the matter is accomplished.”
“That sort of arrangement is what keeps ones such as me in a state such as this.”
“Very well,” says Marley. “If you choose not to take the job…” He holds the page over the candle again, more closely this time, and it vanishes in a burst of smoke and soot.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then you vow that you’ll do it?”
“I do. I will. And I’ll have no trouble finding help—not for that pay.”
“Excellent,” says Marley, rising and preparing to make his exit. “I shall advise Mr. Bildad and Mr. Peleg that the good ship Mariel shall be burnt to the waterline with all practical haste.”
He leaves Stitch alone to his plotting and his dreams, and he creeps silently down the stairs. At the bo
ttom he steals a glance into the tavern, where the men are just now finishing his earlier round. He could slip away now, abscond unseen, but instead he has another go.
“One more for every man!” he calls out to the barkeep, and when the fellow turns to his work Marley vanishes into the night. It’s Christmas, after all. Let them have their fill, so long as it is not at his expense.
1819
Twenty-Nine
The year has turned and the seasons have changed and Marley has been awaiting word of the Mariel’s fate with mingled anxiety and sorrow. Her loss shall be very nearly incalculable. She has been his private property for a long while now, and over those years she has provided the steadiest and purest of profits, costing him nothing in the way of fees or licenses or, God forbid, upkeep. And now, thanks to that accursed Balfour, she is lost. She was lost to him before he ordered her set afire—moored thousands of miles away on the Slave Coast, utterly beyond hope of recovery.
At least now she will tell no tales to Balfour and his men.
Marley sets down the newspaper. Her destruction cost him nothing, of course. He must take comfort in that. Besides, the simple fact that Stitch or Snitch or whoever he was could even locate her serves to confirm that at least a significant portion of Balfour’s story was true. Marley must take all of it seriously, then. He must presume that Balfour believes himself close to discovering the remainder of his slaving connections and then throwing him straight into Newgate with Grommet and Flee and the rest.
No doubt he plans to do so in the kindly manner he would employ if Marley were an actual member of the family.
On the other hand, Balfour did seem sincere in promising a means of escape. Clean your house, he said. It was an opportunity couched in a warning. All Marley needs to do is wash his hands of the slaving business, and Balfour will see that he does not suffer for his criminal history. No doubt that was why he made it clear that he carries those documents upon his person at all times. He is keeping them out of the general investigation, giving Marley the time he needs to make amends.
But he will not wait forever. That was clear.
