A Spectacle of Corruption Page 16

  “Do you really think he could?”

  “I could,” Mendes said, without a hint of good-natured teasing. “But you need not fear. And I might add that I am willing to go where Wild is not. This must remain between us, but if you do find yourself in need, you may safely call on me.”

  I studied his deep-set eyes. “And why is that?”

  He took a breath. “I told you that when we first began to inquire into Dogmill’s doings, I was the one who went forth to learn the lay of the land. It would seem that, because I engaged in the reconnoiter, I became the target of Dogmill’s anger. I had a dog back then, a wondrous beast called Blackie. These two are very fine dogs, make no mistake of it.” He paused to pet them, that they might not feel neglected. “Yes, these are good animals, but Blackie was a great friend. I was used to taking him to the tavern with me and on my way. Though he had the heart of a lamb, the sight of him drove fear into the hearts of all who opposed us. And then one day he was gone.”

  “You think taken by Dogmill.”

  “I know it. I received a note not a week later in which the anonymous writer detailed how poorly Blackie had acquitted himself in the dogfighting pits of Smithfield. Dogmill was not mentioned, but he is known to have a taste for blood sport, and there was no misunderstanding the message. Dogmill meant for us to keep away from him and his business. He made a point of discovering what he could about us and so learned of my fondness for my dog. It took all of Wild’s protestations and a dozen men to hold me down, to convince me not to murder the blackguard. But Wild promised me Dogmill’s time would come, so I will do what I can for you, Weaver, to make that time come the sooner.”

  “How did he get the dog out from under your nose?”

  “Do you remember a fellow that used to travel with Wild, a funny-looking Irishman called Onionhead O’Neil?”

  “Yes, a peculiar fellow with orange whiskers. What ever became of him?” I asked, but then I knew the answer at once. “I suppose nothing good.”

  “Onionhead thought it worth a few shillings to side with Dogmill against a helpless beast. I had no mercy on such a one as he. And I can have no mercy on Dogmill. If you want my help, Weaver, you need but let me know.”

  CHAPTER 10

  ON THE AGREED-UPON day, I visited Mr. Swan, who had my first suit, with an assortment of shirts and hose and linen ready for me. Swan had taken the liberty of collecting the wigs from his brother-in-law, and he assured me that he would have two more suits for me by the end of the week. I could only imagine that he had been working through the nights and would continue to do without sleep.

  I suppose I should have donned these clothes with a certain sense of wonder, but the truth is I dressed with no more ceremony than I usually reserved for so mundane an act. All, however, was much to my liking. I examined with pleasure my dark-blue velvet coat with large silver buttons. The shirt was well laced, the breeches finely shaped. I tried on the first wig, which was of a bob variety, different enough from my own hair, which I wore in the style of a tie wig. Only when I looked in the mirror did I feel anything new. I must admit, I hardly knew myself.

  I turned to Swan and inquired of the good tailor what monies I owed him.

  “Not a thing, Mr. Weaver. Not a thing,” he said.

  “You go too far,” I told him. “You have obliged me by doing this work. I cannot ask you to shun payment as well.”

  Swan shook his head. “You are not a man in a state of luxury to offer payment where none is required,” he said. “When you put these difficulties behind you, perhaps then you might come see me and we will discuss a bill.”

  “At least,” I proposed, “allow me to reimburse you for the raw materials. I should hate to see you lose so much money on my behalf.”

  Mr. Swan was a kindly man, but he could not deny the justice of this offer, so he took some of my money, though he did so with a heavy heart.

  With my costume in place, I went out into the city to begin ordering Matthew Evans’s affairs. I have disguised myself as a gentleman before, so this was no new experience to me, but I now thought myself on an entirely new footing, a new level of deception. On previous occasions I had masqueraded as a man of quality for an hour or two and usually in dark places such as coffee shops or taverns. Never before had I attempted a fraud of this nature in broad daylight and for a period that, if I was honest with myself, could last weeks—even months.

  Now that I could perpetuate the fraud of my new self, I knew it was time to find a place to lodge. After reading through the papers and examining a number of prospects, I settled on an only slightly less than fashionable house on Vine Street. The space was adequately comfortable, but I required more than comfort. I looked for rooms with at least one window that overlooked an alley or blind street. This window should not be very high up, and it should be accessible to a man climbing in, just as the street should be accessible to a man climbing out. In a word, I wished to be able to get in and out of my lodgings without anyone’s knowing it.

  The house I found had a set of three rooms one flight above the ground floor. One window did indeed overlook a blind alley, and the brickwork was ragged enough that I should have little trouble making my way to and fro.

  Much like the innkeeper where I had been staying, my landlady thought it quite strange that I had no belongings, but I explained that I had recently arrived from the West Indies and had arranged for my effects to be sent ahead of me. Much to my dismay, they had not yet arrived, and I was getting by as best I could in the meantime. This aroused both her sympathy and her sense of narrative, and she told me three separate stories of former tenants who had been separated from their trunks.

  I admit the rooms on Vine Street were none the most pleasant, and if my single desire had been to gain as much enjoyment from my masquerade as I might, I should have looked for housing elsewhere. The rooms themselves were shabby and thick with dust. The rags stuffed by the windows did little to stanch the cruel draft that came in from outside; the snow had melted through and then frozen the rags solid. The furnishings were old, often broken or breaking, and the Turkey rugs throughout the house were all worn to the threads in one or two places.

  Nevertheless, since location and convenience were more pressing concerns for me, I was willing to live with these shabby rooms. More to the point, I don’t believe my landlady knew her rooms were run-down. When she showed me the space, she spoke of it as though she truly believed there to be no finer house in London—and I was perfectly willing to allow her to continue in her beliefs.

  This lady, Mrs. Sears, was a thoroughly reprehensible Frenchwoman. I am not subject to the common prejudice that all the French are disagreeable, but here was someone who made a poor ambassador of her race. She was as short as a child, shaped like an egg, and her ruddy cheeks and poor balance suggested to me that she was a bit overly fond of her drink. None of this would have troubled me had she not demonstrated a horrific urge to converse with me. When I first discussed terms with her, she lured me in part by announcing that her house had a small collection of books, which her tenants were welcome to peruse so long as they were careful not to harm them and replaced them promptly. Now that I found myself, for the first time in days, in a comfortable place, I thought nothing would be more gratifying than to pass an hour or two in a relaxed state with an engaging volume. Sadly, to retrieve the treasure, I first had to slay the dragon of chatter.

  “Oh, Mr. Evans,” she called out to me, in the unflattering accent with which her nation is afflicted, “I see you are a lover of words, as I am. Allow me to walk you through my little library.”

  “I would not so impose on your time,” I assured her.

  “It is no imposition,” she said, and had the audacity to take me by the arm and lead me forward. “You must tell me first, though, about life on Jamaica. I hear it is a very strange place. I have a cousin who lives in Martinique, and she tells me it is very hot. Is Jamaica hot? I think it must be.”

  “Quite hot,” I assured her, call
ing upon the memory of what I had read and heard of those lands. “The air there is most unwholesome.”

  “I have known it. I have.” Though we now stood before her bookcases, she still did not let go of me. If anything, she dug in even deeper with her thick fingers. “It is no place for a handsome man to live. It is much better here. My husband, you know, was an Englishman just like you, but now he is dead. He is dead some ten years.”

  I thought to propose that they must have been his most satisfying ten years since he was born, but I held my tongue.

  “And they say you are a bachelor, yes? I have heard you are worth a thousand a year.”

  Where had she heard I was worth so absurdly large an amount? Still, the rumor could do me no harm, and I saw no reason to deny it. “Madam, I do not discuss such matters.”

  She now released my arm and instead took my hand. “Oh, you need not be shy with me, Mr. Evans. I will not think the less of you for your fortune. No, I won’t. I know a girl or two, very agreeable girls, I might add, and with no small fortunes of their own, who might make you a very pretty adornment. And what if they are my cousins? What if they are?”

  I hardly knew how to answer this question, but I thought that if I was to be entrenched in intercourse with this lady, I might as well put her to some use.

  “What,” I asked her, “do you know of this Weaver fellow, who appears to have created such a stir?”

  “Oh, he is a very bad man,” she said. “A very bad man. A Jew, so it is no surprise he is full of murder and rage. I have a picture of him here,” she said, and quickly retrieved from the next room a broadside that depicted my prison escape. I had not seen this one before, but its likeness was no better than the ones I had examined. She would no more recognize me from that image than she would from her own reflection.

  “From what I have read,” I ventured, “opinions of his goodness or badness seem to be marked along political lines.”

  “I care nothing for politics,” she said. “I understand nothing of these English parties. These names—Whigs and Tories—make my head spin. I only know I wish he would be catched soon, or he might attack again. And not just men, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, yes. He is very cruel to the ladies. I do not feel safe walking the streets with him out there. He might very well grab me and throw me down.”

  I looked her up and down. “He very well might,” I ventured, which effectively put an end to our conversation.

  As planned, I met Elias at the next tavern on our list. He was there when I arrived, and perhaps he was merely flattering me, but he appeared not to notice me when I walked through the door and approached him. Only as I grew very close did his gaze pause on me for a moment, and his eyes narrowed before he offered me an enormous grin.

  “Matthew Evans,” he said, with no little joy. “It is good to see you.” He looked me up and down, as though I were an expensive strumpet, and grinned so broadly he verged on metamorphosing into a grotesque. “I must say, you’ve fine taste in clothing.”

  “You are kind to say so.”

  “Really, we must take a moment to celebrate my cleverness. Your appearance could not be more perfect. I am quite convinced that I am the greatest thinker of our time.”

  “To know you is to feel the same,” I assured him.

  “You mock me, but I must inform you that I have this very day shown the first portion of my manuscript, ‘The Lively Adventures of Alexander Claren, Surgeon,’ to a very notable bookseller in Grub Street, and he thinks it may answer quite nicely. He sees no reason that it should not be every bit as popular as the tales of Robinson Crusoe or Moll Flanders.”

  “I wish you luck of it,” I said, “but you will forgive me if your literary adventures are not foremost on my mind.”

  “Of course, of course. You are ever preoccupied with yourself, I know. If you wish to talk about your interests instead of mine—all this running from the law and such—I will certainly understand.”

  We called for drink and food, and after a few minutes Elias ceased his simpering over my appearance. “Well,” he said, “if we are to talk about you, let us do so. It is time we began the business.”

  “And how do we do this?”

  “There are a number of things that I’ve been pondering. First of all, I imagine you have seen the political news.”

  “I have. I wanted your opinion on that.”

  “Nothing but what might have been anticipated. Your escape has become celebrated, and now each side wishes to use it for its own ends. You must let it ride its course and see what happens. In the meantime, I believe Matthew Evans must make his appearance in society.”

  “To what end?” I asked.

  Elias looked most dismayed. “I thought we had reached some agreement on this matter,” he said. “Is that not why we went to the trouble of having your clothes made?”

  “It is, but as I have contemplated this plan, I confess I have come to understand less and less of it. I am to be Matthew Evans so that I may act unmolested.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But what acts am I to perform? I can hardly inquire into my own affairs when I pretend to be another man. What will Matthew Evans do with himself?”

  “I thought you understood that. You will get close to Dennis Dogmill and learn enough about him to threaten him. And then you will act.”

  “Is that not rather naÏve? Do you think, if I can convince him to invite me to his parlor for a glass of claret, I shall be in a position to learn his secrets?”

  “Of course not. You’ll do the sorts of thing you usually do—speak to his servants, sneak a look at his papers, all that sort of inquiring business. And in the meantime, as your true self you will be able to search the quays for answers there.”

  Elias’s plan had seemed enticing when he had first suggested it, but now it struck me as less than useless, and no matter how he endorsed it I could not believe it would meet with success. “What about Griffin Melbury?” I said at last.

  Elias raised an eyebrow. “What of him?”

  “Should I not also get to know him better?”

  “Surely you recognize that you are being absurd. If you are disguising yourself as a Whiggish West Indian, why should you seek out Griffin Melbury? And even more to the point, what would you gain by doing so? It is clear that Dogmill is your enemy, not Melbury.”

  “Rowley tried to point me toward Melbury. Perhaps Melbury would be able to help me if he thought we sought the same thing—the undoing of Dogmill.”

  “I understand you too well,Weaver. All you want is a way to get close to Mrs. Melbury. Don’t think I can’t see it.”

  “You’re mistaken. I would prefer that this matter involve no one connected with her, but I have not set out the terms of this conflict and I must use them as best I can. If I can resolve my troubles without setting eyes on her, I should be the happier for it.” Did I believe my own words? Even now, I cannot say.

  “Very well, I’ll indulge you for the moment. I beg you continue.”

  “You must know that I feel no fondness for Melbury, but I have come to the conclusion that he must succeed if I am to succeed. I wish to see him elected to Parliament, to aid him in his election. Once in office, he will have the power to expose the wrongs of my trial and to demonstrate the influence of Dogmill.”

  “And why should he do so?”

  “Because he can have no love for Dogmill. Besides which, he and I will become friends,” I said smugly.

  “You make it sound so uncomplicated.”

  “I believe you were the one who, not long ago, advocated I become friends with a monster like Dogmill. But in my brief encounter with the man, and from all I’ve heard of him, attempting to attach myself to him will only incur his displeasure, something surely best avoided by a would-be toadeater. On the other hand, all state that Melbury is a reasonable man. His friendship should be far more easily secured. If I help him, if I work against Dogmill as a common enemy, should he not, in retur
n, show me his gratitude? Even more than that, by exonerating a man cruelly used by the Whigs, he advances his own career, his own party. Once I am able to prove my case to him, I don’t know that he could be dissuaded from helping me.”

  “Perhaps,” he said quietly. I could not tell if his hesitation stemmed from a weakness of the plan or from petulance that it was not he who had devised it.

  “I want to meet Melbury,” I said again. “He will be my friend, and Dogmill my foe. Can you think how I might do so?”

  “I don’t believe that you can set aside your feelings for his wife. Meeting with him, trying to earn his friendship, would be a mistake.”

  “It is my mistake to make,” I said.

  Elias sighed deeply and rolled his eyes for effect. “Well, I just now read that there is a breakfast for supporters of Mr. Melbury at the Ulysses Tavern near Covent Garden the day after tomorrow at eight in the morning. Frightfully early, I know, but you could attend if you were intent on doing so.”

  “No, that’s no good. I would hardly know what to say, and I would reveal myself as an impostor in moments.”

  “Do you think everyone who attends these things is full of canny observations? Most are merely windbags who want to feel important. If you are at a loss for what to speak of, you may complain about Whig corruption or the Whig oligarchy. You may talk of the Church in danger or of villainous Whig latitudinarians who are little better than atheists. Rail against the South Sea scheme and the screening of the Company directors. If you wish to be a Tory, you must be a curmudgeon, just as if you wish to be a Whig, you must be an opportunist. All the rest is mere posturing.”

  I considered my strong but ultimately limited resources. “How much will I have to pay to attend?”

  He laughed. “You pay? You know nothing of politics, I see. It is Mr. Melbury who pays. You pay, indeed! Politics is corrupt enough without asking the voters to pay for the campaigning. But I suppose that is one of the reasons why elections have become so expensive of late. I’m told that a hundred years ago a man could win Westminster with five pounds out of pocket. Today he will count himself lucky if his bill does not exceed a thousand.”