one and the same with betrayal.
Long before I’d turned to thief-taking Wild had been plying his trade from the Blue Boar Tavern in Little Old Bailey, making a name for himself by impeaching highwaymen like James Footman, a renowned villain of his day, and by breaking up the robbery gang of the most notorious Obadiah Lemon. He brought these blackguards to justice as he later did his own blackguards, by betraying their trust and leading them to believe he was one of their brotherhood—for indeed he was, and how were the likes of Obadiah Lemon to know that a fellow-thief would suddenly appoint himself magistrate? I believe that even in the early days of Wild’s power, most everyone suspected what this man was, but crime had grown so rampant, with armed gangs of men prowling the streets like hungry dogs, and old ladies and pensioners fearing to step outside lest they be brutally knocked down, that all who lived in the metropolis wished for a hero, and Wild proved flamboyant and ruthless enough to announce himself to be precisely that. His name was in every paper and upon all lips. He had become the Thief-Taker General.
I had only been in my current trade for three months before I met Wild, but in a way it is strange that it took as long as all that. London, after all, is a city in which any man of a particular business or interest is destined to meet all others of a like mind in a surprisingly short period of time. My friends may prove his enemies, but we shall all know each other soon enough.
If it took me some months to meet Wild, I had seen him about the city many times. We all had, for Wild made it his business to be visible, showing up at fairs and the Lord Mayor’s Show and market days, riding horseback with his men in attendance, directing them to seize pick-pockets as though he were in command of some tiny army. I suppose that if we in London had some sort of body devoted to apprehending criminals, what the French call a
By the time Wild and I met face-to-face, he had moved over to the tavern called the Cooper’s Arms, where he set up his “Office for the Recovery of Lost and Stolen Property.” It is with some shame that I recount the story of my meeting with Wild, for it is a story of my weakness. My new business of thief-taking had been flourishing— largely, I suspect, owing to luck more than skill, but my luck began to run thin when I set out to serve a rich merchant whose shop had been broken open and robbed of a half-dozen ledger books. Before they grew brazen, Wild’s prigs preferred the theft of ledgers and pocketbooks and other items of value only to their owners, for if such thefts went to trial, goods without an estimable intrinsic value could not command a hanging penalty.
Much like my new acquaintance Sir Owen, this merchant sought my services because he understood Wild’s game and refused to pay him to return what he had taken in the first place. Unlike Sir Owen, he was unwilling to give me double Wild’s fee, and proposed one pound per book, which I gladly accepted, for I earnestly desired the chance to beat my competitor at his own game.
I knew well the sort of coves who would take down ledger books, and I toured the gin houses and taverns and inns, seeking out men I thought might have the goods. It was at this time, however, that Wild had begun to discover the joys of ’peaching his own prigs, and with three of his army dangling at the last hanging day, the men I spoke to all kept themselves cautiously silent—none of them wishing to incur Wild’s displeasure.
I spent a full week asking questions and pressing upon weaker men, but I found no sign of the books I sought. I then bethought myself of a plan that, I now blush to own, struck me as ingenious. I would go to Wild’s Lost Property Office at the Cooper’s Arms and pay for the return of the books. Even if I made no profit of this transaction, I could hand over the property to my merchant and he would speak to others of how I could find goods taken by Wild’s men. Why I thought I could retrieve other articles in the future when I could not retrieve these now, I cannot say.
Thus, on a hot June afternoon, I entered Wild’s abode, this dark tavern smelling of mold and spirits. The great man sat at a table in the center of his room, surrounded by his minions, who fairly treated him as though he were an Arabian sultan. Wild was a man of a stocky nature—he had a broad face with a sharp nose and protruding chin and eyes that glistened like a harlequin’s. Dressed as he was, like a man of mode, in his yellow-and-red coat and neat little wig propped beneath a hat cocked just so, he looked to me like a farcical character in a Congreve comedy, but I saw right away that his frivolity was not to be taken at face value. I do not say that he played at gayness, for that would be misleading, but he had a look about him that said that, even in the midst of celebration, he might be thinking of what mischief he could perform upon the man who poured his wine.
When I entered he was in the midst of a celebration indeed; I had heard upon the streets that Wild had just that morning ’peached a gang of a half-dozen buffers—thieves that steal horses, slaughter them, and sell their skins—and he was in a jolly mood at the prospect of collecting forty pounds’ bounty a head. The moment I stepped inside I saw three villains swig down full mugs of ale. A drunken fool paraded around the room, abusing a fiddle most appallingly, but the lickerish audience stomped and danced to the music for all its chaos.
Hanging over Wild was his favorite wench, Elizabeth Mann, along with a dozen or so of his lieutenants. Among these was a miserable sod called Abraham Mendes, Wild’s most trusted soldier, and, I am shamed to say, a Jew of my own neighborhood. Mendes and I had attended the same small school as boys, and I had even maintained a cautious sort of friendship with this menacing lad who was, even by my standards, violent and dangerous. I had often seen him in the company of Wild, but I had not spoken to him since I was perhaps twelve years old, and he had been exiled from our school for attempting to blind the instructor with a Torah pointer. Now he was a game-enough-looking buck—hardened by ill fortune; his face, which bore the twisted and misshapen look of a man who had been in the thick of more fights than even I had, was now a grizzly cast of vile apathy.
When I walked in, Mendes glanced over and met my gaze, as though I had arrived late for an appointed meeting. Without changing his expression, he leaned forward and whispered into Wild’s ear. The thief-taker nodded, and then slapped his hand hard upon the table like a judge banging his gavel; the fiddle ceased, the revelers stopped dead, and a tense silence descended. “We cannot allow our good cheer to hinder business,” Wild announced. “The Lost Property Office remains open.”
The wench and the bulk of his prigs disappeared in an instant, melting quietly into the back rooms. Only Mendes remained, standing quietly behind his master like a demonic statue.
Wild rose to his feet and took a few steps forward, perhaps exaggerating his famous limp. There were those who claimed that Wild falsified his lameness, perhaps to make the world think him less dangerous, but I did not believe it. I too had suffered a leg injury, and I knew the difference between a true limp and a false one.
“Please come have a seat.” He gestured toward a chair at his table. “You will excuse my companions’ merrymaking, but we have had a successful morning, Mr. Weaver.”
The sound of my own name struck my ears like a blow, and I wanted nothing so much as to flee. I had been fool enough to think that I might retrieve these ledger books anonymously, that Wild should never recognize me. I could not now swallow my pride and tell him what I wanted. I would be laughed at throughout the town. Yet it was too late to retreat, and I stepped forward, slowly lowering myself into a chair while he did the same.
I said nothing.
Wild smiled as unctuously as a shopkeeper. “Would you care for some refreshment?”
I still said nothing. I could think of nothing to say, and so I hoped he would find my silence menacing.
“Mr. Weaver, I cannot help you if you will not state the nature of your business. Have you lost some property?” He waved his hands in the air as though attempting to summon such examples as came to mind. “Some . . . ledger books, perhaps?”
I felt like a child who had been caught in an act of mischief. It was no surprise that Wild knew what I sought; the only surprise was that I hadn’t anticipated it. I had been making inquiries and threats of his men for the past week, and I should not have expected him to be ignorant of a man who sought to impose on his hold of the thief- taking trade.
I could not leave, and I could not ask for his help. My only option, and it was one that in the past had brought upon my head as much success as injury, was bravado. “I know you have the ledgers,” I said. “I want them.”
Wild pretended not to hear my threat. “It has reached my attention that you have been making inquiries about town, and I believe it is
