this court shortly. I heartily wish you may work things out amongst yourselves. You may go.”
I realized later that I should have felt myself awash with relief, but perhaps I was too disordered. I knew not how to understand his decision. I could only presume that Duncombe had been bribed on my behalf, but who had interceded for me? Had my uncle been informed of my danger in time to intervene? If so, why was he not in the court?
I made my way through the crowd, wanting only to remove myself from that horrid building—before the magistrate changed his mind, I thought. Elias later told me that he was there and grabbed my arm as I passed him, but I have no recollection of seeing him. I shoved my way forward, moving with the plodding determination of a dull ox until I escaped from the confines of the judge’s court and breathed in the foul-smelling and misty air of the London afternoon. As bad an odor as was in the air that day, and as cloudy and unwelcoming was the weather, I basked in it with a satisfaction I cannot describe. It was a moment of relief, and the knowledge that the relief would be but fleeting made it all the more sweet.
My reverie lasted but a minute, and when the world crystallized before me, as it does after one rubs his eyes, I immediately recognized the coach and the East Indian servant boy as belonging to Nathan Adelman. I stared at the chair for a moment until Adelman poked his head out the window and invited me in.
I stared blankly. I felt as though uttering any sound should take more strength than I had.
“We have won the day, I see.” He was not quite grinning, but he glowed with satisfaction. “No easy man, that Duncombe, but he saw reason in the end. Climb in, Weaver.”
“I am astonished,” I said as I stepped up into his coach, “to see you emerge as my ally. I should have thought the Company would be nothing but delighted to witness my ruin.” I took a seat across from the great financier, and the coach heaved forward, headed to I knew not where.
Adelman smiled at me, as though we were to go for a charming ride in the country together. Indeed, his plump little form had every appearance of the proper English gentleman. “I believe that before last evening we would have delighted in your ruin, but things have now changed, and I can assure you that you should be grateful that we struck a bargain with the justice here before our friends at the Bank of England. You can be certain they would have seen to it that you stood trial.”
“Of course.” I nodded. “I would have been forced to explain my actions, and this explanation would involve the public revelation of Sir Owen’s involvement in the forging of South Sea issues.”
“Precisely. In the end, I am grateful for your involvement, for we have learned the identity of Rochester, and he will no longer cause the Company any difficulties.”
I breathed in deeply. “I am no longer convinced that Sir Owen is Martin Rochester, only that someone has gone to great lengths to make me believe it so.”
Adelman stared at me. “I have no doubt that Sir Owen is the man. The Company, I can assure you, has no doubt. And it seems that there are others that have no doubt.”
“How do you mean?” I inquired.
“Sir Owen,” he said slowly, “is dead.”
I am not ashamed to own that I grew disoriented, and I grasped at an armrest inside the coach. “I was assured his wounds were superficial.” I could not understand what Adelman told me. If Sir Owen was dead, why had I not been charged with murder?
“The wounds he received from his fall were superficial,” Adelman explained. His voice was calm, controlled —almost soothing. “But he received other wounds. As he left his physician’s house this morning, he was set upon by a ruffian who stabbed him quite mercilessly in the throat. Sir Owen survived this attack by only a few minutes.”
I knew not if I felt anger or elation, fear or joy. “Who was this ruffian?” I demanded.
“The villain quite escaped.” He flashed me a smile, a look of unrestrained mischief. I should have liked to have seen villainy, but there was something boyish, pranksterish about his look. Adelman wished me to know that the South Sea Company had disposed of Sir Owen. “It’s rather shocking he could have gotten away, with all those people there,” he said, smirking. “Sir Owen was a man with many enemies, and I suppose we shall never know the truth of it.”
“I quite believe it,” I said, conveying more to Adelman with my looks than my words. “We shall never know a great deal, I have begun to realize.”
“But there were papers found upon Sir Owen’s body that suggest unequivocally that he was the man known as Martin Rochester. There was even a draft of a letter, written to one of the South Sea directors.” Adelman handed me several folded pieces of paper.
I opened them to find a difficult hand, but I scanned the pages quickly. The letter was as Adelman claimed. “I seek now only to allow the Company to proceed with its plan,” it said. “In exchange for the consideration of thirty thousand pounds, I shall quit this isle, never to return nor speak of what has passed here.”
I handed him back the letter. “It looks enough like what little of Sir Owen’s hand as I have seen,” I said. “But then the matter before us
“You can rest assured that the man who murdered your father has been punished.”
I shook my head. “How did you get this letter from his person?”
“We could take no chances.”
“I see that,” I said dryly.
“Surely you do not believe that the South Sea Company had him murdered,” Adelman said with a gregarious smile. He wished to make certain I had no ambiguity in my mind. I think, however, the look upon my face was one of confusion—though of a moral rather than a factual nature. “Weaver,” he said in response, “I would have thought you might be happier at having found your justice.”
My stomach churned. I knew I should feel that this unpleasant affair had reached a resolution, but I could not quite believe it. “I wish I knew that I had,” I said quietly. “I assume, sir, that you still wish to deny any involvement in the attacks on my person?”
Adelman’s face flushed a bit. “I shall not lie to you, Mr. Weaver. We took measures that we found distasteful because we believe the good of the nation depends upon it. When the South Sea Company receives approval from Parliament to launch its plan to reduce the national debt, I do not doubt but that we shall be applauded throughout the Kingdom for our ingenuity in aiding the nation and our investors.”
“And yourselves, I am certain.”
He smiled. “We are public servants, but we wish to enrich ourselves as well. And if we can do all these things, I cannot see why we should not. In any event, the exigencies of the moment forced us to behave in ways that we wished avoidable. The attacks upon you on the street and at Heidegger’s masquerade were regrettable, but I can assure you we never wished you any real harm—only to convince you that the cost of looking into this nasty business would prove too dear. I see now that these attacks only drove you on. In my defense I must tell you that I argued against any efforts to intimidate you with violence, but in the Company I am but one voice.”
I was speechless for a moment, but I found my voice soon enough, though my teeth gritted together. My mouth grew suddenly dry. “In those attacks I was set upon by the very man who ran down my father. Surely you cannot expect me to believe—”
“We can only imagine,” Adelman interrupted, “that Sir Owen exerted his influence with the desperate fellows we employed—for how can men of that order be aught but desperate, and therefore infinitely corruptible—to insert his element within the gang. The blackguard you killed—the man who killed Samuel—was none of our hiring, I can assure you. As for the rest, I presume that Sir Owen swayed the ruffians in our employ that he might have use of them on occasions such as these. Nevertheless, for the small harm we intended, I must apologize to you. I believe we owe you much, and you, indeed, owe us much. For as you have relieved us from the threat of a pernicious forger, we have rescued you from the consequences of your actions and from the clutches of those who would have forced a trial that I need not tell you could easily have concluded with your hanging. Is it not time for us to reach a rapprochement?”
“A rapprochement,” I observed, “that I am certain will involve a promise on my part of silence.”
“Indeed, and I do not think it much to ask. You have, after all, uncovered the identity of your father’s murderer, which is what you desired, and this fiend has surely paid the ultimate price for his crimes. I cannot think but that your reputation will grow of this. Further, we shall pay you one thousand pounds in company stock. I think this a most amicable offer.”
I shook my head. “How can I trust what you say, Mr. Adelman? Did you not, in the South Sea House, look me
