A Conspiracy of Paper

I wished most heartily to beat his false look of complaisance into the tabletop, but I knew this was not the place for violence. Mendes had the instincts of an animal—he narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils, as though smelling my thoughts, and he thrust forth his chest as a sign of warning.

Turning to face Wild, I held myself erect in my seat and met his sparkling gaze with my own tired and certainly dull eyes. “I do not seek to play your little games, sir. The men of your gang have taken the books. If you do not give them to me, you may be sure I shall employ the law to have you answer for it.”

Mendes took a step forward, but Wild shook his head. “The law, you say? What fear have I of the law? I am the law’s servant, Mr. Weaver, and all of London applauds me. Have you some evidence connecting me to this theft? Are there witnesses who will name me? The law, indeed! There was a time when I thought you might offer me some game, but now I see that your talk is but a bubble.”

“You ought not to underestimate me,” I said, hoping my tone would give my words credit. I wanted nothing more than to be gone, for in this game of words he surely had the advantage.

“Oh,” he said, laughing, “I never underestimate anyone. That is my secret, you know. I think I value your talents quite as I ought. Tell me, what do you expect to earn for yourself this year? You might catch yourself two or three bounties and the odd pound here and there. That shall bring you one hundred pounds? One hundred and fifty? If you would like to come work for me, Weaver, I shall pay you two hundred pounds per annum.”

I stood and leaned forward only slightly that I might hover over the great man as I spoke. From the corner of my eye I saw Mendes offer some vague gesture of warning, but could not bother myself with him. I knew that he would not touch me without his master’s permission. “I scorn your offer,” I told Wild. Mendes stepped from behind Wild’s chair, and so, to demonstrate this scorn, I turned my back upon him and departed as slowly as I might, that no one could say I ran from the encounter. I believe that I made the most dignified exit possible from so shameful an errand.

I had hoped to have nothing more to do with Wild for some time, but the next day he honored me with his mockery by sending me the ledger books I sought, accompanied by a note saying only, “My compliments.” I returned the books to their grateful owner, and he announced to all the world that Benjamin Weaver had retrieved goods stolen by Wild.

It was a bitter moment for me—one that I have tried hard to forget—but I do not flatter myself too much when I say that Jonathan Wild came to regret this gesture of contempt.

MY HISTORY WITH Wild had taught me that he was assuredly dangerous, but that he was quite capable of tripping upon the belief of his own power. Earlier that year, Wild had emerged unscathed from a felony prosecution that had threatened to expose his villainous schemes and utterly undo him, and only recently he had recovered entirely of a disease so severe that the papers had announced his imminent demise. These narrow escapes, I had been told, had not taught Wild that he, too, was subject to the misfortunes of humanity, but rather the lesson he learned was that he was impervious to attack from either man or nature.

I did not for a moment suppose that Wild knew he did me harm by impeaching Kate Cole, but I could take no chances that he would learn the truth. Wild had betrayed her for his own gain, set her up for the double cross, and I believed my only choice now was to make her my creature.

After returning home from Bawdy Moll’s, I once again donned the attire of a wigged gentleman, and made my way to Newgate prison, where Kate was housed. My business had taken me to Newgate many times before, and I had no intention of plunging any deeper into the heart of the beast than necessary. No place on earth bears more resemblance to the Christian notion of hell than does this pit of rotted, wretched bodies, stripped of even the remnants of dignity. I only hoped for Kate’s sake that she had converted Sir Owen’s remaining goods to cash that she might afford more than common lodgings in the prison. In Newgate, unless she shielded herself from the vile rabble, what little honor she might possess would find itself under merciless assault.

As I approached, I saw from a distance that a crowd had gathered, and I quickly realized that a man stood pilloried in the courtyard. A few dozen onlookers had gathered to cheer his misery and to pelt him with rotted eggs and fruit, and occasionally something much harder, for the poor unfortunate bled from several deep wounds about his head, and one of his eyes looked swollen and black and perhaps quite ruined. A sign above him read that he had been charged with Jacobitical sedition, a crime that could unleash the most hateful violence from the crowd. Many a man so charged and punished failed to emerge alive from three days in the pillories. As I hurried past, a ruffian in the crowd hurled an apple with murderous force, shouting, “This’n’s from King George, you papist bastard.” I cannot say if this man had any real loyalties to our King, but the delight for such a man was in the throwing. The apple landed high and burst on the pillory above the prisoner’s head, raining rotted fruit upon him. A few oyster women roamed the courtyard, crying their goods, and the men and women of the crowd devoured their oysters as they looked on merrily at this man whom they tortured, perhaps to death.

I took no pleasure from the spectacle, and pushed on, passing through the terrible prison gate, where I found a warder and instructed him of my business. He was an imposing fellow of average height but of more than average thickness. His arms were of twice the circumference mine had ever been, and he folded them boldly before me to indicate that he should not move without my touching him—that is to say, offering him some compensation for his time. Like all those who worked in the prison, from the governor himself down to the lowest turnkey, this man had paid a healthy sum in order to obtain his post, and he needed to exploit his power as best he could in order to earn back his investment. I therefore touched him for a few shillings, and he led me to the Common Side of the prison, where he expected he should be able to find Kate. “I remember her,” he said with a leer that spread like the Thames tide across his broad, stupid face. “She was new, and she didn’t have no money. Find her by her hollering, I reckon.”

What can I write of Newgate prison that my reader has not read already? Shall I describe the stench of rotted bodies—some alive, and some long dead—of human waste, of sweat and filth and of fear, which has its own scent, I assure you. Shall I write of the conditions, not fit for any creature that bears the name human? As I followed the warder through these dark halls, I, who had seen so much and thought myself so immune to the sights of misery in this world, averted my eyes from the spent and sickly bodies visible through the bars. Fettered to the cold stone walls, they lay in their own feces, their bodies a-crawl with all manner of vermin. Turning my head away accomplished little, for the sounds of their groans and their pleadings echoed through the ancient stones of that dungeon. I should like to believe, reader, that it is only the most dangerous and violent criminals who endure these tortures, but you and I know that is not the case. I have learned of pickpockets—pickpockets, I say—who have been chained and left to die, swallowed alive by rats and lice, because of a lack of money to procure their easement. I have heard of men acquitted of all charges who have rotted to death for want of their discharge fees. Better to hang, I thought, than to remain in this place.

I followed the warder through this worst of abodes and we climbed the stairs to the women’s ward of the Common Side. Perhaps my reader believes that there the female prisoners are protected from the molestation of the stronger sex, but in Newgate there can be no protection without money. Silver can procure nearly anything, including the right to hunt among the weak and defenseless women. When we entered the ward, we saw such bestial predators slink off into the shadows.

The warder called out Kate’s name. It took but a few moments for her to appear, not of her own volition, but shoved forward by fellow prisoners who, out of the maliciousness bred in prison, denied her the right to hide herself.

I confess I felt remorse as I looked upon her. She was not the comely, if well-used, girl I had seen the night before, but a beaten and bloody waif. Her clothes had been torn and soiled, and she smelled strongly of urine. Filth of some sort was streaked across her face and in her hair, and she had open and bleeding wounds stretching from her forehead to her chin. Her legs were shackled in irons, an unnecessary precaution for a woman like Kate, but she had no doubt been unable to afford their removal. Women such as you know, reader, would find themselves reduced to unstoppable tears or perhaps even rendered insensible by the treatment Kate received in her first few hours at Newgate, but her misfortunes only made her stony and remote. Perhaps it was not her first time in the great prison, and perhaps it was not the first time she had been used so ill.

I whispered to the warder to remove her chains. I would pay for her easement when the sight of my silver would not cause either of us a problem. He nodded and crouched down to unlock the irons; Kate neither thanked him nor acknowledged in any way that her state had changed.

I required a private audience, and for an additional shilling the warder provided me with a closet, illuminated only by a tiny slit of a window. After indulging himself in a knowing grin, he closed the door and bade me holler if I required assistance. It was an overcast day, and once inside it was hard to see in the dingy room, but I required not