attend to these letters, and that shall certainly give me time to think on how we are to proceed with finding this killer.”
“I say, Elias, you are an enthusiastic sort. Balfour is hardly paying me so much that I shall be able to share excessively with you.”
“You wound me, sir. You think it is only money I am after. I find the challenge stimulating, you know. But I assume your wealthy baronet shall be able to reward me more generously than your impoverished parvenu.”
“My wealthy baronet has so far proved himself generous.” I now had Elias’s attention, and explained to him that I was in a bit of a bind and required him to play a role for me.
“It sounds shockingly exciting,” he said, his eyes sparkling at the thought of this adventure.
“Oh, I hope not too exciting.”
I had concocted a delightfully simple plan to retrieve Sir Owen’s letters of this prig Arnold. I would enter the Laughing Negro dressed as a porter. Kate Cole had no doubt spoken to Arnold of a muscular gentleman, and I did not want to complicate things by having him suspect me to be the man who killed Jemmy. Elias, whom no one would accuse of being overly muscled, would enter and speak to Arnold, explaining that he was the owner of the letters. I had authorized him to give up to twenty pounds for their return, though he was to start with five pounds, for I still clung to some small hope that this business of the pocketbook would not run me into debt. If I could profit but a few pounds, and Sir Owen, in turn, was to speak well of me in public, then I would have good reason to consider my efforts well expended.
I had advised Elias that when dealing with this thief he was not to use Sir Owen’s name—for there was a good chance that he had not read the letters, or at least not read them all the way through. I was sure Sir Owen’s contrition and his widow’s sentiments were too dull for a common thief. In any event, even if he knew the letters were not Elias’s, I could not imagine him refusing the coin on a matter of principle.
I arrived at the Laughing Negro near seven in the evening. I easily spotted a man with coppery whiskers and bristly hair several shades darker than his beard. One eye was a cold and penetrating blue, the other lay dead in his skull. This was the man Kate had described to me. He sat at a table with four other men, each as dangerous in appearance and as foul in grooming habits as he. They were a miserable and drunken lot, grimly rolling a few dice back and forth across the table at one another. I paid for a pint of yeasty ale and sat as nearly behind him as I could, selecting a spot from which I could best observe Arnold and his companions without appearing to do so.
Elias came in precisely as I told him. His fanciful attire—all bright reds and yellows—rendered him the object of the room’s attention, and the scrutiny instantly made him uneasy. I judged his discomfort a useful thing, however, for a gentleman in such a place should be uneasy. I had withheld from him Kate Cole’s description of Arnold that he might have no expectations of the man. He thus inquired of the counterman, who pointed him to the fellow we sought.
Elias slowly walked over to the table, time and again putting his hand on his hangar and then removing it. I was careful not to watch him too closely, not wanting to risk any eye contact between the two of us. He approached Arnold and stood before him. “Are you, sir, one Quilt Arnold?” he asked in the loud, declamatory voice of a stage-play hero.
These men let out a round of guffaws before Arnold looked up, unable to fathom what this peacock could want with him. “Aye,” he said, making no effort to hide his amusement. “I’m Arnold, me lud. What of it?”
“Yes,” Elias said in a voice that bespoke his apprehension. “I am told by a woman called Kate Cole that you have something of mine. A packet of letters bound with a yellow ribbon.”
Arnold raised one bushy eyebrow. “She tell you this before or after she gone to Newgate?”
“Have you the letters or no?”
The rogue showed him a large, yellow grin. “That’s your business, is it, me lud? Well now, since it’s your goods upon me, I’m glad to tell ye I got ’em,” he said, patting his jacket. “I got ’em right ’ere. You’ll be wantin’ them, then. Is that right?”
Elias straightened his posture. “That’s right.”
Arnold had none of Elias’s desire to transact the business rapidly. He patted his jacket again. He whispered something in the ear of one of his friends and then laughed a ghastly dry laugh for a full minute. Finally he turned back to Elias. “Ye don’t mind that I blew some snot in ’em, do ye?”
Elias shook his head, doing his best to appear calm, and perhaps even irritated. “Mr. Arnold, I’m sure your life is uneventful enough that you feel the need to prolong this transaction, but I have business elsewhere. Now I want the letters back, and I shall give you twenty pounds for them.”
I winced, and I was sure Elias inwardly did the same. He had misspoken, and if Arnold wished to haggle, there was no money with which to do it. Were I to stand up and offer Elias extra coin, of which I had little upon me, he would know the business was more complicated than it appeared, and he might withhold in the hope of more money yet.
“Any man who’d be willing to pay twenty pounds for a few pieces of paper,” he said, leaning back in his chair and extending his legs, “would be willing to pay fifty. Since they belong to ye, if you see what I mean.”
Elias surprised me with his courage, for Arnold was an imposing-looking villain. “No sir,” he said. “I do not see what you mean. I come not to haggle with you. I shall give you twenty pounds for those letters or snot rags is all they will be to you.”
Arnold thought about this for a moment. “You know what, me lud, I don’t think a gentleman like yourself would come to a shithouse like this and talk to a shitten prig like me for a few folds of paper wrapped in a dainty if they was only worth twenty pounds. How about ye stop talkin’ to me like I’m some whore what ye can swive and throw a few shillings at. Give me fifty pounds. And then maybe—maybe I say, because it depends on me mood— maybe I’ll give ye the shitten papers. And then again maybe I won’t. So when ye give me my money, me lud, be polite about it.”
Elias had blanched with terror, and a filigree of blue veins now bulged at his temples. Arnold was unpredictable, and there was no telling how far he would push his antics. I understood then that there was no answer for it—I had no choice but to step in. Pushing my chair aside I stood and approached him. “Excuse me,” I said. “I could not help but overhear what you were saying to this gentleman, and I wonder if you are aware of this?” And with a rapidity that astonished even myself, I removed from my belt a dagger, grabbed Arnold’s left hand, which I pressed down to the table, and jabbed the dagger down hard, slicing through his hand and landing deep in the soft wood beneath.
Arnold let out a howl, but I quickly clamped a hand down over his mouth and removed a second dagger from my boot, which I held to his face.
I glanced hurriedly about the room, taking in as much information as I could in but a fleeting instant. The barkeeper looked over at me as he wiped down a glass. A few of the men about the Laughing Negro looked on. They cared only so much as the show intrigued them. I had no worry that a kindly stranger would rise to defend this brigand, but I had been concerned about his companions. Arnold’s friends, however, made no moves. They sat stiffly, glancing at one another, exchanging looks of befuddlement while they tried to decide, no doubt, if should they wait to see what happened or if they should depart. I could tell from the way they pushed their bodies back into their chairs that they had no wish to interfere. Such were the friends men like Arnold made.
Elias had taken a step backward. He looked so pale one might think
I looked back to the table. There was less blood than I would have thought, for the blade itself stemmed the tide. A thick pool did begin to appear around the blade after a moment, and trickled down upon the filthy table. I shifted slightly, so the issue of Arnold’s veins would not drip upon my boots, and I pressed down hard as I moved, feeling the heat of Arnold’s gasping breath upon my hand. Grabbing his face tighter, I waved my dagger before his good eye. “You are in pain, and I understand that, but I have no more patience for this. You will reach into your pocket with your one good hand and remove the papers we seek. This gentleman here will give you twenty pounds, just as promised. If you do anything else, if your friends make any moves, I shall not kill you, but I shall carve out your good eye and turn you to a beggar. Now you can give us what we want and receive a sizable profit for it, or you can lose everything you have in this world.”
Arnold’s friends exchanged glances once again. They now had hope that their friend would, notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the transaction, earn his twenty pounds.
