doorway, shouting to all who passed by that he offered inexpensive advice on the funds.
It would be unfair of me to suggest that the area surrounding the Exchange was the only place in the metropolis into which the new finance had sunk its teeth. Windfall mania had swept the city with the legal reintroduction of the lottery in 1719, the year of this tale, and illegal lotteries had long been popular everywhere. I confess that I myself did business with a lottery barber who registered me for a prize each time I took a shave, though my almost daily visits, for upward of two years, had yet to yield me any bounty.
I had seen the sights of the Exchange before, but now they held a new wonder for me. I kept my eye alert, as though each man I passed might hold the key to my father’s murderer; in truth it was far more likely that any man I passed cared not a fig for my father’s death unless I could show how it might make or cost him money.
Elias and I forced our way to the Alley, and quickly reached Jonathan’s, which was quite full and bustling with the business of the day.
Jonathan’s, the stock-jobbers’ coffeehouse and the very soul of Exchange Alley, seemed to me more animated than any coffeehouse I knew. Men clustered around one another, arguing vehemently, laughing, or looking grave. Others sat at tables, hurriedly thumbing through piles of papers, gulping their coffee. And the din was not merely that of conversation. While some slapped friends upon the back with warm benevolence, others shouted out their wares: “Selling for the upcoming lottery, eight shillings a quarter ticket!” “Anyone to sell 1704 issues?” “I have an astonishing money-maker here for the man who will but lend me five minutes of his time!” “A project to drain the marshlands! Guaranteed!”
Looking about me, I could see why my Christian neighbors were so quick to associate Jews with ’Change Alley, for there was a superfluity of Israelites in the room—perhaps as many as I had ever seen together outside of Dukes Place. But Jews were hardly dominant in Jonathan’s and by no means the only aliens. Here were Germans, Frenchmen, Dutchmen—and Dutchmen aplenty, I assure you—Italians and Spaniards, Portuguese, and of course, no shortage of North Britons. There were even some Africans milling about, but I believed they were servants, and not upon the ’Change for business. The room was a cacophony of different languages, all being shouted at once. It was a dizzying array of papers changing hands, of pens signing, of envelope-stuffing, of coffee-pouring, and of coffee- drinking. I thought it the very center of the universe itself, and I admired in no small degree any man who could conduct business in a place of such distraction.
Fortune favored us, for no sooner did we step inside than a trio of men vacated a table just before us, and we moved quickly to beat out a large crowd that had been waiting longer, all the while conducting their business afoot. Shouting above the din, I asked one of the boys who passed by us with a tray full of dirtied dishes to bring us coffee and some pastries.
I looked about in amazement. I had not been inside Jonathan’s since I was a child and my father had dragged me and my brother along to watch him conduct his affairs. We had sat in mute discomfort, half stemming from the dull terror a child feels in the presence of inexplicable adult mania, the other half from pure boredom. Now, in Jonathan’s as a grown man, and in my own way here upon business, I still felt small, towered over, and a bit awed. At least I was not yet bored.
The boy brought us our coffee and food, and Elias wasted no time stuffing one of the pastries into his mouth. “Do you know Mr. Theodore James, the bookseller upon the Strand?” he asked me, his words muffled by dough and jam.
“I have passed by his shop,” I said.
Elias bubbled with excitement as he spoke. “You might try stepping inside sometime. He’s a grand man. He printed my volume of verse, you know. Mr. James possesses no small amount of influence, which he has used to obtain for me an audience with Mr. Cibber at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, who is to consider staging my play. It is an astonishingly exciting thing really. I grow giddy at the idea of having my play acted upon the stage. It is truly marvelous, don’t you think?”
I could not help but smile. Elias was, after all, a man of many talents. “I had no idea you had a play to stage.” I shook his hand with pleasure.
He giggled foolishly. “I hadn’t. I shall tell him I have labored hard. Not too hard, for I don’t want him to believe me one of those silly playwrights who think themselves a Jonson or Fletcher. I wrote it yesterday,” he added in a whisper.
“An entire play in a day?”
“Well, I’ve seen enough comedies to know how to order these things. And yet, despite its haste, it is not without some very original turns. I call it
“I should love to hear your work, Elias, but I admit I am a bit preoccupied. I promise to attend to it on another occasion, but now I must seek your guidance regarding this Balfour business.”
“Of course,” he said, sliding out of sight the bundle of papers he’d pulled from his pocket. “The play can certainly wait. It has but so recently hatched into the world that perhaps a rest shall do it some good.”
I could not help but find Elias a marvelously agreeable friend. “Thank you,” I said, hoping that I had not hurt his feelings by shunting aside his literary efforts, “for I very much require your assistance in this matter. I am somewhat at a loss. Here, after all, we have two men who had some sort of acquaintance, if not a friendship, who died within twenty-four hours of each other. One under mysterious circumstances, the other under scandalous circumstances. I can assure you that the talk about the town is that there is something amiss in this matter, but I have no idea how to begin to settle upon what precisely that is. I shall attempt to locate the man who ran down my father, but I cannot imagine he will allow me to find him too easily.”
Our conversation was momentarily interrupted by one of the boys, who walked past us ringing a bell. “Mr. Vredeman. Message for Mr. Vredeman.” These interruptions were but part of doing business at Jonathan’s.
Elias had no difficulty ignoring the distraction. “Yours is a complicated matter,” Elias agreed as he sipped at his coffee. I could tell he wished to talk more of his play, although there was something in this affair he found irresistible.
“It seems,” I explained, “that there are those who do not wish me to seek out the truth behind these deaths. My life was attempted two nights ago.”
I now had Elias’s full attention, to be sure. I related to him the story of my encounter with the hackney coach, giving particular emphasis to the coachman’s parting words to me.
“It can have been no random assault,” he noted, “for you say the culprit knew you to be a Jew. Those who murdered Balfour and your father clearly do not wish you to expose their doings.” I had seen such a sparkle in his eye before when he had helped me out. In truth, I was used to seeing that sparkle when he helped me in matters that concerned amiable young women. Nevertheless, this inquiry obviously awakened Elias’s voracious curiosity.
“These villains have gone to great lengths to disguise their work, and now it seems they will go to greater lengths to keep their secrets hidden. It will be difficult for you to find them out.”
“Not difficult.” I nearly sighed. “I fear impossible. I am used to following trails that men foolishly leave behind. Now I am upon men who have been careful to leave no trace of their presence—indeed, who have gone to some lengths to obfuscate their business. I do not know that there is a way for me to proceed.”
“I wonder.” Elias lifted up his head thoughtfully. “There has to be a trail, just not the type you are used to looking for. A trail of ideas and motives, if not one of witnesses. You will have to do some guessing, you understand, but that is no matter.”
“Guessing will get me nowhere.” I now wondered if Elias was not off on some flight of fancy when I needed his clarity. “When a man comes to me for help in finding a debtor, do I guess where I shall find him? Certainly not. I learn what I can of his life and his habits and then look for him where I know I shall find him.”
“You look for him where you
“This is but wordplay, Elias. These games do not help me.”
“Not so. I believe you are more used to acting upon speculation than you realize. In this case you are going to have to make some reasonable assumptions and then proceed as though they might be true. Your task is to look at the general and conclude the particular—for generals and particulars are always related. Consider what Mr.
