Balfour stood up, performing gentlemanly composure. “I see you are a clever maneuverer. I shall make some discreet inquiries. But I expect to hear from you shortly.”
I neither spoke nor moved, but Balfour took no notice, and within an instant he was gone from my rooms. For some time I remained motionless. I thought on what had transpired and what it might mean, and then I reached for the bottle of port.
TWO
MY BUSINESS IN those days was new—I had not quite two years’ experience and I still struggled to learn the secrets of my trade. I had fought my last pitched battle as a pugilist some five years earlier, when I was not more than three-and-twenty. After that line of work had come to so violent a conclusion, I had found various means of maintaining a livelihood, or perhaps I should say of surviving. Of most of these vocations I am not proud, but they taught me much that later proved useful. I was some time employed upon a cutter making the run between the south of England and France, but this ship, as my perceptive readers will guess, was not of His Majesty’s navy. After our captain’s arrest on charges of smuggling, I drifted from place to place, and even, I blush to own, took up the life of a housebreaker, and then a gentleman of the highway. Pursuits of this nature, while exciting, are rarely profitable, and one grows weary of seeing a friend with the noose around his neck. So I made vows and promises, and I returned to London to seek some sort of honest living.
It is a shame that I did not anticipate the pugilists of today who, like the famous Jack Broughton, in their retirement open fighting academies to train the young bucks that would take their place. Broughton has indeed been ingenious enough to construct a piece of apparel he calls mufflers—a kind of voluptuous padding for the fist. I have seen these things, and I suspect to be hit by a man wearing these gloves is quite like not being hit at all.
I was much less clever than Broughton, and had no ideas of such ambitions, but I did have a few ill-gotten pounds in my pocket, and I besought a partner with whom to open an alehouse or some business of that nature. It was at this time, walking to my lodgings late in the night, that I had the good fortune to offer assistance to an old fellow besieged by a band of wealthy young bucks. These aristocratic ruffians, known as they were in those days as Mohocks—a name that gave insult to the honorable savages of the Americas—loved nothing more than to roam the London streets, tormenting those poorer than themselves by hacking away at their limbs, cutting off ears or noses, rolling old ladies down hills, and even, if rarely, reveling in the most permanent crime of murder.
I had read of these arrogant puppies and had longed for an opportunity to inflict some of their violence back upon them, so I know not if it was my hatred for the privilege these men thought belonged to them, or the kindly concern I felt for an old victim, that brought me into the fray. I can only say that when I saw the scene before me, I acted without hesitation.
Four Mohocks, dressed in satin and lace finery, and wearing the masks of Italian revelers, gathered around an elderly fellow who had crumpled upon the street and sat like a grotesque sort of child with his legs folded. His wig had been removed and cast aside, and a thin stream of blood trickled down from a gash upon his head. The Mohocks tittered, and one made a slurred joke in Latin, which brought the others to uproarious hilarity.
“Now,” one of them said to the old man, “you must make the choice yourself.” He drew his hangar and sliced through the air with the practiced ease of a sword-master before thrusting the point of the weapon in the man’s face. “Do you wish to lose an ear or the tip of your nose? Make up your mind soon, or you’ll get both prizes for your efforts.”
For a moment there was no sound but this besieged man’s gasping breaths and the trickle of city filth running down the kennel ditch in the center of the street.
The break in my leg that ended my career in the ring left me without the endurance of a pugilist, but I was still more than equal to the task of a short-lived street brawl. The Mohocks were too drunk with cruelty, and wine as well, to notice my presence, so I rushed to the victim’s assistance, immediately dispatching one of the bucks with a fierce blow to the back of his neck. Before his companions even knew that I had entered the fray, I had grabbed a second villain and thrown him headfirst against the wall—a maneuver that left him unfit for further mischief.
The old man, whom I had believed to be as helpless as a woman, saw the odds suddenly evened, and roused himself to a more manful posture, taking a sharp swing at the assailant who had threatened him with the hangar, knocking the long and elegant blade from his hand and sending it clattering into the darkness. I now matched fists with one of the two men who remained in the battle, while my companion, who must have drawn power from his indignation, took a few mighty blows upon his face but bravely withstood the pain. Blood flowed freely from a fresh cut above his left eye, yet he proved a spirited warrior and remained in the game long enough that a parish watchman, lantern raised, appeared at the end of the street. The Mohocks, spotting this guardian, chose to discontinue their sport, and the two upright villains gathered their fallen comrades and hobbled off to tend their wounds and invent stories that might account for their bruises.
As the watchman neared, I approached my fellow-battler, and held his shoulders to steady him. Through tired eyes, made hazy with blood and perspiration, he stared hard and then offered me an exuberant grin. “Benjamin Weaver,” he spouted. “The Lion of Judah! Why, I never thought I’d see you fight again. And certainly not at this proximity.”
“Nor did I plan to,” I said, catching my breath. “But I am glad to have been of some service to a man in distress.”
“Gladder than you know,” he assured me, “for I should be damned for a servant of Satan himself if I did not reward your valor as it deserves. Give me your hand, sir.” This unfortunate now introduced himself as Hosea Bohun, and begged that I come to see him the next day that he might do me some small service to show his gratitude. By that time the watchman had reached us—a scraggly fellow, hardly fit for his duties. Having lost the assailants, the watchman thought it a very fine idea to carry the victims to the Compter as punishment for being out upon the street after curfew, but Mr. Bohun made liberal application of the names of his friends, including the Lord Mayor, and sent the watchman on his way.
The next day I discovered that I had been lucky enough to give vital aid to an opulently wealthy East India merchant, and at Mr. Bohun’s splendid town house, this grateful man rewarded me with a sum no smaller than a hundred pounds, and a promise to be of service to me if he ever had occasion. And indeed he was of service to me, for the story of how he had been set upon by Mohocks, and how he had been lucky enough to battle them with Benjamin Weaver by his side, made its way into the papers. Soon thereafter I had visits from other men—some genteel, some poor, but all with offers to pay me for my skills. One gentleman planned a trip to his country estate, and he wished me to ride along to protect him and his goods from highwaymen. Another man was a shopkeeper whose premises had regularly been set upon by rascals; he wished me to spend some time in his shop and await the villains, whom I would recompense for their tricks. Yet another wished me to collect a debt of an elusive fellow who had successfully dodged the bailiffs for more than a year’s time. Perhaps the most significant request—one that again landed my name in the papers—was from an impoverished woman whose only daughter, not twelve years of age, had been attacked in the most scandalous manner by a sailor. There had been witnesses to the attack, but this woman could neither find them nor learn the whereabouts of the sailor himself. I soon discovered that it was only a small matter to ask questions, to listen to the talkative talk, and to follow trails left by unthinking culprits. This sailor, as my readers may know, was convicted of a rape, and I myself had the pleasure of seeing him hang at Tyburn.
And so began my work as protector, guardian, bailiff, constable-forhire, and thief-taker. It was this last duty that I had found most lucrative, for by bringing felons to justice I received not only the reward of my hirer but also the considerable forty-pound reward of the state as well. Three or four such bounties over the course of a year amounted to a handsome wage for a man of my station.
I say with some pride that I quickly built a reputation for honesty, for it is well known that thief-takers are in general the most wretched of villains who care not for the guilt or innocence of the poor sod they drag before the magistrate, only for the reward that comes of conviction. When I set up my trade, I let it be known that I would have nothing to do with thief-takers’ tricks, and I concerned myself only with capturing villains and with recovering lost goods. I did so not only to avoid running afoul of the law, but so there might be a man that a victim of theft could trust.
To my misfortune, employment as a thief-taker had become scarce at the time I begin my story, for a notorious villain named Jonathan Wild had begun to make a name for himself as Thief-Taker General. Wild appeared
