A Conspiracy of Paper

amount that could be the difference between his very large estate being ruined or no, we must assume at least ten thousand pounds. Perhaps more. Do you agree?”

I told him that I did.

“Now, funds of this value would either be stock of one of the trading companies, or government shares issued by the Bank of England. In either case, those shares would be nontransferable, meaning that in order for someone other than the holder to own those stocks, he would have to officially transfer ownership in the company or the Bank during designated transfer hours. I cannot simply pick up old Balfour’s holdings and claim them as my own. He or his heirs must sign them over to me.”

“I believe I begin to understand you. No common thief would gain anything from these stocks, so the murderer must be someone involved with the company—for only such a person could turn the stocks to gain.”

“Exactly,” Elias said.

“But that does not tell me why an institution itself must be involved. Could not the murderer be a company clerk—someone who could transfer the stolen issues to himself or a partner?”

“A solid conclusion.” Elias smiled somewhat patronizingly. “But you told me that old Balfour and your father had some mysterious business together before their deaths. Your father’s estate does not seem to be missing any issues. To my mind, it is therefore probable that these murders are about more than a theft. Old Balfour and your father knew something or they were planning a venture or involved themselves in a scheme that made them dangerous to some very powerful men. You see, you keep considering old Balfour’s death and then your father’s death—not both of them together. And if these deaths are related, then the motive is more than money—and that to me suggests a plot, and plots suggest power.”

I remained silent for a moment as I considered Elias’s dexterous hops from conclusion to conclusion. I did not fully believe what he said, but I could not deny the power of his ability to draw possible answers from what I had seen as a jumble of facts. “What sort of plot do you envision?”

Elias sucked on his lower lip. “Give me a shilling,” he said at last. He waved his hand impatiently at my quizzical look. “Come now, play along, Weaver. Put a shilling on the table.”

I reached into my purse and felt around for a shilling, which I slapped down.

Elias picked it up before returning it to the table. “That’s a sorry shilling,” he observed. “What’s happened to it?”

It was indeed a sorry shilling. Most of the edges had been filed away until it was a shapeless hunk of metal and only a fraction of its original weight.

“It’s been clipped,” I told him. “The same as every other shilling in the Kingdom. Are you suggesting that the companies are involved in coinclipping?”

“No, not as such. I merely wish to demonstrate the idea of what these companies are doing. Our shillings are clipped and filed, and the excess silver melted down and sold abroad. Now you have a shilling that contains perhaps three-fourths of its original metal. Is it still worth a shilling? Well, it is, more or less, because we need a medium of exchange for the nation to function smoothly.” He held up the coin between his thumb and index finger. “This clipped shilling is but a metaphor, if you will, of the fiction that the idea of value has become in this Kingdom.”

I pretended not to see him slip the coin into his pocket. “Thus the rise of the banknote,” I observed. “At least in part, from what little I understand. If the silver does not circulate, but stays safely where it cannot be harmed, the representation of the silver provides a secure measure of value. The fiction is thus replaced by reality, and your anxiety over these new financial mechanisms undoes itself.”

“But what would happen, Weaver, if there was no silver? If silver was replaced by banknotes—by promises? Today you are used to substituting a banknote for a large sum of money. Perhaps tomorrow you may forget that you ever dealt in money proper. We shall exchange promises for promises, and none of these promises shall ever be fulfilled.”

“Even if such a preposterous thing were to happen, what would be the harm? After all, silver only has value because everyone agrees it has value. It is not like food, which has a use unto itself. If we all agree that banknotes have value, how are they less valuable than silver?”

“But silver is silver. Coins are clipped because you can take your silver to Spain or India or China and exchange it for something that you desire. You cannot do that with a banknote, because there is nothing to support the promise outside of its point of origin. Don’t you see, Weaver, these financial institutions are committed to divesting our money of value and replacing it with promises of value. For when they control the promise of value, they control all wealth itself.”

“Is this the plot you are talking of? Do you mean to say that you believe that one of the companies is scheming to control all of the wealth in the Kingdom?”

Elias leaned forward. “Not one of the companies,” he said in a low voice. “All of them. Separately, together— it makes no difference. They have seen the power of paper, and they wish to exploit it.”

“And you believe that my father and old Balfour somehow thwarted such a scheme?”

“More likely some small part of a greater scheme. A system of credit is like a great spiderweb—you cannot see it until you are trapped within it, and you cannot see the spider until she dangles above you, poised to devour. I do not know who the spider is, Weaver. But I assure you, it is the spider that killed your father. It is money that killed your father. Money inspires action, and money creates power. Somewhere in this Kingdom are the men who create money, and they, for reasons we do not yet understand—perhaps even for reasons they do not understand—have killed your father.”

“I say, Elias, I cannot think why, if you view the funds as so very wicked to the core, you invest in them yourself.”

“That’s the very devil of it,” he breathed. “One must invest in the funds these days. Look about you in this coffeehouse. Do you think these men are here out of a love of stock-jobbery? There is no other thing to do with one’s money. Money breeds money, and we are all caught within the spiderweb, even those of us who see it for what it is. We cannot help it.”

“None of which tells us in what plot my father and old Balfour found themselves entangled.”

“We can’t weave facts out of the air, Weaver. I only wish you to see that these companies have much to gain, and they may have good reason to harm someone who stands in their way.”

“As you are so well versed in these matters,” I said, mustering the courage to bring up a topic I wished heartily to avoid, “can you perhaps tell me what you know of a gentleman called Perceval Bloathwait? He is a man deep within the funds, and therefore, no doubt, one of the nation’s great enemies.”

To my astonishment, Elias suddenly lit up. “Bloathwait, the Bank of England director? A devilish good man for one of your English Dissenters. Knows how to show his gratitude at any rate. I had the good fortune to be close at hand during a production of Addison’s Cato when Bloathwait was overcome with an attack of stomach gout. He nearly fell into the pit. Fortunately, I was there to bleed him on the spot—neatly turning a near-fatal accident into a lucky bit of business indeed. He rewarded me with no less than twenty guineas.”

“Your suspicions of moneyed men,” I observed, “are considerably tempered when they do you a good turn.”

“I should say so!” Elias responded with exuberance. “Many’s the man of greater birth who would think himself above paying the surgeon whom providence has placed in his way. Bloathwait is a good man, I say. If,” he added after a brief pause, “vested with too much power and probably corrupt and villainous.”

“It is clear that I shall have to pay a visit to this devilish good, corrupt, and villainous fainter,” I muttered, “for he has long been an enemy of my father.”

“You will forgive me if I don’t accompany you. I do not wish to have so powerful a man speak ill of me in the best circles.”

“I understand,” I said. “Perhaps you can use the time to polish The Unsuspecting Lover.”

“A splendid idea. Would you care to hear a few particularly effective scenes?”

I finished my coffee and rose. “I would like nothing better, but I must make this business my first priority.” I paid our reckoning, and left Elias at the table, scribbling busily upon his play.

FOURTEEN

I FOUND ELIAS’S ARGUMENTS based upon probability both fascinating and seductive, and I longed to find