I assure you, I am by no means in a position of opulence.”
“Widows,” Deloney announced. “Widows are the very thing. They are in command of their own fortunes, you know. And they are not bound by the strictest bonds of virtue as are young ladies with their fathers. Though I have broken some of those shackles, I assure you.”
He laughed heartily, showing me a mouth full of teeth that I wished to see scattered about the floor. Was it for this scoundrel that Miriam had asked to borrow money of me—that she might support his gaming? The thought was too humiliating to yield anything but rage, yet I wished to learn more of Deloney, so I laughed along with this man I wanted only to pummel.
Just then our lass returned with our two glasses of punch. She curtsied deeply, that we might enjoy a better view of her bosoms, which jutted forth from her bodice. Deloney was so transfixed by the sight that he did not even flinch when she announced that the punch cost a shilling a glass. He handed her the guinea, which she clutched in her long, charming fingers.
“If you allow me to keep this coin,” she cooed, “I shall make it worth your while.”
Deloney reached out and stroked her chin with his knuckles. “I’ll take the coins, my sweet, but I shall seek you out before I leave, and perhaps we may reach an understanding.”
She giggled as though Deloney had displayed unprecedented wit, and then reluctantly handed over the remaining nineteen shillings.
I took a sip and watched her disappear though the crowd. The punch might have been overpriced, but they poured rum generously, and it felt hot and comforting as it went down. A few such glasses and any man might cheerfully mortgage his house for an extra hand of whist.
Deloney drank deep of his punch and grinned at nothing I could discern.
“Widows,” I said, in the hopes of continuing my line of inquiry. “Have you such a widow at your disposal now?” I kept my voice controlled and even.
“Several, I promise you. Several. I have just come from extracting funds of one of them. So very pretty and so very gullible. She’s a charming Jessica whom I have made to believe I should liberate from her Shylock.” He paused. “As I recall, you are yourself a member of that ancient race of Hebrews, are you not? I hope you take no offense at the conquest of your women.”
I managed a hearty enough laugh. “Only so long as you don’t object to my conquest of your Christian ladies.”
He joined me in my laughter. “Oh, there are more than enough of those for everyone.” He gulped at his punch. “I have devised the most absolutely clever method in the world to convince her to hand over to me enormously pleasing sums of money.”
I could not contain my disappointment when he paused. “You must tell me,” I proceeded.
“I can’t let the secret out to just anyone. Yet, you have trusted me. Perhaps it is only fair.”
Elias then picked the most damnable moment to interrupt me, with none other than Sir Owen Nettleton as his companion. “Look here, Weaver. I have found a mutual acquaintance.”
The baronet clapped Elias upon the back. “I so rarely get to see him when he isn’t taking my blood,” Sir Owen said to me, and then turning, he saw my companion. “Ah, Mr. Deloney.”
Deloney only bowed, but his face grew pallid and his lip quivery. “Sir Owen. Always a delight to see you, sir.” He drank his remaining punch—half a glass, and enough, I would have thought, to fell a man twice his size—in a single gulp and turned to me. “May I know where you lodge, sir, so I know where I may pay my respects?”
I handed him my card, and he bowed and departed.
“I don’t think it my place to dictate your companions,” Sir Owen said, “but I hope you do not put too much stock in that man.”
“I have just met him tonight. How do you know him, sir?”
“He frequents White’s and some other gaming houses I have been known to visit. And he is avoided by all, for he owes every gentleman in this city money. Either from his pernicious
“False projecting?” Elias asked. “Not merely inept projecting?”
“Oh, I think with Deloney there is nothing but guile—harvesting chickens from cows, or turning the Thames into a great pork pie. Deloney invents them and sells shares for ten pounds or twenty and then runs off, leaving his victims with a pretty piece of paper for their trouble.”
“Hmm. I have lent him two guineas,” I said meekly.
Sir Owen laughed. “He owes me ten times that, which is why he scurried away like a rodent. You will never see that money again, I can assure you, but be thankful you escaped so cheap.”
“Where does he reside?” I inquired.
Sir Owen laughed again. “I hardly know where such a man might live. In the kennel drains is where he belongs. If you wish to beat your money out of him, I shall offer you 10 percent of mine if you can get it. But I think you are wasting your time. That money is gone and never to return.”
I made some further conversation with Sir Owen, who then excused himself to go chase the very serving lass who had offered her services to Deloney. Elias suggested that I lend him more money for play, but unwilling to extend myself any further, I told him I thought we should both go home to bed.
TWENTY-ONE
AT A TIME OF the morning that was far too early for social calls and concerns of society, London’s financial center was already thick with activity. The sky was as yet cloudless, and the day bright, so I shielded my eyes as I stepped out of the coach. I lingered for a moment from my elevated position and marveled at the street, a sea of wigs, as men rushed from this shop to that, from one coffeehouse to another, from the Bank to the vendor upon the street who hawked discounted lottery tickets.
South Sea House on Threadneedle Street, near Bishopsgate, was an enormous building, and struck me with its carved marble and life-sized portraits that decorated the lobby as an institution steeped in tradition. One would hardly suspect from its facade that the Company was less than ten years old and that its purpose—trade with the South American coast—had never been realized. There was something about the way people scurried through the lobby, the anxious, suspicious hurry in their walk, that made South Sea House little more than an adjunct of Jonathan’s Coffeehouse—that is, an extension of the Royal Exchange itself—and the men who conducted business there simply another order of stock-jobber. If stock-jobbing was but financial villainy, as so many had argued, then this was certainly one of the great breeding grounds of corruption in the Kingdom.
No doubt part of the hivelike buzz of South Sea House arose from the Company’s sense of urgency. This was an organization, as Mr. Adelman had told me, on the verge of striking a momentous bargain within the ministry—a bargain that I now understood would involve the exchange of millions of pounds. Millions of pounds—who could imagine such sums? This bargain would certainly be opposed by the Bank of England, whose even more auspicious building stood less than a quarter-hour’s walk from here. I did not know if I would find the answers to the mysteries of my father’s death in South Sea House, but I felt to some small degree emboldened by the name I had taken from Mr. Bloathwait’s desk: Virgil Cowper. I had not an inkling who Virgil Cowper was nor how he might offer me any assistance, but I repeated his name over and over again in my head, as though it were a little prayer or a song to ward off evil.
I stood for some minutes considering my course as the business of South Sea House flowed about me like some great river of pecuniary interest. At last I looked for someone to direct me, but as I did so I noted a scurvy- looking fellow making his way through the front doors and toward the back of the lobby. There was no particular reason for him to draw my attention, only that he was large and ugly and his clothing was none the best. By pure coincidence our eyes met, and we both looked upon each other for the most fleeing of moments; in that instant I knew him to be the very man who had set upon me on Cecil Street when I had been pursued by the mad hackney coachman.
We paused for a moment, he and I, and stared across this swell of people, neither of us knowing what came next. I could not simply grab him, he was too far away, and I suppose he wondered if he could successfully elude me. He had nothing to fear in the eyes of the law, for what could I do? I could hardly bring him before a magistrate, as I had no second witness to corroborate my testimony. I could, however, beat him mercilessly, and if he knew who I was, he knew I should not hesitate to do so. I thought, just for an instant, for time moved slowly as we
