“I should hate to do that, but yes.”
“And if I do comply?”
Cobb smiled winsomely. “If you do all I ask, I shall make your debt disappear, and your friends’ difficulties shall likewise vanish.”
“I mislike having my hand forced,” I told him.
“I should be very surprised if you did like it, but I promise all will be made easy. I shall happily pay you thirty pounds for this particular service, which I think you will agree is a very generous fee. And when you have done all that is required, you and your friends shall be under no further obligation to us. All very reasonable, I think you’ll agree.”
I felt anger surge through me. I hated, hated to my core, to allow this man to treat me as his plaything, to serve him whether I would or no—his thirty pounds be damned—but what choice did I have? He had been careful to learn what he could of me, and while I would have allowed myself to be dragged off to debtor’s prison rather than do his bidding, I could not let my friends, who had come to my aid so often in the past, suffer now for my pride.
“I cannot like this,” I told him, “and you must know that when I have fulfilled all obligations, you will have to be careful to avoid crossing my path, for I cannot let this treatment be forgotten.”
“It is perhaps a poor negotiating strategy to discourage me from re-leasing you and your friends from my bonds.”
“Perhaps it is,” I agreed. “But you must understand the devil’s bargain you make.”
“Nevertheless, I feel confident that once we part ways you will come to feel differently about me. You will come to understand that though I have forced your hand, I have treated you with generosity, and you will have nothing ill to speak of me. That is the reason why I shall not let your threats deter me from my generous offer.”
It seemed I had no choice but to act as his pawn for the moment, and the means and method of demonstrating my resentment would have to take shape at a later time. “Perhaps now it would be wise for you to remind me of what it is you wish.”
“Very well,” he said. He suppressed a smile, but I could see he was mightily pleased with himself. I had capitulated. Perhaps he knew I would, but perhaps he had not expected it to be so easy.
I felt a pang of regret. I should have been more intractable, I thought. I should have made him pay for this victory with blood. And then I thought of the brutalized Edgar and comforted myself that his had not been an entirely peaceable victory.
Cobb began at length to explain what it was he wished me to do. He gave no information on why, nor certainly on how, to achieve his goal. There was no mistake, however, that he wished it done, and quickly too. “Had you allowed Mr. Westerly to secure your services, we would have more time to plan, but we haven’t that luxury now. Within the next two or three days, I believe, there is an opportunity that must be seized.”
It was very short time, short time indeed, for me to don the role of housebreaker and force my way into the most heavily guarded estate in the kingdom—a property inhabited by some of the most powerful private men in the world. A scheme of this sort is well planned over the course of months, not days.
“You are mad,” I told him. “How can I hope to break open such a house? They have watchmen and dogs and who knows what matter of protection.”
“It is your task to discover the way,” Cobb said. “Your friends are counting on your ingenuity, are they not?”
“And if you care nothing for your kinsman and associates, the thirty pounds ought to be enough incentive.” It was Hammond. I had not seen him enter, but he now stood at the doorway, sneering at me in his low, pinched way.
I ignored Hammond and turned to Cobb. “Kinsman and
“Ha!” Hammond barked. “The great thieftaker has not yet discovered all. Perhaps, Mr. Cobb, you have overstated his worth.”
“There is another,” Cobb said quietly. “You must understand that our goal is of the greatest importance, and we cannot risk even the possibility of failure, so in addition to the two men you have smoked, we have also meddled with the affairs of—”
“Wait, sir.” Hammond clapped his hands together with a childish glee that upon his ugly face engendered a countenance too grotesque to be imagined. “Perhaps the pull of responsibility might be stronger if you withheld that information. Let him worry whose foot might next step into the trap. That’s the very thing. Have you read Longinus on the sublime? He observes that darkness holds far greater terrors than any monstrosity, no matter how terrible, revealed in the light.”
“I hardly think we needs must leave the gentleman on the rack in that regard,” Cobb said easily. “Nor must we apply poetical theory to human affairs. I beg you, nephew, not to mistake cruelty for strategy. Though we force his hand at the first, we want Mr. Weaver as our friend when all is settled.” He turned to me. “The third man we have so set upon is a Mr. Moses Franco, a neighbor of yours, I am told, and a particular friend.”
I felt my color rising. The outrage of having my closest relation and dearest friend put under this burden was terrible enough, but to bear the responsibility for a man to whom I had so slight a connection was even worse. My uncle and Elias knew and trusted me and would have faith that I would do all I could in their service, but to see a man, hardly more than an acquaintance, dangle by the thread of my compliance drove me to distraction.
“Franco?” I spat. “The man is nothing to me. Why draw him into this madness?”
Hammond let out a chortle. “Nothing to you? Rot.”
Cobb rubbed his hands together gently, mournfully, like a physician looking for the words to deliver an unpleasant prognosis. “I was led to believe, sir, that there is a connection between you and the Jewess, Miss Gabriella Franco. Do I not have the right of it?”
“You do not,” I told him.
It had been for some three years or more my greatest wish to marry my cousin’s widow, Miriam, but that affair ended badly and with no hope of felicitous resolution. Though my uncle Miguel had sought that union, he too understood that the fortress lay in ruins, and he had accordingly made some efforts to secure matches for me that would be, in his mind, advantageous to my domestic economy and happiness. Though it was my habit to resist these advances, I would, on occasion, call upon a lady of his choosing if I thought her of sufficient interest. Miss Franco was indeed a very fine woman with a sprightly character and a distractingly pleasing shape. Should a man marry for shape alone, I declare I should have already surrendered myself to Hymen’s estate. Yet there must be other considerations, not the least of which is match in temperament. While I found her agreeable in many ways, for Miss Franco seemed all but designed to appeal to a prodigious quantity of my tastes in the more delicate sex, the lady was of a sort more to appeal to my casual rather than matrimonial impulses. Were she not the daughter of a friend of my uncle’s, and a man I had come to esteem upon my own account, I might have pursued a connection of a less permanent nature, but I refrained out of respect for my uncle and the lady’s father. Ultimately it was of little moment, for after I had made three or four visits to the Franco house, where I developed, I daresay, as much of a liking for the father as the daughter, the young lady’s grandmother had fallen gravely ill in Salonica, and the lovely angel immediately departed to care for her relation.
Though I had meant to continue a friendship with the very agreeable father, I had not yet had the opportunity to pursue the matter. I feared there would be no strong bonds of friendship forming now that I was certainly the source of the most imposing and unjust distress.
“I have no obligation to the Franco family nor that family to me,” I announced. “Their affairs are of little more interest to me than of any other casual acquaintance of my neighborhood. I ask that you not involve them in our concerns.”
“’Pon my honor,” Hammond called out, “it would seem the plight of the stranger causes him more distress than the plight of a friend. I think we’ll leave Mr. Franco’s debts safely—which is to say, precariously—in our charge.”
Cobb shook his head. “I am sorry, but my nephew has the right of it. Perhaps if you prove yourself a willing partner, we can release him soon. In the meantime, as it appears to offer some guarantee of your cooperation, we shall hold on to Mr. Franco’s credit.”
“You are mistaken,” I said in a low voice, “if you think I care for him above my uncle. Indeed, my uncle is
