characters were stamped on their faces.
“Mr. Weaver, over there you see my nephew, Mr. Tobias Hammond, a dedicated servant of his majesty at the Customs House.”
Hammond bowed stiffly. I rose and returned the greeting.
“He is employed at His Majesty’s Customs House,” Cobb reiterated.
“Yes,” I answered.
“I merely wished to point out his affiliation with the Customs House,” Cobb said.
“Yes, Uncle,” Hammond answered. “I believe he understands that.”
Cobb turned back to me. “Though, as you say, I have never heard a believable word uttered to impeach your honesty, I hope you will not mind that I bring in a pair of witnesses to see that I am entrusting twelve hundred pounds to your care. I expect you will return it no later than Thursday morning with whatever winnings you should earn off it. As these winnings will be collected through my own machinations, I trust you will not claim a percentage of them for yourself.”
“Of course. I can return the money to you that very night, if you prefer. I should be more comfortable having it in my possession for the briefest period possible.”
“Lest you be tempted to steal it, I suppose?” He let out a laugh.
“It is a great deal of money, so of course I shall be tempted, but I have ever been used to mastering my temptations.”
“Uncle, are you quite certain this is wise?” asked the nephew, Mr. Hammond of the Customs House.
“Oh, it’s the thing,” Cobb answered.
Hammond screwed his awkward face into an even more unappealing mask of discontent. He turned to the servant. “That will be all, Edmond.”
“I understand that Mr. Weaver has an acceptable reputation,” he said, “but it cannot be a sound practice to trust any man with this sum, more than he could hope to gain honestly in many years.”
“It is a substantial sum,” I agreed, “but stealing it would mean I must hide myself, abandon my good name, and have no prospects for future income. Furthermore, if after this employment word should spread that I had been entrusted with this sum and that Mr. Cobb’s trust was safe, then my future income can only grow. It would be a poor investment indeed for me to act the thief. Nevertheless, this is Mr. Cobb’s plan and not my own. I did not ask to be so entrusted, and I shall not insist upon it.”
“I should have him sign a note if it were my money,” Hammond observed.
“If it were your money, you could do as you like, as I shall do with mine.” Cobb spoke entirely without bitterness. Indeed, there was a certain good nature to his tone, as if he were unfamiliar with pique. “What means papers when we have witnesses? It is all one, and I believe no paper can stand the surety of Mr. Weaver’s reputation.”
“As you like, sir.” Hammond bowed and retreated.
Mr. Cobb spent the next half hour or so telling me more of what he knew of the dealer and of Bailor and what I was to say when I defeated him. I left confident that I could earn my five pounds without fail, but I also felt uneasy, for no man can have upon him twelve hundred pounds in negotiable bills and feel at ease. I wanted only to do what was asked of me and return with all deliberate speed.
As I left the house I saw the servant waiting by the door to watch me leave. He had an air of suspicion in his eye and seemed to want to make certain I did not steal anything on my way out. I hardly knew why I should choose to do so when his master had entrusted me with so much ready money.
Before leaving, I turned to him. “Mr. Cobb called you Edward, but Mr. Hammond called you Edmond. Which is it?”
“Edgar,” he told me, closing the door upon my face.
GIVEN EVERYTHING I KNEW of the plot Cobb had set forth, I came to one likely conclusion: The dealer had betrayed the plan to Mr. Bailor. He was, as I understood it, the only person besides Cobb, Hammond, and myself included in the secret; also, as he controlled the cards, no one else could have orchestrated things to so bad a result. He might well have offered some sort of amiable distribution of funds with Bailor. I thought to go find the scoundrel and pummel a confession from him before returning to Cobb’s town house, but my good sense held me back. It was certainly true that the dealer might have changed the outcome to favor Bailor, but I could not prove it, and I needed more information in order to proceed. That the dealer’s complicity was the most likely explanation did not make it the only explanation. I had seen animosity toward Mr. Cobb from both his servant and his nephew, and it was at least possible that one of them also had a hand in things.
To salvage my honor, I concluded I had no choice but to return to Mr. Cobb, tell him all that had happened, and volunteer not only to recover his funds but also to discover how his plan had gone wrong. There was much I did not know about the man, and I could not vouch for his prudence. It might be, I thought, that he was too foolish to keep quiet about the scheme beforehand. It is possible Bailor might have found out from a friend or some such thing, and it seemed unwise to pursue any course without further information.
I knocked on the door and the servant opened it at once, greeting me with his bill-like lips pressed into a sneer. “Weaver the Jew,” he said.
“Edgar the child-strangling bootlick whom no one regards sufficiently to recall his name,” I answered, for I was angry and tired and had no wish to play games with the man.
He showed me once more into the sitting room, where this time I did have to wait—perhaps three quarters of an hour—and every tick of the standing clock struck me like a blow. I felt very much like a man waiting for the surgeon to remove his kidney stones: I dreaded the operation but understood its inevitability and wanted it started that it might be over the sooner. At last Edgar returned and invited me into the parlor. Mr. Cobb, dressed in a sedate brown suit, stood in anticipation, smiling with the eagerness of a child who anticipates a sweetmeat. Sitting in an armchair across the room, lumpy nose lost in a newspaper, lurked Mr. Hammond. He raised his eyes toward me but then returned to his reading without comment.
“I trust you have news, sir,” Cobb said. His hands clenched and unclenched.
“I do,” I told him, when he sat, “but it is
“Not good news.” The smile flickered. “You do have the money to return?”
Now my presence captured Hammond’s interest. He set down his newspaper and glared at me, his eyes, like the reluctant head of a turtle, just visible from under his bob wig.
“I am afraid I do not,” I told him. “Something went quite wrong, sir, and though I do not love to offer excuses for myself, the matter was beyond my ability to alter. It is possible you may have been betrayed by the dealer, for the cards he gave me did not answer, and after the failure, he showed no signs of distress. I have given the events of last night a great deal of thought, and I believe—”
“It’s as I predicted,” Hammond said evenly. “The Jew has taken your money.”
“It’s been lost through perfidy,” I replied, making the utmost effort to avoid sounding either haughty or wrathful, “but not mine, I assure you.”
“Very likely you would tell us otherwise.” Hammond harrumphed.
Cobb cooled his ardor with a look, however. “If you had stolen the money, I very much doubt you would be here to tell us of it.”
“Bah,” said Hammond. “He wants his five pounds in payment on top of what he’s stolen. There’s a rascal for you.”
“Nonsense,” Cobb said, more to me than his nephew. “Nevertheless, you do appear to have lost it, which, while a less contemptible offense, is hardly a forgivable one.”
“I did lose it, and though I cannot blame myself, I consider myself both wronged and nearly involved. I assure you that I shall not rest until we discover who—”
“You assure
“Anyone might have predicted this outcome,” Hammond observed. “Indeed, I believe I did so myself.”
“I did not betray your trust,” I told Cobb, feeling myself growing hot. I had been as wronged as he and did not
