Eliza stood. "Shall I summon a physician?"
"I am his physician," was Fatio's answer. Odd that, from a mathematician. But perhaps he'd been reading medicine-books.
To oblige the patient and his physician to rise and bid her a courtly farewell did not seem the wisest course. Eliza curtseyed and walked out of the room.
HALF AN HOUR LATER, she was in the House of the Golden Mercury. The office was full of English lawyers—not stacked lock-boxes containing three tons of silver, as she had every right to expect. Indeed, the lawyers out-numbered their clients: four (presumably German) bankers. Of these she had met three before, when she had stopped by with the Marquis of Ravenscar to present the Bills. The fourth was unfamiliar, and older. Eliza supposed that he had come in from Amsterdam.
"Is this a trading-house, or an art gallery?" Eliza inquired, if only to break the silence that had been her only greeting. "For I expected to see silver pennies stacked to the ceiling. Instead of which I am confronted by a Still Life such as has not been seen since the heyday of the Dutch Masters."
No one was particularly amused. But it did look like a group portrait. This office was scarcely large enough to serve as a muffin-shop. It contained two heavy desks, or bancas, and diverse shelves where ledgers and rolled documents were stored. A strong-box on the floor served as a small reserve of cash; but this was not the sort of place that customarily dealt in large volumes of specie. Such would normally be handled through one of the larger goldsmith's shops, or Apthorp's Bank. A narrow door in the back gave way to a staircase that executed an immediate fierce turn and then shot diagonally upwards through the middle of the office, reducing its volume by one quarter; it was on these stairs that two weeks ago the strong-boxes containing the first installment of the silver had been stacked. But no strong-boxes were there now. Rather, the first stair was claimed by the old banker, who was using it as a sort of dais from which to glower at the entire contents of the London branch of the House of Hacklheber. The old banker was stout, and his bulk entirely filled the width of the stairway, so that as he stood there, just on the far side of the narrow doorway, it looked as if he had been chivvied and tamped into a coffin standing vertically on end with its lid swung open. His jowls bulged like flour-sacks, forming profound vertical crevices to either end of his upper lip, which was as high, white, and sheer as the Cliffs of Dover.
Even if Eliza had not already met the London factor and his two assistants, she would have been able to pick them out amid the crowd by their postures. For they all stood with backs exposed to the old banker, hunched forward, frozen in mid-shrug, as if with his blue eyes he were boring slow holes into their spines.
The lawyers were five strong. To judge from their ages, the quality of their periwigs, and their posture, she guessed two full-fledged barristers and three clerks. The barristers were shoulder-to-shoulder with their clients, the clerks packed like oakum into spaces beneath the stair and among bancas that were not, for the most part, shaped at all like human beings. It was well that Eliza's morning sickness had abated, for the smell of coffee, snuff, decaying teeth, unwashed men, and colognes used to overpower same would else have sent her right back out into 'Change Alley, where she'd have gone into a fit as bad as Isaac Newton's. As it was, she had no lack of incentive to make the conversation brief and momentous.
"With so many gentlemen here, there is no room for silver," she remarked. "May I assume that it has all been delivered to the Mint to be coined?"
"My lady," began the London factor. He was literally reading from a prepared script. "The two weeks since you presented the Bills of Exchange at these premises have been eventful ones. Allow me to give you a brief account. You arrived on a day when news of a French invasion was looked for at any moment. The price of silver was high; its availability, nonexistent. You presented five Bills. One was payable immediately, and we paid it. The other four were payable on the tenth of June, by English calendar; that is, today. As no silver was to be had in London we despatched a message, post-haste, to our factory in Amsterdam. Less than twelve hours after its arrival in that city, a ship was underway on the Ijsselmeer laden with silver sufficient to pay the four outstanding Bills. Under normal circumstances she would have reached London and called at Tower Dock in more than enough time for the said bullion to have been minted into English coins before the date of expiry of the said Bills. During her passage across the Narrow Seas, however, she was waylaid, and overhauled by Ships of Force flying the flag of the French Navy. The silver and the ship were taken to Dunkerque, where they remain. Because this piracy was carried out by ships flying the fleur-de-lis, it is nominated, by our Dutch insurers, as an Act of War, expressly not covered by our policy; in consequence, the cargo is a total loss."
"Have you tried to buy silver on the local market?" Eliza asked. "There must be a glut of it now that everyone knows that the French invasion has failed. Why, I have heard that the Marquis of Ravenscar sold his holdings two weeks ago."
"News of the piracy did not reach my clients until yesterday," returned a barrister—a feline man not much bigger than Eliza. "Needless to say, my client has bent all efforts, in the short time since, to acquire local silver; but my client's ability to make such purchases is founded upon the credit of his House, not, mind you, as it really is, or ought to be, but as that is perceived by other bankers of the City—" and here he could not prevent his eyes from straying toward the window; for a few of those bankers, or their messengers, had begun to gather without.
"And that has suffered a blow, hasn't it," Eliza returned, in a voice suffused with childlike wonder, as if this had only just occurred to her, "because of the pirates and the insurers and whatnot."
"As to your speculations, my client has no comment," announced the barrister, "however I must correct you on a matter of lexicography. You said pirates. A pirate owes allegiance to no sovereign. The correct word, in his instance, would be privateer. Do you ken the distinction, my lady?"
"Why, yes—a privateer flies the flag of some country or other, and is in effect a part of its Navy."
"Your clarity, where this distinction is concerned, may perhaps reflect your status as the wife of the Grand Admiral of France—the superior of Captain Jean Bart, who confiscated my client's silver."
"That man is incorrigible! Why, only three years ago the rascal confiscated every last penny that I owned! I am relieved to be informed that the House of Hacklheber escaped with comparatively small losses."
"That remains to be seen," said the barrister. "A lady's wealth consists of the contents of her jewellery-box, but that of a banking-house consists largely in its credit. Direct losses such as the shipment of silver may be written off, and perhaps recovered. By contrast, when a Person of Quality erects an elaborate complot to destroy the good name of a banking-house—"
"It would be terrible, I could not agree more!" exclaimed Eliza; which shut them all up for a bit, as it was not quite the sort of response they had readied themselves for. "Though, by your leave, you are wrong about a lady's wealth being confined to her jewellery-box. Of far greater value is her honour, which is to a noblewoman what credit is to a banking-house. What I lost to Jean Bart three years ago meant nothing to me. Much more to be feared would be the damage that my good name should incur if persons, whether malicious or simply ill-informed, were to go about spreading a rumor that I had connived to swindle an honest German bank! Does your client not agree, sir?"
"Er…my client is not as fluent in the English language as you orI. Before I can speak on his behalf as to whether he agrees or disagrees with your assertion, I shall have to meet with him privily and see to it that our words are translated into German. Pray carry on, my lady; but first, know that nothing in my or my clients' previous statements can or should be construed to imply that I or my client is directly or indirectly accusing you of participating in a swindle."