“Of course it bothers me.”
“Is there no way to be more vigilant?” he asked. “You know—to prevent this sort of thing from happening so regularly?”
“I suppose there is.”
“Then why have you not availed yourself of it?”
I looked up at him and grinned. “Who says I haven’t?” I finished my pot and set it down. “With so many spies and so much manipulation involved, I could not but be aware that there were those who would turn it to their advantage if I let my guard down for a moment. As ever when dealing with men of such power, there is only so much one can accomplish, but I believe I have done my best to thwart them.”
“But how so?” he asked.
“Finish your pot, and you will find out.”
WE TOOK A COACH to Durham Yard, where we once more knocked on the door and were greeted by Bridget Pepper, Ellershaw’s wife’s daughter. She was chief, I now believed, among those I had styled the Pepper widows. Elias and I were shown inside, where we waited but briefly before the good woman entered the parlor.
“Good afternoon, madam,” I said. “Is your husband home?”
“What cruel joke is this?” she asked. “You know quite well that he is dead.”
“I thought I knew that quite well,” I explained to Elias, but with the intention that she listen as well. “It was one of the few basic truths I was given by Cobb, but then I began to wonder. With so much deception about, how did I know Pepper really was dead? What if Cobb lied to me, or what if Cobb had been lied to? Given that we know he had a traitor in his midst, I now believe it to be the latter.”
“So Pepper is not dead?”
“No. It was part of the agreement he reached with the East India Company. He would give up the plans—plans they knew he would never be able to duplicate on his own because, as one of his other wives explained, he lost ideas the moment he wrote them down. In exchange for this sacrifice, he would be permitted to remain married to this young lady here. And perhaps something else: a new life abroad, I suspect. You must truly love him, to remain by his side despite his—shall we say—excesses.”
“I know not why you should defame his memory and torment me so,” she said. “He’s dead. He’s dead.”
“I wonder,” I said. I removed something from my pocket and showed it to her. “I wonder if this is the sort of thing that might bring him back from the grave.”
With my warmest smile, I showed the young lady the octavo containing the plans for Pepper’s engine.
“WHAT DID ELLERSHAW HAVE?” Elias asked me, as we walked to the back of the house.
“The first book I received from the lady in Twickenham,” I said. “It appeared remarkably similar in form and content, and there was no way to tell the plans it contained were abortive. Indeed, it looked to me so much like the true plans, that had there not been a slight imperfection on the calfskin of the other, a mark in the shape of a P, I would not have been able to tell them apart.”
In the back of the house, Mr. Pepper sat with a book and a glass of wine. He rose to greet me. “I must admit,” he said, “I had some vague hope this was a possibility, but it was never more than a vague hope. You are indeed an impressive man.”
But it was not I who was impressive. There was in fact something about Pepper that radiated more warmth, more kindness, more contentment than any other man I’d ever met. He was indeed handsome, but the world is full of handsome men. No, he had something else, and though I knew it was false, it was still remarkable and undeniable, like a bolt of lightning that one fears but that still produces awe.
I handed him the book. “I suggest you remove yourselves to some other part of the kingdom. The East India Company may not take well to your attempting to realize these plans.”
“No. As you deduced, that was the agreement. My death should be widely reported in order to keep me safe from the French. The ministry went to a great deal of trouble to make sure that French spies intercepted letters telling how the Company had murdered me.”
“And,” I guessed, “Mr. Ellershaw brokered this deal, providing you with a handsome dowry, allowing you to live happily with his stepdaughter, and ignoring your other—shall we say—entanglements, in exchange for surrendering the plans.”
Mrs. Pepper put a hand upon her husband’s shoulder. “You need not dance about the matter,” she said. “I know the somewhat circuitous path my Absalom walked before we came together. I do not resent him for doing what he had to, and now that we are joined I am content to forget his past.”
“But then,” I proposed, “Ellershaw had second thoughts. He could not risk your continued existence and wished to have you removed. It was then Mrs. Ellershaw who protected you and hid you away. That is why she thought I sought out information about her daughter on her husband’s behalf. I don’t know if she understood the truth of Mr. Pepper’s other attachments, but if she did, it could hardly matter more to her than it did to her daughter.”
Pepper patted his wife’s hand and grinned at me, a look both winning and lascivious. “Actually I must point out—for I am rather proud of it—that this good woman delivered unto me two handsome dowries. The bargain we struck was that Mrs. Ellershaw was to believe her husband violently disapproved of the match. She provided the dowry, and then Mr. Ellershaw matched it. A rather handsome scheme, I believe.”
He did not wait for my approbation, but instead began to look through the book. “Oh, yes. Very clever. Very clever indeed. I do have my moments. At times I think myself the very best of men.” He paused and looked up at me. “You must tell me why you do not keep the plans for yourself. This cannot yield fruit for some many years, and thus I can offer you no reward.”
“I don’t want the plans, and I don’t want the reward,” I said. “I could never understand your designs, and bringing them to any useful state should be far more work than I desire. I shall be honest with you, Mr. Pepper. Though we have never met, I have followed your trail all over the metropolis and have found you to be a most reprehensible man. You take what you will and care nothing for the feelings of those you harm.”
“That’s rather harsh,” he said good-naturedly. “And you’ll find that there are many who disagree with you.”
“Be that as it may,” I said, “I cannot claim to like you, but I believe that the man who invented the engine ought to benefit from it, even if that man is a rogue. To take the plans for myself would be theft of the highest order. I also believe that in the end you will do much less harm in the world if you are financially comfortable. And, finally, my aim here is that the East India Company be dealt with as it ought, and I believe you are enough of a contriver to see these plans brought to reality.”
“It is very honorable of you.”
“No, it is wicked,” I said. “I want them to know their efforts failed. All this energy expended in keeping a man from improving technology, in preventing people from having more control over the commodities they wish to buy. They think they own mankind when they only own their company. I have been very badly abused, Mr. Pepper, and the greatest satisfaction I can have is doing what I can to make certain that those who abused me are brought low. I do not think that it will happen soon, but I can content myself with knowing that I have planted a seed that favors the future.”
He grinned and slipped the book in his pocket. “Then many thanks to you,” he said. “I’ll use it in good health.”
Back in the hackney, Elias let out a laugh. “He truly is a foul man.”