Without waiting to be asked, I sat by the fire and stretched out my hands before it. “Your pleasure signifies little. I’ve done what you asked, so now it is time to release me and my friends from your obligation.”
“Release you?” Cobb frowned at me. “Why should I do such an absurd thing?”
I jumped to my feet. “Do not toy with me. You told me if I did what you asked, you would undo the harm you’ve done. And I’ve now done what you asked.”
“As I recall, I said you must do all I asked. You’ve done the first thing, to be sure.” He little moved, seemed not to recognize that I was on my feet, my fists balled. “There is more, much more, that I require of you. Oh, no, Mr. Weaver. Our work is just beginning here.”
Perhaps I ought to have anticipated this turn, but I hadn’t. Cobb, I had believed, wanted these documents, and once they were in hand he would have no more use for me. “How long do you think to abuse me thus?”
“It’s not a matter of time, really. It’s a matter of goals we must achieve. I need certain things. Only you can provide them. You would not agree to do so. We will work together until my goals are met. It is that simple.”
“I shan’t keep breaking houses open for you.”
“Of course you shan’t. Nothing of the sort. I have a much more delicate business in mind.”
“What business is that?”
“I cannot tell you, not in such detail as you would desire. Tis too soon, but you will find I’m very generous. Sit, sit. Please sit.”
I don’t know why, but I sat. Perhaps it was something in his voice, and perhaps it was my recognition of the futile position I inhabited. I could not harm him, not without bringing horrific ruin upon my head and the others’. Cobb had managed his affairs masterfully, and I needed more time if I were to discover a means of besting him. I could not use my fists and end this tonight.
“Now,” he continued, “you will, for the time being, allow yourself to be hired no more. I will be your only patron. In addition to the thirty pounds I have promised you for this task, I will pay you another forty pounds per quarter, which is a very generous sum—I suspect quite as much as you would earn in a typical span of time, and perhaps rather more. In addition, you will not have the distress of wondering whence your income will arise.”
“I will have the distress of being slave to another man’s whims and having the lives of others hanging upon my actions.”
“I think of that as less a distress than an incentive. Come, only consider upon it, sir. If you are loyal to me and give me no cause to prod you, none of your friends will find themselves in any harm.”
“And for how many quarters will you require my services?” I asked, forcing my teeth to ungrit.
“That I am unable to say. It may be a few months. It may be a year or even more.”
“More than a year!” I barked. “You cannot leave my uncle in his current condition for a year. Return his shipment to him, and I will consent to move forward.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do. I cannot believe you would feel obligated to keep your word to a man who has used you as ill as I have. In a few months’ time, perhaps, when you have further committed yourself, when you have too much to lose from ending this yourself, we can discuss your uncle. In the meantime, he will help make certain you do not stray too far from our goals.”
“And what are those goals?”
“Come see me in three days, Weaver. We’ll discuss it then. Until that time, you may away with your earnings and indulge your liberty. Edmund will pay you for tonight’s adventure and your first quarter’s wages on your way out.”
“I’m sure he will delight in paying me.”
“His delights are no matter to me, and if you think you incur my anger by thrashing him, you are mistaken, so you may cease doing so.”
“You might give me a better motivation.”
“If beating upon my servant calms your humors and makes you more agreeable, then beat him as you like, and I’ll consider his wages well earned. There is one other thing, however. I cannot help but presume that you are curious as to why I go to such extremes to pursue this end. You will want to know about these documents and Mr. Ellershaw and so forth. It is my advice that you dampen your curiosity, snuff it out entire. It is a spark that could lead to a great conflagration that would destroy you and your friends. I do not want you looking into me or my goals. If I find you have not heeded my words, one of your friends will suffer to prove my earnestness. You must content yourself with a state of ignorance.”
I’d been dismissed. I rose and stepped out into the hall, but Cobb called me back.
“Oh, Weaver. You mustn’t forget this.” He held out the documents.
I stared at the papers in his hand. “You do not want them?”
“They are worthless to me. Take them, but keep them safe. You will have need of them in a few days.”
By the door, Edgar returned my things to me and placed a purse in my hand without a word. It was well for me that the thieves who haunted the streets like hungry ghosts did not smell my silver, for they would have had an easy target that night. I was too dazed to fight back, or perhaps even to understand danger when I saw it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE NEXT EVENING I ARRANGED FOR A MEETING AT MY UNCLE’S HOUSE that Elias also attended, for the three of us were the men most nearly connected with this trouble—with the exception of Mr. Franco, but I shall speak more of him later. We sat in my uncle’s study sipping his wine, though, in Elias’s case, gulping might be a more accurate description, for he had a hard time balancing the needs of clarity of thought with the quantity of claret in a wine merchant’s home.
“I have been unable to learn anything of the man, this Mr. Jerome Cobb,” my uncle said. He leaned back in an armchair, looking small and frail in its clutches. Despite the fire, he sat under a pile of heavy quits and had a scarf wrapped around his neck. His voice emerged with a rattling wheeze that made me most anxious for his health. “I’ve asked around, quite discreetly you understand, but his name produces nothing but blank stares.”
“Could those of whom you inquire be dissembling?” I asked. “Perhaps they are so afraid of Cobb they fear to cross him.”
My uncle shook his head. “I don’t believe so. I have not been a merchant for all these years without learning to sniff out deception—or, at the very least, uneasiness. No, Cobb meant nothing to those I asked.”
“What of the nephew, the customs man?” I asked.
My uncle shook his head. “He is known to work there, but he is well situated and aloof. Many men I spoke with had some passing knowledge of him and could report having seen him, but they could say no more.”
Elias, who was wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, nodded vigorously. “I can report little more. I’ve learned that his servant arranged for a lease upon his house at auction, offering a generous amount and paying three years in advance. He did so some six months past. Beyond that, I have heard nothing. No one of means lives in London without attracting the notice of society. Since it became clear he had designs upon you, I’ve let the blood out of some of the most fashionable arms in London, pulled some well-placed teeth, and removed a rather lofty kidney stone. I even had the delight of applying cream to a rash upon a pair of the most exceedingly fashionable breasts in London, and no one of import has heard the name. And you know how these affairs go in the world of fashion, Weaver. Aman of this sort, with wealth not merely claimed by him but put into undeniable action, cannot enter the metropolis without generating attention. Yet he has managed to avoid all notice.”