“He appears to have no servant but his unpleasant man, so it would seem he has no cook,” I noted. “He must therefore eat out. Surely someone has observed him about town.”
“An astute question,” Elias said. “I believe I may be able to learn a thing or two on that score. I will redouble my efforts. There is a very fashionable son of a duke—a third or fourth son, so of no real consequence, you understand—who lives not far from Cobb. He suffers from some rather painful boils upon his arse. Upon the next lancing, I will inquire if he has made any observations on his neighbor.”
“You’ll provide us, I hope, with only his answer and no other details,” I said.
“Is it then only my love of human health that makes me so enjoy the sight of a lanced boil?”
“Yes,” I assured him.
“Well, look, Weaver, I hate to even mention this, but I think it worth saying. This Cobb fellow is quite obviously a man of some power and cunning. Would it not benefit you to seek an alliance with another man of power and cunning?”
“You mean that scoundrel Jonathan Wild,” my uncle said with evident distaste. It required some considerable effort, but he pushed himself forward in his chair. “I shan’t hear of it.”
Wild was the most famous thieftaker in the city, but he was also the most cunning thief in the nation, probably in the world, and very possibly in the history of the world. No one, as far as I knew, had ever established a criminal empire of the scope Wild had constructed, and he did it all while passing himself off as a great servant of the public. The men of power in the city either knew nothing of his true nature or pretended to know nothing because ignorance served their purposes.
Wild and I were adversaries, there could be no doubt of that, but we had also formed uneasy alliances in the past, and I had a cautious respect for Wild’s nearest lieutenant, one Abraham Mendes, a Jew of my own neighborhood.
“To speak the truth,” I explained, “I had already considered that option. Unfortunately, Wild and Mendes are pursuing their operations in Flanders and are not expected back these two or three months.”
“That’s rather bad timing,” Elias said.
“Not in my opinion.” My uncle settled back in his chair. “The less business you have with that man, the better.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” I said. “Were he here, I would have no choice but to seek his advice at the very least, possibly even his aid. That would be a dangerous precedent. I have worked with him before when we had overlapping goals, but I should hate baldly to ask him for a favor. To do so would be to grant him too much power.”
“Quite so,” my uncle intoned. “Nevertheless, Mr. Gordon, your suggestion is appreciated. I value your help.”
“I am hardly helping you,” Elias pointed out, “for my own finances and futurity are as bound up in this as yours.”
“Nevertheless,” my uncle continued, “I am in your debt, sir.”
Elias rose to bow.
“Now, I hope you will excuse us but I have a need to speak to my nephew alone.”
“Oh,” Elias said, understanding my uncle’s praise as an awkward transition. He looked somewhat dejectedly at his half-full glass of claret, wondering—I could see from the mournful look in his eye—if to finish it off now in a quick gulp would be an unforgivable rudeness. “Of course.”
“On the way out, tell my man I’m instructing him to present you with a bottle. He’ll know where to find it.”
This pronouncement brought all the joy back to my friend’s countenance. “You are too good, sir.” He bowed once more and took his leave.
When he was gone, we sat together in silence for some minutes. Finally, it was I who spoke. “You must know how sorry I am to have brought this upon you.”
He shook his head. “You’ve done nothing. You are being harmed and have done no harming. I only wish I could offer you some assistance.”
“And what of you? How will you endure these trials?”
He raised to his lips a glass of a steaming wine posset, so thick with honey I could smell its sweetness across the room. “Think nothing of it. This is not the first time in my career that money has been hard to find. It shan’t be the last. A skillful merchant knows how to survive. See that you do the same.”
“And what of Mr. Franco? Have you heard anything from that quarter?”
“No,” my uncle said. “It may well be that he has not yet discovered his embarrassments.”
“Perhaps he need never discover them.”
“No, I don’t think that’s right. He may never learn that his fate is bound up with yours, but if he should be carted off to prison on your account, I think he should have heard something of the matter first.”
My uncle had the right of it, and I could not deny his wisdom. “How well do you know Mr. Franco?”
“Not so well as I would like. He has not lived here long, you know. He is a widower, and he and his lovely daughter removed themselves from Salonica to enjoy the liberties of life in Britain. Now the daughter has gone back. I still don’t understand why you did not pursue her more forcefully,” he added.
“Uncle, she and I would not have been a good match.”
“Come, Benjamin. I know you hold out hope for Miriam—”
“I do not,” I said, with all the force of conviction I could muster, much of it sincere. “Things with her are irrevocably broken.”
“They seem to be broken between the lady and myself, as well. I hear very little of her and nothing from her,” he told me. “Upon her conversion to the English church, she severed her connections with this family entire.”
“She has severed ties with me as well.”
He looked at me with some skepticism, for he did not believe it was her conversion and marriage that ended our friendship so permanently. Nor should he have believed it. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done, then.”
“No,” I said. “Now let us return to the subject of Mr. Franco.”
My uncle nodded. “He was a trader in his youth and did moderately well, but he is not a great man by any means. His desires are fairly modest. I understand he has no active life in the markets now and interests himself in reading and enjoying company.”
“And,” I noted with great unhappiness, “if he has collected only enough upon which to retire in relative comfort, a major burden of debt could quite destroy his comfort.”
“Just so.”
“Then I suppose I had better speak to him.”
MR. FRANCO KEPT his handsome and tastefully appointed house on Vine Street, an easy walk from my own residence and my uncle’s. Given the hour, it was possible, perhaps likely, that he should be entertaining or out, but I found the man at home, and eager to receive company. He saw me in his parlor, where he offered me a fine chair and a cup of cleverly mulled wine.
“I’m delighted to see you, sir,” he told me. “After Gabriella’s return to Salonica, I feared there would be no further connection between us. I expect her back soon and am glad of it, for a man should be with his family. It is a great blessing in one’s later years.”
Mr. Franco smiled kindly at me, and I felt hatred toward myself and rage toward Cobb for what it was I must tell him. He was a kind-looking man with a round face that suggested a plumpness of body he did not possess. Like my uncle, he eschewed London fashion and wore a closely cut beard that drew an interlocutor’s attention to his warm, intelligent eyes.
He was, in many ways, an unusual man. Part of the reason my uncle had been so eager for me to pursue the match was that, unlike many respectable Jews of London, Mr. Franco would not have regarded an alliance with a thieftaker as an insult to his family. Indeed, he rather took pleasure that I had achieved some recognition among the Gentiles of the city and regarded my successes as a sign—an overly optimistic one, in my estimate—of a greater tolerance to come.