In the light of day, I observed I had underestimated her beauty. She was tall and remarkably well made, and her face was full both of round softness and sharp cheekbone. Her forehead was high, her lips red, her eyes as black as emptiness itself: a blackness to match the dark of her hair, which set off the delicate paleness of her skin. Only with great difficulty did I prevent myself from staring, either out of confusion or delight.
“Perhaps you would like to have Celia bring you something to drink,” Ellershaw said. He spat the remains of his nugget into a bucket upon the floor. “Do you take tea, sir? We have tea, you may depend upon it. We have teas you have never tried, never heard of, teas hardly a white man outside the Company has ever heard of. We have teas we import for our own use here, far too good for selling or wasting upon the general public. You would like such a tea, would you not?”
“I am quite well,” I assured him, wanting only for the girl to leave the room and give me a moment to think. I had imagined her before some kind of feminine clerk. Now she showed herself to be a mere servant. How, then, did she so handily know the location of Ellershaw’s documents, and why had she been so quick to surrender them to me?
Ellershaw, however, would not be stopped. “Of course you want tea. Celia, bring the man a pot of the green tea from the Japans. He will like it very much, I’ll wager. Mr. Weaver is famous as a great pugilist, you know. He is now a great thieftaker.”
Miss Glade’s black eyes widened and her face colored. “A thief! That’s something terrible is what that is.” She no longer spoke with the clarity and diction of a woman of education, as she had when we first met. I considered the possibility I might have mistaken the breeding in her voice during our encounter, but I dismissed the notion in a trice. The girl was something other than what she pretended, and she knew I was as well.
“No, you silly girl. Not a thief, a thieftaker. Mr. Weaver tracks down thieves and brings them to justice. Is that not right, sir?”
I nodded, and now, feeling a bit bolder, I turned to the young lady. “Indeed, that is only part of my work. I am practiced in revealing all manner of deceptions.”
Miss Glade looked at me blankly, which I supposed was the appropriate response for her. “I’m sure that’s very good, Mr. Ward,” she said, with utter obsequiousness, but not missing the opportunity to deploy the false name I’d given her during my nocturnal thieving.
“Weaver, you ninny,” Ellershaw said to her. “Now go bring him his green tea.”
She curtsied and left the room.
My heart beat heavily as I felt the thrill and panic of having escaped-but escaped what, I hardly knew. I could not concern myself with the matter for now, however. I had first to discover what it was that Ellershaw would do with me, though I operated under the severe disability of not knowing what Cobb would have Ellershaw do with me. What if I should do the wrong thing? I could not worry myself with that, for if Cobb had not told me he could not hold me responsible.
Ellershaw took a sip from the steaming bowl the girl had brought him. “This is monstrous stuff, sir. Absolutely monstrous. But I must take it for my condition, so you shan’t hear me complain, I promise you, though it tastes as though brewed by the very devil.” He held out the bowl. “Try it, if you dare.”
I shook my head. “I dare not.”
“Try it, damn you.” The tone of his voice did not quite match the harshness of the words, but I misliked it all the same, and I should never have endured this treatment were I in possession of the freedom Ellershaw so extolled.
“Sir, I have no wish to try it.”
“Oh, ho. The great Weaver afraid of a bowl of medicinal herbs. How the great have fallen. This bowl is the David to your Goliath, I see. It has quite unmanned you. Where is the girl with that tea?”
“It has only been a moment,” I observed.
“Already taking the sides of the ladies, are you? You’re a wicked man, Mr. Weaver. A very wicked man, in the way I have heard that Jews are wicked. Removing the foreskin, they say, is like removing the cage from the tiger. But I like a man who likes the ladies, and that Celia is a rather tasty morsel, I think. Do you not agree? But let us stop this foolishness, for you won’t advance in Craven House if you can think of nothing but getting under the skirts of serving girls. Do we understand each other?”
“Absolutely,” I assured him.
“Let us turn our attention to the matter at hand. I have not had much time to consider it, but tell me, Mr. Weaver, have you ever thought of working for a trading company rather than being an independent such as you are, struggling from day to day, wondering where the next bite of bread might be found?”
“I had not thought of it.”
“It has just come to my mind, but I wonder how it is that these papers could have gone missing. You know, there was a riot of rotten silk fellows the other night, and my guards were all occupied in jeering at the ruffians. It might be that, in the excitement, one of those rogues could have slipped in and taken this.”
Ellershaw cut too close to the truth for my comfort. “But why should they take these papers? Was anything else taken?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I know, it hardly sounds plausible, but I can think of no other explanation. Even if I am wrong, it little alters the fact that we have dozens of low types guarding the premises, but no one who truly supervises them. The ruffian who inspects a departing laborer to make certain he has stolen nothing is himself the next day inspected by the very fellow he previously examined. The Company, in a word, is vulnerable to the treacheries and inadequacies of the very men charged with protecting it. Thus, I have the idea, at this very moment, that you might be the fellow to be head of the guard, if you will, to keep your eye upon them and make sure they are up to no mischief.”
I could hardly think of anything I should like to do less, but I understood my place was to seem agreeable to Mr. Ellershaw. “Surely,” I proposed, “a former officer in the army might be a better man. It is true I have some experience with thieves, but I have no experience in commanding underlings.”
“It hardly signifies,” he said. “What do you say to forty pounds a year in exchange for your services? What say you to that, sir? It is nearly as much as we pay our clerks, I promise you. It is a fair rate for such an office. Maybe too fair a rate, but I know better than to haggle over price with a Jew. I shall pay your people that compliment with all my heart.”
“It is a very tempting offer, for the stability of the work and the steadiness of the income should be quite a boon to me,” I told him, having no wish to make any decision without first consulting Cobb. “But I must think on it.”
“You must please yourself in that regard, I suppose. I hope you will inform me of your conclusions. It’s what I hope. But you’ve kept me long enough, I believe. I have much to do.”
“The girl is coming with the tea,” I reminded him.
“What? Is this a public house that you can order this and that at your leisure? Sir, if you are to work here, you must first understand that it is a place of business.”
I apologized for my error, while Ellershaw glared at me with the utmost hostility, and I made my way out of Craven House. I maneuvered around rushing clerks, servants with trays of food and drink, self-important and generally-though not always-plump men in close conversation, and even a few porters, all of whom moved about with such determination as to give the building the feel of a center of government rather than a company office. I both lamented and celebrated that I managed to see nothing more of Miss Glade, for I knew not what to make of that lady. I knew, however, that were I to return on a regular basis, that matter must come to some sort of head.
Once I was clear of Craven House, I had no choice, then, but to visit Mr. Cobb and report at once on everything I had seen. This necessity pained me, for I hated more than anything the feeling of fleeing to my master to tell him how I had served him and to inquire how I might best serve him next. However, I once more reminded myself that the sooner I discovered what it was that Cobb wanted, the sooner I would be free of him.