Blackburn gave Ellershaw a curt nod. “I accept your proposal,” he said, though, as far as I knew, nothing had been offered.
“A fine plan, Blackburn. Very fine. But one more thing. I would rather you not discuss this matter with anyone. If anyone asks you, say only that everything is in order. I don’t believe most men would pry more, lest they hear about facts and figures and tables in which they have no interest. Can you keep this to yourself?”
“Of course,” Blackburn said. “I have no desire to advertise this irregularity. You see, Mr. Weaver, you are something disorderly, and I hate disorder. I like things to be regular and predictable and easily accounted. I certainly hope you won’t bring disorder with you.”
“I had thought to,” I said, “but upon your request, I shall refrain.”
When we left Mr. Blackburn’s office, we nearly collided with a tall gentleman of fine form who appeared to hover in the hall awaiting our arrival.
“Ah, Forester, well met,” Ellershaw said. He put a hand upon the man’s arm. “I want you to meet Weaver. He’ll be aiding my work on the warehouse subcommittee.”
Forester’s dull blue eyes grazed Ellershaw’s hand on his arm before settling upon me. It could not have been plainer that he cared little for Ellershaw, but my new patron’s monkey grin told me he observed none of this animosity.
Forester nodded. “Good. Things in the warehouses would benefit from more attention.”
“Yes, yes. If you see Weaver around, think nothing of it. He is my fellow, you know. All is just as it should be.”
For some reason, this prompted Forester to study me more closely. “Your fellow?”
“Yes, yes. You needn’t worry.” Then to me, he said, “Mr. Forester is serving his first term upon the Court of Committees. Very new to everything, you see. But his father-ah, Hugh Forester. Now, there was a great servant to the Honorable Company. A great man both in the Indies and in London. The younger Forester has much to live up to, I think.” And here he offered me a wink.
Forester walked off and Ellershaw remained still, his face frozen in a foolish smile, like a young man who has exchanged charming pleasantries with the lady of his fancy. “I like that young man,” Ellershaw told me. “I like him enormous. I believe he shall go far with my help.”
I found this approbation astonishing. Forester’s disposition, which might flatteringly be called indifferent, had been unmistakable. How could Ellershaw not see the contempt with which this admirable young man regarded him?
For want of anything more decisive to say, I merely remarked that he must know best the character of the men with whom he worked.
“Indeed, I do. I love to spend my time with the Company men, inside Craven House and without. As it happens, I am to have some guests at my home four nights hence. I wonder if you would be so good as to join us.”
I could not have been more astonished. I was Ellershaw’s underling, his plaything even, little more than a toy. The vast difference in our stations made this invitation both strange and unexpected, and I could not but doubt that I was invited to attend in the role of a curiosity, something at which his guests might marvel. Still, in light of my directions from Mr. Cobb, I could hardly justify excusing myself. There was more, however, to it. I was beginning to find Ellershaw more than an interesting specimen of unlikable man, I was beginning to find him fascinating in his obliviousness, and much as he surely planned to hold me up as an object of fascination, I wished to do the same with him.
“You do me too much honor,” I told him.
“Nonsense. You’ll come?”
I bowed and said I should be delighted, and in doing so I set into motion one of the most important phases of this history.
ELLERSHAW NEXT LED ME down the stairs and out the back door, which I had previously entered on my covert first foray into Craven House. The grounds, in the light of day, seemed almost a small city, or perhaps even like one of the Company’s encampments in the Indies. Three or four large houses-converted homes, as I understood it-hulked about the grounds, but while the outer structures had surely not changed since the Company acquired them, they had lost all air of anything domestic. On the lower floors, windows had been boarded up, no doubt as much to save on the window tax as to provide security, and the bricks all had a dull gray cast to them.
Except they teemed with life. Scores of men and wagons, like monstrous insects of the Indies themselves, filed in and out of the compound, bringing goods to and from the East India docks at the river. The air was full of grunts and cries and orders shouted, the squeak of wheels, the creaking of wagon wood. Smoke puffed out of the warehouses’ chimneys, and from not too far away I heard the clang of a blacksmith, at work, no doubt, on some poorly abused wagon component.
And then, of course, there were the guards. I distinguished them from the laborers because they carried nothing, they hurried nowhere. They merely strolled around the grounds, looking at once suspicious and bored. Occasionally one would stop a wagon and examine the contents. I observed one fellow demand to see a manifest of some sort, but from the way he held it, I divined at once that he could not read.
Ellershaw led me to one of the largest of the structures, situated in the middle of the yard and facing the open gate. The wagons of goods went around toward the back of the house, where I presumed I would find some sort of dry dock for the loading and off-loading of cargo. The front maintained the illusion of a house. When I walked in, however, the illusion shattered at once. The interior of the house had been gutted but for the supporting walls required to keep the second story from crashing down on the first. Here I found a vast expanse of crates and barrels and boxes, not unlike my uncle’s warehouse of woolens and wines. And here, as in the days before Mr. Cobb wielded his malicious influence, the space was bustling with activity and energy.
“Move your arses, then,” a man shouted behind us, and divided Mr. Ellershaw and myself as he walked between us carrying a pile of boxes that rose three or four head lengths above the top of his hat. If he noticed to whom he spoke and felt regret, he offered no indication.
“You there,” Ellershaw shouted at a portly fellow with heavily hooded eyes leaning against the wall, watching the proceedings lazily. “What’s your name, you slothful miscreant?”
The man looked up as though the effort of doing so pained him. He was not yet old, but he was close, and he had the look of a fellow who’d spent his life in the service of something about which he cared nothing. “Carmichael, sir.”
“Very well, Carmichael. Are you ’pon the watch?”
“That I am, sir, and at your service.” He offered a hesitant bow, clearly understanding that he spoke to someone important. “I am at your service, sir, and one of the watchmen too, as your worship observed himself.”
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. Now gather your fellows here, I wish to address them.”
“My fellows?” he asked. “Begging your worship’s pardon, your worship, but I’m not aware in any wise of your meaning.”
“My meaning,” Ellershaw said, “is that you will gather your fellows-the other watchmen. Go and gather them. I wish them gathered.”
“As regards your worship’s meaning,” the guard answered, “I understood as much as that. But as regards to the how of your worship’s meaning, I am less certain. How is it that I am to gather my fellows?”
“How the devil am I to know? How do you usually do it?”
“Begging your worship’s pardon, but I don’t, nor does no one. There ain’t no method to do so of which I’m aware.”
“Mr. Carmichael, do you mean to say,” I inquired, “that you have no means of gathering about you the various guardians of the grounds?”