“Good evening.” I attempted to alter my voice. My words were hard even for me to hear, lost in the leather hood and the tarpaulin and the rumble of the wheels upon the road. “My name is Mr. Henry Rufus, and I cannot help but think you have taken me by mistake.”
“Shut up, Saunders,” he answered. “I’m not an idiot.”
I knew that voice. I could almost place it, but the noise of the road and the muffling made it impossible for me to put the sound with its owner. “Look, what is it you want with me?”
“Quiet yourself,” he said again. “I’ll not speak with you. There’s no point, and you’ve a devil’s tongue. Pearson will tell you when he’s ready.”
When he’s ready turned out to be perhaps an hour later. We drove for some time, and I could detect little except that the sounds from our surroundings grew fainter and less frequent. We drove someplace unpopulated-neither surprising nor comforting. At last the cart stopped. We remained motionless for a moment, and I listened to my own breath in the hood and my assailant’s heavy breath over me, and beyond that something else: the lapping of water against the shore. Next I heard a rapping, like a cane against wood. It struck four times, no doubt a signal, and the man atop me eased up the weight upon me. He raised the tarpaulin, letting in a refreshing wave of cool air. Next he grabbed me by one arm, now less concerned that I might attempt to run away. I knew not where I was, so how could I run? He pulled me from the cart and onto the ground, where my other arm was gripped hard by a second man.
“Mr. Pearson, I imagine,” I said. “I am so very flattered that you would trouble yourself to call upon me, but I must inform you that we would be much more comfortable at my inn than here. I have a most agreeable line of credit, at least with the wine.”
He said nothing. Perhaps he wished to torment me, but I don’t think so. I believe he was afraid. I believe he knew it was dangerous to engage in conversation with me and would not risk it. I made several further attempts, but he said nothing. We walked, first upon grass, and then upon soft dirt. Wet dirt, I believed. Then we walked briefly along a stone path. They led me next down a set of slick stairs. More clearly now I heard the sound and smelled the tang of a river: waters both clean and stagnant, the scent of dead fish washed ashore. The air was cool and wet, and soon I was walking in the mud. At last one of the men pushed me forward, and there were subtle differences-a shift in the darkness, the disappearance of the wind-that led me to believe I was now in an enclosed space, a room of some kind, except the earth beneath us was still wet and I could hear the river just as distinctly.
The stronger of the two men-that is, not Pearson-pushed me to my knees, and held me down. Pearson then began to bind my arms behind me with heavy rope. Next he bound my feet together at the ankles. I felt him fumbling with the ropes, and though he pulled hard to make certain his knots were tight, I knew he was inexperienced in these arts.
Once this operation was complete, they pulled me to my feet once more. With a sharp tug, the hood was yanked from my head, and I stood in near-total dark. Only inches from my face I observed the malicious grin of Pearson; by his side, also grinning, but in the easy simple way of dogs, was Reynolds.
“So this is all Duer’s bidding,” I said, “and you, Pearson, are but one of his puppets?”
“I work for Duer,” said Reynolds, “but I am willing to serve other men when time allows. At the moment I work for Mr. Pearson.”
“And the evening my landlady chased you away from her house, were you in Mr. Pearson’s service then too?”
“Aye,” he said.
My eyes having had a moment to adjust, I now looked around me. All was still in darkness, but in shades of gray I determined a few things, none of them encouraging. The earth was wet mud, and it caked my stockings and breeches from when I’d knelt. All around me were the iron bars of a prison, though this cell was very small, not four feet in length or width, wide enough for a man to sit but never lie down. It was perhaps seven feet in height, and there was a single iron door that opened along a square stone slab. The cage rested only inches from the river, and above us was blackness. I smelled the decay of old wood; perhaps we were under a disused pier.
Pearson saw my appraising glances and chose to answer my unspoken questions. “It’s an old dock, used by the British during the occupation, but it was damaged in the war and has never been repaired. A friend of mine, a British colonel, told me of this cage, and I wondered if it might someday become useful.”
“A friend of yours,” I said, “a British colonel? How shocking.”
“You may make all the quips you like, but I have you and may do with you what I wish.”
“And what do you wish?” I asked. “Why go to all this trouble?”
“Tomorrow,” he said, “the Million Bank launches. Duer wishes me to invest heavily, to deploy my own agents to buy as much as we can, keeping the share within the circle of his acquaintance. I know he has tried to dissuade investment in the launch, but you have been singing its praises. I wish to know why and what you have in mind.”
“What I have in mind,” I said, “is making certain Duer does not gain control of the bank. Listen to me, Pearson. Keep your money out of the Million Bank. You’ll lose everything. That bank will fail in a matter of months.”
“Duer doesn’t think so.”
“Duer doesn’t care,” I said. “The Million Bank can be destroyed in half a year, and it won’t matter to him. All he cares about is controlling the bank for now, using the credit such action will grant him to gain control of the market for six percents and, later, the Bank of the United States. But you didn’t know that, did you? He convinced you to use your own money in lowering the price of six percents, so he could buy them cheaply. He convinced you to buy four percents to raise the value so others would come flocking to sell their six percents in order to buy four percents. But now the four percents are worthless. Don’t lose even more in the Million Bank.”
He paused, just long enough for me to see that my words disquieted him. “And why should I believe you? Why should I take your advice on any of these matters?”
“For the sake of your wife,” I said. “The only reason she has not fled from you is because a woman and two children enduring poverty exposes herself to more dangers and abuse even than living with you. I could not endure to see her living in poverty and with you.”
He did his best to appear untroubled. “Well, we shall see. I will wait a hour or so after the launch before deciding what to do, and then, based on what I have learned, I will come back and see if you have, perhaps, been withholding important information from me.”
Here Reynolds took a step forward. “If I may, Mr. Pearson,” he said, “it is my experience that it is always a poor decision to leave an enemy alive-particularly a sly one like Saunders here. Now, I don’t have nothing against him. He lives or he dies, it don’t signify one way or the other to me. If I’m paid to hurt him or kill him, that’s what I do. But leaving him here? It’s just foolishness. If he escapes, he’s going to make your life very difficult. Mine too, likely.”