I honestly did not know where his bluster and fabrication ended and where the truth began. This was not war, where secrets relate to tangible things like troop movements, army composition, and battle plans. This was the world of finance, in which even the nature of truth can twist upon the slightest wind. I did not pursue the matter further because I did not believe I could learn more from listening to Duer spin his tales.
“What then,” I said, as though it were the natural consequence of what had come before, “can you tell me of Pearson?”
Duer allowed himself the indulgence of a brief frown, just a flicking downturn of the mouth. “Jack Pearson? What of him?”
“I would like it if you could tell me about your animosity toward him.”
He had now returned to smiling. “Animosity, you say? I know nothing of it.”
“It has been said that you are his enemy. That the financial difficulties he is currently experiencing are of your engineering. That you and Pearson are locked in some sort of duel to the death, and that he has already emerged as the clear loser.”
Duer stood up, a slow, deliberate motion. His face was now set, like a man enduring pain. Whippo observed this with some alarm, as though I were using invisible witchcraft to harm his master. He took a step toward me.
“Who told you that?” Duer demanded.
“It is something I heard,” I said casually. I finished my wine. “Have you more of this claret? It is really quite good.”
“Mr. Duer asked you a question,” Whippo said. His voice was deep and resonant but had the vague quality of the perpetually bored.
“Oh, I heard him. But I also asked a question. Regarding the wine.” I handed Whippo the glass. “A bit more if you please, fellow.”
Duer nodded at Whippo, and though the large man’s face was set in a mask of smoldering resentment-narrow eyes, flat lips, flaring nostrils-he went to the sideboard and tipped the bottle, filling the glass almost to the brim.
Once the wine was in hand, I smiled like a contented pasha. “So, much better. Now, do sit, Mr. Duer. It is bad enough that Pantagruel there menaces me, but I cannot speak to you gentleman to gentleman while you tower above me.”
Duer, perhaps wishing to regain the illusion of composure, returned to his seat. I sipped my wine.
“Now,” I said, “what was your question?”
“Damn you, you drunk fool, where did you hear I was against Pearson? Who told you?”
“Ah, yes, Pearson.” Lest my reader believe that I was actually inebriated, I should point out that much of this behavior was in the order of a ruse. It served my purpose to have them believe me far more drunk than I was.
I emptied my glass to the point where I could hold it comfortably without spilling. While I did so, I considered what lie would best suit my purposes. It was clear that Duer and his factotum both believed it a terrible thing that rumors of this sort should be spread. I could not tell them I had intercepted coded messages between parties I did not know. At the same time, I did not want to tell them I had heard rumors cast about in a tavern or on the express, since doing so would alarm them, and while causing an alarm was an arrow I might later want to pull from my quiver, I was not yet ready to do so. For the nonce, I wished to calm them.
“The gentleman’s wife,” I said at last. “When I saw Mrs. Pearson at the Bingham house, she expressed some concern about the nature of her husband’s business with you.”
Duer let out a breath. Whippo unclenched his fists.
“Wives are apt to speak of what they do not understand,” said Duer. “They believe they know better than their husbands and consider all new ventures to be ruinous ones.”
“What, then, is the nature of your business with Pearson?”
“I cannot tell you that,” said Duer. “What business I did with Pearson is all in the past. I told you as much. I have no knowledge of his current troubles other than what I hear, the same as any man.”
“And where is Pearson now?”
“I have no idea,” said Duer. “I believed him in Philadelphia, but if you have come looking for him, I presume it must not be the case.”
“And where did he go when he disappeared previously?”
“I have no knowledge of that either.”
“Do you have any immediate plans to do new business with Pearson? You need not tell me the nature of the business, only the day.”
Duer smiled. “It would be foolish to do business with a ruined man.”
I rose. “Then I shall waste no more of your time,” I said.
Leonidas met me at the coach, and together we made our dark, uneven way back to New York. It was a closed coach, but it contained a small window by which we could observe the coachman, and I noticed that he looked back at us more than once. Since beginning our journey, Leonidas and I had spoken only of trivial matters, but it seemed to me that the coachman hung upon every word.
“What did you learn?” Leonidas asked at last, clearly impatient with my silence.
I cast a quick nod toward the coachman and then said, “Oh, nothing of import. He was tight-lipped, but it hardly mattered. I always know when a man is concealing something, and he was not. And you? Did you hear anything from the servants?”
I suspected he had something he wished to tell me, but I shook my head ever so slightly. He understood my meaning and said that he had learned nothing.
When our coach arrived at Fraunces Tavern, we climbed down, but then I turned to the coachman. “What were you offered?”
“Sir?”
“By Duer’s man. He offered you money to report upon anything we said. How much?”
He shrugged, caught but unwilling to deny it. “He offered me a dollar.”
I handed him some coins from the fund Mrs. Pearson had given me. “Here’s two dollars. Report back that I said nothing, only made you stop the coach so I could vomit at the roadside.”
He nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Leonidas and I went and warmed ourselves by the fire. “Did you learn anything of moment?” Leonidas asked me. “What are his plans? Is the scheme the short-selling of stock?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Duer is playing at something he thinks very clever, but I don’t think it’s selling bank stock short.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because whenever he spoke of it, his discourse became theoretical, saying a man may do this or my agent might do that. He defended what he neither admits nor denies doing. He spoke about it in the most obviously evasive manner, and so could not have been more obviously hoping I would believe the shorting of issues was his goal. He was trying to lead me down a path to one thing and, by inference, away from another.”
“From what?”
I shook my head. “I can’t be sure. Did you learn anything in the kitchens?”
“Possibly,” he said. “Some major event is afoot with the servants. Things are to be made ready for early Wednesday morning. The coaches are to be prepared and food ready for an early meal. There will be a large and early breakfast at the house. It has all been discussed and planned with the greatest urgency, yet no one knows the occasion.”
I slapped my hand upon the table. “Oh, poor Mr. Lavien. He shall be behind us now, for we know what Duer intends and when he intends it.”
“We do?”
“Do you not remember what the men in the express told us? The Million Bank launches on Wednesday. Duer plans to have his agents come to the house for one last strategy meeting and then descend upon the launch. He considers it vital that the world have no faith in the Million Bank, because, if I am correct, he means to take control of the bank on its first day. We have until Wednesday, then, to learn why. We have to find out if this is just another financial maneuver or if it is connected to dark schemes in Philadelphia.”