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“Damn these plottings,” I murmured. “First the white rose that Groston gave me, and now there is more.” I told Elias about my encounter with Greenbill and his gang, and of one of the porter’s underlings informing me that Johnson was a well-known Jacobite.
“It would seem,” Elias said thoughtfully, “that someone sought to implicate an alliance between you and the Jacobites even before your trial became a political cause. Who would want to do so? Not the Jacobites, surely.”
“No,” I said. “My enemy must be someone who hates me and Jacobites equally.”
“Once again, we must turn to De
“I like it no more than you. I ca
He shrugged. “You might hope they don’t kill anyone else in your name.”
“But they will,” I said. “And I know whom they will kill too.”
His eyes widened. “The witnesses against you from the trial?”
I nodded.
“But why? What harm can they do?”
“I don’t know, but they can be killed without disturbing anyone of note, and their deaths can easily be blamed on me.”
“Weaver, you seem to be facing far more than you can handle. This is by several degrees more severe than the death of a laborer. There is something at work here that smells of a genuine assault against the nation. The Jacobites are gathering their forces, and they are using you to screen themselves. You must go to the ministry and tell all. They will protect you.”
“Are you mad? It was the government’s party that condemned me to death and set all this in motion. For all I know, it is the government itself that wanted to link me with the Jacobites. And even if there are not powerful Whigs behind all of this, if I should choose to go to them now, how can I know they won’t pin the conspiracy on me? They might happily hang me at Tyburn and count their votes without troubling themselves to wonder who is guilty and who is not. You know full well they might prefer to take advantage of the moment than actually see justice served.”
“Yes, yes. You are right, there. They would gladly string you up so they could point to you and say, Here is a Jacobite plotter. We’ve proven the threat is real. So what will you do now?”
“Find the witnesses first and be there when the killer comes for them.”
I hated once more to call on Mendes, but circumstances were such that I had no choice, and as there were lives other than my own in the balance, I thought it improper to stand upon ceremony. I therefore wrote to him, asking that he meet me at his rooms that night- with the request that he send his reply to a coffeehouse I had previously designated. When I went to retrieve my messages I found that Mendes had written back, indicating that he did not believe it would be safe for us to meet at his home, and instead asked me to lease a room in the back of a tavern of my choosing, and then let him know when and where. I took care of this task immediately and sent him the information, though I was now on edge, for I could not think why his rooms would not be safe. Had someone discovered our previous meetings? Did an enemy of mine keep Mendes under surveillance?
I would have to wait to learn. At the appropriate time I changed out of my Matthew Evans costume and then slipped out the window into the alley. It would have been far easier, and far safer, simply to stroll there like a gentleman, particularly since the papers reported that Weaver had been seen in some of the more unpleasant parts of town. But even though Mendes had proved himself a most worthwhile ally, I could never think of confiding all my secrets to him.
I was glad I had taken the precaution, for I soon discovered I had trusted Mr. Mendes perhaps more than I ought. When I walked into the room I had rented, I found him waiting for me, but he was not alone.
Jonathan Wild was by his side.
Until the time he met his fate at the end of a hangman’s noose, I don’t know that Wild ever came as close to death as he did at that moment- and I include in my reckoning the incident in which Blueskin Blake famously stabbed him in the throat. In an instant I had kicked closed the door and withdrawn a pistol from my pocket. I came within an inch of discharging it directly into his head.
But I paused. I believe it was the look on Wild’s face: one of utter composure. It suggested to me that either Wild had not come to harm me or he had come so fully prepared to harm me that he had nothing to fear. In either case, I was eager enough to avoid adding another charge of murder to my troubles that I hesitated.
“Put it away,” he said to me, as he drank from his pot of ale. “If I wanted you taken, you’d have been taken by now. As it is, you’re of far more use to me free than you would be in chains. And you’re sadly mistaken if you think a hundred and fifty pounds is enough to turn my head.”
I lowered my pistol and approached the table. Mendes had already produced me an ale. “You’ve nothing to fear,” he said.
“Then why didn’t you tell me you were bringing him here?” I asked Mendes, still not ready to sit.
Mendes remained impassive. With Wild around, he was no longer his own man but the thieftaker’s puppet. I would get nothing from him. “He did not tell you,” Wild said, “because you would not have come.”
It was true enough, but it did not, in my mind, excuse the deception. Still, I had no one to blame but myself. As much as I should have liked to have trusted Mendes, I knew he was Wild’s creature, and I could not be surprised that he would bring his master to meet me. The only question remaining was why.
Wild had about him a ma
“Let us not trouble ourselves with these niceties.” I held myself straight in the effort to create a false authority of my own, but the thin smile on the thieftaker’s lips told me that I had not done a very good job. “I have been uneasy with your involvement in my troubles since your appearance at my trial.”
“Have you?” he asked. His features were so sharp and angular, I thought they should shatter under the pressure of his smile. “Would you be easier if I had spoken ill of you, as you had no doubt anticipated?”
“I should have been less surprised, certainly.”
“I am sorry to have surprised you, but I should think you would be more grateful. I set aside whatever differences we might have had in order to do you a good turn. You and I are used to scrambling after the same prize- or, worse, being opposed to each other. But in this matter I am your greatest friend.”
“I am under no illusions that you did so for any reason but to serve yourself. Mr. Mendes has made me aware that you have no love for De
“True enough. I suspected his involvement the moment I heard Yate was dead. And Mendes tells me you have no knowledge of the woman who passed you the housebreaking tools. Is that right?”
“I still believe it was your doing,” I said, though I was not sure I did.
He laughed. “You may believe it if you like. It must certainly make you angry to think me that much involved in your rescue. But I had no hand in that little scheme.”
I shook my head. “Then what is it you want? Why have you come here?”
“Only to offer you assistance, Weaver. Faith, I am no friend of the Tories, any man can see that, but this Dogmill and his lapdog Hertcomb are a plague upon my business. I should support Cardinal Wolsey if he ran against Hertcomb and made Dogmill his enemy. I thought for certain that this race was all sewn up for those villains, but then you come along and make the situation far more interesting. So long as you are ru