A conspiracy of paper: a novel - By David Liss Page 0,209

Kent’s Coffeehouse when I came in response to my advertisement?”

“I was just having a dish o’ coffee,” he said meekly.

I would have to be creative if he did not become more forthcoming, but for the time being, a good stomp upon his injured hand proved the fastest way of assuring him I would have no nonsense. The bandage was now covered with fresh blood and a kind of brownish liquid I did not care to consider at length. “You will lose that hand I think,” I said, “and perhaps your life if you don’t have that looked at. But you may not live long enough for the rot to advance. So perhaps you will tell me what it was you were doing at Kent’s?”

“Let me go,” he said with a whimper. “This is me last chance. Wild, ’e used to trust me. Now ’e’s got that Jew Mendes doing me work. I need to make things right.” His face turned a sickly shade, and I feared he would lose consciousness.

“What were you doing there?” I repeated.

“Wild sent me,” he told me at last. Then he vomited, making no effort to avoid soiling himself.

I felt no surprise to learn that Wild was behind it, but I still needed to understand Wild’s interest in my inquiry. “Why?” I continued. “What did Wild tell you to do?”

“To watch you, ’e said.” He was gasping for breath as he spoke. “To let ’im know if anyone bothered you.”

It was not an answer I had anticipated. “What? Are you telling me that Wild sent you to tell him if I was attacked?”

Arnold attempted to move farther away from me. He crawled toward the corner. “Aye, I swear it. ’E wanted to know if you was bothered. And ’e wanted to see who it was what showed up to see you. He said I should see if I recognized ’em, and if not, to let ’im know what they looked like. But ’e said not to let you see me, and so when you did, I got scared and run off.”

“Who did he expect to show up?” I barked.

“I don’t know. ’E didn’t say.”

“Who killed Michael Balfour and Samuel Lienzo?”

I thought a direct approach worked best for a man in Arnold’s state. At first he only groaned and said “Oh, Christ,” again, but I moved toward his hand, and he came around. “It was Rochester,” he said at last. “Martin Rochester done it.”

I fought the swell of frustration. “And who is Martin Rochester?”

He looked up at me with an equal mixture of supplication and incredulousness. “Rochester is Rochester. What kind of question is that?”

“Does he have another name?”

He shook his head. “Not what I know.”

“I find it hard to believe that this man broke into Michael Balfour’s home and staged a false hanging himself. Who helped him?”

I knew he didn’t want to tell me, and he stared at me in such a way as to implore that I did not force him, but my look told him I cared nothing for him and I would as soon kill him myself as wait for Rochester to do it in revenge. “ ’E’s got ’is boys. Bertie Fenn, who I reckon you know about what with your killing ’im and all. Then ’e’s got three more—Kit Mann, Fat Billy, who ain’t fat, so don’t let the name fool you, and a third cove whose name I don’t know, but ’e’s got red hair. I keep my distance from all of ’em, except as what I see ’em once in a while, but I don’t have no truck with them, and I ain’t got nothin’ to do with these killings.”

“Where can I find these men?”

Arnold let out a string of public houses, taverns, and gin houses where they might be, but because he didn’t know the men well, he said he was only guessing.

I looked down at him—broken, beaten, and miserable. It was the second time I had left him so. I suppose, I thought to myself, he deserves no better. He is Wild’s man, and he plays his part in this villainy, yet I could not but feel some sympathy for a man so totally shattered.

I threw a few shillings on the floor before him and bade him come see me if he ever wished to serve a better master than Wild. I had no expectation that he would abandon the Thief-Taker General, and he never did do so, but I believed that by making the offer I