A conspiracy of paper: a novel - By David Liss Page 0,224

stern and unflinching countenance.

“Mr. Weaver, you are without doubt a dangerous and excitable man, and you clearly agitated Sir Owen, but you never obligated him to produce a weapon nor to discharge it so recklessly. I suspect you may give me cause to wish, in future times, that Sir Owen had been a better aim, but that is not our concern here today. I find no reason to charge you with manslaughter. If Sir Owen wishes to prosecute you for assault, then I fear I shall see you before this court shortly. I heartily wish you may work things out amongst yourselves. You may go.”

I realized later that I should have felt myself awash with relief, but perhaps I was too disordered. I knew not how to understand his decision. I could only presume that Duncombe had been bribed on my behalf, but who had interceded for me? Had my uncle been informed of my danger in time to intervene? If so, why was he not in the court?

I made my way through the crowd, wanting only to remove myself from that horrid building—before the magistrate changed his mind, I thought. Elias later told me that he was there and grabbed my arm as I passed him, but I have no recollection of seeing him. I shoved my way forward, moving with the plodding determination of a dull ox until I escaped from the confines of the judge’s court and breathed in the foul-smelling and misty air of the London afternoon. As bad an odor as was in the air that day, and as cloudy and unwelcoming was the weather, I basked in it with a satisfaction I cannot describe. It was a moment of relief, and the knowledge that the relief would be but fleeting made it all the more sweet.

My reverie lasted but a minute, and when the world crystallized before me, as it does after one rubs his eyes, I immediately recognized the coach and the East Indian servant boy as belonging to Nathan Adelman. I stared at the chair for a moment until Adelman poked his head out the window and invited me in.

I stared blankly. I felt as though uttering any sound should take more strength than I had.

“We have won the day, I see.” He was not quite grinning, but he glowed with satisfaction. “No easy man, that Duncombe, but he saw reason in the end. Climb in, Weaver.”

“I am astonished,” I said as I stepped up into his coach, “to see you emerge as my ally. I should have thought the Company would be nothing but delighted to witness my ruin.” I took a seat across from the great financier, and the coach heaved forward, headed to I knew not where.

Adelman smiled at me, as though we were to go for a charming ride in the country together. Indeed, his plump little form had every appearance of the proper English gentleman. “I believe that before last evening we would have delighted in your ruin, but things have now changed, and I can assure you that you should be grateful that we struck a bargain with the justice here before our friends at the Bank of England. You can be certain they would have seen to it that you stood trial.”

“Of course.” I nodded. “I would have been forced to explain my actions, and this explanation would involve the public revelation of Sir Owen’s involvement in the forging of South Sea issues.”

“Precisely. In the end, I am grateful for your involvement, for we have learned the identity of Rochester, and he will no longer cause the Company any difficulties.”

I breathed in deeply. “I am no longer convinced that Sir Owen is Martin Rochester, only that someone has gone to great lengths to make me believe it so.”

Adelman stared at me. “I have no doubt that Sir Owen is the man. The Company, I can assure you, has no doubt. And it seems that there are others that have no doubt.”

“How do you mean?” I inquired.

“Sir Owen,” he said slowly, “is dead.”

I am not ashamed to own that I grew disoriented, and I grasped at an armrest inside the coach. “I was assured his wounds were superficial.” I could not understand what Adelman told me. If Sir Owen was dead, why had I not been charged with murder?

“The wounds he received from his fall were superficial,” Adelman explained. His voice was calm, controlled—almost soothing. “But he received other wounds. As he left his physician’s house