Thursday
When Cantillon’s front door opened to his knock the next morning, Justy thought for a moment that he’d come to the wrong house. A plump, rosy-cheeked woman of about thirty-five stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She wore a housekeeper’s apron and she had crammed a generous headful of dark curls into a white bonnet. The bonnet was pushed back on her head, to reveal a high forehead and a pair of quick, dark eyes with long lashes.
She looked him up and down, and a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Well, then? State your business.”
Justy knew his face was bright red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know Mr. Cantillon had a housekeeper.”
“Well, now you do. So what do you want?” Her voice was broad cockney.
“I’m Mr. Cantillon’s clerk.”
“Since when?”
“Since Tuesday. You can ask him, if you don’t believe me.”
She snorted. “Not likely, not today. He’s in a crinkum of a humor. Slammed his study door in my face without even a ‘good morning.’ So I left him there.” She looked Justy up and down. “If you’re his new dogsbody, you can deal with him.”
She stood aside, leaving just enough space for him to brush past.
“Any idea what might be bothering him?” Justy asked.
“Lack of sleep might have something to do with it. Some cove was round bangin’ on his door in the small hours. Made a devil of a noise.”
She pushed a panel in the wainscot to reveal a small space full of cleaning supplies. A broom clattered on the floor. Justy picked it up and handed it to her. “How do you know there was someone at his door, if he hasn’t said a word to you?”
“’Cause I live next door, don’t I?” She pouted. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“I’m sorry. I just assumed…”
“What, that I’m just a housekeeper?” She folded her arms, exaggerating her décolletage.
“I really am sorry,” Justy said. “May I start again?”
He made a small bow. “I’m Justice Flanagan. I work with Mr. Cantillon, as a legal apprentice. I’m pleased to meet you.”
The woman bobbed a small curtsey. “Mrs. Sarah Boswell, if you please.” A lock of her dark hair wriggled loose from her bonnet. It accentuated the creamy color of her skin. She brushed it away. “My ’usband left me the house next door when he died, ten years ago. But he didn’t leave me any money along with it, so now I look after ’alf the houses on this street. Keeps a roof over my ’ead and keeps me from getting bored, too, if I must be truthful.”
“You must see a lot.”
She winked. “I see everything round ’ere.”
She bustled into the parlor and began wiping down the surfaces with a cloth she pulled from her apron.
“Tell me about last night,” he said.
“What about it?”
“What did you see?”
She bent to dust the legs of a small table. “I don’t know what time it was, but I was already awake. I don’t sleep well this time of year. But I ’eard the knock, and I thought it was an odd time to come calling, so I poked my ’ead through the curtains. There was a tall cove in dark clothes with a long staff walking across the street. He leaned on the railings of the house opposite and just stood there, watching this place, like it was the middle of the day.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
“Nah, ’e was too far away, and the lantern was out. Dark ’air, and dark clothes, like I say.”
* * *
Cantillon looked up from the pile of papers as Justy entered his study. The lawyer’s face was pale. His waistcoat was relatively sober, a dark green with gold edging and buttons. He had clearly dressed according to his mood. The room was small, dusty and unkempt, with stacks of papers piled on the desk and two armchairs. A bookshelf, crammed with dusty tomes, took up one wall. The largest of the stacks of paper was weighed down by a large rock.
Cantillon sneezed and blew his nose. “Mrs. Boswell let you in?”
“Yes. She’s seems a spirited woman.”
A snort. “That’s one word for it.”
“Handsome, too.”
Cantillon raised his eyebrows. “If you say so.”
Justy reddened. “She says she was woken in the night by someone knocking on your door.”
“Indeed?” Cantillon concentrated on his papers.
“Is someone trying to intimidate you, Mr. Cantillon?”
The lawyer frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Justy picked up the rock and found it had been cut in half. Inside it was hollow, filled with dark, spiky crystals. It looked like the maw of a strange beast. “You’ll forgive me, but I know a frightened man when I see one.”
Cantillon’s face darkened. “Don’t be impertinent.”
“I don’t mean to be. But the last two days I’ve seen you jumping at shadows and twitching at noises, and I don’t think it’s because you have a naturally nervous constitution.”
He turned the strange stone so that its interior caught the light, and he was suddenly dazzled by a rainbow of pinks and purples, reflecting off the crystals.
“Surprising, is it not?” Cantillon said.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Not everything is as it seems to be at first glance. You for example.”
“Me?” Justy replaced the strange gray stone on the top of the stack of paper.
Two spots of color burned high on Cantillon’s cheekbones, and there was perspiration on his upper lip. “While you were at the trough with John Colley yesterday, Henry Desjardins came into the Tontine. You remember him? He told me you went to the jail, to meet William Duer. Why?”
“I wanted to find out about my father.”
“Find out what?”
Justy shrugged. “I’ve already told you. I’m curious about his business. What he did. And who he did it with.”
“I ask again. Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, damn you.” Cantillon jumped to his feet. He paced back and forth in the tiny space behind his desk. He stared at Justy, his eyes wild. “I object to being taken advantage of. I give you a position, and then I find out you’ve sung me a fine taradiddle about learning the law, when it’s clear you’re interested in something else entirely.”
Cantillon closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. His voice was almost a whisper: “What is it you want to know?”
“I want to understand why my father did what he did. Why he killed himself.”
Cantillon let his hands drop to his sides. He looked as though he was about to cry. “There’s a simple enough explanation. He lost money. He was ashamed.”
“So I keep hearing. But I still don’t understand what it was that he was involved in. And why he may have risked everything. But I suspect that you know, Mr. Cantillon.”
He kept his eyes fixed on Cantillon’s face. The lawyer looked like a cornered animal. He stood, slightly hunched, as though he was waiting for a blow, tiny drops of sweat on his long upper lip. His eyes flicked back and forth, from the papers on the chair beside him, to the door behind Justy, to the ceiling above.
“I shall tell you what I know,” Cantillon said. A loud thud came from above them. Mrs. Boswell was cleaning the room upstairs. Dust spiraled down from the ceiling, turning in the wan light that came through the dirty window. “But first I need a drink.”
* * *
The Seagull was a tiny alehouse, tucked into the network of alleys that ran behind Broad Street. It was dim inside, the only light coming from the windows that faced the alley. There were perhaps thirty men and half as many women crowded into the tiny space. Most were drunk, and the smell of stale sweat and spilled beer was overwhelming. Cantillon pointed him towards a corner of the room. The bench was wet, and Justy grimaced as he sat down, feeling the moisture soak the leather seat of his breeches. Cantillon shouldered through the crowd, a tankard of dark ale in each hand. The mugs sloshed as he placed them on the table.
Cantillon settled onto the bench. He took a long draught of his ale. “Your father and I talked often, but he didn’t tell me much about the specifics of his business day to day.”
He lined up his tankard on the table so that it was exactly in front of him. “He had several steady clients, as you may know. It was enough to make a reasonable living, but he was ambitious. He wanted more, but the only way to make money in that business is to wager large amounts. And he didn’t have large amounts. Which is why he needed partners.”
A large man with a heavy black beard that reached almost to his eyes slumped down on the bench beside Cantillon. He wore a woolen coat that was sodden with spilled beer. He reeked of dried blood. He tossed back a glass of clear liquor and belched loudly.
Cantillon flinched and sucked at his mug of ale. He spoke to the table. “You recall our conversation yesterday, about Harry Gracie’s venture?”
“The sixteen percent? Yes, what about it?”
Cantillon drank again. “Your father and Duer were involved in such a venture. Huge returns for investors. Irresistible. And empty.”
“What do you mean, empty?”
“I mean the point of the venture is not the venture itself, but the returns it produces. The partners start by convincing a handful of people to hand over their money; then they use them to spread the word about this fabulous venture that pays a twenty percent return. Soon the Mrs. Reynolds of this world are lining up to invest, and the partners use their capital to pay interest to the original investors. Then they use the next investor’s capital to pay Mrs. Reynolds. And so on and on. If the returns are high enough, nobody dreams of withdrawing their capital. The money keeps flowing. And nobody bothers to look to see what the underlying business is.”
Justy felt the ale turn sour in his stomach. “So there is a fraud after all?”
“Yes and no. There is no law against such a scheme, but if the investors knew what was afoot they would consider themselves victims of a fraud. And they would certainly withdraw their investments. But no one knows. I have suspected for some time, but only managed to find proof of it recently.”
“And you’re saying my father was involved in such a venture? That he was a fraud like Harry Gracie?”
Cantillon nodded, his eyes on his tankard. “It wasn’t your father’s fault. Duer was in debt up to his neck. He badly needed capital to keep his other schemes afloat. He convinced your father to help him find investors, and created a scheme to draw them in. Raising the wind, it’s called. There was a real business at the heart of the whole thing, but it was never going to make the kind of money that Duer needed, or to pay the investors the returns they were owed.”
“What was the business?”
Cantillon seemed not to have heard him. He stared miserably into his tankard. The crowd ebbed and flowed in front of them like a rough sea. A man slid senseless to the floor, beer spilling out of his tankard and soaking his breeches. A woman groped between an obese man’s legs and the man laughed, gin spilling out of his broken mouth.
Cantillon closed his eyes. “When the Panic came, there was no way out. So many investors had given them money. Duer had borrowed thousands himself, not a penny of which he could pay back.”
“And my father?”
Cantillon nodded. “He must have borrowed, too. When the price fell, he would have owed a tremendous amount, and had no way of raising the money. No one would have lent a penny to him then.”
“Who did they owe the money to?”
Cantillon looked at him blankly. “What do you mean?”
“You say my father must have owed a great deal of money. But to whom? If he had creditors they would have tried to collect from his estate, surely. But no one seems to have asked for a penny.”
“And who would they ask? The Bull? Can you imagine the likes of Tyson or Gracie running the gauntlet down on Dover Street to beg for their money back?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Justy conceded. He leaned close. “So who else was involved in the business?”
Cantillon refused to look at him. “I don’t know.”
“I know you know, Mr. Cantillon.” Justy let the anger put an edge on his voice. “And I know something else. My father did not kill himself. He was murdered.”
The lawyer cringed. He put his hand over his eyes, bent forward and let out a low moan. Justy felt a shock of realization. Cantillon knew.
The rage was like something alive in Justy. He felt his pulse writhe in his throat. His fingers twitched. He could have the knife out of his boot, the point slipped between the lawyer’s ribs, slicing into his heart, before he could draw breath.
No. He blinked, focused on his hand, lying on the sticky table. He clenched his fist, digging his fingernails into his palm, waiting for the pain to clear his head and drain the tension from his shoulders.
He watched Cantillon, bent double, his face in his hands. The lawyer knew his father had been murdered, Justy was certain. But the man was petrified. There would be no scaring the truth out of him.
He put his hand gently on Cantillon’s shoulder. The lawyer flinched.
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Cantillon. I’m not here to hurt you. I want to help.”
“You can’t help me.”
“I think I can, sir. If only by making sure that you’re not left alone.”
Cantillon said nothing.
“But to keep you safe, I need to know who is threatening you. Can you tell me?”
Cantillon turned in his seat and stared at him, his eyes like dinner plates. “I can’t tell you. That man last night … I’ve asked too many questions. And so have you.”
Justy frowned. “About my father?”
“Yes.” Cantillon’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I mean no. Not about your father.”
“About who? About my father’s associates?”
Cantillon nodded slowly.
Justy put his arm around the lawyer’s shoulder. “You said we’ve both been asking too many questions. Why are you asking about them, too?”
Cantillon’s hand trembled as he picked up the tankard. He took a deep draught, then stared into the mug. “Because they’re doing it again.”