The papers were a random collection of poems, cuttings, letters, lists, and sketches of plans and ideas. Some dated back more than a decade, others just a year. Drummond had clearly grabbed a stack of whatever was at hand and jammed them into a box and hurried away.
Justy sat in the snug of the Norwegian tavern and sorted the papers into two piles. On his left, a large heap of papers that meant nothing to him. On his right, a shorter stack of Duer’s correspondence.
The sound of men talking quietly in the bar area of the tavern was reduced to a low hum by the stout pinewood walls. There were three candles set in a sconce high on the wall, and the small space was filled with the honey-like smell of colza wax. The flames flickered slightly whenever Justy turned a page or placed a paper on one of the piles.
The more recent of Duer’s letters showed that while he had fallen hard, he had maintained contact with some of the most important men in the country, right up until his death. Thomas Jefferson and William Bradford, the former Attorney General, were among his correspondents, and his relationship with Alexander Hamilton appeared to be warm, despite Duer’s misdeeds. But no one, it was clear, was prepared to offer him anything much more substantial than moral support.
It was in a dozen letters from Duer’s principal securities salesman, Isaac Whippo, that Justy found what he was looking for. The letters were dated between the summer of 1791, before the Panic, and March of 1793, after Duer had gone to jail. The later correspondence was focused on Duer’s legal position. It detailed lists of creditors and debtors and descriptions of securities of various kinds.
The earlier letters were what Justy wanted. Whippo’s poor command of the written word made the letters hard to read, but they clearly showed he had spent several months in the Carolinas, purchasing goods that were due to be shipped back to New York by sea. He considered a land journey too risky, as the roads through Virginia and New Jersey were plagued by highwaymen, whereas a sea voyage that kept close to the coastline was less likely to be intercepted by pirates. It wasn’t clear what the goods were, but they were clearly high-priced items. There was to be a single voyage, with all the goods aboard, and Whippo was warehousing the cargo until the calmest coastal months, in mid-summer, when a voyage would be least risky.
The letters referred to two other partners in the venture. FF, presumably Francis Flanagan, was responsible for encouraging investment in the venture. JC, he assumed, was Jarlath Cantillon, who had a long list of responsibilities that included legal advice, accounting, providing warehousing and security for the cargo on its arrival in New York, as well as arranging the sale of the goods to the public. There was no mention of another partner.
August 12, 1791
Charlotte a brutal place, but I have considerable progress obtaining the collateral for our venture. Product from our first supplier expensive, but of excellent quality. Am pleased to hear from JC that FF has progressed in raising the funds I need. Seems the work that JC has done in preparing our warehouse facilities excellent. Gurney’s Wharf ideal for our purposes. It be further from the town indeed but discreet and has good access for loading.
I am unlikely to be present when you next assemble all the partners, but I have attached invoices for JCˆ that detail the expenditure of capital contributions, as pledged. As FF did not request a specific investment, I have not included an invoice. Please inform him that if he changes his mind he will need to write quick with the specifics.
* * *
September 4, 1791
Arrived Charleston last week. An even more miserable place than Charlotte. Hot damp and full of flies. Mid-summer must be hell. I received reports from the JCˆ but have heard nothing from FF. Please inform as to his progress. Negotiations here have gone poorly. Supplier not as described, nor his produce. He is as sharp a shaver as any to be found on the waterfront in New York, and the commodity he has for sale is poor quality shows rough handling and other damage. There will certainly be no market for such in New York. Not at the prices we shall be seeking.
I am in search for a more reliable supplier, but now I am told that the unit price of goods may be higher. Therefore I shall need more capital when JC makes his next foray south, once he has completed work at Gurney’s Wharf and at the house on Bedlow Street.
* * *
September 28, 1792
Dismayed to read your last letter. Under no circumstance must our investors become aware of the status of the venture. Strongly urge action with FF by you either JC,ˆ whoever is more convincing. The poor weather here and the failure of our partners is conspired to delay us but I can and will find alternatives. I need time, and I need capital, and you must stiffen FF’s spine, and convince him to dissemble when asked for situation reports by the curious. Persuade him to use his loquacious charm. His people are famous for it after all!
The candles on the table guttered. Lars stood in the entry to the snug, a tankard in each hand. “I took the liberty.” He put the mugs on the table and sat down opposite.
Justy took a long, grateful drink. “Any sign?”
Lars shook his head. “I have the lads out looking. They’ll tell me when they find him. What do you have there?”
“Duer’s letters. Some of them, anyway. They mention my father.”
Lars flicked through the sheets of paper, his eyes darting back and forth as he read. “FF is him, right? And JC?”
“Jarlath Cantillon.”
“Jarlath and Francis. A saintly pair.”
Justy grunted a laugh. “If thieves can be saints, maybe.”
“How do you mean?”
“Cantillon told me they gulled people into investing with some tall tale, and paid them a high interest rate to stop them from asking for the capital back. But you can see from these letters that the venture, whatever it was, made no money at all.”
“So how did they make those grand interest payments?”
“Simple. My father kept recruiting new investors, and Duer used their principal to pay the interest to the others. Principal amounts are big. Interest payments are small. Duer channeled some of the leftover money into this venture. The rest he kept for himself.”
Lars laughed. “Jesus, that’s brazen. They can’t have hoped to get away with it for long, can they?”
Justy butted the large stack of papers into a neat pile. “I don’t know. So long as you can keep enough money coming in, and people don’t ask too many questions, you might be able to keep a scheme like that going for years.”
“There’s no underestimating the foolishness of a fat cull, I suppose.”
“Don’t mock. Plenty of sensible people got caught up in it.”
Justy’s stomach growled, and Lars looked up. “When did you last eat?”
Justy thought about it. “This morning.”
The big man rolled his eyes. He shouted something in Norwegian, and from somewhere in the tavern a woman called back what sounded like a curse.
Lars winked at Justy. “She loves me, that one. She just doesn’t know it yet.” He returned his attention to the pile of letters. “What was it they were after buying down there, do you suppose?”
Justy shook his head. “I don’t know. And that’s what I’m confused about. These letters come from Georgia and the Carolinas, but someone else told me the venture was to mine gold in Brazil.”
Lars grunted. “I heard talk of prospectors looking for gold in the hills near Savannah once, but never more than that.”
“I was trying to think what kind of commodity fits the bill in these letters. I thought cotton or timber, but there’s a mention of poor handling and other damage, which doesn’t seem to fit. Could be bales of silk.”
Lars swilled a mouthful of beer. “Could be. Or deerskins.” He glanced up at Justy. “Or slaves?”
Justy felt his guts writhe. His father a slaver? New York had an active slave market when he was a boy, but the city also had a large free black population, so Justy’s father had dealt with Negroes both free and enslaved. Justy couldn’t remember his father making any kind of comment about slavery. And he had treated Kerry like a daughter.
Lars shook his head. “No. Can’t be slaves. These letters say whatever he was looking for is hard to find, and if there’s one thing that’s easy to come by on the coast down there, it’s slaves. There’s markets every day.” He made a face. “Filthy bloody business.”
“Cantillon’ll tell us what it is.”
Lars raised an eyebrow. “You look like you’re getting ready to chain him up and make him kiss the gunner’s daughter.”
Justy realized how tense he was. “Don’t worry. I won’t whip him. I won’t even touch him.” He forced himself to smile. “Besides, there’s no gun to lash him to.”
“There’s a couple on big yins down on the battery. Maybe the mayor will let us borrow one.”
They both laughed, but Justy felt the coldness inside him. There was something bigger here. Something ugly. He could feel it.
The tall, austere woman appeared with a tray carrying a half loaf of bread and some cheeses. Lars smiled and said something to her in Norwegian. She gave him a look of pure contempt and left.
Justy smiled. “I’ve never seen you so successful with the ladies.”
Lars tore off a piece of bread. “She’s not my type anyway.” He tapped the letters. “Your man Cantillon was the lawyer, right? And the accountant, too?”
“That’s right.”
“Seems strange he’d be handling the warehousing as well, don’t it? It’s a lot of work for one man. And dealing with the hectors and bouncers what do business on the waterfront takes a certain type of character. And by that I mean not the lawyerly type.”
Justy nodded slowly. “You’re right. Cantillon’s not the fellow you’d send to deal with longshoremen.”
“Maybe there’s two JCs.” Lars pointed. “Look, on this one there’s a squiggle by the C. And on this one…”—he shuffled through the papers and pointed—“… there’s no squiggle. And here he says ‘the JC’ and there’s a squiggle. Like there’s more than one. Maybe that squiggle is an s, or a squared symbol. Maybe there’s two JCs.”
Justy stared at the letters. Lars was right. Whippo’s splotchy, poorly punctuated scrawl was hard enough to make sense of, and Justy had ignored the seemingly random blots and marks that appeared here and there around his writing. JC was sometimes referred to in the singular and at other times in the plural, which Justy had blamed on Whippo’s ignorance of grammar. But now that he looked closely, he realized they weren’t errors of grammar at all.
He nodded slowly. “I think it’s more likely an s than a squared symbol, but yes. You’re dead-on.” He looked at his friend. “I didn’t know you knew algebra.”
Lars looked offended. “And why wouldn’t I? I learned me letters and me mathematics at the same time. Father Michael at the Christian Brothers took a shine to me. Not like that, thank God. There was plenty of fumble-fingered slubbers there, but Father Mick wasn’t one of them. He was a solid man for the learning and that was all.”
There was a thumping of hurrying footsteps, and the door to the snug slammed open. A boy in a heavy woolen shirt pushed inside. Justy recognized him. One of the cook’s lads from the Netherleigh. The tall waitress stood behind him, a frown on her face.
“This one says he knows you,” she said in a singsong Norwegian accent.
Lars nodded. “It’s all right, Lise. He’s with me.”
She folded her arms across the front of her plain black dress. “He is damned rude. Running in here, making a big noise.”
Lars put his hand on his chest. “I’m sorry, my love.”
She rolled her eyes. Lars grinned and eyed the boy. “Well, Sandy? What do you have for me?”
“I found ’im, Lars!” The boy’s face was bright red, his eyes shining.
“So sit down and stop fizzing.”
The boy eyed the plate of bread and cheese.
Lars smiled. “Go on, then. Tell us while you eat.”
Sandy tore a hunk of bread off the loaf and stuffed it in his mouth, followed by a slice of cheese. The words spilled out of him, muffled by the food. “I was up on Water Street, near where the death hunter gets his coffins made. I seen a jarvie there, he said he picked up a short gundiguts with a froth of red hair on him, and took him to the Fair Lady, down near the market.”
“Aye, I know it.”
“So I gan there, but ’e’s left already. A doxy down there telt me ’e was set up there for a few hours, drinking swizzle. They tried to get him to tumble, but ’e’d have none of it, pushed ’er away and runs off down Dab Lane. I went into all the ’ouses thereabouts, but the only one what saw him was the landlord at the Judge.”
He stopped and eyed the tankard. Lars sighed and pushed it into his hand. The boy drank greedily and let out a huge belch. “That’s the clicket!”
The waitress rolled her eyes. Lars grinned. “Was he at the Judge then?”
“Nah, ’e was long gone. The landlord said he reckoned he was Irish on account of his red strommel and that ’e ordered a six and tips. That being a boglander’s favorite tipple, an’ all. But he fell asleep afore he could drink it. Slept for more than an hour, then ’e wakes up and asks for a coach to take him to Bedlow Street.”
Justy leaned forward. “Are you sure it was Bedlow Street, Sandy?”
“Course.” The lad was indignant. “I went up there, didn’t I? There’s no alehouses up there, so I asked a jarvie where a half-seas-over cove might go if he had a few coins in his pocket, and he points to a rum-looking kip, four floors high. ‘What’s in there?’ I ask, and he winks and tells me I’m too young to know, not that I could afford it anyway, so I know it’s a knocking shop.”
Lars laughed. He pointed at Justy’s tankard. “Anything left in there for the lad?”
Justy pushed it across towards Sandy, who drank it off in a single swallow. Lars patted him on the back. “Well done, son. Now, tell us more about this bawdy house you saw.”
Sandy belched again. “Four windows on the ground floor, and four floors high. A big pointy roof. A high black iron fence out front, as high as a man’s head.”
“I know this place,” the waitress, Lise, said.
Lars blinked. “You do?”
“Yes. At Bedlow Street and Cullen Lane. It is a Negro house. All girls.”
It was a moment before Lars spoke. “And how do you know this, my love?”
She gave him a sharp look. “I am not some pet, locked in this box for you to take out. I know things.”
He reddened. “Of course, Lise. I’m just surprised you know such a place exists.”
“Because I am so pure, I suppose.”
Lars’ face was now as red as his beard. He opened his mouth and closed it again.
Lise smiled. “My friend Silve is a maid in one of the big houses in Cherry Street. I went walking with her one afternoon a few weeks ago. She showed me this house. She told me what goes on there.”
“But how does she know?”
“Because one of the servants from her employer’s house was hired there this year and they have remained friends. He told her all. And made her swear to tell no one.”
“Was your friend sure it was just girls at this house, Lise? No boys?” Justy asked.
“Yes. Only girls. Only young girls, she said. It is a very exclusive place.”
Justy nodded. “Thank you.”
Lars cleared his throat. “Yes. Thank you, Lise.”
“You are welcome.” She gave him a sour look. “I shall be in the front, if you need anything.”
She turned smartly on her heel and left. Justy tried to smother his grin. Sandy paid closer attention to the plate of food. It was a moment before Lars had gathered himself.
“So, Sandy. How close were you to this place? What did you see?”
“I were across the road. I seen two men walk by when I were there, which is how I know how high that fence were. And those coves weren’t passersby, either. Looked like they were on watch, walking back and forth like they were guarding the place.”
“Many people coming and going?”
“A few carriages. They go in the back, down an alley. Some looked like hackneys, and some looked like private coaches, well dressed. No one on foot.”
Lars looked at Justy. “What do you think?”
“I think I want to know what Cantillon’s doing in a Negro whorehouse.”
“Every man’s entitled to his appetites.”
“Aye, except those aren’t Cantillon’s appetites. His housekeeper told me he prefers men to women.”
“There’s plenty of other things go on at whorehouses. Drinking. Gambling.”
Justy shook his head. “He’s already had a skinful. And if you’d heard him talk for five minutes about the evils of speculation, you’d know he hates gambling.”
Lars shrugged. “Means nothing. There’s plenty of gamblers rail against the evil of the dice. And no matter how much you’ve had to drink, there’s always room for another.”
“Maybe.” Justy stood up. “But I still want to see for myself.”