The Devil's Company Read Online Free PDF Page B

such money or go to prison? How can that possibly be in your interest when I am not the one who cheated you and, if I am imprisoned, I cannot recover what you’ve lost?”

    “Nevertheless, it is the situation in which you find yourself,” Hammond said.

    I shook my head. “No, this is not right.” I did not speak to the justice of these matters, but rather to their orderliness. Why should Cobb insist that I pay him now, that moment? The only reason I could devise left me nearly breathless with astonishment. I could not but conclude that the dealer had been working with Cobb and so had Bailor. The money was not lost at all. I was.

    “You say that you wish me to pay or go to prison,” I said. “And yet I suspect you are on the verge of proposing a third option.”

    Cobb let out a laugh. “It is true that I should hate to see a man of your talents ruined by such a debt, a debt he could surely never pay. I am therefore willing to let you, shall we say, work the debt off, much as transportees work off their debts through their labor in the New World.”

    “Quite right,” Hammond agreed. “If he cannot return the money, and he does not wish to go to prison, he must take the third choice—that of being our indentured servant.”

    I rose from my seat. “If you think I will countenance such treatment, you are mistaken. You shall see, sir, that I am not about to endure your contrivances.”

    “I shall tell you what I see, Mr. Weaver,” Hammond answered, rising to meet my height. “I see that your preferences in this matter don’t signify. Now take your seat and listen.”

    He returned to his seat. I did not.

    “Please,” Cobb said, in a cooler voice. “I understand you are angry, but you must know I am not your enemy, and I mean you no harm. I merely wished to secure your services in a more reliable way than the usual.”

    I would listen to none of it. I hurried past him and into the hall. Edgar stood by the door, grinning at me.

    From behind me, Cobb said in an easy and calm voice, “We shall work out the details upon your return. I know what you must do, and I expect you to do it, but when you are done, you will return to me. I’m afraid you have no other choice. You will see that soon enough.”

    He spoke the truth, for I had no choice. I thought I did. I thought I had a difficult choice, and I went to pursue it, only to discover that my situation was far worse than it already appeared.

    CHAPTER THREE

    T WAS NO LATER THAN MIDMORNING WHEN I LEFT COBB’S HOUSE, but I staggered in the streets as though I had drunkenly removed myself from an alehouse or bagnio in which I had reveled all night. I therefore made all efforts to master myself, for I had no time for beating my breast like Job to lament unjust suffering. I knew not why Cobb should have gone to such considerable trouble to make me his debtor, but I was determined to remain ignorant until I was no longer in his power. Once I had cleared myself of his debt, let us say, and knocked him upon the floor with a blade to his throat, I should be happy to inquire as to his motives. If I asked while he could threaten me with arrest, I should scarce be able to endure the feeling of being his supplicant.

    Supplication, nevertheless, would be the order of the day, and though I could not bring myself to live in Cobb’s power, there were, I told myself, more benevolent forces in the world. I therefore endured the expense of a hackney—reasoning that a few coppers could hardly alter the shape of my now monstrous debt—and went to that rank and foul part of the metropolis called Wapping, where my uncle Miguel maintained his warehouse.

    The streets were too clogged with traffic and peddlers and oyster women for me to dismount directly before the building, so I walked the last few minutes, smelling the ripe brine of the river and the only slightly less ripeness of the mendicants around me. A young boy wearing a tattered white shirt and nothing more,