“Please have a seat,” I said, unwilling to show my concern. I offered him some port, and he took it gladly. I then poured a glass for myself and sat across from him.
“Let us be honest with each other,” I said, having in that instant decided to take the more direct approach available to me. After all, Johnson, and therefore all the Jacobites, now knew my secret. Dissimulation and caution would get me little. “You have discovered my disguise, and you wish me to know it. What do you want of me?”
Johnson laughed agreeably, as though I had just recalled something witty from a mutual past. “You’re a suspicious man, sir, though I cannot say I much blame you. Yours is a difficult situation. I shall therefore be direct with you, as you have honored me with your forthrightness. I understand you went to visit Mr. Littleton today.”
“That’s right,” I said uneasily, for I began to see his meaning.
“And you inquired of my business.”
I smiled. “I did not know it was your business until I inquired.”
“Ah,” he said. He swirled his wine about his goblet. “Well, now you know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ll thank you not to concern yourself with it.” He set down his glass of wine. “I understand your affairs are important to you, and I shall not interfere if I don’t have to, but you must understand that I cannot permit you to trouble yourself with what I do or to whom I speak.”
“I am not certain what you tell me. Am I to refrain from speaking to anyone lest it be an acquaintance of yours?”
“You needn’t be so dramatic,” he said. “I shall be plain with you. Leave these riots alone, sir. Leave Littleton alone. He is no concern of yours.”
“It may be no concern of mine to interfere with the riots, but I should very much like to know more of them.”
“Of course. As I have said, we’ve no desire to see you harmed or captured. While you are free and an enemy of Dogmill, you do our cause as much good as we could hope. I only wish you might clear your name by implicating Dogmill immediately. That would provide us with just the thing.”
“It would provide me with just the thing too, I assure you.”
He laughed softly. “Of course. I speak of strategy, but you speak of your life.”
“You are quite right. And you cannot blame me for wishing to understand the mechanisms behind these riots. My difficulties are directly related to this election, and I must do all I can to understand the mechanisms that work against me.”
“Of course. But we shan’t privilege you over our cause.”
“I would not expect you to. But I do not see why my inquiries disturb you. I shall keep what I learn to myself.”
“For now, you will. Let me say this, Mr. Weaver. You would not want to learn anything that might make you our enemy in the future.”
I nodded. Johnson liked that I roamed around the city making things uncomfortable for the Whigs, but he did not like the idea that I might prove my innocence and then be at liberty to speak of what I knew of the Jacobites. I had already indicated an unwillingness to side with his cause, and Johnson feared that, should I vindicate myself, I would reveal what I had learned of him and his allies to the Whigs.
“I owe you a debt of loyalty,” I said. “You assisted me in the matter of the Riding Officers, and I shan’t forget it.”
“And you will say nothing about us to the ministry once you are safe?”
I shook my head. “I don’t yet know. Should a man hold his own honor above concerns of treason?”
He appeared nothing if not amused. “You can see that I am right. You must not learn what you do not wish to know.” He stood abruptly. “I trust I have made myself clear.”
I stood as well. “Thus far you have. I cannot say I entirely understand what it is you are asking of me.”
“Then I shall be plain. I am asking nothing of you, but you must understand that we are not some gang of thieves you cross and then outwit. We have left you alone thus far, sir, because you have achieved a certain popularity, and to move against you might cause us some difficulties. But please know that if you threaten us in any way, we will not hesitate to destroy you.”
Mr. Johnson’s speeches turned out to be nothing but pretty sentiment, for the next day Mr. Dogmill’s friends in the city could no longer stomach turning a blind eye to the violence and posted soldiers in Covent Garden. Had they marched upon the rioters, no doubt great violence would have resulted, for those who would destroy and murder and rob never love to see their English liberties curtailed by that most venomous of beasts, the standing army. Fortunately, these dragoons were deployed with uncommon strategy, stationed in the piazza long before dawn, so when the porters arrived they saw they would be met with a disappointing welcome and slinked off, satisfied that they had performed their duty for more than half a week.
During that time Melbury’s lead had suffered serious attrition, but there could be no doubt it would now recover, for the sentiment in Westminster was one of dissatisfaction with Dogmill’s influence. The rioters had been a gamble, and a bold one, and the Whigs had hoped to ruin the Tories’ lead. But it had only strengthened their cause, and for that I was grateful. I now had little doubt that once Melbury sat in the House, he would do all he could to serve my cause and send his old enemy to ruin.
As the day was Thursday, I spent my time preparing to take myself that night to the tavern mentioned by the Riding Officer. Here was a risk, for I had no choice but to depend that he had followed my advice and fled the metropolis rather than face my wrath. I would, nevertheless, take precautions, the most significant of which was that I thought it best to attend to my business as Matthew Evans, not as Benjamin Weaver. If the Riding Officer had not held his tongue, the men there would be keeping watch for an escaped felon, not a finely dressed gentleman. Of course, because they looked for me in particular, they might well see through my disguise more easily than men not seeking me out. Nevertheless, I was determined to take the chance.
For all my determination, however, I did not entirely believe I would learn very much by going to this tavern. I already knew that Dogmill bribed the Customs men. The world knew it, and the world did not care. What, then, would I discover? The one thing I hoped to learn was the identity of the agent who paid the Customs men. This person might well be Dogmill’s primary tough, the fellow who executed the violent orders. I held out the faint hope that I might that very night learn the identity of the man who had actually beaten Walter Yate to death.
I took a seat in a dark corner, ordered a pot, and hoped to make myself as unnoticed as I might. Here was no difficult task, for the Customs men busied themselves with their own concerns.
They began to arrive at eight in the evening, as they had been advised to do. I understood well how they were being used, for this was an all too common bit of treachery perpetrated upon the laboring man. On rare occasion their wages would arrive at eight as they had been promised, but most times they would not arrive until eleven, so there was nothing for them to do in the time of waiting but eat and drink. For this consideration, the tardy paymaster would receive from the tavern keeper a little something for his troubles.
After nearly two hours I grew impatient and even considered abandoning my position, but I found that my patience was well rewarded. Some few minutes after ten, a man arrived and was greeted by the cheers of the customs men. They drank a bumper to him, and after he distributed wages all around, they drank another. They even bought this fellow a drink and treated him as though he were a king in his own right rather than an underling merely performing his master’s service.
It was Greenbill Billy. The leader of the labor combination worked in the service of the very man he claimed to resist.