We remained motionless for a moment, for there was not a superfluity of sympathy for Greenbill in that room. Mendes could hardly have cared if a man who had just tried to shoot him should be gathered to his fathers, Dogmill must surely have realized that the blackguard was of more use to him dead than alive, and I, for my part, felt that this man had received no more than he deserved.

“Is no one going to fetch a surgeon?” Hertcomb asked at last.

“What’s the use?” Dogmill said. “He’ll be dead before one gets here.”

Elias had only now recovered his senses. “I’m a surgeon,” he recalled, and began to rush toward the fallen man.

“No.” Dogmill stood between Elias and Greenbill. “You’ve done enough harm for one night. Stand back.”

“He’s a surgeon,” Mendes said, with apparent boredom. “He’s not lying. Let him through.”

“I presume he’s not lying,” Dogmill said, “but he will have to pass me to administer to that man.”

Elias turned to me, but I was disinclined to interfere. Here, after all, was more evidence against Dogmill if we needed it, and as to the porter- well, I could not but think that he deserved no better than he got.

Greenbill, groaning in pain as he was, seemed to understand that Dogmill stood between him and his only chance at life. He attempted to say something but could not, and his breath began to come out rasping and wet. We stood in silence for three or four minutes, listening to Greenbill’s gurgling breath, and then there was silence.

It is an odd way to pass the time, waiting for a man to die. I thought to lend him comfort. I thought, in his final moments, to torment him and tell him I knew his wife to be unfaithful. But I did nothing, and when he died I felt, all at once, that perhaps he had not been so bad as I thought. Perhaps I was the bad one, for doing nothing to save this life, wretched though it was.

“I’m glad that’s done with,” said Dogmill, who clearly had no such thoughts of remorse.

“It’s a deuced thing, all this shooting and dying,” Hertcomb said. “Dogmill, you told me there would be no mayhem. Surely this must qualify as mayhem.”

“Only just,” Dogmill said impatiently. He looked around the room for a moment. “Let us be frank,” he said to me. “You have threatened me, I have threatened you, and a very low sort of fellow is now dead at my feet. I propose we retire to another room, one with fewer dead men in it, open a bottle of wine, and discuss precisely how to resolve this difficulty.”

What else was there to say? “I agree.”

As these matters touched him very nearly, I sent a note to Littleton- to whom I had related some small portion of my intentions for the evening, and who had been on notice to come if called. Though he was certainly an important player, Dogmill would not countenance that Littleton join us in our negotiations. He would not sit on equal terms with a porter, he said. It was disquieting enough that he would have to sit on equal terms with a thieftaker and convicted murderer. For my part, I thought it very hard that my status as a convicted murderer should be thrown in my teeth by the man responsible for the killing for which I had been convicted, but I saw that his position was weakening and there was little to be gained by pressing the point. In the end, Dogmill agreed that the porter might remain in the room if he stood. Littleton took no offense, gratified as he was to witness Dogmill’s being pressed to the ropes, and would have agreed to stay on had he been asked to hang upside down.

The rest of us sat, and the innkeeper, whom Dogmill had given two shillings to stay his hand in calling the constables, provided us a bottle of canary. We therefore sat together as old friends.

“As I see it,” Dogmill began, “Mr. Weaver has been hardly used by Mr. Greenbill, and though I am sorry that this came to a period in violence, I am delighted that the truth has been discovered while I looked on. The press has embraced Mr. Weaver as its darling, and it is only right that we all step forward together to announce how Greenbill tricked me into trusting him and the world into blaming Weaver for his crime. He surely would have killed us all had not Mendes behaved so bravely.”

“Here, here,” said Hertcomb. “I think that is a mighty fine solution to our troubles. Mighty fine.”

“And all goes back to how it was,” spat Littleton from across the room. “I don’t very much like that.”

Mendes said nothing, but he met my eye and shook his head, as though I needed further instruction- which I certainly did not.

“Wages can be raised,” Dogmill grumbled to Littleton. “These things can be ordered. And I should like you to recall that if there is no Dennis Dogmill, his ships will no longer need unloading, so don’t get too ambitious in your ideas of comeuppance.”

“You may go to the devil, sir,” Littleton said, “and London will still need its weed. On that you can depend, so don’t think to frighten me into worrying after your well-being.”

“I’ll thank you not to swear at me,” Dogmill said.

“Mr. Littleton,” I said, before the porter could reply with more sweet words, “you may be sure there will be justice for you and your boys before we are done here tonight. One way or the other.”

“I thank you, Mr. Weaver.”

“Allow me to make a proposal,” I said to Dogmill. “I will agree that the blame should be laid upon Mr. Greenbill, who did, after all, kill four men more or less upon his own initiative. I should like to see you hang for your role in it, but I am not so naÏve as to believe I could easily bring such a thing about, and I don’t know that I am willing to risk trying the experiment. I will therefore not threaten you with the rope that so lately hung around my own neck. I will, however, threaten you with this election. Once my name is cleared, I may speak freely, and as the Tory press has already shown a willingness to be kind to me, you may be sure they will lap up any information I might choose to provide them.”

“And you will refrain from doing this under certain circumstances?”

I did not like that Mr. Hertcomb should be returned to office, but I also did not like that a villain like Melbury should find a place in the House- not now that I knew of his treatment of Miriam. And if Dogmill could not have Hertcomb in his pocket, he would have another man instead. I could only do so much against this circuit of corruption, but I would do what I could.

“I will remain quiet until the end of the election. I may choose to speak at a later date if I believe it is in the public interest, but not until this race is long past decided.”

“Unacceptable,” he said.

I shrugged. “You haven’t a choice, sir. You may allow me to remain quiet now, or you may encourage me to speak now. Later is to come later.”

He stared at me, but I saw that he could not argue with my logic. He could do nothing to keep me quiet but have me killed, and I think that he might well have had enough of attempting harm to Benjamin Weaver.

“And in return?” Dogmill asked.

“In return, I want some questions answered. If the answers do not lead to the discovery of new wrongs, I will do as I say, and we may all leave here free of any threat of the law over our heads.”

“Very well. Ask your questions.”

“The first, and the most pressing, is why you selected me to take the blame in the death of Yate. Surely there was some other unfortunate who would have proved a more willing victim. I hope I do not flatter myself if I say that the world knows- or ought to know- that I am not a man to step with resignation into the noose. Why choose me for your victim?”

Dogmill laughed and raised his glass in salute. “I have asked myself that question. But you see, it was an accident. That’s all. You were at the quays that afternoon dressed as a lascar, and Greenbill thought you were a lascar. He saw you and said to himself, Why, there’s the perfect fellow on whom to put the blame. By the time I realized who you were, it was too late to undo the accusations. We had no choice but to prosecute and hope for the best.”