I sat across from him and offered a weak smile. I felt both awkward to be engaged in this charade of returning what I had stolen and embarrassed by his enthusiasm as well. “I am gratified and surprised by your attentions.”
“Oh, I have seen you fight many times,” he told me. “I even witnessed your final match against Gabrianelli-that was the night you broke your leg, you may recollect.”
“Yes,” I said stupidly, for I wondered how he thought I might somehow forget breaking my leg in the boxing ring.
“Yes, quite a sight, the breaking of your leg. I am glad you are here. May I see it?”
I own I showed the greatest surprise. “My leg?”
“No, you blockhead,” he barked, “the report. Give it me!”
I hid my surprise at the insult and handed the documents to him.
He opened the packet and examined the contents with evident approbation, leafing through the pages as though to make sure all was in order and nothing missing. He then took from a ceramic bowl, painted in red and black in the oriental design, a hard brownish thing that he placed in his mouth and began to chew methodically, working at it as though it tasted both horrible and unspeakably delicious. “Very good,” he mumbled, through his chewing. “Not a thing out of order, which is rather fortunate. Should have been a bit of work to replace. When I discovered it missing, I thought, Here is an opportunity to see Weaver at work in his newer capacity, but I was not entirely certain I had not left these at my country house. I had a servant searching, and I was awaiting his report every moment when I received your note instead. How very fortunate. Where did you find this?”
I had a lie prepared, so I answered with easy confidence. “I was in the process of apprehending a notorious dealer in stolen goods when I came across a number of personal items. When I saw these documents, I perceived them to be of significance, and I felt their owner would be happy to see them again.”
“Indeed I am,” he said, continuing to work his brown nugget with his back teeth. “Very good of you to make so free as to bring them to me. That is the great gift of this island to the rest of the world, you know: our freedom. No arsenal and no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.”
“I had not thought of that,” I told him.
“Now, what can I offer you in compensation for your efforts?”
I mimicked giving this matter great thought. “The papers have no intrinsic value of their own, and I am used to receiving a guinea for the return of such an item, but as you did not employ me to search for your papers, and as finding them took no more effort than the actions for which I was already employed, I cannot in good conscience demand payment. I ask only that if the East India Company, in future times, requires the services of a man of my skills, you will not hesitate to call upon me.”
Ellershaw appeared to chew over the matter along with the strange wad of brownness, which by now had coated his teeth with a sepia film. He twisted his face into an unhappy frown. “Oh, no, that won’t do at all. Not at all. We cannot leave things hanging this way.”
I thought he should say more, but the conversation came to an abrupt end as he suddenly stopped speaking and winced, as though in the most sudden and excruciating pain. He gripped the side of his desk, clenched his eyes, and bit his lower lip. In a few seconds, the worst of it appeared to have passed.
“The damnable trouble. I must take my emulsion.” He pulled at a tasseled rope that dangled beside him, and in the distance I heard a bell ring. “What sort of employment do you seek?” he asked me.
I laughed dismissively. “I am fortunate enough to have no shortage of men in need of my talents, sir. I did not come here to beg employment of you at this moment, only to request that if, in the future, a need should arise, you might consider me your man.”
“That won’t do at all. I am too delighted to have met you at last to let you walk away on such uncertain terms. I know you are a man of some pride, a fighting man and all that. You won’t admit your needs, but it must be of some trouble to have to live from one found employment to the next.”
“It has never been a trouble before.”
“Of course it has,” Ellershaw explained, with an indulgent smile. “And look at you, sir. You put a good face on it with your clean suit and such, but any man can see you a Jew without too much squinting. It must be a terrible burden for you.”
“It has been a tolerable burden thus far.”
“And though it be a terrible burden, you still enjoy the freedom of an Englishman, almost as though you were one yourself. Is it not a glorious thing? Freedom is, as you must know, the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace, whether it be the market for Indian textiles or stolen watches, I suppose.”
“I honor your opinion on that subject.” I glanced longingly at the door.
“But as for being a Jew, I suppose that is another matter. Burdens are not part of freedom, of course. We must be free despite our burdens. Yet this whole Jew business-I am sure it prevents you from having serious congress with gentlemen, but I promise you that I am not of that sort. I don’t care about it, I tell you. I don’t care you look a Jew or have come here as little more than a beggar returning my stolen papers. It signifies nothing to me, and shall I tell you why?”
I begged that he would do so.
“Because I have seen you fight in the ring, sir. I know what sort of man you are, even if the rest of the world only spits upon you.”
“Begging your pardon,” I began.
He would not yield his pardon. “To the world, sir, you are but a lowly sneak thief, not suited to sweep their chimneys, but I see in you something far better. Indeed, I have something of an idea of what to do with you. Would you like to hear it?”
I would have to wait to hear of that idea, however, for there was a light knock, and before Ellershaw could answer the door swung open and a serving girl entered with a tray in her hands. Upon the tray rested a pot of some steaming liquid that smelled of mushrooms and lemons. I should hate tremendously to have had to drink it myself, but it was not the strange tea that held my interest. The girl caught my notice, for this creature, hunched over and meek as any female drudge in a house full of brusque East India men, was no other than Miss Celia Glade, the bold woman who had handed me the documents in that very room.
Miss Glade set the bowl on Mr. Ellershaw’s desk and curtsied at him. She gave me not a glance, but I knew full well she recognized me.
In the light of day, I observed I had underestimated her beauty. She was tall and remarkably well made, and her face was full both of round softness and sharp cheekbone. Her forehead was high, her lips red, her eyes as black as emptiness itself: a blackness to match the dark of her hair, which set off the delicate paleness of her skin. Only with great difficulty did I prevent myself from staring, either out of confusion or delight.
“Perhaps you would like to have Celia bring you something to drink,” Ellershaw said. He spat the remains of his nugget into a bucket upon the floor. “Do you take tea, sir? We have tea, you may depend upon it. We have teas you have never tried, never heard of, teas hardly a white man outside the Company has ever heard of. We have teas we import for our own use here, far too good for selling or wasting upon the general public. You would like such a tea, would you not?”
“I am quite well,” I assured him, wanting only for the girl to leave the room and give me a moment to think. I had imagined her before some kind of feminine clerk. Now she showed herself to be a mere servant. How, then, did she so handily know the location of Ellershaw’s documents, and why had she been so quick to surrender them to me?