Elias and I both presented our most polite bows, his deeper than mine, for he offered her the very special bow he reserved for pretty widows with large annuities.

“My name is Benjamin Weaver and this is my associate, Elias Gordon, a noted surgeon of London.” I added that fact in the hopes she would think we were here upon some medical matter. “I pray you forgive the intrusion, but we have rather urgent business, and it is our hope that you will be willing to answer some questions concerning your late husband.”

Her face brightened considerably, and her color rose with pleasure. It was as though she had been waiting, hoping against hope, that someday strangers might knock upon her door wishing to ask about her husband. And now, here we were.

Yet there was a hesitation too. A calculated caution, as though she had to remind herself to be careful, the way a child must remind himself to fear the fire. “What do you wish to speak of regarding my dear sweet Absalom?” she asked. She held to her chest a coat that she was in the process of mending, but I observed that she now gathered it in a bundle and appeared to rock it as though it were an infant.

“I know his death must be painful for you, madam,” I continued.

“You cannot know, sirs,” she said. “No one who wasn’t married to him could know what it is to lose him-my Absalom, the best of men. I can tell you as much as that. If that is what you wish to know-was he the best of men?-then you have your answer. He was.”

“Indeed, the nature of the man is part of what we wished to ascertain,” Elias offered, “but not the whole.”

Cleverly done, I could not help but silently observe. In so praising the man and hinting at some purpose designed to celebrate his grandeur, Elias had effectively flung wide the gates for inquiry.

“You gentlemen must be seated,” she said, gesturing to her moderately appointed sitting room. The furnishings were not the best, but they were neat and well looked after. She then asked the dour serving girl to bring us some refreshment, which turned out, much to Elias’s pleasure, to be a sprightly wine.

I took a small sip but no more. I had already had my fill of drink and did not wish to allow my thinking to become clouded. “Madam, what can you tell us of your late husband, of your lives together?”

“My Absalom,” she said, rather dreamily. She set down her glass so there would be nothing spilled by the force of her sigh. “You know, my father did not wish me to marry him. He could not see him as I did.”

“And how did you see him?” Elias managed, setting aside his wine for a moment.

“As beautiful. My mother saw it, mind you, but she also wished me not to marry him, for she was jealous of his beauty. Absalom was the most beautiful man there ever was, and he was full of kindness and goodness. My father said he only wanted to marry me for my dowry, and it’s true that the money didn’t last long, but only because Absalom had great dreams.”

“What sort of dreams?” I inquired.

She smiled at me in a way both tender and pitying, a smile a clergyman might give to a simpleton who had inquired of the nature of God. “He was to make us rich,” she said.

“In what way?”

“Why, with his thoughts,” she informed us. “He was always thinking, always working something out upon his papers. And surely he must have had some important thoughts, for that is why I have the annuity. Even my father would be impressed by it, if he would but speak with me, but he has not endured a word from my lips since Absalom lost the dowry money. Then all he said was that he knew this and would have told me that, but surely Absalom was right and he can look down with forgiveness from heaven.”

“As it happens,” Elias said, “it is in part because of this annuity that we have come to see you.”

The smile dropped from her face. “I see what this is then. But I must tell you gentlemen that I have no shortage of suitors already, and none are wanted. A widow with an annuity is like an untended sweetmeat for the flies, if you will pardon me for being so blunt, but I am not here to be picked at. I have been married to Absalom Pepper, you see, and I cannot endure the thought of being married to another. I know how you gentlemen are. You think an annuity that goes only to a widow is money wasted. To me it is a celebration of Absalom’s life and spirit, sirs, and I shan’t see it soiled by giving my hand to another.”

“You quite misunderstand us,” I offered in a hurry. “Though I cannot blame any man for seeking your attention, annuity or no, such is not our business. We are here to discuss the business of the annuity, madam. You see, we wish to know of its origination.”

Here the beatific glow of self-satisfaction, the radiant power of one who has touched the hem of a saint, dissolved at once. “Do you mean to say there is some difficulty? I was assured that the annuity would last for the duration of my years. It is not right that it should change now, sir. It is not right, and you may depend upon it. One of my suitors is a man of the bar, and though he has no chance of winning my favor, I know he will go to any lengths to serve me. I promise you, he shall see to it that no crime of this sort is countenanced.”

“I do beg your pardon,” Elias cut in. “I regret to have given you cause for alarm. My associate meant nothing of the sort. We have no power over your annuity and wish you no harm on that head. We merely wished to see if you could explain why you are entitled to it. Why has this money been settled upon you?”

“Why?” she asked, growing ever more agitated. “Why? Why should it not? Is that not the way of the silk weavers?”

“The silk weavers?” I burst out, though I knew I should have held my tongue. “What has this matter to do with them?”

“What has it not to do with them?” Mrs. Pepper retorted.

“Madam,” Elias cut in, “we were under the impression that your annuity originated with the East India Company.”

She stared as though we had offered her the gravest insult imaginable. “Why ever would the East India Company pay an annuity to me? What had Mr. Pepper to do with such men as those?”

I had thought to say this was what I hoped she could tell us, and I believe the words were upon Elias’s lips as well, but he too refrained. What, after all, could be gained by asking a question so obviously answered?

“Madam, we are clearly operating under a false impression,” Elias said. “Can you tell me whence the annuity does come?”

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s the silk weavers’ guild. After Mr. Pepper died, they sent a man to me who said that, as Absalom was a member of the guild and as I was his widow, I was entitled to a death benefit. You must swear you ain’t taking it away.”

“Allow me to explain,” I said. “You see, madam, we represent the Seahawk Insurance Office, and there was a clerical error with one of our claims relating to the East India Company. I will work with all my efforts to make certain the claim does not come into jeopardy, you understand. It is merely a matter of remaining orderly with the records. In any event, we believed the annuity came through the Company, but our records may be even more confused than we thought. Let me assure you that nothing you say will harm the security of the annuity. You can only aid us in better organizing our management of it.”

Now she appeared somewhat mollified. She took from her breast a locket and studied the picture inside, a picture of her late husband I could not doubt. After whispering a word or two in the jewel’s direction and placing a loving finger upon the image, she replaced it and turned to us. “Very well. I shall try and help you.”

“I thank you,” I said. “Now, if I understand you, you say this annuity is part of a common benefit provided for members of the silk weavers’ guild?”

“That is what I was told,” she said.

The very notation stretched the boundaries of the absurd. One hundred and twenty pounds a year for the widow of a silk weaver? Such men were lucky to earn twenty or thirty pounds a year, and while I knew the linen men formed combinations and looked after one another, they had no guild that I had ever heard of. It was good for me, however, that I had a contact among their number, the very same Devout Hale whose riotous impulses I had put to work in first getting me inside the East India Company. I could only hope he would be able to serve me once more-this time with information.