“What is this?” I inquired.

“Ho-ho,” Pike said, with a hearty laugh. “You thought the word would not get out, did you? It spreads like fire, you know. All these men have heard I’ve been entertaining a gentleman willing to pay two shillings for the right to peruse a registry book.”

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN perhaps a bit more cautious with the money, had I not intended reimbursement from Cobb, so I agreed to the avaricious terms set out by the good Reverend Pike. Another shilling for the use of his room, another again for more candles to illuminate the pages as my eyes grew fatigued. Never, I must admit, have I had such good service. At the first sign that my lips had grown dry, he offered to send out for beer, and when my stomach made a large rumbling noise he sent for bread and cheese-all provided, of course, at outlandish prices.

In the end, I toiled for more than two hours, feeling the dust accumulate under my nails, in my nostrils, along my tongue. I was fairly sick of the books but I vowed to review them all. And so it was not until the seventh or eight priest, a slight man with a hunched back and a crooked smile, presented me with his little quarto registry that I struck gold. While this strange fellow hovered over me, I could not believe my astonishing luck. There it was, the girl’s name, Bridget Alton, in undeniable clarity.

The happy groom’s name was there as well, though this was harder to make out. It took some scrutiny before I could read it, but once I did there could be no doubt that it was a false one: Achitophel Nutmeg. And it hardly took a man of rare perceptive powers to divine this worthy’s true identity, for the first names were both from the biblical tale, not to mention the Dryden poem, “Absalom and Achitophel,” and the last names both staples of the spice trade.

Once more, I had stumbled upon the considerable persuasive prowess of Absalom Pepper, the very man Cobb claimed had been killed by the East India Company. Now it appeared he had married Ellershaw’s stepdaughter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I WAS FORTUNATE THAT MY MOTIONS, AS I WALKED ABOUT EXCITEDLY after making this discovery, awakened the young bride, who after much confusion told me her name and where she lived, explaining that she had been lured away from her home by a piteous cry for help from an old woman. Once out upon the street, she had been abducted by the three gentlemen I’d engaged with earlier and thence taken to a tavern, where she was made upon threat of injury to ingest large quantities of gin.

Though she listened to my tale of her rescue with gratitude, she declined to travel anywhere with me-a precaution I could not object to, since, had she taken it earlier, she would not have found herself so trepanned-so I sent a note to her family. Within the hour, a coach arrived, and she was escorted to it by a footman, who assured me I had his master’s gratitude and would be handsomely rewarded for my efforts. (Though I write this memoir some thirty years later, I still await that reward.) In any case, once the girl was gone from the marriage house, I was merely relieved to be well rid of the burden.

This liberty rendered me free to consider the marriage I had late uncovered. The marriage book listed an address for the happy couple, and while I had little expectation that the information would prove accurate, here was a case in which I found myself most pleasantly surprised, for without difficulty or mayhem I located the daughter Mrs. Ellershaw was so desirous to keep hidden.

Unlike the most recent Pepper widow I had discovered, I was somewhat relieved to find that Mrs. Ellershaw’s daughter lived in a respectable set of rooms on Durham Yard, a pleasant street enough, though certainly far below the grandeur in which her mother and stepfather lived. Her furnishings, however, were of the most elegant sort, for she had fine wood chests and shelves and tables, handsomely upholstered chairs, and a thick rug from the Orient. Both she and her maid were dressed quite modishly, with wide hoops, and the lady, at least, lacked not for embroidery and lace and fine ribbons in her bonnet.

The lady received me in the parlor of her landlady’s house. Her serving girl provided wine and then sat primly in the corner, concentrating most amiably upon her sewing.

“I am very sorry to disturb you, madam, but I must ask you some questions about your late husband, Mr. Pepper.”

Ellershaw’s stepdaughter, whom I must call Mrs. Pepper, despite her being now one of a small army of women bearing the name, appeared most distressed at the mention of her late husband. “Oh, Mr. Pepper. He was the best of men, sir. The very best of men.”

I could not but note the unlikelihood that three such different women should deliver their observations of the same man in precisely the same words. “Madam, begging your pardon, but did the late Mr. Pepper ever describe himself in those very terms?”

Her color heightened prodigiously, and I knew I had struck the nail true. I could hardly be surprised, however, that a man who should think so well of himself that he might marry three women (at the least) should be freighted down with vanity. “Mr. Pepper,” she explained, “was a most remarkable man, and he would have been less remarkable had he not possessed the insight to witness his own superiority.”

I bowed from my seat, for I could not but applaud her sophistry. “It must have been a great blessing to him to be possessed of so devoted a wife.”

“I pray it was so. But tell me, sir, how I may be of service to you and what your business might be with my late husband.”

What indeed? It occurred to me that I should have thought this matter through with greater care, but I had grown so comfortable with interrogating the widows Pepper that I had not rehearsed to myself the very particular difficulties of this particular interview. I knew nothing of the light in which Mr. Pepper had represented himself to this lady, so I could not take that approach, nor could I enter the harbor from the angle of my position at Craven House, for I presumed that my connection to Mr. Ellershaw could run the ship aground. The previous two widows had been, at least to my opinion, unsophisticated enough that I could paint my fictions with broad strokes, provided they were confident. However, I could not but perceive at least some cleverness in this lady’s eyes.

I therefore chose to adopt a course as close to a probable truth as I could easily devise upon such short notice. “Madam, I am something of a private constable,” I began, “and I currently conduct an inquiry into the untimely death of Mr. Pepper. There are those who believe his drowning not to be an unfortunate accident but rather an act of unspeakable malice.”

The lady let out a gasp and then shouted for her girl to bring her a fan. At once a marvelously painted gold and black fan of oriental design was in her hand, waving back and forth most violently. “I won’t hear of it,” she said, her voice an urgent staccato. “I can accept that it was the will of providence that my Absalom might be taken so young, but I cannot think it would be the will of a human being. Who could hate him so?”

“That is what I wish to learn, Mrs. Pepper. It may be that there is no more to this than meets the eye, but if someone has harmed your husband, I believe you would rather know the truth.”

She said nothing for a long moment and then abruptly ceased her frantic fanning and set that agent upon her side table. Instead, she picked up my card and examined it once more. “You are Benjamin Weaver,” she said. “I’ve heard of you, I believe.”

Again, I bowed from my seat. “I have been so fortunate as to receive some public notice. At times, sadly, the notice has not been laudatory, but I flatter myself that, on balance, I have been treated kindly by the Grub Street tribe.”