“Because we have been asked to find out who did this terrible thing and bring those responsible to justice. Can you not tell me why you believed the East India Company would wish him dead?”
“By whom have you been hired?” he asked. “Who wants to see justice served?”
I understood I was at a crossroads. There could be no turning back, and in truth I was tired of half lies and deceptions. I was tired of conducting half an inquiry, and I wanted things brought to a head. And so I told him. “A man named Cobb hired me.”
“Cobb?” Teaser said. “Why would he care?”
My reader can imagine how I had to contain the urge to jump from my seat. No one in London ’s business or social circles had ever heard of Cobb, but here a sodomite once involved with a man with three other wives spoke the name as though it were common as dust. And yet I knew that if he were to trust me, I needed to maintain authority and withhold my surprise.
I therefore shook my head. “As to that I cannot say,” I told him, as though the matter were nothing to me. “Cobb is but the man who hired me. His motives are his own. Though it is an interesting question. Perhaps you might speculate.”
Teaser rose from his chair so quickly, it was nearly a leap. “I must go. I must lie down. I-I want to help you, Mr. Weaver. I want to see justice done, I promise you. But I cannot speak of it this instant. Give me a moment to lie down, to weep, to collect my thoughts.”
“Of course,” I said, casting a glance at Mother Clap, for I did not wish to impose on her hospitality. She nodded her assent.
Teaser left the room quickly, and the three of us were left in awkward silence.
“You made no great effort to soften the blow,” Mother Clap said. “Perhaps you don’t believe that mollies feel love as you do.”
“Of course not,” I said, now feeling somewhat irritated. Mother Clap seemed to feel that my insensitivity toward sodomites was at the root of all the world’s evils. “When it comes to delivering unpleasant news, it is my experience that no way is kind or sensitive or gentle. The news is what it is, and far better it should be out, that it might be dealt with.”
“I see you do not understand the situation. Owl was not merely Teaser’s friend, or merely his lover. Owl was his wife.”
“His wife,” I said, making a great effort to keep my voice even.
“Perhaps not in the eyes of the law but surely in the eyes of God. Indeed, the ceremony was performed by an Anglican priest, a man who moves through the world as effortlessly and as free of taint as you do, Mr. Weaver.”
Evidently, she knew little of my life, but I let that pass. “The men here marry one another?”
“Oh, yes. One assumes the role of a wife, who is forever referred to as she from that point on, and their match is as serious and unbreakable as that between man and woman.”
“And in the case of Mr. Teaser and Owl,” Elias asked, “was this an unbreakable match?”
“On the part of Teaser, certainly,” Mother Clap said, with a certain amount of sadness, “but I fear Owl may have been more varied in her interests.”
“Among the other men?” I asked.
“And, if you must know, among the ladies as well. Many men who come here would never, if they had their way, gaze upon female flesh again, but others have developed the taste and cannot move away from it. Owl was such a one.”
“If I may be so bold as to say so,” I told her, “I am not surprised by your intelligence.”
“Because you think all men must lust after female flesh?”
“Not for that reason, no. For the reason that Mr. Absalom Pepper, whom you call Owl, was married to at least three women simultaneously. He was a bigamist, madam, and I believe a shameless opportunist as well. It is my belief that Pepper wished to use Mr. Teaser for some means of his own. To that end, he must have seduced the poor fellow to make his heart soft and his purse open.”
“A man,” Mother Clap observed, “is always trying to open one sort of purse or another.”
She opened her mouth to elaborate but was interrupted by a loud crashing noise from outside our room. This was followed by several shouts, some rugged and manly, others in the falsetto of a man imitating a woman. I heard the sound of heavy objects toppling and more shouts, these low and with the air of authority.
“Dear Lord!” Mother Clap sprang from her chair with a surprising amount of agility for a woman her age. Her skin had grown white, her eyes wide, her lips pale. “It’s a raid! I knew this day must come.”
She opened the door and threw herself out. I heard a somber voice cry out that someone must stop in the name of the king, and another cried out that someone must stop in the name of God. I found it difficult to credit that anyone out there was acting with the authority of either.
“The Reformation of Manners men,” Elias said. “That’s why they were out here; they were coordinating a raid with the constables. We’ve got to get to Teaser. If they arrest him, we may never be able to get him back.”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. If Teaser were arrested and jailed, there was a strong possibility he would be dead before we could get to him, for the other prisoners would bludgeon a sodomite to death rather than share space with him.
I pulled my hanger from its scabbard and lunged toward the window, where I made short work of the curtain lining. I handed one strip of the linen to Elias while I proceeded to tie another around my face, concealing everything below my eyes.
“Are we planning on robbing the constables?” Elias asked me.
“Do you wish to be recognized? You may have a hard time convincing the gentlemen of London to permit you to administer an emetic once you’ve been smoked as a molly.”
He required no further argument. The crude mask-not unlike the sort I would, on occasion, resort to during my youthful days on the highway-was around his face in an instant, and together we rushed out into the fray.
Two masked men brandishing weapons must always attract attention, and here it was no different. Indeed, the constables and the mollies regarded us with equal dread. We pushed through the crowds of men engaged in the unfathomable dance of arrest and resistance, looking for our man but seeing no sign of him.
In the main hall, where once had been dancing, all was now in chaos. Some men cowered in corners while others fought mightily, brandishing candlesticks and pieces of broken furniture. Everywhere tables and chairs lay strewn in disorder; broken glass covered the floor, making islands in the pools of spilled wine and punch. There were some two dozen constables-or roughs who had been hired to act as such-and along with them, another dozen or so men of the Society for the Reformation of Manners. I could not help but reflect that men with such an interest in manners ought to act better than these. I saw a pair of constables holding a molly down on the ground while a Reformation man kicked at him. A group of three or four mollies tried to leave the room, but they were struck down by constables while the Reformation men cheered from a safe distance. The constables were bullies and ruffians, and the Reformation men were cowards. It is ever thus that the cause of righteousness is advanced.
“Teaser!” I called out to the panicked mollies. “Who has seen Teaser?”
No one heard or minded me. These unfortunates had their own difficulties, and the constables were attempting to ascertain if they should try to apprehend us or let us pass. No one moved to detain us, for there were certainly much less robust fish to be hooked. The Society for the Reformation of Manners men-they were the easiest to spy, for these were the ones who cowered and moaned if we even turned our eyes in their direction-demonstrated another attribute of those who would hide their cruelty behind the guise of religion. With such a fervent belief in their Lord, they were ever reluctant to risk being sent to meet him.