The Devil's Company by David Liss Read Free Book Online

sort.”

    “What knot is this?” I asked. I felt something uneasy churning within me. Some vague shape began to appear from the fog.

    He rose to poke at the fire, working up, I presumed, the strength to tell his tale. After a minute or so of jabbing logs and sending sparks flying, he turned back to me. “I recently brought in a large shipment of wines—a very large shipment indeed. I import Portuguese wines as a matter of course, as you know, and there are one or two shipments each year to stock the warehouses and keep them full. This was one of them. As always, I purchased insurance upon the cargo to protect against this sort of thing, but it has done me no good. You see, the shipment arrived as it was supposed to, was delivered to the Customs House, and was registered there accordingly. Once it was unloaded, the maritime insurance ended, for the goods were considered safely delivered, but now they have disappeared.”

    “Disappeared,” I repeated.

    “Yes, the Customs House claims they have no record of my shipment. They claim my records are false, forged. Indeed, they have threatened me with prosecution if I choose to press the case, emphasizing as they do so the little justice members of our nation can expect in this country. I cannot understand it. I’ve dealt with these people for decades, you understand, and I have always provided the necessary payments to keep the customs men my friends. I’ve never heard a word of complaint from them, that I did not do my share or any such thing. I received no evidence that they were dissatisfied with my generosity. And now this.”

    “They toy with you? They hold your cargo hostage?”

    He shook his head. “There is no implication of anything of the sort. Indeed, I have spoken to my longtime contacts there, men I consider nearly friends, men who hate to see me harmed because they have grown fond of my payments. They are as perplexed as I am. But the result is, Benjamin, that until this cargo can be discovered I am in rather severe debt. I have letters of credit being called in, and it is taking an inordinate amount of shifting and accounting maneuvers to keep from being discovered and ruined. If it were a few coins you required, it would make no difference, but I cannot discover anywhere a spare twelve hundred pounds. Removing such a brick from my edifice would make the building collapse.”

    “But the law,” I proposed.

    “I have begun legal proceedings, of course, but you know how these matters are. It is all delay and blockage and obscuring. It should be years, I think, before there is any answer from the law.”

    I took a moment to consider what I heard. Was it strange that my uncle should find himself in considerable debt at the same moment I did as well? No, it was not strange at all, it was design; I had no doubt of it. As Cobb had gone to such lengths to make clear, his nephew, Tobias Hammond, worked for the Customs House.

    “Do you think, Benjamin, I could prevail upon you to look into this matter? Perhaps you could discover what has happened, and with that knowledge we might force a resolution more quickly.”

    I slammed my hand hard against his desk. “I am sorry this has happened to you, Uncle. You have been ill used on my account. I see now that someone has undone your business to keep me from receiving relief.”

    Briefly I told him of my dealings with Cobb, in part because I wished to know if he had any familiarity with these men and could tell me something of them. In truth, though, I wanted to explain to him all that had passed in the hopes that he would not judge me too harshly for whatever role I might have played in creating these troubles for him.

    “I’ve never heard of either of these men. I can make inquiries if you’d like. If this Cobb has so much money to squander on making you his subject, he must be known.”

    “I would appreciate anything you might tell me.”

    “In the meantime,” he said, “you must discover what it