The Devil's Company by David Liss Page A

certain if I had discovered the right place. With no choice but to hope I had struck home, I strode in, finding the room empty and made ready to plunder.

    I was operating under a number of disabilities that made my task more complicated. It was dark; I had no familiarity with the documents I sought or the man who possessed them; I had a limited amount of time to find what Cobb wanted; and the consequences of being caught or failing were both dire.

    My eyes were fairly well adjusted to the dark. Indeed, the lights of the mayhem outside helped illuminate the room; there were even muted cries of defiance from the silk weavers. I ignored the sound and took in as much as I could. The light was sufficient for me to make out the furnishings—a desk, a few chairs, bookshelves, side tables, and so forth—but insufficient for me to read the titles of the books without getting very close or to make out what images were within the frames upon the wall. There were a number of piles of documents upon the desk, and it was with these that I thought to start.

    Cobb had told me as much as he thought I needed, and he had clearly thought it best to tell me no more. I was to look through the papers of a Mr. Ambrose Ellershaw, a man conveniently gone to his country estate for the next two days, who was one of the members of the Court of Committees. This group was currently preparing for a quarterly meeting of the much larger Court of Proprietors, the two hundred or so men who controlled the fate of the Company. Each member of the smaller Court was charged with preparing data for the larger meeting, and it was Ellershaw’s responsibility to report on the data involving the import of India cloth to the British Isles and the sales of forbidden cloths to European and colonial markets. In order to prepare these figures, Mr. Ellershaw would need to comb through countless records of accounting data to obtain the information he required.

    My task was to find the only existing copy of his report and take it with me. How Cobb could know there were no duplicates I could not say, nor was it in my best interest to ask. I had no desire to find ways to make my task more difficult. Cobb said he could not know with any certainty how Ellershaw would store his report, only that it would be in his office and would be clearly marked.

    I began to make my way through the documents on his desk, but I found nothing but correspondence. The light was insufficient for me to read the texts easily, but as I had no interest or reason to know more of his letters, I had little concern for this difficulty. Time was lost to me in my frantic review of the papers, and I know not how long it took to make my way through the documents on the desk. I only knew I was finishing up the last two or three pieces of paper when I heard the clock strike nine. The silk weavers might depend on rioting another half hour, three quarters at most, before their safety was at risk. I had to find what I wanted, and soon.

    I was moving to open one of the desk drawers when something terrible transpired. There was a metallic groan I recognized in an instant-it was the sound of someone turning the door handle.

    I dropped at once to the floor and hid myself behind the desk as best I could. It was not the hiding place I would have chosen—in the corner would have been preferable, since the person might have business with the desk and ignore a corner—but I had no time to discriminate. I listened and heard the door open, and the room was suddenly awash with light.

    I overstate the case, for even hidden from view I could tell it was but the single flame of a candle or oil lamp, but it penetrated my precious protective darkness and left me feeling naked and exposed.

    I could only hope that the intruder wanted a book or a document from the top of the desk, but such was not the case. I heard the muffled tap of something—I presumed the candle—being set on the top of the desk.

    “Oh,” a female