The Seventh Thief - circa 1801

There was a wicked old tavern just off the waterfront in Port Royal - mind, it could have been most anywhere in any of half a hundred islands not so very far different one from another, for let the law do what it might in those days, even the King of England's mandate meant little enough so many thousand miles from the throne, and as for that upstart nation still clinging to the eastern shores of a mighty continent, you may rest assured that her word counted for little enough. She made a brave enough noise about being the new land of freedom, but she was lately come to her independence and looking all the time over her shoulder lest her former master come looking for her once again; and it was long enough before that fear left her at last, and that's for sure. So it could have been Castries or Fort de France or St George or whichever you will, and little enough the matter which of them for all that: likely enough they all have their own stories to tell, and not above half of them less strange than this one.
Still, I get off my track, which is never the way to begin any kind of a tale. Port Royal it was, and the tavern, whose name changed perhaps ten times between now and then, stands still to this day, even though at long last the law mostly has a say in what goes on inside her walls. Mostly, I say, and don't look for more than that while this age of the world lasts. And as to her wickedness, if you be a man of the world then you'll know what I mean when I say that anything could be had there for the right price, except maybe true love, a lady of virtue, or a man of his word. For true love I fear you'll not find any price high enough, and such as may be bought for a price will not be any truer than the fee you paid per hour. Oh, you know well what I mean! And if you were of a mind to pay, why then, you could name the kind of love you wanted if your purse were long enough, and if one girl wouldn't meet your need then you could be sure that another one would. Which I don't mean to say you should mistake the business of this place; some there be that only trade woman-flesh for a man's money, but here 'twas nobbut a side-line, and yet not such a side-line that a word in the right ear and a glimpse of gold were more than you needed to put you in the way of what you were after. Like I said, all for the right price.
Similarly for a lady of virtue; the most you might hope to find was a doxy whose heart would be true as long as your money lasted. Not but what that might be quite a time – days, months, years even, for the lowest jade or trull can tell what way the wind blows, and be smart enough to lie to it until it should blow another way, and the best and smartest of them might be true even to the knife's point itself for a man whose money ain't yet gone, and the more so when she knows he has money enough coming to him the hour his ship comes in. Some of that sort – always while the money lasts – can be truer than the faithfullest hound that ever lay before his master's fire on windy nights and would have bared his throat to the knife for a mere word. Women be queer cattle, even when all know they will turn once the money runs out.
As for a man of his word, the most any dare claim would be this: that as long as your arm be long and strong enough, or there be those after you that would make trouble for any that crossed you, or you had the money to spend (for let us not claim that men be any the more steadfast than women, where money be concerned), you could find a likely enough sort to watch your back for you. And again, sometimes that is enough for any man, and after all, tomorrow is always another day, and where gold came once, gold may come again.
Barring such priceless treasures though, you may take it that aught else a man might want could be had for the right price. But it was no place for the faint of heart to even ask for a thing to be done, if he were not the right sort to be crossing the threshold. The bear himself won't stick his snout into the wolf's lair, nor the tiger – at least, not twice – and so it were for this tavern, which we shall call the King's Arms for all the good it will do any of us, and the good folk in her would laugh at the thought of the fit old George would have took to hear it.
Some men, though, be men of no common stamp. They will walk into the lions' cage alone, unarmed but for a whip, and face the beasts down with naught but their guts for doing it. They know well enough that if they so much as look the wrong way at the wrong time it will be their last deed this side of eternity, and a short and bloody trip to the hereafter it will be and all; and yet their best hope of coming out again is to act and speak as though they truly knew no such thing were possible. That is the only way for a stranger to walk into the King's Arms.
Such a one might be, like this one, a barleycorn or two shy of six feet in height, thin and tough as a riding crop, shaved as close as a billiard pill and with cropped hair that might spend all its working days under a wig. If he were armed then he gave no hint either of the fact or of any inkling that he might need it, but he had the air of one who expected to leave the place by the same door that he entered it, on his own two feet and at a time of his own choosing – yet he was of more quality than any of the regular customers, and that was for sure.
Without over-much pause or any too obvious searching, he approached one of the tables where a man is enjoying the company of a lady, or so it is politely expressed. If the evening were more advanced and the company likewise, such a move might have been most unwise, but for the present it draws no worse than a scowl from the lady, and she accepts the unspoken hint that there is men's business to be dealt here. Once she has taken herself off, the seated man indicates to the new arrival that he should seat himself.
“Do I know you?” says he. He is a swarthy-skinned rogue with eyes black as precious jet, half a head shorter than the new arrival but maybe an inch thicker in the neck, lithe and limber with a face that might grin at any moment, though that might not be good news at that, and he speaks barely above an undertone.
The newcomer never flinches. “They said I should call you Jack.”
A nod. “And did they say what I should call you?”
“Mr. Martin is as good a name as any,” says he.
Maybe this pleases Jack's humour; at any rate, his tone, while no louder, maybe warms a degree or so. “A good enough name it be, and none denies. What else said they, Mr. Martin?”
“They said it would be useless to say that I have a piece in my pocket that is set to bore a hole through your belly should I see the need, Jack, and they said you could tell me why.”
The grin, when it comes, might not be the bad-news grin after all, and there may be nothing in the nod to tell the heavy-set men a couple of arms' reach behind Mr. Martin's back that they might bear away, either. “Why's plain enough to the least intelligence, Mr. Martin, for them that comes to see me mostly has reasons why they need my belly the way my Maker intended it, and reasons of their own why they need to leave this place alive, and what's more, they mostly credit me with the smarts to see all that. Did they also say what Jack drinks?”
“Never a drop when he be working, or three fingers of the best rum else, and none of the rot-gut at that. Also I'll take the same, and the spin of a coin says which of us drinks from which glass.” Mr. Martin produced a piece of silver for the rum, he not yet being one of the customers who settle when they leave, far less run a slate. A golden guinea followed it, and Mr. Martin spun it on its edge. “She comes down heads, and which do I drink? I drink the other if it be tails.”
Jack pointed negligently at one of the glasses as though it could not possibly matter which way the coin landed, and when the tail side of the guinea showed he took up his three fingers of good rum with never a care in the world for all any man could see. “Your good health, master; and now, to business. What would you?”
As if in obedience to some sign Jack had given that he had missed, Mr. Martin saw that they had privacy – at least, none were nearer than three times a man's arm-length, and there was noise enough to cover a quiet conversation unless a man came a good deal nearer to hear. He produced a folded piece of paper from an inside pocket and passed it over for Jack's inspection.
“This is a copy, but I warrant it an accurate one, of a drawing made from life. It is life size,” he said. Jack's expression hardly wavered, but the little flicker that did reach his eyebrows spoke volumes. The drawing was of a clasp in the shape of a teardrop, forming a setting for the largest pearl Jack had ever heard tell of in anything but rum-fancies, as well as several smaller ones in an intricate cluster. The whole was plainly designed to be worn from a chain, and no-one but a Philistine would even consider anything but twenty-four carat gold for both clasp and chain if the master-pearl were truly as shown.
“A gewgaw like that might buy half the island,” muttered Jack, half in mockery and half in awe. “Who has to die for it?”
“No-one,” said Mr. Martin. “This is imperative, and is half the reason why this case be such a ticklish one. It is vital that the clasp be retrieved and returned to – its rightful owner; but he who has it at present must not be killed, nor even harmed.”
Jack did not speak for a while, turning the picture this way and that as though to picture fully in his head the lustre of the gold and the pearls. He gave a humourless grunt. “And it's useless to ask who the woman is in this case – for that's the other ticklish matter, and we both know it.”
Mr. Martin said nothing as to this, even to deny that a woman had aught to do with the case, and his silence alone was all the answer Jack needed. “A woman, then, not to be named nor even hinted at. Suppose I guess some more. This wasn't taken by force – it was given, or left where it ought not to have been, and none is to say how or why it came to be left there. But now she wants it back, and there's no way to have it back but through the dirty hands of such as me.”
“If you'll have it that way, I doubt me that it's worth saying anything to the contrary,” said Mr. Martin, “so instead I shall talk of something more profitable to you and a better use of both our time.”
Half of Jack's remaining rum disappeared on the instant, and he grinned broadly. “Profit is good. Talk away.”