Free The Sleeping Partner by Madeleine E. Robins Page A

force but by a virulent malaria which had killed more than four thousand men outright, and invalided twice that number.
    “Bob was sent ‘ome to us; sixpence-a-day pension, and ‘e’s a good worker when ‘e’s well. But when the fever’s on ‘im, ain’t much ‘e can do but sit as you see ‘im.”
    “I am sorry to hear it. Is there no help for him?”
    “Quinina—that’s what the Spaniards call it—stops the shakin’ and the fever. Peruvian bark, that is. But it’s ‘ard to get and dear when you find it. Damned Frenchies run up the price by attacking merchant ships. Now if the Crown was doing what they ought—”
    For the next quarter hour Mr. Boddick maintained a monologue highly critical of the Government’s pursuit of the Peninsular War. Boddick was a whole-hearted Tory, while Miss Tolerance’s sympathies partook more of the Opposition line, but both maintained a keen interest in the progress of the war. Mr. Boddick, like his brother a veteran, was vehemently anti-Bonaparte; it was one issue upon which he and Miss Tolerance, who had lived under the Corsican’s rule, were wholly in sympathy. Poor Brother Bob, withdrawn and shuddering at the end of the bar, offered no opinions.
    When they had disposed of the war, Walcheren, and the politics of the commission investigating that debacle, they returned again to the weather, thence to the price of corn, which looked to return them to the subject of politics again. But Boddick looked back to Mr. Glebb’s table. “Ah, seems ‘e’s free now, miss. A pleasure talkin’ with you, as always.”
    Miss Tolerance wished him a good day and carried her coffee off to Mr. Glebb’s table.
    Joshua Glebb’s head, bald, with a long fringe of yellowed hair circling the back, shone in the dusty light from the far window. His entire being appeared to be in the process of succumbing slowly to gravity; his mouth turned down, and his chin, shoulders and gut all looked to be making a slow progress downward until they would puddle around his boot-soles. Until that should happen, Mr. Glebb resembled a fussy and dyspeptic head clerk, respectably dressed and sour of expression. His mouth attained—not a smile, but an absence of frown—when he looked up at Miss Tolerance, and his shrewd eyes lit.
    “You’ll forgive me if I don’t rise, miss. My bones is giving me some trouble today.”
    “You must not stand upon ceremony with me, Mr. Glebb.” Miss Tolerance took a seat opposite him. “I have come, as usual, to ask questions.”
    “Well, asking’s free. It’s answers cost the ready.” Glebb looked into his coffee pot, found it empty, and gestured to Boddick. “Answers is what I have.”
    Mr. Glebb did a brisk trade in information of a specific sort: he had ties to virtually every money lender in the city, from respectable banks to the meanest sharks, and to the pawnshops and fences as well. Mr. Glebb was a sort of financial matchmaker, putting those in need of money together with those of a lending disposition—for a fee. He loaned no money, but he knew everyone who did. Miss Tolerance had always found him to be reliable, if somewhat tainted by cynicism. She opened her pocket book and withdrew several coins.
    “I shall get straight to the matter. What can you tell me of Lord Lyne?”
    Mr. Glebb pursed his lips together in a soundless whistle. “Flying high, are we?”
    “Oh, I mix in the best society.”
    “Well, they ain’t the best if they ain’t beforehand with the world,” Mr. Glebb advised.
    “Do I understand that to mean that my lord is deep in debt?”
    Glebb shook his head. “Just speaking in a general way, miss. Lyne—” Mr. Glebb put his finger to the side of his nose as if that constituted an aid to memory. A drop of clear fluid hanging there trembled but did not drop. “Banks with Coutts and with Hammersely. Man of property and business, as I recall it.”
    “And what sort of business would that be?” Miss Tolerance asked.
    Glebb shrugged.