Bootham said, “Twenty odd years ago it was. You and Hazlitt at Hinckley Downs. Magnificent it was. Fifty-two rounds in the sun until you picked him up and slammed him down on the boards. I was never so excited in my life. What became of Hazlitt?”
“Still in the game.”
“You’re joking. He must be over sixty.”
“That he is. Still catchin’ punches with his face, he is. Blind in one eye and the other none too good. But he can’t do anythin’ else. What time does Mr. Barnum open his establishment?”
“Around noon I believe. I saw Tom Spring and Jack Langan fight for the heavyweight championship. Eighteen and twenty-four, I believe. Seventy-seven rounds. Spring won. Thirty thousand people from all over England saw that one. God, what a thrill it was! Whatever happened to Spring?”
“Him and Langan fought again. Six months later, I think. Spring did a right neat job on Langan. Bloodied him from noon to Sunday, but Spring’s hands, they got botched and he never fought no more. He’s now an innkeeper, he is. Langan opened a hotel in Liverpool. He died two years ago. What’s Mr. P. T. Barnum got in his museum that’s so special?”
“Six hundred thousand different attractions, some of them pure humbug and hokum, some quite interesting. Americans are rather prudish and they believe theater and such entertainments to be the devil’s work and a sure road to hell. Master Barnum is a sly one. He shrewdly calls his emporium a museum, pretending to offer education for the family instead of time wasting amusement and entertainment. Thus, the public feels virtuous when they pay twenty-five cents admission to watch dancing girls or some cross-eyed Italian balance a bayonetted rifle on his long nose. And is it true that you are descended from the James Figg?”
From the respect in Titus Bootham’s voice, Figg would have thought the question was-are you related to Moses? Figg looked at him and nodded. He thought Titus Bootham would swoon with delight. “Direct descendant,” said Figg. “Me great-great-grandfather. All of us Figgs took to the trade.”
The James Figg. In 1719 he became the first recorded heavyweight boxing champion in England’s history and from that date, boxing as the world was to know it, began. Father of boxing and first to openly promote the teaching of the sport. Master swordsman, expert fencer and even more skilled in the use of the cudgel. Patronized by nobles and bluebloods. The James Figg. William Hogarth gladly painted his portrait and designed his calling card. Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope were just two of the important men and women who sought his friendship and now Titus Bootham was standing beside his great-great-grandson, a man of note in his own right. Even in February cold, the excitement caused Titus Bootham to perspire.
Bootham said, “When you see Mr. Dickens, please convey my gratitude at singling me out to be of service to you. The pleasure and the honor is indeed mine.”
“Not yours entirely.”
“Ah yes, there is Mr. Poe.” Bootham sighed. “A most peculiar man. He views existence as does a man without sight. All darkness.”
Figg said, “Come to think of it, he weren’t seein’ much when I met him.”
Titus Bootham adjusted a scarf to protect the bottom half of his face against the cold. “One wonders at the sort of mind which conceives his particular prose, though let me add he has earned a reputation in literary circles. This has not made him one of our Yankee millionaires, of which we do have a few. Mr. Poe can be a nasty little piece of baggage, especially when in his cups. Did Mr. Dickens tell you that Mr. Poe once asked employment of him?”
“No.”
“Happened when Mr. Dickens began his London newspaper a couple of years ago. Mr. Poe wrote and asked to be made the American correspondent. He never got the job. Have no idea why, actually.”
Figg eyed Mr. Barnum’s American Museum. Oh it was a sight, it was. The outside of the marble building was a collection of color and oddities that would make a dead man sit up and take notice. Around each of the building’s top four stories were oval oil paintings of beasts, birds and much stranger animals, a few of them springing from Mr. Barnum’s imagination. Two dozen flags flew from the rooftop and snapped in the cold February wind, with a monstrous American red, white and blue towering over all. Other flags flew from a third story balcony, where uniformed musicians began to fit themselves into chairs. There were posters and banners on the ground floor and Figg had to admit that merely to gaze upon Mr. Barnum’s handiwork was to view a wonder. The building was a mass of colors. To Figg, it looked as though drunken gypsies had been given paint and cloth and told to indulge themselves beyond all reason and at Mr. Barnum’s expense. The boxer had toured Britain with many a carnival and knew the importance of pulling in a crowd as skillfully as possible. Mr. Barnum seemed to be the man who could do it.
And here is where Figg would find those actors involved with Jonathan.
Here is where he would begin his revenge on those who had killed his wife and son.
“What think you of Mr. Barnum’s painted box?” asked Titus Bootham.
“Trips you up, it does. Makes you stop. That is what a man in his position must do. Has himself a little band, I notice.”
“If you call thirty to forty musicians little, yes. But wait until you hear them. Mr. Figg, I assure you that no more horrendous sound has ever reached your ears. Barnum has deliberately hired the worst musicians money can buy. Deliberately, I say.”
“American custom?”
“American greed. A crowd always gathers to listen and when this awful music comes down upon them, many seek refuge inside the museum, at an entrance fee of course.”
Figg nodded. “Right smart. Yes sir, right smart.”
“Mr. Figg?”
“Yes, Mr. Bootham?”
“I have no wish to pry into your business, but please regard me as a friend. I deem it an honor to assist you in any way possible and not merely because Mr. Dickens has asked me to do so.”
“Much appreciated, Mr.-” Figg stopped talking.
“Mr. Figg, what’s wrong?”
Figg waited until a wagon piled high with boxes had passed in front of the museum. When he spoke, his voice was ice. “Those two men there, the ones talking to that lady who just stepped from the black carriage.”
Titus Bootham squinted behind steel-rimmed spectacles. “Yes, yes, I see them.”
“Them is two who I come here to see.”
Titus Bootham felt the menace in Figg’s voice and suddenly he was glad that Figg hadn’t come to see him in such fashion. He said, “The woman, yes I know her. Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Mrs. Coltman. Mrs. Rachel Coltman.”
Figg looked at Bootham. “Husband named Justin?”
“He’s dead now, God rest his soul. Died of cancer a few weeks ago. Shortly after returning from England, I believe. Quite a wealthy man. We gave him a rather large obituary. She is-”
“Your carriage.” Figg took Bootham by the elbow, pushing him forward.
“Where? Where? I thought you wanted to-”
Figg, hand still tightly gripping Bootham’s elbow, reached the journalist’s carriage tied up at a nearby hitching rail, now crowded with single horses. At the hitching rack, two young boys pulled feathers from a pair of geese and threw the feathers at pigs nosing about in the mud and snow.
Figg’s soft voice was steely. “Mrs. Coltman has finished her little chat and she’s leavin’ and I would like to see where she is about to take herself.” Find Justin Coltman and you find Jonathan.