“My various lords and commoners,” said Horrabin in a ringmaster’s voice, “may I present our overlord, the Gypsy King, Doctor Romany!” There were a few half-hearted cheers and whistles. “What business induces you to grace our table, Your Majesty?”
Romany didn’t reply until he had climbed up into the highchair and, with a sigh of relief, removed his spring-shoes. “Several matters have brought me to your throne-sewer, Horrabin,” he said. “For one thing, I’ve personally brought this month’s coin shipment—gold sovereigns in fifty-pound sacks in the corridor back there, probably still hot from the molds.” This news brought on a racket of more sincere cheering from the congregation. “And some new developments in the matter of manhunting.” He accepted a glass of red wine from one of the thief lords. “Somehow you still haven’t found for me the man you call Dog-Face Joe.”
“A goddamn werewolf is a dangerous sort of man to find, mate,” came a call, and there were murmurs of assent.
“He’s not a werewolf,” said Doctor Romany without turning around, “but I’ll agree he is very dangerous. That’s why I’ve made the reward so big, and advised you all to bring him to me dead rather than alive. In any case, the reward has increased now to ten thousand pounds cash and passage on one of my merchant ships to any spot on the globe. There is now, though, another man I want you to find for me—and this one must be captured alive and undamaged. The reward for bringing me this man will be twenty thousand pounds, and a wife of any description you care for, guaranteed to be as affectionate as you please, and of course passage to anywhere you like.” The audience shifted and muttered among themselves, and even one or two of the ruined derelicts, who’d only shambled down the ramps and stairs for the traditional concluding food fight, seemed to be showing interest. “I don’t know this man’s name,” Doctor Romany went on, “but he’s about thirty-five years old, with dark hair beginning to go bald, he’s tending to fat around his middle, pale, and he speaks with some sort of colonial accent. I lost him last night in a field near Kensington, by the Chelsea Creek. He was tightly bound, but apparently—” Romany paused, for Horrabin had begun swinging back and forth in excitement. “Yes, Horrabin?”
“Was he dressed as a costermonger?” the clown asked.
“Not when last seen, but if he escaped by way of the creek, as I suspect he did, he’d certainly have wanted a change of clothes. You’ve seen him? Where, man, when?”
“I saw a man just like what you’ve described, but in a coster’s old corduroy, trying to peddle onions in Billingsgate this morning, just before the market closed. He sat for my Punch show, and I offered him a begging job, but he got all insulted and walked away. He said he was American. I did tell him that when he changed his mind—and you never saw a man less able to fend for himself—to ask where Horrabin’s Punch show is playing, and to talk to me again.”
“I think that is probably him,” said Doctor Romany with controlled excitement. “Thank Anubis! I was afraid he might have drowned in the creek. Billingsgate, you say—very well, I want your people to scour the entire area from St. Paul’s and Blackfriar’s Bridge east to the rookery above London Dock, and from the river north to Christ’s Hospital, London Wall and Long Alley. The man who brings him to me alive will live the rest of his life in sunny luxury;” Romany did turn around now, and swept the entire company with his cold gaze, “but if anyone should kill him, his lot will be”—he seemed to search for an appropriate image—”such that he’d bitterly envy old Dungy.”
From the crowd came mutters to the effect that there were worse things than setting tables and doing idiot dances for a living, but the men around the table, several of whom had sat there when Dungy was their chief, frowned doubtfully, as though wondering whether capturing this man would be worth the risk.
“Our international affairs,” Romany went on, “are proceeding smoothly, and there should be a couple of fairly dramatic results in about a month if all continues going well.” He allowed himself a brief smile. “If I didn’t know it would be discounted as wild hyperbole, I’d observe that this at present underground parliament may, before winter sets in, be the Parliament that governs this island.”
Suddenly a burst of lunatic laughter erupted out of one flock of the shadow-huddling derelicts, and a thing that was evidently a very old man hopped with insect-like nimbleness into the light. His face had long ago suffered some tremendous injury, so that one eye, his nose and half of his jaw were gone, and his tattered clothes were so baggy and flapping that there hardly seemed to be any body inside them. “Not much left,” he gasped, trying to control the laughter that pummelled him, “not much left of me, hee hee, but enough to tell you, you—smug fool!—what your high-perbolee is worth, Murph!” A loud belch nearly knocked him down, and set the crowd laughing.
Doctor Romany stared angrily at this ruinous intruder. “Can’t you put this wretch out of his misery, Horrabin?” he asked quietly.
“You can’t because you didn’t!” cackled the ancient man.
“With your permission, sir,” said Horrabin, “I’ll just have him carried out. He’s been around forever, and the Surrey-side beggars call him their Luck. He rarely speaks, and when he does there’s no more meaning to it than a parrot’s chatter.”
“Well, do it then,” said Romany irritably.
Horrabin nodded, and one of the men who’d been laughing strode over to the Luck of Surrey-side and picked him up, and was visibly startled at how light the old man was.
As he was being briskly carried away, the old man turned and winked his one eye at Doctor Romany. “Look for me later under different circumstances,” he stage-whispered, and then was again seized with the crazy laughter, which diminished into weird echoes as his bearer hurried down one of the tunnels.
“Interesting sort of dinner guest you cater to,” said Doctor Romany, still angry, as he pulled his spring-shoes back on.
The clown shrugged—a weird effect with his already toweringly padded shoulders. “Nobody is ever turned away from Horrabin’s hall,” he said. “Some are never permitted to leave, or they leave by the river, but everybody’s welcome. You’re leaving already, before dinner?”
“Yes, and by the stairs, if it’s all right with you. I’ve got a lot of things to do—I’ve got to contact the police and offer them a big reward for this man, too. And I’ve never cared for … the kind of pork you serve.” The expression on the clown’s face could have been a warning look; Romany smiled, then climbed back down to the floor, wincing a little when his odd shoes came in contact with the flagstones. Dungy hurried up with his cloak, which Romany unfolded and put on. Just before striding away down one of the tunnels, he turned to the congregation and let his gaze roll across the uncharacteristically quiet company—he even took in the airborne beggar lords—and every eye was on him. “Find me that American,” he said quietly. “Forget about Dog-Face Joe for now—fetch me the American, alive.”
The low sun was silhouetting the dome of St. Paul’s behind Doyle as he trudged back down Thames Street toward Billingsgate. The pint of beer he’d bought ten minutes before had rid him of most of the bad taste in his mouth and some of his appalling embarrassment.
Though not as crowded as it had been this morning, the street was still amply populated—children were kicking a ball around, an occasional carriage rattled past, and pedestrians had to step around a wagon from which workmen were unloading barrels. Doyle was watching the passersby.