“Saving souls?”
“Busting heads.”
“Ah,” Andy said with a grin, “the laying on of hands.”
“Something like that. Thomas here has gotten himself in a spot of trouble, thanks to that Celtic temper of his. He’s been challenged to a boxing match.”
“Bare knuckle?”
“No, Qu-that is, the new rules.”
McClain got as sour a look as I’d ever seen on his pious face. Since he had been a champion under the old rules, the marquis was not to be mentioned here. “How long does he have to train?”
“Four days.”
“Four days!” the missionary repeated, shaking his head. “You want me to train him in half a week? What shall I do after that, walk across the Thames? Or shall I part it, perhaps?”
“Such sarcasm is unbecoming in a man of the cloth. I merely need you to train him.”
“I quit that, you know. I don’t box professionally and I don’t train. I’ve been asked several times.”
“Your retirement has been well documented, Andrew, but Thomas needs the training. I understand the odds are against him and that he cannot be properly trained in a week, but there are…mitigating circumstances.”
“Buy me a new boiler, and we’ll call it square,” McClain stated.
“I’ll get someone in. He’ll clean it and replace what needs to be replaced.”
“You don’t trust my recommendation?”
“You would recommend this entire pile be razed and built again at my expense.”
“Nonsense, unless of course, you are offering.” He paused. “Four days. The very idea. Learn piano in four days. Learn Latin, maybe, but not boxing. That takes a lifetime. So, where’s it going to be, this match of the century?”
“The German Gymnasium, next Thursday.”
“Well, at least there’s some reason for hope. Those prigs at the German won’t know the difference. He’ll have to move in, of course.”
“No. I need him. We’re in the middle of an investigation. You can have him now and again, around his work. He’ll have to be satisfied with that, and so will you.”
“You’re a hard man, Cyrus Barker.”
Barker didn’t respond beyond a slight smile.
“Very well,” McClain continued, “but I won’t stand in his corner. I cannot be seen participating in this momentary aberration known as modern boxing, and I won’t back an improperly trained man. You’ll have to coach him yourself.”
“Done.”
“I’m not through yet. One can bring a horse to the track, but he still might not run. You’ve been as silent as the grave this entire time, Tommy boy. Are you up to this? You’ll probably get walloped anyway, but if you’re willing to learn something, I’m willing to teach you.”
“I’m willing,” I replied.
McClain pushed himself up off the floor and smacked his rust-covered hands together.
“Very well,” he said. “Give me a chance to get cleaned up a bit, and I shall meet you at the ring upstairs.”
A mission with a boxing ring under it would have sounded absurd in the West End, but things are not so hard and fast in Mile End Road, and occasionally one found two unrelated ventures knocked together into one. The reverend didn’t make any money from the ring, of course, save from Barker himself, who used it regularly.
I ruminated on the fact that I had displeased my employer with my actions. The training and the fight itself, whatever the outcome, was peripheral to the investigation. It was a waste of time and effort that should have been spent finding Gwendolyn DeVere’s killer. I had tried to convince myself that Clay was a part of it all.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said to him when we walked into the ring. “I didn’t mean for my personal life to intrude into the case. There is no proof that Clay is involved in Miss DeVere’s disappearance. Much as I would like to think he is Mr. Miacca, I doubt even he is capable of such heinous deeds.”
“I would be inclined to agree with you, lad,” Barker said. “I doubt Mr. Clay has even the aplomb to keep his mistress secret from his wife for very long. However, his presence in the district strikes me as a coincidence, and you know I do not believe in coincidence. Follow the line of incidents back far enough, and I’m certain one shall find where the two converge.”
“You actually think there is a connection?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, else I’d have stopped you from making a fool of yourself.”
“Thank you,” I said a trifle bitterly.
“Describe the building for me, lad, the one where Mr. Clay keeps his mistress,” Barker said, changing the subject.
“It was a mews converted over to flats, rather well kept up. It had two small evergreens in pots flanking the door, as I recall.”
“Aye. Now tell me, who can afford such nice, well-maintained flats in Bethnal Green.”
I thought about that. The answer became obvious. “No one.”
“Precisely.”
“So, you’re saying the other flats…”
“Are possibly kept by other married men for their paramours. Who knows but that Cambridge Road might be honeycombed with them.”
“I thought Bethnal Green had a reputation for being poor but respectable,” I said.
“During the day, perhaps.”
Brother Andrew came into the room. He was stripped to the waist and a sight to behold. Though past forty, his chest was heavily muscled and his biceps the size of melons. His neck was connected to each shoulder by a mass of hard muscle; and his stomach, which is usually the first to go as a man grows older, was chiseled. McClain was a little under six foot and weighed about as much as Barker. I could see why the Guv might have chosen him as a sparring partner.
“Don’t just stand there gawking, Tommy,” the reverend said. “Take your shirt off.”
As I removed my jacket and tie, Barker tied the brown leather gloves around McClain’s wrists. The look of distaste was writ large across the ex-pugilist’s features.
“I hate these things,” he complained. “Gone are the days when you could twist your wrists at the last minute and cut open a man’s brow with your knuckles. I can hardly feel anything in these mitts. Takes all the enjoyment out of it.”
“My singlet, too?” I asked.
“Singlet,” McClain muttered, shaking his head.
“Aye, lad, the singlet, too,” Barker said. I took it off and walked over to my employer to be laced into the gloves.
I had to admit I didn’t like them myself. They didn’t feel as if they were designed for humans, too tight in some places, too loose in others. I stood while the Guv tied the laces tightly, then reluctantly I climbed into the ring.
“All right, Tommy,” McClain said. “Let’s see what you are made of.”
I’d done a number of illogical things at my employer’s behest but none as obvious as stepping into the ring with a heavyweight champion, gloves or no. I extended my left arm and made a fist, while pulling my right back to guard my chin.
“Pull your left back a bit, boy,” the reverend counseled. “You’re not in here to have your photograph taken. You need the distance to gain some power behind the blow, being a lightweight.”
The next I knew, McClain’s glove swiped across my right cheek. It felt hot, then cold; and I wondered if I would start bleeding, but the feeling faded quickly.
“Raise your guard.”
I did and took a blow to the stomach. That was enough, I thought. I pictured the organ smashed into my kidneys and all of that wrapped around my spine.
“Ow!” I finally got out.
“‘Ow,’ is it? There’s no ‘ow’ anymore, Tommy. You’re not in the village green. You’re part of the Fancy, now, and the code says you take your punishment in silence.”
McClain threw a hook to my ear, and miraculously, I was able to brush it away; but then I left myself open for an uppercut to the chin, which knocked my head back. I heard the vertebrae in my neck pop, followed by a slight ringing in my ear, but after I shook my head, I was fine.
“He’s got a good jaw, Cyrus. That’s a blessing I did not expect.”
Just then I took my first tentative jab, which, since he was looking over at Barker, he didn’t see until it caught him square upon the nose. He looked over at me and broke into a big grin.