My mind was taking it all in, a young, impressionable Barker and a valiant leader in war-torn China. I had to say something or he would close up on me again.
“So when did you meet the Dowager Empress?”
Barker ran a hand over his brow wearily. “Some other time, lad.”
Some other time, I thought. It’s always some other time.
21
Barker expected me to earn my shilling. There would be no hanging about the house waiting for him to need something. I went to the office by cab, bundled up and under cover from a light snow.
Once inside I watched the snow stop and start, paced, and waited to see if someone needed an enquiry agent. No one did, or perhaps they merely put off their need for our services to a more clement day. If so, I thanked them, much preferring to sit inside looking out at the swirling flakes in Craig’s Court than to be out in them.
The morning dragged on until lunch. I skipped around the corner to the Sun, which was full of Yard men, and had some beef from the joint and a half pint of bitter. All too soon I was nipping my way back again.
The post was barren of interest that day and though I tried to ponder the case, my brain was preoccupied. I was never so glad for six o’clock to come ’round. I had successfully whiled a day of my life away doing absolutely nothing. I rather envied Jenkins as he ran out the door at five thirty. At least he had somewhere to go.
Back in Newington, Barker had had a day as exciting as mine, though he’d been able to rest through most of it. He resisted Madame Dummolard’s offer to bring up his meal and insisted on dressing for dinner. The nurse attempted to help him, but the Guv ordered both women out of the room, with less than the usual politeness he granted the fairer sex. Once downstairs, he looked almost like his normal self, though a trifle gaunt.
“We shall be going out again tonight, lad,” he informed me as we helped ourselves from the sideboard. “I’ve received a message from Forbes. Campbell-Ffinch shall be boxing, and I want to see him fight. It shall be bare knuckle and therefore illegal.”
Late that evening Barker and I took a hansom cab to Victoria Station where we boarded a train bound for Wimbledon to attend the match. Secretly, I was hoping to see Campbell-Ffinch grassed or at least to see his supercilious expression wiped from his face.
This was one of those instances where being a private enquiry agent was better than being an officer of the law. Were a constable to stumble upon the scene he could only arrest a fellow or two and let the rest of us go. None would cooperate, some would lie, and the few detained would be released in the morning. We, on the other hand, could walk among the participants and learn what there was to learn.
We arrived at a public house with the promising name of the Ring. There are many types of public houses, according to the interests and dispositions of the proprietors, and this one was a sporting pub. Prints of famous boxers of the past lined the walls, going back to Mendoza, along with reliquaries the Roman Catholic Church could not have preserved better: Jack Randall’s shoes from the 1820s, a bust of Bob Gregson from the Royal Academy, and a loving portrait painted on a Staffordshire jug of the great Dan Mendoza himself, heavyweight champion in the days before gloves and rules, a glorious time which shall never see its like again, at least according to the publican. A great boxer, he assured us after Barker had struck up a conversation with him, even if the famed man had the misfortune of being a Jew. Our host was the sort of fellow who believed every English youth should be six feet in height, a good twelve stone at least, and muscled like a plow horse, and any deficiencies were due to Norman blood or other generational mistakes.
Barker had made a radical change in his attire: he was wearing a diamond-set horseshoe stickpin. It is funny how the least thing will allow one to fit in. He went from sober private enquiry agent to sporting enthusiast in a moment, and his entire personality changed.
“I heard a rumor,” he said, leaning over the bar, a bundle of energy, “that there might be sport to be had in this neighborhood this evening, if one played one’s cards right. My friend and I have come an awfully long way at a chance for a flutter.”
“We might be able to accommodate you and the young gentleman,” the publican said with oily enthusiasm.
“Yes, we were just at the Athletic Club the other day, watching the most pathetic match between Strothers and Carson. Twelve rounds. They weren’t even hurting each other! It was as if they had taped cushions to their hands. I started talking about the old days and some of the great fights, such as Cribb versus Molineaux, Randall versus Martin, and Sayers versus Heenan. My poor friend here has never seen a bare-knuckle match, a true gladiatorial contest, and I promised him I would take him to see one if we had to leave England to do it.”
The publican ran a thumb across his lower lip with a canny look. “I don’t think a man would have to go as far as that to see a good matchup.”
“That is what my sources have told me.”
“Oh, really now?” he said. “And who might these sources of yours be?”
“I am not at liberty to say,” Barker said, looking offended, though I knew it was an act.
“You’ll have to tell me if you want to see some blood sport,” the man pressed.
“I do not put the finger on my friends,” Barker continued to insist.
“Suit yourself, then. I never said nothing about nothing.” And with that, the man began wiping the counter with a towel. He’d brought us some Watney ale, which was better than the house deserved. We each took a pull from our tankards and let the matter cool for a moment.
“Oh, very well,” the Guv said to me. “If you’re going to give me that look. It was McLain that told me about the…meeting.”
“Handy Andy?” the man spoke up. “He’s out of it!”
“Aye, he is out of it, but he is not dead, yet. He still hears things. Word says this Campbell-Ffinch fellow can fight. A real up-and-comer.”
“They don’t call him the Hammersmith Hammer for nothing. Time!” The latter was bawled over our shoulders to the crowd.
“So,” Barker said, putting down his half-empty pint glass and wiping the foam from his mustache, “were one interested in what you so rightly call blood sport, where might one go?”
“Watch and learn, gentlemen,” was all the response we got. “Watch and learn.”
The clock struck eleven and the lot of us were ejected at closing time. This was not your average closing, however. There were over fifty of us standing in one or twos along the old road, stamping our feet in the cold. The pub owner locked his door with a flourish and led us down the road for a quarter mile. It must have been an odd sight for someone in one of the cottages along the way, half a hundred marching along silently in the dark. Well, almost silently. Everyone had been drinking, after all, and looking forward to a fight.
I had heard somewhere about clandestine fights that sometimes they took place in the middle of the roadways, the better to vanish if constables should appear. Surely that would be in warm weather, however. Were I a professional fighter, there wasn’t enough money in the Bank of England to make me take my shirt off outside that night. Things improved considerably when the publican led us up to an ancient-looking tithe barn and opened the time-sprung doors. The fighters were already in their places, warming up. There were several lanterns lit, but they dared not risk any sort of fire in the dried-out structure, so it was very cold inside the building.
Campbell-Ffinch looked a worthwhile opponent, I’ll say that for him. Were I a betting man, I’d put my shilling on him. Stripped to the waist, in his silk drawers, long hose, and boots, he looked formidable. He was brown all over, and where there was brown, there was muscle, too. He seemed to glow with health, and as he shadowboxed, a fine layer of steam rose from him like from a Thoroughbred after a run.