The Hellfire Conspiracy

17

“Lift your guard, Tommy.”

Barker had sent me on to McClain’s as soon as breakfast was over. The time grew short until the match.

“What, so you can batter my liver again?” I asked the reverend, bobbing and weaving.

“Liver, kidneys-makes no difference, boyo.”

I ducked and lashed out but caught Handy Andy only on one of his stony shoulders.

“Don’t you have anyone my size?” I asked.

“All the kiddies are still abed.”

“You should be in the music hall. Boxing and comedy in one act.”

“And anyway,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard, “your opponent isn’t your size, as I understand it.”

“Is there any chance-Ow!”

McClain had got one over my flimsy guard and caught me across the brow. “Quit jawing while I’m smiting you.”

I hopped ’round the ring, sweating like a horse after a mile run. This was no way to win a match against anybody. Twenty-two, and I was to be cut down in the prime of life. I tried to get by; and suddenly I was against the ropes, Andrew McClain hammering me in the stomach and ribs, with an occasional smack to the jaw and nose. I couldn’t take much more of this. In fact, I didn’t. My opponent hooked me with a right to the ear, and the next I knew I was down on one knee, shaking my head. McClain lifted me by the shoulders and dropped me down on the wooden stool in the corner.

“It’s a good thing your boss isn’t here. He’s not overjoyed about this challenge you’ve gotten yourself into and wouldn’t have gone as easy on you as I have.”

“You call this easy?”

“Aye. Break’s over,” he said, kicking the stool out from under me. “Time for another round.”

“This isn’t doing me any good!”

“This will be just a walk in the park compared to what your opponent will give you. I’ve been asking about a little. Nice jab.”

I’d managed to tap him on the jaw. It was the first clean hit I’d made since the sparring had started.

“And?”

“General opinion is that Clay is good. Drinks too much and has an eye for female flesh, but so far it hasn’t affected his skills. Strictly amateur, of course. I don’t want to scare you, but you’ll have to do better than this.”

“Teach me how to fight, then. I already know how to get hit.”

“Just reminding you. Barker’s been teaching you that Chinese wrestling, and it’s good, don’t get me wrong; but if you are gonna wear these pillows on your mitts, you’d better learn you some good, old-fashioned John Bull boxing.”

He caught me square on the nose then, and that was the end of the match. I began to bleed like a faucet. The reverend moved me to the stool and held my head back so the blood could flow down my throat, although how that was an improvement, I couldn’t see.

“Let me get out of these mitts and I’ll mop your face proper, Tommy boy. You know, your right’s not bad, but your left is all over the place. You need to learn control, control and follow through.”

McClain performed surgery upon me. That is, he ripped the corner from a towel and screwed it into my nostril. Then he sent me in to bathe in a cold tub and get changed. Once outside, I got rid of it. The bleeding had stopped.

When I got back, Barker was pacing and smoking his pipe. Ribbons of smoke hung in the still air.

“Ah,” he said, catching sight of me. “Come, we must leave immediately.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“One of Soho Vic’s lads has located Major DeVere. He’s in Camden Town. We’ve got precious time to collect him and sober him up. The funeral is tomorrow.”

Barker hailed another cab and ordered the driver north to Camden. I noted the expense in the back of my notebook. Costs were adding up.

“What happened to your nose?” the Guv asked.

“I got too close to one of the reverend’s jabs.”

“He’s got a good one, doesn’t he? Someday when you’re in your dotage, you’ll be able to say Handy Andy McClain once bloodied your nose, but I doubt anyone will believe you. The man’s a legend.”

Camden Town was a pleasant surprise. It had a Dickensian feel about it, with old, swaybacked buildings, narrow streets, and a genteel poverty, like a maiden aunt living on a pension. There was one building with the name Fagin on it and another that said Marley.

Barker hired an open carriage at the station and told the driver where to go. He seemed to know this area, as well. Just how far did his knowledge of the streets go? I wondered. Had he memorized Tunbridge Wells or Brighton, too?

We pulled up in front of a pub with an open front door spilling light like lager onto the paving stones. It was unremarkable, as public houses go. It might have been a template for every other pub in London.

The publican was a fat, prosperous-looking man, like most I’ve met. He had a face like a bulldog’s, with jowls and rolls of excess flesh, and a stub of a cigar was permanently affixed to the corner of his mouth.

“Is Major DeVere here?” Barker asked.

“Oh, thank God,” the owner exclaimed. “He’s been doing his best to drink up my cellar these past two days. I’ve never seen anyone put down so much wine in my life. Thought he’d quit sometime, but every time we thought he’d passed out, here he come down the stair again, askin’ for ’nother bottle. Crikey, that man can throw down the liquor.”

“His daughter was found murdered, and his wife killed herself,” Barker answered, hoping perhaps to shock him into silence, but it didn’t work.

“Thought it hadda be something like that,” the man said, wiping a glass with a grimy towel. “It was like he was trying to drown hisself, one bottle at a time.”

“Where is he?”

He pointed over our heads with his thumb. “Ain’t got but the one room.”

Barker led me up the stairs, and when he came to the door, opened it without knocking. In the shambles of the inn room, Trevor DeVere sat in a chair with his feet extended and his arms hanging limp. His eyes were glazed, his mustache disordered, and the front of his open shirt stained with wine. He caught sight of us and raised a half-full goblet in the air.

“To your health, gentlemen,” he said, draining it in a gulp.

“We have come to retrieve you, sir,” Barker said stonily. I don’t believe he was as sympathetic to Mr. DeVere’s condition as I.

“I’m where I wish to be,” came the reply. “Push off, gentlemen.”

“No, sir. I’m afraid you’re coming with us. We need to make you presentable for your family’s funeral.”

DeVere came up out of his chair and started to back away, pointing at Barker with one trembling finger while the others wrapped around the neck of a bottle.

“Oh, blazes! Now you’ve gone and done it! I was trying to forget all about that, and you’ve reminded me. A fat lot of good you gents have been to me since I walked into your chambers four days ago. I’ve got a cat left, you know, a nice, fat tom. You can kill him too, if you wish.”

“You may complain at the time of the reckoning, when I present your bill. Until then, I am in charge and I’m saying you must come with me.”

DeVere splashed more wine into his goblet and drank it. Then he was back to the finger pointing. This time, he pointed at me.

“You,” he said, looking at me with bleary red eyes. “You look like an educated chappy. How many circles of Hell are there?”

I glanced at my employer nervously. “I believe there were nine, according to Dante.”

The major shook his head with his eyes closed and a smile on his face. A laugh escaped his lips. “Eleven, there are eleven.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s the one I’m in now. You didn’t read about that one in old Dante, did you? And then, there’s the really, really deep one where they put all the blasted, thieving, useless private enquiry agents!”

He tried to fill his glass again, but the bottle was finally empty. He looked at it woefully. “I keep pouring this stuff down my throat, hoping for release. The damned publican must be watering it down. I’m sorry. I just want oblivion.”

“If it’s oblivion you want-” Barker said suddenly, his fist coming up under the major’s chin, jarring him with the blow. DeVere dropped into his arms like a sack of potatoes. My employer hoisted the major onto his right shoulder and turned to me. “Go downstairs and settle the bill.”

I don’t believe we had been in the building more than five minutes, and now Barker was leaving with DeVere on his shoulders. I had expected a protracted argument, but Barker had a more expedient method of getting a drunken, angry man out of a public house.

“Where to now, sir?” the cabman asked, once I’d paid DeVere’s bill and we were all ensconced in the carriage.

“Fulham,” Barker growled.

“That’s clear ’cross town, sir!”

“Then you had better not dawdle. I’ll make it worth your time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose this has turned out as well as could be expected,” the Guv said. “There was a chance he would go back to his barracks and blow his brains out.”

The major came to halfway through the journey.

“Where the hell am I?” he asked.

“You are going home to sleep,” Barker told him. “Tomorrow morning, you’re going to bury your wife and daughter.”

DeVere sat and stared as the carriage rolled down the street. I wasn’t certain whether he’d taken the words in until he spoke again a minute or two later.

“I’m gonna be flogged for this or court-martialed. Or both.”

Neither Barker nor I vouchsafed a remark, but DeVere was suddenly garrulous. “You-you’re gonna catch this blackguard and make him pay, aren’t you?”

“I have every intention of doing so.”

“Gwendolyn…my little Gwendolyn. Used to rock her on my knee, you know.”

“You owe it to her memory to be at her graveside, sober.”

“Have you ever lost a child, Mr. Barker?”

“No.”

“Have you ever lost a wife?”

Barker didn’t respond. My jaw dropped. DeVere, drunk as he was, didn’t notice and continued. “Then don’t dictate terms to me. I’m paying for the bloody funeral and I’m going to be there. Now leave off.”

We arrived at the DeVere residence. The butler, a capable man who looked like he might have seen military before domestic service, met us and helped his master from the vehicle, issuing orders to the maids for a pot of coffee and a hot bath. We left the arrangements for DeVere’s appearance in the man’s capable hands. On the way back to Bethnal Green, Barker was back to his normal self, watching traffic and turning over aspects of the case, but I pondered the unanswered question in my heart.