Page 36 of A Ruse of Shadows
“Nothing much. They spoke to his accountant and said the accountant didn’t know anything either.”
Someone brayed with laughter again, the shrillness of the sound overriding the general din of the pub. It was Mr. Gore the grocer, and he stopped as abruptly as if someone had stuffed a sock in his mouth, to stare in amazed dismay at the man with the neck tattoo.
“Do you know where this accountant is?”
“Somewhere in the City of London. Mumble and Jessie know the exact address. Do you need to talk to the accountant?”
“You never know. Sometimes an accountant knows more about a man than his wife does.”
“Well,” said Johnny E., his expression almost as blank as Miss Charlotte’s usual countenance, “I wouldn’t know about that.”
Oh, this child.
Mrs. Watson girded herself for more teeth-pulling. “So Mumble and Jessie, even though they haven’t found out much, are still carrying on with their search?”
“That’s right.”
“What propels that search? Affection or some other reason?”
“They don’t need money as much as I do. And—” He glanced at his new sponsor, who now looked as if he needed Lawson’s support to stay upright. “I’m not sure someone like Mr. Gore would have taken them on, even if they were willing to go with him—not that he was enthusiastic about me either.”
He meant that his new sponsor, the grocer, hadn’t been too happy about associating with an Italian.
“What makes Mumble and Jessie more difficult to place?”
Johnny E. looked toward the door, as if he hoped someone might show up. “Well, Jessie is a girl—some sponsors don’t want girls, and Jessie doesn’t want anything to do with most of the rest. And Mumble,you might as well know this now, Mumble is Gypsy. Or maybe half-Gypsy, but he looks all of it.”
?Lawson brought Mr. Gore the grocer back just then and told Johnny it was time to prepare for his fight.
The boxer and his sponsor departed, but a good quarter hour passed before Lawson escorted the women down to a surprisingly large basement. The place must have been where a former publican had once made his own ale. But more and more pubs these days were supplied by large breweries, which negated the need for brewing equipment on-site.
Close to a hundred spectators crowded around the ringed platform, and more were coming in—still no badly scarred man. The place began to smell of too many bodies crammed too close. Mrs. Watson’s heart jammed her airways once she saw that Johnny would be fighting the man with the neck tattoo, who had five inches and ten times that many pounds on him.
The boxers entered the ring. A shirtless Johnny looked even scrawnier—hardly any muscles separated his skin from his skeleton—while his opponent was a fortress of brawn.
A bell rang, and the bare-knuckle match began.
The big man grinned, launched himself at Johnny, and knocked him to the ropes with a single blow. Mrs. Watson flinched.
Cheers erupted. Boos, too.
Were the spectators booing because they might lose their wagers or because they’d heard rumors about Mr. Underwood having used unscrupulous means to secure victories for his boxers?
The big man pursued Johnny to the ropes and punched at his face. Johnny sidestepped the attack, pivoted with remarkable speed, and while the man was still turning around, landed an uppercut to his jaw.
Lawson bellowed in approval. Mrs. Watson did not cheer; she only dreaded the next blow that would land on Johnny.
Vaguely she remembered that in her salad days she’d attendedboxing matches on the arm of a protector and relished the bouts with a gleeful bloodlust. Now every time the big man’s fists connected with Johnny, even if Johnny successfully parried the blow, she felt her skin abrade, her skeleton rattle apart. Every time Johnny managed to punch his opponent, however, she was sure that it could do no more harm than a baby waving its tiny hands in the air.
“He’s no natural pugilist,” said Miss Charlotte in Herrinmore’s voice and accent.
“But what a fighter,” answered Lawson.
There was no beauty to his style, only a spectacular endurance for pain, a willpower that Mrs. Watson would have termed desperation if it didn’t also have a certain inexorability to it.
It was as if Johnny decided that he was going to outlast his opponent, and that was that.
By the end of the fight, both of his nostrils had to be plugged with cotton to stop his nosebleed, he had a nasty cut to his right cheek, and his lips, too, were swollen and bleeding, but he was still standing whereas his much more formidable-looking adversary was on the floor.
