A Dangerous Fortune

by Ken Follett

  Hugh felt dazzled, not just by the lights but by the possibilities. All around him were girls who had come here for the sole purpose of flirting! Some were with boyfriends but others had come alone, intending to dance with total strangers. And they were all dressed up to the nines, in evening gowns with bustles, many of them cut very low at the neckline, and the most amazing hats. But he noticed that on the dance floor they all modestly wore their cloaks. And Micky and Edward had assured him that they were not prostitutes but ordinary girls, shop assistants and parlormaids and dressmakers.

  "How do you meet them?" Hugh asked. "Surely you don't just accost them like streetwalkers?"

  Edward answered him by pointing to a tall, distinguished-looking man in white tie and tails, who wore some kind of badge and appeared to be supervising the dancing. "That's the master of ceremonies. He'll effect an introduction, if you tip him."

  The atmosphere was a curious but exciting mixture of respectability and license, Hugh found.

  The polka ended and some of the dancers returned to their tables. Edward pointed and cried: "Well, I'm damned, there's Fatty Greenbourne!"

  Hugh followed his finger and saw their old schoolmate, bigger than ever, bulging out of his white waistcoat. On his arm was a stunningly beautiful girl. Fatty and the girl sat down at a table, and Micky said quietly: "Why don't we join them for a while?"

  Hugh was keen for a closer look at the girl, and he assented readily. The three young men threaded their way through the tables. "Good evening, Fatty!" Edward said cheerily.

  "Hullo, you lot," he replied. "People call me Solly nowadays," he added amiably.

  Hugh had seen Solly now and again in the City, London's financial district. For some years Solly had been working at the head office of his family bank, just around the corner from Pilasters. Unlike Hugh, Edward had only been working in the City for a few weeks, which was why he had not previously run into Solly.

  "We thought we'd join you," Edward said casually, and looked an inquiry at the girl.

  Solly turned to his companion. "Miss Robinson, may I present some old school friends: Edward Pilaster, Hugh Pilaster, and Micky Miranda."

  Miss Robinson's reaction was startling. She went pale beneath her rouge and said: "Pilaster? Not the same family as Tobias Pilaster?"

  "My father was Tobias Pilaster," said Hugh. "How do you know the name?"

  She recovered her composure quickly. "My father used to work for Tobias Pilaster and Co. As I child, I used to wonder who Co was." They laughed, and the moment of tension passed. She added: "Would you lads like to sit down?"

  There was a bottle of champagne on the table. Solly poured some for Miss Robinson and called for more glasses. "Well, this is a real reunion of old Windfield chums," he said. "Guess who else is here: Tonio Silva."

  "Where?" said Micky quickly. He seemed displeased to hear that Tonio was around, and Hugh wondered why. At school Tonio had always been frightened of Micky, he remembered.

  "He's on the dance floor," Solly said. "He's with Miss Robinson's friend, Miss April Tilsley."

  Miss Robinson said: "You could call me Maisie. I'm not a formal girl." And she threw a lascivious wink at Solly.

  A waiter brought a plate of lobster and set it in front of Solly. He tucked a napkin into his shirt collar and started to eat.

  "I thought you Jewboys weren't supposed to eat shellfish," Micky said with lazy insolence.

  Solly was as impervious as ever to such remarks. "I'm only kosher at home," he said.

  Maisie Robinson gave Micky a hostile glare. "We Jewgirls eat what we like," she said, and took a morsel from Solly's plate.

  Hugh was surprised that she was Jewish: he always thought of Jews as having dark coloring. He studied her. She was quite short, but added about a foot to her height by piling her tawny hair into a high chignon and topping it with a huge hat decorated with artificial leaves and fruit. Underneath the hat was a small, impudent face with a wicked twinkle in the green eyes. The cut of her chestnut-colored gown revealed an astonishing acreage of freckled bosom. Freckles were not generally thought to be attractive, but Hugh could hardly take his eyes off them. After a while Maisie felt his stare and returned it. He turned away with an apologetic smile.

  He took his mind off her bosom by looking around the group and noting how his old schoolmates had changed in the last seven years. Solly Greenbourne had matured. Although he was still fat, and had the same easygoing grin, he had acquired an air of authority in his middle twenties. Perhaps it came from being so rich--but Edward was rich and he had no such aura. Solly was already respected in the City; and while it was easy to earn respect when you were the heir to Greenbournes Bank, all the same a foolish young man in that position could rapidly become a laughingstock.

  Edward had grown older but unlike Solly he had not matured. For him, as for a child, play was everything. He was not stupid, but he found it difficult to concentrate on his work at the bank because he would rather be elsewhere, dancing and drinking and gambling.

  Micky had become a handsome devil, with dark eyes and black eyebrows and curly hair grown a little too long. His evening dress was correct but rather dashing: his jacket had a velvet collar and cuffs, and his shirt was frilled. He had already attracted admiring glances and inviting looks from several girls seated at nearby tables, Hugh had noticed. But Maisie Robinson had taken a dislike to him, and Hugh guessed that was not just because of the remark about Jewboys. There was something sinister about Micky. He was unnervingly quiet, watchful and self-contained. He was not frank, he rarely showed hesitation, uncertainty, or vulnerability, and he never revealed anything of his soul--if he had one. Hugh did not trust him.

  The next dance ended and Tonio Silva came to the table with Miss April Tilsley. Hugh had run into Tonio several times since school, but even if he had not seen him for years he would have recognized him instantly by the shock of carrot-colored hair. They had been best friends until that awful day in 1866 when Hugh's mother had come to tell him that his father was dead and to take him away from the school. They had been the bad boys of the lower fourth, always getting into scrapes, but they had enjoyed life, despite the floggings.

  Hugh had often wondered, over the years, what had really happened that day at the swimming hole. He had never believed the newspaper story about Edward's trying to rescue Peter Middleton: Edward would not have had the courage. But Tonio still would not speak of it, and the only other witness, Albert "Hump" Cammel, had gone to live in the Cape Colony.

  Hugh studied Tonio's face as he shook hands with Micky. Tonio still seemed somewhat in awe of Micky. "How are you, Miranda?" he said in a normal voice, but his expression showed a mixture of fear and admiration. It was the attitude a man might have toward a champion prizefighter famous for his quick temper.

  Tonio's companion, April, was a little older than her friend Maisie, Hugh judged, and there was a pinched, sharp look about her that made her less attractive; but Tonio was having a great time with her, touching her arm and whispering in her ear and making her laugh.

  Hugh turned back to Maisie. She was talkative and vivacious, with a lilting voice that had a trace of the accent of northeast England, where Tobias Pilaster's warehouses had been. Her expression was endlessly fascinating as she smiled, frowned, pouted, wrinkled her turned-up nose and rolled her eyes. She had fair eyelashes, he noticed, and there was a sprinkling of freckles on her nose. She was an unconventional beauty but no one would deny she was the prettiest woman in the room.

  Hugh was obsessed by the thought that, since she was here at the Argyll Rooms, she was presumably willing to kiss, cuddle and perhaps even Go All The Way tonight with one of the men around the table. Hugh daydreamed about a sexual encounter with almost every girl he met--he was ashamed of how much and how often he thought about it--but normally it could only happen after courtship, engagement and marriage. Whereas Maisie might do it tonight!

  She caught his eye again, and he had that embarrassing feeling that Rachel Bodwin some
times gave him, that she knew what he was thinking. He searched around desperately for something to say, and finally blurted out: "Have you always lived in London, Miss Robinson?"

  "Only for three days," she said.

  It might be mundane, he thought, but at least they were talking. "So recently!" he said. "Where were you before?"

  "Traveling," she said, and turned away to speak to Solly.

  "Ah," Hugh said. That seemed to put an end to the conversation, and he felt disappointed. Maisie acted almost as if she had a grudge against him.

  But April took pity on him and explained. "Maisie's been with a circus for four years."

  "Heavens! Doing what?"

  Maisie turned around again. "Bareback horse-riding," she said. "Standing on the horses, jumping from one to another, all those tricks."

  April added: "In tights, of course."

  The thought of Maisie in tights was unbearably tantalizing. Hugh crossed his legs and said: "How did you get into that line of work?"

  She hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind about something. She turned around in her chair to face Hugh directly, and a dangerous glint came into her eyes. "It was like this," she said. "My father worked for Tobias Pilaster and Co. Your father cheated my father out of a week's wages. At that time my mother was sick. Without that money, either I would starve or she would die. So I ran away from home. I was eleven years old at the time."

  Hugh felt his face flush. "I don't believe my father cheated anyone," he said. "And if you were eleven you can't possibly have understood what happened."

  "I understood hunger and cold!"

  "Perhaps your father was at fault," Hugh persisted, though he knew it was unwise. "He shouldn't have had children if he couldn't afford to feed them."

  "He could feed them!" Maisie blazed. "He worked like a slave--and then you stole his money!"

  "My father went bankrupt, but he never stole."

  "It's the same thing when you're the loser!"

  "It's not the same, and you're foolish and insolent to pretend that it is."

  The others obviously felt he had gone too far, and several people began to speak at the same time. Tonio said: "Let's not quarrel about something that happened so long ago."

  Hugh knew he should stop but he was still angry. "Ever since I was thirteen years old I've had to listen to the Pilaster family running my father down but I'm not going to take it from a circus performer."

  Maisie stood up, her eyes flashing like cut emeralds. For a moment Hugh thought she was going to slap him. Then she said: "Dance with me, Solly. Perhaps your rude friend will have gone when the music stops."

  3

  HUGH'S QUARREL WITH MAISIE broke up the party. Solly and Maisie went off on their own, and the others decided to go ratting. Ratting was against the law, but there were half a dozen regular pits within five minutes of Piccadilly Circus, and Micky Miranda knew them all.

  It was dark when they emerged from the Argyll into the district of London known as Babylon. Here, out of sight of the palaces of Mayfair, but conveniently close to the gentlemen's clubs of St. James's, was a warren of narrow streets dedicated to gambling, blood sports, opium smoking, pornography, and--most of all--prostitution. It was a hot, sweaty night, and the air was heavy with the smells of cooking, beer and drains. Micky and his friends moved slowly down the middle of the crowded street. Within the first minute an old man in a battered top hat offered to sell him a book of lewd verses, a young man with rouge on his cheeks winked at him, a well-dressed woman of his own age opened her jacket quickly and gave him a glimpse of two beautiful bare breasts, and a ragged older woman offered him sex with an angel-faced girl about ten years old. The buildings, mostly pubs, dance halls, brothels and cheap lodging houses, had grimy walls and small, filthy windows through which could occasionally be glimpsed a gas-lit revel. Passing along the street were white-waistcoated swells such as Micky, bowler-hatted clerks and shopkeepers, goggle-eyed farmers, soldiers in unbuttoned uniforms, sailors with their pockets temporarily full of money, and a surprising number of respectable-looking middle-class couples walking arm-in-arm.

  Micky was enjoying himself. It was the first time in several weeks that he had managed to get away from Papa for an evening. They were waiting for Seth Pilaster to die so that they could close the deal for the rifles, but the old man was clinging to life like a limpet on a rock. Going to music halls and brothels was no fun with your father; and besides, Papa treated him more like a servant, sometimes even telling him to wait outside while he went with a whore. Tonight was a blessed relief.

  He was glad to have run into Solly Greenbourne again. The Greenbournes were even richer than the Pilasters, and Solly might one day be useful.

  He was not glad to have seen Tonio Silva. Tonio knew too much about the death of Peter Middleton seven years ago. In those days Tonio had been terrified of Micky. He was still wary, and he still looked up to Micky, but that was not the same as being frightened. Micky was worried about him but at the moment he did not know what he could do about it.

  He turned off Windmill Street into a narrow alley. The eyes of cats blinked at him from piles of refuse. Checking that the others were in tow, he entered a dingy pub, walked through the bar and out of the back door, crossed a yard where a prostitute was kneeling in front of a client in the moonlight, and opened the door of a ramshackle wooden building like a stable.

  A dirty-faced man in a long, greasy coat demanded fourpence as the price of admission. Edward paid and they went in.

  The place was brightly lit and full of tobacco smoke, and there was a foul smell of blood and excrement. Forty or fifty men and a few women stood around a circular pit. The men were of all classes, some in the heavy wool suits and spotted neckerchiefs of well-off workers, others in frock coats or evening dress; but the women were all more or less disreputable types like April. Several of the men had dogs with them, carried in their arms or tied to chair legs.

  Micky pointed out a bearded man in a tweed cap who held a muzzled dog on a heavy chain. Some of the spectators were examining the dog closely. It was a squat, muscular animal with a big head and a powerful jaw, and it looked angry and restless. "He'll be on next," Micky said.

  Edward went off to buy drinks from a woman with a tray. Micky turned to Tonio and addressed him in Spanish. It was bad form to do this in front of Hugh and April, who could not understand; but Hugh was a nobody and April was even less, so it hardly mattered. "What are you doing these days?" he asked.

  "I'm an attache to the Cordovan Minister in London," Tonio replied.

  "Really?" Micky was intrigued. Most South American countries saw no point in having an ambassador in London, but Cordova had had an envoy for ten years. No doubt Tonio had got the post of attache because his family, the Silvas, were well connected in the Cordovan capital, Palma. By contrast Micky's Papa was a provincial baron and had no such strings to pull. "What do you have to do?"

  "I answer letters from British firms that want to do business in Cordova. They ask about the climate, the currency, internal transport, hotels, all kinds of things."

  "Do you work all day?"

  "Not often." Tonio lowered his voice. "Don't tell a soul, but I have to write only two or three letters most days."

  "Do they pay you?" Many diplomats were men of independent means who worked for nothing.

  "No. But I have a room at the minister's residence, and all my meals; plus an allowance for clothing. They also pay my subscriptions to clubs."

  Micky was fascinated. It was just the kind of job that would have suited him, and he felt envious. Free board and lodging, and the basic expenses of a young man-about-town paid, in return for an hour's work every morning. Micky wondered if there might be some way Tonio could be eased out of the post.

  Edward came back with five tots of brandy in small glasses and handed them around. Micky swallowed his at once. It was cheap and fiery.

  Suddenly the dog growled and started to run around in frantic circles, pulling on it
s chain, the hair on its neck standing up. Micky looked around to see two men coming in carrying a cage of huge rats. The rats were even more frenzied than the dog, running over and under one another and squeaking with terror. All the dogs in the room started to bark, and for a while there was a terrific cacophony as the owners yelled at the animals to shut up.

  The entrance was locked and barred from the inside, and the man in the greasy coat started to take bets. Hugh Pilaster said: "By Jove, I never saw such big rats. Where do they get them?"

  Edward answered him. "They're specially bred for this," he said, and turned away to speak to one of the handlers. "How many this contest?"

  "Six dozen," the man replied.

  Edward explained: "That means they will put seventy-two rats into the pit."

  Tonio said: "How does the betting work?"

  "You can bet on the dog or the rats; and if you think the rats will win, you can bet on how many will be left when the dog dies."

  The dirty man was calling out odds and taking money in exchange for scraps of paper on which he scribbled numbers with a thick pencil.

  Edward put a sovereign on the dog, and Micky bet a shilling on six rats surviving, for which he got odds of five to one. Hugh declined to bet, like the dull stick he was, Micky noticed.

  The pit was about four feet deep, and it was surrounded by a wood fence another four feet high. Crude candelabra set at intervals around the fence threw strong light into the hole. The dog was unmuzzled and let into the pit through a wooden gate that was shut tight behind him. He stood stiff-legged, hackles raised, staring up, waiting for the rats. The rat handlers picked up the cage. There was a quiet moment of anticipation.

  Suddenly Tonio said: "Ten guineas on the dog."

  Micky was surprised. Tonio had talked about his job and its perquisites as if he had to be quite careful how he spent money. Was that a sham? Or was he making bets he could not afford?

  The bookmaker hesitated. It was a big bet for him, too. Nevertheless, after a moment he scribbled a slip, handed it over, and pocketed Tonio's money.

  The handlers swung the cage back, then forward, as if they were going to throw the whole thing into the pit; then, at the last minute, a hinged flap at one end opened, and the rats were hurled out of the cage and through the air, squealing with terror. April screamed with shock, and Micky laughed.