by Andy Lane
The crowd was large, almost exclusively male, and so threateningly brutal that Holmes realized why they didn't fear the police, now that they had settled. A team preparing the ground could be moved on, a convoy of vehicles bearing the stalls, the sideshows and the bareknuckle fighters could be stopped, but a few thousand drunken and belligerent louts were a law unto themselves. The
police, quite sensibly in Holmes's opinion, were keeping well out of it.
Holmes took a cup of warm gin for a ha'penny at a stall, contriving to slop most of it on the ground as he quaffed. The drink gave him an opportunity to look around. Every few hundred yards, groups of men were gathered around a fenced-off area of ground in which dogs or metal-spurred cocks were fighting in a flurry of action and noise. The men at the back were stretching and craning their necks: the men at the front were shouting and cheering. All over, money was changing hands.
Far in the distance, on a slight hillock, four poles had been stuck into the ground and linked by ropes. Already a crowd of several hundred had gathered around the ring, although it would be several hours yet before the fight started. The cock-fights, the dogfights and some bareknuckle bouts were intended to whet the appetite for the major attraction which, according to custom, was to occur about an hour before sundown. Two groups of caravans parked a few hundred yards away from the ring probably held the fighters.
Holmes moved nearer one of the fenced-off areas, elbowing and swearing his way through the crowd. If the gang leaders were anywhere, it would be where large crowds were passing large amounts of money, and this crowd looked larger than most.
'Ere luv, fancy some fun for a tanner?'
A haggard woman with a painted smile, a tattered dress and no teeth tugged at his arm. He shoved her away with a curse, and slipped through the crowd until his chest was pressed against a row of wooden staves which had been plunged into the ground to form a barrier with no gaps.
Brutal men with long poles, sharpened to killing points, were spaced around the perimeter of the arena.
Something more than an ordinary dogfight was planned for here, that much was obvious.
The ground was soaked with blood already, and scraps of flesh and fur littered the area. A number of bouts had obviously already been fought.
The crowd near Holmes suddenly parted and a man clambered into the arena holding a crate. Bewhiskered and better dressed than the rest of the crowd, although not by much, he climbed up on top of the crate and gazed around challengingly.
'All right, then,' he shouted, 'you all knows why you're 'ere. I got a little something for you which'll make everything else in this stinking field look like a flea circus! You've never seen anything like it, gents, I can promise you that. Straight from Sumatra, it is, and it killed two sailors on the way over an' all. A dark and fearsome beast the like of which has not been seen on these shores afore. We got the Natural 'Istory Museum offrin' us money for it, we got the Zoological Gardens offrin' us money for it, we got so many offers you wouldn't believe to take this evil creature off our hands, but we saved it for you this very afternoon, gentlemen. For the first time in this or any other country, see the foreign beast take on three British bulldogs!
Place your bets, gents, place your bets.'
'Come on, let the dog see the rabbit then,' a rough voice yelled out from the crowd.
'You want a look?' the master of ceremonies said. 'All right then.' He jumped off his crate and moved to one side of the arena, where the staves were interrupted by a solid gate. Throwing the crate back on the ground, he used it to clamber back over the staves, and pulled it up after him.
'Ready?' he yelled to the men with the sharpened poles. They nodded. He lent over the gate, flicked the catch and quickly pulled himself back to safety.
For a long Moment, nothing happened. The crowd held their breath. The men with the poles leaned over the fence, tension evident in their faces.
The gate slowly opened as something pushed against it from the other side.
A greyish-green form slunk into the arena. It was about the size of a great dane - some five or six feet from nose to tail - but thicker-set and built closer to the ground. Its head was flat and pointed, its ears lay furled along the side of its head. A ruff of coarse black fur extended from its neck along its spine to where a thick tail flicked restlessly, but otherwise it appeared to be covered with rough scales. Pure red eyes, with no distinction between pupil, iris or cornea, took in everything around it - the crowd, the fence, the men with the poles - and it snarled its defiance. Two enlarged incisors at the front of its mouth gleamed with spittle.
As if the creature was not strange enough, it only had one rear leg. For a moment Holmes assumed that it had lost the limb in some other bout, but then he saw how thickly muscled the remaining one was, how it sat centrally beneath the creature's pelvis, and how nimbly the creature pivoted on its rear leg and scampered around the ring. It had obviously been born that way. Holmes had seen nothing like it.
'It's some bastard offspring of a rat!' yelled a wag in the crowd.
'A rat like you've never seen before and will never seen again,' the master of ceremonies yelled back. 'A giant rat, caught in the depths of Sumatra, the most vicious and dangerous beast you ever set your peepers on.'
As the crowd jostled for a better look, Holmes tried to place it. The resemblance to a rodent was obvious, despite the massive rear leg and the scales, but certainly not rattus rattus or rattus norvegicus. Holmes had read of rhizomys sumatrensis, the great Sumatran bamboo rat, but this bizarre monstrosity bore little relationship to the descriptions. It looked to Holmes more like some tripodal lizard. He watched as it made a deceptively casual scuttle for the nearest section of fence, culminating in a short leap powered by that massive rear limb. The crowd jumped back as one, all except for Holmes and one of the men with the poles, who lashed at the beast with the sharpened end. It twisted in mid-air and landed gracelessly on the blood-soaked ground. The level gaze and low hiss with which it favoured the man seemed to promise much for later. He blanched, and wiped his brow. Holmes leaned closer, watching the way the creature moved.
Judging by the matting of the fur around its neck, the apparent softness of its scaled but almost human hands and the casual manner with which it treated the crowd, Holmes judged that it had seen the inside of a circus tent or a travelling exhibition more recently than it had seen Sumatra. The thought made Holmes's blood run slightly colder. What next: tiger fights in Hyde Park? Panther races across Tower Bridge?
Everybody in the crowd bar Holmes was placing bets, and the odds heavily favoured the creature. Holmes wasn't so sure. Its lack of scars and the nervousness with which it sniffed the blood which had been spilled during the earlier dog-against-dog bouts indicated that it was a newcomer to this sport. The dogs, of course, were not.
The ringmaster was watching carefully from the sidelines, and as the betting began to tail off he raised a grimy handkerchief.
'Gents, are you ready?'
A howl went up from the crowd. The creature grew agitated, as if it knew what was about to happen.
The ringmaster dropped his handkerchief.
Three squat, scarred bulldogs raced through the gate. Quick hands immediately fastened it behind them. The creature whirled at the noise of their yapping, jumping backwards in surprise, and snarling. The crowd leaned over the barrier, screaming encouragement. The first bulldog saw its prey and flung itself straight across the arena. A sudden presentiment, perhaps the first whiff of an unfamiliar scent, or a close look at the giant beast, brought it up suddenly. Too late: the beast's claws raked deep gouges across the bulldog's nose. Gushing blood, it shied away. The crowd cheered.
The other two bulldogs, more careful than their companion, circled in opposite directions around the arena. The beast switched its attention back and forth between them, retreating all the time until it was against the staves. A shower of chestnuts from the crowd above distracted its attention: the dog to its right took a chance and
dived in to clamp its jaws on the beast's huge rear leg. The creature slashed back with claws extended, but the dog had dived out of range. The beast tried to follow, but the third dog nipped in from behind and fastened razor-sharp teeth on its rump. The beast whirled around the arena, trying to get its teeth or its claws into the maddening distraction behind it, but the bulldog was out of reach, and hung grimly on.
The second dog launched itself through the air and sunk itself into the creature's throat. Fresh blood gushed across the arena and sprayed the faces of the crowd. Shouts, screams and obscenities filled the air. Faces contorted in a feral rage, eyes glittered in blind, mad lust.
The creature rolled over onto its back and scrabbled with its back leg, trying to dislodge the dog that had anchored itself firmly on its throat. Deep gashes appeared across the dog's stomach, but still it held on. The third dog relinquished its grip and sunk its teeth firmly into the creature's stomach. The first dog, still streaming blood from its muzzle, took the chance to run in and out, and nipping at the beast's exposed groin.
Blood gushed across the creature as its claws found an artery within the second dog's stomach. The dog's grip weakened on the beast's throat, and a shake of the beast's head flung it against the side of the arena. It fell to the ground, panting rapidly, its guts protruding from a gaping slash in its stomach.
The creature was weakening. It attempted to turn over and shield its vulnerable underbelly, but before it could climb to its feet, one dog darted round to attack its face whilst the other burrowed beneath it to continue work on the stomach.
The creature lasted another few minutes, but the fight was already over.
The bout ended with the creature and one of the dogs dead, another dog with wounds to its face, a third howling in maddened triumph, and a few men considerably richer at the expense of a large number of others.
Holmes had spent much of the time scanning the faces of the crowd, searching for Yeovil, but with no success. As the bout finished, and he could move away without attracting attention, he caught sight of a familiar pocked face. Jitter!
Holmes followed at a distance, noting how Jitter was surrounded by a knot of hard-faced punishers carrying the spiked cudgels known as 'holy water sprinklers'. They were heading for the roped-off area that Holmes had spotted earlier. A lone figure awaited them in the centre of the ring, standing beside a wooden block: a squat man with long, wispy hair and enormous sideburns. He was dressed in a long poacher's coat and a shabby broadbrimmed hat, and Holmes had seen him before. It was Mack Yeovil.
Jitter ducked under the ropes and stood on the other side of the block. The two men - the most ruthless of London's many criminal gang leaders -
barely acknowledged each other.
Holmes drifted closer to join the growing curious crowd.
'There's somethin' that needs to be sorted out,' Yeovil snapped in a gritty voice, 'an' it needs to be sorted out in public. It's not often Mr Jitter here and I are together. More often than not, we're at each other's throats.'
There was a murmur of assent from the crowd.
'There's a job we both do together,' Jitter added. 'We guard something. It don't matter what it is, but the point is, something's gone missing from it, and it's made us look bad. We - '
'We've made it clear what the punishment is,' Yeovil interrupted. 'Our lads, the ones doin' the guardin', they didn't spot the scummy gonoph. Or p'rhaps one of them was paid to look the other way. That's what we're goin' to find out.'
He gestured and two men were pushed through the ropes into the ring.
Each one was held firmly by a large punisher.
'Now you know the form,' Jitter said to the men. Despite the calmness of his voice, they were white and shaking. 'You was the ones on duty outside the place during the week when the swag was nicked. Either you was both stupid, and let the gonoph get through, or you took an alderman or two to look the other way. Now I'll make it easy for you. The man who admits taking some other bugger's shilling, I'll let him take his chances in the ring with one of Yeovil's bludgers. If you don't talk . .' He glanced over at Yeovil, who had pulled a huge cleaver from his coat. '. . . Then Mack the Knife will be relieving you of your hands.'
The first cowering figure - a runtish teenager with wispy red hair - was pushed forward by one of the punishers. His right hand was forced down onto the block.
Yeovil smiled down at him.
'Did you break faith with the family, Frank?'
'No, Mr Yeovil,' Frank squealed. 'I swear, I searched everyone who came out. Nobody was carrying anything. I swear it on my dear Mother's grave!'
'Remember boy,' Yeovil said gently, 'if you admit it, I'll let you fight like a man. If you don't...'
Frank was crying now.
'I swear, Mr Yeovil...'
The cleaver flashed in the sun and buried itself in the block. Frank screamed. A fine spray of blood misted the air. His hand clutched convulsively at the wooden surface, dragging itself an inch or two away from the cleaver.
The crowd roared its approval.
'Take him away and see to him,' Jitter commanded. One of the punishers clamped a dirty handkerchief over the stump and dragged him off to, Holmes presumed, where the shady doctors who serviced the bareknuckle fights would be waiting.
The second man, a small-time cracksman named Froome who had crossed Holmes's path before, was led to the block. His face was waxy: his eyes were almost starting from his face.
'You know the score, Alf' said Jitter, standing at Yeovil's elbow. 'Tell us who paid you off.'
Froome seemed to be fascinated by the blood trickling from the blade of the cleaver.
'Tell us, Alf,' Jitter prompted.
'I been a good family man,' Froome whispered. 'You ain't 'ad cause to complain, Mr Jitter. I always been faithful to you. I ain't taken no money, an'
I don't know nothin' 'bout any books bein' stolen.'
He seemed to take courage from his words. Drawing himself up, he said,
'An' that's the truth.'
The cleaver moved so fast that it had severed Froome's hand before anybody saw it move. Froome didn't even seem to feel it: he raised his arm triumphantly to the crowd, and it was only when he saw the blood jetting from the stump that his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell to the floor.
He was carried off, with a grimy handkerchief acting as a makeshift tourniquet.
'That's the end of it,' Jitter shouted to the crowd. 'Let that be a lesson to anybody who thinks about crossing either of us.'
Holmes had seen enough. He was about to make his way to the fringes of the crowd when he felt a sudden stir close to his chest. He lashed back with his boot, and felt it connect with a satisfying crunch. A cry rang out behind him and a hand whipped out from his coat. He grabbed at it and turned. A small man, whose hair stuck out at all angles from his face like a fretful porcupine, was hopping up and down and cursing. He was clutching a shilling all the money that Holmes had left.
'Give easy!' the pickpocket cried. 'You dropped it. I was only puttin' it back!'
'Ger'cha!' Holmes growled, trying to stay in character, and shoved the pickpocket away. The smaller man staggered back into a large, spade-bearded fellow, whose tattoos covered every exposed portion of his skin.
He, in turn, cuffed the pickpocket into the back of a rat-faced man wearing a dilapidated top hat, who whirled and thumped the bearded lout between the eyes.
The crowd, excited by the sight of blood, was like a tinderbox, and this was the spark it had been waiting for. Within seconds a fight had started.
Holmes, aware of the fragility of his position, attempted to extricate himself from the widening scrap. It was no use. He managed to fight his way to the fringes of the crowd, his knowledge of baritsu proving less effective than a good underarm punch to the groin, but a flailing hand caught his cheek just as he thought he was clear. He felt a tearing sensation as something ripped.
His false whiskers.
'E's wearing a sham 'tash!' some
body shouted.
'E must be a rozzer!' someone else cried.
Holmes looked around. The fight was frozen, with everybody looking at him. The rat-faced man was drawing a thin flensing knife.
'Hold him,' the man said. 'If he's a rozzer we'll find out what he's doing here, then we'll cut out his lights.'
Holmes could see several outcomes, most of them unpleasant. He briefly debated yelling out to Mr Jitter for help, but the man was unpredictable at the best of times and might not wish to acknowledge his connection with Holmes. Instead, he elbowed the nearest men aside and raced away. The crowd had thinned somewhat, and Holmes found he could easily avoid or outdistance his pursuers. His heart pounded. The stalls and the scenery blurred as he ran. The sounds of the chase diminished behind him.
'Set the dogs on him!' yelled a distant voice.
