by Annis Bell
“I understand. I’ll go and ask Bill a few questions. Any news on Cunningham or Sir Robert?”
“Those men don’t talk to me. Perhaps with you, being part of higher society, it’ll be different. What’s the story with your father, the—”
David’s expression caused Rooke to fall silent.
“Excuse me. I just thought . . .”
“I’ll take care of Bill, and I’ll talk to the two men at their clubs. If you have nothing else for me . . .” David stood.
Rooke also stood, and the two men shook hands. “Nothing, I’m sorry to say. How is your wife?”
“Still in Winton Park, keeping Lady Alison and Alison’s cousin Charlotte company. The maid I told you about, the one who disappeared, she was found dead out on the moor. Not an accident, either, from what I can tell. She used to be in Cunningham’s employ.” David looked thoughtfully at Rooke.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Or do you suspect there’s a connection to Korshaw or the orchids?”
David shook his head. “I might be seeing connections where none exist. Well, we’ll see if Bill can help us with that.”
A colorful assortment of prostitutes, criminals, beggars, and gentlemen prowled the nocturnal streets of St. Giles. The narrow alleys were divided among the district’s gangs, and anyone finding himself in the no-man’s-land between claimed areas could easily fall victim to a wayward knife. It was achingly cold that December night, yet the gaudily made-up women still crowded the public houses, offering their bodies to whoever was willing to pay.
David and Blount had donned their oldest suits and coats, underneath which each kept a revolver and a knife within easy reach. Even in their worn-out coats, however, they still looked more respectable than most of the shadowy figures that populated the dingy lanes. A dark-haired girl moved away from the corner of a building and sashayed toward them.
“Well, well, who do we have here? Lookin’ for somethin’ special, boys? I can show you heaven here on earth!” The prostitute thrust her ample cleavage forward. Her milky breasts were barely covered by tattered lace, and beneath a thick layer of white powder were red spots that reached to her neck.
“Diseased old . . . ,” Blount grumbled.
But David took a shilling from his pocket and held it out to the woman. “Are we heading the right way for Seven Bells?”
Quick as a striking snake, the woman snatched the coin and deposited it between her breasts. Rotten teeth appeared as she smirked. “Ooh, ain’t you polite . . . and pretty, to boot. What’s a man like you want in a rat hole like that?”
“Answer, or do you want me to take the coin back?” Blount hissed.
But the woman was not about to be intimidated. She was as tall as Blount and had no doubt seen and experienced the full gamut of misery and violence. “C’mon then, lad! Come and get it!” She tried to push close to Blount, but he quickly stepped back.
“Keep away from me!” he growled, scanning their surroundings. Two men in dark coats were slowly approaching them. “Captain!” he said.
David turned sideways to keep the men in his line of sight, his hand reaching inside his coat for his revolver. As he did, the men changed their route and disappeared into a side alley.
Not missing a thing, the prostitute clucked her tongue. “Cap’n, is it? You’ll find the Seven Bells if you turn into Church Street up ahead. There’s an alley to the right, then knock on the green door between two houses.”
“Thank you,” said David, earning a smile.
“You know where I am. Always at your service, my pretty cap’n!” the prostitute cooed, pulling her shawl around her shoulders.
Blount and David rapidly kept walking, ready for an attack at any moment, but they reached the green door without incident. A small sign depicting seven bells, barely visible from the street, had been attached above the door knocker. The place had a mysterious air about it, a sense of the forbidden, and Blount had hardly clacked the iron knocker against the door before three young men appeared behind them.
Their elegant clothes betrayed their class, and their upper-crust accents and foolish affectations confirmed it. “Shh, gentlemen!” one of them said. “Not so loud. Use the secret knock, or they won’t let us in—and that would spoil our fun!”
It was clear that the men were drunk, and David already knew they would lose anything of value in their pockets before the night was over.
Secret knock or not, the door opened, and a heavily built man with a shaved head bade them enter. He seemed to know the three young men, because he grinned when he saw them. “You’re just in time, gentlemen. The big fight starts at midnight. Still time to place a bet.”
The three men walked in, swaying and joshing around, passing through a dimly lit inner yard that stank of vomit and kitchen waste. Two-story buildings enclosed the yard on all sides. Light shone from several top-floor windows, and an open door led down to a kitchen. Cutlery clattered and someone shouted, “Bring me the rice pot, you lummox!”
From a large barroom beside the kitchen came the sounds of music and laughter, dice cups clacking, and a woman singing loudly off-key. Beneath this hodgepodge of sounds, however, David could make out another sound, a kind of squealing or squeaking. Next he heard dogs barking, only to fall silent again, and he knew what that meant: the big draw that night would begin soon.
“Rats!” Blount muttered as they followed the three men and the doorman to the building opposite where they’d entered.
“What’s your pleasure tonight, gentlemen?” the doorman asked David and Blount. “Dice? Gambling? Women? We’ve got something to suit every taste!” the doorman boasted, not without pride.
Ahead of them, the three men swayed through the door of the teeming bar and threw their arms in the air enthusiastically. “There she is! I told you she was waiting for you.”
A young prostitute sidled up to the three men, managing to cast David a lascivious look in the process. Stretching far into the depths of the building, the room was divided into screened-off sections. The furnishings were shabby, and the place was rancid with the vapors emitted by people who drank too much, washed too little, and broke out in a fearful sweat when they lost their money at the gambling tables. In one corner, a trio of musicians did what they could, though they were all but drowned out by the noise of the place.
Blount pointed to a table set against the wall, opposite the musicians. “Big John.”
As they had learned from Rooke, the man had earned his name not because he was especially tall but because of his enormous strength. He had worked on the docks—and as a street fighter—for many years before he started organizing fights himself, pulling the strings in the background. The doorman who had escorted them inside briefly made eye contact with Big John, then turned to David and Blount. “So what’s it to be?”
“Dice.” David scanned the swarm of pleasure seekers, seeking out a man with a military bearing and a limp. Once a soldier, always a soldier; that particular bearing was not shaken off easily.
“You’ll find three tables back there, by the red screens. Payment up front, no credit. If you want to forget, there are rooms farther back with water pipes to smoke.”
“Just water pipes?” Blount said with a sarcastic edge.
Again, the doorman caught his boss’s eye, then replied curtly, “Look around. Anything you want, ask the girls.”
It had not escaped David that Big John was keeping an eye on them, but they had never crossed paths before. The erstwhile street fighter had a long, angular face with striking, pale-gray eyes and conspicuous, fleshy ears that had been lacerated by the bites of his opponents. It was said that for every bite he suffered, he took a piece of his rival’s ear for himself.
“We should find Bill Pedley fast, Captain. I don’t like the look Big John is giving us one bit,” Blount said in a low voice.
“I’ll go shoot dice. You have a drink and flirt with one of the girls,” David said, heading over to the gambling tables.
Blount had been no more successful. Visibly tense, and with a furrowed brow and alcohol on his breath, he joined David at his table. “Captain, I think we can forget about this for tonight. The girls would rather bite off their own tongues than say anything that might get them in trouble, and I don’t think I can down any more beer.”
Outside, a dog howled. “The fighting’s about to start. These things are as brutal as the crowd that watches them,” said David in disgust, standing up.
Many of the customers headed for the door. The three young men they had met earlier were among the first to make it outside. “Twenty pounds says Zeus wins tonight!” said one of them, the soft, worn lines of his face making him look much older than he probably was.
The others laughed. “Then you’d be out of the woods, Clifford. Otherwise you’ll have to hope that Bill gives you an extension.”
“As long as I’m not beholden to Big John.”
David stopped in his tracks. “Clifford? That must be the younger Cunningham son.”
“Do you know the others?” Blount asked quietly as they followed the men.
“No. Look there. That is the pit?” said David in surprise.
Out in the yard stood a dimly lit fighting arena that had been assembled from wooden planks. The goal was to see how long it would take a dog to kill the rats trapped inside. The floor was usually fashioned from wooden planks with all the corners sealed to stop the rats from escaping, but here a stone floor was covered with absorbent wood shavings to soak up the blood.
Already standing side by side at the pit, the three young men leaned their elbows on the wooden sides. Clifford Cunningham looked around nervously. “Where the devil is Bill?”
Other customers were still streaming into the yard, and David used the chaos to sidle up to Clifford, clapping him jauntily on the shoulder. “Clifford, old boy, isn’t this a surprise! Long time, no see. How have you been?”
Clifford Cunningham seemed startled by the unexpected contact and looked David over suspiciously. His alcohol-muddled brain seemed to be struggling to remember the name of this man. He took in David’s shabby suit and raised one bejeweled hand affectedly. “Have we met?”
David grinned broadly. “I should say so. We played cards at the same table in the club and had a little chat at Lord Russell’s garden party. I helped you out there . . . so to speak. Captain Wescott!”
“Oh, of course!” Clifford lied, obviously embarrassed he didn’t recognize David, who had invented the whole story.
“This is our first time at the Seven Bells. Which dog will do the most rats? Care to share a tip?” David asked conspiratorially.
Clifford glanced at his friends, who were gazing fixedly at the far wall of the building, where men were milling around dog cages. “Zeus, a Staffordshire terrier. He’s the favorite. Unbeaten in ten fights. Bloodthirsty little bastard that bites whatever’s in front of him! But not rats, oh no . . .” Clifford raised his eyebrows tellingly.
David let out a soft whistle. “Dogfights? I have to place my bet with Bill, right?”
Clifford fumbled nervously inside his vest, ostensibly looking for money. “If you’ve already given me a loan once, couldn’t you help me again today? Only ten pounds, that’s all! I’ll win, you can count on it. Then you’ll get back double your money.”
David produced a ten-pound banknote and handed it to Clifford. “I want to meet Bill.”
Tugging David by the sleeve, Clifford pulled him along with him to the cages, where several men were busy preparing the dogs, which were snarling and throwing themselves at the bars of their prisons. In the half darkness stood a smallish man, his unnaturally lopsided posture revealing him to be the man David was looking for.
“What do you want, Clifford?” the man asked. “No money, no bets.” His voice was hoarse and emotionless.
David scrutinized the former soldier, a gaunt man with a hard face dominated by a large nose. A deep scar, perhaps made by a saber slash, traced across his nose and went as far as his ear.
“Here’s thirty pounds. Zeus’ll win, I know it, and then I’m even again. Bill, this is Captain Wescott. He wants to bet, too.” Clifford spoke rapidly, pressing the banknotes into Pedley’s outstretched hand.
“Captain, eh? I served in India under Governor-General Dalhousie. I was at the annexation of the Punjab, and I fought in the Burmese war. Lost my leg in the occupation of Shwedagon Pagoda. Where did you serve, Captain?” Bill Pedley straightened up proudly, supporting himself on a walking stick.
“First in India, then Crimea. Balaclava,” said David.
Pedley’s eyes lit up with respect. “I remember you! You spoke out against Lucan in court. Well done! How much were you wanting to wager?”
“Today I just want to watch. Could we talk later? Privately?” David asked. He had to raise his voice above the rising din. The crowd was baying for blood, the dogs were barking and howling, and the men had trouble holding the animals on their leashes.
“Why? What do you want from me, Captain?” Pedley hobbled out of his corner and signaled to the men restraining the dogs.
David leaned close to Pedley’s ear. “Korshaw.”
“In my office behind the cages, after the fight,” Pedley growled.
What David and Blount then witnessed in the arena would have brought any man with half a heart to tears. Several times, David had to close his eyes to block the sight of the vicious curs being goaded against each other. At the end of the cruel spectacle, the wood shavings were soaked with the blood of the losing dog, its owner putting it out of its misery with a bullet. Zeus found his place in Olympus that night.
Colombia, mid-October 1860
Dear Sir Frederick,
After the encounter with the caimans, we fell into an Indian ambush and lost two bearers. I cannot say whether they were the same Indians that I saw at the mission station. The little devils shot at us with poison arrows, and we can count ourselves lucky to have survived at all. Thinking back on it now, they probably wanted no more than to drive us out of their territory.
Who can blame them? There are far too many orchid hunters whose methods can only be described as despicable, and who, at the merest suspicion that a certain tree might house the valuable plants, will have the entire tree felled. And if they don’t cut it down, then they cut off all the branches and leave dying plants behind. My worthy lord, I know of collectors who gather thirty or forty plants in a week by such ruthless methods, counting themselves satisfied come Sunday. Behind them are patches of forest once rich in orchids, now ravaged, not even fostering any timber of value.
The Indians were certainly successful in driving us back. We were forced to leave the dead bearers behind in the jungle, along with much of our equipment. Dennis is too weak to carry any more than his satchel and the baskets, but I was at least able to save the instruments and drawings. The conditions are stacked so much against us now, I have called off our search for the black orchid.
We have therefore left the jungle and returned to our original route, in search of the Motilone Indians. We came to a village on the edge of the Sierra de Perijá, the northern cordillera, and discovered that the Motilones had a settlement on the other side of the mountains, on Lake Maracaibo. This means that once again we have to pass through warring regions and, worse, cross those accursed mountains one more time.
Passing through
these different climatic zones multiple times in a few weeks takes its toll on the body. In the lowlands, we have the tierra caliente, then the milder tierra templada up to an altitude of perhaps six thousand feet, and above that the cold tierra fria. Then one has to add the effects of wind and rain that seem to afflict us whenever we traverse those narrow mule tracks in the mountains.
We found acceptable accommodations in our village at the foot of the cordilleras. The horror of what we had so recently experienced in the jungle was still with us. Dennis had a new attack of fever, and I wanted to send him to the nearest harbor, but there is no one here who could take him with them. The route over the mountains seems a more likely course of action than trying to navigate the river delta alone, where the usual dangers of the tropics would be waiting for him.
Strangely enough, we are not the only white men to have stopped here in recent days. If I am to believe the descriptions of the local people, then Mungo Rudbeck has also been here! Can you believe it? First he beats us to the mission station, and now he has apparently decided to take the same detour to find the Motilone Indians. Where else could he possibly be headed? And was he also attacked by the hostile Indians in the jungle and driven out? Why didn’t they kill him with their poison arrows . . . then I would at least have one less thing to worry about. Please forgive my un-Christian thoughts, but here in the wilderness it is difficult to adhere to the moral standards we know otherwise.
In these far-reaching and hostile territories, where neither animal nor human nor nature itself is well-disposed toward outsiders, one finds oneself thinking the most horrible things. Sometimes, hell seems a place like the jungle, or perhaps like the wild, caiman-filled river, where the beasts wait for your raft to fall apart beneath you so that they can satisfy their eternal hunger. You may not want to know at all how I feel inside, but writing these things helps me keep my sanity. So please excuse me, as your faithful orchid hunter, when I report on the misgivings from which I suffer, and which at times make my days unbearably long.