by Ginn Hale
The fights took place downstairs where the house sloped over the riverbank. A half-moon of tiered velvet seats loomed over the amphitheater of an arena, but the crowd of onlookers far outnumbered the available chairs, and a vast number of them stood, shouting out their wagers as well as curses and encouragements. The air grew hot and rank as more and more people crowded into the space.
Everyone drank heavily, and Archie was no exception. The atmosphere of the place set him on edge, and soon he found himself draining brandy at a rate that might have done Lupton proud. In one foolish moment, he even accepted a glass of a nearly black liquor he didn’t recognize—compliments of the club, he was told—and tossed it back in the same careless manner as so many of the men around him. The sweet scorched taste of something like burned marmalade slid down the back of his throat, along with a wash of fiery alcohol. A belated alarm shot through Archie, but then he noted that all of the members of the club were being served the same dark drink. Archie rinsed the bitter flavor from his mouth with a watery beer.
He felt sluggish but not yet sloppy. Surrounded by parties of roaring drunk young bucks, he maintained a sedate composure that he hoped allowed him to appear almost sober. Or at least masked his agitation.
Drums rolled and red limelights flared across the fine white sand spread over the arena’s wooden floor. The same plump little Prodigal man who headed up the Wednesday theater troupe trotted out from behind the long black curtains at the back. He sauntered into a spotlight and lifted his large brass megaphone.
“Gentlemen and ladies, coves and chokers, dippers and dolly-mops, welcome! Tonight we are all met on the same standing to witness Fate in all her ferocious might and perilous whimsy! Place your wagers and give a cheer to the contenders for tonight’s golden jackpots!”
Applause, screams, and shouts thundered through the small space, drowning out the drums. Only after several minutes did the crowd quiet. The Prodigal fighters were announced, like horses at the start of a race, and the winners proclaimed and applauded as if bloody bodies and broken hands were mere showmanship.
And it was bloody. What began a barefisted boxing show soon turned to pure savagery as rounds dragged on and on. Blood streamed from split knuckles and broken noses. One hulking man cornered his spindly opponent in the corner and beat the boy against a wall till his face became a crimson stream of gore. Men and women all around Archie cheered. Another contestant won applause when he spat a hunk of his opponent’s ear into the surrounding seats. Archie’s stomach rolled.
Then a burly, bearded man wearing a wide-brimmed hat brought a slavering hound out onto the sand.
Archie didn’t know if another dog would be dragged out or some desperately poor Prodigal; either way, he couldn’t bring himself to stay and watch.
He turned and worked his way out from the crowd. One of the servants met his gaze, and Archie guessed that his revulsion must have shown plainly enough, because the young man looked alarmed. He quickly pointed Archie through a hidden door and down a back hall that led out onto a balcony.
A clammy breeze of rank air rolled up over him from the dark river some thirty feet below. Archie leaned over the banister and heaved up his beer and brandy. The waters carried his sickness away with so much more of the city’s filth.
He hung there, bent over the railing, for several minutes as his nausea passed. His eyes slowly adjusted, discerning shadows from forms lit by distant gas lamps and moonlight. Reflections of boat lamps and stars glittered over the water. The river was so much quieter during the night than in the day. Archie closed his eyes. The noise inside the Dee Club sounded very distant—miles away behind those incredibly thick walls.
He could almost forget it and lose himself, listening to the surge of the great river. A flutter of leathery wings rushed past his face as a bat raced up from the wooden pier beneath him to devour some unsuspecting moth. Archie started, then laughed weakly at himself. Of all people, he should’ve known that the tranquility of the night was an illusion—darkness a veil thrown over countless creatures prowling the city. Always had been, always would be.
Boards creaked behind him. Archie spun back. His uncle stilled only three feet from Archie. For an instant his handsome features remained caught in a murderous sneer, but then he pulled a toothy smile and dropped his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“Be careful not to tip over that banister,” Silas said. “If you went into the water, it would be terribly difficult to haul you out. People drown like that all the time.”
“Your concern is touching, dear uncle,” Archie replied. “I can only return my own ardent hope that no one stabs you to death in a dark corner this evening.”
“Is that a threat, Archie?” Silas scowled at him.
“Of course not. I needn’t lower myself to menacing you when so many debt collectors and loan sharks are already circling. A few of them seem keen on just breaking your knees, but I’ve heard it said that Bastard Jack would be well pleased to have your head in his hatbox.”
For perhaps the first time in his life, Archie thought he saw genuine fear on his uncle’s face. But a moment later, it sank beneath an expression of cunning disdain.
“Smile while you can, Archie,” Silas replied softly as if sharing a confidence. “I’ll be the one laughing in the end. I always have been.”
Silas spoke the truth, and it infuriated Archie. More than anything, he wanted to tear that assurance away from his uncle. He wanted Silas to feel the kind of loss that never seemed to touch him at any funeral. But neither the suffering nor the deaths of any other human beings ever disturbed Silas. Only a threat to his personal comfort shook him in any way.
“Oh, but you might be in for quite a surprise. You really think that I’m going to leave you anything to inherit from me other than your own debts?” Archie heard the slight slur in his own words and knew he wasn’t in any state to tell his uncle anything, but he couldn’t stop himself.
Witnessing Silas’s assurance slip filled him with a spiteful pleasure. His uncle’s gaze narrowed, and he took an angry step closer to Archie. “What are you talking about?” Reflexively Archie squared his shoulders, ready to fight. But Silas immediately retreated two steps. He’d attack a man with his back turned, drown his drugged wife in her bath, and hire highwaymen to murder his brother, but Silas had never been one to fight fair. Even when Archie had been a mere boy, his uncle had always looked on while Mike or Nate belted him.
A glance over Silas’s shoulder assured Archie that the two were there in the shadows, but so too were several women, who looked to be concerned nurses. Too many witnesses for Silas or his thugs to chance Archie raising an alarm.
“What have you done?” Silas demanded.
“Nothing you haven’t done to your own fortune,” Archie replied with a glib grin. The horror and rage in Silas’s face was a delight. Archie only wished the light were better.
“The Fallmont fortune is huge! How could you possibly have squandered it?”
“By any and every means possible. But the sweetest are all those charities that you so utterly disdain. You would be appalled, dear uncle, if you knew how many fallen women, Prodigals, and paupers the dwindling Fallmont fortune has benefitted,” Archie snapped. “You will have nothing—”
“I can’t believe you’d do something so… so stupid! So selfish!” Silas had the gall to appear genuinely hurt. “Ruin our entire family? Why would you go so far?”
“Our entire family?” Archie shouted back at him. “Our family is dead. Murdered!”
All at once a look of realization—almost surprise—came over Silas.
“It’s Archimedes, isn’t it?” he asked.
Archie froze. It had been years since he’d heard his real name. Fear gripped him like frost spreading across his skin. How had Silas recognized him—after all this time and through Nimble’s spell? How was it possible?
That hateful sneer lit Silas’s handsome face with a kind of inner radiance.
“I always sus
pected that you cared for the bastard brat far more than was natural,” Silas stated. “Incestuous and a sodomite, eh, Archibald?”
Relief added to the laugh that escaped Archie. Of course he hadn’t recognized him. Silas would have had to have bothered to have really looked at him to do that. Never mind the conjury that Nimble had crafted to lend Archie his brother’s natural poise and confidence.
Another bat flitted past.
Archie shook his head.
“I’m not sure what twisted organ you’re using for a mind, uncle. But I daresay your lurid imagination speaks volumes more about your own impulses than it does of my love for my brother.” Archie strode past him and then added over his shoulder, “Thanks for the laugh.”
“I hate to imagine what he must make of the pair of you,” Archie said to Mike and Nate as he shouldered his way between them.
By the time he escaped the Dee Club and closed himself up in his carriage, his bravado had drained away. That had been close. Worse, he’d let on a little too much, a little too soon. Not everything was ready, and if his uncle secured Lady Umberry’s dowry, then there was a good chance he would have the money to find and seize the fortunes Archie had hidden away.
In his place on that pier, Nimble would’ve kept his trap shut in the face of Silas’s provocations. And Archie should have known better—did know better—yet he’d not been able to stop himself from speaking.
His mind was a mess of alcohol, fury, and horror. He didn’t want to admit it, but the fights in the arena had disturbed him far more than he’d been prepared for.
Even after he arrived home and washed, he couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, visions of old battlefields arose. The cheers and howls of the crowd in the Dee Club flooded his ears as he remembered the terrifying moment that a fragment of steel tore through his chest and threw him to the mud. His blood welled up in a great stream as Prodigal fighters collapsed into the filth surrounding him. Then the dogs came, slavering and hungry. Archie bolted upright before he could feel canine teeth ripping into his body. There was no point in even attempting to sleep after that.
Instead he sketched maps of the Dee Club’s numerous rooms and secret halls. When he grew too restless to sit in his study, he descended to his ballroom to pace and shadow box. By dawn his hands no longer shook. But when he closed his eyes, memories of the stench and pain of Sollum Hill still arose. When he opened his eyes, his thoughts filled with bloodied bodies of Prodigal combatants down in that pit of an arena. The gleeful howls of their sponsors haunted him.
He couldn’t bring himself to return to the Dee Club for two days after that. Charles and Neet both called upon him. He claimed illness and heartache; the cure for both being time. If it hadn’t been for his bargain with Nimble, he would never have stepped foot in the place again—to hell with the stained glass, music rooms, and breathtaking paintings.
Though even as he indulged in the thought, he recognized how weak and self-pitying it really was.
Witnessing the exploitation that ruled so many Prodigals’ lives was nothing compared to the actual hardship of being exploited. Hiding from the truth of it because it sickened and disturbed him would change nothing—would help no one. That was the same desire for ignorance that so many natural citizens of Crowncross indulged in when they disregarded the wretched living conditions and brutal labor endured by the miners and factory workers under their feet; all that buried misery kept the price of porcelain and steel cheap, after all. The same hypocrisy allowed people to celebrate the bravery of famous majors, generals, and colonels, but forget the Prodigal troops who’d fought and died in the thousands, carrying out the commands of those celebrated men.
Archie knew he couldn’t change the course of every wrong in the world, not even in this city. But he could make a difference for Nimble, and though it seemed a small matter, the thought allowed Archie to at last sleep soundly through a lonely night in his resplendent bed.
Chapter Four: Common Knowledge
Wednesday, Archie rose early and dressed as informally as his valet and costly wardrobe would allow.
“Taking that bicycle out for another go around,” Archie informed Raleigh, his disapproving valet. “They’re becoming all the rage. Saw a couple of young men racing down Sweeney Hill on them yesterday. Seemed rather mad, but fun as well. Might give it a try myself.”
Raleigh looked worried, and Archie guessed it was for the knees of his trousers when the inevitable crash came. But he wished Archie best of luck and advised him that a cap would serve him better than any of his lovely silk tall hats.
Archie thanked him, then packed up the maps and notes he’d made and sped off. He’d ridden the glossy black bicycle on several occasions previously, but the machine still felt odd to him in comparison to the alert, responsive qualities of his favorite horses. However, the great advantage of the bicycle was its growing popularity with the fleets of clerks, messenger boys, and the multitude of natural, middleclass folk who now regularly escaped the city for jaunts in the green hills of the countryside.
The bicycle required no stabling and drew little attention to Archie as he pedaled through the streets with his haversack across his back and his cap pulled low.
Ten other bicycles already leaned up against the back of the Briar Hotel when he arrived—property of both the staff and guests. Archie drew his alongside the rest. Ahead of him, the back door of the hotel swung open. A burly man dressed in a too-small plaid sack suit bustled out. His face was ruddy and his mustache waxed to the point of gleaming. Graying hair showed from beneath his yellow straw hat, and the buttons of his mustard waistcoat strained against both the muscular bulk of his chest and the softer volume of his potbelly. He carried a red paperboard briefcase emblazoned with bright orange images of musical instruments.
An aging boxer turned music-sheet salesman. Archie had seen dozens of his type throughout the city. It struck him as interesting that a man’s appearance could convey so much about his character and calling in an instant. But then Archie stilled and looked again at the fellow.
Behind the thick blue lenses of a pair of tinted spectacles, Archie recognized Nimble’s amused gaze. Archie gaped at him, and Nimble grinned in response.
“A week early, my bantling, but not a moment too soon!” Nimble walked to him and clapped him on the back. Up close, Nimble’s Prodigal nature was obvious; he hadn’t attempted to hide his black fingernails with bleach or gloves, but that only made the disguise seem all the more authentic. Here was an aging, sweat-stained Prodigal tough, trying a little too hard to make a new life for himself aboveground in a city of natural men. Archie wondered if Nimble hadn’t employed a bit of conjury to perfectly capture the balance of worn-down strength and garish bravado.
“Couldn’t keep away, old boot.” Strange how simply standing near Nimble, even in this disguise, lifted Archie’s spirits. “I recalled your fondness for maps and other intelligence, and thought you might want to take a gander at what I’ve sussed out about the club so far.”
“Got in already, then? I shoulda known. No one can turn you away when you stoke up the charm.” Nimble flashed him a wolfish grin, and Archie laughed at the idea of him charming his way into any private club. His access had everything to do with his family title and nothing at all to do with his character as a man. They both knew that.
“I’d love to look it over and have a chin-wag after that. But I’m working on something myself just now….” Nimble paused, cocking his head to study Archie, from his dusty trousers to his jaunty cap. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to….” Nimble scowled and shook his head.
“I’d certainly be happy to hear out the rest of the sentence, if nothing else, old boot,” Archie prompted.
“Well, all this last week I’ve been beating rugs to see what dirt shakes out. Mostly in the guise of this hymn-hawker. But the next fellow I want to talk to already knows me. And we didn’t part on the best of terms, to put it politely.”
“Oh, yes?” Archie
asked.
“Yeah. Doug ‘the Dog’ Beelze.”
“Husband of the missing Nancy Beelze?”
“The very one. Once upon a time, him and me got into a tussle over his failure to pay a lady friend of mine for services rendered. I took twice the payment off him, as well as couple of his teeth.” Nimble grimaced. “So even if he’s gotten over that, he’s not likely to open up to me about his missing wife. But you, on the other hand…. Well, you’ve got an honest face and that trick of blushing like a choirboy, which seems to make folks want to tell you all.”
“Ah, I see.” Archie considered the proposition. “I suppose the worst that can happen is that I get nothing from him. All right, I’ll give it a go. Any suggestions of an explanation to offer for my interest in Nancy? Or shall I just knock on his door, blush, and see how that turns out?”
Nimble laughed. “Take my hat and case. You claim that you’ve come to deliver the sheet music that his wife had ordered. When—if—he tells you she ain’t around anymore, you ask for her new address and such like. Then you offer to leave the hymns with him. If you can, get inside the house and look around to see if there’s any sign of her in the place.”
“You think he might be hiding her? Or holding her prisoner?” Archie asked.
“No. I’m pretty certain that she’s gone, just like the rest of them. But I’m very curious about what all may have gone with her.” Nimble handed Archie the paperboard briefcase, then proffered his straw hat. In return Archie handed off his cap and haversack.
The bicycle that Nimble employed to commute across the city turned out to be a rebuilt old boneshaker that probably weighed as much as a cart pony. But it held Nimble’s weight, and once he got going, Archie was at pains to keep up with his momentum. They panted and teased each other as they pumped their way up hills, then whooped and laughed as they sped down. They reached the rundown edge of the Theater District, where Doug “the Dog” Beelze resided, just after ten in the morning. They agreed to meet back up at the Fatted Cat chophouse after Archie called on the man.