Will Thomas: Fatal Enquiry

“Brother Andrew,” I murmured to his opponent, before stepping between the ropes and down to the floor. We were in the reverend’s mission in Mile End Road, where he kept a boxing ring according to professional standards in the basement.

“Tommy Boy,” he said back to me at once, patting me on the shoulder.

“Do you need help with your gloves?” I asked, standing on the verge outside and holding onto the ropes.

“I learned how to tie on my own gloves before you were born. What’s got your master’s blood up?”

“He didn’t tell you? Nightwine’s coming to town.”

I hopped down to the floor and tugged once on the string attached to the clapper of a bell, causing it to clang. I had not so much as turned around when the two men met and began trading blows. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that Barker had crossed the canvas and engaged the missionary to Darkest England in his own corner.

There was a smile on Andrew’s lips even after a punch to his jaw rocked his head back. Not so Barker, who looked grim and determined. Having attended dozens of these sessions in this manner, I could state it was not his custom to charge his partner. Normally, he waited to be advanced upon and counterpunched. As McClain had said, his blood was up.

The two men’s bodies were a study in contrasts. McClain was of average height, but bandy-legged, with a stout belly and muscular arms. Barker was taller, his muscles more defined, but his Adonis-like form was marred with tattoos, scars, and burns from a rough life spent in battle. Many of the marks were from secret societies to which he had belonged at one time or another. Barker had the longer reach, but McClain the extra weight. If anyone thought his stomach made of fat, they were mistaken. It was harder than a medicine ball. He was one of the few men in England whom my employer could consider an equal in the ring.

McClain’s only weakness was the gloves he wore. He had been heavyweight bare-knuckle champion of England, before the Marquess of Queensberry rules changed everything in an effort to make the sport less brutal and more civilized. To him the gloves would always be an impediment. In McClain’s eyes, it was man’s nature to tinker with everything until it becomes finally and irretrievably broken, boxing included. After the rules changed, McClain had taken to drink, until a chance encounter with an evangelized prostitute had changed his life. He now used his not inconsiderable skills at oration and head thumping to good effect in the East End, where some would say it was needed most.

The two of them were not boxing per se, although I’ve seen them box according to both the old rules and the new. What they practiced most of the time was a sport I’d dubbed “Dirty Fighting.” It was all one had learned in the mean streets of London against everything the other had acquired in the ports of Asia. The only restriction was the gloves themselves, which limited the use of throws and joint locks, and only an occasional kick or two. I have been in the ring with both of them. With McClain, I felt like a mosquito on the hide of a rhinoceros, while kicking Barker was akin to wrapping one’s shin around an ancient oak. When they went at each other, I considered moving to another room. It was like watching antediluvian carnivores fight over a wounded prey. It was a wonder no one was permanently maimed in these friendly matches of theirs.

“Enough!” Handy Andy cried, pushing Barker back after being cornered in the ring. “I ain’t the one you’re angry with. It’s Nightwine.”

“You’ll do in a pinch, old man,” the Guv replied.

“‘Old,’ he says,” the missionary called to me. “He’s no young pullet, himself.”

It was a dialogue they’d honed for several years, verbal sparring, each of them searching for signs of weakness which in all probability did not exist. Barker thumped a fist into Brother Andrew’s ribs.

“What was that?” Andrew rasped, dancing away. “Is there a bottle fly buzzing about? Has it begun to rain?”

“Raining blows, perhaps,” Barker growled, pursuing him about the ring. He came too close and Brother Andrew shot out a left that caught him on the bridge of the nose.

“He’s got you careless, Cyrus,” Andy said. “When you’re careless, you’ll make mistakes.”

Barker grunted, whether in agreement or dissent, and then launched a flurry of blows, most of which Andy repelled with his thick muscular forearms. When it was done, both had reddened chests. McClain slid the braces off his shoulders, so that they dangled at his knees as if to say “I’ve been playing with you, but now I’m getting serious.” My employer’s only reaction was a look of grim satisfaction.

He charged in and launched a left, which Andrew blocked, but it was a feint to cover a right hook which caught the side of the missionary’s head, causing him to stagger a few steps. Such a blow would have left me unconscious for half an hour, but he shook it off and looked exultant.

“Now that was a blow. Good one!”

It took me back to when Andrew himself had taught me how to block.

“Boxing is a thinking man’s game, Tommy,” he had instructed. “It’s not all brawn and flailing away and hoping to get lucky. You must outthink your opponent to take him down, and you must be willing to step within his striking distance and expect to trade blows.”

When they quit five minutes later, Barker was bleeding freely from the nose and McClain’s left brow was starting to swell. Their arms and chests looked like sides of beef.

“Take out the rest of your frustrations on the heavy bag, Cyrus,” his opponent ordered, stepping out between the ropes. “We’re done here. I’ve got lunch to prepare.”

“You want to take a tour of the ring with me?” Barker asked as he wiped his face with a towel.

“I’m fine,” I assured him.

“Nightwine always does this to him,” McClain said in my ear.

“I know.”

The Guv climbed down out of the ring and began slamming away at the weighted canvas bag at the side of the room. As I watched him pound the bag, I was particularly glad I hadn’t accepted his offer.

A few minutes later, McClain returned from upstairs, where he had seen to the preparation of lunch for his flock, most of whom were indigent. Barker was rubbing his hair with a towel, still lost in thought.

“Cyrus! Can I talk to you in my office for a moment?” Andy turned to me. “Have a seat, lad. We’ll be out in a minute.”

The two disappeared down the corridor while I sat and looked around the room. The chamber must have been built at least a hundred and fifty years before. The stone ceiling was crumbling in places and in need of a mason’s attention. It was like Andy’s ministry in a way, built for hard work and not for show.

The heavy bag still swayed back and forth, showing dents in the canvas from Barker’s final blows. What was going on in his head? I wondered. I had never before seen any news drive him to see Brother Andrew. Come to think of it, I believe he’d been agitated the first time he’d taken me to see Sebastian Nightwine, during the week I’d been hired.

I tried to picture the man as I’d seen him last. He was tall, well built, and deeply tanned. The two might have been carved from the same timber, only Nightwine’s had been sanded and polished to a sheen, while Barker was still rough-hewn. Nightwine had thick blond hair and a trim mustache, with amber-colored eyes that reminded me of a tiger.

I peeled off my jacket and waistcoat and had a try at the heavy bag myself. It’s never a good idea to try anything right after Barker has done it. One is certain to feel inferior. In my defense, I’m almost a foot shorter, and the sand at the bottom of the bag is harder packed and heavier than in the middle where he struck it. I almost turned my wrist on the first blow. Afterward, I punched a little higher.