“Summer before last, that was. Yes, he nearly beat me, too.”
When they had laboriously gotten up to street level they walked along a cinder path in the shadow of a brick wall for a dozen paces, then rounded the end of it and started across a littered, industrial-looking yard that was lit by a couple of lanterns hung on the wall of a warehouse.
Fennery was glad to be so impressively escorted in this neighborhood, which was one of the most perilous in London. He glanced up at his companion—and halted.
“You stinking liar!” he hissed, all at once fearful of making any noise.
The man seemed to be having difficulty walking. “What?” he asked distractedly.
“You’re not the Admirable Chinnie!”
“Of course I am. What the devil do you suppose is wrong with me, though? My whole body feels strange, as though—”
“Chinnie’s taller than you, and younger, and muscular. You’re some sort of derelict.”
The man chuckled weakly. “You young wretch. If there was ever an occasion I’d every right to look like a derelict, this is it. How do you suppose you’d look after swimming up, breathless, from the floor of the river? And I am taller—when shod.”
The boy shook his head incredulously. “You’ve sure gone to hell since that summer. Look, I live just over there, so I’m gonna go, but if you follow that lane it’ll get you to Ratcliff Highway. You ought to be able to get a cab there.”
“Thank you, lad.” The man began to walk unsteadily in the indicated direction.
“Take care of yourself, eh?” called the boy. “And thanks for helping me with the bag!” His bare feet slapped away into the darkness.
“You’re welcome,” the man muttered. What was the matter with him? And what actually had happened? Now that he’d had time to catch his breath and consider the problem, the explosion idea made no sense. Had he been waylaid on the way home and tossed into the river, and shock erased the memory of everything since that bout at Angelo’s? But no, he never left Angelo’s before ten, and the sky in the west wasn’t even completely dark yet.
As he was about to round the corner of the warehouse he noticed a window set into the brick just below the lantern, and he glanced into it as he walked past… then halted, walked back, and stared into it.
He raised a hand to his face, and was horrified to see the figure in the reflection do the same, for it was not him. The face was not his face.
He leaped away from the glass and looked at his clothing—no, he hadn’t noticed it before, one set of wet clothes on a dark night being very much like another, but these weren’t any jacket and trousers that ever belonged to Adelbert Chinnie.
For an insane second he wanted to dig his fingers into this face and peel it away; and then he considered the notion that he wasn’t and never had been the Admirable Chinnie, but was just a—God knew what, beggar, apparently—who had dreamt it.
He forced himself to walk back to the window and look into it again. The face that peered fearfully out at him was thin, sagging and deeply lined, with, he noticed when he tilted his head back, a network of crazy wrinkles around the eyes, and though the thick tangle of hair was dripping wet, he could see a lot of gray in it. And when he pushed the hair back he nearly burst into sobs, for he had no right ear at all.
“Well, I don’t care,” he said in a voice as tense as a stressed glass pane. He was so wet, and the body’s sensations so unfamiliar to him, that he really didn’t know if the wetness in his eyes was tears.
“I don’t care” he said. “I’m Adelbert Chinnie.”
He attempted—and quickly abandoned—a brave smile but nevertheless squared his narrow shoulders and strode resolutely toward the Ratcliff Highway.
CHAPTER 12
“O death, where is thy victory?”
With the war against France going on, and its attendant embargoes and black markets and rumors of a proposed invasion of England by Napoleon, the financial and mercantile situations in Threadneedle Street were in perpetual turmoil, and a man who was in the right place at the right time with the right commodity could become wealthy in hours, while a fortune that in other times would take decades to lose could now evaporate in one morning at the Royal Exchange. And though only someone who kept an extra sharp eye on the market would have noticed, there was one speculator who had a hand in nearly every area of commerce, and invariably managed to be standing on the winning side of every surprise, disaster and reverse.
Jacob Christopher Dundee, as J. Cochran Darrow now called himself, had only begun his investment career on the twenty-second of October, but within one month he had, by an inspired series of shiftings and reinvestments and possibly extra-legal international currency exchanges, increased his initial capital tremendously. And though his antecedents were of the vaguest, such was the charm of the handsome young Dundee that on the fifth of December the London Times announced his engagement to “Claire, daughter of the successful importer Joel Peabody.”
In his office over a defunct depilatory parlor in Leadenhall Street, Jacob Dundee irritably waved away a cloud of tobacco smoke that issued from the pipe of his elderly companion, and then squinted again at the notice in the Times. “Well, they seem to have spelled all the names correctly, at least,” he said, “Though I could have done without the reference to ‘the shrewd newcomer on the London market scene.’ A low profile is essential in this kind of work—already I’ve got people watching me and riding along on deals.”
The old man glanced curiously at the paper. “Nice girl?”
“Adequate for my purposes,” Dundee said impatiently, waving away more smoke.
“Your purposes? And what be they, pray?”
“To have a son,” said the young man softly. “A boy that I can set up with a fortune, and a solidly established background, and perfect health. My medical lads say that Claire is as healthy and intelligent a marriageable young lady as can be found in England today.”
The old man grinned. “Most engaged young gentlemen look forward to somethin’ a little less philosophical, but more fun, eh? And I’ve heerd this Peabody piece is a comely one. But no doubt you’ve already ridden around the course a few times, familiarized yerself wi’ the turf?”
Dundee reddened. “Well, I—no, I’m not in any—damn it, I’m not a young man—I mean, I am, but all that sort of thing will have to—” He coughed. “Damn it, do you have to smoke that stuff? How do you think you got cancer in the first place? If you need nicotine, settle for chewing tobacco in my presence, okay?”
“Okay,” said the old man. “Okay, okay, okay.” He’d only learned the word recently, and still relished it. “Why do you care, anyway? Part of the bargain was a new one any time you like.”
“I know.” Dundee rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. “It’s like a new car, that’s all,” he muttered. “Until it gets the first dent you worry about everything.”
“For such a healthy young sprout yer lookin’ distinctly wilted,” observed the old man, putting his black clay pipe on the floor and reaching out to snag the brandy decanter instead. He sucked down an awesome amount of it.
“Yeah, I’m not sleeping too well,” Dundee admitted. “Dream I keep having… “
“You’ve got to get away from dreams, laddie, get some distance. I suppose I dream all the time, and if I ever paid attention to ‘em I’m sure I’d be stark mad right now. I’ve kind of… split off a little bit of me mind to watch the dreams, so I don’t have to be bothered.”