Dead Ringer Read Free Page B

1844 I was already turned thirty years of age but making little by way of practice fees at the Thatched House Tavern and the Marylebone Police Court. I was under considerable financial obligations to various rascally, hard-hearted moneylenders and now I’d learned that, as I had feared, Colonel Peel was disputing the running of the Derby, with the consequence that bets were off. It was clear to me that I’d be hard put to it to dun my creditors, and keep the importunate villains at bay.
    The result of the Derby was like a sore boil in my armpit. It was Lester Grenwood who had led me to his moneylender acquaintance , helped me lay on some of the borrowed money I’d put on
Running Rein
, his so-called sure-fire tip, and there was also thequestion of the £200 he’d borrowed from me previously, and never paid back. It was urgent I saw him, if only to recover that money.
    And perhaps a little bit more to help me in clearing at least some of my debts. I mean, if you can’t borrow from friends, who should you borrow from?
    So, now that the news of Colonel Peel’s default had been confirmed, miserable, and never averse to avoiding late hours poring over Blackstone’s Commentaries, that gloomy evening I finished my brandy and water, slung an old
roquelaire
cloak over my shoulders and made my way out of my chambers.
    There were various options open to me: Evans’s (also known as the Caves of Harmony), the Albert Saloon, and other night houses available for carousing and song-singing but I decided against them. The Cider Cellars, I thought to myself: the Cider Cellars, that’s where I’ll find some congenial company tonight. And with luck, Lester Grenwood among them.
    I hailed a hansom cab in Fleet Street; we rattled along the damp, foggy cobbled streets until the driver deposited me near the stage door of the Adelphi in Maiden Lane. The gaslights were still blazing outside the main entrance to the theatre, holding at bay the thin, yellow, whispery mist that scraped at your lungs, and there was the usual scattering of weary whores wandering up and down the road, footsore and limping, in various degrees of faded finery. That’s the worst thing about their profession, I’ve often heard them claim: it’s hard on the feet.
    I’d always thought it’d be the bedsores.
    ‘Hey, chuck, you want a quick one?’
    I’ve no doubt that, as a sea-going lad, you’ll know the alley-cats who throng the bordellos of the seaports well: it’s a damned sight worse in Maiden Lane than Marseilles, I assure you, my boy. They emerged with the fading of the afternoon light: gaudy and exhausted, gay and weary, painted, faded, and brazen, thronging the street, offering their wares to all.
    I ignored the lascivious ladies of the night on this occasion, ofcourse. I was on a mission.
    The house next door to the Adelphi, the Cider Cellars, was well known in those days, throughout the city and beyond: it drew a considerable number of tradesmen and farmers up from the country who would be seen there, involving themselves in the singing and consuming large quantities of made dishes – a roast, a bird, a plate of cheese all washed down with numerous pints of beer or porter, or glasses of gin or brandy. But it was not their exclusive preserve: the clientele was wide-ranging. It included rakish young medical students and braying heirs to family fortunes, young university layabouts, guardsmen, hussars, and florid bucks from the clubs of St James’s. I’d seen Thackeray there often enough, and young Tony Trollope was sometimes ambling about, while Dickens occasionally poked his inquisitive nose in. I must tell you about Charlie Dickens some time, and the way he lampooned me so unfairly in
A Tale of Two Cities
….
    Anyway, the Cider Cellars was also a haunt of lawyers as well as literary men, along with politicians and judges and smartly attired members of the swell mob. When I shouldered my way into the crowded room that evening I was met with the