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.”
“That sounds healthy,” said Dundee with a despairing nod. “Yeah, that sounds fine.”
His companion, missing the irony, nodded complacently. “Okay, you’ll get used to it. After a couple more jumps you’ll pay no more mind to dreams than to the dust your wheels raise on the road behind you.”
Dundee poured himself some brandy, added some water from a nearby carafe, and took a sip. “Have you decided where you’ll go from,” he waved vaguely at the old man, “here?”
“Aye. I think I’ll oust Mr. Maturo—yer Mister Anonymous. He dines there very frequent, and it ought not to be any trouble sifting the unhinging herbs into his stew some night a week or so hence.”
“Maturo? The guy who hangs you? From the account in Robb’s Journals he sounds like he’s about fifty years old.”
“Aye, he is, and I won’t stay in him more than the necessary week—but I will so enjoy the expression on his face when, in the moment before he kicks that barrel away, he finds himself up there standing on it with the rope round his neck, and me in his body grinnin’ up at him.”
Dundee shuddered. “God rest ye merry, gentlemen,” he said.
* * *
Down the relatively snow-free gutter in the middle of the street the short man jogged energetically, puffing white clouds like a laboring steam engine as he forced himself to carry the ten-pound box of raisins in one hand at arm’s length. After twenty paces he switched the box to his other hand and flailed the now-free one to unstiffen it. His solid shoulders and unfatigued pace were evidence that physical exercise wasn’t just a fad he’d taken up this afternoon.
It was only five days before Christmas, and in spite of the snow a number of people were out on the street, bundled up in coats and hats and mufflers, and a couple of boys and a dog were romping about with a sled. Occasionally a costermonger’s cart would rattle and jingle past, smoke pluming from the driver’s pipe and steam from the horse’s nostrils, and the jogger would have to move out of the way. When they came from behind he never seemed to hear the carts until they were almost on top of him, and he’d been shouted at so many times that when he heard another insistent call behind him he just moved aside without looking back.
But the cry was repeated. “Hey, Doyle!”
The short man glanced over his shoulder and then let himself slow to a walk and finally a halt, for a skinny, moustachioed street boy was waving at him and plodding through the street edge snowbank toward him.
“Doyle!” the boy called. “I found your William Ashbless! He had a poem published in this week’s Courier!”
The man waited until the boy caught up with him. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong fellow,” he said. “My name’s not Doyle.”
The boy blinked and stepped back. “Oh, sorry, I—” He cocked his head. “Sure it is.”
“I’d know, wouldn’t I? It’s not.”
Jacky frowned dubiously at him for a moment, then said, “Excuse me if I’m wrong—but don’t you have a knife scar running down across your chest below your collar-bone?”
The man’s response struck Jacky as peculiar. “Wait a minute!” he gasped, then pressed his palms to his chest. “You know this man?”
“You mean… you?” asked Jacky uncertainly. “Yes. What, have you lost your memory?”
“Who is he?”
“He’s… you’re Brendan Doyle, a… one-time member of Copenhagen Jack’s beggar guild. Why, who do you think you are?”
The man watched Jacky carefully. “Adelbert Chinnie.”
“What, the prize fighter? But Brendan, he’s a lot taller, and younger… “
“Until two months ago I was taller and younger.” He cocked an eyebrow sternly. “Is this Doyle of yours by any chance a magician?” Jacky had been staring at the man’s head, and now said, unsteadily, “Look at your shoes.”
The man did, though he looked up again when he heard a gasp. The boy had gone white, and seemed for some reason to be on the verge of tears. “My God,” Jacky whispered, “you’re not bald anymore.”
It was the man’s turn to be mystified. “Uh… no… “
“Oh, Brendan…” A couple of tears spilled down Jacky’s cold-reddened cheeks. “You poor innocent son of a bitch,… your friend Ashbless arrived too late.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t,” Jacky sniffed, “talking to you.” She wiped her face with the end of her scarf. “I suppose you really are the Admirable Chinnie.”
“Yes, I am—or was. You find that… credible?”
“I’m afraid I do. Listen, you and I have got to get together and compare notes. Are you free for a drink?”
“As soon as I deliver this to my boss I’m due for a supper break. It’s just around the corner here, Malk’s Bakery in St. Martin’s Lane. Come on.”
Jacky trotted along beside Chinnie, who resumed his exercises. They turned left into St. Martin’s Lane and soon arrived at the bakery. Chinnie told Jacky to wait for him, then pushed his way through the gang of little boys that had been drawn by the warm plum pudding smell to cluster around the windows, and disappeared inside.
A few moments later he came out again. “There’s a public house down Kyler Lane here where I frequently stop for a pint. Nice people, though they think I’m barmy.”
“Ah, it’s the Admirable!” the aproned landlord said cheerfully when they pushed open the pub door and stepped into the relative dimness. “With his pal Gentleman Jackson, I perceive.”
“A couple of pints of porter, Samuel,” said Chinnie, leading Jacky to a booth on the rear. “I got drunk here once,” he muttered, “and was fool enough to tell them my secret.”
When the mugs of black beer had arrived and been tentatively sipped, Jacky asked, “When—and how—did the body switch occur?”
“When was a Sunday two months ago—the fourteenth of October. How…” He gulped more of the beer. “Well, I was fencing at Angelo’s, and just as I was about to do a particularly clever disengage, I—I suddenly found myself at the bottom of the Thames with no air in my lungs.”
Jacky smiled bitterly and nodded. “Yes, that’s how he works. Leaving you that way, I guess he wouldn’t have to chew the tongue to bits before he left.” She looked at the man with some respect. “You must be Chinnie—he’d never have left you in that position if it was at all likely you’d survive.”
Chinnie drained his mug and signalled for another. “I damn near didn’t. Sometimes, lying awake nights in my bed by the bakery oven, I wish I hadn’t.” He gave Jacky a hard stare. “Now you talk. Who’s this he you’re referring
