'I'll be sure, Peter. Have no doubts about that.' Her gaze, feverish with anxiety, was already busy darting this way and that among the passersby. 'Oh, if only we can find him before those policemen do!'
At my orders the cabrrian stopped across the street from Barley's, where I directed him to wait. Murray jumped down nimbly from the seat beside the driver, to lead the way; and Moore and I followed, joining the intermittent stream of men now entering the public house. Before leaving Baker Street I had gone up to my room, and now I could feel inside my coat the reassuring bulge of my old service revolver.
The ground-floor parlor, which we entered first, was a large room filled with the fumes of drink and tobacco, where a wide-shouldered, hearty, mustached man of middle age presided behind the bar. This individual obviously had many friends among the patrons, and after a few moments spent listening to the exchange of rough, good- humored talk, I understood that this was Barley himself. His friends, and indeed the crowd in general, were an inclusive mixture of all the classes of the metropolis. A few were well-dressed, and undoubtedly gentlemen, while others were the basest ruffians. Of the female sex only a very small number were present, and these exclusively of the lowest class. I noticed particularly one girl who would have been pretty, even striking, had not one side of her face been almost covered by a great, disfiguring strawberry birthmark. This girl was subject to rude treatment as she endeavored to push her way through the crush, as if in search of someone; and I was well satisfied that we had persuaded Sarah Tarlton to remain outside.
Moore and I ordered drinks, and in general tried to give the impression of a pair of sportsmen out for a night's amusement. Meanwhile we of course were keeping both eyes open for the man we had come to find. I was distracted almost at once, however, by a chance encounter with an old acquaintance.
'Why, it
I turned to behold a dark-haired, handsome man, but little changed, save for the addition of a pair of spectacles, in the three or four years since I had seen him last. 'Why, Jack Seward! Nor I you, if it comes to that.' Eight or nine years younger than I, Seward had first entered the circle of my acquaintances some fifteen years earlier, when he was a dresser in the surgery at Bart's. I was aware that in the last seven or eight years he had risen rapidly, and when last I met him he had become a specialist in mental illness and was in charge of an asylum at Purfleet.
Seward explained that he had come to Barley's chiefly at the request of a friend of his; this was a tall and rather taciturn gentleman at his side, whom he called Arthur and then introduced to us as Lord Godalming. His Lordship had with him a brace of terriers, one of which he held and petted like a child. These he had brought along, as he put it, to see how they might do; other blood sports were out of season and angling had not yet begun.
'And are you still in charge at the asylum?' I inquired, making conversation, while simultaneously managing —as I prided myself—to keep nearly the whole room under observation.
'Oh, yes—damned drafty old place—more room than we need for the patients, but that's as well at present.' Seward removed his spectacles and squinted rather nearsightedly around the room. 'Have some guests in from Exeter, to see the Jubilee.'
There was some question, it seemed, of the dogs being weighed in and examined in advance of their call to enter the pit for combat, and Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward soon bade us a temporary farewell and took the small, nervous animals upstairs, a development I rather welcomed as giving me a freer hand for business.
The chief decorations of Barley's parlor were glass cases, each containing one or more stuffed dogs. Every preserved animal was labeled with its name, and the dated record of some no doubt remarkable number of rats it had killed in the pit within a specified interval of time. I noticed Peter Moore fall out of his assumed character far enough to shake his head disgustedly on reading one of these accounts; and my own feelings were fully in accord with his. There is, in my view, no justifiable comparison between the pitting of trapped animals and free sport in the open fields; and I rejoice that in 1911 rat-killing was at long last placed outside the law, along with the similar spectacles—dog-fighting, badger-baiting, cock-fighting—that were declared illegal in the 19th century.
Meanwhile our observations in Barley's parlor continued to be in vain. I could discover no one at all who looked like a particularly close match for John Scott's photograph, and Peter Moore's silence and the continued look of anxiety upon his face assured me that his luck was no better than my own. Yet so large was the room, and so well-filled by men who were constantly coming and going, that neither of us could be sure from moment to moment that our quarry was not close at hand.
Presently I felt a light tug at my sleeve; it came from Murray, who, when I bent down, whispered in my ear: 'I seen 'im again, Doctor—'e's in Barley's private office now—that door behind the bar. I seen 'im just now when Barley opened it a bit to send another chap on in.'
I nodded, and in a low whisper passed on this intelligence to Moore. A few moments more, and Barley turned over his place behind the bar to an assistant. With a final laughing remark to his friends, the proprietor also retreated into that room.
Moore and I exchanged looks; then, as casually as we could manage it, we both moved into a position from which, when the private door should next be opened, we ought to be able to look into the room beyond. Having accomplished this, I judged that there was nothing for it but to wait, and this we settled down to do.
Soon we could observe a cheerful stir among some men who had gathered near a rear entrance to the parlor. This was occasioned by the appearance of the evening's intended victims. Rats were being carried in, in crates and bags, by the score and by the hundred, to a total that must easily have surpassed a thousand, and the room seemed to fill with their sharp, musky smell. From the entry they were borne across the rear of the parlor, and up a broad stair there. Ample light shone down from a large room or loft above, which seemed to be the scene of the planned entertainment.
Most of the workers engaged in bringing in the rats were young men, and it may have been for this reason that my eye first singled out one older man among them. This was a tall, lean fellow who had a crate upon his shoulder when I first saw him, so that his face was, for the moment, entirely hidden from me; but it was obvious from the long, graying hair that hung uncovered about his ears that he was no longer young. This individual was just starting briskly upstairs with his burden, when my attention was drawn from him suddenly by the reopening of the door of Barley's private office behind the bar. The proprietor himself emerged, leaving the door ajar; but my eager glance toward the room's interior was not as rewarding as I had hoped. I could see part of a desk, a table with a lamp, and three or four battered chairs. In one of these slouched a villainous-looking individual, a complete stranger to me, but who, by reason of his dark hair and hooked nose, could not possibly be the man we sought. The remaining occupant of the room was visible only in the form of a pair of dark-trousered legs, one foot crossed over the other in stylish black boots.
Barley, on coming out into the public room, at once raised his arms and called out in his loud, jovial voice that it was time for the company to move upstairs. Having made this announcement, he retired again into his private chamber and shut the door.
His words brought on a general push in the direction of the stair. Moore and I looked at each other again, and I have no doubt that the disappointment I observed in his face was mirrored in my own.
Yet there was nothing to be gained by losing heart and hope. Barley and the men in the office with him must eventually emerge. Meanwhile, however, if Moore and I were to continue to be inconspicuous, we must go with the crowd. To Murray, who had remained nearby, I imparted this decision with a look and a slight gesture, and by the same means instructed him to remain on watch on the ground floor. With quick intelligence he took my meaning at once.
Then, in the midst of a cheerful throng of men of every class, some carrying dogs, many already wagering for or against particular animals, Moore and I went on up. The room or loft to which we ascended was only a little smaller than that below, and very high, having no ceiling other than the beams of the sloping roof. Despite its spaciousness the air was close; from the crates and bags of rats came an exhalation like that of an open sewer, to mingle with the fumes of tobacco, gin, and beer.
A pit some seven or eight feet square had been constructed in the middle of the floor, by the erection of a thin screen or barrier all round, some two or three feet high, enough to prevent the game from escaping. Ranks of benches, those in the rear somewhat elevated, surrounded the pit, and in it stood a young man with metal clips holding his trousers-legs tight about his ankles, evidently to forestall any desperate rat's effort to seek shelter by that route.
This referee soon called for the first dog scheduled to take part in the evening's competition; its handlers brought it forward, a hundred voices were raised in raucous cries of encouragement or mockery, the wagering
