prince.
'Not the full quid, no,' said Bodger, seeming to comprehend. 'But truff be known, we bare knucklers are not unfamiliar wit' the procedure.'
'So I take it that once you reached the wharf, these gentlemen introduced you to your opponent,' said Doyle patiently.
'Some ponce,' snarled Bodger. 'Soft. Face like a stunned mullet. Like he's never tussled wit' the gloves off in his life. So we're off: The ponce won't mangle much, but 'e won't lie down neither. No technical know-how. Bodger blinds him with science. Sixty-five rounds we go: His face is a mask of claret. Ask me, his corner should'a skied the towel long about fifty. But it's not my fate they should take the advice of Bodger, was it?'
'Apparently not, no.'
'And now we comes to round sixty-sixth. That's why to this day sixty-six is the Bodger's unlucky number.'
Bodger took Doyle by his lapels and pulled him closer as his deathless tale built to its thrilling climax. If I hadn't already shaved my mustache, thought Doyle, Bodger's breath would have torched it right off.
'We comes out and touches fives, good sportsman that we were. Then Bodger greets him with a wicked-fair left hook to the liver. The drongo doubles down. Then the Bodger straightens his starch with a Bodger special: an uppercut to the nozz, a cracklin' good judy settin' him up for the bone-crushin', death-deliverin' grand finale Bodgerific combination to the point of his pozzy that send the wowser airborne. And by the time his head hits the ground, the spirit of man has fled his poncey body.'
'He was dead,' said Doyle, as agreeably as possible.
'Dead as a duck in a thunderstorm,' said Bodger, still holding Doyle close enough to count his back teeth.
'How unfortunate.'
'Not for the ponce; he's gone to his reward, 'adn't he? After all that muckabout, it's Bodger who'll have the hard rain fall. In comes the coppers. Manslaughter, they says. Bare knuckles and all, no Marquis of Queensberry, they says. Trial by jury. Fifteen years' hard labor. Hello, Newgate Prison; bye-bye Bodger.'
Bodger released Doyle and sent a stream of variegated brown glop ten feet into the air, rattling over the edge of a spittoon in the corner.
'Where I take it,' said Doyle, rearranging his clothes, 'you at long last make the acquaintance of Mr. Lansdown Dilks.'
'Mr. Lansdown Dilks. A hard moke in his physicaliosity, not all that dif'ernt than the Nugger man hisself.'
'Somewhat Bodgeresque, you might say,' said Doyle.
'A most Bodgerlike top dog indeed,' confirmed Bodger. ''All very fine and large to 'ave one such feller in a given coop-up. 'Sonly nature's way. Put two such specimens in the same yard, and wot you's got there is one rumbustrious ruck-us.'
'So you quarreled, the two of you, is that what you're saying, Bodger?' said Doyle, with another stab at translation.
'Most violent and frequently,' said Bodger, cracking his knuckles: They reported like a rifle volley. 'And neither one of these two smug pups ever able to best the better of the other. The first time, Bodgie's not ashamed to say, that the Nuggins ever met his match on either side of the ropes.'
'And so you served your time together until the execution of Dilks's sentence.'
Bodger's eyebrows knit together again. 'Execution.'
'Last February. When Dilks passed on.'
Bodger's mystification deepened. 'Passed on.'
'Died. Gone west. Slipped the cable. Hung by the neck,' said Doyle, finally losing his patience. 'And flights of angels sing him to his rest. Do you mean to say this represents some sort of news to you, Bodger?'
'Not half. Dilksie looked in the pink last time the Bodger clapped eyes on him.'
'And when was that, pray?'
'When we gots off the train together—'
'Surely you're mistaken,' said Doyle.
'If Bodger means off the train, that's what he'd say, idn't it?' said Bodger, giving vent to no small irritation. 'Off the train is what the Bodger means, and off the train is wots 'e's sayin'.'
Doyle and Barry exchanged a quizzical look. Barry shrugged: This was fresh embroidery on the story for him as well. 'Off the train where?'
'Up north. Yorkshire, like.'
'When was this?'
'So happens the Bodger remembers the exactical date, seeing as how it was 'is own bin'day: March the fourth.'
'March the fourth of last year?' Doyle was growing more confused with every word the man uttered.
'Say, wot are you, a ponce?'
'Bodger, forgive my thickness,' said Doyle. 'Are you telling me that you and Dilks took a train to Yorkshire a month after he swung and years before your sentence was due to expire, on March the fourth of last year?'
'Right. Lansdown and me and the others wot signed on.'
'Signed on how?'
'Wit' the bloke wot come round the prison.'
'Newgate Prison?'
'You catch on fast, don'tcha mate?'
'Please, I'm doing my best to understand: What man was this?'
'Don' know his name. Din't give it, did he?'
'Can you describe him?'
Bodger rolled his eyes skyward. 'Beard. Glasses. Looked like a ponce.'
'All right, Bodger, what did this gentleman who came around give you to understand you were signing on to do?'
'I can tell you this: He didn't tell us nuffin' 'bout what went on in that bleedin' biscuit factory. No, sir. That's why I run off like I did. And don't think they're not after me for it neither—'
The air was shattered by a piercing chorus of police whistles.
'Coppers!'
The alarm went up, and the men in the dice game scattered. Before Doyle could react, Bodger turned tail and sprinted for the dressing room, the front doors burst open and a squadron of bobbies, batons raised, rushed into the gym. Another phalanx burst through the back exit, and the battle was joined, a half-dozen of them occupied solely with Bodger, whose prowess did not by its demonstration seem in ite least bit overstated. Barry took Doyle's arm, holding him in place.
'It'll go better for us if we don't run, gov,' he shouted over the din.
''But Bodger was just about to tell us—'
'No worries; chances are ripe we'll be sharing a cell soon enough.'
'But we're not here to play dice.'
'Try telling the grasshoppers that. Rum go, but there it is.'
Two policemen were moving toward them. Barry put his hands on top of his cap and advised Doyle to do the same. Doyle instead began walking lively toward the officers.
'Now see here,' asserted Doyle, 'I'm a doctor!'
'And I'm queen of the May,' said the bobby.
The first blow caught Doyle along the side of the head.
Barry's concerned face was the first sight that greeted Doyle when he opened his eyes.
'Feelin' a bit wonky, guv?' asked Barry.
'Where are we?'
'The clink. Gaol. Pentonville, I fink.' Doyle tried to sit up, and his head spun like a multicolored pinwheel.
'Easy on, guv,' said Barry. 'Quite the cue ball you're cultivatin' there.'
