A Plea for Help and Dark Disclosures Read Ch. 6.
An unusually dark man, with an unusually dark bearing, was taking an audience in an unusually dark nook of the town’s sugar shop, the Hawk’s Nest. Seated with his back against the interior corner of two brick walls, the dark man was afforded an unobstructed view of the house and all of its occupants, and the ancient mahogany table between him and his caller gave ample physical protection from any would-be assailant not boasting of powder and shot. Additionally, hidden on his person, and expertly cloaked from all but the most attentive, were numerous instruments of mayhem including several side arms and blades of various length and purpose. He was, in short, a man who anticipated dark dealings, as he was a purveyor of the same.
The man who had sought his audience was the brave, though incorrigibly foolish, Mr. Pumpkin. Having had his demand for satisfaction rebuffed, and his reputation sullied, by the back of Baron Granger’s hand and pen, and believing his rebuff at the opera house was also due to the Baron’s machinations, Mr. Pumpkin undertook a sinister path to satisfaction, sub rosa, that was clearly drawn by a sot fueled by wine and blinded by ego. Brandishing a purse bulging with a full year’s takings, he had come to solicit the services of a man who could bring Baron Granger to heel, and procure both sufficient apology and full restoration of Mr. Pumpkin’s dignity and reputation.
Before the reader judge Mr. Pumpkin too harshly, it should be taken to his account: that the indignities suffered by Mr. Pumpkin would have caused lesser men to undertake far more drastic means; that Mr. Pumpkin never intended to do more than frighten Baron Granger; that Mr. Pumpkin believed that all men, even dark men, were men of honor who could be trusted to follow instruction; and that, even a sober Mr. Pumpkin was wanting for wisdom and reason. The reader can rightly assume that a drunk Pumpkin was less wise and more unreasonable.
To be sure, among the patrons of the Hawk’s Nest, Mr. Pumpkin stood apart as the room’s only dossy dandy ensconced in a velvet coat and blue cambric shirt, and his appearance caused a bewildered silence to overcome the din as Mr. Pumpkin cat-tailed to the bar. His Heirleichen hunter watch (a gift from his mother and worth enough to buy Cromwell’s army, or at least the more poorly armed puritan foot soldiers) drew the lustful eyes, and schemes, of every villain in the room who dreamed of relieving its burden from its carrier.
He had been given the name of a man he was to meet by Miss Tape, of all people, with instructions to share it with the dizzy-aged bartender (how Miss. Tape came across the name remains her secret, but the fact that she shared it with Mr. Pumpkin should permit the reader to assume the worst of her intentions as Swaringin’s full reputation was no doubt known to her). At that moment Pumpkin was struggling to remember the name, a reality made all the worse by his growing fear for his physical safety. Several divers had begun pressing closer to him, and he felt several sets of covetous hands against his coat, and inside of his pockets. His fear and anxiety grew, until he was at last able to shout out: “Swaringin!” At that, the men shrank back to their seats, and the bartender pointed Pumpkin in the direction of the dark man’s table.
Swaringin, a brute of fondling temper, was seated at the table consuming a fourpenny cannon and an imperial pop. He barely looked up to see Pumpkin approaching him, though he was fully aware of his presence. The conversation, such as it was, was necessarily one-sided. Mistakenly believing that dark men concerned themselves with such things, Pumpkin spent a great deal of time detailing his many injuries and even more time doing his best to justify both his need for retribution, and why Swaringin’s services were appropriate under the cirumstances. This effort, however, proved as unhelpful, and unsatisfying, as seducing a woman who would have any man for a farthing, for Swaringin, such as he was, gave no concern for reputation, and did not suffer fools, or anyone else for that matter. He had immediately identified Pumpkin as a J.A.Y. with a weakness for jack-a-dandy. Forsooth! have we all not considered a tavern stranger thus?
By the time Pumpkin had completed his soliloquy, Swaringin had finalized a plan for separating Pumpkin from his gold, timepiece, and mortal coil. The full details of the plan are not necessary to restate in their entirety (as the reader knows that they did not come to fruition) though it is of some note that Swaringin intended to feign agreement with Pumpkin’s plan, arrange for an exchange at a hidden lacaation, and at the proper time, disembowel good Mr. Pumpkin (a herculean feat when accounting for the substantial bowel in question) and scatter his identifiable pieces to the four corners. While the reader will note that while such a plan was as unimaginative as it was barbaric, Swaringin had, on several occasions, found the process to be quite effective. Yet there was that time when Swaringin had medicamented that henpecked booby, the Bishop Radley, at the Harem Club with a rack punch, one part tincture of opium: and would have succeeded in the poisoning and four corner spreading were it not for the watchful eyes of the portress and charwoman of the Harem, who were playing a quiet game of blind-hookey, and who, being unbosomers of even the most trifling of secrets, would have called on the law in haste had they witnessed the Bishop’s head in his punch bowl.
In the next instant however, just as Swaringin meant to set his plans to motion, the front door of the Hawk’s Nest was torn open by a bearded man who was too numerous to mention, and wielded an unsheathed pattern light cavalry sabre in his right hand, and a Beaumont-Adams revolver in his left. The man fired a single shot into the air which quieted the patrons. He pointed the blade, which all but glowed in the darkness, directly at the dark man in the corner and growled: “Swarangin! Tell me where the girl is or I’ll do you to Wainrights and deuce’ll take you nigh!”
Pumpkin, sobered by shock, reason, and fear, came at last to understand the significance of his folly. He grabbed his purse (for he was frightened, and a fool, but not so large a fool as to abandon coin) and let out a scream more suited to a hinchinarfer than a man, and tailed out from both the Nest and his dark dealings. Such is not to suggest that matters with Baron Granger were resolved, as the reader will see, but for this moment, and all future moments, Pumpkin would never again give audience to the darker cravings of his soul.
As the reader no doubt imagines, Swaringin was no stranger to the threat of death, and as such seemed unaffected by the one facing him at that moment. This was not, of course, literally true. He was affected by the threat, but not for fear of his life. Rather, because Swaringin could only respect a man who was currently threating to take his life, the threat caused him to regard the sword bearer as a serious man, to be dealt with soberly. The fact that he knew the man, and had prior dealings with him, did not change the effect.
Major Strong knew this, of course, and recognized that if he was going to save his own life, he would need Swaringin to cooperate. Most particularly, he would need to learn how Swaringin came into possession of the ladies undergarments that Major Strong had purchased from him, and what fate befell the jamiest bits of jam who had been dispossessed of them. For the reader now sees that, while Major Strong did have dark secrets, and disturbingly depraved predilections, he was not the sort of man that caused young women to disappear. He knew that Swarangin was just that sort of man. And, while such matters did not concern Major Strong in the past (as his reason was often suborinated to his passions), here at the end of all things he realized that his fate (thanks to the Baron Granger and a pair of monogrammed pantaloons) was sure to be tied to the fates of the girls.
[…] August 5th, 2011 § 0 comments Written by: Alfred D Orson for The Literary Dandy.on August 5, 2011.on December 28, 2011.IN WHICH CONSTABLE FLINTFITZ SUFFERS A FOOL Read Ch. 7. […]