‘Your expectations do not concern me, Mr Warren!’
‘No, Sir! Of course not, Sir.’
‘Indeed. Now listen to me. I know this kind of place.’ He indicated the shady street with a sweep of his arm. ‘As soon as we try to grab the man we’re after and drag him out in the street, fifty of his cronies will be on us with knives and broken bottles.’
Knives and broken bottles? Unconsciously, I moved a little closer to Karim and the safety of his large sabre. I was too preoccupied by the mental image of a grinning thug with a broken bottle in his fist to wonder how on earth a phenomenally rich financier would know this kind of place.
‘Is that so? But then what should we do, Sir?’ Warren asked.
‘There’s nothing for it.’ Mr Ambrose, his narrow mouth still nearly invisible, held out his hand. ‘Give me your jacket and cap.’
‘W-what, Sir?’
‘That grimy little jacket and that disgusting cap of yours. Give them to me. I’m going to go in there in disguise and see what I can squeeze out of our friend by means of friendly conversation.’
Warren started at this, flabbergasted. ‘You? You are going to have a conversation, Sir?’
‘Yes! You, meanwhile, go back to headquarters and get backup. Pray that you return in time, before our prey decides to leave!’
‘B-but Sir,’ Warren stuttered, ‘you can’t… I mean… you’re a gentleman of good family. You couldn’t possibly go into a place like this and pretend to be part of that scum in there!’
The look Mr Ambrose gave his subordinate could have frozen lava.
‘I’ve had a lot of practice in dealing with scum. Now give me your clothes.’
Warren was out of his cap and jacket before you could say “God save the Queen!”.’ He handed them to Mr Ambrose, who in return gave him his carefully folded back tailcoat.
‘I don't want to see a single stain on it when you give it back,’ he commanded. ‘It is only ten years old and still in mint condition.’
‘Um… yes, of course, Sir.’
Warren took the jacket, which in my opinion was definitely not in mint condition, handling it like a newborn babe. Mr Ambrose shrugged on the workman’s jacket and placed the cap onto his neatly trimmed black hair, drawing it deep into his face. I had expected the workman’s clothes to look odd or unnatural on him, expected that everybody would be able to tell immediately that this was Mr Rikkard Ambrose, one of the richest men of the city.
I could not have been more wrong.
What the heck…?
My mouth fell open and I stared. I blatantly stared.
The filthy cap and jacket transformed him as if they were a second skin: All of a sudden, he looked darker, rougher around the edges. He looked like a delinquent who would beat the stuffing out of you if you even looked at him wrong. A man who lived hard, and by his own rules.
I had to admit, the look suited him, suited him very well indeed.
At a motion of his hand, Warren and his two associates hurried off down the street. Mr Ambrose looked after them, shaking his head.
‘Were did you find him, Karim?’ he asked, grimly. ‘He has no clue what he is in for.’
Karim shrugged. ‘He had good references, Sahib. This is not the colonies. This is the city. It is not easy to find people good with their guns and their brains.’
Mr Ambrose gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. ‘You two, wait here,’ he ordered. ‘I’m doing this on my own.’
‘But Sahib-’ Karim began, yet one glance from Mr Ambrose cut him off. I, for my part, knew better than to argue. Without hesitation, Mr Ambrose marched off towards The Plough and Anchor, leaving Karim and me behind.
I waited until the door had closed behind him and Karim was looking after Warren, disappearing in the distance. Then I stole away from the giant bodyguard and followed Mr Ambrose into the pub.
I indeed knew better than to argue. Simply disobeying was so much easier.
Inside, it took a few seconds for my eyes to get used to the dim lighting. But it would take even longer for my nose to get used to the stench. Coughing, I covered my mouth and nose with my hand. Sweat, cheap drink and other fumes I didn’t care to identify formed an aroma in the air that could have knocked out a world champion boxer.
My eyes began to water from the stench. Hastily, I blinked the tears away. I had to keep my eyes open if I didn’t want to get my throat cut here. Quickly, I took in my surroundings.
Several dirty tables stood against the back wall, grouped around a half-open door. A number of dirty sailors and dirty factory workers in dirty clothes sat there, together with a couple of dirty women with very dirty, low-cut dresses, playing dirty cards, and from time to time joining the even dirtier song played by a dirty piano player to my left. To my right, there was a dirty, long bar with large, dirty barrels of drinks behind it, and a bartender whose largeness and dirtiness could easily compete with his barrels. He was polishing a dirty metal tankard with an even dirtier cloth. Several people were sitting at the dirty bar. They too - surprise, surprise - were dirty, and staring into dirty tankards. Only a few, who didn’t have dirty tankards to drink out of, were staring in the direction of the women. But I bet at least their thoughts were dirty.
So, on the whole, the establishment was not really clean as a spring shower, if you catch my drift.
And there, lounging against the corner of the bar as if he were a regular patron of this den of iniquity, was Mr Rikkard Ambrose, one leg leisurely crossed over the other, an elbow resting on the bar, a tankard in his hand. As I watched, he emptied the tankard in one large gulp and slapped the surface of the bar.
‘Aye, this ain’t half bad! Another one, me good fellow!’
I blinked, stunned. Had I just heard correctly?
It was Mr Ambrose’s voice, and it came out of Mr Ambrose’s mouth, but… Mr Ambrose would never in his life call anybody ‘My good fellow’, let alone commit the gross grammatical incorrectness of substituting a ‘me’ for the ‘my’. This kind of behaviour was reserved for the lower strata of society, the people who weren’t the second-richest, or maybe even richest, man of the entire British Empire!
Maybe you’re dreaming, Lilly. Maybe this is a nightmare.
‘Didn’t ye hear me?’ The Pseudo-Ambrose roared like a drunken lumberjack. ‘Another drink!’