Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure (2 page)

Chapter One: A Job for Harry Stubbs

It was a lean time for me. After losing my clerical position at Latham
and Rowe on account of the Shackleton case, I was not able to get another. My
income suffered accordingly.

I was
obliged to keep an eye on every penny. The pub was a rare treat for me; I could
not afford to have so many evenings out as before nor drink as many pints when
I did go out. Arthur Renville had insisted on my taking a share of the money
from the Shackleton affair. I kept the money in a cigar box under my mattress.
Without regular work, I had to raid that cigar box more and more often. What
would happen when it was empty?

I applied
for jobs everywhere, but there was not much going. I spent half my days filling
in application forms and visiting offices and, occasionally, going for an
interview. Men talked about the state of the economy and the devaluation the
currency. All I knew was that for every clerical job I went for, there were ten
men in the line ahead of me. And while my penmanship and arithmetic were up to
scratch, if it was a choice between me and a man who did not look like a
heavyweight boxer, the other fellow got the job.

There were
too many rumours about firms putting their clerks on part-time or cutting
wages. My only real employment was in the debt-collection line. If work ran out
there, I’d find myself carrying sandwich boards up and down the street, like so
many others.

At its most
rewarding, debt collection is a matter of cornering individuals who are quite
capable of paying up but prefer not to. These are men—or, very
occasionally, women—who routinely withhold payment as a means of
obtaining extended credit or to express dissatisfaction with their creditors.
When faced with irresistible force, such a person will produce the money with
more or less good grace, not infrequently peeling the notes off a large wad
carried on his person.

More often,
one has to deal with poor wretches who cannot pay. It’s a degrading business
for all concerned. I do not wish to become so hardened that I can be nonchalant
about pulling the wedding ring off a sobbing woman’s finger, as one of my
colleagues did on the day of the shooting. Her husband just watched, helpless
to intervene or pay up. He was another who had lost his job and had borrowed
unwisely. All that distress so some moneylender could get his fifteen per cent.

When you
come into the pub, it’s not pleasant when people start slinking away because
they happen to owe money. People resent you even when you just collect what is
owed—as though you have the power to let them off.

Father
would have been happy to take me back in the butcher’s shop, but my brother
already worked there, and the business would have been stretched to support the
three of us. I felt bad enough about the wrapped parcel of choice cuts that was
pressed on me every time I dropped by.

“We can’t
have you fading away,” my father joked. But the parcels had become larger, and
there was concern in his tone when he asked after my situation.

I spent
most evenings at the boxing gymnasium. It was an economical way of passing the
time, and hard physical activity was the finest tonic in the world. Being
unemployed made me feel less than a man; punching a heavy bag restored me. I
was training so hard that there was a rumour I was going to stage a comeback.
The rumour was fuelled by my enquiries about getting back into the ring, which
I made just to see what the purse would be like. In truth, I did not like the
feel of the thing. The fight game was fair and square when there was fame and
glory to be won. But just boxing for a bit of money, when a person knew he'd
never be champion, was a rank business.

“David
versus Goliath is an evergreen fixture,” Arthur told me one morning over a cup
of tea at his table at the Electric Cafe. This was not long after that odd
shooting. Arthur’s table was in the corner farthest from the entrance, where he
had a good view of the comings and goings and a back door handy should the need
for it arise. “The public love it. They’ll always be able to sell tickets for
that match. But the thing is, Stubbsy… you’re not headed for the Albert Hall.
The young David in the other corner, the one working his way up, is who they’ll
be cheering for. You’ll be Goliath.”

I could
only nod in agreement. Before, I had boxed as the hero. I had been Harry
Stubbs, “the Norwood Titan.” I could have flown to the moon on the cheers when
I won my first big fight. It would be different this time around. It might have
been better to be a pantomime monster in the ring than a real one collecting
debts, but I did not relish the thought of being jeered by delivery boys,
especially after a loss.

There was
another point against it that weighed more heavily although Arthur was too
tactful to point it out: I was a few years older, a few years slower. My
fighting style was well-known. Other fighters had the measure of me and knew my
weaknesses. I had stopped fighting professionally after losing a few bouts. If
I went in again, I would be losing more. The experience was likely to be as
hard on my carcass as my conscience. I could easily wind up as a punch-drunk
has-been, trying to persuade a promoter that I was still good for one more
match.

“On the other
hand,” Arthur said, holding up an empty palm, “there is paid employment that
doesn’t involve any bashing about of your own person or third parties.”

Now we were
getting to it. The Electric Cafe was where Arthur and those he did business
with gathered. I was there because of a communication that I might hear
something to my advantage.

Arthur is a
consignment man. Shipments that have been written off for one reason or
another, but which still possess some market value, pass through his hands. He
coordinates a vast network of associates who have vehicles or storage room or
pairs of hands that can be used at short notice. On occasion, I have helped
unload crates when he was short staffed, just for some beer money. You meet all
sorts of people in the process. The point is that Arthur knows everyone, and
everyone knows Arthur. The benefits of his business are spread far and wide.

Your wife’s
dressmaker may offer her ten yards of genuine Indian Calico at a bargain price;
your neighbours might acquire a silver-plate tea service that looks more fancy
than they can afford; your cook may always manage to stretch housekeeping and
still have a bit of stewing steak left over—perhaps you know some of the
beneficiaries of Arthur’s network. It’s how the common man gets a little bit of
his own back, Arthur always says. It puts a little bit of money into the
pockets of everyone involved.

Arthur
never puts himself forward as a leader. He’s no gang boss, and nobody exactly
answers to him. But he is universally known as a coordinator of great skill and
unflagging energy. He has more worldly wisdom than a whole bench of judges. He
is the one we turn to, the man who makes things happen. And if Arthur intimates
that someone is making trouble or taking more than his share, word will spread,
and bones will be broken on behalf of those who care about the common good.

Because of
his connections, he sometimes ends up providing unlikely favours, a procedure
that leaves people far and wide obliged to him, people who can be called on as
and when needed.

“At this
point, I will invite our colleague to join us,” said Arthur. He gestured for
Reg to join us from another table. Reg, a florid, slow-moving man with a fine
walrus moustache and bushy eyebrows to match, pulled up a chair and seated himself
by stages.

Reginald
Brown had taken early retirement from the colonial service in the Far East. I
imagined his job had positioned him in some dusty office with a fan revolving
lazily overhead, where he spent long days filling out forms with the infinite
slow care that keeps the Empire ticking over. His respectability had not been
absolute. It seems he had taken advantage of his situation, although Reg always
insisted that he had only accepted the customary “cumshaw,” or commission, for
doing his job, as refusal would have been an insult. He had not exactly left
under a cloud, but they say the sky had not been so very fair on that day,
either.

As a result
of that premature retirement, Reg’s pension was less generous than it might
have been. He needed a bit extra, and he gravitated to Arthur, making himself
useful in small ways. He was generally reliable if not overly honest. We
exchanged pleasantries before Arthur addressed the matter at hand.

“You know
Captain Hall of course,” he said by way of preamble.

Of course I
knew Captain Hall. Everyone did. He was a genuine seafarer, a retired ship’s
captain who'd sailed tall ships in the old days. On some nights, you could find
him in the Conquering Hero, leading the assembled company in a sea shanty.
Pretty salty some of those songs were, too, in the unexpurgated versions. Or
sometimes old Captain Hall could be persuaded to tell stories, long sailors'
yarns of terrific storms and shipwrecks and adventures in far-off ports, with
the whole circle gathered around him, holding their breath as the fire burned
low.

He knew how
to tell a tale—which was not to say I believed everything he said. The
captain expected to have drink supplied while he yarned, and the longer he went
on, the more his tales were apt to swell up and blossom to ever-greater
extravagance—blooming roses watered by rum. I’m an open-minded man, but I
draw the line at sea monsters and sunken cities.

“There was
a Chinese fellow called Yang, a ship’s steward, who sailed with the good
captain for years. This Yang is settled in Shanghai now, but he has a
nephew—or a cousin or some such—who is travelling to these parts.
By which I mean Norwood.” He tapped the table for emphasis. “He needs a native
guide, as you might say, to help him get around and learn the ways of us
English folk. I said, 'I know just the man for the job: Harry Stubbs.' “

“I'm
gratified that you should think of me. But I don't know as how I'm specially
qualified to guide any visitor anywhere. Why doesn’t Captain Hall do it? He’s
hale enough, isn’t he?”

“Well, this
is where it gets ticklish. Captain Hall resorted to me because he had some
concerns about this visitor. And at this point, I will defer to our colleague
here, who was twelve years in Hong Kong and can speak with authority.”

“Yang’s nephew
says he’s visiting for religious reasons,” said Reg. “In China, claiming
they’re on what they call ’God-pidgin’ is a way of telling others to mind their
own business. And in my experience, you have to be very careful when the
Chinese don’t speak plainly.”

“It doesn’t
ring true, does it?” said Arthur. “He’s coming all the way from Shanghai and
won’t tell his own uncle why. You don’t come ten thousand miles unless there's
money… but that’s not the worst of it. Tell him about this secret society.”

“I have a
few connections Shanghai way,” said Reg. “I cabled them, and it seems Yang is
affiliated with the Si Fan Society. It’s one of their more important secret
societies, and one with its long yellow fingers in a great many plum pies.” He
tapped his nose.

“A criminal
fraternity like the Triads?” I had read about the Chinese gangs in the
newspapers and in stories. They were famed for their cruelly creative ways of
torturing and killing their enemies, for revenge they exacted decades after the
event, and for their profound and devious cunning.

“Oh, no,”
said Reg hastily. “I'm not calling anybody a criminal, and I don't advise you
to, neither. That would be exceedingly tactless. But in China, they have an
extra way of doing things that runs alongside the official channels. The
government, or governments, are a mess. Official channels run
slowly—painfully ruddy slowly, to tell you the truth. But they have these
mutual-aid societies, like the Si Fan, with their own unofficial channels, and
then it all goes ‘
chop chop’ --
 
very quickly. They’re not really
criminal, mostly.”

“Reg is
being diplomatic,” said Arthur. “He’s too used to dealing with Chinese. You had
it about right with the Triads, Stubbsy, and that’s why Captain Hall is chary
of getting himself involved. Besides, I don’t need to tell you that Shanghai
means opium and a few other things besides.”

There have
been Chinese opium dens in the East End since the last century, or maybe
longer. They are only patronised by the Chinese and a few adventurous
bohemians. But there has been a fuss about Chinese gangs and white slavery in
the papers recently, and hackles have been raised. If you believe what you
hear, every Chinese laundry is a front for a crime syndicate bent on kidnapping
English girls and shipping them out to a life of debauchery in the Far East.

The East
End, like every such community, probably harboured a few Chinese gangsters who
preyed on their own. But genuine stories of white slavery were as rare as hens’
teeth. I couldn’t see the Triads setting up shop in South London with no
Asiatic population to work with. But Arthur made his living out of his talent
for seeing what others missed and making connections. If he thought there was
reason to be worried about the visitor, chances were his hunch was right.

“You just
keep an eye on Yang and see that he doesn't get into any trouble. I’ll pay you
the going rate, of course,” he said. “Mainly, though, I’m asking you to do it
as a favour to me.”