A Dangerous Fortune - Ken Follett [32]
The dog kept turning around in dizzying circles and caught rat after rat, killing them all; but there were always more behind him. Half the rats were dead when he began to tire. The people who had bet on thirty-six, and got long odds, now tore up their slips; but those who had bet on lower numbers cheered louder.
The dog was bleeding from twenty or thirty bites, and the ground became slippery with his blood and the moist corpses of the dead rats. Still he swung his great head; still he cracked their brittle spines in his terrible mouth; but he moved a little less quickly, and his feet were not so sure on the slimy earth. Now, Micky thought, it starts to get interesting.
Sensing the dog’s fatigue, the rats became bolder. When he had one in his jaws, another would spring for his throat. They ran between his legs and under his belly and leaped at the soft parts of his hide. One particularly big creature dug its teeth into his hind leg and refused to let go. He turned to snap at it but another rat distracted him by leaping on his snout. Then the leg seemed to give way—the rat must have severed a tendon, Micky thought—and suddenly the dog was limping.
He was much slower to turn now. As if they knew that, the dozen or so remaining rats all attacked his rear end. Wearily he snapped them up in his jaws; wearily he broke their backs; wearily he dropped them on the bloody ground. But his underside was raw flesh, and he could not hold out much longer. Micky thought he might have bet wisely, and there would be six rats left when the dog died.
Then the dog gained a sudden access of energy. Spinning around on three legs he killed another four rats in as many seconds. But it was his last gasp. He dropped a rat and then his legs buckled under him. Once more he turned his head to snap at the creatures, but this time he caught none, and his head drooped.
The rats began to feed.
Micky counted: there were six left.
He looked at his companions. Hugh looked ill. Edward said to him: “A bit strong for your stomach, eh?”
“The dog and the rats are simply behaving as nature intended,” Hugh said. “It’s the humans who disgust me.”
Edward grunted and went to buy more drinks.
April’s eyes were sparkling as she looked up at Tonio, a man—she thought—who could afford to lose ten guineas in a bet. Micky looked more closely at Tonio and saw in his face a hint of panic. I don’t believe he can afford to lose ten guineas, Micky thought.
Micky collected his winnings from the bookmaker: five shillings. He had made a profit on the evening already. But he had a feeling that what he had learned about Tonio could in the end be worth a great deal more.
4
IT WAS MICKY who had most disgusted Hugh. Throughout the contest, Micky had been laughing hysterically. At first Hugh could not think why that laughter sounded so chillingly familiar. Then he remembered Micky’s laughing just the same way when Edward threw Peter Middleton’s clothes into the swimming hole. It was an unpleasant reminder of a grim memory.
Edward came back with the drinks and said: “Let’s go to Nellie’s.”
They swallowed their tots of brandy and went out. In the street, Tonio and April took their leave and slipped into a building that looked like a cheap hotel. Hugh presumed they were going to take a room for an hour, or perhaps for the night. He wondered whether to go on with Edward and Micky. He was not having a very good time, but he was curious to know what went on at Nellie’s. He had decided to try debauchery, so he probably ought to see the evening out, not quit halfway, he thought in the end.
Nellie’s was in Princes Street, off Leicester Square. There were two uniformed commissionaires at the door. As the three young men arrived, the commissionaires were turning away a middle-aged man in a bowler hat. “Evening dress only,” said one of the commissionaires over the man’s protests.
They seemed to know Edward and Micky, for one touched his hat and the other opened the door. They went down a long passage to another door. They were inspected through a peephole, and then the door