The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [68]
“That’s where things should have ended. We should have quietly bought our way into other schools, or vanished into military life, or simply retired to family businesses – there were many choices available. However, that night, as we gathered one last time in the Slaughtered Lamb, Dr Attenborough joined us. He was not consoling or apologetic. Rather, he was ebullient.
“He asked what we had learned as beggars – and we hadn’t learned a thing, really – but as he led us through the lesson (for that’s what it was to him), we could see that we had gone to the wrong section of the city, spoken to the wrong people, done all the wrong things. Beggars have their place in our society, as you know, and we had stepped outside their domain. That’s where we had gone wrong.
“As he had done in his lecture hall, he inspired us that night with his speech. He persuaded us that we should go out again – and this time he went with us.
“Dressed once more as beggars, we ventured into the sordid, dark places near the docks, where such as we had never dared go at night. Using the Roman system as a model, he showed us what we had done wrong – and how we could do it right.
“We listened at the right windows. We lurked outside sailors’ taverns and heard their coarse, drunken gossip. And suddenly we began to understand how the Secret Mendicant Society had worked so admirably well. Wine loosens men’s tongues, and much could be gleaned from attentive listening. For who pays attention to shabby beggars, even among the dregs of our society?
“There were a dozen ship’s captains who we could have turned in for smuggling, a handful of murders we could have solved, stolen cargoes that could have been recovered with just a word in the right ear at Scotland Yard.
“We did none of that. It was petty. But we were young and foolish, and Dr Attenborough did nothing but encourage us in our foolishness. Oh, he was a masterful speaker. He could convince you night was day and white was black, if he wanted to. And suddenly he wanted very much to have us working for him. We would be a new Secret Mendicant Society – or, as we chaps liked to call it, an Amateur Mendicant Society. Dabbling, yes, that was a gentleman’s way. It was a game to us. As long as we pretended it was a schoolyard lark, it wasn’t really a dirty deal.
“I regret to say I took full part in the Amateur Mendicant Society’s spying over the following six months. I learned the truth from dishonest men, turned the information over to Dr Attenborough, and he pursued matters from there. What, exactly, he did with the information I can only guess – extortion, blackmail, possibly even worse. However, I do know that suddenly he had a lot of money, and he paid us handsomely for our work. He bought an abandoned warehouse and had a posh gentleman’s club outfitted in the basement – though, of course, there were no servants, nobody who could break our secret circle. Later he leased the warehouse out for furniture storage.
“I was not the first to break the circle. Dickie Clarke was. He told me one evening that he had enlisted in the army. His father had used his influence to get him a commission, and he was off to India. ‘I’m through with soiling my hands with this nonsense,’ he told me. ‘I’ve had enough. Come with me, Oliver. It’s not too late.’ I was shocked, and I refused – to my lasting shame.
“When Attenborough found out, he had an absolute fit – he threw things, screamed obscenities, smashed a whole set of dishes against the wall. Then and there I realized I had made a mistake. I had made a pact with a madman. I had to escape.
“The next day I too enlisted. I’ve been away for nineteen years – I never came back, not even on leave, for fear of what Dr Attenborough might do if he found out. He was that violent.
“I had stayed in touch with Dickie Clarke all through his campaigns and my