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THE BATTLE IN THE "CLUB" · The Jailer of Souls

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  Chapter nine of The Jailuer of Souls by Hamilton Craigie. This liveryvox recording is
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  in the public domain. Read by yoganand The Jailer of Souls, Chapter nine,
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  the battle in the Club. The time was nearly ripe, the clue
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  of those newspaper items the canceled checked the somewhat repellent evidence of the battered piece
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  of goldwork picked up in the corridor of the mansion house. Anister had been
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  able to put two and two together to find some as strange as odd,
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  say as five or seven or even one. But that name that had trembled
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  on the lips of Rook's secretary remained a secret. With it, Anister was
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  convinced he would be able to pull those threads together with a single jerk to
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  find them. One. He had had news from Harvey, the dentist had
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  identified the insane man a suespatient by means of his chart. But with that
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  face, the man could not be banker axeworthy. It simply could not be,
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  And yet he was. It was something of a riddle, and more
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  even than that, for the thing savored of supernatural or necromancy, of a
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  black art that might say, have had for its practitioner a certain personage with
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  the eyes of a damned soul and a black, forking beard curled like Mephisto's.
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  Anester thought that it might further the conductor of that train had been able
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  to describe somewhat in detail the man who had jostled the derelict and his companion.
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  The man had been a stranger to the conductor. He had been tall
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  and thin, with a small sandy mustache and a high, arched, broken
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  nose, and he had been wearing the conventional stetson. The fellow might have
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  been disguised, of course, but if Anister could find the black bearded man
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  discovers identity, he was reasonably certain that he would not draw blank. It
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  was no certainty, of course, but it was worth the risk, he
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  told himself. It'll be a desperate hazard that he was about to face,
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  he knew, thinking of his father, together with the remembrance of that unholy
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  and unspeakable horror that he had witnessed, Born of the stinking shadows of the
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  dark street in a city foul and old, its people, furtive worshippers of
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  strange gods, Anister felt again the crawling chill which had assailed him with the
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  passing of the tall man with the eyes of death, with anister to decide
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  was to act. Despatching a brief telegram in court to a certain office and
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  a certain building in Washington, he went now to keep his wrong. They
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  were Withroke and the rest. It was yet early scarce, eight in the
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  evening, and the street was full of life and movement before him and behind,
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  and before him and behind. As he went onward, he was conscious
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  that those who walked there walked with him straight for stride. They kept their
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  distance, moving without speech. As he turned the corner of the dusty street.
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  If he had had any doubt about it, the doubt became certainty,
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  as willing sharply to the left, they kept him company now still with the
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  grim, daunting silence. A body guardian indeed, but a bodyguard that held
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  him prisoner as certainly as if the manacles were on his wrists. It was
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  not yet dark, but with the rising wind that had come, a sky
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  overcast and lowering low down upon the horizon's rim to the eastward, the violet
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  place of the lightning came and went with after a little the heavy salvos of
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  thunder, like the marching of an armed host. But Anister, his gaze
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  set straight ahead, turned inward at the entrance to the saddler shop, mounting
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  the stairs, as behind him he heard the heavy door slam shut. Perhaps
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  it had been the wind. But as Anister went upward, he heard,
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  just beyond that door the murmur of voices. They reached him in a sing
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  song, mutter against the rising of the wind, in a quick, growling
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  chorus. There had been something in that snarling speech to dawn, to man
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  less brave than the man on that narrow stair. But Anister went upward lightly
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  now to meet water. Were waited behind the door, set with its narrow
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  panel that he could see merely as a dark s much of shadow on the
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  encircling gloom. He rapped twice, and the door fell open, silently,
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  disclosing the long room in which, as he remembered, he had sat but
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  a few nights in the past to listen as a lawyer and his crowd had
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  waited for the man called Bull. The room was sprightly lighted. At a
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  long table midway between door and windows, five men were seated alone, his
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  fat faced, gray with a sort of eager Pallor was chewing nervously at an
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  unlighted cigar. He glanced up now at Annister's entrance, turning to a big
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  man on his right at the head of the table. His wailed glance like
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  the stair of a falcon sat rooke. But it was upon the big man
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  next to Lund that Anister's glance rested with an abrupt interest, as a lawyer
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  spoke. Welcome to a city, mister Anistor, he said, in a
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  voice that reminded Anister of molasses tripping from a barrel. I want you to
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  meet mister Bull Allison. He's been right anxious to meet you, haven't you,
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  Bull? Annestor, in the passage of an eye flash understood this was
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  a man whom he had encountered in the vestibule of the smoker, And of
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  a sudden memory rose up out of the past, and with it a picture
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  a parrot ring under twin blazing ox, the thudd and shuffle of sliding feet,
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  a man, huge, brutish, broad fist like stone molts. Yet
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  for all it spulk a very cat for quickness prue, Sir Ellison. They
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  had called him then, a heavyweight whose very brute strength had kept him from
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  the championship. That and a certain easy good nature which was not apparent now
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  in the bleak staring of the eyes turned now upon Anister remorseless under lowered brose.
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  Now, as if at a signal, the men about the table rose.
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  The table was hauled backward to the wall, leaving a wide sanded space
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  under the lights. And then even as Rooke spoke, Anister abruptly understood this
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  gang of thieves as he knew now plunder limited, as clear ridgely had called
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  them. Aster knew them now under the leadership of Rooke, for an out
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  which would stop short of nothing to attain its ends. His eyes rowing the
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  long room up and down, searched now for that dark face with its black
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  foking beard, but he was not really expecting to see it, but that
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  if Rouke was the actual leader, black Beard was a man higher up.
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  Anister was somehow convinced they had failed with Vesterveld and his segundo. Now,
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  as a man called Bull came forward across the floor, Rooke spoke, Allison
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  hasn't forgotten his meeting with you, Anister. He says, you played him
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  a dirty trick, hit him when he wasn't looking that right, bull,
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  he asked, with a certain sly malice directed at the giant with the cauliflower.
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  Yea, And now Rooke's burring tones continued. He wants satisfaction. He'll
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  get it, won't you, mister anist. For a moment, as Anistor's
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  eyes bore into his, the lawyer's face showed like an animal's in a rembrandous
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  shading of high light and shadow. Beneath the lights stripped of its mask,
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  it was like the face of a devil. Now the mouth grinned, but
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  without mirth, the lips drawn backward from the teeth in a soundless snarl.
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  He laughed suddenly, and there was nothing human in it. As Anister,
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  his back to the walls, smiled grimly. Now in answer, he had
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  been somewhat less than discreet, he reflected, Rogue's purpose had shone in his
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  eyes. He Anesta had walked into a trap from which this time there could
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  be no escape. He had meant to beard them to their faces, ring
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  from Roke on admission as to his father, perhaps more then showed to sway
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  out if need be. But now he would have to fight this giant,
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  a ring veteran of a hundred battles with bare fists, surrounded by an encircling
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  hostile cornon, who, if by any chance he might prove the victor,
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  would see to it that he paid for that victory with his life. Aniston
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  knew that it was on the carts that Rooke, for instance, would shoot
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  him down as remorstlessly as a man would squeeze a musquitoey out of life between
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  thumb and finger. But it was the lawyer's humor doubtless to see him manhandled,
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  perhaps killed, beneath the drumming impact of those iron fists. Calmly,
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  he removed his coat, bestowing his automatic in the pocket of his trousers.
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  He did it openly, turning to face Ellison, who stripped to an athletic
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  undershirt and trousers, regarded Anister with a grinning assurance. He was big,
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  perhaps twenty pounds heavier than Anister, with white shoulders and a deep arching chest.
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  With his forward thrusting jaw and bullet head with its stiff fell of pigs
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  bristles, the long arms like a gorrilass he towered over his antagonist like a
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  cave bear, a grisly waiting for the kill, and like a cave bear.
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  At Rooke's snarling call of time, he was upon the lesser man like
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  a thunderbolt, fists going like flails. Anister, in his day and generation,
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  had absorbed the signs of hit, stop and get away under masters of
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  the art, who pronounced him as an amateur, the equal of many a
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  professional performer of this squiet circle. He was lean and hard, whereas Ellison's
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  waist lanes showed under the thin shirt in folds of fat. If the onlookers
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  expected to see Anister annihilated by that first furious rush, they were mistaken.
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  Crouching lightly on the balls of his sweet he drove forward a lightning straight left,
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  full on the point. Allison, coming in, took it grunting.
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  The blow had traveled a scan six inches, but there had been power in
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  it. It set him back upon his heels, from which as he rose
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  raging, he drove in with the ripping one two punch, which partly blocked
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  by the antagonist, yet crashing through the latticed guard, landed high upon his
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  cheek bone with a spanking thud. It had been a grazing blow, otherwise
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  the fight might have ended then and there. Anister, backing nimbly before the
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  giant's rush, realized that he must avoid a clinch. At infighting, the
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  giant would have the edge. Those mast like arms and massive shoulders, the
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  huge bulk they were at close quarters with the drumming impact of the great fist,
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  have spelled a quick ending. With the sheer slugging power of the attack,
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  he heard Rooke snoll as side stepping like a sliding ghost. He countered
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  with a long curving left. So far he had been holding his own.
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  If he could keep the giant at his distance, he might wear him out,
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  For this was not a fight by rounds. A professional pugilist fighting in
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  the pink would have had bellows to mend at the end say, of five
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  minutes of a given tick and counter moving at high speed, circling, fainting,
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  tucking, Minister kept that long left in his adversary's face, forcing the
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  pace, yet keeping out of Harm's waist, save for an overhand swing which,
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  landing high up upon his cheekbone, turned him half round, with the
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  impact throwing him off balance to a slumping fall. Up like a flash.
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  However, he duck torched, evading those mighty arms that strove desperately to reach
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  him through that impenetrable god. A fight with four ounce gloves can be a
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  bloody affair enough, but with nature's weapons under London Price Ring rules, it
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  can be a shambles. Armed with the sisters or the mailed fist, Allison
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  might have wreaked havoc as a gladiator of old Rome, punished his adversary to
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  the death. As it was Anister, his face a bloody mask where that
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  socking punch had landed gave Rooke and his supporter's heart of grace taking bull.
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  The screaming advice was in high voice of lun The others echoed it. But
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  if Anister was in desperate case. The giant, sobbing now with the fury
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  of his spent strength, was weaving on his feet, legs like iron columns
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  uppore that mighty strength. But a pile driving right behind it, the full
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  weight of Anister's two hundred pounds of iron hard muscle, sinking with an audible
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  PLoP in his adversary's midriff, brought from the giant a quick gasping grunt.
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  Allison's endurance was almost done. He could take it, but hawk fared from
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  protracted period of easy living professional fighter as he had been. This amateur,
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  with the arching chest of a greyhound and the stamina of a lucy bee of
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  the long trail, was swearing him down, trading punch for punch. Now
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  Anister abruptly cut loose with pile, driving right and lefts. They walled in
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  from every angle. There was a cold grin on his lips now as he
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  went round the giant like a cooper round a barrel, bombarding him with beveldering
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  crossfire of hooks and swings, chaps and uppercuts. Anister, at the beginning
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  of the fight had expected the usual tricks of the professional, holding in the
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  clinches, butting the elbow, the heel of the hand against the face.
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  But Allison had fought fair Now as a giant, boring in against that relentless
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  attack, faltered mouth open, labored breadth sucked inward through clenched teeth, Anister
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  stepped backward, hands dropping at his sides. Allison almost out stood, weaving
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  on his feet, fronting his adversity, a queer look of surprise in his
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  face, and a something more. Anister, strangely enough, as has been
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  mentioned, had, in spite of his encounter with Allison and the smoker conceived
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  something for the man that had been close to liking, somehow rough as a
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  man was crooked by all the signs, the tool of Rooke and of his
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  minions. He had the blue eye of a fighter, the straight, level
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  look of a man who, though an enemy, would yet fight fair.
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  Anester breathing, heavily thrust out his hand a draw. Huh, he said,
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  Well, suppose we let it go out that. For a moment,
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  Allison appeared to hesitate. There came again the queer look in his eyes,
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  as of surprise, wonder, and as something more. There came a grating
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  curse from Lund, a sudden movement from the onlooker's rounder bout Allison's great paw
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  closed on the extended hand with a grip of iron, as Rouke's voice rose
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  strident under the lights. Bull, are you crazy? This man? He's
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  just a damned dick. The end of chapter nine