A Dandy In Disguise by Meredith Bond

Author:Meredith Bond
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

FUNGY resisted the urge to take out his handkerchief and press it to his nose. The combined smell of liquor, smoke, and nervous men was almost too much. But he had to be here. He really did not have any choice in the matter. He supposed that this is what it smelled like to work.

This was the smell of responsibility.

It wasn’t that Fungy had never been in a gambling hell before. It was simply that he had no love of gambling, outside of the occasional rubber of whist with his friends, much preferring the overly perfumed smell of a ballroom to this.

But Lord Halsbury was expecting a preliminary report tomorrow morning on his investigation into this gambling scheme, and so far, Fungy had nothing to tell him.

Hopefully something would turn up tonight, in this foul–smelling place.

The problem was that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. There was nothing much one could discern from just watching others play. And yet, what else could he do?

Fungy sighed, once again casting his keen eyes over the proceedings. Well, one thing was for certain, gentlemen who came to gaming hells did not take as much time over their toilettes as they should. He counted at least six horrendously tied neck cloths. And there were at least seven or eight gentlemen who had worn waistcoats that did not match either their coats or their pantaloons. There were even a few gentlemen in breeches!

Fungy forced himself to stop looking at the men’s clothing and concentrate instead on the games they were playing. Who was losing to whom? There had to be some telltale sign that would point toward someone who was cheating.

He moved slowly around the room of the gambling hell, where the sound of coins clinking together intermingled with the men’s voices.

Pausing for a few minutes at one table to watch a card game, he caught the eye of a woman of evidently dubious morals. She rubbed herself suggestively against the back of the man sitting directly in front of her, but her eyes were on Fungy.

He quickly broke his gaze and moved on, avoiding that table.

Thinking back to the letter Lord Halsbury had shown him, he tried to remember some of the names listed there. Were any of those people here tonight?

He caught sight of Jack Abbey, the Duke of Hawksmore’s cousin and heir. His name had been on the list. And sitting at another table not far away was George Cole, Lord Chester’s youngest son. His name had been there, too. There was no way that Fungy could watch both men. Randomly, he picked Abbey.

Abbey was playing with Pip Haston, his cousin Hawksmore and Charles Bradmore. All three men were well known to Fungy, and he could not imagine any one of them leading a gambling ring. But then he remembered the initials at the bottom of the letter—P.H.

Hawksmore? No, his given name was Dominic.

Pip Haston?

Fungy began to watch the game more intently, moving around to stand near enough to Haston so that he could see if he was doing anything unusual.

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