Vanishing Girl by Shane Peacock

Author:Shane Peacock
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781770490819
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2009-05-07T15:00:00+00:00

Just a fortnight past, the old man had held forth on the subject. He and his apprentice were in the tight confines of the laboratory (trying not to smash too many vials and bottles), stripped to the waist, perspiring, and wearing mufflers on their hands – those over-sized, stuffed leather gloves worn by pugilists when training in clubs and gymnasia. Real, skin-and-bone fists are used in actual matches, and Bell had seen many of those, had been asked to be present numerous times: to help revive an array of famed members of the fighting fancy who had been pummeled nearly to death. He had once stood within a few yards of the legendary little gamecock Tom Sayers during his thirty-seven round battle for the bare-knuckle heavyweight championship of the world upon Farnborough Field, when the scrappy Brit was matched against the big American, John C. Heenan. In the twenty-ninth round, the Yankee’s blood had even splashed across the apothecary’s shirt, giving the appearance that he had been sliced with a rapier.

Sherlock wore his dark trousers that day in the lab, Bell a pair of pugilist’s tights with Sayers’ colors wrapped around his waist. The old man’s leggings, unfortunately, displayed every nuance, even the hairs, of his scrawny legs. But despite being hunched over in his question-mark shape and the flesh on his chest hanging from him like the udders of a cow, he was lightning-quick and supremely skilled, showing great power and never once letting up on Sherlock. “It is all technique!” he bellowed. Fisticuffs was a truly manly art and he intended to teach the boy to do it right, so he would fear no foe.

Bell puffed as he instructed, punctuating his thoughts with strikes.

“One must turn one’s hips when mixing, my boy. This will allow you to deliver your blow with tremendous force. The destination of the strike is equally important. There are certain points upon the jaw, the chin really, where, if a cross, left hook, or jab is landed, the brain shall be immediately concussed. Let me show you.”

Sherlock instantly put up his dukes in a defensive posture and stopped him. The apothecary had knocked him unconscious once before. Poor old Bell had labored for an hour bringing the boy around, and then spent the following week apologizing to him … every time he rose in the morning, when he came in at night, and several times during meals. So, Sherlock peeked between his guard and directed Bell to a skeleton.

“Quite right, my son,” said the old man with a grin, “I shan’t strike you in that manner again.” Then he shattered the skull in a hundred pieces. Sherlock made a mental note to visit Bell’s favorite grave-robber and request another specimen.

“I recall Sayers vanquishing The Tipton Slasher, as brutal a member of the fancy as England has ever seen and almost as large as Heenan. It is not the hound in the fight that matters, but the fight in the hound! Technique, my boy! Thin

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