He turned off Windmill Street into a narrow alley. The eyes of cats blinked at him from piles of refuse. Checking that the others were in tow, he entered a dingy pub, walked through the bar and out of the back door, crossed a yard where a prostitute was kneeling in front of a client in the moonlight, and opened the door of a ramshackle wooden building like a stable.
A dirty-faced man in a long, greasy coat demanded fourpence as the price of admission. Edward paid and they went in.
The place was brightly lit and full of tobacco smoke, and there was a foul smell of blood and excrement. Forty or fifty men and a few women stood around a circular pit. The men were of all classes, some in the heavy wool suits and spotted neckerchiefs of well-off workers, others in frock coats or evening dress; but the women were all more or less disreputable types like April. Several of the men had dogs with them, carried in their arms or tied to chair legs.
Micky pointed out a bearded man in a tweed cap who held a muzzled dog on a heavy chain. Some of the spectators were examining the dog closely. It was a squat, muscular animal with a big head and a powerful jaw, and it looked angry and restless. "He'll be on next," Micky said.
Edward went off to buy drinks from a woman with a tray. Micky turned to Tonio and addressed him in Spanish. It was bad form to do this in front of Hugh and April, who could not understand; but Hugh was a nobody and April was even less, so it hardly mattered. "What are you doing these days?" he asked.
"I'm an attache to the Cordovan Minister in London," Tonio replied.
"Really?" Micky was intrigued. Most South American countries saw no point in having an ambassador in London, but Cordova had had an envoy for ten years. No doubt Tonio had got the post of attache because his family, the Silvas, were well connected in the Cordovan capital, Palma. By contrast Micky's Papa was a provincial baron and had no such strings to pull. "What do you have to do?"
"I answer letters from British firms that want to do business in Cordova. They ask about the climate, the currency, internal transport, hotels, all kinds of things."
"Do you work all day?"
"Not often." Tonio lowered his voice. "Don't tell a soul, but I have to write only two or three letters most days."
"Do they pay you?" Many diplomats were men of independent means who worked for nothing.
