Free The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan by Ben Stevens

forgotten?’ Plummer was heard to say, as the loud altercation quickly attracted attention and thus brought men hurrying over.
    ‘Well – what do you intend to do about it, anyway?’ returned Figg, a sneer upon his hard face.
    ‘Thrash the hide off you – that’ll do, for a start!’ exclaimed Plummer, with an oath which does not bear repeating.               
    ‘I’d like to see you try,’ returned Figg, still wearing that sneer.
    It is here that I should explain the reason for Figg’s rather crude nickname – although many may be familiar with it already. It related, quite simply, to his ‘talent’ (for want of a better word) for bare-knuckle boxing. Throughout the course of his long career as both a sailor and trader, he had fought any number of men of various nationalities bare-knuckle and, it is claimed, had always emerged from such matches the victor. From his defeated foreign opponents, then, had come his hard-earned but well-deserved nickname. 
    Indeed, it would have been hard to conceive of a more splendid example of masculinity than this ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’. His black, slightly graying hair was cropped short, and he had a large moustache above thin lips and a perfectly square chin. His eyes were close-set and narrow, and contained a definite challenge to any man who dared ‘try’ him.
    His hands were possibly the largest pair I’ve ever seen on a man, with thick veins and huge knuckles like knots in a ship’s ropes. I have some knowledge of the pugilistic arts, and have fought a number of bare-knuckle matches myself. Yet, I fully concede, I would have lasted barely seconds against the Brawler.
    And as for the man who seemed certain to become his latest opponent – this James Plummer? It’s a little curious, but only now do I remark upon the fact that Plummer and Figg actually shared a similar accent. That is, one which you might expect to hear around the English county of Devonshire.
    Otherwise, while still a tough-looking individual, with a sailor’s skin burnt brown by the sun and a broad, swarthy-looking face, I doubted that Plummer would fare any better against Figg than I would have done myself.
    Still, while Figg retained that arrogant sneer, Plummer’s face was suffused with hatred, his hands bunched into fists at his side. Clearly, whatever self-control he’d been exercising these past few months (whatever had previously prevented him from launching himself at Figg, due to this mysterious grievance there undoubtedly was between them) had exhausted itself.
    Captain Spillard now appeared, accompanied by Holmes and his doctor friend. Captain Spillard sized up the situation with a glance and then calmly walked over to the two men.
    ‘If you wish to fight, then you will do so in a gentlemanly fashion,’ he declared. ‘I’ll stand for no foul play.’
    I saw that some of the other men watching were surprised by the captain’s words; but not I. The Captain was a remarkably intelligent man, capable of ‘reading’ both an individual and a situation at a glance. He knew that this affair between Plummer and Figg needed to be resolved immediately, and in a manner which many an Englishman finds the simplest, and most effective.
    ‘There’ll be no scratching, biting, gouging or anything of that kind,’ continued Captain Spillard, whose broken nose spoke of the fact that he’d often boxed as a younger man. ‘No hitting a man when he’s down, and no showing the toe.’
    This last utterance caused both Plummer and Figg to look at him in some confusion, and I to give a slight smile. Like Captain Spillard a Lancastrian man, born and bred, I knew that ‘showing the toe’ meant kicking; something strictly anathema in the world of bare-knuckle, of course.
    Once they’d realized the meaning of this last phrase, Plummer and Figg nodded, and faced off. They were both wearing the usual attire of white shirts, trousers and black shoes. The white shirts they removed, so that