Smithfield, with its twice-weekly sheep and cattle market, was near by, as were numerous fat-boilers, tripe-scrapers, dog-skinners and underground slaughterhouses, all contributing to the rank unpleasantness of the air. Rain lashed the cobblestones outside the Red Lion Inn, and women in flounced crinoline skirts tried in vain to lift their hems up out of the mud. Inside, drove-boys rubbed shoulders with butchers, market inspectors and animal traders, and everywhere you looked there were people, heads glistening under the flare of gas-lamps. The Red Lion was a veritable rabbit warren, which was perhaps why Egan had chosen it as a meeting place. In one nook, a fiddle-player was cutting loose while drunken revellers cavorted with one another, their arms linked as they moved in dizzying circles. In another, dead-eyed men were playing cards, winning - and more often losing - a week’s wages on the turn of a single card. The walls and ceilings were as black as tar, stained by pipe tobacco and cheap tallow, while the wooden floors were covered with clumps of wet butcher’s sawdust and discarded oyster shells.
