by L. J. Oliver
“A playground for those with money to burn,” said Dickens, as we watched gentlemen shake hands with ruffians as if they were peers. “Behold, Scrooge, the Royal Quarter. From the stories I’ve heard over the years, this is where you’ll find London’s most depraved pleasure ‘palaces,’ each indulging in a different order of expensive sin and debauchery. The finest of opium dens. The greatest underground fight clubs and whorehouses. Each palace named after a current or past member of the royal family . . . and, yet, who knows what suffering lies at their foundations.”
“It’s business, Dickens,” I mumbled. “London is a city of speculators, obsessed with gambling and risk. And money.”
“Quite,” said Dickens as he lit up a cigarette. The smoke swirled through the air and melted into the settling smog. “Not the business of humanity. This, sir, is the devil’s own playground. Ask anyone if you don’t believe me. . . .”
We drifted from doorway to doorway, where wretched men—dressed in fine suits, scarves, and hats—grinned to reveal missing teeth and rotting sores. They brandished walking sticks like swords.
“Peppercorn Jack they calls me,” said the nearest, his breath quite possibly combustible. “Hazard a guess why? Don’t strain your brain, I’ll inform you presently. I’m the gent you call when you needs to spice things up!”
A man wearing the costume of an Indian swami vied for our attention. “You have a weighty aspect, my friend. A cloak of many worries, invisible to the eye, but not to mine, has been fitted upon your shoulders. Feel its weight? I can grant you blessed sleep—and such dreams! Elysium. Nirvana. Paradise. One pipe at a time.”
A little man wearing a coat of many colors hopped before us. “Ignore him! I can see you go a poppin’, that’s what I can do. Robin Roundabout, that’s me. Oh the world poppin’ with beautiful color. Bouncin’ and flouncin’—”
I broke free of the lot while Dickens smirked. Another man peeled from the darkness of an alley. A young dandy. “No, no, no, sir. You have the bearing of one for whom only the best might do. Welcome to my emporium of exotic delights. Convention? Rules? Ridiculous! Cruel delight? I say nay! I have in my basement a child with child who is longing for your kisses.”
“You disgust me!” I snarled.
The dandy took my words in stride. “I make no one do anything against their will. My girls are pampered princesses. A virgin, perhaps? Rare, but if you have the coin . . . ?”
We rushed ahead. Behind us he called, “I have twins! Triplets! Triplets!”
We hurried along a less-traveled street, avoiding more Haymaker Hectors, though I sensed such pimps were within reach throughout this hellish place.
Smithson resided somewhere in the Quarter, according to Dickens’ “contacts.” It made sense. A man of few or no morals would find the district a business bonanza, so no doubt he conducted his own dark undertakings from the depths of one of these palaces. There he could keep close watch on his enterprises and earnings. But how would we find the man? Where would we begin?
I spotted a young boy lurking within the shadows some way before us, crouching down behind an up-turned barrel. He stole furtive glances at a gaggle of prostitutes laughing together outside one of the palace doors. His clothes were torn and filthy, the brown cap covering his head was a few sizes too big and kept slipping down over his eyes. He’d be in want of money, there was no doubt.
“You there, boy,” I called. The boy looked up, startled, and caught my eye. His face was still bathed in shadow, and I could not make out his expression, but I guessed it was one of greed. “For a farthing, I have the name of a man: I need his location.”
The boy half-stood, then froze, his brown cap sliding farther down his face.
“Well?” I pressed. “What of it? Have we a deal?” I reached my hand out to shake his, and took a couple of steps towards him, when suddenly he bolted. Weaving in and out of the heaving bodies of adulterers and gamblers, the boy vanished.
“They fright so easily,” I noted.
“Even I myself find utterly petrifying your view on what can be considered a reasonable payment to a starving street urchin, Scrooge.”
“If I were not so indebted to your damned charitable organizations, Dickens, I would have offered him a penny,” I answered. “Put yourself to use and find Smithson.”
Then Dickens nudged me and nodded towards the gilded warehouse door of one of the palaces. A man of oriental appearance, his silken black hair gleaming and reaching down beyond an impossibly tall top hat, approached the door with a woman on his arm.
“Shen Kai-Rui,” I mumbled.
Dickens nodded, and added, “See the girl?”
I stared, incredulous. It was Nellie Pearl, the actress!
Shen knocked sharply at the door with the brass head of his cane, before turning to Nellie. Some soundless communication passed between the two before they grabbed each other and kissed with full abandon, hands fumbling in deep, dark places. The door opened and Shen presented his hand, the ring finger adorned with the very same type of heavy gold and ruby ring that I had seen on Fezziwig’s corpse. Just as they entered, Nellie turned her face out towards the square, scanning the crowd. I frowned.
“See the scar running from her upper lip to her left cheek?” I asked Dickens.
“Nellie Pearl has no such scar,” he said.
The woman—so like Nellie she could have been her twin—vanished into the building with Shen Kai-Rui. An impersonator? How odd. Yet she carried herself in the same distinctive way as Nellie did and wore a burgundy gown with gold partridge pin identical to the one Nellie usually wore in public. Even the imposter’s hair, tumbling from a holly-appointed hat, was impeccably styled to resemble Nellie’s lovely ringlets.
“What connection can there be between the Chinaman and this Smithson?” I asked Dickens. “This is Smithson’s dominion, after all.”
“Potentially thousands,” he answered, dropping his cigarette to the ground and grinding it into the slush with the sole of his boot. “Or maybe he just prefers whores. There’s a crowd of boys who might have a story to tell; let’s start there. This time offer them more than a farthing.”
They looked like rats and crows, plotting together, suspicious. Some were sitting on ledges of windows, others hunched over the slimy cobbles throwing hand-made dice. As we approached, the oldest of the boys, yet no older than fourteen, saw us and immediately stood up, squaring his shoulders and spinning a chain in his hand. He was followed by five or six others, while the rest maintained their positions, scowling.
We froze, but they continued to move towards us until they were flanking us like a pack of dogs. The clanking of the leader’s chains sent ghostly shivers through me. One of the smaller boys behind him produced a short knife and began stabbing at the dirt. The fact that Dickens still hadn’t lit up another cigarette betrayed that he too felt some nervousness.
“Lost, gentlemen?” asked the boy, his snub nose twisted in a mocking sneer. “Cor, what a jolly fine scarf you’re wearing, sir. Silk, is it?” His own tatty top hat was resting on his head so lightly that I got the sense that if he had lurched forward to thrash me with the chain, the hat would not have joined him.
“Looking for Smithson,” I said. “I’ll make it worth your time.”
The moment I mentioned Smithson’s name the young scavengers and predators exchanged wary looks.
“And what is it you wanna know about Mr. Smifson, sir?” asked the lad in the top hat.
Dickens brushed by me, subtlety signaling me to let him do the talking. “We’ve been told he’s the man to see if you want one of those pretty rings . . . and the delights that come with them.”
A greedy grin etched itself upon the lad’s grubby face. “ ’Ow do we know you ain’t the filth?”
“Because we have money to spend tonight,” I said. “And much more where that came from. You have a sense of that, I’m sure, as you haven’t tried to part us from our gold. A long-term investment is how you’re seeing us. Tell me
if I’m wrong.”
“Well, why didn’t you say?” The leader laughed. “Always keen to aid a ’spectable gentleman, so we are! The name’s Mr. Dawkins, but my chaps here call me the Artful Dodger, on account of my bein’ an artist, you see.”
The boys all laughed.
“And as you see, sir,” the Artful Dodger continued. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m one of the very finest of Englishmen, just the very sort of business acquaintance you’re looking for. Let me show you around. Come on, come on, don’t dally!”
He and his mates suddenly transformed into cheery tour guides. The boy beamed and tucked his chain in his back pocket, the smaller boys towards the back hopped up and surged forward, all keen to get a look at us and to ask for change.
“Now just so you know,” said the Dodger, “Mr. Smifson, then, he ain’t no social butterfly. More like a spider in his web.”
“Yeah, you see him, it’s ’cause you’re not long for this world,” added one of his boys.
“Tell you what, let’s find out what’s your fancy, then we might set you up wiv a prince or a duke of the ’ouse. Cor, you might even get to see a king. But Smifson—”
“Why should we trust that you know anything?” Dickens asked.
Taking that as a challenge, the lads took turns introducing us to the various vice pits in the quarter, each in exchange for their own farthing until I felt, with grudging annoyance, my purse becoming quite light.
Hopping from building to building, climbing drainpipes, and scaling slatted roofs, they pointed out the gin houses, the opium dens, whorehouses, and fight pits. I could hear the scratching of Dickens’ pen as we hurried along underneath them, struggling to keep up.
“This ’ere palace,” said Dodger, pointing at a building as we passed, “is known as The Eighth, on account of Henry, of course, with all his wives. Eat like a proper fat man in there, you can, succulent foods they say, no ‘bags o’ mystery’ sausages here, no sir! And all the bare-breasted maids you can fink of! And this one we call De Quincey’s on account of a certain tome he wrote, you see, literary gentlemen as you surely are . . .”
“Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” Dickens supplied.
“Right you are, guv!” Dodger knocked twice on a side door attached to the wooden building. Just as he reached for the handle, it swung open.
“Humperdink!” I exclaimed.
The fat constable stood at the doorway, gaping. His face was red, his eyes glassy.
“Just making inquiries, Mr. Scrooge,” he offered, glancing between me and Dickens with a terrified look. “Better be on me way, nothing to report.” He waddled off in haste, glancing back once before he vanished round a corner.
Then a plump maid in her fifties appeared in the doorway, saw Dodger, and beamed.
“I’ve saved you some scones, Dodger!” She pulled a small bundle out of her apron pocket, something warm that smelled of Christmas spices was wrapped in a napkin.
“Not right now, Princess!” exclaimed Dodger, pushing past the maid and beckoning us to follow. Dickens and I both squeezed past her, nodding politely as we brushed against her bosom. “I’m takin’ these gentlemen to see the Lycia!”
“Ooh, Dodger, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” urged the maid, scurrying along behind us as Dodger, Dickens, the boys, and I moved into a large, open room veiled behind a fog of sweet-smelling smoke. “I don’t think Fagin—”
“Never mind Fagin, Princess, never you mind nuffin’!” sang Dodger happily. “You jus’ leave business to us businessmen. These gentlemen are lookin’ for the very best!”
The room was dark, with oil lamps veiled by colored shades casting ghostly shapes on the walls. Large oak beds were lined against the walls, their pale-faced occupants lying about each other on their sides. They limply sucked on tubes while exhaling thick rolls of smoke, muttering unintelligible imaginings as they did. One man sat up suddenly and laughed into the heavy air.
“Well!” I exclaimed when I recognized the haggard face. “If it isn’t Greville himself! Or should I call you Jasper? It seems neither our rail deal nor your choirboys are on your mind at present.”
The maid rushed to his side, kindling a new pipe by blowing into it with short, quick breaths. “Have another, Mr. Jasper, here.”
“Come on, then,” called Dodger from a doorway. I left Jasper to his opium-induced stupor, but not before Dickens had completed a rudimentary sketch of the abysmal scene.
“Hold,” I said, noting the gold and ruby ring on the fingers of Jasper and all the rest of Princess Puffer’s “clients.” I turned to the woman. “Do you know a man named Thomas Guilfoyle?”
She shrugged. “Can’t say that I do. But it ain’t all of my clientele what are so wholesome and honest as Mr. Jasper. Some don’t even give their true names, if you could believe such a thing!”
I described Guilfoyle, said he might have been in the company of a certain Miss Annie Piper, and attempted to ply her with coin, but she refused my overture.
“Ain’t that the gent they say killed that nice old fella in Spitalfields? Humbug they call him, yeah? Well, to be fair, I don’t know you, sir. Perhaps if you’d sample my wares . . . ?”
“Another time,” I said, and left it.
Dodger led us down a narrow corridor and out a back door, which opened into a dark court. The only light was streaming from a crack in the shutters of a building opposite.
“What’s this, Dodger?” I demanded. “What are you playing at, bringing us here?”
“This, gentlemen,” said Dodger, his teenage chest puffed out with pride. “This is Lycia!”
It was a tall, dark loading shed with a crane protruding from an upper window, and its windows were boarded up. The stream of light from behind the shutters betrayed life inside. I wrinkled my nose. A waft of some acrid stench drifted down, but it was faint, and I couldn’t put my finger on its origin. Chemicals, I believed. But what kind, and why?
“What’s Lycia?” I asked Dodger. “That building?”
“Don’t know nuffin’ about that building, sir!” said the boy unexpectedly loudly, with a broad grin and with a sudden twitch of his head to right the slipping top hat. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “But there’s rumors, sir, not that I’ve ’eard any of ’em, that there’s somefing new coming to the Quarter, snuggled away right ’ere, in this secret palace they call Lycia.” He held his hand out, and I winced as I fished another coin out of my purse. “Remember this place when you return, sir,” he continued, stuffing the coin in his pocket, “and mind you drop Princess Puffer there one of them pennies, too; she don’t like her boudoir being used as no thoroughfare.”
As the boys led us back through De Quincey’s, where Princess Puffer was attempting to stoke life into her guests, I felt a ripple of unease. Whatever that building was that her opium den was being used to conceal, the strange smell and unusual description Dodger had provided left me with a sense of dread. Whatever Dickens was scratching in his notepad was undoubtedly of similar aura, for his face was dark.
“Now that building there,” the boy said after we’d circled back to where Shen had gone with the Nellie imposter, “that’s the Doll House.”
“A lock that those rings open,” Dickens ventured. “Tell me, lads, does the name Thomas Guilfoyle mean anything to you?”
A sea of blank stares.
I went on to describe Guilfoyle, but to no avail.
“What about George Sunderland?” I asked. “Striking black whiskers, twice as wide as Father Christmas. Fancy dress. Or the Colley Brothers? Do they frequent—”
Dodger rattled his chains. “It’s best not to be askin’ such questions, sir. Healfiest by far to see to your own welfare and leave it as that. ’Spectable gentleman have needs, and the Doll House here is for it.”
“A common whorehouse?” I asked.
“Cor blimey! I ain’t never ’eard nuffin’ so contrary! Ain’t nuffin’ common about that place. Seen any plays lately, sirs? Seen Lady
of Shalott?”
“I haven’t yet had the misfortune,” I mumbled.
“Wrote a stellar review on it last week,” said Dickens.
“You dream it up, any woman you could possibly want, you’ll find her there.”
“Or at least a woman who looks just like her,” Dickens suggested.
“Just the way, just the way,” boasted the boy about the palace Shen and the fake Nellie had vanished into. “Whores clad just like famous ladies of this or other times? Almost as delightful as Princess Puffer’s scones. But nuffin’ compared to what’s coming. Somefing new, sir, not like nuffin’ you’ve seen, sir! A thrill like no other, like magic, except it’s quite real!”
I dug in my pocket for another coin. But instead of dropping this one into his dirty palm, I held it up. A tuppeny bit—shiny and new. Dozens of young, eager eyes grew wide and wet with greed.
“Find me Annie Piper. She has qualities I’d like to sample. Be back here within ten minutes with her location and you shall all have one.” The words almost lodged in my throat, but business was business, and the sorry state of my purse was collateral damage.
The boys all scattered like cockroaches at dawn, all but one. One boy, taller than the rest but just as slight, remained behind in the shadows. I squinted into the darkness and spotted the large brown cap sliding off the side of the boy’s head. It was the same lad who had run away earlier.
“Well?” I barked at him. “I need all men on the ground. Find the whore!” The boy looked around, clearly scouting for a getaway. But just as he was about to bolt off in the opposite direction from where the other boys had gone, the cap slid forward and a rich, chocolate curl fell from the nape of his neck. In fact, the “boy”—upon closer inspection—had curves even the baggy clothes couldn’t hide.
My heart stopped as my eyes locked with an all-too familiar gaze. “That’s Miss Owen!”
Realization dawned and Dickens beamed a most delighted grin. He flicked open his notebook and began to sketch the sight of the woman dressed as a boy. He would be of no help to me, so I moved towards the shadows, inching my way towards Adelaide.