by M. J. Tjia
“Would any of your girls know where she went?” I ask.
“You’ll have to ask them yerself,” she says. “All I saw of ‘er was ‘er blotchy face from crying. She ‘ad a ‘ard bump on her belly, so’s one of the girls told me, so’s I expect she was knocked up. And as you know, ‘Eloise, pregnant ladybirds are an absolute nuisance. They’re of no use to me.”
I stare at Mme Silvestre for a few moments. I remember all too well how she manages the sad business of an unwanted pregnancy. “In that case, I am sure you gave her advice on how to take care of her unfortunate situation.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, ‘Eloise,” she snaps at me, placing the cat on the floor with a grunt, fluffing the cat hair from her skirt. “I didn’t know ‘er long enough to spend that sort of capital on ‘er.”
I cast my eyes to the ceiling. “And you don’t know where she went?”
“No. Although if I’d known so many people would be looking for ‘er, I might ‘ave taken some notice,” she says crossly.
Slumping back into my chair, I let out a frustrated sigh. I think for a minute. She couldn’t have gone far, could she? Surely someone around here must know what became of her. I really hope that Miss Carter isn’t one of the victims to be found in the hospital morgue. I know that investigating the murdered women must be my next step, but I want to find the girl alive and well before it comes to that. I lean in close to Mme Silvestre and say in a soft tone, “Madam, have you heard about any suspicious deaths of prostitutes lately?”
Mme Silvestre looks startled for a moment, and then lets out a bellow of laughter that drowns out the girls’ high pitched squealing and talking. “What do you mean by suspicious? ’Eloise, you know that prostitutes die off as often as ‘orses in these parts. The only suspicious thing is that so many of them ‘old on for as long as they do.” She shakes her head and chortles, although her laughter seems a little forced.
“You haven’t heard anything at all?” I push further.
She rolls her eyes. “If I ‘ear anything, I will let you know,” she says. “Where can I find you?”
I’m wistful for a moment. As much as I want to return home, I know I need to stay nearby for the duration of this investigation. And I’m also reluctant to reveal my new address to the madam.
“I’m not sure. Can you recommend an inn or hotel close by?”
Mme Silvestre’s mouth widens into a smug smile. “You are very lucky, as my ‘ouse on Frazier Street is vacant.” She nods towards her girls, and her mouth tightens with scorn. “I ‘aven’t ‘ad a piece of skirt able to fill that ‘ouse for a long while.” She peers at me. “Not all girls are as talented as you were, my dear.”
She’s talking of the house she keeps for any of the girls who manage to become the mistress of a wealthy man. When a gentleman decides he would like the exclusive use of a certain woman, Mme Silvestre hires out the house to them at a very nice rent. In my short time with Mme Silvestre, I’d stayed in that house before moving onto much better things.
“Sounds perfect,” I say, briskly. “What exorbitant rent will you require this time?”
She names her price. I know I’m expected to object – that Mme Silvestre has said a price so much above the house’s worth – but I only agree graciously, as the rent is miniscule compared to that paid in the better parts of London and I’m being reimbursed by Sir Thomas in any case.
An annoyed frown forms on Mme Silvestre’s brow and I hope it’s because she has realised she could have named an even higher price.
“You don’t still have that yellow chink working for you, do you?” she asks, irritably. “People around ‘ere don’t swallow that sort of thing, you know. That’s something for the tastes of those who frequent the dock areas.”
My lips purse and she scoffs, “Ho! ‘Ere we go. ‘Ell’s Bell about to let her steam whistle go.”
“Who I employ is none of your business, Mildred,” I say as I stand up. “I think I will find a local inn after all.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, as she tries to struggle to her feet. She is unsuccessful and plops back into the throne. “Don’t get so wrought up over a chink, fer God’s sake. See Mr Critchley on your way out. ‘E will give you the keys to the ‘ouse.”
The air’s chilly and stale when Taff and I enter the small house at the end of the terrace. I light the tallow candles I find on the hall table and direct Taff to the one bedroom up the narrow staircase with my numerous cloak bags and trunk. Taking a candle with me I have a quick glance at the small kitchen, dusty and barren, at the back of the house and then I stand in the middle of the sitting room.
Nothing has changed much, but everything seems shabbier, smaller, than I remember. When I had first come to this house as a very young woman – hell, I was a girl really – I felt so bloody happy. I no longer had to share a filthy room in Liverpool, the pong of the docks seeping in through the window with the icy draught. And I no longer had to snatch sleep in the musty boudoir of Mme Silvestre’s brothel, with its frilly curtains and festoons of red velvet, in which there was a rotation of ‘pleasure’ time with another girl and her clients. No amount of lavender or camomile oil had rid the lumpy mattress of its sweet, fetid stench of sweat and semen. I close my eyes and lift my scented wrist to my nose to rid myself of the memories.
That had been the first time in my short life that I’d had a space to call my own, even if it was only for an unforeseeable period, and I can’t help but smile as I think of the young man who’d made it possible for me to move into this house. He was a banker’s son, and handsome, and for many months he imagined himself in love with me. Very lately, at the opera, I saw him again. His handsome face, now meatier and flushed, was covered in a stiff beard and moustache and his chest and stomach protruded with self-importance as he ushered his equally rotund wife before him. When he saw me, he froze for a second, and then, to my surprise, he smiled and nodded. I almost had the idea that he would have liked to hail me, to exchange friendly words, but of course he couldn’t.
Taff stands in the doorway. “All your baggage is above, Miss Heloise.”
“Thank you, Taff.” I look at the dry, blackened fireplace. “Do you think you could start the fire for me? Here and in the bedroom? It’s not a very cold evening, but I feel some firelight might make the place more homely.”
I slowly tread up the stairs to the bedroom. I light a few more of the smelly, tallow candles on the dressing table, which only provide a shadowy flicker against the yellow walls and I’m thankful that in my home in Mayfair, bright, gas lighting has lately been installed. As I pull the heavy gowns from their cases and hang them in the closet, I find that the closet door cannot be closed against their fullness. Taff comes in to light the fire.
“I’m not happy about leaving you’m here, Miss Heloise,” he mumbles from the fireplace.
I try to grin at him. “I know you’re not. But I’ll be fine.” I place a few pairs of pretty shoes against the wall. “Although I wish I had brought Amah after all.”
“Well, why didn’t you’m?”
I cock my head to the side as Taff straightens up from the fireside. “It would not have worked out. You know how she is.” She would interfere, creep behind me. And she’d stand out, which might make it difficult for me to be discreet.
Taff shrugs and I follow him down to the front door to let him out. After assuring him I’ll call for him if I’m in need of aid, I return to the sitting room. All is very quiet, except for the crackle and spitting of the fire, and suddenly I’m a little forlorn. At this time of evening I’m used to company – frivolous, amusing and, sometimes, lascivious company. There’s a rattle at the front door and my heart lifts. Maybe it’s Taff returned, unable to leave me in this place alone.
But when I reach the door, all I find is a folded note lying on the worn carpet that has been pushed through the letter slot. Opening it, I read: Fornicator! As bitter as poison! Be gone from here.
CHAPTER THREE
It
was well after midnight by the time I fell asleep last night. On re-reading the note’s contents for the umpteenth time, I’d pressed my ear to the door, and hearing silence, pulled it open. Nobody hovered in the tiny courtyard, and on the street itself I could only see two drunkards, arm in arm, weaving their way home and a young boy scraping up the muck from the pavement. I’d bolted the door and then checked the kitchen door and windows, ensuring they were as tightly locked as possible. For many hours I lay in bed, wondering who had left the note. Was it for a former tenant of the house, or was it directed specifically at me? It made my skin crawl to think that someone on the other side of the front door might feel such malice for me. I’d slept very lightly, each creak of tired timber or the tapping of a moth’s wings waking me with a start.
It’s while I lie there in the grey dawn, wondering what my next move is to be in finding Miss Carter, when someone knocks lightly at the front door. I pull on a silk robe and, make my way to the front of the house. “Who’s there?” I call through the closed door.
A girlish voice answers. “My name is Agnes. Mme Silvestre sent me over with some food and such for you.”
My visitor is a sturdy looking girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years of age. Her hair, not quite blonde and yet not quite brown, snakes down her back in a long plait and she wears a white pinafore over her blue-stuff dress. She carries a wicker basket, laden with fruit and bread, which she balances on one bent knee.
I lead her to the kitchen, where we deposit the basket on the wooden table.
“Don’t unpack it yet,” I say, grimacing at the dust in the kitchen. “I’ll need to neaten this place up before we can set food in here.”
With Agnes’ help, I find some rags and water and wipe the kitchen surfaces down. Between boiling the water for tea, and cleaning the ice box for the milk, I discover that Agnes is a distant cousin of Mme Silvestre’s and has worked in her kitchen for nearly a year. We finish up and I lead the girl to the front door.
“When I visited Mme Silvestre last night, I noticed that my friend Tilly still works there. I need to have a word with her so I will come by again later. Please let Mme Silvestre know.”
Agnes sniggers. “Well, you’d better come by much later. The dolls are all still asleep. Last night was a busy night.”
I watch her march down the front path and wonder if she too is destined to be one of Mme Silvestre’s dolls in the near future.
Having spent most of the day in a cab, pitching between brothels and inns in the near vicinity asking after Eleanor Carter, I realise I’m getting no further along than the others who searched for her. But there is one place they haven’t yet looked – I must face up to visiting the hospital mortuary where the last prostitute’s savaged body was left. Sir Thomas and Priestly are right. Maybe she has become the victim of whoever is murdering local women. She is with child, after all. She might have inadvertently fallen under the butcher’s sway. But I won’t report my visit to the morgue to Sir Thomas, because then he’ll make me surrender the job up to one of his male detectives and I’m now determined to plough on by myself.
I’m as wary of hospitals as most people, so I watch the squat, rectangular building for some time before asking a woman who is emptying a bucket into the gutter if she could point me in the direction of the mortuary.
She nods towards a side door, wisps of her iron grey curls falling untidily from her cap. “I work in there on occasion, cleaning and sorting out the mess. Are you here for someone in particular?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. I repeat the story I’d been offering all that day. “A cousin of mine has gone missing. We are afraid something has happened to her. I have had the dreadful thought that I might need to check here…”
“Well, Mr Pike and Mr Wilston have already gone home for the day,” says the cleaner.
“Oh dear.” I bite my bottom lip. I hold out my hand to the other woman. “My name is Mrs Chancey. And you are?”
“Mrs Dawkins,” she announces, squeezing my middle finger briefly.
I try to look as beseeching as possible. “Could you show me around?”
But she shakes her head. “No point anyway. We haven’t got any new bodies in there at the moment.”
I’ve reached a dead end again but the brief moment of relief I feel at realising Eleanor’s body is not in the mortuary is fleeting.
“Haven’t had a body since they brought in that poor prossy a few days back.”
“A few days ago? How do you know it was a prostitute and not my cousin?”
Mrs Dawkins shakes her head again. “Can’t say to the likes of you, missus. Too delicate.”
I place my hand on the cleaner’s arm. “No, please. Tell me, so I can be sure it’s not her.”
“Well, if you must know, she had bits cut out of her. Lots of prossies lately have been turning up with bits cut out of ‘em.”
Even though I already know this piece of information, I still feel that curl of horror. “That’s awful. I hope nothing terrible has happened to her.” I search in my bag and bring out the picture of Miss Carter. “Could this be her?”
She squints and holds the small photograph at arm’s length. “I really couldn’t say, Mrs Chancey. Me eyesight’s not what it was.”
“Oh, I hope it isn’t Eleanor.”
“Eleanor. Is that ‘er name?” she asks me. “Funny. All we knew about the last girl was that she was called Nell. That’s short for Eleanor sometimes, isn’t it?”
Genuine dismay flushes my cheeks this time. “I must see this body. It might be her.”
“They’re not going to show a missy like you,” Mrs Dawkins says. “Have you got a man you can bring along to look?”
I shake my head.
“And I’m not even sure if the body is still there, anyhow,” says the cleaner.
I tell Mrs Dawkins my current address and beg her to send word if there is any new information. I actually wring my hands together and endeavour to look as anxious and care-worn as possible. It’s not for nothing that I receive acting roles at The Grecian and The Gaiety. Mrs Dawkins’ features soften.
“Lookee. Come back tomorrow. Not too early mind! After Mr Pike and Mr Wilston have left for the day. I’ll let you have a peep.”
I stare up at Mme Silvestre’s bagnio and again wish that Amah was with me to dress and curl my hair. The best I can do with it is a braid and then coil it into a low bun. The gown I’ve chosen to wear is of a plain hue, for all the gowns I’ve brought with me are of a modest appearance so as to be easily maintained without my maid. My bonnet has pretty blue ribbons though, and around my neck I wear a jade and onyx locket which is suspended from a pearl choker. Pressing my fingertips against the locket’s grooves, I’m thankful I’m wearing such a precious piece of frippery, but I still feel frumpy on hearing the squeals and music emanating from Mme Silvestre’s.
Although the evening is already quite dark as Mr Critchley leads me into the establishment, it’s early hours for entertaining gentlemen. The long parlour is as warm and bright as the night before, but custom is slow, with only three men canoodling on the sofas with the half-dressed women. As yet, Mme Silvestre isn’t seated on her throne, so I move to the bar and ask the tall attendant I’d seen the night before for a drink.
“What do you want, love?” he asks in a gruff voice.
I stare at his face and clock the slight shadow on the cheeks and the Adam’s apple bobbing beneath the thickly made up face.
“What do you have?” I ask.
“Gum-tickler. Beer. Gin. We have some Veuve, if you have the blunt.”
“Well, I have the blunt, so pour me one of those, please.” I drop a few coins onto the sticky countertop and glance about. “Where’s Tilly?”
“She’s with a Charlie. You’ll have to wait a while if you want to meet with her. Although she was with old Packer, so maybe she won’t be too long.” We smirk at each other. “My name’s Henry. Are you that Heloise what visited Silvestre last night?” I nod. “Poor Silvestr
e thought all her luck was in when you walked through the door. Thought you were here to help her lift business.” The ringlets of his wig sway as he shakes his head.
“Have things been slow?” I watch as a small group of merry middle-aged men enter the room. “I thought it looked as busy as ever here.”
“Her heart’s just not in it,” he says, his ringlets bobbing again. He nods towards the doorway to the back of the house. “There’s Tilly now.”
I ask him to pour another champagne and carry the two glasses across the room to catch Tilly before she is commandeered by a determined looking young man with tow-coloured hair. We settle onto a Turkish divan at the back of the room. Tilly is wearing a pair of lace drawers and a silk chemise, and her fair hair has been tinted pink.
“I like the new look,” I say, touching one of the pink curls.
“Do you?” Tilly cups her hand around her hair. “When I was in Paris I saw Cora Pearl. Her hair was pink like this, although I’ve since heard that she’s coloured it yellow.”
“When were you in Paris?”
“Oh, two years ago. A rich John took me,” says Tilly. She pouts. “It’s been a long time since I was treated that well. Now I’m just stuck here, all day, every day.”
I take my silver, diamond-point cigarette case from my reticule and offer a cigarette to Tilly. “Where’s Peg? And Floss?”
“Long gone. Peg died of the gasps, I heard. And I see Floss around sometimes, but she’s set up in Piccadilly now, I think.”
“Still working?”
“Nothing like this. I think she just hires out a room when she needs it.” Tilly shrugs with nonchalance. “What about you though? Everything’s rosy for you, so I’ve heard.”