Keeper of Pleas

by A. Wendeberg

  ❧

  Sévère watched the cigar slowly transform into a cylinder of compacted ash. His leg was propped up on a chair; the ache had softened, the swelling and bruising had subsided.

  The doorbell rang. He heard Netty rushing across the entrance hall, her heels clacking on the marble. She admitted the guest, fussed with his coat and hat, and led him up to the drawing room.

  Johnston entered, followed closely by the housekeeper. She carried a long package, wrapped in brown paper. Johnston thanked her, took it, and placed it next to the door.

  ‘May I serve tea or coffee, sirs?’

  Sévère looked enquiringly at Johnston, who politely declined.

  ‘You may retire. We won’t be needing you further tonight, Netty,’ Sévère said, and rose to his feet.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Johnston said, looking around the room. ‘I never expected a man of your standing to live quite so spartan.’

  ‘May I offer you a drink?’

  Johnston nodded toward the bottle on the table, and Sévère poured the brandy. They raised their glasses and Sévère said, ‘With this your accusation of me leading a spartan lifestyle has been disproved.’

  Johnston’s moustache twitched. ‘You seem to detest knick-knackery. Rather refreshing, I must say.’

  ‘As well as a crowded house. I very much like my privacy. People believe I’m a miser, because I employ only a cook, a housekeeper, and a daily woman for the roughs, not the common gaggle of servants.’

  Johnston leant back in his armchair, and looked up at the ceiling. ‘It is quiet here. I like it. A man’s den.’

  ‘A one-man den.’ Sévère sipped on his brandy and enjoyed the warm, soft burn in his throat.

  ‘So you caught the murderer. He even pleaded guilty. How unusual. Do you know why he did it, why he confessed?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. He confessed to having fathered and killed all nine children. Other than that, he spoke very little. His daughter is an inmate at an asylum of the Religious Sisterhood of the Church of England. Her condition doesn’t allow questioning by me or the police. That leaves me with Hunt’s meagre statement. I hope he’ll provide more information to his attorney.’

  ‘When will his trial begin?’

  ‘March twenty-fourth.’

  ‘Hum. I don’t wish to intrude, but you seem unsatisfied by the outcome of your inquest.’

  Sévère rolled the glass between his fingers. ‘I don’t believe he did it.’

  Johnston nodded slowly.

  ‘Worst of all,’ Sévère continued. ‘I’ve caught myself growing complacent. Despite my instincts telling me that Hunt is innocent, I’ve felt indifferent to it. I’ve wanted the case to be done with. Because of this.’ He jerked his chin at his left leg.

  Johnston chuckled. ‘It is the same with old age, lad. I tire faster than my young colleagues. My joints and muscles ache sooner now than they did twenty years ago. I catch myself thinking I should retire. And then I laugh at myself.’

  Sévère emptied his glass. ‘I expect all men have a sense of honour. But what makes one man pursue honour and another man pursue comfort?’

  ‘It’s all in the priorities. When a man comes to a crossroad, he has to be alone with himself and decide what it is that is most important to him. If he never takes the time to deeply think about this, he might always choose the easy way.’

  Sévère leant back and gazed at Johnston. He’d never considered him old, despite the shock of light-grey hair, his salt-and-pepper moustache, the furrows spreading from eyes and mouth. Now it felt as if his friend — for somehow he’d come to consider him a friend the moment he’d entered the drawing room — had, in a fatherly gesture, lifted a veil from Sévère’s eyes.

  ‘Because, you see,’ Johnston continued, ‘if a man doesn’t take the time to think, he might never know why he does this thing, or that. It is the cause, the worthy cause, the why that is essential. Never the pain and sweat of how he might get there. It’s not success that makes a man great. It’s his courage to fail.’

  ❧

  Sévère held a match to the cigar, and pulled at it until its end glowed bright red. He placed the smoke onto the ashtray, and spread out the plans of his town house on his desk. He’d bought it when he’d been called into office. A modern, five-storey house with enough space for a family and an army of servants. A man of his standing wasn’t supposed to live in a small apartment somewhere off Whitechapel Road. For some time, he’d been wondering if it hadn’t been a mistake to purchase this monstrosity of a building.

  He pulled out a notebook and began jotting down annual allowances for his servants, and potential future costs. He might need a manservant at some point, someone strong enough to help him up and down the stairs. He was unwilling to move his private rooms to the ground floor and be cut off from the rest of the house.

  A private coach, perhaps? There was a two-stall stable across the terrace. He’d bought it together with the house, and had never known what to do with it.

  And what then, lad? What are you going to do when you have to use a chair? Sévère dropped the pencil. His gaze fell on the package Johnston had brought. His new, customised crutch.

  It’s not success that makes a man great. It’s his courage to fail.

  Well, he wasn’t a great man, but failing without ever daring wasn’t his style.

  He picked up his pencil, wrote “Personal Assistant” and put the pencil back down. Stripling was useless as an officer. He would have to fire him, or perhaps offer him a position as a clerk. The man would feel mightily downgraded.

  His thoughts strayed to Johnston, and how he felt like an essential part of his team. Inspector Height was…acceptable, but an outsider. Police would never be part of his operation, that much was clear to him.

  Still, the essential man missing was an officer, a man whom Sévère could trust to make intelligent decisions when he wasn’t around to make them himself.

  An ad in the papers, perhaps? Sévère snorted at the thought. That would result in a horde of applicants who wouldn’t even be able to find their own nose, if it came to it.

  Sévère slammed his fist onto the desk. Cigar ash dropped into the crystal bowl.

  ‘I’ll be damned!’

  —Proposition—

  ‘Good evening, Miss Mary.’ He rose, limped around the table, and pulled back the chair for her.

  She noticed the deepened triple lines between his eyebrows. His voice and posture appeared different tonight, reminding her of the first day they’d met, the interrogation and her arrest.

  She sat, carefully avoiding physical contact.

  ‘Good evening, Sévère. Thank you for your kind invitation. I see your leg has improved.’

  ‘Thank you for accepting my invitation. I hope Pagani’s is to your liking.’ He gifted her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  Wondering why he was so tense, she let her gaze travel through the restaurant, though she’d inspected it when entering. For his sake, she appraised the pretty wallpaper, large windows, and the heavy chandeliers once more. The satin cushion she sat on and the engraved silverware in front of her.

  ‘It is to my liking,’ she said in her most pleasant tone.

  ‘Excellent.’ He drummed his fingers on the edge of the table, and after a short moment of consideration, he pulled an envelope from his waistcoat and pushed it across the impeccably white tablecloth. ‘I wish to make a proposition. To demonstrate my sincerity, I took the liberty to prepare a draft of the contract.’

  She narrowed her eyes at him, and then at the letter. Was this the reason for him to be so different tonight? Her heart sank at the thought he might wish to keep her as a mistress. Most prostitutes would be delighted by such an offer. But not Mary. Not with this man. Dread prickled in her palms as she reached for the paper.

  His long fingers kept the letter pinned to the table. ‘It contains the details of the agreement we struck some time ago. More or less.’

  She opened her mouth t
o ask what agreement he could possibly mean, because the only agreements they had ever struck had concerned her honesty to him, and her opinions on the infanticide case. The latter had been solved, had it not?

  ‘Good evening, Madame, Monsieur. May I take your orders?’

  Startled, Mary looked up at the waiter. ‘Ah…’ she said, and only then spotted the menu in front of her. She flipped it open, found it to be in French, and pointed her finger at something random. ‘My husband will choose the wine.’

  Husband, she thought bitterly. Should he propose some kind of bedding contract, she would… She’d have to think of what to do. Because if the man demanded her honesty, her wits, and her legs wrapped around his waist, he was up for a surprise, that much was certain.

  Sévère addressed the waiter in French, and Mary smiled down shyly at her folded hands. It was something fine ladies ought to do: mouth shut, with the corners slightly curled upward, eyes avoiding looking at anyone in particular, especially when men were in conversation with one another.

  When the waiter had disappeared, she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Sévère, what agreement are you talking about?’

  He lowered his voice to a soft murmur. ‘I offer you a position as my assistant. However, I must ask that you abandon your current situation at once.’

  Her gaze grew cold, and she, too, lowered her voice. ‘And with what specifically do you need assistance, Coroner? Do you need me to bring you to bed every night?’

  He leant forward, and whispered, ‘Abandoning your present situation includes you stop playing anyone’s whore.’

  She swallowed all acrid comments that constricted her tongue.

  ‘May I?’ She indicated the letter, and he nodded consent.

  Her knife slid into the envelope, fraying the thick paper. She extracted the contract, unfolded it, and began to read:

  Miss Mary (replace by real name) will be employed as a personal assistant to Mr Gavriel Sévère, starting (insert date here, 1881). Her basic annual payment will be one hundred pounds sterling, paid in quarterly instalments. Bonuses will be paid according to additional services rendered.

  ‘Additional services rendered?’ she muttered and looked up, but he didn’t reply, only nodded at her to continue reading.

  The agreement is rendered void at once should the assistant violate the following regulations:

  Mr Sévère’s assistant is not to:

  1.) take clients other than Mr Sévère, unless parties agree otherwise;

  2.) lay hands on her employer, unless parties agree otherwise;

  3.) break the law, unless parties agree otherwise.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she squeaked.

  ‘You will need to supply your real name to make the contract legally binding.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you at least explain what this assistantship is all about?’

  ‘Various…services.’

  ‘Sévère, you have to use your pretty mouth to convey relevant information. Did someone hit you on the head? This…’ She waved the letter in his direction, careful to avoid the candle flame. ‘This is a poor draft of a contract. I doubt it is legally binding anywhere in Britain, with or without my real name on it. You’ll have to specify the services required, period of validity, work hours, etcetera.’

  He clicked his tongue. There were traces of surprise and incredulity in his expression.

  ‘You believe I am a simpleton,’ she said before he could speak. ‘You believe I will sign anything to get away from the life I’m leading. You are a fool.’

  ‘I know perfectly well that you are not a simpleton. In fact, this is the main reason I’m offering you the position. But I do wonder how you can doubt the validity of our contract.’

  ‘You believe I have no clients proficient in legal matters.’

  ‘Some might be. But I do believe they grunt and moan, and do not talk about legislation.’ He peeled back his lips.

  She gifted him a sweet smile until his began to falter. ‘You are wrong about the latter, Sévère. Now, tell me what services you require of me.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘You will work as my eyes, legs, and brain. You will be something akin to a private detective, although a detective who works for me alone. Basically what you have done already, but on a permanent basis. And there’ll be a few extensions and diversifications.’

  Mary leant back in her chair. Her fingers, suddenly trembling and clumsy, dropped the letter to the floor.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and bent to pick it up.

  Her thoughts were racing around the life she led, the plans she’d made of leaving London, her savings, and now…this.

  It’s a lie. Or a game. It must be, she thought. ‘I am hungry. And I have questions.’

  ‘I expected no less.’

  The waiter brought the wine and poured a sip for Sévère, who tasted it and nodded approvingly. Mary remained silent and tense while their glasses were filled and the waiter enquired if he could do anything else for them.

  Once he’d left, she asked, ‘You expect me to give up my current situation, find an apartment, and meet you in your office every day?’

  ‘Monday through Saturday, eleven o’clock to four o’clock, and then again from eight o’clock to ten o’clock. Plus the hours needed to interrogate suspects, informants, witnesses, and so on. These are my working hours. Yours might differ somewhat. You will meet me every morning in my office and we will discuss cases, or I will send you to gather information. In the beginning.’

  ‘And after the beginning?’

  He frowned. ‘I might require your assistance to walk from my office to crime scenes, mortuaries, inquests, and so on.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You will have noticed my limp.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Come Monday next week, I will close my present office and re-open it at my own lodgings to accommodate for my…increasing infirmities.’

  He lifted the wine to his lips and drank. Her gaze followed the liquid as he swallowed it, the movement of the throat, the bobbing of the Adam’s apple, his tongue darting out to lick his upper lip.

  ‘Impossible,’ she finally said.

  He cocked an eyebrow, and placed the glass back on the table. A drop of wine surrendered to the white tablecloth and formed a burgundy semicircle.

  ‘If your social status were much lower, and your position not that of an official of the Crown, a young woman could go in and out of your house without causing so much as raised eyebrows and a little gossip. If your offices were not in your own home, it might be possible, also. But this? No. There is no reasonable way for you to explain why a prostitute is frequenting your private quarters.’

  ‘Prostitute or not, employing a young and unmarried woman as my assistant will cause a scandal, and damage my reputation.’

  ‘I am well aware of this. But it was you proposing it, not I.’ She flicked her hand at the paper. ‘This…mess. I can only assume you have a plan to solve it.’

  ‘Well, we have limited options. Two, to be precise. You must live under my roof and I will introduce you to my household as my servant, or…’ He swallowed. ‘Or as my wife.’

  Her skin grew cold. Her fingers curled around the stem of her wineglass, and her mind calculated how to best throw it at Sévère’s head. ‘You do believe me a simpleton after all. How often will I have to share my bed with you, Coroner?’ she asked through clenched teeth.

  ‘You shouldn’t have a problem with that, should you now?’

  Mary felt the blood pounding in her temple. She managed a dazzling smile, one that seemed to fool even Sévère, because his posture relaxed.

  She pushed back her chair, stood, and announced, ‘My coat.’

  He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by her soft, ‘If you dare utter another word, I will cause a scene of such proportion as you don’t dare dream of. And please do remain seated. After all, I have two healthy legs with which to fetch my coat by myself. Good evening, Coroner.’

&
nbsp; Sévère blinked at her retreating back, wondering how and why this conversation had gone so wrong. He’d expected her to be, if not happy, then at least relieved by his offer.

  The door to the restaurant swung shut and the waiter, who had helped Mary into her coat and accompanied her to the exit, threw him a quizzical glance. In reply, Sévère lifted his glass to his lips and slumped back in his chair.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ he muttered, and after a moment, he groaned, and made for the door.

  He found her on the other side of the street, waving at a hansom. He didn’t call out for fear she might run away or pick up horse manure and throw it at him. When a cab halted in front of her, Sévère had just reached her.

  ‘We’ll not be needing you,’ he called up to the driver.

  Seething, Mary curled her hands to fists. Sévère took her elbow gently, bent closer, and said, ‘I know you enjoyed yourself playing detective. And that’s all I ask of you — to keep doing it. But society demands a facade. I doubt you can move freely if you are not under the protection of a gentleman. See it as an offer. The protection of my name in exchange for your assistance. A marriage is the most practical solution to this problem, and it will exist on paper only. Trust me on this, please.’

  ‘On paper,’ she said, her eyebrows at a dangerously sarcastic angle.

  ‘As I said. Should my prick itch, as you so poetically put it the other night, I will leave the house like the gentleman I am to return a few hours later and a few shillings lighter. Do you believe I have the slightest urge to share your bed after what happened during my first attempt?’

  ‘I do know quite a bit about the tenaciousness and stupidity of men. You can trust me on that. Why do you offer this to me? Why now and…why offer it to a whore?’