The Red Ribbon

by H. B. Lyle

  Kell glanced around the room and kept quiet. The graybeards of the Committee for Imperial Defence were bending yet again to the police. Sir Edward Henry, the Met’s head man, had been briefing them about the demonstration massing outside Parliament. “Sir Patrick Quinn here informs me that the crowd could reach as much as a thousand.”

  “That’s an outside number, sir,” Quinn said. “What we are thinking, though, is that there will be many”—he glanced up at Kell—“radical elements in play.”

  “What the devil do these women want anyway? How dare they intimidate Parliament—have they no respect for democracy?” an old buffer from the Home Office blurted out angrily.

  “I rather think they want to take part,” Soapy drawled. “But these women must not be allowed to sabotage the PM’s announcement. Sir Edward, Sir Patrick, I trust you’ll ensure the disturbances are policed with all due force and attention. I quite understand the need to make the state’s position clear on this kind of violent intimidation. As to the rest of us, it goes without saying that this should not appear in the newspapers. Any suggestion that the police are in any way concerned with anything other than the safety of Parliament and the public is utterly absurd. Understood?”

  Kell left without saying a word. He hurried back through the park to his office. He was due to meet Wiggins. They needed to go over the disaster of the night before at the Embassy. Just his luck that Constance had been at home when he got back. She had stormed out of the house and he hadn’t seen her since. At least he knew where she was going to be that day. She, along with hundreds of other extremist suffragettes, would be outside the Houses of Parliament. According to the briefing, as laid out by Quinn and Sir Edward Henry, they were turning up in order to institute a People’s Parliament, in protest at the general election that Asquith was going to call that day—an election that automatically quashed the proposed suffrage bill.

  “How’s tricks?” Wiggins said as Kell burst through the office door, more than an hour late.

  “What in heaven’s name does that mean?”

  “A joke.”

  “I’m not in the mood for jokes. Simpkins is due back to report any minute. What have you to say?”

  “You were the one who went in.”

  “I employ you, don’t forget that.”

  Wiggins looked at his watch theatrically, then stretched. “No one followed you out.”

  “Which suggests they didn’t suspect me.”

  Wiggins waited. “Have a nice time, did you?”

  “How dare you?” Kell snapped. “I will not answer such, such . . .”

  “Easy on,” Wiggins said. “I only wanna know what you found out.”

  Kell glared at him as he pulled off his gloves. “We either need to break in—”

  “Last time I nosed round there someone died. And someone else almost did—which was me.”

  “—or else concoct a pretext for the police,” Kell went on. “I have an idea. It will take time to organize, but I think I can manufacture some bait.”

  “You sure they’re bent?”

  “It’s a brothel.”

  “I meant, are we sure they’ve got anything to do with your leaks?”

  “But the coincidence! You said so yourself—the lists match. There must be something going on there. What better way to extract information than in the bedroom? That brothel could be a hive of international spies, insinuated into the very heart of the British Establishment.”

  “Or it could just be a whorehouse for the quality.”

  Kell looked at him steadily. “You urged this course of action. You sent me into that horrible place, you—” He suddenly stopped, took a breath and began again. “I need results, desperately. And it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

  Wiggins nodded. “Something ain’t right there, it’s true.”

  “Now, as to the question of bait, my chap at the Foreign Office could help. His name’s Harry Mo—”

  The office door crashed open. Simpkins stood in the doorway, loose-lipped, wide-eyed, agitated. “Sir,” he said.

  “Not now, Simpkins.”

  “But, sir, I really think . . . There’s a frightful row going on in Westminster.”

  “Yes, I know. The suffragettes are protesting. What of it?”

  Simpkins looked between him and Wiggins. “I came through Parliament Square. Chaps, women, bloodied . . . It’s awful, sir—running battles, women beaten.”

  “Constance,” Kell said.

  Wiggins was already following him to the door. “Stay here, Simpkins,” Kell cried, ramming on his top hat as he and Wiggins skittered across the landing to the stairs.

  Kell hesitated at the roadside, looking for a cab, but Wiggins ran past. Kell went after him. In less than ten minutes, breathing hard, they came into Parliament Square.

  A dark swell of women massed outside the gates to the House of Commons. Wiggins and Kell stopped running, but hurried across the square toward the commotion. Men of all classes jeered and shouted, enjoying the spectacle. It reminded Kell of a day out at the Derby—except this wasn’t the sport of kings, this was the sport of the gutter.

  From afar they saw a woman knocked down by a police truncheon. Blood burst from her forehead. Kell shouted, “You there, Constable! Stop that at once.” But no one heard. They got closer.

  “I’ll go round the back,” Wiggins muttered and melted into the crowds. Kell scanned faces, hats—anything—in the crush for Constance. Another woman ran past him, hatless, holding her face.

  Huge policemen, helmets pulled low, suddenly ran into the crowd of women once more. A great howl went up. Kell stood stock-still, astonished. All around him, police pushed and jostled the protesters, squeezed their breasts, grabbing, tripping, jeering. Two suffragettes suddenly managed to reach the railings at the front of the building, but they had barely gotten to the top before they were hauled down with sickening thuds.

  Time and again the women surged at the gates, only to be repelled by truncheon and fist. Kell swiveled around as a woman came careering out of the crush and sprawled in front of him, screaming. Two giant policemen, one of whom had obviously pulled her from the crowd and onto the pavement, stood over her with truncheons drawn.

  Kell, shaken into action, tried to insert himself between her and the police. “What are you doing?” he cried. “Can’t you see the lady is injured?”

  One of the policemen stared at him with incomprehension, veering into contempt. “Stand back, sir. You could get hurt.”

  “I?” Kell said, amazed.

  He turned back. The lady had scrambled away, past a photographer with a huge press camera. The photographer stepped aside from the camera for the moment, and looked right at Kell. Another great wail went up from the main crowd.

  Kell was all ears and eyes once more. He had to find Constance. Some madness had overcome the police; he had to save her. He pushed through the onlookers—mostly men, mostly cheering on the police when they landed their blows. A couple even pitched in with kicks and swipes of their own.

  And then he saw her.

  She was at the front of another wave coming across the road, with three young women, linked arm in arm. Faces set, cheeks pink against the cold, they looked magnificent. She looked magnificent. Kell gasped at the courage. He stepped forward. A surge of black obscured his view—the police charged at the suffragette line, and he lost her once more.

  Enraged, he pushed through more bystanders, men and women, leering passersby. “Out of my way, barbarians.”

  He grabbed at the arm of a policeman hauling a young woman to the pavement. Without looking, the policeman swung his arm around, backhanded, and caught Kell flush in the face. He fell to the ground.

  Pain seared across his skull at another blow. His head cracked the pavement. He looked up, through a thicket of legs, to see the huge policeman of earlier bearing down on him, club in hand.

  Out of nowhere, Constance appeared between the two of them. Hat gone, hair wildly astray, she stepped into
the policeman’s path, half turned away from him, thrust her hip out, and then in one swift movement threw him to the ground. He landed on his back, and his weapon skittered away among the rushing feet.

  Kell blinked, then his eyes closed, his skull raging. Constance crouched at his side, hands on his head, Wiggins at the other side. And then nothing.

  “You!” Abernathy took one look at Constance and turned away in disgust.

  She left the front door open, however, and Constance followed her in. It was more of a studio than a conventional house, on an eccentric little terrace out by Barons Court.

  Abernathy strode through one of the doors off the hallway, cigarette smoke trailing from a hanging hand. Bright light suffused the large room, with a huge painting studio off to one side. She went after Abernathy and found her in a small sitting room.

  “Constance!” Dinah cried, getting up from a divan. “I’m so glad you are well.”

  Nobbs reclined on a chaise longue, while Abernathy sat cross-legged on an old bentwood chair and smoked. Tansy was nowhere to be seen. “I can’t stay long. My husband—”

  “Cut out to be with hubby, did you?” Abernathy sneered. Constance noticed a large bump on her forehead.

  Dinah grimaced at Abernathy, then turned to Constance. “Beastly, wasn’t it?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “All bones intact. Abernathy’s got another bump on the head.”

  Abernathy snorted.

  “Is this your house?” Constance asked.

  “God, no.”

  “Friend of my sister’s,” Nobbs drawled from the chaise longue. “Lets us bed down every now and then.”

  Dinah went on. “She just paints and paints and paints. It’s such a terrible bore.”

  “Did everyone escape? Where’s Tansy?”

  Nobbs muttered, “Practicing, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  Constance didn’t quite hear but before she could push the point, Abernathy picked up a newspaper and flung it at her. “Did you see The Times? I imagine your precious husband takes the wretched rag. Have you read its report? Have you?” She stood up and began walking around the room. “I’ve been saying this for months—they’ll never bow unless we make them.”

  “Are you all right?” Constance held Dinah’s hands in both of hers. “Please tell me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  “Stupid!” Abernathy cried. “Did you see those bloody policemen? Did you see the power of the state? What, please tell me, would constitute stupid?”

  “My cousin says Mary Clarke was badly beaten—she still hasn’t woken up yet.”

  “And The Times reports that two policemen had their helmets knocked off!” Abernathy grasped the paper back. “Oh, yes, and here—another got kicked in the ankle. There is nothing of the truth, nothing.”

  Nobbs straightened up, shuffling through the newspapers. “Except the Mirror. Bertie’s sister, Flea, says they’ve been buying up all the copies they can. It’s a photograph of Ada Wright, on the ground.”

  “It’s true,” Dinah said, handing Constance the paper.

  Constance held Dinah’s hand again. “Please, Dinah, don’t do anything rash.” She searched Dinah’s saucer eyes, tried to hold them steady. What had happened outside Parliament would be enough to shake anyone. Dinah stared back like the child she was. They were all children, Constance realized with a horrible, shocking stab of guilt. Draped around the room still in their night things, playing at adulthood. And the game had just gotten nasty. “Please,” she said again.

  Dinah squeezed her hands and gave a hesitant smile. “Would you like tea? I’m sure we can rustle some up.”

  “I must go,” Constance said.

  “Back to your lord and master? The ever-pathetic hubby?”

  Constance ignored her and spoke directly to Dinah. “Let us meet again in a day or two. Don’t do anything without me. Please?”

  Dinah nodded absently, looking about her.

  “I’ll have that paper back, if you please, Mrs. Wifey,” Abernathy said.

  Constance glanced down at the photograph on the front of the Mirror. It did indeed show Ada Wright on the floor, with two huge police constables bending over her in a threatening manner. It also showed a passerby, a gentleman in a top hat and overcoat, trying to insert himself between the policemen and Ada. A man clearly remonstrating against her treatment. A man she recognized. A man not so pathetic after all. Her husband.

  While Constance hurried away from bohemian Barons Court, a mile or so south Wiggins made inquiries with the well-to-do traders down the North End Road. He took a pint with the delivery boys outside the Wounded Hart. He posed, convincingly, as a collection agent for a furniture store out Putney way. His previous trade as a debt collector made this particular deception easy enough.

  He took a turn down the Fulham Road and then off one of its side streets to the address he’d found among Kell’s notes in the office. It was a small cottage, in a row that ran from the main road down toward Walham Green, in a quaint little dead end. A plaque to the left of the door read Whitefields. An elaborate birdbath and weathervane stood in the front garden, the metal vane a silvery flash even in the low light. Wiggins had confirmed, earlier that morning, that the owner was at work in far-off Whitehall. Reports from the pub differed as to whether he lived alone or with a maid.

  Wiggins stood looking at the cottage for a moment, and noted that all the curtains were drawn, despite the misty November light. No smoke from the chimney, no carriage or car by the gate, no milk bottles left uncollected. He squatted to the ground and shuffled through some detritus by the rubbish bins. The collectors must have just been, but there was enough strewn about to be useful. He put two things in his pocket, then entered the gate and rang the bell. Nothing. He rang again. If there was a maid, she was either too scared to answer the door or she wasn’t at home. Or else she was just used to avoiding the debts—the debts that every trader on the North End Road (bar the laundry and the chemist) was more than happy to tell him about.

  He walked back down the path to the gate. He didn’t hesitate when, in the reflection of the weathervane, he saw the downstairs curtains twitch open for an instant.

  “I’ve woken up.”

  “So I see.”

  “No, no, you don’t see.”

  Kell tried to push himself out of bed. A pain shot through his left temple and he slumped back into the pillows. “Lie down.” Constance put her hand on his head, stroking his arm with the other. “You may have woken up, but you need to rest. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for most of the weekend.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .” Kell said, breathing hard. “What I meant is, I am sorry. No, I shall say this now. What you had to put up with—you were amazing. The police, the authorities, despicable. I will ask questions. It is unconscionable. Barbarism. How did you learn to—with the policeman . . . ? You saved me. You were like Vulcana herself.”

  Constance laughed. “Jujitsu,” she said. “It is a martial art of self-defense. I am Miss Edith’s star pupil. It comes in handy, does it not?”

  Kell gazed up at her. “The brothel—it wasn’t, I didn’t, I . . .”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “But I was so glad when you were angry. I thought, I hoped, it meant you still cared.” He grasped her hand in his. “That it mattered to you.”

  She disentangled her hand from his. “Of course!” She held his face in her hands gently, gently, and they kissed.

  Kell recovered himself. “I had to go into that horrible place. It was a mission, on a case, I—”

  She stopped his lips with her finger. “Wiggins told me.”

  “Wiggins? He is here? What happened after I . . . ?”

  “He helped me get you to your office, then we took a cab back here with the doctor. Wiggins is a good man in a crisis, I must say. We thought, in the circumstances, that you’d rather your involvement in a public-order incident be kept from the authorities.”


  “I see, thank you. Is the scandal all over the press? Whitehall, Fleet Street, must be in uproar. I’ve never seen such an outrage.”

  “There was one report,” Constance said. “Would you like to see Saturday’s Times?” She handed it to him. The doorbell, a new electric one, buzzed loudly. “I’ll see who it is. I told Agnes not to let anyone in without my strict permission.” She left the bedroom.

  Kell read the report on what The Times called the “disturbance” with mounting disgust. The police actions were entirely defensive, he read, and many of them had lost their helmets. Their actions—which Kell had witnessed as oversized and out of control, as beatings, battery, and various degrees of assault—were described by the anonymous reporter as lacking “nothing in vigor,” although they also kept their “tempers well.” That was it. No mention of the bloodshed, the injuries, the humiliating attacks on the women. There was even a snide remark about a woman scaling the railings who was “unused to mountaineering.”

  When Constance opened the door again, he said, “You were right, my dear. I am so sorry.”

  “It’s Wiggins. Shall I bring him up?”

  But Kell needed to speak and he knew it must be now. He’d had enough of keeping things to himself, of second-guessing her every move, wondering if the pangs in his heart matched hers. “He can wait. There are things I need to tell you. Please, don’t interrupt.”

  “I was just going to say—oh, well, carry on then,” she said as she saw his look.

  “What the police did in Parliament Square was unpardonable. That The Times is so brazen in misreporting it confirms my suspicions, however painful it is to admit. They planned to be severe on you ladies. Churchill’s been wanting to get tough for months.”

  “I know all this, Vernon, I have been in the movement for years.”

  “Yes, yes, but I didn’t know. Or rather, I didn’t know the depths that some would plumb to defeat your cause.”

  “This is all very touching—no, really, it is—but a man in your position can’t very well go around supporting votes for women, can you? You’d lose your job, your career, the lot.”