A Coldblooded Scoundrel

by JoAnne Soper-Cook

  "Freddie - " Devlin's brain was working so furiously that it was painful. "Freddie said something to me about the Hell Fire Club - when I went to see him at Violet's - Miss Pearson's - house."

  "The Hell Fire Club are a group of moneyed ruffians, Inspector, who cloak their true purpose in pageantry and silly ritual."

  "I have heard," Harker said, "That they profess to worship Satan."

  "They have no need to worship Satan, Mr. Harker, and if indeed that were true, it would be a far simpler explanation than any I could furnish. No - they delight in causing havoc in the lives of others, of destroying where they might. They often strike at those among society whom they deem 'unnatural'."

  Devlin could not have been more shocked if she'd hauled out a pistol and shot him between the eyes. "Unnatural?" he whispered.

  "Devlin." Harker gave him a significant look.

  "Any deeds that John himself is not keen to furnish, he will have some members of that unholy brotherhood to assist him. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty, Mr. Harker."

  Devlin wondered aloud if murder wasn't the dirtiest of all deeds.

  "Quite so, Inspector." Sarah Whittaker laughed mirthlessly. "But for John and his close companions, murder is merely another facet of their ritual."

  "I don't understand," Devlin confessed, as he hurtled back through London with Harker.

  "What is it that you don't understand, Devlin?"

  The inspector was silent - he had no right to ask, and it was none of his business in the first place.

  "Doubtless you are referring to my mother."

  Devlin conceded that yes, he was.

  "Ah, Devlin...there you lead me into the realms of ancient family history."

  The solicitor leaned slightly forward and gazed into the inspector's dark eyes. "Have you no family secrets that you wish to remain hidden?"

  Devlin realised that, in all good conscience, he could not pursue it further.

  "Your constable, young Lewis - was he ever a member of the Hell Fire Club?" Harker put this question to him quietly.

  "I don't believe so," Devlin said, "And besides, Freddie is a police officer! He would never have anything to do with that gang of reprobates."

  Harker snorted. "If you only knew, Devlin - if you only knew the names of all the politicians and policemen, men of the cloth and university dons. It is true that the Hell Fire Club was initially founded on the precipitous nature of the aristocratic classes - but it has grown beyond that, much beyond that." The solicitor reflected for a moment. "It is not beyond possibility that Constable Lewis at one time desired entree into this heinous association and was refused."

  Devlin thought about this for a moment. "Mrs. Whittaker said that John and his cronies are wont to take their spite out on 'unnaturals'."

  "Another reason why Freddie Lewis was not allowed in."

  Devlin could make neither heads nor tails of it. "And yet Whittaker holds high rank in this secret brotherhood."

  "But Whittaker isn't - "

  A great silence yawned between them in the cab: Devlin had never seen Harker's pupils distend to that particular degree.

  "Oh yes," Devlin affirmed. "Oh yes." He held Harker's gaze for some long moments, an unspoken pleading in his eyes. "I know of at least one other man that Whittaker has had intimate relations with."

  "Good God, Devlin," Harker breathed. "Do you understand what we are up against?" He caught Devlin's wrist, squeezed it gently. "This is not merely some demented commission of his, undertaken in accordance with the preferred behaviour of this - this club of his. Devlin, this is personal!"

  "It's me he's after, Mr. Harker." Devlin smiled thinly, his great strain evident upon his face. "It's me he's always been after. It's me he blames for everything."

  The cab shuddered to a stop in front of Scotland Yard, and Devlin made as if to exit, was stayed by Harker's hand. "But he probably was infected by his contact with Elizabeth Hobbs!"

  "Perhaps, Mr. Harker." Devlin stepped down from the cab, leaning into the darkness of its interior. "Or perhaps he never had sexual relations with Elizabeth Hobbs. It may be that the only reason Sarah Whittaker is unscathed is because their marriage was never consummated."

  "The child - "

  "A sovereign says she'd been in love with someone else." Devlin forced himself to smile, even though his face couldn't quite make that sort of movement. "Marriage of convenience is not exactly unknown, Mr. Harker. How many men of our persuasion enter into the marriage contract with some woman - some woman who is fully apprised of the situation, but who nonetheless desires it, for her own reasons?"

  "Then she is complicitous."

  Devlin shook his head. "Not knowingly. You saw her face when we laid the evidence before her - she was quite surprised by it. Oh, she knows that he's a blackguard, a common swindler and a liar. But she didn't count on murder."

  Harker sighed. "Devlin, these are indeed murky waters." He grinned. "Will you have supper with me some evening this week?"

  Devlin stepped back from the cab. "Only if you're paying."

  "If Whittaker is not taken into custody very soon, Devlin, I fancy we shall all be paying."

  Harker tapped his walking stick against the cab's interior, and drove away.

  It was strange for Devlin that he was at his desk without Freddie Lewis hovering around. He hadn't realised how much he depended on Lewis until the young constable had been so brutally taken out of commission. Quite apart from the fact that he had to fetch his own tea (a task that Devlin loathed, because it took him past the ubiquitous clutch of sergeants lounging in the downstairs hallway) he missed Freddie's steadying presence. He made a mental note to call round at Violet Pearson's later that day, to check on Freddie's progress.

  The only mail for him was a small white envelope stamped with a Kensington postmark, and no return address.

  I am down on whores and I shan't quit ripping them -

  Devlin snarled and hurled the letter into the rubbish bin, then clenched his hands around his teacup until his knuckles shone white underneath the skin. What whores had Whittaker ever killed, besides Elizabeth Hobbs, and that by vengeful intimidation? If he thought to copy Saucy Jack, then he was doing a bloody poor job of it, Devlin thought.

  He turned from his contemplation as the door creaked open, and Phoebe Alcock peered inside. Today she was wearing a very handsome green walking dress, with a matching hat that brought out the lambent green accents in her warm hazel eyes. "Is this a bad time?"

  Devlin felt some of his anger recede. "No, Phoebe, of course not - please, come in." He arranged a chair for her and waited while she sat down. "Let me get you some tea - "

  "The tea can wait." Phoebe dimpled at him over the desk. "You and I have work to do, Inspector, and I've gotten Dad's express permission to steal you for an hour."

  "Phoebe, I can't just up and leave - I've got work to do, and besides - "

  She would not accept his refusal on any terms. She was on strict orders, she said, from Violet Pearson, to ensure that Devlin received his daily quota of fresh air. Devlin wondered peevishly if his daily quota included the oxygenic contents of the Bedlam Lunatic Asylum.

  "Freddie is doing much better." Phoebe tightened her grip on his arm and smiled up at him. "Mr. Donnelly has been caring for him night and day - you'd think he was a doctor, the way he gets on about this or that medicine. Of course, he is absolutely relentless in his fussing and fretting, your young Constable. Keeps asking when he can go back on duty."

  "I've had another letter from Whittaker." Devlin wondered if he should divulge the contents, and then remembered that this was the woman with whom he'd gotten roaring drunk at an innocuous tea dance. "Or rather, a repeat of the first letter: 'I am down on whores and I shan't quit ripping them till I get buckled.'" He tilted a glance at Phoebe. "I can't understand it. He's only ever murdered one whore - and that was Elizabeth Hobbs. This puerile (Devlin was understandably proud of his personal vocabulary at this point) attempt at mockery makes
no sense that I can see."

  "Well..." Phoebe thought for a moment. "I think you're coming at it from a strictly male point of view, Phillip."

  Devlin wondered exactly when she'd decided to drop the 'Inspector.' "Oh?"

  "A woman would immediately understand the reference, because she knows that the suspicion of improper behaviour at any level brings with it the label of 'whore.'" Phoebe steered him, by a pressure of her hand, into the park. "Someone who's had a dalliance, someone who has perhaps brought an intimate shame upon the aggressor."

  "Not necessarily a woman, in that case," Devlin observed.

  "Quite so." Phoebe drew him down onto a bench. "Now," she said, "When are you going to kiss me?"

  Devlin blinked at her, suddenly embarrassed, as Phoebe drew his face to hers and kissed him gently, with an excess of tenderness, upon the mouth. In the midst of this caress, Devlin experienced the sort of bizarre epiphany that so often marked his habits, and sprang up off the bench as though an electrical wire had been surreptitiously applied to his hindquarters. "Whores!" he cried, seizing Phoebe's hands in his and drawing her into an ecstatic hug. "Whores, Miss Alcock! Whores of any stripe!"

  A group of strollers walking en famille bent evil glances in Devlin's direction, and Phoebe felt compelled to clamp her palm over his mouth to prevent any further likewise eruptions. "A whore," she whispered quietly, "is not necessarily a woman."

  He felt something loosening inside of him as the terrible tension began to dissipate. Here, then, was a thread upon which he might reasonably fasten his hopes. "Phoebe," he cried, "I adore you!"

  "Then marry me."

  Her gaze was solemn and steadfast; Devlin saw that she could not possibly be joking. All at once, the wan October sky seemed something other than banal, and long-forgotten debts came whistling on the winds. "Sorry?"

  "Marry me, Inspector." She took his arm, drew him with her onto the path. "A marriage in name only, but sufficient to secure both our reputations."

  She was a brave woman, and to even bring this issue to the fore was painful for her, Devlin realised. Still, he could not imagine going to Sir Neville and announcing that he wished for Phoebe's hand in marriage - Old Brassie would probably open up his massive jaws and swallow the inspector whole....

  "Father has already given his consent, if that's what you're wondering about."

  Devlin drew a hand over his face. "Phoebe, this is - that is to say - I'm flattered, of course - "

  She pulled away from him, drifted over to a stand of trees, now gloriously in autumn colour. Her handkerchief was clutched in her hand, but she strenuously denied that she was crying. "Please - " she appealed to him, " - forget I ever mentioned it."

  "Now see here - " Devlin turned her round to face him, smoothed her tears away with his fingers. "You're ruining your pretty face," he murmured. "I'm not saying 'no', Phoebe." To be certain, it was not something he had ever imagined, but now that the possibility had presented itself, he could discern several important benefits in it. "But I'm not saying yes just yet, either." He spread his overcoat on the grass below, and drew her down beside him. "Am I the first man you've asked?"

  "Of course you are!" She scrubbed at her eyes angrily with the back of her hand. "As soon as I met you, at the tea dance - you see, it isn't easy for me - naturally the public penalties are not nearly as severe as for a man in similar circumstances -" She blew her nose loudly into her handkerchief. "Oh, God dammit anyway!"

  Devlin offered her his handkerchief, waited while she dried her face. "Go on," he said.

  "It's one thing for me to be seen about London with Violet, and quite another for the Chief Commissioner's daughter to be perceived as one half of a Boston marriage."

  Devlin wondered whether this latter might be an American plot. One could never quite trust a people who had so vigorously thrown off the civilising influence of the British Empire. "I understand," he said. He didn't.

  "As much as I might feign disinterest in the mores of society, Inspector, I am not that strongly cast." She glanced at him. "People talk."

  Devlin sighed. He'd been doing a lot of that lately. "Phoebe..." How to best approach the subject without giving undue offence? Diplomacy had never been his strong suit. "I have always thought, because of my...inclinations...that I would never marry." He caught her crestfallen expression and hurried on. "However, what you say makes a good deal of sense." He smiled, reached out to caress her cheek with his fingers. "It would be in name only, Phoebe - quite apart from the required consummation to make it legal." He held her chin in his hand and looked her squarely in the eye. "Do you think you might countenance that?"

  She sniffed. "Phillip, I've seen cock before."

  Devlin suppressed a grin. "Seeing cock and, well...it's two different things, my dear."

  "Have you?"

  "Seen cock?" Devlin regarded her queerly. "Well, I see my own every day, you know." It occurred to him that this might not be what she'd meant.

  "Have you ever been with a woman?" Phoebe's features resumed their habitually saucy expression. "Have you ever fucked a woman, Inspector?"

  "I'm sure I could manage," he said stiffly. "And yes, for your information - although it's none of your damned business - I have."

  "Gawking at the corset ads in the back of Pall Mall's while you're having a frig doesn't count." And she was on him, laughing as she tumbled him backwards on the ground.

  Ten

  By the time Devlin returned to the Yard, it was nearly two o'clock, and he handed Phoebe off reluctantly. He couldn't remember when he'd had the privilege of such good conversation, and indeed, their brief sojourn had been as enjoyable for him as he might have wished. "One thing at a time." He kissed her cheek around the corner from the Yard. "I'll need some space for this, Phoebe. You can't expect a bachelor of thirty-five to leap directly into wedded bliss without a warning - even if it is merely a marriage of convenience."

  She opened her reticule and extracted a roll of banknotes, which she pressed into his hand. "What's this?" he asked.

  "You'll need to buy a ring, when the time comes." She winked at him. "Nothing too flash, but nothing too tiny either."

  Devlin pressed it back into her hand. "When the time comes," he said, "for me to put a ring upon your finger, I will buy it for you myself." He patted her cheek fondly. "Now run along." He waited till she had turned the corner, not wanting to ignite rumours by appearing so close to his workplace with Old Brassie's pretty daughter on his arm.

  What in God's name had he just agreed to?

  Devlin had often noticed in himself the distressing impulse, when alone, to putter - to dawdle about his rooms and tidy things that perhaps did not require tidying, in order that Mrs. Taylor not have further evidence for shrieking about the state of his rooms. He wished he were alone now, that he might putter away to his heart's content - instead of sitting at this dimly-lit card table and watching, in mesmerised awe, the motions of the other hands upon the green baize. He'd sat in comparative silence for some time now, watching hands and faces, inhaling the smoke from several expensive Cuban cigars, and being summarily prompted now and then by the sharp and none-too-gentlemanly elbow of Reginald Harker.

  "I see, then, that's five and I'll take another." The man to Devlin's immediate right did some inexplicable thing with the cards, setting the other occupants of the table into subdued motion. Devlin wondered what the devil was occurring, for he had no clue how poker was played, nor had he ever had any inclination to learn. He considered gambling - especially gambling at cards - among the higher forms of vice, and wondered often when he had become so stringently moral. At the moment, he was trying to 'pass' for a seasoned card shark, without any measure of success. Only Reginald Harker's keen eyes and fine sense of timing prevented Devlin from exposing himself for what he really was. He wondered how fast he'd have to run, when these doughty punters figured out he was a copper.

  Devlin recognised several important members of high society around the table. He reflected o
n what Sarah Whittaker had told him at Bedlam, that the influence of the Hell Fire Club reached even into the upper echelons of society. What would Lord and Lady Inkpen think, he mused, if they knew that their red-headed, boyish son was seated opposite Devlin at this very moment, sucking on a cigar (Devlin thought there might be some arcane symbolism in that, but he couldn't discern precisely what it might be) and shuffling cards as if he were a shiftless dock labourer on a Friday night. Their current company comprised that of several snotty ruffians, ne'er-do-wells who floated with ease between the high classes and the low, and who weren't above nicking a spot of crumpet from any of the assorted dollymops that roamed the East End. Devlin had seen their kind before, seen it most profoundly during Saucy Jack's late and unlamented reign of terror. Oh, they'd be quick enough to defend themselves with fancy words and accusations fit enough to drag a man into a duel, but Devlin saw them for what they were, and understood their nature.