Lawless and the Flowers of Sin

by William Sutton

  I spotted him lurking by the kitchens, warming his hands at the brazier where the tidbits and dainties had been kept hot. Yes, I knew why Sir Richard wanted me, more or less, but not what he had to offer. It had better be good. A month it had taken to organise the party, then this early snow, and I had to organise it over again. Now, as the snow sparkled around socialites, servants, and ramshackle players, a terrible pride welled within me. I would present to my commissioner a face sour as an old goat. Fists tight, breath clenched, my determination to get into Sir Richard’s good books was eroded to a grim belligerence. He would not dare to summon me now, unless he had a worthy commission.

  “Good God, need we encourage such things?” Sir Richard appeared to be talking to himself. He smoothed his mutton chops by the glow of the brazier. “O tempora, o mores.”

  “The times and the morals were just as bad in Cicero’s day.” The grey old gent was there, and a policeman beside him. “In pursuit of lofty, elevated things, who are we to deny anything to any man? You love literature, and I music. If some enjoy more wayward muses, shall I criticise them?”

  “Such sums, for such filth?”

  “The Library keeps our books, Sir Richard, not our morals.” His smile was barely discernible in the shadows of the ancient cloister. “These scholars seek nothing less than rapture.”

  Payne snorted. “Voyeurism and debauchery—” I coughed, lightly, and Sir Richard started, turning upon me with a scowl. “Bloody hell, Watchman. Must you creep around so stealthily?”

  “It’s what you pay me to do, sir.” I did my best to disregard the policeman who stepped from the shadows: my usurper in the echelons of the Yard, Sergeant Solomon Jeffcoat.

  Payne gestured. “Solly, would you mind?”

  Jeffcoat touched the grey old fellow’s arm to escort him out. The gent bowed discreetly, gave me a warm smile, and limped off.

  I stared after him, puzzled. Not any old gent fallen on tricky times, he knew Payne; he was privy to intimate debates. “Sir, that fellow—”

  “I was just speaking about you, Watchman.” Sir Richard cut me off. He examined his watch, with a sidelong glance at me, and shook it in irritation. “And your manifold talents.”

  I was known as Watchman around Scotland Yard, as I’d spent my youth apprenticed to my watchmaker father; they were glad to abuse me for free repairs. I took his watch with a sigh. “Why does that fill me with foreboding, sir?”

  “Nonsense.” Payne laughed. I was waiting for him to condemn Molly’s troupe: the disquieting humour, costumes, and handicaps. “Your soirée has raised a thousand pounds and a deal of publicity for Felix’s charitable endeavour. Well done, young man… The Phoenix Foundation, indeed.” He tugged at his moustaches. “The thing is, Watchman, we all need good news.”

  “We, sir?”

  “The police force. The government. Damn it, the whole country needs a boost. And you’re the man to give it to us.”

  I gazed at him impassively.

  “Don’t be like that, you impenetrable Scot.” He waved me toward the sandstone shelf that ran along the cloister’s inner wall. “Sit down, for God’s sake.”

  I perched on the cold stone. Determined to hide my anticipation, I picked open the casing of his watch with my old pocket-knife. I examined it in the dim light. Cogs and springs I could handle; the reverie soothed my craftsman’s soul. Sir Richard’s hyperbole gave me the shivers. It was the way I’d been treated, perhaps. You give your all and are punished for it. Unjust? Certainly. Typical? Perhaps: we’re all cogs in a machine that none of us understand. Yet Sir Richard knew the dangers I had undergone, the indignities I’d suffered. I was relying on him. I needed to be reinstated at the heart of the mechanism.

  “Look, Watchman, you’re a good sort. The charity’s bigwigs are grateful as all hell to you. You mustn’t get in a tizzy when they lap up the plaudits: Mauve, and Brodie, and Felix himself, though he’s a genial soul.” Gabriel Mauve was our political contact, a cabinet minister, J.W. Brodie a newspaper tycoon, and Felix the Quarterhouse Brother who’d dreamt up the whole shebang. I’d met none of them during my efforts; I knew my place. Sir Richard began pacing up and down. He was ill at ease. “Our battlegrounds are no longer in China or Russia, nor the mills of Lanark and Preston. The war this great nation is fighting today is in our souls, indeed our bodies—well, you know what I mean, Watchman. Everybody knows. You’ve only to stroll the Haymarket of an evening, or any train terminus. Charitable efforts, like this, are all very well. But I’ve called for a Commons Enquiry. And you, Lawless, are our man.”

  I stared at him.

  “To persuade a Commons Select Committee to act, I’ll need a brand-new survey.” Sir Richard was inspired. A rousing speech, almost as if he intended to stand for parliament. “We’ll count every house of ill repute. Itemise every last working woman. On the streets. In bordellos. Everywhere. A census of sin.”

  Was this the commission I had dreamed of? I shivered involuntarily.

  “None of your cynicism, Watchman.”

  He gave me a smile that made my heart sink, for I saw a trace of pity behind it. “Much has been done since ’57 and the last appraisal. You may take great satisfaction in quantifying exactly how immorality has declined.”

  “Declined? Sir, are you joking?”

  “So many good works. Cholera. Poverty. Pleasure gardens closed, slum alleys patrolled. Law and order bolstered and extended into the darkest corners.”

  Yet he always complained how government constrained his police finances.

  “All improving the poor’s plight, you see. Removing temptations from women’s paths. Warning gentlemen of the ills caused by lapses moral and sexual.”

  Pah.

  “This commission is crucial to the government’s plans. I wouldn’t trust it to anybody else.”

  A backhanded sort of a compliment. Perhaps he really was going into politics. “Jimmy Darlington’s our man for vice and immorality, sir. I wouldn’t dare tread on his capable toes.”

  “Darlington’s been transferred. He’s to shut down the filthy bookshops, but he’ll show you around the night houses.”

  “Shut the bookshops?” I had sent a couple of these publishers down the previous year—pornographers, they were calling them now—but they popped up in new premises the moment they were released. I looked at Sir Richard more closely. There was something he was not telling me. “Some job Darlington will have. Is this shake-up coming from on high, sir?”

  “I’ll tell you, Lawless, but you mustn’t let on to anyone.” He lowered his tone. “A certain politician has a particular friend. They had a tiff. She’s vanished. He’s asked me to find her.”

  “You want me to find some politician’s missing friend?”

  “Lawless, Lawless, I say,” he beseeched me. It was not like Sir Richard to beseech anyone. “Don’t get on your bloody high horse.” Payne put his hand to his brow. “Not any old politician. The Prime Minister.”

  Mistress, more like; after all, Palmerston was known in the press as Lord Cupid. “I see, sir.”

  “An impossible task, I fear. I told Darlington to seek her out. He laughed. Laughed. It’s not how we do things, says he. We police, we make our presence known. But no details, thank you very much. Better that way, he says.” Payne snorted: so Darlington was out, and I was in. “The PM must accept his loss. But things must change. We know bugger all. Without a detailed picture, what are we? A benign overseer, toothless, checking the worst excesses, with no chance of saving a single sausage. I’ve promised him we’ll get a grip on what drives this netherworld: types of house, where the women come from, what age, what trades—”

  “Hold the bus, sir. What are you asking me to do? Count the brothels? Or close them?”

  “That’s what I like about you, Lawless. Never afraid to speak your mind.” He pointed through the frosty glass at the dancing couples. “Look. Things are changing. Here’s London society, clamouring to contribute, to save those wretches from their baser i
nstincts.”

  Outside, the Prince of Wales was gallantly turning Princess Alix, his Danish bride. (It was her fault that we’d persisted in holding this blasted party outside despite the snow, for in Denmark, they think nothing of such wintry sport.) I knew Prince Bertie well enough, and his baser instincts, and I couldn’t help smirking at Sir Richard’s utopian homily. “Let’s start with counting them. How long will you give me, sir?”

  “Six months.”

  I laughed despite myself. “Six? And how many men?”

  “Watchman, the last reckoning of London’s loose women numbered eight or nine thousand. It won’t take—”

  “Reckoned by whom?”

  “The City Police.”

  “Whom you wouldn’t trust with your laundry money. What does Darlington reckon?”

  Sir Richard muttered under his breath.

  “I’m sorry? Was that eighty thousand?”

  “Darlington’s a gambler. He includes every parlour maid and ballet dancer. Boosts his opinion of himself.”

  “Let’s talk about closures.” I sighed. “If I am to close one single brothel, I shall need henchmen. Heavyweights. A cohort of them. I’ll need a ban on newspapers: one sniff of this, and the blasted Bugle will make a scandal of every gent turfed out sans culottes by my efforts. I’ll need lawyers to avert the owners’ wrath over diminished profits. Always remembering, sir, that those owners may be here tonight. Not to mention on your Commons Select Committee—”

  “Don’t be an ass, Watchman.” Sir Richard glared at me, his frustration palpable; but he was the model of restraint, and guile crept into his eyes. “You’ll be an inspector one of these days, Sergeant Campbell Lawless.”

  “If I toe the line, you mean?” I turned my attention back to his watch’s workings. “I’d rather pack it in.”

  “Nonsense.”

  I screwed up my eyes; there was grit in the mechanism, jamming the hands. This was just a new way of consigning me to oblivion: totting up numbers to be ignored and consigned to filing cabinets.

  “Believe me, Watchman, your report will be taken seriously. The Select Committee will rely on it to demand an enquiry, I’m telling you.”

  A year in the shadows, and this was what he offered me in recompense. Late nights in dens of iniquity. Angry exchanges, with fallen women and their customers. One hell of a challenge. But I didn’t mind hard work, or reluctant collaborators. I relished all that. Getting at the obscure truth, when people wanted to keep it obscure, that’s what I loved in the job. Persuading. Observing. Devising solutions. “Why ask me to tell lies, then?”

  “That’s not what I want.”

  I kept working at the watch. He was sending me into a world where the strong were entitled to behave as they pleased, while the weak were powerless and dispensable. I might give my all and make not a scrap of difference. I would need to rely on him. “Fudge the figures, then.”

  He tore himself away from the warmth of the brazier and loomed over me. “I never said that.”

  I slid the knife blade into position. I nearly had it. I would not let him intimidate me.

  He subsided on the stone ledge beside me, his tone all at once unguarded. “Do the job your way, you recalcitrant beggar. It’s worth doing. And it’s important to me.”

  “I won’t do it at half-cock.”

  “If I wanted a duff job,” he snapped, “I’ve plenty of others I could ask. But I’m asking you. Turn over some stones. See what scuttles out.”

  I liked the old bugger, despite it all, all my disappointments and let-downs; I liked the fact he knew he could count on me. I clicked the watch casing smoothly back into place. “Give me a year.”

  He clapped me on the back, surprised and relieved. “Let’s try for nine months or so.” He seemed genuinely delighted. “Impress me. As for the newspapers, we’ve J.W. Brodie on our side, don’t you know?” He gestured to the quadrangle, where the newspaper impresario was deep in conversation with our grey old pipe-smoker. If Brodie decreed it, the press would keep silent, all right. I was almost persuaded. Payne exhaled, tired of my grouching. “Now, a word about that urchin friend of yours.”

  “Molly?”

  “You’re fond of her, I know you are. She and her associates have done well enough out of this knees-up, eh? The statute book could be thrown at her for misdemeanours, current and prior.” He leaned toward me, his mutton chops glowing dimly. “I’d hate to see such pettiness. Wouldn’t you?”

  A low blow. Molly had come a long way since I first encountered her, a snub-nosed tyke entangled in an illicit gang. That gang was disbanded now, thanks to my previous investigations. An underground misadventure wrenched her from her friends, and I’d vowed to keep an eye out for her. This charitable party was the first work I’d found her in months. She jumped at the chance, mustering every lowlife and cripple she knew to help me out. Whatever Sir Richard might suggest, there was nothing untoward about my relations with Molly; she was only thirteen or so, for God’s sake, though she behaved more like thirty. I had a duty to keep her from the sway of the criminal element.

  “Sir Richard.” Molly materialised before us. Typical timing. Her face gave no hint that she had been earwigging. “The speechifying is upon us.”

  “Be a sport, Lawless. I’m relying on you.” Sir Richard stood up and laid a hand on my shoulder. I would recall that moment in the months ahead: a friendly sort of a warning, or a veiled threat. He shushed Molly away. “Besides, it’s Brodie who’s paying for this grog fight. Have a drink, man. You’re off duty.”

  “Don’t forget your timepiece, sir.” I lifted the watch into the light, but kept hold of it a moment. “You don’t honestly think our morals are better?”

  “Watchman, I’m no fool. Politicians have a duty to convince us that we are improving.” Outside, applause. He brushed down his lapels. “There’ll be pose and pretension tonight, I grant you, but that doesn’t mean it’s all idle posturing. You and I know we’re all flea-bitten apes, and more liable to brain our neighbour’s wife than to write her sonnets; but we share a duty to tell people that they are better.”

  “In the vain hope we may become so?”

  “In the hope we may curb their wickedness.”

  As he stood to go, the light from without cast a soft radiance over his features. I blew the dust from the watch casing and handed it over, ticking anew.

  Payne looked suitably grateful. “I’m not asking miracles, Watchman. It’s a dirty business. I need something that plays well to stalls, dress circle and the gods. A message to well-heeled parents that their sons won’t be tempted; and to the lower element, that the ruination of their daughters is not inevitable. Do what you can.”

  POLITIC CHATTER

  Of the frenzy of self-congratulation that ensued I will say little, except to thank God I am no politician.

  Gabriel Mauve, MP, with precise enunciation and a deal of self-satisfaction, launched into an encomium on modern society. He followed the very script Payne had touted to me: Progress Technological corrupts, unless intersown with Progress Moral; how much we hear of Social Evil, the base element to blame, our moral guardians at fault; look instead to this wonderful alliance organised by Scotland Yard’s Commissioner Payne (viz. me), publicised by society darling Mrs Mauve, financed by magnate J.W. Brodie, no less.

  And there he was: Brodie himself, rarely seen at public events. The reclusive financier said nothing, leaving Mauve to make a damned fool of himself. Oh, Mauve and his ravishing wife were untouchable then. The most lionised couple in the land, their parties were the parties to be seen at; their pronouncements echoed across the town. Her hairstyle was aped, his opinions parroted. Times change and change by turns; that is how London works. There was no point in resenting them. Their day in the limelight wouldn’t last. My poor impression of Mauve stemmed from his earlier activity: blowing bubbles ill befitted a cabinet minister.

  Brodie, though, I found myself admiring. He had the decency to stay quiet: no swagger, no boasts, thou
gh it was he financing the stramash. He stood simply to the side, content to hold the puppet strings, as they summoned the final founder to the platform: Felix Sonnabend.

  I looked on astonished as this old fellow limped on. This Quarterhouse Brother, a former musician, modestly declared his thanks. He mentioned me by name, demanded an encore of Molly’s theatricals, and wished us all to enjoy these wintry revels. The mysterious Felix Sonnabend, founding father of the Phoenix Foundation for Fallen Women, was none other than the grey old gentleman pipe-smoker.

  SYMBOLS AND SIGNS

  As the curtain fell, women dabbed at their eyes. Men strained to speak in level voices, lighting cigars to mask their emotion. I must admit, my heart had sunk when Molly announced the main drama. Drama? A mere puppet show.

  Quite how their marionette Orpheus won our sympathies I cannot explain. The mystical musician pursued his dead wife to the underworld. With a toe-tapping gypsy serenade, he bewitched the boatman, guard dog and queen. But he turned back, forgetting the warning, as she vanished back amid the shades, crying, “Orpheus!” The audience stood aghast, many among them openly weeping. I pulled myself together and went to see the players.

  Molly elbowed me aside, brushing off my congratulations. “Allow me to present Bede and the Pixie, together trading as the Oddbody Theatricals.”

  Two figures tumbled out from the World’s Smallest Theatre. The Pixie cradled her elfin violin to her side. Bede, a cripple, rested where he fell, volubly analysing their performance. I reached out to help him stand up, only to realise his hands were withered. On his knees were boots, inverted, since his feet were stunted.