Lawless and the Flowers of Sin

by William Sutton

  Back in my early days at the Yard, I often accompanied my old inspector to his train at Paddington Station. One day, I saw a young lady, as I supposed her, weeping at the pie counter. I engaged her in conversation, telling her I was a policeman, with no intent to harass.

  “A mutton shunter is still a man,” she replied with a twist of the lip. “In’t he? Therefore I would request that you sodding leave me be.”

  She made me laugh. I assured her I had no designs upon her—though, truly, she was striking, hypnotic, lovely. Her dress had a provincial elegance, as unlike a Haymarket doxy as a dairymaid to a duchess. She turned those full, frank eyes upon me and at length, restored by tea, teacake and bar billiards, told me her tale.

  Skittles was from Liverpool, not the most poetical spot. Tiring of her parents’ tawdry little lives, she took a job serving at the station refreshment bar, where she hoped she might see life. A gentleman who frequented the station wooed her and, soon enough, frequented her. She told this tale of wilful ruination with disarming candour, not so different from a sensation novel or erotic fantasy. I warmed to her at once: I had never known a woman to speak openly about such things.

  The gent, having conquered, deserted. She was here at Paddington on a promise to meet his friend, who had offered her lodgings, promising to make the cad do his duty. She suspected this offer for what it was, a heartless seduction, and mocked her own folly. What the friend did not know was that her monthly courses had stopped; without a swift solution, she would be soon be undone.

  I told her to return to her parents.

  She laughed. “Even if they were not so dull, God bless them, I could not return now, with my ruination evident.” Besides, she was tired of selling tarts—and desired to know more men. She would take a new name and seek a wealthy gentleman sponsor. I thought only low women talked of such things; but in Skittles’s mouth, there was nothing coarse about it, only an earthy honesty.

  She delivered her story readily as she trounced me at bar billiards, taking singular delight in my accruing penalties for knocking over the skittle pins guarding the pockets. I christened her Skittles, and gave her a little prize money, to protect her from maltreatment; for I too had been an incomer, overwhelmed by the big city’s bustle and noise. The dangers were graver for a woman, especially a large, handsome woman like her, with leather boots and silk stockings beneath that quaint taffeta skirt.

  There was the end of the story.

  Except that, through her undeniable talents, Skittles had risen to become a watchword about town, still delighting in the nickname I had conferred on her. I heard rumours that she had bedded a duke and might even wed him. The pretty ‘horsebreakers’ were at the height of their notoriety; this euphemism allowed ladies who, on foot, would be thought objectionable, to ride through Hyde Park on horseback, scandalising society ladies and delighting society men. I was passing through the park, when a warm voice called out to me from Rotten Row.

  “Sergeant? I believe I owe you a sovereign.”

  I squinted up at this vision in green. Down she leapt from her mighty steed, without waiting for help from her well-heeled companion. She wore a rich velvet suit lined with crimson, gold lace and embroidered buttons. To complete this ensemble, her breeches fitted her shapely limbs tightly, pearl-white stockings showing over the diamond buckles of her red-heeled boots.

  She clasped my hand, a picture of jaunty elegance. Hand on hip, she recounted her adventures since that day in Paddington. Finding favour at Kate Hamilton’s, she was fast established as a courtesan in the grand French style. What a life she was leading making the most of her talents, she said. All thanks to my kindness that day.

  I was delighted for her. But what would become of her? Need she stay in the gay life? She seemed so persuasively a lady now; she could surely find employment, or love, and leave the life behind.

  “I’m happy with my calling.” Her cheeks were flushed with vigour; there was no doubting her sincerity. “I have all I want. I have learned the piano; I meet ministers, dukes and financiers, maybe a prince, if I’m lucky; I sing; I ride—accomplishments of great use to a girl. I tell you, all those years ago in Liverpool, I was as much to blame as my seducer, I so wished to escape the drudgery of my life. I thought I was better than selling tarts in the provinces. Now I am three and twenty. I am fond of dress. I take an interest in science and telegraphy and even politics, for I have studied the globes, you know. And the old fool loves me to excess.”

  Her old fool sat aloof on his horse, peeved at my intrusion; no doubt he wished to study the globes before the afternoon was out.

  She told me she had had four men since the first she yielded to. “I tire of them after six months, so we mutually accommodate. My father and mother don’t exactly know where I am, though I send money each quarter. What will become of me? You awkward old bird, what a question. I could marry this one tomorrow, if I pleased.” She said I might always enquire after her at Kate Hamilton’s, for Kate’s functioned as an agency of sorts for circles loftier than the common night houses. “But I’m no longer known as Skittles. Every flash gent claims to have brushed with Skittles; few have. Ask for me by my new sobriquet: Anonyma.”

  Damn it all: so the famous Anonyma, mysterious equestrian of the bridleways, was good old Skittles. The Bugle’s society pages were full of Anonyma’s antics. She presented me with a handkerchief, embroidered with her insignia, and repeated her hint about meeting a prince, for she knew I had worked for the Prince of Wales. I still saw Bertie once in a while, and he jumped at the invitation to one of Anonyma’s afternoons. Ever an admirer of alluring women, he brought her ten cases of tea, which was a sure way to her heart, if not further.

  Skittles didn’t remember to pay back that sovereign: it was too much when I gave it; now she was celebrated, too little.

  ENQUIRIES

  The next time I saw Felix was at the theatre, early-December. I greeted him jovially, hoping I might offer him a drink after the show.

  He looked done in, white-faced and wild-eyed. “The Quarterhouse curfew, you know,” he muttered, by way of excuse. “Do come and call on me, would you, if you’d be so kind?”

  I promised I should visit soon, before Christmas.

  Felix’s agitation preyed on my mind. Nor could I shake off the memory of the night we’d met, and his distress in the shadow of the prison walls. Not that I thought him involved, and I had combed through Jeffcoat’s report (praised most sincerely by Payne; our commissioner never thought to blame one of his own for the Bugle’s meddling). Felix’s mercurial behaviour was a mystery. Who could enlighten me? I would ask the 9.23 Club.

  THE WOMAN

  All I know of her, still, is her name, Alexandra, and no further will I pry. And yet I know every inch of her, more intimately than I know myself.

  I found her in the Casino de Venise, commonly known as the Holborn, as promised in her playful note, at five o’clock on Friday the fifth:

  VIENS, VOLONTAIRE, VOLONTIER.

  VENISE, V VENDREDI V. A

  Willingly, wilfully, I came. She was absently stroking the mahogany rail that encircled her booth, her thoughts elsewhere. It is not ideal for a lady to await a man unaccompanied, but there are corners of the West End where it is unnoticed or overlooked. Only her natural bearing gave her away; in that dark shawl, one might otherwise have taken her for a loose woman. That was perhaps her intention, and the best way to remain anonymous in a place where one might encounter gentlemen one knew from polite society.

  She lost no time in making her intentions plain. Surely I knew a place?

  I knew and was known in too many. I chose a neighbourhood house I had inspected on my rounds. We passed by a row of coffee houses, their windows advertising rooms. Turning down Titchfield Street, I tapped at the innocuous door. The pasty-faced owner admitted us without a word, preserving the gentrified air. Where was the harm? I had visited her establishment, but could not see how to include it in my reckonings. Neighbourhood houses are merely unr
egistered hotels, rooms by the hour; whether assignations are commercial or merely clandestine is impossible to judge.

  She was tense as we mounted the stair. We met nobody, but heard voices behind doors we passed, and creakings. She hesitated on a landing, as if to turn back; I did not urge her on. A moment, a doubt, and she took my arm again.

  We found the room at the top of the building, with a view out over the rooftops. A cheval glass, a washstand, a chamber pot; not overlooked, no need to draw the curtains. Nothing distracted from the bed. The sheets were fresh, the pillows plumped; one almost felt ashamed in sullying them. I was about to say as much, when the urgency of desire overtook us. Words were beyond the point.

  “I hope you don’t think badly of me.”

  This was later, an hour after our meeting. I laughed. “Do you care?”

  She considered this. Her bare shoulders rose in a shrug. “Not really.”

  We both laughed. I reached out to stroke her face but held back, fearful that this was too great an intimacy. She responded fervently to my touch. We were lost again.

  The room was furnished with an elegant simplicity. I almost commented on it, but I did not wish to advertise my familiarity with the décor of brothels. No boxes of laundry, no tired wardrobe. None of the fussy décor of a middling house of accommodation with suggestive prints from Holywell Street mouldering on the walls, lurid wallpaper, too many mirrors with rococo gilt edges. No, this room was a boudoir fit for a lady.

  After another hour, she arose languidly. The ballet of her body was entrancing; I watched her dress with barely a word. I couldn’t help asking if this was a common sport to her.

  She smiled in reproach: no, I was the first whom she had chosen like this. “But, please, we don’t need to discuss my life, do we? You are a detective, I know. I pray you, don’t investigate me.”

  “Why not? Would I find dark secrets?”

  “Not dark. Not at all, I promise. When a woman is older…” She laughed. “Allow me my air of mystery. Do me that kindness, will you?”

  I would, I promised her. I was curious by nature, and by profession; but if it pleased her that I restrain my inquisitiveness, I could.

  Her farewell kiss promised more. The grace of her movements enchanted me, languishing still on that bed, as she glanced back from the doorway. When I in turn arose and tried to pay, I found she had settled the bill and reserved the room for the same time next week.

  MELANCHOLY

  Wet snow, everywhere. I was sick of it. London was sick of it. December’s sleet dissolved to slush the pristine white coverlet formed by November flakes. Each night it froze over. Choosing your footwear became a matter of life and death, when walking the pavements or hurrying for the omnibus. I am no expert on women’s clothing, but I wager it was that winter of ’63 which ended once and for all women’s free access down below and instigated the new fashion of bloomers, or drawers with a split. I knew one woman who— But I shall speak of that later.

  A month into my task, my hopes of accomplishing it were shrinking.

  A policeman’s lot is solitary. Even constables with a companion on the beat remain distanced allies. With my nocturnal agenda, I was endlessly tired, peevish, and afflicted with one influenza after another. I liked nothing better than walking alone on these untethered days between my nightly researches.

  Mauve’s complaint of stolen papers was no isolated incident. Over the holiday, peculiar thefts occurred at more illustrious addresses. Darlington puzzled over one, Jeffcoat another. But the world was conspiring against us. Jeffcoat was engaged on his own secret commission for Payne that took him to the furthest reaches of the city, and beyond; something to do with missing persons, though nobody would talk about it freely. We worked opposite hours, and Payne had taken our reports on the thefts, so we could never compare notes.

  The river is a melancholy companion. The greatest of London’s parks, and the filthiest, along its mudflats the hurly-burly of London life is evident as nowhere else. As the markets ran short of potatoes and London ran short of patience, children and indolent parents filled the malodorous spaces, such as survive Bazalgette’s improving works. I strolled on the half-finished Embankment, sifting my salty researches for pearls.

  I was one of many forgetting their troubles by the Thames. A mother kicked a dirty football eagerly past her little ragamuffin, only to stop, embarrassed to be seen too sporting, and let him take it. “Ma,” the boy called. “I show you how the real football men, they kick it.” Aiming a great thwack at the sodden leather, he upended himself on to his backside, leaving the football behind him, quite unmoved, in the mud.

  I knew how he felt. My mission was distending, my confidence diminishing. I walked the streets, annotated maps, observed, enquired, peeped and pried. The more I learnt, the more I understood my ignorance.

  In the sanctuary of Kate Hamilton’s, she would send another girl my way. Just like the last, I prised her out of my lap, took drab notes of her drab story, and ended by losing to Cora at chess. I penetrated no further into Kate’s premises. Yet every night, the girls rolled in, each with a fresh story: my notebook accumulated numbers in columns. The West End was in my grasp. Kate herself winked, clapped and sent over another tumbler of whisky. I accepted it; but wary of drunkenness, after witnessing Darlington’s habits, I crumpled a sheet of blotting paper in my pocket, to soak it up and set a roaring fire when I got home; or else, well, Cora’s pot plant was steadily wilting.

  This expedient had two effects. First, it made me smell of whisky, bestowing an air of dishevelled Scots bonhomie that loosened folks’ tongues; second, it convinced Kate that I was under her sway as firmly as Jimmy Darlington had been.

  To tackle the wider boroughs, I relied on my researches alongside the 9.23 Club. I asked them about Felix too. Collins knew him slightly and thought him a queer old fish. He remembered reading a book about him, or even by him, and promised to look it out for me. He wouldn’t remember, of course, after our night of “tailing” as he termed it.

  Any regrets about these outings I put aside; for whatever the others’ sins, I never neglected my duties. After several rounds of ale, Collins would unleash the whisky monster. Our sybaritic jaunts took us to bawdy houses from St John’s Wood to Waterloo. The Pre-Raphaelites chummed us along whenever they could, and Dickens joined in on occasion.

  I soon learnt that the girls told fibs until they were paid, being reluctant to make clients glum.

  Watching Collins exert his charms was a lesson in beguilement. Not that he treated everyone as equals, nothing so false; rather, he attended high and low equally, especially those with a furtive aspect. Consequently, everyone loved to reveal their secrets to him. He gave his word he would pass them on to nobody—except in his novels that the nation would devour.

  THE GLASSHOUSE

  I could see Felix as I emerged from the rear cloister of Quarterhouse, seated in a wheeled wicker throne amongst the tropical frondage. How different was from the crisp wintry evening when we first met. Quarterhouse was an oasis in London’s densest square mile, a pool of generosity hemmed in by the rapacious East End.

  Felix spotted me, gesturing enthusiastically. A glazier was measuring up the glasshouse doors. The whole edifice was undergoing and overhaul: iron stanchions repainted, glass panels replaced. The Brothers might be impoverished but Quarterhouse was flush.

  The taciturn glazier stood aside and beckoned me in. A wave of hot air hit me. I tried to keep in the heat, closing the door so firmly I nearly shattered it.

  “My dear fellow.” Felix rose and shook my hand warmly. “Thank you for coming.” There was something odd about him, an elation of sorts. He lost no time in heaping me with thanks. What a party I had got up; how much we had raised to save poor unfortunates; a flying start for the Phoenix Foundation.

  As I took off my coat, dripping with sleet, I listened in fascination. At the Foundation party he had seemed a man at peace, gently ironising the follies about him, after a life embattled. Now
his eyes were bright, though distracted; his handshake firmer; his declarations more vigorous and sincere. He had been reborn.

  Outside, the Yuletide snows heaped up against the glasshouse were turning to slush from the warmth. I stared at the flowers blooming beneath the spreading plane trees. If Quarterhouse was a charitable establishment, the endowment must be spent as much on nurturing flora as humanity.

  “I know, I know, it’s a wild luxury. Sometimes nature needs a helping hand. Keeps the old buildings habitable.” He tapped his nose, gesturing toward the glazier. “I believe our friend Brodie’s contributed to this renovation. None of the Brothers complain, I can tell you.”

  By the stove at the centre stood two leather armchairs, like outposts of civilisation forgotten in a jungle. I moved gratefully toward the warmth.

  Felix barely seemed to limp as he bustled me through the teeming leaves. He took out his tobacco pouch, flexing his damaged hand; it was not healed but he was using the fingers, which I would have sworn was not the case when first we met. “You are well, Sergeant?”

  “Passably well, thank you, Felix.” I had a cough, a canker sore and a headache, but moaning didn’t help. “You seem to be flourishing in midwinter.”

  He beamed at me. He took a breath and clenched his fists amiably as if preparing to make a declaration of some kind; then he bit his lip and began again, more moderately. “I am, it’s true. I’ll admit, I have had some good news. Potentially good. I mustn’t say more. Not superstitious or any of that bosh. Just I wouldn’t want to jeopardise my sources.”