“This is the surprise, truly. Initially, I think nothing. I think, ah, it is the addict of the laudanum, looking for the money or jewels. No good! My treasures are literary. Now I realise certain papers were taken, papers I should lament to see fallen into the bad hands.”
“Tell me, sir.” I raised an eyebrow. “Are you by any chance a chess fanatic?”
He was astonished by my deduction.
I assured him, without mentioning the automaton, that I was on the thieves’ trail. I would find what had happened to his papers. And it might prove significant in the upcoming hearings. “I have need, sir, of upstanding witnesses. Would you testify?”
“Parliamentary hearings?” His smile froze. “That I am an erotobibliomaniac, this is no secret. I see no shame in it. The lust in literature, it is part of the lust for the life. But to testify? No, no. Besides, Brodie was strict that I not speak of the New Turk.”
“I never mentioned it.”
“Boh! You deduce it, I know.” He was sweating slightly. “Nobody wish to jeopardise the plans of Mr Brodie.”
I asked if I might be admitted, to call up Felix’s book. But our interview had gone sour, and his brow clouded.
“Ah, Felix? Ha!” His air of bonhomie gave way to a hectoring tone. “The Reading Room, it is fully occupied at the moment. The foreign scholars, you know.”
I could see a few empty seats. “I am pursuing police enquiries. Miss Villiers usually finds me a spot—”
“Beh! Miss Villiers, she has trouble enough. Irregular behaving for a lady so young. Good day.”
* * *
Had Dugdale and Hotten been arrested? Enquiries at the Yard next day proved this not quite true. They were taken in for questioning, and their goods seized. Hotten, released with a caution, vanished. Dugdale reacted so badly to the arrest, they had to restrain him. Declared insane, he was removed to the new lunatic prison in Berkshire.
I was not best pleased. Payne was avoiding me. What pressures were being exerted on him from above? I would need special permission to visit Dugdale. Whither their stock of dirty books had been sequestered, nobody seemed to know.
I moaned to Jeffcoat about all these hidden traces.
“If they be hiding, we must seek.” His chin jutted toward me. “What’s the fascination with this old musician, then?”
I told him about Felix. His elation, his dejection. His foundation, and its entanglement with Brodie. His erratic behaviour, after the party, in the hothouse, at the Opera House; about Quartern Mews, and the girl, and his panic at the window.
“He has her installed there?” His eyes lit up. “And other girls on the same street, you say?”
I nodded. “Who the girl is, I know not; but she is entangled with Felix.”
“And he with Brodie.” He clapped his hands. “This is it. This is our way to sniff out this blooming syndicate.” So many avenues were forestalled: secrecy around the Turk, Groggins dead, his file snatched away, the Oddbodies terrified, Kate’s girls evasive, and Skittles… well. It was a labyrinthine route, but Jeffcoat convinced me to follow it. How else to fathom who controls the mechanism? “We watch the house, note the comings and goings, enquire discreetly. Someone will be careless. Someone will lead us back to the centre.”
As we put on our coats to go and reconnoitre this vigil, Molly materialised out of the fog.
“I was debating.” She stood, disconsolate at the doorway, dripping. “Whether I might risk presenting myself. Knowing that associates of mine are under investigation within these hallowed doors.” She rubbed her nose and looked up at me distractedly. “I am a harbinger of bad tidings, I’m afraid. It’s Felix.”
FELIX STRICKEN
Molly wasn’t given to overstatement. Sending Jeffcoat on to Quartern Mews, we took a cab, crawling through the densest of smogs. Half an hour later, we sat at Felix’s bedside in St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He awoke and started speaking. His tone varied, as if he were telling us an epic of woes, but in fact, he was simply repeating phrases over and over, and seemed frustrated that we could not understand him. “Flowers. Flowers. Flowers, you see. Girl. The girl. The girl. Then the flowers.”
I looked at Molly appalled.
She rose with a sigh. “I’ll dig out a crocus.”
Until the doctor arrived, I tried to calm him. His frustration rose and fell. It was distressing, seeing those eyes still the same, full of warmth and humanity, unable to communicate. Did he know who we were? He seemed frightened, but that was reasonable. He seemed to think I expected something of him, even looked fearful that we might hurt him.
I spoke softly, reminding him who I was, where he was, what had happened. Reassured, he grasped my hand. He indicated he needed something from the dressing table. I found his cheque book.
He made out a bill for £50 with Coutts & Co. Three times he tried to write a name. Each time, he crossed it out, painstakingly initialling each change. Frustration got the better of him. He gave me the cheque, the payee still unresolved. Where the name should be, he had scored out “Ang”, then “Evv”, then “Eff”. He slumped on his pillow, exhausted, and fell into a profound sleep.
I squeezed his hand, wondering if he would ever rise from that bed. Who should Molly chance upon but our old friend Dr Simpson?
He was abrupt as ever. Felix had had a stroke. “Lucky to be alive at his age. Doubtless likes a drink.”
“Did something prompt the stroke?”
He was dismissive. “A hundred things might contribute. A hard life. Exertion. Sleeping tablets.” Felix’s inability to speak Simpson termed aphasia. “It might be permanent, it might not. Whether stimulation is positive or detrimental, medical opinion is divided: reinvigorates the animal spirits or compounds the frustration.”
Simpson prescribed rest, good food in moderation and a regular pipe. I determined to fetch Felix’s tobacco, sheet music, and violin from Quarterhouse, though he might play it no longer.
Molly had waited patiently. I was glad of her company, for the place left me glum. As we left, she nudged me. “Down the corridor, look. Couple of blokes, see?” Sure enough, the two men did not look like they were waiting for visitors’ hour. “Waiting for a pair of dead man’s shoes, I don’t wonder.”
I picked up Felix’s things from Quarterhouse. His scout stood by, sniffling miserably. “He was in the rudest ’ealth a month back. The rudest of ’ealth.”
I took the chance to nose around Felix’s rooms. The scout assured me nothing had been disturbed. His possessions seemed from a different time. His music stand, his violin; the bedspread and old silk ties; gilt-framed drawings of the Italian opera houses. But one daguerreotype, by his bed, had a modern frame: a studio portrait of a young woman with a heart-shaped face, the hint of a smile on her lips, dark hair billowing against a white bonnet, and eyes that looked up impertinently, as if remembering something wicked. I knew her: it was the lady he’d escorted to Quartern Mews.
The scout coughed. “Oh, I should take him that, if I were you. Most fond of that picture, he is. First thing he looks at every morning when I wake him with his tea. Frenchy-style mind: lemon, not milk. It’s his daughter, I think, or someone, at least.”
Someone, at least. Perhaps I was mistaken about Felix, and the Phoenix Foundation was nothing to do with the Great Social Evil but something quite private and personal.
I slipped the picture into my bag and tipped the scout to keep him quiet. The dressing table also bore a pill dispenser, empty but for a little white dust. Foul play? Had Felix become tangled in the same threads I was trying to unravel?
The scout was surprised. “Felix warn’t one for pills. Unlike most of our Quarterhouse Brothers, who chomp each quack remedy the apothecaries present ’em. Prefers his tea and his wine, Felix does. Must belong to those men who visited the other day.”
* * *
On Quartern Lane, Jeffcoat had bogus roadworks set up under the auspices of telegraphical diggings. He had stationed himself in the workman’s hut with a clear view
of the Mews: he had already seen several ladies coming and going.
I showed him Felix’s daguerreotype. We sat for a moment, both taken with the girl’s expression. But we must hold off accosting her and her landlady at No. 17, we decided, lest we queer our chance. Instead, keep watch and see what visitors they received.
The Commons Select Committee would convene within the week. I vouched for Molly’s urchins to keep an eye on the place. Better than demanding police officers whose discretion we might not trust. We would engage the Oddbodies as watchers, aside from Bede and the Pixie, for whom I had other plans.
* * *
I dropped in on Bertie’s driver, returned from Paris, and persuaded him to come for a spin. As he drove me to visit Felix, he gave his own version of Skittles’s ill-fated crossing. I brought him into the hospital, where he spotted the dark-suited men waiting in the corridor.
“That’s them,” he said. “Them as scared Skittles at the Channel.”
I thanked him and gave him leave to go.
Felix was sleeping. I longed to ask so many things, not least of the cheque and the daguerreotype. I slipped the picture into the drawer and tipped the matron to keep a close eye on him. I was ever out of pocket those days.
On my way back, I dropped in to Coutts & Co. Bank. I mentioned Felix’s ill turn and his distress about a payment to a certain party, whose name he had been unable to write.
The teller eyed me disdainfully. “Acting on his behalf, are we?”
“I’m no lawyer,” I admitted, “but I am a policeman, and Felix’s friend.”
I was sent through to a senior partner, a rotund toad of a Scot. He might have risen to greet me if his chair was not so comfortable. “Police? How thrilling. Is Felix’s money being sequestered on the grounds of incapability?” He shook silently, slapping his knee.
I frowned.
“You’ll have enjoyed that Notting Hill Mystery? Such skullduggery.” He cast his eyes over an impenetrable ledger. “No, no. Nothing beyond the regular payments to Brodie for the maintenance of the Foundation. All in hand.”
I showed not a trace of surprise. “Ah, yes. Brodie.”
“Well. To Brodie’s newspaper group. Subsidiaries of the same. They deal with the day-to-day running of the Foundation. Sixty beds, twenty staff, plans to expand. It’s all accounted for. The payments are in hand.”
“And those payments continue, with Felix ill?”
“Yes, yes. Even should he die.”
I drew in my breath.
Feeling he had divulged too much, he was not willing to discuss individual payments Felix might frequently make. There was no way to know for whom the blank cheque was intended; I kept hold of it, hoping I would find the girl soon enough.
* * *
I would visit Felix as often as I could. Some days he was calm, others distressed. The matron reported that some nice gentlemen had enquired as to Felix’s recovery, asking especially nicely about his speech. She never knew anyone make a recovery in that department, and told them so, which seemed to satisfy them, for they left at once.
The next time I went with Molly, he spoke with the same aphasic limitations. After his customary floral refrain, he reached for another word, again and again, slapping his knee in distress.
Molly checked we were alone. She laid on the bed a sheet she had inscribed with the alphabet.
Felix’s eyes lit up. He began pointing at once, letter by letter. R—S—Q.
Molly looked at him. “Rescue.”
“Rescue you, Felix?” I smiled. “Are you in danger?”
He shook his head and looked askance.
I drew out the picture from his bedside table. He had not known it was there, and his eyes went round. He took it from me reverently, clutching it to his breast with melancholy love. The haunted look returned. I drew closer.
“You want to find this lady? To rescue her? Is it to her the cheque is due?”
He nodded, then glanced around, putting his finger to his lips. Staring about in panic, he gestured to hide the portrait.
Molly slipped it into her satchel. “Poor fellow,” she murmured. “Who is she?”
I whispered. “Your daughter, is it?”
He blinked rapidly, attempting a smile, but giving way to sobbing.
The matron rushed over and told us off. “Leave him be, you awful people. Tiring out an old gent. One at a time for future visits, or you’ll find you ain’t welcome.”
HIDE AND SEEK
Things moved quickly behind the deepening fogs. My suspicions over Groggins and Felix grew graver. Jeffcoat and I were on the right track. Bede and the Pixie were in danger, too. And the girl, the mysterious woman Felix had been visiting. If only I could unravel it in time to sway the Select Committee.
We made enquiries up Quartern Lane: surely baker, butcher and candlestick maker knew the house and who paid their bills. Not at all; none of them served the houses at all, or had in living memory. The Master of Quarterhouse said I was welcome to ask the Brothers, but he feared none would admit they knew the street, for it was infamous locally. How to prove the connections between the courtesans, the brothels and the memoirs? How to discover who held the strings of power?
Where do flowers bloom? In the dirt.
Jeffcoat and I kept up our other duties, somehow, while I slaved over my initial deposition to the Committee. Despite Skittles’s vanishment, Sabine’s freedom was bought her—by a mysterious benefactor, so she said—and she became Stephanie again. She founded her longed-for establishment on the better side of Waterloo: Mrs Boulton’s Café. With new pride and no powder on her cheeks, she made a handsome woman. She undertook to help me, just as Skittles had promised, in memoriam of our friend, in hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. Twice weekly, I took breakfast there, weary with sleep, as Steph called in favours from far and wide. Doxies all over the capital rose from their beds to tell me their tale, in exchange for tea or white satin (that is, gin), stories less rosy than I’d heard at Kate Hamilton’s, stories worse than the societies’. People like to tell the truth, just as Collins had shown me, if they trust you are listening.
More from the 9.23 Club, with Molly’s lot running errands; more from the societies; and these evidences I passed gratefully on to the clerks attending the Commons Select Committee. Why should your life have worth only if you’re born into money? Everyone should have their chance. Each story I heard strengthened my belief: some girls might be drawn to the life by the dream of adventure, but more were lured, tricked or forced into it. If one woman could be saved from the dustheap, it was worth the struggle.
* * *
It was on my way to Mrs Boulton’s, rushing to get figures for the Enquiry next day, that the incident occurred. Seeing how shaken I was, Steph insisted on my taking whisky, despite the early hour. I told her everything.
The fog was denser than ever. Fearful of delay in securing cabs, I had commandeered one of the Yard’s carriages. I was hurtling down from Quartern Lane after my stint when I became lost in the unfamiliar streets across the river. I was a good enough driver all told, but everything had changed since the Tooley Street fire: at one corner, gleaming warehouses; at the next, a rabbit warren of slums and burnt-out tenements.
The whole incident took but five minutes.
The girl appeared from nowhere. She was knocked down before I even saw her, and never a moment to slow the horses. I stopped as soon as I could. The girl was making a low noise, pale as death. She had welts on her face, but no cuts or bruises. Her sister screamed operatically. She gave me a foul look and dragged me to her house, leaving the girl lying on the road. I broke free and lifted the poor thing to the broken doorway, where repeated banging drew out an old dragon with moon eyes, ivory-faced and scab-headed, who might be anything from aunt to great-grandmother. She took one look at me and shut the door in our faces.
The sister banged again.
The door opened but a crack. I pleaded that she must let me lay the girl down. She was breathing regularl
y, and seemed if anything in a daze. The dragon told me to mind my own business, or she would call a copper. She spoke as in a dream, and I smelt strange smoke on her. I pushed past, declaring that I was a copper. If she did not want to be charged, she had best send for a doctor. That shut her up.
Where I had expected to find a kitchen, there was a kind of office. I laid the girl on the table, on top of the accounts. Feeling their hostility, I offered money and my name. Through a hatch, I could hear clacking and whirring. I saw in the semi-dark a roomful of grey-faced seamstresses silently at work, sewing, hemming, making buttons; and on racks behind them the most wondrous dresses, beautifully arrayed. It was the strangest thing to see, such lovely clothes made in such drudgery. The scabbed old dragon chased me out. She took neither my money nor my name. Even the scowling sister refused a tip for minding the horses.
I was at Mrs Boulton’s within five minutes.
Steph’s face darkened as I made my confession. There were warehouses innumerable along those streets. Their behaviour was strange, she admitted, but folk who make a crooked living will have crooked ways. More than that she would not say.
PRELIMINARY HEARING
“Sergeant Lawless,” said Gladstone, opening the preliminary hearing of the Commons Select Committee as pleasantly as if it were a luncheon appointment. “Sir Richard Payne tells me your report is not ready. If your researches are incomplete, let us not waste time. Do you accept that this Commons Select Committee hand over these enquiries to the civil servants, as he suggests?”
“No, Mr Chairman, sir. On the contrary, I request a full Judicial Enquiry.”
Murmurings in the gallery. Though Gladstone had persuaded an impressive selection of MPs to attend at short notice, Payne himself was chatting complacently in the corridor outside, surrounded by lesser politicians. How was he to know that I’d wound up my research (with a deal of help)?—though he could have asked. How was I to know an Enquiry was the last thing he wanted?—though I could have asked.
Lawless and the Flowers of Sin Page 17