Lawless and the Flowers of Sin

by William Sutton

  I slipped the daguerreotype from the drawer and studied the girl’s face. Yes, she had the features of Wildernsea. How much did Felix know of the Flowers of Sin? Did he know where I would find his missing Angelina?

  Bede shuffled up beside me, patting Felix’s hand until the convulsions fell quiet and he slept again. “You know, perhaps we shall change our repertoire.”

  FADE, FLOWERS, FADE

  Across the river, cats were prowling along the old factory walls. The moon peered through tatterdemalion clouds. On the line overhead, a train echoed by, spicing the scents of spring with its smoky trail.

  A hundred bullseye lanterns were converging on a Southwark backstreet. A coded knock at the door, copied from long observations. A girl opened up, her shock illuminated in the lamp light. No need for force. At the back door, a sharpened steel axe chopped at the stout lock.

  That night, we closed down the Flowers.

  John Crow, commissioner of Southwark division, raised a militia to bolster his constables, all sworn to secrecy. Jeffcoat and I stood by; our Yard colleagues assisted them into the vans. The bullies made a run for it; they were tumbled and disarmed. The spinsters in charge protested: it was a ladies’ finishing school. So haughtily did they declaim their innocence, pointing and stamping and huffing and puffing, that they would have overwhelmed the poor constables with their sheer respectability—if we had not been immoveable. We knew the truth, and we had only a few days to provide evidence of their crimes and collusion.

  What of the women? What of the slaves? Though victims, they could not simply be released—where would they go? Were they in danger? We had no idea how pervasive the whole organisation was. The girls were split up and taken in for questioning, to give them a scare, but also a meal and a bed. Those who protested were offered clemency in return for giving evidence; we gave orders to treat the meek more kindly. After that, they were offered places by various foundations; a higher number than usual were returned to their families, and more went into service.

  The enslaved workers we continued to house in their dungeons, lest they be terrified. We sent doctors, food, drink, fresh bedding; Payne agreed to foot the bill, knowing I was about to give evidence at the Enquiry. They were poorly nourished, and stupefied. The opium fiends had to be jailed in John Crow’s crammed cells while they kicked up a stink. Two died there in Southwark Jail; but most emerged from their nightmare and returned to the world of the free.

  I had not foreseen the basement room. We had not viewed it while sweeping the chimneys because it had no fireplace. There we found seven infants laid on a dilapidated divan bed. Their bottles by their sides, they were emaciated and dirty and neglected. These children were taken to Lambeth Workhouse; four survived.

  These considerable efforts we orchestrated with the help of Acton, Molly’s lot and Dickens’s crowd from Urania Cottage. It was a messy business, but the Yard’s coffers were not troubled, and Sir Richard could have no complaint.

  We struck at each limb simultaneously. I found a trusty lawyer to consult. Just a few witnesses would sew up the tapestry of sin. Nothing tenuous would do; they must be so compelling that the Enquiry would be adjourned after their testimony and legal proceedings begun.

  Steph was too afraid, and perhaps rightly. It would cost them nothing to kill her, she said, whether she testified or they suspected she’d informed on them.

  Jeffcoat and I would testify, but we could not be viewed as impartial.

  How many city gents knew of the Flowers of Sin? How many used their services? What price indiscretion? Of course, you might use their services without an inkling of what lay beneath, and protest yourself innocent. I had the feeling our raid would not find its way into the press on the morrow; I had a feeling a few seats would be vacated at the Enquiry during the next day’s proceedings. Finally I could see the threads spinning out from the automaton: thefts, perversions, and erotica; blackmail, prostitution, enslavement. The spinster delivering her bundles of sin. The man smoking his pipe by the canal. The scabbed old dragon, face smoothed by hypocrisy: drug-addled, opium-ridden, did she not know what she was at—the accountancy of evil? At the strike of her pen, another wasted away. Mothers, shamed, abandoned their little ones, clinging to the solace that they might have a better life. What became of their children, none of them guessed, some sold on to new lives, others—but of that I have said enough.

  Somewhere behind all this lurked a shadowy figure, behind these damnable go-betweens doing his filthy work at such a remove, a tapestry of nods and suggestions, protection and besmirched souls.

  I vowed to call him to account. I needed Kate to come out for us, to put him on the spot. I needed to prove the link between Groggins’ work and Brodie’s bookcase, between Bede’s thieving and Dugdale-Hotten’s chapbooks. The Pixie’s evidence might be admitted, the lawyer reckoned, and Felix’s testimony, if coherent, after a doctor’s evaluation. One more, just one more; I must pull out of the woodwork someone who would swing everything.

  * * *

  Early next day I knocked politely at No. 17 Quartern Mews. The servant allowed me to interview her most genteelly. She spoke with fondness of her lady, Angelina. She spoke of Felix’s kindnesses, which meant his politeness as much as the tips.

  What did she know about the transactions that led to their relationship? She denied everything. “No, that is not right,” she said, flabbergasted. “Why, Angelina is an heiress from abroad. Mr Felix was her relation, calling upon her out of courtesy and familial fondness.”

  She was astonished to hear of his stroke, for he had seemed in the most robust health. Angelina, now that I mentioned it, had started behaving oddly a time ago. She looked tired. Harboured secrets. But such is the difference in cultures. A continental flower cannot be expected to behave as demurely as would an English rose.

  Where had she gone?

  “Heaven knows, sir. Gallivanting. Consorting.”

  How old? She could give me only a notion, for the girl looked twenty or more with her toilet complete, but to see her wrapped up in her shift at bedtime, with hot chocolate and warming pan, she might be sixteen, or younger still. She was a grateful soul. If they filled her with conceit, could you blame her? Such attention she drew from the gentry, men and boys. Oh, she was a winning girl, and no doubt of it.

  Where was she now?

  “Well, that’s asking. Off she waltzed. That’s the way of it.”

  Who paid them?

  “Why, some agency or other, but we’re closing up the Mews now. You’ve only caught us by the skin of your teeth. You’d have to ask at Coutts. Someone along the row might know, but prying don’t go down well.”

  Who made the arrangements for the gentlemen?

  This she truly didn’t understand. “Arrangements? Why, you have a funny notion of the world, and no mistake.”

  EQUIVOCATION

  Still it rained.

  Brodie was there at the courtroom, sat at the back. His presence seemed to say: “Looky here, Mr Scotland. I have the judiciary in my pocket. I have your boss, I have your parliament. If you persist, do you think you will ever work here again?”

  I could not care about such things. I would testify in the afternoon, and Jeffcoat before me, with Kate and Darlington in between.

  We had tried all our cards. There was no point dragging in Quartern concierges, Clink Street madams, the poor slaves, the drug-addled accountant, not even the Pixie. Not even Brodie. Not until the finger of blame was authoritatively pointed.

  As I settled in for the morning session, I found myself thinking about Mauve’s peculiar death; and I began to wonder where on earth Jimmy Darlington had got to.

  JEFFCOAT’S DENUNCIATION (ENQUIRY IV)

  Counsel: Sergeant Jeffcoat, will you explain your deputation?

  Jeffcoat: [hesitates] Concerning coercion, or the further matters for which we are still gathering evidence?

  Counsel: The former.

  Jeffcoat: That girls in poor houses, and in gangs, are persuad
ed or forced into the life has already been attested. I assert that girls are also imported into London from provincial towns and foreign countries in order to swell the ranks of prostitution.

  Counsel: Do you not intervene on their behalf?

  Jeffcoat: We might wish to, sir, but the laws respecting brothels are so peculiar that we can rarely extricate these unfortunates from their dire position.

  Counsel: Surely habeas corpus protects them.

  Jeffcoat: Only, sir, if we can prove they are held against their will. But they are scared and so zealously watched that attempts to liberate them prove futile.

  Counsel: Where are these women taken from?

  Jeffcoat: Principally the north of England. One also finds Belgians, Irish, Spanish, Italian, Armenian. I know one Tahitian, sir, black-skinned and not a word of English. Even if she wanted to be liberated, what is she useful for? Except— [noise in the court]

  Justice: Order.

  Counsel: How are these women enticed?

  Jeffcoat: Cajolery, sir. Promises. Lures. Threats to family. Social pressures—

  Counsel: Pressures?

  Jeffcoat: Say you are a girl, with beauty but no other assets. You step out with one boy, innocently enough. He insists that you step out with his friend, teasing, and threatening to defame your reputation. Only this friend proves more insistent. I need not spell it out. Ruined, you cannot return home. You are entered on the life already. What can you do but accept the generous offer to join their nursery?

  Counsel: This nursery. What happens when they arrive?

  Jeffcoat: They are scrubbed, shorn, given a new name. Following an initiation night, with an inspection by the… an inspection and trial run, let us say, they receive training in the arts of the night and, if biddable, the refinements of a lady.

  Counsel: Then they are sent out to work?

  Jeffcoat: It depends, sir, on their accomplishments. The unlucky are cast out to fend for themselves. Most take up residence in houses of ill fame, whose keepers derive profits from their labours. They sign an initial document—our Exhibit A, sir—which they in their ignorance imagine to be binding. They are in the hands of their keepers. But there is a loftier tier beyond this. A bespoke service, whereby the finest, most accomplished of the women are auctioned off—for extraordinary prices.

  Counsel: Prices justified by what?

  Jeffcoat: They make your dreams come true. [scurrilous buzz in the galleries]

  Counsel: Your dreams? I see. [makes a note] Does this traffic run in both directions?

  Jeffcoat: Englishwomen are ever tricked and decoyed to Ostend, Bologna, and Le Havre. Their maisons de joie never have enough to satisfy their patrons; they derive obscene emoluments from the prostitution of English girls. [hubbub]

  Counsel: Sergeant Jeffcoat, these are serious claims.

  Jeffcoat: I do not make them lightly, sir.

  Counsel: Have you documentary evidence?

  Jeffcoat: Much, sir, and it should be brought to the public eye. Women might henceforth come to police, trusting their protection, if only they may tell their tale and be believed. At the moment, they expect blame. They are told they have got what they deserve.

  Counsel: Give an example, Sergeant. Evidence.

  [Jeffcoat tells of Miss Reade, an Englishwoman returned recovered from practical slavery. Attending an interview for service, she was promised recompense for working in Dieppe. He expatiates on the horrors the girl underwent. With difficulty conquered. Submitted to her fate: Frenchmen pay well for the privilege of ruining Englishwomen. By chance, an Englishman frequented the house. He smuggled her to the consulate and thence to Britain. Her written deposition is presented.]

  Jeffcoat: She is too frightened to testify, sir.

  Counsel: Frightened?

  Jeffcoat: We can barely conceive, sir, the hold their… employers have over them.

  Counsel: But I thought this woman has been rescued from her fate?

  Jeffcoat: Not exactly, sir. Now returned, without other support, Miss Reade has done what she never did before, and had recourse to prostitution. [consternation in court]

  THIS DELICATE MONSTER (ENQUIRY V)

  “Miss Hamilton.” A thrill ran through the gallery, as the new barrister narrowed his eyes. The Enquiry was not a court case, as such, but its procedures often resembled a prosecution; Fairchild selected his barristers carefully, specialists in various fields, to get the most out of each witness. This fellow seemed familiar to me. What kind of a match would he make for this monstrous wonder of the underworld? “Miss Hamilton, you run an establishment dedicated—how shall we put it delicately?—to the pleasure of gentlemen.”

  “Nuffink delicate about it, My Lord. Nor can I guarantee the pleasure’s all on the side of the gentleman.”

  Titters around the room. Kate Hamilton, I thought, you’re going to eat this poor devil alive. They had decorously installed her during an adjournment, a capacious armchair replacing the stand. Her bulk dominated the courtroom, strangely out of place away from the pink divan at London’s pulsing centre. In the depths of my weary bones, I was rooting for her. Tell the truth, Kate, the whole truth and—

  “Can you describe your business?”

  “I’m something like a confessor, My Lord, or an alienist doctor. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no ideas above my station. I only mean it ain’t right to divulge what goes on within the walls of my establishment.” Her eyebrows flickered. “Any more than I’d reveal the names of clients and patrons.”

  “The court may require those details later, should they become relevant.”

  Kate leaned forward, like the gathering of a storm. “Oh, may we, Jocelyn? I mean, begging your pardon, sir, certainly.”

  The young barrister’s lips continued to form words soundlessly. He shuffled his papers. A murmur sprang up. Of course. Now I recognised him: I hadn’t known the intemperate fool in his wig, with trousers, and without his horsehair plume.

  “Order,” called Lord Chief Justice Fairchild.

  “No need to jump the gun.” Our learned friend recovered himself. “Names need only be revealed if relevant—”

  “A lot of names, and I can name ’em. Here and now, if you ask me, I can. Drag ’em out of me, you’ll have to, as I’ve ever assured my clients of the strictest confidentiality.” She looked him in the eye. “But, as Mr Mauve has told us—rather, the late Mr Mauve—this is a brave new world. Messrs Acton and Mayhew have spoke of cleansing ourselves of the Great Social Evil. And I’m sure you yourself, sir, have oft looked upon me and my like with, shall I say, disdain. Disgust. It ain’t the moral judgement I feel the harshest, for we’re all sinners, ain’t we?” She came to an abrupt stop and appealed to the gallery. “Ain’t we sinners, every last one of us?”

  The tittering fell away as she gazed steadily round the audience, transfixing each in turn, like the finest tragedian. She looked at Acton and Mayhew; at the barrister, and Sir Richard; and at me; but toward J.W. Brodie she did not look. My heart juddered, as if something was caught in my throat. Come on, Kate, I whispered, don’t let me down.

  “Let him who is free from sin cast the first stone.” She breathed in. “Sorry, My Lord, gabbling on like an old fishbag. What’s the question?”

  The barrister continued, but the fight had gone out of him. His voice was hollow. Kate described her night house, how many girls employed, how many patrons per week, how much liquor sold, how often divans recovered. Her establishment sounded cleaner than the Queen’s dining table. Undesirable crumbs were brushed under the legal carpet: where the girls came from, how brought to the life, how long under her protection and what happened after their flash days were done—none of this was discussed. Gorged with useless detail, the gallery sat stupefied, still sated on the threat of scandal.

  At last, Kate sat back on her throne, lips pursed in a lascivious smile. The bile rose in my gorge. It was too late. She knew it, I knew it, and Brodie, I could plainly see, was delighted.

  Justice Fairchild adjo
urned for lunch. Amid the tittle-tattle, Brodie, unnoticed, touched his cap toward Kate, wrinkling his eyes with gratitude. She flushed, feinting at a curtsey, before she was lifted down the aisle, rather akin to the launch of the Great Eastern.

  FULL OF BLASPHEMIES

  The court dispersed in a frenzy. Kate’s chicanery left me heartsick. I had wanted to believe her place was a republic of free women, choosing the life they preferred, under Kate’s benevolent gaze. I had wanted to believe it from the first time Darlington brought me there. It was easier to believe than the truth.

  As they dragged her past, Kate Hamilton, that teasing, prodigious madam the likes of whom you would encounter nowhere else, I found myself muttering, “You think you’re the great protectress. Standing up for your sex, against men who abuse their beauty.”

  Kate heard. She turned. She laughed in my face. “I don’t give a sausage for you and your beautiful girls, Watchman.” What a fool I was: I’d thought her a lighthouse in the seas of immorality; but she was a monster drawing all to shipwreck. She flashed me a look of triumph. “I may not be the looker I once was, but I’m the one as takes ’em, and shapes ’em. Men would use ’em or abuse ’em anywise. I’m just running a business.”

  “They have you.” I had never expected her destructive glee. Those lost overboard, wrecked and drowned, they meant nothing to her: girls kidnapped, impregnated, despatched to the madhouse, or the Thames. “You’re not your own woman. You’re bought and sold. You’re nothing.”

  “And you, Watchman, my lover, with your pompous airs, strutting round as if you own the place. You don’t own nothing.” She fixed me with a look, then waved her bearers onward, calling out to shame me, “Like a monk, are you? Refusing my girls! Pah. He’s just like the next man, only he wouldn’t know an honest desire when it smacks him in the unmentionables.”