Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  I was so relieved to see her, and not to be in her bad books, I quite forgot my usual reticence. It was no longer police business, I reasoned to myself, and thus no longer confidential. So I spoke of the spout, of the repair man and the cadaver, and of my first investigations. “We have not apprehended the man,” I confessed finally. “Nor have we solved the case. Indeed, the inspector has no intention of making further enquiries, and I am bound to comply. You are right, though, in thinking I suspected this man of doing something, if not criminal, at least highly irregular. I’m sorry I left you in the dark. Only, with my work and Inspector Wardle—”

  “This Wardle of yours.” She gave a look of mock disdain. “Has he no curiosity?”

  “He is not a character out of Mr Poe.” I smiled. “I must return your book.”

  “No hurry. I have books enough at my disposal.” She idly stirred her cup of tea. “That address, though. It’s a public house, did you know? I just happened to be passing through Clerkenwell one day.”

  “Just happened to be?” I nodded. “Did you ask for our man?”

  She looked offended. “Sergeant, would it be proper for a young lady to enter a public house alone?” She laughed. “Besides, I suddenly thought it suspicious. What kind of chap would give as his address a public house?”

  “That could admit of a simple answer.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Someone with something to hide?”

  “Someone who lives in a pub,” I countered. “It’s not uncommon for gentlemen whose resources run low to hire chairs in taverns.” I thought better of telling her that I myself had stopped in a corner of the Old Red Lion before securing Mrs Willington’s garret. “There needn’t be a mystery behind every detail, you know. That’s what you learn when you work in the real police force.”

  “Is it?” She flared her nostrils. “Why, then, pray tell, should our Mr Skelton have stopped using the library?”

  “Are you quite sure he has?”

  “Yes.” She stared at me. “Unless he comes in disguise.”

  “Have you checked with your colleagues?”

  She made a face. “They would consider it most inappropriate for me to ask. As the youngest librarian, and a single lady, I must consider my every action scrupulously.”

  “Could you not check his card? See if he has been consulting any books?”

  “I might be able to do that,” she nodded, “and you might find the time for a visit to the Rose and Crown in Clerkenwell.”

  I hesitated.

  “It’s at the corner of Red Lion Street and Victoria Road,” she said, holding back a smirk, “in case you’d forgotten, Sergeant.”

  “I shall visit it,” I promised, “if only to clear away the cobwebs of a mystery that was never a mystery. I wonder, might your bearded revolutionary help us?”

  “It may have been he that warned our man to stay away. Still, I may try to pick his brains, if I can do so surreptitiously.” She raised her teacup. “Here’s to detective fever.”

  “And the passing of that fever,” I nodded, “with as few casualties as possible.”

  THE ROSE & CROWN

  “ALL PATRONS ARE REQUESTED”—announced a placard by the stairs to the tavern—“BEFORE ENTERING THE SALOON TO LEAVE AT THE BAR THEIR KNIVES AND PISTOLS, OR ANY OTHER WEAPON THEY MAY HAVE ABOUT THEM.”

  I had changed out of uniform before leaving work. I went wrong in the backstreets skirting Liquorpond Row, but I came suddenly upon the Session House which stood at the head of both Victoria Street and Red Lion Street, its door daubed with the words “Closed Prior to Demolition.” Across the square, like the gatehouse of the labyrinth, stood the Rose and Crown.

  I decided I must bide my time. Accordingly, I bought myself a pint of watery ale and listened in to conversations, as the place began to fill. A miraculous assembly it was too. Since the troubles of ’48, Edinburgh had had its share of European emigrés, but never had I seen anything like this. Besides the navvies labouring on the canal and the Irish from the underground train, there were French and Germans, Dutchmen and Greeks. Spanish fishermen; Norwegians in the ice trade; Italians from the Sadler’s Wells, their earrings twinkling as they twirled their moustaches. There was a Moor with a crimson cummerbund; a Slav girl selling posies; there was even a Chinaman, with his pigtails rolled up under a British Navy cap. These diverse specimens of humanity formed energetic circles around small tables, as a ragtag trio struck up one jig after another, as if disconcerted that nobody was dancing. At the bar, a weasel of a man with a mop of oily hair was eyeing me warily. I retreated to the corner furthest from the hearth.

  At the table nearest the musicians a heated discussion arose. On a sudden, a fellow with a broad smile slammed down his tankard and called out. “Come on, boys. Give us ‘Fast Fade the Roses of Pleasure’, will you?”

  The discussion was momentarily stilled, as the fiddler spoke to the drummer. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said in soft Irish tones, “but we don’t know it.”

  “Lads, lads,” the man insisted. “Come on and strike it up for us.”

  “Honestly, sir. Only that it’s not a part of our repertory.”

  The man insisted, his smile tightening. “Look, boys. I’m a musician, too, you know.” There was laughter at his table. He stood up, rounding upon them. “What’s that? I’ll play rhythm with your bones if you ain’t respectful. Will you play ‘The Roses of Pleasure’ or won’t you, boys?”

  The man’s companions eyed each other meaningfully, as the musicians conferred. “We can do ‘The Last Rose of Summer’,” said the fiddler, “or ‘The Roses of Picardy’.”

  “Damn you,” the man exploded, his smile devilishly wide. “You come here with your outlandish tunes, but you don’t learn the old songs.” With a roar, he swept his table clear of glasses. “Damn your eyes,” he shouted above the clatter, and he seemed ready to leap at the musicians, if his companions had not risen as a man and pinned him against the wall. They lifted him up, as if it were the commonest thing, and carried him over the broken glass, across the straw-covered floor, and out the back of the tavern.

  Hesitantly, the band struck up again and everyone went back to their chatter. When the barmaid brought me another pint, I caught her by the sleeve.

  “If you please,” I began, meaning to sound offhand, “have you a fellow living here by the name of Skelton?”

  She showed me a face as stony as if I had spoken Greek.

  I fumbled in my pocket and drew out Miss Villiers’ note, staring at the name I had read so many times. “Yes, that was it. Berwick Skelton. Don’t you know him?”

  She scurried back to the bar, and a series of whispers were exchanged. Eyes darted in my direction, and I heard the weasel of a man ask, “Who is it wants to know?”

  I found myself stared at by a hundred eyes full of mistrust. A panic went through me. The weasel man knew very well it was I who had enquired. Yet he gave no sign of coming over to me. I took a sip of my ale and rose to go up to him, where he was leaning against the bar. Three seafaring types, however, were seated at a table in front of me. Large as whales and quite as intractable, they gave way not an inch, and I was obliged to call out from where I stood.

  “I’m looking for—” I began. “Would you know if—” I faltered. It seemed strangely impersonal to call him Berwick Skelton; Mr Skelton sounded formal; Berwick too familiar. Besides, I was giving myself away with the way I was speaking: far too polite, like a toff or a foreigner. I tried to roughen my tones. “A mutual friend told us I’d find this particular fellow here.”

  “Did they?” the weasel nodded. He looked slowly around the room, as if our chat was a show for the benefit of the whole tavern. He turned to the barmaid, restraining a smirk. “Sal, do you know anyone by the name that the gentleman mentioned?”

  The barmaid went about her business, stony-faced.

  The weasel looked disappointed. He looked around the tavern again. “Has nobody heard of—” He looked at me. “Forgive me. What was the n
ame again, sir?”

  Feeling trapped as a mouse in a cage, I said it again. “Berwick Skelton.”

  How can I describe the ripple that surged around the room? Around every table, they glanced from one to another. There was none of the posturing that would accompany such a scene in a theatrical melodrama. No facial histrionics, no whispered questions. How, then, was I so sure that they were all, every last one of them, only dissembling ignorance?

  “I’m afraid,” said the weasel, running a hand through his unkempt hair, “we can’t help you, officer.”

  My heart sank. He knew me for a policeman. Was it so obvious? I should have dressed differently, spoken differently. I should have prepared some elaborate alibi.

  “A drink for the officer, Sal. Whisky, is it? You are a Scot, if I ain’t mistaken.”

  I could not give up before I had begun. I returned his gaze. “Thank you.”

  The weasel gave a nod. As if by magic, the musicians struck up anew. Conversation resumed, and the seafaring types allowed me to pass.

  “The thing is, officer,” said the weasel as I joined him at the bar, “you have to be careful round these parts. Don’t get me wrong. Only we’ve had, shall we say, a little awkwardness with colleagues of yours of late.”

  “I’m sorry to hear of it,” I mumbled.

  “Well,” he said with a dismissive gesture, “it’s just unfortunate. You may have seen how they’re digging up the roads around here. Progress, you see. Underground trains, iron ships, whatever. I’m all for it. Sadly, though, some of the lads have had their houses quite swep’ away. There’s talk of leafy suburbs being built, for us to remove to, you see, though I for one would rather stay here, where I was born and raised.”

  “Of course.”

  “Only it appears some very important businesses have purchased the land. Corporations. Practices of law and medicine and oculism. They want their premises up and running as soon as possible. Who can blame them? Accordingly, they’ve engaged the police to exert a little persuasive force. Only as nobody’s told us the whereabouts of these leafy suburbs as yet, there lurks that doubt in our minds, you see. As to whether the leafy suburbs actually exist.”

  “Yes,” I mumbled. “That’s a problem, I grant you.”

  “Come, come. It ain’t your fault, is it? Nevertheless, dear chap, you’ll understand, it’s disappointing when the police—our protectors, as we’re told—start knocking our houses down. Which is why a copper strolling in here does not meet with the most generous reception.”

  There was a shout from below. “Ho-ho!”

  I turned to see the smiling man, reeling drunkenly back in, to the hilarity of all.

  “Ah,” said the weasel. “The music lover returns. But you can see, even if we did happen to know of what you were enquiring—which we don’t—we might be less than inclined to divulge it.”

  “This the copper, then?” The drunk man lurched up towards me. Something about his features was oddly familiar. “Been ’specting you, we have. What you after, eh?”

  Seeing no harm in it, I mentioned Skelton’s name again.

  The drunk frowned. “John,” he said to the weasel, “do we have a gentleman under that particular monicker in these vicinitudes?”

  “Don’t know that we do, Smiler, old mate. What would you suggest the officer do?”

  “I do not know, John, my old friend, my old charpering homie. How about you ask down the Academy?” Somebody behind me laughed. The drunk turned on them reprovingly. “A lot of gentlemen are Academaticians, you know.”

  “Ask the hoofers,” somebody called out, “down the Haymarket.”

  This drew chuckles all around.

  “Ask Charles Dickens.”

  Further laughter.

  “Ask the Prince of Wales.”

  This brought a bellow of laughter.

  “Ask his fiancée.”

  “If you can find her!”

  “I am sorry,” said the weasel impassively, as the chorus of guffaws grew more and more raucous. “The lads do get carried away. But rest assured, nobody knows nothing.”

  At this, the drunk roared with laughter.

  The whisky rasped at my throat, but I drank it down, threw a few pennies on the bar, and hurried out.

  NOTE FROM BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY:

  BERWICK SKELTON’S STUDIES

  Dear Sergeant,

  By gosh, you were right. What a job he must have had of it, avoiding my hours. So it appears that he knows. That is unfortunate, I admit. Yet, if he does not want to be found, that means he has something to conceal. Wherefore we want to find him all the more.

  I have checked his card and the fellow’s been reading as much as ever. His recent areas of study are:

  a. Engineering journals. Besides hydraulics, he has a predilection for tunnels.

  b. Dissolvent literature. Social pamphlets, political pamphlets, the Poor Man’s Guardian, the Black Dwarf, the Beehive, pretty much everything my poor father would wish me to steer clear of.

  Now I may be mistaken, but I believe he has taken a couple of cuttings. (Imagine! I suppose it shows a deep interest, if a lack of community spirit.) An engraving from the Illustrated London News: a depiction of the Queen’s outing through the filthy Thames Tunnel in 1843. Also, a section from one of Mr Dickens’ angrier editorials in Household Words. Until I locate another copy, I cannot say precisely what he excised, but it was the conclusion to a fiery piece in Chartist vein.

  That comprises his reading for the past year. If you wish, I shall look through everything he has taken out since he joined in ’58. Glancing down the titles, there is a deal of literature, though I notice also some issues of the Red Republican, which published a translation of the bearded revolutionary’s inflammatory pamphlet. When I have summoned the confidence to brave his beard, I will be in contact again. Kindly send the Professor in a week.

  Yours feverishly,

  Miss R Villiers

  LORD’S

  I was disheartened by my debacle in Clerkenwell, and could neither bring myself to ask Wardle for a new recommendation to the library, nor to write to Miss Villiers with such a rotten report. She sent her note by penny post to my garret, to avoid arousing Wardle’s suspicions, and it quite put the spring back in my step. The same day, at lunchtime, Worm’s friend, the Professor, turned up at the Yard with a further letter, addressed in a spidery hand:

  Esteemed Police, namely Lawless,

  Remembering your injunction that you should like to know more about my mechanisms, the injury and larceny thereof, please to come today to the sporting green of Lord’s new cricket ground, St John’s Wood.

  I have been called upon by the Marylebone Cricket Club to do some repairs in situ and wish you to understand that the mechanism installed there was a species of prototype for the clock you admired at Euston, now destroyed.

  If you should care to come along, I should be glad to see light shed upon these obscure, nefarious dealings. I shall be there at lunchtime.

  Yours in all sincerity,

  B N Ganz, Esq

  ALLNUTT & GANZ, WATCHMAKERS OF DISTINCTION

  I certainly did care to go along. I was pleased to think that an inquiry made so long ago might yet bear fruit. But how to tackle Wardle? I hurried in without a strategy, and was taken aback to find him at my desk, consulting the newspaper’s sporting pages.

  “Spit it out, youngster,” he barked. He always knew when I had something to say.

  “Reading about the cricket, sir? I’d like to go to this Lord’s ground.”

  “A Scots cricket fanatical?” His eyes narrowed and he started making a peculiar noise. It took me a few moments to realise that he was laughing. It was the first time I had heard him properly laugh. “Full of surprises you are, son.”

  “I used to watch it as a child, sir, in Edinburgh.” I had no more watched cricket than I had been to the moon.

  “I was unaware that you Scots enjoyed sporting activities, beyond sword skipping and log tossing.”
A faraway look came into his eye. “Oh, I was a useful bowler, when I was young—underarm—mind you. Never made my peace with it since they messed with the laws. It’s all bloody round-arm these days, like ladies. Or out-and-out chucking. I blame the locomotive trains. People think time is money and speed’s of the essence. Foolish claptrap. Where’s the subtlety in it, I ask you? Where’s the guile?”

  Terrified he might interrogate me on some intricacy of the game, I just grimaced.

  “Nothing pressing to be done here.” He frowned, a rueful, indulgent frown. “I won’t join you. Another time, perhaps. Go for the day, if you like.”

  * * *

  To my surprise, the Professor was still outside, spinning a top back and forth on a string. He stuffed it in his pocket and doffed his cap. “Good day, officer.”

  “Good day again, yourself. Professor, tell Ganz I’ll see him there, would you?”

  “I could, sir,” he intoned. He had an impish tone, the Professor. The nasality of an archbishop, with great elongated vowels. When he said “rather,” it sounded like “rawther;” in place of “can’t” was “caun’t,” like the heavyweight, Big Ben Caunt; Lord Palmerston more like “Paw-miss-tin.” He hesitated. “Only as how he didn’t rightly ask for a reply.” He had read the note, of course, and he was eager to come with me. “Worm should be along any minute. He’s a cricket fiend.”

  Worm fell in beside us in the Regent’s Park. He presented me with a sweet pastry that he had doubtless pinched from a street trader. “Didn’t know you played, old cove.”

  “There’s a lot we don’t know about each other. Beautiful day, though, isn’t it?” I said, ruffling the Professor’s hair, which made him crinkle up his eyes in annoyance. “Makes you glad to be alive, boys.”