Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  As the match drew to its mysterious close, I found myself accepting his offer of a lift into town, against my better judgement. Hunt regarded me with veiled hostility as his master led me up to the luxurious carriage. I admit, I took a perverse pleasure in riding within while he sat up front in the dust and heat.

  “You and I are going out on the town. I won’t brook a refusal. I simply must show you the ropes. Bright young thing like you. Hardly seen life at all, I’ll wager.”

  I smiled uneasily, but he was obdurate. We simply must and we simply would go out. It was irregular, all right, I told myself, but he was in such garrulous mood, who could tell what I might learn?

  “Have you been to the Evans? Thought not. You simply must try the devilled kidneys. We’ll take in the show! Bertie and I have the use of a private box, y’know.”

  “Must cost a pretty penny.”

  “Everything has its price, my friend. Most useful for entertaining, though. You can imagine. There’s a late spot too, I know you’ll enjoy. Don’t fret. I’ve a jacket here to lend you. Fit well enough. Hunty boy! Straight to the club!”

  I think that I have never heard a man so talkative say so little of substance. Yet he had friends aplenty. He was greeted with striking joviality at his club, where he lent me a jacket and tie and we changed rapidly. At Covent Garden, as we descended into the vast, dimly lit music hall, peopled with the most flavoursome crowd, a steady stream of nods and hulloahs assailed us.

  “Now, Cameron,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Let us secure some refreshments.”

  An important looking man hurried over and mumbled to him apologetically.

  “Dash it all, is the box taken?” He peered up into the darkness in annoyance. “Table by the wall, then. Less likely to have our pockets picked, what?”

  As I strove to cast off my reserve, Coxhill summoned to our table a stream of tidbits and delicacies such as I had never seen. I would have felt even less comfortable in my uniform, but I have never liked wearing borrowed robes. His jacket was of undeniably fine tweed, but it was too short in the sleeve, and made my arms seem like a baboon’s. He had enjoined me to leave my things at the club, but I preferred to keep them with me, fearful of finding myself stranded in Piccadilly Circus at five in the morning.

  Despite my protestations, he made clear I was not to put my hand in my pocket. So I tucked guiltily into a seemingly endless round of chops, kidneys and every type of potato, while he pointed out to me some personalities in the audience: Thackeray, the Punch Brotherhood, and Wilkie Collins, the author so admired by Miss Villiers. As he accepted some snuff from the waiter, I decided it was time to engage him on more serious matters.

  “Mr Coxhill, you mentioned some information—”

  “Not over dinner, old man.” His eyes widened. “Come along. Enjoy yourself.”

  I held back a sigh. I must proceed patiently, I told myself, be more canny. “You were telling me about the hazards of modern business.”

  “Insure to the hilt,” he said, sniffing up the powder, like some anteater from the Cape. “Father considered insurance a gamble, though. Did I mention my father? He taught at Heidelberg University, you know. That’s how we know the royals.”

  I glanced at him in dismay. “And insurance—”

  “He didn’t hold with it, you see. I’m not averse to the odd flutter myself. Nor is a certain prince of the realm I happen to know. I’ll tell you a story. Just last week, I was trouncing the young rascal at billiards in Marlborough House. We had a tidy sum wagered on it. I fluff a shot, and Bertie pipes up, all excited: Roxy, Roxy, you are too drunk, he says, too drunk. Tum Tum, says I, anticipating my triumph, I may be too drunk, but you are too fat. He tells the valet to prepare my luggage and only goes and chucks me out. Worst of all, he claims that the debt’s invalidated. Invalidated! The cheek of the boy, I ask you.”

  “How interesting,” I managed. There was a surfeit of royal tittle-tattle in the papers, and I had little appetite for more. “But insurance—”

  “The lowest sort of gamble, father called it. Wouldn’t wash today, you know. It’s a dead man who doesn’t insure himself for his life, as it were.” He nudged me in the stomach, and gave a sort of a sideways grin. “I suppose it is gambling, of a sort. But we all like a little flutter, don’t we, old man?”

  “The machine at Euston,” I said casually. “It was insured, was it?”

  “Oh, yes. Dashed hard to get the blighters to pay up. Ah, the show, at last. Hush up a little now.”

  I held my tongue, frustrated, as the curtain rose on a stage veiled in gauze, or rather the mists of the past. A man in a dressing-gown, standing for turn-of-the-century costume, clutched a pile of swaddling clothes, while painted signposts were carried across the stage as he travelled widely, amassing a fortune. Then a demon sprite skipped up, murthered our traveller most foully, and stole his fortune. The gauze was snatched away, and the actor removed his historical dressing gown to characterise the swaddling clothes grown to a man.

  This offspring likewise travels the world, past those same signposts, in his thirst for revenge. He finds the demon sprite on an egg-box throne, lording it up over a tribe of dancing girls. Our man becomes his trusted courtier, meanwhile becoming enamoured of a strapping Amazon wench. The sprite, hitherto indifferent to these women so proximate and fetching, promptly weds the wench himself. Whereat resinous flashes play in the wings, and a cannon ball is rolled around.

  In this terrible storm, our dejected hero sees in a green limelight the dressing gown that was his father, which plays out for him his unjust fate. The stage becomes luminous with blue fire. The egg-box throne falls, discovering the stolen riches. At a chord from a solitary violin, the sprite doubles up and our man runs him through. He weds the wench, who seemed well worth the effort, and the dancing girls erupt in a hymeneal dance, with high kicks, drawing the stoutest applause.

  “Some port, there, my man!” Coxhill turned to me, his eyes gleeful. “Capital, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. You were telling me, though,” I hesitated, “about that crane at Euston.”

  “Hard to get them to pay at the best of times. Worse when there seems something rotten in it.”

  “That’s right,” I said, trying not to sound too eager. “You thought someone was trying to damage confidence in your company.”

  “Did I?” He bit into a quail’s leg. Oil ran down his chin. “I don’t recall.”

  “Do you have enemies, that you know of?”

  “Glory be, old chap, one can hardly start a concern of this magnitude without ruffling a few feathers.”

  I spluttered on my port. The image of the dead man from the spout flashed before me. And he spoke of ruffled feathers. I looked at him more closely. “Does anyone spring to mind?”

  “One hopes not,” he said, playing down the idea with a carefree smile. “One hopes not.”

  I thought of the mysterious repair man. “Mr Coxhill—Roxton. I do urge you to think. Could there be someone, within your own ranks even, who holds a grievance against you?”

  “I understood it was activists. What have the bloody Fenians against me?”

  “Your man, Pat, said the saboteur had a knowledge of the machines.”

  “Pat? Don’t mind old Pat. He’s on his last legs.”

  Like your engines, I thought. “You haven’t had any trouble with claims? Compensation for injuries, I mean.”

  “The odd chancer, yes. Nothing worth speaking of. As I said, it goes with the territory.” He laughed and drank down his glass. “There was one old comedian who tried it on. Put on a limp, claimed it was our fault.”

  “Did you pay him off?”

  “No, no. Hunty-boy sends ’em packing. Good-o! Here’s the song and dance girls. Have a cigar, old man.”

  The tragic actor now metamorphosed into the Great Mackay, the lion comique, bestriding the second half’s miscellany of skits and songs like a colossus. I found myself giggling even at the most thir
d-rate of the performers, only to realise that Mackay was standing idly upstage brandishing a rubber chicken. When he turned to singing, we laughed at “The Dandy Dogs-Meat Man” and “Threading My Grandmother’s Needle”; tapped our feet to “Dainty Miss Skittles” and “The Woman in White Waltz”; and wept to hear “The Soldier’s Tear” and “Sweet Betsy Ogle”.

  There was even a skit on the skeleton thefts, which might have galled me but for the wine with which Coxhill kept plying me, and the metamorphosis of the Amazon wench into Mackay’s society wife. She was a gorgeous thing indeed, with a cascade of blonde hair and a bosom that would have sunk the SS Great Britain.

  “Ha ha!” roared Coxhill. “Our Scotchman is of flesh and blood after all. My, we shall have some entertainment tonight.”

  There was a deal of horseplay in the audience behind us, and ideas exchanged in the most colourful language. By the end of the show, I was somewhat the worse for wear. Coxhill whisked me back into the chaise and within moments we were descending a stone stairway to a smoky cellar.

  “Where are we?” I said in alarm.

  “Gambling hell, old chap,” he announced. “My favourite one. The odds ain’t too tight, you know, and the extras cheap too.”

  Wide-eyed, I stared around at a cross-section of debauchees more louche than I imagined in a den of vice in Naples. Coarse faces leant heavily over small baize tables, while the more refined puffed amicably at extravagant hookahs.

  “Don’t fret,” said Coxhill with that sideways grin. “You look quite the greenhorn.”

  “I fear I’ve had a drop too much, Roxton. I’d like to go home, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Don’t be a bloody ass, old man. Sit down and enjoy yourself. The club’s next door, near as damn it. You can catch forty winks there, if need be.”

  Sure enough, I did begin to relax. Coxhill found us a spot under a vaulted arch, and I squeezed in, reclining deep into the Moorish cushions, while he sat up at a gaming table. I did not join in, too befuddled to follow. By the time Coxhill passed me a pipe, I was ready to enter into the spirit. The smoke soaked into my head, and I observed the assembly with mounting amusement.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Time to call on Madame Lorraine and her Academy.”

  He spoke to a waiter, and ten minutes later an older lady, eyes dark with make-up, came and kissed us on both cheeks. Coxhill bantered with her in a low voice, and she soon vanished away, giving me a broad smile and a pinch on the cheek. He cashed in his chips with the waiter and sat back heavily. “Now, old man. I wanted to tell you.”

  “The information!” I laughed. “Good God, I’d quite forgotten.” It struck me that all Coxhill’s posing and posturing was just an attempt to match up to the world, to match up to a father doubtless every bit as domineering as mine. I giggled to think that behind that unprepossessing beard was a young man barely older than myself. Indeed, I had begun to find everything amusing, and was quite unprepared for the grave tone he adopted.

  “I’d like to give you some shares in the company, old man. What do you say?”

  I looked at him as if I had been hit square on the head. Even in my cups, I was cautious with money. “Roxton, you lunatic. A policeman’s income is—”

  “Tosh.”

  We both laughed.

  “I’ve no savings,” I said. “I’m in no position to be dabbling.”

  “Look, old chap, I’m offering you them for a song.”

  “Really. I can’t be gambling.” I paused for a moment, then said, as if it were a brilliant discovery, “It’s against my religion.”

  Again, we both fell about, as if my foolish joke were the witticism of the year. When we had recovered ourselves, Coxhill wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. “Well, really. You Scotch! Cameron, old man, you’re the darnedest haggler I ever met. All right. Have the bloody things for free.”

  “What?”

  “Come along. I’m saying you can have them for nothing. A hundred of ’em. Value? God only knows. Now, what do you say to that? Will that see us right?”

  “You’re too kind, man.” I shook my head warmly and gestured around us. “But it’s not my place to be receiving perquisites from your good self. I mean, there’s no need to buy me off!”

  I laughed, as he gave me a look of the most exaggerated admiration. He clamped my arm in that vice-like grip again, as if he was holding on to my decency for dear life. “My dear fellow, you cannot know how admirable I find you. I’m in awe of your sacrifice, quite in awe. We’ve been through a rough trot of late, but still I couldn’t do it myself. Forgo riches and consequence. Contribute to society at the basest level. It must be something akin to being a monk, would you say? Not that you’re holier than thou, but… Well, I have the most profound respect for the lot of you.”

  A thought struck me as he sniffed valiantly. “I say, Roxton, old man. You don’t happen to know a fellow called Skelton, do you?”

  “One of your lot, is he? Where would I have met him?” His eyes darted about, looking into the darkness behind me. “Ah, here comes the Academy.”

  He turned, as a troupe of brightly dressed ladies began to circulate around the dim cellar. With a resounding chortle, Coxhill grabbed a buxom girl and sat her upon his knee, holding up his cards for her to kiss.

  I suppose I was no longer quite myself when Madame Lorraine’s Academy arrived. For I soon ended up leaving with a wee fair-skinned girl. She took me up to a small back room. It must have been very late, as there was already a glimmer of light from the grubby window high up in the wall. All the details I cannot recall, nor do I wish to. I remember, though, she wouldn’t say a word at first. She had her hair pinned up, and I had the devil of a job to persuade her to let it down. I never saw such a pretty thing as those red-brown curls tumbling down over her bare shoulders. She said her name was Eloise. I don’t think that was in earnest, for she was about as French as I am. She washed herself unashamedly in front of me, before and after, and put on a cheap perfume, as if to cover her sins. Afterwards, she lay down exhausted and fell into a light sleep.

  I rose in the light of early morning and hastened to put on my clothes—my own, not Coxhill’s—amazed to find I had had the presence of mind to keep the bundle with me. The poor girl awoke to see me in my uniform. She was seized by fear at first, then, when I had managed to calm her down, she pulled me back towards the bed.

  “No,” I said softly. “I must be going.”

  “Don’t worry. Your friend has paid in advance, sir, up till noon.”

  “My friend?”

  “Him with the filthy beard.”

  I sat by her and stroked her hair until she dozed off again, her eyes shut tight. I looked at her, as my befuddled mind began to clear. My friend? He had made every effort to befriend me, showering me with attentions. As if he thought that I came from the upper echelons of Scottish society; that I had somehow given up hopes of inheritance and business in order to tackle the ills of society, like the Temperance people and the Society for the Redemption of Fallen Women. Yes, we seemed to get on well enough, though I had little expected to be befriended by his likes. Still, Coxhill was not such a bad egg after all. I must refrain, I told myself, from drawing conclusions on insufficient evidence and personal whim.

  Yet a sense of shame washed over me as I slipped out into the soft morning light. I was galled to feel I had obliged myself to him. I tramped slowly towards the Yard, clutching Coxhill’s jacket. Disappointed in myself, I resolved to avoid him as far as possible, hoping the wind would blow the smell of smoke from my clothes, even if it was powerless to drive the fatigue from my face, or undo my blunder in accepting his disquieting largesse.

  THE FAMILY MARX, AS RELATED BY MISS VILLIERS

  I called unannounced at our bearded revolutionary’s apartments. Amidst a hubbub of wailing infants, his wife icily explained that he was out at a meeting.

  “A political meeting?” I asked.

  She gave me a look so frosty that I made haste to assure her
I was a friend, interested in her husband’s work, even well-disposed to it. (I felt this to be reasonable half-truth. His activist pamphlet is rather too modern to form part of my studies, but I found it striking, if a little awkward stylistically.)

  The ice melted, and out poured her tale of woe. Their exile from Germany. Elation at the revolutions of 1848. Gloom as the uprisings were quenched all over.

  “Social upheaval,” she said, with an air of long-suffering appeal, “may be sparked by a work of genius, such as Karl’s, but to stoke the fires of lasting change requires a lifetime of selfless dedication, study, and meetings upon meetings upon meetings.”

  I accepted her bubbling invitation to step inside, deciding that this loquacious lady might be rather more indiscreet than her husband.

  “It is a noble thing, Miss Villiers,” she said (I am translating, of course, from the German), “this spectre haunting Europe. To unite the workers of the world may be inevitable, as Karl tells me, but it is also terribly fatiguing, and such a cost of postage as you would scarcely believe.” She explained that they disseminated her husband’s work through sympathetic organisations and offshoot cells across the continent.

  “Mr Marx’s publications must provide a steady income, surely?”

  At that moment, several infants flocked into the room. Mrs Marx spoke to them rapidly in a dialect I could not follow. Out they went again, and she sat back down, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “Frankly, Miss, no.”

  “I see. Can these organisations not raise money to help you?”

  “Karl is adamant,” she replied, “that money raised from the proletariat must finance revolution, not our dinners. Mr Engels has secured offers of publication in American magazines, but Karl won’t hear of it.” She cast down her eyes. “In fact, if it was not for Friedrich’s kindness, and the success of his Manchester factory, we would have starved already.” The poor woman raised her hand to her face, stifling a sob. “Karl makes it so difficult for himself, writing the way he does. If only he would write a bestseller, like Mr Dickens. I feel sure he could.”