Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  “I had not thought,” I said, surprised, “of Mr Dickens as Mr Marx’s equal.”

  “Oh, Karl has the highest regard for him. He says that Mr Dickens has issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together.”

  “But your husband’s reputation is beyond any popular novelist’s.”

  “Karl has kudos, I know, Miss Villiers. But kudos does not pay the bills.”

  Again the children flocked in. This time, she permitted them, and with military precision they gathered about her in a picturesque group. She looked up at me with forlorn eyes, and I finally realised that she was appealing to my generosity.

  I had been trying to draw the conversation towards Berwick Skelton, and it was most awkward to be mistaken for a potential patron. I must turn her misapprehension to my advantage. “Rest assured, Mrs Marx, the legions who take inspiration in your sacrifices will doubtless come to your aid. Indeed, the man who introduced me to Mr Marx’s writings, a certain Berwick Skelton…” I paused, and sure enough, recognition lit up her face.

  “You are involved in the Reform League?”

  I gave a sort of equivocal quiver of the head.

  “So nice a man. Such a pity. How is he?”

  I blinked innocently. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”

  “Still no sign of him at the League? Oh dear.”

  I feigned a look of assenting concern.

  She sighed. “We need them, tireless comrades such as he, to lead sympathetic bodies around the world. It is Karl’s belief that just a few selfless men of genius at the head of the proletariat could fashion the world anew.”

  “And Mr Skelton?”

  “That girl.” She made a face. “Did you know her? I suppose even the finest revolutionary minds can fall prey to temptation. It is fortunate that Karl’s weakness is for wine and not women. I expect him back from the tavern any moment, Miss Villiers. He will be pleased to meet you.”

  At the prospect of the bearded revolutionary’s arrival, I panicked. Enough equivocal language, I decided. “Mrs Marx, you have been most kind to a poor unworthy student—”

  “A student?” she said, her frosty tone returning. She looked me up and down, dismayed that she had wasted attentions upon me, clearly no benefactress. “I see. You must excuse me, then, but Karl will be angry if he finds the little ones still up. Do call again.”

  THE HAYMARKET HOOFER

  “Don’t you see?” said Miss Villiers, pouring a second cup of tea. “Every detail matters.”

  She had sent a most persuasive note, hinting at grand discoveries made in Highgate. I bought her lunch in a Museum Street tea room. She entertained me with an unflattering portrayal of Mrs Marx. Although her discoveries were limited, her approach seemed most impressive, beside my debacle in the Rose and Crown. She quizzed me and quizzed me about the mockery I had incurred there until I could stand it no more. “What does it matter, what they said when they were laughing at me?”

  “They mentioned the Haymarket—”

  “Not exactly mentioned.”

  “What did they shout? Tell me again.”

  I sighed. “Ask the hoofers down the Haymarket, they said. But the man was laughing all over his face.”

  “At his own audacity, perhaps. Hoofers are dancers, aren’t they? They have hydraulics at the Haymarket Theatre. Don’t you remember?” She looked at me triumphantly. “Mrs Marx hinted that our man had girl trouble, and your lot shouted about his fiancée. Add it all together and it may amount to something.”

  “They also mentioned Charles Dickens and the Prince of Wales.”

  “Maybe they are involved too.”

  “Your imagination knows no limits,” I said.

  She smiled. “What else? The Academy. What could they mean by that?”

  I had not until then connected the man’s catcall with Madame Lorraine’s Academy. “A lot of gentlemen are Academaticians,” he’d said. I flushed. “I have no idea.”

  “No matter. I will try the Reform League. You must go to the Haymarket.”

  “Must I? And what if I am received as I was in Clerkenwell?”

  She sighed. “What other avenues can we explore? The night porter at Euston?”

  “Sacked. At Coxhill’s behest, I believe. They have no trace of him, which is galling as he actually spoke to our man.”

  “The hospital matron?”

  “Gone too.”

  “And the ward book page with her. Strange. It’s not exactly that we can’t find people. More that, when we find them, we don’t know how to make them talk. Those men in the pub, for instance.”

  “Said they didn’t know him.”

  “But you didn’t believe them. Why should they lie?”

  “People have a million reasons for lying.”

  She flared her nostrils and gave me a penetrating look. “Maybe so. We must seek ways to persuade them not to.”

  * * *

  The manager at the Haymarket, a supercilious man with theatrical moustaches, kept me waiting for some time. Miss Villiers’ conviction had given me a much-needed jolt. Since my visit to Lord’s, I had been seized by a feeling of unholy impotence. Yet she might be right. I had been in a room full of people who all knew my man. Perhaps some of their jibes were more significant than I realised. If the Academy was not without sense, why not the other things? Miss Villiers had gone to Highgate on the most speculative off-chance, and it had borne fruit, if only a little. Standing in the foyer of the Haymarket Theatre, by a hoarding that proclaimed Shakespeare’s return, I went over my stratagems.

  The manager’s face soured the moment I mentioned hydraulics. “I believe you have them installed in the theatre?”

  “Did have. Bloody liability. Cost a fortune, never worked, went and burst.”

  “An explosion?”

  “At the bleeding finale. Gushing down off the safety curtain, like a river. Quite the precipitous evacuation, we had.”

  I frowned. There was no way, I supposed, to find out if Coxhill was present at that mishap, as he had been at Euston, short of asking him. The other connection I could pursue here and now. “Was that a dancing show? I believe you have hoofers.”

  “We’re under new management. Going upmarket, if you must know. No larking about with orchestras and that. All these new halls spending fortunes to outclass each other. With Shakespeare, you just need the odd clap of thunder, the odd lightning flash.”

  “And the words, I suppose, which are cheap, at least.”

  His face soured further. “I must be getting on.”

  “In that case,” I said with a regretful look, “I may be back later, with my inspector, to discuss a couple of items from the Licensing Act—”

  “Oh, what is it you want, officer?”

  “Your hoofers. Only to speak to them.”

  “They were snapped up by the Evans, if you must know. Look for ’em there.”

  * * *

  In the few minutes it took me to reach Covent Garden, I puzzled over the multiplying coincidences of the case. Glancing down the alleyway beside the music hall, I chanced upon three girls arriving in high spirits.

  “Hulloah, there, ladies.”

  The tallest, a full-bodied woman, called out. “What can we do for you, officer?”

  “Is the stage door this way? Only I’m looking for the dancers.”

  “You’ve found us,” she said. Her voice crackled darkly. “What of it?”

  My nerve faltered as I recognised her. It was the marvellous Amazon of the show. Her tumbling locks were tied up beneath a bonnet, but that voice of hers was unmistakable. The two shorter girls eyed me with suspicion and amusement in equal measure, as nervous of me as I was of them. I asked my question quietly, as if the name were a charm—a spell, a key—which I was scared of uttering too many times, for fear of wearing out its magic before I unlocked its secrets. “Do you… Might you know a man—Berwick Skelton?”
>
  The tall girl turned away, while the short ones burst out giggling.

  “Who doesn’t know him, officer?” said one.

  The other made a face as if this was the most daring comment she’d ever heard. She pointed back at the tall girl. “It’s her you’ll want to talk to, though.”

  The two scurried down the alley and tugged at her shawl. The Amazon looked back with a strange dignity. “I ain’t got the foggiest what he’s talking about,” she said and turned on her heel.

  The others clapped in excitement.

  I strode after her. “Please,” I said. “I must speak with you.”

  “It ain’t me you want.” She fixed me with her dark eyes, and my plan to be tough melted clean away.

  “Please. I beg you most humbly.”

  She glanced round. Her friends were huddling at the stage door. “Oi,” she called out. They disappeared into the doorway. “This is no good. Got a teviss?”

  I gave her a shilling.

  “Here, girls. Now, bugger off while the copper and I have a chat.”

  Her friends tried to stifle their giggles. They grabbed the coin from her hand and vanished with some leery comment that brought a scowl from the tall girl.

  She strode in through the door and led me into a small room with a shelf of wigs, a mirror and a rail of extravagant costumes. She sat down and began to put on make up. “What kind of a reputation this’ll get us I don’t know. Bringing a copper into me dressing room. What is it you lot want this time?”

  The statuesque tilt of her head and a dismissive tone in that velvet voice left me at sea, and I fumbled for words. “You know him. You know Berwick Skelton.”

  She frowned quizzically. “Are you for real, mate?” Her laughter was warm and infectious. She looked me up and down, appraisingly. “Who’s sent you along here?”

  “Nobody,” I said quickly. “I’ve come on my own account.”

  “I’m sick of the lot of you.” She looked down her aquiline nose into the mirror with sudden decision. “I have to get ready. I got a good job here and I likes to look me best.”

  I must choose how to play my hand. I couldn’t let her send me away so quickly. But this was not the moment to speak of the spout. That would make it seem like I was pursuing him for a crime. I had no veiled threats to drop, as with the Haymarket man. I reached into my pocket. “Look, you gave that shilling to the others. Here’s one for you.”

  “I don’t want your filthy shillings.”

  “I’m sorry.” I frowned in dismay. “Please, if you ever had any fondness for him—”

  “What’s he done?”

  “I just want to find him.”

  She turned her big doe eyes upon me. “You’re a strange one. All right. As long as you don’t mind me getting into me things.” She went across to the rail and pushed her way through the rich fabrics as if she was walking through a forest. “Yes, I knew Berwick.”

  My heart thrilled, and I realised that I had begun to doubt that he existed. I almost burst out and told her how relieved I was. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Oh yes. He’s sat in the upper circle, waiting for you.”

  I started up in confusion.

  “I’m having you on, copper,” she laughed. “What d’you think this is, a drawing room farce?” She picked an outfit off the rail.

  “I’m Hester, by the way.”

  I introduced myself in turn, feeling foolish. “Tell me about him, Hester.”

  “What, like his life story?”

  “Why not?” I realised I could see her in the mirror, changing her clothes. I averted my gaze. “Were you close?”

  “I think,” she said tightly, “it’s my old friend Nellie that you’re after.”

  “Nellie?”

  With a rustle of cloth, she popped her head around the end of the rail, jaw set firm and bare shoulder peeking out. “You really don’t know nothing, do you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know what I know, Hester.” We both laughed. “Is Nellie in the show?”

  “Nellie,” she grinned, “no longer graces the stage with her little tootsies. She has, shall we say, alighted in higher circles.”

  “As Berwick’s fiancée?”

  She puffed out her cheeks. “Let me say straight away that I have lost touch with Nellie, not seeing eye to eye with her, you might say, but as far as I know that particular agreement is no longer binding.”

  She gave me a smile. Disappearing back among the gowns, she began to speak more freely. She had been best friends with Nellie since they were knee-high. She spoke of their early days on the stage, dancing down at the Hoxton Hall. Even then, she said, Nellie was the darling of the audiences. Hester painted her friend as a charmer, who revelled in playing off against each other the million men chasing her.

  “I was the shy one,” she said, emerging resplendent in her rather sparse Amazonian costume, red frills and feathers all over it.

  The door burst open and one of her little friends popped her head around the door.

  “Bugger off,” Hester growled. The friend vanished. “What’s so funny, copper?”

  “You don’t seem so shy to me,” I mumbled.

  “You can bugger off and all.”

  “No, no. It’s just that I… I’ve seen you perform.”

  “Oh, yes? Juliet or Cleopatra? I do so love the classical roles. Don’t look so confused. I’m pulling your leg.”

  I grinned. “And out of these millions of men, she chose Berwick?”

  “They chose each other. Nellie wanted to go up in the world, you see. Which of us doesn’t? And Berwick was always headed somewhere. You could see that from the start.”

  “Tell me. What is he like?”

  She looked at me, as if I she could scarcely believe that I didn’t know him. As if it amused her and, at the same time, she pitied me for it.

  “He was a lovely one. Full of brains. And a way with words he had. Ask anyone.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “There was different stories. I heard he was an orphan. Nellie said his family were gypsies and they’d left him in London to grow up into a trade. Others said he was the illegitimate child of some lord, abandoned at the Foundlings’ Hospital. Could have been: he had that air about him. He had family in Clerkenwell, I think. They’d know the truth of it.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “Don’t know,” Hester said with a wistful grace, as she fixed her hair into a high bunch. “Does it matter? He did have something faraway in his look. She loved that, the thought that he was destined for great things. Oh, he had stars in his eyes when he saw us dance. He wooed her good and proper, like a gentleman would have done, and that’s how he won her. Whenever she stepped out with him, it was like he couldn’t quite believe it. Like he thought it was his birthday every day. Silly boy. He was worth her weight in gold. Could have been somebody too, with his brains. Nellie was ever so impressed. Not that she told him. Then along comes another, money jangling in his pockets. Nell takes one last look at Berwick’s old waistcoat, and his sideburns, and his old bowler hat. And she drops him, like she dropped all the others. Yes, she drops him and goes off with the toff. And that was the last I saw of them.”

  “And now? Where are they now?”

  “Your guess is good as mine.”

  “You’re not friends any more?”

  “Look, to my eyes, Nellie behaved badly. Berwick deserved better than her, and she treated him like dirt.”

  “Hester, forgive me. Did you have an interest in this fellow too?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “He was a nice-looking fellow. Well-spoken, and gentlemanly. A lot more gentlemanly than a great many gentlemen I’ve encountered.” She stood and, before I could speak, she kissed the top of my head. “And you’re a sweetheart too, but you must be off or I’ll be in trouble.”

  I stood up, my mind spinning. “The toff that Nellie ran off with,” I said, knowing it was indiscreet to ask, and maybe irrelevant. “Who was it? Not a
man called Coxhill?”

  Hester’s eyes narrowed.

  I stopped short. “You know Coxhill, then?”

  “I knew I’d seen you before.” She looked at me closely. “Last week, wasn’t it?”

  I laughed an awkward laugh. “Not Juliet, nor Cleopatra. You’re very good.”

  She brushed off my compliment. “Uniform suits you better.”

  I thought of my arms sticking like pins out of Coxhill’s jacket, and my cheeks burned with shame. “Hester, I have to find Berwick. I can’t say why, but can’t you tell me where Nellie lives?”

  “I tell you, petal, your lot know more about it than me. Go on now, scarper.”

  I thanked her. Enthralled with these discoveries, I decided to stop in at a tavern to collect my thoughts. Yet in truth I still had nothing substantial to go on. After a couple of ales, the notion took me to step into the Evans and watch the end of Hester’s show over again. I huddled into a corner, keeping a wary eye out for Coxhill. There was no sign of him, thankfully, though I did spot Jack Scholes of the Euston Evening Bugle looking around sharp-eyed and taking notes. I was not sad to miss the first half, but when the dancing girls appeared for the finale, I gazed in awe at Hester, resplendent and lustrous in the reflected lamplight, kicking up her skirts and twirling magnificently. Near the end, she seemed to catch my eye, though perhaps I was imagining it.

  As I slipped out ahead of the rush, an usher gently touched my jacket. “Sir, I have the information you were asking for.”

  “The information?”

  The usher screwed up his eyes in concentration. “Yes, sir. Miss Hester kindly requests that I recommend to you the elocution teacher employed on occasion by herself and her friends. A certain Groggins, sir. Groggins, of forty-four, Shepherd Market.”

  THE ELOCUTION TEACHER

  There was trouble waiting for me at work the next day. I glanced, as usual, into Darlington’s office, to find him sticking pins into a large map on the wall.