Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  “Quite, quite, old chap. Wouldn’t dream of inviting an indiscretion.” He coughed in embarrassment. “I’d just like to thank you for all your resourcefulness.”

  I stared, but he kept his face in the shadows. I could just make out the eyes, flashing above his whiskers. He was gaunter than I expected, for tales were rampant of his insatiable gluttony. Perhaps the past year had curtailed his excesses. But it could only be Bertie, back from abroad on the hush-hush, benevolently watching over proceedings from a hidden corner.

  “Do you have a drink? Let me offer you a drink.” He tossed me a hipflask. “I think you’ve gone about the whole thing with a darned sight more sensitivity and consideration than you might have done.”

  I was at a loss. “Just doing my duty, sir.”

  “Quite, quite. Do you think the thing’s blown over now?”

  “I’d love to assure you that it has, sir, but—”

  “Best watch out, eh?” He gazed out over the pond. “Look, I have a request for you. It’s out of the common run, and I’ll quite understand if you don’t feel up to it.”

  “Ask away, sir.”

  “It’s just,” he began, and his voice trembled an instant, “it’s Nellie. You know, of course, who I mean.”

  I breathed in. “I do, sir.”

  “Good. How is she, would you say?”

  “I’ve only met the lady briefly, sir. She seemed well enough.”

  “Oh.” He seemed taken aback. “What a shame. I was rather hoping you could give me a full report.”

  “I think, sir, they’ve kept me away from her.”

  “Why have they done that, do you suppose? I had you down as inner circle.”

  “The less we know, the less we can let slip.”

  “I see. Yes, I do see. Look, I can’t speak to Wardle about it. He’ll have my head off for evincing the least bit of interest. Regards her as a fortune hunter and a lowlife. All wrong, you know.” He scratched his head briefly, and I couldn’t help thinking what a likeable young man he was. Was this really the same fellow I had heard wheedling with Wardle at the club? But then people change, of course. They grow up. It appalled me to recall how the inspector had lectured him like he were a child. Although he seemed tired, or just disappointed, I sensed a well of good humour underneath, of optimism even. Indeed, his manner was quietly inspiring, and I would go so far as to say that I felt myself in the presence of greatness. “Sometimes a chap can’t follow through with his plans. He makes promises—has dreams—that fall through, and he feels like a cad and a cur. I would most dreadfully like to know she’s all right.”

  “I’m trying to find her, sir.”

  “She hasn’t left the country?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Not yet. If I do find her, should I send word?”

  He thought a moment. “No, no. No need to report back. I have a tremendous regard for you, Lawless. It would mean a lot to me just to feel you’d check up on her.”

  I lowered my head, overwhelmed by this unlooked-for approbation. “Sir, that’s kind of you.” I looked up again, but he had slipped away.

  * * *

  As the last stragglers were herded into cabs by weary footmen, Wardle stood with the pride of a victorious general after a battle. “Thank God that’s over. Now I can retire with peace of mind.”

  “You make it sound like you’re about to depart from this life, sir,” I said.

  He gave me a look and asked me to walk up to Paddington. “What’s left to be done?”

  “I thought I’d track down Hester, sir, the other hoofer.”

  He thought for a moment. “Don’t see the need. Have another look for the mother, then write up what you got. We deserve a rest.” As we headed up Rotten Row, a fine drizzle began to fall, the drops glistening in the streetlights. “I know you’re puzzled by some of my ways, Watchman. We could have dealt with Skelton at the start. Paid him off, had him transported. But that’s a dangerous game. He was smart enough to blow the whistle.”

  “Not to mention having friends in high places,” I remarked.

  Wardle snorted. “I thought he’d see sense. Let it drop; even better, take the girl back. We’d have paid their way out to Canada like a shot. I never expected him to go native. Pose such a threat. For all his lunacy, I respected him for that.”

  “Well,” I sighed, “he won’t be telling tales now, sir.”

  “You were right to chase it up.”

  “For God’s sake, sir, it was you yourself that warned me off.”

  “Maybe that was wrong. I’ll grant that now. I thought it was under control.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Look, son,” he said, his voice sharper, “You’ve a good heart. That’s important. That’s why I want to leave it in your hands. But you need to be tougher. Trust your instincts and cover your own tracks.”

  “You mean, go on investigating behind your back?”

  “That’s what you did, isn’t it? Only you weren’t so subtle about it. Could have been more thorough too. Should have been.” He gave me a look. “Let me tell you a story. When I was a young copper, they had a problem with the royal wet nurse.”

  “You told me. Killed her own children. Six of them.”

  “That’s right. She had a discipline problem with the little prince and princesses. She was black and blue from their maltreatment. But we can’t have servants accusing the royals of such cruelties.”

  “Why not, if they are guilty of them?”

  “You don’t know much, Watchman. If you knew all of it, you’d be shocked. They’re a mad lot, there’s no denying it. The inbreeding, must be. Bertie could be the worst of the lot, given rein.”

  I recalled Jackman’s insinuations. “Then why defend them so?”

  “They’re royalty.” He looked at me and I could see in his eyes no shadow of doubt. “Without them, the whole thing would collapse. Would you have the country ruled by some shopkeeper? These reforms are bad enough, but don’t think for a moment that the common man can be trusted with decisions about the world. All he cares about is the food on his table and the wench in his bed.”

  “Doesn’t sound so different from the Prince.”

  He stopped abruptly and I thought for a second he was going to slap me, as if I were a miscreant child. “The Prince will do well enough. His father was tough on him, maybe too tough, and he has a stubborn streak of rebellion. But he will make good, and he’ll be king, don’t you doubt it.”

  I looked away. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m just disappointed in myself. That we didn’t get to the bottom of it before—”

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, son. I thought you’d dig something up. That’s why I left you to it. They had to trust you were acting off your own bat. Like Worm, he trusts you, I thought you’d get something from him.”

  He still had no idea that the Worms were involved with the thefts. Better that way. I stopped and looked at him squarely. “Sir, why won’t you give me Nellie?”

  He screwed up his eyes. “We want nothing further to do with her. Persona non grata. We’ve paid her for her troubles. If she’s still in London, she’d best watch out.” He headed on up the Edgware Road, leaving me there at the Marble Arch, shaking my head.

  THE HOUSE FOR FALLEN WOMEN

  I arrived late at the Yard the next morning to be told by Darlington that two serious-looking insurance detectives were waiting for me.

  “Insurance associates,” they corrected me. One was large and looked dull-witted; the other was thin with a face like a flint. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them burst into a music hall routine. I showed them into the office.

  The large man spoke in rapid, measured tones, his colleague murmuring assent. They were private detectives, hired by a group of insurance companies to investigate Coxhill. It had begun as a query about multiple policies on machinery that subsequently malfunctioned. Now larger questions were looming, and they had received an anonymous tip-off mentioning a Scotland Yard investig
ation. I wondered from whom. Not Mr Wetherell. Smiler, then, or Skelton.

  “We quite accept that this Coxhill may be a singularly unlucky man,” said the burly one, “but this ill-luck proves rather fortunate for him in the long run. We suspect he is insuring hardware that never existed. Several of his claims were for losses underground. Devilish hard to inspect.”

  I was only too happy to add the tuppenceworth I had gleaned from Pat, about old machines being passed off as new.

  “Probably insuring them as such,” the man nodded. “They break down, and he ends up in the black. We’ve also discovered shadow companies which we’re trying to trace to him. One Tooley Street claimant was a small components manufacturer, utterly destroyed with all the documents, save for the insurance policy submitted by a certain Mr Sachs-Cahill of St Albans, return address the post office, who continues to prove elusive.”

  I recalled Hester’s talk of the country mansion, put under dust covers the moment they left. “I may be able to point you towards some hidden assets.” Perhaps it was worse than Roxton Coxhill had admitted. If he knew of this Tooley Street intrigue, Skelton could have driven Coxhill into disgrace before destroying him. Perhaps he threatened exposure. That would explain why Hunt had acted so brutally. “Where does the money go?” I asked.

  “He has no trouble running up debt. He spent his way through his father’s fortune in gambling dens and houses of ill-repute. All his previous ventures have gone bust. It’s a wonder he can sell shares at all.”

  “Oh, he’s vociferous about the dividends he pays out,” I explained. “That must be persuasive. Keeps the stock high. In fact, he’s issuing new shares soon. Why not pick up a few, and keep a close eye on your investment?”

  They both shook my hand. We understood each other. Coxhill was on the rack. By the look of him, he knew it. With these bloodhounds on his trail I didn’t give him much hope. I doubted that even he could squirm his way out of this nest of vipers. It was as if Skelton had got him after all. Tit-for-tat, doing the rights. Only it was too late to tell Hunt that his master was beyond protecting. And too late to save Berwick.

  * * *

  I went to six different theatres before I heard a squeak about Hester. This appalled me. A girl might not show up for work and nobody batted an eyelid. They might be married, missing or murdered, nobody cared. Finally a pockmarked seamstress at the Lyceum advised me to look in the institution behind the old St Pancras Church.

  I went into the grim building beside the St Giles burial gardens, and asked sceptically if they had a Haymarket hoofer in the house.

  The white-starched marm at the desk sniffed at me distastefully. “One of our fallen ladies?”

  “I dare say,” I replied. “I’m a police officer.”

  She led me out through the hall, decorated with slogans: “GOD IS TRUTH.” “FEAR GOD AND HE WILL LOOK UPON THY LOWLINESS.” They couldn’t have sent Hester here, I told myself, not without the risk of her telling tales.

  In the scullery, scrubbing obsessively at one flagstone, knelt a sorry-looking wreck of a maid.

  “Hester?” trilled the woman. “A man to see you. Speak clearly now, and remember godliness.”

  She looked up at me with half-remembering eyes. Her hair had lost its lustre, as if soaked in carbolic soap. On her face I saw not a trace of the impish smile I remembered.

  “God Almighty, Hester, what are you doing here?”

  “If you please, sir,” she said softly, “you shouldn’t curse like that.”

  “Hester, it’s me. Campbell.”

  She broke off her scrubbing and looked at me, the old brightness trying to shine through. “What do you want with me, sir?”

  I hesitated. “I wanted you to know that Berwick is dead.”

  She crooked her head against her shoulder and looked aside, as if afraid I might hurt her. “Sir, you ain’t going to talk to me about the old times, are you? I should rather you didn’t talk about the old times. I have a terrible time remembering to have only good thoughts. They tell me I must forget the old times which was sinful and filthy.”

  “Hester, they—” I broke off, cursing in my mind. Could this be Wardle’s doing? Could he have arranged for her to be kept here? “Never mind that, Hester.” I lowered my voice. “It’s over. There’s no need for you to be shut away here. The Prince is finished with Nellie. He’s to be married next year to a Danish princess. I just want to find Nellie. I want to tell her.”

  “A foolish one, she is. I told her, sir. I told her not to trust them. Takes you out riding, they do, showers you with gifts. Flowers and carriages, she had from him, and a gold watch. There’s only one thing they want, sir, and that’s the one thing a girl must refuse.”

  “Oh, Hester.”

  “She told me, you see, about an indecent suggestion he made, down in that tunnel. I know their ways,” she said, her eyes darkening. “Dreadful things I saw in those clubs. Filthy appetites, gentlemen have. I said to her, Nellie, have you gone and compromised your honour, have you? I have, she replies, and a more pleasurable compromise I never did make.” The corners of Hester’s mouth bent into a smile and, to my delight, she giggled. But she bit back her amusement and returned to her scrubbing.

  “Hester, tell me, is it Wardle who sent you here?”

  “I deserved everything has happened me. And I’m grateful to them for showing me the error of my ways. I didn’t know, you see,” she said wide-eyed. “I didn’t know what wicked and shameful paths I was walking in, not until I got here, I didn’t. My heart was the province of the devil. It was my own fault. I’d asked for it, you see, with my wanton ways. The man was doing God’s work by doing the devil’s.”

  “What man?” I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I only got what I deserved,” she said in a singsong voice, mumbling and rubbing the flagstone like her life depended on it.

  “Hester,” I whispered. “Tell me.”

  “What I got,” she said, her voice growing shriller, “what the man done to me, that was God’s wrath. God’s wrath with my filthy ways. I see it now. At the time I was sore enough I’d have scratched his eyes out, if he hadn’t had a gun.”

  “Who did it, Hester?”

  She brushed away a tear. “He told me not to tell nobody.”

  I reached out to her but she shrank back from my touch.

  “He’s not here now,” I said.

  “Military gentleman like that?” she said. “No, no. He’ll live to be a hundred.”

  “Military?” I narrowed my eyes. “Was he a short man?”

  “He was, sir, in every department,” she giggled.

  I smiled to see this hint of her old self. “He’s gone.”

  “Dead, is he?” she said hopefully.

  “Gone,” I repeated. “Far, far away.”

  “Not dead, then,” she nodded. The giggles took her again, then she coughed, and I thought she would burst out crying. Instead her face went blank and she looked right through me. “I don’t think I should talk to you, sir. You bring back my old wickedness.” She smiled at me, then the fear returned. “You bring back my old life. Nurse! Nurse?”

  She began to call out, and the starched marm hurried in, giving me a disgusted look. By the time I left, Hester was screaming.

  I strode back to town, sickened by it all. Grown men playing games with people’s lives, like boys torturing flies. If only I had asked her to identify the body, I could have taken her from that wretched place and she could have gone free.

  I never saw her again.

  APOLOGIA CALAMITATIS

  I spent some time asking around for the Worms, but there were none to be had. Nor any sign of Wardle coming in to work. After all our labours of the summer, it felt as if the world had suddenly fallen apart. I sat restless at his desk all day, poring over his paperwork, filling in the things that had not been committed to paper. I could see no way to write a meaningful report.

  “What’s eating you, eh?” asked Darlington, popp
ing his head round the door.

  I gestured at the mound of paper. “Back on the old refiling.”

  “No peace for the wicked,” he said brightly. “I prefer it like that. Takes your mind off all the gloom and doom. Still, don’t sweep all his misdemeanours under the carpet, will you? I mean it. He’s a menace, your Wardle, when you ask for information on his cases. Don’t get rid of anything important.”

  I nodded. “I sometimes feel like an accomplice in erasing history, throwing away files on fraudsters and interviews with murderers.”

  For a moment he looked shocked. “You’re joshing me, aren’t you?” he smiled. “There’s strict Yard regulations about that kind of thing, and acres of space in the basement.”

  Disquieted, I wondered if I had somehow tainted myself, doing Wardle’s dirty work for him. Darlington was right. Perhaps even Jackman’s insinuations were justified. I had been erasing Wardle’s misdeeds from the record, wiping miscarriages of justice from the slate. I imagined challenging him about it. “Sir, why did you have me destroy so many old records? Is that what you call covering your tracks?”

  I could hear just what he’d say. He would look at me dismissively. “I’ve nothing to hide, son. Nothing I’m ashamed of.”

  “There’s plenty of storage room in the basement. Why go against Yard policy?”

  “Yard policy? Nonsense!” he would snort. “There’s a multitude of sins I’ve committed, son. You won’t find an officer who hasn’t. But it’s all in the line of service.”

  * * *

  There was too much unexplained for my liking, not least why we had taken such risks to keep royal scandal at bay. Would Nellie go abroad as instructed or wait till she got what she wanted? Even now, could we be sure that Skelton did not have accomplices, skeleton thieves and more, who would carry on his work with more fervour now he had been martyred?

  Midweek, I became impatient. The Worms had gone to ground, as if in fear that a passing bird might pick them off. I decided to send Wardle an abrupt missive.

  Sir,

  Body still to be formally identified.

  Must see Nellie.