Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  Sgt Lawless (Watchman)

  There. I had finally put Nellie’s name in writing. He must understand that I would not stop till he told me where she was. Of course, he might not be relaxing at home after his endeavours. He might be up at the castle, ironing out the details of his pension. After all, he had done well for them. Kept the scandal out of the press, managed the Exhibition smoothly, and seen off the madman. The Queen must be well pleased.

  * * *

  The next day I found two things at the Yard. First, a package containing Skelton’s leather-bound notebook. In my astonishment, I almost missed the note: “For the kind policeman, with thanks, Mme S.” No address. I cradled the thing in my hands, gazing at those familiar hieroglyphs in wonder. Perhaps, now that he was gone, we had the key to his plan. It was hard to credit after so long a chase.

  I also stumbled across an address in Wardle’s accounts, an address to which money had been forwarded: N, 44 Shepherd Market. Could it be that Nellie was staying with the whimsical elocution teacher? Was he a trusted confidant of the Yard? Or just a personal admirer with a spare room?

  I dropped in at Miss Villiers’ place on my way. She looked pleased to see me, if a little surprised, and prevailed upon me to come up. The stairwell was dank and dirty, but she had created an oasis of gentility in her flat. I was in a fearful hurry, but she led me straight into the inner room. I was astonished to find that the convalescent she had mentioned was the Professor, and more astonished still to discover that the Professor was a girl.

  “What happened?” I said. The lass looked worse than I had after my excursion in Dickens’ cellar. “You’ve been down the sewers, haven’t you?”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” she said in feverish confusion. “We was playing with the switches.” Then she seemed to think better of it, and rolled over back to sleep.

  I felt ashamed at the sight of the consumptive little face. Poor little wight. She and Worm had saved my life. If I had known, I would have done anything to help. When I said as much to Miss Villiers, she looked angry. But I had no time for quarrelling. In my hurry to get to Nellie, I simply dropped off the cryptic tome and left, wondering how we had failed to communicate for so long.

  * * *

  I turned up at Groggins’ door and there she was, dressed in silken finery.

  “What on earth do you want to see me for?” said Nellie.

  “Berwick is dead. I’d like you to identify the body.”

  “You got a nerve.” She led me up to the drawing room. Two cases lay open and clothes were strewn about the sofas. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m in somewhat of a hurry.”

  “Why the sudden rush?”

  “You know very well. I’m off to pursue my career on the Continent.”

  “Which career is that, actress or kingslayer?”

  “You don’t like me very much, Sergeant.” She laughed. “Hoofers ain’t so well paid we can let opportunities go a-begging, you know. I don’t know about a policeman’s wages, but I heard tell there’s some of you behave likewise.”

  “Berwick is dead. Does he deserve no consideration?”

  “If he’s dead, he’ll hardly notice.” She saw my anger and sighed. “He said to me, when I told him about Bertie, he says, Nellie, dear Nellie, how cruelly you have stamped upon my heart. He was always excitable, making dramatic declarations. Not at all, says I. Plenty more fish in the sea for you, but it ain’t every day a girl gets proposal from a prince.”

  “Berwick might have kept his promises.”

  She rounded on me fiercely. “Sir, I have been badly dealt with by enough fellows. If Bertie welched on his promise, who’s to say the fault was all his? Berwick was full of promises too, grand talk and universal schemes. Had he offered a bit more of what a girl needs, perhaps I would have stuck with him.” She fell to coughing, and sat down, clutching at her belly. “Besides, I have what I wanted. The Prince’s loss is Groggins’ gain.”

  “Have you no shame?” I muttered. “Or would Berwick not have taken you back?”

  “I wouldn’t have gone,” she retorted. “Excuse me, I have to finish my packing.”

  I stood up, filled with indignation. “You refuse to come and see the body?”

  “Why do you try and trick me? I’m sick of it. I don’t know what you want, but Worm just brought a letter from him, and he ain’t dead.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her bosom and held it out to me like a talisman.

  My darling Nellie,

  I must bid you farewell. I often wonder, had I won you, if I would have had the strength to pursue this path now coming to its end.

  A hundred years from now, when all wars are at an end, struggles such as mine will seem unbelievable. When hunger is vanquished and all live content with their just share, there will be no need for such protest and destruction. Unseen forces are already uniting, using education and generosity, violence and fear, to secure that goal yet distant, but certain.

  Certain too, that I loved you. You may consider my action simple vengeance exacted upon the Monstrous Rotundity. Think what you wish, bewitched as you are by ancient privilege. How, in this world, can a man outdo a prince?

  If he has thrown you over now, I am sorry for you. For me there is no way back.

  Farewell,

  B

  From The Criminal Prisons of London, by Henry Mayhew and John Binny, 1862

  There is the Cadgers’ (beggars’) cant, as it is called—a style of language which is distinct from the slang of the thieves, being arranged on the principle of using words that are similar in sound to the ordinary expressions for the same idea… Again, we have the Coster-slang, which consists merely in pronouncing each word as if it were spelt backwards… Lastly comes the veritable slang, or English Argot, ie, the secret language used by the London thieves. This is made up, in a great degree, of the mediaeval Latin, in which the Church service was formerly chanted, and which indeed gave rise to the term “cant” (from the Latin cantare), it having been the custom of the ancient beggars to “intone” their prayers when asking for alms.

  RUTH VILLIERS’ PENULTIMATE NARRATIVE

  Our Nation Underground

  Six weeks already Molly—the Professor, that is—had been in my rooms when Sergeant Lawless finally came to visit. I had seen him only briefly at the Exhibition, when he turned up hours late, behaving rather oddly, after sending me the most abrupt invitation. I put it down to his work, of course, but still. To make no mention of the messages I sent through the summer, nor the merest inquiry after the Professor’s health. Then he turns up on the doorstep, fresh as a coot, holding out a package.

  “In a hurry?” I said. “Come up for a moment, do.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’ve just found out where Nellie has been hiding.”

  “There’s someone upstairs who would love to see you. And I must hear the story behind those murders. The papers are useless.”

  “Wardle has them hushed up entirely,” he nodded. He gazed abruptly about him, as if any number of people on the street might be listening in. “I’ll come up for a minute.”

  Upstairs, I drew the book from the package. I stared at Sergeant Lawless, as if he were Moses come down from the mountain. Upon seeing the cryptic inscription on the fly leaf, I let out a little yelp. “But I can translate this. I have the cipher cracked.” I pulled out my crib sheet from my desk and transcribed aloud. “The—Kind—Hearted—Revolutionary—by—”

  “Miss Villiers,” called a little voice from within. “Can I have a drink of water?”

  “Of course, dear,” I called. I gave the sergeant a look. “That’s my convalescent.”

  “You mentioned something,” he frowned and followed me into the bedroom. His shock was palpable. “Professor!”

  They exchanged a few words. When I brought in the water, she gulped it down and hid away under the covers as if afraid she had said something she shouldn’t.

  “She’s been terribly ill,” I said. “But she’s a tough one. She’ll pull through.
”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped. Called for a doctor. Something.”

  I sat smoothing her hair for a moment, but she was already asleep. I ushered him out of the bedroom. “I sent hundreds of notes and you never even replied.”

  He looked aggrieved. “I received nothing.”

  “Worm took message after message—”

  “Worm?” he interrupted me. “Have you seen him? I must talk to him most urgently.”

  “Of course I’ve seen him,” I said. During the darkest stretch, when it was far from clear if she would make it, Worm visited almost every day. He seemed almost fearful that she might settle in our world, like some kind of changeling. It does credit to him, looking back, that he took the risk of leaving her with me. “They’re brother and sister.”

  “When was he last here?”

  “A few days ago.” I frowned. My mind skipped back over the summer. It seemed Campbell and I had been at cross purposes for so long. “Do you suppose they’ve been unreliable messengers?”

  “Wait till I get my hands on that boy,” he glowered. “I must go now, Miss Villiers.”

  “Not so soon,” I said. “I’ll translate the code for you here and now.”

  “That’s not so urgent any more.”

  “Why? Is Berwick—” My eyes widened. “Those murders!”

  “I will tell you everything later, I promise, but I must catch Nellie before they spirit her away. They’re all playing games. Even Wardle. I don’t know who to trust.”

  “I’m glad of it.” I had not found the inspector at all ingenuous at the Exhibition, lording it over the whole place—especially as murder was committed under his very nose. In a flash, my gallant sergeant was gone. Another thought struck me. If he had not received my messages, who was it that solicited Dickens to find a new doctor for the Professor?

  * * *

  I sat by Molly’s bedside with the gas lamp dimmed, transcribing Berwick’s tome, The Kind-Hearted Revolutionary. Although I had decoded the full cipher, by matching the threats with annotations in his library books, the transcription was hard going, for he often used abbreviations and nonsense words I could make neither head nor tail of.

  Although Molly still slept much of the day, she enjoyed sneaking out of bed. “Back to bed with you,” I would cry, “you in your pyjamas and stockinged feet.”

  “I’s only taking a look at the world, Miss Bilious,” she would say most humbly, trotting back to curl up beside me on the little ottoman, from where she knew I would not have the heart to remove her.

  That night, I caught her pressing her little nose against the windowpane to stare out at the passing bustle. She gripped my hand, and whispered urgently, “I didn’t say nothing amiss to the sergeant, did I, Miss? Only I’d been dreaming about the Worms.” She looked about her nervously. “I was afraid I might have mentioned something that I oughtn’t.”

  “No, child,” I told her. “Go back to bed.”

  She nodded, relieved. “What’s that you’re reading? Homework?”

  “Not any more,” I laughed. I had told her little of the disastrous end of my studies. “I am free from the college and them of me. This is a special notebook from a certain Mr Skelton.”

  She looked from the book to me and back at the book again.

  I looked at her closely. She had mentioned his name only in the height of her fever, and it seemed somehow a breach of confidence to talk of it openly. “It was handed to me for safekeeping.”

  “Ho,” she nodded with that grown-up style of pondering she had. “Already. And can you make sense of it, Miss?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “It’s tricky. I don’t suppose you could help?”

  “I know my letters, you know.” She looked anxious. “I can even read.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “My brother was mean about it. Called me the Professor. But now I can read, so it’s not rightly fair.” She squinted gravely at the book. “Don’t be daft. That ain’t English.”

  I laughed. “You’re right. But I can translate it.”

  “Can you?” She looked at me sharply. “Miss Bilious, would you be so good as to kindly tell me the date, if you please?”

  “The fifth of November, Molly. Fireworks night. Do you know what that is? Would you like to see the fireworks? We shall watch from our window, but I’m afraid the main celebrations will be at the weekend. If you’re well enough, we might go out.”

  She beamed. “Miss Bilious, if you please, is the underground train working yet?”

  “No, Molly, I don’t believe it is. They keep postponing it. It was due to open for the Exhibition. Now they say the New Year. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  She nodded seriously. “You been kind beyond reckoning, Miss, and I shall never know how to thank you for it. But, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better be getting back to my people.” Blow me down if she didn’t jump up and look purposefully around as if to grab her hat and coat. Except that left her so dizzy I had to catch her in my arms.

  “Oh, Molly,” I said. I lifted her back to the bed without any difficulty, she was that light. “Just a few more days. We’ll feed you up good and strong. Next time your brother comes we’ll see if you’re well enough to go.”

  I commenced to making some thick nourishing broth. If the little one had set her heart on leaving I could not defy her. I was concerned, however, about her lodgings. With the winter nearly upon us, she could easily lose the health she had fought so hard to recover. I said as much as gently as I could.

  “Not at all, Miss,” she called out, happily tucked up again, as I worked in the kitchen. “Our new lodgings is practically a palace. Forgiving your pardon, but I had rather expected your own place to be a bit more extravaganter. Being as how I seen a few great houses and bearing in mind all that talk about how the other half live.”

  “The other half, am I?” I laughed.

  “Our place was donated by a certain Mr Basil Jett,” she said. “It’s brick top to bottom, and we’ve been furnishing it with the finest accoutrements.”

  “Obtained how, may I ask?”

  “Various means, Miss,” she said tetchily, thinking better of her confession. By the time the stew was made she was sound asleep.

  * * *

  That night, I carried her to the window, wrapped in Aunt Lexy’s tartan rug. It was raining, and we strained our eyes to make out a poor fireworks show far off over Islington. I forced out many an “ooh” and “ah” as the desultory flames popped and fizzled, and I had to promise her that we would go and see the real show at the weekend. Afterwards, she insisted on sitting up with me while I translated Berwick’s notes. Surprisingly enough, she was a good companion, silent and thoughtful, and I made great strides.

  It was soon clear that, while not a complete text, these were notes for a major work. Berwick had organised his thoughts into chapters, on society, labour and capital, education, prisons and the like. His thought was cogent and unusual, with an admirable capacity for envisaging a radically different future. I had spent the year buried in small-minded treatises by embittered academics who proposed only solutions that would benefit themselves, viz better-funded universities. Berwick was aiming higher. His was a book of fiery challenges, to stand beside the Americans’ Declaration of Independence and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man: a book to spark revolutions. His literary themes were vengeful, but they were epic themes. He wrote beautifully, with a vision of the future clearer than any college lecturer. He might be fanatical, he might be foolish, but he had extraordinary dreams. Whatever the crimes which kept Campbell pursuing him, Berwick was full of conviction, and I began to feel a grudging admiration for him.

  It was by chance that the Professor solved my difficulties with Berwick’s text. “Bother and fiddlesticks,” I burst out, “what can he mean by the ‘esilop’?”

  “That ain’t English, either,” Molly replied.

  “What the devil is it, though?” I said.

  “What t
hat is, Miss Bilious, is that it’s the backslang—”

  “Oh yes? Which is what exactly, Molly?”

  “It’s quite simple,” she said, with the pedantry of a school teacher, “you take a word and say it backwards. ‘Esilop’ is P-O-L-I… erm—police!”

  “I thought you could spell!” I poked her tummy, and she poked me back. “All right,” I laughed. “What, then, does ‘stall to in the huey’ mean?”

  She gave an understanding sigh. “That, Miss, is the argot. Don’t you know anything?” Within half an hour she had apprised me of such a range of dialects as I would never have dreamed could coexist within two miles of my rooms, and me not understanding a single word. That was the whole point, of course. These were secret dialects for people who did not want to be understood: backslang and argot for card-sharps and tradesmen; rhyming slang and parlyaree for clowns, dockers and circus folk. Within the hour I could count up to ten in Thieves’ Latin, Romany, and Lingua Franca.

  “There’s a book about it. By a man named Mayhew,” she announced proudly. “I met him.”

  Mayhew, I thought. Henry Mayhew, one of the Punch brotherhood, mentioned in Miss Dickens’ narrative and a user of the library. I might take the chance to speak to him.

  * * *

  Under Molly’s able tuition, I began to make sense of my transcriptions. I also began to worry about the life she would be returning to, a life I pictured in fearful colours. So it was that I learned about the Nation Underground. It began with a simple question.

  “Tell me about this palace of yours, Molly.”

  The Euston Square Worms, she told me, originally lodged in a lean-to by the New Road. When this was abruptly cleared in the building of the underground, it was Mr Skelton who organised a new place, with the help of a Mr Basil Jett, out of harm’s way beneath King’s Cross.

  So they moved into their palace, and Mr Skelton with them, as he had some problems with his own home. They vowed it should be a fine residence, worthy of the company that dwelt there. Everything was decided by vote. There was a tidying committee, a furnishing committee, and so on and so forth. All the Worms contributed, and Mr Skelton suggested taking things a bit further. He told them about the Reform League, meeting across the country to discuss things that needed improving. Meanwhile, across Europe, similar groups were meeting and discussing similar problems. These organisations were beginning to communicate, comparing their grievances and exchanging solutions.