Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square

by William Sutton

  “Now, there was Worms as didn’t believe that talking could do more than heat up the room,” said Molly. “But Mr Skelton told us as how not fifteen years back there was revolutions in every country in Europe. Even here in England, which just goes to prove.”

  The Worms were so entranced with his stories that they persuaded Skelton to give them lessons. He began with history. Now, the Worms were accustomed to long hours on the street and down in the sewers. Hard workers by nature, they considered it the height of entertainment to sit down to classes when they got in from their labours. The older children taught the younger how to read and write, and it flourished into a full schooling system. As legend of their organisation spread, individuals from across the capital turned up to join. Realising they would not be able to take everyone in, they sent goodwill messages to all the rival gangs. Soon enough, other Worm-like organisations sprang up, organising themselves in great underground cooperatives.

  A model community, then. Self-educating and by its very nature activist. At first, I listened to Molly’s tale as one would to feverish delusions, but she told it with such matter-of-fact detail it was hard not to credit her. Could there really be a Nation Underground at King’s Cross?

  “And this Skelton had you working in the sewers, did he?” I had never asked for an account of her accident, and I was shocked at how quickly she became agitated.

  “Wasn’t his fault, Miss. We was playing with the switches. He’d told us not to. It’s quite safe if you don’t. If he hadn’t come to save me, I’d be—”

  “Hush, now. Don’t fret, Molly. Don’t think of it.”

  * * *

  I mustered my courage to talk to Mr Mayhew. By good fortune, he was in that Saturday, and I made sure that I took his request for books from the stack. Declaring an interest in his own writing, I mentioned the Professor’s picture of an underground kingdom and asked if he thought it credible.

  “People live in the most unlikely interstices. Why, there are tales of subcutaneous lodgers in this very museum. What is particular in your story is the planning.”

  When I mentioned Berwick’s name, his eyes lit up.

  “Skelton? I know the fellow. Wonderful chap, wicked sense of humour. Quite vanished from view.”

  I attributed my urgency to Molly’s health. “My concern is this: should I allow her to leave?”

  “Not all illegal dwellings are dens of iniquity, young lady. Your underground nation intrigues me. I would be glad if you would lead me to it, especially if it unearths Skelton. I’m working on another book, you see, and he has invaluable contacts.”

  That evening, Mr Mayhew met me outside the library. Perhaps it was an impropriety, meeting with a gentleman like that, but I was careless of propriety in those days. I almost didn’t recognise him, for he was dressed as a street trader. He brought a cape to cover my dowdy library clothes. I was glad of it too, as the first chill of winter was in the air.

  York Way looked a dark and uninviting prospect. I was embarrassed to admit that I had no idea of the exact spot. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Mr Mayhew. I’ve dragged you here for nothing.”

  Mayhew gave me an engaging smile. He approached a couple of beggars in front of the station. “G’night,” he said in a strange northern tone.

  They nodded their heads impassively.

  “Could you ’elp us?” he said. “Where do the Worms stall to in the huey? We’re from out of town, see.”

  The first man grunted.

  “He said drop the main toper,” Mr Mayhew went on, “and slink in the back drum.”

  “Who said?” muttered the second man.

  “Mr Skelton,” said Mr Mayhew undaunted. “It’s him as told us to visit.”

  This effected such a transformation as to set my mind on fire. The irascible drunkards leapt up from their makeshift beds and clapped friendly hands to Mr Mayhew’s shoulder. They fell over themselves to show us the way to a discreet entrance off Battle Bridge Road.

  Arriving at a plain wooden door, set into the brickwork of the warehouses backing onto the station, we found a young Worm sat on guard. He nodded to us both warily. Mr Mayhew, as luck would have it, knew the boy, and easily enough engaged him in conversation.

  “Ah, Mr Mayhew, I would, only as that I can’t, because I’m told that I mustn’t.”

  “Come, Numpty. I shall include special mention of you in my next book.” His books must have caused something of a stir in the underclasses, for the boy took him most seriously. “Posterity, boy, if you know what that is. Let us say, you will be famous.”

  “It’s kind, sir,” the boy said, obviously torn, “though I’m not sure as I’d like that. Seem full of troubles, the famous people I’ve bumped into. Still, and besides, seeing as it’s you and they’re mostly out organisin’ for tomorrow, I’ll give you a peek at the lodgin’s.”

  Through the low doorway, down two precipitous flights of stairs, and there it was. A great cellar room stretched away from us, bigger than you would believe possible underground, like a great palace squashed beneath a low vaulted ceiling. It was doubtless earmarked for storing barrels of beer, not activist brigades. Yet it was elegantly furnished with accoutrements from London’s finest houses, and lit by gas lamps. Paintings hung on the walls; fine carpets graced the flagstones; assorted bookshelves ran along the far side of the room. Numpty pointed out archways at the sides. This one, he told us, led to schoolrooms; that one to dormitories; a third to a music room.

  After this cursory glance, we hurried away for fear of being spotted. I had seen enough. And I imagined they might be like birds, to flee the nest if they found it disturbed. My mind blazed all the way home. Skelton had not only theorised beyond the thinkers I studied; he had put his plan into action, sharing his hard-won knowledge with the dispossessed, harnessing the Worms’ entrepreneurial spirit to the demands of communal living.

  If the underground nation had proved real, what of the darker threats?

  * * *

  I had some questions for Molly before she vanished back to the Worms. The next day, the ninth of November, she slept very late.

  I too was tired. I had slept poorly after my excursion with Mr Mayhew, dreaming of subterranean kingdoms peopled by urchin princes. I glanced over my notes from The Kind-Hearted Revolutionary while baking a cake to soften Molly up. There was a thread of apocalyptic imagery through Berwick’s book that mirrored the threats. Vilified were all manner of hypocrites, flatterers, frauds and fawners, and the solution was expressed in terms drawn from Dante, the Greek myths and the Bible. The wicked would be righteously drowned while gorging themselves on their ill-gotten fruits, whereas those not invited to the feast—the ridiculed, meek and oppressed—floated on to the new world. He had pasted in two engravings along these lines. First, the picture excised from the Illustrated London News of the grand banquet held in Brunel’s Thames Tunnel; second, a Boccaccio illustration from Dante’s Inferno, the first ditch of the eighth circle, where flatterers and fawners eternally drown in ditches of excrement.

  Worm arrived after lunch in a highly excitable state. He was polite, as always, but I’d never seen him so jumpy. “How’s the invalid, Miss?”

  “Where have you been? You’ve been missing your sleep, young man.”

  “That’s right, Miss,” he grinned. He waved a little box, wrapped as a present. “I’ve brought chocolates, to cheer her up. She’s a good girl, for all her whining. She’ll be feeling low after all her shirking.”

  “She can go home soon, if you promise to keep her warm and well-fed. Though I shall be sorry to lose her.” I was full of questions for him but I kept my peace.

  He hurried in to talk to her. I hovered close to the doorway to hear, but they were speaking their special slang, fast and in low tones. I could understand nothing.

  The bell rang again. Campbell. I asked him in, surprised to find him also in a state. I had so much to tell him: of the Nation Underground, the Worms’ extended network, and all of it led by Berwick. I had barel
y begun when, without warning, Worm burst out of the bedroom, rushed past us and headed straight out the door.

  “How strange,” I said. “Does he have something to hide?”

  “When has he not had!” Campbell cried. He set down his plate with such force that it broke, though the slice of cake proved tougher. Spilling his tea over the aunt’s travelling rug, he dashed out in pursuit.

  Molly looked bemused. Her chocolates sat unopened on the bedside table.

  “What has happened, Molly? Has your brother been found out at long last?”

  Molly sighed with gravitas. “I shouldn’t tell you, Miss Bilious. But being as how you saved my life and all, and I’ve told what I shouldn’t about the Nation Underground, not mentioning that you’ve read it all in Mr Skelton’s book, I may as well spill it all now.”

  And she told me. She told me the plan and I didn’t believe her. She told me that Mr Skelton had long ago envisaged a plot not just for retribution but for revolution. He showed them the etching of the banquet in Brunel’s tunnel, where his father had lost his health and his livelihood. That was his image of the two nations.

  “His da didn’t get invited, you see. That’s what upset him, I think. That’s why he’s wanted to drown them all.”

  “All who?”

  “Now Worm tells me Mr Skelton’s not so well, and all from saving me. So he’s not waiting for the opening of the railway. He’s going to drive the train himself.”

  “Don’t be silly, Molly. You can’t go driving trains willy-nilly.”

  “Mr Skelton can. His brother works for the company. He’s one of their drivers. Besides, everyone knows Mr Skelton.”

  I stroked her hot little brow as I listened to all this and decided I had to tell her, even if it would be a shock, even if it was he who had saved her. “Molly, I’m sorry to tell you, but Mr Skelton is dead.”

  “Miss Bilious, could you make me some tea?”

  She gave no sign of a reaction. That worried me more than any amount of tears. I stood by the kettle. Poor thing: what a curious connection she must have to this elusive genius. She had kept silent about it for as long as she could, and now that she had finally given in and mentioned him, I had to go and tell her that he was dead and gone. What could I do to soften the blow? I would feed her a hot supper, wrap her up in blankets and take her by hansom up to the Regent’s Park to watch the fireworks. I set about warming the broth, and brought her in a fresh cup of tea.

  She had vanished.

  I rushed to the door to follow her, but it was locked. From the outside.

  SGT LAWLESS’ NARRATIVE RESUMED

  Worm’s Final Fling

  Wardle responded tersely to my abrupt note without mentioning Nellie. We met at the office on the Sunday afternoon. I came in to find him at his desk, looking over my draft report, which I would rather he had not, for I was not sure I had sufficiently obscured hints about Numpty and Bazalgette’s toshers. Nonetheless, he seemed in an unusually jovial mood, a man whose demons had melted away overnight.

  “Working on a Sunday, sir? Whatever next?”

  “For the last time, son, unless it’s in my own garden. Where I’m going, there’s them as frown upon working on the Lord’s Day. I could get used to such holy idleness. Come on, then.” He led me out and over towards Piccadilly. “Know what day it is?”

  I frowned. “Ninth of November. The day of the spout.”

  “And the Prince’s birthday. Twenty-one today. I remember him when he was a baby. Right little tyrant. Spoilt, of course.” He sighed. “I’ve allowed him back, now all seems safe. He seems to have behaved well enough out there, and his mother wanted him home.”

  I frowned. Surely Wardle knew that Bertie had been at the party. I wasn’t about to give the game away. I had seen Nellie and there was no more I could do. And yet it left me with an unsatisfied feeling, like a child at a fireworks show, waiting for one last great rocket.

  “I know what he’s like, though. I urged the Queen to summon him to a sedate dinner, but she likes her tea at six. I’ve told him there’s to be no extravagant behaviour. But he’s that contrary, and I can hardly lock him up. So we’re going to impress on his cronies, there’s to be no impromptu jamborees.”

  “Coxhill mentioned a surprise do, sir. He’s still after that Royal Seal.”

  “Did he now? Let’s visit the clubs. Make it clear that anybody involved with high-jinks tonight will be dealt with heavy-handedly.” He shot me a sideways glance. “I looked over your report. Seen Worm lately?”

  “No, sir. I was hoping you might have.”

  “Gone to ground, eh?”

  “I know where the Professor is, though. Taken poorly, working down the sewers.” I don’t know why, but I hesitated to mention that the Professor was a girl; it would feel like betraying a confidence. “The youngster is convalescing at a friend’s house. I was thinking of putting a few questions to h—to him, when, um, his health improves.”

  He thought for a moment. “Go and ask them now. I’ll chastise the toffs on my own. Find Worm. He knows my ways. If he tells us what we want to know, we’ll see him right. Meet me back here, six o’clock.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and stomped off to visit the Oxford and Cambridge Club.

  * * *

  “Twice in a week,” Miss Villiers exclaimed. “I shall cut you some cake.”

  “I need a word with the Professor,” I mumbled.

  “I think you should,” she said brightly. “She’s been making extraordinary revelations. Did you know that they live in a sort of underground palace up at King’s Cross?”

  “I did not.”

  “The Nation Underground, she calls it, built by a certain Mr Basil Jett.”

  “Bazalgette?”

  “The sewer man! I knew I’d heard the name. He built it by dint of a deal with none other than Berwick Skelton.”

  “Skelton?” I blinked in consternation. “The Professor knew Skelton? Worm knew him?”

  “Not only that,” she said, handing me a large slab of cake, “they were his right-hand men, as it were. It’s no wonder our messages were unreliable.”

  I cast my mind back. That would explain it all: they engineered my losing touch with Miss Villiers, and my trip to Bath. How much more? “Has she talked about his plan?”

  Before Miss Villiers could say another word, the bedroom door opened, and Worm bolted across the room to freedom. I somehow knew this was my only chance. If I didn’t catch him now, I would regret it.

  Worm made a slippery quarry. My knee was weak and I had been too long at my desk, but what I lacked in agility, I made up for with my long legs. He hove down Longacre and across St Martin’s Lane. I felt the first stabbing pains in my leg as he crossed the new Charing Cross Road, ducking into the discordant tumult of street-sellers in the maze of streets behind Leicester Square.

  I could not afford to lose sight of him. Through farmyard smells and speckled eggs in wicker baskets; sausages fresh from Kent and birds twittering resentment at their cages; among dogs running wildly and the small children chasing them he weaved. Across the broad square, the lamps of the public houses were already lit, sputtering as if to complain at their early kindling.

  Worm headed unerringly for Wyld’s Great Globe. He darted beneath the half-dismantled portico, squeezing under the disused turnstile. Inside the great chamber, there were voices and a dim light from above. I started following the clunk of boots up the stairs until I heard a voice. “Hulloah? Who’s there?”

  “Stop that boy,” I cried. “I’m a police officer.”

  “It’s you, old man!” called James Wyld, looking over the upper rail. Beside him stood a young lady, somewhat flustered. “We’ve seen nobody, officer. Is he dangerous?”

  I shook my head, exasperated. He could not have vanished. Then I saw it. Just out of reach from the stairs, Queensland was jutting out from the rest of the continent. I tiptoed back down, clambered over the stair railing, and gently lowered myself down to the South Pole. I crept up t
he sloping wall towards the cupboard door, struggling to keep the hollow metal from reverberating.

  As I put my eye to the doorway, the young lady’s voice rang out, shrill and grating. “James, I don’t like this in the slightest.”

  At this, the clang of a manhole cover echoed from inside the cupboard. Worm leapt out of the shadows and threw back the door, knocking me sideways. I staggered, but I managed to trip the little blighter as he hopped out, and I fell upon him, pinning him down against New Zealand.

  “Bleeding heck,” he sighed. “How did you know I was there?”

  I smiled. “I’m not so stupid as you think, young cove.”

  With a jerk, he pivoted away from me, throwing me off balance. We fell heavily against the Tasman Sea and rolled down towards the unexplored heart of the Antarctic. The tumble gave me a scare, what with my knee, but I held on for grim death.

  “Steady on, old bean,” called Wyld. He was watching from the steps above, as if it were the new sport in town. “Just a pickpocket, is he?”

  “No, sir. This wee fellow’s a criminal mastermind.”

  * * *

  With the aid of two Leicester Square bobbies, I escorted Worm to the Yard and put him in a cell with three chairs and a little table. He played innocent at first, but his very desperation to escape showed me I was right: he had been playing us false.

  I called for some tea and settled in to wait until Wardle returned.

  “He has a few things to ask you,” I began, “and so he should. For instance, why have you been interfering with my correspondence?”

  He looked up at the ceiling.

  “What’s wrong? At a loss for a ready quip, my friend?”

  He fixed me with that quizzical stare of his. “Let me express my sincere regret, Watchman, that we were unable to deliver some of your correspondence to your lady friend, due to a conflict of interests, shall we say.”