by Carol Hedges
Some minutes pass until Lilith turns from the window. Her expression has changed. Her high colour is gone, and a light has died at the back of her eyes. She sinks into a chair, clasping her hands in her lap.
“Ah, I must have been the last person to see him alive,” she murmurs. “He called on me that night. It was late, and I was preparing to go out. I was not expecting him. I may have been a little ... but I did not know what was going to happen, or I might have paid more attention. I might have cancelled my engagement, and pressed him to stay.”
“It was not your fault,” Josephine says.
Lilith sighs.
“Yes, perhaps you are right, and in any case, it is too late to regret my actions,” she says. “The police have no idea who murdered your uncle, nor where his body has been taken?”
“None whatsoever.”
“The vile people who did this deed must not go unpunished!” Lilith exclaims, the colour rising to her cheeks. There is a brief pause before she continues, more calmly, “I shall fetch some tea, I am sure you must be in need of refreshment. And there is some fruit cake of my own baking. Your uncle was particularly partial to it.”
Over tea and cake, Josephine plucks up courage to ask the question that has been burning a hole in her brain since she arrived.
“I have just learned from his lawyer that my uncle had a small collection of precious jewels. Do you know anything about them?”
Lilith stirs her tea thoughtfully for a second.
“I knew of their existence. And I know the story of how he came by them, although I have never actually set eyes upon them. It happened while Herbert was staying in Kabul in Afghanistan. He’d been there for some years, but when war broke out between the rulers of the country and the British Army, he was forced to flee from the city.
“He told me that he'd lost all his possessions, and seen the family he lived with put to the sword and their home burned to the ground by the army, who behaved with great brutality towards the poor people of that city.
“Your uncle had taken to wearing native dress. It was in these clothes that he fled into the hills, and it was there that he encountered a young man who’d been badly wounded and left to die by his fleeing companions. Herbert managed to remove a bullet lodged in the man’s side, and dress his wounds. Then he put him on his horse and took him back to his home village.
“He did not know that the young man was the only son of one of the most powerful warlords in the area. The father was so grateful for what he had done in saving his son’s life that he gave your uncle the jewels. He said that they were very old, that the diamond had been won in battle by his ancestor, Ghengis Khan, but as Herbert had given him back the most priceless jewel in the world, the jewels were now his, a gift to express his gratitude. I always thought it was a beautiful story, like something out of the Arabian Nights.”
Josephine sits quietly, wishing she’d had more time to find all this out for herself. Mr Able the lawyer, and now Lilith Marks, had opened a door into a world she knew nothing about.
There is a pause. Then Lilith breaks the silence.
“There is a small personal matter that I should like to mention, if I may,” she says. “Your uncle has some letters of mine. If it wouldn’t trouble you overmuch, I should be grateful for their return.”
“Oh. Yes, of course,” Josephine says. “But I do not know where they might be,” she admits.
“He told me that he kept them in a safe in his room.”
Josephine stares at Lilith, recalling the lawyer’s words: I believe that your uncle kept the jewels in his safe. She had thought he meant the safe in his office. Clearly, she had been mistaken. She rises to her feet, hastily reaching for her bonnet.
“I shall find your letters, and return them to you as soon as possible,” she says.
****
A short while later, Josephine arrives back at the St John’s Wood house, where she spies a small crowd standing outside on the pavement. Her heart starts hammering in her chest. Now what has happened?
As she draws nearer, one man separates himself from the rest and approaches her. He wears tweed trousers, a gaudy waistcoat, and his brightly-coloured necktie is fastened with a large jewelled pin, in defiance of fashion. His face has a beery appearance, with sharp, eager little eyes.
“Miss King?”
She stops.
“My name is Dionysius Clout. I represent The Morning Post.” The man gestures at the rest of the crowd. “These, my companions, are all reporters from other newspapers. We are here to express our sympathy towards you in the light of the terrible events that have recently befallen you.”
“I see. Thank -”
But before she has time to continue, the man whips a notebook from his overcoat pocket.
“So, Miss King, what is your opinion of the detective police? Are you satisfied with the way they are conducting the enquiry into the murder of Mr King, your beloved relative? What are your thoughts about those who took his body from its resting place?”
Josephine gapes at him. Why are these matters any of his business? Her eyes travel to the men standing behind him. They are all staring at her expectantly, pencils poised over notebooks. One man is actually drawing a picture of her! She grabs the ends of her shawl and holds it up in front of her face.
“I am so sorry ... please excuse me,” she says, making a run for the steps.
The sound of the front door closing brings Annie the maid scurrying into the hallway.
“Ah, there you are, miss. Mrs Thorpe and Miss Isabella Thorpe called. They left cards.”
“There are people from the newspapers outside the house!” Josephine exclaims.
“Oh, are they still here?”
The maid half-opens the door.
“No, no! Do not let them see you. And you must not speak to them.”
The expression upon Annie's face indicates that this might just be a command too late. Josephine stares at her accusingly.
“I was only coming up the area steps,” Annie replies defensively. “A very polite man asked where you were, but I said I didn't know.”
“Well, please do not speak to them again. Ever.”
“If you say so, miss,” the maid replies sullenly. “Mrs Thorpe and Miss Isabella also asked where you were.”
“I was calling upon an old friend of my uncle’s.”
“Yes, miss?”
Annie folds her arms and stares at her, waiting for further enlightenment.
Guardian of all that is prim and proper, Josephine thinks, recalling Lilith’s description of the snooty parlour maid.
“Her name is Mrs Lilith Marks,” she says, assuming an innocent expression. “I believe she left a calling card some time ago, did she not?”
Instantly Annie's eyes harden, her mouth sets in a straight line of disapproval.
“She is not a suitable person for you to be visiting, miss, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Josephine maintains the innocent expression.
“Why isn't she?”
There is a pause. Then the maid says stiffly,
“There are those that say she is no better than she should be.”
“But surely, isn’t that true of all of us?”
Annie tosses her head.
“And she is a Jew!” she spits, as if it were some contagious disease.
“I see. And wasn’t Jesus Christ also a Jew?”
The maid stares at her in wide-eyed horror.
“Certainly not!” she exclaims indignantly. “How can you say that, miss? Jesus Christ was British, and a good Christian, just like our beloved Queen.”
Josephine relinquishes the unequal struggle.
“I am going to my room to change,” she says.
She climbs the stairs to the first floor. But instead of going to her bedroom, she crosses the landing and opens the door to her uncle’s bedchamber. She stands in the doorway, looking slowly all round the room, trying to think where her uncle’s safe might be located.
Eventually her gaze settles on the wall opposite the bed, where hangs a painting of Kabul. Gold minarets and ochre-tiled roof tiles glow in the pale afternoon sunlight. She lifts the painting off the wall and places it gently upon the bed, her heart leaping as she spies a small metal door in the wall.
Climbing onto a chair, Josephine stands in front of the safe, wondering how on earth she is going to open it without a key. Then she notices that the door is not completely flush with the wall, as if it has been quickly or carelessly shut. She looks around the room, seeking inspiration. There is a brass shoe-horn lying on the floor by the dressing table. She fetches it and inserts it into the crack.
The door opens, revealing a packet of letters tied up in red ribbon, and behind them, a small leather bag. Leaving the letters for the time being, she takes out the bag, feeling the scurry of objects within. She shuts the safe, and, excitement mounting, carries the bag to her room and closes the door. Then she upends the bag onto her writing-desk.
Jewels roll onto the polished wood surface, winking and glittering. Green snake-eyed emeralds. Amethysts, purple like old ice. Two rubies, thick red like clots of blood, and a large colourless diamond. Her hand hovers over them, then she picks up the diamond. The Eye of the Khan. It feels solid and cold.
She polishes it upon her sleeve and holds it up. And suddenly, something extraordinary happens. The diamond catches the afternoon light and releases it brighter than it had been before. As if it has swallowed the sun, it throws out rainbows.
The jewel gleams and phosphoresces, filling the room with its brilliance. It is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. The shock of it grabs hold of something inside her, and tears it open. She cannot breathe.
Still holding the diamond, she goes to the window, and lifts the edge of the curtain. The street below seems empty. Setting aside the two rubies, she replaces the rest of the jewels in the bag and hides them in a drawer. She picks up the two rubies, placing them in her reticule. She will deliver them and the letters to Lilith Marks as instructed. Then she will go to Holborn, and break the good news to her uncle's clerk.
A short while later, Josephine tiptoes downstairs, quietly lifting her coat and bonnet from the stand. At the end of the street she hails a cab. All the way to Endell Terrace, Maida Vale, the diamond burns invisibly in her brain.
****
London in 1860 is notorious for filth and obscenity. There are, as nearly as can be ascertained, nine thousand, four hundred and nine prostitutes, if you believe the Return of the Number of Brothels and Prostitutes within the Metropolitan Police Area. (Sadly, though, statistics can be misleading. The police are notorious for turning a blind eye in return for a quick fuck against a shop door. And of course, the figures do not include the under-thirteens.)
Lilith Marks, seated in her well-furnished drawing room, knows nothing of these statistics. She only knows she is eternally grateful to a certain redheaded gentleman, newly returned from abroad and desperate for a bit of female company, who picked her up in the gallery of the Alhambra Music Hall, bought her supper, then took her back to his hotel room for the night. That one night had turned into more nights, and then had ended up here, in this small but very discreet house tucked away from prying eyes.
Lilith has come a long way from her East End origins. She has beautiful gowns, and jewels worth over two thousand pounds. She also has a client list that includes some of the richest men in London; men whose wives would be scandalised if they knew their husbands were paying twenty-five pounds for twenty minutes of her time.
Lilith rolls the blood-red rubies in the palm of her hand, uttering a silent thank-you to Herbert King. She has a good business brain, and she has no intention of spending the rest of her life upon her back, servicing the needs of the sex-starved aristocracy.
Now she and her best friend Kitty Spenser, who lives two doors down and is in the same line of work, will finally be able to rent the little tea-room in Hampstead. This is the future she has set her sights on. A nice elegant place that ladies can patronise after a busy afternoon shopping.
Lilith carries the rubies to her writing desk and seals them in an envelope. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, she will take the envelope Up West, and sell the jewels for as high a price as she can get. She reaches for paper and pen, and writes a quick note to Kitty.
Once she has sold the rubies, she will call upon the landlord of the tea-room, and drive another hard bargain. A lick of paint, and the place will be ready in a jiffy. They will call it the Lily Lounge. A respectable name. Kitty has some foolish notion of calling it after their combined surnames. Lilith does not think that is a good idea.
****
Night falls, quiet as a ghost, upon the city. Snug in their silent houses, the inhabitants find solace in the arms of Morpheus. But not all are peacefully sleeping. In the green wooded hills of Hampstead, Mrs Thorpe is wide awake. She is following a train of thought, and until it runs into the buffers, Mr Thorpe is also wide awake, albeit reluctantly.
“So, what do you think?” Mrs Thorpe asks.
Mr Thorpe sighs. He has had a long day in the City, eaten a big dinner, indulged in a post-prandial snooze behind the evening papers, and now, just as he is on the point of dropping off into a deep and well-earned sleep, he is being asked to think. It isn't fair.
“Wha’a about?” he asks muzzily.
“You know quite well what about,” Mrs Thorpe says briskly. “We spoke of it earlier.”
But he doesn’t know. In all the years of their marriage, he has never understood why his wife will suddenly return to a conversation they had in the past, but which he is supposed to remember in the present.
“Bella? Mrs Carlyle’s? This afternoon?”
“Mnnh. Yersss ...”
He waits for further clues.
“As I told you, Bella is not like other girls.”
He is puzzled. His daughter seems to possess the same number of arms and legs as other girls, as far as he knows. Though obviously, now she is grown into womanhood, he can no longer be sure about the latter, legs being a dangerous area of contemplation for the male sex.
“I don't just mean her French education, for which I blame your Mama – I’d have been quite happy for her to continue at Miss Harbottle's Select Seminary for Elegant and Well-Bred Young Ladies.”
Mr Thorpe tactfully says nothing. His French mother is the only woman who can reduce his wife to a quivering mouse merely by the lift of a supercilious elderly eyebrow. This is a trick which he, sadly, has never mastered.
“Bella has whims.”
“Whims?”
“She has fancies.”
“She does?”
“She told me only this morning that she wanted to be a bluestocking!”
“Oh?”
“And she eats like a bird – which is no bad thing; eating in public is difficult to accomplish well at the best of times – but Withers tells me she is lacing her smaller and smaller.”
Mr Thorpe does not comment. This is mainly because the word ‘stocking’ has led his thoughts temporarily astray.
“It is Mrs Carlyle’s view, and I agree with her, that the sooner Bella finds a suitable husband, the better. Marriage will put a swift end to all this fancy nonsense.”
“Quite right,” Mr Thorpe mumbles.
“The only question is: how is it to be brought about?”
Ah. Mr Thorpe recognises what is happening. He is being taken down an already-prepared path. All he has to do, is follow meekly, and all will be well.
“We have the dinner party, of course. Isabella has such pretty table manners. I’m sure she will attract much attention. But I was also thinking that our dear boy Gussy might be called upon. After all, I’m sure he must know many nice young officers from well-connected families.”
“Good idea.”
“You agree?”
“Oh yes. Gussy is the man for it. Definitely.”
Mrs Thorpe sighs contentedly.
“Then I
shall proceed accordingly.”
“Do so, dear.”
Mr Thorpe closes his eyes. He waits. After a few minutes of silence, he allows himself to drift off into a delightful dream, in which he is pursuing ladies with stockinged legs down various unexpected and winding paths.
Mrs Thorpe, however, remains awake, planning and scheming. Once Bella’s future is settled, it will be Gussy’s turn. Though that is not going to be nearly such a problem. She has already picked out the lucky girl.
****
Dawn arrives, bringing with it rain. Milk-carts begin their rounds, the red newspaper expresses tear through the streets to catch the early trains. Riverboats get ready to receive the first passengers of the day. And in his cramped office at the detective division of the Metropolitan Police, Detective Inspector Stride has just finished reading through the night patrol reports.
Nearly every report contains a sighting of a ‘gigantic hound’. It has been spotted in Paddington, in Clerkenwell, in Willesden – where it was accompanied by a second ‘gigantic hound’. In Islington, its howling has kept various respectable citizens awake all night.
In Highgate, a ‘gigantic hound’ removed and seemingly ate a line of washing. It was also blamed for the digging up of a flowerbed, the loss of a pet cat, and the disappearance of a ham left by an open larder window. All these events took place at roughly the same time, bestowing upon the animal super-canine powers quite unheard-of ever before.
Stride is just thinking where to file these reports – his first choice being the nearest wastepaper basket – when Detective Sergeant Jack Cully enters.
“We’ve had a runner from one of the constables patrolling High Holborn,” he says.
Stride raises a weary hand.
“No more gigantic hounds, Jack. Please. Spare me that.”
Cully bites his lower lip.
“Actually, this might be ... err ... hound-related. Possibly. But whatever it is, I thought I’d better come straight to you, given where the incident has taken place.”
Stride looks up.
“Oh, and where's that?”