The Fiend in Human Read online

  ‘There’s a rumour going around the Mayfair clubs having to do with a lost twin of Her Majesty …’

  ‘Oh come, come on, Edmund, not the lost twin wheeze again!’

  ‘This one is rather fresh. It seems the woman worked as a Haymarket prostitute until she learned of her origins from a solicitor who happened to be a client. Through this solicitor, a meeting was arranged at Blenheim Palace, at which Her Majesty is said to have swooned. The twin later committed suicide by charcoaling herself to death.’

  ‘Dear Heaven, that bloody well has my fecking attention! What do you think, gentlemen?’

  Dinsmore lowers his newspaper, revealing a narrow face with plump, raw wattles swinging from side to side and a pair of plump, wrinkled hands: ‘Royal blood in the veins of a Haymarket prostitute? That will never pass. Not without a palace indiscretion to support it.’

  ‘Indiscretion? Scandal would be more like it,’ offers Mr Cream beneath his stovepipe hat. ‘Royal bastard might do the trick.’

  ‘Royal bastard from Her Majesty?’ Sala smiles wistfully. ‘I wouldn’t set my hopes up on that one. Rather occupied with the German at the moment, I should say.’

  Whitty makes a joke in his turn, although he would like to throttle the two of them with his bare hands. ‘Given the German disposition, she might require a servant to clear the cobwebs.’

  ‘Or the manure.’

  ‘One boff per pregnancy is my estimation.’

  ‘Haw!’

  ‘That’s quite enough levity, don’t you think, gentlemen?’ cautions Dinsmore, who plans to relate this tasteless incident to the proprietor, presented as a humorous utterance by The Falcon’s rascal of an editor. ‘Of course, the decision is yours, Mr Sala. I have every faith in your judgement.’

  Upon Dinsmore’s expression of approval Sala becomes less enthusiastic about the proposal, suspecting a trap. The little shite is encouraging him to give Whitty too much of a free hand and thereby exhibit a lack of command. The Editor tosses a furtive glance at the sub-editor; there is intrigue afoot, he can sense it.

  ‘I say, Edmund, to be candid, it is a somewhat shop-worn bit of goods. Yet there is no bloody limit to the public appetite for royal skeletons. Put a watch on it. Anything else?’

  Thinks Whitty: When the racy ones come a cropper, what hope remains for the high-minded stuff? Oh, what he would give for another Chokee Bill! Oh what he would give for a drink!

  ‘On the legal front we have recent parliamentary concern over the availability of over-the-counter poisons, especially arsenic and strychnine, in the light of the Nottingham case. There exists a suspicion that people may be knocking one another off courtesy of the local chemist.’

  ‘You’ve already written on that.’

  The deuce. ‘So I have. But there is more to it.’

  ‘So I should hope. Any facts to offer, an indication of the severity of the problem?’

  ‘No way to tell, given that arsenic and strychnine produce the symptoms of typhus and apoplexy.’

  ‘Bloody Hell, Edmund, are you suggesting that we treat everyone who keels over as a suspicious death?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Algy. Still, the notion would mesh well with the Inquiry into the State of Girls’ Fashionable Schools.’ Herewith the correspondent draws his last, least promising card, a small item he obtained from Walter Bigney downstairs for the price of a pint of brandy. At this point Whitty would accept a pint of brandy for the entire work.

  Sala scowls, relighting his cigar – a sign of interest. ‘Elaborate that last thought, would you, old chap?’

  ‘Thackeray calls them stables for training in fine-ladyism, breeding cows for auction in the marriage market. The report reads as though it were the most dangerous development since the Roundheads. It envisages an entire generation of deceptive Jezebels and string-pulling hags.’

  ‘I see you’ve been doing your research, Edmund. Are you suggesting that graduates of these schools go on to feed rat poison to their lords and masters?’

  ‘Worth a few afternoons, I should say. Check the attrition rate, look for an increase in instances of hubby keeling over into his soup.’

  ‘I bloody well like that one. What do you gentlemen think?’

  ‘Worth a small advance,’ admits Dinsmore. ‘Two pounds.’

  ‘Actually, I was hoping for something more like ten. Unexpected expenses have accrued.’

  ‘Haw!’ Cruel laughter erupts from behind several newspapers.

  ‘That’s a funny comment, Whitty.’

  ‘Very droll indeed.’

  Capital, thinks Whitty. Was that not an excellent joke? What could possibly be more risible to a manager than to watch a correspondent on the brink of disaster, dancing a jig?

  5

  Deverley Lane, off Floral Street

  On a narrow street near Covent Garden stands, or rather, leans upon its neighbours, the former town-house belonging to Viscount Deverley, a prodigious spendthrift and a connoisseur of many things French, who squandered his inheritance to the last sovereign before departing this world in the French manner, in the company of a palm pistol. For the next decade Deverley Manor emulated the career of its owner in an extended period of decay, after which the building stood to be demolished by a syndicate in favour of a commercial property. The necessary investment in this project having failed to accrue, and following a scandal as to where, precisely, earlier investments had disappeared (as though the Viscount’s ghost were presiding), Deverley Manor thereafter lay in proprietary limbo, a fallow field producing only cud to be chewed by barristers.

  Then, like a weed which grows without encouragement, from the baroque rubble of the Viscount’s wasted life sprouted an unusually specialized pub known as the Clarabel: whose beverage on offer tends to gin and not ale, whose snug comfort maintains a tattered approximation, not of a gentleman’s trophy-room, but a parlour of the upper middle class, complete with swagged curtains, table-covers, an array of china displayed upon the carved mahogany wainscoting, and an oval portrait of Her Majesty above the cracked marble fireplace.

  In this haven congregate the judies who work the surrounding neighbourhoods, down to and including the Haymarket. Here they find respite from their labours, or consolation for their lack of the same, there being no male permitted to enter the establishment: neither the punters seeking to badger down the price of service, nor the fancy men who attach themselves to these women like ticks, nor the crushers waiting to take their pleasure as the price of avoiding arrest, nor the ‘cash-carriers’ – who, often as not, disappear with the cash – nor the gangs of degenerating touts with hardened knuckles who prowl the streets for a lone whore to surround, beat, rape and rob.

  Here working women come to chat, in confidence and safety, about men and millinery, decorating schemes, professional adventures, troubles with colleagues and landlords, legends and rumours circulating the district, the latest outrage or perfidy perpetrated by the constabulary – and, of course, to exchange professional advice.

  ‘I’ve become partial to a half-pound of raw liver,’ offers Mrs Miller, a dark-complected woman sometimes known as the Rose of Abyssinia, to the company in general. ‘It works something wonderful. You warm it on the grate while he is pissing, keep the lights dim, and Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘Oh, Flo!’ whispers Etta to the more experienced friend seated next to her. ‘Is she talking about you-know-what?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, my dear. Listen well, for you too will need to settle on a means of having him off but not in.’

  ‘Lor’!’

  Within the walls of the Clarabel the women gather as equals, no matter to what degree their circumstances may vary: whether they be children imitating adults, or adults imitating children, or bogus virgins, or gamines who arouse interest by means of a sharp wit and incongruously lewd remarks, or ‘country girls’ from the rookery, conditioned by overcrowding to indiscriminate sexual acts before they ever thought of hawking themselves on the streets. (Of course the establish
ment abounds with the daughters of clergymen.)

  Whatever one’s age and circumstance, whether one plies the trade in a bedroom of one’s own, in a room above a divan, in a bawdy-house or standing up against an alley wall, it is substantially the same job.

  ‘I advise against venturing into the Temple, and and especially to avoid the Inns of Court. Not without a cash-carrier, for the place is swarming with rampsmen.’

  This from Saint Marie, born Sophie Barker, a canny fourteen-year-old equipped with a rubbery, athletic body and an aspect of heartbreaking innocence. Beside her sits Jolly Pam, a passive mound of flesh whose appeal, such as it is, runs to sailors, for whom amiability and tolerance remind them of their mothers. The affinity between these two women would be a mystery anywhere but the Clarabel, where it is understood that, for all the dangers and drawbacks of the street, unlike the kidnapped girl in borrowed clothes who works the closed brothels in St John’s Wood, unlike the scullery maid whose position depends on co-operation with the master, none of these women is a slave.

  At an adjacent table, Jerusha Switt (professional name Soft Emma) issues a useful warning concerning a vicious toff distinguished by hair swept in exaggerated jug loops, who likes to pinch to the extent of producing welts all over. ‘And I dare say, given sufficient drink and a pocket knife, he don’t stop at pinching.’

  ‘The notice said as we’re to report such gentlemen to the constabulary, in light of recent events.’

  A pause of general disapproval, then: ‘Aye, Miss Steeves, and get nibbed yourself, most likely. I’m surprised at you, an experienced woman of the world.’

  Miss Steeves concedes the point: ‘True for you, Mrs Ogylvie, you are right. If you want to know the time, ask a policeman.’

  This draws a laugh which Etta does not understand: ‘What does she mean, Flo?’

  ‘It is a joke about the quality of a crusher’s watch, my dear. Remarkable it is, how many lushingtons wake up in gaol absent their gold watch.’

  The younger woman nods, securing this information in her mind for later use, ever so grateful to her teacher and protector with the new bonnet and the lustrous chestnut hair – and her own hair so dirty brown, and a mole above the lip into the bargain!

  Such exchanges between women alone justify the position of the Clarabel in the society for which it is intended, along with its proprietor.

  Mrs Ogylvie smokes a cigaret behind the mahogany counter previously removed from the billiards room, a woman of almost reptilian thinness who, through persistence and parsimony, has taken her investment beyond the confines of her once voluptuous body to the outer world of investment and enterprise. Having (like a remarkable number of former whores) emerged uninfected from her myriad and arbitrary commercial encounters (owing, perhaps, to advice from such as the Rose of Abyssinia); having subsequently declared herself immune to men for life: Mrs Ogylvie dedicated her remaining years here on earth to erecting, maintaining and improving the Clarabel. Curiously, from the moment the establishment began to flourish, its proprietor began to grow spare, to dry like a piece of candied fruit, which does not rot but hardens. Crouched before an array of inexpensive alcoholic beverages – displayed in what was once a bookshelf in the Viscount’s upstairs library – the emancipated Mrs Ogylvie grows ever more desiccated, having already achieved at the age of thirty the sinewy toughness of an indestructible old woman.

  Flo is well known to Mrs Ogylvie and a regular of long standing at the Clarabel; not so the girl beside her, a poky field-mouse who would prefer to turn liquid and trickle down a crack in the floor; yet she too will come to frequent this place regularly, to find dignity in the china, solace in the company, and hope in the triumphant compression of Mrs Ogylvie.

  While not possessing resources of the first rank, by no means is Flo among the least-favoured. She does not form associations with sailors, soldiers or people with peculiar tastes, her custom being for the most part shop people, commercial travellers and the better sort of clerk – clean, respectable married men, albeit with a distaste for marriage. (Once she spent the week with a stray clergyman from Exeter Hall, who was most generous.)

  Flo has only once given herself for free, and not for drink nor supper, either. She will never be a dollymop, she will die first. Nor is she susceptible to the illusion of romance.

  That was her error. Bored footless by the drudgery of her father’s shop, she encouraged a young gentleman of property in the neigh-bourhood and yielded to his desires. Word spread, as word will; a girl has only to make one such mistake.

  Naturally, having had his way, he treated her like a dollymop; she expected otherwise. Still, she is wiser for the experience. By the end of their association she was as eager to leave him as he was to get rid of her. The disgrace proved hurtful to her parents, who are stupid people of no interest. She was glad to be rid of them too.

  Soon after this episode she made the acquaintance of an introducer, a proprietor of a tobacco shop named Mrs Mansard, who examined her teeth, pronounced her all right, and presented her through the Royal Mail to various contacts as a fresh country virgin, which was nearly true. By this means, and for payment of half of what she earned, she acquired two admirers – a Covent Garden butcher and a shopman from the Strand. They doted on their little country virgin as a pet, paid for her lodging, she even learned to play the piano a little; but this soured eventually. Men are flighty creatures who quickly lose interest in what is readily available.

  By then it was time to part ways with Mrs Mansard, for, although undeniably pretty, she no longer appeared quite so fresh as to pass for a country virgin.

  Thereafter, she attempted to make her living in a respectable fashion as a seamstress. In a busy period she found she could stitch seven or eight pairs of trousers at eight pence apiece, but once thread and lighting were paid for she barely managed to clear three shillings per week. Thinking her problem to be a matter of money management and not slow starvation, she sought the advice of other seamstresses, only to find that they made ends meet by selling their favours to the lowest sort. Heeding this warning, she returned to her first profession.

  She does not regret having worked as a seamstress, if only because it confirmed her original choice as to which occupation, managed skilfully, offers the better prospects for an unmarried woman with no gift for the stage.

  She does not associate with pickpockets, nor is she reckless. She puts something by every week. She will one day have an establishment, as does Mrs Ogylvie, a tobacco shop or cigar divan with living quarters above; already she has her eye on one. Unlike Mrs Ogylvie, Flo will not grow dry and hard, for she plans one day to chose a man – a well-bred man of settled character, not a fancy man. She will put up with no opium, nor heavy drinking.

  Her father and mother remain unaware of what she does to support herself, though if they had any penetration they would guess. She lets them know she is alive in a language they can understand, by sending money …

  In the meanwhile, at the Clarabel the general conversation has turned, as it has so often in past months, to a catalogue of the recently absent. This is a mobile profession, often with only rumour to indicate whether someone is missing because she has moved away, or is preggers, or has got herself a toff and is on the randy, or has chosen to make herself scarce for any one of a hundred other reasons.

  ‘Do you know what’s become of Lucy, Cora? With the pug nose? She hasn’t come in this last fortnight.’

  ‘That’s true, Mrs Ogylvie, neither have I seen her. I heard she went away.’

  Notes Jolly Pam: ‘I seen her brat down Pudding Lane, downy little mutcher he is, can’t be more than ten.’

  ‘She can’t be gone away, for she wouldn’t leave the brat.’

  ‘Heaven only knows, then.’

  ‘True for you there. I shall ask Mrs Sidler to look for her in the cards. Remember when she saw Twin Becky in the hospital and sure, there she was with fever.’ This produces a murmur of agreement, for it is a common thing to consult Mrs Si
dler.

  ‘I hear we is to report such disappearances to the crushers.’ This suggestion meets with silence.

  ‘So I did over Agnes Bottomley’s absence, and was three days in the spike for nothing.’

  ‘Any flam to save them the bother.’

  ‘True for you, Mrs Ogylvie, the Peelers is a nest of idle buffoons for sure.’

  ‘Nor was Mona taken notice of, and all her things in her room like she had only just stepped out a moment.’

  ‘And would Fancy Diana leave behind six pairs of shoes?’

  There follows a general murmur, for there is not a judy in London without a similar story.

  Pipes up Etta, without thinking: ‘If you want to know the time, ask a policeman.’

  A merry laugh around the room to break the tension. Etta smiles, pleased with herself.

  Good, thinks Flo. Already she is beginning to fit in.

  Remarks the Rose of Abyssinia while lighting her clay pipe with a lucifer: ‘A gentleman of mine ’as seen the ghost of Dark Anza, the black Irish girl – missing, oh, easily a year or more. Took him to a gattering, filled him with whisky, then to an accommodation house. He turned to remove her cloak and she disappeared. Or so the gentleman ‘as it – as ’ave others. Well-bred gentlemen, of settled character: they walk in the door, turns, and she is vanished.’

  ‘Aye, I’ve heard that one. In the version I know, she bleeds first.’

  ‘Bleeds where?’

  ‘Where her throat was cut.’

  ‘So you believe it, then?’

  “T’was the hairless man at the jerry-shop told it to me. Said as he heard it from a standing patterer.’

  ‘So many stories as where they go.’

  ‘I heard from Miss Enright who reads the papers that they wants to put up camps for such as us “fallen women” – the “excess female population” they calls it.’

  ‘Do you think that is it? That the crushers take them away?’

  ‘Nonsense, Cora. That’s as absurd as the ghost of Dark Anza, home to repeat her last trick.’