Never Look Back (91 page)

Clearly the man had learned a great deal about Matilda, for he strode right up to her, elbowing Henry out of the way.

‘I hear you’re harbouring one of my gals,’ he said, looking menacingly at her. ‘I want her back, right now.’

‘Excuse me, I don’t know what you are talking about,’ Matilda retorted. ‘I’m not harbouring anyone.’

‘Now then,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t know who you are, or what your business with Mrs Jennings is, but that’s no way to speak to a lady.’

The big man gave Henry a scathing look and pushed him roughly aside as if he were an irritating insect. Henry, perhaps thinking he could help better by not interfering further, backed away.

Matilda had always supposed no one would dare hurt her in her own saloon, but she sensed this man would have no scruples about attacking anyone, man, woman or child, wherever they happened to be. Close up he was even more formidable – so very ugly, with black hairs sticking out of his large nose, and the few teeth he had left rotten, but it was his eyes that scared her most, for they were pale blue, and they had a mad look in them, like a rabid dog’s.

‘Don’t you go messin’ with me,’ he snarled at her. ‘I got ways
of sortin’ out folk who stick their noses in my business. Get the girl now.’

The band was still playing merrily, but everyone in the bar had fallen silent, and the tension was palpable. Matilda could see he had a gun tucked into his belt, his jacket gaped open enough to see the shiny stock. She had no doubt he would not hesitate to use it.

She felt sick with fear. She didn’t dare order anyone to go and get help, for he would surely round on the first person who moved. All she could do was try to talk him round.

‘I’m sorry I don’t know your name,’ she said, trying to defuse the situation with a little charm. ‘And I can’t imagine how you came to think I was keeping one of your girls here. I’m not in the brothel business, the only girls here are my waitresses.’

‘The name is Gilbert Green,’ he said with a sneer, as if just the sound of that name would send her running for cover. ‘I know all about you, I makes it my business to know everything about folk in this town. So if you don’t want any trouble, just get her.’

Scared as Matilda was, she had her position to maintain, and she wasn’t going to allow anyone to think they could talk to her like that.

‘Will you kindly leave, sir,’ she said, drawing herself up as tall as she could, but even so she was barely to his shoulder. ‘Like I said, you are mistaken. And I don’t like people making threats to me.’

He scowled at her, and he did move, but back towards the door which led to the rooms where Sidney slept. Clearly he’d heard this was where Fern had been taken.

‘You are welcome to look in there,’ she said. Sidney was moving towards them and she shot him a warning glance to stay away. ‘Here. I’ll show you myself.’

She moved in front of the man, unlocked the outer door and led him from one small room to the other. ‘You see!’ she said triumphantly. ‘They are just rooms where my staff sleep, nothing more.’

‘But you took her in here,’ he said as they came back to the door. ‘I know you did.’

Every pore in her skin seemed to be opening up in fright. She could feel sweat on her face, her chest and even down her back. ‘A young Negro girl did faint in the bar the other night,’ she
said, as if only just remembering. ‘Yes, I did bring her in here at the time, just until she recovered, but she left at closing time. I haven’t seen her since.’

He appeared to believe her and as he began to walk away, Matilda felt a surge of relief. But he stopped suddenly at the foot of the stairs and looked up at the doors on the balcony.

‘What’s up there?’

At that Matilda panicked. Not only was Fern in her apartment, Peter and Dolores were there too.

Before she could think of anything to deter him, he was up the stairs taking them two at a time. All she could do was chase after him.

She let him look into the first rooms, which were private gaming rooms, and there was no one in either, hoping that someone downstairs would have the sense to run and get help. But if anyone did move, she didn’t hear them, and he was now approaching her apartment door.

He tried to turn the knob, but it was locked. He turned back to her, a leering evil grin on his face. ‘Open this,’ he ordered her.

‘I will not,’ she said indignantly. ‘That’s my apartment.’

‘Then I’ll break the dammed door down,’ he said.

Just the thought of him grabbing Fern out of bed and dragging her back to that brothel while she was still losing so much blood made Matilda’s legs almost buckle under her, for it would be like signing the girl’s death warrant. She knew too that Dolores would fight like a grizzly bear to protect Fern, and the man might very well turn his gun on her. Peter was in there too, and if he heard anything going on he’d be up to see about it.

As he turned to put his shoulder to the door, Matilda bent down, lifted her skirt and pulled her small pistol from her garter.

‘Come away from that door,’ she called out. ‘Or so help me, I’ll kill you.’

She hadn’t had any cause to threaten anyone with her gun in two years, but out of habit she always had it on her, loaded, and she had kept up her target practice.

The band suddenly stopped playing, the saloon instantly as quiet as a church, all eyes turned up to the scene on the balcony.

It was the sudden hush, more than her words, which made him turn, but as he saw the small gun he laughed derisively. ‘You couldn’t hit an elephant with that,’ he said.

Matilda was terrified. The hand holding the gun was shaking, she might not be able to pull the trigger if it was necessary. But she couldn’t let the man get the better of her. She’d got to stand her ground and prevent him from opening that door.

‘Don’t tempt me to prove you wrong,’ she said, her voice quivering as much as her hands. ‘Just come away from that door, now.’

As he moved away just slightly, then braced himself to run at the door, Matilda knew that bluff wasn’t going to be enough.

She aimed the gun at his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.

In the silent room the retort sounded like a cannon. The big man turned around, staggered towards her, and then fell face down just three feet from her. There on the back of his checked jacket was a clear hole, the material around it black and smoking.

Matilda was stunned. She had aimed at his shoulder, intending to wing him, nothing more, but he must have turned slightly as she fired. She stood transfixed with horror, the smoking gun still in her hand.

All at once the silence was broken, someone cheered, others stamped their feet and clapped. But it was the sound of feet racing up the stairs behind her which brought her back to reality. Sidney reached her first, clasping her in his arms. Alfred, the other barman, went over to the prone man, rolled him over on to his back, and removing his gun from his belt, fired one shot at the door of the private gaming room.

‘Why did he do that?’ Matilda asked weakly. The balcony seemed to be swaying and there was so much smoke she could hardly see. It felt like some strange dream, yet she knew it wasn’t.

‘So we can say Big Gee fired at you first,’ Sidney whispered.

‘Is he dead?’ she asked looking down at the man lying on the floor, Henry Slocum leaning over him.

‘Not yet,’ Henry said, his face as white as parchment. ‘But I guess he soon will be. Don’t you worry none, Matty. We’ll deal with it.’

Dolores came rushing out of the apartment door, quickly followed by Peter who was wearing only a night-shirt and they both gasped to see the man’s body on the landing.

‘Go back inside,’ Matilda managed to say. ‘It’s all over now.’

The last thing Matilda heard as Dolores ushered Peter back in
was the boy’s excited voice, ‘Do you reckon Aunt Matty killed him?’

If Matilda had ever doubted the loyalty and admiration her staff and customers had for her, in the next few days such doubts were swept away. To a man they backed Sidney and Henry’s tale to the police of how Big Gee came into the bar threatening her, and how she’d drawn her gun as he went up the stairs just to try to prevent him entering her apartment. He’d turned, seen her gun, drawn his, and fired, missing her by inches, and she’d fired her own as a last resort as he once again attempted to break down her door.

The police, hardly efficient at any time, were happy to accept this story. Gilbert Green was hated and feared by hundreds of people and his death, a few hours after the shooting, was a cause for merriment and pleasure, not sadness.

Matilda was so deeply shocked that for a couple of days she found it almost impossible to go into the bar. While she had no misgivings about the man’s death – he was after all an evil brute – it stunned her to think that she was capable of killing another human being. She’d done a great many things in her time, but killing, even if it had turned out to be for the public good, was too much for her to cope with.

She was also rather perturbed to find that overnight she had become a heroine. While it was pleasant enough to be called a gutsy lady, and gain the respect of men who had previously thought she was a mere figure-head at London Lil’s, she knew her actions had propelled her rather too quickly towards having to make a public stand against the atrocities happening daily in the city.

On the third night after the event she braced herself to go downstairs again. Staying upstairs would only serve to fan more outrageous tales about her, and she knew she must appear calm and in control. The bar was crowded – Sidney had joked at supper-time that perhaps she ought to shoot someone every month as it was good for business. As she made her way through the throng, stopping to speak to regulars as she always did, many men called out words of praise.

Jack Skillern, an ex-gold miner who had used the gold he found to open a boot store, came up to her and kissed her cheek.

‘What’s that for, Jack?’ she laughed. She was fond of this scrawny little man, he’d been here on opening night and been a regular ever since.

‘It ain’t just from me,’ he said, looking bashful, ‘but from all the boys. See, we’re all right proud of you. You was real brave. Most of us would turn tail and run if Big Gee came our way.’

‘Well, thank you, Jack,’ she said, and kissed him on his cheek too. ‘And perhaps you can tell them all how much I appreciate them all standing by me. I was very touched by that, I didn’t know I had so many friends.’

‘You got a lot more than you know, ma’am,’ he said. ‘See, we think of London Lil’s as our special place. You always give us a good welcome, it’s friendly and happy here. All us boys would do anything for you’s.’

She just looked at him for a moment, a lump coming up in her throat. This funny little man had made a fortune from gold, lost it on the tables, and made another. Finally he’d had the sense to hold on to a little to open his store. He was like so many of her customers, noisy braggarts, feckless, improvident, warmhearted and very dear to her. His few words of praise meant more to her than anything.

‘You and the other boys must have a drink on the house,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell Sidney right now.’

Big Gee was hardly buried when Mrs Honeymead was arrested, charged with procuring girls for prostitution, and Matilda was asked by the prosecution lawyer to come with him to speak to some of the girls left in the brothel, to encourage them to come forward as witnesses.

It was raining hard the morning Mr Rodrigious took her in his buggy to meet the girls. He was a small, wiry South American, with oiled black hair and a droopy moustache, who spoke faultless English. He told her on the ride to the brothel that he had been educated in Boston, and he hoped one day to go to England as he believed British law to be the best in the world.

‘You may find the conditions the remaining girls are in very distressing,’ he said as he halted his buggy in Kearny Street. ‘Most of the girls vanished at the time of Mrs Honeymead’s arrest. What we have left is those too sick, confused, or even too
feeble-minded to run. I took them in food and water, but they wouldn’t come out of their rooms, not while I was there,’

As they made their way along a winding, narrow, putrid-smelling alley, Matilda was reminded of that excursion into Rat’s Castle so long ago. Above the door standing at the end of the alley was a sign, ‘Girlie Town’, and either side of it were lurid painted pictures of naked girls. The windows above were all blacked out and barred and even in daylight a sense of evil sent shivers down her spine.

Mr Rodrigious opened the door with a key, then looked back at her, as if expecting her to falter.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘And I want to see everything. Not just what you think is fit for a lady to see.’

The lawyer paused in the hall to light an oil lamp, as due to the covered windows everything was in darkness, and absolutely silent. Downstairs there was little to surprise her: a fair-sized saloon at the front with shabby plush couches, and a small bar which looked as if it had been ransacked just recently. Beyond that was a kitchen, notable only in that it was filthy, with piles of unwashed dishes and the table covered in mouse droppings. She pulled back the curtain on the door, and saw the yard and the wall over which Fern had made her escape. Mrs Honeymead’s rooms were next to the kitchen, an over-furnished parlour and a bedroom adjoining it, remarkable only in that it was surprisingly homely and well cleaned.

Then they went upstairs. There were six small rooms here, bare of furniture but for a central iron bed in each. There were no blankets or sheets, just dirty mattresses which even in the dim light from the lamp could be seen to be spotted with blood and other sickening stains.

‘These are the rooms the girls were taken to by Mrs Honeymead,’ Mr Rodrigious said, moving his light closer to the head of the bed so she could see the leather restraints still hanging there. He cast the light on to the walls to show her splatters of blood. ‘One can only guess at the horrors endured in these rooms.’

As they went up a further flight of stairs, Matilda could hear faint moaning.

The lawyer turned to her and spoke in a low voice. ‘You may wonder why they prefer to stay up here once you have seen their
rooms. My conclusion was that they feel safer with what they know.’