The Vice Society (12 page)

‘I believe I may know the lady. A very refined sort to be sure. She doesn’t walk the streets as I do; the gentlemen come to
her
.’

‘Where will I find her?’

‘I’ll show you. She won’t admit just anyone, but if she knows it’s I come to collect a shilling for the service, she may see you. And if you’ll pay me a shilling also . . .’

‘Fine. Is it far?’

‘Sir, I believe you would cross our island to find this lady. Am I correct?’

‘Hmm. Proceed. But I warn you: there will be trouble if you are cheating me.’

The girl smiled, unconcerned, and rested a hand on his forearm. The contact seemed to burn through the dense wool of his coat to the sensitive skin beneath. He felt his face suffusing with a blush. ‘You will not be disappointed, sir. I promise you,’ she said, squeezing his arm to magnify the effect. ‘My name is Charlotte, by the way.’

Mr Williamson glanced around and then allowed himself to be led by Charlotte into the flow of people. It had seemed to him during that brief glance that nobody had noticed their conversation.

But his usual observational acuity had failed him.

EIGHT

Who was the lurking observer watching Mr Williamson lured into the eyes of pretty Charlotte beneath that gaslamp on Haymarket? All in good time – let us instead begin with a necessary preamble.

There is, as we have seen, a commodity in this great city of trade that is listed in no newspaper: a commodity sought by every man (and, yes, by women also) as ardently as daily sustenance; a commodity so precious that it has found a thriving market since the dawn of history; a commodity that is advertised and sold at competitive rates in almost every street of London. And yet it is an all but invisible trade.

The satiation of the carnal impulse.

The need is as powerful as hunger, as consuming as opiates, as ruinous as gin – and as thriving as the population of rats beneath our streets. The Christian charities vociferate that there are 80,000 magdalenes in London, and it may well be true. One thing is certain: for every life, there is also a secret life of dreams and desires that cannot not be fulfilled by one’s money, one’s work, one’s religion, one’s marriage. And it is a life that must be fed, that feeds upon the ravening soul, even as it leads to disease and ruin.

Inspector Newsome was a close student of such matters. His years on the street had taught him more than any Oxford degree or medical book about the nature of humanity. In crime, as in love and desire, there were patterns to be observed and locations to be mapped. Information, as ever, was the arbiter in the battle between good and evil.

To this end, Mr Newsome had taken steps that – if Sir Richard Mayne knew of them – might have seen the inspector before the magistrate and his career in the Detective Force in peril.

Every constable knows where vice resides on his beat. He knows which house is a brothel; he knows which girls charge what to whom and where they lodge; he knows where ‘special’ services may be obtained, where illicit prints are sold and which servants have additional sources of income. How does he know such things? Because he is out at all hours watching the day and the night unfold. He talks to everyone and becomes a repository of rumour to rival even the infallible telegraph of the scullery maid. And if he occasionally takes a shilling to look away from the odd transaction, would he not be aiding the commercial progress of the city’s valuable trade in satiation?

Imagine if all of that information could be collected together. Would not the secret lives of many become an open book to the man who had sole access to them? Would not such a man discern invisible threads of crime interweaving throughout the whole of society itself? Inspector Newsome thought so.

Within his office at
4
, Whitehall-place – known also as the headquarters of Division A, or Scotland Yard – there was a locked oaken cabinet. Inside that cabinet was a heavy ledger in which the lascivious secrets of London were kept, restocked daily by reports collected from across the city by those constables – particularly of Division C, Haymarket – who wanted to protect both their jobs and the illicit payments they took. Their notes and messages came directly to that office and were entered meticulously into the ledger by the inspector’s personal clerk.

As well as introduction houses, brothels, supper rooms and the abodes of London’s finest courtesans, all manner of perversion and peculiarity was catalogued there. A little whipping? Go to Mrs ——— at that unassuming address on Regents-street, or to Mrs ——— at Margaret-place. If of the sodomitical taste, the brothel of Vere-street attracted an elevated sort (though unfortunately prone to the occasional blackmail case), whereas ladies seeking extra-marital services found the curious male brothel of Bond-street highly recommended. For flagellation of a more varied and aesthetic nature, one might choose from Tavistock-court or Russell-square – and many did.

As for the common brothel frequented by costermongers, sailors and soldiers, they were too numerous to monitor, and the people visiting them were of sufficiently little consequence to bother with. If, perchance, a notable man should visit them, the beat constable would soon know and report it.

Five days had now passed since the Holywell-street incident and, having locked his office door, Inspector Newsome was scanning the most recent entries in this most valuable resource. Contained in it was information that might have shocked the entire city and caused scandals to besmirch the very structures of power, but he had become accustomed to what he saw there. True, he could scarcely use the knowledge he had, its nature and origins being too sensitive – but that didn’t mean it wasn’t, or wouldn’t be, useful.

Here was Lord ——— out for another thrashing at Russell-square; it was becoming almost a weekly thing for the man. And there was Mr ———, that venerable lawyer whose colleagues would have been more than intrigued to know than he was wont to dress as a lady twice a week at Mrs ———’s. Ah, and Bishop ———, whose love of his fellow man took a more literal than exegetical form at his weekly visits to Vere-street. Such upstanding gentlemen – all with ready rhetoric on sin – were themselves all wallowing in the sewers of vice.

For reasons of his own, the inspector was looking particularly for those names connected with the Society for the Suppression of Vice, whose members were frequently well represented in this book of shame. Were the truth about those particular men and women to be revealed, St Paul’s itself might crumble upon its foundations in ignominy.

Greater revelations were yet to come – not least those concerning a certain ex-detective – but at that moment his clerk had entered from the side office and advised him that Sir Richard was waiting. The inspector locked the ledger away, dropping the key into his pocket, and picked up a pile of books as he left. There was much to discuss.

‘So the woman is quite clearly lying,’ said Sir Richard, having listened to the inspector’s summary of the interview at Holywell-street two days previously.

‘Doubtless she is. But there is little we can do. A force more threatening than the police is keeping her silent, which is interesting in itself.’

‘Quite. But which force is that? What else have you discerned?’

‘We spoke to the woman’s girl: a rather stupid sort who I believe knows nothing of value.’

‘I see. How
is
Constable Cullen faring in the Detective Force? Has he learned anything from Sergeant Williamson as we had hoped?’

‘Rather not. The man is slow-witted. I will allow him to stay until a replacement can be found, and then I fear it will be back into uniform for him.’

‘It is your decision, of course. A pity – I thought we might make something of him. Now tell me about the other residents at the time of the incident. One of them must have heard something.’

‘It seems that the majority of them – all men – gave false names and addresses as is common in these places. I regret now that I did not earlier secure all of the rooms to be searched – it is too late now to find evidence. Nevertheless, I have been able to locate one of the guests, one of whom Mrs Colliver happened to know by sight: a Mr Jessop, a bookbinder of King-street who claims he took a room there because he was too drunk to walk home. Fortunately, his was the room opposite the one where the incident occurred: number seven.’

‘I fear you are going to tell me that he was so intoxicated that he remembers nothing.’

‘Much more intriguing than that, sir.’ Inspector Newsome paused, delighting in its effect upon his superior.

‘Well, out with it, Inspector! I do believe you have missed a career in the theatre.’

‘Yes, sir. Mr Jessop retired around the same time as the two gentlemen: at ten o’clock. By that stage, Mr Jessop was virtually insensible, but shortly after closing his door he claims he heard the door opposite being opened and closed, and voices including that of a woman.’

‘Mr Colliver showing them to the room.’

‘Presumably. Thereafter, and here he could not be sure of the time, he heard footsteps in the corridor that he assumed to be other guests going to their rooms. He says he saw their shadows moving through the crack at the foot of his door.’

‘Did he hear their doors opening or closing?’

‘He did not.’

‘What do you make of that, Inspector?’

‘That the other guests closed their doors quietly? That he was too drunk to notice? He says he heard no voices this time – only footsteps.’

‘Very considerate guests at Colliver’s coffee house. Is that all?’

‘No. He was awoken again in the early hours by a door banging. He had no idea of the time but it was still dark. Again, he heard a number of footsteps but no voices. Then somebody entered his room.’

Sir Richard sat upright in his chair, as Inspector Newsome must have known he would. ‘Somebody
entered his room
? Was the door not locked?’

‘Mr Jessop said he thought it had been, but he couldn’t be sure due to his state. The door was locked when he awoke the next morning and his own key was on the floor inside. In fact, when I checked with Mrs Colliver, she found that the spare key to the room was missing.’

‘Who was the intruder?’

‘A man. He pushed Mr Jessop in his bed as if trying to wake him, or see if he was sleeping. When Mr Jessop finally stirred, the man said to him that he should forget anything he had heard that night or he would be murdered.’

‘Are you sure this was not all just a gin phantasy? What do we know of this mysterious man?’

‘Mr Jessop said that the man’s voice was calm and well spoken like a gentleman. He said he knew he was not dreaming because he saw the silhouette of the intruder against the open door.’

‘Is that all? He is threatened with murder in his own room and that is the extent of his memory?’

‘It was early in the morning. Mr Jessop was still crapulous. Indeed, he went back to sleep and awoke late enough that our constable was already stationed outside number seven when Mr Jessop left. The constable did not think to question him, but I have verified the fact with our man.’

‘Why was this not heard at the inquest or reported to his nearest police station?’

‘Alas, Sir Richard, not every Londoner has the high public-spiritedness we expect.’

‘I certainly expect less of that tone, Inspector. There
must
be something more than simply the words spoken. Is there no description?’

‘The intruder was not wearing a hat. He was most likely clean-shaven. There is nothing more that can be of help.’

‘The more I hear of this case, Inspector, the more convinced I am that there is something fearfully complex behind its seeming inconsequence.’

‘May I ask, sir – have you heard anything more from the Vice Society?’

‘A pertinent question, and one I should answer. I am being asked questions from the highest quarters of that Society about this case. The newspapers may have lost interest, but those with influence continue to harass me for a solution to the crime. Your revelations today suggest that there is indeed a secret to be unearthed.’

‘Does this change my investigation?’

‘Only that we must continue with the greatest alacrity until it is solved. I am uncomfortable being under the scrutiny of these people. Tell me of the other drunken witness to the accident, the mariner Ned Coffin.’

‘I have been unable to locate the man. Our constables know of him, but he is not where he habitually resides. If he is alive, he will surface shortly and we will talk to him.’

‘I see. Let us hope so. The family then – we have spoken of Mr Sampson’s brother and sister who attended the inquest.’

‘The sister is still inconsolable and, I fear, has in any case an unrealistic conception of the deceased. His brother, however, provides a clearer picture of a bachelor who spent much of his time at his club, at the supper rooms and in the company of ladies.’

‘By ladies, you mean prostitutes.’

‘Yes, sir. It seems he spent much of his money on ladies somewhat beyond his pocket. He was in debt to a few of his fellows, but in no danger of being gaoled for it.’

‘Did his brother know of any reason why he would have gone to the coffee house, or with whom?’

‘He said it was probably just a place to take a girl he had met.’