The Vice Society (27 page)

‘Firstly, because it is your job. Secondly, because I have told you to do so. And thirdly, perhaps you would like to examine something a little more closely.’ The inspector took out his handkerchief and picked up a fragment of the broken gin glass, which he held out for the surgeon. ‘Smell this . . . not too closely.’

‘Bitter almonds . . . prussic acid!’

The doctor stepped back as rapidly as his portly frame would allow.

‘Quite. And also a scent of gin. No doubt the two were mixed.’

‘So, we have a suicide.’

‘Not your initial diagnosis, doctor.’

‘Nevertheless, we now have the cause of death. My work here is done.’

‘Forgive me – I am not a medical man – but is there something in this girl’s posture that tells you she has drunk the poison? Because the existence of the glass here is no evidence at all that she took it. Perhaps it has been here for some days before she arrived. Perhaps there is a colossal wound in the girl’s back that we cannot see.’

‘Prussic acid will kill whether in a small dose or a strong one – only the period between ingestion and death varies. She drank the gin, slumped against the wall here and it was over. There – may I go home now?’

‘Wait. Let us say the poison was mixed with gin to disguise the taste – that is credible. But then, with a matter of seconds to live, she throws the glass from her body to land nine yards away. Why?’

‘How should I know? Because she was angry at the world?’

‘Doctor – I want you to take this body back with you and examine it closely. I want to know of any other wounds. I want to know if she did indeed ingest the poison. I want to know if that black substance on her fingers is indeed boot-blacking, or whether it is something other.’

‘All of this for a whore?’

‘All of this for justice.’

‘Forgive me – I will do it, of course. But we have had occasion to work together before and I believed I knew your methods. Why do you now care about this inconsequential death?’

‘Consequence, doctor, is my business to decide. Come to my office this afternoon with your full report. And mention this to nobody else.’

It was strange indeed for the inspector to have been at the scene of such a minor death. Stranger still had been his request to all stations and watch houses the day before that the suicide of any street girls in London should be reported directly to him as soon as they were discovered and that no one was to investigate the scene before he arrived.

The reader will no doubt have guessed the reason why.

That meeting at the opulent house on the previous day had seemed to the inspector to have been a particularly difficult game in which everyone was lying – or least telling a version of the truth that was most beneficial to him – and that any advantage to be gained was in the slips or suppositions of the opponent. Mr Williamson had apparently made such a slip when he had asked about the death of the prostitute in Holywell-street that fateful night.

The question itself was telling enough, but far more so was the way he had immediately dropped the matter. Here was a man who could make a statue speak with his relentless questions and counter-questions, but he had left this conversational avenue for dead. Why?

Mr Newsome had looked further into the case of the dead girl found on the morning of Mr Sampson’s death. It had seemed superficially straightforward: a body found slumped in an alley, a gin glass nearby – just another melancholy metropolitan incident. Of course, that glass and the position of the girl no longer seemed so straightforward. And when local constables had questioned other girls of the neighbourhood, none of them seemed to know the victim or her name. Perhaps friends of the girl had remarked on her absence to constables wherever she did hail from – an eventuality covered by the inspector’s request for all stations to heed such reports.

Unfortunately, the body had now been disposed of in unconsecrated ground so no further information was available. Only one other piece of potentially useful information had proved useful: the girl had had long blonde hair like Mrs Colliver’s, and like the strand found in that room.

Remembering Mr Williamson’s longstanding obsession with the role of prussic acid in the death of his wife, Mr Newsome’s next task was to ask his clerk to look through past issues of the
Police Gazette
for cases involving prostitute suicides with that poison. They were few enough, but at least one – a certain Mary – had been found with a glass near her body. It was then that he had asked for any subsequent such deaths to be reported to him. And he had despatched a man to speak once more with the girl Charlotte at Golden-square lest she had mentioned something about it to Mr Williamson. Assuredly, she had not previously told everything she knew.

Neither man – Noah or Mr Williamson – could be trusted in the inspector’s estimation. At least George had a reason for this quest after truth, but Noah’s involvement was pure mystery – he and that phantasmal Negro with whom he went about. Evidently, the only way to cooperate with either would be in that subtle, ludic form of negotiation in which they had previously engaged.

Which left the question of ‘Persephone’.

This, to Mr Newsome’s mind, could be the key to the whole case – if the letter was genuine. Who could possibly know of a connection between the two cases? And why say so little if they had an interest in seeing them solved? Naturally, he had put the word out among his special constables to ask about the name, and he had asked his eye-weary clerk to read through the entire secret ledger of vice for a mention of it. Shortly, he would himself venture out to some of the city’s least-known attractions in search of ‘Persephone’, but first there was the matter of Mr Henry Poppleton, currently resident in a solitary cell at Giltspur-street gaol.

In fact, that is where we see the inspector now, smiling to himself at the memory of Noah Dyson once occupying this very cell as the (rather unhelpful) subject of interrogation. There is a smell of cold stone and the chamber pot in that cramped and chilly place. The sound of traffic comes in through the barred street-facing window and the two men speak with steaming breath, though only one wears a coat.

‘In the name of C——, will you not get me another blanket, Inspector? A man could freeze to death in this cell,’ said Mr Poppleton, who was sitting on his horsehair mattress wrapped in his single woollen blanket. His pinched face peering from inside that cocoon of warmth might have been amusing under other circumstances.

‘You are in gaol; a certain degree of discomfort is your due,’ said Mr Newsome, who was seated on a chair brought in especially for his ease. ‘Indeed, you might look forward to two more years of this if you are again charged with supplying indecent literature. A man of your age . . . would you survive?’

‘Do I not pay your men enough? You had no cause to attack my shop like that. We have an agreement: I pay your constables to leave me alone and you leave me alone.’

‘Alas, this is a case like no other. I have been under pressure to find the solution and you are a part of it.’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘All right – I will see you in two years . . .’

‘Wait!’

‘Yes?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘I have already asked all the questions. Were you at Mrs Colliver’s rooms the night Jonathan Sampson fell from the window?’

‘I was not.’

‘Do you know who was, or what happened?’

‘I know only that he was a customer. His death draws attention upon my trade, even in an oblique manner. It makes me nervous, Inspector.’

‘You are lying. What is it that you hide? Or whom? I do not believe that you are the murderer—’

‘What murder?’

‘Let us dismiss this
charade
of ignorance, Henry. Is the truth of this case so injurious to you that you would go to gaol for two years and most likely die of consumption or overwork?’

‘Perhaps.’ The publisher’s voice was a mere murmur.

‘I located your order books, Henry. The list of customers is quite startling, even to me.’

Mr Poppleton wilted inside his blanket.

‘However, there are a number of customers who remain mysterious. I do wonder at fourteen John Bulls living at different addresses. And who are the men behind the initials “J.T.”, “H.J.” and “J.S.”? They certainly seem to buy many of your special stock. I note that there was a John Bull living at Mr Sampson’s address, so I assume he is not the aforementioned “J.S.”.’

‘I . . . my customers are confidential . . .’

‘Very well – who is Persephone?’

A shiver passed through Mr Poppleton’s frame at the mention of the name. His already sickly face appeared to drain entirely of blood. Words would not come.

‘I see that the name is of some significance to you. Save yourself needless suffering and tell me what you know.’

‘I cannot . . . I . . . cannot.’

‘An interesting response. Are those not the words Mr Sampson uttered shortly before he passed through the window at Colliver’s coffee house?’

If the publisher had seemed vanquished by the name, he now seemed quite slain at this piece of intelligence.

‘Tell me, Henry! Is she a girl? Is she a prostitute? Were you there when it happened? I know that you were, that you drank sherry with the others, that you had a girl with you there – that you know the young man who emerged into the street. When did
you
emerge, and why weren’t you seen? Save yourself, man! Speak to me!’

‘I . . . I am lost. They will kill me.’

‘
Who
will kill you? I will protect you – just tell me.’

‘Ha!
Protect
me, you say! They are even now among you! I am a dead man merely because you know her name – you and the other fellows.’

‘Which other fellows? Henry! Look at me – which other fellows?’

‘In the shop. Before the raid.’

‘Noah Dyson? Mr Williamson?’

‘I am dead. I am a dead man.’

‘Save yourself, Henry. Why should you die that they might enjoy their freedom? I can have you sent to Australia where you will not be found.’

‘Dead. Dead. I am dead. Speak to me no more. I have nothing more to say.’

‘If you are to die anyway, just tell me what you know.’

But Mr Poppleton had passed into another realm entirely, rocking slightly now with his eyes focused upon no definable point. He began to mumble incoherently to himself about death and oblivion.

Mr Newsome was taken with the urge to slap sense into his interrogatee. Past experience had taught him, however, that people in such a condition were beyond coherence or threat of violence. Perhaps it would be possible to converse again in a day or two.

So, cogitating deeply on what he had heard, Mr Newsome rapped on the cell door for the turnkey and made his way out of the gaol to the waiting carriage. The reins clanked, the whip cracked and they were off west to his next appointment.

Down Skinner-street they went, then up Holborn-hill to Holborn itself, heading towards Oxford-street and the world of the illuminated shop window. And as they proceeded inch by slow inch through the traffic there, the inspector gazed absently out of the window and pondered the crowds.

All of London was there: in top hat and corduroy cap, in silk and canvas, in fine woollen coats and in wretched shawls that barely covered starving bones. Through those gaslit windows were the dreams of all, exhibited with such grace and charm that, bewitched by their magic, one might sell one’s very honour to touch and own them. But taken from the window, from their velvet cushions and their empyreal illumination, those same things would ultimately prove as fulfilling as a handsome stone above one’s rotten corpse.

The carriage came to a halt in the environs of Hanover-square and Mr Newsome shook such uncharacteristically dark thoughts from his mind, reflecting quizzically that something about this case inclined him to a curious saturninity. There was business to attend to.

The property before him could have been a residential one like many in the area, but the closed curtains on the ground floor provided a clue to the contrary. In fact, this was one of those addresses that featured so prominently in that secret ledger of his.

Mrs Percival’s house was something of a legend among the lascivious of London. Not only were her girls of the greatest beauty and the most refined manners, but one could experience things here that were not available anywhere else in the city, many of them administered by the strict Mrs Percival herself. Whether or not there was a Mr Percival was not a question she was ever asked – anyone could take the role for a sum.

The door was opened by a liveried servant in a state of extreme old age.

‘I am here to see Mrs Percival,’ said Mr Newsome.

‘Yes, sir. May I tell her who is calling?’

‘Inspector Newsome of the Detective Force.’

This was clearly not the cryptic phrase the servant expected, but he nodded gravely and asked the inspector to enter, showing him to a reception room that might have made the finest club proud. Paintings of women in various stages of undress suggested that this was not a respectable residence, and, indeed, it was highly probable that there were about a dozen attractive young ladies in the rooms above at that very moment engaging in acts that would render Sir Richard Mayne speechless for a month.