The Vice Society (32 page)

Noah folded the tract away and pursed his lips. It was the kind of thing written by earnest graduates, a barely logical mix of literature, religion and mythology in a show of seeming profundity. But as an insight into the thinking of the group from the Continental Club, it was useful enough, and suggested a number of ideas in relation to the case at hand.

He was about to return to his studies when one of the silent-moving attendants of that venerable place approached carrying a volume and spoke with a well-practised whisper.

‘Your book, sir.’

Noah looked up. ‘What book? I did not request another book.’

‘I am sorry, sir. I will return it to—’

‘Wait.’

Noah looked at the people seated at his table, all of whom were engaged in their own thoughts. He looked around the reading room, but if he had expected to catch someone looking at him, he was disappointed. There did not seem to be anyone present he had not seen before.

‘Sir . . . ?’

‘I will take the book. Thank you.’

It was a relatively new volume: volume five of Mr Charles Knight’s magisterial encyclopaedia
London.
The hard cover was finished in an attractive marbled design, its brown leather spine still aromatic and its gilt glinting dully. There was a slip of paper tucked between the pages towards the end and Noah opened the book at that place.

‘The Reading Room of the British Museum’ proclaimed the title on that page – and there was an etching showing the very space where Noah was sitting to read about it. He might well have been one of the fellows sitting in the picture – being observed.

He looked around again. Nobody seemed to be watching. Was this an innocent mistake, or some message being delivered to him so subtly that he could not fathom its meaning? He looked once more at the book and began to turn the pages of the chapter hoping to find some further clue . . . and there on page 390, circled in dark pencil, was the suggestion of one.

Amid a list of illustrious names, that of Ptolemy was the one that had been picked out. An absent reminder scribbled by a hurried geographer? Another coincidence? Or a signpost to another clue?

Noah left his seat and ventured to request a Ptolemy from the attendants. A ladder was procured and soon the heavy volume was on the table before him. He turned the large, thick pages looking for something, for
anything
that might tell him what was happening.

And there, beside an archaic map, was a folded sheet of notepaper addressed: ‘For your interest’. Again he cast a furtive glance at the people around him on the table: a couple of dishevelled characters reading the newspapers, and an elderly gentleman engrossed in his Latin. He looked up at the gallery and saw nobody observing him from there. He turned to look at the doorway into the vestibule between the two reading rooms . . . and glimpsed a body rapidly disappearing.

Immediately, he was up and running down the space between tables, his shoes hammering across the wooden floor. Faces looked up in alarm and a murmur of excitement rushed through that space so accustomed to bated breath.

Down the stairs and out towards Montague-place Noah ran, but there was no sign of that quickly vanishing figure. He looked up and down the street and saw no one hurrying.

‘He was out of here like a rabbit,’ said the young man sitting in the sentry box at the entrance to the library. ‘Like his coat-tails were on fire and no mistake.’

‘Did you see his face?’ said Noah.

‘A blur – that’s all I saw, sir.’

‘Was there a carriage waiting? Where did he go?’

‘A carriage? That is possible – I did hear horses, but I was reading the latest on the financials, see?’ The sentry helpfully held up his copy of
the Times.

Noah scowled. In his mind, he went over that briefest of glances he’d caught and tried to recall something that might identify the fleeing figure. Had there been the merest hint of scarlet in their attire? An epaulette, or a scarf perhaps? He felt in his pocket to reassure himself that the note was still there, and returned to the reading room to collect his things.

Back inside the library, Noah’s books and notes lay on the table for all to see. An inquisitive sort might have been tempted to look over them to ascertain what the gentleman had been studying . . .

We will leave Noah in Montague-place for the time being and transport ourselves across the city to the civilized environs of Berkeley-square, where we find the now familiar face of Mr Cullen. No longer in his habitual uniform, he cannot quite accustom himself to walking the streets without the rhythmical gait of the long-serving constable – something that certain classes of the metropolis can see at a great distance. Though Noah has warned him against this, the habit is as close to him as his skin.

He is looking for prostitutes. Or rather, he is looking for prostitutes who may have known those girls mentioned by Charlotte to Mr Williamson: Lou, Kate and Mary who had met grisly ends. Such women are easy enough to see, even in the west. They dawdle lackadaisically on the pretext of waiting for a carriage and dress finer than the morally upright ladies of the neighbourhood (much to the
chagrin
of the latter).

Unfortunately, our investigator has had an unproductive morning. Such girls do not pass their time chatting with strangers on the streets, and certainly not to men who are clearly constables in civilian clothes. As he strolled past a tea vendor into Grafton-street from Old Bond-street, he mused upon how Noah or Mr Williamson might have approached the task. Perhaps he should merely attempt to be himself, accepting finally that the power of the law no longer stood at his shoulder.

And there before him was another representative of the sisterhood he sought: a quite remarkably attractive young lady checking her appearance in the window of a jewellery shop, perhaps imagining which of the diamonds there she would choose when she met the benefactor of her dreams.

‘Good day to you, miss,’ began Mr Cullen.

She turned with her professional smile in place and made a lightning appraisal of her interlocutor: hat, coat, cuffs, gloves, shoes. Her judgement was not favourable. Her smile dropped: ‘You’re a policeman.’

‘No, miss—’

‘Yes. It’s senseless to deny it. Every thread of your appearance shouts it.’

‘I used to be a constable; that is true. But I am no longer one.’

‘So what do you want from me?’

‘Do you know a girl called Lou? She works around this area: a blonde girl. Pretty, like yourself.’

‘You know how to flatter, sir. Perhaps I do know Lou and can take you to her.’

‘Let us not waste time. I know that Lou is dead – found ten days ago in Holywell-street: a suicide with prussic acid. I would be grateful if you could answer some questions if you knew her.’

‘What – the police are actually investigating the death of one of our kind? Now I’ve seen everything!’

‘I am not with the police. Speak honestly: did you know her?’

‘Will you buy me a cup of tea and a cake? It’s bitter cold today,’ she said, nodding to the vendor on the corner who was wrapped in the curling steam of his trade.

Mr Cullen saw it immediately as a test. A serving policeman would not have purchased a drink for a street girl and chatted to her thus. ‘It would be a pleasure, miss.’

She smiled and they walked to the corner to take cups of tea, standing there next to the wheeled urn so the vendor could keep an eye on his cups.

‘I don’t know what your game is, or why you ask, but I will tell you this for nothing: Lou didn’t kill herself. I know that much,’ said the girl, her pale hands clasped around the mug.

‘I hear she had found herself a fine old gentleman . . .’

‘Where did you hear that? Did you know her?’

‘I have heard it from one of your sisterhood: a girl calling herself Charlotte at Golden-square.’

‘Ah, I know Charlotte, the sly little b——!’

‘Do you not like this Charlotte?’

‘O, she’s very successful, that girl. No doubt you’ve seen where she lives. We like to say that she’s better with her tongue than any of us.’

‘Well, I . . .’

‘O, look at you all flushed and red – a big man like you! I meant that she’s a better talker and liar. She could persuade a clergyman back to that room of hers . . . in fact, I believe she has. Anyway, she is right: Lou had caught a gent.’

‘Did you ever see him? Do you know anything about him? He might be implicated in her death, perhaps.’

‘Do you think so? I know only that he was old and rich. Lou said he wasn’t much to look at: a bit ugly . . . and he had some problems with his health, with his skin. But he paid well and lived in a
lovely
place.’

‘So she went to his house?’

‘O yes! He sent a carriage for her, if you please. And another trip to bring her back when he’d finished with her.’

‘Did she ever mention his name or where he lived?’

‘Course not! She might have expected one of us to try for him. We girls keep such secrets to ourselves. Why, if I had such a gent, I wouldn’t be standing here today with my feet numb from the cold.’

‘Did she say any more about him?’

‘He liked a good beating, and liked to whip her, too. A few times she had to rest for a couple of days, but he paid her well enough to do that. O, and sometimes he had some of his fellows there, too. Just watching, though – nothing immoral.’

‘Nothing
immoral
?’

‘You’re blushing again, sir! I believe you are new to this.’

‘I am an investigator.’

‘What’re you going to do about Lou?’

‘That depends on what else you can tell me. I have heard also from Charlotte that there have been other girls of this area who have killed themselves under suspicious circumstances.’

‘You mean Kate and Mary.’

‘That’s right. Do you maintain that these girls also did not kill themselves?’

‘Sir – we are killed often enough (not that you police would care) but when have you known us girls to kill
ourselves
? We’re thrown on the streets from a young age and we know how to survive. We look out for each other. There’s nothing we cannot overcome with our natural advantages of beauty and good sense. Suicide is for pregnant servant girls and unfaithful wives. We don’t kill ourselves.’

‘So how do you explain these deaths? Who is responsible?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know. There is talk of the charities, of course.’

‘What talk?’

‘They are funny places, those homes and hospitals for “fallen women”. Never trust a Christian – that’s what I say. They have a strange look in their eyes, those gents: looking down on us even as they hide their lechery behind their scripture. I went to them once. I never will again.’

‘Why would they kill you girls? They want to help you.’

‘So
you
say. Does the rat-catcher help the rat? They will not be happy until we are all gone. And what happens then, when men cannot release what it is natural to release? That’s when the world will end – just remember I said that.’

‘Will you do something for me, miss?’

‘I have the use of rooms just round the corner . . .’

‘No . . . no . . . I . . .’

‘I am teasing you, sir.’

‘Of course. If you hear more about this old man of Lou’s, tell nobody what you know. I may visit this area again in a few days to see what you have heard.’

‘Do you think I am in danger?’

‘I hope not. And, miss – if that carriage comes for you any time, do not get in it, no matter how much money you are offered. Can you promise me that?’

‘You are a sweet man . . .’

‘I am serious. Whoever this man is, he is evil and a murderer.’

The look of seriousness on Mr Cullen’s face dissuaded another witty remark.

‘Thank you for the tea and the kindness, sir. Unfortunately, I do not get paid for talking.’

‘I know. I thank you for speaking with me.’

The girl strolled back to her place at the jeweller’s shop window with a coquettish glance back at Mr Cullen. A bachelor himself, he could not help but be affected by her, but he turned away to wipe the rapidly forming images from his mind. When
he
married, it would be to a fine girl: a virgin who would bear him fine, strong boys.

And as he stamped his feet and looked into the gritty sky, he was warmed by the realization of what he had said to the girl: ‘I am an investigator.’ He looked at himself in the reflection of an adjacent shop window: broad shoulders, barrel chest, his top hat making him seem even huger. There were no numbers on his collar, no insignia on his buttons, no truncheon at his belt . . . no organization at his back giving him authority to act.

Was this what freedom felt like?

‘I am an investigator.’

‘What was that, sir?’ asked the tea vendor.

‘I am an investigator.’

‘Very nice for you, sir. How is the money?’

TWENTY-ONE

The fire crackling in the grate seemed to intensify the already ominous silence. The clock on the mantel ticked maddeningly. Inspector Newsome stood with his hands clasped behind his back before Sir Richard’s desk while the commissioner busied himself with some papers. As a reprimand, it was far more effective than a raised voice.