The Vice Society (8 page)

‘Not another soul, Eusebius.’

‘On my honour, sir. May I go now?’

‘Good boy. Here is a sovereign in addition to your remuneration from the Society. I have another for you each time you bring me good information. Will you have more milk?’

‘No, thank you. I have business to attend to.’

‘Well, be on your way.’

FIVE

‘What d’yer want?’

Misters Williamson and Jute stood at the doorstep on Milton-street and beheld with undisguised distaste the slatternly girl before them. With her hair in disarray, her perpetual grimace of irritation, and with lead-blacking on her fingertips, she was among the worst servants in all of London: in short, a cheap, slovenly trollop. That was my Nelly.

‘Is your master or mistress at home?’ asked Mr Williamson.

‘’Pends oo wants ’er, don’t it?’

‘I am calling on behalf of the Mendicity Society. I believe—’

‘We don’t give to no charity. Be off with yer.’

‘We are not collecting, miss,’ interjected Mr Jute. ‘We are come to enquire after—’

‘I got a list.’

‘I’m sorry . . . I don’t understand . . .’ said Mr Jute, already ruing his attempt.

‘I says I
got a list
. I am to clean the silverware – what little ’as not bin stolen; I am to beat the rugs; I am to take a letter to post; I am to buy a chop for Mr P . . . and now I ’ave to answer the door to charity beggars. An early grave for me, ain’t it?’

‘Listen to me, halfwit girl,’ said Mr Williamson in a tone that seemed to slap her face, ‘we are here to see your master or mistress – not engage in idiocy upon the steps. Alert them this minute or I will fetch a constable.’

At this, Nelly’s face crumpled and she began to sniffle. Then began a high, unbroken whine as the first fat tears started to roll. She wiped a glistening streak from her nose along the back of her hand, and the two gentlemen looked at each other quite at a loss as the whine rose further in volume.

‘Who is bullying my Nelly?’ shrieked a voice from within.

And the voice was made flesh when a porcine specimen of the feminine race bustled Nelly from the door and beheld her visiters with the sort of huffing belligerence that might have intimidated a bare-knuckle fighter – particularly if he owed her rent. There was a smell of pork fat about her.

‘Whoever you are looking for, he is not here,’ she said.

‘It is a man who very likely receives and sends many letters: a Mr Mann,’ said Mr Williamson, perceiving her to be the landlady.

‘I know the one. “Mr Mann” indeed! Hasn’t paid his rent this last month. I was just about to throw him out this very day. You can aid me – I believe he is in his rooms.’

And she turned to walk back into the dark hallway, whereupon the two gentlemen followed her to a door. The landlady knocked and, leaving no time for a response, rattled the key in the lock and stepped inside.

‘The cur. He has fled,’ she said in a tone that suggested not the least surprise.

The condition of the room suggested that someone had indeed rapidly grabbed whatever clothes they could carry, probably along with some minor possessions of dubious value. Drawers were open and a ramshackle wardrobe gaped open – as did the window.

‘Please leave us, madam,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘If we are able to search this room carefully, I may be able to locate the missing rent arrears.’

‘See that you do,’ she replied, and lumbered out shouting: ‘Nelly!
Nelly!
Where is that chop for Mr P, you lazy dolly-mop?’

‘The woman did not even ask us who we are,’ remarked Mr Jute, somewhat bemused by this excursion into the lower classes.

‘She cares only about her rent. Now, let us see what our letter writer has left behind.’

The room was as typical an example of its sort as could be wished – the selfsame room occupied by countless other hopeful scribes across the city. There was the fireplace so small that it would struggle to heat the chimney, the mantel populated with tasteless porcelain knick-knacks, the faded curtains thick with dust, and carpets worn through almost to the wood. It was, in short, a place for ambition to starve and die.

A room can often say much about its inhabitant, but these rented cells at Milton-street offered slim opportunities even for a man of Mr Williamson’s perspicacity. The men who stay in them own little and leave less when they flee.

Nevertheless, a mere member of the public could have discerned that a writer had stayed there. Witness, for example, the collection of newspaper columns collected together in a yellowing bunch, the number of words jotted on each so as to verify the earnings for that issue; witness the meagre collection of letters from sundry journals expressing interest in the article on London weather but not deigning to commission it; witness, indeed, the printer’s proofs of an article for
the Times
that was cut to make space – of all things – for a piece on London weather by an editor of another journal. Are not these the papers on
every
writer’s desk?

What else? A pair of shoes with the sole worn through on the right foot; a leather-bound notepad (unused); a lock of hair (ah, Nelly!) slipped into the folds of an article on brandy imports. Everything else needed to make a living (pens, wit, talent) had gone through the window.

Still, the two investigators found evidence enough. Fleeing precipitously as I had, there had not been the opportunity for me to take
all
of my papers and records.

‘See here,’ said Mr Jute, leafing through a sheaf of curling pages. ‘It looks like part of a novel manuscript. Our letter writer evidently had higher ambitions.’

Mr Williamson peered at the uppermost page and saw the words ‘Red Jaw’ stand out from the text. He grimaced slightly. ‘They all have higher ambitions, but we are not interested in that kind of “writing”. Keep looking.’

A warped bookshelf holding a handful of books drew the ex-policeman: second-hand copies of Dante, Virgil, Homer and sundry other classics of their kind. He took each and flicked through the pages, holding them up by the covers and shaking them to see what he could find between the leaves. A fragment of a handwritten list fluttered from the Dante.

‘Mr Jute – it seems we have our first piece of damning evidence. What do you make of this?’

‘Why, it appears to be a list of dukes and their London residences.’

‘It is precisely that. Now – we are looking for a ledger of some kind. It will be hidden somewhere . . .’

And as he spoke, Mr Williamson cast his expert eye around the room, settling finally on the edge of the bed from which the lip of the chamber pot peered out. He bent down on one hand and knee and peered under, catching the sharp vegetal stench of my most recent evacuation. It was a shrewd move, for there he found two further pieces of evidence.

‘What do you make of this?’ he asked his companion, extracting the items.

‘A lady’s garter if I’m not mistaken, Mr Williamson.’

‘And one with lead-blacking fingermarks on it. I think we must have another conversation with young Nelly. What of this other piece?’

In my haste to leave, I had grabbed my ledger but let half a loose leaf fall. It was this scrap that Mr Williamson took between thumb and forefinger and brought into the light. Though out of date, it would have assuredly put me in gaol if I had not leapt from the window that day:

‘He has been most industrious,’ remarked Mr Jute. ‘But what is this notation about “hands” at the end of each entry?’

‘It is the style of writing he employs: the written words and also the tone of voice. Perhaps he writes as a woman, or as a semi-literate fool. In this way, he can send any number of requests to the same recipient and be paid numerous times.’

‘Quite a skill. That’s rather clever.’

‘That is a crime, Mr Jute.’

‘Of course, of course. So what do we do now? We have evidence of his records but not the man.’

‘We now know what letters he has sent and to whom. We can intercept those letters, stopping the fraud, and study them for further clues. We can also arrange for the false widow Burgoyne to hand over any further letters she receives. Our writer has been stopped momentarily – that is as much as we can hope for until we can study more examples of his work. Where he might be now is quite impossible to guess.’

‘So we have done good work. My father will be pleased. I wonder if young Nelly might make us tea and volunteer some information about her special friend the letter writer?’

‘Let us find out.’

The two gentlemen ventured downstairs to the kitchen, where they were welcomed at the table by the landlady and served tea by Nelly. The fire crackled somewhat in vain against the chill, and, in the flames’ sharp shadows, the landlady had even more of the swine about her: that broad nose of hers wrinkling and snorting bestially beneath an ill-concealed moustache.

‘Tell me, madam,’ began Mr Williamson as he readied his notebook, ‘what else can you tell me of this gentleman lodger?’

‘A cur. They all are, those writers. I don’t know why I take them in any more. Did you find any rent money?’

‘Regrettably not, but we may be able to find him with your help. Can you describe him?’

‘A sly-looking sort. I felt he was watching me all the time. Had an odd grin about him, like . . . like the way a cat looks at you. Like he was too good for the likes of us. Sly he was – it comes from thinking too much.’

‘I mean, was he tall or short?’

‘About medium.’

‘The colour of his eyes? His hair? Any marks that might distinguish him from another man?’

‘He had brown hair I suppose. Thinning a bit. His eyes I couldn’t speak of – I was nervous to look in them. He looked like all of them writers. You know what they look like. All the same.’

‘His voice, then?’

‘In truth, he wasn’t much of a talker.’

Mr Williamson looked to Mr Jute to see if he could gain any sense from the woman, who was quite clearly an imbecile.

‘Thank you, madam. You have been most helpful,’ said Mr Jute. ‘Now – a few questions for your girl here.’

‘Nelly Jones,’ said Nelly with a coquettish smile for the younger man. ‘Will you put my name in your notebook?’

‘Would you like us to?’

‘Go on then.’

‘What can you tell us about the man who stayed here?’ continued Mr Jute.

She cast a rapid glance at the landlady. ‘Nothing. He was a man. They’s all the same . . . present company expected, I mean.’

Mr Williamson caught the glance and spoke to the landlady: ‘Madam – I wonder if you would mind going to the butcher’s on the corner and bringing I and my colleague a bacon sandwich – we had a terribly early start this morning. Nelly would go, but she must answer some important questions.’

‘You will be paying for them, of course? And for my time in walking there?’

‘Naturally, madam. Nelly will be safe with us.’

And with much huffing, snorting and wrinkling, the malformed harridan banged up the stairs and out of the house. Her servant relaxed visibly, slouching back in her chair and looking with a renewed lascivious air at the younger man.

‘Was he a friendly man to you, Nelly?’ asked Mr Jute.

‘’Pends what yer mean . . .’

‘Did you spend time together talking? Did he help you in your duties, perhaps? Did he tell you anything of his writing?’

Nelly exhibited a smile that would have had her thrown out of church, had she ever attended one. ‘He were nice enough to me. He told me pretty words from books. I dunno what some of ’em meant, but they was ever so pretty.’

‘Do you know if he had friends in the city? People he spoke of who he would visit?’

‘Ha! That’s a good one! Friends, yer say? He hated
everyone
! Yer should have heard him when he come back from the coffee house: “So-and-So says he is to publish his history of Sussex, the ———.” Or, “That ——— Mr Thingummy is to receive an advance on his volume.” Or, “Mr Wotsitsname, the talentless ——— got three pound for his piece in the
Chronicle.
” Friends? He had none.’