by Will Thomas
“And here I am ready to give the case into his hands. I figure with you two gents sittin’ on yer backsides and hangin’ on his coattails, he might need some actual help.”
Mac was going to either give him a good talking to or blow his head off, either of which would have suited me, but I was curious and got a word in first.
“What do you mean, give it into his hands?”
“Don’t know as I should tell you now,” he replied, looking at his grimy nails as if they’d just been buffed and polished. “I’ve had me feelin’s hurt. I feel less than welcome.”
“You’ll feel less than alive if you are not forthcoming with the information.”
“Don’t get riled. I s’pose I do owe you. You won me money last night. Twice.”
It took a minute for the import of what he was saying to sink in. I was a bit slow that morning. “So you bet against me in the main bout.”
“Yes, and for you in the second. You looked as if you’d finally gotten your mettle up and were ready to fight. I hadn’t realized till just now that you’d boxed the entire night with your face.”
“That’s very humorous. You’re a regular Little Tich. So, out with it. What have you got?”
“What I’ve got is a woman drinking herself into the soak of her life on the strength of havin’ sold her daughter this morning to a bloke for five pounds outright.”
“Where? When?” I asked.
“This morning, not five streets from this very spot. More important is who.”
“That was my next question.”
“I’ll bet. Well, it was an old procuress named Jarrett who done the actual buying, but she left the mother in no doubt as to the ultimate purchaser.”
“Who was it?” Mac and I said at once.
Always one to savor having someone off guard, the young street urchin pulled out a vesta and made a show of lighting the cigar, which looked as if it cost more money than all the clothing he wore put together, shoes included. He let out a mouthful of smoke into the air.
“Just William T. Stead, is all.”
Mac was off his stool and I upright on the mattress, all my muscles seizing up again. “Stead!”
“That’s a nice little act you two have, sayin’ the same thing at the same time. Reckon you could make a killin’ at the Alhambra.”
“Barker needs to hear this,” I said to Mac. “Perhaps I should look for him.”
“He said he’d be back at lunch. The only place I can say he isn’t is the Charity Organization Society.”
“Which pub is she in?” I asked Soho Vic.
“She’s been crawlin’ since they opened the doors. Already kicked out of the Juniper Lane Gin Shop. She’s holdin’ court at the Rosy Crown now, and will for a while if they don’t chuck her out on her straw hat, as well.”
“Thanks.” I tossed him a sovereign. It was Barker’s standard price for information. Vic caught and pocketed it.
“Got what I came for. Ta-ta, laddies.” Soho Vic trundled down the stairs, whistling the lastest music hall song.
“I’m going to kill him one of these days,” I contented myself with saying.
“Not if I get there first,” Mac replied. “Drat! Someone just went in and I didn’t see who it was. That street arab has thrown off my records.”
“I should go looking for him-the Guv, I mean. He’ll want to know this. If Stead should prove to be openly buying children in Bethnal Green, then he could quite possibly be Miacca himself. Or could he be doing it to corroborate the white slaver stories.”
“That would be scandalous,” Mac said. “I mean, doesn’t Stead have a reputation as a reformer and a brilliant newspaperman? If this should be true…I mean, it’s unthinkable.”
“I’m not one who ascribes weaknesses to the masses,” I answered. “Even great men can have their flaws. In fact, it would take a strong mind to come up with a plan even Scotland Yard and Cyrus Barker are unable to foil. I really should look for him.”
“But where? He could be anywhere in the Green or even out of it. You can’t just walk the area. If you go straight down Globe Road, he’s liable to come in from Green Street looking for you. It’s best for you to stay here. Hallo! This is interesting.”
“What?” I asked, sitting up.
“Your Miss Potter is giving a gentleman a piece of her mind.”
“A gentleman?”
“Yes, I think it was the one who slipped in a few minutes ago. Middle-aged fellow with a monocle.”
Despite my protesting limbs, I pulled myself to the window and peered over the sill.
“My word,” I said. “She’s really laying in to him.”
I was spying upon the poor girl, but I could not help it. She was in the midst of a strong argument with the fellow I’d seen at the Egyptian Hall. They were outside the charity building, just out of earshot, and she was shaking a finger at him and speaking animatedly. The gentleman, if I dare call him that, had his arms crossed and responded to her every now and then coolly. He was unflappable. I felt despite all her words and gestures, he was in control of the situation. What was going on? Who was this chap and what was he to her? What on earth were they arguing about?
“I suppose it’s her father,” Mac stated.
I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone.
“No doubt he prefers she give up this socialist nonsense and come home.”
“You think it nonsense?” I asked.
With a flounce, Beatrice turned and marched back into the building. This was a side of her I had not seen and did not wish to see again, not if that finger was waving in my face. The gentleman took out his watch and consulted it, then turned, raised his hat to a man passing by, and walked down Globe Road. The man to whom he had raised his hat was Cyrus Barker.
Below, the door squealed and I heard the Guv’s steady tread upon the stair. He came up and stood at the top, staring at us.
“What has happened?” he asked.
“Who did you speak to in the street, sir?” I asked. “We just witnessed an argument between him and Miss Potter.”
“It was quite heated,” Jacob Maccabee put in.
“Was it the gentleman you saw at the Egyptian Hall?” the Guv asked.
“It was.”
“That is Joseph Chamberlain, the MP, leader of the radical party.”
I turned to Mac. “So much for your father theory.”
“He could be a friend of the family,” our factotum maintained. “Perhaps her father objects to her being in such a dangerous area and sent a family friend to make his wishes known.”
“She spoke awfully heatedly to him,” I argued. “That’s not the way a girl usually speaks to her father’s friends.”
“But she’s one of those women who sets propriety at naught.”
“Is that all, gentlemen?” Barker asked, ending the discussion, which could have gone all day unresolved.
“No, sir,” I answered. “Vic’s just been here. An agent working for Mr. Stead purchased a child from her mother this morning for the princely sum of five pounds.”
“That is news. If you wish to accompany me, you had better get dressed.”
In the hansom that took us to Northumberland Street, Barker appeared to be off in his own private world. The actual solving of the case, the tracking down of Miacca, was Barker’s doing, though I knew someday I would be required to attempt such solutions myself. Had it really been Stead all along, killing those girls and sending us taunting messages? I was content to let Barker discern the mystery.
In Northumberland Street, the Guv passed one of his agency cards to a clerk of the Pall Mall Gazette. After five minutes’ delay, we were shown into Stead’s office. The editor himself was behind his desk, which was covered in papers, messages, telegrams, rival newspapers, notes, a wrapper containing half a sandwich, and a tankard of stout. Stead did not look like a fugitive ready to leave for the Continent any time soon.
“Where is the child?” Barker demanded. “The one you purchased from her m
other for five pounds.”
“Ah. You mean Eliza Armstrong. Sweet girl. Yes, she and the woman who purchased her for me are on their way to Dover.” He consulted his watch from his waistcoat pocket. “They should arrive in half an hour or so.”
I could not believe my ears. Stead was admitting everything to us.
“And what shall become of them, then?” my employer demanded.
“Oh, the child is to be spirited to a secluded house in the French countryside owned by the Salvation Army. They are helping me in this endeavor. Won’t you gentlemen have a chair?”
The Guv and I sat down.
“What you have done today will become known-” my employer said.
“Oh, I shall announce it in the Gazette soon. I plan a special supplement. I shall call it ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.’ I’ll confess everything freely.”
“You shall go to jail for it,” Barker warned.
“Oh, most certainly. My solicitor says I will be lucky to get less than six months. But that was not my purpose. There are easier ways to get into jail.”
“You mean to force the bill raising the age of consent.”
“Precisely. They’ll be reading ‘Maiden Tribute’ from Lyme Regis to the Outer Hebrides. If that doesn’t pass the bill, then London really has become Babylon, and I shall step down from the helm of this newspaper and retire.”
“‘Maiden Tribute,’” Barker said, frowning.
“Greek mythology, sir,” I supplied. “Children in Crete were sacrificed to appease the lusts of a monster named the Minotaur.”
“You should have left London, Mr. Stead,” Barker said.
“That would add fuel to the rumor that I truly was transporting Miss Armstrong for immoral purposes.”
“True, but you would be out of harm’s way. Is there not some other way?” Barker implored. “This is ruinous to your career.”
“My constituents claim they shall support me, should this go to trial. If they do not, I should start my own journal in competition with the Gazette when I am a free man again. Have you any other option?”
“None, now that the machinery is in place. I should warn you that there is a group of nobles who are ready to fight against any possible bill-and I do not mean merely in the houses of Parliament. They have procured the services of a local gang. This may be dangerous for you.”
“I thank you for your concern, sir, but I have already taken such a possibility into account. I expect siegelike conditions upon these offices when it is announced. To be frank, Mr. Barker, I would appreciate your support. I’m told you are a good man in a scrap.”
“Those sound like Andy McClain’s words. Is he involved in this?”
“Not directly,” Stead answered. “He has been occupied these last few days but said I could count on him if things grew violent.”
I felt bad then, having wasted McClain’s time on a personal quarrel, when such large events were brewing.
“Alas, I cannot guarantee my participation,” Barker said. “I am after a murderer, and that must take precedence. If I can be here, I will, but I wish you to understand that I do not believe in a socialist platform, merely in this one issue.”
“Understood,” Stead said, rising. The two men shook hands.
“It is another dead end, but I am pleased to take you off my list of suspects. Come, Thomas.”
27
We had just come back from Stead’s office. Some of the swelling had gone down in my face, but now muscles that had been silent before began to ache, and I was glad for a few moments rest. Barker was halfway through one of his exercises in the back of the empty room, moving slowly and deliberately. I was content to watch him from the mattress. Mac was boiling hot water for tea while keeping an eye on the activity in the street and announcing arrivals and departures from the charity as it began to close for the day.
“Mrs. Carrick is coming back from delivering an elderly man, probably to the Stranger’s Home. Miss Levy is informing the poor applicants that the charity is shutting down for the day and shooing them away.”
“What do you think Israel’s chances are with her?” I asked as he handed me a fresh cup of the nearly colorless green tea.
“Let us see,” Mac said, who as a Jew might offer better insight. “She’s from a better family than he, she’s devilishly attractive, she’s the first Jewish female to attend Cambridge, and she’s a published poet. As for Israel, he’s from Whitechapel, works as a reporter, and is a known socialist. Were you a matchmaker, what would you think?”
“That he doesn’t stand a chance,” I said, but I wasn’t thinking of Israel and Miss Levy just then. I was thinking more of Miss Potter and myself. Did I really think our relationship might go any further? What had I, an enquiry agent’s assistant and a former felon, have to offer a beautiful, ambitious, and intellectual girl of good family-or any girl at all, for that matter? How would she feel if she saw me now, I wondered, with my face mottled and bruised?
Barker finished his final movements and then took a dainty sip from his cup. A man his size could have used a bowl instead, but he used small, handleless cups from the Orient that held almost nothing.
“Dr. Fitzhugh is leaving,” Mac returned to his narration. “He’s turned left. That’s not his usual route. He’s heading toward Cambridge Road.”
“Come, lad,” Barker said, actually tossing his empty cup onto the mattress at my feet. “Any deviation in Fitzhugh’s routine is of interest to me.”
I pulled myself out of bed, and the two of us took the staircase quickly. We sprinted across the road and when we reached Cambridge Road, Barker waved me across. I walked one side of the pavement, while he took the other. Our quarry was easy to spot because of a new silk top hat he wore that caught the late afternoon sun. The first way to convince the populace that one is a respectable doctor is to dress like one, I suppose. The problem was, I soon discovered, Dr. Fitzhugh was not as respectable as I thought he was.
Barker’s method of stalking his prey is to hang back enough to avoid being noticed, and to wait until it goes to ground. In this case, Fitzhugh turned into a brick building around the corner in North Street. Barker crossed the street as I reached the door he had entered.
“Old Sal,” Barker said. “I would not have believed it.”
“Sal?”
“Sally Forth. Not her real name, of course, her professional name. She’s an abbess.”
“Some sort of religious organization?”
“You’re being marvelously dense this evening, lad. She keeps a brothel.”
I knew such an establishment provided a constant source of temptation to men, young, old, and even married. Illicit pleasure could be sampled for just a few shillings, even less from the prostitutes of Whitechapel, but such moments of pleasure had another, higher price. Too many men, even highborn ones, had contracted diseases for which modern medical science had no cure. Young men I had known had slid into dementia and eventual death. Word of such catastrophes were discussed among youths and mentioned in vague terms by clergymen as object lessons. Despite the fact that young women in better establishments received regular examinations to verify that they were disease free, as an acquaintance once warned me, it only had to happen once.
“Shall we wait for him to come out?”
“We don’t have time to wait,” Barker said, and before I could prepare myself, he was pushing me through the front door.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” a robust, blond woman with large teeth cried, swooping down on us. Then she recognized Barker. “Oh, it’s you, Push. What in hell are you doing here? Have you come to shut me down? Because if you have, you’d better think the better of it.”
“No, Sal. I shall leave that to the Moral Purity League. I have a question or two to put to Dr. Fitzhugh.”
“He’s in the back. Last door on the right. And do go out the back way. You’ll scare off the customers!”
A painted girl clad only in bloomers and a chemise had come up and was attempting
to catch my attention. I was doing my best to ignore her, despite her lack of proper clothing. When Barker gave the signal to follow, I took the opportunity to do so.
Barker and I reached the end of the corridor, and he roughly threw open a door. I came in after him and, despite our locale, was surprised at what I saw.
Fitzhugh had been engaged with a young woman wearing an outfit much like that of the girl I had seen in the hall. At our entry, he stumbled back and flushed a deep crimson, but the girl took it as a sort of joke, tying up her clothing and laughing harshly at us before leaving.
“I thought it was something like this,” Barker said, leaning against the doorframe.
“Surely you don’t think-” Fitzhugh blustered. “I don’t avail myself of these women, sir. I work here. These women must be examined and certified to be free of disease. It’s the only way I can make enough money to both live and save for my own surgery.”
“And the work at the charity?” Barker asked.
The doctor sat down on the edge of a bed. “It is to assuage the sense of guilt I feel over the work I’m forced to do. I despise this, gentlemen. I cannot put it any more plainly. I’ve been searching for a junior position with an established physician, but there are none to be had. I’ve got close to a dozen letters out at the moment. I’ve written to doctors as far away as Edinburgh, but there has been a large crop of new physicians this year.”
Fitzhugh turned to a ewer and bowl, poured water, and lathered his arms up to the elbow. It was as if he was trying to scrub his own soul.
“So you examine these women to determine if they have any disease,” Barker prompted.
“Yes. If I find anything wrong, I report it to Miss Forth and the police to make certain the girl doesn’t work. I’ve treated some with mercury, though I find it an unsatisfactory treatment in most cases and downright dangerous. The various venereal diseases are fatal, you understand.”
“And that is all you do here?” The Guv continued to push him.
