‘You call yourselves the Avalon Club?’
A deep flush came over Dale’s face, and he looked down at his boots. It sounded foolish now, but the six who had met every month for the last two years had not thought so. They had been in deadly earnest.
‘Yes. There are a number of us, all interested in the truth about King Arthur. About his life and death. If he truly did die, that is. There are some who say he never died but lies hidden near Snowdon. I am not of that school of thought, and neither is Mr Bromhead. We are both of a practical turn of mind, which is why he has been seeking the king’s bones.’
Malinferno wriggled uncomfortably on Augustus’s high seat. The thought of the bag of bones back in his rooms being those of the legendary Arthur made him uneasy. He had simply stuffed them under his bed to keep them from Mrs Stanhope’s prying eyes as if they were no more than animal bones. Had Bromhead really discovered Arthur’s bones? Is that why he had been so anxious for Joe to agree they were of ancient origin? He decided to return to his lodgings as soon as possible to retrieve them. He slid off the stool, carelessly placing his hand to steady himself on the edge of the table. It was only when he felt the slickness of the surface that he remembered Bromhead’s supposed fate. He looked nervously down at his hand but could discern no stain on it. Was the mark on the table really the antiquarian’s life’s blood as Dale surmised?
The leading light of the Avalon Club suddenly grabbed his arm.
‘If there is anything you know or can find out concerning Mr Bromhead’s whereabouts, or of the bones, I and my colleagues will pay you well.’
Malinferno perked up at the mention of money.
‘I may be able to help you, then. For a price. I should only expect my expenses to be covered, mind you. Though they may well be considerable . . .’
Dale dug in the pocket of his old jacket and came up with a handful of gold coins. He pressed them eagerly into Malinferno’s palm.
‘I am not without means, having established a steady line of business in these uncertain times. Here are a few sovereigns in advance of full payment. I hope you will help us. Never have Arthur’s bones been as needed as they are now.’
Malinferno frowned.
‘Why now?’
‘Why, because of Bonaparte’s invasion. The prophecy is that Arthur is not dead, but in hiding, only waiting to be called back to life when the nation is in dire need. What crisis can be more extreme than now, with our oldest enemy on the loose again?’
The stranger hiding in the dark watched Malinferno leave the house, carefully put his notebook inside the pocket of his big overcoat and followed him. He noticed that his quarry had a hand in the right pocket of his cutaway coat and appeared to be jingling coins. Malinferno looked extremely cheerful and was almost skipping as he hurried along Tooley Street towards London Bridge. For a moment Malinferno hesitated in front of one of the flash houses that his tail knew was a gin-shop and notorious rookery of thieves. The man surmised that if he went in there he would soon be parted from his money. And in not too pleasant a way either. But it seemed that Malinferno had second thoughts, because he shook his head and walked on. Having crossed the bridge over the Thames, Malinferno passed Billingsgate Market, and Custom House, then turned north. His follower assumed then that he was returning to his lodgings. But Malinferno did not turn west, instead carrying on up Aldgate until he came to Petticoat Lane. Though the street drew its name from the clothing trade that had located itself there a century or more ago, the garment referred to provided a connection with other more colourful establishments in the lane.
Malinferno cast a glance over his shoulder before approaching an anonymous black door set at the top of a small flight of steps between two sweatshops. The stranger hopped back into the shadows to make sure that his quarry did not see him. The door was opened immediately in response to Malinferno’s rap on the knocker, and he disappeared inside. The stranger hurried up the lane and clambered on the railings that guarded one side of the door. From a precarious perch on top of the spikes, he could just see into the ground-floor window. The ladies who adorned the front drawing room were ill clad to be receiving gentlemen, but that did not seem to put Malinferno off. On the contrary, he was already pressing a coin into an older lady’s hand. The madam of the bawdy house smiled greedily.
Madam De Trou bit down on to the gold coin. It had been a while since Joe Malinferno had visited her establishment, and last time he had left owing money. Still, the sovereign fully paid off his debt and left enough for some fresh credit.
‘I have a new girl you might enjoy. As I seem to recall, you like the fuller figure.’
Malinferno, despite the pressing need to check on the bag of old bones under his bed, had not been able to resist the pull of Madam De Trou’s bawdy house. The money from Dale was burning a hole in his pocket, and the skinny Kitten had been an altogether unsatisfactory encounter. He suddenly realized the madam had asked him a question.
‘What? Oh, yes, I like them more voluptuous, certainly.’
The madam grinned, revealing a set of blackened teeth. Her latest recruit was a lass from Essex who went by the name of Dolly. She was a bit lippy, but keen enough for work to take on a poor payer like the Professor.
‘Then I shall introduce you to Dolores from Spain. Come with me.’
Just as she led Malinferno from the room, there was a clatter outside the front of the house, followed by a distinct groan. Madam waved her bony hands insouciantly.
‘Pay that no mind. We are always getting peeping Toms trying to peer in the window. My doorman will call the charley, and get him seen off.’
The thought of a local watchman, popularly known as a charley, being called alarmed Malinferno. He did not want an encounter with the law until he had retrieved Bromhead’s bag of bones. And discovered what had happened to the little man. He grinned nervously, wondering if anyone might have followed him to the bawdy house. Then he put it out of his mind. Who would be interested in the seedy goings-on of a mere meddler in all things ancient?
‘Lead on, Madam De Trou.’
The scrawny madam led him upstairs to the bedchambers. So it was that Joe Malinferno came face to face with his fate – his nemesis you might say – in the form of a well-rounded and rudely confident Essex girl called Doll Pocket.
The encounter did not exactly start auspiciously. Having been ushered through a door, which had been abruptly closed behind him, Malinferno found himself in a gloomy room, lit only by a couple of candles. He hoped the dimness of the lights was not to conceal the imperfections in the bawd he had just paid handsomely for. Due to the dark, Malinferno was obliged to grope his way forward towards a big, high bed he had managed to discern across the room. He could just make out a pale figure sprawled on the bed. It was female, but it would be an exaggeration to say she was clothed, as she wore only tight short stays and a thin chemise. Thus, hardly anything of the delicious form was truly covered, and the stays held the figure’s ample breasts high. Malinferno moved keenly towards the dark-haired beauty. And tripped over the rumpled rug, measuring his length on the floor.
‘Ouch!’
The figure on the bed giggled and spoke in an accent that had never approached anywhere nearer the shores of Spain than Wapping Old Steps.
‘Blimey! That must have hurt.’
Malinferno sat up, rubbing his nose that had cushioned his tumble on to the bare wooden floor. He examined his fingers and was glad to see they weren’t covered in gore. He didn’t have a nosebleed, at least, but then he realized his left knee hurt like hell.
‘Hurt? I think my knee is broken.’
The giggle turned into a burst of out-and-out laughter. It was a gusty, uninhibited froth of good humour. A pale, languid hand reached out from the bed.
‘Come here, you big baby. It’s just a knock. It probably feels worse than it is.’
Malinferno staggered to his feet, his dignity now hurting more than his knee, though he did manage to feign a limp to gain some
more sympathy. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he stared at the round, plump breasts again. Until the bawd’s hand firmly took hold of his chin and lifted his gaze to her face. In truth the woman was a pleasant sight, with long black tresses framing pale freckled skin. Malinferno put her age as no more than five-and-twenty. Her eyes were brown and oval, and her nose straight and shapely. He fancied he could see the Spaniard in her looks. Knowing how in awe the average bawd was of a man of letters, he opened with his usual gambit.
‘I am a professor of Egyptology and of ancient bones. But I can see how young and fine your bones are, Dolores . . .’
His use of her name started another fit of giggles, and she held her well-formed hand to her mouth in an attempt to stifle it.
‘Dolores! Is that what the old madam says my name is now?’
‘Yes, Dolores. It’s a beautiful Spanish name.’
This revelation started another fit of laughter that Malinferno was not displeased to see caused her bare breasts to wobble in a most appealing way. The bawd snorted again.
‘Dolores! Leave it out. Look, my name is Doll . . . Doll Pocket, and I’m from Essex. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Prof . . .’
She stuck her hand out as though they were meeting at a genteel soirée. Malinferno was quick to take it.
‘Joe Malinferno. Just call me Joe for now, Doll.’
The girl leaned back on the bed at a rakish angle, her breasts oozing out over the tightness of her short stays.
‘Good, I’m glad that’s settled. And now you know who I really am, would you mind if I took this wig off. It’s bleedin’ ’ot.’
Malinferno was at least glad to see that Doll was not bald under the false black tresses. In fact her golden hair, free of the Spanish fakery, was luxuriant and glowing. She dragged her fingers through it, and shook out the curls.
‘So, Prof, tell me about these old bones.’
Mrs Stanhope was worried. The girl had turned up in the early hours saying she was Mr Malinferno’s sister just up from the country. That she had no accommodation yet, and had to see her brother so she could borrow some money from him. Mrs Stanhope had refrained from saying that if Mr Malinferno had any cash at all, then she wanted it in lieu of rent owing before this slip of a girl had any. The poorly dressed little girl looked as though she needed help, however, and sounded most anxious to see her brother. Malinferno’s landlady doubted if she would get the assistance she needed from him, but in the end she had relented. She had let the little rat-faced girl into Mr M’s drawing room with an injunction not to touch anything. The girl had nodded eagerly, and Mrs Stanhope had left her to it. It was only later that she sat down to thinking with a generous glass of Holland gin in her hand. She could not recall Mr M ever mentioning having a sister. Leaning back in her comfortable chair, she took a sip of her favourite tipple. And then another.
She did not know how long she had been dozing, but suddenly she was awoken by a loud thump from upstairs. It sounded like something or somebody landing heavily on the floor in Mr Malinferno’s rooms. It had to be the girl, as no one else had gone upstairs, of that she was certain. Even though she could see the Holland gin glass was now empty, she was convinced its contents must have been tipped out by accident. She could have hardly closed her eyes for a second or two. No, it could only be the girl. She knew that child was trouble the first time she had set eyes on her. His sister, indeed. She was probably some bawd he owed money to, or even a Thames mudlark or scuffle-hunter on the scrounge. And she was up there right now, helping herself to his goods, which by rights were Mrs Stanhope’s to seize if he failed to pay his rent. She had had her eyes for months on that little green stone shaped like an insect that he called a scare-bob, or something like. That rat-faced thief wasn’t going to help herself to that, oh no. Mrs Stanhope heaved her not inconsiderable bulk out of her comfy chair and waddled over to the stairs.
Despite her weight, she was quickly up the fine curved staircase that spoke of more elegant days, when Mr Stanhope had still been alive and the house full of soirée guests. She pushed open the left-hand door on the first landing that opened on to Malinferno’s living room.
‘Now, look here, you little pilferer, I . . .’
Mrs Stanhope got no further than that initial imprecation. For before her on the threadbare but once-pretty Persian rug lay the battered remains of Kathleen Hoddy, otherwise known as Kitten. Her life’s blood was seeping darkly into the rug, ruining it for ever. Mrs Stanhope screamed. Whether from stark fear or horror at the ruined rug even she did not herself fathom.
‘So, this Rosie . . .’
‘Rosetta.’
‘This Rose Etta Stone has three different languages on it.’
Malinferno nodded, already a little exhausted. Doll had spent most of the night dragging out of him all he knew about ancient Egypt and swallowing it whole. He had never come across any man who could take so much in at one sitting, let alone an uneducated female. And the way her eyes had sparkled at his recital, he felt sure she was completely absorbed by the subject.
‘And you reckon we could use it to work out the ancient language of the Egyptians and make a fortune?’
‘Well, now . . .’ He had to draw the line there. The girl had said ‘we’ as though she was going to help him on the gargantuan task that had already bamboozled several polymaths in both France and England. She might be able to swallow whole a mountain of facts, but as for cracking the most complex problem of the age, well, there was a limit. ‘I don’t think you could . . .’
Doll simply ignored his reservations. Sitting cross-legged on the bed opposite him, he watched her breasts heaving with the excitement of the moment. Malinferno regretted it was not passion that was causing the flush on her cheeks. At least not the sort of passion he had at first imagined, when he had pressed the golden sovereign into the bawdy-house owner’s hand. In fact he now saw that the light of dawn was filtering through the heavy drapes of the boudoir, and he had done no more than remove his jacket and boots. He leaned towards her buxom figure, his ardour returning.
‘Doll, I wonder if . . .’
‘And to imagine it was old Bonaparte who found it in the first place. Perhaps he’s coming to nick it back. If he manages to reach dry land this time, that is.’
Malinferno sighed, knowing his chance had gone, and the day was calling him to more earnest tasks. The mention of Bonaparte had reminded him of the need to ensure the safety of the bones that lay under his bed. Not that he believed King Arthur would really come back to life. But perhaps they could form a rallying point, at whose centre would be Professor Joe Malinferno. He slid to the edge of the bed he had shared passionlessly with Doll and began to pull on his boots. Doll too made a move, bouncing eagerly off the feather mattress and grabbing her street clothes.
‘Where we going first, then?’
‘What?’
‘You said you’d show me this Rosie Etta Stone. And I should like to go to Piccadilly to see the Egyptian Hall too. It costs a shilling, but you could pay for the both of us, couldn’t you?’
Malinferno reached for his cutaway coat and began to pull it on, checking that the remaining sovereigns still nestled snugly in the pocket hidden in the coat-tail.
‘Doll, I shall be delighted to escort you to the Egyptian Hall, and even the British Museum. But I have other pressing business to attend to right now.’
‘Good. I’m ready.’
In the time it had taken him to pull his coat on and reach for his Garrick and hat, Doll had slipped into a filmy muslin dress, primped her hair and thrown a hooded black-gauze cloak over her shoulders. She was at his side, reticule and gloves in one hand and sliding her other inside his arm.
‘Where are we going first, Prof ?’
‘We are not . . .’
Malinferno saw the determined look in the girl’s eyes and bowed to the inevitability of this new force of nature. He crammed his hat on his head and led the bawd, now demurely attired as any lady, down the stairs and out
into the street.
‘Very well, come with me. There is something I have to collect at my lodgings. But you have to wait outside as Mrs Stanhope does not take kindly to young ladies in her gentlemen’s rooms.’
‘Orl right. What is it you have to pick up?’
‘Well . . . Arthur’s bones, actually.’
Doll squealed and pinched his arm in excitement.
‘Bones? Which Arthur is that, then? Is he a relative of yours?’
Malinferno grimaced. ‘More of an ancestor, shall we say. On my mother’s side.’
Another of Mrs Stanhope’s lodgers, who resided in the downstairs front, had called the Runners. One of the magistrates from the new office in Worship Street, Raleigh Pauncefoot by name, had turned up with one of his six constables in tow. And now the estimable lady was showing them the body. Pauncefoot, who was a starch-dealer by trade and who had got his position due to the patronage of a rich uncle, reeled back in horror. He held a lace-edged handkerchief to his nose and gagged. When he managed to control his stomach, he urged the constable into the room ahead of him.
‘Mayes. Take a look, and tell me what you see.’
The lugubrious Archie Mayes, who had served under the Duke of Wellington and so was well used to messy bodies, slouched into the room and knelt beside the dead girl. He lifted her head, noting how loose it seemed from the rest of the body.
‘’er throat’s been cut from ear to ear. Whoever did it nearly cut the head off completely. Savage, I say. Look ’ere, Mr P.’
He took great delight in showing the gaping wound to the magistrate, knowing the reaction he would get. Pauncefoot did not disappoint him, turning away and heaving into his lacy white linen. Mrs Stanhope took the pasty-faced magistrate by the shoulders.
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