The Vice Society

by James McCreet

  Indeed, for high-minded young men and sensitive young ladies of the city, the Mendicity Society is a place for the devout to be associated with: an opportunity to do good work. Such people are constantly arriving at the offices with fine intentions – even more so during that period when a certain illustrious ex-detective had begun work there. Let us enter the building and see the upstanding people at work . . .

  Here is the secretary escorting another earnest Christian volunteer through the various rooms and describing the activity of each. It is all highly organized and laudable, yet our young volunteer cannot help but become increasingly frustrated at the delay in approaching the most famed room of the building and of the Society itself – the one he has heard all about and in which he hopes to work: the begging letters office.

  It is here that more than one thousand letters annually pass across desks to be verified according to the concerns of ladies and gentlemen, lords, dukes and earls who can never be certain that the piteous entreaties they receive in the post are truths or falsehoods. Only here can expert eyes examine the letters for the warp and weft of veracity.

  Finally our volunteer is permitted entry. Within, there are shelves of ledgers containing the details of letter writers and their recipients across the country. Who is this sailor, for example, who claims to have fallen on hard times and purports to need ten pounds to release him from a debt? He has written to the Duke of ——— with a story that would wring tears from the very saline ropes of an ocean-tracing brig. Is he truly a straitened tar of Ratcliff-highway, or a skilled literary gentleman in a base lodging somewhere sending off fifteen identical versions of the letter with a sly grin upon his face?

  It is as quiet as a library, the silence disturbed only by the occasional shuffle of feet, the creak of a chair and the scrape of a ledger being withdrawn. Serious gentlemen examine letters before them, making notes and consulting endless columns of records for notable phrases, recurring names, prominent addresses, unusual vocabulary. By such means are the cheats trapped and brought to justice, and our volunteer is enthralled at the spectacle. He looks rapidly from desk to desk . . . at which one is seated the gentleman he hopes to meet?

  There at the centre of the room, sitting at a broad desk neatly arrayed with piles of papers and books, was George Williamson, previously of the Metropolitan Police’s Detective Force. He did not appear much changed from that grieving figure we saw seven years before – more careworn, perhaps; a little thinner about the face and with a harder edge to eyes that have seen more than any man should in the intervening period. Placed before him was a single sealed envelope which he was examining closely for clues that nobody else in the room – amateurs all – could possibly have seen.

  The secretary approached with his youthful volunteer, and the two exchanged a glance. Yes, this was he: the same George Williamson, previously Detective Sergeant Williamson. They arrived at the desk and the ex-policeman looked up with a level stare that said he was being interrupted by the secretary.

  ‘George – may I present Harold Jute. His father is a most generous benefactor and Harold will be joining you for a time. He has just come down from Oxford and has expressed a wish to work with the Society.’

  Mr Williamson did not stand, but appraised the young man with a swift, comprehensive glance and nodded a perfunctory assent to the secretary.

  ‘I am so terribly excited to be working with you, sir,’ said Harold, standing beside the desk. ‘I have been interested for some time in the work of the Detective Force, and when father told me that I might work here with—’

  ‘Sit down. There is work to do. Let us apply your enthusiasm to the case at hand. What do you see here, young man?’ said Mr Williamson.

  ‘A letter.’

  ‘You might have the makings of a detective yet.’

  ‘Er, thank you, sir.’

  ‘This is a letter sent to Lord ———. He receives so many importunate letters that he now sends them to the Society that we may examine them first.’

  ‘It is unopened.’

  ‘You are most observant.’

  ‘I . . . I mean, surely you must open the letter to begin your process.’

  ‘On the contrary. One may learn much of a letter before opening it. What do you see?’

  ‘May I touch it? Thank you. Well, it is a pre-paid envelope posted from the General Post Office at St Martin’s-le-Grand judging by the stamp. The hand looks like a feminine one and, yes, there is a faint perfume.’

  ‘Good. The markings, writing and odour tell as much. Inside, there are three sheets of thin notepaper with writing on one side only.’

  ‘But . . . but it is yet unopened. How can you be sure?’

  ‘The charge is one penny. That signifies a weight of half an ounce. Half an ounce equates to one and a half sheets of standard quarto notepaper or three sheets of thin notes. Experience tells us that ladies – and this letter at least pretends to be from a lady – are more likely to favour multiple sheets. The thinness of these means that the ink will often be absorbed through, hence the single sides.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Open it with this knife. Carefully.’

  Harold opened the envelope and extracted three sheets of notepaper just as Mr Williamson had described them. ‘I say, Mr Williamson – if these fellows are as dull as this, I understand why so many are exposed!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘You are Mr . . . Mr George . . . I am afraid I am confused.’

  ‘I have been introduced to you as George Williamson. But you have never before seen me. I could be anyone at all, and yet you have accepted me as described because there is nothing to contradict the impression that I am who you believe me to be.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Of course I am. I seek only to illustrate that nothing you see and read here is what it first seems. The people who write these letters, these “screevers” or “slums” as they are also termed, are skilled beyond the comprehension or imagination of your average criminal. They might write twenty letters like this a day, keeping logs of their targets and the details of the letters they have sent. There are letter writers like this who have escaped the police and the Mendicity Society for years: intelligent, sometimes formally educated, men who have not managed to make a living writing novels or articles for the papers. Quite frankly, they will never be caught.’

  ‘But we know this letter is from a lady, do we not?’

  ‘No. We know that it is written as if from a lady. The feminine hand and the scent are simple enough falsities. These writers may have a dozen different hands to call upon. Believe nothing. Now – let us read the text.’

  My Lord,

  It is with most pained heart that I presume to address to your benevolent lordship’s notice. I lived for time within your lordship’s seat with some late relatives and have on occasion caught sight of your benign presence.

  I am descended from a respectable family of the parish of St Anne, Limehouse, of which I am the last, and I am the widow of a late respectable schoolmaster who died of fever some five years ago, leaving me with four children under eleven years of age, and obliged to dispose of my premises to settle my husband’s few debts, defray funeral expenses, &c.

  Of late, my comfortable station in life has been reduced to that of shameful penury through Almighty’s unfathomable Grace in wasting my lower extremities with rheumatic gout and preventing me from attending to my duties as governess of a Sunday school, not least the upkeep of my family. It is their plaintive cries that rend verily my heart, not the threats of the debtor’s gaol and the distraining of my chattels by my late landlord’s brokers.

  I have been obliged to quit my late residence to escape arrest and feed my children by whatever means I can. That I have remained free of the workhouse is only through the kindness of an acquaintance, whose damp cellar we occupy.

  By the Grace of God, I have been granted the opportunity to
reclaim my furniture. And yet even as this hand of aid is extended to me, I live in fear of arrest and incarceration for my outstanding debt. Only charitable assistance to the sum of 101. 6s. 5d. can

  succour my mournful state and return my possessions. As my children wither under the nourishment of mere potatoes and water, I offer up my final hope to your lordship, who all name as a champion of the working people. Whatever pecuniary charity you could offer towards helping me to overcome my difficulties will, I assure your lordship, go with me in gratitude to my grave.

  I beg to subscribe myself, my lord, your lordship’s most humble servant,

  Harriet Burgoyne, zb,

  St Mary’s-hill.

  ‘A sorry tale,’ said Harold.

  ‘Indeed. Most pitiful – but quite clearly a fakement. Consider the weight of fortuitous coincidence within it: the last of her line; late relatives; a late husband; a late landlord . . . such unpunctuality is most suitable, is it not? None of these people are alive to be consulted upon the letter writer’s account.’

  ‘I suppose that is true. But we do know she is of the parish of St Anne.’

  ‘Do we? Might not anyone go to the parish records and pluck a name from them?’

  ‘I ... I imagine so.’

  ‘In fact, the letter is a very fine example of its sort, which is why we know it is not true. Tell me, what do we know of the widow Burgoyne from this letter?’

  ‘Well, she is from a respectable family, the widow of a schoolmaster and something of an educator herself. She is a mother and a Christian with a physical affliction who has fallen into hard times through no fault of her own.’

  ‘Quite. Nothing whatsoever deserving of reproach. It is a perfect case of need. Even the amount is modest and convincingly specific – at least, it would be a perfect case of need if the same letter had not been sent to two dozen other people.’

  ‘What tells you this? Have you seen the same letter before?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I am convinced of it. In part, its very perfection of form and tone is suspicious; only a professional writer would be so thorough. But also look again at that phrase “rend verily my heart”. Does that strike a note of recognition with you?’

  ‘It is poetry? I’m afraid I do not know it.’

  ‘It is taken from a song that was quite a phenomenon a few months ago: a sentimental piece entitled “My Foolish Heart”.’

  ‘I am afraid I do not follow your logic.’

  ‘I see that your fine Oxford education has taught you little about the common man. He is a garrulous sort because, as a rule, he cannot, or will not, read. His understanding of the world comes from others of his sort. Market gossip is his newspaper. Not for him the morning press – he relies upon the tradesman’s rumour, the ballad and witticism of the penny gaff. In one day, the latest song or joke can be across the city faster and more comprehensively than any news, passed like pestilence wherever people hear and speak.’

  ‘I see, but—’

  ‘But the popular taste is fickle and short-lived. Today’s phrase of the moment is tomorrow’s embarrassed silence or mocking snigger. I would say that the average lifespan of songs such as “My Foolish Heart” is about two or three months.’

  ‘The letter is dated two days ago.’

  ‘It is. But it was written three months ago when the song was popular. It had clearly stuck in the writer’s mind like mud to one’s sole and he used it without thinking. From this, we may discern that a number of these letters were most likely drafted identically at that time and posted at different times as opportunity and intelligence allowed. Certainly, the real widow Burgoyne – if she existed – would not wait three months to post this letter.’

  ‘Might not the writer have simply remembered the phrase and used it as he wrote?’

  ‘Hmm. Let me explain it in terms that you might understand. Imagine that you have been to see a play, a comedy, and a line particularly takes the fancy of you and your fellows. For weeks, you repeat it to each other until it becomes quite threadbare. Then, two or three months later, you find that you are in conversation with the same fellows and the opportunity arises to once again use this phrase. Do you do so? Would it be as amusing?’

  ‘I expect not. Fashion rather favours the new – unless I was satirizing the original.’

  ‘Is Mrs Burgoyne’s letter in a satirical tone?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Indeed. For the working man, only the most contemporary phrase or tune will do if he is to remain at the forefront of his peers.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Williamson, but is not all of this detection somewhat redundant? We have the woman’s address at St Mary’s-hill. Why not simply go there and verify the facts ourselves?’

  ‘And have the letter writer or one of his accomplices observe us from an upper or opposite window and flee? Such people expect the Society to come looking for them, and keep a lookout. No – we may be sure that the writer of this letter does not live at the return address itself. He is far too clever for that. In any event, the address is almost certainly a false one – the “b” is highly dubious.’

  ‘You say “he”?’

  ‘He.’

  ‘But . . . What are we to do now?’

  ‘Respond. I will instruct Lord ——— to reply this day to the given address and we will see what happens tomorrow.’

  And so it was that the very next morning, Mr Williamson and young Harold Jute waited in the hall of the General Post Office at St Martin’s-le-Grand.

  There can be few interiors as impressive as that vast and lofty space, its graceful Ionic pillars stretching up to the distant panelled ceiling where pipe smoke swirls lazily looking for egress. Footsteps and muted voices seem to echo about that marble vault as self-animated spirits, and human presence is reduced to entomological proportions as it passes momentarily through.

  Mr Williamson watched the people. There, a man walking quickly to the Money Order Office to cash an urgent note; there, a diligent clerk sent to make a collection from the Foreign Letter Office; there, a woman impatiently opening a letter that will break her heart; there, a rural visiter to the city gaping dumbly at this cathedral of communication that is larger and grander than the nave of his home-town church.

  For his part, Harold chanced a few looks at the investigator beside him. ‘Mr Williamson?’ he ventured once he had mustered the courage, ‘may I ask you why you left the Detective Force?’

  ‘You may not.’

  ‘Do you think, then, that we could talk a little about your police duties as we wait? I admit, I am quite fascinated with the work. Why, just today I read of a curious case that occurred over on Holywell-street a couple of mornings ago. I was wondering . . .’

  ‘No. I no longer do that work.’

  ‘I see. I am sorry to pry. Then . . . may I ask what drew you to the fine work of the Mendicity Society?’

  ‘I have a skill. The Society is able to use it. Do you have more questions?’

  ‘Well, I do wonder why we are waiting here rather than at St Mary’s-hill?’

  ‘You will see. It is about the right time. Let us ascend to the Returned Letter Office.’

  Those of an inquisitive nature would do well to pay a visit to this, the most interesting room of the General Post Office. The letters that come here are lost, just as surely as many of the city’s inhabitants are lost. They are posted, start their journey, but find no destination, waiting in limbo to be read and made real in another’s mind. Who knows what news, what sentiments and what secrets find their way here like scraps whirled by the wind into the dead air of an alley?

  ‘See here,’ said Mr Williamson pointing to the board where addresses of undelivered letters are written. ‘Number 2b, St Mary’s-hill. Evidently, the letter carrier has discovered what I knew to be the case: there is no 2b.The letter has already been left here that so the rightful recipient may come to collect it when he sees the address listed.’

  ‘And the pencilled notes alongside the or
iginal addresses?’

  ‘The re-delivery addresses. I was hoping our mysterious letter writer would have come in and added his. Nevertheless, I have an idea that we can solve this mystery.’

  Mr Williamson talked to one of the clerks and was handed a bulky ledger: the Daily Packet List.

  ‘In this book, Mr Jute, the details of those same undelivered letters on the board are entered and, where relevant, the redelivery addresses additionally appended. Let us look over previous weeks and . . . yes . . . look here: do you see the number of letters sent to the false address on St Mary’s-hill?’

  ‘There are many.’

  ‘Quite. And the re-delivery address is identical in each case: 3 Moor-lane.’

  ‘So – we go now to the re-delivery address at Moor-lane.’

  ‘We do.’

  It seems unnecessary to state, however, that the two gentlemen did not find the letter writer at Moor-lane. What they found was a rather portly old woman whose name was predictably not Mrs Burgoyne and who admitted, under the onslaught of Mr Williamson’s threats of gaol, what the latter had assumed all along.

  ‘I don’t write the letters, sir. Truth is, I can’t read too prettily – only this name “Burgoyne”. I just receives ’em.’

  ‘Then what? Who collects them?’ said Mr Williamson, his notebook at the ready.

  ‘O, nobody collects ’em. I takes out the money order and goes to the Post Office to cash it.’

  ‘Without any proof of your identity as Mrs Burgoyne?’

  ‘They knows my face and they never asks. If they did, I could organize a friend to swear it soon enough.’

  ‘Hmm. To whom do you give the money?’

  ‘To nobody, sir. I makes out a new money order – less ten shillings for my own troubles, you understand – and I posts that to a Mr Mann at an address on Milton-street. ’Tis but ten minutes’ walk from the Post Office, but I posts it all the same.’