Mr Williamson would have had the better of this Holywell-street case by now, mused Constable Cullen, who found it a fabric of lies and mysteries that simply could not be teased apart. How to prove that Mrs Colliver was lying? How to interpret the bleary-eyed and drunken testimony of Mr Jessop? There must be something – a clue – that was staring them in the face. If only he, John Cullen, could discern what that was, he might be accepted into the Force permanently and, one day, himself become a great detective.
Needless to say, that was never going to happen. Had he been able to look just a few days into the future, he would have seen something far more interesting – and he would have realized that he would be working once more with Mr Williamson sooner than he could have expected.
NINE
Mr Williamson was most uncomfortable. As he walked stiffly arm in arm with Charlotte up Windmill-street, he felt that everyone was watching and judging him. Surely everyone could see that the girl was a magdalene and that he was her client?
In his mind, he stopped her a dozen times and told her that this was a ridiculous idea – that she was clearly lying, that she should leave him and return home rather than walk the streets. But if there was the slightest chance that she did indeed know a woman called Persephone, this might be his best opportunity thus far of moving closer to a solution.
He walked rigidly upright, as if the gentle pressure of her arm in his were a mortal threat to be resisted at all costs. He tried not to look at her.
‘If you talk to me, people will think we are friends rather than lovers,’ said Charlotte, discerning his discomfort.
‘We are not lovers!’ said Mr Williamson, rather too loudly.
‘Still, you might at least speak to me as we walk. What is your name?’
‘A fine time to ask. But I would prefer not to tell you.’
‘Then make one up. “Charlotte” isn’t mine.’
He looked sidelong at her and beheld again her youthful beauty. She smiled as if she had known him for the whole of her short life. How could she smile so and yet be mired in depravity, selling her body to sin every night? How could she be so pure of complexion and yet be rotten to the core?
‘Why do you call yourself Charlotte?’
‘It’s a pretty name, isn’t it? Prettier than my real one anyway. Aren’t I pretty?’
‘I . . . well . . . I suppose so.’
‘My, you’re a flatterer!’
Mr Williamson blushed deeply and returned to his stiff demeanour. ‘Are we almost at our destination?’
They were walking west along Brewer-street, and Charlotte steered them right into Golden-square, whereupon she approached a grandiose-looking house and produced a key. The door banged shut behind them and Mr Williamson had entered that pulchritude-baited trap . . .
We will see presently what he experienced there, but perhaps it would first be beneficial for us to take a brief digression (or transgression) into Charlotte’s world that we might understand it better.
I have had much cause (for one reason or another) to investigate Venus vulgaris, and she is a curious species. Oftentimes, she begins her career at a tender age: sold into her trade by poor parents, or tricked into it by a procuress and trained in the arts of pleasure, or attracted to it by the sums to be made with a pretty face. Charlotte was of the latter variety: a milliner’s girl who found she could make much more money by ‘being kind to gentlemen’.
Stroll across London from West to East and you will see their varying habitats. At St James-square, the prettiest girls vie for the attentions of gentlemen who, for a short time, might maintain them in rooms of their own – at least until a younger and more attractive girl catches the eye. At Regents-street, the girls are still among the finest of their type, and if they occasionally stroll out, it is to visit the supper rooms before they retire home with a new friend (though it is easier in winter to rely upon the services of an introduction house, where she can meet a suitable fellow chosen for her, for a small consideration, by the discerning mistress). Even at Soho and Leicester-square might one find a pretty specimen, though her dress does not have quite the style or newness of her westerly neighbours, nor her face the same light of youth.
Head further east from here, however, and one enters the realm of the true street girl. Yes, she has a certain charm, but it is of a vulgar and degraded sort. These are the girls we see entering the coffee houses late at night and flirting shamelessly with the customers, or loitering about the shopping streets to snare a gent wearing fine gloves. Or she might hang out of a lower-floor window on Waterloo-road to attract her prey with an indecent show of bosom and a saucy invitation. Or perhaps she occupies a brothel, from which she rarely ventures into the light of day. These women are no victims; it is the men who are their victims.
Alas, beauty fades and tastes remain with the fresh and the young. The bright young thing of St James’s or Mayfair is, twenty years hence, the carrion crow of Ratcliff-highway, St Giles’s and the docks: so lined and withered that only sailors and soldiers will pay. What they once did for a sovereign then, later, for a pound, they will finally do for three shillings. And if not for money, for a handkerchief or a glass of gin. One must survive one way or another, and the sisterhood of Venus always survives.
Charlotte, it need hardly be said, was of the finer sort. Her rooms were paid for by a gentleman who was not her father (though assumed to be such by her neighbours) and she had the wit to be firmly established in the west. Like the most successful of her kind, she was a shrewd enough judge of character, having learned some time past that it is the older man, the married man, who is the reliable and grateful customer. Perhaps that is what she saw in Mr Williamson as she walked down Haymarket that evening – for, assuredly, she chose her clients more than they chose her.
‘May I make you a cup of tea? A glass of sherry to warm you up? It’s bitter these days, isn’t it?’ she said as she took off her shawl and bent to start a fire in the grate.
He looked around at her lodgings, brightly lit now in the gaslight. The décor was not lavish, but it suggested the kind of income that he could not himself boast of: good furniture, a new rug, clean curtains of damask and a number of paintings. Above all, the room had a lady’s touch that he had not experienced for some years – an atmosphere that seemed warm and light in contrast to the bleakness of his own home.
‘No thank you,’ he answered. ‘Is this the home of the woman we talked about?’
‘It is. She lends me her key for when I have visiters. I expect her home shortly.’
‘You told me on Haymarket that she will not admit just anyone, and yet I am admitted already.’
‘My, what a memory you have! She lives in the flat upstairs – we will hear when she arrives. Tell me: what profession are you in? My first guess was policeman from the way you looked around the street, but there is something else in your manner that I cannot place. And are you going to take off your hat and coat and take a seat, or will you stand there like that until the lady arrives?’
‘I would prefer to stand.’
‘As you wish. I am going to sit here by the fire and warm my legs.’ And at this Charlotte sat and raised her skirt fractionally so that her ankles were exposed. If she had done it for Mr Williamson’s benefit, she did not show it.
‘Hmm. What time does the lady typically arrive home?’
‘Perhaps nine o’clock.’
‘Is she in the same line . . . in the same . . . What is her profession?’
‘You may speak to her and ask her all you like, sir. But in the meantime perhaps you will speak to me. You have a kind face. Won’t you tell me what you do?’
‘I work for a charity.’
‘O Lord! Don’t talk to me of charities, sir!’
‘Why not? They do much fine work about the city.’
‘I’m sure they do, but they are forever meddling in my business: those from the Magdalene Hospital at St George’s-fields, or the Guardian Society at Bethnal Green or the Societ
y for the Protection of Young Females. So many invitations I have to save myself! And spend the rest of my days in Chapel or in service? That is not the life for me, sir.’
‘Do you not regret your life of sinful wickedness? Are you not ashamed at having sold your virtue?’
At this, Charlotte reacted in quite the opposite way he might have expected. She laughed. It was a throaty and unabashed laugh that made her slap her thighs, arch her back and put her head back, showing off the shape of her body and her delicate throat in the process.
‘Regret, sir? O, not a bit of it! And you need not shake your head sadly so at my laughter – I am no poor waif of the streets. Better this life than that of a wife.’
‘What do you mean? A wife has a home and her honour. She has a man who cares for her, and she has love.’
‘O, sir, I am sure you are a good man, but you have not spoken with women as I have. Marriage is nothing but bondage for most. They give up their freedom, their youth and their life for a man. You speak of love, but what of desire?’
‘A woman, I mean a respectable woman, does not feel desire. Her duty and her pleasure is to produce and raise a family . . .’
And here, once again, Charlotte began her laughing, animating her frame with such a carefree and sensuous manner that Mr Williamson was made quite uncomfortable at her lack of decorum. He had never seen a woman so unrestricted in the way she inhabited her own body.
‘ “Does not feel desire”, sir?’ said Charlotte when she had regained her power of speech. ‘What woman does not feel desire? She might not show it for fear of bringing shame upon herself, but a woman feels desire just as a man does. Perhaps even more so. Have you never been among the working districts after dark in the summer months?’
‘I have.’
‘Then you will know what sounds emanate from every dark alley and every bush when the public houses close. It is not only men who make those sounds, though I might add that when they do it’s the women who cause them.’
‘Hmm. Hmm. It is almost nine.’ Mr Williamson looked at his pocket watch to avoid looking at the heat – and laughter-flushed complexion of Charlotte.
‘I have made you blush. I am sorry. Let us return to the subject of charity. Why don’t you sit? At least take off your hat and coat. It is lovely and warm here by the fire.’
‘You are no supporter of charities,’ said Mr Williamson, still standing and behatted.
‘And with good reason. I knew two or three girls who agreed to be taken in by those charities and now they are dead.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They were killed. That’s God’s truth.’
‘Absurd. They may have been killed, but there is no connection to a charity. That is just street talk.’
‘Really? Did you hear about the girl on Holywell-street the other night?’
Mr Williamson was about to respond with another rebuttal when the street name struck him. ‘Are you sure? There was nothing in the newspapers about a dead girl, and I have read all of them. There was, however, another incident on that street recently – five days ago.’
‘That’s when it happened. I don’t read the newspapers so I don’t know about any other incident. But Lou didn’t kill herself, I can tell you that.’
Despite himself, Mr Williamson ventured to take off his hat and finally sit beside Charlotte at the fireside. The heat almost immediately began to warm through his coat, and he extracted his notebook. ‘Charlotte – I would like you to tell me everything you know about this girl Lou.’
‘What is this? Why do you need that notebook? I was right – you are a policeman!’
‘No. I used to be a policeman – a detective. I am one no longer, but I believe the case of your friend might be part of a greater mystery.’
‘I see. This changes the situation a little. I wonder if you might pay me now, sir, before we begin to talk.’
‘Hmm. I see that you are a clever girl. I will gladly pay you a pound if what you tell me is of use. And you can have your shilling now in recompense for bringing me here. I must warn you, however: I pay for the truth only.’
Charlotte gave a theatrical pout at the suggestion she might be any kind of artificer. It was a most attractive expression. ‘I agree. For a pound and a shilling, I will tell all.’
‘Then begin with her death,’ he said, handing her the money.
‘They say it was suicide, with prussic acid if you please, and they found her in an alley off Holywell in the early hours. None of it makes sense, though. First, Lou had no reason to kill herself. She was happy. A beautiful girl she was: tall and slim with lovely blonde hair. She had just found an older gentleman to keep her and she knew she would have a good income from him. Secondly, Holywell was not her pitch – she was a west-end girl as I am, and used to a better sort. Somebody must have taken her there.’
‘How can you be sure she did not take her own life? Perhaps she was with child.’
‘Ha! When did you ever hear of a working girl who got in trouble, sir? That is only servant girls and milliners’ assistants. We skilled girls know how to control our courses by—’
‘Please – I need not know the details of your trade. Is there anything else that would make you think it was not suicide? Anything other than her seeming happiness and her being away from her pitch?’
‘Perhaps I could not prove it to a magistrate, but I know. Would you yourself not know the truth if a close friend or loved one was said falsely to have committed suicide? You just know. And prussic acid? What a horrible way to do it!’
‘Hmm. Do you know any more about this older gentleman she had found?’
‘Only that he was well off and had a good position in society. She would not tell me his name, of course. I might have stolen him for myself!’
‘Where did she meet him?’
‘He saw her from his carriage and invited her to his house. She returned a few more times after that. More than that I don’t know. I didn’t see her for a few days before her murder.’
‘You insist that it was murder, but what motive could there be? And why use prussic acid when a cudgel or razor would do just as well? It is a curious murder weapon.’
‘Why, to make it look like a suicide of course!’
‘To what advantage? I cannot see any reason. The very fact that her death was not reported shows that the death of a pr . . . of one of your kind is considered to be of little consequence. Why go to the trouble?’
‘I don’t know why! I just know she was killed.’
‘You said this was connected to those charities for fallen women. What was Lou’s connection?’
‘She had applied to the Magdalene Hospital a few weeks previously. It was after a man beat her and she got afraid. But they were forever pushing scripture at her and she couldn’t stand it, so she went back to the game.’
‘I still fail to see any connection.’
‘There were others. Kate who lived on Dover-street: she was at the Guardian Society for a while. They found her in the Thames in May. And Mary of Clifford-street: another prussic acid job after she applied to the Magdalene Hospital. That one was in the papers, I’m sure. In July, it was. You will never find me going to those people – not even if I end up a toothless hag selling my a— at the docks.’
Mr Williamson frowned at her language and made a note of the names and places. ‘Hmm. These charities take in many girls. Many more leave, and I am sure some subsequently kill themselves.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ said Charlotte.
‘I am dubious.’
‘But you wrote it in your notebook, so you must be interested.’
‘I am always interested in justice.’
‘I see that you are. What else are you interested in, I wonder?’
It seemed, as they had been sitting by the fire, that Charlotte’s clothing had somehow become looser and less decorous, as if she had been surreptitiously revealing more of herself. Mr Williamson saw that one of her legs was expo
sed almost to the knee and that the graceful curve of her calf was quite as pale as her face.
She smiled in full knowledge of the effect upon her guest, who in his woollen coat was now feeling quite uncomfortable from the fire’s heat.
He fumbled for his watch. ‘Where is this lady? If you are—’
‘She does not abide by any rules of mine, sir. When she returns, she returns. You may read if you like. Here, have a look at this one.’
Charlotte reached to a side table and took the first book from a pile. And as she leaned forward to hand it to him, he could not help but see inside the loose neck of her blouse – a sight whose effect upon him was profound.
‘Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.’
For want of a more cogent response, he took the book.
‘This is a new one of mine. Many visiters say it is my best,’ said Charlotte.
Without looking at the spine, Mr Williamson opened the cover and saw the publisher’s name: Henry Poppleton, Holywell-street. The title page read Levantine Mysteries.
‘I fear it is not the sort of thing I would enjoy,’ he said.
‘Read to me, sir. If we must wait here for the lady, we might as well spend the time in an improving manner. You should be in favour of that, taking the opinion you do of my life. Please – read to me. Just begin at chapter three.’
‘I ... I do not think it is appropriate.’
Charlotte could not know, of course, that Mr Williamson had once, many years ago, read to his wife thus, beside the fire. The memory of it, particularly under these circumstances, proved difficult.
‘Please, sir. It soothes me so to hear another voice in this lonely room.’
He turned to the first page and scanned the first sentences. They seemed inoffensive enough. He looked around, as if expecting someone to be observing him engaged in such oddness. He looked at Charlotte, who seemed to have changed in an instant from the leg-brandishing temptress to an eager student, albeit one with a plaintively pretty face.
The Vice Society Page 10
