In another place, a gentleman was attending to a painting on an easel while conducting a sing-song monologue with himself. He was facing the house, but what appeared on the canvas was merely an angry effusion of red – an accumulation of paint so thick that it dripped on to the grass, and applied with such force that the paintbrush had lost all of its bristles and scored through the canvas to leave a ragged hole in the centre.
Yet another figure sat on the bench so recently occupied by Noah himself. This one merely rocked back and forth with his arms wrapped around himself in a cold and loveless embrace. He intoned some kind of repeated phrase that Noah could not discern with any clarity. A thin strand of spittle hung from his chin.
Aubrey Alsthom was nowhere to be seen.
At that moment, Doctor Norwood emerged from the house in a state of obvious distraction, looked around the garden and wiped his brow.
‘Doctor! Here – I am at the hedge!’ shouted Noah.
‘Mr Dyson? Is it you? O, there has been a terrible tragedy. Aubrey has been shot!’
‘Admit me at the street door!’
Noah raced back to Albert-road and up the stairs just as the door was opened.
‘What happened, doctor?’
‘He was in the garden, just doing his whittling . . . a series on the philosophers, you know . . . and there was a loud report . . . I was not there at the time but . . . Mr Josephson, an obsessive . . .’
‘Slowly, doctor. Take a breath. You say there was a loud report. What happened?’
‘He was shot through the hedge. They must have pushed the pistol through and fired without anyone seeing them. Aubrey was hit in the abdomen.’
‘Who did this? Was anyone else injured? Did anyone see anything? When did this happen?’
‘Only Aubrey. Only Aubrey. Nobody saw anything . . . the hedge, you see: it is very thick ... It occurred last evening just before the gentlemen retired. O, it has quite undone the others. They sense the anguish, you know. It is a quite catastrophic reverse in their treatment, quite catastrophic’
‘Is Aubrey still alive?’
‘He is upstairs. The physician has said that nothing can be done with the wound. He has lost a lot of blood and is quite weak . . .’
‘Take me to him – now!’
Noah followed Doctor Norwood upstairs and along the corridor to Aubrey’s room. The young man was lying in bed with a bloodied bandage wrapped around his middle. His face was a pale, wax-like mask and his closed eyelids fluttered. The smell of blood was quite oppressive.
‘Can he speak?’ said Noah.
‘I advise against it,’ said the physician gravely. He was a kindly-looking old man who had obviously seen enough deaths to accept them, respectfully, as they came.
At Noah’s voice, Aubrey’s eyes had blinked open.
‘Can you hear me, Aubrey?’ asked Noah.
‘The man . . . who asked me all the . . . questions.’ The voice was a mere breath.
‘Yes, it is I. You have quite the collection,’ said Noah, gesturing at a shelf of whittled philosophers. ‘I recognize Plato there. And Socrates, of course. That must be Aristotle. Who is the one on the left?’
‘Py . . . Pythagoras.’
‘Of course. I am sorry to see you in such a condition, Aubrey.’
‘Have . . . have you . . . come to ask me . . . more questions.’
‘If you would not mind.’
Aubrey turned his head slowly to where Doctor Norwood stood.
‘It is your choice, Aubrey. I no longer tell you what to do,’ said the doctor sombrely.
There was a blink of the eyes where no energy existed for a nod.
‘Search for . . . “Sir John Smythe”.’
Aubrey’s eyes partially closed, showing only the whites. His mouth opened slightly. Noah leaned close to hear the whispered response:
‘“. . . also at the Epsom Spring Meeting were Sir John Smythe . . . shooting at Glenfiddich were Archibald Harlow, Donald MacCaggan, Sir John Smythe . . . The Royal dinner party at the castle this evening included Lady Harriet Hereford, Sir John Smythe . . . Secretary of the Church Extension Fund will be Sir John Smythe . . .”’
‘Stop. I think that is enough. One more question, Aubrey: when is the last entry on Sir John?’
‘It was . . . 1843 ... in a court circular.’
‘Thank you. I will trouble you no more.’
‘It has . . . been . . . my pleasure.’
The figure on the bed was paler than ever. The breathing was laboured and shallow. Noah looked at the bloody bandages about his middle and wished that he could take hold of the one who had wielded the pistol. Had it been the taciturn James Tattershall?
‘Noah ... I wonder if perhaps . . .’ Doctor Norwood let his question hang above the dying young man.
Noah caught the inflection, discerned the thought, and nodded. He reached inside his coat and extracted a phial of the finest distillate of opium.
‘You might want to leave us now,’ said Doctor Norwood to the elderly physician, who had immediately ascertained what was to happen and was already reaching for his hat and bag. He left silently with just a nod to each of the gentlemen.
‘Aubrey – can you hear me?’ said Doctor Norwood. ‘I am about to administer something that will ease your suffering. You will drift into a state of warmth and comfort. May you . . . may you rest in peace.’
Noah watched. Never had he seen a passing so gentle.
‘You will catch the fellows that did this?’ said the doctor after Aubrey’s breathing had diminished into silence.
‘You may have my word, doctor. And their ends will not be nearly so placid.’
TWENTY-FIVE
The reader has waited long enough. I will prolong it no further.
Her real name – the name she was born with – was Mary Wright. Young Mary was the daughter of a Clerkenwell clock-maker: a moderately educated man and an artisan of some local standing. Like her father, she had a quick wit and an enquiring mind, but she would never be a clockmaker. Rather she was required to bring money into the house by that most favoured of professions among families of limited means: the milliner’s girl.
Was it a sin that she was such a pretty thing and instinctively knew it at a tender age? Was it a sin if certain gentlemen asked to walk with her before or after her hours at the shop? Was it a sin to offer them a kiss in return for money to save for nicer stockings or a ribbon for her bonnet? Very likely it was – but it was not long before she realized the opportunities of her power. By that time her destiny was inevitable.
Who knows what route she took from there? Not I. Perhaps she was seen dollymopping around by a procuress and offered a more certain income. Perhaps she spent some time in a brothel. It must have been the briefest periods, because she was soon visiting the supper rooms as an independent girl, now calling herself Marianne. She was better dressed, better educated and with far, far higher expectations.
And young Marianne had learned enough from the world of commerce and shop windows to know how she should be perceived. At those dancing places and sophisticated soirées, she made herself an object of desire that men could neither ignore nor resist. Her beauty attracted them, and her indifference made them mad with the obsessive need to possess her. She was a prize that all wanted, but she would yield only to the one who met her simple criterion: that the gentleman in question be both limitlessly rich and boundlessly generous.
In return, that lucky man would rise above his peers as her possessor and boast of having a woman to shame all others with her grace, beauty and learning. For let us not imagine for a moment that her only talent was an artful lasciviousness commensurate with the appetite of a male (though Marianne, now called Anna, was assuredly expert in this) – no, she was also expected to be a reliable foil in conversation: as adept with her Voltaire and Seneca as any club man, and as quick with a Shakespearean pun as any author. She was, in short, a woman self-created by the dreams of men: a cigar-smoking, champagne-drinking, moralit
y-eschewing, Latin-quoting phantasy Venus.
Few could afford her. For all her attributes and attainments, she deserved a box at the opera, an apartment with a view of the park, stables, a carriage and footmen of her own, girls to dress her and enough incomparable dresses and jewellery to keep her the envy of every female eye in the city. Even then, it would have been foolish to expect that she would be loyal to one alone, though she would at least be dutifully discreet in her appointments with others who might ruin themselves to afford an hour of her time.
And there she was before Mr Williamson and Mr Cullen . . . She did not turn, but looked at them in the reflection of her looking glass.
‘Mr Williamson – I did wonder if you would visit. You may enter, but your man will wait outside if you please.’
If she was surprised to see two men walk into her room early that morning, she did not show it. Indeed, her expression was one of mild amusement rather than fear or consternation.
Her voice betrayed no geographical origin, but was an exemplar of intelligent enunciation. She was beautiful, certainly, but in quite a different way from the beauty Mr Williamson thought he had seen in Charlotte. That had been the mere freshness of youth allied with an unsullied, untamed animal sensuality. No, this woman seemed somehow preternaturally beautiful, as if she were a painting rather than a breathing entity. Her hair, free from headwear, was long and dark; her black eyes seemed to bore into him – and her form was silhouetted to affecting effect in a dress that – if he had known of such things – Mr Williamson would have recognized as costing more than Mr Cullen had been paid annually as a constable.
‘Mr Cullen – will you wait outside and see we are not disturbed,’ said Mr Williamson with a dry throat.
‘We will not be disturbed,’ she said with a wry smile, turning now to examine her visiter with a gaze that, it seemed to him, emptied his very pockets and counted the stitches in his coat.
‘You know my name, madam. What should I call you?’
‘You may call me Mary.’
‘Is it your real name?’
‘What is my real name? Does it matter? Mary? Marianne? Anna? Courtesan? Prostitute? Whore?’
‘Persephone?’
‘Shall we be seated?’ Mary gestured towards the balcony window and a pair of handsome-looking chairs decorated with gilt and scarlet velvet.
Mr Williamson sat and placed his hat beside him on a table inlaid exquisitely with fine marquetry. He looked around the room and his eyes settled on a selection of fruit arrayed on a scalloped silver tray: strawberries, plums, grapes, a pineapple and pomegranates – none of which had been cultivated on these shores. The air smelled of some exotic perfume and there was a glass vase full of visiting cards above the fireplace. Were they the cards, he wondered, of men who had been accepted, or rejected?
Mary made to sit across from him, moving with a grace that denied she was executing anything as quotidian as actual steps. Barely a moment of the last decade had passed without her being an object of rapt attention, and she had made herself a work of art. Arranging her dress about her, she maintained a cool gaze that simultaneously mocked him and made him feel that he was the only man who had ever interested her. Fortunately, the interest seemed entirely cerebral.
‘I saw you looking at my collection of cards, Mr Williamson.’
‘Hmm.’
‘It is beneficial to me that I have those records of those who have visited or attempted to visit. All would deny it, of course.’
‘I am sure. If I may say so, madam, you do not seem at all surprised to see me here. You have made no denials; you have asked no questions.’
‘The fact that you are here at all means none of that need be said. There is a time for games, but this one would be neither amusing nor beneficial.’
‘And yet you are the one who started it. You do accept that you are she who sent me that letter?’
‘I will neither accept nor deny it, but you will know my answer.’
‘I see that I have entered a level of society in which conversation is not what it seems, and where one may say nothing as eloquently as something.’
‘Ha! You are a quick study, Mr Williamson. I apologize – such frivolity is my daily custom. The gentlemen enjoy it.’
‘Hmm. The fact remains that you sent me a letter. It was pseudonymous, but you must have expected that the investigation would lead back to you.’
‘In fact, there is no reason at all that it should lead back to me. I have absolutely no part in it.’
‘You signed the letter “Persephone”. The name is quite clearly the key to the Holywell-street case.’
‘O, Mr Williamson – you disappoint me. You said yourself that the name was pseudonymous. I am no more Persephone than I am the Queen. Nor am I acquainted with anyone else you are investigating. Frankly, I am surprised that you were able to make a connection where none existed.’
‘It was you who made the connection. We had no idea who “Persephone” might be. Two things led us to you: the assumption (born of ignorance) that the name was the soubriquet of an actress, or a pro ... or another kind of lady, and your error of having us followed by men wearing distinctive livery.’
‘I see. That is disappointing. I did tell them not to wear their uniforms at any time while engaged in that game, but, well . . . one cannot control everything, no matter how one tries.’
‘Indeed.’
‘The truth, Mr Williamson, is that your presence here may prove exceptionally difficult to me – perhaps even fatal. My men are not the only ones who have been following you. If the others followed you here, and if they have any concept why you came, my life may not be worth a farthing.’
‘Madam – if your life is in danger, perhaps it is because we have spent many days running around the city chasing a phantasm called Persephone. Had your initial letter given details and names, three more people might be alive today.’
‘It is cruel of you to throw that at my door. Cruel and unjust.’
‘Perhaps it is cruel, but it is just. If you know more, you could have informed me and kept your anonymity.’
‘If I had told you more, they might have discerned the source of the information and I would have been the first on that list of dead.’
‘You credit them with great power and knowledge.’
‘Am I not correct? What is your experience of the men you seek?’
‘They have followed our investigation so closely that it seems they briefly became a part of it.’
‘Quite. I am merely a woman; you have the Metropolitan Police as your ally.’
‘But you are no street girl, madam. Surely they would not venture to kill one such as you, even if they managed to discern that you knew something.’
‘Mr Williamson – how little you know! I may wear this diamond as large as a grape; I may own four horses and stables; I may wear dresses whose cost would feed a family – a family such as I came from – for a year and more; I may have my box at the opera . . . but what am I? Who am I?’
‘Well . . .’
‘I am nobody. I am a dream, a promise, a prize. I have no name; I am a member of no august society; I exist as long as my beauty does. Wealthy men admire me in private and abhor me in public. Wealthy ladies condemn me in public and envy me in private. My death would make as few newspaper words as those poisoned street girls – probably fewer. I am an angel to few, an embarrassment to many, and a threat to most.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Power, as I am sure you understand, is more than mere wealth, Mr Williamson. It is birth. These men you seek have power, and I know enough to fear them.’
‘Who are “they”?’
‘If you do not already know that, I fear also for your safety.’
‘Madam . . . Mary – whatever prompted you to send that letter, let it guide you now. I understand that you are afraid, but you have started something that must be finished. You cannot withdraw. If your safety is already compromised, I see little advantage in sayi
ng nothing.’
‘Ha! “Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/ Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” Is that not it?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Do you not read Shakespeare, Mr Williamson?’
‘I find there is usually something else to do.’
‘You are a curious man.’
‘I am a man; I pretend no more or less. Who are “they”?’
‘Perhaps I have not made myself sufficiently clear . . .’
‘No – it is I who have not expressed myself adequately. Tomorrow we meet the men we believe to be behind the Holywell-street incident. By doing so, we put our lives at risk. Anything you could tell us about these people might be the difference between life and death . . . perhaps your death. Three days ago, I was led into a trap in which I was drugged and questioned under the influence of opium. I have no idea what I revealed . . .’
‘If that is a threat, it is not a particularly veiled one.’
‘It is a matter of fact. You have expressed a desire to aid me. Whatever the manner of that expression, I am still in need of the aid. Let us begin in another way: what is your interest? Why did you contact me? And, please, let us not speak of civic duty.’
‘You leave little room for manoeuvre.’
‘This is not a game, madam – one of those witty conversations at which nothing is risked. At least four people have been murdered as a result of this investigation: Mrs Colliver, Mr Jessop and a cab waterman named Joseph. Mr Sampson is another. And then there are the street girls poisoned with prussic acid . . . Ah . . . I see from your eyes that it is these latter deaths that are of primary interest to you.’
‘Very clever. You are indeed a pre-eminent detective.’
‘Tell me about these deaths.’
‘Very well, Mr Williamson. Very well. You understand that in my position I hear many things. This chamber has been the scene of more secrets than any parliamentary anteroom or confessional. Men talk, and I listen. It is what keeps me where I am.’
The Vice Society Page 29
