Death and the Harlot

by Death

  ‘Not for the law.’

  I looked up.

  ‘It’s that runner. Anyone would think he was sweet on you, the way he keeps calling.’

  ‘Mr Davenport is not sweet on me.’ I wondered why he was back so soon, though. I took my time dressing as decently as I could manage and made my way to the parlour.

  He had been left alone; the house’s inhabitants were either busy, asleep or out. Ma was nowhere to be seen. The servants didn’t know what to do with him. He was poring over a pile of papers at the table, sipping from a cup of tea. A strange expression crossed his eyes as I pulled up a chair and eased my aching body carefully into it; a flicker of concern, perhaps.

  ‘There’s a cup here – would you like some tea? It’s still hot.’

  He was offering me tea in my own home, but it was done in kindness, rather than impertinence.

  ‘Thank you.’ I moved to get up, but he motioned me to be still and poured it for me. ‘Thank you,’ I said again.

  He was quiet for a moment. So was I. I drank my tea and began to feel brighter. He continued to scan the papers in front of him, barely looking up. Presently, he said, ‘Is everything all right, Miss Hardwicke?’

  ‘Perfectly, Mr Davenport. It’s just warm enough.’

  The silence between us continued until my curiosity got the better of me and I tried to see what the papers were.

  ‘Can you read?’ he asked, as I craned my head.

  I could certainly read. Not only my own tongue, but French, Latin and even a little Greek, if pressed. I had spent many hours of my life compelled to be indoors, translating texts and all the while longing to be out in the sunshine, but he didn’t need to know that. I simply said, ‘I can read. What are we reading?’

  ‘These are the papers that you were so keen for us to find. Mr Reed’s papers.’

  I didn’t manage to suppress my gasp.

  ‘Where did you find them?’

  His nose wrinkled. ‘I sent one of our men to search the area immediately after Mr Reed was moved, he picked over the yard at the White Horse, but he found nothing. Then I sent Grimshaw over yesterday. He delayed in his task – I don’t know why – but finally made it to the tavern at first light this morning. He found a packet of papers lying near to the back wall. I can’t see how it was missed initially, but we have it now.’

  I leaned forward to see if I could read anything of interest. If this was Reed’s own hand, then it was not easy to discern. The pen was scratchy, and the letters formed badly. In some places, the ink had splattered. It surprised me that a man so particular in his business as Mr Reed was so lacking in care with his penmanship.

  Davenport watched as I picked up the papers and stared at the words.

  ‘What do you think, then?’

  ‘He wrote in a hurry, did George Reed. Which is strange, given the care he gave to his appearance and his trade.’

  ‘I agree. It seems to me that it is entirely reasonable to suppose, given the nature of the letters, that Reed rushed as he wrote. He hasn’t taken any care with his pen because he is dashing off these notes with speed.’

  I barely heard his comment because now, with one letter in my hand, I was reading what the words were saying. It was extraordinary and explosive stuff.

  ‘…I am sure you wouldn’t want him to know your secret… lies you tell… if it all became public… sordid truth… ten guineas and I can keep quiet for now…’

  This was blackmail. Someone was being blackmailed. I grasped at letters. Who was Reed blackmailing?

  Joshua Winchcombe. The gambler who, it became clear, was trying to hide his losses from his father.

  ‘He was blackmailing Mr Winchcombe?’ I looked up at him.

  ‘Not only Winchcombe, it seems. There are a number of people here,’ he said.

  He began sifting the papers to find evidence.

  ‘Um – here’s Mr Herring too.’

  ‘Mr Herring? Why? He seems a straight enough sort of person.’ Well, he was foolish and haughty, but that’s not unusual.

  ‘Take a look.’ He handed me a letter. Mr Herring was a man in peculiar difficulty. As I had already suspected, although recently married, he was not happily matched. His wife was engaged in intimate conversation with his own younger brother. This was a very difficult situation for poor Mr Herring. He could not expose his wife’s infidelity without bringing shame on his own family. He was turning a blind eye for the sake of loyalty to his parents. Mr Reed was threatening to share this delicious morsel of gossip with the newspapers.

  ‘Goodness me.’ They had lied to me. They had known Mr Reed before the party.

  ‘Indeed,’ nodded Davenport. ‘Suddenly we find people around who might have wanted Mr Reed out of the way.’ He picked up another letter. ‘Here’s your charming Mr Stanford, too.’

  ‘Charles?’ I grabbed the paper and read through a page even more ink-splattered than the rest. A youthful affair with a young woman had ended badly and she, fearing she was ruined, had tried to kill herself. Her family had protected her reputation, but Reed, somehow, had discovered the attempt on her own life. He was blackmailing Charles who, whether from a sense of guilt or lingering devotion, was paying to keep the suicide attempt a secret. How did Reed know such information? Was it true?

  Davenport patted the brown packet lying next to the letters. ‘It seems you were correct.’

  I frowned at the packet. Something wasn’t right. I gathered the scattered leaves into a neat pile and put them back into the parcel. The folds were heavily made, as if the papers had been there for a while.

  ‘Look.’

  ‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.

  Gently, I pressed the top of the parcel and it gave way. He nodded slowly, seeing what I meant. There was a gap of half an inch.

  ‘The packet isn’t complete,’ he said. ‘There are a number of pages missing. I wonder what was in them?’

  It was a tantalising thought.

  ‘But more importantly,’ I said, ‘who has the missing pages?’

  He picked up the packet and strewed the letters again over the table, as if they might give us the answer.

  There were pages filled with writing, and some with only a few words. There were blank pieces too. Davenport was trying to piece them together, to create whole letters from the incoherent mess in front of him. The brevity of some surprised me. Had Reed written more than once to his victims, pursued them for extra money?

  I picked up one page, that was simply an amount to be paid and a date for payment. I held the paper up to the window, hoping vainly that seeing it in better light would tell me something about the writer – or about the recipient. I was rather surprised that the daylight did reveal a clue, of a sort.

  Reed had written his letters with the pages on top of one another. I could make out the imprint of another letter, a previous note to someone else.

  ‘Look at this,’ I held it up for Davenport. ‘There’s something here; can you make out the words at all?’

  He took the note from me and held it up for himself. He frowned and swore under his breath. ‘His handwriting is not easy to read. This is impossible.’

  He tossed the paper on the table and went back to his work. I picked it up for another attempt. He was right: it was too difficult to read. One word, though, I could make out. I could see a capital T and a looping Y.

  ‘This says “Tommy”.’ I held it out to him again. Now he was interested.

  ‘Where? Show me.’ I pulled my chair closer to his and together we looked at the letter, held up to the light. Carefully, I pointed to the word I saw.

  He squinted at it. ‘I believe you’re right. It does say Tommy. It’s a great pity that we can’t read any more, but this does, at least, tell us that he was blackmailing Tommy Bridgewater too – which means Bridgewater lied to me.’

  It looked that way, although, without a letter, we didn’t know why.

  He scanned the table again and poked at another of the pages in front of him.


  ‘Even so, your friends are not the only ones with cause to dislike Mr Reed.’ He lifted the leaf and held it to my face. ‘Do you see another name you know, Miss Hardwicke?’

  I did. A small puff of air blew, unbidden, through my lips.

  ‘Sydney?’

  ‘There is quite a lot for your French bully to be bothered about, it seems.’

  I took the paper from his hand. Sydney, in whose company we all felt so confident and comfortable, was, according to the papers, a man who preferred the company of gentlemen to ladies. I had already guessed this (how else could he live in a bawdy house without being tempted?); but seeing the words in front of me was still alarming. Sydney had, Mr Reed observed, visited a molly house – a place that catered for his sort of tastes.

  How had Reed known this? Had he known Sydney before he had visited Berwick Street? It was all rather odd. I looked at the paper. It was not a letter, but merely a series of notes. The date at the top of the page was the day that I had met him – the day before our party.

  ‘This date here,’ I pointed it to Davenport, ‘it’s the day I met Mr Reed. He can’t have been blackmailing Sydney.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This isn’t a letter; it’s simply some notes about Sydney. Reed only met Sydney twice before he died. That means he hadn’t had chance to send him a letter or try to get money from him.’ That was how it appeared to me.

  ‘Hmm.’ Davenport wasn’t convinced. ‘It might not have needed a lengthy correspondence. If he had noticed Sydney when he visited this house and discovered a little about him then who is to say that he didn’t whisper a threat into the doorman’s ear as he handed over his coat?’

  It was a fair question.

  ‘How would he be able to make so many notes on only one visit?’ I didn’t see this.

  Mr Davenport shrugged.

  ‘Looking at these papers, I would imagine that Reed was quite used to noticing other people’s weaknesses. One look at Sydney would be enough – for a man who spent his time looking for flaws and imperfections in bolts of cloth. And once he found that one weakness then he would spend a reasonable amount of time asking around, building up his notes.’ He tapped the paper. ‘He could have discovered all of this in an afternoon and then dropped an insinuation on his way through the front door. As you’ve already observed, his writing reveals that he worked very quickly – scribbling as much information as he could in a short amount of time.’

  ‘I like him less and less.’

  ‘He does sound unpleasant, it’s true,’ Davenport agreed with a grimace. ‘Here was a man who, to all intents, was a respectable cloth merchant. His wealth, in part, though, must have come through the unhappiness of others – and his exploitation of that unhappiness. In Sydney’s case, he found something that, if discovered, would have not only carried embarrassing or pecuniary consequences, but potentially fatal ones as well.’

  Most girls I knew were happy to tolerate the poor mollies, even if we didn’t understand them. They weren’t taking our business after all – but sodomy is a hanging offence and anyone who risks their neck for a lover is to be admired.

  ‘Sydney wouldn’t kill, that I know.’

  ‘You don’t know what a man will do to save his own skin. Even good men act rashly if their life depends on it – and they think they will get away with it.’

  I shook my head. Not Sydney. He was vain, pompous and condescending, but not a murderer.

  ‘I’ll want to speak to him,’ Davenport said. ‘He wasn’t at the front door when I arrived. I still need to speak with the other gentlemen too.’

  There were voices in the hall. We had visitors. If Sydney wasn’t around to deal with them, and Ma was out, then the servants would want some help.

  ‘I’ll need to leave you now, sir.’ I put a hand on his arm and tried not to sound too weary.

  He gave me a sympathetic look, packed the letters into his coat and stood up.

  ‘I should go,’ he said. ‘Another house was ransacked last night. We’ve only just rounded up one gang of thieves, but there are whisperings that Swann’s men really are in London, so we’re looking for them as well as a murderer. I’ll come back later to speak to Sydney.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It was late afternoon before I made it back to the parlour. Lucy had been shopping, so Polly, Emily and I had managed the guests between us. Men who arrive early in the day are usually desperate and quick about their business. There’s not really much entertaining to be done with such creatures: they are simple in their tastes, swift in their activity and you can charge as much as you wish. The later crowd are more discerning and need flattery, wine and the sort of preening, coquettish behaviour for which we Soho ladies are famed. They are more difficult to please and try to haggle the prices. Lucy: precious, beautiful and utterly mercenary, came into her own with the evening crowd. She left the easy afternoon boys to us and would swish home at dusk, hike up her rates, and have them all in her thrall.

  Davenport had returned. Someone had taken pity on him: I saw the remains of bread and cheese next to the pile of letters he was still reading.

  ‘Have you caught the Swann gang already, then?’ I asked, pinching a crust from his plate.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you having more luck with the papers?’

  ‘There are one or two comments of interest, yes,’ he said. ‘You should know, I found that Mr Reed was about to start notes on you.’

  ‘On me?’ I sat down with a bump, coughing on the bread. ‘He was going to blackmail me? About what?’

  ‘I don’t know that. I only found a sheet of paper with your name at the top, underlined, but with no comments.’

  ‘Let me see it. Please.’

  He took it from the top of the pile.

  There it was, in his dreadfully scribbled hand: my name.

  I stared at it for a moment and then at Davenport.

  ‘I have no idea what the notes would say. I mean, I can hardly bring any further shame on my family, can I?’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  He favoured me with a quizzical expression but decided not to press me about my family. Instead, he smiled a little and shook his head.

  ‘No, probably not. Perhaps he realised that. Perhaps that’s why there are no comments.’

  Or he hadn’t identified my weakness. I shivered.

  ‘What?’ He saw it.

  ‘Nothing. Just a draught.’

  Perfectly timed, the door opened, and Sydney came in, followed closely by Mrs Farley.

  ‘I understand that you wish to speak with Sydney,’ she bristled at the sight of Mr Fielding’s man, once again, in her house.

  Davenport stood up and bowed to her and to Sydney, who was standing very close to her, like a terrified dog. His tall frame, usually so impressive, was cowed and bent.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Farley, I won’t take much of his time, or yours, but I am here again to ask questions about a man who was murdered the other night.’

  ‘That dreadful Mr Reed, Sydney,’ Ma explained to Sydney as if he were a child. He already knew that Reed had been killed.

  Davenport motioned Sydney towards an empty chair. Mrs Farley hovered.

  ‘You don’t say anything you don’t want to, Sydney.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Farley.’ Davenport was becoming impatient. ‘I am sure that Sydney, as a grown man, is perfectly capable of answering all that is necessary.’

  I reached over and squeezed Sydney’s hand. His eyes were wide and fearful.

  ‘I have some papers here that belonged to the dead man.’ Davenport sifted through them, reaching the notes he was looking for. ‘It appears that Mr Reed was in the habit of discovering information about people – information that they would rather keep hidden – and using it to blackmail them.’

  ‘I knew he was a bad apple,’ Ma sniffed.

  ‘Sydney, do you know what blackmail is?’ I thought it best to check. He is French, and alt
hough his English is splendid, I wanted to know that he had understood.

  He shrugged. ‘Of course. Blackmail is not only an English matter.’

  ‘Good,’ said Davenport. ‘Well you’ll understand why I am asking you about Mr Reed.’

  Sydney looked puzzled and shook his head.

  Davenport pulled out the notes Reed had made about Sydney. I could see Ma squinting over his shoulder, trying to read them.

  ‘Mr Reed met you only briefly, Sydney, but he understood something of your nature immediately,’ he looked down at the notes. ‘Mr Reed made comments to himself about you and your… your unnatural desires for other men.’

  ‘Mr Davenport! We’ll have none of that in this house, please.’ Ma was furious. Sydney was a favourite – and a very good employee. The thought of losing him on account of his habits was agitating.

  Sydney, on the other hand, was nonchalant.

  ‘I visit. I look. I do not touch, Mr Davenport; do you understand me?’

  ‘That’s what they all say.’

  ‘With good reason, monsieur. But it is true, for me at least.’

  ‘Regardless of what you do or do not touch, Sydney, Mr Reed guessed or knew that you visited certain notorious establishments. He wrote all of this down. My question to you is this: did Mr Reed send you a letter suggesting that you might pay him to keep silent about the molly houses?’

  ‘No, monsieur, he did not. There was no letter.’

  ‘Then did he, when he visited the house for the masked party, make a comment to you as he arrived? A quiet word in your ear as you took his coat?’

  ‘Non.’ Sydney’s face fixed itself into a scowl. He was probably lying, but Davenport would not be able to contradict him.

  ‘Very well.’ Davenport gathered up the notes and put them back into his coat.

  ‘Is that it?’ Ma asked. ‘You have no more questions for him?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can search his room for a letter, of course, but Sydney has told me there is none. I might not believe him, but I have no proof that Reed made threats of blackmail as he came in through the door the other night. I have no need to ask any further questions.’