Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square (19 page)

“Tosh.”

We both laughed.

“I’ve no savings,” I said. “I’m in no position to be dabbling.”

“Look, old chap, I’m offering you them for a song.”

“Really. I can’t be gambling.” I paused for a moment, then said, as if it were a brilliant discovery, “It’s against my religion.”

Again, we both fell about, as if my foolish joke were the witticism of the year. When we had recovered ourselves, Coxhill wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. “Well, really. You Scotch! Cameron, old man, you’re the darnedest haggler I ever met. All right. Have the bloody things for free.”

“What?”

“Come along. I’m saying you can have them for nothing. A hundred of ’em. Value? God only knows. Now, what do you say to that? Will that see us right?”

“You’re too kind, man.” I shook my head warmly and gestured around us. “But it’s not my place to be receiving perquisites from your good self. I mean, there’s no need to buy me off!”

I laughed, as he gave me a look of the most exaggerated admiration. He clamped my arm in that vice-like grip again, as if he was holding on to my decency for dear life. “My dear fellow, you cannot know how admirable I find you. I’m in awe of your sacrifice, quite in awe. We’ve been through a rough trot of late, but still I couldn’t do it myself. Forego riches and consequence. Contribute to society at the basest level. It must be something akin to being a monk, would you say? Not that you’re holier than thou, but… Well, I have the most profound respect for the lot of you.”

A thought struck me as he sniffed valiantly. “I say, Roxton, old man. You don’t happen to know a fellow called Skelton, do you?”

“One of your lot, is he? Where would I have met him?” His eyes darted about, looking into the darkness behind me. “Ah, here comes the Academy.”

He turned, as a troupe of brightly dressed ladies began to circulate around the dim cellar. With a resounding chortle, Coxhill grabbed a buxom girl and sat her upon his knee, holding up his cards for her to kiss.

I suppose I was no longer quite myself when Madame Lorraine’s Academy arrived. For I soon ended up leaving with a wee fair-skinned girl. She took me up to a small back room. It must have been very late, as there was already a glimmer of light from the grubby window high up in the wall. All the details I cannot recall, nor do I wish to. I remember, though, she wouldn’t say a word at first. She had her hair pinned up, and I had the devil of a job to persuade her to let it down. I never saw such a pretty thing as those red-brown curls tumbling down over her bare shoulders. She said her name was Eloise. I don’t think that was in earnest, for she was about as French as I am. She washed herself unashamedly in front of me, before and after, and put on a cheap perfume, as if to cover her sins. Afterwards, she lay down exhausted and fell into a light sleep.

I rose in the light of early morning and hastened to put on my clothes – my own, not Coxhill’s – amazed to find I had had the presence of mind to keep the bundle with me. The poor girl awoke to see me in my uniform. She was seized by fear at first, then, when I had managed to calm her down, she pulled me back towards the bed.

“No,” I said softly. “I must be going.”

“Don’t worry. Your friend has paid in advance, sir, up till noon.”

“My friend?”

“Him with the filthy beard.”

I sat by her and stroked her hair until she dozed off again, her eyes shut tight. I looked at her, as my befuddled mind began to clear. My friend? He had made every effort to befriend me, showering me with attentions. As if he thought that I came from the upper echelons of Scottish society; that I had somehow given up hopes of inheritance and business in order to tackle the ills of society, like the Temperance people and the Society for the Redemption of Fallen Women. Yes, we seemed to get on well enough, though I had little expected to be befriended by his likes. Still, Coxhill was not such a bad egg after all. I must refrain, I told myself, from drawing conclusions on insufficient evidence and personal whim.

Yet a sense of shame washed over me as I slipped out into the soft morning light. I was galled to feel I had obliged myself to him. I tramped slowly towards the Yard, clutching Coxhill’s jacket. Disappointed in myself, I resolved to avoid him as far as possible, hoping the wind would blow the smell of smoke from my clothes, even if it was powerless to drive the fatigue from my face, or undo my blunder in accepting his disquieting largesse.

THE FAMILY MARX, AS RELATED BY MISS VILLIERS

I called unannounced at our bearded revolutionary’s apartments. Amidst a hubbub of wailing infants, his wife icily explained that he was out at a meeting.

“A political meeting?” I asked.

She gave me a look so frosty that I made haste to assure her I was a friend, interested in her husband’s work, even well disposed to it. (I felt this to be reasonable half-truth. His activist pamphlet is rather too modern to form part of my studies, but I found it striking, if a little awkward stylistically.)

The ice melted, and out poured her tale of woe. Their exile from Germany. Elation at the revolutions of 1848. Gloom as the uprisings were quenched all over.

“Social upheaval,” she said, with an air of long-suffering appeal, “may be sparked by a work of genius, such as Karl’s, but to stoke the fires of lasting change requires a lifetime of selfless dedication, study, and meetings upon meetings upon meetings.”

I accepted her bubbling invitation to step inside, deciding that this loquacious lady might be rather more indiscreet than her husband.

“It is a noble thing, Miss Villiers,” she said (I am translating, of course, from the German), “this spectre haunting Europe. To unite the workers of the world may be inevitable, as Karl tells me, but it is also terribly fatiguing, and such a cost of postage as you would scarcely believe.” She explained that they disseminated her husband’s work through sympathetic organisations and offshoot cells across the continent.

“Mr Marx’s publications must provide a steady income, surely?”

At that moment, several infants flocked into the room. Mrs Marx spoke to them rapidly in a dialect I could not follow. Out they went again, and she sat back down, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “Frankly, Miss, no.”

“I see. Can these organisations not raise money to help you?”

“Karl is adamant,” she replied, “that money raised from the proletariat must finance revolution, not our dinners. Mr Engels has secured offers of publication in American magazines, but Karl won’t hear of it.” She cast down her eyes. “In fact, if it was not for Friedrich’s kindness, and the success of his Manchester factory, we would have starved already.” The poor woman raised her hand to her face, stifling a sob. “Karl makes it so difficult for himself, writing the way he does. If only he would write a bestseller, like Mr Dickens. I feel sure he could.”

“I had not thought,” I said, surprised, “of Mr Dickens as Mr Marx’s equal.”

“Oh, Karl has the highest regard for him. He says that Mr Dickens has issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together.”

“But your husband’s reputation is beyond any popular novelist’s.”

“Karl has kudos, I know, Miss Villiers. But kudos does not pay the bills.”

Again the children flocked in. This time, she permitted them, and with military precision they gathered about her in a picturesque group. She looked up at me with forlorn eyes, and I finally realised that she was appealing to my generosity.

I had been trying to draw the conversation towards Berwick Skelton, and it was most awkward to be mistaken for a potential patron. I must turn her misapprehension to my advantage. “Rest assured, Mrs Marx, the legions who take inspiration in your sacrifices will doubtless come to your aid. Indeed, the man who introduced me to Mr Marx’s writings, a certain Berwick Skelton…” I paused, and sure enough, recognition lit up her face.

“You are involved in the Reform League?”

I gave a sort of equivocal quiver of the head.

“So nice a man. Such a pity. How is he?”

I blinked innocently. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”

“Still no sign of him at the League? Oh dear.”

I feigned a look of assenting concern.

She sighed. “We need them, tireless comrades such as he, to lead sympathetic bodies around the world. It is Karl’s belief that just a few selfless men of genius at the head of the proletariat could fashion the world anew.”

“And Mr Skelton?”

“That girl.” She made a face. “Did you know her? I suppose even the finest revolutionary minds can fall prey to temptation. It is fortunate that Karl’s weakness is for wine and not women. I expect him back from the tavern any moment, Miss Villiers. He will be pleased to meet you.”

At the prospect of the bearded revolutionary’s arrival, I panicked. Enough equivocal language, I decided. “Mrs Marx, you have been most kind to a poor unworthy student–”

“A student?” she said, her frosty tone returning. She looked me up and down, dismayed that she had wasted attentions upon me, clearly no benefactress. “I see. You must excuse me, then, but Karl will be angry if he finds the little ones still up. Do call again.”

THE HAYMARKET HOOFER

“Don’t you see?” said Miss Villiers, pouring a second cup of tea. “Every detail matters.”

She had sent a most persuasive note, hinting at grand discoveries made in Highgate. I bought her lunch in a Museum Street tea room. She entertained me with an unflattering portrayal of Mrs Marx. Although her discoveries were limited, her approach seemed most impressive, beside my debacle in the Rose and Crown. She quizzed me and quizzed me about the mockery I had incurred there until I could stand it no more. “What does it matter, what they said when they were laughing at me?”

“They mentioned the Haymarket–”

“Not exactly mentioned.”

“What did they shout? Tell me again.”

I sighed. “Ask the hoofers down the Haymarket, they said. But the man was laughing all over his face.”

“At his own audacity, perhaps. Hoofers are dancers, aren’t they? They have hydraulics at the Haymarket Theatre. Don’t you remember?” She looked at me triumphantly. “Mrs Marx hinted that our man had girl trouble, and your lot shouted about his fiancée. Add it all together and it may amount to something.”

“They also mentioned Charles Dickens and the Prince of Wales.”

“Maybe they are involved too.”

“Your imagination knows no limits,” I said.

She smiled. “What else? The Academy. What could they mean by that?”

I had not until then connected the man’s catcall with Madame Lorraine’s Academy. “A lot of gentlemen are Academaticians,” he’d said. I flushed. “I have no idea.”

“No matter. I will try the Reform League. You must go to the Haymarket.”

“Must I? And what if I am received as I was in Clerkenwell?”

She sighed. “What other avenues can we explore? The night porter at Euston?”

“Sacked. At Coxhill’s behest, I believe. They have no trace of him, which is galling as he actually spoke to our man.”

“The hospital matron?”

“Gone too.”

“And the ward book page with her. Strange. It’s not exactly that we can’t find people. More that, when we find them, we don’t know how to make them talk. Those men in the pub, for instance.”

“Said they didn’t know him.”

“But you didn’t believe them. Why should they lie?”

“People have a million reasons for lying.”

She flared her nostrils and gave me a penetrating look. “Maybe so. We must seek ways to persuade them not to.”

The manager at the Haymarket, a supercilious man with theatrical moustaches, kept me waiting for some time. Miss Villiers’ conviction had given me a much-needed jolt. Since my visit to Lord’s, I had been seized by a feeling of unholy impotence. Yet she might be right. I had been in a room full of people who all knew my man. Perhaps some of their jibes were more significant than I realised. If the Academy was not without sense, why not the other things? Miss Villiers had gone to Highgate on the most speculative off-chance, and it had borne fruit, if only a little. Standing in the foyer of the Haymarket Theatre, by a hoarding that proclaimed Shakespeare’s return, I went over my stratagems.

The manager’s face soured the moment I mentioned hydraulics. “I believe you have them installed in the theatre?”

“Did have. Bloody liability. Cost a fortune, never worked, went and burst.”

“An explosion?”

“At the bleeding finale. Gushing down off the safety curtain, like a river. Quite the precipitous evacuation, we had.”

I frowned. There was no way, I supposed, to find out if Coxhill was present at that mishap, as he had been at Euston, short of asking him. The other connection I could pursue here and now. “Was that a dancing show? I believe you have hoofers.”

“We’re under new management. Going upmarket, if you must know. No larking about with orchestras and that. All these new halls spending fortunes to outclass each other. With Shakespeare, you just need the odd clap of thunder, the odd lightning flash.”

“And the words, I suppose, which are cheap, at least.”