Theirs Was The Kingdom (42 page)

3

Deborah Avery, putting the finishing touches on a master report to Mr. Stead, her editor, was not a textbook fighter. Her new profession did not rely on textbooks, preferring, indeed demanding, individual initiative. For all that, it had rules and she was learning them. Rule One was to discard the orthodox in favour of the unorthodox. Rule Two, to take nothing on trust. Rule Three was to be devious when assembling material but direct when reducing that material to words. For W.

T. Stead, crusader extraordinary, was not, as one might have assumed, a romantic. Stead dealt in facts and had a notorious impatience with theories unsupported by facts. “I did not send you to Brussels as an evangelist,” he had written testily, when Deborah added a page or two of reflections to one of her weekly despatches. “Think of yourself—if you are tempted to self-dramatise—as a professional spy.
Use any girl you interview
as a source of information that might, conceivably, give us a back-door key into the enemy’s camp.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR STRENGTH ON PITY.
Laws are not changed for compassionate reasons but by the presentation of facts used to mobilise public opinion. Eyes we can always use, Miss Avery. But never eyes blurred by tears.”

The snub had upset her at the time, but she got over it. He was right, of course. It simply did not do to identify too closely with the individual on an assignment of this kind.

She had been prepared, during her briefing and her trial investigations in British garrison towns and dockyard ports, for a sorry picture, but nothing as cynically evil as she found here among Continental businessmen who were sometimes ready to hint of their experiences, or in the horrific stories Ned Gordon told her from his closer look at the brothels and, above all, from her gentle but relentless questioning of Katie Doherty, a fifteen-year-old Irish waif, whom they had succeeded in smuggling out of a Lille brothel across the border, passing her off as a travelling maid, and sending home.

Katie’s story was typical of several hundred British girls domiciled in Dutch, French, and Belgian licensed houses. Born in a Dublin slum, she had crossed to Liverpool about a year before and applied for a post of living-in housemaid advertised in
The Sunday Companion.
Her fare to London had been sent north, and, in high glee at having found a billet within days of leaving home, she had reported to a Mr. Eversley, who introduced himself as the steward of a wealthy English family at present on holiday at Spa.

At that time Katie did not even know Spa was in a foreign country, but she had no reason to suspect the gentlemanly Mr. Eversley when he proposed a shopping expedition in order to fit her out with what he called travelling clothes, suitable to her situation with a fashionable family who spent much of their time abroad. It had, she admitted, struck her as curious that housemaids in foreign parts were expected to dress like music-hall artistes, and she also questioned the appearance of a doctor, whom Mr. Eversley had called in to examine her before she travelled on to Dover and caught the Calais packet. But Eversley explained that the medical examination was a formality concerned with her entry into a foreign country, and was usually carried out this side of the Channel to avoid fuss on arrival in Belgium. She was met at Calais and escorted on to Brussels by a woman who spoke no English, so that it was not possible to ask further questions until she found herself at a
pension
in charge of yet another courier, who must have been an agent for domestic servants, for he had eight awaiting despatch to identical British families living abroad.

That same night her suspicions were aroused by a second medical examination, but her protests were brushed aside and she was told she would be returned to London immediately unless she submitted and signed a paper stating that the inspection had been carried out with her consent. The paper, she told Deborah, was printed in French. Katie, who could not even write English, was told to make her mark at the foot of the page.

From that moment what had been a puzzling adventure became a nightmare. With two other bewildered girls from Ipswich, she was taken by cab to another establishment where all her belongings, save the new clothes bought in London, were confiscated. She was made to drink two glasses of wine with her supper, so that her memory of what occurred that same night was blurred; although, despite the fumes of the wine, she soon realised that she was now caught in a net from which escape was all but impossible. She remembered a perfumed, middle-aged man coming to her room and endeavouring to get into bed with her, but she was a strong, spirited girl and put up such a fight that he eventually left without violating her. Almost at once, however, one of the women couriers appeared and read her a severe lecture in broken English, saying that her purpose here was to entertain any gentleman who presented himself, even if he was sufficiently playful to want to share her bed. After that she was locked in and left without food or drink for twenty-four hours, until one of the Ipswich girls brought her some food and wine and told her she had no alternative but to cooperate with the people who kept the house. The other girl, it seemed, had succeeded in escaping down a drainpipe and had sought the protection of the police, but her enterprise did not appear to have helped her much. She was now back in the house, with a suspended gaol sentence over her head, having been charged at a night court with attempting to run off with clothes and trinkets that did not belong to her. She had been told by the magistrate that she had signed a contract to work in the establishment for six months in exchange for bed, board, and tips, and that her situation there was regarded as legal by the Belgian authorities.

After that Katie and both the Ipswich girls made the best of what could not be altered and after a month or so began to adjust to the life. Eventually Clara, the girl who had escaped, fell ill and was taken away, and they had heard nothing of her since. The tips were generous and Katie had accumulated several hundred francs during her four months’ stay at the place. She estimated that during that period she had “entertained,” as she put it, about two hundred gentlemen.

“It was scary at first, miss,” she told Deborah cheerfully, “but most of ’em use you kindly, and soon you get to thinking of nothing except how much they’re going to leave, over an’ above what they pay the Missus downstairs. They didn’t hurt me, not after the first of ’em that is, and some was so drunk that you could have gone through their pockets while they was at it but I never did. I got used to it quicker than most, until that Swede happened along, that is.”

The Swede, it seemed, had made Katie want to try and regain her liberty. He was a big, grey-haired commercial traveller in haberdashery, who thrashed her unmercifully when she refused to submit to practices that revolted her. This brought her into opposition with the hostess, who said that it was her duty to accommodate all clients, whatever their demands. It was on this account that Katie enlisted the help of a young, English-speaking regular who, for the sum of one hundred and thirty-five francs representing half of her savings, put her in touch with the British consul, who at once passed her on to Mrs. Butler, without making a single comment on her adventures.

Katie Doherty, Deborah learned, was extremely lucky. Other case histories had less tidy endings. Letty Burrows, for instance, a girl from Bristol, was enlisted by the same Mr. Eversley as a governess. Letty could read and write, and came from a respectable family. When she understood what was expected of her she jumped from a three-storey window and broke her neck. Nothing concerning the tragedy appeared in the Brussels newspapers. Jill Hardcastle, a Yorkshire girl, who was only fourteen on arrival, became pregnant and was taken away and disappeared as completely as the Ipswich girl. A Scots girl, whom Katie knew as Flora, took to the bottle and one night went berserk, wrecking one of the salons before being frogmarched to gaol by two gendarmes, summoned by the management. Currently, Katie believed, Flora was serving a six months’ sentence in Malines.

Deborah sifted most of these stories and sent the bare bones of them to Stead in her weekly despatches, but all the detailed information she gleaned from the Irish girl, from contacts among men whose names and addresses she had obtained in her role as Swann’s Continental representative and, above all, information supplied by a certain Father Ambrose at the church she attended, went into a bulky master file that she kept hidden in the lining of a travelling bag. Only Ned Gordon and Mrs. Butler knew of its existence, for it was deemed too dangerously comprehensive to be sent through the Belgian mails.

The file represented her achievements over here and in a modest way she was proud of it. She knew Stead well enough to realise that it was her diploma into his good graces and that its appearance on his desk would ensure her a permanent engagement on the staff of the
Pall Mall Gazette.

As the file grew so did her confidence and she took to making decisions of her own, without consulting Ned Gordon or Mrs. Butler, who were often out of touch when information came her way. Thus it was that she established contact, through an address given to her by Katie Doherty, with a minor police official, who turned out to be surprisingly helpful. He said that he could introduce her to one of his seniors, anxious to put a stop to the introduction of foreign whores into his country. There was a condition, however. The English lady would understand that both he and his superior would be compromised unless their names were kept a close secret. Any information forthcoming would be passed to her in her own rooms, and if the lady cared to make an appointment for ten o’clock that same evening, a Monsieur Sicard, the senior officer concerned, would call on her and make a significant contribution to her dossier.

Ideally a lead that promised to be as helpful as this demanded the presence of a reliable witness, but Ned Gordon was not expected back from Malines until after midnight, whereas Mrs. Butler was keeping a Paris appointment with the Salvationist, Mrs. Booth, and would not be available for forty-eight hours. She said, “You can depend absolutely on secrecy, m’sieur. If we compromised people who helped us our information would be limited to gossip. Am I to assume you would name officials, police officials?”

“At least one, and very highly placed,” the man said, and then, with a smile that she thought condescending, “ To be honest, mademoiselle, the information is of a personal nature, and is almost certainly being divulged for personal and political reasons. We Belgians are not attracted to moral crusades. Would that make a difference?”

“No difference at all. The information is all that we are interested in. Why should we protect men of that kind? At the moment, however, my colleagues are not in Brussels. Could your source call at my lodging two nights from now?”

“No,” the man said, “that is quite impossible. M. Sicard’s duties take him to Louvain tomorrow and after that he has appointments in The Hague. It is tonight or not at all.”

“He would be prepared to talk to me personally?”

“Why not? It was you who came seeking information. Might I ask who gave you this address, mademoiselle?”

“I told you we never disclose our sources of information.” He smiled and nodded. “I am glad you gave me that answer, mademoiselle. Had it been otherwise the appointment would not have been kept.”

4

She told the aged concierge she was expecting a male visitor at ten o’clock. He did not seem to find it strange that she, an unmarried woman, should entertain a man at that hour; he merely shrugged and took a pull at the bottle he kept on the floor of his cubbyhole. She reflected then how lucky they had been to find an apartment with such a phlegmatic custodian. A younger, more alert man, and any woman, old or young, would have been interested by the mysterious comings and goings at all hours of the day and night in the Englishwoman’s apartment, but this old ruin had never shown the slightest interest in his tenants, not even when he was pocketing their tips.

She had her meal, built up the fire, and entered up her diary and file, returning them both to their hiding place inside the lining of her bag and restitching the canvas, as she did on every occasion. When a knock sounded on her door, however, she realised that M. Sicard had not used the lift but the back stairs and cautiously at that, for she had been watching at the window and had not seen anyone turn into the alley leading to the rear of the premises.

She was surprised at his elegance and comparative youth. He was wearing a well-fitting swallow-tail coat of dark blue, tight strap-under trousers of a lighter shade of blue, suede gloves, and a bowler with a curved brim. He was handsome, too, in a suave, aquiline way, with a well-trimmed moustache, an Imperial tuft, and unusually light blue eyes that were disconcerting, for there was patronage in the glance he gave her as they shook hands, an action he performed without removing his glove. He laid his hat and silver-handled rattan stick on a chair just inside the door and advanced to the fire, spreading his hands as though glad to see the blaze. He then glanced at the curtains, nodding approval at the fact that they were closely drawn, but as she was shutting the door he said, over his shoulder, “Please, mademoiselle. I would prefer it left ajar. You appear to be alone. I would not like to compromise a lady.”

“No one else lives on this floor,” she said. He flashed her a smile, saying, “Servants use the stairs and corridor and servants gossip, mademoiselle. What we have to say will be said discreetly, I hope. It should not take long.”

She left the door ajar. His courtesy reassured her. She said, “I shall not take notes, m’sieur. That way you are not likely to be compromised either. You know the purpose of my presence here. Mine and Mrs. Butler’s?”