The Hellfire Conspiracy (20 page)

I
HAVE ACCEPTED THE FACT THAT, AS IT IS MY LOT
in life to be Cyrus Barker’s assistant, I should often wake up in some degree of pain. If I wasn’t injured during a case, such as when I was nearly crucified a year and a half before or blown off a bridge, to give but two examples, then there were the occasional sessions in the basement where he attempted to teach me Chinese wrestling. If I had become a connoisseur of pain, the morning after the fight with Palmister Clay, I was treated to a feast.

I inspected my face with the aid of my shaving mirror. Overnight, my lips had swollen, as had the brow that contained the stitches. It was a whitish lump, surrounded by a ring of purple, with outlying areas in a kind of gaudy yellow. My face was sporting colors I’d never seen before, and I was amazed at how a subtle swelling here and there could make a fellow look almost unrecognizable.

Mac tsk-tsked over my face as if I were a child who had covered himself in paint. My lips seemed to belong to someone else. They did not want to quite open for the roll Mac brought for breakfast, nor did they want to completely close for the coffee that accompanied it. All my teeth felt loose, and I prayed that that would change, as young women are not attracted to toothless men, no matter what their age.

Barker had attended the fight, stayed up all night, and was ready for another day. When he saw me, one brow went up and then one side of his mustache. It is a sad day when an employer considers the sight of his employee battered and stitched to be comical.

“Perhaps it would be best if you took the morning off,” he said. “I had nothing definite planned, merely to push until someone pushes back. I shall return for lunch.”

He carried himself off. Mac took up his position at the window, notebook in hand, noting arrivals at the C.O.S. and suspicious persons in the area. Since I was there and he was lonely, he announced each person’s arrival as if he were a footman at Buckingham Palace.

I alternated between reading Hardy and aching. I felt like a machine that had been assembled incorrectly, with half the muscles in my body pulled too tight and the other half too loose. Therefore, I did the only logical thing: I complained.

“It hurts when I move.”

“Then don’t move. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Mac took his duties, in my opinion, far too seriously.

“You know very well I’ve been sleeping all night and I’m scheduled to sleep again this evening. Do you expect me to sleep ’round the clock?”

“It might help. Nothing is better for healing the body than sleep. Perhaps if you try sleeping, your face will stop swelling so.” He directed his attention outside. “I see Dr. Fitzhugh is just getting in.”

“He’s a funny cove,” I commented. “There he is, an unmarried man, working among marriageable girls like Miss Potter and Miss Levy, and he avoids them as if they were lepers. There’s something suspicious about it.”

“Perhaps not,” Mac said. “It is possible he’s not inclined to matrimony. My impression of him was that he’s merely diffident.”

“He’s a bit odd.”

“Just because he’s not like you, with your nose in the air like a pointer after every woman’s scent, you act like he’s an enigma. He’s only an enigma to you.”

“All right, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to cast aspersions upon his good name. And as far as I’m concerned—”

Just then the door on the ground floor creaked open. Mac jumped up and rooted among his copious trunks for his shotgun. Less concerned, and far less able to move, I made certain my Webley was still tucked between the mattress and the wall.

It took a moment or two before our visitor showed himself on the stairs. Soho Vic shambled up casually in his baggy coat. His dark hair, as always, pointed in every direction, and he was rolling the end of a cigar in his mouth.

“’Allo, fatheads. Is the master about?”

“Mr. Barker is occupied at present,” Mac replied frostily.

I’m perfectly fine with being referred to as “fathead” from time to time, but being a butler has given Mac exaggerated opinions of decorum. He arched his brows, and his delicate nostrils flared. It was a comfort to know someone despised Vic even more than I.

“And here I am ready to give the case into his hands. I figure with you two gents sittin’ on yer backsides and hangin’ on his coattails, he might need some actual help.”

Mac was going to either give him a good talking to or blow his head off, either of which would have suited me, but I was curious and got a word in first.

“What do you mean, give it into his hands?”

“Don’t know as I should tell you now,” he replied, looking at his grimy nails as if they’d just been buffed and polished. “I’ve had me feelin’s hurt. I feel less than welcome.”

“You’ll feel less than alive if you are not forthcoming with the information.”

“Don’t get riled. I s’pose I do owe you. You won me money last night. Twice.”

It took a minute for the import of what he was saying to sink in. I was a bit slow that morning. “So you bet against me in the main bout.”

“Yes, and for you in the second. You looked as if you’d finally gotten your mettle up and were ready to fight. I hadn’t realized till just now that you’d boxed the entire night with your face.”

“That’s very humorous. You’re a regular Little Tich. So, out with it. What have you got?”

“What I’ve got is a woman drinking herself into the soak of her life on the strength of havin’ sold her daughter this morning to a bloke for five pounds outright.”

“Where? When?” I asked.

“This morning, not five streets from this very spot. More important is who.”

“That was my next question.”

“I’ll bet. Well, it was an old procuress named Jarrett who done the actual buying, but she left the mother in no doubt as to the ultimate purchaser.”

“Who was it?” Mac and I said at once.

Always one to savor having someone off guard, the young street urchin pulled out a vesta and made a show of lighting the cigar, which looked as if it cost more money than all the clothing he wore put together, shoes included. He let out a mouthful of smoke into the air.

“Just William T. Stead, is all.”

Mac was off his stool and I upright on the mattress, all my muscles seizing up again. “Stead!”

“That’s a nice little act you two have, sayin’ the same thing at the same time. Reckon you could make a killin’ at the Alhambra.”

“Barker needs to hear this,” I said to Mac. “Perhaps I should look for him.”

“He said he’d be back at lunch. The only place I can say he isn’t is the Charity Organization Society.”

“Which pub is she in?” I asked Soho Vic.

“She’s been crawlin’ since they opened the doors. Already kicked out of the Juniper Lane Gin Shop. She’s holdin’ court at the Rosy Crown now, and will for a while if they don’t chuck her out on her straw hat, as well.”

“Thanks.” I tossed him a sovereign. It was Barker’s standard price for information. Vic caught and pocketed it.

“Got what I came for. Ta-ta, laddies.” Soho Vic trundled down the stairs, whistling the lastest music hall song.

“I’m going to kill him one of these days,” I contented myself with saying.

“Not if I get there first,” Mac replied. “Drat! Someone just went in and I didn’t see who it was. That street arab has thrown off my records.”

“I should go looking for him—the Guv, I mean. He’ll want to know this. If Stead should prove to be openly buying children in Bethnal Green, then he could quite possibly be Miacca himself. Or could he be doing it to corroborate the white slaver stories.”

“That would be scandalous,” Mac said. “I mean, doesn’t Stead have a reputation as a reformer and a brilliant newspaperman? If this should be true…I mean, it’s unthinkable.”

“I’m not one who ascribes weaknesses to the masses,” I answered. “Even great men can have their flaws. In fact, it would take a strong mind to come up with a plan even Scotland Yard and Cyrus Barker are unable to foil. I really should look for him.”

“But where? He could be anywhere in the Green or even out of it. You can’t just walk the area. If you go straight down Globe Road, he’s liable to come in from Green Street looking for you. It’s best for you to stay here. Hallo! This is interesting.”

“What?” I asked, sitting up.

“Your Miss Potter is giving a gentleman a piece of her mind.”

“A gentleman?”

“Yes, I think it was the one who slipped in a few minutes ago. Middle-aged fellow with a monocle.”

Despite my protesting limbs, I pulled myself to the window and peered over the sill.

“My word,” I said. “She’s really laying in to him.”

I was spying upon the poor girl, but I could not help it. She was in the midst of a strong argument with the fellow I’d seen at the Egyptian Hall. They were outside the charity building, just out of earshot, and she was shaking a finger at him and speaking animatedly. The gentleman, if I dare call him that, had his arms crossed and responded to her every now and then coolly. He was unflappable. I felt despite all her words and gestures, he was in control of the situation. What was going on? Who was this chap and what was he to her? What on earth were they arguing about?

“I suppose it’s her father,” Mac stated.

I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone.

“No doubt he prefers she give up this socialist nonsense and come home.”

“You think it nonsense?” I asked.

With a flounce, Beatrice turned and marched back into the building. This was a side of her I had not seen and did not wish to see again, not if that finger was waving in my face. The gentleman took out his watch and consulted it, then turned, raised his hat to a man passing by, and walked down Globe Road. The man to whom he had raised his hat was Cyrus Barker.

Below, the door squealed and I heard the Guv’s steady tread upon the stair. He came up and stood at the top, staring at us.

“What has happened?” he asked.

“Who did you speak to in the street, sir?” I asked. “We just witnessed an argument between him and Miss Potter.”

“It was quite heated,” Jacob Maccabee put in.

“Was it the gentleman you saw at the Egyptian Hall?” the Guv asked.

“It was.”

“That is Joseph Chamberlain, the MP, leader of the radical party.”

I turned to Mac. “So much for your father theory.”

“He could be a friend of the family,” our factotum maintained. “Perhaps her father objects to her being in such a dangerous area and sent a family friend to make his wishes known.”

“She spoke awfully heatedly to him,” I argued. “That’s not the way a girl usually speaks to her father’s friends.”

“But she’s one of those women who sets propriety at naught.”

“Is that all, gentlemen?” Barker asked, ending the discussion, which could have gone all day unresolved.

“No, sir,” I answered. “Vic’s just been here. An agent working for Mr. Stead purchased a child from her mother this morning for the princely sum of five pounds.”

“That is news. If you wish to accompany me, you had better get dressed.”

In the hansom that took us to Northumberland Street, Barker appeared to be off in his own private world. The actual solving of the case, the tracking down of Miacca, was Barker’s doing, though I knew someday I would be required to attempt such solutions myself. Had it really been Stead all along, killing those girls and sending us taunting messages? I was content to let Barker discern the mystery.

In Northumberland Street, the Guv passed one of his agency cards to a clerk of the
Pall Mall Gazette.
After five minutes’ delay, we were shown into Stead’s office. The editor himself was behind his desk, which was covered in papers, messages, telegrams, rival newspapers, notes, a wrapper containing half a sandwich, and a tankard of stout. Stead did not look like a fugitive ready to leave for the Continent any time soon.

“Where is the child?” Barker demanded. “The one you purchased from her mother for five pounds.”

“Ah. You mean Eliza Armstrong. Sweet girl. Yes, she and the woman who purchased her for me are on their way to Dover.” He consulted his watch from his waistcoat pocket. “They should arrive in half an hour or so.”

I could not believe my ears. Stead was admitting everything to us.

“And what shall become of them, then?” my employer demanded.

“Oh, the child is to be spirited to a secluded house in the French countryside owned by the Salvation Army. They are helping me in this endeavor. Won’t you gentlemen have a chair?”

The Guv and I sat down.

“What you have done today will become known—” my employer said.

“Oh, I shall announce it in the
Gazette
soon. I plan a special supplement. I shall call it ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.’ I’ll confess everything freely.”

“You shall go to jail for it,” Barker warned.

“Oh, most certainly. My solicitor says I will be lucky to get less than six months. But that was not my purpose. There are easier ways to get into jail.”

“You mean to force the bill raising the age of consent.”