K Jeter - Infernal Devices

Lord Bendray's chin wrinkled below his child-like pout, as though he were enduring the refusal of a playfellow to come to a birthday fete. "Well," he said, gazing stoically out the window, "I do hope you'll be able to see your way clear."

"I'm sure," said Scape heavily, "that Mr Dower will give it every consideration." He leaned closer to me, displaying my pallid reflection in his dark spectacles.

There was no further conversation; I was let off with my bundle of clothing in front of my shop, and the brougham clattered hastily away. Before I could turn my key in the lock, I heard a sharp yapping from behind. I turned and saw Fexton's terrier, somewhat dust-covered from running behind the brougham, looking up from the pavement. Its tongue lolled panting from the side of its mouth as its bright, expectant gaze held on me.

"Poor wretch," I murmured as I bent to scratch behind its up-pricked ear; the animal wriggled in pleasure. I was not alone in having had a tortuous odyssey through the night. The dog had been clever enough to transfer its innate loyalties to me once it had perceived that its master Fexton had been murdered; then that faithfulness had drawn it along to every station to which I had been forced. No doubt it had been waiting outside the gaol when I had been released.

"Well, then; come on." I pushed the shop door open and bade the animal enter. "Fellow campaigners owe some civility to each other, I suppose."

Creff hurried downstairs to greet me. "Thank the heavens you're back, sir! Most worried, I was… when they came and told me – what's that?" He peered down at my companion, busily engaged in scratching himself with a hind leg.

"That, I have been informed, is a bell-dog. Find him something to eat, will you? I'm sure the poor creature is famished." I shuffled past him and laid my hand on the railing of the stairs. "And leave the shutters down; we shan't be opening today. I'll be retiring to my bed for some time." I shifted the bundle under my arm and wearily pulled myself up the first step.

"Your pardon, sir – but there's someone here as wants to see you."

I halted and looked back at him. "Here? Surely you turned any callers away-"

"Oh, no, sir; I tried, but I couldn't; she was very form a-double, you might say."

A formidable woman, here, to see me; my gaze travelled up the stairs to my parlour door. For a moment I quailed, thinking that perhaps Miss McThane had somehow managed to be transported from Lord Bendray's brougham where I had last seen her. "Did she give a name?" I asked.

"A Mrs Trabble, sir. She wouldn't state her business. Said it was a matter of some… ahem…" His voice sank to a whisper. "… delicacy."

I could well imagine. I could feel the blood draining out of my face as I contemplated the prospect of confronting such a visitor. Mrs Augustina Trabble, in her role as founder and leader of the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice, had made considerable impact of late, both in London society and in the popular press. Rumours of her assaults upon the titled habitues of London's demi-monde – the result of her moral outrage and complete fearlessness – were rife; had she not in fact confronted the Prince of Wales himself in his box at the El Dorado music-hall in Leicester Square, and upbraided him for the poor example he had made of himself to the lower classes? (Other stories went so far as to attribute the fire that made smouldering ashes of the establishment to her doing.) There was likely not a cigar divan in the whole city where her name was not cursed by swells impatient with her interference in the pursuit of their sordid pleasures.

But what did such a daunting figure have to do with me? I had no idea. Perhaps – the best that my poor tired brain could imagine – merely a request for a donation to her organization's good works? The installation of a gaslight in the alley behind the shop, the better to discourage its use as a rendez-vous both romantic and mercantile in nature? There was, unfortunately, but one way to find out; with faltering tread, I mounted the stairs.

"Mrs Trabble." I closed the door behind me. "I'm honoured-"

"Sit down, young man," she said sternly, indicating the chair across from her.

Her intimidating gaze skewered me to the faded horsehair upholstery. A large woman, in unornamented black bombazine; there seemed to be enough of her great bosomed presence to make two or three such as myself; a fierce square jaw, as though a block of granite had been interposed between the brim of her feathered hat and her high lace collar, and a grim visage chiselled therefrom – in all, a person of some reckoning, even beyond her reputation. I sat, unable to do otherwise.

"Reports have come to my attention." Her large hands folded themselves on the reticule in her lap. "Disturbing reports; most disgusting reports, if I may say so."

"Reports? Of – of what?"

"Of your behaviour, Mr Dower." Her chin thrust itself towards me, like the sharp prow of a warship. "Your little… adventures. For far too long, your kind has believed that the night affords you the anonymity to pursue and indulge in the filthiest of practices; well, you may disabuse yourself of that notion as of this moment, Mr Dower. There is no security for the sybarite in the darkness; the Ladies Union has vigilant agents in all corners of the city, and all share my abhorrence at the mischief of your bestial tribe. You may rest assured of that."

I stared at her in astonishment. "I have no idea what you're speaking about," I protested.

"I think you know very well, Mr Dower." Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks of loathing. "Will you attempt to deny that you have been heard seeking directions to certain establishments of ill repute, kept by a certain Mollie Maud? Establishments of a nature even more sinister than the usual sinks of vice – were you not intent on seeking dalliance with the infamous green girls?"

For a moment I couldn't remember where I had heard the name she had spat at me; then the voice echoed in my memory, of the cabby that had first agreed to take me to Wetwick. "No," I said after the moment's confusion. "That's entirely untrue…"

"You know nothing of this villainous woman's enterprise?"

I shook my head in mute denial.

"And the green girls – I suppose you maintain ignorance on that distasteful subject as well?"

The phrase had also been spoken by the cabby. "I've heard the name, but-"

Mrs Trabble snorted in disgust. "That admission alone bespeaks your guilt. If you had kept to the paths of virtue as diligence and a proper upbringing should have dictated, such a topic would be completely beyond your ken." She stood up, the stiff bombazine of her dress rustling like distant storm clouds. "I take it that you are not prepared to confess your intimate knowledge of these matters; that you intend to mask your shame with a brazen charade of innocence. You'll derive scant comfort from it. The members of the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice have striven to our utmost to stamp out these heinous practices of which you're so fond, and I can assure you that your own transgressions will not escape notice."

I rose to follow her. "Really – you must be mistaken."

She turned to glare at me from the head of the stairs. "Good day, Mr Dower," she said frostily. "You shan't have long to wait."

The veiled threat, delivered with such authority, left me rooted to the spot. Distantly, I heard her curt bark to Creff downstairs, the shop door opening, and her sweeping exit.

This last encounter, on top of all else that had happened, surfeited me to exhaustion. I found my bed and toppled into it, sinking into a blackness more comforting than the moiling thoughts that filled my battered skull.

I was roused into that desolate condition, familiar to anyone who has ever fallen asleep in daylight and woken in darkness; that bleak, entombed feeling somehow tinged with both guilt and self-pity. A stifling dream of falling under black water ebbed away as I sat up and watched the familiar contours of my bedchamber take shape in the gloom. Voices had been shouting in the dream; I could hear them still. As my brain cleared, I realised that the heated words were coming from the shop downstairs. I quickly pulled on my clothes and hastened towards the clamour.