Paullina Simons - A Beggar’s Kingdom

Usually Parker is delightfully apathetic. He comes every week, Julian gives him a drink, a meal, and a cut of the week’s earnings. For this, Parker looks the other way if a fight breaks out, or if there’s some petty theft. But tonight Parker says he can’t really look the other way because there’s chatter all over Westminster that a well-born man has been found dead in a brothel.

“Who says a man’s been found dead?” Julian asks.

“The one-humped bloke with a shovel.”

“Ilbert?” The Baroness laughs. “No, no, constable. Ilbert was born in an insane asylum. Born to a leper who died at childbirth. He is half-blind because of his mother’s leprosy. It ate away his brain. He once told me,” the Baroness says, “that two men died of spotted fever on Drury Lane!”

“That’s probably correct, madam.”

“He’s never been to Drury Lane. How would he know? The other day he was whispering to Father Anselmo that English aristocrats and Members of Parliament were conducting a sado-masochistic orgy in this very house until daybreak. Don’t you think I’d know if this was happening under my own roof? Orgy! What is this, the Haymarket? Besides, we don’t have rooms big enough for an orgy even if we wanted one. So you see, Ilbert often makes things up, all cock and bull stories from him. Pay him no mind, constable, no mind at all.”

The constable almost buys the Baroness’s own cock and bull story. “Here’s my pickle,” Parker says. “Ilbert keeps muttering that some fat man has died. I wondered if he could’ve meant Lord Fabian, so I took a stroll over to the honorable gentleman’s home in Belgravia, to make sure he was all right. The gentleman is widowed and childless. And wouldn’t you know it, his butler informed me that Lord Fabian is missing! He hasn’t been home since early Friday morning. That’s never happened before, apparently. The household is frantic.”

Julian and the Baroness shrug. “Maybe he’s at work,” the Baroness says.

“Great minds think alike, madam,” Parker says. “That was my thinking. So I took a ride over to the Tower this afternoon, and guess what?”

“I can’t fathom.”

“The Tower?” says Julian. “Like the Tower of London?”

“Yes, sir,” Parker says. “That’s where the honorable gentleman works. Unfortunately, no one was there to answer my queries at the weekend. I was told to come back on Monday.”

Julian and the Baroness both exhale with relief as the constable shakes Julian’s hand and feigns to go. Then, almost as an aside, he asks to speak to the cleaning girl.

“Which cleaning girl? We got three.”

“Ilbert mentioned that one of them was always hanging around the gentleman,” Parker said. “Maybe she can tell us something—like the last time she saw him.”

“I assure you, constable, he hasn’t been here.” The Baroness waves her little book of hours in the air. “No one goes upstairs without me knowing. No orgies. No Lord Fabian.”

“Just a quick word with the girl, Baroness.”

“She’s my niece, constable. She’s the only daughter of my youngest sister, may God rest her soul. I can vouch for Mallory on the Bible.”

Parker raises his hand to assure her. “It’s just routine, Baroness, please don’t worry.” He coughs. “Though one other small thing … Ilbert says that a week ago he saw this Mallory girl in the main kitchen, where she has no business being, crushing something with a mortar into a pestle. When he confronted her, she scraped out the pestle and hurried off.”

“Probably grinding some nuts,” the Baroness says. “Is that also against the law?”

“By also, do you mean grinding some nuts and also murder?” Parker says. “One of them is against the law, madam, yes. And Ilbert may be a more enterprising fellow than he lets on because he ran his finger through the pestle she left behind and tasted the grindings.”

“And?”

“Ilbert says he damn near died. Says he was sick for three days . The bitter thing that touched his tongue burned a hole in it, singed his throat and gave him terrible digestive upset. He started vomiting up blood, which may be the only thing that saved him, since he believes he vomited up whatever was poisoning him.”

“Poisoning?” Julian opens his hands with a chuckle. “Constable Parker, Ilbert touches his mouth and face after handling the filthiest things. Has the man ever had a bath? He could’ve eaten a spoiled pig snout, old fish, bad eggs. In any case, it clearly wasn’t poison since Ilbert’s still walking around, alive as all that.”

“As opposed to who?” Parker says. “As opposed to an esteemed Member of Parliament, a Lord Temporal, who has vanished and can’t be found?”

“Do you always assume the worst when a man can’t be found for a day?”

The constable eyes Julian, then the Baroness. “Not any man. Lord Fabian. Many powerful people are going to notice the lord’s conspicuous absence. Among them His Majesty Charles II, your king.”

Julian and the Baroness stand motionless. Julian’s leg itches with anxiety.

“I don’t need to remind you both,” Parker says, “that murder by poison is a heinous crime. The punishment for it is being boiled in oil. Now will you two let me talk to the girl so we can clear her of any wrongdoing?”

They look for her, but Mallory can’t be found. Night is falling and the tavern is getting busy. The Baroness manages to charm Parker into returning on Monday morning, when he can have all day with Mallory if he likes. “And perhaps the honorable Lord Fabian will turn up by then, and this confusion will be put behind us.”

As soon as Parker leaves, Julian turns to the Baroness. “Ilbert’s not to be trusted.”

“What could Mallory have been grinding up in that pestle? Damn that girl!”

“Nuts, Baroness! But this isn’t about Mallory. It’s about Ilbert. You do remember, don’t you, how just this morning he and I dragged Fabian’s body down the stairs?”

“Shh!”

“On your orders, he helped me bind the man,” Julian says. “He carted him away. Ilbert knows for a fact there’s a body, for an absolute fact. What’s stopping him from leading the constable right to it?”

“Why would he do that?” The madam sounds offended. “We’ve had a death here before, some years ago. Ilbert was exemplary. Took care of everything. He’s been working for me for twelve years. He’s like a loyal son.”

“You’re sure about that? Because if he squeals, we’ll all be boiled in oil for murder and for conspiracy to conceal it. You, me, Mallory, and half your girls.”

“Murder! What are you on about? The lord had a heart attack! You said so yourself.”

“Who will believe you,” Julian says, “when his body is found bound and dumped in a canal?”

That Saturday night, from September 1 to September 2, 1666, is one of the worst Julian has at the Silver Cross. It’s one crisis after another. He barely has enough time to wash and change before Room Two is demanded by a contingent of celebrants who are willing to overlook the smell. They pay handsomely for a flow of wine and meat and girls to be brought up at regular intervals throughout the night. Carling stokes the fire, Mallory lights the candles and Ivy carries the ale and the steins. But the other nine rooms also need tending. At one point, Julian is reduced to changing the enseamed sheets himself. A fight breaks out between Brynhilda and a customer over the difference between services provided and price paid. Brynhilda, twice the size of the weasely john, punches him in the face, sending him tumbling down the stairs. For this Julian must negotiate a peace and restitution. One of the girls is sick in the night, vomiting violently in the middle of working, and the Baroness herself must haggle for a reduced fee instead of a refund. The night refuses to end.