The Hellfire Conspiracy

3

“Shall we head north, sirs? Bethnal Green is roughly triangular, bordered on the north by Victoria Park, on the south by the Mile End Workhouse, and on the west by the old Jewish burial ground. The gasworks is only a few streets away from here.”

Carrick led us up Cambridge Road. “This district was in its heyday at the end of the last century, when the famous boxer Daniel Mendoza lived here,” he said between puffs. “This used to be the center of the silk-weaving trade. Things went to seed after trade with China opened up, and the old place has become rather run-down. Land is cheap here, and plenty of young families have moved to the Green. The Tower Hamlets Council is making an attempt at renovation. It seemed the perfect place to open a photographic emporium.”

“You strike me as an educated man, Mr. Carrick,” Barker noted. “You’ve had some time at university.”

“Not much gets by you, does it, Mr. Barker? Yes, I had a year or two at Christ Church in the seventies, under Dodgson. It was he that awakened my interest in photography. My father thought it all a waste of time, however, and cut me off. I’ve been fending for myself ever since.”

I could understand Carrick’s tale of woe. If anything, my own was even worse. Oxford could be an uncommonly hard place if one does not conform to its standards.

Carrick pointed out the market gardens, the Jewish cemetery, and other sites around the area. Finally, we made our way back up to the Old Ford Road and the emporium.

“How shall you gentlemen proceed?” Carrick asked. “I mean, if Miss DeVere really has been taken by someone.”

“For now,” Barker said, “we are like spies in the land of Canaan, getting the lay of the land.”

“Then I hope, sirs, for both your sakes, that you do not encounter any giants. Best of luck finding little Miss DeVere.”

“Impressions?” Barker asked, after Carrick had returned to his emporium.

“They’re an unusual couple,” I stated, “but then, Bethnal Green probably doesn’t have the sort of standards Kensington does. His story is not much different from my own.”

“Who is Dodgson?”

“He’s a mathematician and an author. I’ve heard he has an interest in photography.”

“What sort of thing has he written?”

“You’re jesting, aren’t you? He writes as Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a book for children.”

“There you are, then. I haven’t any.”

“What shall we do now, sir?” I asked, hoping he would suggest a cafe or tearoom. I needed a restorative and a good rest before venturing out again.

“We’ve searched the perimeter, now we must search all the streets in between.”

“That will take hours,” I said.

“Yes, it will. We’d best not dawdle.”

“What are we looking for, sir?” I dared ask. “She’s not going to suddenly appear in the street; and if she’s been taken by someone, they’ve got her drugged or tied up and hidden away somewhere.”

“I’ll admit that walking these streets tonight is more for the DeVeres’ benefit than my own. It lets them see that we are working. I can as easily think and plan while I am walking as I can in my office, so no harm is being done.”

“But harm is being done. I’m sorry sir. This is just so maddening. I can’t believe someone would actually take and sell a child into slavery. There has to be a special place in hell for such people.”

“There is,” Barker said. “Matthew eighteen-six says, ‘But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’”

“How do you know she hasn’t been spirited out of the area already?”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “It is an arbitrary boundary, but one must look somewhere.”

“For all we know, she could be on her way to Brighton or Dover.”

Barker frowned and then thumped me soundly on the shoulder. “Ha! Good lad. Come.”

He led me into Brady Street, where he stopped in front of a telegraph office.

“I’m going to send a telegram or two. You stay outside and keep your eyes open for a street arab. If you find one, tell him I want Soho Vic in the Green. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

He went in, and I leaned against the doorframe, out of sight of passersby. I’d never caught a street boy before, but it couldn’t be too different from catching trout barehanded as I had as a child in the rivers of Gwent. All one had to do was be inconspicuous, pounce at the last moment, and hold on for dear life.

It took ten minutes before I spotted one. I saw him running along, watching citizens for a bulging pocket or a hanging chain. He passed me unknowingly, and I stepped out and seized him fast by the back of his oversized waistcoat.

“Take your bleedin’ mitts off, you toff,” he demanded, struggling in my grip.

“Barker sent me,” I said, letting him go. He ran around the corner, but a moment later he came back again.

“Why didn’t you say so?” he asked.

He was a villainous-looking tyke, malnourished as they all were, his hair untouched by any brush.

“The Guv wants Soho Vic. He’ll be in the Green all night. A girl’s gone missing.”

“’E’s in the West End. Gimme cab fare and I’ll get ’im ’ere that much sooner.”

“No cabman would give you a ride, and if he would, you’d still pocket it and hop one from the back for free. The district might be green, but I’m not.”

He muttered a string of foul words before catching the coin I tossed.

“There’s a bob for your troubles. Now off with you. You’re wasting daylight.”

Five minutes later, we were walking down Whitechapel Road, heading toward the heart of the quarter. Barker stepped into a doorway, filled and lit his pipe, and then we pressed on.

“Bethnal Green,” he explained as we walked, “is the factory of the East End. The product of that factory is children. You’ll seldom find a family here that does not have more than three of them. The average age of marriage here is sixteen, and young girls are not encouraged to live at home after that and drain the family’s resources. After marriage, the new husband goes off to grind his life away in one of the local factories, while his bride stays in their new flat and scrimps every penny. A child is expected once a year for the next five years. For the successful families, the young boys grow up and learn a trade or help support the family and the next generation of girls are out the door at sixteen. All members of the family shall work together for one another’s benefit, so that the parents can enjoy some degree of comfort in their later years. As for the unsuccessful, which includes the majority, there are coal-and-blanket charities like the C.O.S. and the Salvation Army. These families shatter and each goes his own way. The average age of death here is the lowest in London.”

“That is terrible, sir.”

“Aye. Commingled with this family atmosphere is every kind of vice you can imagine. The bawdy houses are studded all through the Green, like currants in a scone. Whitechapel wears its evil openly, but while Bethnal Green has an air of respectability, it is no less vice ridden. Small wonder the constables walk their beat here in pairs. Turn here.”

We walked northward. It seemed like every other road and possibly better than most. I saw a cab pull up and disgorge a gentleman, who passed into some sort of private club.

“We are in the most disreputable area in all of London. I’ve always wondered why God does not destroy it with fire and brimstone, as he did Sodom. Even Vic’s boys avoid it.”

We headed into Cambridge Road and soon saw Green Street again. As we neared it, we passed a building covered in turrets until it fairly bristled into the sky.

“What is this, an annex to the church across the street?” I asked. It looked very old and somewhat ecclesiastic.

“It is the Lunatic Asylum. The district grew up and around this building and the church. Ah, look. There is the C.O.S.”

“Shall we stop in and see if anything has changed?” I asked.

“No, we shall return here in the morning. Before then, I wish to acquaint myself with every street in the area.”

Six o’clock passed, and seven o’clock, and still Barker called no break. Would we not eat? I wanted to save Gwendolyn DeVere as much as he, but my body was crying for food and my energy was flagging. We laced the streets of Bethnal Green as if it were an old boot, and still he would not stop. Seven thirty stretched into eight o’clock. Was he fasting? I’d been raised a good Methodist, and watched my mother fast on rare occasions, but I had never done it myself. I wasn’t certain I could, but I did not want to be found wanting by my employer. So I said nothing, though my stomach rumbled and twisted in discomfort. Finally, at eight thirty, according to my watch, I could be silent no more.

“Sir, are we going to have dinner tonight?” I asked.

As it turned out, I picked the worst street in London to say it. Barker stepped up to a vendor just beginning to pack up and ordered one of whatever it was they sold.

“We’re shuttin’ down for the night, sir,” the man said. “I can’t guarantee they be as ’ot as they was.”

“No matter,” Barker said. Apparently it wasn’t, to him.

“Very well, sir, but I won’t charge you. You can help yourself to what’s left.”

The Guv turned and put dinner in my hand, a lump wrapped in soiled newspaper. I opened it and found a potato that had been roasted in bacon grease. Then he handed me a drink, a tin cup of lukewarm tea. It was connected to the stand by a stout chain. Goodness knows how many people had drunk from that cup since it had last been washed. The night before, we had dined on pheasant and lobster and a rare bottle of wine, for our butler, Jacob Maccabee, was attempting to establish a wine selection in his room. Such is life, I told myself. Philosophy always goes well with poor food. I bit the potato once, twice, three times, then washed it down with the stewed tea. The author George MacDonald said that a potato is enough of a meal for any man. A Scotsman, perhaps, I thought. I offered the rest to my employer and when he refused, I tossed it into the gutter.

The sun had vanished like the light of a spent match. Bethnal Green was not Mayfair; such light as there was brought out the fallen women displaying their cheap finery, attracted to the light the way a candle draws moths. Barker showed them the photograph and questioned them as readily as anyone else in the district, though it brought nothing but ribald comments from their lips.

There was a flash of ghostly white at my elbow and a more corporeal clatter of hooves on cobblestones, and before I could do anything, Major DeVere had sprung from his horse. He was in mufti.

“Anything?” he asked.

“We have secured a photograph of your daughter,” Barker replied, “and have been questioning people. We have been taking each street systematically, but nothing has turned up so far.”

“She’s really gone. I can’t believe it,” DeVere said, shaking his head. “My girl in the hands of filthy white slavers. I mean, some part of me still clung to the hope she was off playing somewhere and would return in my absence.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Just keep looking.”

“We must stop at midnight in order to be ready to search again at eight.”

“Very well, carry on,” he stated like the officer that he was. He climbed back onto his gelding and rode off.

“There goes a soul in torment,” I said, watching the ghost horse as it disappeared into the night. Barker made no comment. I turned to see he was not there to make one. Somehow between the time the major had jumped onto his steed and ridden off, my employer had disappeared.

“Oy!” Barker suddenly bellowed down one of the passages at a pair of shadowy figures. He plunged into an alley off Globe Road so narrow his shoulders nearly scraped on both sides. We shot out of the alleyway into the next thoroughfare, narrowly avoiding being run down by a cart, then plunged into another across the street. I could make out some movement ahead of us but no more than that. The Guv was advancing swiftly, however, and in a minute or two he seized his quarry.

“Got you!” Barker said, lighting a match against the rough brick. Our quarry were two large women in their late fifties, perhaps, so unattractive as to conjure the word “hags” in my mind. “Why, it’s Mum Alice. And surely this cannot be Dirty Annie. I thought you were both in the stir.”

The first began to mewl a sort of answer to my employer, but her moniker was due to an unfortunate disfigurement that made her nearly unintelligible. The explanation was taken up by her friend, who was so porcine it was a wonder to me how she had traversed the alleyway. Her hair hung long, gray, and greasy down her back, and the dress she wore looked like a tent.

“Alice just got out of Holloway Prison a month ago, yer worship, and I left work’ouse Tuesday last.”

“How are you mudlarks getting by? Still doing the kinchin lay?”

Kinchin lay? I wondered. I wasn’t familiar with a great deal of thieve’s cant, but a lay was a crime, a dodge, some sort of trick to be played at someone else’s expense.

“No, sir, ’pon my honor. We learnt our lesson, hain’t we, Alice? Just scrapin’ by like. Doin’ some rag pickin’. Caught a few rats for the ratman, enough for a pint and a pasty twixt the two of us, but we hain’t made so much as a farthing today.”

Barker lit another match and held the photograph up to the light. “A child has gone missing today. Girl, twelve years of age, blue sailor dress, white collar with a stripe around it. Black hose and petticoats. Brown patent leather boots. The peelers will be checking every fence and pawnshop in the East End.”

Annie put out a pudgy hand. “Oh, stop, yer worship, please. You’re making me mouth water. Sounds like Rowes of Bond Street. Very high priced. Couldn’t ask for better.”

“I want you ladies to know if any of these articles should appear in the area, I’ll be laying for both of you unless you find them first. Am I getting through to you?”

“Yes, yer worship,” Annie said, her voice high and trembling with fear. Alice had begun to mewl again.

“You girls hear of any slavers in the area?”

“No, no,” Annie said, and Alice shook her head emphatically. “If they’re here, they keep to themselves. They ain’t local-not permanent, anyways.”

“Off with you, then. Give them sixpence and not a farthing more, Thomas.”

Both hags scuttled forward and circled me. I could smell the rank odor and see the dirt that gave Annie her sobriquet. I slipped a sixpence into her hand and wished I could wash my own.

“Find some gainful employment,” Barker ordered, “or I’ll find it for you. I’m watching you.”

“Yes, sir,” they said, shuffling off. “Fank you, yer worship!”

We emerged again in the opposite direction into the welcome light of a gas lamp.

“What is a kinchin lay?” I asked.

“It’s stealing the clothing off children. It’s the first thing I thought of when I heard Miss DeVere had gone missing. The child is not usually hurt and generally comes home crying and embarrassed. If such a thing had happened to Miss DeVere, however, she would have returned by now, surely.”

“I’d never realized how easy it was for a child to go missing,” I said aloud, as we returned to Globe Road and resumed our search. “Bethnal Green’s got to have one of the highest populations per square mile in all England. Hundreds of eyes are watching one every day. Surely, if a child disappeared, someone would be able to say, ‘I saw her on Friday morning at ten on Green Street.’”

“One would think such would be the case, lad, but the sheer population means the average citizen on the street might see hundreds of individuals in a single hour. I want you to think of this, too: the disappearance of Miss DeVere is a tragedy, and I fear no good will come of it, but suppose the child had been poor. Would our dragnet be put out then? Would any official notice have occurred if ten were missing, or twenty?”

“’Ello, gents,” Soho Vic said as we came out of the alleyway. He was leaning nonchalantly against the side of a building, picking his teeth with a splinter of wood, looking as sloppy and mismatched as only a street urchin can. “What gives, Push?”

“We would consult, Vic,” Barker stated. He always treated Vic like an adult, rather than the species of vermin he was. I’ll grant that on occasion he was useful.

He shrugged his slender shoulders. “Step in my or-fice, then.”

“I need your lads here in the Green for a week or so, if you’re willing,” the Guv continued. “A girl has gone missing, a West End girl, and we believe slavers are about.”

“Got it. Anyfing in p’tic’ler we’se lookin’ for?”

Barker showed him the photograph. “The young lady and any signs of white slavery. Keep a watch on her father, who will be searching for his daughter on a gray horse. Oh, and I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to watch our backs as well.”

“It’ll cost you,” Vic warned. “Yer talkin’ an even dozen.”

“Then it will cost me,” Barker said philosophically.

“Right. I’ll get on it. ’Night, sir. ’Night, Ugly.”

The latter was for my benefit. Someday he would be eighteen years of age and I was going to treat myself to a hard one right on the point of his chin. I’d half a mind to take a leaf from Barker’s book and consider him an adult already.

We plodded along through the gaslit streets. The few lamps had been put here as a deterrent to crime, but this only pushed it into the dark alleyways on either side. The faces of the few people we passed were sunk in the shadow of their hats, save for the chalky white tips of their noses. Everyone was anonymous, which was good for the criminals and bad for the solitary bobby trying to protect people on his beat.

By eleven o’clock I had run out of energy and was going on sheer endurance. I toddled along beside my employer, trying to keep my eyes open. It was a bad feeling to know that for all our efforts, we had failed to locate Gwendolyn DeVere. Failure is not a word Cyrus Barker takes lightly.

When the Bow bells finally rang twelve, I nearly fell to the pavement. We had paced these streets for over ten hours.

“Right,” Barker said with finality. “Let us find a cab, then.”

His harsh whistle summoning a cab to Mile End Road was the sweetest sound I had heard all evening. I scrambled up into the cab when it arrived and propped myself in the corner. I would need all the sleep I could get; knowing Barker, we would start all the earlier in the morning. I let the steady clop and jingle of the horse, taking us away from this terrible district, lull me to sleep, a London lullaby.