Carver's Quest Page 17

  ‘Who was the gentleman who told you this?’

  ‘He says to say Quint and you’d know him.’ The boy was holding a grubby scrap of paper. Adam took it from him and looked at it. Quint was not the best penman in London but he was able to scrawl enough words to convey his meaning. ‘Charing X Otel. 8 oclock. See yew ther. Owtside.’

  ‘You was to give me a sixpence, he says.’

  ‘Did the gentleman named Quint say no more?’

  ‘Just to give me a sixpence.’ The boy was single-minded in his pursuit of his earnings, Adam thought, as he reached in his pocket.

  ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a shilling. ‘Take this. I haven’t a sixpence about me.’

  ‘Thanks, mister.’ The boy looked at the more valuable coin. He seized it and then turned and ran off as quickly as he could, probably terrified that Adam might change his mind and demand the money back.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Was you in search of poses plastiques, gentlemen? Very voluptuous ladies, sirs, but entirely artistic. Only poses from the Greek and Roman. This way, if you please, gentlemen.’ The speaker was short and fat, flesh pouring into the inadequate container of a corduroy suit and spilling over its confines. He had red eyes, a bulbous nose and a mouth from which vile exhalations of poorly digested meat, gin and tobacco issued forth to assail passers-by as relentlessly as his patter. He gestured leeringly towards a darkened doorway behind him. ‘Beauties fresh from the bagnios of Paris, sir. All as nature intended them to be.’

  Quint took Adam’s arm. The young man looked too much like what he was, an innocently basking dolphin amid a sea of sharks. His manservant manoeuvred him past the foul-breathed tout.

  Evening was falling and the two men were making their way through a warren of narrow streets and ill-lit alleyways off the Strand. Unaccustomed to this secret London behind the façade of the better-regulated streets and squares he usually frequented, Adam was lost. They had entered the maze soon after he had descended from a cab outside the new Charing Cross Hotel and found Quint waiting for him there. Quint had said little in greeting but beckoned him to follow. Almost immediately, Adam had lost track of where he was, rapidly resigning himself simply to continuing on the twisting and turning route on which his manservant led him. Other than the belief, founded more on faith than evidence, that the Strand was somewhere to his right and Covent Garden somewhere to his left, he had no idea where he was. Slightly to his surprise, he found the sensation of being so lost in London exciting rather than disconcerting.

  They may have been striking out beyond Adam’s beaten path but, for others, this was clearly home territory. The streets were crowded. Men, women and children, nearly all poorly dressed, hastened along them. Shops were still open. Suits of clothes, like emaciated corpses on a gallows, hung from a rail above one of them. Further along the narrow street, a butcher had removed the burners from his gas lamps in search of brighter illumination for his premises and great tongues of flame shot into the air. Glistening pigs’ heads revolved in the light he had created, which also shone on the sides of beef and mutton lying on his stall, revealing every vein and lump of fat in them. Next door to the butcher’s was a bookmaker’s whose shopfront was lit with almost equal brilliance. A blind beggar stood outside it, as if bathing his body in the light he could not see. Somewhere an unseen street organ was playing and its jingling music could just be heard above the constant roar of the crowds.

  People were intent on their own business and swarmed purposefully through the streets. On several occasions, Adam was obliged to move swiftly to avoid collisions. The barker for the poses plastiques was not alone. Others of his ilk begged and cajoled the crowds to enter the halls of entertainment that employed them. On one particularly squalid lane, a series of luridly coloured posters invited passers-by to enter a cheap theatre and enjoy performances of ‘Red-Handed Ralph, the Fiend of Shoreditch’. On its corner, where it crossed another alley, a family of street acrobats was performing its routine. Paterfamilias, dressed in an outfit reminiscent of a pantomime harlequin, held a long wooden pole upright, its base lodged firmly in his waistband. Perched precariously near its top, his two small children, a girl and a boy, adopted a series of poses and attitudes. All three wore expressions of extreme ennui on their faces. Few passers-by had stopped to watch and those that had seemed as bored as the performers. Amidst the swirling crowds, Adam,

  so obviously well dressed and well fed, was feeling uncomfortably conspicuous.

  ‘Where are we going, Quint?’ he asked.

  ‘A tarts’ academy off Holywell Street.’

  ‘Holywell Street? That’s the one where the shops sell…’ Adam seemed unsure of how to describe what the shops sold. ‘What would you call it? Literary curiosa?’

  ‘Dirty books is what I’d call it,’ Quint said. ‘And them as wants to do more than just read about rogering can pop round the corner and visit this ’ere case-house I’m telling you about.’

  ‘And where is this case-house?’

  ‘We’re just about there.’ Quint threw his answer over his shoulder before making an abrupt dog-leg turn into an alleyway which, to Adam’s eyes, was even less prepossessing than the ones along which they had already walked. A runnel of water, or more probably water and other liquids, raced down its left side. On Adam’s right, a solitary gaslight threw its dim illumination on house fronts and the occasional shop, still open for whatever enigmatic business was conducted on its premises. Away from the hustle of the marginally broader lane they had left so suddenly, there were few people about and those that were ignored them. Quint stopped at the door of one of the houses, apparently indistinguishable from the others, and pushed it open. It seemed that they had reached their destination.

  As the two of them stepped inside, Adam was surprised by what they found. A narrow passage led from the door towards an inner darkness. A smell, a potent combination of mouldering plaster and the sweat of a thousand human bodies, hung in the air. Yet the walls of the passage were covered in billowing drapes of brocade, all in the newly invented and modish colour of mauve. Quint moved determinedly along the mauve tunnel and Adam followed. Light soon began to appear in what had been darkness and the passage opened out into a square, high-ceilinged room. The mauve drapes had disappeared and the walls here were painted an eye-catching shade of egg-yolk yellow.

  The room was entirely empty save for a man who stood, arms folded, by a staircase, which Adam assumed led down into rooms beneath street level. He was enormous, towering several inches above Adam, who topped six feet himself. His shaven head sat atop a body that more resembled a bear’s than a man’s; a bear dressed, for some unfathomable reason, in a black moleskin jacket and trousers. Like Mr Dickens’s celebrated character, Wackford Squeers, the giant had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. That one eye was bloodshot and staring, and a watery mucus appeared to be streaming from its corner. Where its partner had once been, there was no patch, no glass replacement, not even a gaping socket. Instead, a film of skin seemed to have stretched itself somehow across the space where the missing eye should have been. Adam could see what looked like small veins of blood pulsing on the skin. A prizefighter, he thought, or an ex-prizefighter. What other profession could produce such a particular combination of muscular development and physical disfigurement? Some sign, almost imperceptible, passed between Quint and the Cyclops. What was it? A slight nod of the head? A brief movement of that single, staring eye? Adam wasn’t sure, but whatever it was, it meant entry to the otherwise forbidden rooms below. He and Quint were allowed to shuffle past the Cyclops and to descend the staircase.

  ‘People here know you then, Quint?’

  His servant shrugged. ‘Plenty of people know me. Here and there and elsewhere.’

  As the two men walked down the stairs, the chattering of female voices rose from beneath their feet. Another door confronted them. Quint threw it open. Adam’s first thought was that the room was on fire. A fug of smoke hung in the
upper air. The hubbub that had reached their ears on the stairs was now deafening. Shouts and screams of raucous laughter mingled with random cries and yells and, if Adam was not mistaken, the sound of at least one woman sobbing.

  ‘What is this filthy den, Quint? And why are we here?’

  As Adam looked around, he was repelled and intrigued in equal measure. The room was full of whores. It was early in the evening and few of their clients could be seen. Adam noticed only three men, soldiers of some infantry regiment, who were sharing drinks with their chosen tarts before retiring to less crowded quarters. One of them, more drunk than his fellows, was swaying on his chair, his uniform unbuttoned almost to his waist. The other women in the room were sitting in small groups around an assortment of tables and boxes. Some were obviously ageing veterans of the streets or ‘virgins’ whose maidenheads had been miraculously renewed a hundred times. Others looked like country girls, so recently arrived in town that the scent of hops and apples might still have clung to them. Yet others were raddled scarecrows whose faces bore the scars of a thousand brief and largely brutal encounters. Nearly all had glasses in front of them and pipes or cigarettes clamped in their mouth, adding their own small contributions to the rolling smoke clouds above them.

  ‘It’s that one over there, guv’nor.’ Quint pointed to the far corner of the room where a woman sat alone at one of the tables. ‘I found her. Her name’s Ada. She’s the one Jinkinson’s been seeing.’

  Ada was petite and dark-haired and dressed far more demurely than most of the other women in the room. A pair of pearl-grey shoes peeped out from beneath a similarly subfusc dress. Were it not for the surroundings in which they had found her, Adam would have taken her for a maidservant or shop girl. As they approached her, she glanced in their direction and then looked swiftly away.

  ‘This is Mr Carver, Ada,’ Quint said, attempting to sound as benevolent as he could. ‘He wants to ask you some questions.’

  The woman now turned again to look at them. Her face was ghostly pale and her mournful brown eyes made Adam think of some dog awaiting its master’s instruction. She said nothing and showed no curiosity about Adam’s identity. She cast down her eyes and continued to sit patiently, hands clasped on her lap, seemingly uncaring as to what might come next.

  Adam was distracted by the unfamiliar surroundings in which he found himself. His entry had not gone unnoticed and several of the women had made lewdly suggestive invitations to him as he passed. He was unused, even in his ventures out on the town with friends like Cosmo Jardine, to hear women speak so crudely. To his surprise, Adam had sensed himself blushing slightly as he heard them. Now he made an effort to compose himself.

  ‘Good evening to you, Ada,’ he said.

  The girl made no reply. The young man pulled up a chair from the next table and sat down opposite her. ‘I am making enquiries about a gentleman named Jinkinson and I think you might be able to help me. Are you willing to help me, Ada? Are you happy to answer my questions?’

  She nodded, her eyes still lowered.

  ‘Do you know Mr Jinkinson? He has offices in Poulter’s Court. Near Lincoln’s Inn.’

  The woman nodded again.

  ‘We are looking for Mr Jinkinson, Ada. He has not been seen in Poulter’s Court for several days. Do you know where he is?’

  Ada looked up at Adam as if she was about to speak but then thought better of it. She lowered her eyes again and shook her head.

  ‘We do not mean Mr Jinkinson any harm, Ada. Indeed, we wish him well.’

  ‘Don’t know where ’e is, sir.’

  ‘But you are fond of Mr Jinkinson?’

  ‘’E’s a gent, sir.’

  ‘You would not want harm to come to him.’

  ‘I could tell ’e was a gent, sir. First time I met ’im,’ Ada went on. ‘On account of ’is hands were so white.’

  She paused as if the meaning of Adam’s previous remark had only just struck her.

  ‘’Arm, sir? What ’arm?’

  ‘There may be people looking for him who have less concern for his welfare than we do. It would be better for Mr Jinkinson if we found him than if they did.’

  Adam felt that this was a pardonable exaggeration of the facts. After all, it might well be that there were others looking for the enquiry agent and, if there were, the likelihood was that it would be with unfriendly intent. But his words had no effect on Ada. After her brief furry of animation at the thought of harm coming to Jinkinson, she had returned to her original state of passivity.

  ‘Don’t know where ’e is, sir,’ she repeated. ‘I ain’t seen ’im for weeks.’

  Adam ran his hand through his hair and tried another tack. Perhaps the girl might know of the old dandy’s favourite places in town.

  ‘Did you ever spend time with Mr Jinkinson? Did he take you on any excursions? On the river?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Or to one of the dance halls? To Highbury Barn, perhaps?’

  ‘I ain’t never been to Highbury Barn, sir.’

  ‘To a public house, perhaps?’

  But Ada had decided that she would say no more. She stared down at her hands in her lap and refused to look at either of the men. The noise in the rest of the room was even louder than when they had entered. Raucous singing now rose from the table where the three soldiers were carousing. Adam wondered whether there was anything he might say that would prompt the woman into speaking.

  ‘Did Mr Jinkinson ever speak to you of another gentleman, a gentleman named Garland?’

  Ada continued to gaze at her red and chapped hands. She said nothing but an unmistakeable look of fear passed across her face. She shook her head again, more violently than before. Adam had a sudden moment of inspiration. He remembered his conversation about Garland with Mr Moorhouse. He recalled the rumour about the MP that he was a ‘devil with his maidservants’.

  ‘Did you work once for a gentleman named Garland, Ada?’

  Adam could see that tears were now falling silently down the girl’s cheeks, but she still said nothing. She continued to shake her head. It was obvious enough what the answer to his question was. He could not bring himself to press the girl further. He stood up and motioned to Quint that they should leave. One last question now occurred to him and he turned again to the girl.

  ‘Did Mr Jinkinson ever speak Greek to you, Ada?’

  The young prostitute did now look up. She was bewildered. Her eyes flickered back and forth between Adam and his servant.

  ‘For gawdsake, guv,’ Quint said. ‘The girl ain’t going to know Greek from the bleating of sheep on the way to Smithfield.’

  ‘Did Mr Jinkinson ever use odd words in your hearing?’ Adam persisted. ‘Words that you couldn’t understand?’

  ‘’E was always using funny words.’

  ‘Words that were not English?’

  Ada shrugged helplessly.

  ‘Were they French, perhaps?’

  ‘’E was parleyvooing with some Frog waiter down Dean Street once,’ Quint remarked conversationally. ‘When I was after him.’

  ‘Never mind that now, Quint. I wish to know what Ada heard him say, not you.’

  But the girl was growing even more anxious under the inquisition. She looked desperately at the manservant.

  ‘She don’t know what you’re talking about, guv.’

  ‘I think she does, Quint.’

  The girl was now moving her hands restlessly in her lap. Quint, glancing over his shoulder from time to time, had seen a new development that demanded their attention.

  ‘Harry Fadge has come downstairs, guv. I reckon maybe we ain’t welcome no more.’

  The one-eyed giant who guarded entry to the brothel had indeed descended to the cellar room and was moving purposefully towards them. He looked displeased and his displeasure, as Quint knew and Adam guessed, was not something to be ignored.

  ‘You have nothing more to tell us, Ada?’

  ‘Let’s go, guv. Let’s go while we’
ve still got the legs to do the going with.’

  Unceremoniously thrusting aside those unlucky enough to find themselves in his path, Fadge was now only a few tables away from them. One of the soldiers, pushed in the chest, attempted to remonstrate with him. Fadge stopped briefly and, without saying a word, threw a punch which immediately felled the infantryman. The soldier tumbled to the floor amidst screams from the women at his table. Fadge continued on his way. He appeared to be snarling and shaking his head, his resemblance to a bear in killing range of its prey even more marked than before.

  ‘Ada?’ Adam prompted.

  ‘Yew Ferrion,’ the girl said. ‘’E was always talkin’ about some bloke called Yew Ferrion. How he was to be all right once he found out about Yew Ferrion. That’s foreign, ain’t it?’

  ‘Thank you, Ada. You have been most helpful.’

  With as much dignity as he could muster in the circumstances, Adam retreated by a roundabout route towards the door, holding out his hands towards Fadge in what he hoped was a placatory manner. Quint, with the unerring instinct for self-preservation that had been the cornerstone of his career thus far, had already disappeared. Fadge continued to bare his teeth and growl unmistakeable threats. Deciding that dignity was a luxury he could no longer afford, Adam turned and ran for the door, stopping only to overturn one of the tables in Fadge’s path. Followed by the protests of half a dozen whores outraged by the loss of their drinks, he reached the stairs and raced up them. He charged through the egg-yolk yellow room and the mauve tunnel and into the street. He had no idea of the direction in which he should run. For several minutes, he dodged first left and then right through the backstreets until he ended in a cobbled courtyard. He appeared to have left the pursuing Fadge far behind him. From here, a dozen or more narrow crooked alleys ran off in every possible direction. Adam stopped to consider which one of them to choose. He was still standing, panting with exertion and debating whether one of the filthy little lanes was likely to lead back to familiar territory, when Quint appeared suddenly at his shoulder.