LITMIR.BIZ

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He needs to find a mason; he needs a hammer, a chisel, a trowel, some lime-based mortar. He has figured out where to hide the money. All will be well. He will fix it. He will fix everything.

       8

       Bellafront

      GRIMY, SWEATY, PANTING, GROSS, JULIAN RETURNS LATE TO the Silver Cross.

      The Baroness is ready to send him to Newgate for his day-long absence just when she needs him most. Not only had he vanished, but he’s come back with no flowers! And in his absence, a nasty fight has broken out between the girls, the constable has come by twice, inquiring about a possible death on the premises, Ilbert has been making strange noises about blackmail, and Carling and Ivy did such a poor job disinfecting the room that an early client has just stormed downstairs demanding a refund.

      In the corner of the tavern, Father Anselmo stands, loudly pleading to the men present. “My fallen angels, have you already forgotten that pestilence was retribution for your wicked ways?” he cries. “It was punishment for your wrongdoing. I beseech you, good gentlemen and a lady—turn from your stinking and horrible sin of lechery! Which grows daily in this stew by your continual employment of strumpets, all to the one misguided and idle women. How long can this continue—until you’re all dead of syphilis or the plague? A conflagration will not be enough to punish you for your sins. How long do you intend to dwell in your odious wickedness? Until there is more death? Don’t you know that wanton lust, divorced from civilizing forces, leads to errors in judgment, to compromised honor, to blackmail, to murder! All the deadly sins are boiling under your roof, and you call yourselves reputable men. Repent! Repent before it’s too late.”

      The Baroness, her face unpainted, perspiring, aggravated, folds her hands together in a frantic plea to Julian. She looks as Julian feels. “I’m going to throw myself into the River Thames if that miserable wretch doesn’t shut his gob this instant!” she exclaims about Anselmo. “Where have you been all day, Julian? Why do you look as if you’ve been swimming in mud? Why aren’t you dressed for the evening? It’s Saturday night. You know how busy we get. We have no flowers, and Room Two still smells of corpse. The girls are ripping each other’s hair out—and I mean that in the most literal sense. Ilbert is more insolent than ever, you’re nowhere to be found, and look like a leper. Please—go change into your evening attire. Blimey, one little death, and everything’s gone to pot!” The woman fans herself wildly, raising her eyes to the ceiling. “Bloody helpers, it’s hot! I’m praying for a little rain and for that beastly man to lose his tongue. Is that really so much to ask, O Lord?”

      Julian pats Tilly’s arm. On the outside, he remains composed. “I think some of your prayers may already be answered,” he says. “There was a strong east wind as I was returning. Rain is around the corner. About everything else, Baroness, don’t worry. I’ll take care of the constable and the girls and the smell. Give me an hour. I’ll take care of it all.” Calmly he starts up the stairs. “Which girls are fighting?”

      “All of them. But mainly Margrave and Mallory. Tell them to stop hollering or they can leave right now and go work at the Haymarket. They beat their girls there, soundly, like gongs.”

      “Mallory is fighting?” Julian hurries.

      On the second floor, thirteen girls are yelling in the corridor. Margrave is soaked from head to chest as she and Mallory scream at each other. Julian’s first instinct is to defend Mallory, but a more careful listen tells him that Mallory is the attacker. Apparently, she threw a bucket of putrid water into Margrave’s face. It’s gone into the girl’s eyes and nose and mouth and is burning her. Instead of apologizing, Mallory stands and shouts. Julian has never seen Mallory this red-faced and enraged.

      Julian steps between the two women, separating them and pulling Mallory away. She doesn’t want to hear it, not even from him. But he’s had enough. He raises his voice to show the girls he means business. “Stop it, you two. Margrave, go clean yourself up. Mallory, you too, downstairs. You look a fright. You’re scaring off the customers.” He frowns. “What’s the matter with you?” he says to her quietly. “Go.” And louder, “Carling, Ivy, come with me—the rest of you, get back to work. Show’s over.”

      The Baroness is right. Fabian’s room still smells awful. Death must have seeped into the floorboards.

      “We tried, sire!” Carling and Ivy cry. “We used up all the vinegar you gave us and all the lye.”

      Julian sighs. “Let’s declare this room occupied for the rest of the night. Put a sign on the door. We’ll work with nine rooms tonight, nothing we can do.” The Baroness won’t be happy with the loss of earnings. And tomorrow is Sunday, and all the markets will be closed. Nowhere to buy more lye. Exasperated, Julian follows the maids downstairs. He hasn’t gotten himself cleaned up as he had promised the Baroness, but he needs to speak to Mallory. He finds her in the servants’ kitchen, still irate. “Mallory?”

      “Go away.”

      “Why are you upset? What has Margrave done?”

      “She’s a thief.”

      “I thought she was your friend?”

      “She hates me. She’s always hated me.”

      “What could she possibly steal from you? You have nothing. You barely have a change of clothes.”

      “Yes, by all means, demean me.”

      “I’m not demeaning you,” Julian says, chastised, “I’m trying to understand.”

      “Please, sire, can you leave so I can do my job?” She won’t look at him.

      As he’s about to head upstairs, he hears the Baroness sharply calling his name from the ground floor of the tavern. She’s still in her pink velvet robe, but now Constable Parker stands by her side. Julian’s mood worsens. He wasn’t expecting to face Parker so soon. He can’t deal with the constable at the moment, not least of all because he is so disheveled.

      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

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