A Diminished Figure On The World Stage

The Little Girl Found

All the nights in woe,

Lyca’s parents go:

Over vallies deep,

While the deserts weep,

Tired & wobegone,

Hoarse with making moan,

Arm-in-arm seven days,

They traced the desert ways,

Seven days they sleep,

Among shadows deep,

And dream they see their child,

Starved in deserts wild,

Pale, through pathless ways,

The fancied image strays.

William Blake

It is dusk in fairyland and gleaming carriage after carriage sets down its elegantly attired occupants outside the sparkling theatres and places of amusement London is famed for. See there, Madame Montaperti, extravagantly clad in a black silk gown trimmed with fringed beads and wrapped in a luxuriant Astrakhan trimmed shawl. Close on her heels follows Lady Elderberry whose large grey eyes sparkle quite as brilliantly as the Hesketh-Elderberry diamonds clustered around her pale alabastered throat.

She observes Lady Montaperti gracefully ascending the steps of the Theatre Royal and on the arm of some indubitably handsome but anonymous admirer, observes her but ‘cuts’ her dead. For t’is common knowledge that Lord Montaperti did attempt to burn his niece to death, indeed that he was responsible for the catalytic events that precipitated the Tooley Street fire, and so the Montaperti’s have become ‘persona non grata’. Cast out from the midst of respectable society they must survive as best they can.

Inspector Depta observes this encounter (amongst many others for fairyland is prodwigious bustling on such a night as this), and chuckles to himself. Inspector Depta, stalwart of the Detective Police of Bow Street, and keeper of the gates, to the open vault of the undisclosed secrets of half the swells in England. Inspector Depta, who, having observed the two ladies elegantly enter the Theatre Royal, also notes the maids trailing in their wake, Mrs Virgillia (an undisclosed Pinkerton employee) and Miss Demelza Thickett (an American secessionist’s daughter). So much intrigue trailing along behind such pretty skirts, t’is a wonder the aristocracy of England have held onto their rule for so long! But these matters can wait, for his is a far more pressing difficulty and one that if not soon solved may culminate in his demise.

T’is early in the evening, and so the hustle & bustle of carriages coming and going, may still be heard through the open windows of the palatial room Inspector Depta refers to most humbly as ‘his office after closing’. An ebony wood dining table, a decanter of brandy a finely wrought brandy glass, a gleaming cigar lit and perched most delicately on the rim of his glass. Inspector Depta, is a man of none too subtle tastes but this evening he is affecting to be congenial.

“Take a seat my fine fellow, please, sit down”

The ‘fine fellow’ in question,having been enticed out of a ‘nunnery’ in Whitehall by the offer of some stolen silverware, and then been bludgeoned into unconsciousness and flung into the back of a Black Mariah, can do nothing more than stagger into the velveteen armchair thrust before him. He has been dragged down stairs by the scruff of his neck and up them, he has been punched with some justification and none at all. In short his has been such a thunderous set of goings on for the last couple of hours that nothing Inspector Depta would care to demand of him would surprise him at all, nothing but this, “Where is she?”

“Eh? Where’s who?”

“Walt McKillen’s niece, Queenie McKillen’s daughter (God rest her soul!) what you done with er?”

A slow smile snakes it’s way across the fine fellow’s raddled face, both his blackened eyes light up and gleam, hard and sure like a rattlesnakes. Where’s he taken her? Where is she? Why no place else, than where they been took all these years! Did iz majestic care then? Did he eck! So what’s changed? The fine fellow thinks he knows. Snatching the glass decanter away from Inspector Depta and taking a deep swig from it himself he inquires slyly,”Walt McKillen’s niece,she important then?”. Inspector Depta narrows his eyes at the fine gent known to one and all as Billy Scroggins, he rubs his fists slowly over his bald head and sighs. Policing can be such a tiring affair, staying one step ahead of yer bosses and three steps ahead of such as sits before him here, a tiring, tiring, business.

Moving faster than a rodent with it’s tail dipped in tar and set on fire, the Inspector slides round the table catching hold of Scroggins by the cravat,”We’ve done good business in the past haven’t we my fine fellow? Bow Street has treated you well az it not? We az done you many a favour. Nah,Where.Is.She?”. What with the choke-hold on his windpipe, it is not possible for Scroggins to answer straight away, but perhaps that is best for t’is been nigh on a fortnight since the child in issue tumbled into his grasp, and since then there have been so many others, that it takes him a while to place her.”Queenie McKillen you say? The beauty wot took up with Bobbish Todger? An him a married man!”

The Inspector tightens his grip, till Scroggins is so blue in the face that it seems as if he has near slipped this mortal coil,”Where.Is.She?”. Loosening his fist a little Inspector Depta permits a choked reply to escape his blued lips,”Sold ‘er to Mrs Fard!”

“Amelia Fard?!”

“None other, a pretty penny she paid for ‘er, said she was pretty as a rose bud and well worth the price”. The Inspector’s face is a picture, t’is a long time since he felt any emotions remotely attributable to some moral sense of shame. But his face has hardened all the same, and t’is the lack of emotion on his reddened face that causes Scroggins to panic, for did he not wear that look on the day the Bow Street Detective ‘arrested’ his father, an he weren’t seen again neither.

“Inspector Qwinty” says he turning to the bullish looking gent hovering aggressively over the ‘fine gent’ Scroggins, “Let Mr Gladstone know we’ve found ‘er but don’t tell him where”. Nodding curtly Inspector Qwinty exits the office most relieved to be free of the corrupted and corrupting presence of both men, and most shocked to find that Inspector Depta does indeed have a heart (to be continued..)

Persons of Immediate Interest & the Others

The honourable Robert Farthengrodden, defended in an appalling admirable manner by the Kinsella QC (and so, acquitted of the murder of sweet, Mary Parnham, upon the defence of sonambulistic wanderings). Estranged from Lady Bedelia Farthengrodden, mother of his six children, who, as a consequence of the scandal entered holy orders as a novitiate of the Goveen Sisterhood. Having gained his freedom he took up a position as a work house guardian that he might atone all the better for his past sins. And once he had won the favour of Miss Peepy, he took over the onerous duties of auditing the Workhouse accounts. Well, she said, he said iz duties was ‘onerous’ and indeed they must have been, for six months into the job, he disappears and a hundred pound of charitable contributions disappears with ‘im!

T’was a tragedy dear reader! T’was a horror that such as once graced the corridors of power should have stooped to such immoral depths. That a gentleman of such good breeding should willingly have plunged into such swirling, suppurating deeps as these! Why sirs! I know not what to comment! Except, that in the words of St. Gove that translucent effervescence, sic transit gloria mundi, so passes away earthly glory. And furthermore,non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum (self explanatory).

And so, from Monday to Sunday (and back again) I lay in wait for Robert Farthengrodden, whom, I heard told, had taken lodgings at the East India Club. As a rule, once a man has succoured himself extensively (and in public), upon the bosom of iniquity, the upper echelons keep their distance. Not so with Farthengrodden and, once I had ascertained that he would be in residence for some time,I was able to avail myself of a lunch invite in the company of Alf (the fence)De Quincey.

“Well” says I, “This is a pretty pass, twenty minutes sat here drinking turtle soup and still no sign of him”

“Oh he’ll be in to dine right enough, he’s taken to one of them gels what lives in the cupboard.”

“What cupboard?” says I,

“That cupboard.” says he, lifting one delicately manicured thumb and jabbing it towards a large ebony wood grandfather clock wot lay behind him. Well as I turns me head I see’s the most peculiar sight. There’s a door at the base of the clock and as it opens slowly I see first a pale hand and then a foot wriggle itself out of the compartment, followed by a reed like neck and two blinking peepers! “Well, well,” I says, “This is a most peculiar practice, a most peculiar practice, stashing one’s servants in a grandfather clock! What will the ruling classes think of next?”

“Tis the necessities of the Crimean” says Alf with an air of mystery.

“The necessities of what?” says I flummoxed by the pale, reedy looking gent quickly clearing away our soup dishes. “The Crimean, they’re refugees and since they ain’t got regular papers” (the reedy gent proffers a soiled gloved hand for a tip which Alf won’t give, on principle), “They works ‘ere for board and lodgings” well, my eyes narrows  at that and I asks,”Whose idea was that?”.

“Ask ‘im” he replies jabbing his thumb once more behind him where I espies none other than the once honourable Farthengrodden squeezing hisself into the Grandfather clock lodgings. He has half disappeared into the cupboard already, but with all speed I leap towards him and grabbing ‘im by the scruff of the neck I declares,”Not so fast my lad! You’ve charges to answer!”

“Charges?” says he all innocent and such,

“Of Larceny!” Says I, not put off in the slightest by his gentlemanly appearance, for t’was upon my breast that the elderly Miss Peepy cried her poor Christian heart out! “Larceny!” I exclaims once more, tugging on the collar of his dinner jacket. “Look lively my lad! Come to it! For my name is Sergeant Qwinty sir, and you are to attend the the Magistrate’s pleasure!”

“Magistrates pleasure?” says he looking suitably puzzled for our conversation has drawn the attention of other gentleman, and are they bemused by the sight of refugees wriggling out of their hiding places? Not at all! They look prodigious perplexed that such a gentleman as this should have fallen once more into scandal in the midst of their club. “Magistrates pleasure!” I repeat the words casting my eyes around the gentlemanly gathering in a meaningful sort of way, whereupon they draws themselves up indignantly and pointedly resumes their dining. “Come along peaceably won’t you?” and eventually he does for there’s no evading justice once it has you in its grip. And so, dear reader, I carried the depredatory gent off to Bow Streets Magistrates. And once there, in due course, the rascal charmed the Magistrate into letting him off.

T’was nigh on a week later when I spotted the ‘Spitalfield’s Workhouse Robber” strolling back to the East India Club, he was arm in arm with a pallid, wan looking creature, a Crimean lass no doubt. I had little time to reflect upon this as I was headed toward Bow Streets Magistrates, this time with a pickpocket in tow. But later in the day, over a glass of Sherry at the Nags Head Tavern, the following words sprang to mind,

“It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what gets the blame,
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure,
Isn’t it a blooming shame?

-Billy Bennett