‘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.’