Chapter Sixteen
A candle lit the room, and whatever light the open window offered allowed him to see the two women leaning out of it.
A huge bed dominated the space. Its massive frame of oak was scarred with age, and the posts were fitted with iron rings and worn leather cuffs dangling and ready.
A set of drawers stood open in the corner, spilling their contents across a stool.
Jamie ran his eyes over the whips, paddles, and lengths of knotted rope.
On the wall, a chain hung from a bolt, ending in manacles.
The floor was strewn with discarded garments. Silks in bright colors, torn stockings, a gentleman’s crumpled cravat. A chair sat nearby, its arms padded but fitted with straps, angled toward the bed as though for an audience.
“Well now, you’re the one we saw below.”
The ladies he’d seen when he arrived were staring at him. One of them got off the windowsill and sauntered toward Jamie. Shorter than the other who was now doing the same, she wore a dress that did little to hold in her ample breasts.
“We’re awaiting a client, but I think, considering what you’re offering, we could make him wait a little longer when he arrives. Fancy a tumble with us, love? This is Molly, and I’m Ada,” she said.
Jamie was used to women eyeing him as a prospective husband or lover, but these two reminded him of hungry wolves stalking their prey. Eyes, ringed by something dark, ran over his body.
“I don’t want your services, but I want information and I’m happy to pay for it.” They eyed him as he pulled out the notes he’d put into his pocket.
“We don’t want trouble.”
He nearly laughed at those words from one of the women. Everything about the Crimson Serpent was trouble.
“I have no wish to bring trouble down upon you, but what I do want is someone to inform me when a certain man comes into this establishment.”
They shot each other a look before returning their gazes to Jamie.
“We need our work,” one said.
“I have no wish to cause trouble for you, but you will be handsomely rewarded if you help me.”
It was a risk—Jamie knew that. They could just as easily tell the madam and the man who had opened the door to him, but it was one he was willing to take. They must find Jackson, and to do that they needed eyes in places he would go. If Huckle was right, this was one of those places.
“Sure you don’t want a tumble, lovely? We don’t need to use—”
“Ah, no thank you. Perhaps another time,” Jamie said, feeling his neckcloth tighten.
“Well then,” one of them said, exhaling loudly. “What do we get?”
He named a sum and they didn’t look overly impressed.
“Well, what do you want?” Jamie asked.
The coy, playful smiles had left their faces and were replaced with cool, calculating looks.
He was nobody’s fool and knew that life for these women, and what they were forced to do and endure, was not good…
and never would be. He also knew that their future was uncertain, because when their looks and bodies grew too old to do what they were now doing, they’d likely just be tossed out on the streets and replaced by younger ladies.
“More money, and when the time comes, we want enough to leave London. Me and Molly.”
Jamie studied the women and noted the similarities. Were they mother and daughter?
“I will give you enough money to leave London if you help me find a man. Tell me who runs this place first?”
“Madam Louisa Ravelle and her brother Mr. Gideon Ravelle,” the one called Molly said.
“Both mean, tight fisted, and wouldn’t part with a farthing if their lives depended upon it,” the one called Ada said. “We do all the work and they get all the money.”
“I’m after information about a man called Kenneth Jackson. My informant thinks he frequents the Crimson Serpent, and he has a reputation for hurting women.”
“Why do you want him?” Molly asked.
“He has hurt others, badly, and needs to pay for those crimes.” Jamie withstood their looks.
He loathed talking about Jackson, but it seemed lately he was being forced to do just that. Jackson was the only person who could truly unsettle Jamie—or had been. Now Lady Alice could be added to that very short list.
“What does he look like?” Ada asked him.
Jamie gave them the description Huckle had given him. “He also has an odd laugh.”
“He’s been here,” the taller one said after a minute. “Calls himself Master Jackson, and laughs like a foghorn. Has dark hair, and a voice like yours, and his eyes are too small and close together. He’s used to being obeyed.” She tilted her head and studied him.
“He’s a man who enjoys inflicting suffering on others,” Jamie said. He forced the words out of his tight throat as he felt the room close in around him.
“That’s him,” Molly said. “He wasn’t one of the regulars.
He liked the private rooms for when he took his pleasure in the girls.
” Her fingers twisted a length of silk absentmindedly.
“If he came now, we’d make sure no one new took his notice.
Us older ones can handle him, but two of the newer girls were hurt by him.
He’s an animal, like many, and Madam Ravelle should have known better than letting him get his hands on Jenny and Mary. ”
“They don’t care what happens to us as long as he pays,” Ada added, her lips twisting into an angry snarl. “He’s come with others too.”
“Names?”
They exchanged another look at Jamie’s load of notes. Ada stepped forward and lowered her voice.
“There’s a ledger. Not kept by the madam herself, because her brother likes to keep his own accounts.
A little book, names and initials, the rooms they favored, some notes.
We—the girls—think he keeps it so he can blackmail people.
If you could get to that, you’d find entries, but not sure they would help in any way, or give over addresses. But it’s all we’ve got for you.”
“Where would I find this book?” Jamie asked.
“He keeps it in a room off the parlor where everyone goes before and after… well, those that know about it do. There’s a bar, and plenty of women to serve you,” Molly said. “Gambling and any other vice that isn’t found up here, you’ll find there.”
Jamie wanted that ledger, because at this stage he’d take anything that would give him a lead in finding Jackson.
“How do we find the parlor?” he asked.
They spoke in whispers now, giving him the layout. “There is a narrow staircase behind the last door on the right. Once there, you’ll see the bar, and behind that to the left, there is a thick, green velvet curtain. Gideon’s room is behind that.”
“There’s a back entrance too, but that is usually guarded because they were robbed once when he got too drunk to stop the man entering. He cleaned him out,” Ada added.
“Where the bloody hell is he?” The whispered words came from outside the door and were loud enough for anyone close to hear.
Taking two strides, Jamie opened the door to find Toby and Anthony outside.
“Get in here,” he whispered. They did as he asked, and he shut the door.
“Well now, you three are more handsome than many we’re forced to see,” Molly said.
Toby bowed and smiled, and Anthony followed suit.
“These ladies are Molly and Ada. They are going to keep an eye on things, and we are going to pay them handsomely for any and all information they give us,” Jamie said. “Now, we need to get back downstairs, and you two need to cause a distraction so I can slip into a room and steal a ledger.”
“What ledger?” Anthony demanded, looking around the room.
“One that may have Jackson’s name in it, or the names of those that come with him.” Jamie looked at the women again. “Can you give me an exact date that Jackson may have been here?”
Surprisingly, Molly did, because Ada said she was the sister that remembered things.
“Toby!”
His friend raised his head from inspecting the array of devices on a stool.
“Need me to give you a lesson in what they’re used for, love?” Ada asked with a saucy wink.
“Alas, I am wed to the woman I love,” his friend said.
Both women sighed. “Not common in your world,” Ada said.
“No, indeed.”
Before Toby could settle in for a chat, Jamie handed over more money than he’d originally thought he’d be parting with, and his card.
“Send anyone to this address if you have more information, and I will come.”
“Have a care how you go below stairs,” Molly added. “Madam Ravelle is not fond of strangers asking too many questions, and Gideon likes to watch people like a hawk. If he hears the wrong thing, he’ll have more than words for you.”
“Don’t betray us,” Jamie said, throwing the woman a last look. “I promise that if need be, I will get both of you out of London safely, if for any reason it comes to that.”
The women nodded, and then Ada said, “And if you three change your mind…” she gave him another wink.
Jamie, Toby, and Anthony left the room.
“Are you sure you can trust them?” Anthony asked after they’d moved away from the door.
“I don’t think there is much choice. We need someone in here who can notify us when and if Jackson comes back. I have hopefully secured their trust with the money I handed them.”
Anthony nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “We found nothing upstairs other than debauchery. None of the men we encountered were Jackson.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from seeing so many naked men and women.” Toby shuddered.
“Did you recognize any?” Jamie asked.
“The Earl of Pankhurst, and that surprised me,” Anthony said. “I will never be able to look at him again without seeing his spotty bottom.”
“Come. Madam Ravelle—who brought me up here for a tour, before leaving to tend to something upstairs—will return to look for me soon, if she hasn’t already. We will head downstairs.”
“And what is the plan?” Toby asked.
“If Gideon Ravelle is downstairs in the parlor, we’re going to enter. And then you’ll need to distract him so I can get behind the bar and into his room. I want that book because it may lead us to Jackson.”
“Or it may not, Jamie,” Toby cautioned.
“I have to try.”
“Very well.”
Jamie walked to the staircase leading down to the parlor. He opened it and started down the stairs, his friends close on his heels. The sounds below grew louder with each step. When he reached the bottom, he pushed open the door and strode in as though they had every right to be there.
Men sat around the room in various states depending on how far down their tankards they were. Tables were set up in one corner where men gambled. Women dressed similarly to Molly and Ada served drinks and sat on knees. One man had his face in a pair of naked breasts.
“Gideon Ravelle is at the bar, on the right. Two left from the man serving,” Jamie whispered to his friends.
Anthony moved around him in that direction, and Toby went the opposite way. He would create some kind of distraction.
So far Ravelle had not noticed Jamie. Skirting the room, Jamie moved to the bar to stand in the shadows to one side of the entrance and wait.
Pipe smoke made his eyes itch and hit the back of his throat as he inhaled. It was warm in here, heat from the fireplaces thickening the air even more.
“Well now, you’re a fine one.”
The woman who now stood before Jamie was young, and the smile on her lips didn’t reach her eyes.
“Can I get you a drink, sir?”
“Whiskey, please,” he said to get her away. She nodded and left.
His eyes found Toby, who was standing at a card table watching the play. He stepped back as a woman walked by carrying a tray full of tankards. It was done so fast and looked like he’d genuinely tripped, but seconds later the tray and its entire contents were heading to those seated nearest.
The roars of displeasure drew the room’s focus, and Jamie used the noise to ease behind the bar, to the curtain just two steps away. Slipping behind it, he found a door and opened it.
The space beyond was small, and a very male domain.
A narrow shelf held books. The desk wasn’t big, but had ink, paper, and other things a man would need to run a business.
Moving behind it, Jamie searched for what Molly and Ada had told him would hold the names of those who visited the Crimson Serpent.
He took precious seconds to go through the drawers and found nothing that looked like what he was after.
Had the women been lying to him?
“Where could you be hiding?” Jamie muttered as the noise beyond the curtain started to ease.
His eyes fell on a jacket hanging on a hook beside the entrance.
Unsure why he thought the book could be there, he found himself heading that way.
Seconds later, he was going through the pockets and found a small black book.
Opening it, he read the first page, and then stuffed it into his jacket pocket.
Heading back out of the room, Jamie ran into the barman.
“What are you doing back here?” he demanded.
Just then a loud roar filled the air, and they both turned. Jamie watched someone hurl a tankard at another patron. He hurried to his friends as the barman ran to intervene. Reaching Anthony, who was wrestling with someone, he dragged him free.
“Run for the door now!” Jamie said.
Toby went first, and Anthony and Jamie followed. Shutting the door behind them, they took the stairs up.
“Get them!” The door opened and soon footsteps were following.
“Up,” Anthony said. “We’ll leave the way we got in.”
They ran to the next floor and through another door to an external staircase, which was narrow and attached to the rear of the property. They made it down without falling and were soon running back to the carriage.
“I’m too old for this,” Toby wheezed as they rolled away from the Crimson Serpent.
Jamie didn’t answer. Instead, he turned up the lamps. Pulling the book from his inside jacket pocket, he studied the pages, running his eyes down the columns.
“Well?” Anthony demanded.
“Initials, money amounts, but not much else,” Jamie said as he slumped back into the seat.
“Well, now we are on board, things will improve,” Toby said, “as we are far superior at investigative work than you.”
He hoped his friends were right, because the rising tension inside Jamie told him they needed to find Jackson, and soon, before he disappeared completely.