Poison and Mercy: A Girls' Adventure

ABOUT POISON AND MERCY 1885 The people of London suffer under clouds of acid while the Thames burns; nothing has been seen or heard from within the borders of an increasingly belligerent Germany for several years; the Mediterranean is plagued by the Corsair Queens and their fleet of pirate airships; and a dastardly foreign plot to take control of the British Empire is afoot.

Who can save the day?

Poison and Mercy d’Avalon, a pair of notorious adventuresses with a talent for the amoral and profitable sidelines in extortion, assassination, and every other vice imaginable (as well as quite a few others for good measure), are hired to eliminate a blackmail threat to a Very Important Person. It is task that seems simple enough, but it is one that is soon complicated by murder and the machinations of an implacable and remorseless enemy. Poison and Mercy must endure one scandalous episode after another as their travels take them from London to Berlin to Cairo, and finally to a hidden pit of corruption buried beneath the blazing heart of the Empire’s capital.

Imprisoned and stripped (on several occasions).

Abandoned and enslaved in the desert.

Forced to endure an evening of music-hall comedy.

How long can two English roses be denied access to the best shops and restaurants before they start to sharpen their thorns and set about taking their revenge? Not very, apparently.

INTRODUCTION BY THE PUBLISHER Poison and Mercy was originally offered as a regular series that appeared with certain disreputable publications between December 1885 and September 1887, and most particularly became a much-anticipated addition to the infamous London Swell and Nonce Quarterly, an equivalent Strand Magazine for deviants and libertines. Selected passages were also included with Miscreants and Mistresses, a collection of scandalous and undoubtedly libellous tales that most often featured politicians and actresses; and Distaff Deviations, a half-yearly journal that pandered to a mostly female readership and which had a very forthright editorial style that is still shocking even to modern-day readers. Excerpts, with accompanying illustrations by a number of obscure artists, were also to be found in the pages of a curious booklet called The Proper Little Madam, which meticulously dealt with everything that a young lady might need to know about starting a career of debauched adventurism, blackmail, and other vices far too numerous to list with any degree of accuracy here.

Like so many other tales from the seedy, if not to say downright psychotic side of late Victorian-era life, Poison and Mercy was written anonymously, and no amount of pressure brought to bear on the persons responsible for the publications listed above could persuade them to reveal its true origin. However, given the overall writing style, the casual and matterof-fact slandering of public figures and institutions, and the blatant antipathy for any kind of moral probity, it may be surmised that this tale originated from the same minds that were responsible for a collection of similarly immoral works.

Naturally, such activities were conducted without even the slightest pretence at legality, and anyone found to be in any way connected with them was routinely fined or incarcerated. Printing works were raided — and often razed — and their owners were interrogated without mercy by officers of the Metropolitan Police, the senior ranks of which regarded such attacks upon the dignity of the established order as tantamount to treason. However, such harsh treatment was almost entirely ineffective, and may even have been counter-productive in cases such as that of F. J. LeFèvre-Harbottle, the editor

of London Swell and Nonce Quarterly, who once spent six months in Pentonville and then famously refused to leave at the end of his sentence until after he had received the “damned thorough” thrashing he claimed to deserve.

Despite having what must have seemed like the whole of the Government’s apparatus raised against them, these libertine writers, publishers, and printers remained a cheerfully irreverent thorn in the side of the authorities and somehow managed to pursue many of their clandestine activities until the outbreak of the First World War — a slice of the very grimmest reality which no doubt saw the end of most of them.

With regard to the story itself, the familiar yet altered settings and the overt hints at the designs of scheming foreigners must have seemed fantastic and thrilling to readers more accustomed to generic tales of rakish men and helpless women, and the inclusion of actual personages — either brazenly identified or only thinly disguised — as well as places that went on to achieve some real-world notoriety of their own undoubtedly raised questions regarding exactly where fact and fiction were separated.

The Society for the Preservation of Forgotten and Forbidden Words is a small coterie of volunteers who spend many hours tracking down long-lost, never very well-cared for, and most often stuck-together copies of banned and censored works from bygone times. The society was formed and remains under the mild stewardship of E. C. Elvedeane, a child of circus-folk who one day ran away to join the mobile library service, and who thereafter became obsessed with collecting all of the neglected stories denied a place within the Dewey Decimal classification system. This is the first time that the chapters of Poison and Mercy: A Girls’ Adventure have been collated and published in a single volume, and as such, the “What Has Gone Before” reminders the various publications added at the start of each chapter have not been included.

CHAPTER I A MYSTERIOUS ASSIGNMENT London, 12th April, 1885 Poison d’Avalon, sometime adventurer, intriguer, fixer, assassin, and woman of extremely ill repute, lifts a small bone-china cup of Arabian coffee to her perfectly painted lips and studies the young gentleman sitting opposite through the smoked lenses of her expensive eye-wear. They are tucked into a discrete corner of a Regent’s Park coffee shop that bustles with the kind of chattering activity only available to the wives of bankers, stockbrokers, and other moneyed parasites too idle to contemplate anything approximating an honest day’s work. Conveniently, the day’s weather pattern has managed to keep the area safe from the worst effects of the foul London air, even as that element is elsewhere endeavouring to attack any unprotected persons in its usual swirl of poisonous chemicals and acidic fog. From time to time, the thick glass windows offer the extraordinary view of some hardy souls attempting to stroll unmasked through the dead and desolate park, which is an activity not to be undertaken without either extreme caution or a suicidal frame of mind.

Poison replaces her cup in its ornate saucer with exaggerated care. The young gentleman has still not spoken, bar the usual pleasantries, and his constant fidgeting is starting to grate on her nerves somewhat. He is far too nervous to be a police agent — not that she has had too many recent dealings with that side of the law since the unfortunate events surrounding the disgrace and subsequent death by ritual suicide of the Japanese ambassador — and he is too well-dressed, too well-mannered, and too well-scrubbed to be any species of journalist. His style of clothing and precise affectation mark him as British Establishment, as does his expensive choice of Masonic cuff-link. He is swathed from the top of his well-greased head to the soles of his equally shiny, patent-leather shoes in an air of utter entitlement that can only come from being in the frequent orbit of casual and extreme power that rather eliminates him as representing any ordinary private interest.

“Miss d’Avalon,” he whispers as he leans across the table.

She leans forward herself. Her movements are rather stiff due to the crushing embrace of her corsetry, but she takes a certain satisfaction as her plunging neckline draws his eyes as surely as if her exposed upper hemispheres were capable of producing their own supranaturally magnetic force. Poison has the kind of figure that keeps adolescent boys, their fathers, and a good many of their mothers and sisters awake at night, and regularly deploys it to maximum effect. She also takes some pride in having the tightest bodice, the highest heels, the blackest silks, and the palest skin in all Christendom, and is at all times determined to get her money’s worth for her efforts no matter the company in which she finds herself. She shifts her hips a little to concentrate his attention and purses her ruby lips.

“Mister…?” She allows the question to hang between them.

“Smith,” he says, rather too quickly to entirely convince her of the truth of it.

She takes another sip of her coffee. “And which end of Whitehall is it you hail from, Mister Smith?”

To his credit, Smith does not jump very much more than a foot into the air. He hastily covers his reaction with a small fit of stage coughing and throat clearing until the few patrons who bothered to look their way resume interest in their own business.

Recovered, he scans every face in the small shop before taking a deep breath. “I really must insist on your total discretion before I utter another word.”

“Discretion? Why, that’s almost my middle name.”

“It’s your first name that gives—” he corrects himself, “my associates and myself pause. We have expended a great deal of time and effort, and no small sum of money, to be put in contact with you, and if you’ll forgive me for saying so, I have never before heard of any name that suited its owner half so well.”

She runs a black-painted nail along the sharp line of her jaw. “It’s almost like something out of Dickens, isn’t it? I was named by the man who bought me as a child, and he had already made that particular decision long beforehand. He should never have been allowed within fifty feet of the orphanage door, of course, but a determined man with a ready supply of cash is hard to refuse. He was rather fixed in his ideas.”

“Hanged for them, though, wasn’t he?” Smith asks, his voice betraying just a hint of moral superiority. “I have seen the files. They say it was treason.”

“High treason, I think you’ll find,” she corrects him. “He very much believed in doing things properly.” She raises a small mirror to check her make-up, wets the very tip of her little finger with the tip of her tongue, and dabs at an almost non-existent smear of coffee near her lower lip before checking that every visible strand of hair is as straight and black as it can be.

“Breakfasts were something of an ordeal, though,” she adds. “Hemlock, belladonna, spider venom, porridge. Ghastly, absolutely ghastly.” She is gratified by his quick retreat as she replaces her hands on the table between them.

A thin waitress arrives to collect their empty cups. “Make sure this one is well washed with boiling water,” Poison advises as she places hers on the tray.

“Of course.” The girl gives her a very perfunctory smile.

“Wouldn’t want any accidents.” Poison watches their crockery disappear behind the serving counter.

“No,” Smith says. “Quite.”

“But what do you want, Mister Smith?”

He takes a deep breath. “We would like you to protect someone.

Without their knowledge.”

“Me?” She smiles, or rather, shows her teeth. “Protect? That’s hardly my line.”

“We understand, and we will pay handsomely for your service.” He tries a small smile himself, but abandons the effort before it is half-way finished.

“We were told that your experience of, shall we say, the more shadowy parts of our own society is unrivalled and, unfortunately, this is most necessary for what we require.”

“I shall choose to take that as an attempt at a compliment, and I am sure that you are aware that I rarely do anything at all without payment. Now, just who am I supposed to protect?”

“I’m sure you know to whom I refer if I tell you that his name is Eddy. I would appreciate it if that is how we could continue to refer to him. At least for now.”

“If it suits you. And from what is Eddy to be protected?”

“It’s not what, but rather who.” He takes a photograph from his leatherbound case and slides it across the table.

Poison pulls her glasses away from her heavy-lidded, violet eyes and picks up the photograph. It shows a tall, cadaverous man, well-dressed in formal dress wear some fifty years out of date. He glowers at her from beneath lank, white hair that falls over his face, and his rictus grin reminds her of nothing more than the unsettling leer of the undead — partially decomposed, but still hoping to make a nice meal of the living.

Poison sniffs. “He looks perfectly charming. Does he have a name?”

“According to his hotel reservation, his name is Immanuel Jabez. The room number is written on the back.”

She turns the photograph in her hand and makes a mental note of the figure written, preposterously, in green ink. “And?” “And that’s all we know,” he admits with an unhappy shrug of his shoulders. “There are no records of him anywhere. Believe me, we’ve looked.”

“Foreign?”

“We think so.”

“Dangerous?”

“Without a doubt.” Smith’s whisper drops to an even lower volume.

“There are reports that Eddy has been…different recently.”

“Different?”

“Distant, distracted, unable to focus or engage in conversation.” He pauses. “His servants claim that his mind is growing ever more disturbed. He has developed a very cruel streak towards his footmen and the boot-boys above and beyond the usual beatings and beratings that one might expect. It is said that many of them are in fear for their very lives.”

“And you suspect this Jabez is the cause?”

“Obviously. They have been seen together with others. A certain Mister Charles Hammond, with whom I am sure you are at least passingly familiar, for one.”

“I’ve encountered him once or twice, but I move in a somewhat different sphere. Perhaps they needed to send a telegraph; I’m told he has acquaintances for that sort of thing.”

“At half-past two in the morning?” Smith scoffs. “We believe that Eddy is going to Hammond’s on a regular basis.”

“You believe it, or you’ve had him followed there?”

Smith clamps his lips together as if to deny the truth the possibility of escaping him.

Poison sighs. She replaces the photograph and pushes her eye-wear back into place. “So why not just pick this Jabez up, beat the truth out of him, and kick him out? Or do him in; I understand the heat from the Thames is blistering paint at a hundred yards these days. Throw him off London Bridge; that ought to suffice.”

“That was our first thought, of course. He was lifted.” Smith clears his throat. “Unfortunately, a representative appeared before he could be spirited away.”

“Of Eddy?”

“One of his lawyers. Accompanied by Sir Edmund himself. Marched right into the station.”

“How tiresome.”

A look of extreme distaste crosses his face. “There was a distinct implication that any further interest in either Eddy’s doings or Mister Jabez would rain down approbation from a very, very great height. So, here we are.”

“Here you are. All mysterious.”

“Not mysterious, merely cautious. A malign foreign influence on a personage of Eddy’s importance is not something we feel comfortable contemplating. We want proof of what Jabez is doing so that steps can be taken to remove him without any further objections.”

“And Jabez himself? Does he have any associates?”

“Not that we know of. Forgive me, but we want to keep all this very hush-hush. Off the books, so to speak.”

“You can keep it off whatever you like, so long as I am paid.”

“I guarantee it.” His tone becomes more grave. “Will you meet our request? Can you put a stop to this? We believe they will be at Hammond’s tonight.”

“Let me see.” She lifts a perfectly manicured hand and begins to count on her fingers. “One, protect Eddy. Two, stop Jabez, or whatever his name is, from doing whatever it is he is trying to do. Three, obtain evidence to incriminate Jabez, but; four, don’t kill him, at least until said evidence is in my possession. Five, achieve all this without Eddy’s knowledge or Jabez

becoming suspicious, or even knowing who it is I am working for.” She pauses. “Is that all? I would hate to miss anything out.”

“That’s about everything we could think of.”

“Tricky.”

“But not impossible.”

“Oh, Mister Smith. Nothing is impossible. Not for the amount of money I am considering charging you for all this. Anonymous employers are subject to a special rate.”

“I’m sure that it’s very reasonable.”

“No,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Quite the opposite.”

“Nonetheless, we have determined that you are our best hope to resolve this matter.”

“Then you really must be desperate.” She straightens in her chair. “Very well, I accept. I must admit that this Jabez intrigues me a little; he does look so extravagantly wicked.” She opens her bag, drops the photograph into it, and uses the opportunity to again check her make-up. “Now, if you will excuse me.”

She puts the mirror away and snaps her bag closed. As she moves to stand up, Smith gets to his feet and takes her chair.

“So kind,” she says. “Now, I may need to use some assistance with this.

There are some assignments where my particular talents may be considered rather excessive.”

“As long as you take full responsibility for their discretion, we shall leave the arrangements entirely in your hands.”

“Then I shall be in touch when I have discovered something worth reporting. You have an address and a telephone, I take it.”

Smith takes a long look around before he whispers the information as close to her ear as he can without flinching. She makes no move to write anything down, which seems to comfort him.

“Now, would you be a dear and settle up?” she says as she prepares to leave.

As Smith accosts the skinny waitress, Poison turns on one spiked heel and makes for the door. She stops to collect her heavy leather coat and twinfilter breathing mask from the attendant before braving the outside air. Not bothering with the mask, she climbs into a waiting hackney-steamer and reaches for the speaking tube connected to the driver’s helmet. She gives him

an address in St. John’s Wood and closes the tube before he has time to protest about the shortness of the journey.

She relaxes against the worn red leather seat as the driver releases his brakes and eases the chugging machine away from the kerb. Soon, the huge glass and steel dome that covers both pitch and stand of the M. C. C. looms out of the pollution, its associated ventilation towers sending massive clusters of church-organ pipework into the clean air far above. She takes off her glasses and cranes her neck to follow the metal tubes until they disappear into the swirling fog. All households capable of affording it have similar, albeit smaller-scale, structures of their own that project up and out of the terrible murk. These are connected to steam-pumps to suck in the cleaner air and force it through their ventilation systems. Naturally, the acrid pollution from the pumps themselves remains at street level, thereby compounding the deadly problems of London’s atmosphere and raising demand for yet more of them in a neat closed cycle that benefits wealthy households and steam-pump manufacturers at the expense of those too insignificant or poor to be worth considering.

A few drops of greasy, acidic rain fall on the carriage window, hissing as they smear their way down the thick glass. The rain sends any persons outside scurrying for cover as there is no sure way of forecasting the acid levels, and any misplaced confidence can have dire and frequently fatal consequences. Poison watches a young couple huddle in a shop doorway rub filter to filter as they tenderly touch their masks together.

The carriage slows and eventually comes to a shuddering halt outside a row of large terraced houses that front onto the street. Like all of the other buildings close by, the terrace is well protected against the elements, with each house having its own air system, extended eaves, and acid-resistant paintwork. All the lower storey windows are recessed far into the thick walls with an extra clear pane behind the heavily leaded outer glass. All told, they are among the most secure residences in the city, a point very accurately reflected in their resale and rental values.

Poison puts her mask over her hair and waits for the driver to open the carriage door before dropping a shilling into his outstretched rubber gauntlet.

She pulls the mask down over her face and adjusts it until it is snug over her whole head. She makes sure that she has her house-key ready before stepping from the carriage and marches as briskly as her heels and sense of decorum

will allow up to the front of the nearest house. Almost without breaking stride, she uses the large key to open the heavy wood and iron door and closes it again the moment her skirts have passed the threshold. She stands for a moment at the centre of the entrance hall and pulls off her mask and coat to leave them with her bag at a small table beside the door. She straightens her skirt and checks her hair in a nearby full-length mirror. Satisfied, she lets the noise of her arrival echo away and listens to the sound of the empty-seeming house, hearing nothing save the reassuring thump and wheeze of the air pump in the basement and the quiet hissing of the vents spaced out along the wainscoting.

The house is well, if sparsely, furnished. There are many empty recesses, bare shelves, and other unadorned surfaces. It is, in fact, a perfect example of the type of rented property available to those with ample funds but little need for masses of furniture. From where she is standing, she can see into the main sitting room well enough to establish its lack of habitation.

She opens the door opposite, and a quick look into the dining room beyond proves it to be likewise; the table and chairs are all covered by a uniform layer of dust and clearly have not been moved for some time. As she can think of no earthly reason to bother with the basement kitchen, she heads towards the wide and plush-carpeted staircase that leads to the upper floor.

She ascends the stairs and makes her way down the long corridor at their head, guided at last by the increasing volume of something that sounds very much like a slow hand-clap. Contriving to cover the last few feet without letting her heels rap on the floor, she approaches the door of the very last bedroom, pauses, and then quietly turns the handle.