After breakfast the next morning, I went upstairs, for Barker was not in his garden as usual. I found him at one of the tables in his garret with an open copy of the Pall Mall Gazette in his hand. This was the day Stead fired his salvo at the House of Commons. “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” screamed the headline. When I entered, the Guv motioned me into the chair and put the article into my hand before charging his thimble cup with another spoonful of tea.
I read. Stead admitted everything, which was the only way, really. He gave names of everyone involved, explained the depth to which the government had allowed this to go, and the numbers of the girls involved. He turned “white slave trade” into a phrase that everyone would use for the next several years and then forced it onto every breakfast table in the land between the toast rack and the Dundee marmalade.
“Good heavens,” I said when I finally finished. “The government shall not be able to sidestep this or play it down.”
“Precisely,” Barker said. “Stead knows how to provoke people as well as any sermon writer in England, but Hesketh’s people shall retaliate, you may be sure.”
Barker and I went to our chambers that morning, but my employer spent his time in the office receiving messages and telephone calls about the coming crisis. It appeared all of London was in an uproar over the special edition. Some were calling Stead a monster, and others naming him a hero. The Gazette editor had pulled back the grate on a stinking cesspool, and now London would have to acknowledge it and clean it up. The children of the East End owed much to William T. Stead, but I had learned enough in Barker’s employ to know what happened to those who pointed out the government’s faults. They usually received nothing but punishment.
The Guv sent me off to the charity to have a private word with Miss Potter. I was going to tell her that the case was over and her services were no longer required but that she had acted admirably. I also had things to discuss with her of a more private nature.
She was not at the charity, as it turned out. Some of the volunteers were away, for it appeared the government was going to speak upon the matter of the white slave trade, convened by Chamberlain himself, at a building in Whitechapel in Commercial Street. If I hurried, I could just make it. I sprinted out the door, thinking that perhaps now I could finally make sense of the connection between Beatrice Potter and Chamberlain.
When I arrived at the building, the meeting was already under way. The meeting hall was packed full of lower-class parents who had been upset by the morning’s article, which must have been dispersed and read far and wide. Her Majesty’s government must have been very concerned about Stead’s article to convene a hasty meeting just hours after publication. Joseph Chamberlain had been dispatched to clamp a lid down on the problem.
“The dangers in the Gazette have been exaggerated,” he told the crowd. “It was an incendiary headline produced solely to sell newspapers. The number of white slavers in England is very small, and they have always been caught and prosecuted.”
“Then why has Mr. Stead barricaded himself in his offices?” a man asked from the audience.
“No doubt because the scandalmonger fears arrest from Scotland Yard.”
I had to admire Chamberlain’s fearlessness. The crowd could quite easily turn into a mob.
“Why hasn’t there been a successful bill to raise the age of consent?” a woman asked. Her daughter was sitting beside her, obviously close to that age.
“We hope the bill will not be forced upon us,” Chamberlain explained. “It is not that Her Majesty’s government finds this unimportant. No one finds the slave trade more reprehensible than we. However, you must understand that there is a queue, and that bringing forward this bill shall push back badly needed funding or reform in other quarters.”
They would not allow him to pontificate but peppered him with questions. I was impressed by his calm demeanor and logical mind. No subject was brought up on which he was not fully informed. Perhaps the government was capable of handling this, one could see them thinking, but there were still skeptics and angry mothers who remained unappeased.
I looked through the mass of people and saw Miss Levy sitting beside Miss Hill, but Beatrice Potter was not with them. Scanning the faces of the crowd, I looked for her light hair and lovely face before finally spotting her in the back, half hidden by a pillar. She leaned forward, looking mesmerized. Chamberlain’s speech was not that enthralling. And then I realized what was happening. She and this man were lovers, despite the wide gap in their years. I had never stood a chance with her. When she had followed me from the British Museum, it had been merely to secure employment as a professional agent. I reached into my pocket for her check and, skirting the crowd, came up behind her. She started when I spoke.
“Good morning, Miss Potter,” I said, raising my hat formally. “I realize this speech is important, but I would like to speak with you outside for a few moments.”
She hesitated for a moment and then followed me out into Commercial Street, where the sunlight must have highlighted my burns.
“Oh, Thomas, your face.”
“It will heal. I’ve gotten used to getting hurt in this line of work.”
She understood my underlying irony, pursing her lips and looking down. “You found Gwendolyn’s killer,” she said at last. “It was Stephen Carrick. Inspector Swanson told us this morning. The charity is quite upset over it all, especially Miss Levy. She says it is yet another woman’s life ruined by a rapacious husband.”
I saw Rose Carrick in my mind’s eye, flinging a pan of acid at me. I would hardly have called her a victim, but perhaps it was best to keep my own counsel. These girls had been her friends, after all, and perhaps the only semblance of normality she had known.
“I feel terrible that I never told you about Joseph,” she continued. “I used you to make him jealous. I didn’t plan to, but it happened anyway.”
“Do the two of you plan to wed?”
“I’m not certain anymore. We have seen each other for a couple of years, but there has never been any formal announcement of engagement. We’ve broken it off twice. I felt free to speak with you and to invite you to hear Miss Lee speak, but I must admit I wanted to tweak Joseph’s nose. You were a fine escort and I enjoyed our evening very much. More than I can say.”
“Are you and Mr. Chamberlain together again?”
“We are at an impasse. I no longer believe he will marry me, and I refuse to be his mistress. Oh, I am wretched!” She held the palms of her hands to her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and genuinely meant it. I didn’t hold her actions against her, now that I knew more about them. She had already been punished more than I would wish.
“Mr. Barker asked me to give you this,” I said, pulling an envelope from my pocket. “He encloses a bank draft for your services and a letter of recommendation. He sends you his compliments and says if you wish more work in the future, to speak with him again.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the envelope. “I was very glad to help him, but I don’t believe I shall be available for future work. This has been a rather trying time for me.”
I pulled my handkerchief from my breast pocket and gave it to her. She wiped her eyes and held it to her lips, stifling a cry, before handing it back to me.
“I’d better get back in. Who knows what Joseph will promise the crowd.” She attempted a smile. “I didn’t want you to hate me, Thomas.”