Dodger of the Dials by James Benmore

with – Saffron Hill, St Giles, Seven Dials, Whitechapel – I would have thought that this was even a low estimate. Round my way every second abode rented out rooms to pragmatic ladies of industry and their many dependents but a fellow would sometimes have to turn two street corners before finding somewhere decent to drink. But it was also well known that if you moved outward from the heart of the metropolis – and away from London’s glittering West End – then houses of ill-repute do become more scattered, rare and mysterious. By the time Slade’s carriage had thundered through the main thoroughfare of Kensington and had entered into the streets of Hammersmith, I was already beginning to wonder if any of these more genteel houses we was passing could ever be the lair of such a notorious bawd. With their black cast-iron boundary rails, white-painted frontages and well-kept flower gardens none of them seemed to betray the barest hint of shame.
    ‘Woah there!’ we heard Slade cry as the horses reared up in a prettylane close to the riverside. ‘Miss Molly Gay’s, gentlemen! House of pleasure!’ I was surprised by the boldness of this announcement – he did not seem to care if the whole neighbourhood heard. Although it was dark now we could still see that the house we was being led towards was as modest as every other in the vicinity, with a paved path of little red and black tiles winding through the rose garden and up towards the tall front door. The drawn curtains however was deep crimson and we could hear from within the sounds of sweet female laughter and stringed music. So this, I thought perplexed as I tried to see what was going on inside the lighted front parlour through the crack in the curtains, is the hellish place from where Lily had fled. It looked from the outside to be so much more pleasant than where she had ended up.
    The door bore the brass image of a goblin woman’s face with the knocker in its mouth to which Slade pointed after rapping on it. ‘See that,’ he explained to Tom and myself as we waited on the steps behind him, ‘it’s supposed to be Queen Victoria. Looks nothing like her, does it?’
    ‘I dunno,’ said Tom. ‘I can see the likeness.’
    I was expecting to be received by Molly Gay herself or perhaps by one of the girls what worked there. And, though I had no mind to lie with any others while Lily was my woman, I must confess to feeling some excitement as I heard the chains being unlatched from within. Considering the reputation of this establishment I could only assume that I was about to be presented, as the door swung open most soft, with some of the most heavenly harlots that this great city had to offer. I straightened my hat in anticipation of what delights was about to greet us.
    ‘Yer here, then,’ said Morris Bolter as he peered out from the light of the doorway, his scowling face even uglier than the one on the knocker. He was holding an over-filled brandy glass andswirling the liquid as he eyed me with contempt. ‘I knew he’d get yer afore long, Dodger,’ he sneered as if he had just won some imagined victory over me. ‘Hope yer’ve left the shrew at home and bought some manners with yer this time.’
    ‘Move out of it, Morris,’ Slade said as he pushed inside first and made the former charity boy stagger backwards into the hall and spill brandy over his shirt. ‘You’re not to be answering doors or helping yourself to the drinks cabinet, eh? Gentlemen of quality do not wish to see your ugly person when entering a house of sin. It’d put them off, I should think.’ Bolter looked about for something to wipe the brown stain as Slade turned and welcomed us across the threshold. ‘ Messrs Dawkins and Skinner are important guests,’ he declared in his theatrical way, ‘and will be treated accordingly.’
    The reception room was warm and wide and its rich-patterned carpet went all the way to and up the staircase. A grandfather clock ticked away