Performing Midgets, no less, and fresh from performing before the crowned heads of Europe …’
She came one step closer to him. ‘Do I care who he is? I can tell you straight off, I do not. He is a dwarf and I find he’s sleeping under my roof without so much as a handshake. I don’t care for him. This is a respectable house.’
‘It is a temporary arrangement, Mrs Hayes. You see, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go at present and I am a kind-hearted fellow. I suffer for my kindness, but I hope you will understand.’ Devil’s voice grew softer. ‘I believe you will, Maria, of all women. You have shown such particular kindness to me.’
Maria Hayes hesitated. She was a large woman in her forties with some of the prettiness of her youth still in her face, her black hair unpinned, and the white folds of her body unconfined by stays. Devil might have assumed she had only just stepped out of her bed, had he not known that she could be encountered in a similar state of undress at any hour of the day. She raised a hand and brushed a stray coil of hair from her flushed cheek.
‘I have, Mr Wix. I have been as kind as I could be.’
Devil lifted a matching coil of hair from the opposite cheek. They were already standing close together and the confined space of the vestibule offered no latitude. Devil used his elbow to nudge open the door of the landlady’s room. It was not a very much more spacious resort. One glance was enough to reveal that Mr Hayes was absent, as usual, nor was there any sign of the slow-witted son of the house.
Maria’s mouth was only six inches from his. He leaned down to close the distance. Her lips obligingly parted.
After the kiss Devil ran his hands over her breasts. He put his mouth to her ear.
‘Tell me, is My Lady Laycock at home today?’
Maria smirked. ‘I’ll have to see if Her Ladyship is receiving visitors this morning.’
‘Won’t you tell her Mr Devil Wix is calling?’
Maria grasped his wrist and yanked him over the threshold. Devil kicked the door shut and she slid the bolt behind them. He put his arms round her and they half waltzed to the stuffy alcove with the bed concealed behind a curtain. The sheets were far from clean and the bolster leaked feathers from its case of greasy ticking. Devil untied the strings of Maria’s chemise and the thought of the golden ribbon came happily into his mind again. His landlady pressed herself against him and her tongue sought his.
‘I find she is at home, and waiting for you,’ she murmured. Her fingers were tugging at his shirt buttons, then her hand moved downwards. ‘It’s a good name for you, wherever you got it. Devil by nature as well, aren’t you?’
Cheerfully Devil tipped her backwards on to the bed and pulled up her grubby petticoat. He got busy, at the same time tasting the sweat of her neck and the rankness of her black hair.
Afterwards they lay on the mattress with a coil of bedding twisted round them. Maria was an energetic performer and Devil hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours. His eyelids were so heavy that he was wondering how he was going to get up the stairs to his own bed. A sudden thumping on the door jolted him upright quickly enough, however. Groaning at the thought of Mr Hayes on the threshold he pulled his clothing together. Maria went undressed to the tiny window and stuck her head out.
‘Stop that racket. Get down to Ransome’s and bring me back a jug of porter,’ she yelled. From this exchange Devil understood that it was her son at the door, not the husband. When she pulled herself back into the room they grinned at each other.
‘You’ll wet your whistle?’ Maria asked.
Devil took her reddened hands and kissed the knuckles of each.
‘I have to go to work, my lovely girl.’
The delighted smile she gave him was almost shy, and her blush did make her look girlish. Devil slid out of the room and softly closed the door before she could mention the dwarf again. Aching for rest he climbed the bare flights of stairs, past doorways to rooms hardly larger than cupboards, which nevertheless housed families of lodgers, until he reached the attic. As he had expected he found Carlo lying on his makeshift bed, fast asleep and snoring like an engine. Devil kicked him as he stepped past, but this had no effect at all. Ten minutes later, his own snores provided a counterpoint.
In the two weeks that followed Devil worked harder than he had ever done, and he had laboured for long, bitter hours on plenty of occasions before this. Nights with Carlo at the coffin maker’s followed on from late evenings of performing his own act at whichever of the taphouses or small halls would offer him a booking. He took the money wherever he could get it. One evening he arrived at the workshop still in his stage costume, such was his eagerness to resume work on the cabinet trick. Carlo eyed him as he discarded his greatcoat.
‘What’s this?’ the dwarf sniggered.
Devil preened. He wore a suit of red cloth, cut to fit so snugly that it might have been a second skin.
‘Ah, my performance costume? It is for a trick called the Infernal Flames. Tonight at Prewett’s they were begging for more.’ This was not strictly true, but Devil was always good at reinterpreting reality in his own favour. ‘But for our grand opening at the Palmyra we will do far better than Jacko Grady has bargained for.’
They turned to their work. The cabinet interior was empty except for a double shelf. Tonight’s work was to line all the inside surfaces with a seamless layer of jet-black velvet. Devil undid a draper’s brown-paper package and smoothed a bolt of fabric on a swept circle of floor. He took a tailor’s tape and called out the measurements in feet and inches and Carlo pencilled them on a sheet of paper. Each measurement was taken twice, to ensure accuracy. The velvet had been expensive to buy and none of Devil’s techniques of persuasion had achieved even a pennyworth of discount. Carlo set to with a pair of shears. He was a dextrous worker and the first neat rectangle was soon cut to the precise size. Devil had applied brush and glue to the cabinet wall and with some cursing and arguing they succeeded in sticking the light-absorbing material in place.
Halfway through the task they stood back to gauge the effect. The finished walls of the box seemed to melt into black space. Even Carlo the perfectionist was pleased.
‘I have some more good news,’ Devil announced. ‘Tomorrow your head will be ready. I am to collect it after we leave here.’
‘At last. So we must begin to work up the beheading. I’ll be needing a suit of tall clothing.’
Devil sighed. There was a deal of investing to be done before any return could be hoped for, but still his confidence held.
Devil and Carlo together had visited the wax-modelling studio of Mr Jasper Button in Camden Town, and Carlo had made his way there alone on three subsequent occasions. He had sat patient and motionless on a stool, with the smells of warm wax and linseed oil and turpentine all round him, while the modeller built up sub-layers and then sculpted pellets of wax over a wire frame. On the last visit the modeller had sorted through a basket filled with plaited hanks of cut human hair, holding up one specimen after another next to Carlo’s head and muttering to himself as he searched for the best match. He ran his fingers through the dwarf’s abundant locks and pulled at the sprouting tufts of his eyebrows.
‘Where does it all come from?’ Carlo had asked.
‘Plenty of people hereabouts are glad to sell the hair off their heads for a shilling or two.’ Jasper held
