under the roadway above. The walls were expensively rendered in a brilliant display of the
Tapestries and great swathes of scarlet cloth billowed overhead like the skirts of a giantess. Upon them was wrought, in (well, exquisite is not quite the word) well-observed detail, classical pornography of the most astonishing variety. Priapic old lechers pursued virgins with a passion around a witches’ sabbat, dominated by a frightening goat-headed Devil. Girlish youths and Rubens-esque ladies formed a frame around scenes of Caligulan excess, where satyrs had their way with women deprived of their togas, and centaurs carried off drunken revellers.
The embroidered shenanigans, however, were as nothing to what was being enacted beneath them.
Flashes of colour rose up out of the gloom; male and female faces fixed in orgasmic relish, oil-slicked hair bobbing over a sea of unbuttoned britches, silken knickerbockers flung up from the melee like flags of surrender. The stench of absinthe and tobacco was overwhelming.
I glanced at Charlie Jackpot but his expression was unreadable in the murk. Of course my overwhelming emotion was one of horror. Not at the extraordinary outrages being committed in the name of love all about me, of course, but at the dreadful, unarguable fact that such a place existed and it would take me four days throwing up over the side of a steamer to get to it! What price my poor Pomegranate Rooms now?
Charlie pushed his way through the fleshy miasma, kicking aside copulating couples, until he found us a kind of ottoman. The pair he dislodged from this with the toe of his boot rolled off on to the floor with hardly a murmur, locked together like the jaws of a ferret.
I leaned back against the cushioned velvet. Charlie disappeared for a moment and then returned with a battered silver tray, bottles and glasses crammed upon it up to its tarnished edge. Pouring me some kind of hideous brandy, he gulped down most of a pint of porter and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
«You work in shifts, then?» I pondered.
«How’s that?»
«I was just wondering how you find time to look after Sir Emmanuel. It must be exhausting to wash dishes and then come on to this place.»
He giggled. «I like my work.»
I drank the brandy as swiftly as I could so it didn’t have time to touch the inside of my mouth.
Charlie leaned closer until his lips brushed my ear. «I’ll tell you it all, Mr Box. But you have to promise to get me out of here. Set me up.»
«I can make no assurances,» I said, my attention distracted momentarily by the sight of a Negro youth in a guardsman’s uniform merrily tossing himself off over the patrons to our left. «Not unless you have something of real import to impart.»
«That I do. See, I hear things,» murmured Charlie, darkly. «They don’t know that I work up at the house as well as here.»
«Who are
There was a swish of skirts close by. I was conscious of a scent of mimosa and suddenly someone was standing right at my elbow.
«
The low voice belonged to a girl of middling height, exceptionally slim, wearing only an ivory corset and mustard-coloured stockings. Her long auburn hair was piled high and interlaced with flowers, crowning a face of surpassing loveliness; almond-shaped eyes heavily lined in kohl.
«Venus!» cried Charlie delightedly. He pulled the girl on to his lap and kissed her fiercely, running his hand up and down her stockinged leg. She adjusted herself in his embrace and cast a furtive glance to me.
«Who ees this?» she asked in the same seductive whisper. Her accent was as thick as tomato sauce.
Charlie grinned. «This is Mr Box. Mr Box, meet Venus.»
I gave a little bow. Venus proffered a painted hand. I kissed the middle knuckles, taking care to let the tip of my tongue linger a moment. It seemed the form in these environs.
Venus’s gaudily rouged lips puckered and she looked down, all abashed, the little minx. I had the queerest feeling that we’d met before.
«You like-a ma place, Signor Box?» she said with a half-smile.
My eyes widened. «
It was Charlie who answered, fixing me with a meaningful stare and taking a plug of his porter. «This? This is the Vesuvius Club.»
Well, of course I
«Is-a something wrong, Signor Box?» cooed Venus.
I shook my head to clear it. «Not a bit, my dear. It’s just that Mr Jackpot and myself have some… business to conclude…»
Venus put one hand on her hip and smiled. «I never stand in thee way of custom, eh? Perhaps you would be more comfortable in ma private quarters?»
I glanced at Charlie and he nodded.
«How kind,» I cooed. «Will you lead the way?»
The delightful girl batted her kohl-rimmed eyes and swept off into the crowd. Charlie drained the last of his pint and followed with me bringing up the rear. Wary of stepping into a bear-trap (as this much honey might turn out to be), I walked with hands clasped behind me to feel the reassuring presence of the pearl-handled revolver strapped to the small of my back.
Venus led us through the roaring melee and through a side door into a cooler, darkened room that smelled of rose-petals. She lit the lamps, revealing a scarlet boudoir of impressive proportions, divided by silk curtains and scattered about with fat oriental cushions. A dressing mirror dominated the far wall.
«Please make-a yourselves at home,» said Venus, sitting down on the dresser and crossing her legs. Her mustard stockings flashed in the half-light.
«Most obliging of you, miss,» I said.
Venus cocked her head again. «Charlie and I… we are old friends… yes? And any friend of his…»
Charlie grinned at her and, picking up a bottle of cham, wrenched out the cork. He poured three glasses. Venus drained hers in one go, span her champagne glass between her delicate fingers and fixed me with a slightly intimidating stare. What had those fiery eyes seen in their few years? She made me feel positively callow.
«I hope-a to see much more of
«Christ, ain’t she something!» cried Charlie. He lifted the champagne bottle to his lips and guzzled down more plonk.
«That she is. Are you two—?»
«Some chance!» laughed Charlie. «Even if I were that way inclined. No. She’s got a fella, the real boss. She runs this place for him.»
Charlie threw himself down on to a cushion.
«But you want to know about a man called Poop.»
I sat up. «Go on.»
«Well, he came in here a while ago, asking questions. Thought he was a punter. He stood me a drink but he weren’t interested in getting, you know,
I frowned. «Racket?»
Charlie nodded. «Treasure. Seems that he’d had some kind of nark sniffing around but he’d gone missing. Wondered if I’d be interested in taking up where the nark left off»
The boy stopped dead.
«What is it?» I cried.
«Dunno. Can you smell something?»
Charlie coughed. His hand flew to his throat and he coughed again, more raggedly. Then it was my turn. The
