Free The Memoirs of Irene Adler: The Irene Adler Trilogy by San Cassimally

mouth open, shook his head and in a whisper said, ‘You know I had never envisaged that.’
    ‘Envisaged what?’ asked Armande as she came back in. But she was not to find out. There was a loud knock at the door, and a messenger handed a note, breathlessly saying, ‘For Lord Clarihoe.’ All the blood drained from his face as he looked at it. ‘Must go, something awful has happened, Alice has been stolen.’ And in a matter of minutes he had disappeared, mumbling something which sounded like, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ Armande and I stared at each other.
    ‘Who is Alice?’ I asked, whereupon my friend and landlady told me about Clarihoe’s aunt Cordelia. She had eloped with a Catholic violinist and had been, as a result, repudiated by the family. Algernon had been forbidden all contact with the renegade aunt, but stealthily he had kept in touch with her. Emilia was her daughter who was a few years younger than him and was married to Vincent, a schoolteacher. They had been blessed by a baby Alice who was only three weeks old.
    ‘Who would steal a three week old baby?’ I mused aloud.
    ‘I ’ope,’ said Armande, ‘that... no, it can’t be... not even criminals... you’ve ’eard ’ow they steel leetle girls and make them work in those
bordels
... but surely not bebbies...’ Choked with tears, she was unable to express herself and left the room. I had no alternative to offer, but somehow I thought that Armande was formulating an outlandish scenario.
    Many people believed that London was no longer as dangerous a city as it was only twenty years before. They talk of the laws that have been passed in the recent years for the protection of minors, stopping girls as young as eleven or twelve from being coerced into prostitution, or trafficked to France or Belgium by
placeurs
. I know of these laws like everybody else, but although the age of consent has been raised to sixteen, it is a common belief that the Metropolitan Police turn a blind eye to infringements. The gambling dens of Wellington Place were still doing a thriving business and the Mrs Jeffries of Chelsea were left in peace to carry out their obscene trade unhindered by the police. Although we were to become dreaded presences in casinos on the continent because of winning systems devised by the financial genius Anatole Frunk, the
Club
despised Wellington Place because the bulk of their clientèle consisted of the most deprived among the population, who ended up getting fleeced of their meagre earnings in the vain attempt at augmentingtheir resources. We did not by any means consider ourselves guardians of morality, but whilst we did not disapprove of people paying consenting adults for sex, we thought that there was no greater abomination than involving innocent children in prostitution. As we were defenders of the weak, children were on top of our list. There had been many cases of missing children that the police have been unable or unwilling to solve. The only time we had found it necessary to kill anybody was when Lord Stonehead, powerful untouchable and perverted, had been stealing Romany children for sexual purposes and killing them afterwards. The reader can find copies of
Reynolds News
in any borough library and read for himself or herself the story of how Lord Stonehead got his just deserts (see:
The Avengers
). We used to rage when we heard of the helplessness of parents whose children had been stolen.
    We had expected Algernon the next day. We were impatient to discover the fate of baby Alice but it was three days before he showed up. We were greatly alarmed when we saw the state he was in. He had obviously not slept a wink since we last saw him. His face was haggard and sallow and his eyes were ringed. The moment he came in he started ranting incoherently. It was obvious that little Alice was still lost.
    ‘Sit down and calm down
mon cher Aljèrenonne
, I’ll bring you some
tarte
and mocha,’ said Armande. The two of us sat opposite each