He began giggling as the proprietor gave instructions to the clerk, ‘Take the Justice up to the best room. If there’s anybody in there… shift ’em down the corridor. Any trouble, and you fetch me, straightaway. We want nothing but the best for the Justice.’

‘Nothing but the best for the Justice,’ repeated Caleb Crowther as he ambled drunkenly towards the staircase, ‘nothing but the best.’ He swore aloud when the clerk tripped beneath the heavy, lumbering weight that leaned against him. ‘Get off, you damned fool!’ he roared, staggering against a nearby table and drawing angry looks from the clients seated there. Infuriated by the manner in which the lady and gent were eyeing him up and down, he skimmed his arm across the table-top and sent every object crashing to the floor. At once there was uproar. The lady began screaming and the gent was all for launching himself at the drunken intruder; he would have done, were it not for the intervention of the frustrated proprietor, who calmly transferred the agitated couple to another table, where they were to be given ‘anything they wanted on the house’.

As Caleb Crowther was discreetly ushered upstairs, the proprietor was made to ask himself whether the ‘distinguished’ client was worth all the trouble he had brought with him, yet again! Still, he consoled himself with the belief that, before the Justice finally left these premises, he would likely have paid handsomely by way of compensation. If his memory served him right, Justice Caleb Crowther was not only a big man, but a big sinner, and a big spender. After all, when it came right down to it, nothing else mattered but the size of a client’s wallet. And they didn’t come much bigger than this client’s! Let him have his display of bad temper. The proprietor had seen many such displays but, as a rule, they were shortlived and made no lasting damage, at least not so far as the proprietor himself was concerned.

In the few hectic moments when Caleb Crowther had made his presence known, he had provoked both anger and amusement amongst the gathered clientele, who saw this great arrogant drunkard as something to be either spat at, or laughed at, but in any event soon forgotten.

There were two observers in particular, however, who had been deeply shaken by the sight of Caleb Crowther: one being filled with alarm, and the other shot through with a terrible loathing of him. From a safe distance, the two watched as Caleb Crowther was led away, swearing one minute and laughing the next.

The woman was tall and slim, wearing a crimson gown and black feather boa. In her late thirties she was still an attractive figure, her striking countenance marred only by the angry, jagged scar that ran down one side of her face. The scar was a legacy from over twenty years ago, inflicted on her in this very establishment, by the then much younger, but equally obnoxious, Caleb Crowther. Then, as now, the redhead had been employed in the capacity as ‘hostess’ to the many pursuers of pleasure who frequented this seedy London club. She had been young and tender when Caleb Crowther had disfigured her in one of his uncontrollable rages. At the time she had been highly desirable and extremely popular with the clients. Ever since that night her popularity had plummeted. Now she was called on only as a last resort, to serve those who were either half-blind, short of money or too drunk to know or care what they were paying for.