“Yes, ma’am.” His deep voice was shaking. “’Sposin’ Ah git word f’m Crixus this aft’noon – where Ah find yuh?”
“You don’t! Wait till I return. Now, get out!”
I met him in the doorway, murmured, “Ah, Joe – how many free niggers get that kind of pleasuring, eh?”, and received a murderous glare before he strode off. Annette was putting on her bonnet before the mirror, but when I inquired where she was going I was told curtly to hold my tongue and wait, which I did obediently, while she fussed with her appearance, referring every few minutes to the little gold watch which she kept in her reticule. She was paler than usual, and twitchy as a nervous sepoy, drawing her gloves off and on and fiddling with her toilette – something’s up, thinks I, but after a while she seemed to settle, and it was a good half-hour before she looked at her watch for the last time, stood up, and informed me that we were going out.
“I have business in town. You will come with me, and don’t move a yard from me at any time, do you understand? Whatever I do, wherever I go, don’t leave my side for a moment, and do not contradict anything you may hear me say. No, do not ask questions!” She rapped it all out like a tiny drill sergeant, steady enough, but I guessed that she was up to high doh within, and striving to hide it. “You are being watched, remember! Do not look around for … for anyone – they are there. Do nothing out of the usual, you hear? Your life depends upon it!”
It was nothing she hadn’t said in Washington, but the manner was new: she was scared, and I couldn’t believe it was only on my account. I started to ask her what was amiss, but she bit my head off.
“Be quiet! Do as I say – no more! We are man and wife out in New York, so try to behave in a natural manner!” That was rich, coming from her. She took a breath, and handed me some change. “That is our streetcar fare, three cents apiece. Pay the conductor. Now, give me your arm.”
It was like walking with a badly wound up clockwork doll as we descended to the street, but once we were out in the sunshine and the chattering Broadway crowds she became easier, possibly because I showed no tendency to cut and run or bawl for a copper. There’s a great air of up and doing about New York; everyone seems to be in a cheerful hurry, and even my apprehensions about the Kuklos bravos who, I was sure, were dogging our steps, receded in that jolly bustle. We mounted one of the long cars which ran on rails on the broad thoroughfare; it was crowded to the doors, but half a dozen gallants begged Annette with much tipping of tiles and “Do me the honour, ma’am!” to take their seats, and I’m bound to say she played up like the actress she was, smiling prettily as she accepted and even referring demurely to “her husband” to discourage one young blade who was being over-attentive. He gave me an apologetic grin and offered me a chew from his tobacco case, which I declined; fortunately the press was too thick for him to start the relentless inquiry to which Yankees are wont to subject perfect strangers as to their origin, business, habits, and destination, and after a couple of stages Annette informed me that “this is our stop, Beauchamp”, and we transferred to one of the omnibuses which ran on the cross-streets.
Here I had my encounter with the dolly-mops who used me as a conductor; one of them exclaimed flirtatiously that I’d given her too much change, so I said gravely that in the presence of so much beauty I invariably became confused, and she should return any over-payment to my wife, who handled all my financial affairs. That sent them into blushing whispers and giggles, with sidelong glances at Annette, who gave me a sharp look as I took my seat beside her, but said nothing. The girls lost interest in me after that, and fell to discussing a party which one of them had attended, “on Park Avenoo, you never seen such style, it was a yellow en’ertainment – sure, everythin’ yellow, linen, glass, plates, an’ all, I swear even the lampshades were yellow, but then Mrs van Vogel, she’s Harold’s boss’s wife, y’know, why, she’s just drownin’ in money – Harold reckons that party cost her fifteen thousan’ dollars!”
Cries of “You don’t say!” “Well, I swan!” and “Gosh a mercy!”
“Harold hated it, tho’, ’cos he couldn’t smoke or chew, he was fit to be tied –”
“Say, Harriet, did you have to wear yellow, too?”
“Why, sure, you think I’d go in green or blue to a yellow party? An’ we danced, an’ there was a magician, an’ an English breakfast, an’ I never saw more policemen outside a house in my life, to keep the crowds back from the carriages. ’Course, Harold and I, we walked …”
Annette gripped my wrist. “Come!” snaps she, and made for the door. We were at a stop, some passengers had just descended, and the driver was about to strap up the door again; he raised a great bellow of complaint at our tardiness, but Annette squeezed out with me on her heels. I looked back at the cursing driver in time to see him close the door on another latecomer, a cove in a brown suit and bowler who was demanding that he open it again, but jarvey wasn’t having any, and the bus rolled off with the fellow staring after us through the glass.
“This way – do not hurry, and do not look round!” Annette’s fingers were tight on my arm as she guided me along the crowded sidewalk, her heels clicking smartly. We were on one of the Avenues, lined with fashionable shops, and before you could say Jack Robinson she had whisked into one of them, a splendid emporium with two large glass doors, one bearing the word “Madam” and t’other “Celeste” and with fat gilt Cupids capering on the lintel above. One moment we were in the crowded bustle of the street, the next in the hush of an opulent interior, the street noise cut off as the doors closed behind us.
For a moment I thought it must be an exclusive brothel, for we were in a great salon all plush and gilt and mirrors, with thick carpet and velvet divans and curtains looped back by silver cords, and Junoesque females of perfect complexion drifting about. The air was heavy with perfume – and then I realised that I was the only man in the place, and that the Junoes were shop attendants waiting on society women of all ages. My astonished gaze fell on a polished counter displaying alabaster pots of “Mammarial Balm”, travelled to a glass cabinet containing – did my eyes deceive me? – corsets enhanced by globular objects labelled “Madam Celeste’s Patent Bosom Balloons, with Special Respirator”, dwelt in disbelief on a plaster cast of the Venus de Milo attired in “Eternal Youth Pumped Cups”, and came to rest on a double doorway consisting of an enormous oil painting of splendidly endowed females in gauzy costumes teasing the god Pan who was bound to a tree and not thinking much of it; above the doorway was a gilt sign: ENAMELLING STUDIO.
I’m too young for this establishment, thinks I, but before I could speak we were accosted by a dark soulful beauty who’d have been the picture of elegance if she hadn’t been chewing like a longshoreman – not baccy, but a curious grey pellet like candle-wax which she removed daintily as she approached and secreted in a lace handkerchief before inquiring languidly if she could render assistance to “maydam”.
“I am Mrs Comber,” says Annette. “I have an enamelling appointment with Madam Celeste.”
“Sure,” drawls the beauty. “Would maydam be requirin’ facial treatment only, or face’n shoulders, or face’n shoulders’n buzzum?”
“What do you mean?”
“Face,” repeated the young lady patiently, “or face’n shoulders, or …,” she fluttered graceful fingers at Annette’s upper works “… the whole shebang?”
“I shall discuss that with Madam Celeste!” snaps Annette. “Kindly send for her at once.”
“O-kay,” sighs the beauty, and spoke as one in a trance. “If-maydam-will-please-to-be-seated-an’-study-our-tariff-she-will-see-we-offer-the-$25-weekly-application-the-$75-monthly-application-an’-our-special-$500-application-guaranteed-for-one-full-year-’tis-a-capital-economy-much-favoured-by-our-reg’lar-clienteel –”
“I said I shall discuss it with Madam Celeste!” Annette kept her voice down, but it was quivering with impatience. “She is expecting me – Mrs Comber! I must speak with her privately, do you hear?”
“Privately, huh?” The beauty raised a knowing brow, gave a sly glance at me, and leaned forward confidentially. “Is … ah … messoor to be present durin’ th’application?”
“What? Yes, yes – now will you fetch Madam Celeste?”
“Well, sure! Right away. Perhaps maydam an’ messoor would care to study our choice of shades while you wait.” She presented us each with cards bearing coloured illustrations of scantily clad females with varying complexions. “Indian Ivory is ’specially becomin’ for facial application,” she murmured. “On t’other hand, Rose Blush for the buzzum is a prime fav’rite with gennelmen, we find …” She tapped my card delicately. “Perhaps messoor has a pref’rence?”
“Eh?” says I, startled. “Oh, I don’t know … what flavours have you got?”
“Bring Madam Celeste this instant!” snarls Annette, and the beauty gave me a wondering look and swayed off, smirking, while my companion made seething noises and glanced quickly over her shoulder towards the door; her knuckles were white on the handle of her parasol.
“If you’re looking for the cove in the brown suit, he’s still on the bus,” whispers I, and she started, eyes wide with alarm. “He was Kuklos, was he? Look here – what the devil’s up, and what are we doing in this place? Are you trying to give ’em the slip?”
She stared at me wildly, lips trembling, but before she could speak, a tall beak-nosed female, with the beauty in tow, was bearing down on us, crying apologies for the delay, and would Mrs Comber kindly step this way? She bustled Annette off through the enamelling studio doors,27 and as I followed the beauty stood aside to let me by; she was retrieving her chew from her handkerchief, popping it between rosebud lips, and I must have looked mystified for she smiled brightly and said: “Spruce gum. ’Tis real succulent – you wanna chew?”
There was a sudden commotion at the street door. A tall burly man, with another behind him, was pushing in, looking around the salon, thrusting past a girl attendant who tried to bar his way. I heard Annette give a little scream; she was staring back white-faced from the enamelling studio doors, and at that moment the burly cove spotted us and started forward at a run, barging a customer aside and overturning a table laden with pots – Mammarial Balm, probably, but I didn’t wait to see; I was through the studio doors like a whippet, and Annette was crying: “Quickly, for your life! This way!” as she and Madam Celeste disappeared round a corner ahead of me.
I followed, full tilt, and found myself facing a short flight of stairs leading upwards, but no sign of fleeing females. There was a door ajar at the stair foot, though; I dodged into it, and now it was my turn to scream as I found myself confronting four women, naked to the waist and painted entirely white, seated in barber’s chairs with girls in overalls lathering them in some kind of plaster from buckets; for an instant we stared in mutual amaze, and then someone shrieked “Peeping Tom!”, they rose as one enamelled female and scurried for cover, and Flashy tactfully withdrew and legged it upstairs four at a time. I heard the studio doors crash open behind me, booted feet pounding, oaths and screams as my pursuers encountered the Plastered Poonts Society, a roar of “This way, Jem!”, and panic lent me wings as I shot up another two flights – and here was Madam Celeste on a landing, grim as a Gorgon, but pointing towards an open doorway.
“Through there!” cries she. “They’re waiting in the far attic! Run! I’ll bar the door!”
Some chaps might have paused to offer gallant assistance, or inquire who “they” might be, but if you’re me, and have no notion what the hell is happening, but only that you’re a short stairway ahead of murderous pursuit, you do as you’re bid and let chivalry take care of itself. I bounded through, heard the door slam and the lock grate behind me, and found myself in an immensely long studio gallery with a glass roof, full of lumber under dust-sheets. Annette was ten paces ahead of me, pausing in her flight to wave me on; I was beside her in a second, bellowing for enlightenment as she fumbled in her reticule and stamped her tiny foot in dismay.
“Where are they?” cries she. “McWatters! A moi!”
There was a distant shout from the far end, and then a splintering crash as the door was burst in behind us. I had a glimpse of Madam Celeste being hurled aside by the burly villain, and then he and his mate were hallooing at the sight of us, the leader drawing a revolver – and Annette had a Derringer in her fist and was letting fly, once, twice, the sharp reports no louder than exploding caps, and God knows where the shots went, for he stood unharmed, covering us and roaring:
“Give up, Comber! Hold there, or you’re dead, by thunder!”
His muzzle swung to me as I heard Annette’s hammer click on an empty chamber – and there was only one thing for it. Quick as light I gripped her by the waist and swung her bodily before me as a shield, his gun boomed like a cannon in the confined space, I felt the wind of the slug past my cheek, and as I flung myself back, clasping her to my bosom, an absolute salvo of revolver fire sounded from behind us, the burly man threw up his hands and pitched headlong, his mate fell back, clutching his arm, and now the gallery seemed full of men running past us, six-shooters at the ready, bawling to our stricken pursuers to surrender. One of the newcomers, a white-whiskered file in steel spectacles, dropped to his knee beside us and seized Annette by the arm.
“Are ye hit, wumman?” cries he, in a broad Scotch accent, and she plainly wasn’t, for she struggled from my nerveless grasp, demanding furiously why he hadn’t been on hand when needed, and then she became aware of the smoking Derringer in her fist – and went into a dead swoon. The Scotchman swore and demanded if I was wounded; I reassured him, and he promptly abandoned me and hurried off to supervise the apprehension and manacling of our two assailants, who were bleeding all over the shop and being deuced noisy about it – and so far as I could think at all, I was reflecting, well, if this is New York, they may keep it for me. Sixty seconds earlier I’d been quietly weighing the relative merits of Indian Ivory and Rose Blush as knocker cosmetics, and here I was lying winded in an attic reeking with gunsmoke, sober men in large boots were pocketing revolvers and shouting at each other, one was hauling me to my feet and enjoining me to take it easy, and Annette was lying comatose while Madam Celeste waved a bottle of salts under her nose.
One thing only penetrated my dazed mind: she’d led my Kuklos shadows into a carefully laid trap in this unlikely tit-painting emporium – but why? And who were these hard-faced gentry who had emerged to smite the Amalekites in the nick of time? There wasn’t a uniform among ’em, but they were far too official to be anything but police or government; one, a brisk, bearded chap in a hard hat who seemed to be the leader, was barking orders – and, bigod, he was another haggis-fancier; no getting away from the brutes, wherever you go.
“Right, McWatters, awa’ wi’ them tae the Tombs,” he was telling the white-whiskered cove. “Pickering’ll have the third yin by now – they’re tae be kept apart and solitary, mind that! Now, the black fellow, Simmons, will still be at the telegraph office, and Casey’s seein’ tae it that no message from Washington will reach him till tonight – your men are to observe him in the meantime, but let him alone, ye follow?” He gestured at Annette, who was stirring feebly, eyelids fluttering, and snapped his fingers at the man beside me. “Johnson – carry her down. I’ll attend tae Mr Comber mysel’ – ye’re no hurt?” he added to me. “Capital, I’ll be wi’ ye directly!” He clapped McWatters on the shoulder. “Away ye go, then, Geordie! A smart morn’s work, my boy, and so I’ll tell the commissioner!”
So they were police – and suddenly I was so weak with relief that my legs buckled, and I sat down heavily on a pile of lumber. I was safe at last, and could sit there panting gratefully while the man Johnson swung Annette gently up in his arms and bore her out to the stairs, with Madam Celeste in attendance, my two would-be murderers were carried out, dripping gore, McWatters ordered his men away – and then the bearded man and I were alone in the silent gallery, with the powder smoke still w
raithing in the sunbeams from the glass roof, and the blood wet on the planks. He pulled a flask from his pocket and handed it to me.
“Tak’ your time,” says he, “and we’ll have a wee crack, you and I.” He was a nondescript fellow, in his shabby suit, but with an eye bright and unwinking as a bird’s questing over me and missing nothing, and while he wasn’t above middle height I guessed that anyone who ran into him would come away bruised.
“You’re police?” says I, when I’d swallowed and gasped.
“Officer McWatters and his men are from the New York force,” says he, with a sour glance at his flask. “For mysel’ … let us say that I serve the United States.”
“Thank God for that!”
“Ye can thank Mistress Mandeville, too, while ye’re about it. She’s in the same employ … that startles ye? Aye, weel, tak’ anither pull at the Glenlivet, if ye like. She never said cheep to ye, did she? And right she was; the less ye knew, the better.”
“She’s an American … agent? I’ll be damned … but, lord, she’s married to that fat scoundrel –”
“Count Charles La Force, who calls himsel’ Atropos. Aye, she is that. It’s a great convenience. I’ll have the flask back now,” he added dryly. “Good malt’s scarce on this side o’ the water.”
I handed it back, marvelling. Annette Mandeville spying for the government on her own husband’s conspiracy? Just as Black Joe, in Crixus’s confidence, was a spy for the Kuklos … dear God, was no one in this bloody country what they seemed to be? My bewilderment must have been a sight to see, for my companion was looking sardonic and benign together, rot him.
“A tangled skein, eh?” says he. “But not tae my agency – ye see, Mr Comber, we’ve been following your progress ever since Moody picked ye up in that Washington alley, and every word ye’ve spoken and heard since then has been reported tae me. We know all about your conference wi’ Crixus, and how Atropos had ye lifted, and how they both schemed tae send ye to John Brown (who is a friend o’ mine, I’m proud tae say), and about Harper’s Ferry, the whole clanjamfry.” He had that complacent know-all air which is so objectionable in Scotchmen, especially when it’s justified. “Oh, aye, the Kuklos and Underground Railroad pride themsel’s on their secret intelligence … weel, sir, they’re no’ the only ones.”
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 310
