by M. J. Trow
‘I didn’t mean interrogate the man,’ Batchelor said, miffed. ‘I mean, get some more names from him. We’ve tried Ouvry and Dolby and I can’t say they were very useful. We’ve still got Forster to go, but he’s not proving to be an easy man to catch.’
‘Might Chapman and Hall be a way in there? I know he doesn’t work for them per se, but they might know where he is at any given time. He can’t just have had Dickens as a client, surely?’ Grand wasn’t really sure what an agent actually did. He had seen them at work at his father’s business, but it always seemed to involve a piece of paper, a hurried walk and a hunted expression; what came of such behaviour, he could never ascertain.
‘I should think that he did,’ Batchelor said. ‘Why would he need another? Dickens far outsold any other ten writers put together; I should think that ten per cent of that would be very nice indeed.’
‘Hmm. True. Perhaps Sala could tell us a few others to approach. I’ve always had a bit of a hankering to meet Ouida, if I’m honest.’ Grand was ever a man with a surprise up his sleeve.
‘Shall we ask him for a longer list, then? We don’t have to tell him we’re down a blind alley. We can just say we leave …’
‘No stone unturned. James, I think you might be able to pull that one off.’ Grand sipped his brandy and flipped the lid of the humidor. ‘Off you trot then. Look. I can’t go; I’m just lighting a cigar.’
EIGHT
‘Well,’ he said, stroking her hair as she lay beside him, ‘if there was nothing at the chalet at Gads Hill, I don’t know where else to look.’ He pushed himself upright so that he was looking down at her. ‘You sure you turned that joint over, Beulah? I mean, you really scoured it?’
‘It’s what I do best, Henry,’ she yelled at him, stung by the implications. ‘I say, it’s what I do best.’
‘The offices it is, then.’ Henry Morford sank back down again. ‘You know, this is proving more difficult than I expected.’
‘The offices’d be a challenge, Henry,’ Beulah purred, snuggling as much of herself as possible under his arm. ‘You know, I kinda miss the old days.’
He laughed. ‘I knew I did the right thing getting you out of Mount Pleasant, Beulah. Can’t let a talent like yours languish behind prison bars.’
He hadn’t been quite sure what to expect. The Langham Hotel was in Regent Street – huge, opulent and almost new. He had presented his card at the front desk, the same one he had used at the Rag, and he waited. It was deliciously cool in the marble-columned foyer and a bellhop, or whatever they called them in this country, crisp in white gloves and a shell jacket, showed him to the third floor.
The first room was conventional enough, although a little mauve for his personal taste, but the second took him by surprise. He was standing in a lady’s boudoir, the velvet curtains drawn against the glare of the sun, the brasswork and the chandeliers glittering with the flames of what seemed like a thousand candles. He was suddenly aware that the bellhop was standing to attention, saluting as only the British did. The boy turned on his heel sharply and was gone.
‘He’s coming on like a proper little soldier,’ a voice like a bow saw came from the huge four-poster bed in front of him, and from the pillows and the floral eiderdown, a little woman lifted her head to look at him. She had an old-fashioned quill pen in her hand and was scratching it over the surface of lilac-coloured paper. ‘So, you’re Captain Grand,’ she said.
‘You’ve heard of me?’ Grand had to admit he was a little unnerved by this.
‘Mama!’ A voice like a knife screeched from the anteroom to Grand’s left. ‘How often must I tell you?’
‘I thought he was a guardsman, dear.’ The old girl’s wrinkles were more clearly on display thanks to the daylight from the other room. ‘It’s not fair that you should have all the fun.’
‘Mama,’ the daughter scolded. ‘What must Captain Grand think of us? Now, off you toddle and get yourself a noggin. I’m sure Captain Grand will tell you that the sun is well and truly over the yardarm.’
‘Young man,’ the old girl frowned, horrified. ‘I don’t know the form in whatever country you are from, but here, when a lady alights from her bed, a gentleman turns his back.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Grand obliged.
There was much wheezing and rustling of clothes, and a little apparition in white passed the detective, turned to give him a withering stare and disappeared out of the door and down the stairs.
‘Now, Captain. Where were we?’
Grand turned back to find the daughter in exactly the same pose that the mother had been in, except that she took one look at the top lilac sheet, screwed it up and threw it into an enormous waste-paper basket.
‘You are Miss Maria Ramé?’ He thought he ought to check. The woman in the bed was a little younger than he was, but not by much. She had poppy eyes, not much of a chin and a nose that not even a mother could love, but she carried them all with such panache that it scarcely registered.
‘Call me Ouida,’ she purred. ‘Everybody does. So,’ she waved his calling card in the air, ‘Third Cavalry of the Potomac, eh? I believe you’re my first. I confess I am a little disappointed not to see you in your regimentals. I find those little kepis you fellows wear absolutely darling.’
‘I have kept the red tie, Madam.’ He flicked it, smiling.
‘Very becoming. Very.’ She scribbled something down with her quill. ‘Come and sit beside me.’ She patted the covers.
‘Well, I …’
‘Oh, come, Captain Grand,’ she laughed. ‘This is 1870. Ladies wear trousers riding in the Row these days, and we’ve even got women doctors now; well, one, to be precise, but I don’t doubt more will follow. I’m not a feminist – vive la différence, as my dear old papa used to say, I expect; but I do insist on my little pleasures.’
‘But, your mother …’
‘Won’t be back for hours. Her little noggins tend to drag on for longer these days. Someone will find her and wheel her back in time for dinner.’ She patted the bed again and, this time, Grand sat on it.
‘Actually,’ she confided, putting the quill away, ‘I have a little confession to make.’
‘Oh?’
‘The mother–daughter routine is one that Mama and I usually use when a strange man comes to see me, even when he’s a Grenadier or a Coldstreamer. As I said, I’ve never had a Red Tie Boy before; you can’t be too careful.’
‘I see.’
‘In short, if I don’t like the look of the man, I signal to Mama who gives him short shrift. If he has never seen me, he will accept that the legend that is Ouida is pushing sixty with a face like semolina and he will leave. It rarely fails.’
‘And if it does?’ Grand asked.
Ouida smiled. ‘Then I engage in a little old-fashioned competition. Drinky?’
From nowhere, the woman had produced a bottle and two glasses.
‘It is a little early for me,’ Grand said.
‘Nonsense! I can’t write a word without a couple of slugs. Oh, sorry, it’s gin, not Red Eye. Is that all right?’
‘Fine,’ Grand laughed and held the glasses while she poured.
She put the stopper back and clinked her crystal with his. ‘Got any cigars, Captain?’ she asked. ‘I’ve run out.’
‘Sorry,’ Grand lied. ‘They’re in my other coat.’ Bad enough that he was swilling gin in a lady’s bedroom in the middle of the day, but he drew the line at smoking. Anyway, there were so many candles in the room, it only added to the fire risk.
‘Now,’ she said, resting her head back on the propped pillows, ‘I can understand a colonial wanting to discuss literature with one of the finest exponents of the novelist’s art living today, but something tells me you’re here for an altogether darker reason.’ She pulled a ribbon on her housecoat and a little more flesh crept into view. ‘Am I wrong?’
‘I too have a little confession to make,’ he told her.
‘Have you?’ she purred, fluttering her eyelashes.
‘How simply delicious.’
‘This is the card I meant to show you.’ He produced it and she read it, eyes widening.
She clasped her hands. ‘This is too, too exciting,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe I’ve met an enquiry agent before. What are you enquiring into? A juicy divorce, perhaps? Old Bertie’s got himself in the doo-dah with that wretched Mordaunt woman. And she’s incontinent, you know. No, no,’ she shut her eyes, clicking fingers and thumbs in all directions. ‘I’ve got it. White slavery. I’ve a copy of The Lustful Turk somewhere – well thumbed, I assure you.’
‘Neither of those things, I’m afraid,’ Grand said. ‘I’m looking into the death of Charles Dickens.’
‘Dear Charles?’ Ouida frowned. ‘A stroke, surely.’
‘Surely not,’ Grand said. ‘Our enquiries are taking us in another direction entirely.’
‘Our?’
‘Batchelor.’ He pointed to the card. ‘My associate.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. But,’ she was sitting up, frowning, her gin momentarily forgotten. ‘Charles? Are you implying that he was murdered?’
Grand nodded. ‘Tell me … Ouida …’ he said, ‘did you go to the funeral?’
‘Lord, no.’ She remembered her gin and took a hearty swig. ‘No, to be honest, I didn’t know Charles all that well. We both wrote for Bentley’s Miscellany, of course, although in his case rather a long time ago.’
‘Your name was given to me by Mr John Forster,’ Grand lied. ‘He thought you might be able to help.’
‘Did he?’ Ouida frowned. ‘I really can’t imagine why.’
‘What about Wilkie Collins?’ Grand asked.
A strange look came into Ouida’s eye. ‘Do you like dogs, Captain Grand?’
‘I can take them or leave them alone,’ Grand shrugged.
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘You must take them. I am currently working on an opus – and if I say so myself, it is quite superb – called Tuck.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Grand had already lost the thread of this conversation.
‘Tuck is a Maltese terrier, delightful creature. I am looking at society through his eyes.’
‘Good for you.’ It seemed as if it might be Grand’s turn to speak and it was all he could come up with at short notice.
‘The point I am making is this.’ She leaned forward, beaming, confidential. ‘I read a chapter to Wilkie Collins only last week. He was furious.’
‘He was?’
‘Jealous, you see.’ She patted the side of her nose. ‘The little green eye.’
‘I don’t see …’
‘Wilkie Collins is a bitter, jealous man, Captain. He writes crime fiction. And, strictly between you and me, he’s not quite normal.’
‘But I thought he and Dickens were friends.’
‘Writers have no friends, Captain Grand,’ Ouida said, looking into the middle distance, her chin lifted and her lip quivering with emotion. ‘We are a breed apart.’
There was a rap at the door.
‘Oh, bugger,’ she said, dropping her suffering artist look and draining her glass. ‘That’s Mandeville. I’d forgotten all about him. Be a dear and let him in, would you? He’ll probably have cigars on his person.’
Grand obliged and a tall guardsman in scarlet stood there, looking less than enchanted to find a handsome young man in Ouida’s rooms.
‘Mandeville, darling,’ she cooed. ‘This is Captain Grand of the Army of the Potomac. You two will have so much in common.’
‘Another time, Ouida,’ Grand smiled back at her. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Another time, indeed, Captain,’ she called. ‘You know where I am.’ She waved the card again. ‘And I know where you are.’
Grand looked at the polished buttons on Mandeville’s tunic. ‘Pretty,’ he said, flicking one. ‘So, what are you? Grenadier or Coldstream?’
‘Well, really!’ Mandeville’s monocle plopped out of his eye socket and he swept into the room.
‘Got a cigar, Manders, old thing?’ Grand heard Ouida say as he closed the door. ‘I’m desperate.’
Batchelor had been amazed that Grand had even heard of Ouida, let alone that he was keen to meet her; he had dipped into some of her works and had found them salacious enough, but his authorial eye had not been able to overlook some of her more overblown phrases and he had put her aside. Wilkie Collins, now: there was a writer! The Moonstone was a permanent fixture on Batchelor’s nightstand and, although he knew perfectly well who had done the deed, it was nevertheless always a thrill to read how Sergeant Cuff had come to the denouement. He decided to walk to Blandford Square. It was a perfect morning, not quite as stifling as the previous week or so, and he had plenty of time before his appointment with the great man; a detour through a park or two would be pleasant and would also give him time to assemble a few sparkling lines of wit and repartee with which to stun the author. Because, who knew? Being an enquiry agent was all very fine and well, but not a job for a grown-up, in Batchelor’s opinion, and he was, after all, still working on the Great British Novel.
The door of Collins’s house was opened by a rather unexpectedly countrified woman, tall and ruddy, with curls escaping from under her cap. She was also clearly in a very interesting condition, her dress straining across her breasts and stomach. She held one hand under her swollen belly and leaned on the doorjamb.
Despite her obvious discomfort, she was welcoming and smiling. ‘You’ll be Mr Batchelor,’ she told him. ‘Come along through into the study. Wilkie is expecting you.’
Batchelor was a little surprised by several things but was too polite to let it show. Firstly, in his admittedly limited experience of the moneyed classes, it was surely unusual to employ a maid or housekeeper in quite such an advanced state of pregnancy. Even thinking the word made him blush; having her taut belly brush against him as she showed him through the hall brought him close to collapse. Secondly, calling one’s employer by his given name – no, by his nickname – seemed unusual even in this bohemian household. He made a mental note that when he was a writer himself, he would make sure that his staff were all like this jolly woman, bursting with health and life.
She pushed open a door without knocking and stuck her head through. ‘Wilkie? It’s Mr Batchelor. Shall he come in?’
‘Send him through, Martha, send him through,’ a voice called. ‘And then go and rest. How many times must you be told?’
Laughing, she pushed the door wide for Batchelor to go in. ‘He tells me, Mr Batchelor,’ she said, ‘but then he doesn’t look after Marian nor yet plan his menus. Men!’ And with that, she gave Batchelor a friendly slap on the back that sent him flying into the room.
Collins had got up from behind his desk and come round to welcome his guest. He was just as odd-looking as the newspapers described him, with his huge head, thick spectacles and his tiny hands and feet. Batchelor was reminded of nothing so much as a drawing by Edward Lear, and a limerick started to form in his head, quickly damped down. He was here on serious business, after all!
‘Mr Batchelor,’ the writer said. ‘Excuse Martha, won’t you? She should be resting in her condition, but it is useless to try and make her lie down.’ A twinkle came into his eye, magnified by the enormous thickness of the lenses. ‘Although of course,’ and he nudged Batchelor in the ribs, ‘it’s lying down that got her in that condition in the first place.’ A reminiscent leer took over his expression for a moment and Batchelor’s eyebrows rose. ‘These beef-fed country girls, Mr Batchelor … are you … umm … a married man, at all?’
‘No.’ Batchelor didn’t know why, but he sounded as though he were apologizing.
‘A housekeeper, something of that nature?’
This time, Batchelor repudiated the idea with some vigour, as an image of Mrs Rackstraw rose in front of him. ‘No. Neither wife nor housekeeper,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ Collins’s eyes were wide. ‘You keep someone tucked up in a nice little apartment, then, do you? Duke Street, somewhere like that?
’ He leaned forward and dropped his voice. ‘Probably the best plan, a man of your years. Keeping your options open, hey?’
Batchelor wasn’t sure how the conversation had taken this turn.
‘Or …’ and now Collins looked dubious, ‘of course it may be you prefer … other outlets.’
‘No.’ Batchelor laid his cards on the table. ‘I don’t … indulge, Mr Collins. I am saving myself for the right woman.’
‘My word!’ Collins’s glasses fell right off his nose with the shock and it took several minutes to disentangle them from his beard where they had landed. ‘That’s not something one hears much nowadays. I congratulate you, my boy, and wish you the best of luck and hope she comes along soon. Solitary vices can send you blind, you know.’ He turned to Batchelor, his lenses so thick that the weight of them creased his nose. ‘Or, at the very least, extremely short-sighted.’ He fumbled his way around back to his seat and faced Batchelor across the expanse of paper-strewn desk. ‘However, as usual I have taken up too much of your valuable time with my meanderings. What was your business with me this morning?’
Batchelor reached into his pocket for his card, but realized before he even handed it over that Collins wouldn’t be able to see the small print. ‘My partner and I are enquiry agents and have been engaged by a third party to investigate what we believe to be the murder of Charles Dickens.’
‘Murder? Poor old Charles? No, a stroke, surely.’
This was becoming a familiar refrain. ‘That is the official reason,’ Batchelor said, ‘but after exhaustive investigations, we believe that he was in fact poisoned.’
‘By whom?’ Collins was intrigued. There might be a new plot line here.
‘Well, that is what we are still trying to find out,’ Batchelor admitted. ‘There are certain points about his death that need to be cleared up but, for now, we are trying to find out more about his … umm … private life.’
