The Back Passage

by James Lear

  “You’re not helping anyone. Least of all yourself. If you don’t confess, we’ll just keep on doing what we’re doing until...”

  My mind was working rapidly. It was quite clear that Meeks was innocent, a convenient fall guy for a crime that even I, with my rudimentary powers of deduction, could see was fishy. I didn’t think that they would kill him in police custody—that would lead to far too many awkward questions—but I wondered how much more of this treatment Meeks could take before confessing to a crime he did not commit.

  And so I decided to do something very foolish.

  Jumping off the kitchen counter, I blundered through the swing door and into the interrogation room.

  “Who the fuck...”

  “Shipton, I told you to stay out of here.”

  They could hear me, but not see me—so Piggott grabbed the light and shined it full in my eyes.

  “Excuse me, officers”—again, my best dumb Yank accent. “I appear to be lost.”

  Piggott let go of the lamp as if it was burning him, and rapidly stuffed his still-wet cock back into his pants. The light swung wildly about the room, our shadows dancing before and behind us with sickening speed.

  “How did you get in here?” The sergeant’s voice was icy.

  “I was just looking around your garden and I guess I got lost.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Well, I guess the grass could do with cutting...” Meeks was looking up at me, beseeching me with his eyes. “Oh, hello, Meeks,” I said, as if I’d only just seen him. “I heard that they’d brought you here. I hope everything is okay.”

  Piggott pulled the prisoner to his feet—somewhat less roughly than he’d handled him before, I was glad to note—and bundled him out of the room. As they left, I said, “Don’t worry, Meeks. I’ll be down again in the morning with your lawyer.”

  The sergeant was still in the room, prowling around the outer darkness, occasionally illuminated by the swinging lamp, presumably thinking how best to deal with this unwanted witness.

  “You’d better leave,” he said, stepping up and eyeballing me. His eyes were disconcerting: the palest, iciest gray I have ever seen, with a strange, distant look, as if he was focusing on a point behind my head.

  “Certainly, officer. I’m sorry to have intruded.” But not half as sorry as you are to have a witness of just how the English police treat their prisoners, I thought. “I’ll find my own way out.”

  I did not want to overplay an already weak hand, so, as the sergeant began to advance toward me, I turned and fled. The early-evening light in the overgrown garden was blinding, and I stumbled over a broken chair frame as I made my way back to the front of the building and walked briskly up the road.

  As I reached the village green, I saw Shipton walking his bike back toward the station. He looked forlorn.

  “What ho, Bobby!” I said, in a terrible imitation of an English accent. “Why the long face?”

  “I’ve got a hole in my back tire, sir.”

  “Not as nice as the hole in your backside, Bill.”

  He blushed and grinned sheepishly. “Oh, well, about that, sir...”

  There was nobody around, so, feeling reckless, I stretched up and planted a kiss on his open mouth.

  “Oh, sir! Anyone might have seen!”

  I grabbed his crotch; something was already stirring. He’d keep.

  “Take care of this for me, Bill,” I said. “Never know when I might need it.” And, with my hands in my pockets, I strolled off, whistling a merry tune. After all, it’s always handy to have a friend in the police force.

  V

  DINNER THAT NIGHT WAS A STRAINED AFFAIR. SIR JAMES was taciturn and brooding—and when a man of his considerable personality decides to brood, everybody knows it. I compared him—not favorably—to my own father, who, even in his darker moments, could always be brought around with a joke or a dig in the ribs. But when Sir James Eagle retreated to the lofty heights of his ego, nobody, not even his wife, dared disturb him.

  Lady Caroline was gracious and placid at dinner—she was always gracious and placid. I suspect she maintained those qualities throughout the war, and would remain so even if a bomb were to go off under her chair. A bomb was, indeed, ticking in Drekeham Hall, though at the time I did not know the scale of the coming explosion.

  Leonard Eagle, Sir James’s younger brother whom I had got to know so well in the secret swimming pool earlier that afternoon, kept the conversation going with aplomb, chattering on about this or that friend of the family, relaying the latest gossip from the London circuit, with which he seemed extremely familiar (though rumor had it that he was no longer welcome in some Mayfair houses). I didn’t like the man, whatever skills he possessed, but I was grateful to him for keeping silence at bay. I was less grateful for the occasional forays that his elegantly shod foot made under the table, up my shin, and into my groin—not least because I was also under attack from my right, where Boy Morgan was “accidentally” allowing his hand to rest on my thigh.

  For this I had only myself to blame; while dressing for dinner in our shared bedroom, I spent as long as possible completely naked, padding around without a stitch just inches away from him. Morgan lay on the bed in a toweling robe, which every so often fell open to reveal his obvious interest in further relations. I feigned not to notice. For one thing, I was somewhat tired, having already had more sex in one day than, strictly speaking, I needed. Furthermore, I was saving myself for the night; I intended, by bedtime, to have worked Morgan into such a state that neither of us would get much sleep. And so, as we sat through soup and fish and meat and dessert and cheese, Morgan found a hundred reasons to touch me, his hand creeping a little nearer my crotch each time. I feared that, unless I was careful, Leonard’s foot would meet Morgan’s hand, and the game would be up. It’s nice to be wanted, but not always convenient.

  The rest of the party was equally glum. Poor Belinda, who sat on Morgan’s right, was snappish and sulky, perhaps because of the shock she had received that afternoon—I suppose that, even in aristocratic English families, young ladies aren’t trained to behave well on discovery of a corpse—but also because her dashing fiancé was almost completely ignoring her. This was hardly surprising. Morgan’s attempts to “comfort” her, when I left them together earlier in the afternoon, met with a peevish rebuff, as he’d told me before dinner. I sympathized, talking a lot of airy nonsense about women (as if I had any experience in that field!) while noting with delight that Morgan was getting as frustrated as any twenty-year-old man could be. The social strictures of the 1920s, which forbade heterosexual relations outside marriage, were very much on my side.

  We were six at the table. Next to Leonard, opposite Belinda, was the glacially unfriendly Lady Diana “Whopper” Hunt, who had arrived hotfoot from Trouville that very afternoon. She treated everyone and everything—guests, staff, food, drink—with distaste. She always looked as if someone nearby had just farted—exactly that look of disgust on her downturned mouth. Perhaps, I thought, trying to be charitable, she was missing her own fiancé, Rex Eagle, whose sudden absence on “London business” had still not been adequately explained. But she didn’t look like the type who would pine over anyone’s absence. Rex, from the little I knew him, was a serious but decent young man, still a rowing legend at Cambridge, whence he had graduated two years previously. He was jolly and friendly when he wanted to be, and had made me feel quite welcome at Drekeham Hall—but there was something guarded about him. Perhaps that was the fate of the older son. Serious Rex may have been—but even he could surely not have been attracted to Diana Hunt’s frigid hauteur. I sensed dynastic reasons for the marriage; it certainly wasn’t a love match.

  We reached dessert in safety. Leonard was prattling on about some wild party he’d been to at the public baths, “which they’d turned into a Palm Court for the occasion, with a Negro orchestra, and they served the most delightful bathwater cocktails, mostly gin I suspect, very drunk-making, eve
ryone had a very gay time” (at which he rolled his eyes and ground his foot into my balls). Everyone else stared into their rhubarb crumble, desperately trying to think of something to say. He carried on throughout the cheese course, treating us to a hair-raising account of a recent “jape” around the East End. (I suspect it was highly censored.) When the ladies withdrew, and we men were left to discuss the weighty matters of the day, Sir James lit a fat cigar and lost himself in wreaths of smoke. Leonard brought from his breast pocket a stylish silver cigarette case, from which we younger men helped ourselves. The staff cleared the plates, port was passed. (I can’t stand the stuff, and took only a thimbleful before passing it to Morgan, who guzzled.)

  Once the coast was clear, Leonard strayed onto dangerous ground.

  “Well, gentlemen, what a ghastly day.”

  The remark was greeted with silence, and I assumed Leonard would be tactful enough to retreat to safer subjects, like politics or religion.

  “Imagine, the police in Drekeham Hall.”

  Sir James scowled at his brother, but did not venture an opinion.

  “And to think of that poor dead young man, lying on a slab somewhere...”

  “That’s enough, Leonard,” Sir James said, in the voice that had regularly quelled the House of Commons.

  “Well, I can’t help feeling sorry for him, and his family, if it comes to that,” continued Leonard, who, having ignored his brother all his life, wasn’t about to start paying attention to him now. His eyes were fixed on me throughout.

  “But really, what can you expect when people bring the lower orders into the house?”

  Sir James sighed, and put his head in his hands—but, to my surprise, said nothing.

  “At least the police have their man,” Leonard continued.

  This was clearly for my benefit; I wondered if words had passed between Drekeham Police Station and the big house after my earlier visit.

  “But surely you don’t think Meeks killed him?” I asked, playing the role expected of me.

  “Oh, but there’s no doubt of it, I’m afraid. The man’s...well, how shall I put this? Mentally unstable.”

  “Absolute rot. I’ve never seen a more stable person in my life.” A good deal more stable than you, Leonard Eagle, I thought.

  “Appearances can be so deceptive, Mr. Mitchell,” Leonard said, narrowing his eyes. “Are any of us truly what we appear to be? Take your friend Mr. Morgan, for instance...”

  Morgan, too far gone on port to pay much attention, looked up, red in the face, and grunted when he heard his name mentioned.

  “Now, to look at him, you’d think Harry Morgan was nothing more than a Cambridge hearty, useful on the rowing team and a decent shot, perhaps. Who would dream that he was such a...sensitive and intelligent young man?”

  Insinuations? Or something more? What had Leonard seen? In some sense, I was being warned.

  “But Meeks, of all people. Surely, Sir James, you know the man well enough to realize...”

  Leonard interrupted. “I’m sorry to say we’ve expected something of the sort from Meeks for a while now. I urged James to send him packing, but no—he wouldn’t hear of it, he has this admirable sense of loyalty to his staff. And now look what’s happened.”

  “And what has happened, may one ask?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake...” Sir James said, turning away from the table. Why did he not silence his brother? Why did he not suggest we “join the ladies,” a surefire way of bringing to a close any awkward conversation. Instead he stayed silent and suffering while Leonard carried on.

  “The poor, unfortunate young man, Mr.... What was his name, Jim?”

  “Walworth,” Sir James said with a sigh. “Reg Walworth.”

  “Of course, Reginald Walworth. The poor, unfortunate Mr. Walworth came to Drekeham Hall as Meeks’s guest. A delightfully democratic idea in theory, Jim, but one that can only lead to anarchy and tragedy, as has been demonstrated. My brother has always treated his staff as equals. Perhaps now he has learned his lesson.”

  “So, if Walworth was a friend of Meeks,” I asked, “why would he kill him?”

  “Oh, Mr. Mitchell, you have a lot to learn about life belowstairs in an English country house. Suffice to say that Meeks had somewhat...how can I put this in words that Mr. Morgan will understand? Somewhat vicious tastes. The unfortunate Mr. Walworth was the latest in a string of young men of frankly criminal physiognomy whom Meeks had entertained at Drekeham Hall. It’s a miracle that we’ve avoided a scandal for so long. And now, I fear, Meeks’s inclinations got the better of him. He went too far. Too far. How dangerous it is when we overstep the mark.”

  “What will happen to him?”

  “He will be tried for murder in Norwich and he will doubtless hang for it.”

  “That’s unspeakable. The man is innocent.”

  “You seem very sure, Mr. Mitchell. Upon what do you base your conviction?”

  I was not about to say what I had seen in the police station; better to keep my powder dry for when I really needed it. And so I fudged. “I reckon I’m a pretty good judge of human nature...”

  “Without disrespect to you, Mr. Mitchell, I believe that your experience of the world may be somewhat...limited. I am sure that, in America, your straightforward view is entirely justified. Good is good, bad is bad, that sort of thing. Over here, however, you’ll find that there are so many intermediate stages. So many different things to be considered. So many...conflicts of interest.”

  In other words, don’t poke your nose in where it’s not wanted. Leonard had said what he had to say, and, pushing back his chair, suggested that we join the ladies. I had to rouse a sleepy Morgan with a nudge, and hoped that there would be sufficient strong coffee in the drawing room to wake him up for bedtime.

  Leonard had let me know that my actions had not gone unnoticed; time for me to let him know that I was aware of wrongdoing in Drekeham Hall. As Sir James opened the doors to the drawing room, engaged in some comforting conversation with Morgan about recent sporting events, I took Leonard by the elbow and steered him to a quiet spot under the sweeping staircase, where we would not be observed.

  “Why, Mr. Mitchell, so urgent!” He must have thought that his tickling throughout dinner had inflamed me. It had, but for once the investigative organ overruled the generative.

  “I know I’m only a guest in this house, Lennie,” I said, stressing the familiarity, “but I will not be party to a crime.”

  “Good Lord,” he said, grabbing my crotch none too gently, “it’s a bit late to start worrying about that, isn’t it, Mitch?”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” He had a point; what we had done, and what I intended to do to Morgan in an hour or two, was very much against the law.

  “Tell that to the magistrates, Mr. Mitchell,” he said, rubbing and squeezing me until I began to respond. Of course he thought I could be thrown off the scent by a bit of judicious cockplay; that much he had discovered before, when he so conveniently got me out of the house.

  I had no choice but to bluff my way to higher ground. “I think the tastes of a foreigner like me would be of very little interest compared to what goes on in the private life of an MP and his family.”

  Bull’s-eye. Leonard relinquished his grip on my crotch and looked me spitefully in the eye.

  “You know nothing of what goes on in this house.”

  “I know enough to put every single one of you on the front page of the newspapers.” This was a lie, but evidently it contained a germ of truth. How far did the corruption of the Eagle household go?

  “And what would that achieve, Mr. Mitchell,” Leonard said, suddenly changing his tone to one of friendly worldliness. “Another fine family dismantled, a great career destroyed—my brother’s, I mean, not mine. I don’t have one—and a great deal of unpleasant talk about people like you and me. No fun for anyone.”

  He had a point, but I had an advantage, and I wasn’t going to surrender it.


  “Some things are more important than fun. The hanging of an innocent man, for instance.”

  “Mr. Meeks, my dear fellow, is far from innocent.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Spare me your home-on-the-range vulgarities, Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Meeks is as guilty as any of us, if you must expose guilt. What goes on in this house is one big guilty secret. Has been for years. Oh, everyone thinks I’m the debauched, disgusting one, but let me tell you, the reason why I had to get out, to start a new life for myself in London, is precisely because I was disgusted by what goes on in Drekeham Hall. Just because something has happened for a very long time doesn’t make it good. James turns a blind eye because it’s ‘tradition,’ and he has a great respect for tradition, but he’s wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on. You know the game. It’s like a great big daisy chain. The butler buggers the first footman, the first footman buggers the second footman, who buggers the hall boy, who buggers the boots; the head gardener buggers the under gardener, who buggers the nurseryman, who buggers the stable boy. Shall I go on? Have you never wondered why there are so few female staff at Drekeham Hall? Just that gorgon of a housekeeper, Mrs. Ramage, a couple of chambermaids, and kitchen maids. The whole place is Sodom-by-the-Sea.”

  “Oh, don’t be—”

  “And Mr. Meeks, not content with having all that delightful trade on his plate, must needs import it from outside. He went on these little...what shall we call them? Expeditions, perhaps, to Norwich at first, then to London, bringing back young men and introducing them to the household as ‘hired hands.’ Well it wasn’t their hands that were hired, that much I can tell you. The things that go on belowstairs in this house... And let us just say that this afternoon, while the rest of us were engaged in the wholesome and delightful game of Sardines, there were sports going on elsewhere of a far more dangerous nature.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  Leonard ignored me. “And I’m afraid that the unfortunate Mr. Reg Walworth lost the game.”

  “What exactly happened to him?”