The Back Passage

by James Lear

“How do I know that? You’re a Yank. Yanks don’t mix with the likes of Jimmy Eagle.”

  “I do.”

  “Don’t believe you. You’re a hack.”

  “I don’t care if you believe me or not. You can go back to London for all I care. I’ll just step indoors and have a word with Mrs. Ramage...”

  “Oh, Christ, not her again. All right. Fair play. We’ll work together if we have to, but don’t you dare go running this as an exclusive...”

  “I’m not a—Oh, forget it. I’ll keep my information to myself. I’m way ahead of you already, Mr. Barrett, and I don’t need help.”

  He looked at me with eyes used to making rapid calculations, and obviously figured that I had something to give him in exchange. He said, “I’ll tell you who Reg Walworth is.”

  “And I’ll tell you who the police are holding.”

  “What? They’ve got the killer already?”

  “I didn’t say that. But they’re holding someone.”

  “This gets better and better. Looks like we’ve got plenty to share.”

  “You first.”

  “All right, Yankee boy. But for each piece of information I give you, you have to take off an article of clothing.”

  This was an unexpected turn. I’d seen calculation in those worldly little eyes, but nothing more. Still, it was a challenge.

  “Fair enough. As long as you do the same.”

  “Looks like you’re going to be naked first.” He was right: I was still wearing my minimal summer wardrobe, whereas he was fully clothed. The prospect didn’t displease me.

  Barrett began. “Right. Reg Walworth. Shady character. Known by the police. Bit of form. Been done for soliciting.”

  “Come again?”

  “Hold on there, pal. I think that counts as a piece of info, don’t you?”

  “Okay. Name it.”

  “Shoe.”

  I took off my left shoe.

  “And he’s done a bit of blackmailing as well, of a couple of old nobs that belong to the same club as Sir Jim. Other shoe, please.”

  I stood in my socks, which were soon filthy with engine oil and cigarette ash. I thought I’d better even up the score. “Just before Walworth’s death, Sir James and Lady Caroline had a furious argument, and he stormed out of some kind of family meeting.”

  “Very generous of you, I’m sure,” Barrett said. “Two items of information together.”

  “Hat and tie.”

  He obliged. “Want to get the jacket as well? I’m sure you can think of something.”

  “Oh, I’ve got plenty. The man they’ve arrested is the footman, Charlie Meeks. He’s in Drekeham Police Station.”

  “Charlie Meeks? Never heard of him.” Barrett peeled off his jacket, and hung it over the hood of the car. His shirt was a little less than perfectly white, and damp under the arms. He continued, “Right, my turn. Reg Walworth was invited down here by Sir James himself.”

  “I know that.”

  “You do?”

  “He was coming down to discuss some improvements to the library wing.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “His brother.”

  “That’s worth a shoe or two.” Barrett kicked off his shoes. “But how am I going to get you out of that shirt?”

  “You’d better think of something, Mr. Barrett.”

  “Walworth had been visiting Sir James in his London flat...”

  “He’s a painter and decorator. It’s not that unusual.”

  “He’s nothing of the sort. He’s a rent boy.”

  “What?”

  “The shirt, please.”

  I pulled off my shirt, and couldn’t resist flexing my muscles a little for his appreciation.

  “Very nice, mate. Very nice.” He stepped toward me, and the smell of fresh sweat mingled with the petrol and tobacco. “Your Sir James is a dark horse,” he said, lowering his voice and taking my left nipple between finger and thumb. “Respectable family man, member of parliament, big noise in the business world, but behind the scenes, not all that he seems at all. He’s got a lot to lose. The family is terrified of blackmail.”

  “And you think Reg Walworth—”

  “The trousers.”

  I obeyed. Inside my underpants, I was fully stiff. All that remained were my socks, in which Barrett seemed uninterested; clearly, unlike some of my lovers, he was not queer for feet. He was, however, a tit man, and now had both of my nipples captive, tugging them and rolling them between finger and thumb.

  “You’ve got some catching up to do, Yankee boy,” he said, his mouth just inches from my ear. “Come on, give me some more.”

  In my eagerness to get Barrett naked, I racked my brain for some concrete fact that would pass journalistic muster. “Sir James was involved in a political scandal last year that he hushed up at considerable personal expense. The family is broke.”

  “I thought as much,” Barrett said, relinquishing my nipples so he could unbutton his shirt. “There have been rumors, of course, but nothing solid.”

  Solid was the right word: his body, which had appeared almost tubby in his badly cut suit, was a big slab of muscle. My eyes must have popped out of my head.

  “Part-time bodybuilder. Health and strength and all that jazz,” he said, striking a physique pose. “Like it?”

  In answer, I grabbed his huge shoulders, bent down, and started sucking on his right tit. I’ve often found that, if a man pays a lot of attention to a particular part of your body, he wants you to do the same to him.

  I was right. The moment he felt my mouth on his chest, he drew a huge breath and then groaned in ecstasy. Clamping my head down with one hand, he lifted me with the other arm around my waist and deposited me on the hood of the car. I had a feeling I was about to be pumped for information.

  “And here’s the clincher,” he said. “Reg Walworth was threatening to communicate with Mortimer Hunt.”

  I managed to say “who?” through a mouthful of tit.

  “Sir Mortimer Hunt, the Earl of Newington. Father of—”

  “You win,” I said, as the penny dropped and so did my pants. “Lady Diana Hunt. Rex’s fiancée.”

  “Bingo,” Barrett said, dropping to his knees. And that was the end of our information exchange. He swallowed my prick to the hilt and then, when I was wriggling around on the Bentley’s shiny hood, thinking I was about to shoot my load, he lifted my legs and transferred his attention to my ass. He licked it till the hair was matted, then started probing in with his tongue. I had a pretty good idea what was to follow.

  “Pity you didn’t get my trousers down, Yankee boy,” he said, unbuttoning himself and pulling out a prick that was as fat and thickset as the rest of him. “I’m going to have to fuck you like this.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  He grabbed my knees and shunted me forward—which was not pleasant, as my buttocks caught painfully on the shiny metal—and then, without ceremony, lined his dick-head up against my wet hole. Thank God he’d taken his time opening me up. He pushed into me as far as he could go, and I had to concentrate hard in order not to shout the place down, it hurt so much.

  “Come on, mate, you can take it.”

  And I could. I breathed hard, waiting for my muscles to relax, while Barrett held my feet in his hands and rocked gently on his heels. He must have felt me loosening around him, because no sooner was I ready than he was pistoning into me.

  “Fuck, that’s good,” he said, then spat down onto my cock to provide a bit of lubrication. “Let me see you wank yourself. I like seeing a bloke tossing himself off while I fuck him. Especially a nice muscular little number like you. Come on. Make yourself come.”

  I didn’t need a second invitation, and as soon as I started jerking my cock the sensations up my ass were intensified by ten. I surrendered to the feeling and did nothing to prevent the orgasm that was hurtling toward me. After only a couple of minutes, I was thrashing around on the car. He knew exactly how to play me, and delivere
d the hardest, longest, roughest strokes that he could muster. He was rewarded by four copious wads of jizz that landed on my belly, my thighs, and the car’s paintwork.

  Barrett buried himself deep inside me, leaned forward as far as he could, grabbed the back of my head, and kissed me on the mouth. And in that position he emptied his balls into my twitching hole.

  X

  AH, YOUTH! AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO, MY POWERS OF recovery were prodigious. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I kept myself in good shape through sports; perhaps it was just the natural physical manifestation of my gargantuan sexual appetites. Whatever the reason, within an hour or so of being fucked silly on the hood of Sir James’s Bentley, I was already looking forward to my next round with Morgan—or anybody else who might come along. My first taste of country house living was certainly giving me a lopsided view of the English upper classes.

  With my balls drained and my asshole well fed, I felt calm enough to ponder the information imparted to me by Barrett in so singular a manner. Reg Walworth, our victim, was a prostitute who had been blackmailing Sir James, and who threatened Rex’s marriage to Diana Hunt and thus the entire future of the Eagle family at Drekeham Hall. Sir James was queer, partially if not completely (he had, after all, fathered two children)—which explained the extraordinarily tolerant attitude toward sexual irregularity in his household. It also explained why he put up with so much from his odious younger brother, who, presumably, knew much and guessed more about his respectable sibling’s private morals.

  So at least I now had a motive for the crime; Reginald Walworth had met the fate of many a bungling blackmailer who overreached himself. But who had killed him? And why was Charlie Meeks being framed for the crime? Clearly his alleged guilt shifted suspicion from the Eagle family themselves—who, after all, were the only remaining suspects once Meeks was out of the picture. Leonard, Lady Caroline, Rex, and Sir James had been in the room on the afternoon Reg Walworth was murdered. Sir James had stormed out—disgusted by the crime, or refusing to assist? I could not believe he was the killer; this was a man of the highest professional and political probity. But who knew to what extremes a man would not go when his home was threatened? Rex, likewise, seemed an unlikely suspect—but he was hiding much, and could have played us all for a fool. Vince West had taught me that. That left Lady Caroline and her reptilian brother-in-law. She lacked the physical strength to throttle a man, but she might well desire his death. That left Leonard—strong, subtle, and, in moral terms, lower than worm’s tits. And what of Leonard’s shady “friends” from London—those bright young things and their rough-trade boyfriends whom, he alleged, he had been “entertaining” in his room? And what of Simon, the hall boy? What had he seen? What did he know? And how could he tell me?

  In order to prove anything against the Eagle family, I first had to deal with the knotty problem of Charlie Meeks’s whereabouts on the afternoon in question. He could not, after all, be in two places at one time, and I ruled out any suspicion of identical twins, the last resort of a detective writer in desperate need of a plot twist. How could he have served the family in Leonard’s rooms, but gained his own quarters so soon, without passing through the main part of the house—where he would surely have been seen, either by Susie or by Belinda? If I could just find a way of moving that piece, the chess game would suddenly resolve itself.

  I was sitting in the library, pondering all this in the aftermath of Barrett’s thorough probing, when my attention was caught by the sound of crunching gravel and splashing water from the front drive. I wandered into the hall, peered through the Virginia creeper that hung in front of the windows, and saw Hibbert, the second footman, chauffeur, and general keeper of the cars, washing the very vehicle on which I had so recently been riding. He was wearing his chauffeur’s uniform—gray trousers with a thick leather belt, black boots, a peaked cap—minus the jacket and minus the shirt. This was too interesting to be ignored, and I went out to investigate further.

  Hibbert’s reputation in the house was well established: he was a womanizer, a seducer of Mrs. Ramage’s girls, the supposed husband-to-be of Susie, the kitchen maid, and a willing performer in Burroughs’s stable of young male staff. Watching him washing the car, soaping it up with a bucket and sponge, I could see why. His body was built on classical lines, perfectly proportioned to his height—he was about 5’ 9”. He was dark in coloring, possibly of Asian extraction, and tanned even darker by his obvious love of the sun. He was hairy on the chest, stomach, and arms.

  I wandered over to engage him in conversation; fortunately, I knew a bit about cars, and made some inane remark about Sir James’s Bentley.

  “Yes, sir, she’s a beauty. Look at her chassis. She’s a nice little goer, this one.”

  He had a cockney accent, and lacked the deference that most of the indoor staff showed. When he smiled, his handsome face broke up into dimples, and a small, crescent-shaped scar on his forehead was thrown into relief by the movement of his heavy black eyebrows. I suspected that he was a small-time crook engaged by Burroughs despite a colorful past and an equally eventful present. I understood how he could wrap Burroughs so neatly round his little finger. Well, if he was willing to perform for an old man like Burroughs, what might he not do for a virile young gentleman like me—and a guest, to boot? As you can see, I had fully recovered from my recent exertions.

  I ran my hand over the fender. “Sleek as a racehorse, isn’t she? And great suspension.” To this I could testify, having given it a good workout earlier.

  “Yeah,” Hibbert said, washing down the exact spot where my ass had recently squirmed. “I like a nice easy ride myself.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “Can’t stand it bumpy. I like to feel I’m on cushions, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew exactly what he meant—if he was fucking Susie, the kitchen maid, he must have a very comfortable ride indeed. I thought I would play along with this manly banter and see where it got me.

  “Yeah—too many of your English girls are all skin and bone.”

  “You said it, mate. I like something I can get hold of.” Like your ass, I thought, as he reached over toward the windshield. When he stood up, there were soap suds caught in his chest hair; he wiped them off absentmindedly with one brown hand.

  “Me too. I’ve seen some nice, er, ‘birds’ here at Drekeham Hall.”

  “Not bad, some of ’em. Couple of nice tarts down in the kitchen, keep me busy enough.”

  “I bet they do.” I’d keep him busy as well, especially with that little cap on his head.

  “But I got bigger fish to fry.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I thought, like everyone else in Drekeham, he was about to turn into a raving homosexual before my very eyes. I was not averse to the idea. But Hibbert, alas, turned out to be the “look but don’t touch” type.

  “Yeah. A boy like me can go a long way if he knows how to play the game.”

  “And what game is that?”

  “Hunt the Cunt.” He grabbed his crotch and gave it a good squeeze.

  “I’m sure you’re very good at it.”

  “You bet I am. I’m the champion.”

  “And whose cunt have you hunted in Drekeham Hall?”

  “I told you.”

  “What, the kitchen maid?”

  “No, mate. You ain’t listening. Hunt the Cunt.” He winked and grabbed his crotch again, which seemed to be thickening up nicely.

  “Wha—” And then I understood. Hunt the Cunt. Not a particularly nice nickname, but possibly a fitting one. I whistled.

  “Wow, that’s pretty good going.”

  “Yeah. She’ll do.”

  “I bet.”

  “She’s a fucking raver, mate. Can’t get enough of it.” His packet was definitely bigger now; some men like nothing better than to brag about their sexual conquests. I was happy to listen. “Looks like you’ve got plenty to go around.”

  “I’ve had no complaints.”

  “So, y
ou and Lady Diana Hunt. Who’d have thought it?”

  “Well, she ain’t getting much joy out of Rexy Boy, is she?”

  “Isn’t she?”

  “Nah... He’s a cold fish. More interested in business than fuckin’. See, that’s where I come in. Handy Hibbert. Always ready when called upon. And she calls upon me a lot.”

  “She likes that, does she?” I indicated his growing hard-on with my eyes. He stroked it, like a favorite dog.

  “Can’t get enough. Last night after dinner, again this morning, I’ve been fucking her in every possible position. She may be a Lady, but she ain’t no lady, if you know what I mean.”

  I found his bragging extremely exciting, and longed to teach this arrogant little stud a lesson he would never forget.

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “Nah. Don’t worry about me. My tanks are always full. I mean, I spent half of yesterday screwing Fat Susie in her room, and I still had to have a wank when we got the afternoon off.”

  Watched by Burroughs, no doubt, I thought.

  “Some afternoon off that turned out to be,” he continued. “Oh, Mr. Hibbert, would you serve us tea? Oh, Mr. Hibbert, would you bring us sandwiches and whisky? Oh, Mr. Hibbert, would you assist Mr. Meeks with luncheon? They run me fuckin’ ragged, mate.” He took off his cap, wiped the sweat from his brow, and continued to wash the car. I watched with delight the play of muscles under his skin, but tried to concentrate on a niggling feeling somewhere at the back of my mind that, for once, wasn’t lust.

  “So you were working too, then, when you were supposed to have a half day?”

  “Yeah. Bloody liberty I call it. Typical of this family.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Looking after the little party in Mr. Leonard’s room.”

  “With Charlie Meeks?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  “Nothing. Just can’t believe how these English families think they can get away with abusing their staff like that.”

  “Don’t worry about me, mate.” He smiled again, and it was like the sun breaking out on a cloudy day. “I’m taking them for the ride of their life.”

  “How so?”