The Back Passage

by James Lear

  “Went up there with Meeks, did our bit, kowtowing to all that lot, serving everything up nice, then when nobody was looking I nipped down to see my little Susie in the servants’ quarters.”

  “That was brave, considering the house was overrun at the time.”

  “Ah!” He tapped the side of his nose. “That’s where the back passage comes in handy, mate.”

  “The back passage?”

  “Yeah, and not the one you’re thinking about.” He winked; just how well had he interpreted my appraisal of his body?

  “Which one, then?”

  “There’s a corridor runs along the back of the family’s rooms on the first floor, all the way along to the staircase that joins the staff’s quarters. Funny little rat run, can’t imagine what it was built for. But it’s done me a few good turns.”

  “You mean it can be accessed from Leonard’s room?”

  “Yeah, from Leonard’s room, from Rex’s room, from Sir James’s study, from the blue room where you’re sleeping, from the rose room where Lady Diana is...well, not sleeping much, as it turns out. Yeah, I’m up and down that passage like a yo-yo.”

  “Who else knows about it?”

  “A few of us.”

  “You mean there’s a secret passage that connects the staff quarters to the family’s bedrooms and nobody’s done anything to have it closed off?”

  “Why should they? It’s the name of the game in this house. Upstairs, downstairs, they’re all fuckin’ like rabbits, the lot of ’em. Ask Mr. Burroughs.”

  “I have spoken to Mr. Burroughs.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He grinned again. “Expect he told you a bit about me, did he?”

  “He did.”

  “He’s a dirty old fucker, that one. Still, I don’t mind. I can keep him sweet”—he squeezed his cock again—“and he keeps me out of trouble. Fair exchange, I call it.”

  “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

  “Which side’s your bread buttered on, then, mate? You one of them and all?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thought so when I picked you up at the station. What about your mate, Miss Belinda’s bloke?”

  This was going too far. “He’s Miss Belinda’s bloke.”

  “No offense. Just wondered. You sharing a room and that—”

  “Have you been spying?”

  “Me? No. Doesn’t interest me. Don’t get me wrong: sex is sex, it’s all good. But it just happens that I’ve got enough pussy on my hands at the moment, I don’t need anything else. And I’m not one of them that gets off on watching other people at it. There’s plenty here that do.”

  “So I gather.”

  “But not me. I like to show it, not watch it.”

  “Good job.”

  “You want a quick flash?”

  “Go ahead. See what all the fuss is about.”

  “Okay. Hold this.” He gave me his bucket and positioned himself beside the driver’s door so that he could not be seen from the house or the gate.

  “Here you are.” He flopped out a cock that was even darker than the rest of him and was half-hard.

  “Nice.”

  “Gets bigger, watch.”

  He stood with his hands on his hips and started swaying gently. With each movement, his dick climbed five degrees. It reached the horizontal, then continued until it was pointing skyward. At its full extent, it just cleared the top of his thick leather belt.

  “Now I can see why you’re so much in demand around here.”

  “Too right,” he said. “I’d let you suck it, but I’ve got to save it for those that pay for it.”

  “Lady Diana.”

  “Yeah. She’ll be ringing for her pre-dinner fuck soon. Can’t disappoint a lady, can I?”

  “God forbid.”

  “You can have a quick taste, if you want. I don’t mind.”

  I needed no second invitation, and dropped to my knees to give it a suck. The sound of the front door of Drekeham Hall opening brought me to my senses.

  “Mitch!” Morgan’s voice.

  “Coming!”

  I stood up, and Hibbert stuffed his prick back into his trousers.

  “Nice one, mate,” he said. “Got it wet for me. I’ll come and fuck you later, if you like.”

  “Why? Pussy not enough for you?”

  “You’ve got a pussy, ain’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I fancy going to America.”

  “I see.”

  “Bet you’re rich. All you Yanks are rich.”

  “Not rich enough to afford you, Hibbert.”

  “Oh, well. Can’t blame me for trying. If you change your mind...”

  The arrogant little bastard! I could have wrestled him to the ground and fucked him then and there. But there were more pressing concerns.

  “Mitch! Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m here!”

  I ran back to the house, leaving Hibbert cleaning the car and whistling through his teeth.

  Morgan looked flustered. “For God’s sake, Mitch, where do you keep disappearing to? I’ve been looking for you for the last hour.”

  I didn’t feel I could tell him the whole truth, and contented myself with half. “I’ve been conducting interviews.”

  “Yes, well, so have I—with Simon, the hall boy.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “Certainly I did.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said nothing, of course. Poor lad can’t form a word, just a lot of noises that don’t add up to anything. But God, he tried so hard to make himself understood. He was straining so hard, I was scared we were going to be overheard, so I took him into our room.”

  “And what happened there?” I had a twinge of jealousy—whether it was over Morgan, whom I thought of as “mine,” or over Simon, whom I had been interested in fucking ever since I laid eyes on him, I’m not sure.

  “I sat him down in a chair and got him to calm down, gave him a glass of water. He was in a terrible state. Kept showing me those marks on his wrists.”

  “Ah—the rope burns.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought they were, until I took a closer look at them. They weren’t burns, really; I’ve had rope burns from mucking about in tree camps as a kid, I know what they look like. These were more like something hard had cut into his flesh. Very nasty.”

  “You don’t think he’d tried to...kill himself?”

  “Christ, no, Mitch, don’t be so dramatic. But I knew something bad had happened to him, and so I did something rather brilliant.”

  “What?”

  “I gave him a piece of paper and a pencil, of course.”

  “Oh. Is that all?”

  “Perhaps you’re not interested in what he wrote, then?”

  “Okay, okay. You’re a genius. Just tell me.”

  “Well, I wrote down questions and he wrote down the answers, as best he could. I don’t think he got much of an education, poor lad, and he labored over every letter, sticking his tongue out, he was concentrating so hard.”

  “What did you ask him?”

  “First of all, I asked him what had happened to his hands. I had to do a lot of dumb show to explain what I’d written. This is what he wrote in reply.” Morgan handed me a piece of paper on which some badly formed letters spelled out H-A-N-C-U-F-S.

  “Handcuffs?”

  “Exactly. Then I asked who did it to him, and he wrote P-L-I-C-E-M-A-N.”

  “Policeman. Oh, God.”

  “When I asked him if he knew his name, he shook his head. So I asked him where he had been handcuffed. Look what he wrote.”

  K-I-T-C-H-I-N.

  “The kitchen? But Leonard said they’d had him tied up on his bed during some kind of orgy.”

  “Exactly. So that’s another piece of Leonard’s story that doesn’t add up. Then I asked him when it had happened, and he wrote Y-E-S-T-Y. I think that must mean yesterday; I always had a bit of trouble spelling that word myself.”
>
  “So, yesterday afternoon, while Leonard was supposedly entertaining in his rooms, the cops handcuffed Simon in the kitchen...to keep him out of the way?”

  “I’m sure of it. Then I made the poor kid blush terribly. I asked him if anyone had done anything to him. I thought he was going to start crying, he was so embarrassed.”

  “What did he write?”

  “He didn’t write anything. He just pointed to his bum.”

  “My God, you don’t think they...”

  “No. I asked him what they’d done, and he dropped his trousers and showed me. I must say, he’s got a very nice little bum, very smooth and hard.”

  “Spare me the descriptions, Morgan. What did you see?”

  “Stripes. He’d been whipped.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “That’s what I asked him. And he wrote this.”

  In confused letters, the words S-A-Y N-O.

  “Say no? What does he mean? Say nothing? Don’t tell anyone?”

  “No,” Morgan said. I think it means he said no to whatever the police tried to get him to do. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “A good deal better, if what I saw earlier on in the police station is anything to go by. He’s a very brave kid.”

  “Then he wrote B-E-L-L R-I-N-G and P-L-I-C-E-M-A-N G-O-N. So he was left alone down there until someone came and let him go, with his trousers round his ankle and his poor bare bum covered in painful red weals. I felt so sorry for him.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took him into our bathroom and cleaned his bum with a bit of disinfectant, which must have stung like hell, but at least it won’t scar. Then I rubbed a bit of ointment on it, that posh stuff that you use on your hands.”

  “Oh, did you indeed.”

  “Hmmm... He wouldn’t stand up straight when I’d finished, he was trying to hide something with his hands. I reassured him as best I could, so he relaxed and got dressed. He gave me such a big hug when he left. I slipped him a couple of bob.”

  “You mean you didn’t...?”

  “No I did not! I’m not one to take advantage of a young man like that. Shame on you, Mitch.”

  “I just wondered.”

  “So anyway, if you can bring your one-track mind back to what really matters, it looks like we have a potential witness who’s been got out of the way, and another big black mark against the family.”

  “And the police.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But they were careless. They thought that just because Simon can’t speak and can’t hear, he wouldn’t tell. They just mistreated him and let him go. Very foolish.”

  “And very cruel,” Morgan said, obviously more smitten with Simon than he was letting on. I’d have to watch him.

  “I get the feeling that things are reaching some kind of denouement,” I said.

  “De-what?”

  “Things are coming to a climax.”

  “Not again.”

  “We have to go on a little adventure, Morgan. Follow me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To bed.”

  “Hoped we might be!”

  “But this time, we’re not going to fuck.”

  “Oh. Damn. Been wanting to all day.”

  “Patience, young man. Patience will be rewarded.”

  “With your arse, I hope.”

  I didn’t mention that my ass needed a little time to recover.

  We strolled upstairs, trying to look nonchalant, when Mrs. Ramage appeared out of nowhere and blocked our way.

  “Aren’t you two young gentlemen outside?”

  “Apparently not, Mrs. Ramage,” I said.

  “On a lovely day like today. The hunt will be passing through shortly. You really ought to see it. The Drekeham Hunt is the finest in the country.”

  “So I gather.”

  “Doesn’t Sir James ride today, Mrs. R?” Morgan asked, much better at this kind of bluff, meaningless conversation than me.

  “Sir James is under the weather, sir,” the hefty housekeeper said, pursing her lips. “Lady Caroline has advised him to keep indoors today. Such a shame.”

  “Well, we’ll be sure not to miss the hunt. What time do they come round, Mrs. R?”

  “About four, sir.”

  “Marvelous. Just time to go and freshen up.”

  “Were you going to your room, sir?”

  “Yes, Mrs. R. Just for a sec.”

  “We were...about to clean it, that’s all.”

  She was walking backward, as if she wanted to bar our door.

  “That’s all right, we won’t be a tick,” Morgan said. “Mr. Mitchell’s been playing, er—tennis, was it, Mitch?”

  “That’s right. Just hitting some balls back and forth.”

  “I didn’t see you, sir.”

  “And he needs to change his shirt. You know how fussy these Americans are. We’ll be down in a jiffy, then your marvelous girls can come and work their magic on our bachelor quarters.”

  Mrs. Ramage was seized with a fit of coughing, which obliged her to bend double in our doorway, making it quite impassible. Morgan patted her on the back, and gently maneuvered her to one side.

  “You want to take something for that chest, Mrs. R,” he said, winking at me. “Sounds like it could turn nasty.”

  Mrs. Ramage bustled off down the landing, leaving us—finally—to ourselves.

  The moment I walked into the room, I could see that something was wrong. My books were not as I had left them, neatly piled on the desk; they were spread out, some of them on the floor, others on the bed. My suitcase, which had been messy but at least contained, now looked as if it had exploded.

  “I say, someone’s been looking through my shaving kit,” Morgan said from the bathroom. “How odd.”

  “Not odd at all,” I said. “We’ve had uninvited guests.”

  “Where are you?” Boy said, viciously pulling back curtains and opening cupboard doors.

  “They’re gone, whoever they were,” I said. “And I know exactly where.”

  The window was closed, the catch locked from the inside. Morgan looked perplexed.

  “Try that door over there,” I said, pointing to what I had hitherto assumed was the maid’s cupboard—a half-height door in the back wall, papered over with the same blue floral wallpaper as the rest of the room.

  “Don’t be daft, Mitch. That’s where they keep the linen.” He went up to the door, crouched down, and jokingly shouted “Halloooo! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  “See?” he said. “There’s nothing...”

  And then, coming from several feet further along the wall, there was a dull thud.

  “What the—”

  “Shh! Listen!”

  Floorboards squeaked somewhere—on the landing? And then there was silence.

  “This door, I think you will find, opens the way to our mystery.”

  “You’ve been reading too much,” Morgan said.

  “Try it.”

  He scrabbled at the edge of the little door with his fingers; there was no knob. “Locked.”

  “Quite. From the other side.”

  “Must be.”

  Mrs. Ramage’s voice croaked from the landing. “Mr. Morgan! Mr. Mitchell! Are you decent?”

  “Just a minute, Mrs. R! Mitchell’s on the pot!” Morgan stifled a snicker. “That should put her off for a bit.”

  “We’ve got to get this door open,” I whispered, “and quietly, or we’ll have Mrs. Ramage and all the rest of them down on us.”

  “Leave it to Boy.” To my astonishment he picked up a paper knife from the desk, ran it dexterously round the edges of the door, and then, when it met with an obstruction, wriggled and wiggled it until there was a pop and a click. The door swung open.

  “The back passage...”

  Morgan was ahead of me, already half through the door on his hands and knees. I could hear the heavy footfall of Mrs. Ramage in the corridor outside our room, so
I pushed him through and followed. We closed the door behind us and replaced the catch that Morgan had managed to lever open. Then we crouched in the darkness, waiting for our eyes to adjust.

  I did not imagine for one moment that Mrs. Ramage, a housekeeper in an English country house, would ever dream of invading the privacy of a guest’s room—but something urgent was pressing her. We heard the bedroom door open.

  “Mr. Morgan? Mr. Mitchell? Are you in the bathroom?”

  We hardly breathed. Mrs. Ramage walked across the bedroom and knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Gentlemen? Are you in here? It’s Mrs.—Oh, my God!” Then her heavy steps ran back from the bathroom—which she had, of course, found empty—and out onto the landing. We heard her pounding away, though it was impossible to tell in which direction. She knew exactly where we had gone—but was unable to follow us, being a) far too large to get through the little door and b) unable to open it from the bedroom side.

  I lit a match. The passage extended for yards on either side of us—the whole length of the house, by the look of it. It was about four feet high, with a ceiling that sloped down toward the outer wall; clearly this cavity had been built inside the thick walls in a way that would never excite suspicion from the outside. Perhaps it was a remnant of the Civil War? An escape route for recusant Catholics? I had heard of such things. Whatever its original purpose, it was now the perfect conduit to illicit sexual relations between family and staff.

  The match burned out, and once our eyes had adjusted to the gloom we could just make out the faint outline of other doors further along the passage in each direction. So this was how Hibbert played his little game of Hunt the Cunt—and, more important, this was how Charlie Meeks could have been in two places at one time. There, a few yards down the passage, was the door that led to Leonard Eagle’s rooms. And this way...

  “Come on, Mitch,” whispered Morgan. “We’ll have to crawl.”

  I didn’t object; crawling along the passage meant that I had my nose up his butt. At one point he stopped, and my entire face was buried between his cheeks; just the place I liked it to be.

  He held up a hand; I could just see it in the gloom. There were voices from nearby.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t very well stop them.”

  “For God’s sake, Ramage, what did I tell you?” It was Sir James—and he was furious.

  “What do you expect me to do? This whole situation is ridiculous, and you know it.”