He was in his study when he saw Yolanda scurrying past the window outside next day. He called out, and she tiptoed in as if walking on red-hot nails, scared out of her wits.
‘So when is … what’s his name … the ’orse thief... eh … Oyster, isn’t it? When is he going to make an honest woman out of you?’ She looked at him, possibly with gratitude, because she thought that he had accepted her inviolability on account of her being spoken for.
‘We was going to, but his forge is closing and ’es not earnin’ … sir.’ Fate was clearly on his side.
‘I could give him a job here … can he shoe horses?’ This was greeted by a lovely smile, only spoilt by a gap near her eye-tooth. Why don’t these people look after their teeth? He had no intention of kissing her, so bad breath would not spoil his fun. All told, she was still a handsome piece of womanhood, he conceded. Maybe when things hotted up he might indulge in osculatory activities in the heat of the moment.
‘Can you really, sir?’
‘I said so, didn’t I.’
‘Sir, you are most kind. I thank you sir, I’ll pray to Saint Sarah for you, sir.’
‘But Yolanda,’ he said, now on fire with lust for her. Oh those lips! At that moment the thought that there was no more desirable woman on this earth crossed his mind. ‘Yolanda, you know I want you more than anything in this world.’ It was true. If at that moment he was asked to choose between sexual intercourse with Yolanda and the leadership of the Tory Party, he’d have no hesitation choosing the woman. The idiotic cow could not make up her mind.
‘Look, sweetheart, I will not only make sure you have a job here … and I’ll get Rusk to give you an extra half crown a week. Isn’t that fair?’ She still did not react. ‘And we’ll make Oyster stable boy. Think on it. You can then get married.’
‘Not Oyster sir.’
‘What?’
‘Is name is Oyston sir.’
‘Whatever. How about it?’
‘Sir, ’e won’t marry me if he knows I’ve been … tampered with.’ He gave what he knew was an obscene laugh.
‘Tampered with, Ha! But how’s he going to find out?’
‘Before we wed sir, Elvira will check me out. If she shakes ’er ’ead, I can’t … and Oyston will kill me for dishonouring him.’
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t … how d’you call it? Been tampered with. I don’t believe it. Such a beautiful wench like you.’
‘It’s true sir. I swear on St Sarah’s ’ead.’
‘I don’t care, I must have you. And I must have you now, by George!’ And he grabbed her. She resisted, but less forcefully than he had expected. Perhaps in her scheming head, she was weighing the advantages of double employment over Gyppo laws of virginity. He pulled her skirt down and saw that she had no knickers. She must have been expecting my gambit, he thought. He could not remember when he had been more aroused. Perhaps never. She was still trying to free herself from his grip, so he tightened it. ‘Not much point doing anything now. You’re entirely in my power. And I know you wanted this, why else would you come into my study without knickers, eh?’ She would not have been able to tell him that no one of their family could afford unseen garments when the private parts can be easily protected from view by the skirt, even if she wanted to, for he had a hand tightly clasped over her mouth. He dragged her towards his desk, pushed her face down, dropped his own trousers and after no more than two thrusts he felt his whole body shake with what he thought was the most intense orgasm that he had ever experienced. He became aware that Mary Smith was in the witness box and giving her version of the events.
‘Yes, your ’onour, Yolanda came home in tears and recounted her agonising experience.’ Her orgasm of despair, as her whole body shook with horror and revulsion, she would have said if she had any degree of articulacy. She was a child, not yet seventeen. A child who had only known poverty and deprivation. Cold, hunger, taunts by parno children from genteel homes, stones thrown at her. The only thing that kept her going was her dreams, but dreams are not a solid enough foundation, they collapse under the weight of reality.
‘ … dreams are not a solid enough foundation, they collapse under the weight of reality.’ Lovely way of putting things, those Romany folk have, mused Irene, feeling a lump in her throat.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the Bishop, ‘so you stopped her going back?’ Mary Smith turned away, and the question had to be repeated.
‘We’d have starved sir. I made her.’ Harmiston tried to smile as he remembered the three blissful weeks of lust that followed.
‘Tell the court what happened next, Mrs Smith,’ he heard the prosecuting counsel ask the hag.
‘Well sir, it were all my fault. I made the child go back. Forced ’er, sir ... put wheels under her unwilling feet. I beat the little innocent darling. Told her I’d kick ’er out of the ’ouse if she didn’t bring in any money. How would we ’ave lived sir? On fresh air and dried leaves?’
‘Yes, yes, just tell us what happened Mary.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘You should not answer a question by asking another,’ intervened Irene, uncharacteristically mercilessly.
‘She became big sir. And to my shame, I beat ’er some more. We can ’ardly find food for ourselves, I says to ’er, and you bring us one more mouth to feed. I were ’eartless, sir. Told ’er to go see her lover and get some compensation out of ’im, so we could arrange for Elvira to get rid of the unwanted bastard, and to make her fit for matrimony.’
‘Explain what you mean by that.’
‘Well sir, Elvira looks at your privates and knows if you’ve been tampered wiv or not. But for five pounds sir, she can ’ide the evidence of tamperin’, if you see wot I mean.’ So, that’s what she wanted money for. Had I understood the situation, I’d not have ordered Rusk to throw her out. Might even have given her the wretched five pounds she was demanding.
‘I made ’er go to Hanover Square, I did. She came back empty-handed. Said she were not allowed to see the master.’ She forced the poor thing back to me, and now she allows her tears to gush forth like a broken dam.
The judge then called Oyston to the witness box. Ah, the goddamn stable boy, my rival. What did she see in that weed?
‘Mr Smith, tell the court about what happened between you and your betrothed Yolanda on that fateful Sunday morning.’
‘Well sir, it weren’t my fault. I loved ’er your ’onour. Truly and deeply. I understood that she was forced. I knew ’er ’eart were innocent. I thought we’d pray to Saint Sarah to cleanse ’er sir, then we’d wed.’
‘So why didn’t you marry ’er?’
‘Me ole man, sir. ’E forbade me sir. Said he’d disown me if I married an ’ore. Wouldn’t listen to me. How would we live, where would we keep the baby warm? I told Yolanda we’d go away, but go where sir? The elders would send word everywhere. We said we ’ad no choice but to tie rocks to our feet and throw ourselves in the Thames your ’onour.’ The young fellow could not continue. He started sobbing and shaking, tears streaming down his face. Irene apologised to him, said she was sorry to remind him of such tragic things, but it was necessary for the facts to be revealed to the court. Take your time, she said, but do tell us.
‘We did as we planned your ’onour, we went to Woolwich, where they said the water was very deep. We ’ad our ropes ready. We found a good rock each, mebbe four or five pounds. We kissed and ’eld each other for five minutes, tears coming down like floods. I put my hand on her tummy to bid farewell to the bebelus. I was already thinking of him as my own flesh and blood, you see. We’ll meet in ’eaven, I said. No, my sweetheart said, if we kill ourselves, we go to the other place. But wot choice do we ’ave sweetheart? True, I said. The baby won’t, she said suddenly. What? I asked. Go to the other place, she’s innocent. That thought seemed to give her some comfort, and she smiled. We ’eld hands and began wading. Some little urchins saw us and started shoutin’ and laughin’ … don’t know wot they thought we was doin
’. When we were up to our nose in the water, we looked at each other and let go of our ’ands. She smiled and drifted away forever, she did, my beautiful princess.’
‘What about you?’
‘I didn’t chicken out, ’onest I didn’t your ’onour, but my rock slipped off. At first I thought if I dived I’d get drownded, but try as ’ard as I could, I found myself floatin’ and … you see, your ’onour, I’m a good swimmer. I watched my beloved go down. I swam to ’er to save ’er but she wasn’t where I saw her last. She ’ad disappeared... with the life inside her tummy. I called to the little boys, and bless ’em, they came, they dived in and ’elped me search for ’er. All in vain. I sat on the river bank, promising myself that I’d kill myself soon, but never ’ad the ’eart. That’s God’s ’onest truth, by Saint Sarah.’ Suppose it was sad. Was never able to fit in that threesome with my Sofia.
A unanimous Guilty verdict was inevitable. Again discounting the abstention of the accused. Suppose I was somewhat at fault, even the lowest form of life was created by Almighty God. And by God I could never have enough of her.
It was not over yet. Wonder what the sentence will be. How will they carry it out? They seem deranged enough to organise a hanging in their back garden. Might they keep me imprisoned in the basement? Out of my hands.
The Court of Human Decency will now take a fifteen minute break, the judge announced, when tea and biscuits will be served to everybody who needs a little sustenance.
‘I know I do.’ he (she?) said.
We’ll reconvene afterwards to hear evidence on an indictment of murder, the judge announced. Surely they don’t, they can’t have-.
______
The charge, the clerk read, is that on the fifth of October 1899, Harmiston did murder Beauregard de Wills Blagonard. They’re doing away with my titles now.
‘It was an accident!’ he shouted, ‘the Police looked into this and found no evidence of foul play.’ This was the first time that day that he felt truly involved in this travesty, wondering how they had come across that obscure event, which everybody, police and judiciary were only too ready to sweep under the carpet. It was then that he recognised a face in the audience.
‘We call upon John Smith to the witness box.’ They think it’s hilarious to call everybody Smith! Now what was his name? Wasn’t it Cyril Tyler? Sofia had bought his silence by bedding him, but he has obviously reneged on his word. These people have no honour.
He wryly noted that he was a fine well-fed specimen. Give him a good scrub and take him to Gieves & Hawkes in Savile Row, and you couldn’t tell him from the Duke of Westminster. Who looks like a toad anyway. No wonder Sofia was so enthusiastic about silencing him. Except that she seemed not to have succeeded. Cyril Roper!
______
Having been told of the various criminal activities that the aspiring prime minister had carried out, the Club had contacted people likely to be in the know, and had had no difficulty in persuading them to testify, but initially the key witness to the murder in St Leonards’ had chosen silence. Irene had therefore decided to take the matter in her own hand.
She had heard from a number of sources that Roper had been involved in the killing of Blagonard, Sofia’s half brother. Algernon’s more sedate enquiries had revealed that, with the inconvenient brother out of the way, Sofia was now the sole heir of the Blagonard fortune, which The Illustrated London News estimated to be in excess of four hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Which suggested a possible motive. Algie had further discovered that the siblings had been estranged for a number of years, and that Harmiston had worked hard on a timely reconciliation. It was only in the last six months of the life of the dead man that he had become a regular at Sofia’s soirées in Hanover Square.
Irene’s investigations led her to one Peter Fox, once a drinking crony of Roper. She had put on her Dai Lernière persona and located the man at the Goat and Whiskers in Clapham. To begin with, her presence in the working men area of the bar had attracted the suspicious attention of the locals, but she paid a round to a handful of men and said that he (she) was a sociologist researching the difference between the lives of people who worked for their living and those who benefited most from their toils. Salt of the earth and toffs, she had felt obliged to say when her carefully worded introduction seemed not to register. She felt that this remark had softened them a tad, and consolidated her position by making a little joke. As a sociologist, she said, her agenda was not to try to stop them drinking or to make them attend mass. This caused a pleasant chuckle and established a climate of trust that she was aiming for.
As she anticipated, Peter Fox, keen to have the sociologist continue paying rounds, started talking about his old mate Cyril. Experience had taught him that nobody tired of hearing the story, now embellished beyond recognition. Fox claimed that Roper had told him every single detail of what happened in St Leonard’s Forest, but sadly he had stopped coming to the Goat and Whiskers.
‘’Twere my fault,’ admitted Fox. ‘One day I ’ad one too many and when ’e came in like, I said aloud, ’ere Cyril me old China, come tell these worthies ’ere about wot your old boss did in that forest.’
‘You’re saying he didn’t like it much?’
‘Too right sir … ’e didn’t like it none. He walked straight out, and never showed ’is face in ’ere ever agin.’
‘So you’ve lost touch with him?’
‘Now ’e goes to a bar in the Soho where ’hores and pimps hang out. He says he don’t mind as no one asks questions.’
So, Irene dresses like a whore and makes for the Lily and Pumpkin in Jermyn Street, and is struck by the appearance of the former stable boy. Her first thought was that the fellow ought to be playing dashing heroes on the West End stage. She had been leading a celibate life for some time now, but when some man makes an impression on her, her dormant senses awaken with a vengeance. As happened this time. In view of the permissive atmosphere in the bar, she found it easy to approach her target.
‘Will you buy me a drink, or shall I buy you one?’ Cyril was taken by surprise. He was aware of the effect he produced on the opposite sex. For instance some of the girls who came in here often serviced him for free. I usually pay the first round myself, he said with a smile. When he came back with the beer, Irene went straight to the point.
‘You and I are going to end up in bed, so shall we cut out the preliminaries?’ He recognised that the woman must be from a comfortable background. Maybe she is doing this now because her father threw her out. It was also widely rumoured that many society ladies visited bars incognito with the sole purpose of finding a virile male companion for the night while their husbands were gambling or clubbing, possibly with rent boys.
‘I er... don’t have much money tonight, darling.’
‘You’ll pay me next time. If you want.’
‘Course I want.’
‘Do you have a place?’
They took a cab to Stockwell where he had his lodgings, and they made love. She then asked him about St Leonard. In the glow of après-sex intimacy he told her everything. She then revealed her true intentions to him, and convinced him that she and her friends would make sure that if he agreed to appear before their court, he would be protected from any repercussions. Irene was so sure of herself that when the fellow agreed, she was not in the least surprised.
______
‘John Smiss,’ that ludicrous Frenchwoman, who was prosecuting said, ‘tell us oo you are.’
He said his name was John Smith (as he had been instructed), and that he had worked as a carpenter, odd-job man, groom, dogsbody on Sir Harrison’s farm near Horsham.
‘Give us pleeze, some idea of ’ow you spent your day at Orsham.’ Cyril looked confused.
‘You mean … first thing in the morning I’d feed and water the horses. Then there was always something to mend, a door perhaps, or a leaky roof. Otherwise I’d go help on the fields. Or cut the grass, that sort of thing.’
‘A varied sort of l
ife, yes?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Did you get on with the master.’ Cyril stared at her. Clearly he was thinking, he’s the master, one just followed his orders. Getting on with him was never something he questioned himself about. It’s like asking, Do you get on with the tree you’re cutting down. Or the horse-shoe you’re fixing on the nag’s hoof.
‘I suppose I did,’ he said finally.
‘I mean did he treat you well?’
‘He was the master, wasn’t he?’ He meant you followed his orders and that was that. You’d be a fool to expect a pat on the back.
‘Zat,’ Armande pointed out, ‘doz nut answeur zeur question. Wat I min iz did he rebiouk you?’
‘It were his right,’ replied Cyril.
‘Did e ’it you wiz iz ’orse wip?’
‘That’s what whips is for, init?’
‘Now zis eez a hypoteticul question: did you at any time fill like you wanted to murder ’im?’ Algie, who was defending Harmiston but had said not one word until now, suddenly sprang up and said that counsel for the prosecution had no right to ask such a question, and Irene nodded.
‘Will learned counsel refrain from putting hypothetical questions.’ But Cyril answered anyway.
‘He were the boss. If he was killed, I’d lose my employment. No, ma’am, I’d be a fool to let such an idea enter my mind.’
‘Tell us wat you ’urd one Sunday when Sir Harrison and Lady Sofia were sitting in ze garden in Orsham and you went to serve zem ice-cream. Pleez address the Judge.’
‘Well your honour, first I must explain that people say of me, Cyril... eh … I mean John ... can hear a pin drop a mile away.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Er … that people say that, yes. But can I hear a pin drop a mile away? No. But it is true I can hear whispers at the end of a room. A long room.’
Sherlock Holmes Vs Irene Adler: A Duel of Wits (The Irene Adler Series Book 4) Page 4
