Up, Back, and Away

by K. Velk

  “Pity. I was hoping you might introduce me. She was brilliant in The Dancers. I don’t suppose you saw that?”

  “No. I just got to London a couple of days ago.” Felicity then seemed to lose interest in him. She continued craning. Another waiter appeared.

  “Can I get you all some champagne?” Miles shouted to his new acquaintances.

  The others in the party, noticing Miles for the first time, murmured their thanks and approval. Felicity introduced him around and he shook hands with everyone. The waiter gave Miles a skeptical look, but took the order.

  The crowd inside the club was thickening by the moment. Every few seconds, some black-trousered or shimmering posterior twirled within inches of Miles’ face. The band played with wild energy. The music was good, but its best feature was that it was loud, making conversation nearly impossible. When the bandleader struck up “The Charleston,” Gordon grabbed Felicity’s hand and Miles was left marooned at the end of the table. He scanned the room looking for Ada or Roger and the Professor, but cotton balls and paper streamers had suddenly appeared and all was chaos.

  The champagne arrived and was noisily uncorked. The waiter tipped some into the flat little glass in front of Miles and he took a sip. It wasn’t bad, he thought. Like ginger ale without the sugar. One of Felicity’s friends shouted something about Texas and raised her glass at him. Miles smiled back and handed the waiter four of his sovereigns, which earned him a deferential bow.

  The music stopped and a troop of waiters appeared to sweep the cottonballs and streamers off the dance floor, which was now apparently to function as the stage. The bandleader stepped forward.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Ginger Jar is proud to present the entertainment portion of tonight’s programme! Please welcome Mata Rhoumaje, the athletic dancer!”

  A small woman in a short tunic, satiny shorts, and high heels emerged from a door just behind the bandstand. She executed a series of extraordinarily high kicks to faintly exotic eastern music. Then she bent backwards until her hands were on the floor. In that position she walked forward almost to where Miles was sitting. Then she stood again, grabbed the bottom of one foot, raised it over her head, and spun in circles. At last she fell into a split and gestured for applause which the audience provided enthusiastically. Mata Rhoumaje bowed and then bounced away back to the door behind the bandstand.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome for the first time at the Ginger Jar, Stella Laclaire, the songbird of Surrey!”

  The band struck up “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” a song Miles knew from the famous Warner Brothers Michigan J. Frog cartoon, and Ada, definitely Ada, emerged.

  Thank God! She looked different, but OK, not injured, at least. Her long hair had been cut into the short, wavy style all the other women at the club seemed to have. She was wearing a knee-length dress that sparkled with coppery sequins and a diamond headband that trailed feathers. At the end of the song she twirled and curtsied oddly as she acknowledged the audience’s enthusiastic response. Miles scanned the club one last time: still no sign of his friends. Cursing his luck, he hopped up and worked his way to the door beside the dance floor from which the performers emerged. No one seemed to take any particular notice of him. Ada sang two more comic songs and took a sloppy bow before she stumbled back behind the bandstand.

  “Ada!” he yelled, catching her elbow and she passed.

  She was alight with the success of the performance and seemed confused to see Miles. Her eyes looked odd – her pupils were like pinpricks. She looked at him blankly.

  “Ada.” He grabbed some sovereigns and pressed them into her gloved hand. A little circle of admirers was forming around her.

  “Let’s just walk out of here together, right now,” he said as quietly and as seriously as he could. “If we get separated, take this money and go to the Victoria Hotel at Euston Station. I’ve arranged a room for you there. Can you remember that? The Victoria Hotel just by Euston Station?”

  She nodded blankly. “I, I ,…” The next performance had started and the band was loud. People were pressing in, wanting to shake Ada’s hand. “I, I promised I would be good…” she said, her voice barely audible. “There will be trouble…”

  “You want to go, don’t you?” Miles turned Ada by the shoulders to force her to look into his face.

  She looked away nervously. “Yes. I do. I think. It has all been as Miss Everett predicted – he’s not what he said at all. But there will be trouble.”

  The waiter who had served Miles’ champagne appeared at Ada’s side. “Mr. Diamond wants to see you right now Miss Laclaire,” he said, pulling her away roughly. Miles grabbed her back.

  “She’s not going anywhere!”

  “Diamond wants to see her!”

  “She’s coming with me, now!”

  The waiter had apparently reached the limit of his debating powers. He looked up above the stage and gestured at someone standing somewhere above them. Miles pulled on Ada’s wrist again and the waiter pulled on her other arm.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. But as they turned to go, a tall, solid man of about forty blocked their way. Ada crumpled.

  “Oh God…”

  “Who’s this Stella? A friend?” Jon Diamond asked with a silky smile. Ada nodded, looking as though the very frame of heaven had just collapsed on her.

  Mr. Diamond beamed at Miles. “This must be the young man from the Pavilion. Persistent isn’t he? Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine, Stella. Come along now both of you. Remember the celebration we had planned in my office, Stella? Your boyfriend must come too.”

  Miles pulled away. “We’re leaving! Come on Ada.”

  “Well of course you are!” Mr. Diamond said. “But first there are one or two things, some expenses etcetera, that Stella needs to clear up. And then we must have our little party as well.”

  Mr. Diamond made a small gesture with his right hand, and before Miles could take another breath, he and Ada were propelled backstage by a phalanx of red-jacketed waiters.

  This could not have gone any worse.

  65. A Vampire of Mayfair

  Mr. Diamond cut straight through the gaggle of performers backstage, into a narrow hallway, and then up a flight of stairs. The waiters were a solid mass behind Miles and Ada, pushing them forward like so much snow before a plow. There was a small landing at the top of the stairs and a single door covered with black tufted leather. Miles knew this was for soundproofing. He and Ada were pushed through the black door and it was slammed behind them.

  Miles was tempted to turn and beat on it and scream for their lives, but he had enough presence of mind left to know that such a gesture would be futile at best and force a crisis at worst. He had to keep himself together – fight down the panic. He stood motionless and grim as an Easter Island statue and tried to think. Ada quivered beside him. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

  “I said we had a few matters to clear up and I meant it. Take a seat!” Mr. Diamond sat behind the big desk that dominated the small room. Miles led Ada to the two chairs positioned in front of the desk and sat.

  “First,” Diamond lit a cigarette. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Miles McTavish.”

  “And, pray tell, what are you doing here, interfering with my protégé?”

  “I’m her friend. She doesn’t want to stay with you. She shouldn’t have come in the first place.”

  “So you do have friends, Ada. That’s not what you led me to believe.” Ada cried noiselessly into her gloves.

  “I am afraid that will be quite impossible,” Mr. Diamond said, picking a bit of stray tobacco from the tip of his tongue and flicking it in Miles’ direction. “Ada, er ‘Stella,’ hasn’t been with us long, that’s true, but I have already invested a considerable sum in her: frocks, shoes, lodging, meals what have you. She has no means of repaying my investment and it will take her some months of work to come even.”

  “How much?” Miles
asked.

  Diamond seemed amused. “How much what?”

  “How much do you say that she owes you?”

  “Without getting out my account book, I can’t say down to the penny. I recall that it was in the vicinity of fifty pounds.”

  Miles was sure he was simply pulling a figure from the air – a sum that would be beyond the means of Ada or anyone who cared about her. Fifty pounds would have been nearly a full year’s pay for his work at Quarter Sessions. He stood and reached into his pockets, pulling out fistfuls of coins. He counted out five neat piles of ten sovereigns and stacked them on Diamond’s desk. Somehow, he managed to keep his hands steady. When he had finished counting, Miles remained standing.

  Diamond opened the desk drawer and raked in the coins.

  “Well, that’s a start. But there’s also the matter of my expectations – future profits if you will, matter of contract law. Ada and I had a deal, didn’t we Ada?”

  She shook her head. “I ‘ent signed anything.”

  “Well, we had an understanding. And really Ada wants to stay, don’t you Ada? We have all kinds of plans and we’ve only just begun…” She sniveled helplessly.

  “So. You see,” Diamond said, “that’s that.”

  “No I don’t see,” Miles said, surprised by the force in his voice. “She’s coming with me.” The man’s sense of entitlement, and the bullying that underlay it, made Miles furious. “It would be … tragic for her to stay here and be… ruined, wasted by you!”

  Mr. Diamond seemed amused by this. “Oh my boy, you have been reading too many romantic novels. Tragedy is what happens to the best people. The rest is only melodrama.”

  Miles steadied himself. There was no point arguing. They simply had to get away.

  “We’re going now,” he announced. “My friends are waiting downstairs.”

  Miles’ inner-improviser had re-emerged and not a moment too soon. He could almost see the wheels turning in Diamond’s head. He couldn’t know for sure if Miles had friends with him. Even if he were only bluffing, however, too many people had seen Miles and Ada hustled backstage for them to simply disappear now.

  “Very well,” Diamond said slowly. “But Ada will need to collect her things.”

  “No. She won’t. We’re going right now.”

  Diamond smiled blandly. “Suit yourselves. Goodbye Ada. I will be in touch, you may be sure of that.”

  Miles hauled Ada from the chair and pushed her to the door. He pulled it open to find three men still standing there. The waiters looked for instruction and Diamond waved them off. Miles tugged Ada quickly down the narrow staircase.

  “Something’s not right here,” he whispered as they made their way back through the crush of performers. “When we get out the door, you go to the right, I’m going to go left. Run to the Underground station – the Angel station is three blocks straight ahead. If you can get a cab, take it. If not, just take the Underground to Euston Station and get to the Victoria Hotel next door. Have you got that? I’ve already rented a room for you, just ask at the desk.”

  Ada was blubbering, wiping her eyes and nose with the back of her gloves. She was still a wreck, but she seemed to be coming back to herself a little. “Yes. I think so,” she sniffed. “Oh Miles. I thought he would do something terrible.”

  “Pull yourself together, Ada. I’ll meet you at the hotel. The thing is to make a break for it as soon as we get out the front door. They won’t be expecting us to split up. Don’t walk, run. Have you got the money?”

  She looked at the coins she had been unconsciously squeezing. There were four.

  “That should be plenty.” They stepped out into the cool night air. “Go!” Miles commanded and Ada took off around the side of the building, running awkwardly in her high heels. He watched for a moment and then started trotting in the opposite direction. He checked up and down the street for a cab. The streets of London teemed with the big, black cabs - they seemed to infest the entire city – but, now, of course, they had all vanished. He turned back and saw one of Diamond’s henchmen rush out of the Ginger Jar and whisper something to the doorman. The two of them started toward Miles. He broke into a run. Before he had gone a block, however, the Giant materialized in his path. Miles spun around to find that the waiter and the doorman had closed in behind him.

  “You’ll ruin that hired monkey suit runnin’ like that,” said the Giant. “You’ll perspire, or you might trip. So why don’t you just hold still?” The waiter lunged at Miles’ back and pushed him toward the Giant. Miles managed to drop into a ball and do a shoulder roll on the pavement. He came up behind the Giant and took off running down the street. He didn’t look back but he could hear the men behind him cursing and running after him. The doorman, at least, was very fast. He gained on Miles and caught him after a block and a half. The man wasn’t big, but he was strong and angry as a wasp. He managed to get the upper parts of Miles’ arms and to bend them back like butterfly wings. Miles twisted and struggled and yelled as he had never done before, but the man had a grip of steel.

  The Giant and the waiter caught up, panting hard and in a red fury.

  “Get ‘im off the street!” the Giant commanded. The three men started pushing Miles toward an alley that opened up just ahead. Miles flailed and managed to land one solid upward kick on the chin of the Giant. The Giant reared back to punch him, but Miles ducked and the blow fell on the face of steel-fingers. The doorman’s nose shattered with a sickening, wet crack. Miles sprang forward the instant his grip was loosened and turned to run, but before he could gain any speed, the waiter took a flying tackle at his legs and Miles and the waiter both slammed to the sidewalk. Miles’ cheek and the side of his head caromed off the pavement. He saw stars and the world reeled away. He defied himself to pass out. They would have him then. He must not… He felt himself starting to slide when he was pulled back by an urgent shout.

  “Miles! Miles! Is that you?” the voice called loudly. He was too dazed to make any sense of things. It was someone to help, though. Something good. The arms that held his legs let go and he vaguely registered the sound of boot heels, going quickly away.

  “I’ll go after ‘em!” he heard someone else shout, and then Professor Lightfoot’s face swam into view. “Miles! Dear boy! Are you all right?”

  66. Ready, Steady…

  Shaken as he was, Miles knew immediately that he was not nearly so badly injured this time as he had been when the tree branch had greeted him to England and to 1928. His relief at his escape was so tremendous that even another bad blow to the head seemed minor. Professor Lightfoot bundled him gently into his waiting cab and Roger rejoined them a moment later. He hadn’t managed to catch Miles’ assailants, but he had other aid on offer. He produced a flask of brandy and insisted that Miles take a swig. It tasted horrible and burned all the way down his throat, but the burn resolved swiftly into a spreading warmth that quieted Miles’ screaming nerves. His head cleared sufficiently, as the cab wended its way through London’s midnight streets, for him to tell the story of his evening.

  Professor Lightfoot looked grave. “I’m sorry we weren’t out to you sooner,” he said. “We came right after we got your message. I suppose it’s a case of better late than never.”

  “I’m just glad that you came at all,” Miles said. “I can’t thank you enough. I really don’t think I would have gotten out of that alley alive.”

  Anxious as Miles was to return to the hotel, Roger and Professor Lightfoot insisted that they stop first at the home of a doctor friend of Roger’s.

  “Whether Ada’s gone to the hotel or not, a few minutes delay won’t make a difference now,” the Professor said and Miles was stuck with no good answer.

  Fortunately, the doctor didn’t seem at all perturbed at being dragged out of bed for a curbside consult. “No obvious sign of serious damage, but there’s no way of knowing what might be going on under his skull – it’s bleeding we need to be concerned with. Someone will need to watch over him tonigh
t and wake him from time to time. If they have difficulty rousing him, he should be brought immediately to hospital.”

  “You’ll stay with us,” Roger said. “We’ll bring your Ada to mother’s house as well. And don’t argue with me Miles.”

  It was nearly two in the morning when Miles and his rescuers finally arrived back at the Hotel Victoria. Miles’ head was buzzing with a unique hum: the product of acute anxiety combined with a head injury under a wooly cloak of brandy and a very late hour. The same imperturbable clerk who had seen him out earlier in the evening was still manning the desk. He registered no surprise at the sharp decline in Miles’ appearance.

  “Mr. McTavish,” the clerk said as he pulled Miles’ room key from its pigeonhole. “Your cousin arrived a short while ago. She’s in 435. She asked that you see her right away.” Miles was never more grateful for the innate discretion of English people.

  Ada opened the door with a whoosh at his first tap, as though she had been standing right behind it. In one hand she absently held a shoe with a broken heel. Bedraggled feathers hung limply at the back of her head and her eye makeup had run into dark circles under her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck and nearly bowled him over.

  “Oh Miles. Thank God! I was so worried. What a terrible mess,” she sobbed into his shoulder.

  Miles patted her back awkwardly. “It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s all going to be OK.” He pushed her to arm’s length and flapped open the handkerchief that the Burleigh’s clerk had so carefully folded for a pocket square.

  “You’re coming with me now. My friends are taking us to their house for the night. Can you believe they have a butler there called ‘Millions’? They’re phoning him now to tell him to get plenty of hot cocoa ready.”