by M. J. Trow
He spun round, his heart in his mouth. There was something about the voice that had made his private places turn to water and ice all at once. The woman standing there was a beauty, there was no denying it. Her hair was blonde and lustrous, her skin like milk. If she was now the wrong side of forty, it didn’t seem to matter. She laid a gentle hand on his arm, and he felt it through the fabric as though it were a red-hot iron.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said and smiled kindly. ‘This is your first time and you thought you’d come to Auntie Bettie. You won’t regret it, my boy, not for a minute.’ She appraised him by holding him at arm’s-length. ‘You’re not tall, so Sophia is out. She would overwhelm a little tiddler like you. Anna, now she might be the answer; she is very good with the inexperienced among my clientele. I would give you Bertha, but … well, she rides her gentlemen hard and I’m not sure you’d—’
‘I’m not here for a girl,’ Batchelor blurted out and blushed immediately.
Auntie Bettie didn’t miss a beat. ‘I can’t help you myself, but if you turn left out of here and then right at—’
‘No, no, no.’ Batchelor had an idea that things were not going as he had planned. ‘I’m not looking for a girl or … well, that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to see you specifically.’
She patted his arm and laughed musically. ‘Sweet boy,’ she said. ‘I don’t actually take gentlemen myself these days, although for a dear little thing like you I might make an exception.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You might have to take it slowly. I’m older than I look.’
‘No!’ Batchelor all but stamped his foot. ‘I want to talk to you about these murders in the Haymarket. I work for the Telegraph.’
‘Press?’ Auntie Bettie hissed. ‘You’re Press? You little weasel, coming in here, pretending you wanted to lose your cherry in my establishment. I’ll call the police! False representation! Fraud!’
Batchelor was on firmer ground now. Threats, he could handle. ‘I don’t think you will call the police, will you?’ he said, reasonably. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to talk about your girls? They did nothing wrong.’
‘The last I heard prostitution was against the law of the land. But I’m not here to talk morality with you. They picked a wrong ’un,’ she said, sourly. ‘All three of them. They had been trained. Trained, I tell you, by the best in the business. Me! I tell them not to go anywhere dark unless they know who they’re with. First-time customers, stay in the light.’
‘Really?’ Batchelor was intrigued despite himself. ‘In the light? Don’t your … gentlemen … mind?’
‘In the light needn’t mean in the open.’ Auntie Bettie had moved away and was lounging on a chaise longue by the window with the light falling just so on her hair and profile. She had had long years to perfect her best side. ‘I just encourage them to take their gentlemen somewhere a little secluded but not a dark alley – so common, I always think, don’t you? I’m not naive enough, Mr …’
‘Batchelor,’ the journalist told her.
‘Your real name?’
‘Of course.’
She smiled indulgently. ‘So sweet,’ she murmured. ‘I am not so naive, Mr Batchelor, to have failed to notice that my girls do a little work off the cuff, as it were. Making a few extra pennies for their retirement. For heaven’s sake,’ she said, chuckling, ‘that’s how I got started, after all. But even so, I tell them until I am blue in the face, stay away from dark places. And now, look, Effie, Marie and Francine, all gone.’
‘None of Lady Eleanor’s girls have been involved,’ Batchelor said. ‘Is that just bad luck for you?’
She tossed her head. ‘Even a maniac can see that my girls are superior, Mr Batchelor. And I’ll forgive you your foe par of a moment ago.’
‘My … er …?’
‘You mentioned the name of a certain “lady” – and I use the word loosely, as you may expect. Her name is never to be mentioned under my roof.’
‘This maniac – do you have any idea who it might be?’ He decided on the direct approach.
‘No, and that’s the truth,’ she said, gazing at him. ‘My boys would soon deal with the madman if I knew who he was. I just don’t have a single idea. I’ve told my girls to work in pairs for a while. Some of the gentlemen like it that way, and if they don’t, one can keep watch. I’m letting them keep an extra shilling, so they don’t lose money.’
Batchelor found himself telling her, ‘That’s very generous of you.’
She nodded. ‘I love my girls, Mr Batchelor. You may find it hard to believe, but I do. If you find out who’s doing this, let me know. The boys will soon sort him out. You can’t trust the peelers to get it right. They’re idiots to a man. Especially that fool upstairs right now; he’s the worst of the lot.’
‘Upstairs?’ Batchelor looked up as though the ceiling might be glass. ‘Who is it?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Auntie Bettie chuckled. ‘And him so highly placed at the Yard, too. But discretion is my middle name, lad.’ She got up suddenly and, in a few sinuous strides, was at his side. ‘Now, about that cherry of yours …’
FOURTEEN
‘Tell me about your co-workers.’ Grand blew smoke rings to the ceiling of the Cavendish.
‘My …?’
‘Oh, really, James. We’ve had this conversation. The men you work with … at the Telegraph.’
‘Past tense, dear boy, I’m afraid,’ Batchelor said. ‘Well, there’s Joe Buckley …’
‘No, not him. Tell me about Dyer.’
‘Edwin? Why?’
‘Humour me,’ Grand said.
‘Well, he’s my age, I suppose. A year older, perhaps. Got an eye for the ladies.’
‘Has he now?’
‘According to him he hasn’t paid any rent for the last three years. Moves every other month, however, so that his various landladies don’t get all proprietorial over him.’
‘Is there an American connection?’
‘If you mean, was he a conspirator along with John Wilkes Booth, I don’t think that’s possible. Anyway, you saw the man in the alley by Ford’s. Dundreary or whatever his name really is. You said you’d know him immediately you clapped eyes on him.’
‘Yes, I would.’ Grand nodded solemnly. ‘But isn’t that the whole point about a conspiracy? It’s not down to one man. What about Horner?’
‘Old Gabriel?’ Batchelor chuckled. ‘Come on, Matthew. The man’s in his dotage … Oh, my God.’
‘What?’ Grand sat upright.
‘Oh, it’s probably nothing, but, well, he’s been around has old Gabriel. Don’t ask me which paper he was working on at the time, but he once went to Washington.’
‘Washington?’ Grand repeated.
‘This must have been in the late ’forties. He was doing a follow-up piece to the burning of the place by the British. I don’t think it went very well.’
‘But he knows the capital?’ Grand was thinking aloud.
‘Yes, I suppose he does. Look, Matthew, what’s all this about?’
‘The cufflink,’ Grand explained. ‘The one I wrenched off in my tussle with Dundreary in Baptist Alley.’
‘What about it?’
‘The arms of the City of London Corporation.’
‘Yes, I know. So what?’
‘So, when you have spent as long in the library of the British Museum as I have, your mind wanders. The clerk there told me the Corporation was made up of what he called livery companies.’
‘So?’
Grand leaned closer, looking his man in the eyes. ‘So, two of those Worshipful Companies are the Dyers and the Horners. Had a good look at the cuffs of these gentlemen lately?’
‘Nobody actually lives at the Alhambra,’ the clerk at Inman’s had told Matthew Grand. So why then had the Orient’s passenger Charles Dundreary given that as his address? Could he not have chosen an anonymous suburban villa somewhere, even if actually a cowshed stood on the spot?
Grand had never seen a building quite like i
t. Even the theatres of New York could not rival it for opulence and space. It occupied nearly the whole of the eastern side of Leicester Square and loomed over the surrounding buildings with its huge dome and imposing towers. Grand had never been to Spain, so the elegant copies of the Moorish facade were lost on him. And he had never been to Constantinople either, so he saw no resemblance to the great mosque of Hagia Sophia.
James Batchelor, on the other hand, had seen it all before and swept past all its glories, clattering up the broad steps to the front door and into the lushly carpeted vestibule. From somewhere beyond the ticket office a band was belting out a Parisian tune, fast and furious, but every now and then it broke off to the tap of a bandmaster’s baton and would start again. There were whoops and shrills from what sounded like an army of girls and the thud of dancing feet.
The pair made their way through a velvet curtain into a darkened auditorium. On the stage ahead, a line of chorus girls sashayed backwards and forwards, with a swish of skirts over silk-stocking clad thighs. They all had hourglass figures and impossible waists, strutting and pirouetting as the band put them through their paces.
‘No,’ a voice called out from a corner near the stage. ‘Again, Anton. Sally and Fiona, will you please come in with the others? There are no prima donnas here except me …’ There was a pause, and the voice turned on the new arrivals. ‘What do you want?’ it asked. ‘The show doesn’t start until eight.’
Matthew Grand was standing stock still, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide.
‘Careful, Matthew,’ Batchelor muttered. ‘I nearly tripped over your tongue there. Mr Strange?’ The journalist marched off, hand outstretched, to find the voice in the corner.
A huge man rose to his feet. ‘I’m Frederick Strange,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’
‘James Batchelor, sir,’ the newsman told him. ‘Telegraph.’
‘Ah.’ Strange took the man’s outstretched hand. ‘Gabriel Horner usually writes our reviews.’
‘I’m sure he does,’ Batchelor improvised, ‘but I’m afraid old Gabriel’s a little indisposed. He sent me.’
Strange waved his hands, and the band stopped playing in a clatter and squawk of instruments. ‘As you were, ladies,’ the impresario said, and the grateful girls flopped in various positions on the stage, nattering nineteen to the dozen.
‘The cancan, eh?’ Batchelor winked and nodded at them. ‘I don’t think old Gabriel’s seen that. Or, perhaps he has and that’s why he’s indisposed.’ He nudged the theatre man in the ribs. Batchelor then became confidential. ‘Tell me, is it true that they … well, that the girls actually …?’
Strange smiled, his teeth flashing gold in the limelight. ‘In the last line-up,’ he said, ‘the piece de resistance as it were, all twenty of the luscious lovelies you see on stage now will lift their gowns and reveal their all. There will be no stays, no kecksies, only stockings gartered above the knee.’
Batchelor gulped.
‘After that, these ladies will be only too delighted to explain the finer points of theatre de danse to any gentlemen of … shall we say, an inquisitive nature.’ Strange’s smile faded, and he looked in Grand’s direction. ‘Is he all right?’ he asked.
‘Ah, our American cousin,’ Batchelor said. ‘Matthew is recently arrived from America.’
‘Ah,’ Strange said. ‘You must find our frivolities somewhat boring after a civil war, Mr … er …?’
‘Grand.’ The ex-captain moved at last as the girls giggled. ‘Matthew Grand. Tell me, sir, does the name Charles Dundreary mean anything to you?’
Strange blinked. ‘As a matter of fact, it does,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m not sure about the Charles, but Lord Dundreary is a character in a play. Our American Cousin, funnily enough, Mr Batchelor … or was that a mere coincidence? Gentlemen, would you like to tell me what is going on?’
‘Would you do something for me, Mr Strange?’ Grand asked. ‘Would you say the words, “You didn’t think Johnnie would come alone, did you, soldier boy?”’
Strange’s mouth opened but no sound came out. He half turned and clapped his hands. In an instant, four large men were making their way through the tables and chairs of the auditorium, and the girls on stage huddled a little closer. ‘If you’re journalists, I’ll eat my hat,’ said Strange. ‘You’ve come to gawp at my girls. Well, that’s perfectly understandable; we’re all men of the world. But there is a time and a place, and the cost is ninepence, drinks and supper extra. Now, I’m a busy man. Get out.’
‘Mr Strange!’ Batchelor tried to protest, but he suddenly felt large hands on his coat collar and he was being propelled towards the door. About now he expected Grand to employ his thumb-breaker, courtesy of Colonel Colt, but Grand was moving just as rapidly as he was, half lifted by the other two roughs. The pair landed hard on the pavement outside the Alhambra, where a befurred lady started, tutted and whisked away her sickly-looking child.
Batchelor reached for his hat and brushed off the pavement detritus. ‘Matthew,’ he said. ‘That went well.’
Matthew Grand and James Batchelor sat in the smoking room at the Cavendish, enjoying – in Grand’s case – a large and well-earned cigar. Batchelor had never really taken to smoking but was quite happy to sit there too, a large port in his hand, all on Grand’s tab, and watch the world go by. For a journalist, he was very little versed in the ways of the rich, and everywhere he looked he saw something new, much of which would make a damn fine story under an anonymous byline. Grand was quiet, but he had been knocked unconscious and been thrown ignominiously – and painfully – on to a pavement in the last day or so, and Batchelor left him alone with his aches and pains. Although they had yet to get to know each other well, there was nevertheless an air of friendly contentment in their little leather-clad corner of the world.
Grand suddenly leaned forward, tapping off his ash into the huge cut-glass ashtray on the low table in front of him. ‘James … do people call you Jim, by the way?’
‘They do, but I prefer James. Do people call you Matt?’
Grand smiled. ‘Touché, James. I prefer Matthew.’
Batchelor raised his glass a touch. This room was so soporific that he hoped that when it became time for him to go home, someone would just throw a blanket over him and turn out the lights. The chair was certainly far more comfortable than the lumpy bed at Mrs Biggs’.
‘You were going to say something?’ Batchelor murmured.
‘Yes. I was going to suggest that we went back to the Alhambra.’
Batchelor twitched a shoulder, the one that had hit the pavement first. ‘Is that wise?’
‘Incognito,’ Grand said, blowing out a stream of smoke.
Batchelor looked across the table at Grand and wondered if he realized how he stuck out like a sore thumb. At six feet tall with shoulders like a dray horse, he was not the norm in London, where the population tended towards the undernourished and weaselly. His complexion, too, was not burnished like that by any English sky, and his accent – pleasant enough in its way, no doubt – was very noticeable, to be generous. He said none of this, but something had to be said. ‘They might recognize you,’ he said, tentatively.
Grand was taken aback. ‘You reckon?’ he said. ‘I was thinking a disguise. Some eyeglasses. Or some whiskers.’ He sketched a set of dundrearies along each side of his face with a wave of his hand.
Batchelor narrowed his eyes, as if trying to decide. ‘I’m not sure that would work, you know,’ he said eventually, a diplomat to the last. ‘Why don’t we go to a performance? That way, we can blend in with the crowd.’
‘But,’ Grand pointed out, ‘we can’t snoop around during a performance.’
‘Not during, perhaps,’ Batchelor said. ‘But afterwards we could. We just need to stay when everyone else has gone, and there you are, the world’s your oyster.’
‘The what now?’
‘Shakespeare.’
‘It’s very strange, James,’ Grand said, ‘how you Englishmen man
age to bring Shakespeare into every conversation, more or less.’
‘That wasn’t my point. I was saying that we will have the whole theatre at our fingertips, once everyone has gone.’
‘Right. That does sound like a good plan. Do we know what show is on at the Alhambra?’
‘I have seen posters, but …’
‘Hold on. These waiters know everything.’ Grand extended an arm and clicked his fingers. On silent feet, a flunkey appeared.
‘Sir?’
Grand screwed round in his chair until he was looking up into the man’s face. He managed to hide the fact that the position was hideously uncomfortable. ‘Tell me, what’s on at the Alhambra?’
‘Maskelyne, sir,’ the flunkey said. ‘The Magician.’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ Grand said. ‘Will we be able to get tickets, do you think?’
The flunkey pursed his lips. ‘I doubt it, sir,’ he said. ‘Not through the box office, I shouldn’t have thought. But if sir—’ he bowed slightly to Batchelor – ‘and sir would like to approach the queue before the show begins, I feel sure that someone will be willing to part with their carte d’entrée, should the right amount of remuneration be forthcoming.’
Grand looked puzzled, and the flunkey leaned in closer.
‘If you give the person enough money, sir, you can have his ticket.’
‘I see.’ Grand leaned forward and carefully ran his cigar end around the edge of the ashtray, extinguishing it but leaving it smokeable. The flunkey smiled; such a thoughtful gentleman. ‘Do you know what time the shows are?’
The waiter pulled out a pocket watch and consulted it solemnly. ‘If sirs would like to hurry,’ he said, ‘you may just catch the end of the queue as it goes in. They won’t be the best seats, mind.’
‘We don’t mind,’ Batchelor said. ‘Anything to see the Great Maskelyne.’
He and Grand jumped up and were gone, dodging and weaving around the high backed leather chairs in the smoking room. If the waiter was surprised that they should be so keen to see someone who, just a few minutes ago, they seemed unaware of, he didn’t show it. Cavendish employees received careful training so that they never showed surprise, no matter what the guests might do – and running off to the theatre was nothing, in the scheme of things. He picked up the cigar and pocketed it for later.
