by M. J. Trow
The detectives shifted uneasily and muttered among themselves. They would all walk through fire for Dick Tanner, but they knew he was right. The Haymarket Strangler, as the Press now called him, was making fools of them. He always struck in the same place, and his targets were all ladies of the night, the flotsam of the streets. Yet luck or the devil hovered at this man’s elbow, and he was as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp.
‘I’m doubling the night patrols,’ Tanner told them, ‘and I’m issuing uniform with rubber strips for their boots. Who knows, we might get lucky and catch the bastard red-handed.’
‘With respect, sir,’ Will Henry piped up, ‘it’s those bloody silly helmets. With the old stove-pipes, the lads stood some chance of blending in with the crowd. Now they look like bloody soldiers. A killer can see them a mile away.’
There were hear hears and rumblings around the room. Will Henry hadn’t long been out of uniform himself, and Tanner knew the lad was bright. He tapped the board again and waited for the noise to die down. ‘When the commissioner and the Home Secretary want your advice on the sartorial splendour of the Metropolitan Police, Henry, I’m sure they will beat a collective path to your door. But at the moment, we have more pressing matters.’
‘Guv.’ Sergeant John Hunter’s hand was in the air. This man had been round the block a few times and had seen it all. ‘Our problem is the clientele. The Haymarket’s not like the East End.’
Indeed, it wasn’t. Hunter had cut his teeth in H Division, which covered Whitechapel and Spitalfields, an area teeming with the Irish. The street women there serviced men of their own class because only men of their own class lived there. The lads who brought their hay to Spitalfields wet their whistles at the Ten Bells and the Britannia before slipping one to their chosen mot up against a wall in the shadow of Itchy Park. But the punters of the Haymarket were swells and toffs, gentlemen out on the razzle with more money in their pocket than Tanner’s detectives would see in a month. Such men were devious, suspicious, anxious to cover their backs on their slumming sprees, and they looked down their collective noses at policemen, who were inferior beings in every respect.
‘Make ’em sweat,’ Tanner insisted. ‘If a swell’s being difficult, bring him in. “Obstructing the police in pursuance of their enquiries” should do it. I wouldn’t say it beyond these four walls, gentlemen, but we’re dealing with the gutter here, and we must expect to get our hands dirty. If a man protests that he has a wife and children, is a pillar of the community, a sidesman at his church and regularly gives to charity, I want to know what that man is doing in the Haymarket of an evening. And I want you to let him know that we shall be spreading the word.’
The detectives looked at each other.
‘Er … isn’t that blackmail, sir?’ John Hunter was the only one with the nerve to say it.
Tanner looked at him. ‘A little harsh, John,’ he said. ‘But, in essence, right. We’ve got to break a few eggs if we want to sort this bloody omelette.’
FIFTEEN
When Grand and Batchelor set off for the Alhambra that night, they were dressed for the part. Batchelor’s clothes were a little less at the cutting edge of fashion than Grand’s, but that was scarcely surprising as he had bought them piecemeal over the years in various second-hand emporia; Grand had had his entire wardrobe made bespoke in Savile Row by Henry Poole himself. His father had all of his clothes made there, and so it had seemed only natural to follow suit, as it were. They made an odd couple, therefore, but they weren’t abroad to make a sartorial splash – this might be the night that Grand avenged, if only in part, the death of his President.
As predicted by the Cavendish flunkey, the queue to see the Great Maskelyne snaked round the theatre and almost met itself, like the serpent Ouroboros eating its own tail. Everyone looked rather well-to-do and unlikely to want to part with their tickets for hard cash, but Grand wandered the line regardless, jingling a handful of sovereigns. Eventually, they saw just the opening they needed. It was the sound of the slap that alerted them first, and they had to move aside, doffing their hats, as a young woman flounced past, her nose in the air and her eyes looking suspiciously as though they were full of tears.
‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ Grand muttered, a Yankee gentleman to the core.
She rounded on him and looked him up and down. Most women became more amenable at this stage of the exchange, but she was far too furious for that. ‘Don’t you “ma’am” me, you … foreigner!’ she spat. ‘You patronizing foreigner. I’m no man’s plaything, and don’t you forget it.’ She fetched Batchelor a nasty one across the chest with her reticule and stormed off.
The two stood for a moment, startled by the suddenness of the exchange, and then Grand was off, like a greyhound. ‘Look for a man with one red cheek,’ he said over his shoulder to Batchelor. ‘He’ll have a couple of tickets to get rid of, if I’m any judge.’
Batchelor set off in the direction from which the irate young woman had come, and it wasn’t long before he found her ex-inamorato. He stood, staring resolutely forward and ignoring the sniggers of his fellow queuers. His left cheek bore the unmistakable imprint of a small but determined palm.
‘Excuse me,’ Batchelor said, ‘I wonder if you could oblige my friend and me by selling us your tickets?’
The man spun round. ‘What makes you think I should want to sell my tickets to you?’ he asked.
‘I … er … I was just asking along the queue, you know,’ Batchelor said, rattled.
‘No, you weren’t. You just asked me. It’s because you think I don’t have anyone to go with, isn’t it? Well, you’re wrong, as it just so happens. I am awaiting the arrival of my young lady, who has been held up with a domestic matter at home. She’ll be here …’ He took out a pocket handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. ‘Any minute.’ As he spoke, the queue started to move, and Batchelor knew they were running out of time. He couldn’t think how to get this idiot to part with his ticket, though, and looked round frantically for Grand. He was further down the line, and Batchelor gestured for him to come over.
‘Oh, you’ve found him,’ Grand said, with all the callous disregard that only a handsome man could manage without giving offence. ‘She threw you over, did she?’ he said, clapping the man on the shoulder. ‘Happened to me just before I came to London. Hits you here, don’t it?’ He thumped himself in the chest, in sympathy. ‘I know it did me. Look, why don’t I buy your tickets—’ he dug into his pocket and came out with a handful of gold coins – ‘then you can go and drown your sorrows, find a nice girl, whatever it’ll take to make you forget …’ He politely left a space.
‘Rose,’ the man said, on a sob.
‘Nice name. Rose. Well, what do you say?’ Somehow, Grand had already insinuated himself into the moving queue, and the spurned lover found himself on the outer edge of the line. ‘Go and have a good time, eh? She didn’t look like someone who liked a good time. Am I right?’ Grand was relentless, and there was no longer any question as to who would be going to see the Great Maskelyne that night.
‘She is a very religious person,’ the man in the queue said, drawing himself up. ‘A very good person. She teaches at Sunday School.’
‘Exactly,’ Grand said, as if this clinched some kind of deal. ‘Have a good time, then, and don’t make the same mistake again. Good women are to marry not to go to the theatre with,’ he finished, and his elbow deftly flicked the heartsick Lothario out of the line and their lives.
The pace was hotting up now, and the doors of the Alhambra were in sight. The management had brought in extra gatekeepers, and the queue was split at the foot of the steps into four, one for each set of doors, and they were being herded like sheep into the stalls and balcony. They had good tickets. It seemed a shame that the poor chap had spent so much money on a sour-faced madam – Batchelor felt better when he considered that at least he had made a profit in the end.
They took their seats in the second row, centre, in the balcony. They had a superb
view of the stage but also into the boxes at either side and across a wide swathe of the front circle. For the most fleeting of moments, Grand saw again the interior of Ford’s – the Treasury flags with their Stars and Stripes; he heard again the Derringer’s bang and saw the smoke drift.
The tables and chairs were gone in the Alhambra tonight, replaced with lines of seating to pack as many people in as possible. The Great Maskelyne never performed to less than packed houses; securing his services was a licence to print money, and it was almost possible to hear the dry rasp of Frederick Strange’s hands rubbing together prior to counting the takings. The orchestra were also visible in the pit, just tops of glossy Macassared heads and the gleam of brass and mellow wood of the instruments. The tuning up was reaching a consensus, and everyone settled back in anticipation of an evening of spectacle and prestidigitation par excellence.
The woman to Batchelor’s right nudged him with a sharp elbow. ‘Have you been to see the Great Maskelyne before?’ she hissed.
‘Er … no, this is my first time,’ he told her.
‘Only, I noticed you buying a ticket in the queue,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of that goes on, people who come back night after night, who even follow him around the country. He is a marvel. A complete marvel.’
‘Looking forward to it,’ he said.
‘I must say,’ she said, leaning forward and tapping Grand on the knee, ‘it’s very egalitarian of you to bring your valet to the theatre. Very much what one would expect of someone of your country.’
‘Oh, no,’ Grand said. ‘He’s not my valet. He’s just a … friend.’
‘Oh.’ The woman visibly recoiled. There had been something in the hesitation before the final word that had given her a clue to what was going on. ‘I see. Well,’ she said, before settling back in her seat, ‘I won’t say I condone it, but live and let live, I say. Yes.’ She gave them a final glare and then addressed herself to the stage, holding up her opera glasses in a flamboyant gesture.
Batchelor shrugged at Grand who shrugged back. There wasn’t time to do more before the orchestra struck up, the velvet curtain whispered back behind the side flats and the show began. Rapturous applause filled the theatre.
A single spotlight picked out a young man in tails and white waistcoat standing alone centre stage. He held out his hands with an elegant gesture, and without flashes or kerfuffle, he suddenly held a pure white dove on each palm. With another flick, they disappeared, and the audience gasped. He beckoned into the wings and a beautiful girl appeared, dressed in very little, or so it seemed to Grand and Batchelor up in the balcony and without benefit of an opera glass. Batchelor thought that perhaps the woman to his right might misunderstand any request of his to borrow hers, so he squinted across the limelights as best he could. The girl, after a flourishing curtsey which looked somehow very louche without the long skirt – or indeed any skirt – to go with it, skipped off stage and came back immediately towing a cabinet which looked not unlike a coffin standing on end. She spun it round and round so that all sides were visible, and then opened the door at the front. The cabinet was empty, and as if to prove it, she got in and knocked sharply on all four walls and the ceiling. She stamped with her golden heels on the floor. Maskelyne stood while this was going on with head bowed and arms crossed over his chest, in an attitude of meditation. Then, without looking up or speaking, he stepped into the box, and the girl shut the door. Two more girls, equally scantily clad, walked on from the rear of the stage, carrying between them, with every show of effort, a length of chain which was wrapped around the casket and locked at the front with an enormous padlock, the key of which the first girl dropped with a flourish down the front of her costume. The men in the audience suppressed a mass groan – how wonderful it would be, they all thought, if the next part of the trick was for some lucky person to be chosen to pluck the key from its mysterious location.
But it was not to be. The casket was now attached to a hook which descended from the ceiling, and it disappeared into the unknown space above the proscenium arch. The audience waited with bated breath. Suddenly, there was a scream of shearing metal and the casket plummeted to the ground and broke into a dozen pieces on the stage. Someone in the audience shrieked, and the beautiful girl on the stage ran forward. ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ she yelled.
A figure detached itself from a seat on the edge of the front row and bounded up the steps, kneeling at the wreckage of the box. Then he stood up. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ he cried. ‘There is no one here.’ Then, as the mutters in the seats grew like a tidal wave rushing to a defenceless shore, he turned to the audience and swept off his opera cloak, and there – amazement dawned on every face – there stood the Great Maskelyne. As if to prove it, he raised a hand in the air, and from it streamed doves which settled like snow on the three girls now curtseying centre stage. The audience went wild, Grand and Batchelor among them.
‘That was amazing,’ Batchelor said, leaning over to shout in Grand’s ear above the applause. ‘However did he do that?’
‘Some trick,’ Grand muttered, but he couldn’t for the life of him see how. But there was no time to wonder – Maskelyne was off again, this time projecting a shower of playing cards, apparently without end, from his hands. When the fluttering cards had finished flying he held up his hand for quiet. In seconds, you could hear a pin drop.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Maskelyne was saying, in a gentle voice which nevertheless carried up into the furthest seat in the gods. ‘Those of you who caught a playing card, please hold them up in the air. Those of you who have more than one, pass the extra ones back and the person behind them do likewise until all who have a card has but one.’ He waited while the audience did as it was told. ‘While you do that,’ he said, ‘I will ask Hetty to bring on a portrait.’ He gestured to the girl, who tippy-toed off on spangled feet. She came back pushing an easel on wheels, with the painting turned away from the audience.
‘Using nothing more than the cards, thrown, as you will all agree, at random into the crowd,’ Maskelyne said, ‘I will reveal the person whose portrait this is. Now, I have never met any of you before tonight, have I?’ Again, he waited as everyone shook their heads and checked that their neighbours were doing the same. ‘Are you sure?’ This time there was a ripple of laughter.
‘So, we can begin,’ he said and gestured into the wings. The lights went low and a very quiet drum roll began. ‘First,’ he said, ‘I would like everyone with a card to stand up.’ There was a rustle and a scrape of chairs as everyone got to their feet. ‘Now, will everyone pass their card one to the right. Those with no one to their right, please just drop your card on to the floor. Those on the left, please sit down. Your role in this illusion is over and I thank you.’ A disgruntled line of punters sat down, trying to look good-natured.
‘Now,’ he continued, the audience in the palm of his hand as surely as any dove, ‘will everyone with a red court card please sit down.’ There was a loud shuffle again as people randomly scattered throughout the crowd took their seats again. ‘And now, will everyone with a black seven please exchange cards with the person to their left.’ And so it went on, until everyone’s brain was thoroughly addled and fewer and fewer people were standing. Finally, just one man at the back of the ground floor was left standing, and he was invited on to the stage, to thunderous applause.
Maskelyne quietened everyone down with a single gesture. ‘Do you think that the portrait will be of this gentleman?’ he asked.
The audience all called back a unanimous ‘yes’.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the magician said, ‘you disappoint me. A trick like this is far too simple for the Great Maskelyne. No, I must carry out one more task to convince you that no cheating has been possible. Sir,’ he said to his guest, ‘may I ask you to turn your back on the audience? Thank you. Now, take this rose. You will see it has been weighted a little on the end of the stem, but this is just so that you can throw it further, should you hav
e a mind to. Now, throw the flower out into the audience, as far or as near as you please. Take your time.’
The man swung the rose experimentally once or twice then flung it into the audience. A woman caught it to yet more applause.
‘Please, madam,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Come up on to the stage.’
The woman made her way along the row and up on to the boards where Maskelyne kissed her hand with a courtly gesture. He turned to Hetty, who slowly turned the portrait around as he slowly turned the woman to face the audience. There was a gasp – the portrait was of her, there was no doubt. But not only was the face the same, so was the hat, the fur wrap and even an elegant necklace that gleamed around her throat. She clasped her hands to her face in bewilderment, and the audience rose to its feet, clapping and calling out. The magician bowed and gestured to Hetty, who curtseyed and led the woman back to her seat.
Grand turned to Batchelor, whose eyes were shining as only the eyes of the stage-struck do. ‘What a good trick,’ the American ventured, but knew his words would fall on deaf ears. Batchelor was an adherent of all that was magical, and he would never be the same again.
Trick followed trick, and even the interval didn’t break the spell. Batchelor stood in the press of people with an indifferent brandy in his hand and even then didn’t lose the sparkle in his eyes. Grand, who had seen much the same tricks performed in carnival shows since he was knee high to a cricket, looked on indulgently. Magic usually went along with the selling of snake oil, the elixir of life and a quick ‘hallelujah’ along the Potomac. Tonight’s work was well done, he couldn’t deny it, but he hadn’t seen anything yet to make the crowds queue for hours in the uncertain English weather. Perhaps the second half of the show would give him a clue.
