The answer arrived in the morning with The Times. Perfectly ironed and open to a particular page, it waited on the breakfast table under James’ worried gaze. He was pacing the room when Silas and Archer entered and caught him glaring at it with his one good eye.
‘Good morning, My Lord.’ James bowed his head and pulled out the viscount’s chair.
‘You look tired, Jimmy.’ Silas also noticed that James walked more stiffly than usual, no doubt the aftereffects of their exertions above the stage.
‘I didn’t get much sleep,’ the footman admitted. ‘I was up most of the night.’
His gait was not the only thing stiff about James that morning. Silas glanced to his crotch, a habit he was unable to be rid of. James was in a state of semi-arousal, trying hard to hide it by positioning himself behind the chair. Silas put two and two together and raised an eyebrow to the footman who blushed so hard his cheeks matched the red at the edge of his bruising.
‘Today’s news may interest you,’ James said. ‘Although I don’t think interest is the right word.’ He pointed to a particular column on page four.
Archer read while James poured his coffee and Silas helped himself at the sideboard. By the time he had sat, Archer had pushed the newspaper over to his place.
‘I suggest you eat first,’ he said, his face grim, his coffee untouched.
The Times, December 4th 1888
Tragedy after Triumph
To say that the charity gala held last night at the Royal Opera House was a success would be to understate the incredible.
The performance of ‘Aeneas and Dido’ by Johann Bruch and starring Italian soprano, Signora Campanelli and English countertenor, Mr Cadwell Roxton, was one of the finest to grace the city stage this season. It was, however, also one of the most tragic.
At the very end of the opera, after some spectacular staging by Director Muller, and sublime musicality from the cast and orchestra, the curtain came down to thunderous applause. (A separate discussion of the Clearwater Foundation’s marked triumph in front of His Majesty King Wilhelm III of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg is printed on page two.)
Unseen to all but a few, a man leapt from the fly tower, that bastion of theatricality above the stage area, and fell to his tragic end through a trap and onto the smoke machines. Had this happened in sight of the audience, they might have been forgiven for thinking it was an interpretation of the heroic Aeneas plummeting to Hades, but the unfortunate gentleman had no association with the production, the House, or the Foundation, other than he had, it is believed, manipulated his way to a ticket, and thus, easy access to the backstage realm. If this form of chosen suicide was not curious enough, the man was at first thought to be female due to his apparel.
The police authorities have little to say other than it was an act of suicide, but they have been able to identify the body as that of a Mr Sherman Quill, half-brother to the eminent (and still missing — see page 17) Doctor Benjamin Quill. No other information pertaining to Mr Quill (senior), of Harland’s Park, is available.
‘You’re right,’ Silas said, pushing the newspaper aside. ‘I should have eaten first.’
‘I’m sorry to speak out of turn, Sir,’ James said. ‘But… the connection?’
Archer chewed his bottom lip. ‘Is pretty obvious, Jimmy,’ he agreed. ‘It explains why my gala and my Foundation, and thus why Cadwell Roxton, but I don’t… That is… I never knew Quill had a half-brother.’
‘Do you think he’s not at the bottom of a river after all?’ Silas asked. It was a worrying thought.
‘I can’t think about it,’ Archer said. ‘I have yet to recover from last night’s business. In fact, I think I need a holiday.’
Thomas arrived with two telegrams on a silver tray and, greeting Silas, offered them to the viscount. He too looked as if he hadn’t slept but he bore a more contented look than usual. Silas smiled inwardly; his suspicion was proved correct. ‘Morning, Tommy,’ he said, doing his best to appear cheerful. If Archer didn’t want to think about this new development, that was fine by him. A holiday sounded like a perfect idea.
Archer took the telegrams. ‘I hardly dare open them,’ he said, threading a knife beneath the flap of the first. ‘I have to say, Silas, there have been few dull moments since you came to Clearwater.’
‘And I have to say,’ Silas replied. ‘It was Your Lordship who brought me here.’
‘Touché.’ Archer grinned as he slit the paper. He unfolded the message and held it away from his face to read.
‘You need spectacles,’ Silas said.
Archer read the words, and his grin became a broad smile. ‘At last some good news,’ he said. ‘My mother will be spending Christmas abroad.’ He handed the telegram to Thomas. ‘Lord alone knows why. Bran is as cold as a witch’s tit at this time of year.’
‘What’s Bran?’ Silas asked, registering the concern on Thomas’ face and the glee on Archer’s.
‘A freezing cold outcrop belonging to one of her Habsburg cousins, a relative as distant and impenetrable as the castle itself. Why so worried, Tom?’
‘Larkspur, Sir,’ he said. ‘The men will be left in the hands of Robert and Mr Harrow.’
‘The first footman and estate manager,’ Archer explained to Silas. ‘Which is why we need to ship Thomas up there as soon as possible. The estate has been suffering since my father’s death, and there are problems with the staff. Mrs Baker shouldn’t have to deal with them on her own.’ Archer attended to the second message.
‘Shall I make the arrangements, Your Lordship?’
‘Yes, please, Tom. We’ll all go, shall we?’
‘That’s up to you, Sir.’ Thomas said.
‘Hm?’ The viscount was distracted. ‘Oh, yes, of course it is. That’s that then. We’ll talk, Tom. Meanwhile…’ He waved the second telegram to Silas. ‘More good news. Your money has been safely delivered to your sisters, and Culver is happy to repeat the arrangement whenever it is required.’
Silas felt tears behind his eyes. ‘Are they alright?’ he asked.
‘”Girls healthy”,’ Archer recited. ‘Next time I will impose on Mr Culver the question of the girls’ employment. See if he has anything they can do.’
Silas was unable to contain himself. ‘Don’t look, Tommy,’ he said to the confused butler.
He rose from his chair, walked around the table as calmly as he could, took Archer’s head in his hands and kissed him. The kiss lasted until Thomas felt it necessary to remind them they were in the dining room.
Thirty
Charles Tripp was frustrated. He had kept watch on nineteen Cleaver Street for several days and nights from the apartment above the shop, but had seen little activity. The table under the window had on it the tools of his new-found fascination; a spyglass and a notebook. They and his dogged determination to catch Clearwater entering or leaving the house were all he needed. It could, he knew, take some time before he saw anything that incriminated the viscount, but he was prepared to stay for as long as necessary.
He quickly learnt that there were two active times of day at number nineteen, two periods when more than a usual number of visitors came and went. The hours between six and nine in the evening usually saw the arrival of one or two young men no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Decently dressed, they could easily be mistaken for innocent visitors had they not also been seen arriving at the property through the earlier parts of the day in blue messenger uniforms. His spyglass allowed him to see their faces as they approached and left, and the faded, rather yellowing net curtain supplied by his landlord acted as cover for the implement. He was able to rest it on the bottom frame so that only an inch of curtain need be disturbed; something a viewer from the street below would easily overlook if they could see it at all.
The boys, the vile
youths who used their innocent bodies for the depraved practices of the older men in heinous, homosexual acts, gave the outward appearance of respectability. Tripp believed their intentions were anything but acceptable.
He came to recognise them and gave them names. Lanky, a scrawny lad of six foot had called twice, one who was no more than seventeen had called four times and first been christened Angel on account of his looks. Tripp changed the name to Lucifer after his second appearance. Another youth, he simply called Vile Victor.
These men and others who called in the early evening stayed for several hours. He marked each one’s number of visits against their name, the date and time of arrival and departure. Sometimes, the tally of those he counted in didn’t match the number he recorded as having left during the second busy period, between midnight and two in the morning. He pondered this enigma for a few days until he decided that he must have been sleeping when the visits ended. From then on, he changed his sleeping pattern, staying awake through the night and only resting between the hours of ten in the morning and five in the afternoon. After a while, he found himself waking earlier until, in recent days, he slept for only two hours in every twenty-four. He became so convinced that if he turned away a boy would slip out unseen, that he broke his daily shaving ritual, ate as little as possible to minimise the times he had to leave the apartment, and brought a piss pot to the table rather than leave the window to use the bathroom.
The mystery of the non-departures was solved in two ways. By staying awake, Tripp was able to ascertain that some boys didn’t leave the house until the very early hours, but one day, he witnessed a lad entering the house who had entered the day before, but apparently never left. Forcing himself from his eerie to buy supplies, he took a longer route than usual and passed the back of Cleaver Street, noticing that it was possible for someone to enter from the front and leave from the rear. It was an obvious solution, and he realised that he needed to think harder, concentrate more and take his work more seriously.
His desire for revenge became an obsession.
The street below was quietening as residents returned from their daily business to settle in for the evening. One boy had already called at number nineteen. Simple, he’d called him, on account of his gait. He noted the details in his book.
It was seven-ten, the sun had long set, and as it was a smogless night, the streetlight gave good illumination.
This was the time of evening when the youths arrived. When they did, the door was opened by a burly, unattractive man with a balding head. Later, when gentlemen took the steps to the front door, it was opened by a finely dressed woman who although welcoming and feminine, was no less unattractive than the man.
When he realised they were the same person, he vomited into his piss pot.
He was distracted when two gentlemen arrived at nine-twenty-six. It was hard to tell who these men were; they arrived cloaked and wearing brimmed hats. It was only when guests left that he was able to see their faces. That was good enough, but often, he was unable to tell which departing gentlemen had arrived at what time. When these annoyances occurred, he channelled his frustration into practicality and wrote a question mark against the entry. Tripp was, and always had been, meticulous in both planning and execution.
The men were welcomed by the man-woman, the Beast as he now referred to the creature, and the front door was closed. His next call to action would come when an upstairs room was illuminated, and that didn’t usually happen until much later.
It was the older men he scrutinised the most for any one of them could have been Clearwater. He was homosexual, therefore he would use this cesspit for his vile pleasures. If his belief wasn’t reason enough to pursue his task so avidly, the regular sight of Lord Somerset, and the prominent High Court judge, Lord Russel of Galloways, along with several other recognisable public faces proved Tripp was on the right track. It was only a question of time before Clearwater became somehow involved.
The chance sighting of his man Hawkins set him on the path he was now unable to leave.
It was Tripp’s first evening in the apartment. He had acted quickly following his talk with Lovemount and taken the rooms sight-unseen that very day. Seeing Hawkins enter the house came as a shock. Tripp was never lucky, and he took the sighting as a sign that higher powers had called him to his vocation. The knowledge spurred his enthusiasm.
Hawkins had not stayed long, however, and Tripp was aware of his past. The boy might well have had an association with the house before he arrived at Clearwater and ended Tripp’s career. He didn’t only blame Clearwater for firing him and bringing him shame, the Hawkins boy was part of the problem, as was the nancy-boy, Payne.
No matter. Whatever Hawkins had been up to that night, he had been there, and he worked for Clearwater.
There was a connection between the house and Hawkins. Perhaps it was that which caused the inner workings of his mind to start churning like a windlass behind the scenes, slowly raising the curtain on a master plan. The idea was still in dim lighting, however, but would burn brightly if he left it alone.
His memory drifted through that foggy night as he recalled what he had seen. Hawkins had entered, soon to come hurrying out, laughing as he walked away. Later, Tripp witnessed a young man arriving at the house clutching a bag. The Beast hurried him inside, but before the door was closed, the younger man dropped his cloak and revealed a dress. He took from his bag a wig. Every detail was noted. (The hairpiece was short and blonde, the dress was full-length with bare arms, he wore opera gloves, and the door remained open for nine seconds.)
The next interesting thing to happen came forty-two minutes later. Various rooms had been used, the lights extinguished in-between times, and each event was recorded. It was the time of night when arrivals were rare, as if the gentlemen were invited to attend a function that began at a particular time and arriving uninvited was not the done thing. On this night, Tripp’s attention was drawn to a man in an overcoat and bowler. Sensibly, he wore a scarf at his face against the smog, and he would have passed for any other lower-middle-class resident, had it not been for what he did. Marching to the front door of number nineteen, he banged on it and shouted through the letterbox. Tripp quickly tuned in and distinctly heard the second shout, ‘Police!’ The man then ran, and Tripp was convinced it was James Wright.
That was another name to add to his list of sodomites who needed to be punished. Wright was not to be trusted. He had taken money to supply information and then gone back on his word. Tripp had ascertained that he now worked for Clearwater, which made another connection. He underlined Wright’s entry in his book in red ink, and the windlass wound harder, creaking the curtain open a notch and allowing the first beams of light to flicker at the corner of his idea. It was still too much in darkness to come into focus, but it was growing.
There had been surprisingly little activity after the false cry of ‘Police!’, and Tripp imagined the sodomites scurried from the back of the house like turds weaving down an open sewer. Two minutes later, however, Hawkins appeared at the front with another man bundled under his arm as if he was rescuing him from a fire. They too had run, leaving the front door open. It hadn’t been closed until sixteen minutes later.
Thanks to Lovemount pointing out the name in the newspaper, Tripp suspected the rescued man was Cadwell Roxton. Another connection to Clearwater and a timely one, with the launch of his abominable foundation that weekend.
Unfortunately, Tripp hadn’t yet thought of a way he could use the singer’s visit as evidence of Clearwater’s homosexuality, but today, he had discovered that some of the work had been done for him. At least, that was his theory.
He had read something in the newspaper… A story… A spotlight lit the metaphorical stage, but there was not yet any performer treading the boards for it to highlight. There was, however, certainty waiting in the wings.
Trip
p had bought a copy of The Times every day since he became footman to the decent, recently deceased Lord Clearwater, and had arranged its regular delivery to his current rooms as soon as he had taken them. Today’s edition carried praise for the current viscount’s Foundation that poured from the pen of the so-called journalist like effluent from a dysentery victim. Tripp read no more than a few lines. Another article sang the praises of the singers and production, and having a fondness for the music of Bruch, he gave it a cursory glance. It was on page four where he found something of greater interest and potential.
The afternoon edition lay open beside him, and finding no activity across the way, but keeping his eye on number nineteen, he reread the article. The section described a death that occurred as the curtain fell, and Tripp was as fascinated by the story as any reader would be. What caught his attention, however, was the man’s name; Sherman Quill. If he was looking for connections, then the half-brother of Clearwater’s trusted friend and surgeon, Benjamin Quill was too good an opportunity to ignore. He had been pondering what he could do with this information all evening, and it wasn’t until he reread the details that the answer presented itself.
Not only was the “suicidal maniac” a transgressor into the dangerous world of backstage, but he was also a “trans-dresser.” The newspaper made great work of enjoying its own wordplay, and Tripp nearly stopped reading, but his intrigue was piqued. The later edition described the man in more detail and went as far as to define his apparel. The blonde wig found at the scene raised one of Tripp’s hooded eyebrows, and the description of the dress raised the other. What was left of the man’s facial features were described adequately enough for an identification to be made and a description written. (His head had roasted on a coal burner until a stagehand pulled it away to prevent a fire.)
Unspeakable Acts Page 30