“You wouldn’t consider letting me go, would you?” I asked hopefully, “If I promise to give you your head start?”
“You’ve a good heart, but you’ve also got yer honour. I can’t gamble on which choice you’ll make, so I’ll just keep you in storage for a bit. It’ll be a nice holiday for you, there’s plenty of food and drink, and running water, and there’s a stack of old magazines over there, and some books. Should keep you entertained for a couple of days.”
“I’d prefer the seaside for a holiday,” I gave up on the knot — after all that palaver, I hadn’t managed to loosen it a fraction of an inch, “But I guess I understand.”
“Give us a kiss goodbye?” he asked playfully, getting up off the floor and dusting the seat of his pants.
“All right,” I agreed, thinking maybe I could subdue him with my free arm if he was close enough; but he grabbed my left wrist before he even got within swinging distance, and lay down on top of me to keep me still.
“You’re too clever by half,” he smirked, “But I’m pretty clever, meself.”
“It was worth a try,” I smiled into his eyes. The hard weight of his body was very, well, stimulating, and I was suddenly very aware of the fact that there was nothing but a very thin sheet between us, and he could do anything he liked to me — which was considerably less upsetting than it ought to have been. When he kissed me, the kiss blossomed out into a surprisingly interesting interlude (and that great walrus mustache felt fantastic against my skin). When we finished, he thanked me very nicely and left the room, locking the door behind him, then bolting the door, then putting a beam across it.
My first order of business upon being left alone was to get out of the knot; I worked at it for quite some time before I lost patience with it, and dragged the entire bedstead with me across the room to where the food was piled on a shelf recessed in the stone wall. He hadn’t left me a knife or anything of the sort, only a spoon, a tin-opener, and a corkscrew, none of which was sharp enough to cut the silk necktie. I had a flash of inspiration, though, remembering cutting my finger once on a lid from a tin of sardines: I opened one of the tins and used the jagged edges of the lid to saw through the necktie.
Finally free of the bedstead, I got up and explored my prison, wrapping the sheet around me for warmth — the room was much less frigid than I would have thought a cellar under a basement would be, but it was still somewhat cool. The door was really quite solid, swinging outward so that no hinges were on the inside, and knocking on it produced a thick wooden sound under the bang of the iron cover. There was definitely no way out, there. I turned my attention to the flue of the stove, from which a warm draught came; I yelled up the flue, but there was no echo, and no sound penetrated from outside, leading me to believe that the flue was very, very long and probably had a number of turns in it before it opened to the air above. That the air was warm indicated that the flue passed through someplace hot, maybe the ovens of the restaurant above.
The food was varied and plentiful, though it certainly wasn’t Fortnum & Mason quality. The beer was Bass, the water was unmarked in blue bottles. Moving over to my reading stack, I found dozens of old issues of London Illustrated News, The Sketch, and Country Life, none less than five years old and some going all the way back to before the War. The books were more promising, mostly penny thrillers that, while not exactly improving, would keep me well-occupied.
However, after finishing a tawdry novelette and scouring the oldest magazines for pictures of my late mother (she’d been carried off in the influenza pandemic in 1918), I was already bored out of my mind. I ate some brown glop that purported to be Scotch beef in gravy but tasted nothing like, munched on some dry coconut macaroons, and washed it down with a beer, occupying nowhere near enough time. Another book, a more thorough perusal of the magazines, and a tin of peaches in syrup occupied a little more time. Eventually I was singing to myself, making paper hats out of the magazines I’d finished, napping occasionally, and indulging in rather more ‘Arthurs’ than was probably good for me. I stayed clean, and I was never hungry or thirsty, and I never got cold, so I didn’t have much to complain of except boredom.
Stan’s only real cruelty was to take away my watch. With no light or noise penetrating from outside, I couldn’t tell if it was hours or minutes that had passed, or if it was day or night; and aside from my fairly regular bodily functions, I was completely unable to gauge time. But judging by the function that usually happened only once a day, I had been in the cellar for two full days and a bit before I heard a sound like someone moving about outside.
I never thought I’d be so happy to hear a noise as commonplace as a key turning in a lock, but I was standing in the center of the little room with my sheet clutched around me, writhing with anticipation as I heard the bolts being drawn and the door creaking back.
“Oh, thank God you’re all right!” Twister came bounding through the door and wrapped himself around me, nearly knocking me over, “You are all right, aren’t you?”
“All right enough,” I said, not sure if I was dreaming or awake. I had to assume the latter, since in my dreams Twister didn’t wear so many clothes.
“He didn’t hurt you?” my rescuer stepped back, holding me at arm’s length and examining me closely.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, basking in the glow of his regard, overjoyed to hear a voice other than my own.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” he demanded, shaking me angrily before pulling me back into a bear-hug.
“I didn’t mean to,” I offered weakly in defense.
“Ahem,” came a dry cough from the doorway, startling us both; I’d thought Twister had come to my rescue alone, but Chief Inspector Brigham had come as well, “If you’ve quite finished.”
“Sorry, sir,” Twister blushed scarlet and released me, stepping away with his head down and hands behind his back, like a chided footman.
“I am glad to see you are unharmed, Lord Foxbridge,” the older man said, glancing with some amusement at the Grecian arrangement of my bedsheet, which I’d tied into a knot over one shoulder and had spent many an idle hour arranging in different patterns of folds, “We only received the letter informing us of your whereabouts an hour ago. It had been delayed by the French post.”
“How long have I been in here?” I wondered; by my calculations, the letter must have arrived early.
“Four days, my lord,” Brigham replied gravely, “During which time we have been led a merry chase trying to trace your movements on the night you disappeared.”
“I’ll remember to leave bread crumbs next time,” I promised. How had they not traced me at least as far as Stan’s shop? I’d gone in a cab, and dropping well-dressed nobs at the entrances to alleys in Soho, even ones that call themselves Courts or Mews, must be at least a vaguely memorable experience for a cabman.
“There won’t be a next time,” Twister promised direly, “You’re never to go chasing after a murder suspect on your own.”
“Do you think we might continue this conversation another time?” a cold draught from the door reminded me I was the only one here clad in a sheet, “I’d really like to get out of this hole and into some clothes.”
“Of course, Lord Foxbridge,” Brigham smiled courteously and Twister draped his coat around me for warmth; I walked between them out of the tiny room, down the incredibly long corridor that led to it, out into the dark little yard behind Cavendish’s Racing Agents (which was shared by a number of small businesses and did not have a street exit), through the empty shop and into a waiting police car.
Brigham had intended to take me straight to New Scotland Yard to get my statement, but I prevailed upon him (threatened him, actually, with my father’s influence; knowing the old Pater was attached to the Inland Revenue was going to prove very useful — everyone is afraid of tax-collectors) to take me home first, and promised that he or Twister could take my statement only after I’d had a long hot bath and a good cooked meal — I did n
ot wish to leave one uncomfortable little room for another, I wanted my luxuries and I wanted them toute de suite.
*****
If there is a pleasure more incredible than sitting neck-deep in a hot bath while eating a piping-hot steak-and-kidney pie, I have not experienced it. After half a week of tepid tinned stew and crackers, and bathing with cold water in a laundry sink, the pleasure was so heady that I thought I might just die of it. And the sound of other people’s voices was utter heaven: Gabriel sat on a little stool in the bathroom and read the last four days’ newspapers to me, and I could hear Pond and Twister talking in the sitting-room.
My four days in the cellar had been kept out of the public eye completely, which was a blessing: the son of an influential peer disappearing under mysterious circumstances would have been catnip to the Press; my father would have been furious to have our name dragged into public like that, and he would have brought a great deal of pressure to bear on Scotland Yard, which wouldn’t have helped Twister at all.
Mike Baker’s murder, however, had been faithfully reported, and was lurid enough to catch the headlines, as had the robbery and murder of Mrs. Nazerman; the disappearance of a well-known bookie (Stan’s surname turned out to be Mugg; no wonder he kept it to himself) with his partners’ cash was remarked upon at some length, with numerous references to ‘honour among thieves’; but the papers didn’t even hint at a connection between those three incidents.
I felt a bit of a heel, letting Gabriel read out the accounts of his own brother’s murder, especially after I told him that Stan had killed Mike to set him free; but he didn’t seem to mind too much — he snorted with indignation over the items that the papers had got wrong, like Mike’s age (he was only twenty-four, though the papers placed him at thirty, and I would have guessed more than that) and what prisons he’d been in, but otherwise reading the reports as if they were about someone he didn’t know.
“This probably isn’t the appropriate time,” I said to him when he’d finished reading and I’d finished stuffing my gullet with pie, “but I’d like to talk about your future.”
“All right,” he said, folding up the newspaper and turning to face me.
“Do you want to stay on the game, or would you like to do something else?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted after a short silence, “What else did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking about getting you an apprenticeship in a shop.”
“Hmm,” he looked off into blank space while he thought it over, “Perhaps.”
“Do you like being a molly-boy?” I wondered, thinking back to something I’d said to the Baron, “I mean, do you find it congenial? Is it fun?”
“Most of the time, it’s congenial,” he smiled at the word, “And sometimes it’s fun, sometimes so much fun that I feel bad charging. But sometimes it’s nasty, if you get a really repulsive punter, or someone who likes to hurt. I seem to attract that type, but I’ve learned to oil away from them before it becomes dangerous.”
“I was just wondering if you liked it enough to keep on with it while you’re young and can charge the best prices. I don’t want you to think I’m automatically assuming that you want to quit the game. I really want you to be happy, if you’d like to work in a shop, stay on the game, or even do something else entirely I haven’t thought of.”
“No reason I can’t do both,” he considered after a bit, “I mean, lots of boys have day-jobs as well, and I can be choosier if I have another source of income. Would that bother you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then tell me about this shop wheeze.”
So I told him all about my idea to buy his apprenticeship with M. Alcide, Stan’s recommendation that he’d probably enjoy that work, and my intention of helping him set up his own business if he wanted. He seemed interested in these ideas, but didn’t really commit himself one way or another. I rather wondered if he was just humouring me; having put myself in the position of his protector, I found myself wondering if he was treating me as a client and saying what he thought I wanted to hear, or if he was being completely honest with me as a friend.
Eventually my toes and fingers started to prune up, so I got out of the tub and into my pajamas and dressing-gown, and went out to the sitting-room to get my comeuppance from Twister. Pond was busying himself elsewhere, and Gabriel had gone back to his own room; Twister was alone, staring thoughtfully at a glass of whiskey, his feet up on the pouf, looking very much at home.
“I’m in over my head, aren’t I?” I admitted by way of a conversational opener, pouring myself a drink and sitting in my usual armchair, putting my feet on the pouf beside his.
“Yes, you really are,” he looked up, smiling, “You’ve no idea how dangerous the things you do can be.”
“Well, honestly, my nosiness has never been dangerous before,” I was glad he was smiling instead of scolding, “This business of stumbling over dead bodies is new for me. Before I came to London, the only dead bodies I’d seen were properly laid out in a coffin or a nice clean dissection room.”
“What were you doing in a dissection room, might I ask?” he laughed at me.
“Learning to look at dead bodies, of course,” I said, “I’d already begun fancying myself an amateur detective by the time I got to Oxford, it made sense that I should learn something about forensic science. So I attended some medical anatomy lectures and viewed a few autopsies. I even got to work on dissecting a cadaver for a couple of hours, a medical student chum of mine sneaked me in and showed me what to do. It was really quite fascinating, though rather smelly.”
“I guess that explains why you aren’t squeamish about it,” he said with a small note of admiration in his voice, “Though a little discomfort at the sight of death might have taught you some caution.”
“Being locked up in a cellar for four days has certainly taught me some caution,” I tossed back my drink and set it on the table, wishing it was cool enough to start a fire in the hearth. It would be so cozy to sit with Twister in front of a nice warm fire, “I mean, this is the second time I’ve come within a hair’s breadth of getting myself killed, I’d be an idiot not to have learned something from it.”
“When was the first time?” he looked at me sharply.
“That business in the office on Bury Street,” I was aghast that I’d let that slip: I wasn’t supposed to tell Twister anything about Professor Beran, lecturer in Slavic languages and professional assassin, whom I had given ample cause and abundant opportunity to kill me; but thinking quickly, I came up with a good covering explanation while I got up to pour another drink so he couldn’t see me lying, “If Pond hadn’t made me stop and get dressed in a suit and a tie before I went haring off around the corner, I would have walked straight into the killer. Didn’t you tell me the man had been dead for rather less than an hour?”
“Well, I don’t think you would have run into the killer, even if you’d sprinted outside in your pajamas. It took you enough time to count your steps that the killer would have been out of the building and onto the street before you got there.”
“Nevertheless,” I resumed my seat, relieved to have dodged a bullet, “I have learned some caution through these little episodes. No more running off without telling people where I’m going. No more getting out of cabs without making sure the cabbie will remember me. And no assuming chaps aren’t cold-blooded killers just because they’re likeable.”
“Very good rules to live by,” he laughed again, indulgently, “But the important rule is that you always, always talk to me before you do anything. Even if you think it’s silly or unimportant. If you had just told that cab to go to Craven Street instead of St. Anne’s Court, none of this would have happened. I know you know my address, it’s in Debrett. That’s the first thing you would have looked up after meeting me.”
“True,” I grinned at his perception, “but I didn’t think of it at the time. I just didn’t believe I could get hurt.”
“We
ll, now you know that you can. The thing I learned from watching autopsies, as one has to do in police training, is how easy it is to extinguish a life. One little cut in the right place, one wrong twist to the neck or spine, and pfft. There are a million ways to die by accident, we don’t need to court death on purpose.”
“How does one train for the police force?” I wondered, “Does one take courses at a technical college, or does Scotland Yard teach you?”
“The Metropolitan Police maintains its own training school. Are you thinking of joining the force?”
“No, I just thought a little more training would be useful for an amateur.”
“You’re still intending to pursue this amateur detective business, after all that’s happened?” he tried to sound incredulous but still had that note of indulgence in his voice, “I’d have thought that particular enthusiasm had been curbed by now.”
“The thing is, Twister,” I turned to look him in the eye to show how serious I was, “I’m not pursuing it, it’s pursuing me. I’ve found three bodies in as many months, and though on the last two occasions it was my nosiness that brought me to the site, I was not looking for any dead bodies. It might be a fluke, dumb luck in its rawest form; but dumb luck seems to be my fate, and if this is going to keep happening to me, I need to be better prepared for it.”
“You have a point,” he conceded, “But you can rely on me to provide for that side of things. If you find another body, or uncover any kind of crime, you can come directly to me for advice and assistance.”
“That’s awfully good of you,” I was touched by the offer, then had a sobering thought, “What about Brigham? Won’t he be suspicious?”
“Brigham knows about me, now,” Twister looked into the bottom of his glass, frowning with discomfort, “I’m afraid I gave myself away when I was hunting for you these last four days. Anyone with eyes could see I was more emotionally involved than I should have been. And my reaction when we found you was pretty obvious.”
“Does he seem to mind?”
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