The Posing Playwright

by David Field

  THE POSING PLAYWRIGHT

  Esther and Jack Enright Mystery

  Book Five

  David Field

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  MORE BOOKS BY DAVID FIELD

  DISCLAIMER

  This novel reflects the views and attitudes of the prosecutors at the time of Oscar Wilde’s trial when homosexuality was illegal in England. Some readers may find some of this language upsetting.

  Chapter One

  The front doors of the Albemarle Club burst open following a determined boot thrust from John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, allowing a few snow flurries to blow in behind him from the February pavement outside. The hall porter rushed to intercept him and enquire whether or not he was a member.

  ‘Why would I wish to associate my good name with this coven of perverts and deviants?’ Queensberry demanded. ‘I’m seeking the alleged playwright Wilde, in order to give him a thorough thrashing in front of his fellow members!’

  ‘If you are referring to Mr Oscar Wilde, sir, then he is indeed a member here, but I can advise you that he’s currently at the theatre, rehearsing his latest play. The St James Theatre, if I recall correctly, and I don’t know whether or not we expect him for dinner.’

  ‘No matter,’ Queensberry replied gruffly. ‘Just give him this calling card and direct his attention to the inscription on the reverse side.’

  ‘Yes, certainly, sir,’ the hall porter assured him reverentially. ‘I’ll see that he gets it immediately upon his return.’

  It was late afternoon before the man who delighted in the name of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde wafted into his club on a wave of second-hand champagne fumes. He enquired as to whether or not he had any messages and the hall porter reached down under his counter and produced the calling card.

  ‘Only this, sir, if you could call it a message.’

  Wilde looked first at the name on the card and his face set in a snarl of disapproval. Then he turned it over and read the message on its reverse and tutted.

  ‘Just goes to prove what I’ve always maintained regarding the English aristocracy. They’re born with a silver spoon in their mouths and at some stage it penetrates their brains, leaving them with lifelong afflictions. In the case of Queensberry, that affliction is a terminal conflict with the English language. What would you say this word is?’

  The porter perched his glasses onto the end of his nose and squinted.

  ‘Shocking handwriting, I agree. But he seems to be applying some sort of description to you. This word looks like “Somdomite”, sir.’

  ‘Ever heard of one of those?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, assuming for the moment that it’s not a reference to a species of fossil, or a South Sea Island chieftain, what’s the nearest word you could take it for in the English language that those of us with an education beyond a grouse moor have learned to cherish?’

  ‘I don’t like to say, sir.’

  ‘It would be “sodomite”, would it not?’

  ‘Most likely, sir.’

  ‘And do you know what one of those is?’

  ‘Again, I don’t like to say, sir.’

  ‘But nevertheless, you would conclude, would you not, that the so-called “gentleman” who gave you that calling card was accusing a member of this club of being a “Mary-Anne” or whatever you care to call it?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the porter conceded with a blush.

  ‘And you would not resile from that opinion, even if required to repeat it in a court of law?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good man. A true descendent of those who made this nation great, unlike those who cling to titles in the vain hope of somehow seeming important. And he calls me a poser! Nothing could be worse than posing as part of the fabric of our great Empire, when the only Empire to which the Marquess of Queensberry might feasibly lay claim would be one of the many music halls that bear the name.’

  A small brass band stood to attention on the quayside at Kingston, instruments poised and eyes fixed on the raised baton in their conductor’s hand, as the gangplank was lowered on board the Wicklow Lady. The passengers began to disembark with their travelling bags, porters, ladies’ maids and assorted attendants, as the Chairman of the Welcoming Committee, Patrick Delaney, sidled up to the band conductor and whispered, ‘I’ll give ye the word as soon as his Lordship begins to walk the plank.’

  They were gathered — a respectable number of party members, considering the early morning arrival of the overnight steamer from Holyhead — to welcome home the local hero of the Loyal and Patriotic Union movement, Lord Stranmillis. He belonged to the group of Tories in the House of Lords who were implacably opposed to any form of Irish self-government and who had, almost two years previously, thrown out Gladstone’s second attempt at an Irish Home Rule Bill by a staggering ten to one majority. He had not been back to the land of his birth since then, given his several English estates, and this was the first opportunity that his enthusiastic and largely sycophantic Dublin supporters had been afforded to doff their caps in gratitude for his resolute courage in the face of all the Fenian threats to which he’d been subjected in the months leading up to the vote.

  As the last of the passengers descended to quay level and walked to the railway platform for the train that would convey them on the final short leg of their journey to Dublin, Patrick Delaney made his anxious way across the cobbles to where a deckhand was untying the ropes that had held the gangplank in place.

  ‘Where’s Lord Stranmillis?’ he demanded. ‘We’ve been waiting since your boat landed, but no sign of him.’

  ‘Them’s all ashore what was on board,’ the deckhand replied.

  ‘Did he take a later boat?’

  The deckhand shrugged and nodded towards the railhead a few yards down the quay. ‘They can tell you in the office over that way. They’ve got the passenger manifests for all the vessels, or so I’m told.’

  Delaney bustled off to the railhead office of the shipping line, where a florid-faced clerk searched the list that had just been handed in off the incoming Wicklow Lady.

  ‘Youse must have missed your man,’ Delaney was advised, ‘for sure and wasn’t he on the vessel, accordin’ to what’s in me hand here?’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Delaney protested. ‘I’ve met the man several times, and his portrait hangs in the party office in Dorset Street, so there’s no way I could have missed him. Are you sure that he was on that vessel?’

  ‘How would I be after knowin’ that, when I never met the man?’ the clerk demanded with a disdainful sneer.

  With a dismissive snort, Delaney turned his back and walked disconsolately back onto the quay. His Lordship had clearly changed his travel plans without advising his supporters in Dublin.

  Back in his party office, Delaney sent his clerk to the Post Office with instructions to cable Lord Stran
millis at his London home, enquiring as to when it was intended that he would make the long-anticipated journey. The return cable sent him scurrying in person to the nearest DMP office.

  Chapter Two

  ‘At least you had the decency to hold this christening in the local church,’ Constance Enright announced as she turned to smile at Esther. ‘I don’t blame you for the last debacle, my dear, since I know how stubborn Jackson can be in these matters. But since he deprived us of a local christening for Bertie, the least he could do to make amends was to have the lovely Miriam baptised where she belongs, here in Barking, and not in some heathen edifice in Clerkenwell.’

  Esther smiled back dutifully and looked for someone to rescue her from the corner of the marquee on the lawn in which she’d been ambushed by her mother-in-law while trying to persuade the star of the show to take some bottled milk, in the hope that she’d stop whimpering. Then again, Esther reasoned, being held in the arms of that drip-faced misery of a local vicar, then tipped almost upside down backwards and having cold water dripped onto one’s head, was hardly a comforting experience for a three-week-old infant.

  She caught Jack’s glance as he looked across from where he was talking to Uncle Percy and Aunt Beattie and signalled with her eyes that she needed to be rescued. He nodded and said something to Percy. As all three of them wandered over and Constance caught sight of them she expanded on her earlier observation.

  ‘There you are. I was just saying to Esther how nice it was to be able to christen dear little Miriam in the place where hopefully she’ll be living soon. Surely by now, Jackson’s got that police nonsense out of his head — no thanks to you, Percy — and will come home with his family and begin a worthwhile and more respectable career.’

  It was a well-worn theme. When Jack was aged only fourteen, his father had died, and Jack had gone to live with his late father’s brother Percy and his wife in London, since they had no children of their own. Percy was a career police officer, and from him Jack had caught the bug for police work that — to his mother’s horror — had led him into the Metropolitan Police, where he’d been stoned, attacked with a knife, shot at, and trampled under a horse, resulting in a broken leg that had never fully healed even after the intervening year. Somehow the bravery medal that had gone with saving two unsuspecting children from its hooves had never quite compensated for the persistent dull ache on frosty mornings.

  His mother Constance was forever campaigning for Jack to pursue a more commercial career, such as the insurance business in which his father had made a modest fortune before moving his family to Barking. It didn’t help that Jack’s younger sister Lucy had ‘married well’ to a successful architect, and even though she’d also moved into London, it was the more respectable and fashionable Holborn, rather than the second-floor set of rooms in Clerkenwell in which Jack and Esther had set up home after their marriage.

  However, the birth of their third child had supplied Constance Enright with another battle banner that she waved on all family occasions. According to Constance, it was high time that Jack and Esther sought another place to live, and given the lower house prices in outer suburbs such as Barking, on the north bank of the Thames in Essex, there was only one obvious place.

  ‘The old Bentley house is still on the market,’ she announced as she turned and waved for more champagne from the formally clad waitress employed by the private caterers who had also supplied the marquee and buffet luncheon. ‘They could probably be persuaded to lower their asking price, and it’s got four bedrooms, as you know, and is handy for the station.’

  ‘It’s so handy that the trains clatter past the bottom of the garden at all hours,’ Jack reminded her, ‘and we have enough problems getting Bertie to sleep as it is. But apart from that — and for the umpteenth time, Mother — I’m required to live within the boundaries of the Met as a condition of my employment.’

  ‘That just confirms what a poor choice of employment you made,’ Constance snorted. ‘When your dear father made his money, he was able to choose wherever he wanted to live. And now that you’re in a promoted rank, surely you should be allowed to raise the tone of the locality in which you bring up your family?’

  ‘I’m only a sergeant,’ Jack reminded her.

  ‘But you’re earning more money than previously, and from what I can gather from the little that I can get out of either you or your uncle, you’re no longer required to plod the streets swinging your truncheon. You’re more confined to the office these days, isn’t that right, Percy?’

  Percy frowned and cleared his mouth of the remainder of his seventh chicken vol-a-vent before replying. ‘The nature of the work on which Jack and I are currently engaged is confidential, Constance. In fact, so confidential that even half of our colleagues at the Yard don’t know what we do.’

  ‘Jackson?’ Constance enquired with eyebrows raised in disbelief.

  Jack smiled. ‘I can hardly override my Inspector’s authority, now can I?’

  Constance tutted, but appeared to be partly mollified. ‘At least you’re no longer under threat on those dreadful East End streets, so I suppose I should be grateful. I just hope it’s not something really dangerous, like taking on those murderous “Athenians”, or whatever they’re called.’

  ‘Fenians,’ Percy corrected her with amusement written all over his face. ‘But rest assured, we have an Irish Branch dealing with those. What we do has more to do with English politics, the royal family and so on.’

  ‘Like standing in front of her Majesty while someone takes aim at her, you mean?’ Constance shot back, and this time even Esther looked concerned.

  Percy shook his head with a condescending smile. ‘We have an Armed Protection Group for that, as well. Nothing to do with us.’

  ‘You wouldn’t admit it anyway,’ Constance replied dismissively. ‘And until you choose to be completely honest about the nature of your work, I’ll think the worst.’

  ‘So will I,’ Esther added with a glare at Percy. ‘You have Jack well trained, because he won’t even tell me what you two are up to these days. At least you won’t be able to wheedle me into any of your devious schemes in future.’

  The following day, Percy and Jack received a summons from their senior officer, Chief Superintendent Bray, and they were met by the man himself in his outer office, where he briefed them quickly. ‘We have two important visitors in there, one of them being the Home Secretary. The man with him is a Queen’s Counsel who’s got some very disturbing news to impart. Let them do the talking, only ask questions that you regard as relevant, and — above all — no smart comments from either of you. Understood?’

  Percy nodded, and Jack remained silent as usual, as they were led into the inner room. Seated at the large table that seemed to occupy most of the room space were two distinguished looking men deep in conversation, who stopped and looked up as soon as Superintendent Bray entered and began the introductions.

  ‘Gentlemen, may I introduce Inspector Enright and Sergeant Enright, from our Political Branch? Take a seat, both of you, while I introduce our visitors.’

  Percy and Jack slipped silently into the seats on the far side of the over-long and highly polished mahogany table, and adopted suitable facial expressions of polite interest, as Bray completed the introductions.

  ‘You have probably not had occasion to meet our current Home Secretary, Mr Asquith, although you no doubt know him by sight. He’s taking a personal interest in a delicate matter that’s been brought to our attention by the gentleman to his left, who’s Mr Edward Carson, QC. He’s currently engaged in preparing for a case that will hit the front page of every newspaper in the country and has uncovered some very alarming information which he has very properly referred to the Home Secretary, who in turn has handed us the task of investigating the matter further and minimising the potential political damage. I’ll let Mr Carson himself take over at this point.’

  Although he remained seated, it was obvious that this already famous barriste
r was over six feet in height, with a leonine head in which were set the most disturbingly piercing eyes that seemed to bore into the face of everyone on whom they were focused. His voice, when he began to speak, was more than capable of penetrating the background noise in any courtroom, so as to boom out at any jury he might be addressing, or any unfortunate witness that he might be cross-examining. There could be no suggestion of anyone interrupting as he began his explanation in stentorian tones, flavoured with a rich Irish brogue, that seemed capable of rattling the water carafe and accompanying glasses in the centre of the table.

  ‘I’ve been retained by the Marquess of Queensberry to defend him against an allegation of criminal libel instigated by a well-known playwright called Oscar Wilde. Because of his notoriety in certain West End circles, the very name of Mr Wilde is likely to generate a good deal of popular interest, fanned by the more sensationalist and prurient of our national newspapers. The action arises from an implied allegation by his Lordship that Mr Wilde is a practising sodomite. Under the law as it sits at present, that is of course a criminal offence, which is why my client is charged with libel.’

  Home Secretary Asquith gave a polite cough by way of a warning that he was about to add something to the explanation, and Carson paused briefly in order to pour himself a glass of water.

  ‘I should perhaps answer a question that may already have presented itself to you, gentlemen,’ Asquith explained. ‘A “criminal libel”, as you will no doubt be aware, is normally a matter for prosecution by the authorities, but in view of the subject matter of this particular one — and certain other matters that Mr Carson will reveal in a moment — the Solicitor General declined to approve the matter for a public prosecution. Mr Wilde therefore opted to prosecute the matter privately. Pray continue, Mr Carson.’

  ‘Thank you, Home Secretary. At the risk of boring you all with points of law, it is necessary, for my client’s defence, to prove two things. The first is that Mr Wilde has indeed posed as a sodomite in the past, and the second is that it was in the “public interest” that Queensberry reveal that fact. But in proving the first of those, my instructing solicitors have uncovered information that I felt compelled to bring to the attention of the Home Secretary, hence our presence here today. Even though he and I are on opposite sides of the political divide, these matters are too important to ignore.’