The Posing Playwright

by David Field

  Carson knitted his brows in thought before replying. ‘It must have been when that photograph was taken. That was over a year ago now, so at least it has the virtue of being recent, but it’s another reason why I’d like you to treat it with care and give it back when you’ve finished with it.’

  ‘So you and he didn’t mix socially on a regular basis?’

  ‘No, not at all. We exchanged Christmas cards and the occasional letter, the way that former close friends have a habit of doing, but our paths barely crossed. I have a busy practice here in London, whereas Shorty was forever travelling from one business venture to another. Unlike many modern entrepreneurs, Shorty hadn’t amalgamated all his companies into one huge “holding” conglomerate, but ran his various enterprises as individual entities, each one with a general manager. I know that because I was once called in to advise him regarding the possible benefits of establishing a holding group.’

  ‘What about his personal life?’

  ‘I’m not sure that he had one, quite frankly. He certainly never married, so far as I’m aware, and he was an only child, so once his own parents died he was alone in this world. He’d occasionally be photographed by the newspapers at some important function like the opening of a new steel plant, or when he was giving a massive donation to some charity or other, and on such occasions there was usually a woman on his arm. But it was a different woman on each occasion, and — well, to be perfectly frank with you — I often suspected that they were hired for the occasion. He was never much of a success with the ladies when we were students together.’

  ‘Where did he normally live?’

  ‘I believe he had a splendid apartment overlooking Regent’s Park — Cambridge Terrace, as I recall — where he’d stay whenever his attendance was required in the Lords. He took that aspect of his life very seriously, but for the rest of the time he seemed to stay in local hotels in Manchester, Sheffield or wherever, when his business commitments took him there.’

  ‘His estate in Ireland?’

  Carson laughed hollowly. ‘I doubt if the retainers on the Stranmillis estate would even recognise him, since he was never there. He had a lodge of some sort in the Borders south of Edinburgh and a house somewhere in Cheshire. I remember the Cheshire house because there was some legal dispute over quarrying rights on the land that went with it, and we were all set to do battle in the local County Court when the opposing party threw in the towel. But other than that I couldn’t tell you anything about his life. Sad, really, all that money and no-one to share it with, so far as I’m aware. I should perhaps mention that I’m one of the executors named in his will; myself and Paddy Ryan, funnily enough. So if he turns out to be — you know — deceased, then whoever inherits will need to consult me.’

  ‘Do you happen to recall who inherits?’ Jack asked.

  Carson smiled back enigmatically. ‘Even if I did, professional privilege would prevent me from telling you. But if it helps, my memory tells me that the main beneficiaries will be various charities that he favoured. No one individual that sticks out in my memory, but as I said, professional privilege and all that...’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ Jack replied as he rose to leave. ‘Thank you, Mr Carson, that gives us something to start with, anyway.’

  ‘I really do hope that nothing awful has happened to him,’ Carson observed as he rose out of politeness to show Jack to the door. ‘Shorty was a likeable old buffer, at the end of the day.’

  ‘Except, perhaps, to someone who removed him from the boat train,’ Jack reminded him in the doorway, wondering whether or not it was just coincidence that Carson had spent the past half hour or so referring to the missing man in the past tense.

  Chapter Five

  ‘I suppose I don’t mind,’ Jack conceded grudgingly, ‘provided that there’s no danger to Esther, and provided that you bring in fish and fried potatoes for tea every time we get together to exchange notes on the cases.’

  Percy grinned at Esther as he cut into his second piece of fried plaice. ‘It just goes to prove the old saying that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.’

  ‘That’s for wives, not uncles,’ Esther advised him, before turning to Jack. ‘You’re easily bought, but please don’t patronise me with any more nonsense about preserving me from danger. I’ve probably come closer to death on several occasions than you ever will, and in any case, Uncle Percy only needs my brain.’

  ‘Confirms my suspicion that his own is going as grey as his hair,’ Jack quipped. ‘Why do we need Esther anyway?’

  Percy cleared his mouth and explained. ‘You’ll be following up those leads on Mr Wilde’s lifestyle, while I’ll be touring the country like a music hall act, looking for the vanished Lord Stranmillis. We’ll be working independently of each other, on two separate lines of enquiry and I’ve enlisted Esther’s support because I believe that the two matters are linked by way of the Irish connection. We need a third brain looking for those links.’

  ‘Even if Stranmillis was spirited away by Fenians,’ Jack pointed out, ‘they’ve waited long enough to announce the fact and claim either the ransom money or some political favour.’

  ‘Which is why I don’t believe that Fenians had anything to do with it,’ Percy replied with a smile. ‘I favour, instead, the theory that his Lordship chose to disappear for reasons of his own and from what we know of Mr Wilde and his deviant brotherhood I have a feeling in my innards that Lord Stranmillis was otherwise inclined.’

  ‘You mean he was a homosexual?’ Jack enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ Percy replied. ‘Did Carson say when the trial would be starting?’

  ‘A week on Wednesday was the best estimate he could give me,’ Jack reported, ‘although even that’s a guess on his part.’

  ‘Even so, we don’t have long,’ Percy reminded them, ‘and the important first part will be to establish the extent of his little club of deviants, and whether or not they included peers of the realm. It seems that it’s become quite the fashion for the high-born and privileged to go slumming in Molly Houses, and that’s why we think that the Home Secretary’s a bit nervous about what may be revealed during the forthcoming trial.’

  ‘No wonder,’ Esther murmured. ‘And I assume that’s why you think that Lord Stranmillis may have a reason for staging his own disappearance?’

  Percy nodded. ‘Precisely. According to what Carson told Jack, the man never married, despite his wealth, and hired women to hang on his arm for appearances’ sake on public occasions.’

  ‘Perhaps he just never met the right woman? Are you condemning every unmarried man as a …?’

  ‘Sodomite, Mary-Anne, shirt-lifter,’ Percy began and Esther raised her hand.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I think “sodomite” will do. But something bothers me already about all this and it may suggest the possible link between the two cases.’

  ‘Yes?’ Percy asked with a look of hopeful expectation.

  ‘How did this Carson person know that Stranmillis was missing in the first place?’

  ‘No idea,’ Percy replied, ‘but it’s a very good question. Jack?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I never asked him,’ he admitted.

  ‘No wonder Uncle Percy wanted me in on this case,’ Esther smiled triumphantly back at Jack. ‘Now get your elbows off the table, while I clear away and make another pot of tea.’

  Jack and his colleague, Detective Constable Will Booth, approached the closed door of the terraced premises in Cavendish Square. There was a light above the ground floor entrance door that might once have been red, but was now a pale pink, and the sign on the door read ‘Salvation Club — Members Only’.

  ‘I feel slightly ridiculous in all this finery,’ Booth complained as he looked down at the formal evening attire he’d borrowed for the occasion.

  Jack smiled sarcastically. ‘You might feel more at ease if it fitted you, but the Yard doesn’t come equipped with a wardrobe department, like the West End theatres that Mr Wilde patronises. If it’s
any consolation, mine used to be my father’s and he was an inch or so taller than me. My mother thinks I’m visiting the theatre, which is where you and I are to pretend we came from, remember?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Booth grumbled, ‘but if we have to go in there holding hands I can’t be sure I can keep a straight face.’

  ‘Trust me,’ Jack hissed, ‘if you so much as even attempt to hold my hand, your face will be permanently bent for a week. Now, where’s the knocker for this place?’

  Eventually he located a button low down on the door, which he pressed, and was gratified to hear the distant tinkle of some sort of bell. A few moments later they were rewarded with the sound of approaching feet, followed by a faint rasping sound as a flap opened in the centre of the door, and a lugubrious face peered out at them.

  ‘Yes?’ the face demanded.

  ‘We’d like to be granted admission, if we may,’ Jack replied in what he hoped was a bored upper-class drawl. The face studied him more closely.

  ‘It’s members’ only, like it says on the door. I don’t seem to recall having seen you before, so I take it that you’re not members?’

  ‘Not yet, no,’ Jack admitted, then turned to Booth with a look of frustration. ‘How damnably boring! My friend Rupert here and I were advised that we’d be able to find friends here who march to the same regimental drum as we do, if you get my meaning. And there must have been a time when each one of those now inside stood out here on the pavement, after a night at the theatre like us, hoping to become members, so how does one go about it?’

  ‘Which theatre?’ the doorman demanded.

  Jack mentally congratulated himself on having read some of the background notes he’d been given by Carson. ‘The “St James”, of course. My friend Oscar’s new play is enjoying full houses every night.’

  ‘Oscar Wilde?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Come in.’

  They were led down a dimly lit passageway until they reached a door, on the other side of which it sounded as if a large party of drunken females had opened a champagne hamper on the race track. The doorman reached forward and pushed the door open, inviting Jack and Will Booth to step inside.

  They were met by a gale of high pitched laughter and the smell of expensive perfume. As their eyes adjusted to the bright light, the scene that confronted them tested every ounce of their credulity, as well as their capacity for maintaining a straight face. Everywhere they looked were men dressed as women, some of them with heavy make-up contrasting incongruously with moustaches and side whiskers. The costumes were expensive and formal, with ball gowns seemingly the preference, although the occasional giggling freak sitting on the knee of another was dressed in the manner of a milkmaid or a serving wench in a low alehouse. They were kissing, holdings hands, running hands underneath gowns to reveal frilly petticoats and even frillier underdrawers, and conducting lewd conversations in high pitched voices that would have been comical and false-sounding were it not for the actions that accompanied their squeals of delight.

  Jack took a deep breath and smiled at Will Booth.

  ‘Try not to laugh,’ he ordered.

  Will smiled back palely. ‘A drink might help — chuckie.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ Jack hissed as he turned to the doorman.

  ‘Where can a girl get a drink in here?’ he enquired, and the doorman nodded towards a counter in the corner, behind which stood a man well approaching six feet in height, with a full ginger beard, dressed as a nun. Jack took Will by the elbow and steered him over to the counter.

  ‘My friend and I would like a drink, if you’d be so good.’

  ‘Do you have an account?’ the nun enquired.

  ‘With my bookmaker certainly,’ Jack replied in his fake bored drawl, ‘not to mention my dressmaker, my hairdresser and my favoured ponce. But not here, clearly, since we’re not members. Although looking around, this seems to suit us nicely, so perhaps we might join.’

  ‘The first drink’s on the house,’ the nun advised them, ‘so what’ll it be?’

  Jack pretended to think. ‘I could probably manage a teensie weensie gin and lime. What about you, Rupert?’

  ‘A pint of beer,’ Will replied without thinking.

  Jack leaned forward and smacked his wrist gently. ‘Naughty boy! You’re among friends here, so have your usual, why don’t you?’ He turned to the nun and instructed him to ‘make his a large port with a slice of lemon.’

  ‘I’ll get the Members’ Register and sign you up,’ the nun replied. ‘I’m the Mother Superior in here and it’ll cost you each thirty pounds to join.’

  Five minutes later, as Jack was pretending to enjoy his gin and lime without actually swallowing any, while Will was fighting a psychological battle with his glass of port, the Mother Superior placed the Members’ Register face up on the counter and handed Jack a pen.

  ‘I’ll need some sort of identification from each of you,’ he advised them.

  Jack reached into the pocket of his dinner jacket, removed his police badge, held it up and smiled. ‘This will have to do for mine. And she’s got one as well,’ he indicated with a sideways smirk at Will Booth. ‘Outside are a couple of paddy wagons full of nice hairy police constables who’ll be taking your ladies for an evening’s entertainment in Vine Street police cells. As for the members on this register that you kindly donated, each of them may expect a visit from my colleagues in the course of the next few days.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ the nun replied with a smirk. ‘If I had a quid for every time your people have taken that away, I wouldn’t need to work here every evening, serving fairy drinks to a bunch of screaming Nancies. Take a quick look and you’ll see what I mean — if you can match those names to real people, you might be in business. If not, bugger off back outside and send in your bullies.’

  Jack looked down at the open Member’s Register with a sinking feeling that sank even lower when he took in names such as ‘Pretty Polly’, ‘Molly the Stroker’, ‘Sucky Susan’ and ‘Bendy Wendy’. He glared back up at the smug face under the wimple.

  ‘You must have their real names, surely? How do you manage your membership accounts?’

  ‘What do you think this is — Marshall and bloody Snelgrove’s? They all pay cash –in large quantities, usually — and once they come through the front door they leave their real identities behind them. You can throw this lot in your cells, bring them up in front of the beak in the morning, and all you can get them for is behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace or crimes against fashion. Most of them will be back in here tomorrow evening, believe me.’

  ‘I can get this establishment closed down,’ Jack insisted, but the head inside the cowl shook slowly and confidently.

  ‘They managed that — once. We re-opened the following week, and for some inexplicable reason we didn’t see a police raid for the best part of another year. You can always try again, for the fifth time since we re-opened, but somehow the matter never gets to court.’

  ‘Police corruption?’ Jack suggested helplessly.

  The nun smiled. ‘You’d know more about that than me, wouldn’t you? Now, would you and your boyfriend please finish your drinks, so that I can have the place nice and tidy for tomorrow night? I have a feeling that most of tomorrow is already accounted for.’

  ‘He as good as told me that someone in the Met’s being bribed to keep the place open!’ Jack complained. ‘We made complete idiots of ourselves, exposed ourselves to God knows what foul diseases and didn’t even get the real names of their members.’

  ‘Don’t be too despondent,’ Percy replied consolingly as he gazed out into a busy Whitehall thoroughfare from the cafe in which he was eating a plate of bacon and eggs while Jack was attacking a ham sandwich. ‘They’ll need to give their real names when they come up in front of the beak and I’ll send someone round to collect the list from the Magistrates’ Clerk at dinner time. Then you can call on them at inconvenient times — like when thei
r wives are at home — and lean on them hard to peach on their friends in high places.’

  ‘But this could go on for ever,’ Jack complained. ‘We can raid one Molly House after another, fill our paddy wagons with queers dressed like milkmaids, run them through the courts, ruin their no doubt shaky marriages, and still be no nearer flushing out the ones whose existence could be an embarrassment to the authorities.’

  ‘I suggest you speak to the rent boys and assorted perverts on the list Carson gave you,’ Percy replied. ‘Those who are really highly placed, such as aristocrats, judges, bishops and relatives of our dear sovereign lady the Queen are not likely to be found playing with each other’s squidgy bits in posing parlours such as the one in Cavendish Square, which was operating even when I was a beat constable in that area, although it catered for both tastes back then.’

  ‘I really feel like a simpering virgin in this world that we’ve been asked to enter,’ Jack complained. ‘If you could have seen what we saw in that place yesterday!’

  ‘All the more reason to avoid calling in on any more of them,’ Percy advised him. ‘If I were you, I’d be asking some of Carson’s star witnesses who their more exclusive clients were. Even if they didn’t know their names, the size of the fees they handed over should give us a clue to their social status. Then we can start sticking newspaper clippings under their noses — “You’ve seen this man announcing the opening of the new Parliamentary sittings; have you ever seen him wearing petticoats and lacy drawers?” That sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t think I want the rest of this sandwich,’ Jack complained as he threw it back down on the plate and reached for his tea mug. ‘Trust you to allocate yourself the easy job.’

  Chapter Six

  It was far from obvious to Percy that he’d undertaken the easier part of their conjoined operation as he stood shouting into the face of the dim looking porter on Platform Four of Euston Station in order to be heard above the noise of rumbling luggage trollies, parents shouting to children to keep up as they hurried for departing trains, and steam being periodically expelled from the boilers of locomotives whose drivers were anxious to release the brake and roll north.