The Posing Playwright

by David Field

  ‘Yer can come down now,’ the man yelled up to Percy. ‘I’ve called ’im off, an’ ’e’s a biddable beast, so ’e won’t ’ave yer ’til I tell ’im to. So who might yer be, an’ what’s yer business?’

  Percy extracted his police badge and held it high in the air, for the avoidance of any misunderstanding. The dog might not be capable of making social distinctions, but its owner hopefully would be.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Enright, Scotland Yard,’ Percy announced loudly as he stepped carefully over the rail line and approached the cottage. ‘I’m investigating the disappearance of your employer, Lord Stranmillis.’

  ‘News ter me,’ the man responded. ‘We ain’t seen ’im down ’ere in months. I takes me orders from ’Arry ’Ardcastle, the site manager.’

  ‘So you are?’

  ‘Jed Blower, site foreman.’

  ‘Where are all the other workers?’ Percy asked with a pointed nod towards the remaining buildings.

  ‘There ain’t none, most o’ the time,’ Blower explained. ‘Just me an’ a boy what comes down twice a week to ’elp me wi’ the pumpin’.’

  ‘Pumping?’

  Blower nodded. ‘That’s right. The shaft over there’s flooded ter about forty feet or so. At least, it were when we started a six month back. Now they reckon it’s down ter twenty feet, an’ by the end o’ the year she’ll be clear. I’ll show yer, but mind where yer puts yer feet, an’ keep away from the edge.’

  Percy took a closer look at various idle pieces of equipment lying on either side of the path as Blower led the way down to the opening of the shaft, a circle some fifty feet in diameter with some sort of cradle hanging from a rope that was in turn attached to a crude winch on a crossbar.

  ‘It’s pretty basic right now,’ Blower explained, ‘but once we gets it dried out, there’ll be new ’aulage gear installed at the top ’ere. Steam operated, like most o’ the stuff around ’ere. That’s ’ow come I gets ter be foreman o’ works, ’cos I knows all about steam from me days as an engine driver.’

  ‘You have a locomotive down here?’ Percy asked as his skin began to tingle.

  ‘In that shed,’ Blower confirmed, nodding towards a ramshackle hut, whose open doors revealed the smoke box door of a small ‘saddle tank’ locomotive.

  ‘So what does it haul?

  Blower nodded back up the track. ‘On yer way in, did yer ’appen ter see a row o’ tank wagons in the sidin’s?’

  ‘Indeed I did,’ Percy confirmed. ‘What do they contain?’

  ‘Brine,’ Blower advised him. ‘We pumps it outta the shaft wi’ that pipe yer can see stickin’ out’ve it an’ it goes inter them tank wagons. When them’s all full, we ’auls ’em off up ter the sidin’s, then the railway people takes ’em somewhere or other an’ empties ’em. Then they puts ’em back in the sidin’s, an we ’auls ’em back down ’ere an’ fills ’em up agin.’

  ‘Why can’t you just pump it out onto the ground out here?’

  Blower gave a dismissive snort. ‘Easy ter see yer no engineer. If we does that, it’ll just run back inter the ground, and we’d be back where we started.’

  ‘So you have to take it off the site in wagons?’ Percy asked by way of confirmation. ‘That sounds like a very painstaking task, and one that’ll take forever.’

  ‘Like I said,’ Blower nodded, ‘it’ll be the end o’ the year afore we can start minin’ agin, an’ even then we’ll need ter keep pumpin’ every day, just ter keep the water out.’

  ‘Where does the water come from in the first place?’

  ‘The ground, obviously,’ Blower advised him. ‘It’s what engineers an’ suchlike call the “water table”. Yer gets ter a certain level below ground, and it starts ter bubble up. There must be millions o’ tons o’ water down there, like some sorta underground lake.’

  ‘Like that lake over there?’

  Blower nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s where they first started diggin’ out the salt a coupla ’undred or so years back. It were closer ter the surface in them days. Then when they dropped the shaft ter get further down, it flooded, an’ the level o’ the water in that lake tells us ’ow much water’s left in the shaft. Water finds its own level, in case yer didn’t know that.’

  ‘So while you’re draining the shaft, you’re also emptying the lake?’

  ‘Yer not ser daft as yer look,’ Blower grinned and Percy decided to persevere while he had some credentials left. ‘What’s that massive thing over there?’ he asked, nodding towards what to his untutored eye resembled a huge crane on wheels.

  ‘That’s “Bessie”,’ Blower explained proudly. ‘That’s what we calls ’er, but she’s really a steam crane ter move owt big. She’ll be used once we gets the new ’aulin’ gear fer the shaft, but fer the time bein’ we just uses ’er fer owt tricky. While we’re down ’ere, d’yer wanna see me locomotive?’

  Percy agreed, and Blower proudly led the way into the collection of rotting timbers with a yawning metal roof that called itself a locomotive shed. Blower patted the side of the elderly locomotive that had once been green in colour, but was now beginning to display rust in places.

  ‘She were built in Crewe almost twenty years back,’ Blower announced, ‘but once she’s got steam up she can pull a dozen o’ them tank wagons yer saw in the sidin’s. It’s a quarter’ve a mile up that slope, an’ she’s never failed us yet.’

  ‘Do you have a name for her as well?’ Percy asked with a smile.

  Blower nodded. ‘She’s called “Martha” — that were me wife’s name, in the days when I ’ad one. But when she died, I come down ’ere ter forget.’

  Percy eyes lit on a long pole with a hook of some sort on its end, lying against the side wall of the shed. He stepped across and picked it up. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘That’s me ’ook fer uncouplin’ the wagons,’ Blower advised him. ‘Most o’ the time we keeps ’em coupled tergether, but on occasions we needs ter pull ’em apart, like that time when one o’ them come off the rails.’

  Percy’s mind wandered back to a conversation with a guard at Crewe Station, who’d advised him of the existence of specialised equipment that was normally employed to uncouple wagons, and his skin resumed its tingling.

  ‘Could we have a closer look at that crane thing?’ he asked, and Blower led the way out of the shed to where the crane sat like a huge metal crab, its jib pointing to the side from a cab set on a swivel on a wheeled platform.

  ‘Looks quite complicated,’ Percy observed, playing on Blower’s vanity. ‘How does it work? By steam, did you say?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Blower confirmed. ‘Once she’s powered up, yer can turn ’er through three ’undred an’ sixty degrees, and move ’er anywhere yer likes on that bogie she’s sittin’ on. She’ll lift damned near five ton if yer knows what yer doin’.’

  ‘What’s this white stuff on the wheels?’

  For a moment Blower looked lost for words, then recovered quickly to reply, ‘Salt. This is a salt works, after all.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see any salt around here,’ Percy replied as he let his eyes wander down a set of track marks heading away from where the crane was sitting. They led towards the lake, on the edges of which was a thick white deposit of some sort. ‘And presumably that’s also salt, on the edge of the lake there?’

  ‘Course it is,’ Blower confirmed. ‘Whaddyer expect ter find round the rim’ve a salt lake? When the water level drops, it leaves the dried salt round the edges.’

  ‘And you say that the lake’s still some twenty feet deep?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Percy turned and shook Blower’s hand. ‘Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr Blower. You’ve been most helpful.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Blower replied, ‘an’ I ’opes yer finds ’is carriage.’

  Percy hurried back up the slope as quickly as was consistent with appearing unconcerned, half expecting to hear a shout of command, followed by eager panting as heavy paws came a
fter him when Blower realised what he had given away.

  Thank God the coachman had returned early, and Percy was able to sink into the safety of the padded bench inside. The horse plodded away on its return trip to Crewe Station, from where the cabman plied his trade, and where Percy was planning a return to Solomon Johnson’s office to request a copy of the report of the guard who had worked the Crewe to Holyhead leg of Stranmillis’s mysterious journey into obscurity. He’d need this to persuade the local force to lend him the men he needed for his return to the salt workings.

  Chapter Seventeen

  David and Evan Davies beached their small rowing boat onto the shingle of Trefor Beach, on the northern shore of the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd, in the westernmost part of Wales. Their day’s fishing had come to an abrupt halt when the bow of their vessel had bumped against something solid that was floating in the heavy swell that had been boring down from the north west for several days. It looked like a black sack until Evan reached over the side and turned it over, to reveal the body of a man. He’d yelled out in shock, and after the two men had hauled the inert, waterlogged form into the gunnels of the boat, David — the stronger of the two oarsmen — had rowed hard back to their home village, aided by the aggressively incoming tide.

  As they laid their unusual catch onto the shingle, it was Evan who voiced what they were both thinking: ‘Not much of a fisherman, likely. Dressed more like he was going to chapel of a Sunday morning. What’s that round his face?’

  ‘Salt,’ David replied. ‘And I’m thinking he’s been floating for a good while. Who knows where he’s come from? Best go home and tell Owen the Law what we’ve found, before it’s us that gets the blame.’

  An hour later, local police constable Owen Pugh was examining the body more carefully where it lay, discreetly covered by a tarpaulin until he removed it and began searching the pockets and clothing.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t for his money that somebody hit him on the back of the head, boyos. There must be thirty big ones here. And this label in his jacket tells me he’s from London. If London wants the body of this fine gentleman, they can come and collect it.’

  Jack resumed his seat for the afternoon session. As it had been the previous day, the public gallery was less crowded after the dinner break than it had been during the morning session, and the expression on Wilde’s face as he resumed his place in the witness box seemed to somehow reflect his disappointment that he was not quite playing to a full house. If Carson was experiencing a similar sentiment, it didn’t show as he rose to his feet at the judge’s invitation and continued his cross-examination of Wilde where he had left off.

  ‘You told me this morning that you were intimate with Taylor, did you not, Mr Wilde?’ Carson began.

  Wilde frowned slightly as he replied. ‘I do not call him an intimate friend. He was a friend of mine. It was he who arranged the meeting of myself with Wood about the letters at his residence, 13 Little College Street. I have known Taylor since the early part of October, 1892. He used to come to my house, to my chambers, and to the Savoy. I have been several times to his house, some seven or eight times, perhaps.’

  ‘You used to go to tea parties there — afternoon tea parties?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jack’s stomach heaved slightly as he recalled the sordid scene inside Taylor’s squalid set of ground floor rooms in Chelsea, with the revolting boy Campbell lying naked in a stinking bed. Hardly the sort of ‘afternoon tea party’ that Wilde was anxious to describe, unless Taylor had very rapidly gone down in the world.

  ‘How many rooms did he occupy?’ was Carson’s next question, and the answer confirmed Jack’s suspicion that Taylor had recently experienced a downturn in fortunes.

  ‘He had the upper part of the house — two stories. He had a bedroom, a sitting-room, a bathroom and a kitchen. I think he did not keep a servant.’

  ‘Did he always open the door to you?’

  ‘No; sometimes he did; sometimes his friends did.’

  ‘Did his rooms strike you as being peculiar?’

  ‘No, except that he displayed more taste than usual.’

  ‘There was rather elaborate furniture in the room, was there not?’

  ‘The rooms were furnished in good taste.’

  Again, Jack was wondering whether or not they were describing the same Taylor that he had recently visited, until Carson’s next question revealed where he was heading.

  ‘Is it true that he never admitted daylight into them?’

  ‘Really, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Well, was there always candle or gas light there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever see the rooms lighted otherwise than by gas or candles whether by day or night?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘Did you ever see the curtains drawn back in the sitting-room?’

  ‘When I went to see Taylor, it was generally in the winter about five o’clock — tea-time — but I am under the impression of having seen him earlier in the day when it was daylight.’

  ‘Are you prepared to say that you ever saw the curtains otherwise than drawn across?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘It would not be true, then, to say that he always had a double lot of curtains drawn across the windows, and the room, day or night, artificially lighted?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Can you declare specifically that any daylight was ever admitted into the room?’

  ‘Well, I can’t say as to that.’

  ‘Who was there when you went in the daylight?’

  ‘I think Mr. Taylor only.’

  ‘Can you recall any specific time at which you saw daylight enter that room?’

  ‘Yes; it was a Monday in March. Nobody else was there. In the winter the curtains would naturally be drawn.’

  ‘Were the rooms strongly perfumed?’

  ‘Yes, I have known him to burn perfumes. I would not say the rooms were always perfumed. I am in the habit of burning perfumes in my own rooms.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Wood there?’

  ‘I saw Wood there only on one occasion when I met him at tea.’

  ‘Did you ever meet a man named Sidney Mavor there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘About twenty-five or twenty-six.’

  ‘Is he your friend still?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you know that Taylor had a lady’s costume — a lady’s fancy dress — in his rooms?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever see him with one on?’

  ‘No. I was never told that he had such dresses. He is a man of great taste and intelligence, and I know he was brought up at a good English school.’

  ‘Is he a literary man?’

  ‘I have never seen any created work of his.’

  ‘Did you discuss literature with him?’

  ‘He used to listen. He was a very artistic, pleasant fellow.’

  ‘Was he an artist?’

  ‘Not in the sense of creating anything. He was extremely intellectual and clever, and I liked him very much.’

  ‘Did you get him to arrange dinners at which you could meet young men?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you have dined with young men?’

  ‘Often. Ten or a dozen times, perhaps, at Kettner’s, the Solferino, and the Florence.

  ‘Always in a private room?’

  ‘Generally, not always; but I prefer a private room.’

  ‘Did you send this telegram to Taylor: “Obliged to see Tree at five o’clock, so don’t come to Savoy. Let me know at once about Fred. Oscar”?’

  ‘I do not recollect it.’

  ‘Who was Fred?’

  ‘A young man to whom I was introduced by the gentleman whose name was written down yesterday. His other name was Atkins.’

  ‘Were you very familiar with him?’

  ‘I liked him. I never had any trouble about him.
’

  ‘Now, did you know that Taylor was being watched by the police?’

  ‘No, I never heard that.’

  ‘Did you know that Taylor and Parker were arrested in a raid upon a house in Fitzroy Square last year?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you not know that Taylor was notorious for introducing young men to older men?’

  ‘I never heard that in my life. He has introduced young men to me.’

  ‘How many has he introduced to you?’

  ‘Do you mean of those mentioned in this case?’

  ‘No; young men with whom you afterwards became intimate.’

  ‘About five.’

  ‘Were these young men all about twenty?’

  ‘Yes; twenty or twenty-two. I like the society of young men.’

  ‘Among these five did Taylor introduce you to Charles Parker?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you become friendly with him?’

  ‘Yes, he was one with whom I became friendly.’

  ‘Did you know that Parker was a gentleman’s servant out of employment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But if you had, you would still have become friendly with him?’

  ‘Yes. I would become friendly with any human being I liked.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘I should say he was about twenty. He was young, and that was one of his attractions.’

  ‘Was he intellectual? Was he an educated man?’

  ‘Culture was not his strong point. He was not an artist. Education depends on what one’s standard is...’

  ‘Did you become friendly with Parker’s brother?’

  ‘Yes. They were my guests, and as such I became friendly with them.’

  ‘On the very first occasion that you saw them?’

  ‘Yes. It was Taylor’s birthday, and I asked him to dinner, telling him to bring any of his friends.’

  ‘Did you know that one Parker was a gentleman’s valet, and the other a groom?’

  ‘I did not know it, but if I had I should not have cared. I didn’t care two pence what they were. I liked them. I have a passion to civilize the community.’

  ‘What enjoyment was it to you to entertain grooms and coachmen?’