The Back Passage

by James Lear

  I could feel that Morgan was getting close to coming, so I stopped sucking. There were questions that needed to be asked. I relinquished his cock, and pushed Morgan’s hand away as he made to finish himself off.

  “So every time one of your staff commits an indiscretion...?”

  “That footman was a very bad influence, sir. Before I could do anything about it, he’d spread the word to the rest of the staff. Soon they all knew the price of my silence, and I was spending more time watching them than I was attending to my other duties. The hours were punishing. It was perfectly all right if only one of them was performing for me, but sometimes there were two, or even three. I have to get up at five every morning to prepare for breakfast, sir, and sometimes I wasn’t getting to bed much before three.”

  “Exhausting for you, I’m sure. What happened to that footman?”

  “In the end it was he who decided to leave. Ran off with a local girl, leaving an awful lot of broken hearts upstairs.”

  “But the ‘surveillance’ continues, clearly.”

  “Well, sir...”

  I spread Morgan’s legs and showed Burroughs his pink, freshly washed hole, rubbing it and poking it with my fingers, which I wet with spit.

  “They take terrible advantage of an old man’s weakness. Hibbert, for example. Completely corrupted by the influence of that footman. One bad apple, you see. I have to discipline him twice a week, sometimes more.”

  “And he puts on a good show for you, I take it.”

  “Yes, sir, he’s a lovely little performer,” Burroughs said, forgetting to sound sad or ashamed. “Beautiful hairy little bum, doesn’t mind what he sticks up there. And squirts like a—” Suddenly he collected himself and cleared his throat. I worked a finger up Morgan’s ass, right to the knuckle, but still would not allow him to touch himself.

  “And what about Meeks? I take it he replaced the previous footman.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, now, Charlie Meeks. He is like a son to me. He’s a good boy. I’m very proud of him.”

  “So he doesn’t give you any cause for complaint?”

  “No, sir. Mrs. Ramage’s girls are quite safe with Charlie.”

  “You mean he’s...like us?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So how do you explain your spying on him, Burroughs?”

  “I don’t spy on him.”

  The crunch had come. I needed Burroughs to confess that his rampant voyeurism had gone well beyond any feeble pretense of “disciplining” his staff, and that he had been watching Meeks on the afternoon of the murder.

  “But I think you must, Burroughs.”

  “No, sir.”

  I pulled my finger out of Morgan’s hole and rearranged my robe so that my own thick erection was no longer visible. Morgan looked up, wondering what had happened to the pleasurable sensations; I don’t believe he’d been following Burroughs’s confession at all.

  “You mean, I think, that Meeks doesn’t know that you spy on him.”

  “Sir, I’ve told you, Charlie is like a son to me.”

  “Fathers don’t spy on their sons jerking off, Burroughs.”

  He looked uncomfortable. Had I gone too far?

  “I resent that remark, Mr. Mitchell.”

  “I apologize. But the fact remains, I think, that you still use the spy hole into Meeks’s room.”

  “I do not.”

  “Then how do you know where he was on the afternoon in question?”

  “I...”

  There I had him.

  “Do you want to see Morgan come, Burroughs? How would you like him to come? In my mouth?”

  Burroughs shook his head.

  “Over himself?”

  He nodded.

  “You want him to finish himself off while you watch?”

  “Yes, sir. Please.”

  “With his legs in the air, so you can see his shoes and socks?”

  “Yes...”

  Morgan needed no further instructions, and assumed the position. His hand went to his cock, but I grasped his wrist and prevented any movement.

  “Then tell me about Meeks.”

  “I can’t...”

  “You must. They’ll hang him otherwise.”

  “Well, sir...”

  I let go of Morgan’s wrist, and he started stroking himself; this was not going to take long.

  “You watch him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. I love watching him.”

  “And you saw him yesterday afternoon.”

  “All afternoon, sir. Oh, God.” Morgan was starting to writhe, and allowed one shod foot to hang over the side of the bed, right by Burroughs’s chair.

  “And you could swear to that?”

  “Don’t make me, sir.”

  “Swear to me, Burroughs. I have to know that you saw him there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Swear.”

  “I swear, sir.”

  And so did Morgan, who let out a quiet, prolonged “Oh, fuck...” before squirting over his stomach and chest. There wasn’t much spunk, but enough to keep Burroughs happy.

  “Yes sir, I swear it, I was watching him all yesterday afternoon, he was in his room with...”

  And then, as Morgan squeezed out the last drops of come from his cock and started rubbing it over his torso, we heard the very last thing in the world that we expected to hear.

  From the landing right outside our door, in tones that would have frozen water, came the voice of Lady Caroline Eagle.

  “Burroughs! Where are you, Burroughs!”

  I leaped off the bed and, dragging a dazed Morgan with me, retreated to the bathroom just before the door burst open. Burroughs busied himself with the tea things. Fortunately for him, he was a consummate actor.

  “Lady Caroline?”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “I have just served the young gentlemen tea.”

  I pressed my ear against the bathroom door.

  “Where are they?”

  “I believe they are dressing, madam.”

  Right on cue, Morgan flushed the toilet, disposing of yet another wad of sperm-soaked tissue.

  “Get downstairs this instant, Burroughs. We need you at breakfast.”

  There was silence, and I guessed that, unchecked, Lady Caroline’s bullying manner could make things very unpleasant for Burroughs. And so I burst through the bathroom door as if I was unaware of any female presence, my robe decently knotted.

  “Thanks for that, Burroughs, we’ll be down in—Oh, my goodness! Lady Caroline!”

  It worked. Confused, embarrassed, and utterly routed, she backed out of the room, muttering something incomprehensible about “the state of the silver.”

  Burroughs picked up the tray and followed her, winking as he closed the door.

  VII

  NOW, AT LAST, I HAD A CASE ON MY HANDS RATHER THAN just a few random suspicions and a lot of wishful thinking inspired by detective fiction. It was clear that Charlie Meeks, the Eagles’ first footman, who was currently being abused in police custody, had not killed the mysterious Reg Walworth. Not, at least, if Burroughs was to be believed—and I saw no reason to doubt the fundamental truth of his testimony. Even if he was untrustworthy on the details, I believed that he had been spying on Meeks at the time of the crime, and had told me in order to exonerate a young man whom he held in high esteem. I believed, in fact, that Burroughs’s feelings for Meeks went beyond the paternal butler-footman relationship that he had implied; I recognized something much more like love.

  Added to the abuse of Meeks at the police station, his refusal to complain or protest his innocence, the clumsy attempts by Leonard Eagle to divert my suspicions, and the general air of abstraction surrounding Sir James, it made up a very rich stew of suspicion indeed. And what exactly had Belinda Eagle seen that upset her so much? And why had her brother Rex absented himself from the scene of the crime so rapidly? Why was Lady Caroline so eager to prevent Burroughs from talking? What was the position
of Lady Diana Hunt, the frosty heiress who had arrived hotfoot from France as soon as the murder was public knowledge?

  I had to find out more, so I dispatched Morgan belowstairs to interview the domestic staff—I figured that his goofy bonhomie would work better with them, as they weren’t crazy about foreigners—and I set myself about extracting some information from the person I considered to be the heart of the problem, Sir James Eagle himself. He had been very welcoming when I first arrived at Drekeham Hall, and spoke expansively of his admiration for “the new world,” the energy of Americans, our business acumen, and so on and so forth, so I thought it not unreasonable to address myself to him disguised as an eager young scholar eager to drink at the teat of Mother England’s ancient wisdom.

  This proved easier said than done. Since the events of the previous afternoon, Sir James had withdrawn from family life, making perfunctory, moody appearances at meals and doing little more than grunting in response to any comment. He certainly didn’t have time for guests, and had closed himself in his study, where, his secretary said, he was busy working on a speech that he would be making to “the House” about the shocking state of pig farming in his Norfolk constituency. This sounded plausible enough—but it didn’t chime with the friendly, affable Sir James I had met a couple of days before, who had actually invited me to his study “any time you want to talk, old chap.” That, coupled with a manly clap on the shoulder, emboldened me to press my suit.

  The secretary occupied a strange position in the household, welcomed neither belowstairs as one of the domestic staff nor in the family dining room. He lived in his own quarters, a small guest room on the floor above that on which Boy Morgan and I had been billeted. His must have been a very lonely life, and I hoped to capitalize on this by offering the hand of friendship.

  “I’m afraid I must get on now,” the secretary said, attempting to usher me out of Sir James’s outer office. “I have so much correspondence to prepare for Sir James to sign tonight.”

  He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow, though in comparison to Cambridge athletes like Morgan, Rex Eagle, and myself he was a pretty puny specimen. Then again, compared with the feline, slim-hipped Leonard, he was masculine enough. He was slightly balding—just the first stages of hair loss, which gave him a widow’s peak of dark-brown hair. He was tall, pale-skinned, and short-sighted; overall, the impression was of a man who spends too much time indoors, and not enough of that time indulging in indoor sports. He can’t have been more than a couple of years older than me, but he would have passed for thirty. He wore a white shirt and a stylish herringbone vest and trousers; the jacket was hung neatly over a chair. His tie, with a large Prince of Wales knot, was loosened; these were his only concessions to the warm weather. I was dressed in as little as I could get away with—a short-sleeved shirt and baggy linen trousers.

  I was about to leave, conceding defeat in my attempt to penetrate the inner sanctum, when it occurred to me that Sir James’s personal secretary might be an even better source of information than Sir James himself, particularly given the young man’s parlous position in the household. Surely someone so friendless, so homeless, might be encouraged to talk to an affable young man like me? I thought this was particularly likely when I caught him addressing himself not to my face but to the tuft of black hair that protruded from the V of my shirt.

  “It must be great working with a man like Sir James,” I ventured, thinking that it must be anything but. “He’s a real force to be reckoned with. Not like the university men, living in an ivory tower. He’s in touch with what’s going on in the world. I envy you.”

  The secretary raised his eyebrows a little, but nodded. “Yes, Sir James is an excellent employer. I’m very lucky, as you say.”

  There was more to this than met the eye, and I remembered Burroughs’s statement that everyone in the Eagle household had a secret. Why not this pale-faced, serious young man as well?

  “I’d give anything to spend a couple of months in your shoes.”

  “Oh, would you indeed?” The secretary shot me a look in which sarcasm was mingled with embarrassment. Here was a man clearly not happy with his lot.

  “Sure I would. Access to all that real stuff, the powers that be, you know, the things that we never read about in the papers. The stuff that matters.”

  This time the secretary couldn’t contain himself, and let out a noise that is usually transcribed as “Pah!”

  “Oh. I guess it’s not as much fun as it looks, Mr....sorry, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Edward Mitchell.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Mitchell,” he said, taking my extended hand rather gingerly, as if he’d much rather not. His hand was warm and dry, which encouraged me; I feared that, like many bookish men I’d met at college, he would incline to clamminess. “I’m West. Vincent West.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Vince.”

  He winced at this familiarity, but at least he was no longer so eager to get me out of the room.

  “I’m sorry to disillusion you, Mr. Mitchell,” he said, lowering his voice, “because I thought the very same thing when I was your age, about to come out of Cambridge and enter the civil service. I dreamed of stalking the corridors of power, as you say. Of influencing public life from behind the scenes. Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way, as you can see.”

  “Looks good from where I’m standing.” Our eyes met, and then, with one accord, each of us dropped his gaze to the other’s crotch. It was one of those moments of mutual understanding which never cease to delight me.

  “Looks good from here as well,” West said in a whisper, blushing furiously. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, Mr. Mitchell, I must get on with this correspondence, or Sir James will have my guts for garters, as they say. But should you have no definite plans for lunch...”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then perhaps you would allow me to show you around the house? It’s one of my many duties, you see. I conduct tours for visitors, as and when they arrive. Oh, Drekeham Hall is full of historical wonders, very few of them, I might add, gathered by the present incumbents, who bought the whole lot outright a few years ago. Anything you need to ask me, I’ll do my best to answer your questions.”

  “That would be great,” I said, shaking him warmly by the hand once again, then refusing to relinquish my grip. We stood close. “I’m eager to learn as much as possible.”

  “Well, that will certainly make a refreshing change,” West said.

  The telephone rang, and I left him to answer it.

  Morgan had been dispatched belowstairs with a simple brief: to find out as much as he could about anything that was being discussed. To charm, to flirt, to blunder, in short to use his massive personal charms to gather information as a bee gathers pollen. I would sift the dross from the gold, I thought, and use my superior deductive powers to piece together “our” case.

  I’d arranged to meet him at the bottom of the garden, near the entrance to the woods into which Leonard had taken me; I thought it was time that Morgan was introduced to the pleasures of the swimming pool. There was time to kill before our eleven o’clock rendezvous, so I took advantage of the beautiful weather and the privacy of the gardens to indulge in a bit of sunbathing. This was something that English people in general did not do; the nearest they got to exposing their flesh to the sun was by donning an elaborate bathing costume. I, however, was accustomed to walking around shirtless at the very least—and I assumed that, with the house being in such uproar, nobody was going to mind a bit of American flesh. I wandered over the formal gardens to an area of lawn that was shielded from the main house by a row of laburnums, stripped off my top, and lay down to relax.

  It was a beautiful day, and Drekeham Hall was a beautiful place. The air was as fresh as it could be, a mixture of freshly cut grass, roses, and the all-pervasive tang of the nearby sea. The sky was a deep blue, broken only by a few puffy white clouds that sailed slowly by. Bees buzzed, birds chirped, and, occasionally, a door
would slam somewhere in the house. I was too comfortable on my patch of grass, too much in love with the simple pleasures of heat and light, to pay much attention to anyone’s comings and goings. If I lifted my head, I could see one of the gardeners in the distance mowing the lawn; so I had him, then, to thank for the delicious perfume in the air. He was doing a beautiful job, mowing in neat up-and-down strips, emptying the clippings in the woodland at the end of every circuit, finally leaning his mower against a tree and wandering off for a well-earned rest.

  I tried to concentrate on the case, putting together the few facts that I had so far gathered, but soon I found myself dreaming of the surfeit of sexual pleasures I’d had in the last twenty-four hours. Morgan in the cupboard and in the bathroom, Leonard in the woods, Shipton in the police station “bog,” then the whole night and the morning with Morgan and our little impromptu display for Burroughs—not to mention the guilty pleasure of watching Piggott’s fat, veiny club of a cock pushing up and down against Meeks’s handsome, martyred face...

  Suddenly the sun went away, and something hard and sharp dug into my crotch. I braced myself for fight or flight—but, looking up, I saw that I was under attack by nothing more sinister than Boy Morgan, who stood looking down at me with an expression of amused contempt, stirring my balls with the toe of his shoe.

  “Forgive me for not waiting all bloody morning,” he said, “but it’s nearly twenty past eleven. So much for our date.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said, sitting up and feeling distinctly woozy from too much sun. “I must have drifted off.”

  “I hope you were dreaming about me,” he said. “If anyone else makes you that stiff, I might get jealous.” And he was right; I was as stiff as a pole in my pants, as I often am on waking from slumber. It subsided quickly as I jumped to my feet.