by M. J. Trow
When they settled into their seats after the bell, they could almost feel the tension in the air. Although Maskelyne took great pains to vary his show from night to night there were a few set pieces which he was never without, and one of them took up almost all of the second half. He had started his career as an unmasker of fraudulent mediums, and he had turned to the stage only to fund this, his main work. So, to show the naive public just what could be done, he staged a seance there on the stage. Sadly, his plan had come to bite him, because all he had done was make many more people believe in the Great Hereafter. Now he was between the Devil and the deep blue sea; to continue and therefore make money, or to stop performing and have no money to do what he saw as God’s work. No one in the audience saw him sigh, but sigh he did.
Batchelor was leaning forward, anxious not to miss a moment. The magician sat, centre stage and under a single, unforgiving spotlight, as Hetty and her helpers shackled him to the chair. They tied bells to his fingers and placed his feet in a heavy box, which they also locked. Then, they put a velvet bag over his head and brought in a table, which they placed in front of him. Muffled by the bag, the front rows were lucky enough to hear him speak, and they could have attested, if asked, that Hetty repeated his words accurately, down to the smallest comma.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘You have seen me shackled and confined by Hetty, and I can assure you, I cannot move, nor can I see anything. My hearing, too, is muffled. In a moment, Hetty will spin the chair and will stop it when the drum stops rolling.’ As he said that, the drummer started a roll, on a gradual crescendo. ‘I will then,’ Hetty translated, raising her voice to be heard over the drumming, ‘not even know which way I am facing. But—’ And here Hetty raised her arm dramatically. ‘I will still be able to appear all over the theatre, wherever any poor soul who has lost a loved one might need my comfort. Spin!’ And with that Hetty grabbed the back of the chair and spun it round and round on its castors while the drum rolled ever louder and then stopped, with a silence like a crash. Hetty grabbed the chair and brought it to a halt, with Maskelyne facing the back prompt corner. She took up his tale.
‘I will now meditate, and the spirits will come to me. If everyone who has lost a loved one would please concentrate on that person, it will help me to find their spirit. The spirits are crowding round … wait, wait, don’t push or …’ Suddenly, the magician arched his back and howled. ‘The pain,’ they all heard him cry. ‘The pain. My legs. Not my legs.’
Somewhere in the audience, a woman screamed. ‘Is that my Nancy?’ she cried. ‘My little Nancy!’
The audience all craned round to look at her, and there was a gasp as they saw, standing by her side, Maskelyne, with a pale hand on her shoulder, his head bowed, chin on chest. ‘Do not distress yourself, madam,’ his deep voice rumbled. ‘Nancy is at peace.’
A cry from the stage had everyone turning back – how could this be? The man was on the stage, his black bag still over his head, his hands shackled, his feet enclosed in his box. ‘Water. Water is everywhere. Can’t breathe. Can’t …’ Hetty rushed over to where the magician was struggling in his bonds. She bent over him, then walked to the front of the stage and spoke to the audience, shielding her eyes to see over the limelight. ‘The Great Maskelyne has a spirit here who met his death through water. Does that mean anything to anyone?’ The audience muttered and looked at each other, but no one stood up or spoke. The magician called again. ‘Not drowning, the spirit is saying. But water. Water on the lungs. Is that making sense to anyone?’
Behind Batchelor and Grand, up in the back of the balcony, a man stood up and called out. ‘My mother,’ he said. ‘She died of water on the lungs. She couldn’t breathe, in the end.’ He sat back down and, sure enough, behind him, lit with a graveyard glow, Maskelyne stood, his hands above the man’s head in benediction.
Hetty spoke again. ‘She says to let her go,’ she said, turning every now and again to listen to the man behind her. ‘It wasn’t your fault. You had to go out sometimes, and it was not your fault she died.’
The man had his face in his hands, and the magician gave his shoulder a pat before melting into the darkness.
Again, the audience was still, all eyes on the dark figure slumped on the stage. Then, the man sat up straight and seemed to grow taller. A deep, sonorous voice rang out, not muffled by the bag. Hetty started and stepped aside, the better to watch what was happening.
‘I will be avenged!’ the voice said. ‘The man who will avenge me is here tonight. I will be avenged. And I should like to see Jerusalem.’ The voice rang around, waking up echoes in the Alhambra’s furthest corners and making the dust fall like magical snow in the spotlight. Batchelor looked at Grand, with eyes wide, but the American seemed to have missed the significance of the pronouncement. Then, Batchelor’s eyes opened even wider, because, at the end of their row, stood Maskelyne, dark shadows under his eyes and a white and quivering finger pointing, pointing at Grand. He nudged his friend, but when he looked again, the magician had gone.
The rest of the show passed in somewhat of a blur for Batchelor. He saw but did not see the spinning tables, the flights of doves, the playing cards flying out from under Hetty’s tiny skirt as she was spun like a top by Maskelyne, using just the power of his mind. All he could think about was that ghoulish figure, standing at the end of the row, pointing, pointing at the unsuspecting American by his side. Finally, as the orchestra struck up ‘God Save the Queen’, Grand turned to the ex-journalist with a smile.
‘James,’ he said, ‘you are so gullible.’
‘Gullible?’ Batchelor was hurt. He hoped he was no more gullible than the next man – less so, indeed. Maskelyne was a marvel, there was no doubt about it. If he, Batchelor, had ever doubted the afterlife, he didn’t do so now; Maskelyne had pierced the veil and knew what men should not.
‘It’s a trick,’ Grand said, kindly. ‘It’s all a trick. I’ve seen snake oil salesmen perform the same or better a dozen times.’ He looked closer at Batchelor. ‘Don’t forget that we are only here so we can search the place. Don’t lose sight of that.’
Batchelor gave himself a little shake and tried to throw off the Maskelyne glamour. ‘Of course,’ he said, adjusting his tie. ‘But you didn’t see him, Matthew. He was standing there. Pointing!’
‘Yes, yes,’ the American said, patting Batchelor on the shoulder. ‘Now, we need to go with the crowd and then slip out when we have a chance, through any door that looks as though it might lead backstage. Stay close – we shouldn’t get separated.’
There was no fear of that. Batchelor was impressed by what he had seen that night and not a little disconcerted. If Maskelyne could draw aside the veil so simply, could he be sure he had drawn it back again? Were there spirits even now prowling around, looking for a home, looking to live again? Batchelor followed in Grand’s footsteps, treading on his heels from time to time in his eagerness not to be left behind.
As they made their way down from the balcony, past the bar and the auditorium, Grand began to wonder if in fact he had miscalculated and that there was no backstage entrance. Then, he suddenly saw it. Just behind the box office, a small and unassuming door, with no signs or labels to say where it went. It also had an ordinary handle, not a lock or bolt or anything to draw attention to it. Sliding effortlessly out of the press of people, all of them still muttering and whispering in their awestruck remembrance of the show, Grand was through the door in seconds, leaving Batchelor to flounder in his wake. The door slammed shut behind them, and both men held their breath but no one came running.
It was dark back there, behind the scenes, but neither of them wanted to risk a light. Reaching out with both hands, Grand found a wall to his left, and he turned over his shoulder and hissed instructions to Batchelor, passing on skills learned in battle and brothel alike; how to move silently and not be found out.
‘Slide your feet,’ he hissed into Batchelor’s ear. ‘Walk your fingers along the wall to find your wa
y. Don’t hurry; more haste, less speed. Hold on to my coat hem and don’t let go. Come on. Easy does it.’ He turned and inched his way through the room. There was something about the atmosphere that told him that this was not a big space, and sure enough, after only a few yards, his questing fingers found a door jamb, and in it a door. He turned the handle with infinite slowness and inched the door open, applying his eye to the crack. The dark was less intense on the other side, and he could see a flight of stairs going down and, at the bottom, a corridor which was quite floodlit by comparison. With his finger to his lips he turned to Batchelor and pointed forwards and down, to show what they must do next.
Step by agonizingly slow step they went down the stairs and stopped just short of the first bend in the corridor. For the first time, they could hear voices, and the voices all seemed to be having a good time. There was laughter, the chink of glass on glass and muted music. Grand turned again to Batchelor and raised an eyebrow. He beckoned him closer so that he could whisper in his ear.
‘Sounds like a party,’ he mouthed. ‘Let’s see if we can blend in.’
Batchelor drew back and shook his head. ‘No,’ he whispered back. ‘I can’t do that. They’ll know at once that I’m not theatre folk. You go; I’ll stay here and keep watch.’
‘Keep watch?’ Grand was so frustrated that he almost spoke out loud. ‘What for?’
‘People,’ Batchelor said, then, so quietly no one could have heard it, ‘things.’
Grand shrugged, then, tugging his jacket into place, stepped out of the shadows and straight into some kind of nightmare. Standing not two feet away from him, John Nevil Maskelyne, sometimes called the Great, was leaning on Hetty’s shoulder, whispering something in her ear. That it was scurrilous was beyond question, because Grand heard a few words and almost blushed, soldier though he was. Hetty flicked him with her boa and walked away laughing, and Maskelyne straightened up. But that was not the nightmare. The nightmare came from the fact that there was not one, not two, not three but many Maskelynes, dotted in various poses all around the room, most of them with a girl on his arm. Doves sat on every place that offered a perch, quietly adding their own special touches to the decor and, over in the corner, the woman of the portrait was talking to the man who had thrown her the rose. Grand had expected trickery, but not on this scale. Anyone who could arrange a spectacle such as this and yet arouse no suspicion, even in people who watched him night after night, could easily be Grand’s man, although the slim youngster who stood watching the room just a few feet from him was not the man of Ford’s Theatre. Even so, Grand smelt, along with the greasepaint and faint whiff of sulphur, something that also smelled of conspiracy and corruption. He backed out slowly, turned Batchelor around, and pushed him towards the stairs, the light and sanity.
‘Smoke and mirrors, James, my boy,’ Grand whispered as their feet padded on the treads. ‘The grand deception. If ever you want a story to unmask Maskelyne …’
SIXTEEN
It was raining on Kensal Green the next morning, as it always seemed to rain when mourners said their farewells to the dead. No expense had been spared when Auntie Bettie laid her girls to rest. Three black hearses, each pulled by sable horses, the ostrich plumes nodding on their heads, rattled slowly through the cemetery’s yawning gates on their way to their resting places. Not even Auntie Bettie’s purse could run to the catacombs here, but Effie and Marie and Francine would have to lie side by side for eternity in a small vault to the left of the carriage drive, under the sheltering arms of a yew.
Behind the last hearse, its coachman and pall-bearers with black weepers trailing down their backs, Auntie Bettie led a procession of her girls, all on foot, the sodden grass soaking their black dresses. For once they had abandoned their bright apparel and lowered their hems, as respectable women did. No sense in outraging society in this hallowed place, and Auntie Bettie was conscious of the susceptibilities of the vicar, a kindly old soul who had never got out much.
Weeping angels carved in stone watched the mourners glide by. Broken columns jutted to the leaden sky. The rain bounced off the feathers and hat-brims of the girls, but none of them carried an umbrella, holding their heads high as they passed the tombs of the great and good. Bishops and engineers and poets and soldiers lay here, their names carved in marble under Gothic canopies and crawling gargoyles. Willow trees shed their tears to the ground, and the hearses halted by the little chapel as the pall-bearers hoisted their sad loads and carried them over the sodden turf.
The cold light of the morning flashed on the brass fittings, and the cemetery’s bell tolled solemnly for the dead girls’ passing. At the side of the path, another group of women stood waiting, dressed in black like Bettie’s meandering column, though fewer in number. The tall, hard-faced woman at their head crossed the grass to Bettie.
‘Eleanor,’ Bettie said, nodding to her.
‘Good morning, Bettie,’ Lady Eleanor said. ‘We’ve never been friends, you and I, but this … I hope you’ll allow me and my girls to pay our respects.’
Auntie Bettie had cried so much in her life that she had no tears any more. But an iron lump swelled in her throat as she answered. ‘That’s kind,’ she said.
‘Well,’ Richard Tanner muttered to John Hunter at the edge of the crowd, half hidden by the yews. ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day.’
‘No more did I,’ Hunter said with a nod. ‘Bettie and Eleanor walking arm-in-arm. Makes you wish you had a camera.’ Hunter was by way of being a camera enthusiast, and the things he knew about collodion dry plates could make your eyes water.
Tanner didn’t really know why he was here. The entire West End, it seemed, had heard the rumour that Auntie Bettie was burying her girls in style. If they had ever had any real family, they stayed away. Only Bettie was their family now; her, and the other girls who sobbed over their graves. But if the West End had heard the rumour, why not the man who had put these girls into the ground? It was the longest shot in a detective’s handbook, that the murderer might just turn up to gloat over the sorrow caused by his handiwork.
‘Well, now.’ Tanner’s eyes narrowed as he peered under the rim of the umbrella he and Hunter shared. ‘There’s a pair I didn’t expect to see. Or did I?’
Beyond the group who huddled around the grave as Kensal’s ingenious little machine lowered the coffins to the dark earth one by one, two men stood bareheaded in the downpour, watching the solemnities.
‘I didn’t think I’d be at another funeral so soon,’ Matthew Grand said. All this was a far cry from the military spectacle along Pennsylvania Avenue with its Negro mourners and gun carriages and white horses. The vicar and the undertakers’ mutes, their faces white with greasepaint, were the only men here.
‘Sorry to drag you to this one,’ Batchelor murmured. ‘I just wondered …’
‘Whether the killer might be here?’ Grand finished the sentence for him.
‘Just imagine,’ Batchelor said, ‘if John Wilkes Booth had carried out his act in secret; if no one knew who killed Lincoln. Wouldn’t he have been there, in the crowd? The great actor as tragedian, weeping tears of pure joy as the President passed?’
Grand nodded. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said. ‘Say—’ he was staring into the distance – ‘isn’t that …?’
‘Good God!’ Batchelor scurried over the grass as far as the solemnity of the place and the time would let him, and he heard his boots crunch on gravel. Under the rim of another umbrella was a face he and Grand knew.
‘Joe Buckley.’ Batchelor shook the man by the hand.
‘Hello, Batchelor,’ the journalist said, smiling. ‘If I’d known you would be here I wouldn’t have bothered.’
‘You’re covering this for the Telegraph?’
Buckley nodded. The rain had trickled down his neck inside his collar, and he felt his head muzzy with an incipient cold. ‘Leigh Hunt’s got an attack of the sentimentals. I’m supposed to talk to these women and get their insights. He’s suddenly
realized there are females in the world.’
‘Can’t you do that at the Haymarket?’ Batchelor asked. ‘Any night of the week?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure that the old hypocrite knows his staff frequent the place. Anyway, this is difficult, isn’t it?’ He scanned the huddle of girls comforting each other, drying tears and blowing noses. ‘Without their paint, they look almost human. You couldn’t …?’
‘No, thank you, Buckley.’ Batchelor stepped back from him. ‘I don’t work for the Telegraph any longer, remember? Anyway, I’ve done your job for you once too often.’
‘Ingrate,’ Buckley muttered, scribbling on his notepad and juggling it and his umbrella in an attempt to keep the pages dry.
Batchelor and Grand crossed back to where they had been standing only to find two officers from London’s finest waiting for them.
‘Gentlemen.’ Tanner tipped his hat. ‘Not, all in all, a good day. May I ask what you are doing here?’
‘Come to pay our respects,’ Batchelor said. ‘You?’
‘The same,’ Tanner lied. ‘But, seeing as how you’re here, Mr Batchelor, might I have a word?’
‘He wants you to do what?’ Edwin Dyer nearly dropped his glass in the Haymarket’s bar that night. The rain was still pounding on the glass roof and cascading into the alleyways outside.
‘You heard.’ Batchelor sat back, his feet crossed on the table. ‘I am to write a series of articles exposing the hypocrisy of the swells who hang around this place. Over there, for instance. Isn’t that Lord Herbury?’
‘The third earl,’ Gabriel Horner chipped in. ‘Got a fancy for anything under fourteen.’
‘And there.’ Batchelor pointed to a large man in a silk topper.
Horner recognized him. ‘Marquis of Grendlesham. Likes a little light chastisement of an evening.’
Batchelor looked at the old soak. ‘Shouldn’t you be doing this job, Gabriel?’ he asked. ‘You seem to know everybody’s peccadilloes.’