by Lear, James
“An unfortunate collision with a cocktail cabinet, you said.”
“Cocktail cabinet, my arse. That’s what that goon from the studio told me to say, to avoid scandal. Actually, someone crept up on me and hit me over the head. Nearly cracked my skull.” He parted his hair to show the wound. “Fortunately, it won’t show up on stage, at least I hope not.”
“And what happened tonight?”
“I don’t know. I was right as rain this afternoon, just the usual nerves, nothing much. I never eat before a performance because I always get the shits if I do. Forgive me if I speak plainly.”
“I’d much rather you did.”
“So it can’t have been anything I ate. I mean, a funny oyster or something.” I took his pulse; it was fast and erratic, but nothing too alarming. He was not about to drop dead.
“Have you taken anything? Any medication?” I wondered if he, like his Rob Roy costar and, apparently, Prince George’s friend Kiki Preston, was a drug addict.
“Certainly not. I’m fit as a fiddle. And if you are driving at what I think you’re driving at, no, I haven’t sniffed or injected anything, swallowed it, or stuck it up my bum, as I believe some people do. I can’t stand all that stuff.” He scowled.
“When did you become ill?”
“Just now. Twenty minutes ago. Just before we were due to go on. I have a little ritual when I’m going on stage. I do a few limbering-up exercises, then I wash, and dress, and do my makeup. Then I warm up the voice. There’s a lot of words in this, you know, and it wouldn’t do to get hoarse in the final act.”
“How do you do that?”
“The usual rubbish, la la la la up and down the arpeggios. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A quick gargle with Listerine, to nobble any germs that might be lurking, and, incidentally, to sweeten the breath for my leading lady.”
“Do you swallow?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Listerine.”
“Oh, I see. Well, no. I sloosh it around, one, two, three, and then I spit it into the sink.”
“Do you have the bottle here?”
“No. My dresser has it. He’s squireled it away somewhere. I usually have a quick glug in the interval.”
“Did you use a glass?”
“Why? What’s the big emergency?”
“Did you, or didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course. I don’t swig from the bottle. Here. This is the one.”
I took the glass and sniffed it. It stank of mouthwash, of course—but wasn’t there just the faintest whiff of almonds? And that could mean only one thing.
“What happened when you became ill?”
“I was just opening telegrams and signing photos, the usual stuff you do before you go on, when I felt terribly weak. I thought it might be first-night nerves, although usually I don’t go for that kind of rubbish. Then I felt giddy, and I thought I was going to faint.”
“What sort of giddy?”
“As if I was standing on the edge of a cliff, with a great big sheer drop beneath me.”
“Vertigo. That makes sense.”
“What the bloody hell is happening to me, doctor?”
“You’ve been poisoned. I’m almost certain that it’s cyanide.”
“Fuck me! Cyanide! Isn’t that rather…well, dangerous?”
“It’s extremely dangerous. Not to mention lethal.”
“Shit. Am I going to die?”
“No. If you were going to die, you’d be dead by now. You’ve had a very lucky escape. Can you breathe properly?”
“It’s coming back. I felt terribly winded just before you got in.”
“Your pulse is slowing down. I think you’re going to be all right. But you must go straight home and rest.”
“Not on your life. I’ve got to go on. Can’t let the audience down, old chap. First rule of the theater.”
“But Mr. Taylor, someone has tried to kill you.”
“Well, in that case, the safest place for me is out there, isn’t it? I’m on nearly all the time. Perhaps while we’re doing Act One, the police could have a little sniff around and see who’s trying to do the dirty. It’s really most inconvenient, tonight of all nights. We have some rather important guests.”
“So I saw.”
And, as if on cue, the door burst open and there, looking resplendent in his uniform, stood His Royal Highness Prince George, fourth son of King George V.
“Hugo! Christ! Are you all right?”
“Georgie!”
The Prince rushed toward Taylor, who sat wilting on his chair, much like the consumptive heroine of the play in which he was about to appear, and embraced him.
“Whatever is the matter with him? And who are you?” He looked me up and down, with somewhat more interest than I imagined a royal personage would have for a commoner.
“This is Doctor… Er… I’m sorry, old chap, I forgot your name.”
“Mitchell. Edward Mitchell.” I shook the Prince’s hand. “Mitch, to my friends.”
“Well, Mitch. I wonder if you know my friend, Miss Preston? She’s American too.” He spoke rather like Lady Antonia: Ameddican.
“I don’t believe so.”
“George, for Christ’s sake, that’s like asking if you know some crofter in the Outer Hebrides just because he happens to be British.”
“It’s quite possible that I do,” said the Prince. “One meets so many people.”
When he smiled, he was dangerously handsome—quite as much as Hugo Taylor. What an attractive couple they made…
“Is he ill, Mitch?”
“He’s had a very lucky escape.”
“Yes, yes, well, enough of that, George doesn’t need to hear the gory details. Dodgy oyster for lunch, you know. Nothing serious.”
I didn’t contradict him.
“I say, do you need a little something to get you through the evening? You know… A little livener…”
“No thank you,” said Hugo, rather primly. “You know my opinion of all that.”
“As you like it. But I’m sure that the good doctor would agree that cocaine is an excellent stimulant and that its harmful effects have been greatly overexaggerated.”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
Perhaps the Prince was not used to straight answers, particularly of the negative variety. He looked quite taken aback.
“There, Georgie, you see? Not everyone shares your taste for danger.”
“Well, well. As long as you’re all right. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Thank you, old chap. Now leave me in peace to pull myself together. I trust I will see you at the party?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“With La Preston, I presume?”
“She is ever at my side.”
“How tiresome for you.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Kiki’s fun. She knows how to enjoy herself, I’ll say that much for her.”
“You play with fire, Georgie.”
“One of the very few advantages of being a member of the House of Windsor is that one is flameproof. Toodle-pip.”
He saluted, and left.
“Bloody idiot,” muttered Hugo. “Now, tell me, Mitch. Am I going to get through this evening, or am I going to puke all over the orchestra?”
“How do you feel?”
“Shaky. Bit of a headache. Like the worst bloody hangover in the world, with none of the fun that goes with it.”
“You’ll survive. Once you’re on stage you’ll feel better. And, as you say, no one is going to murder you in full view of the audience.”
“I bloody well hope not, unless Tallulah is part of the conspiracy.”
“You think there’s a conspiracy?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it for a minute. They’d like to get rid of the whole lot of us.”
“They? Who are they? And who are ‘us’ for that matter?”
“The bloody fascists,” he said, blotting his forehead wi
th a tissue. “A thoroughly troublesome group of people. They disapprove of the kind of company that George keeps. They don’t like the royal family being sullied by a bunch of actresses and foreigners and queers. They don’t like queers, you know.”
“Ah.” That would explain the presence of Lady Antonia in the audience. She was not there to cheer Hugo Taylor, and she certainly didn’t look the Bankhead type.
“I am one.” He continued making up at the mirror.
“A fascist, or a queer?”
“The latter. There. I’ve shocked you.”
“The only thing that would shock me would be if someone as handsome as you wasn’t.”
He turned and looked me steadily in the eye. “Ah. I see. Well, in that case, Mitch, perhaps I will see you at the party…and afterward.”
“Afterward?”
“There is a little soiree that I have arranged for my intimate friends. What we would call a ‘hair down’ kind of event. I hope you can come.”
“Be delighted. Where is it?”
“A little place in Russell Square. The Rookery Club.”
“I have to talk to you,” I whispered to Bertrand when I got back to the box.
“And I to you.”
As soon as the curtain was up and the play under way—and I must say that Hugo Taylor was in excellent form; no one in the audience would have guessed that he had been a recent victim of attempted cyanide poisoning—I slipped out into the corridor, and Bertrand followed me.
“Something is wrong,” I said.
“Yes. For one thing, Bankhead is completely miscast. And the décor—paff! So bourgeois. Taylor is pas trop mal, although he acts with his head, like all English actors, not from the heart—”
“I don’t mean wrong with the play. I mean there’s something going on here. Some connection with what happened on the train.”
“What did Taylor tell you?”
I gave a quick résumé of Taylor’s suspicions concerning the British Fascists, and told him where the private party was to be held.
“And that’s the very club where Andrews and Rhys used to go. It’s too much of a coincidence. Not to mention the fact that that old dragon Lady Antonia, a prominent member of the British Fascist party, who takes an active interest in the private life of the royal family, is here in the audience tonight—”
“The smell of a rat, yes?”
“A great big nest of rats. And I have a feeling that King Rat is none other than our friend, Peter Dickinson.”
“To think, I let that man put his finger in my hole.” He shuddered with disgust. “Dégueulasse.”
I’d heard him use that word in connection with Simmonds, his new love, but thought I unwise to remind him of the fact.
“And what did you have to tell me, Bertrand?” I braced myself for some declaration of passion, or at least a lurid description of their antics at the Regal Hotel, but Bertrand was much more useful than that.
“They have searched the…what is it? Le chemin.”
“The chimney?”
“Non… That on which runs the train.”
“The track.”
“Ça. The track.”
“And they found the finger?”
“Non. Exactly that. They found not the finger, not the knife, in short, nothing at all.”
“That’s either a lie, or someone has concealed them. Who told you?”
“Thomas spoke to his friend at Kings Cross Station.”
“Your Thomas has very useful friends.”
“Indeed. More useful than that, even.”
“Why?”
“He told him… Mais, chut!”
He grabbed me and pushed me through a door that led to the stairs.
“What’s going on?”
“Him! Dickinson!”
“Here? Did he see us?”
“I think not.”
“What is he doing here?”
“I don’t know, but I do not like him.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“Ah! Enfin! You have changed your advice, I see.”
“There’s something wrong. Something too convenient about everything. The way he befriended us…”
“Yes, after one smile you were ready to allow him—”
“And let us not forget, Bertrand, that it was your ass he had his fingers up.”
“C’est vrai.” He peeked through the door. “It is well. He is passed. He did not see us.”
“Now what were you going to tell me? What else did Thomas’s friend say?”
“He said that there is another tunnel. A second one.”
“You don’t say!”
“Evidemment. There is the normal tunnel, the one that everyone goes through, the one in which we were stopped the first time. But then there is another one, running in parallel, built into the side of the hill. It is very rarely used.”
“What the hell did anyone want to build another tunnel for?”
“In case of emergencies. If a train was stuck, for instance, they change the…quoi? Les aiguilles. To change the direction of the things…the tracks.”
“Ah. The switch. They change the switch.”
“And whoop! The train can go into the second tunnel. Out of the way. And safe from any collision.”
“Or, in this case, it can be hidden.”
“Bien sûr. So you think as I think—”
“That they reversed into the second tunnel—”
“To dispose of the evidence—”
“And we were none the wiser—”
“Because we were so busy fucking—”
We were both speaking at once, the full horror of the situation dawning on us. Oh, we had been taken for a ride.
“We were in the dining car,” I remembered, “and the train was going backward, and suddenly we were thrown sideways. Remember?”
“Bien sûr. You knocked a bucket of ice into my lap. How could I forget?”
“That was it! That must have been when we went across the switch. And then I found the key to the bathroom and discovered Rhys’s body. How could I possibly have realized that we were in a different tunnel when I had that to deal with? And your Thomas—he was so shocked he nearly threw up.”
“Thomas knew nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure. Of that he has convinced me.”
“Did he know of the existence of the secret tunnel?”
“No. It has not been in use for many years. They say it was closed down during the war, in case German agents packed it with bombs, and poof!”
“But clearly it’s been opened up again.”
“This is what Thomas supposes.”
“But now, I am sure, it is closed again.”
“Peut-être. But his friend will investigate.”
“This friend of his is very useful. Is he trustworthy?”
“I think so, yes. He is like us.”
“What’s his name?”
“Arthur. Yes, you know him. The little boy.” Bertrand made a moue of disapproval. “I think he is a fool. But Thomas says he is not.” He shrugged—as he always did when dealing with some unpalatable truth. “It is not for me to choose his friends for him. What am I to him? Just a divertissement—”
“For God’s sake, Bertrand, the guy’s crazy about you.”
“About this, perhaps.” He slapped his ass. “But for the future—”
“Damn the future,” I said. “It’s the present I’m interested in. When will Arthur be able to search the tunnel?”
“Tonight, after the last run up to Edinburgh. He will take the mail train south. He has a friend at York—”
“I imagine he has friends everywhere.”
“And he will take him down there on a little wagon. He will telegram to Thomas the results, at the hotel.”
“So that’s what you’ve been doing all afternoon. I thought you were back at the hotel, fucking.”
“Some of the time, oui, on se baisait. But also, we work. We p
ay calls.”
“Come on. We can’t let Dickinson get away.”
“But La Bankhead! Hugo Taylor!”
“I’m sure they’ll survive without us.”
“Where are we going?”
“Backstage.”
It was not difficult to find Dickinson. We skirted the theater, picking up a large bunch of white lilies en route—they had been carelessly left in the foyer, doubtless for collection at the interval by some hysterical fan to fling across the footlights at Tallulah—and presented ourselves at the stage door.
“Flowers for Miss Bankhead’s dressing room,” I lisped to the door keeper, in what I thought was a passable impression of an English florist.
“Leave them here, sir.”
“Oh!” I let my hand flutter around my throat, as I had seen Francis do. “The idea! Miss Bankhead insists that we arrange them personally. N’est-ce pas, Bertrand?”
Bertrand let loose a stream of impassioned French, which convinced the doorkeeper that we were indeed of the flower-arranging classes. He waved us in with a barely concealed sneer of distaste.
I dumped the lilies in a fire bucket, and we crept along the corridor toward Hugo Taylor’s dressing room. He was on for most of the first act—but a light was burning in the room, and I could hear voices.
We stopped and listened.
“You want it?”
“Mmmmmh…”
“Where do you want it?”
“Up my arse.”
“Say please, sir.”
“Please, sir.”
One of the voices was Dickinson’s—and you can guess which. I thought I recognized the other, but I couldn’t place it.
There were more sounds of shuffling and slurping, and I got as near to the door as possible—close enough to spy through a crack.
Dickinson stood with his back toward me, his broad shoulders bent forward, one powerful arm working slowly back and forth. Before him, sitting awkwardly on the dressing table among Taylor’s pots of powder and paint, his pants around his ankles and his legs raised, was the familiar form of Billy Vain, whom I had met at the British-American “audition.” He was holding his pale white ass open as Dickinson worked a thick, spit-slick finger in and out of his pink hole.
“Please sir,” jabbered Billy, “please fuck me.”
“And what will you do if I do?”