Calloway considered his mental notes. ‘ ’Owarth,’ he supplied. ‘And then there’s that secretary or clerk or whatever he is.’ MacRae scowled.
‘Except that ’e’s afraid of ’is own shadder.’ Calloway dismissed them all with a wave of his hand. ‘Pity we can’t mark it down to the mob an’ let it go at that.’
MacRae shook his head. ‘That would not be right,’ he stated. ‘And that Irish printer didn’t do for that fellow Peterson in the Strand either. Nor can we hold Hyndman or Burns responsible for what some lunatic does on their behalf.’ He sighed and took another bite of steak-and-kidney pie.
‘Then wot do we do about it?’ Calloway asked.
‘We do our duty in Trafalgar Square,’ MacRae said, throwing coins on to the table. ‘And then we go back to Fleet Street tomorrow morning and find the murderer. Most murders are solved in the first twenty-four hours, in my experience,’ he added, as the two men settled themselves into their bowler hats, wrapped scarves around their necks, and set off for another night of coping with the unemployed.
It was dark when the two of them got to Trafalgar Square. Torches had been brought to augment the gaslight. The air was cold and damp, and puffs of steam punctuated the speakers’ exhortations as they declared their determination to wrest a decent day’s wages from their employers, as well as such luxuries as Sundays off, a week’s holiday in the summer, medical attention in case of an accident on the job, and some sort of pension plan, for those too old to work.
‘Move along there,’ MacRae ordered. ‘Sergeant, no more than ten people may listen to any one speaker at any time.’ The sergeant looked about him. There were ten constables to the right of him and another ten to the left. There were, by this time, several hundred men gathered in the square. Most were dressed in flashy suits of dittos, covered with dramatic greatcoats or overcoats, with a cape or two swirling about for variety. There were few men in workers’ corduroys out on the streets this night and fewer in the high collars and sack suits of shop clerks. Those worthy gentlemen had assessed the damage done to their establishments, mopped up what they could, and gone home to avoid the mobs rumoured to be descending once again on the West End.
The sergeant looked at MacRae again. ‘Move them off, sir?’
MacRae’s Glasgow burr sharpened. ‘Did ye no hear me? Move them off!’
The sergeant squared his shoulders and prepared to do his duty. ‘Move off, then,’ he ordered.
The men with the banners paid no attention to him. The men with the capes flung them back to reveal stout clubs and coshes.
‘I said, ’op it!’ The sergeant raised his baton.
‘We are doing no ’arm,’ the speaker called out. ‘We ’ave grievances, and we will be ’eard! The bosses, the capitalists, those who sit in the ’alls of power will listen to the voice of the masses!’
A full-throated roar of approval punctuated the statement.
MacRae squared his shoulders. It was going to be another long night. ‘The Riot Act was read last night,’ he told the speaker. ‘It is still in effect. You may have permission for a meeting, but it will be held with order!’
‘Riot Act or no, we will be heard!’
The blue-clad policemen moved forward. So did the crowd.
In a moment, the scene changed from one of wary confrontation to one of armed conflict. Clubs and batons were used with vicious abandon. The slushy remains of the previous night’s snow made for treacherous footing, and one man went down, shouting that he’d been murdered.
MacRae’s troops were outnumbered. The police fell back, while the protesters surged forward, banners waving, towards the clubs in the rarified sector of London.
They were met by a second squad, batons at the ready and Black Marias open to haul away those who could not escape.
MacRae watched with satisfaction as the organized protesters deteriorated into another mob. He had always known that London held the scum of the earth and here was proof of it. Clearing this lot away would be jam, he thought, as the Metropolitan Police fought the good fight, and the police vans carried load after load of protesters to the Bow Street Police Station.
From the windows of the clubs, restaurants, and hotels, reporters looked on the scene and scribbled their cryptic notes. These would be conveyed back to the night editors to be rewritten into workmanlike journalese. The morning editions would carry the news to all corners of London: The Masses Are on the March!
The echoes of the second riot in Trafalgar Square did not reach as far as the outer boroughs of London, where the staff of Youth’s Companion were preparing for their victory dinner.
In the flat above the Ristorante Monteverde in Saffron Hill, Roberto donned his most decorative waistcoat and preened before a mirror, while his mother urged him not to venture out when the armed mobs were ready to attack and his father demanded that he discover as many of the secrets of the Café Royal kitchens as he could.
In Pimlico, Winslow Howarth unearthed his dress suit, last worn at the wedding of his two dearest friends, David and Myrna Peterson, and informed Post-Office Polly that she must be a good girl and wait until he came home from Regent Street before she could get her nightly walk.
In Bloomsbury, Edgar Roberts shrugged himself into his least objectionable velvet jacket, soft shirt, and loosely tied cravat, and smirked at the preliminary sketches he had made while Miss Helen Harvey had been working at the office. With or without her approval, he was going to get his Queen Mab on canvas!
In their rooms off King’s Road, Miss Helen Harvey shook out her only silk dress and prepared for a night of festivity.
‘You cannot possibly attend a dinner at the Café Royal,’ Mrs Harvey stated flatly. ‘The place is notorious. What your father would say …’
‘If he were alive, he would be the first to accept the invitation,’ Helen said. ‘And you will note, Mother, that you are included in the invitation. Mr Portman is not totally lost to propriety.’
‘I cannot go. I am ill.’ Mrs Harvey coughed delicately into her handkerchief to prove it.
‘Then I will go alone,’ her rebellious daughter said with a decided toss of her head.
‘Helen! Think of your reputation!’
‘Mother, I am nearly twenty-five. I am as good as an old maid. I am not in society, and the few friends we have left will hardly be shocked to learn that I have dined with a party of gentlemen at a public restaurant.’
‘In a private room!’ Mrs Harvey reminded her.
‘Precisely,’ Helen said. ‘I’ve already decided. With you or without you, Mother, I am going to the Café Royal!’
At the Press Club, Mr Dodgson fussed about, muttering to himself. He had not expected to spend one night in London, let alone two. He had not expected to dine in public, even in a private room, and certainly not at the Café Royal. He felt uncomfortable in his borrowed dress suit and said so.
Dr Doyle was more sanguine. ‘I only wish Touie were here,’ he said. ‘I must tell her all about it when I get back to Southsea. She will be so disappointed to have missed our adventure.’
‘I would have preferred to do without it,’ Mr Dodgson said. ‘This is a dreadful business. I am truly sorry to have dragged you into it.’
‘I’m not,’ Dr Doyle said with a gleeful grin. ‘I’ve been speaking with some of the gentlemen downstairs. There’s a wild chap downstairs, an Irishman named Shaw, who’s got the most unusual views. And I believe you mentioned the collector of folklore, Mr Lang …’
‘Is he here? I thought he belonged to the Athenaeum.’ Mr Dodgson fiddled with his cravat.
‘He was very interested in my idea for a historical novel,’ Dr Doyle went on, oblivious to his older companion’s indifference.
‘Indeed.’ Mr Dodgson had completed his toilet and now faced Dr Doyle. ‘I believe I am dressed for dinner, Dr Doyle.’
Dr Doyle agreed. ‘And are you ready to reveal the name of the murderer, sir?’
Mr Dodgson nodded. ‘Oh, that is quite obvious. Almo
st elementary. The difficulty will be in proving it to the satisfaction of the police.’
‘I am sure you will be able to do it,’ Dr Doyle said, as the two men prepared to meet their colleagues in the lounge below.
‘And then,’ Mr Dodgson continued, as they descended the stairs, ‘we can both return to our homes and our own work.’
CHAPTER 24
The threat of mob violence may have led some of the hotels and restaurants in the West End to bar their doors and shutter their windows, but the Café Royal remained open for business. Mr Daniel Nichols, the determinedly royalist émigré who owned the Café Royal, had staunchly refused to give in to the canailles who rampaged in Trafalgar Square. He had decided that the Café Royal would remain open, defiantly and aristocratically, until he was carted off in a tumbrel!
His patrons had other ideas. They were not so willing as their host to lay down their lives in defence of good living. For the first time in many months there were tables to spare in the Grill Room, and private rooms were available upstairs. It was with great delight, therefore, that Mr Nichols was able to accommodate Mr Nicholas Portman in his sudden request for a small private room and dinner for a party of ten that would include two ladies. Accordingly, a small room was prepared, and the chef was alerted. The dinner would be arranged, and Mr Portman would be pleased.
Mr Portman had been to some pains to see to it that his female guests should not be put to the necessity of finding a cab in Chelsea. The Portman carriage had been dispatched to fetch Miss Harvey and her redoubtable mother to the Café Royal, while he waited with Mr Dodgson and Dr Doyle at the Press Club. There they stood in the lounge, discussing the events of the day and deploring the violence of the previous night, until Norwich entered with the expected message.
‘Mr Portman,’ the superior butler informed him, ‘the carriage has arrived.’
‘Good!’ Mr Portman gathered his two guests and herded them away from the rest of the gentlemen in the lounge. ‘We shall dine capitally at the Café Royal.’ He peered into the carriage. There was only one other occupant.
‘Miss Harvey?’ He checked again. ‘Where is your mother? I made certain to ask her to join us.’
Miss Harvey’s face could not be seen in the darkness of the carriage, but her voice had an edge to it as she replied, ‘Mother would not come out in this weather.’
‘I am surprised that you would attend a dinner at which you are the only lady,’ Mr Dodgson said, hesitating at the carriage door.
‘I have been the only female in male company before,’ Miss Harvey reminded him. ‘My father was used to having several students, young men who enjoyed his company and conversation, who would meet of a Sunday afternoon. I was often allowed to participate in the gathering.’
‘I see.’ Mr Dodgson edged into the carriage and took the seat opposite her, with Dr Doyle next to him, leaving Mr Portman the honour of sitting next to Miss Harvey.
Thomas made his way carefully around the crowds gathering in Pall Mall and skirted Trafalgar Square, muttering to himself about the foolishness of his master’s whim to dine out on this of all nights. Mr Dodgson peered out through the fog at the gathering mob, while Mr Portman chattered amiably with Miss Harvey, and Dr Doyle drank in the excitement of the moment.
The doorman at the Café Royal was always ready to turn the great revolving door for a party of three gentlemen and a lady, all in evening dress. He was, however, less cordial to the tall man in artistic attire and the man in the frock coat and florid vest who accosted the larger party just as they were coming in the door.
‘Mr Roberts, Mr Monteverde,’ Mr Portman greeted them with a cheerful wave of his hand that indicated that here were persons to be allowed into the lobby with the rest of his guests. ‘I see you managed to find the place.’
‘Hard to miss it,’ Roberts said. He looked lost without his ever-present sketchpad and pencil.
Monteverde assessed the establishment with a practised eye. ‘A little overdone, but not bad,’ he pronounced.
The revolving door turned once more. Mr Howarth had arrived, looking somewhat harried. ‘Have you seen the crowds in Trafalgar Square?’ he demanded. ‘It was all I could do to get the cab to go through them.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mr Dodgson fussed, ‘I sincerely hope we will not have a repetition of last night’s disturbance.’
‘And I hope we can find Inspector MacRae if we need him,’ Dr Doyle muttered.
‘I sent the good Inspectors MacRae and Calloway invitations to our dinner,’ Mr Portman said genially. ‘However, under the circumstances, I will not hold it against them if they do not attend. Their duties may take them elsewhere tonight.’
A scuffle at the door drew their attention. ‘I thought I told you lot to hop it!’ The doorman tried to thrust Mr Levin, resplendent in a brand-new evening suit, back through the door and into the crowd of youths in loud check suits and slightly shabby dress coats who persisted in hanging about in the street outside.
‘Levin!’ Mr Portman protested. ‘Hi, doorman, that’s my secretary you have there! Let him in!’
Mr Levin turned the revolving door once more to place himself firmly in the lobby, with all the aplomb of one who knows he is an invited guest and not an interloper. He rubbed his hands together and looked at the rest of the party in anticipation of the evening’s entertainment. ‘I thought I’d be late,’ he said with a gasp for air. ‘I see we’re all here.’
‘Except for Miss Harvey’s mother, who was indisposed,’ Mr Portman said. ‘And the policemen, who are otherwise occupied.’
Levin’s face turned pale, leaving two red patches on his cheeks as if they had been painted on. ‘I was not aware that any policemen would be joining us,’ he murmured.
‘And Oscar’s in the Grill Room, but he said he’d look in,’ Portman went on carelessly, as one of the page boys approached to relieve them of their overcoats, which were taken off, to be stored carefully against their owners’ return. Miss Harvey’s grey cloak was removed to reveal her evening dress of half-mourning, a pearl grey silk with a modestly high neckline and elbow-length sleeves, trimmed with silver braid caught up with black beads. Another of the page boys arrived to lead the group up the magnificent staircase, down the halls, and to the small room that had been assigned to them.
As they started the procession up the stairs, Oscar Wilde emerged from the Grill Room looking thoroughly upset in spite of the elegance of his evening dress, complete with green carnation thrust through his buttonhole.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Nicky,’ he said, sailing through the lobby like a ship in full steam. ‘That old f—’ He noticed Miss Harvey and amended his statement.
‘That old fright, Whistler, has gone his length. I knew he was jealous of my genius, but he has no right to be disgusting about it.’ Wilde fairly quivered with indignation.
‘Disgusting?’ Portman echoed.
‘He just said that I had regurgitated his thoughts and placed them before the public as if they had been original!’ Wilde’s face twisted in revulsion at the imagery.
‘Oh dear,’ Mr Dodgson murmured. It seemed inadequate to the occasion.
‘I shall not sit in that man’s company,’ Wilde decided. ‘I shall dine with you instead.’
‘I thought you were going to your wife’s tea party,’ Dr Doyle said, as they followed the page boy up two pairs of stairs to one of the small rooms on the upper floors of the building, where intimate parties could be held in comparative secrecy.
‘I did. I was polite to Constance’s friends, all of whom are crashing bores, with little to say and a great many words to say it in. I then dressed and told her that I had a very important dinner engagement and not to wait up for me,’ Wilde said with an expansive smile that included Miss Harvey and Mr Levin, who was lagging behind the rest of the crowd.
‘How fortunate that Mrs Harvey could not join us,’ Mr Portman said. ‘We have a spare place at the table for you, Oscar.’
‘Oh, there’s always
a place at the table for me,’ Wilde said with another of his expansive gestures.
‘Right ’ere, sir.’ The page boy indicated the door and allowed the dinner party to pass through. The private rooms at the Café Royal echoed the luxury of the more public rooms downstairs. The table was of the best mahogany; the chairs were comfortably upholstered; the table linen was of the finest; and the table settings were discreetly elegant. The service was equally discreet. Woe to the waiter who even breathed a hint of what he had seen or heard in one of the private rooms at the Café Royal! He would shortly find himself without a position and effectively blackballed by every elegant establishment in London, forced to retreat to the bywaters of Birmingham or Manchester.
The dinner party for Youth’s Companion might not have matched that for Punch in wit, but the conversation was kept going by Oscar Wilde, whose sallies had the rest of the company laughing through the various courses. True to his democratic sentiments, Mr Portman had requested a round table, so that there was no distinct head or foot. Nevertheless, there was a certain air of precedence. Mr Portman sat facing the door, with Miss Harvey at one hand and Oscar Wilde on the other. Mr Roberts sat next to Miss Harvey, with Mr Howarth next to him. Mr Dodgson had the place next to Mr Wilde, while Mr Levin had his back to the door, between Mr Monteverde and Dr Doyle.
The dinner was as delectable as expected. Mr Dodgson devoted his attention to it, while the rest chattered happily, forgetting both Samuel Basset and David Peterson until the cloth had been cleared and the fruit and cheese set out. Then Miss Harvey attempted to rise, as the sole female in the group, and do her social duty.
‘I must thank you, Mr Portman, for the opportunity to enjoy an evening out,’ she said. ‘But I know that you gentlemen are probably about to smoke and drink port, and while I may be in your company for dinner, I really must leave you to it.’
‘Miss Harvey,’ Mr Dodgson said, ‘we are not going to smoke or drink port. It is quite imperative that you remain at this table until I have finished speaking.’
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