the Club
They stole her life. Now she’s going to steal their future.
The call has finally come through from the Pritch, you see, with the name of one of the members of the Club. A colleague of Sir Patty, as we thought. “Took an awful lot of careful digging,” Pritch tells me. “Had to have been absolutely spit-spot. Couldn’t risk buggering a situation like this, going after the wrong man. Would’ve queered the whole deal.”
He’s absolutely, utterly certain, though, that he’s found the right bastard. Trust our clever dick to do it.
“We bugged all the rooms, his office, the telephones,” he explains to me, boasting only a little bit. He deserves a good gloat. “Easy as pie arranging entry, mind you; the servants are ever so deferential to uniforms. Phonemen, we said we were, imperative that we inspect the lines, thank you very much. Tell the maids they’re sweet and take them out for a drink or two. Buy them a little trinket. Ply the schedule out of them, like candy from a baby.”
And then break their poor little hearts, running off the way you did. Not nice, no, not nice at all.
I never said we were nice. Nice gets you nowhere.
We need only one, to put the fear of discovery in them. One leak to summon them and bring them all together for an emergency meeting of the Club council. It’s risky, certainly, but they’ve got no choice. Not after a few hints have been dropped about Sir Patty’s ignoble end.
We’re counting on their arrogance. After all, hasn’t their very particular organization run without a hitch, meeting once every three years like clockwork for hundreds of years? Even after Edward fell for that dreadful American and she threatened to spill the beans? Oh, perhaps one of the girls got a bit stroppy and needed a good talking-to; perhaps another went crying home to mommy and daddy and they filed a report with the police. But nothing ever came of it. Nothing is going to come of it now.
Pritch’s team of trustworthy snoops has been plotting with military precision; in fact, the whole bunch haven’t had so much fun since they were cracking codes during the war. I think the Pritch is the only one among us who’s magnificently happy right now. Guy certainly isn’t. He’s laying low, staying in a suite at the Connaught, and he meets with the Pritch one dismal, dank afternoon for a walk around Green Park.
Pritch eyeballs Guy carefully, then starts to whistle a tuneless song. “Got under your skin, has she?” he says conversationally.
“I shouldn’t think it that obvious,” Guy says morosely.
“She has that effect on people,” Pritch replies. “Mind you, I only met her the once. In Italy, when the Count was still alive.”
“What was she like then?” Guy asks.
“Odd.” Pritch pulls up the collar of his overcoat. “Never met a woman who could creep up behind you like that, without so much as a peep or a by-your-leave.”
“She still can.”
“I’m not surprised. Leandro told me his staff called her ‘la fata.‘ She was more ghostlike than human. I half-expected her to vaporize before my very eyes. Most odd.” He looks at Guy again. “You’re in love with her, I take it.”
“Yes.” Guy’s face is as glum as the weather. “Is that so obvious as well?”
“That you’re in love, or that you think it hopeless?”
Guy looks at the Pritch, surprised that such an unprepossessing man could have clocked him so clearly. He nearly smiles. She does have a knack for hiring only the best people, he realizes. He remembers having a conversation with yours truly about it, one balmy afternoon as we sat talking about everything and nothing on the veranda at La Fenice.
“She hit the jackpot with you,” Guy tells the Pritch.
“It’s been a pleasure,” he replies, “to have been employed in the service of such a worthy cause.”
“I’m here to help,” Guy says. “To do whatever I can. I need to do something. Please, give me something to do.”
“Righty-oh. Mostly the waiting game at present. Nearly there.”
“I see.” They walk on in companionable silence, both thinking about Belladonna.
“Might I ask you a question?” Guy says after a while.
“Certainly.”
“Who is Jack? Bryony calls him her uncle Jack. He worked for them in the Club Belladonna in New York, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Jack Winslow. A most honorable man; she allowed herself to trust him,” Pritch replies. He knows exactly what Guy’s getting at. “He was in love with her, too, mind you, before she closed the club. I heard it in his voice, and I pressed him one day, when we were chatting on the phone. ‘She told me she has no heart’ was all he’d say. Nearly did him in.”
“But he still works for her, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but in a roundabout way. Coordinating whatever she needs doing in New York. He’s married now. Settled down. A bit happier.”
“I see.”
“Well,” Pritch says, tipping his hat, “I must be off. I shall be speaking to you quite soon, if all goes according to plan.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pritchard,” Guy says.
“Do call me Pritch,” he replies. “Everyone else does.”
They say good-bye and Guy walks slowly back to the hotel. The Pritch heads for the nearest pub to have a Guinness-inspired think. He’s found their weakness"the way in, he calls it. It’s via the son of one of the men, a certain Sir Benedict Gibson MP, who was at the funeral. How perfect; it gives us more room to ensnare the family and threaten a scandal. More room to call his bluff.
Sir Benedict spends his weekdays in the family’s Eaton Square town house, and weekends at their country retreat in Gloucestershire. His son, Arundel, is not quite nineteen, on the cusp of being allowed a taste of paradise, we figure, and highly impressionable. Basically a sweet, decent boy, if a bit spoiled. Like most boys of his class, he worships his father as much as he loathes him, and feels tremendously protective of his mother and little sister, Georgina, conveniently off at boarding school. What works for our purpose is that Arundel often spends weekends in Eaton Square, playing hooky from Cambridge, with only the servants for company. His parents encourage these weekends, sowing the wild oats in polite society. He’ll settle down soon enough.
Soon enough indeed.
We need only a few hours of Arundel’s time. The Pritch will send in his best team, which will have no problem keeping the staff out of the way. We’ll send them a few bottles of extra-special tipple, just in case. But they’re always fast asleep by the time Arundel gets in from a night of partying, anyway. He’s quiet, because he’s a thoughtful young chap, and"who knows"he might want to sneak a young lady in someday.
We’re even quieter.
The gumshoes have been following him for weeks, and tonight’s the night. The only dicey bit will be when Arundel’s in the club, when his friends are getting blotto. We must be sure he goes home alone, and not too terribly drunk.
Confrontations are always the most successful in the dark of night.
The key rasps in the lock; the door opens and as quickly shuts with the heavy thud of old money. Arundel Gibson drops his keys on the table in the front hall. He goes into the drawing room and throws his coat on the sofa, then walks over to the sideboard to pour himself a drink. We’ve heard him do this dozens of times.
“Lovely scotch, old bean,” a voice says. “Single malt.”
“Can’t beat it,” says another.
“Do join us.”
“What? What?” Young Arundel spins around in a panic. The sound of strange voices in his parents’ drawing room has startled him so profoundly he doesn’t know what to do. Plus, he’s still slightly befuddled from a pleasant evening of innocuous chatter and flirting and one martini too many. “Who on earth are you?”
“I’m Jay One,” says the first voice. It’s deep, and rough.
“I’m Jay Two,” says the second. So is his.
“Just call us the Jaybirds.”
“Who are you?” Arundel demands, starting to get his wits back. “H
ow dare you?”
“We dare very well.”
“It’s our job.”
“What are you doing here?” Arundel says, moving over to the desk and brushing his light brown hair off his forehead. He has eyes of a darker brown, is slender and tall, and has a determined look to him. “Breaking into my parents’ home. I’m ringing the police.”
“I shouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Why ever not?” Arundel asks.
“The police know we’re here,” Jay One says smugly.
“The police sent us, as a matter of fact,” says Jay Two.
“Encouraged this little chat.”
“The police want no part of this mess.”
“Bloody mess.”
“I’ll say.”
“What do you mean?” Arundel says.
“Precisely what we said,” Jay One replies.
“What would the police know about spies like you?” Arundel asks, bewildered.
“Use your imagination, dear boy.”
“We thought you were more clever than that.”
“I don’t understand,” Arundel says. “Is my father in some danger?”
“Danger? No.”
“Not imminently.”
“Trouble might be a better word.”
“Imminent trouble, yes.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“To warn you.”
“And to ask for your help.”
“We’re counting on you.”
“My help?” Arundel cries. “What are you talking about?” Still, he is starting to let his guard down ever so slightly, lulled by the Jaybirds’ singsongy speech and their air of relaxed ease in his parents’ house. He takes a gulp of his drink. They seem more at home than he ever has, he realizes. “I thought you were the professionals.”
“But you’re family.”
“He trusts you.”
“We trust you.”
“Are you trustable, Arundel Cyril St. James Gibson?”
“Lovely name. Posh all right,” Jay One says confidentially.
“Ever so posh,” Jay Two agrees.
“Bit of a mouthful, though.”
“Quite. Right, then. Arundel Gibson, are you a man of honor?”
“Of your word?”
“To whom we may freely confide?”
“As a man?”
“As a gentleman?”
“Are you?”
“Are you?”
Arundel, being a little fuzzy from drink and shock, is thoroughly bewildered. “What do you mean about my father?” he manages to ask. “What the bloody hell are you going on about?”
“You haven’t answered our questions,” Jay One says sadly. They look at each other.
“No time to waste,” Jay Two says.
“None whatsoever.”
“He’s not the chap we need.”
“Afraid not, old bean.” They stand up in perfect unison.
“Be seeing you.”
“Righty-oh. Thanks ever so for your time.”
“Terribly sorry to have startled you.”
“Better luck next time.”
“Wait. Wait! Don’t go,” Arundel says, putting down his drink and stretching his hand out beseechingly. “Tell me what you want. Something to do with my father. I won’t tell a soul, I swear it. You have my word.”
“My word,” says Jay One.
“I say,“ Jay Two says.
“Well done, old bean.”
“Just as we’d hoped.”
“Yes. Better.”
“Smashing job.”
“I do believe this calls for a freshening of the drink.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“You were saying,” Arundel interrupts, exasperated, “about my father?”
“Yes, righty-oh. Your father.”
“A nasty bit of business.”
“Prepare yourself, old bean.”
“Damaging, you know. Might ruin the family.”
“Your mother. Won’t take kindly to it”
“Counting on you, old bean.”
“Counting on me for what?” Now he is completely exasperated. He pushes his light brown hair back off his forehead, where it flops endearingly.
“Could be a monstrous scandal,” Jay One blithely goes on.
“That’s why we’re here,” Jay Two explains.
“To stop it.”
“Staunch the flow.”
“Finger in the dam, that sort of thing.”
“Prepare to get wet.”
“Would you please tell me in plain bloody English what you’re talking about!” Arundel cries.
The room falls silent, with the Jaybirds momentarily deprived of their squawking. Arundel realizes he can hear the clock in the hall ticking very loudly. He doesn’t understand anything at all about men like these and their world, that they’ve got this act down to a science. Why should he understand that it works best on the young and impressionable, the hasty and the temperamental? He’s done nothing in his short life to warrant this peculiar kind of confrontation.
“You father,” Jay One says eventually. “Has he ever mentioned a private club?”
“An exclusive men’s club,” Jay Two elaborates.
“Like White’s, you mean?” Arundel asks.
“Not White’s.”
“We know he’s a member there.”
“More exclusive.”
“A club one wouldn’t discuss with one’s wife.”
“Or a little boy.”
“Grown-up boy, yes.”
“Only if he’s discreet.”
“A club for gentlemen.”
“If you understand us.”
“No, I"” Arundel says.
“Think, old bean, think,” Jay One urges.
“Not a peep to you?” Jay Two asks.
“About where he’ll take you when you’re grown?”
“When you’ve proved your manhood?”
“When you’ve proved your discretion?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Arundel says heatedly. “I can’t think with all your babbling.”
There is again a wonderful moment of silence.
“May I have another drink?” Arundel asks.
“You’ve earned it.”
“Yes, I have, haven’t I,” Arundel mutters to himself. “Thanks ever so.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Jay One gets up and pours himself a stiff one, ignoring a quaking Arundel.
“Nor I.” Jay Two mimics Jay One’s movements exactly.
“Ah, Lagavulin,” Jay One says, smacking his lips. “Hits the spot. Manhood,” he repeats.
“That does it,” says Jay Two. “Although I prefer the Balvenie. Discretion.”
“A most private club.”
“Only the lucky few are members.”
“Been in the families for yonks.”
“Centuries, honestly.”
“Edward the Seventh was a member, you know.”
“A man of prodigious appetites.”
“Not that son of his, though. A bit stodgy.”
“Bloody horse.”
“Fell on him in the Great War.”
“Squashed his"”
“Well, you know.”
“Dreadful accident.”
“Every schoolboy knows that,” Arundel says, exasperated again.
“Good old Georgie.”
“Not his son, though.”
“That Edward.” Jay One shudders. “Peculiar tastes. No control, that one.”
“With that dreadful Simpson woman.” Jay Two shudders, too.
“Shameless.”
“The only member to have been blackballed.”
“In hundreds of years.”
“Disgraceful.”
“Shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Momentary lapse.”
“Mustn’t happen again.” Jay One shakes his head.
“Never.” Now Jay Two shakes his head.
�
��Know we can trust you.”
“Can’t we?”
“Of course we can.”
“Strictly top drawer, one and all.”
“All for one.”
“And then some.”
“Can’t bribe your way in,” Jay One says confidentially.
“Not for love or money,” Jay Two says, equally confidentially.
“Certainly not for love.”
“Here’s the rub. Someone’s about to snitch.”
“Why we’re here, old bean.”
“But why are you telling me this?” Arundel asks. “Why don’t you go to my father? He’s the one who’s meant to be worrying! I’ve not the foggiest idea what you’re on about. My father’s never told me about his clubs. I simply don’t understand.”
“He hasn’t taken you yet,” Jay One asks carefully.
“Hmmm,” Jay Two says. “Not taken his only son.”
“Very worrying.”
“I should say so.”
“Not even a clue?”
“Or a whiff?”
“No, nothing. I swear it,” Arundel says. “I’ve been at school, and I rarely see my father. Only at holidays, really. He’s terribly busy.”
“No time alone with his nearest.” Jay One shakes his head sadly.
“And dearest.” Jay Two bobs his head as well.
“No place where he can be careful.”
“Not overheard.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Righty-oh, mate.”
“I still don’t understand why you haven’t gone to him, if he needs to be warned about whatever it is you say he needs to be warned about,” Arundel cries.
“Too dangerous,” Jay One explains.
“Being followed,” Jay Two says.
“That sort of thing.”
“Could give it all away.”
“You’re in the safe house, old bean.” Jay One winks.
“Bit of the lingo,” Jay Two offers.
“Know we can trust you.”
“So what am I supposed to do, then?” Arundel asks flatly.
“Tell your father you need to see him,” Jay One suggests.
“Simple enough,” Jay Two agrees.
“An emergency.”
“An emergency about a girl.”
“A girl in trouble, that always works.”
“Like a charm.”
“Tell him you need to see him.”
“Most urgently.”
“Tell him you will meet him in town.”
“That he should stay for the weekend.”
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