by Seb Spence
“That’s very civil of you!”
“So, what does Grace do after she finishes here?”
Miller took a swig from the tumbler and leaned back in his chair.
“She thinks I don’t know, but I am a magician, an illusionist – the great Professor Prospero.” He looked at Barton and chuckled. “I see all and know all.”
“So what is this you know, Roy?”
“Only Friday and Saturday nights – Friday and Saturday ... ” His voice trailed off and his eyes closed. Barton realised he was drifting off to sleep again.
“What does she do on Friday and Saturday nights, Roy?” he said, raising his voice.
Miller opened his eyes with a start.
“What does Grace do on Friday and Saturday nights?” Barton repeated.
“She kept rushing off those nights, but wouldn’t tell me where she was going, so I followed her once. I know what she does.”
“What is it?”
“Can’t divulge, dear boy. Professional secret.”
Barton tried a different tack. “I don’t think she does anything on Friday and Saturday nights except go back to Bramlington,” he bantered.
“Well you’d be wrong, Mr Barton, very wrong.”
“I don’t think so. I know Grace: she’ll go straight home after the show.”
“Don’t believe me, eh?” Miller said, putting his glass down on the floor and sitting up. After fumbling in his inside jacket pocket, he pulled out his wallet and spent several seconds rummaging through it, finally producing a business card and waving it at Barton. “If you don’t believe me, see for yourself, see for yourself, my boy.”
Barton took the card and examined it: it had the name and address of a club in Mayfair printed on it. Miller, meanwhile, leaned back again and closed his eyes. The wallet slipped from his hand onto the floor. He was asleep. Barton put the wallet back in Miller’s jacket pocket and left.
As he passed by the stage doorman in his box, Barton felt he should let him know about Miller’s state. “Mr Miller’s had a few too many; he might need some help getting home tonight.”
The doorman glared back, a look of annoyance on his face. It was clear the man had taken a dislike to Barton. “It’s not the first time,” he snapped, and continued peevishly: “As if I don’t have enough to do without being nursemaid to some tosspot!”
Barton went out into the alley that ran down the side of the theatre and walked round to the front. He looked up and down the street and saw in the distance that a cab was approaching. He waved it down as it drew near. “The Silver Masque Club, Mayfair, please,” he told the driver before getting in.
As it pulled away, a figure emerged from the shadows at the front of the theatre. “So, we’re off to the West End, eh?” Elliott said under his breath, as he headed off in search of another cab.
#
Barton’s taxi turned into a narrow side street off Piccadilly and pulled up in front of a recessed double doorway between a jeweller’s shop and a private gallery. In the moonlight he could just make out above the entrance a sign saying ‘Silver Masque Club’ and bearing a painted logo – a masked woman in an eighteenth century ball gown. He went in and found himself in a small foyer, about five yards square. Along the left side was a reception desk, such as you would find in a hotel, and standing behind this was a man in a tuxedo. Barton guessed he was in his thirties. At the far end, a middle-aged man in a doorman’s uniform stood at the glass-panelled double doors that presumably lead through to where the cabaret was.
“Good evening, sir. May I ask if you’re a member?” the man behind the counter enquired with a superior air..
“No, I’m not. It’s my first time here.”
“This is a private club, sir. You’re very welcome to come in, but I’m afraid you will have to join before we can allow you to enter.”
“Yes of course, I understand.”
“Joining is quite straightforward. If you’d care to fill out an application form now, we can let you in straightaway. It won’t take long: the form just requests the usual information – name, address, that sort of thing.”
Barton agreed and hurriedly wrote his details on the sheet that was passed to him. Wisely, the man waited until Barton had completed the form before telling him how much it would cost to join.
“The membership fee is five pounds.”
“What! A fiver? That’s a bit steep isn’t it?”
“You’ll find it’s excellent value for money, sir – less than ten shillings a month. We have a very exclusive clientele, and we run top class entertainment.”
If it had not been for the fact that he was keen to see Grace again, Barton would just have walked out.
“So what do I get for my money?” Barton asked.
“You are permitted to walk through those doors, sir,” the man replied with a smirk, indicating the entrance with the doorman.
“I don’t suppose you do a trial membership, one month say?”
“Are you trying to haggle, sir?”
Barton was reluctant to push it any further in case they decided not to let him in.
“No, no, just asking,” he replied and resigned himself to forking out. “I assume you’ll take a cheque, I don’t carry that much cash on me.”
“Of course, sir; make it out to the Silver Masque Club. Your membership is valid for one year from today, and here is your membership card and a booklet with the club rules,” he said, placing them on the desk.
The doorman swung open one of the double doors for Barton to enter and grinned at him as he went in. Beyond the doors was a long, wide corridor, carpeted in red. Its walls were covered with red flock wallpaper and were lined with photographs of various acts that had performed in the club, together with pictures of some of the celebrities who frequented the place. Barton noted that many of the celebrity pictures included a thin man with slicked-back hair and wearing a white dinner jacket. Perhaps the owner, he wondered.
Halfway down the corridor was a cloakroom. Barton left his cap and raincoat with the hatcheck girl behind the counter and went through a second set of glass-panelled doors at the far end of the corridor; these led into the main clubroom. Inside, the maitre d’ escorted him to a vacant table for two near the bar, which ran along the back wall. The table was about as far away from the stage area as you could get; the man obviously sensed that Barton was not going to be one of his best customers and decided he should be hidden away. Still, Barton did not mind: he was not there for the show, he just wanted to see Grace.
Shortly after he sat down, an attractive redhead in a long green dress came up to his table and asked if he would like some company. He guessed she was one of the hostesses, whose job was to encourage the customers to order bottles of champagne. He politely declined, telling her he was expecting someone. A waiter eventually appeared and took his order for a gin and tonic.
The club was busy. There must have been forty or fifty tables in the room and most were occupied. At one end was a dance floor where the acts went through their turns until the dancing started later on. Beyond this was a low stage on which the band played. Most of the male customers were in uniform – officers mainly – and the ones who were not were almost all in dinner jackets. The women wore evening gowns. In the centre of the room, right next to the floor area, was a large round table that was obviously reserved for important customers. Seated around it were half a dozen senior naval and army officers with their female companions. At a table next to this group was a party of young officers in dark blue uniforms that buttoned up to their necks. Barton thought they were probably from the Lancers, and he guessed the expensively dressed young women with them were their debutante girlfriends.
Barton sat through the acts waiting for Grace to appear. Just after he arrived, three American jugglers came on and did a very good comedy juggling routine with clubs. They were followed by dancers, then a female contortionist, then a comedian, then more dancers. Grace, however, was not among any of the performers.
He wondered if she might do something else at the club: perhaps she was a cigarette girl or one of the hostesses, he thought, but looking around he saw no sign of her. Maybe Miller had got it wrong and she wasn’t here tonight.
The curtains closed across the stage and Barton supposed this to mean there would now be an intermission in the floorshow. He took the opportunity to pop to the men’s room and then went up to the bar for another drink. He noticed that on the counter there was a small glass bowl with complimentary matchbooks bearing the club’s logo. Though he was not a smoker, he helped himself to one, thinking that, in these days of blackouts and power outages, a book of matches would always come in handy.
His gin and tonic was just being poured when the compere appeared on the stage and announced the next act: the ballet would perform ‘Un Ballo in Maschera’. The curtains opened to reveal three women standing together, naked and motionless, in front of the band. The one in the middle stood on a low plinth and was wearing an elaborate Venetian mask and a silver headdress surmounted with a fan of great black feathers. The other two women were posed looking up at her. Dancers in high wigs and low-cut, period ball gowns appeared and danced around them on the stage and in the floor area.
As he watched from the bar, Barton became aware of someone addressing him. He looked round to see standing just behind him and to the side was a smartly dressed, fair-haired man in a dark suit. “She has a superb figure, the girl in the middle – don’t you agree?” he observed, smiling at Barton.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Barton replied, and then added as an afterthought, “but I expect she’s got acne, else why put a mask on her?”
The man laughed and looked away towards the stage. Barton noticed he had a mole on his neck.
When the ‘ballet’ had finished its performance, the stage curtains closed again, and Barton decided to go back to his table. He turned to take leave of the stranger with the mole, but the man had disappeared. Barton had just got seated when the curtains re-opened, and the compere came back out and announced the star attraction. It turned out to be a jazz singer, a busty woman in her thirties with a powerful voice. She went down well with the audience, and there was enthusiastic applause at the end of her first song.
Under other circumstances, Barton would have enjoyed her performance, but this evening his mind was on other things, and he paid little attention. Instead, he continued to observe the clientele and the comings and goings in the room. The singer left the stage for a break half way through her set, and the band took over and played a medley of instrumental versions of current hits, starting with ‘The Lambeth Walk’.
It was then that Grace entered the room through a side door. She was wearing a peach-coloured, satin evening gown and was accompanied by the man with a white dinner jacket, the one who Barton had noticed in the photographs along the corridor. He led her over to the large table in the centre and seemed to be introducing her to the group sitting at it. One of the naval officers pulled up a chair for her and she sat down with them. She seemed to be the centre of attention. Someone at the table made a joke and the company erupted into laughter; even Grace seemed amused by it. The man in the white jacket took his leave and went back through the side door.
The jollity at the table continued until the jazz singer returned to the stage. Grace and her new companions watched appreciatively as the woman went through the second half of her act. At the end, after the singer had performed her encores and the applause had died down, a waiter went up to Grace’s table and announced something. They all stood up, Grace included, and started to move towards the exit.
The instant the last of them left the clubroom, Barton got up and walked swiftly to the glass-panelled doors, through which he watched them collect their coats and headgear from the cloakroom counter. As they left through the doors at the far end of the corridor, Barton went out of the clubroom and collected his own cap and raincoat. He waited momentarily at the second set of glass-panelled doors as the last of the group went out the main entrance. Through the open front door, he just caught a glimpse of Grace getting into a cab. He went out into the foyer, ignoring the grinning doorman, and walked swiftly towards the exit.
“I trust you had an enjoyable evening, sir,” the man behind the counter enquired.
“Yes, very entertaining,” Barton replied without looking at him, as he hurried across the foyer and out onto the pavement.
A raid was in progress, and the customary night-time noises were clearly audible: aero engines, ack-ack guns and detonating bombs. Barton, however, had become inured to such sounds and paid no attention. Looking down towards the south end of the street, he was in time to see a convoy of three taxis turn into Piccadilly. He ran down after them to the corner, hoping there might be an empty cab around, but there was none. As he watched the taxis recede into the distance, he realised he would have to give up the chase for the time being. He decided he would go back to the club the following evening and try to speak with Grace then.
Dispirited, he set off for Stanmore. It had not been a good evening: he had let Grace slip away, and he was out of pocket by five pounds.
#
On entering the clubroom, Elliott had tipped the maitre d’ and asked for a secluded table, saying that he was expecting a lady friend to join him later on. The man had taken him to a table in a shadowy corner at the back, near the bar. From this dimly lit nook, Elliott had watched his quarry, the RAF officer, who had spent most of the evening fidgeting, looking bored and glancing round the room as though he were waiting for someone to appear.
Seeing him at the bar, Elliott decided it might be useful to observe him at close quarters: if the man was looking for Cobalt, he might have descriptions of other members of the group, himself included. Should he give any indication that he recognized Elliott, he would definitely have to be eliminated. Accordingly, Elliott had gone up to the bar and engaged the man in conversation, but there had been no sign of any recognition.
Elliott had then returned to his table and continued his surveillance from there. Shortly after he had sat down, a jazz singer appeared on stage. Jazz was a style of music he abhorred: he felt it was tuneless and degenerate. Ordinarily, he would have walked out, but not tonight. Gritting his teeth, he had sat through it, focussing his attention on his mark. He was relieved when, after half an hour, the singer stopped for a break.
At this point, he noticed a change in the RAF man: he was no longer restless and occupied with what was going on around him; instead, he was staring intently at a woman who had just entered from a side door and had joined a group at a large table in the centre of the clubroom. For forty-five minutes the RAF man had observed her, oblivious of what was going on around him. Elliott wondered if this was perhaps the brown-haired girl who the man was trying to track down. If so, Elliott could see why – she was quite a dish.
When the singer finally finished her performance, the large party at the centre table got up and departed, the brown-haired girl with them. The RAF man had watched them and then, as soon as they had left the room, he had gone after them. He appeared to be trying to tail them at a distance. Elliott followed him out, and as he did so he began to weigh up the pros and cons of killing him.
Although he was invariably very careful how he eliminated his targets, there was always a slight risk involved: in the blackout, you never knew who might be lurking in the shadows – perhaps someone might see him. In addition, the Mauser pocket pistol he carried was only effective at close range, and even then it was not always lethal. The victim might not die immediately but live long enough to give a description of his assassin. Logic dictated that there was no point in taking even the slightest risk if the task was needless, and it was beginning to look to Elliott as if there was no reason to eliminate the RAF man, who did not seem to be looking for Cobalt after all, but just chasing some girl he was infatuated with. As he watched the man run down the street towards Piccadilly, he decided it would serve no purpose pursuing him.
Elliott turned an
d walked away in the opposite direction. The evening had not been entirely wasted, he thought, for while he had been observing the events in the clubroom, a useful idea had occurred to him, an idea which might help him to expand his activities.
4.
Saturday, 11th January, 1941: The Silver Masque Club, Mayfair
Barton arrived at the club in style this time: he had persuaded Bronx to give him a lift in his white Alvis Tourer. Passed on to him by an uncle, the car was Moncur’s pride and joy. He was usually unwilling to take it into the city during the blackout for fear of wrecking it, as the newspapers often carried stories of cars – and even buses – that had accidentally been driven into bomb craters at night-time due to the absence of street lighting. Barton, however, was unwilling to risk being delayed on the Underground again and had badgered Moncur into driving him in. Fortunately, Moncur had a date in town with a FANY he was trying to impress, and as he thought the car might improve his chances, he reluctantly agreed to take it in.
Barton was in confident mood. As he crossed the foyer, he waved his membership card towards the snobby receptionist behind the desk, and then, smiling smugly at the doorman, he passed through the double doors and into the corridor leading to the cabaret.
Just beyond the cloakroom, a very attractive blonde – elegantly dressed in a tight-fitting, strapless, black evening gown – was talking and laughing with two RAF pilots. She was tallish, about 5’7” or 5’8” Barton estimated, and her shining, flaxen hair was smoothed back and done up in a braided chignon behind her head. She wore a short gold chain around her neck. It was a simple yet sophisticated look.
The two pilots seemed very young, even younger than Barton, and might possibly have been in their late teens. One of them had his hands in bandages, maybe from burns, Barton guessed; it was a common injury amongst fighter pilots. As he checked his cap and raincoat in at the cloakroom, Barton watched the trio and could overhear snatches of their conversation. The two pilots seemed to be badgering the woman for an autograph.