One day, Layton saw one of Grimes’s henchmen reading the sports page in the Daily Mail aloud to him. It was evident that Basher didn’t know how to read. With time running out, Layton made a desperate move.
Boldly, he approached Basher in the dark and cavernous prison dining room, smiled, and held up a book from the library. Hundreds of prisoners and guards watched, in awe of his nerve.
“Mr. Grimes, I believe that you may find this new book quite entertaining. May I have the honor of reading it to you?” Layton held a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Grimes scowled and grabbed the book away. But instead of tossing it aside, he fanned the pages, stopping at each illustration. Like a chimpanzee fascinated by a piece of sparkling jewelry, he kept perusing the volume.
Finally, he snarled, “Tonight at seven.”
Thus began five years of reading to Basher Grimes. The Oz book hooked him like a trout. “That witch better not harm one goddamn hair on Dorothy’s head,” he’d shout. Grimes had a peculiar habit of transporting himself mentally into whatever book he was reading; he’d scream for a character to look out or warn a villain to leave the hero alone. In Conrad’s Lord Jim, he became especially agitated at Jim’s decision to sacrifice his life in the end. “No, Jim, you don’t have to do that,” Grimes begged at the top of his lungs.
His closest confidants were allowed to listen, which led to impassioned discussions—and sometimes fisticuffs—over characters and plot twists in books like Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, which saw Buck the dog taking off to mate with a wolf. Basher’s best mate, Reggie Ash, argued it was the natural dog thing to do; Basher felt Buck should have remained loyal to his master. The difference of opinion got so out of hand that the guards had to break it up.
After that first reading, no prisoner dared touch Layton. His friendships with Basher and Ash didn’t erase the shame of being in prison, but they made life at Mulcaster bearable. He didn’t wind up murdered or buggered, and he taught a score of men how to read. Not Basher, though. He preferred the oral tradition.
Pushing back against the flood of memories, Layton looked around the smoke-filled pub in Whitechapel in the East End, where he and Ash sat at a dirty, scored table.
“Remember Archie Guest?”
“Who can forget a shit like that?”
“He’s putting the bite on me, Reggie, threatening to tell the newspapers who I am. I’ve just got my life in order, and along comes this rotter trying to destroy it.”
“How much?”
“Forty quid a month.”
“The cheeky bastard,” said Ash disdainfully.
“By sheer coincidence, I’ve got a job in a music hall in the West End. You know what a stink it’ll make if I’m found out.”
On his way to the pub, Layton had considered telling Ash about the bodies he’d found and his belief that Clifton or Glenn had caused the Britannia accident. In the end, he decided not to. His true dream, though he hardly dared admit it to himself, was to clear his name and become an architect again. And see Ronald again. That meant gathering incontrovertible evidence and bringing it to Scotland Yard. His desire to win his revenge by killing Clifton and Glenn had diminished; in death, the two men would escape their guilt forever.
“The Basher and me wanted ya to put this all behind ya, Doug. You’re a proper gentleman, and you didn’t belong behind bars. It was terrible about those people, but it was an accident, plain and simple.” Ash shook his head. “You know, when I got out, I found out that Hughie Rice died that night. Couldn’t bloody believe it.”
“Who’s Hughie Rice?” Layton knew the name from the list of the dead. But the papers had said only that he was a businessman.
“He ran the Brick Lane gang here in Whitechapel. Good bloke, he was. Top moneylender in all of London. A bleedin’ powerful man and rich as Croesus. God help ya if ya owed him money and didn’t pay up.”
Layton blinked, perplexed.
Ash mistook his confusion for something else. “Don’t have kittens, Dougie. I’ll have a talk with ol’ Archie. We’ll come to an understandin’, I promise ya.”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything too rough, Reggie,” Layton cautioned.
“Nah, just a talkin’ to, that’s all. I promise on me dead mum’s soul that he won’t bother ya again, me boy. Now, I’m going to take ya out for a nice meal, what do ya think of that? We’ll have a spiffin’ night out. How ’bout roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?”
• • •
November 5 was Guy Fawkes Night, a commemoration of the failed Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I in 1605. Great bonfires were lit all about London, and fireworks were set off throughout England. People competed to build the biggest bonfire; some were as high as a three-story building and resembled an inferno straight from hell.
Layton and Cissie watched the festivities around Belgrave Road. Thousands filled the streets, laughing and rejoicing, shrieking as sparks leapt from the massive fires.
“Was the MacMillan Empire ever in financial trouble?” Layton asked.
“Yes, about six or seven years ago,” Cissie said. “They almost went under.”
“Ever hear of a fellow named Hugh Rice?”
“From the list.” Cissie searched her memory, shook her head. “No. Who is he?”
“Our first possible connection since Hardy, Finney, and the vicar,” Layton replied. Working off the list, he and Cissie had come up blank on eight of the victims in addition to the children. None seemed to have any connection to Clifton or Glenn in any way. But maybe Rice knew the owners.
Layton took Cissie’s arm and led her off into the night’s revelries.
Almost directly across the Thames, in Lambeth, one particularly large bonfire burned near the intersection of Black Prince and Kennington Roads. It roared through the night, hungry for fodder. And in the morning, among its glowing orange embers, some brass buttons and shards of bones caught the morning light.
The only surviving pieces of Archie Guest.
26
“Dodd, if you don’t gather your ape, you’ll never work London again,” screamed Henry Wilding, the stage manager.
As the Dodd Chimpanzees, costumed in evening dress, took their final bow, Mickey, the youngest chimp, had bolted toward the audience. Leaping from the stage, he charged a woman in an aisle seat in the stalls. Landing in her lap, Mickey plucked her feathered hat from her head—colorful ostrich plumes were all the fashion—to the sounds of her screams.
The audience went crazy with laughter, thinking it all part of the act. But instead of returning to the stage, Mickey leapt from seat to seat in the stalls, grabbing hat after hat. Finally, he jumped into the aisle and raced for the back of the theatre, with Dodd, a man of about sixty, puffing frantically behind.
For Wilding, this was a stage wait, the very worst thing that could happen. The artistes gathered in the wings weren’t amused either. It was a Saturday night, and they wouldn’t be getting their weekly pay until the second show concluded—a necessary measure to prevent the less scrupulous from skipping out on the final performance. Now the show was delayed, and that meant the bookies and creditors who waited outside the stage door on Saturday nights to get paid up would get restless. For the big wages they were paid, Layton had been surprised to learn that so many artistes were broke, never a penny in their pockets. Bimba Bamba had even tried to borrow money from him.
The house lights were on full now, so Dodd could find Mickey. Layton, standing stage right in the wings, sighed and tapped his foot impatiently. At long last, the monkey was recovered, the lights dimmed, and the show resumed with the top-billed act, “The World’s Greatest Juggler.” Of course, every performer called him or herself the greatest, Layton thought wryly. This man, the American headliner W. C. Fields, had a bulbous pink nose, the fumes of alcohol coming off him thick as a storm cloud, and he looked unp
repossessing at best.
Pushing a cart filled with all kinds of objects onto the stage, Fields got five cigar boxes revolving in the air. Then bunches of bananas, then five full milk bottles. The crowd broke into applause. Even Layton was impressed. By this time, he’d seen many a juggler but never one with such ease and nonchalance. That was the secret, he thought. The great ones were so good, they never broke a sweat.
Onstage, Fields kept juggling and puffing away on his massive stogie. He’d chastise the objects in a nasal American accent if they didn’t land smoothly in his hand, shouting, “Damn you, behave! Do what you’re told!”
One act later, the show wrapped, and Layton walked out the stage door to go back to his digs. Cissie and Layton had suites with a sitting room and bedroom, meals and tea included. At breakfast and dinner, they sat at a great table with other top-of-the-bill artistes currently performing in the West End. Voltaire, a French illusionist; Nell Swan, a singer; the Menjou Brothers and Juanita, a dental aerial act, which performed by gripping with teeth instead of hands and legs; and Hetty Hudson, a famous male impersonator, all lived there. Layton had thought architects vain, but they were nothing compared to variety performers. The lodgers bragged constantly about past performances, a daily litany of “I remember when I played the Royal Hippodrome in Liverpool” or “Like the time I was top of the bill at the Tivoli!”
Layton walked along the dimly lit alley behind the theatre where a few people hung about, smoking and talking. A few audience members stood around, hoping to meet their favorite artistes and ask for an autograph.
“Don’t give me that load of shite, you stupid wee lassie,” came a shrill voice to Layton’s right. He saw a man in a brown suit and derby grabbing a woman by her wrist and violently shaking her.
Layton paid no mind; the alley behind a theatre had a drama all its own: arguments between lovers, Piccadilly Johnnies hounding female stars, and would-be actors trying to talk to agents.
“Where’s me money? Stump up. I’ve been too patient with ya, lassie,” snarled the man. As the woman struggled to break free, the electric light post in the alley illuminated her frightened face: Beryl Wheeler, Voltaire’s assistant, a girl of about twenty.
“Hello, Beryl. What’s all the noise?” asked Layton in the friendliest of voices.
“Shove off, mate,” shouted the man. “This is business, and it’s between me and her.”
Layton wasn’t eager to get his head busted open for Voltaire’s tart, but there was something else… He paused and stared at the man for a few seconds.
“You’re a moneylender, aren’t you?” he asked.
“That’s one way of puttin’ it. Be glad that you don’t owe me money, guv.”
“What’s the amount in question?” Layton asked, as if he were a City of London banker at a loan interview.
“This slut owes me two quid for the last four weeks. It’s time to pay up, and I ain’t taking payment in kind—if you know what I mean,” said the man, giving Beryl’s shapely body the eye.
With a sigh, Layton pulled out his wallet. “This will settle the debt.”
“Oh, Frank, that’s ever so nice of you,” gushed Beryl.
“Off you go,” said Layton, and she fled down the alley. The man made to follow, but Layton held up a hand. “Hold on. I helped you collect a debt. I want a commission.”
The man was at first puzzled, then angry. “On your way, arsehole.”
“Not monetary compensation. Just a little information.”
This interested the man. He studied Layton, then nodded.
“Ever hear of Hugh Rice?”
“Everyone in London’s heard of Hughie Rice,” the man said with a great laugh. “In fact, I used to collect for him.” His eyes narrowed. “But he’s dead, if ya happen to be lookin’ for him.”
“I know that.” Layton leaned forward and lowered his voice. “How much did you know of his business dealings?”
“Quite a bit, guv.”
“Did he ever do business with theatre people—not actors and that lot, but the men who owned the theatres?”
“Aye, Hughie was rich. He lent money to all sorts of businesspeople, the ones that could not get credit and were bloody desperate. Factory owners, shipping companies, you name it.” The man’s coarse face broke into a smile. “I do remember he helped out some theatre fellas when they were in a bad way, ’cause they let him go to the theatre all the time for free.”
“If they came to Hugh Rice,” Layton said slowly, “then they had nowhere else to turn.”
“That’s the long and short of it, guv. The lender of last resort, as they say.”
“I imagine the interest on such a loan was quite high?”
“Sky’s the limit,” said the man, nodding.
“And there was a late-payment penalty, I suppose.”
“Indeed, there was, guv.” The man took a set of brass knuckles from his side pocket and gave them a long, loving caress. “I believe with the theatre people, we had to apply the penalty more than once.”
• • •
“Johnnie told me they were in over their heads. They were building the Britannia, the Fulham, the Grand, and the Vauxhall Hippodrome, all at once! No wonder they were hard up.”
Layton was sitting on the bed in Cissie’s room. In theatrical digs, certain items of propriety were ignored—such as gentlemen being allowed in a lady’s room after ten.
“Back then, Clifton and Glenn had trouble making the payroll and paying the bills,” Cissie said. She was pacing back and forth in front of Layton, her hands on her hips. “And they were on me to pay the artistes way less, to be tougher in negotiating. That’s always a bad sign.”
“If no one would lend them money to cover the shortfall,” Layton said, “the circuit would have gone bankrupt. They’d have lost everything.”
“They must have turned to Rice to bail them out,” Cissie said, pausing at the window. The pale glow of the lamps outside glistened on the dark, slick street. “Not exactly the Bank of England. Much higher interest rates.”
“I believe it’s called usury,” Layton said, lying back against the pillow and lacing his fingers behind his head. “Did things get better after the accident?”
“At first, no one would go near a MacMillan circuit theatre for fear it would collapse. It was a few months before things got back to normal. But then they made money hand over fist, let me tell you.”
Layton had learned much about the criminal world during those five long years in Mulcaster. Extortion, he’d found, was perhaps the most lucrative of crimes, offering a long-term stream of revenue. In most cases, the victim had nowhere else to go and would agree to the loan and its incredibly high interest rates. But the transaction wasn’t executed on paper; its terms were stated verbally, often with veiled threats about the consequences of missing a weekly payment. With interest piling up, the loan was impossible to pay off. Where a bank would file suit, a gang would use violence to collect.
This violence, Layton knew, was the foundation of the criminal life. Once a gang got its hooks into you, it never let go. The partners hadn’t been able to get Rice off their backs. They’d realized he was going to bleed them dry.
“Clifton and Glenn were trapped, but they couldn’t go to the police, or Rice would murder them,” said Layton.
“And the investors would find out the circuit was broke.”
“So they murdered Rice—along with all the others.” Layton shook his head and gave a low whistle. “Both Clifton and Glenn had to be in on this.”
“The bastards,” Cissie breathed.
“Still, this is all a guess.”
“I know someone we might talk to,” Cissie said tentatively. “Someone who might know something.”
• • •
“I just put the kettle on. Would you like a nice cup of tea?”
Harry Barker, the retired head accountant of the MacMillan circuit, looked like a bookkeeper. Spectacles covered his worn-out, watery blue eyes. He was white haired and stooped from years of hunching over a desk. This was what a retired architect would also look like, Layton imagined, after decades spent bending over a draughting table.
Barker’s second-floor flat in Bloomsbury was homey and, for a lifelong bachelor, very neatly kept. Prints and paintings of seascapes covered the dark-green walls; the furniture on which Cissie and Layton sat was plush, stuffed leather.
“Good to see you again, Cissie,” said Barker as he brought the tea service into the parlor.
“Reminds me of the old days, Harry. Do you miss the theatre?”
“No, all that’s behind me now. Besides, I worked in the front office. I could have been adding numbers in a steel mill. No magic of the theatre for me.”
“Frank here paints the cloths. He’s very artistic,” said Cissie proudly, taking a cup of tea from Barker.
“Oh, do you, Frank? That’s grand. I always wished I was artistic, but alas.” Barker sighed. “I was born with a head for numbers and naught else.”
Cissie and the old man chatted and reminisced; Layton listened, sipping his tea and eating his biscuits. Barker, who seemed genuinely pleased to have visitors in his retirement, told them enthusiastically of his trips to the Royal Albert Hall and the British Museum. He’d even been to the Tower of London for the first time in his life.
As they spoke, a calico cat wandered in and jumped into Barker’s lap, curling up in a ball for a nap. As he stroked his pet, Barker inquired after people he’d worked with, including Clifton and Glenn. Cissie skillfully steered the conversation toward the front office, commenting about pay scales for actors and the cost of printing bills.
“Things have gotten expensive as hell, Harry, but the circuit is doing well. Wasn’t always like that, eh?”
“That’s the God’s own truth. I remember when we didn’t have enough coal to heat the Bedford Variety. The customers about froze to death,” said Barker, chuckling. “Almost went under. No one would give us credit.”
The Fallen Architect Page 17