The Fallen Architect

by Charles Belfoure

  Tommy gave Layton a look of pure disgust. “Why would I tell that no-talent bastard’s agent anything at all?”

  • • •

  “At first, it seemed a wonderful bit of luck when that ugly shit broke his leg,” Jack Langham said. He sighed gravely. “But then look what happened.”

  Langham’s office, like that of all London’s theatrical agents, comprised just two spaces: the waiting room, in which desperate would-be artistes sat for hours on hard wooden chairs, hoping to win a meeting; and the agent’s office. Cissie and Layton were in the latter, across from Langham, a lanky fellow who’d once played the straight man in a comedy duo. Many agents, Cissie told Layton on their way to the meeting, were former performers who preferred collecting ten percent of their clients’ earnings to suffering out the grind of show business. With a roster of big stars, they could make out very well indeed.

  “Top of the bill on opening night in a brand-new theatre?” Langham shook his head, remembering. “It’s a performer’s dream. I was bowled over when you wired me, Cissie.”

  “But…you wired me,” Cissie said, puzzled.

  Langham blinked back at her, just as confused. “I never sent you a wire, girl. You wired me.”

  47

  “He’s a fine, smart boy, Doug.”

  Ronald was scampering joyfully across Hyde Park, in hot pursuit of a cricket ball. Layton and his father sat on a nearby cast-iron park bench, watching him romp. When he was sure the boy was out of earshot, Thomas Layton turned to his son and smiled.

  “Your mother always wished for a grandchild. I’m glad I could meet the lad.”

  His father’s light-gray eyes, Layton realized, were welling with tears. He blinked, shocked anew by these open displays of emotion. But then, how much grief had his father suffered in the past five years? One dead son, another son in prison. To sit now in the crisp London air, watching his grandson play… Layton could only imagine the feeling.

  For his part, Ronald had been overjoyed at the prospect of meeting his other grandfather. But being the proper little gentleman he was, he hadn’t jabbered on about himself; he’d asked Thomas Layton polite questions—what was Dorset like; what had Layton been like as a boy; and other such matters. With each story he told, Thomas Layton’s face grew more animated, flushed with color and joy. At the end of the conversation, Ronald had exclaimed, “You’re nothing at all like Grandfather Charles!” to Layton’s great amusement.

  Now that it was turning twilight, the electric lamps in the park flickered on.

  “That Cissie is a corker,” Thomas Layton said abruptly. “A blind man could see how much she loves ya. She’ll make you a damn good wife.”

  Layton smiled, knowing the joy in his eyes matched his father’s. Thomas Layton was the first to know of Cissie and Layton’s marriage plans. And just like Ronald, Cissie seemed to breathe new life into the old man.

  With the coming of darkness, it was time to bid goodbye to Ronald. They waved and watched the boy spring off confidently into the gloaming. Layton felt a twinging at his heart; he wasn’t ready for his father to leave.

  “Why don’t we have supper before you catch your train?” he suggested.

  “Don’t have much of an appetite these days, I’m afraid, but what about a nice cup of tea in Paddington? I have time.”

  The restaurant was busy, full of commuters having a quick meal before they boarded their trains. Layton and his father found a table by the great window wall, which enclosed the shop and allowed customers to look out on the station concourse. People rushed by—mothers dragging children; businessmen in homburgs going home to the suburbs. Father and son drank their tea in silence amid the cacophony of the restaurant.

  “I’m dyin’,” Thomas said at last, muttering the words as if he were talking to the tile floor.

  “Did you say you’d prefer dining?” Layton said, turning his full attention back to his father.

  Thomas lifted his head and looked straight at his son. “I said I’m dying.”

  Layton’s biscuit slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor, breaking in two.

  “What? How do you know you’re… You can’t be! You’re not dying.”

  “I’m done for, Doug.” He shook his head. If he had seemed impossibly joyful in the park, now he looked unbearably weary. “I’m not in the city for business. I’d seen a doctor in Dorchester. We’re friendly-like. Well, he wanted to send me to a specialist in London. Told him I couldn’t afford it, but the doc said he’d see me as a courtesy.” He hunched forward, stirring his tea, staring down into the depths of the cup. “Both of ’em said the same thing: I’m done for. Cancer eatin’ out my innards.”

  “How long did they give you?” asked Layton, his voice quavering.

  “Maybe a few months—or I could keel over dead right here.”

  “Does Roger know?”

  “No, I was waiting to hear from the London doctor. At least Roger can build me a spiffing casket.” He forced a laugh and took a long sip of tea.

  Across the table, Layton buried his face in his hands. Tears threatened to overcome him; he fought them back.

  His father’s face fell, and he stretched his arms out toward his son. “Look at me hands, Doug. Look!” Thomas insisted. “I’ve laid many a brick and piece of stone with these here hands. All first-rate work, and I’m bloody proud of it. I got nothin’ to complain of.” He could tell his son wasn’t convinced, so he pressed onward.

  “My boy, I have a son who was the best architect in England, a son who was one of the bravest soldiers in the empire, and a son who’s the best woodworker, bar none. And now I know I’ve the finest grandson a man could wish for. Bloody hell, boy, don’t feel sorry for me!”

  Layton smiled wanly. Memories of his mother’s death swamped him—how robust and healthy she’d been; how completely she’d fallen apart. In just a month, she was gone. His father looked healthy and solid; finishing his tea, he set the cup down with steady hands. How could he face his loss? Layton felt like running out of the teashop, out of Paddington, out of London, and out of England. Of running until he dropped, until he felt no more of the pain that had just ripped through his body like a shotgun blast.

  “I have to see a man about a horse,” his father said bluntly. “That’s how I knew somethin’ was wrong, son. I was pissin’ blood all the time. When I get back, let’s have another cup of tea, what d’you say?”

  Layton stared down into his teacup. It was now or never. God had forced his hand.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” he said in a clear, steady voice.

  “Well, be quick about it. I’ve got to go.”

  “I didn’t kill all those people,” Layton said. The words felt strange in his mouth.

  “Of course you didn’t. It was a bloody accident, Doug, and ya shouldn’t have gone to prison for it.”

  “But it wasn’t an accident.”

  Thomas Layton’s expression was one of sheer bewilderment. “But that’s daft. No one would do such an evil thing. No one,” he said in a hushed voice, making sure no one would overhear.

  After perhaps twenty seconds of deafening silence, Thomas nodded and settled back into his chair. “You never lied to me as a boy,” he said simply. “So I know you’re not lying to me now. Tell me everything, from the beginning.”

  48

  “Oy, here’s a whole bob,” cried Winnie, holding up the coin as if it were Captain Kidd’s treasure box.

  Joan, Winnie, and Connie were the charwomen who cleaned the Metropolitan Royal after each night’s final performance. The three old women were always on the lookout for any loose coins that might have fallen from the audience members’ pockets. The stalls yielded the biggest bounty; the gallery, up in the clouds where the poor bastards sat, the smallest. Management told them to turn in any money they found, but they never did. The crones were paid a pitta
nce and felt their findings were a kind of tip from God.

  Jewelry was another matter, of course. If any of the women found a diamond earring or gold chain, they turned it in. If you tried to sell such goods at a pawnshop, they said, the coppers would be down on you faster than shit through a goose.

  The best thing about the job was that the women had the place to themselves. As the MacMillan circuit’s flagship theatre, the Metropolitan Royal was extra posh, with a beautiful barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling, velvet seats, and all sorts of sculptures. All the lights burned fully, including the grand chandelier, so the charwomen could better see the dirt. For a few hours, the grand theatre was their private palace. They swept under the seats, ran the Bissell carpet cleaner across the carpets, and dusted everything in sight.

  And all the while, they had a right good chin-wag. The immense size of the auditorium meant they had to shout a bit, but it was very pleasurable gossip: stories of the performers; who was shagging who; all the events of the day, like that fuss about the war between Russia and Japan; and what Queen Alexandra was wearing. She set the fashion in London, even for women who couldn’t afford a handkerchief, let alone a feather boa.

  “Bloody hell, my bleedin’ knees are killing me,” moaned Winnie.

  “Did ya rub that oil of cat tongue on ’em, like I told you?” demanded Connie.

  Winnie shook her head, working her broom under a seat in row G.

  “So you know my Tommy—can talk the hind legs off a donkey. Well, Fred gets up from the table and raps him on the ’ead with a wooden spoon and tells him to shut his gob! Says he can’t stand the sound of his voice no more. And then Tommy throws ’is spotted dick I made him all special like on top of Fred’s ’ead,” Joan lamented.

  “Well, that takes the biscuit,” Winnie said, sighing.

  “That’s terrible, Joanie! You slogged your guts out making that spotted dick.” Connie sounded outraged. “Bloody men!”

  “I was at the Queen’s last week to see Helen McCoy,” said Winnie, finishing up row G and moving on to F.

  “Oh, she’s loverly,” Connie said. She was using the Bissell on the stairs, which the girls loved. The new invention made carpet cleaning a thousand times easier.

  “And she’s an earl’s daughter,” Winnie said approvingly. “Up on the stage and all. She don’t think she’s so high-and-mighty, not like most of those toffee-nosed blokes.”

  “Aye, I wager many a fellow wants to slip her a length,” Joan said and chuckled.

  “She’s a smart one with her career. Won’t find herself in the pudding club like most stage tarts.” Connie’s pride was such that Helen might have been her own daughter.

  “Did you see them cute little Africans?” Winnie shouted, rustling around under a seat. “They’re bloody amazing, straight out of the jungle.”

  “My little Eddie’s seen ’em four times,” said Joan.

  The three women worked quickly and efficiently, moving forward toward the orchestra pit. Connie was at row A now, the very first row of the stalls. Above were the boxes, the most prestigious seats in the house. The ones in the Metro were even fancier than most: bow-fronted boxes with intricate plaster detailing, framed by colossal columns that carried a semicircular arch. Within it, two pedestals held freestanding, full-scale sculptures. A painted landscape in a lunette hung between them. The seats were real chairs rather than fixed seating.

  Connie’s eyes drifted up to the box at the right of the stage and froze.

  There, in one of the chairs toward the rear of the box, a man in evening dress stared out onto the empty stage.

  “Take a look at that, will ya,” Connie hissed, gesturing wildly at the box.

  “Hush your yowling. It’s none of our affair. If some rich old fool wants to hang about, let ’im.”

  “We’ll be for it if we bother him,” Joan said and went back to her cleaning.

  They continued their work, gabbing away, and moved up to do the second level. Winnie always did the boxes stage left. She pulled the curtain of the first box aside and saw that the toff was still sitting there.

  “Excuse me, guv. I just have to clean around ya, and then I’ll be outta yer way, sir,” she said with forced cheer.

  The man did not move.

  Winnie sighed and gamely swept under his chair—and noticed something red and sticky on the end of her broomstick. A chill raced down Winnie’s spine. Her scream brought the others running as fast as their decrepit legs could carry them.

  “Crikey, that’s Mr. Glenn,” Joan yelled. “One of the owners!”

  Up close, they could see that Glenn was slumped in the chair, his dark-gray eyes wide and staring. The enormous puddle of blood beneath him seeped slowly across the ground. While the two other charwomen cringed at the rear of the box, Joan circled the man and peered at the back of his neck. Blood dribbled from a tiny hole at the base of his skull.

  “’e’s snuffed it!” screamed Winnie.

  The force of her scream seemed to nudge the body; it keeled over onto the floor, prompting more screams, till the theatre rang with terror.

  49

  “The coroner says an ice pick severed the spinal cord between the base of the skull and the first vertebrae,” Layton read.

  Cissie, Phipps, and his father—Thomas Layton had extended his trip upon hearing the full story of the Britannia disaster from his son—had gathered in Layton’s digs.

  “Glenn wasn’t in on the balcony collapse and found out,” Phipps announced incredulously. “And Clifton did him in.”

  “So Clifton’s our murderer,” exclaimed Cissie with glee.

  Layton shook his head. He didn’t know what to think. Up until now, he’d come to believe that Shaw orchestrated the accident. Did he murder Glenn because he was an owner?

  “This has gone far enough. You must go to Scotland Yard, Doug,” his father pleaded. “Now!” Amid the force of his emotion, he began coughing violently.

  “There’s handkerchiefs in the top dresser drawer, Dad,” Layton said gently.

  His father’s face flushed with embarrassment; he shuffled to the dresser, rummaged through it, and pulled out a cloth to wipe the thin trace of blood from his lips. Cissie smiled at him sympathetically and poured him another cup of tea.

  “He’s right, Doug,” Phipps said gently. “It’s time to go to the police. You must tell them about the two skeletons—and everything else we’ve discovered.”

  • • •

  The first man to start laughing was the fat, bald one in the corner.

  “He’s a right Charlie, eh?” he chortled.

  “Aye, this bloke’s not batting on a full wicket,” said another, who was standing by the window.

  Inspector Jenkins had his head bent and was smiling down at the blotter paper on his desk. Layton could tell he agreed with his officers. In what was definitely a gesture of impatience, he tapped the end of his fountain pen on his desk and said briskly, “Mr. Layton, your story is preposterous. Of course, given the horrible outcome of the Britannia disaster, it is natural you would seek to place the blame elsewhere.”

  “But he’s telling you the truth, man,” Thomas Layton entreated.

  “And I can understand,” Inspector Jenkins said, looking sympathetically at the old man, “why, as his father, you would want to believe him. But your son was convicted of manslaughter by a jury. They heard the evidence.”

  “Not this evidence,” Phipps cried, rising from his chair in front of the inspector’s desk.

  Jenkins frowned; Phipps saw his expression of disapproval and resumed his seat.

  Layton, sitting between his father and Phipps, just looked down at the dark-stained wood floor. Jenkins clearly felt this was all a colossal waste of time. His tone reminded Layton of a teacher trying to reason with a dimwitted pupil.

  “You have no solid proof that the owners of the ci
rcuit, Sir Clifton and the late Mr. Glenn, conspired to murder Hugh Rice so as to eliminate their debt to him. Nor do you have proof that they murdered all these other persons at the same time.” The inspector shook his head, scoffing. “A vicar, a servant girl… It’s absurd.”

  “Don’t forget Alec Shaw, the builder of the Britannia,” added Thomas Layton, who realized by saying that he’d made a bigger fool of himself.

  The fat man smirked at the officer by the window, and both started chuckling.

  “And you’ve not one shred of evidence that Alec Shaw is responsible,” shot back Jenkins.

  “So many killers to choose from, mate. Which one is it?” asked the fat policeman, grinning from ear to ear.

  “You’re responsible for the deaths and injuries of all those people, Mr. Layton,” Jenkins said with careful emphasis. “I know you didn’t mean to do it, but you must bear the responsibility, no matter how heavy the burden.”

  “Aye, I’d’ve killed myself by now,” said the officer by the window.

  “That’s enough, Sergeant,” snapped Jenkins, darting his eyes at Layton’s father.

  “You have to look into this,” Phipps said, forcing his voice to be calm and level.

  “Please,” said Thomas Layton in an almost pleading tone.

  Seeing the agony in the old man’s eyes, Jenkins held his temper. “I’m sorry, sir. But I’ve still no ironclad proof to take to the Crown.”

  “Sir Edgar Montague, the head of Scotland Yard, would think us bloomin’ loonies for even suggesting such a thing,” said the fat policeman.

  “I know it all seems total fantasy to you,” Layton said wearily. He trailed off, seeing the blank, hard faces before him.

  “Or perhaps you murdered Glenn, Layton, to get back at him for this frame-up,” said the fat man thoughtfully.

  “What about the skeletons?” Phipps said.

  “I’ll not be wasting my time busting through any walls or ceilings,” snapped the inspector. When Phipps tried to protest, he held up a hand, signaling that the meeting was at an end.