by Mike Ashley
They danced upon the lawn like two creatures in some fable and all the while they fenced, the smaller of the two kept up an amazing clamour. It was as if she had some raucous and frightful bird locked up in her rib-cage. It was she I had mistaken for a peacock!
I looked on in amazement.
Although I have seen many professional women fight (including the great Mary Brindle of New England), I had never seen action to equal this. The smaller woman lunged and thrust at the taller with dangerously bold strokes, which her opponent parried with ease. But it was no formal display of technique – their blades clashed and slithered and threw out sparks in grim earnest.
Suddenly the tall girl slipped as her foot caught in the hem of her gown. She lurched, and made a frantic effort to recover her balance, but failed and fell to the ground in a wild flurry of petticoats. As she fell, the sword flew out of her hand in a great flashing arc. The smaller woman now towered over her, her sword drawn back so that it pointed downwards towards the unprotected breast. Laughing, she seemed to be considering whether or no to plunge her sword into the inert body beneath her. She pricked the bodice maliciously, looking for the softest spot.
I held my breath.
With a quick twist of her body, the fallen girl jerked aside – and the other, startled, lunged. The point of the sword passed within an inch of her side, tearing the fabric of her gown. It penetrated the smooth grass and remained quivering there.
Shrieking with hysterical laughter, the small girl threw herself upon the other, grasped her with both hands by the throat and strove to throttle her!
The other girl, laughing almost as hysterically, seized her wrists and endeavoured to tear them apart. But her tormentor clung to her neck, forcing her nails into the flesh until even I could see the blood begin to fleck her hands. Although the battle seemed to be in largely high-spirits, I thought there must be some danger of their doing each other an injury. I wondered why nobody ran out to call this strange affair to a halt.
Then I noticed that I was not the only observer. Close by the corner of the wall, a young man stood watching this display. He watched them with an intolerant eye, but seemed little inclined to interfere. I received a strong impression that this was no new sight to him.
Squirming, kicking, and striking at her attacker’s face, the fallen girl fought desperately to wrench herself free. But she seemed quite helpless beneath the power of the diminutive tornado that bestraddled her. Until, suddenly, this tornado appeared to blow itself out. With a long, agonized cry, she shuddered down the entire length of her body, her grip relaxed, and she collapsed inert upon the other girl’s body.
Nobody moved. The girl pinned beneath her fought for her breath. She seemed almost too exhausted to push the still, small form aside.
With slow, deliberate strides, the young man walked over to the prostrate pair and casually, even a little disdainfully, he shoved the girls apart with one delicately arched foot. He then gave the taller girl his hand and hauled her unceremoniously to her feet.
Upright and stationary, she presented a curiously awkward figure. With bad grace, she thanked the young man and, kneeling by the inert figure on the grass, turned her over to face the light. As she did so, she raised a hand to her own head and pulled off her hat.
To my utter astonishment, the architectural wig came away with it, revealing the features of a singularly handsome young man. My amazement grew even greater as he stood up and proceeded to undress upon the lawn.
I gaped as he undid the pointed bodice of his gown and stripped off plumes, brocade and lace. Three petticoats were removed and thrown aside and I saw that he was, in truth, a lean and sinewy young stripling wearing only his breeches beneath the finery. He must have been mortifyingly hot under it all!
Stripped of his encumbrances, he turned his attention to his partner. He took a phial from the phlegmatic on-looker and waved it under her nose. She stirred indolently and sat up suddenly.
She was helped to her feet and she, too, began to disrobe. Off came the wig and the plumes, the gown was torn impatiently from her body, and the tout ensemble dropped to the feet of a cherubic young fellow dressed, like his friend, in nothing but his breeches.
I found myself staring curiously at the ladies’ brocade shoes which still adorned their feet. In some odd way I had found this last metamorphosis less unnerving than the first – not simply because I was the less astonished, but because the soft young figure in masculine dress and feminine shoes, though unmistakably a man, had a body that more approached the feminine in its roundness and softness. He was a very young man, no more than seventeen years, I should have said.
All memory of their maniacal duel seemed forgotten between them. Laughing, they threw their arms around each other and teetered away across the lawn in their absurd shoes. They disappeared behind the same wall from which they had so sensationally appeared.
The third young man drifted away in another direction. Even at this distance I could see there had been no love lost between them.
So engrossed had I been in this curious performance, that I had failed to hear the door open behind me. The manservant now coughed discreetly. I turned, feeling strangely as though I had been caught rattling the family skeletons. The servant regarded me with a bright and noncommittal eye. I presumed he had seen the two upon the lawn, but he stared at me impassively.
“Her ladyship is ready to receive you, Sir,” he said.
II
I followed the manservant through the roof-high hall. It was stone-flagged and draughty, with a faintly medieval smell to it. Although the air outside was breathless, a faint wind murmured in the baronial fireplace and the sun had abandoned the attempt to penetrate the mullioned windows. The ceiling and walls were lost in a gloom of shadows, and history lay thick upon the air. I could almost see the ghostly generations of tenants assembled before the high table.
As we climbed the staircase, I examined the family portraits lining the walls. They were a more direct link with the ghostly past. It gave me an odd feeling to think that once, on this same ground, they had walked, but now all were gone like shadows at midday, one generation following another.
Another strange thought occurred to me as we passed the portraits. They were arranged in chronological order, but reaching backwards in time. They ended with the first Lord Wroth (circa 1489) and I could not but fail to notice that, as the family history rolled back into obscurity, the distinctive features of the Wroth clan faded into obliteration. But for the last four generations, at least, the painted faces had betrayed considerable inbreeding. The grandfather of the present Lord Wroth, for example, had a very mad look – a look of almost fatal softness – which no amount of painterly skill had been able to conceal. He was, I recollected suddenly, the husband of the Dowager Lady Wroth, to whom I was now about to be introduced.
The servant knocked briskly on a massive door and a high, querulous voice bade us enter. I was shown into a room the servant called the “solar”.
After the gloom of the hall, this room seemed vibrant with light. It gleamed in the burnished woodwork, it sparkled warmly on the brass fireirons, it flashed out from the many mirrors in the room, and it coruscated among the facets of the chandeliers and lustres. The sunlight gave to the room a feeling of splendid unruliness. There was something pleasurably sluttish about it, as though it were unable to control its behaviour after the rigours of the hall. Among the sober furnishings, the sun was gay.
And all this gaiety seemed gathered into the person of the mistress of the house. The Dowager Lady Wroth was the most splendidly illuminated creature that I had ever seen. At first glance she seemed to be composed almost entirely of diamonds – they glittered from her ears, her throat, her wrists and her fingers. Her white hair shone with a bluish sheen, her skin had the gleam of coral, and her tabby1 gown was the colour of daffodils.
With a shock, I realized that this exuberantly youthful figure must be touching her eightieth year. My second thought was that she wa
s monstrous overdressed for a simple country morning. It seemed that fifty years of living among the gentry had not dampened the essentially theatrical spirit of the one-time actress, Sarah Laverstitch.
I, too, had been the object of as close a scrutiny. Her brilliantly undimmed eyes had been evaluating me point by point. She approved of what she saw, apparently, for she smiled and invited me to sit on a sofa of truly regal proportions. Her teeth were startlingly grey in her rosy face, and I now saw that her cheeks were very finely enamelled. I had a strong suspicion that beneath the flattering wig she was as bald as a magistrate.
She came directly to business. If I could satisfy her as to my credentials, she would be interested in using my services.
I presented her with my references and, after a careful reading of them, she asked how soon I would be free to act for her.
“I am at your service now, my lady,” I said.
She looked surprised. “You are at liberty?”
I laughed and said frankly: “Business is not yet brisk, Lady Wroth. I have been advertising my services since April, but the public have not, so far, responded as I could have wished. There is still some suspicion of my calling among folk generally.”
She nodded sympathetically. “It is understandable, Captain. The public are suspicious both of advertisements and thief-takers. Advertisements are largely unfulfilled promises, and thief-takers are often as rascally as the rogues they take!”
Having shot this barb, she looked slyly at me to see if it had struck home.
“I don’t describe myself as a thief-taker, Lady Wroth,” I said. “I am more interested in the gathering of information and the detection of crimes. I call myself a detective.”
The word was unknown to her, as, indeed, it was still unknown to many.
“A detective?” she asked.
“From the Latin, Ma’am. Detegere, to uncover,” I explained, and outlined my scientific methods.
“A detective,” she said, seemingly impressed with my summary. “Well, that is an original calling.”
“Not entirely original,” I said, smiling. “There were detectives of a kind in ancient Egypt. Is not the story of Rhampsinitus, as told by Herodotus, a sort of detective-story?” She returned my smile uncomprehendingly. “But I think it safe to say that I am the only one in existence today.”
“You are not attached to the Bow Street Police?” she asked.
“No, my lady. I prefer to work independently. I am a private gentleman. A Private Detective, if you wish.”
“Good!” she said, and I noticed a distinct note of relief in her voice. “My commission calls for a man of independent spirit.”
“You prefer not to use the Bow Street Police?” I asked, emphasizing the word “police” deliberately, and looking to see how she received it. Even at this early stage in my career, I knew that my employers would be largely comprised of those who would be too embarrassed to use the regular channels of the law.
She looked briefly away and replied shortly: “I think this is not a suitable business for them.”
“You think they are not competent?”
“I think they are not suitable,” she said briskly. “For one thing, I doubt if they would even consider the matter. I am not, as yet, certain that any crime has been committed. Unless you count sheer human folly to be a crime.”
I waited for her to explain the matter further. She tapped the arm of her chair with her tortoise-shell fan, and said decisively: “I had better start from the beginning.”
“I’d be obliged to your ladyship.”
She paused, then shook herself, flashing fire from every facet. She reached for a small brocade bag, and extracted from it a sheaf of papers tied with a frivolous looking ribbon. She held them out to me.
“Read them!” she commanded.
I walked over to her chair and took them from her. The diamonds on her wrists and fingers shivered slightly, and I saw that she was trying valiantly to control a fit of trembling.
The papers were addressed to the Dowager Lady Wroth at Stukeley, Hertfordshire. The writing was neat and clerkly. The first paper was headed “At the Sign of the Anodyne Necklace” and was signed “Asclepius (Doctor)” followed by a string of meaningless and, I suspected, largely fictitious medical degrees. It read, simply, “For Services Rendered”.
The other papers, seven in all, were signed receipts. The signature at the foot of each one was large, ill-formed and boorish. With difficulty, I deciphered the name “Wroth”.
Lord Wroth had promised to pay the sum of 480 guineas for “Value Received”.
My eyebrows rose slightly at the nature of the “Value Received”.
Imprimis, for use of the Royall Chymicall Washball, and for Ridding the Skin of all Deformities
28 gns
Item, to use of application to Cure a Stammer
28 gns
Item, to preserving Eyes
28 gns
Item, to clearing away Phlegm, Rheum and Foul Humours from Breast, Stomach and Lungs
28 gns
Item, to Removal of a Ringworm
10 gns
Item, to Removal of Pimples
10 gns
Item, to enticing of a Lengthy, Hairy and Voracious Worm, conjured from His Lordship’s gut
28 gns
And more amazing than this:
Item, to stimulation of His Lordship’s Growth in various parts of His Person
120 gns
And even more amazing still:
Item, to curing His Lordship of the Hideous Crime of Self-Pollution
200 gns
480 gns
I looked up. Lady Wroth stared at me with her hard, gemlike eyes. I could scarcely keep the amazement out of my own.
“Well, Sir? What do you think?”
“It seems your grandson suffers from singular ill-health, Ma’am,” I said.
Her Ladyship snorted with disgust.
“Tcha! My grandson is in the most blatant good health. This is a brazen humbug! He has got into the hands of this quack. We live in an age of magnificent quacks, Captain Nash. They have cut short more lives with their pills and elixirs than were ever killed off by the plague!”
I waited for her to recover her temper. I was also waiting for her to come more to the point. There was more to it, I was sure, than these bizarre but basically harmless receipts.
“Do you know this ‘Asclepius’ fellow?” she asked tentatively. She toyed with her fan – a veritable weapon in her hands. It weaved, twisted, snapped shut and opened again. Her fan was the real sign-manual to her emotions, for her face told me nothing.
“I have heard tell of him, Ma’am,” I replied. “I think he is far removed from the ‘blameless Physician’ of Greek legend.”
“He is a magnificent quack, Sir!” she exploded. “A self-created doctor. These so-called medical receipts are not worth the paper they are written on.”
“But the signature is genuine?”
She paused, then admitted scornfully: “There’s not a doubt of it. Only my grandson could manage so illiterate a flourish!”
“Yet you wish to fight this claim on you?”
She positively winced.
“How can I, Sir? There’s nothing here I can fight. Wroth could have used such services.”
“But a court might question their legality, Lady Wroth,” I said quietly.
“Yes, but . . .” She faltered. “. . . There’s more.”
She proffered me a further sheet of paper.
I read it thoughtfully. It was a cleverly constructed letter. Every word had been carefully chosen to mean precisely nothing if challenged in a court of law. Yet the overall tone was threatening.
These present receipts were the lesser part of his lordship’s debt to the Doctor, the writer said. As his lordship was still not yet in possession of his fortune, the writer hoped that her ladyship would honour the debt. There were, however, three more receipts still in the Doctor’s possession, for services of a
rather more serious nature. These services were highly intimate and in view of the Doctor’s sacred oath, would remain arcanum. Her ladyship could be assured that the Doctor had no wish to embarrass such an eminent family as the Wroths by publishing indelicate details, and the Doctor remained confident that her ladyship would oblige . . . etc. . . . etc. The value of these receipts amounted to . . . 3000 guineas!
“Well, Sir?” Lady Wroth asked, as I looked up from the paper.
“What does his lordship say about them?”
She snorted again. “He refuses to discuss it, though he admits to receiving some services. What do you suggest I do?”
“I would buy the receipts,” I said without hesitation.
She looked surprised and ruffled. Clearly, that was not the answer she expected to hear from me. Her diamonds glittered angrily as she slapped her fan against the arm of her chair.
“You would advise that?” she said sharply.
“Unless you wish to be embarrassed publicly,” I said. “It’s possible that this is merely some kind of gammon, my lady, but it’s possible that these receipts are for genuine services.”
“Genuine! I tell you my grandson is in perfect health!”
I said reasonably: “There are many ailments a healthy young man can fall prey to, Lady Wroth; some of a most embarrassing nature.”
“To a hair, Sir!” she snorted. “Onanism, for example! The Hideous Crime of Self-Pollution!”
The fan fluttered like an outraged dove.
“. . . Or worse,” I said carefully.
She considered the possibilities.
“I can think of nothing worse than the pox, Sir. And a young man getting cured of the pox is hardly a matter for blackguarding me.”
The truth was out.
“Why should you think these receipts blackguard you, my lady?” I asked.
She looked away and moved uncomfortably.
“My grandson is a singular fellow, Sir,” she said.
I had a quick vision of the two young women on the lawn. Suddenly enlightened, I asked: “Does his lordship often duel en travesti?”