The Man from the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 01]

by By Kim Newman

  “You don’t make the costumes yourselves? You buy them in.”

  “Some t’ings we run up here. Got an award for it. Mavis Barstow wears only original Mama-Lou designs. She insists. Not’ing June O’Dell puts on has been roun’ a human body before. Some of the other women’s t’ings we do the same. Had a Carnaby Street designer under contract for this new girl’s clothes. He’ll be gone, now. Change of policy. For the ones you’ll be interested in, we procure. We copy sometimes, but we make the copy good. You understand what I’m tellin’?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Good. You put a stop to it?”

  She stood back and folded her arms. He didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know what she meant.

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  Mama-Lou nodded, once. “Good. A sacrilege is no good to anyone. If a blessing is put to an evil end, evil comes to everyone, even the mos’ blessed. Maybe the idea comes from my island, but none of the conjuring comes from me. Dig?”

  “Dug.”

  “I follow Erzulie Freda, loa of love. This be the path of the Saturday Man. Know him?”

  “Baron Samedi?”

  “Hush-hush, Reechar’,” she said, laying a finger on his lips. “Say not his name, lest he come to your house. Caution agains’ the Saturday Man. And come this way.”

  With beckoning finger, Mama-Lou lured him deeper into the bunker, past more and more racks. Finally, she came to two new racks, which held only hangers and cellophane. No clothes yet.

  “I said I know firs’ when new people come. They get a rack, even before the role is cast. These are the ghost-hunters’ racks.”

  Character names were stuck to the racks. An invisible fist thumped against Richard’s chest.

  roget masterman. dr. canberra laurinz.

  “Sound familiar?” asked Mama-Lou.

  While Richard was calming, Mama-Lou placed something soft on his head. She looked at him sideways.

  “Not your style, but you’ll need it.”

  He took off the headwear and looked at it. It was an old flat cap.

  Mama-Lou stroked his coat again, more wistful than flirtatious.

  “Now you go think what has to be done. Then come back to Mama-Lou, give blessings to Erzulie Freda, and we make a conjuring. Dig?”

  “The most.”

  * * * *

  XI

  “Did Mama-Lou dispense any useful wisdom?” Vanessa asked him.

  “Yes, dear. You’re being written out.”

  She swore, elegantly. “You got this from the wardrobe mistress’?”

  “No more dresses for Lovely Legs,ergo ... no more Lovely Legs.”

  Richard was holding council of war in the boardinghouse sitting room. Fred had used his best “intimidating skinhead” glower to scare off a commercial traveller who had been settling down to ogle Vanessa and Barbara through slits cut in the Evening Mail. Now, they had privacy.

  “Have they tumbled that she’s a plant?” asked Fred.

  Richard wondered about that.

  “I think not,” he concluded. “They want shot of Lovely Legs to make room for new developments.”

  “The poltergeist plot?” prompted Barbara, who had sat in with the writing pack all day. “It’s come out of nowhere and isn’t really the Barstows style. No matter how unlikely things have got before, with plastic surgery or unknown twins coming back from Australia, they’ve stayed within the bounds of possibility. No ghosts or UFOs.”

  Realising the others were giving her hard looks, Barbara wondered what she had said wrong, then caught up with herself.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s not easy to get used to. This is new ground for me. Of course, there are ghosts and UFOs. That’s what you’re here for.”

  “No UFOs,” said Fred. “That’s rubbish. There aren’t any little green men from outer space.”

  “Yet,” said Richard.

  “There are ghosts,” said Vanessa. “And other things.”

  “Vampires?”

  “Yes,” said Richard and Vanessa.

  “Werewolves?”

  “More than you’d think,” said Richard. “And all manner of shapeshifters. There are were-amoebae, which need to be strictly regulated.”

  “Possession, like in The Exorcist?’’

  “God, yes,” shuddered Vanessa. “Not a favourite.”

  Barbara shook her head and sighed.

  “Welcome to the club, Prof,” said Fred. “I know how you feel. This isn’t natural for me either.”

  “The poltergeist plot?” prompted Richard.

  “Yes, that,” said Barbara, drawn back to her original thought train. “For most normal people, which—strangely—includes the O’Dell-Squiers writing staff, there’s a line between barely plausible and outright unbelievable. With the Bleeds Bogey—that’s what they’re calling the poltergeist—the line has been crossed. At today’s conference, the girl with the big glasses was summarily sacked for questioning whether the programme should go down that street.”

  Richard wasn’t surprised by that. It suggested their quarry knew how close they were to catching up.

  “The rest of the pack are frothing,” continued Barbara. “It’s Halloween come early. With his producer’s hat on, Marcus Squiers wants to retain you as technical advisor.”

  “That means they’ll make up what they want anyway but pay you to put your name in the end credits,” said Fred.

  “My understanding is that they want to give me more than a name-check. Barbara, did Squiers mention the ghost-hunters who’re showing up on the programme?”

  “There’s a buzz about them, though the pack got secretive when the subject came up. They suddenly remembered I was in the circle.”

  “The character names have been decided,” Richard told them. “I’ve seen their racks in Wardrobe. Masterman and Dr. Laurinz. Roget Masterman and Dr. Canberra Laurinz.”

  “Canberra!” blurted Barbara, appalled. “I must say this crosses the line. I’m supposed to engage critically with the subject, not be swallowed by it.”

  Richard had a pang about involving an outside party in the investigation. It did not do to get civilians turned into frogs.

  “Who’s playing you, guv?”

  “I assume someone called Peter Wyngarde has been approached,” said Richard. “The supposed resemblance keeps being mentioned.”

  Vanessa looked at him, thought about it, then ventured, “I wonder how Peter Cushing would look in a multicoloured Nehru jacket and moon boots?”

  “It’ll be someone from provincial rep or Früt adverts,” said Fred. “No one you’ve ever heard of gets on the Barstows. No offence, ‘Ness.”

  “None taken. It’s true. The Moo is Reigning Star, and doesn’t like pretenders to the throne. ‘Victoria Plant’ found that out in about two minutes.”

  “In some instances, they cast for physical likeness, not talent,” said Richard. “They’ll be poring overSpotlight for look-alikes. A wig and a ‘tache will do for me, but I imagine Barbara will be harder to match.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” said Professor Corri, trying not to be frightened. “I’m always being mistaken for some woman who wears fangs in Hammer Films.”

  “Will you get script approval?” asked Fred. “They could make you look a proper nana if they wanted. Like they did Jamie Hepplethwaites. We work in the shadows, guv. If you get famous for being lampooned on telly, the Ruling Cabal will Not Be Best Pleased.”

  “That had occurred to me.”

  Richard reached across the sofa and held Barbara’s hand. She returned his grip, firmly.

  “Something occurs to me,” said Vanessa. “You should be careful about giving away old clothes to War on Want.”

  “A little late for that,” Richard admitted.

  They all looked at him.

  “Today, while we were out, our rooms here were broken into. Not so you’d notice, but I take precautions and I can tell.”

  “Don’t tell me, your closets are empty?”


  “No, Fred, they’re full. Exactly as they were this morning.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Barbara and I have brand-new clothes. The same styles as the old ones, but different. I’m not sure, technically, what crime has been committed.”

  “They can’t think you wouldn’t notice,” said Fred

  “The new outfits have been aged to match the old. By Tara, the wardrobe assistant, if the faint trace of Coty’s Imprevu I whiffed around the counterfeit of my Emelio Pucci shirt is a significant clue. I understand Tara’s specialty is scrounging up dupes for established costumes. Mama-Lou will not be pleased by the girl’s involvement.”

  “They’re after you, guv. You and the Prof.”

  “Yes, Fred. They are.”

  “Barstards!”

  The landlady came in, like a “hurry the plot along” bit player, and told Vanessa she had a call.

  “The Phantom Phoner,” she said, and left the room.

  Richard pulled Barbara towards him. The Professor was not used to being in supernatural crosshairs, and her mind was racing to keep up. A few weeks ago, she hadn’t even known there were such things as curses, and now she was at the sharp end of one.

  “I should have specialised in nineteenth-century woman novelists,” she said. “My postgraduate thesis was on George Eliot. But the field was so crowded. The bloody structuralists were moving in, throwing their weight about. No one was thinking hard about television. So, here I am.... I suppose I brought this on myself. You might have mentioned this was dangerous, though. If I’d stayed on campus, the worst that could happen was ... well, getting burned at the stake during the next student demo ... but being cursed is fairly bloody drastic.”

  Vanessa came back.

  “That was my agent,” she said. “The one Delia set us up with. Your scoop was on the money. Priscilla of the Lovely Legs is off to Nepal to find her missing father in a lamasery. She’s left a note for Ben, which will make matters worse. I don’t even get an exit scene. My pay packet is waiting at the studio and I can swap my entry lozenge for it any time in the next two days. My digs are no longer being paid for by O’Dell-Squiers. She tells me, if it’s any consolation, that ‘Victoria Plant’ has had a ton of fan mail, plus a film offer.”

  “Exciting?” asked Fred.

  “Not really. Sexploits of a Suburban Housewife. More in your lady friend’s line than mine.”

  Zarana, Fred’s girlfriend, was an “exotic dancer” who cheerfully admitted to being a stripper and did occasional modelling and actress jobs. She had been gruesomely murdered in several movies.

  Vanessa looked glum at the sudden end of her brief television career.

  “Knock knock?” said Fred.

  “Who’s there?” asked Barbara, trying to cheer up.

  “Victoria...”

  “Victoria who?”

  Fred spread his hands. “That’s showbiz!”

  Vanessa laughed, but chucked a newspaper at him too. Which made him concentrate on business again.

  “If the assistant’s working against us, is this wardrobe woman behind the scam?” he asked. “The voodoo princess?”

  “No,” said Richard, “Mama-Lou is sympathetic to our cause. She knows or at least suspects what’s going on, and sees it as a transgression of her religion. She gave me a hat.”

  Fred whistled.

  “Not a very nice hat,” Richard admitted. “But a significant hat. We’ve seen its like about the place,”

  He pulled the flat cap out of his pocket and set it on his head.

  “‘Ey oop, there’s trooble at t’mill,” said Fred, in a Londoner’s impression of a Northshire accent. “What do you look like?”

  “Anyone?” asked Richard.

  “You’ve got a producer’s hat on,” said Barbara. “Now I remember where Squiers got it. There’s one exactly like it on the set. It’s been on a hook since the programme started. Mavis left it there where her husband hung it just before his fatal stroke.”

  “Da Barstow,” said Fred. “Our hit man.”

  “Da Barstow used to be married to Mavis,” said Richard.

  “And Marcus Squiers used to be married to June,” said Vanessa. “He’s put himself right in the frame.”

  “Literally,” said Richard, taking off the cap. “Da’s wearing this in his portrait.”

  “So this little bald git is diabolical mastermind of the month?” said Fred, who only knew Squiers from press cuttings. “Can’t say I’m surprised. He’s a dead ringer for Donald Pleasence.”

  “Is that a dupe?” asked Vanessa.

  Richard looked at the stained lining-band. He had noticed how much Squiers sweated. He fingered the cap.

  “It may be a dupe of the cap on the set, but it’s the original ‘producer’s hat.’ I imagine Mama-Lou’s slipped Squiers another dupe, which he’s been wearing without noticing. Are you following this, Frederick?”

  “The Barstards have got your clothes and you’ve got his cap.”

  “Very good, Fred.”

  “But what help is that to us?” asked Barbara.

  “Level playing field, Prof,” said Fred.

  “Two can do voodoo,” said Vanessa.

  “Ah,” said Barbara, catching up.

  Richard was thrilled. He recognised this was the most dangerous phase of the case. When he became excited by the problem and had a solution in mind, he was tempted to be let down his guard and take silly risks. With a volunteer along for the ride, he needed to remember that when black magic got out of hand people tended to get horribly hurt.

  “I will not let you be harmed,” he told Barbara.

  She smiled, showing grit. He was pleased with her.

  “We’ll need to call in favours,” he told them, “and work fast. Squiers is ahead on points and is setting us up for a knockout before the end of the round.”

  Fred shivered. “It gives me chills when you talk like Frank Bough. It only happens when we’re on a sticky wicket, up against the ropes, down to the last man and facing a penalty in injury time.”

  “How many episodes does a hit take?” asked Vanessa.

  “I defer to Barbara’s expertise,” said Richard.

  “Typically,” she began, “it’s been done over six to ten weeks, twelve to twenty shows. To get the audience involved, I suspect. You said emotional investment in the characters was a key ingredient. I imagine it’s important to get all fifteen million viewers on the hook. Of course, Squiers can usually afford to take the time to build slowly, work the relevant plot into the other things going on. None of the earlier, ah, commissions have taken over the programme completely. There’ve always been other stories running, about Mavis, Ben and the rest. Now, since we’re close to exposing him, there’s urgency. The ghost-hunters—us!—were set up on last night’s episode, and will be introduced at the end of next Tuesday’s show. They’re due to turn up for the cliffhanger, as all hell breaks loose in the lounge. In the programme, by the way, the Bleeds Bogey is Da Barstow’s angry ghost. He reckons Mavis killed him all those years ago. I estimate next Thursday’s Barstows will be the crucial episode, when ‘Roget’ and ‘Canberra’ are established as characters.”

  “That’s when the voodoo is done,” said Richard. “When our ‘dolls’ are fixed in the public mind.”

  Barbara shivered. “The way things are going,” she said, “I suspect we’ll be horribly killed the week after. Does that sound right?”

  “Just about,” said Richard.

  “They really are Barstards,” spat Barbara. Good. She had progressed from fear to anger.

  “We’ve a week and a half to defy the Saturday Man,” said Richard. “A challenge. I enjoy a challenge.”

  “And I enjoy breathing,” said Barbara, “so rise to it, Richard.”

  * * * *

  XII

  First thing Monday morning, after a weekend spent mostly on the phone, Richard and Barbara turned up at Haslemere Studios to meet their newly costumed doppelgangers outside th
e soundstage. Lionel had arranged for publicity photographs. Marcus Squiers, wearing what he fondly thought was his producer’s hat, beetled around sweatily in the background, presumably to keep an eye on the doll-making spell.

  Actors named Leslie Veneer and Gaye Brough were freshly cast as ‘Roget Masterman’ and ‘Canberra Laurinz.’ Veneer had not been in any films or done any television Richard had ever heard of. Having all but given up on acting in favour of work as an insurance adjuster, he no longer had an agent. His head shot was still in Spotlight just so he could say he was an actor rather an insurance man when talking to girls at “keys in a bowl parties.” Gaye’s curriculum vitae was more impressive, listing page after page of seemingly everything made in the United Kingdom from A Man for All Seasons to Devil Bride of Dracula—though she admitted you’d need to run prints frame by frame through a Steenbeck to catch her face. In twenty-five years in the profession, Gaye Brough had never played a part with a character name. Essentially, she was an extra. He assumed both players had been cast purely for physical resemblance, which was considerable. When they were posed, Barbara instinctively cosied up to Veneer, and Richard had to reclaim her—prompting blushes, which Gaye instantly matched.