by Neil McKenna
The gentlemen could hardly contain themselves at the sight of so many young-men-dressed-as-ladies and even those who were long past the first flush of youth, those with sterner features, like Fanny Park, or those with stouter builds were positively chased around the ballroom. Jack Saul noticed Mr Haxell nodding and smiling and encouraging his guests to enjoy themselves, seemingly unaware of what was going on under his very nose. ‘No doubt the proprietor was quite innocent of any idea of what our fun really was,’ Saul wrote, ‘but there were two or three dressing rooms into which the company could retire at pleasure.’
These dressing rooms which Carlotta had insisted upon were supposed to be intimate retreats for the young men dressed as ladies to refresh themselves and to repair their toilette. But in reality they resembled nothing so much as dimly lit bordellos where drunken guests fumbled and frolicked with each other.
Tiring of drinking and dancing, Jack Saul recalled, ‘I sat for a while on a sofa by myself, watching the dancers and taking notice of all the little freedoms they so constantly exchanged with one another.’
Both Fanny and Stella caught his eye. Fanny was ‘dancing with a gentleman from the City, a very handsome Greek merchant’, while Stella was enjoying the attentions of Lord Arthur Clinton who, Jack Saul observed, ‘was very spooney upon her’.
During the evening I noticed them slip away together, and made my mind up to try and get a peep at their little game. So I followed them as quietly as possible, and saw them pass down a corridor to another apartment, not one of the dressing rooms which I knew had been provided for the use of the party, but one which I suppose his Lordship had secured for his own personal use.
I was close enough behind them to hear the key turned in the lock. Foiled thus for a moment, I turned the handle of the next door, which admitted me to an unoccupied room, and to my great delight a beam of bright light streamed from the keyhole of the door of communication between that and the one in which my birds had taken refuge.
Jack Saul knelt down and put his eye to the keyhole. He could see and hear everything. ‘Lord Arthur and Boulton were standing before a large mirror,’ he recalled. Stella was busy unbuttoning Lord Arthur’s trousers. ‘Soon she let out a beautiful specimen of the arbor vitae, at least nine inches long and very thick. It was in glorious condition, with a great, glowing red head.’
Stella ‘at once knelt down and kissed this jewel of love and would, I believe, have sucked him to a spend, but Lord Arthur was too impatient.’ Picking Stella up, Lord Arthur flung her down backwards on the bed to reveal ‘a beautiful pair of legs enveloped within lovely knicker-bocker drawers. They were prettily trimmed with the finest lace, and I could also see pink silk stockings and the most fascinating little shoes with silver buckles.’
Matters proceeded apace. Lord Arthur quickly put his hands into Stella’s drawers and ‘soon brought to light as manly a weapon as any lady could desire to see, and very different from the crinkum-crankum one usually expects when one throws up a lady’s petticoats and proceeds to take liberties with her’.
‘What’s this beautiful plaything, darling?’ Lord Arthur asked in an erotic frenzy ‘as he fondled and caressed Boulton’s prick, passing his hand up and down the ivory-white shaft and kissing the dark, ruby-coloured head every time it was uncovered’.
‘Are you a hermaphrodite, my love?’ he demanded. ‘Oh I must kiss it: it’s such a treasure!’
Jack Saul was riveted. ‘How excited I became at the sight you may be sure,’ he recorded. ‘I was determined not to frig myself, as I was sure of finding a nice partner when I returned to the ball-room. Still, I would rather have had Boulton than anyone else. His make-up was so sweetly pretty that I longed to have him, and him have me.’
Jack Saul could see how Stella’s body seemed to shake and spasm as Lord Arthur’s finger ‘postillioned her bottomhole’.
Seeing how agitated he had made her, he took that splendid prick fairly into his mouth and sucked away with all the ardour of a male gamahucher; his eyes almost emitted sparks as the crisis seemed to come, and he must have swallowed every drop of that creamy emission he had worked so hard to obtain.
After a minute or two Lord Arthur wiped his mouth, and turned Stella around so that her bottom was in the air.
Opening the drawers from behind, he kissed each cheek of the lovely white bum, and tickled the little hole with his tongue. But he was too impatient to waste much time in kissing, so at once he presented his prick to Boulton’s fundament, as he held the two cheeks of his pretty arse open with his hands.
Although such a fine cock, it did not seem to have a very difficult task to get in, and he was so excited that he very nearly came at once. But keeping his place, he soon commenced a proper bottom fuck, which both of them gave signs of enjoying intensely, for I could fairly hear his belly flop against Boulton’s buttocks at every home push, whilst each of them called the other by the most endearing terms such as:
‘What a darling you are! Tell me, love, that you love me! Tell me it’s a nice fuck!’
And then the other would exclaim:
‘Tush; push; fuck me; ram your darling prick in as fast as it will go. Oh! Oh! Quicker, quicker: Do come now, dearest Arthur; my love, my pet! Oh! Oh!! Oh!!!’
22
The Wheels of Justice
We hope and believe that not one winding of this filthy business will be left unexplored, nor one of those concerned in it be left unexposed or unpunished. Now that we have got our hand on the cockatrice’s den it is of the utmost moment that we should not take it away until we have cleared out its last recesses and subjected every one of its inmates to the just penalty of his guilt.
Pall Mall Gazette, 8th June 1870
F or Louis Hurt in Edinburgh, the dramatic arrest of Fanny and Stella had come as a bolt from the blue. He was struggling to make sense of what had happened. Events seemed to be moving so swiftly and, apart from the extensive and salacious reports in the newspapers, which were already a day or more old by the time he saw them, he had no way of knowing what was happening. Of course, he had written and telegraphed to Mr and Mrs Boulton, but they appeared to be almost as much in the dark as himself.
Louis was angry and confused. He had warned Ernie over and over again about the undesirability – let alone the dangers – of dressing up as a woman. ‘I am rather sorry to hear of your going around in Drag so much,’ he had told him sternly just days before. ‘You know my sentiments.’
Stella was only too well aware of Louis’s sentiments on the subject of ‘Drag’, which he always spoke of and wrote of with a large capital D, as if to emphasise his disgust and his disdain. His pompous pronouncements, his admonitions and his injunctions on Drag were endlessly repeated.
Though Louis was a trifle dull (in truth, rather more than a trifle), he more than made up for it with his spaniel-like loyalty and devotion to his Ernie. Within a week of Fanny and Stella’s arrest he had asked for, and been granted, a leave of absence from the Post Office, but was also in receipt of a terse request from the Postmaster General himself to provide a full written explanation of his relations with the young men in women’s clothes. ‘I suppose I shall be called up to resign,’ he gloomily confided to John Safford Fiske.
Louis’s plan was to go to London and do what he could. If it was at all possible, he would visit Ernie in prison. He would certainly go and see Mr and Mrs Boulton at Shirland Road in Maida Vale and offer what help he was able. And he would rally Ernie’s friends and acquaintances and see what could be done. Lastly, he would find out what the implications were for himself.
Louis feared the worst. The newspapers were full of rumours and speculations about cliques and claques of young men who dressed as women, of peers and politicians, of scandal and disgrace, of imminent arrests and round-ups. The police were no fools. It would not take them long to realise that Ernie had spent the past six months living with him in Edinburgh. Ernie was always so careless. Letters would be found. Compromising letters. Letters to �
��My darling Ernie’ from ‘Your loving Louis’, and whatever else he had committed to paper in his dark and lonely moments. He would be arrested and quite possibly – quite probably – charged with sodomy. Mrs Dickson would be questioned. He turned pale at the prospect.
For the moment, however, he was free: free to find out what exactly the police knew, and perhaps more importantly what they did not know – yet; and free, for the moment, to flee if matters should take a turn for the worse. ‘Do you advise my going to New York?’ he enquired of John Safford Fiske.
It was almost certain that Fiske would be implicated too, along with Harry Park and Donald Sinclair and John Jameson Jim and all the others in their little society of friends. All except poor Robbie Sinclair, who was now beyond the reach of the police, dead of consumption at just twenty-three.
Once he was in London, Louis began to feel reassured. He had spoken to Abrams, the solicitor, who said the situation was grave, certainly, but not perhaps as grave as he had first imagined. His opinion, his hope, was that the Metropolitan Police and the Treasury had overreached themselves. They had levelled grave and grandiloquent charges of sodomy and conspiracy to commit sodomy. But such grave and grandiloquent charges required clear and unambiguous evidence. And so far, the Metropolitan Police and the Treasury had signally failed to produce any evidence worthy of the name. There was – as yet – no evidence of sodomy; and no evidence of invitations to sodomy; no evidence of any attempts to induce, incite, entice or inveigle any other men into committing sodomy.
Even the evidence of the chief prosecution witness, a young man named Hugh Mundell, had gone to their credit. ‘Miss Stella’ and ‘Mrs Fanny’, as he persisted in calling them, had made efforts, strenuous efforts, to inform that gullible young man that they were, in fact, men dressed up as women, even penning a note to that effect. It had made not a ha’p’orth of difference. Mr Hugh Mundell still refused to accept that they were men. Really, if this callow young man was the best that the Metropolitan Police and the Treasury could muster, then the defence was, according to the optimistic Mr Abrams, almost home and dry.
The medical evidence of sodomy, which had at first seemed so compelling and so convincing, also failed to hold water. It was certainly true that Dr Paul, the police doctor, had detected alarming signs of sodomy written upon the bodies of Fanny and Stella. And Dr Barwell, from the Charing Cross Hospital, had sworn on oath that he had treated Frederick Park for a syphilitic chancre upon his anus which could only have been the consequence of sodomy.
Powerful as this evidence was, it had been weakened – mortally weakened – by the mass examinations of the parts of Ernie and Fred which had taken place at Newgate Gaol. Five out of the six eminent medical men present could find no signs of sodomy, not a shadow, not even a trace – insertive or receptive – upon either of them.
Louis was feeling altogether more sanguine. ‘I am heartily glad that I came here,’ he told Fiske in the middle of May. ‘Case looks well at present. Abrams says there is no warrant issued against me. I have just seen a crowd standing round Ernest and Park’s photos in a shop.’
By Herculean endeavours, Louis managed to squeeze and push himself into the public gallery in Bow Street. ‘I was in Court and rather regretted going when I saw how pale and worn poor little Ernie looked,’ he wrote to Fiske. ‘It made me so unhappy. I managed to say a word or two to him. Tomorrow I hope to have a short interview with him.’
‘My dear John,’ Louis wrote to Fiske after his short and unhappy interview in Newgate with his poor little Ernie, pale and wan and half-frightened to death, but still putting a brave face on it all, ‘Ernest begs you will destroy any letters from him you may have. I hope you will if you have not already done so.’
Fiske had already burned all Stella’s letters in his possession. But unfortunately his love letters to Stella were already in the hands of the police. The last and most passionate of these had been posted just twelve days before the arrest of Fanny and Stella. It was addressed to ‘un ange qu’on nomme Erné ’, an angel named Erné, and no one who read it could have the slightest doubt of his feelings towards Stella:
My darling Ernie,
I have eleven photographs of you (and expecting more tomorrow) which I look at over and over again – I have four little notes which I have sealed up in a packet. I have a heart full of love and longing – and my photographs, my four little notes and my memory are all that I have of you – when are you going to give me more? When are you going to write a dozen lines of four words each to say that all the world is over head and ears in love with you and that you are so tired of adoration and compliments that you turn to your humdrum friend as a relief. Will it be tomorrow? Or will it be next week? Believe me, darling, a word of remembrance from you can never come amiss, only the sooner it comes the better.
Yours always
jusqu’à la mort
John S Fiske
It did not take long for the newspapers to obtain the text of this damning letter, though when the contents were published most people felt it was foolish rather than filthy. ‘I have just seen a copy of the letter,’ Louis wrote to Fiske. ‘There is nothing indecent in it (of course) but it is in the most high flown language. After this letter, I can’t understand why your rooms haven’t been searched; perhaps because you have been Consul. Post going — Yours, L.’
It was certainly true – and not a little surprising – that neither Louis Hurt nor Fiske had yet been interviewed by the police in connection with the case, especially given the furore surrounding it. Fiske’s diplomatic status as United States Consul in Edinburgh may well have given the police pause for thought and protected him, at least in the short run, from Inspector Thompson’s unwelcome attentions.
But Mr Abrams was firmly of the opinion that prevention was better than cure. Both Mr Hurt and Mr Fiske would be well advised to make themselves available for interview by the Metropolitan Police. Such a move would clearly demonstrate candour and help dissipate the cloud of suspicion hovering above them. Inspector Thompson’s enquiries were far from concluded. Putting themselves forward for voluntary interview was a hundred times, nay a thousand times, preferable to waiting for Thompson to arrest them.
Louis was firmly persuaded by the urgings of Mr Abrams, but Fiske hesitated. He still hoped against hope that it might all go away. After all, the very worst the police had against him was that foolish letter he had written to Erné and, as Louis said, there was nothing actually indecent in it. It was hardly compelling evidence of sodomy. It was unfortunate that his letter had damaged Erné’s case. But he could not help that. He had himself to think about now.
It was quite possible, perhaps even probable, that the police would leave well alone. Scotland was a different jurisdiction from England, and there would be all sorts of legal complexities to surmount.
F inally, however, on 3rd June, Fiske decided to come to London to see if matters could not be resolved. He would not countenance an interview with Inspector Thompson. But he would call on Mr Poland, the barrister leading the prosecution against Erné and Fred Park. He would tell Mr Poland that his letter was utter nonsense. It would be a frank and a manly chat. He would tell Mr Poland that he was about to be married and that these unfortunate and unfounded allegations risked his future happiness. And Mr Poland would listen sympathetically and nod his head wisely and all would yet be well.
One of Fiske’s most urgent tasks the day after he arrived was also far from congenial. It was downright distasteful. The indefatigable Mr Abrams had opined that both he and Louis Hurt should take the precaution of being examined for signs of sodomy by an eminent medical man. Though Mr Abrams remained optimistic, if the worst came to the worst, it might prove very useful, very useful indeed, to have irrefutable medical evidence that neither he nor Louis had ever indulged in sodomy. Dr Alfred Harvey was the man he had in mind. He had already minutely examined Boulton and Park and detected no signs of sodomy.
Fiske’s next task was equally uncongenial
. He had to call at the Legation of the United States for a painful interview with Mr John Lothrop Motley, United States Minister in London. ‘Mr Fiske called at the Legation on the 4th instant,’ Motley wrote in a confidential memorandum to the Secretary of State in Washington:
in order to communicate the fact that his name was implicated in the disgraceful affair of the men in women’s clothes, and to request some introduction in writing from the Legation to the Counsel charged with their prosecution. He thought he could make explanations to that personage which might relieve him from the suspicions resting upon him.
In the course of the interview, Fiske revealed the extent of his friendship with Erné.
He admitted that he had made the acquaintance of the prisoner Boulton at Edinburgh, that he had introduced himself to him, that he had requested him to put on his female attire, that he had received him familiarly at his own house (not in women’s clothes, however) by invitation eight times, and that he had written letters to him, three of which were in the hands of the prosecution.
Fiske turned up at Mr Poland’s chambers the following day to request an interview, only to be sent word through his clerk that Mr Poland regretted that such an interview between a prosecuting barrister and a potential witness – and perhaps even a potential defendant – was impossible and unthinkable.
Fiske was left reeling. It was a serious and unexpected reversal. Had the twin goddesses of Fortune and Fate ceased to smile upon him? He shivered and – as he returned to Edinburgh – for the first time in his life he was frightened of what the future might hold.
T he wheels of justice might grind slowly but they ground inexorably. Inspector Thompson’s telegram was handed to Detective Officer Roderick Gollan of the Edinburgh City Police on the morning of 9th June, kindly requesting him to call upon Mr John Safford Fiske at his chambers at 136 George Street and search the premises for any evidence, written or photographic, that might connect him to Ernest Boulton.