by L. J. Greene
I looked up at his face. “Why me? What made you decide I was worth taking the chance of running around on him?”
He smirked, and petted me on the cheek—more of a slap, really. “It’s that pretty face of yours, bunny. Movie stars find it irresistible and so do I. Come on, now.”
He pulled me upright. For a moment I worried he’d try to return the favor, but I needn’t have. He licked the dregs of his spunk out of my mouth, and then gave me a little shove. “Go on, then. Get dressed. I shall have to change, too.” He tutted, looking down at the wet mess I’d made of his dress pants. “You’ll hear a gong in ten minutes or so, and that will be your cue to come downstairs.” With that, he left me.
I did as he asked: clothed myself and made my way back downstairs when the dinner gong sounded. They were waiting for me: Lord Cresswickham, Alice and Mancini. Alice, who was dressed in lavender chiffon and white satin gloves, looked troubled at the sight of me.
“Oh,” she said, and then, at my raised eyebrow, “Reggie didn’t tell me you were staying for dinner.” She squeezed my hand. She had a strong, almost desperate grip. Mancini was a stranger again, avoiding my eyes.
“Shall we?” Cresswickham said, and grasped Alice by the elbow to guide her into the dining room. It was not quite so formal as I’d expected—the table, though still too large for our group, did not preclude conversation. The room was sprinkled with Cresswickham’s possessions: portraits along the walls of long-dead nobles and peers, the occasional archbishop. Over the center of the table hung a crystal chandelier glowing with a dim electric light. Heavy silver candelabras on the side tables against the walls burned enough candles to make the room warm and stuffy.
I was seated on my own side of the table, opposite Alice. Cresswickham took the head, naturally, and Mancini sat at the foot. Betts was nowhere to be found, but we were attended by staff: both young men, beautiful and silent, though I could have sworn the darker-haired of them sent a smirk my way. One served the food, the other the wine, and what a feast it was. Six courses, and the finest cuisine you could imagine. I had never eaten anything like it. Mousses and scalloped potatoes and even the vegetables in the salad sculpted to look like blooming flowers. Some things I didn’t even know what to call them, but I didn’t want to sound a chump and ask.
“You must have some cook,” I said, when the last course was served. The conversation had been dominated by Cresswickham so far, and mostly concerned his efforts to catalog the provenance of a Gainsborough landscape. “Yes, sir, one damned fine cook. Oh, excuse my language.”
Alice, for the first time that evening, smiled.
I expected Cresswickham to turn chilly again, but he took it in his stride. “The house chef was trained at Le Cordon Bleu. He is adequate; he’s certainly the best I’ve found in America. I brought him across from New York.”
“Well, he’s the best I ever came across. Not that I’ve come across many. I used to eat at Schwab’s most of the time, or—” There was a clatter from the end of the table. Mancini had dropped his pastry fork on to the china plate.
“I beg your pardon,” he said quietly. “How clumsy of me.”
“—or anywhere cheap,” I finished. He’d been quite right; although I wasn’t such a turkey as to say something about Chateau Marmont, Cresswickham now knew that if he wanted me for any reason, he might find me sitting pretty at the counter at Schwab’s.
“Do you prefer port or cognac as your digestif?” Cresswickham asked me, but before I could answer, Alice stood up.
“Gentlemen, I shall withdraw. Good evening,” she said, and left the room without another word. A snifter appeared before me.
I’d drunk a lot that night, French burgundy on top of the bourbon, and I could feel my face was flushed. But I took the cognac, and sniffed at it like Cresswickham was doing. Mancini dismissed the servants and then moved down the table to sit opposite me. He tossed his drink back in one gulp.
“Really, Leo, there’s no need to be vulgar,” Cresswickham told him.
But Mancini just grinned. “Come on, Reggie. You like me vulgar at times.”
I started talking loudly about the meal again, until Mancini broke in.
“Mr. Fox, I believe you agreed to take us out on the town some time. Show us the interesting parts of the city. Reggie said you’d know where they were.”
Cresswickham was as drunk as I was, I realized then, because he started giggling. It was an unpleasant sound, high and humorless. “You did say you would, you know,” he said to me. “And we’re not wrong about you, are we? You’re queer.”
I was actually shocked. It made both of them laugh uproariously. “We don’t usually lay it out so plain this side of the Atlantic,” I said, when they’d subsided. “Not in this sort of house, anyway. I never expected to hear that kind of talk in a formal dining room after a six-course dinner. But yes, I’m of that inclination.”
“And of the other, also,” Cresswickham said. He laid speculative eyes on me. “You are not, I think, someone who would object to female company?”
“I…no,” I said.
“My sister is very beautiful.”
“Why, yes. Yes, she is, but I don’t—that is, I wouldn’t ever presume—”
It got them laughing again, but Mancini’s chuckle was grim, and he gave me a warning glance. I’d had just about enough of this game, and my head was pounding. I felt ill in the gut and I longed for my bed.
I stayed another half hour, until the tension in the room was more than I could bear. I liked my Mancini; not this impish creature who talked in a fractured accent that sounded halfway between Washington Square and Belgravia, and ended up draped around the back of Cresswickham’s chair after he refilled our drinks from the side bar. He held Cresswickham’s glass to his lips for him to drink, nursemaid and temptation in one. It made me want to spill my stomach all over the table, get rid of that fine meal and everything else in my belly.
“You must stay the night,” the Englishman insisted.
I shook my head at once. “Oh, no. I’ve imposed on you well beyond politeness.”
“Then come back tomorrow. Surely you have more questions to ask me. Why, we haven’t even touched on my Wedgwood collection.”
“Can’t do it; sorry. I have a meeting I can’t miss.”
Cresswickham gave me a bullish, obstinate glower. “Of course you can come back. Tell him, Leo. Convince him.”
Mancini raised his eyebrows. “Good God, it’s not up to me, Reggie. The man has a meeting he can’t miss. You can’t expect him to turn his life upside down for you just because you’ve taken a liking to him.”
The Englishman turned his head to stare at Mancini. I couldn’t see, exactly, the look he gave. “Convince him,” Cresswickham said softly, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“Alright, then,” I said hurriedly, and gave a wide fake grin. “You’ve twisted my arm. Wasn’t looking forward to that meeting anyways. I’ll come see you tomorrow.”
Cresswickham’s smile did nothing to reassure me. “Perhaps we shall settle at the pool,” he said. “I fancy a swim.”
Mancini said blandly: “You burn in the sun, Reggie.” He avoided Cresswickham’s belligerent glare by heading back to the bar to pour us each another brandy.
Cresswickham returned his attention to me. “You’ll stay tomorrow night,” he said. Behind him, Mancini gave me a nod.
“Well, sure, Reggie, sure I will,” I said soothingly. “Tomorrow night.” I would be able to come up with some excuse, I told myself. I needn’t come back at all, but I had to protect Mancini for the time being.
Not long after Mancini served him his drink, Cresswickham’s speech became slurred, and he didn’t look long for consciousness. I had to reiterate my promise to come back tomorrow several times, until I was on the edge of exasperated.
“Reggie’s just about done for the night,” Mancini said, and smirked.
“How dare you…” Cresswickham snarled, but trailed off. He put his h
ead down, resting on his crossed arms, and his breath changed almost immediately to deep, gasping wheezes.
Chapter 9
“Down for the count,” Mancini said with satisfaction.
“How much did he drink?” I asked. I admit I felt a deviant sense of accomplishment in the fact that I could outdrink Cresswickham. I’d been working on that talent since I was thirteen, and it seemed like my moment to shine.
Mancini leaned back in his chair opposite me, his attention solely on me. I felt my head spin under the intensity of his eyes. “I’ve no idea,” he replied. “Nor much interest.”
I pushed back my chair from the table. “Well, thanks for the feed. I’ll be off. Bid adieu to His Snored-ship from me whenever he wakes up, won’t you?”
“You’re leaving?”
“I am. And I’ll call in with some excuse for tomorrow.”
Mancini frowned. “I say, you’d better not. Reggie has a cunning memory for that sort of thing, and if you don’t do as he says—”
I don’t know if it was his affected accent that irritated me, or the rattles and nose-whistles coming from the man between us, but all of a sudden I just wanted out of it all. I thought longingly of the peace and quiet of my bungalow, so unashamedly American and brash. “Goddammit, Mancini, I don’t like this. Why’s he so interested in me?”
He hesitated, and then said: “I can see you want to go. Won’t you at least help me get Reggie up to bed before you do?”
“Don’t you have staff to help with that sort of thing?”
“I don’t want to humiliate him like that.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s beyond the pale, is it? You must have quite the sliding scale. All the way from keeping a lover on the low end to accommodating a drunkard on the other.”
He opened his eyes wide. “There’s no need to be rude about it. You drink an awful lot yourself, you know. And hush up, will you? He might hear.”
“He’s out like a light,” I said, but he had a point. “And, well, I’m sorry. I guess that was below the belt.”
Mancini pulled at the Englishman. “Reggie. Reggie.” He looked up at me. “It’s no use. We’ll have to take him up.”
I had to agree. I was torn between pity for Mancini and my own desire to get away, but I couldn’t let him struggle up that grand staircase dragging the aristocrat with him. It was too damned dangerous.
Once we got to the corridor that branched off to my room, I let my side of Cresswickham go. Mancini propped him against the wall. “What is it?” he asked.
“You’ve got him secure,” I said. “I’ll change and go.” I turned away before he could give me another hangdog look. I probably would have turned back if he’d called my name, but he didn’t.
I changed clothes in the guest bedroom and padded quietly back down to the foyer. My head had cleared up by this time, and I planned to call for a taxi cab from the telephone and wait outside for it. With any luck, I thought, I could avoid the other lost souls on this damned sinking ship.
I was nearly at the front door when Alice appeared in the arch under the staircase.
“Coleridge, may I speak with you?”
My God, would I never be free of these people? I asked myself. But pity made me shake off my nausea, and I went into the drawing room with her. We sat on one of the innumerable sofas, and she gave me a glass of straight soda. I downed it gratefully.
“I can see you want to get out of here. I don’t blame you,” she said.
It wasn’t hard to love someone like Alice. She’d already won me over, truth be told. She could make a man feel like the center of the universe when she looked at you. I found myself staring at her curious eyes: as pale as her brother’s but somehow with more soul in them, perhaps due to the iron gray rim around the icy iris. The Greeks might have called her Bright Eyed, like their goddess Athena. She blushed a little as I stared.
“Why’s your brother made you part of his collection?” I slurred. “Why won’t he let some lucky man make a wife of you?”
She got real quiet. I wiped the sweat from my face and tried to sit up instead of loll like a boozer. I could bet she’d seen her fill of that behavior. “I’m sorry, that was—”
“It was a fair question,” she said softly. “I have often wondered myself. Reggie is a collector by nature, and I am simply another work of art to him. If it were only that, it wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s the other part of his nature, the Mr. Hyde part of him—” She shuddered.
“You’ve got to get out,” I told her. “I’ll help. We’ll find a way.”
“There is no way,” she stiff-upper-lipped me, “and that is what I called you in here to tell you. Reggie could buy and sell your police force twice over, not to mention hire every private detective in the city. He would find us, wherever we ran to, and he would bring us back, and then he would—he would—”
There it was again, that shiver down my backbone, the horrified curiosity about exactly what this man was capable of doing.
“I won’t let him,” I told her obstinately. “This is my city. I can hide you away. I’ve got contacts, see? I know people who can help.”
Her glorious eyes were full of defeat. “You’re very kind, Coleridge. But you don’t know me at all; I can’t ask you to risk yourself like that. Besides, I’m afraid things have gone much too far. Only death can help us now.”
“Don’t talk like that,” said a gruff voice from the corner, and I jumped. It was Betts, skulking away in the shadows. How was it that I never noticed the man?
“Alright, Betts,” she said. “I won’t talk like that. But you know it’s true.”
“Go up to bed,” he said, and she nodded.
“Yes; I’m tired. I do believe I’m getting a migraine after all. Good evening, Coleridge. It’s been lovely to meet you, but please never come back. You mustn’t let yourself be collected.” She didn’t wait for my response, and she didn’t look back as she left.
Betts wandered over to me and offered me his pouch of tobacco. I declined. “And you? What’s your story?” I demanded.
He took a pipe from his pocket, stuffed it and lit it before replying. “I’m sure Lord Cresswickham told you. I’m here to attend to Lady Alice’s needs. Now what’s your story, my lad—a reporter? I’ll eat my hat if that’s really so.”
He was more astute than his boss. “I’m just a man looking to get home,” I told him.
“Well, I’ll call you a cab in that case. No need to let your feet stall; you can wait outside in the driveway.” He walked me to the door as though he expected me to pull a portrait off the wall and smuggle it home under my shirt. “You’ll excuse me saying so, Mr. Fox, but you’d do well to watch what you say in your cups,” he told me, as I set off down the front steps. “If you want to play the white knight, that’s your lookout, but I won’t have you getting her Ladyship’s hopes up.”
The cab came soon enough, so at least Betts had done that much for me. As it drove me away I twisted to look at the mansion again. The car’s red taillights flashed and wandered over the portico like flames, and it seemed fitting. That house was a hell for those who lived in it, and I wanted, desperately, to save them.
Yet it was also a relief to me to think I could go back to my bungalow, to the cozy rooms and the silence. Maybe I’d write some more.
Maybe I’d have a nightcap.
There were only so many demons I could deal with in one night, after all.
Part III
Murder, My Sweet
Chapter 10
I woke late the next day, late enough that I had no time to think about the train that was raging down the tracks towards me. I showered, shaved, and pulled myself into a fit state before I could worry myself out of going back. If I was to help Mancini, help Alice, I needed all my bravery, and the courage muscle wasn’t one I’d exercised in a long time. While I worked it up from its atrophied state, I relied on distraction and habit to get me back to the mansion.
Of course there was that little
voice in the back of my head telling me to leave them to their lives. But how could I go back to the life I’d known before Mancini? At the last minute I decided a little Dutch courage was better than no courage at all, and slugged down a few mouthfuls from my hipflask during the cab ride.
A winsome, sultry young man opened the mansion door at my ring. I recognized him from the previous evening: he’d been one of the footmen at dinner. His angular face belonged in a Botticelli portrait. His long silken curls were tied at the nape of his neck with a black velvet ribbon, and he wore an ivory Mandarin-collared shirt and black pants. Above the line of the collar, a faint yellow discoloration showed on one side of his neck.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Fox,” he murmured, and told me I was expected poolside immediately on my arrival. He led me under the grand staircase arch through the parlor I’d been in the day before, and across to the French doors. “This path leads to the pool area,” he said, and gave a little bow of the head.
“I don’t believe we’ve met properly,” I said, as he receded from me.
“My name is Gabriel, sir.”
Like the angel, I thought. “You worked here long?”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but you must excuse me. The gentlemen are at the pool, as I said.” He turned again and scurried off.
I strolled down in the general direction and met no one along the way. The grounds were massive and wild, stretching well into the hills beyond, but closer to the house they were better manicured. I could see a pool house roof peeking over the swell of the grounds, and as I came up the rise of the path, I saw the pool itself, long and inviting, the azure water rivaling the blue of the sky.
The two of them were sunbathing on lounging chairs, slathered up in oil. Cresswickham was lobster-like, even at a distance. Leo, on the other hand, was bronzing nicely.