Murder At Plums (3 page)

Lord Bulstrode was not renowned for his sweetness of temper and his wife had developed an immunity to it through vagueness. On one occasion he had felled a club steward with an overdone baron of beef and on its being pointed out that hospital treatment had been required, had merely grunted, ‘Put him on the bill.’ That was in his middle years. Old age had blunted his violence but sharpened his eccentricities.

‘Horace?’

‘Yes?’ A glare.

‘Did you say you were going to your club?’

‘I did, dammit. You informed me Betty Barnstaple was arriving for dinner.’

‘I don’t like Plum’s,’ remarked Daphne Bulstrode.

There had been an unfortunate episode when absentmindedly she had walked right past Peeps, and up the stairs towards the smoking room in search of her husband. A lesser man would have resigned. Not Horace Bulstrode.

‘You’re different when you come back from there lately. Is everything all right at Plum’s?’

‘You’re just a stick-in-the-mud.’ Gertrude’s face puckered up and the Honourable Charles Briton could see with alarm that she was about to cry. He summoned up all his courage.

‘Dammit, Gertie, here you are carrying on with a man old enough to be your father, making me a – a – laughing stock, and you blame
me
.’ He’d never understand women. How did she have the cheek?

‘I’m not carrying on,’ she wailed. ‘He just calls on me. It’s done in polite society. You’re never here anyway.’

‘I have to be on duty,’ Charles Briton explained patiently. ‘That’s what soldiers are for. Especially the Cavalry. Wait till we get to India and you’ll see plenty of me.’

Gertrude pouted. She did not fancy India. She liked London, with fascinating men like Gaylord Erskine paying court to her.

‘I only did it because of you,’ she hurled at him, ‘and anyway, I’m
not
doing anything,’ she added belatedly. ‘There you are with that Emma Pryde. I know what you go to Gwynne’s for. You meet ladies of a certain class there. I know you do.’

Charles Briton was horrified. That was entirely different. How dare she, eight years his junior, question his behaviour as a man of the world? His little kitten. His Gertie. The sooner she had a baby the better. She seemed to have developed a waywardness of her own. He sighed. When he fell in love with his little kitten she hadn’t been like this. He knew there was nothing between Erskine and Gertie, but all the same – people talked.

‘I’m going to my club,’ he replied with dignity, ‘and – and – when I get back, I expect you to apologise.’ He hurried out before she had a chance to retort.

‘Silly old Plum’s,’ she hurled at the closing front door.

General Sir Arthur Fredericks walked down St James’s Street towards the turning to St James’s Square. He always enjoyed this early evening walk. Sometimes he’d go further and stroll in the park. It was restful. He was devoted to his wife, but sometimes on a spring evening such as this a look of sadness would come over her face and he knew that she was remembering too. They would carefully avoid looking at the posed studio portrait on the piano, the portrait of a young man in army uniform, full of optimism for his life ahead. A life snuffed out at Isandhlwana. Snuffed out with
undeserved dishonour. And all through mismanagement, through old-fashioned procedures, short-sightedness – and gross incompetence. And one man’s in particular.

And he had now discovered who that man was . . .

He turned his attention resolutely to the Cheap-Jack trader on the corner by King Street, offering for sixpence a pocketknife with blades, scissor, corkscrew, a glazier’s diamond for glass-cutting. The Parisian Novelty he called it. The vendor was top-hatted, respectability was the name of his game.

‘I’ve got a little harticle here – only a very few left now – going for sixpence only. All the rage in Paris they are. Now ’ere are my last six – who’ll be the first? The paper they’re wrapped in comes free to the first. You, sir? I knew you was a gent.’

General Fredericks, small, dapper, firm of purpose and quietly spoken, handed over sixpence, grateful for the diversion of his thoughts.

And the Parisian Novelty might come in handy some day, he thought, continuing towards the north side of the square and Plum’s. Plum’s was important in his life. In the Rag – for no one referred to it as the Army and Navy Club – he was solely amongst service personnel; Plum’s offered more. A chance to escape. Or it had done until now.

Samuel Preston had dined at Plum’s. He would rather have been at home. He was fond of his wife, and even fonder of his daughter Sylvia. There was only one reason why he had deserted the family table: duty. He was a politician, an ambitious one despite his easy-going, plump exterior. In his fifties, now, he realised, was the time for all ambitious men to come to the aid of the Liberal Party. If Salisbury could ever be prised from office, he wanted to be part of the next Liberal Government. He had means enough, thanks to – no, he would not think of that. It was all in the past. Now he was rapidly approaching the top echelons of politics. One had to win friends and Plum’s was the place to do it. At the Reform Club you spoke to the converted; he needed a broader canvas.

Only one thing stood in the way of his full exploitation of
Plum’s. Gaylord Erskine. Pray God he would not have to face him tonight. But it would have to come.

Gaylord Erskine had a moment’s unease as to what the future might hold. The Strand was glittering with yellow twinkling lights, chockfull of carriages, omnibuses and hansom cabs carrying late theatre diners. Sounds of revelry floated into the spring night from Romano’s and Gatti’s. Fashionable London was at its favourite occupation, enjoying itself after the theatre. Gaylord Erskine was walking towards Plum’s. Its undemanding atmosphere would give him time for reflection on the evening’s events; it was still a haven, despite the unfortunate happenings of the last few weeks.

‘And you will never again be troubled—’

He was startled from his thoughts by the strident voice of a quack, out late peddling his miraculous cures. Not to the fashionable theatregoers did he address his patter, but to the anonymous shades of the night, men on their own, respectable, half respectable, or the reverse, who frequented the shadows of the Strand.

Seeing he had attracted Gaylord’s attention, the quack made a quick bid for a sale. ‘Yes, sir, my patent hop bitters, but one penny a packet. Can I say fairer than that? Dr Soules has the ineffable effrontery, yes, I call it effrontery, gentlemen, to charge one shilling, one and a ha’penny per bottle. But I have an interest in curing the sick, gentlemen, not in lining my own pockets. I am but lately returned from the North-West Frontier where my hop bitters worked miracles with those Pathans. Why, they idolised me. And I offer them to you. One penny a packet. Not one shilling, one and a ha’penny, not two shillings, seven and a ha’penny, but
one penny
a packet. Gentlemen, one penny for perfect health. You will never again be troubled.’ His wispy moustache quivered with his own emotion.

Smiling, Gaylord Erskine handed over six pennies, and received his six little packets before continuing on his way. He would throw the bitters away, but for the glories of that sentiment, ‘You will never again be troubled’, it was well worth it.

Erskine made an arresting figure, his classic features surrounded by a mass of Byronic curls which at the age of fifty-three
were a distinguished grey, though they could still be tossed over the brow with great effect. Not in
Hamlet
of course. But then Hamlet was not his usual type of role. Ruritanian romance, swashbuckling historical adventures, were more in his line. But there was more than a whisper that he was in line for a knighthood and Shakespeare had had perforce to be dragged in to give respectability. Yes, a Shakespeare season (a short one, of course) was what the Sheridan and, most of all, its actor-manager needed. Who was it had said that Shakespeare spelled ruin and Byron bankruptcy? Well, the Sheridan was far from ruined. True, reviews had been mixed, but his quaint boyish charm held a fascination – thank heavens he had kept his figure – that guaranteed packed houses even if critical reception had been lukewarm. ‘Hamlet leaps into Ophelia’s grave with all the relish of d’Artagnan but to less effect.’ ‘More pain than Dane’ – he was still smarting over that one. It was worth it for a knighthood however. Now that Irving had been knighted he would be next. And Amelia, what it would mean to her . . . Lady Erskine. She deserved it. She’d been a good partner, especially in his early years of struggle. He’d have to steer clear of Gertrude, but it was high time anyway. Pity, she was a pretty little thing. Almost as pretty as the Preston girl. Odd, he hadn’t thought of her for ages. Now he dwelt on her for some time as he walked past the bright lights of the Strand, and then the grey magnificence of Pall Mall, past the foot of the Haymarket with its inviting ladies, and thence into the respectable calm of clubland.

He walked up the front steps to Plum’s door on the north side of St James’s Square and the usual feeling of well-being instinctively swept over him at the thought of the warm inviting cocoon within. Then he remembered. Now Plum’s held a vague hint of menace, of uncertainty, as though the very roots of man’s security had been threatened. Actors in the public eye such as he were well used to being the scapegoats of eccentrics’ enthusiasms, both pro and anti, but to be a victim within the sacred portals of Plum’s seemed incongruous indeed. If a man were not safe in his club where might he look to? Plum’s was the acme of respectability. He was glad he’d pushed Rafael so hard to put him
up for membership. It had not been easy since the committee and most of the membership were still doubtful about whether actors could aspire to the definition of gentlemen, but after one blackballing he had been elected a few weeks earlier.

Painters were somewhat better thought of, he thought wryly. Like his sponsor, Sir Rafael Jones. Yet as he had been extremely interested to discover, Rafael had strange private tastes, whereas Gaylord flattered himself he was the image of a happily married man. Such stories as circulated about him he took care to ensure fell within the category of the acceptable peccadilloes of someone in his position.

‘Good evening, sir.’

‘Ah, Peeps, good evening.’

Alfred Peeps, the austere and venerable hall porter, took the coat and hat with the same grave solemnity as he had done every day of his fifty years at Plum’s. As an eager round-faced lad, he had had to assume the correct air of gravity; now it came naturally. Gaylord Erskine relaxed. All was right with the world now Peeps had spoken. Furthermore, he had one of Auguste Didier’s dinners to look forward to.

Alas, once more he was doomed to disappointment. It was Didier’s one evening a fortnight off.

‘Well, I’ll eat my ’at,’ exclaimed Emma Pryde, expelling a breath with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

Looking at her over-ornate concoction of lace, feathers and flowers, Auguste Didier doubted the practicality of this statement, but shared with his companion her sense of satisfaction at the evening’s entertainment. They stood on the threshold of the Egyptian hall, under Coade’s huge statues of Isis and Osiris, and the stone sphinxes looked as enigmatic as the offerings within.

‘That gorilla!’ she continued. ‘’E just disappeared!’

‘All perfectly explainable,’ said Auguste loftily, for once restraining his own excitement in the interests of maintaining a pose of superiority before Emma.

‘’Ow?’ Emma demanded simply.

‘Well—’

‘You don’t know, do you? I tell you what, Auguste, I
do
think that they’ve got evil powers.’

‘Oh
ma mie, non.
They are magicians. It is their business. As the magic of cuisine is ours.’

‘You tell me ’ow they did it then. That play they did, Will, the Witch and the Watch, with the gorilla. First they was in the lock-up, then they weren’t. Then they were in the box. Then they weren’t. And then he cut off that bleeding ’ead . . . And it
talked
! Well, I seen magicians before, Auguste, but never anything like that!’

Piccadilly, lively as it was with hansoms, carriages, and pedestrians in full evening dress making their way home or to late suppers, was dull and prosaic compared to the world Auguste Didier and Emma had dwelt in for the last few hours and it was hard to readjust themselves after the feast of magic and spectacle within. The Egyptian hall had been used by magicians for decades past, but since 1873 the outstanding partnership of Maskelyne and Cooke in its first-floor hall had confirmed it England’s home of magic. On an early visit from his native Provence to England to stay with his mother’s family, for she was English, Auguste had been privileged to see Psycho, the automaton devised by Maskelyne to play whist against the audience and win. Enthusiastic for more wonders he had seen Stodare’s Sphinx, the head that stood on a table and talked by itself, just like the severed head tonight. But Psycho remained his first love. He had been hoping that Psycho would be playing tonight, but was disappointed. So popular had he been that he had to be withdrawn through overwork. Yet this evening they had seen wonders indeed in compensation, ghostly phantasmagoria floating over the heads of the audience, disappearing canaries, disappearing gorillas, decapitations—

‘I do not know how they did it. But did it they did—’ he replied with dignity, slightly muddled in his English. ‘But,
ma mie
, tonight we saw something more important than cut-off heads, disappearing gorillas. Tonight, Emma, we saw the future! The Animated Photographs,’ he declaimed impressively, with a touch of Gallic pomposity.

‘Oh, that,’ said Emma, unimpressed. ‘I thought the decapitation more fun. All that blood.’

‘You have no vision.’

She cast him a look that boded ill for the rest of the evening. ‘Of course, you’re used to cut-off ’eads where you come from,’ she retorted scathingly.

‘These photographs,’ Auguste enthused, oblivious to the insult to
la belle France.
‘Do you not see the possibilities of this marvellous invention?’

‘No,’ said Emma shortly. ‘Anyway, I saw them at the Empire a few weeks ago. They were better there, too. People will soon get tired of them. They’re not like real magic.’