She looked me up and down with what I can only describe as sauciness. «That’s a shame. You’re a looker.»
I could not deny it.
«I like a tall gent,» she continued. «You a foreigner?»
I ran a hand through my long black hair. «My complexion owes much to my Franco-Slavic mama and little to my British papa. My waist is all my own work.»
«Hm. They must’ve been proud of having such a bonny babe.»
«A baroness once told me that she could cut her wrists on my cheek-bones.»
«Lot of girls died for you have they?»
«Only those who cannot live for me.»
She rested her chin on a gloved hand. «You got cold eyes, though. Blue as poison-bottles.»
«Really, you must desist or I shall consider running away with myself.» I placed my hand on hers. «What’s your name?»
She shook her head, blowing out a cloud of smoke and smiling. «I don’t like mine. I’d much rather hear yours.»
I fiddled lightly with my cuff-link. «Gabriel,» I said, adopting one of my
The nameless lovely took this in. «That’s an angel’s name.»
«I know, my dear,» came my murmur. «And I fear I may be falling.»
2. On the Efficacy of Assassination
BOTH the night and my blood were far too hot to waste time journeying home, so I got to grips with my new acquaintance in a slimy alley at the back of the Pomegranate Rooms. I have a vivid memory of her raised skirts brushing against my chin and the feel of her very lovely bosom beneath my fine, white hands (I’ve mentioned them). As I plunged on, my eye caught a bill pasted haphazardly to the wet brickwork. Nellie Best was playing at the Collins Music Hall. I might just have time between this coupling and my next appointment to make the second house.
Nellie was on fine form and so was I, hearing her belt out «Who Were You With Last Night?» as I strolled into the upstairs bar-room and topped myself up on hock. Groping for a seat and tripping irresponsibly over the fetching white ankles of a dozen young ladies, the hall became one great wonderful blur of gaseous colour and light. I felt as though I had tumbled head-first into one of Sickert’s delightfully
After several choruses too many of «Oh What a Silly Place to Kiss a Girl», I tottered out into the balmy night and a cab.
«Piccadilly,» I cried, banging my cane rather unnecessarily against the roof.
Shortly afterwards, I was deposited in front of the Royal Academy of Art. By day I am naturally used to entering premises by the front door but, that night, I took care descending the treacherously corkscrew steps down to the tradesmen’s entrance.
Delilah, having finished her work at the dining rooms, was there to greet me with her broken-toothed smile; she ushered me through into a corridor tiled in black and white parquet. I threw off my cloak and hooked my hat carefully on to the horns of a stuffed ibyx head, whose startled expression was not at all dissimilar to that of the late Everard Supple.
At the very end of the room was a small and awfully discreet door, inlaid, quite exquisitely, with blond marquetry in a pattern of peacock feathers. I went through the door and into a panelled hall lit by sputtering gas- jets. There had been some excitable talk about having the electricity laid on but I had used my meagre powers to veto this. I liked the atmosphere of the little journey. Somehow the flames in their bold brass stanchions felt like primitive torches in a secret tunnel. We all know the attraction of secret tunnels. When I was a boy, there was nothing in the world I wanted to discover more. It’s quite rewarding finally to have one at the office.
I stuffed my hands into my trouser pockets and whistled a few bars of Nellie Best’s best as I reached the end of the silent corridor. It terminated in a kind of ship’s wheel, studded at the tip of each spoke with a porcelain button rather in the manner of bath taps. I tapped in a little sequence of letters corresponding to some code or other and span the wheel to the left. Another discreet door, though not nearly so prettily carved, sprang open just to my right. Why they couldn’t just let me knock, I’ll never know.
I passed through into a gentlemen’s lavatory. Planting my rump (avec trousers, you understand) on the cold seat in one of the cubicles, I folded my arms and exhaled impatiently. It was a further five minutes before I heard the sound of footfalls and the opening and closing of the cubicle door next to mine. Finally, with a grim protesting shriek, the metal wall dividing the cubicles began to rise.
Sitting on the next po along, impeccable in frock-coat and imperial collar, was the dwarfish form of Joshua Reynolds. My boss; three foot something in his stockinged feet and ever so jolly.
«Hello, Lucifer,» trilled the little fellow. He wriggled on the seat of the lavatory and pumped my hand. His tiny patent leather shoes glistened in the gas-light.
«’Evening,» I rejoined. «Still can’t run to a proper office, eh?»
Reynolds gave an impish laugh. «No, no. You know how we like it. Cloak and dagger, my boy. That’s what we thrive on. Ha-ha. Smoke and mirrors.» His eyes were bright and black in his face like raisins in dough. «Now then,» he continued, rubbing his pudgy hands together. «The… er… business is concluded?»
I nodded and smiled my wide smile. «It is.»
«And the… er… package has been… sent to… Sebastopol?»
«Ye-es.»
«And was the… transaction… er… accomplished without undue…»
«If you mean have I killed old Supple, then yes, I have,» I cried. «Shot him in the chest and watched him die like the filthy dog he was.»
The little man sniffed and nodded. He seemed to suffer an eternal cold in the head.
«A modicum of thanks would not go amiss,» I ventured.
Reynolds laughed explosively. «What would you like me to say, my boy? That England owes you a great debt?»
«That would do to begin with. Hmm… „The nation will be forever and profoundly grateful.“ That sort of thing. But will the nation ever know it? To them the Honourable Everard will remain a gallant servant of the Empire»
«Shot defending his own home by a vicious gang of roughs,» put in JR.
«Is that what we’re saying?»
«So I gather.»
I shrugged lightly. «Yes, he will remain every inch the gallant lad rather than the atrocious anarchist with plans to explode bombs under the foreign secretary that we know him to be. To have
«Well, well, my boy,» said Joshua Reynolds with a twinkle. «That is why we call it
Ah, now. The cat’s out of the bag. There you are, having paid your few shillings at Mr Smith’s emporium at Waterloo Station (if my memoirs ever make it out of the cistern), fully expecting the entertaining ramblings of the great Lucifer Box, RA, foremost portraitist of his age (a man must have ambition) and what do you discover? That in between my little daubs I was living a double life!
It was a connection humble enough in origin. For reasons that are too painful and private to relate I’d ended up owing a favour or two to our family solicitor. Joshua Reynolds (for it was he), despite being small, turned out to be something very
He peered at me now with a strange expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
«You’re looking positively consumptive, dear heart,» he said at last.
