“Then we take a look around the back!” Sebastian wagged his brows. Following my companion’s lead, I removed my top hat as we persisted with our search of the building.
The hall attracted all kinds of people who held deeply religious beliefs. As we walked we came upon a line of visitors who queued outside the smaller of the halls, and as we passed a poster stated:
Church Missionary Society
Public Meeting
Sunday 9th January
I checked my pocket watch as we turned into a quieter hallway. It was not yet eleven o’clock and apart from the tip-tap of our booted feet on herringbone parquetry this part of the building was quiet. As it was a day of rest, all of the association offices we passed were empty.
We turned another corner and I noted that the décor changed from timber paneled walls to the more utilitarian half-tiled walls—and then the smell hit me. It was the musty, sweat-laden scent of men. There was framed art, and event posters lining the walls of this corridor, all of which related to the Young Man’s Christian Association. Sebastian paused outside an open door. I joined him and peered inside. The room contained bookshelves, a stand with stacks of daily newspapers, tables at which to lay the large printed sheets flat, and groupings of chairs. Seven young men, none older than twenty slouched in chairs with books or newspapers in hand. So engrossed were they that not a soul looked up at the two peculiar gentlemen crowding the doorway. This was clearly the reading room—and not the room in which the ritual had taken place. Sebastian gave me a look and wordlessly I understood the question. I shook my head and we moved off down the corridor.
I heard a distant echoing shout and then a grunt and a loud clanging sound. Sebastian and I eyed one another curiously. We continued our boots tip-tapping on the parquet. Then something struck me as familiar. I put my hand out to make Sebastian stop. I stood beside a closed door and there was such a draft coming from beneath it. The smell was of dampness, decay—the bowels of the City. I stood with my back to the door and raked through my thoughts. A flash of memory hit me, I looked up and above there was an electric light—the light that had near blinded me after my time walking underground with nothing but a faint lantern to guide me.
“Bear with me,” I advised then I closed my eyes and moved off, retracing my steps. I rounded a corner and opened my eyes to find I was at the closed door for the anteroom where Blake had plied me with drugged liqueur and told me of his secret society.
“This is it. I know where to go from here!” Emboldened from understanding exactly where I was I pushed past Sebastian and hurried down the corridor to where I knew I would find a doorway with the words Mens sana in corpore sano writ large above the door, and beside it, the fake cleaning closet.
A well-muscled young man dressed in a white vest and loose white trousers strode past us. He was barefoot, his movements graceful. He would lead us straight to the door.
A roar was followed by a loud thud. I paused and reached for Sebastian to stop as the boy ahead of us entered through the doorway. Then I heard a young, cockney voice shout,
“Praise the Lord, James, you just missed it. Benny’s just gone an’ lifted them barbells all the way over is ‘ead!”
“Shhh, a coupla nobs is comin’ this way, remember, you gotta be on your best behaviour if they come in, or you’ll get a clip ra’and the ear!”
Sebastian and I exchanged a mirthful look.
“It was here,” I said. “This closet doorway leads to a secret passage where one can spy on the occupants of that room…the gymnasium.” Sebastian walked to the door and opened it, then entered. I followed, closing the door behind me. Sebastian made his way to where there was a hatch in the wall at head height. He paused and peered through the gap, then moved away so I could see. The room was filled with exercise apparatus and at a guess, thirty young men. There were mats on the floor on which two boys wrestled, egged on by other boys. I saw a leather pommel horse. A wiry young man with delicately muscled arms was supporting himself over the apparatus, his legs swinging and circling over the horse at rapid speed. Another boy was on a contraption that looked like a bicycle, and yet no matter how hard he pedaled he remained stationary. There were climbing bars, and hand weights, boys lifting and stretching in all kinds of contortions for their exercise. The last time I had stood in this spot all of the exercise equipment was removed from the room. There had just been that cloth-covered table with the silver chalice.
Sebastian whispered in my ear. “All of those sweaty boys. This view is a deviant’s paradise, don’t you think?”
I was confused for a moment and then the import of what Sebastian said hit me. Why was there a secret passageway built onto a room where young men took their daily exercise? My heart sank. I’d hoped for a moment that the connection with the gymnasium was a reflection of Greek attitudes to the attainment of male perfection. Greek boys paired with older men who taught them how to be masculine. Such sensibilities were seen as peculiar in modern times, and society looked down on older men taking younger under their wing for tutelage.
“This passage must have been in use for years
