The Vesuvius Club

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 déclassé canvases. The hollowed shadows enveloped me in grimy red plush, Nelly Best’s canary-yellow crinolines flaring before my grinning phiz like sunbursts.

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 been.»

«Well, well, my boy,» said Joshua Reynolds with a twinkle. «That is why we call it secret service.»

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 big in His Majesty’s Government. Strictly behind the scenes, you understand, and most secret. I liked to flatter myself that he really couldn’t manage without me.

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.

«How you wound me! The Beardsley style is so unfashionable.»

«Eat a little more!»

«I find it difficult to manage on the pittance you pay.»

The little man sniffed back a drop of moisture from his nostril. «Oh, now you’re being cruel. Your late papa would never forgive me if I let you starve.»

«Were I more at liberty, I could get by very well on my artistic commissions.»

He reached across and patted my hand. His own was dimpled fatly like that of an overfed baby. «Of course, of course. But my little problems do provide a more regular salary, eh? And not too much effort required on your part.»

I smiled, admitting his point. «Effort only in the service of pleasure.»

It may have seemed rash of them to give the job to an aberrant character like me but I cannot deny how much I relished it. The world was my studio, and they laid on the apprentices to clean the brushes. Say there was a visiting Turkish despot to be bumped off. Furnished with the dry details, the artistic part would be left to me. I’d formulate a little plan with the Domestics (Delilah, she of the daffodil frock was one of the best) and off we’d toddle. The Ottoman offender would be taking a stroll in some pleasure garden and, if the night were a dark one, a swift dagger through the ribs might be enough. I would go off on my merry way and the Domestics would move in, eradicating any trace of my presence. A day or so later, the stabbee would be found a hundred miles away (in, let us say, Newcastle-under-Lyme), the victim of a «crazed malcontent». The malcontent — usually the body of a vagrant retrieved from the local mortuary, dressed up with a dagger clasped in his rapidly stiffening digits — was sometimes found there too. Within twenty-four hours both corpses would be under-lime themselves. Oftentimes, though, something a shade more baroque was called for and Delilah and I would roll up our sleeves and embark on a coffee-fuelled plotting session that was rather cheerfully like cramming for an examination. It was all terribly well done and it lent one an immunity from even the vaguest threat of prosecution that was quite giddying. Artistic licence to kill, you might say.

Joshua Reynolds, who really was the most frightful old woman (well, no, he really was a dwarf, but you follow me?), glanced at me as I sank back against the cold lavatory wall and grinned at him. For once there was a flicker of something less pleasant in those bright black eyes.

«Enthusiasm is all very well, my dear Lucifer, but we mustn’t get sloppy, must we? We must always remember that nasty business of the Bow Road.»

I bristled at this but held my tongue. As I say, some things are painful and private.

I was a bit done in after all the evening’s excitement, but it was clear the boss had more work for me. He blew his button nose and retrieved a file from his case. As he examined its contents, I examined my fingernails. In the morning, I thought, I would take a steam bath.

«You got my note?» he said at length.

«I’m afraid I haven’t checked my correspondence. I was running late, you see, what with the murdering.»

The dwarf gazed in a puzzled fashion at the contents of his handkerchief. «Do you know Poop?»

«Poop?»

«Jocelyn Poop. Our man in Naples. We received a wire from him some days ago.»

He tossed me a square of buff paper. I read it over swiftly.

I looked up. «Instructions to a curtain maker?»

«Verdigris and Sash were both highly respected scientists.»

«Were?»

«They died. Within a day of each other.»

«Did they indeed?» I tapped the telegram against my chin. «And what more does Poop have to say?»

«Not a great deal. He’s vanished.»

«Like me to look into it?»

Joshua Reynolds batted his eyelids. «I’d be so grateful.»

I took a file of papers from my erstwhile employer and, with a curt nod, stepped out of the lavatory. Out of habit, I washed my hands.

Once back out into the humid night, I made my way towards Downing Street. I bade the bobby on duty outside Number Ten a cheery «goodnight» then let myself into Number Nine.

I know, ostentatious, isn’t it? But somebody has to live there.