The Secret Tunnel (22 page)

“Thank you, old chap. Now leave me in peace to pull myself together. I trust I will see you at the party?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“With La Preston, I presume?”

“She is ever at my side.”

“How tiresome for you.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Kiki’s fun. She knows how to enjoy herself, I’ll say that much for her.”

“You play with fire, Georgie.”

“One of the very few advantages of being a member of the House of Windsor is that one is flameproof. Toodle-pip.”

He saluted, and left.

“Bloody idiot,” muttered Hugo. “Now, tell me, Mitch. Am I going to get through this evening, or am I going to puke all over the orchestra?”

“How do you feel?”

“Shaky. Bit of a headache. Like the worst bloody hangover in the world, with none of the fun that goes with it.”

“You’ll survive. Once you’re on stage you’ll feel better. And, as you say, no one is going to murder you in full view of the audience.”

“I bloody well hope not, unless Tallulah is part of the conspiracy.”

“You think there’s a conspiracy?”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it for a minute. They’d like to get rid of the whole lot of us.”

“They? Who are they? And who are ‘us’ for that matter?”

“The bloody fascists,” he said, blotting his forehead with a tissue. “A thoroughly troublesome group of people. They disapprove of the kind of company that George keeps. They don’t like the royal family being sullied by a bunch of actresses and foreigners and queers. They don’t like queers, you know.”

“Ah.” That would explain the presence of Lady Antonia in the audience. She was not there to cheer Hugo Taylor, and she certainly didn’t look the Bankhead type.

“I am one.” He continued making up at the mirror.

“A fascist, or a queer?”

“The latter. There. I’ve shocked you.”

“The only thing that would shock me would be if someone as handsome as you wasn’t.”

He turned and looked me steadily in the eye. “Ah. I see. Well, in that case, Mitch, perhaps I will see you at the party…and afterward.”

“Afterward?”

“There is a little soiree that I have arranged for my intimate friends. What we would call a ‘hair down’ kind of event. I hope you can come.”

“Be delighted. Where is it?”

“A little place in Russell Square. The Rookery Club.”

 

“I have to talk to you,” I whispered to Bertrand when I got back to the box.

“And I to you.”

As soon as the curtain was up and the play under way—and I must say that Hugo Taylor was in excellent form; no one in the audience would have guessed that he had been a recent victim of attempted cyanide poisoning—I slipped out into the corridor, and Bertrand followed me.

“Something is wrong,” I said.

“Yes. For one thing, Bankhead is completely miscast. And the décor—
paff!
So
bourgeois
. Taylor is
pas trop mal
, although he acts with his head, like all English actors, not from the heart—”

“I don’t mean wrong with the play. I mean there’s something going on here. Some connection with what happened on the train.”

“What did Taylor tell you?”

I gave a quick résumé of Taylor’s suspicions concerning the British Fascists, and told him where the private party was to be held.

“And that’s the very club where Andrews and Rhys used to go. It’s too much of a coincidence. Not to mention the fact that that old dragon Lady Antonia, a prominent member of the British Fascist party, who takes an active interest in the private life of the royal family, is here in the audience tonight—”

“The smell of a rat, yes?”

“A great big nest of rats. And I have a feeling that King
Rat is none other than our friend, Peter Dickinson.”

“To think, I let that man put his finger in my hole.” He shuddered with disgust. “
Dégueulasse
.”

I’d heard him use that word in connection with Simmonds, his new love, but thought I unwise to remind him of the fact.

“And what did you have to tell me, Bertrand?” I braced myself for some declaration of passion, or at least a lurid description of their antics at the Regal Hotel, but Bertrand was much more useful than that.

“They have searched the…what is it?
Le chemin
.”

“The chimney?”

“Non… That on which runs the train.”

“The track.”

“
Ça
. The track.”

“And they found the finger?”

“
Non
. Exactly that. They found not the finger, not the knife, in short, nothing at all.”

“That’s either a lie, or someone has concealed them. Who told you?”

“Thomas spoke to his friend at Kings Cross Station.”

“Your Thomas has very useful friends.”

“Indeed. More useful than that, even.”

“Why?”

“He told him…
Mais, chut!
”

He grabbed me and pushed me through a door that led to the stairs.

“What’s going on?”

“Him! Dickinson!”

“Here? Did he see us?”

“I think not.”

“What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know, but I do not like him.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“Ah!
Enfin!
You have changed your advice, I see.”

“There’s something wrong. Something too convenient about everything. The way he befriended us…”

“Yes, after one smile you were ready to allow him—”

“And let us not forget, Bertrand, that it was your ass he had his fingers up.”

“
C’est vrai
.” He peeked through the door. “It is well. He is passed. He did not see us.”

“Now what were you going to tell me? What else did Thomas’s friend say?”

“He said that there is another tunnel. A second one.”

“You don’t say!”

“
Evidemment
. There is the normal tunnel, the one that everyone goes through, the one in which we were stopped the first time. But then there is another one, running in parallel, built into the side of the hill. It is very rarely used.”

“What the hell did anyone want to build another tunnel for?”

“In case of emergencies. If a train was stuck, for instance, they change the…
quoi? Les aiguilles
. To change the direction of the things…the tracks.”

“Ah. The switch. They change the switch.”

“And whoop! The train can go into the second tunnel. Out of the way. And safe from any collision.”

“Or, in this case, it can be hidden.”

“
Bien sûr
. So you think as I think—”

“That they reversed into the second tunnel—”

“To dispose of the evidence—”

“And we were none the wiser—”

“Because we were so busy fucking—”

We were both speaking at once, the full horror of the situation dawning on us. Oh, we had been taken for a ride.

“We were in the dining car,” I remembered, “and the train was going backward, and suddenly we were thrown sideways. Remember?”

“
Bien sûr
. You knocked a bucket of ice into my lap. How could I forget?”

“That was it! That must have been when we went across the switch. And then I found the key to the bathroom and discovered Rhys’s body. How could I possibly have realized that we were in a different tunnel when I had that to deal with? And your Thomas—he was so shocked he nearly threw up.”

“Thomas knew nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am sure. Of that he has convinced me.”

“Did he know of the existence of the secret tunnel?”

“No. It has not been in use for many years. They say it was closed down during the war, in case German agents packed it with bombs, and
poof!
”

“But clearly it’s been opened up again.”

“This is what Thomas supposes.”

“But now, I am sure, it is closed again.”

“
Peut-être.
But his friend will investigate.”

“This friend of his is very useful. Is he trustworthy?”

“I think so, yes. He is like us.”

“What’s his name?”

“Arthur. Yes, you know him. The little boy.” Bertrand made a moue of disapproval. “I think he is a fool. But Thomas says he is not.” He shrugged—as he always did when dealing with some unpalatable truth. “It is not for me to choose his friends for him. What am I to him? Just a
divertissement
—”

“For God’s sake, Bertrand, the guy’s crazy about you.”

“About this, perhaps.” He slapped his ass. “But for the future—”

“Damn the future,” I said. “It’s the present I’m interested in. When will Arthur be able to search the tunnel?”

“Tonight, after the last run up to Edinburgh. He will take the mail train south. He has a friend at York—”

“I imagine he has friends everywhere.”

“And he will take him down there on a little wagon. He will telegram to Thomas the results, at the hotel.”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing all afternoon. I thought you were back at the hotel, fucking.”

“Some of the time,
oui, on se baisait
. But also, we work. We pay calls.”

“Come on. We can’t let Dickinson get away.”

“But La Bankhead! Hugo Taylor!”

“I’m sure they’ll survive without us.”

“Where are we going?”

“Backstage.”

 

It was not difficult to find Dickinson. We skirted the theater, picking up a large bunch of white lilies en route—they had been carelessly left in the foyer, doubtless for collection at the interval by some hysterical fan to fling across the footlights at Tallulah—and presented ourselves at the stage door.

“Flowers for Miss Bankhead’s dressing room,” I lisped to the door keeper, in what I thought was a passable impression of an English florist.

“Leave them here, sir.”

“Oh!” I let my hand flutter around my throat, as I had seen Francis do. “The idea! Miss Bankhead insists that we arrange them personally.
N’est-ce pas, Bertrand?
”

Bertrand let loose a stream of impassioned French, which convinced the doorkeeper that we were indeed of the flower-arranging classes. He waved us in with a barely concealed sneer of distaste.

I dumped the lilies in a fire bucket, and we crept along the corridor toward Hugo Taylor’s dressing room. He was on for most of the first act—but a light was burning in the room, and I could hear voices.

We stopped and listened.

“You want it?”

“Mmmmmh…”

“Where do you want it?”

“Up my arse.”

“Say please, sir.”

“Please, sir.”

One of the voices was Dickinson’s—and you can guess which. I thought I recognized the other, but I couldn’t place it.

There were more sounds of shuffling and slurping, and I got as near to the door as possible—close enough to spy through a crack.

Dickinson stood with his back toward me, his broad shoulders bent forward, one powerful arm working slowly back and forth. Before him, sitting awkwardly on the dressing table among Taylor’s pots of powder and paint, his pants around his ankles and his legs raised, was the familiar form of Billy Vain, whom I had met at the British-American “audition.” He was holding his pale white ass open as Dickinson worked a thick, spit-slick finger in and out of his pink hole.

“Please sir,” jabbered Billy, “please fuck me.”

“And what will you do if I do?”

“Anything. I’ll do anything.”

The little fool; he didn’t realize what he was dealing with.

“You understand what will happen if you don’t do exactly as I tell you?”

“Yes, sir. You won’t fuck me.”

Dickinson slapped the boy on the ass—not a playful slap, but a hard, stinging blow. Billy bit his lower lip. “Listen to me, Billy. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you to, I’ll have you up in front of the beak so fast your pretty little feet won’t touch the ground. Do you know what happens to boys like you in prison?”

“N-no, sir.”

Dickinson drew a finger across his throat, and made a horrible tearing sound. “Understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He pulled his finger out of Billy’s ass with a plop; the hole gaped open for a second, and a looked of dazed idiocy flickered across Billy’s pretty face. “Now dress yourself, you little pansy.”

“Aren’t we going to do it?” He stuck his lower lip out, like a sulky child.

“Later, if you acquit yourself to my satisfaction. Then you can have it any way you want it.”

“Can’t I just…suck it?”

Dickinson cuffed Billy across the face. Bertrand and I withdrew into the safety of an unoccupied dressing room and waited for the coast to clear. Within a few moments, Billy was humming happily next door. I recognized a tune from Noël Coward’s
Bitter Sweet
, “If Love Were All.”

“What are you doing, Billy?”

I stood in the doorway, trying to look imposing. Billy spun around, obviously hiding something behind his back.

“I… I’m not… Oh, hello, it’s you! The Yank! How did you get on with Bertie Waits?”

“Fine. That’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

“Oh, I suppose you’re here to see Hugo.” He sniffed. “It’s not fair. He gets all the good ones.”

“I asked you a question. What are you doing?”

He tidied up a few pots, hung a few clothes. “What does it look like? I’m doing my job, if that’s quite all right with you. Now please let me get on. Mr. Taylor will be coming off shortly, and he’s got a quick change, and you shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“There’s no hurry, Billy, is there? There’s plenty of time—time for a fuck, for instance.”

“Oh.”

“I heard you and Mr. Dickinson.”

“Did you?”

“And I saw.”

“Oh, dear.” He actually blushed, which surprised me, but recovered quickly. “Oh, well. Nothing that thousands of others haven’t seen on the silver screen, I suppose. Did you like what you saw?” He had stepped closer, and fluttered his eyelashes at me. He wasn’t to my taste, but I could not deny that he had a tidy rear end and a very fuckable little hole.