The Secret Tunnel (6 page)

The camera clicked and flashbulbs popped, silverware clinked and jingled, and all too soon this unreal meal was over. Daisy and Hugo left as they had arrived, in a haze of swansdown and diamonds. Taylor looked back over his shoulder and gave us all a cheery salute. The steward started clearing their plates; not a mouthful of food had been swallowed.

“No, darling,” I heard the mother saying to one of her daughters, “just because Daisy Athenasy doesn’t eat up like a good girl, that doesn’t mean you can leave your greens.”

Dickinson and Joseph accompanied the stars to their carriage; only the secretary remained.

“Well, they’re settled now,” he said, pulling up a chair. “May I, gentlemen?” He had an open, friendly face, the skin a little too smooth and shiny, the eyebrows possibly plucked—but there was a look in his eye that I could not mistake. Here was a fellow traveler, in more senses than one.

“
D’accord
.” Bertrand seemed less hostile now, with a couple of glasses of wine inside him.

“So, gents, what did you make of my charges?”

“They seem very nice,” I said.

“Nice?” the secretary spluttered, and wiped his mouth on my napkin, which he plucked from my lap. “No, I wouldn’t describe Hugo and Daisy as nice.”

“Well, she seemed a bit…tired.”

“Yes. Miss Athenasy is frequently tired.”

“Ah.” I suspected some dark secret but was too tactful to ask an employee to spill the beans.

“She has a little help when she gets in front of the cameras. You know…” He mimed sniffing.

“You mean she dopes?”

“Please, Mr. Mitchell!”

I whispered, “Is that why she doesn’t eat anything?”

“Among other reasons. Like all actresses, she is obsessed with her weight.”

“She is already too thin,” said Bertrand. “In Belgium, women have flesh on their bones.”

“Not that it would interest you too much,” I said, watching the secretary’s face for a reaction. He cocked an eyebrow but made no comment. Bertrand blushed and looked at his hands.

“I’m sure she will eat in their private carriage,” I said.

“Yes,” said the secretary, “she will certainly be eating something. Or someone.”

What was he trying to tell me? There was some scandal afoot, of that I was sure. Perhaps not a crime, as such, or a proper murder mystery, but at least something worthy of my powers of deductive reasoning.

I thought for a moment and then said, “Joseph?”

His eyebrows rose even further. “Are you a mind reader?”

“Me? No. Just a doctor.”

“I see. The diagnostic mind. You’d make a very good…”

“Yes? What?”

He looked slightly flustered. “I was going to say detective.”

“But how extraordinary! That is exactly what I want to be!”

“You? A detective? Why on earth?”

“Oh, I have a passion for crime fiction.”

“Me too! Allow me to introduce myself.” He pulled out a card—everyone on this train had cards—bearing a coat of arms and the name “Francis Laking, bart.” I knew enough about English customs to realize that this was a minor aristocrat.

“Sir Francis.” I held out my hand; he took it in a soft, limp grip. “Edward Mitchell.”

“Oh, really! You can dispense with the sirs and madams.
It’s Francis, if you insist, but everyone, I mean really everyone, calls me Frankie.”

“And Frankie, you can call me Mitch.”

“And who is this enchanting creature?” People were looking around, but Frankie didn’t care; he seemed to love the attention.

“This is Bertrand Damseaux, my…traveling companion.”

“
Enchanté
.” Frankie took Bertrand’s hand, and would have kissed it had it not been snatched back. “Well, now, Mitch. As a budding detective, what do you make of our fellow passengers? Have you nosed out a mystery? Are they all they appear to be, do you imagine? Or are they traveling in disguise?”

This was a matter more suited to my taste than movie stars. “Quite possibly. Look at those two, for instance.” I nodded toward the ample dowager and her cringing companion. “What do you think of them?”

Frankie glanced around. “That old trout? I’d say that’s Two-Pistols Pete, the scourge of Whitechapel, on his way back from robbing a bank in Morningside. In drag.”

“And he’s accompanied by Finger Flynn the Gelignite King.”

“
Ah, mon dieu
…” Bertrand looked disgusted.

“Brilliant disguises, I think we must agree,” said Frankie, with a smirk. “They almost look like real women.”

“Almost,” I said, “but not quite.”

“Yes. The moustache is a bit of a giveaway. And what of the young family? Relatives of the Tsar, perhaps, fleeing from persecution…”

“I feel certain that the children are highly trained midget assassins, dressed up like little girls,” I said. “Any moment now they will leap over the table and murder that old queen of a steward.”

“And this one?” asked Bertrand, nodding toward the door. It was the handsome young man with the black hair
and the beautiful tweed suit, whom I’d remarked before in company with the two reporters. “If this was a crime novel, what would he be?”

“Ah, an interesting case,” said Frankie. “I understand that he is a diamond merchant.”

“No!”

“Apparently so. From South Africa.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard him talking to those newspapermen.”

“Me too… Wow, a diamond merchant. You should introduce him to Miss Athenasy,” I said. “She’d clean him out!”

“I’m sure she’d love to,” said Frankie, “but her husband is already kicking up a fuss about the amount she spends on jewelry.”

“The poor man. He must have very deep pockets.”

“Indeed he does. He owns the British-American Film Company.”

“
D’accord
,” said Bertrand. “Monsieur Herbert Waits.”

“The very same,” said Frankie. “I shall have to watch myself with you, monsieur. You know my employer’s business better than she knows it herself.”

“Monsieur Waits discovered Mademoiselle Athenasy in a music hall,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“Indeed he did. She was part of an acrobatic trio, the Tri-Angles. Very supple, our Miss Athenasy, or plain Daisy Dawkins as she was in those days.”

“And he made her into a star.”

“Yes, he did. She got him up the aisle so fast I don’t think the old man knew what had hit him. And before you knew it, she was getting lead roles in British-American productions. Now, Miss Athenasy has many talents, I am sure, but acting is not among them.”

“This is true,” said Bertrand.

“Which means that, in order to stop the picturegoing public from staying away from her films in droves, we have
to make her more interesting in other ways. You know, her clothes, her sporting activities, her love life.”

“I see. And at present you and Mr. Dickinson are engineering a little romance between her and Hugo Taylor.”

“Unlikely as it may seem, yes. The public will swallow it hook, line, and sinker, and they will trundle obediently along to see
Rob Roy
, however dreadful it is.”

“And what role does Miss Athenasy take in
Rob Roy
?” I asked, racking my brain for a vampish blonde in Scott’s novel.

“Diana Vernon, of course.”

“Good lord,” I said, remembering the bold, high-spirited heroine of the book. “She’s not exactly as I pictured her.”

“Well, a wig and a bit of rouge can work wonders.”

“And Hugo Taylor is Rob Roy?”

“Naturally. It’s very romantic.”

“But in the book—”

“They don’t get together. Of course they don’t. But this isn’t the book.”

“It is a travesty,” said Bertrand, helpfully.

“It is indeed, my fine French friend.”

“
Belge
,” said Bertrand, sulking again. He was going to have to be taught a lesson in manners.

“In any case,” said Frankie cheerfully, “not many people actually read Walter Scott, thank God. I am quite ready to admit that I got no further than chapter three, and have never been so bored in my life. I prefer something with a bit of…action.”

“Me too,” I said.

“We understand each other, do we not? Now, in the film, for instance, there are lots of fights. Hugo Taylor leaps into action in a kilt and no shirt.”

“Ah,” breathed Bertrand.

“That interested you,
mon petit
. And there are some excellent gallops across the moors, which we filmed on location
in the Trossachs, and a very splendid swordfight on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, for which we have shot the exteriors. The rest will be completed in the studios when Mr. Taylor has settled into his next West End run. Which, as Monsieur Damseaux will tell us, is…?”

“A revival of
La Dame aux Camélias
, with Tallulah Bankhead.”

“Correct! Would you like a job, monsieur?”

Even Bertrand looked interested now. “
Vraiment
?”

“Let us just say
peut-être
at this stage. We can discuss it in London. And now, gentlemen, you must excuse me. I must attend to my charge. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

We shook hands. “Thank you for the inside information. And don’t worry. We’ll be discreet.”

“Indeed. Keep an eye on the diamond merchant for me. I don’t want him bankrupting British-American if at all possible.” He beamed at us both and left.

“There!” I said. “Charming. And generous too. He offered you a job.”

“That, we shall see.”

“And I think he would like to fuck you, too.”

“Also that, we shall see.”

“Ever had two men at the same time, Bertrand? Up that neat little ass?”

“Oh, Mitch,” he said, in a way that could easily have meant yes or no.

I was about to drag him back to the carriage and damn the consequences, when the diamond merchant sat down at a nearby table and we had leisure to observe him. The first thing I noticed, as he pulled a nice-looking gold cigarette case out of his jacket pocket, was a large diamond ring on his right hand. The stone was substantial, sunk discreetly into a plain gold band, but it signaled wealth far more effectively than the flashy settings favored by Miss Athenasy.
This was a rock of consequence, worn, I had no doubt, by a man of consequence. The young mother was staring open-mouthed. Her husband too was glaring at the handsome diamond merchant, watching him like a hawk.

“Hey, check out the ring!” I said.

“Hmm,” said Bertrand, impressed. “
Ça, c’est un bijou
.”

“And he’s not bad-looking.”

“I find him very good.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“I do.”

“Better than me?”

“
Non, mais
… Better than your friend Dickinson, for example.”

“I see.”

The diamond merchant lit a cigarette—even his cigarettes had gold bands—and ordered a brandy. He looked out the window at the scenery flashing by, his eyes flickering, tired. It must be tough to be that wealthy, I thought. Perhaps I could help to take his mind off his troubles.

“Tell me, Mitch,” said Bertrand, reading my thoughts, “is there anyone on this train that you do not want to fuck?”

“I’m not crazy about the dowager.”

“Ah. Well, that is some relief. You are not altogether without discrimination.”

“Come on, Bertrand. Let’s get back to that carriage and pull down the blinds again.”

“You will get me into trouble.”

“You’re already in trouble, boy. A little more won’t hurt you. Much.”

 

The excitement of the morning, the wine, the company, and the constant rhythmic bumping of the train had made me reckless, and I was quite prepared to risk discovery in order to get my rocks off with Bertrand, even if it was only in his mouth; it wouldn’t take long, and would serve as an amusing
hors d’oeuvre to lunch. But just as we were getting amorous in our carriage, with the blinds pulled down and our tongues in each other’s mouths, there was a tap at the door.

Damn these railway personnel! I disengaged my mouth and shouted, “Go away!”

“It’s me, Mr. Mitchell. Peter Dickinson.”

Bertrand scowled and shook his head, but I was eager to admit him to the party. I adjusted my clothes, but didn’t take too much trouble to hide the bulge in my pants.

“Come in, Peter.”

He shut the door behind him and leaned his back against it. This would prevent any unwanted entry; why hadn’t I thought of that? Bertrand could have been sucking me without fear of discovery.

“Gentlemen. I just wanted to thank you for your cooperation earlier.” He was sizing us both up—our flushed faces, our bulging crotches. “I hope I am not interrupting.”

“Nothing that you’re not welcome to join in. Wouldn’t you say, Bertrand?”

“If he wants.” I think Bertrand was secretly excited at the idea of having two men, as I had earlier suggested. He was determined not to be friendly to Dickinson, but he would welcome his cock, I suspected.

“That’s very good of you, Mr. Mitchell.” He rubbed his groin.

“Mitch.”

“Mitch. Come here, Mitch.”

I stood in front of him. The train lurched a little, and our bodies were pressed together, hard cock to hard cock. I felt his chest, his stomach; they were firm and warm.

“What do you want to do, Mitch? You want me to fuck you? Or shall we both fuck your little friend?”

“Whatever you like.”

“
Venez, monsieur
,” he said to Bertrand. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Bertrand stood up.

“Turn around.” There was mastery in his voice; he was obviously used to being obeyed.

“Now, show us your arsehole.”

“
Quoi?
”

“
Ton cul. Ton trou
.”

“Ah!”

Bertrand unbuttoned his pants, lifted his shirt, and exposed a round, downy backside for our inspection.