Last Nocturne Read online

  ‘Amen, brother!’ Grand raised his glass in a toast. ‘Do you really think any of this is going to produce a murderer?’

  Batchelor thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but it’s all we’ve got at the moment. The Yard are being particularly tight-lipped about this latest case and if I read Meiklejohn aright, he had other things on his mind when he was supposed to be investigating Mabel Glossop.’

  ‘Like lining his own pockets,’ Grand murmured.

  ‘The same. How will you handle it?’

  ‘The soldier?’ Grand flicked his ash onto the tray. ‘Didn’t Meiklejohn suggest you might get into Mrs Arbuthnot’s undercover – as a john, I mean?’

  ‘He did, but I decided against that as being altogether too slow and too risky.’

  ‘Contagious diseases,’ Grand nodded.

  ‘The same again,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘I thought I might try it, though. With the army, I mean. Cavalryman to cavalryman, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Batchelor nodded. ‘Yes, that might work.’

  ‘You?’ Grand asked. ‘How will you handle the lawyer?’

  ‘With my customary charm and bonhomie,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Perceval Keen, QC, was the wrong side of sixty and he could smell an ex-newspaperman a courtroom away.

  ‘I said,’ Batchelor spoke a little louder, ‘as Shakespeare once said, “Let’s kill all the lawyers”.’

  ‘I heard you,’ Keen snapped. ‘And that, by the way, is a well-known misquotation. I think you’ll find, if you consult the First Folio, that the line is “First, kill all the lawyer’s clerks”. There is a world of difference and in terms of the correct quotation, I would probably agree with him. What did you say you wanted?’

  ‘I was enquiring about a mutual friend of ours,’ Batchelor said. ‘Miss Mabel Glossop.’

  The QC looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t know that name,’ he said. He was sitting in his palatial chambers in a particularly blossom-laden corner of the Inner Temple, the clash and carry of Fleet Street metaphorically miles rather than yards from his door. Legal tomes surrounded him. The cigar-cutter on his desk took the form of a guillotine.

  ‘You seem very sure of that,’ Batchelor said, ‘Not a moment’s hesitation.’

  ‘Hesitation is for the defence, Mr Batchelor,’ he sneered. ‘I prosecute.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I would like to see happen here, Mr Keen,’ Batchelor said, ‘in the case of Miss Glossop.’

  ‘It is a case, then?’ Keen asked.

  ‘Oh, very definitely,’ Batchelor assured him, ‘in that the lady was murdered.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Keen said, as if he had just narrowly missed stubbing his toe.

  ‘You were a client of hers.’

  There were times in his life when James Batchelor cut to the chase; this was one of them.

  ‘You must be confused, sir,’ Keen bridled. ‘I have clients. I am not one of them.’

  ‘In this case, sir,’ Batchelor countered, ‘You are. Or rather, were. I had hoped not to have to be direct, Mr Keen, but you leave me no choice. Miss Mabel Glossop was a prostitute and you were her regular client. I assume you have moved on, to pastures new, as it were?’

  Keen leaned forward in his leather-padded chair, fixing Batchelor with a deadly smile, the sort he used on men facing the gallows. ‘Are you familiar,’ he asked, ‘with the laws of slander in this country?’

  ‘On slander, I’m shaky,’ Batchelor admitted, ‘but after several years in Fleet Street, I’m no slouch at libel.’

  ‘Take it from me,’ Keen thundered, leaning back, ‘that I am an expert on both. The only lady with whom I have had carnal relations is Mrs Keen, my good lady wife. If you repeat what you have just said outside these doors, I shall not hesitate to bring an action against you.’ He picked up the carte de visite that Batchelor had just given him and tossed it into the nearest bin. ‘And after that, you and your partner-in-crime can certainly kiss goodbye to your dubious calling and the property from which you operate.’

  ‘Mabel Glossop was murdered, Mr Keen,’ Batchelor repeated. ‘Did I not say that?’

  ‘You did, sir,’ Keen was on his feet, ‘and while that is undoubtedly tragic and a blot on the moral compass of this great country of ours, it has nothing whatever to do with me. Good morning.’

  James Batchelor knew the bum’s rush when he got it. Mrs Arbuthnot seemed very sure of Keen’s identity, but in the cut-and-thrust world of the criminal underclass, it was her word against that of Perceval Keen, QC, and everybody knew how that would go in court.

  ‘Until we meet again,’ Batchelor said, making for the door.

  ‘That will be when Hell freezes over,’ Keen assured him, and slammed the door behind his retreating figure.

  FOUR

  The Rag was busy as usual that night. The brightest of all clubs along the Mall, the lights flared from its windows and carriages came and went in what seemed an endless stream. Liveried flunkies and uniformed privates stood rigidly to attention, saluting anyone whose face or uniform they recognized. No one recognized the undress frock coat of the Army of the Potomac, nor the distinctive scarlet scarf of its Third Cavalry draped around the body and neck of Matthew Grand. It was just as well that everybody recognized the colour of money, especially the sergeant-major on the front door who, after some whispering to an underling, led Grand to the newly refurbished billiard room.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ he said to the two officers at the table. ‘Any chance of a game?’

  They both looked at him past the glare of the lamps, both upright officers a few years Grand’s junior, both wearing the glittering mess dress of the 21st Hussars.

  ‘Who are you?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Matthew Grand,’ the American extended a hand. ‘Army of the Potomac. Third Cavalry.’

  ‘Mr Grand,’ the taller of the two said.

  ‘Captain,’ Grand thought it best to assert. He knew from the single stars on the men’s shoulder cords that he outranked them both.

  ‘Captain Grand,’ the tall man shook his hand. ‘I am Anstruther Peebles, Lieutenant, Twenty-First Hussars.’ He pointed to the shorter man, altogether more weaselly. ‘This is Willoughby Inverarity. Are you over here on army business, Captain?’

  ‘Snooping, I’m afraid,’ Grand smiled. ‘My bosses at the War Office back in Washington want to know what effect your Mr Cardwell’s reforms have had on the British army.’

  ‘That was a while ago,’ Peebles said. ‘Neither of us had taken the shilling at that point.’

  ‘Came up the hard way,’ Inverarity chipped in. ‘Written examinations! I ask you, what sort of world is it where cavalry officers have to pass written examinations?’

  ‘You have a point there, Mr Inverarity.’

  ‘Brandy, old boy?’ Peebles had reached for the decanter on the sideboard.

  ‘Very kind,’ Grand smiled. ‘To be honest, my fact-finding is almost over. I’m looking for some relaxation.’

  ‘Ah, well, the Rag’s the best place for that,’ Peebles told him. ‘You’ve missed dinner, I’m afraid, but there’s some excellent port in the smoking room. Your very good health, Captain Grand.’ Peebles handed the American his glass and raised his.

  ‘And yours, Lieutenant Peebles.’ They clinked glasses. ‘No, I was hoping for something else. Female company, for instance.’

  The hussars looked at each other. ‘Ladies’ night was last night,’ Inverarity told him.

  Grand laughed. ‘They’re not exactly the kind of lady I was talking about,’ he said. ‘Not so much the colonel’s lady, but Judy O’Grady.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ Peebles said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you fellows,’ Grand became confidential, ‘but in the Army of the Potomac and indeed, since, we let our hair down a little.’

  Peebles frowned. ‘Are you talking about ladies of the night?’ he asked a little tensely.

  ‘Got it in
one!’ Grand clicked his fingers. ‘I heard tell of a little place in Chelsea … where was it, now? Turks Row, that’s it. Run by a madam called Arbuthnot. You fellers heard of it?’

  Peebles stood up squarely, the lamplight glancing off the buttons of his fancy mess vest. ‘Clearly, Captain Grand, the habits of the officer class in the American army differ from ours. I’d be happy to drink with you and to beat you hollow at billiards, but anything more than that …’

  ‘How about you, Lieutenant?’ Grand turned his attention to Inverarity. ‘Come across a lady by the name of Mabel Glossop?’

  Inverarity said nothing, but Peebles took the brandy balloon out of Grand’s hand. ‘I think it’s time you left, Captain,’ he said.

  ‘Are you going to make me, Lieutenant?’ Grand asked him.

  ‘Hah!’ sneered Inverarity. ‘Can’t even pronounce the word properly.’

  Grand’s hand snaked out and he slapped Peebles across the face. The man staggered backward, then he retaliated, his left hand stinging across Grand’s cheek.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ Inverarity stepped in, his billiard cue in his hand. ‘This sordid discussion has developed into an affair of honour. Contrary to what we’ve just heard from you, Captain Grand, are you a man of honour?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Grand felt obliged to ask.

  ‘Sabres, Grand. Sabres. You and me,’ Peebles snapped. ‘You’ve insulted me, by your foul innuendo and a physical assault. Time for the reckoning, I think.’

  ‘Are you challenging me to a duel?’ Grand couldn’t believe it.

  ‘I am. We’ve done the exchange of slaps. Do you have a second?’

  ‘All the time in the world,’ said Grand.

  The hussars looked at each other.

  ‘What Lieutenant Peebles means …’ Inverarity began.

  ‘I know what he means,’ Grand said. ‘And no, I don’t, not at the moment.’ Where was Batchelor when you needed him? ‘But I can manage without. Where’s this going to happen? At dawn on some misty meadow?’

  ‘Dawn be buggered,’ Peebles said. ‘It’s going to happen here and now.’

  He led the way through corridors without number, where fierce red-faced and red-coated generals glared down at them from their canvases. As they marched through the bowels of the building, interested club members followed them. Word was getting around of an altercation, and it was a rare member of the Rag who could stand idly by when steel was going to clash, and perhaps, who knew, blood was to be spilled. Grand found himself standing in a gymnasium, with galleries at both ends, crammed with club members, smoking and drinking, trying to see what was going on. He noticed cash changing hands.

  ‘Dymock,’ Peebles beckoned an infantry officer over. ‘Will you act as Captain Grand’s second?’

  ‘I should be honoured, er … Captain Grand,’ the officer said. ‘Henry Dymock, Twenty-Fourth Foot.’ He extended a hand.

  ‘Matthew Grand,’ the American shook it, ‘Third Cavalry of the Potomac.’

  ‘May I hold your coat?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  Grand unbuttoned his uniform and passed it to Dymock. Peebles stripped off his shell jacket and stood in his mess vest, flexing his knees and loosening his wrists. From nowhere, another officer arrived, carrying a sword case. He placed it on the floor and flipped open the lid.

  ‘Three-bar hilt all right for you, Grand?’ Peebles asked.

  ‘Three-bar hilt is just fine,’ Grand said, taking up the nearest weapon to him. It was a little heavier than his own sword that had been on his hip throughout the Wilderness campaign, but it was a finely balanced weapon with etching all the way along the blade.

  Dymock crossed the floor and checked Peebles’s sword. Inverarity did the same to Grand’s.

  Yet another officer took centre stage and the noise in the galleries stopped. ‘As President of the Mess Committee,’ he said in a long drawl, ‘I must point out to you both that duelling is explicitly against the law of the land and, as such, you both have the right to withdraw with honour intact.’

  ‘Honour be buggered!’ Peebles said darkly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  ‘En garde!’ shouted the President, and the sword tips slid together. He held both points at shoulder height, then he brought his swagger stick upwards, banging them apart and stepped back. There was a deafening roar from the galleries as the two men faced each other, blades circling in the dim light. At either end, Inverarity and Dymock dodged in and out of the duellists’ unmarked piste, watching intently.

  Peebles struck first, clashing with Grand’s blade and driving him back. Parry in sixte. Parry in quarte. Riposte. Peebles’s lunge wasn’t his best. He missed his footing slightly and the blade point hissed high above Grand’s shoulder. The American banged the blade aside and sliced against thin air. Peebles jerked upright, steadying himself. This damned colonial knew his onions.

  Now it was Grand’s turn. He feinted not once, but twice, trying the same move to throw his opponent. Peebles expected it and their blades slid together, locking momentarily at the hilts. Grand pushed Peebles back but the hussar was strong and he slashed to the right, catching Grand’s left hand, and he swung to avoid the blow. Blood spattered over the American’s shirt cuff but it didn’t slow him down and he hacked to his right, pinging a couple of buttons off Peebles’s mess vest, ripping the lace and cutting the French grey cloth.

  ‘Enough!’ a voice bellowed, echoing round the gymnasium like cannon fire. The bellows and catcalls from the galleries stopped at once and a pot-bellied general strode into the centre of it all, a glass of brandy in one hand, a cigar in the other. Grand had no idea who this man was, although he recognized the rank insignia on his collar. It was clear from their reaction, however, that everybody else knew exactly who he was.

  ‘Hamilton,’ the old man barked, and the officiating officer stepped forward. Grand expected the men to salute, then he remembered that the British didn’t do that unless they were wearing caps, and the officer merely stood to attention. ‘You are President of the Mess Committee, man. What do you mean, allowing this tomfoolery to go on? Someone could have been killed.’

  ‘Yessir. Sorry, sir,’ was the best Hamilton could do.

  ‘You, sir,’ the general rounded on Grand. ‘Who the devil are you?’

  ‘Matthew Grand, General,’ he told him. ‘Third Cavalry of the Potomac.’

  ‘Huh!’ the old man grunted. ‘McClellan’s lot, eh? I might have known. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Making rather a fool of myself, I suspect,’ Grand was sheepish enough to admit.

  ‘You got that right,’ the general said. ‘Now, get another thing right and get out. Dymock,’ the officer clicked to attention, ‘give this man his coat and see him off the premises. And make sure he doesn’t walk off with that sword.’ The general scowled at Grand. ‘Pretty dodgy lot, McClellan’s outfit, if memory serves.’

  Grand stood open-mouthed, but there wasn’t a lot he could do. He had already insulted one officer tonight; starting a duel with another, especially an overweight old man, was not a good idea. The general whirled to face Peebles. ‘And as for you, Inverarity, what were you thinking? There will be consequences, sir, you can mark my words. And you lot,’ he snarled at the spectators, ‘get back to whatever shady rocks you crawled out from and pray I don’t remember any of your faces. Bloody overgrown schoolboys, the lot of you.’

  There was a first-day-of-term feeling in the offices of Grand and Batchelor, Enquiry Agents, the next morning. Grand was keeping the typewriter who came in every other day to cope with the letters agog with the tale of his duel, complete with actions, using the furniture to stand in for Peebles when Batchelor refused to play. The woman was about to resort to smelling salts when a light tap on the door heralded the arrival of Alexander Martin, dogsbody extraordinaire.

  Miss Wolstenholme, the typewriter, had become rather anxious when told that Grand and Batchelor were taking on more staff. She was a single lady of straitened means and ne
eded all the typewriting she could get; if they were going to get some young whippersnapper wet behind the ears to do her out of her hard-earned crust, she would … she would …

  As it turned out, she would sit there with her mouth open like a goldfish, making indeterminate noises in the back of her throat. Batchelor gave her a nudge and she gave a little start and remembered to blink and swallow again. She had never, in all her life, seen a man as handsome as the one who had just walked in. Matthew Grand could turn heads, it was true, and James Batchelor had a certain weaselly charm, but Alexander Martin simply left them floundering in his wake. Miss Wolstenholme, when regaling the ladies in the sitting room of her lodgings – Mrs Newark; Rooms to Rent, Quiet Ladies Only Considered, Strictly No Callers – found it hard to explain quite what made him so unutterably gorgeous, and it was a problem she shared with many who came within his aura. His hair was … hair, but the best there could be. His teeth were not at all like pearls, as better poets than she had pointed out about others, but they were perfect nonetheless. His nose was like something from a Grecian urn, but much more human. His mouth, when he smiled, made it seem as if the sun had come out. She didn’t go into his chest, shoulders and legs; Miss Manifold had recently come out of a Home and still couldn’t take too much excitement. Suffice it to say, she concluded as the ladies hung on her every word, he was, in short, just perfect.

  He parted his perfect lips to speak and Miss Wolstenholme held her breath; if his voice was a squeak, her disappointment would be terminal. But no. In measured tones, not too deep, not too shrill, not too hurried, not drawling, the vision spoke.

  ‘Oh, I am in the right place! Thank goodness for that. I don’t have a very good sense of direction, I’m afraid.’

  Grand’s heart sank. So much for the wunderkind with the perfect memory!

  ‘Except when I have been somewhere before, of course. Then, I’m all right. I have been using any spare moments from the Telegraph to visit new parts of London and learn my way about.’ He smiled at the small company. ‘I hadn’t got round to these streets yet, but I was grateful for the opportunity.’