“Ordinary” members of the public and gang roughs rubbed shoulders with royalty, both those in exile and those still in possession of their thrones, Americans rich beyond measure, Indian and African princes, officers of the Guards, writers, artists, opera singers, orchestra conductors, stars of the West End stage, as well as the chorus boys and girls—there was nowhere else in England, possibly in the world, where so many different estates could be found together at one time, not even in Epsom on Derby Day. Unlike many—indeed, most—Nellie harboured few prejudices. She did not discriminate by colour or rank or race. If you had the money for the entrance fee, you were allowed ingress to her kingdom. In Nellie’s view, money was the measure of a man—or woman.
Once you had negotiated the Cerberus-like presence of Nellie at the entrance, you passed through a bamboo curtain and progressed down a dimly lit, narrow flight of stairs as unprepossessing as coal-cellar steps. It added to the “drama” of it all, Nellie said. Everyone wanted drama. At the bottom of the stairs, you were greeted by another doorman, this one liveried with frogging, epaulettes and so on, a costume that would not have looked out of place on a rear admiral in an operetta. This individual, Linwood, who was much given to bowing and scraping (he made an astonishing amount in tips), was a disgraced butler from one of the royal households. Nellie believed in second chances, she herself had benefited from several. It was amusing to see the startled expressions on the faces of some of the club’s more regal patrons if they recognized Linwood (as was the way with butlers, he had no other name), for he was the keeper of many of their more outré secrets. Of course, although most servants will recognize their masters, few masters will remember the faces of their servants. Then Linwood would draw back the heavy black bombazine curtain that shrouded the entrance and you were finally granted entry. A coup de théatre.
Ta-dah—welcome to the Amethyst!
* * *
—
The bacon and eggs arrived, along with the promised sausages for Nellie and sweet milky coffee, and Keeper, Niven’s German shepherd, nosed open the dining-room door, heralding the arrival of Niven himself.
The dog was the only creature on earth that Niven seemed to have respect for. He still referred to him as a “German shepherd,” not an “Alsatian,” immune—or indifferent—to the enemy connotations of the name. Like many men in the trenches, Niven had known dogs like Keeper, working dogs, but that was one of the few pieces of information about his time in the Scots Guards that he was prepared to share with anyone. At no point in the war or after, including the Armistice and the Peace, did Niven ever think anyone had won.
He no longer had the patience for people’s foibles. No patience for people at all. No time for religion, no time for scruples, no time for feelings. Niven’s heart appeared adamantine, fired in the crucible of the war.
He had been a sharpshooter, picking off Germans in their trenches with his Pattern 1914 Enfield. To level things up, the Germans did the same. One morning during the battle of Passchendaele, a corporal spotting for Niven had his head blown off next to him. In the afternoon, the same thing happened to another spotter. Understandably there was a reluctance to spot for Niven a third time. Snipers and spotters generally took it in turns, and the next time Niven was on duty he chose to spot, to demonstrate, if nothing else, the laws of chance. He wasn’t killed. Perhaps he had been lucky or perhaps he was simply good at knowing when to put his head above the parapet and when it was better to stay down.
He had been closer to the dining room than they thought, in one of the club’s storerooms, listening to a tale of woe from one of the dance hostesses amongst the crates of beer and champagne and the boxes of kippers that came down by train from Fortune’s in Whitby every week to fuel the Amethyst’s breakfasts. He’d put an end to the tale of woe by giving the girl enough cash to make her “problem” disappear. There was a woman in Covent Garden whom the girls all seemed to know about. The solution was often worse than the problem, but “you take your chances,” the girl in the storeroom said. Her problem was not of Niven’s making. He was careful to leave no trace of himself in this world.
He sauntered into the room now and, kissing Nellie lightly on the cheek in the continental fashion, said, “So, Mother, the jailbird has been set free from her cage, has she?” He pinched a slice of bacon off Betty’s plate and tossed it to a surprised Keeper.
The kiss disturbed Nellie. It felt more like Gethsemane than filial affection. “Time we were all in our beds,” she said sharply.
Niven saluted his mother, managing to make the gesture appear both impeccable and subversive at the same time, a talent honed in the war. “Sofort, mein Kapit?n,” he said. Nellie frowned at him. She may not have known German, but she recognized the language of the enemy when she heard it.
Bow Street
“It’s your day off, sir,” the desk sergeant on the early-morning shift said, alarmed at the sight of Frobisher steaming through the doors of Bow Street station.
“I know that, Sergeant, I’m not in my dotage yet.”
“Never thought you were, sir.”
The desk sergeant was still easing into the day with an enamel mug of strong, well-sugared tea and was unprepared for action. It was his custom to be sensitive to the new Detective Chief Inspector’s state of mind. Frobisher had been in Bow Street not much more than a week now and the desk sergeant was still getting acquainted with his daily character. This morning he cautiously gauged optimism and said, “Make you a brew, sir?”
“No, thank you, Sergeant,” Frobisher said briskly.
Frobisher had omitted to tell Miss Kelling that today was his day off. Nor had he told his wife, but then Lottie took little interest in his comings and goings. He was here to do a job, to clean a mired house. Dirt never slept, so neither would Frobisher until he had swept it away. He was a man inclined to a metaphor.
Bow Street was not a quiet place. Frobisher could hear the metallic clanging and banging of the cell doors and the overnight prisoners’ voluble protests at their incarceration. The cries of the damned rising from Hades, Frobisher thought, although the cells in Bow Street were not below but on ground level. He caught a high keening from the women’s cells up on the floor above—grief or madness, it was hard to say. A fine line divided them. He thought of his wife.
He had been up at an unearthly hour to go to Holloway and his empty stomach felt sour. It needed to be lined with a good breakfast. Frobisher’s thoughts turned to porridge, with honey carved from the comb and cream straight from the cow, and perhaps an egg fresh from beneath a fat-feathered hen. Unlikely on all fronts. Frobisher had enjoyed a rural childhood. He was into his forties now but he had never exorcized Shropshire from his soul. They had had chickens when he was young, free to roam, and it had been his job when he came home from school at the end of the day to search out the eggs, each discovery a small triumph, the pleasure of which had never palled. No egg had ever tasted as good since.
“What’s the night’s tally, Sergeant?” he asked.
“Full house, sir. It’ll take all day for the Magistrates’ Court to get through them.”
“The usual?”
“?’Fraid so. Run-of-the-mill stuff—solicitation, thieving, intoxication, assaults. A full tank of drunks stewing in their own misery. A murder in Greek Street—”
“Oh?” There had been a spate of baffling murders across London over the past few months. Unexplained random attacks on innocent passers-by. Of course, there were some superstitious fools, encouraged by the scandal sheets, who blamed the curse of Tutankhamun. Frobisher had been working with the murder squad in Scotland Yard and knew at firsthand how vexing these killings were, as there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them. He could only conclude that they were the work of a madman.
“Nothing special, sir,” the sergeant said. “Just a pair of intoxicated gentlemen trying to batter the living daylights out of each other. The Laughing Policeman’s on it.”
“Sergeant Oakes? I wish people would use his real name.” God, how Frobisher hated that stupid Charles Penrose song.
“Yes, sir. Oakes is a cheerful sod though, you have to admit. Always sees the funny side of things.”
Oakes was experienced and, if nothing else, he seemed to Frobisher to be a safe pair of hands, although his constant jocundity was already beginning to grate. “Is Inspector Maddox on duty today?” he asked.