Will Thomas - Fatal Enquiry

“What is our purpose, exactly, in speaking to him?” I asked in a low voice. “You’ll never convince him to change his mind.”

“We’ll see about that. If someone is squeezing him from one side, let us squeeze from the other. It shouldn’t take much, I should think. When I met him, he did not strike me as a fellow with much personal resolve.”

There was a sticky moment when a maid bustled past and we hid in an alcove, but eventually, we made our way upstairs to the first floor. I thought perhaps Barker knew where he was going, but we were forced to open and close doors until we finally found Gerald Clayton sitting before a fire in a faded leather armchair, sipping from a large snifter of brandy though it was not yet noon. Clayton’s eyes were closed and it was difficult to tell how much he had swallowed already. Barker eased himself into the chair across from him and I stood behind, resting a forearm on the top of the chair.

“Good morning, Mr. Clayton,” Barker stated in a low voice. “What have you to say for yourself?”

It was worth the price of admission to watch the man jump and spill his drink, even if it meant ruining a decent Persian rug. My first thought upon encountering Gerald Clayton was that he must have been a great disappointment to his father. He was a vision of dissipated youth, with waxy skin and protuberant eyes, his hair lank and oily-looking. There were two stacks of papers in front of him he had been working his way through. No doubt it had to do with his father’s death and recent inheritance.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“It is I, Cyrus Barker. I’ve come to find out why you’re ruining my name across London, Mr. Clayton. I’ve worked many years establishing a reputation which you have now sullied. I have come for my pound of flesh.”

Clayton filled his lungs to cry for help but before he could expel a sound the Guv was over the table and had clamped a large hand about his throat.

“Now, Clayton, be reasonable,” Barker said soothingly. “If you alert your servants or attempt to summon the constable in the lane, I shall be forced to get very unpleasant.”

Clayton’s eyes darted from Barker to me and I did my best to appear formidable. I gave him my most devilish look, and reached a hand into my inside breast pocket. What might I have in there? A clasp knife? A knuckle-duster? Actually, it was a pocket volume of Browning’s poetry, but he wasn’t to know that.

Barker pulled his hand away and patted Clayton’s chest. “That’s better. There is no reason for violence, I’m sure. Mr. Clayton, are you being blackmailed?”

“Yes,” he admitted, putting his hands to his throat where Barker’s thick fingers had just been. “Is it that obvious?”

“You do not strike me as a naturally vindictive person, and I did not give you cause during our brief exchange the other night to seek vengeance against me. There must be another factor. This person blackmailing you, is it a man or a woman?”

“It is a man, sir.”

“Let me give you a name, then. Have you ever heard of Sebastian Nightwine?”

Clayton’s brow shot up. “The very man! You seem to know everything. Is he a known blackmailer?”

“He is not, but the man is responsible for my present situation. What better way to damage my reputation than to murder the last man I spoke with, and coerce his son to say we had a public argument. What does he have on you, sir? Letters, perhaps?”

“I wish they were only letters.”

“Photographs, then? The modern age has proven a boon to blackmailers.”

“I was an ass,” Clayton blurted out.

“I suppose it happened at university. I’ve heard young men frequently make fools of themselves there.”

“You have no idea. I would give anything to take back what happened. Nothing really happened at all, but it looks bad.”

“No doubt,” Barker said, though he understood what Clayton meant no more than I.

“I was in an amateur theatrical group at Oxford,” Clayton began. “We were doing Antigone . After the final performance we hired a photographer to take a photograph of all the players. By the time we got round to it and the photographer was prepared, we were all rather drunk, I’m afraid. The chiton tunics we wore were already short and rather askew, and we wore heavy makeup. The result was that we looked like a bacchanal of the lowest sort. Why couldn’t we have done something like Henry IV, I ask you?”

Cyrus Barker frowned. He was not the kind to go in for amateur theatrics or to understand the kind of high-spirited antics that occur from time to time at a prestigious university such as Oxford or Cambridge.

“I’m not certain I follow you,” he admitted.

In response, Clayton pulled open a drawer of the desk beside him and pitched a photograph across the table as if it were a playing card. It landed faceup in front of us. The photograph was one of those studio cards with a heavy backing, in sepia tones. It featured a group of four young men seated in front of a painted backdrop representing a classical scene. The young men wore laurel wreaths and had their hair in tight curls, and wore so much rouge they could have been mistaken for women. There were but two chairs, and two of the young men were seated in the other’s laps. The costumes they wore were so short as to leave little to the imagination. I could see how it could lead one to the belief that something illicit and possibly even illegal might be going on.

“Did your father see this photograph?”

“No, thank the Lord.”

“Are there more?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Apparently the photographer was not scrupulous and knew a good thing when he saw it. I’m sure he took several. We were so drunk I didn’t remember a single thing afterward.”

“So there was no impropriety,” Barker remarked. “Merely the impression of impropriety.”

“We were merely drunk and disorderly, sir.”

“Are you still acquainted with the other gentlemen in this photograph?”

“No. I’m not even certain I recall their names.”

“How did Mr. Nightwine approach you?”

“He came to the house after my father died, telling me to go to the police with accusations against you. I assume he purchased the lot from whoever took the pictures.”

“What did he say he would do with the other photographs? I assume they were as debauched-looking as this one?”

“Worse, if such a thing is possible. Nightwine said he would show them to all my father’s old cronies, men with whom I would have dealings in the future. Mr. Barker, do you think there is any way to stop them from being circulated?”

“Frankly, sir, I do not. Nightwine got hold of them because he was looking for something like this and they were on the market. There’s no telling how many copies were put out by your unscrupulous photographer. They may have been produced for sale. Luckily, it requires a good deal of effort to recognize you. I have a few suggestions.”

“Name them, please!” Clayton said, leaning forward. I had not noticed until now that he was perspiring freely.

“The first is to marry quickly. Almost anyone will do. Make a proper husband of yourself and have children as soon as possible. Avoid amateur theatrics, drinking in public, and anything involving Greek literature. Above all, deny completely that the fellow in the photograph is you, should the subject arise. There is nothing I can see here to connect you to Oxford. You were heavily made up. Your father’s associates will have merely the word of the photographer against yours. Have you anyone you can marry?”

“I have a maiden cousin without a penny-”

“Propose to her immediately! Elope with her. Settle money upon her. By God’s grace you may learn to love her.”