Mark Gatiss - The Vesuvius Club

I was spared any more of his charming conversation, however, by the sudden appearance of Mr Jackpot himself from behind the drawn curtain. He was wearing a slovenly jacket and trousers, both too big for him, the pantaloons held to his hips by a thick brown belt and a good two inches shy of his stripe-socked shins. In stark contrast, his collarless shirt seemed clean and there was a white rosebud in his lapel.

«Hullo,» he said.

I gave a little bow.

Jackpot smiled lop-sidedly, his large lips sending dimpled echoes over his cheek. «Won’t you come in, sir?»

He gestured into the darkness. I followed without a word. The tiny doorman melted away into the gloom — for all I knew, he had gone back into the wallpaper from which he had sprung.

I was ushered into a small, square chamber, underlit and overheated. Perhaps Jackpot had become accustomed to his master’s tastes. The décor seemed all of a piece with the grisly entranceway; there was a brass-framed bed containing a stained mattress, and a jug and wash-bowl on a spindly table. On a Turkey rug sat a drab chaise-longue of surpassing vileness. A miserable fire sputtered in the grate, damp sea-coal popping and spitting against faded Dutch tiles.

«How nice,» I said at last.

The boy closed the door behind me and took my hat, coat and gloves like the good and faithful servant he was.

I lit a cigarette to disguise the smell and tossed one to Jackpot who ignited his from the fire. Moving to the sofa, I flapped aside the tails of my coat, prior to sitting. I stopped with my rear end halfway to the upholstery. «May I?»

«Of course, sir,» said Charlie. He hovered by the door a moment, wiping his hands over the greasy fabric of his jacket. Then: «Might I join you, sir?»

I was already lounging back as if I owned the place. I waved a hand and bid him do so.

As he sat down next to me, I pushed him sideways with my leg and, grabbing at his cropped hair, pulled back his head until he yelled in pain. His fag dropped to the dirty floor.

I smiled. «I believe you have something to tell me.»

Charlie scowled and fixed me with a penetrating and vaguely unnerving stare. I tugged his head back still further but he had stopped yelling. «That won’t get you anywhere,» he murmured in a low voice.

«Then perhaps this will,» I cried, grabbing my pearl-handled revolver from beneath my shirt. I pressed the cold barrel to the youth’s temple and glared at him. «Now. What precisely do the initials VC mean to you?»

But still he seemed unmoved. I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed slowly up and down.

Charlie Jackpot just smiled.

Irritated by my failure to intimidate him, I moved the revolver slowly down his smooth face and pushed the barrel between his lips. Charlie’s very blue eyes regarded me levelly over the glinting gun-metal.

I withdrew the pistol from his mouth with ill-grace.

«There now,» said Charlie with a smirk. «Isn’t this nicer?»

Mr Jackpot turned his huge eyes on me in a kind of mute enquiry. A moment later he put his hand on my thigh.

Well, what was I to do? For the well-bred gentleman there was surely only one recourse. I fucked him.

CHARLIE Jackpot had that annoying knack of looking ravishing even in sleep. He lay stretched over the burst stuffing of the chaise, starkers except for his striped socks. Whatever these had once possessed by way of elastic had long since perished and they hung slackly over his white shins like discarded caterpillar pupae.

For myself, I sat on a creaking chair, also in the buff, relishing the gorgeous glow of the fire as I contemplated this most recent act of naughtiness. You are shocked, are you not? Or, perhaps, reading this in some distant and unimaginably utopian future like that funny little man Mr Wells would have us believe in, you are not shocked at all! Fact is, Lucky Lucifer here has still more secrets. My arsenal is formidable — a sentence which comes across more interestingly in a French accent.

As you know, there is no service I am unprepared to render for King and country, and I am not averse to a pretty face and a pretty rump, whether they be man’s or woman’s (I draw the line at beasts, unlike at least one member of the Cabinet). It is the prerogative of the secret agent to be (and to have!) whatever he fancies, don’t you agree? This is not a privilege extended to the population at large, as I found when I was discovered in a house off the Bow Road — the incident that brought me to the attention of Joshua Reynolds. The old dear helped extricate me from that spot of bother but saw it as a very useful way of getting me on to his payroll. In the yellow-backed novels it is known as blackmail .

You must remember that London was in a bit of a panic, with the recent exigencies of Mr O.F.O’F.W. Wilde so fresh in the memory, and J.R. had me by the unmentionables. The compensation was that my divers assassinations took me all over the globe where the love that dared not speak its name was positively encouraged to bellow from the rooftops. Such as in old Napoli, it seemed.

Still, it was a dangerous game and I was in no great hurry to do two years’ hard labour just for a frolic with some dolly renter.

Charlie opened a sleepy eye (exhausted, poor thing) and smiled his simian smile. Reaching over to my discarded coat, I retrieved my cigarette case and lit a fag for myself and then for him, padding naked over the cheap carpet to the chaise and delicately inserting the cigarette between his kiss-crushed lips. Charlie sucked in the smoke as though his life depended on it and let it rise over his mouth like the curly tips of a ghostly moustache.

«Ta,» he said softly.

«How much do I owe you?»

«Owe me?»

«For services rendered.»

The boy dragged on the cigarette. «My pleasure.»

I bowed my head. «Then, tomorrow, you must at least allow me to buy you a bun.»

Charlie draped himself across my lap with his knees up. Gazing into my face he idly scratched his balls. I could feel his hot feet against my thigh. «’Spect you’re wondering why I was so forward with you,» he said at last.

«Forward?»

«You know. This evening at the old fella’s place.»

I blew smoke into his face.

«Young men often throw themselves at me. I’ve come to regard it as something of a burden.»

«I’d seen you before.» He grinned.

«Really? At Ascot? Windsor? I was in Mentone last summer, perhaps we met there?»

He scowled again, rather pleasingly, and wiped at his nose. «Do you know where you are?»

«Yes. A filthy knocking shop for undiscerning tourists.»

Charlie got to his feet and perched on the edge of the table, crossing one foot over the other. «No, no. There’s a little more to it than meets the eye.»

I grunted sceptically. In my experience there’s very rarely more to these places than meets the eye.

«This one’s different,» he said quickly. «Better even than that big yellow house in Islington.»

That was where he’d first spotted me! A Hallowe’en Masque held by a very pretty couple called Flora and Walter Paste. I had come as the Prince of Darkness (of course) and come across a fetching Succubus in very tight fleshings. It had been a night of grand indiscretion. Lawks. No wonder Jackpot been so damned impudent at Quibble’s.

«It’s supposed to be strictly members only but I know a trick or two. Get your togs on.»

«I am not in the habit of obeying orders.»

«All right. But it’s the only way you’re gonna find out about the VC.»

I pulled up my braces. «Very well. Shall we get on?»

Charlie dressed quickly with the abandon of one who cares little for his appearance. Curbing my natural instinct to spend at least an hour getting back into my clothes I graciously allowed Charlie to help me with my collar studs and cuffs. I shrugged on my cut-away and, moments later, looking only a little the worse for wear, followed him back out into the corridor.