The Fun Factory (33 page)

“Lord Devonport – there is a man who will stop at nothing!” this Ben
13
went on, and a grumbling rose up. Lord Devonport, I gathered, was not a popular figure in these parts.

“He would know what our plans are, and what our strengths and weaknesses! And so he sends spies to move amongst us, listening, watching…”

This brought a wave of angry grumbling and spitting on the floor from the assembled.

“So let us all be vigilant, and seek out the interlopers!”

“Aye!” roared the mob furiously.

Except one voice behind me, which said: “Here’s one!”

All about me heads turned to seek out the speaker. I myself looked round with a sort of detached interest, like a curious observer of the show.

The damned fool was pointing straight at me!

Well, things quickly began to get ugly. A tight ring of muscle-bound wharf hands hemmed me in, and I began to get barged from side to side. One flicked my hat off, but I was too closely packed in to bend and retrieve it, and wouldn’t really have wanted to bend in any case. Questions jabbed in from all sides like hostile punches, and there were hostile punches as well (which jabbed in like, well, like questions).

“‘Oo sent yer?”

“What you up to?”

“‘Oo’s yer master, yer lackey of the ruling class?” Had all the jargon, that one.

“I’m not, I’m not, I’m not whatever you think!” I protested, but my cries were lost in the rising angry hubbub. What I was thinking was: for Heaven’s sake, I am a
socialist
!

“Wait a minute, lads,” a deep voice cut in, and there was a pause in hostilities for a moment. “This ’un’s no spy. I recognises ’im, I do. Oh yes.”

My heart missed a beat at that, I can tell you. The only person I could possibly imagine recognising me in this hell-hole was none other than Testicle-Nose himself. I’d walked, like a fool, like a dumb
fool
, into his very lair, where he was backed up by hundreds of like-minded friends and colleagues, and I was surely done for. A beating, and broken bones, at the very least. I’d probably end up with a nose like his.

I closed my eyes a moment, took as deep a breath as I was able, and turned to face … someone else! Thank the Lord! It was a vast chap wading towards me through a sea of flesh, a head taller than those around him. He could clearly have torn me limb from limb should he have so wished, but a benign smile was spreading across his stubbly features.

“Yes, yes, I recognises ’
im
all right. ’E’s one of Fred Karno’s boys, ain’tcha, son?”

I could have kissed him, except that that would almost certainly have made things worse.

“Yes! Yes, I am! That’s what I am! Not a spy! I’m a comedian! A comedian!”

My saviour pointed a vast finger not unlike an uncooked Cumberland sausage into my face. “
Football Match
. You was the centre-forward, the one with all the tricks. Tilbury Empire.”

“Yes! Ratty! That was me! Well, well, well!” I cried.

“So what-choo a-doin’ down ’ere?” mused the giant. “Pickin’ up some tips from our Ben, is it?”

I glanced up at the dais, where the spittling orator was still in full flow, but casting angry looks over towards the distraction we were causing.

“No, no, no, nothing like that. We … we … are preparing a new show. Yes, that’s it!” I clapped my hands as inspiration struck. “A new show set right here in the docks. And we wanted to make sure we get everything just so.
Wharf … Birds
. That’s what we are calling it.
Wharf Birds
.”

An excited hum of chatter swirled around me now from my erstwhile attackers, thrilled at the prospect of being immortalised onstage. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a fistful of free passes that I had lifted from Alf’s office, with the thought that they might grease a wheel or two along the way. I thrust them at the giant, who grasped them with child-like glee, and then obligingly carved me a way out of the mob.

“Just one thing,” I added, once we’d made it to a little bit of open space at the edge of the rally. “Do you know a ship called the
Dover Castle
?”

The giant’s brow creased in a mighty frown. “I don’t know it, no…”

“Right. I see. Oh well, I’d best be off…”

“But,” he went on. “If it’s a Castle, it’ll be one of the Union-Castle Line, they’re all the Something Castle.
Pembroke Castle, Kinfauns Castle, York Castle, Dunottar Castle
, all sort of names like that. You should ask at their office. Now, where is that…?” After a moment he snapped his fingers. “Of course, I knows it. Fenchurch Street.” I sighed. I’d risked life and limb, and the answer was right back where I’d started that morning.
Nice one, Sherlock. I thanked him and scuttled back to the railway station as fast as I could.

Once back at Fenchurch Street I located the offices of the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company soon enough, and ventured up the steps. A doorman in a natty lavender and black livery held the door open.

“A very good afternoon, sir. Cargo, Passage, Accounts or Staff?”

I’d had some time on my return train journey to consider my plan of action a little more carefully, so I replied: “Staff.”

The liveried greeter jerked a thumb towards a dark corridor and returned to his post. I followed this corridor to a staircase, which led down into a basement.

There I found a veritable warren of corridors, with small offices leading off to either side, and some light provided by high frosted windows at street level. Dust hung and swirled in the sunbeams, which blinked at the passage of feet on the pavement above. Everywhere there were packets of papers bound together with string, just stacked on top of each other in piles, which made the corridors so narrow that I had to edge along sideways to make progress.

I reached the end of the corridor, and an office that was larger than the ones I had passed. A man sat behind a desk there, also lost in filling in some form or other, and he muttered without looking up.

“Be with you … be with you in a mo … ment.”

I tucked my hands behind my back – this, by the way, is pantomime language for ‘a man of substance’, which is why the Royals
do it – and inspected my surroundings. On the wall was a large map of the world, with coloured pins variously scattered about its surface. The largest concentration by far seemed to be in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Next to this were two framed portraits of military gentlemen, which I inspected while I waited.

“Lord Roberts, Commander-in-chief South Africa, and General Kitchener,” said a voice behind me. The clerk had finished his paperwork and had come out from behind his desk to greet me. “It was our very great honour to transport these fine gentlemen both to and from the conflict, along with many of our brave lads.”

“Really?” I said. “My brother fought the Boer with the Essex. Perhaps you transported him as well.”

“Very possibly, very possibly. I must say that even though I myself never set foot ashore I still saw things I never hope to have to see again. Some of the injured we brought back home…” Here he stopped and clapped his hand to his mouth, realising that I had not said how Lance had fared out there.

“My brother doesn’t like to talk about it,” I said. “He was at the relief of Kimberley, I believe, and, fortunately, returned from the adventure whole.”

“Good, good,” the fellow gasped, pulling out a handkerchief and mopping his brow. “Well, my name is Turnbull.”

“Dandoe,” I said. “Arthur Dandoe.”

“Welcome to Bleak House, Mr Dandoe. And how may I be of service to you?”

“I have a message for one of your crew members,” I said. This was the story I had concocted. “I wonder if you could tell me where he might be found?”

“I see,” Turnbull said, returning to his desk and reaching for a ledger. “What ship?”

“The
Dover Castle
,” I said.

“
Dover Castle … Dover Castle
…” he murmured, licking his fingertip and flicking through the pages. “Here… And the name…?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know the name of the person for whom the message is intended?”

“I don’t, but perhaps if you could tell me where the
Dover Castle
is, I could…?”

Mr Turnbull was having trouble digesting the information. “You have a message for someone, but don’t know
who
?”

“No, but as I say, all I really need to know is…”

Turnbull stepped out from behind his desk and strode to his door.

“Mr Handley? Mr Bunn? Step in here a moment, if you would.”

In short order we were joined by a couple of junior clerks, eager to please.

“This gentlemen has a message for a member of the crew of the
Dover Castle
, but he does not know the
name
of the recipient.”

“Doesn’t know his
name
, Mr Turnbull?”

“What does he look like?” one of the junior clerks ventured.

“Yes, do we have a description?”

“Look,” I said, “all I really want to know is where the
Dover Castle
actually is and I’ll pursue the matter myself.”

“But if you can describe the man you seek…”

“…we may be able to identify him for you.”

Actually, I thought, if they could tell me the heckler’s name, that might be very useful. And they were so very keen to help, so I said: “Well, he has a bald head, with a crown or halo of gingery hair, and but one other distinguishing feature that I can think of.
His nose. It is grotesquely huge, and divided into two globes, not at all unlike…”

Turnbull held up a hand. “Say no more, sir.” Mr Handley and Mr Bunn were smiling knowingly at each other, and Turnbull was now running his finger down a column of the ledger before him.

“Here we have him, yes indeed, the very fellow. Moulden, his name is. He’s a second mate on board, as you yourself said, sir, the SS
Dover Castle
.”

“He was in this very office not three days ago,” Handley said. “And his nose was even more of a spectacle than usual. He was swearing all kinds of bloody revenge on whoever it was who’d made it so, as well, and…”

“Yes, thank you, Mr Handley, that will do,” Turnbull said, as he wheeled his chair around to consult a chart on the wall behind him. “I’m afraid your message will have to wait, Mr Dandoe. The
Dover Castle
is one of the six steamers we have carrying the mail to the Cape, and on to Natal. It’s a five-week run there and back, leaving every Thursday afternoon, and so Mr Moulden will have departed yesterday from Southampton.”

“I see. Gentlemen, I thank you,” I said. “Good day to you.”

“Is your message perhaps one that could be wired ahead?” Turnbull enquired. “Could I ask, are you a family member, or a potential employer? Or…” – he winced apprehensively – “a
police officer
, perchance?”

“No, indeed,” I replied.

“You would not be the first,” Turnbull said. “Or perhaps a detective?”

“No, no, no. In point of fact …” I said, not really knowing why I said it, “…I am a comedian with the Fred Karno company.”

This news went down big, as I had a feeling it would.

“Oh, well, in that case,” Turnbull said, beaming. “I suspect then that we know who your message is
from
. Eh, Mr Handley? Mr Bunn?”

Handley and Bunn nodded vigorously.

“I beg your pardon?” I said, surprised, since, of course, there was no actual message.

“Oh yes. One of Moulden’s former shipmates on the
Dover Castle
is now in the music halls, and a colleague of yours. We remember him well, do we not?”

“Indeed we do, Mr Turnbull,” said Bunn.

“Quite a character!” said Handley.

I frowned. Suddenly I had the urge to shake the information out of them, but managed to hold myself in check.

“I have his picture right here. He signed his name upon it… Now where did I…? Ah, here we are! See?”

Turnbull handed over a postcard-sized publicity photograph, of a kind that music hall stars would have to give out to admirers. I looked at the picture. The face was unmistakable, and even if it had not been, the signature was legible enough.

Suddenly I had a vivid flash of an image that I recalled from the night at the Oxford. I had been feeling the effects of the ether, and it all felt like a dream, swimming in and out of focus, but yes, it was this same face and the creature Moulden together, wasn’t it? Outside the stage door there? Moulden tucking some cash into his pocket, smirking, and this fellow glancing anxiously over to see if I’d seen him?

It was Syd Chaplin.

33

TIED UP IN NOTTS

CHARLIE
Chaplin was in Nottingham, and he was furious. What a waste of a day!

He had just travelled by train the twenty or so miles over from Leicester, where he was starring as
Jimmy
the Fearless
at the Palace, and now he was striding angrily across the western edge of the Old Market Square. Last time he had been in the town, the previous autumn, the Goose Fair had been on, and the big helter-skelter had been standing over there, opposite H. Samuel’s the jewellers. Now the square was just a big open space, people scurrying hither and thither about their business, with the shops on one side and the Exchange on the other. Robin Hood won an archery contest here, they kept telling him last time, he remembered.

It was a warm day, and he stopped to cool off and calm down. He was early, with a few minutes to spare before the meeting to which he had been summoned, and so he took a seat on a bench, lit a cigarette and wafted his face with his hat.

The nerve of that Billy Wragg! Chaplin reached into his pocket
for the letter, with its Nottingham postmark, and scanned it one more time. He’d looked it over on the train as well, and probably knew it off by heart.

“Dear Charly,” it read. “Things hav gon hardly for me since the football match got canseled and I got sacked off mr Karno. I hav tried to find sum work but nothin doin. I am on me uppers. I no you are at Lester this week. I seen a bill. Come over to Nottinham on tuesdy to the white statue in the front of the thetre royal. Come at mid-day. If you do not come and pay me five pounds I will rite to that same mr Karno and tell him all what I done for you, and that is a promis.

“Your faithful frend, Wm Wragg esq.”

Blackmail! That’s all it was! The letter had been waiting for him at the Palace when the
Jimmy the Fearless
troupe arrived for the band call on Monday morning, and he had nearly had a seizure. He’d wired Syd at once, and the reply came back, two words only. “Pay him.”

Chaplin looked around at the busy square as he finished his cigarette. This was Wragg’s home town, of course, he remembered. He played for Nottingham Forest, didn’t he? In the Cup Final, no less.

He watched people criss-crossing the square in front of him with disdain. These humdrum little provincials with their scrubbed faces and their limited little lives. How he despised them, and feared them too. Despised their low sense of humour, their inability to appreciate the nuances in his work, in his art. Feared that if he was to fail in the music hall, then he might end up amongst them, like them, one of them.

How tired he was of touring to towns like these. He felt like he’d been doing it all his life. He had, almost! What with the
Eight Lancashire Lads, starting in 1899, then with Mr Gillette’s
Sherlock Holmes
, and then that pompous ass Wal Pink’s Company, Casey’s Circus and now with Karno’s these last three years, there could hardly be a dismal, boxy-housed, grey-stone, cobbled-street, corner-shopped conurbation in the country he hadn’t spent a week in at one time or another, in rain and shine, boredom and joy.

America, that was what he was looking forward to. A fresh start, new horizons, different towns, different people, a sense of adventure, of scope. Of freedom. It was trite and obvious, he knew that, but in the vast open spaces of America he felt he’d be able to breathe. Not like here.

Tilly would be there, too, he found himself thinking. She hadn’t been as excited as he’d hoped when she’d heard the news, though. He’d made sure that she knew that he had requested her, but that seemed to be the very thing that was sticking in her craw. She was attractive, no doubt, but independent too. And did he really want her? Or did he just want her because Dandoe wanted her?

At least Dandoe would not be making the trip, which would simplify things. Not only with Tilly, but also with the company. Too funny by half, that was the trouble with Dandoe. He’d taken a bit of fixing, but it had been worth it. There was only room for one number one. Young Stan Jefferson was funny too. He’d tried to have that young man dropped from the America company as well, but Alf had said he was the perfect understudy. Which he was. Too damned perfect. Just as long as he knew his place.

Chaplin checked his watch and saw that it was five minutes to the hour. Let’s get this over with, he thought to himself, and set off briskly up Market Street.

Once he reached the Theatre Royal he saw the white statue
quickly enough. It was an immodest marble tribute to a local hosier, set on a plinth maybe eight feet high. He’d seen it before but not particularly remarked it.

There was no sign of Billy Wragg, Chaplin noted impatiently. There was only an old gypsy woman, wearing a threadbare shawl and a tattered bonnet and holding a basket of lucky heather on her lap as she sat at the base of the plinth. He strolled over to look at the front of the Royal, which was presenting a piece by Mr Shaw, it seemed, while the Empire was just up the street there, where the town’s music hall entertainments were to be found. He strolled back towards the statue, glancing up the streets to the right and left to see if he could catch sight of Wragg’s lanky frame, but there was no one even remotely like the big brute in the vicinity.

“Lucky ’eather, dearie?” said a voice at his feet. Chaplin glanced down at the old gypsy woman. Like all theatricals he would admit to being somewhat superstitious, and he found himself fumbling in his trouser pocket for a sixpence, which he handed over. The crone struggled inelegantly to her feet, and pinned some heather to the lapel of Chaplin’s jacket, drawing him in closer as she did so.

“There you go, me ducks,” the gypsy said.

“Thank you, mother,” said Chaplin.

“I’ll tell your fortune if you likes,” the crone offered.

“No, thank you, I don’t have the time right now,” Chaplin said, turning away. She tugged at his sleeve.

“Come on, now, Charlie, don’t be like that.”

Chaplin turned back, startled, and frowned. “You know my name?”

“I knows a good deal more than that,” said the woman, a teasing smirk on her walnut-brown face.

“I suppose you saw me at the Empire?”

“No, I never did, me ducks. I’m sure you were a sight to see.”

“So,” Chaplin ventured, intrigued now. “What else do you know, exactly?”

“Oooh, let me see. I knows you are here to meet a fellow, a tall fellow. I knows you are here to give him an amount of money. I knows your name is Charlie and his name is William.”

Chaplin peered suspiciously at the witch’s face under the battered bonnet. “What is this? How do you know me, and how do you know his name?”

“Did I not give him the name my own self?” said the gypsy.

“What do you mean?” Chaplin said, perplexed.

“Why, it was my father’s name, Billy’s grandfather.”

“You mean you are…?”

“Billy Wragg’s mother, that I am.”

“His mother? You are his mother? Well, where is Billy?”

“He’s not come. He sent me instead.”

“Why?” said Chaplin.

“He’s frit. He warn’t sure you’d come alone. He says you might send chaps to thrash him for his impertinence.”

“Chaps? What chaps? Whatever is he talking about?”

“Sailors, he says. One of ’em with a great big red nose, like two great … t-t-tomatoes. Nasty piece o’ work, by all accounts.”

“Oh,
him
? Don’t worry about him. Listen, I assure you I mean Billy no harm. He asked me to come, and here I am.”

“And do you mean to pay him what he asks for?”

“Well, I wanted to talk to him about that,” Chaplin said. He had the money but he had no intention of handing it over without some assurance that there would be no repeat of the footballer’s demand.

“Did he not do what you asked?”

“Yes, yes, he did, but…”

“Did he not break some other chap’s leg, just as you wanted?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly specify, but I suppose it worked out all right,” Chaplin said, glancing around to see that no passers-by were close enough to eavesdrop.

“And would it not be most embarrassing for your good self if others were to learn of what you asked my Bill to do?”

“It would, it would,” Chaplin conceded hurriedly. Suddenly he felt very uncomfortable having this conversation out in the open air, and he was anxious to be away. “So I give the five pounds to you, is that the arrangement?” he said, fumbling in his jacket for a pocketbook.

“That would be … acceptable,” the old gypsy woman said. Chaplin withdrew the notes from their hiding place, and held them out for her to take. When she reached for the payment, however, he suddenly twitched his hand back.

“Tell Billy,” he said firmly. “No more after this. This is an end to the matter.”

“Oh no, Charlie, no, no, no. This is not the end. This is just the beginning.”

Chaplin started. He looked around in bewilderment. The old crone had not spoken, she was just grinning up at him. It was someone else.

A man’s voice. A voice he knew.

Out from behind the plinth, where he had cleverly managed to conceal himself when his accomplice had pulled Chaplin close to affix the lucky heather, strolled the very last person on earth Chaplin wanted to see at that precise moment.

Arthur Sebastopol Dandoe.

Me.

Chaplin recovered himself after a moment.

“What is your intention?” he said sourly. “You go to Karno and it’s your word against mine.”

“You are forgetting my witness,” I said, indicating the ancient gypsy crone with her basket of lucky heather.

“Billy Wragg’s mother?” Charlie said with a sneer. “Who will believe her?”

“Oh, come on, catch up!” I laughed. “As if Billy Wragg would send his mother to meet you. Do you not recall my friend Mr Ralph Luscombe? He has stood you supper many a time.”

The gypsy removed her bonnet and a tangled grey wig to reveal a slicked back gentleman’s barnet, and a stark line across the forehead where the edge of the wig had been. Pale white male forehead to the North, and weather-beaten walnut make-up and fake warts to the South.

“What ho, Charlie!” Luscombe cried. Then to me he said: “I thought that went rather well, didn’t you?”

“I liked ‘frit’,” I said. “That was most convincing. And ‘me ducks’, that was excellent.”

“Yes, I was pleased with those suggestions, from our local friend the stage doorman, no less.”

“I wondered about ‘chaps’, though. You said ‘chaps’ rather often, and it didn’t quite strike right.”

“Do you know, I wondered about that too,” Charlie said, bitterly. “I never dreamed for a moment that it was you, though. It made me wonder if the woman had perhaps fallen on hard times from something higher, you know? Congratulations, my friend! You are quite wasted in the import-export business. Johnny Doyle should look to his laurels.”

Luscombe glowed. “Thank you! Coming from you that’s … well, I am overwhelmed!”

They shook hands, the two of them. Quite sporting of Charlie, actually. I clapped him on the back. “Well, you look like you could do with a drink. Shall we adjourn?”

I led Chaplin off to the pub on the corner, which we had frequented during our week in Nottingham the previous autumn, while Luscombe trotted round to the stage door of the theatre. We had bribed the stage doorman to let us use a dressing room, some make-up and the street crone get-up from the Shaw play, whichever one it was. Cost us a couple of pints, that’s all.

In the pub we settled into a booth, where I got on the outside of a pint of Marston’s, and Charlie sipped a large port as per.

“Aaaaahh!” I said, a large sigh of satisfaction.

“So?” Charlie asked. “Are you going to tell me the purpose of that little charade?”

“I needed to know, that’s all,” I said.

“To know,” he said, wary.

“I already knew that you shopped me and Tilly to Syd in Warrington,” I said. “I knew you did it to put me off when the Guv’nor came to inspect us. I knew that you took up with Tilly in secret – well, we already had that one out in Paris, didn’t we?”

“I’ll drop her,” he said quickly. “You can have her, I’ll give her back.”

I laughed. I could hardly wait to tell her he said
that
! “I don’t think she’d take very kindly to being passed around like a piece of luggage,” I said. “But anyway. I knew that orang-utang Moulden was a friend of Syd’s, and I knew that he’d been sent to heckle me and Stan to help you, so I was interested to hear just now that you know him too.
Very
interested.”