Moonlight Over Mayfair by Anton du Beke

Author:Anton du Beke [Beke, Anton du]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781785767838
Goodreads: 44296639
Publisher: Zaffre
Published: 2019-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

October 1937

Chapter Twenty-four

THE LIME TREES IN BERKELEY Square were losing their colour and the great willow that dominated the square was shedding its leaves.

Midnight was but an hour away, and the skies above Mayfair were banked in cloud. The sounds of the Archie Adams Orchestra had fallen silent, and those revellers who were not resident at the Buckingham Hotel were dropping down the marble steps to where the flotilla of taxicabs awaited.

And here, on the tail of the lords and ladies, came a solitary musician, wrapped up against the autumn cold, with his saxophone case in his hand.

There was no taxicab waiting for Louis Kildare, but tonight he would not wait for the omnibus either. Instead, he made haste through the town houses of Mayfair, and through the Regent Street arcades, crossing at last into the warren of streets on the other side.

Soho was later to bed than Mayfair. As Louis hurried down Carnaby Street, the music was still raucous at the Tatty Bogle. He met nobody’s eye as he wound his way to the empty cobbles of the Berwick Street Market, and from there to the hidden doorway at its furthest end. From here, a narrow black stair led down into a basement from which the raucous sounds of a rumba spilled out. The legend above the doorway read THE MIDNIGHT ROOMS.

Louis Kildare had come looking for a new life.

Inside, dancers thronged the floor. The orchestra – barely six men and their leader – were cramped together on a stage set into the deepest, cavernous wall. Down here, the walls were black as coal, and the only light came from the buzzing electric lanterns balanced in every alcove. The air was a thick haze of sweet-smelling smoke, the floor sticky wherever Louis trod. At the bar, he ordered himself a rum and took a seat in one of the alcoves. On the dance floor, black and white danced together – and the image gave him a joy he was dearly needing this evening.

I’ve never seen a black man dance at the Buckingham Hotel . . .

Louis had nursed three glasses of rum by the time the orchestra came to its final flourish and announced they would return in half an hour for yet more revelry. As they took their bows, Louis stepped out of the alcove and caught the bandleader’s eye.

Jack Oliver was the best groomed man in the Midnight Rooms. Sixty years old, in the subterranean dark he might easily have passed for forty. He had a wave of silver hair and the face of a matinee idol. There was something so warm in his face – he had the air of a benevolent English schoolmaster – only, when he sat down at his piano, he turned into an untamed young man, inspiring his orchestra to some of the greatest feats of showmanship Louis had ever seen.

He smiled at Louis and beckoned him forward.

Some time later, having followed Jack Oliver through a tiny door at the back of the club,

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