Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards

Author:Martin Edwards [Edwards, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788546119
Publisher: Head of Zeus

17

Jacob pulled his hat lower as he turned into Gerrard Street. He cherished his best fedora, and insisted on wearing it at a rakish angle, like Fleet Street’s answer to the Prince of Wales. Not that His Royal Highness’ hats were made out of rabbit felt and lined with cloth, but the sun had set over Soho, and in the twilight you could get away with… well, murder.

A flight of steps led down to the unmarked entrance of the Clandestine Club. There was no bell, not even a door knocker. At ground level there was a tailor’s cutting room, shuttered for the night.

Jacob hesitated. He’d reported on enough nocturnal beatings in this part of London to know he was taking a risk. His mind was made up by the sight of a heavily made-up woman, bare-legged but wearing a fur coat, tottering down the street towards him. He hurried down the steps and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened. He knocked again.

The door opened a couple of inches. A deep voice said, “Yes?”

Jacob held up the membership card, and the man opened the door to admit him. Inside, Jacob found himself confronted by a man who was six feet five, and muscular with it. He wore a dinner suit, but looked as if he’d be more at home in a sergeant major’s uniform.

“Evening, sir.” He jerked a thumb. “Can I take your hat?”

“Thank you.”

Parting with his precious fedora, Jacob followed the man down another short flight of stairs, into a small, cramped room. A handful of smartly dressed men and women lounged around a tiny bar. An elderly pianist was tinkling the ivories and giving a slightly off-key rendition of “Charmaine”.

Jacob ordered a gin and tonic from a cockney bartender half the size of the man on the door, and took in his surroundings. The walls were covered in hessian, the decor confined to dried-up palms in chipped pots. The other people in the bar sipped their cocktails with a slightly unfocused look in their eyes. Jacob wasn’t sure if they were drug fiends or simply half asleep.

The sense of anticlimax was as overwhelming as the reek of Griselda Farquharson’s perfume. If the police had failed to clean up Soho’s sinks of iniquity, the economic slump had evidently done their job for them.

The pianist struck up “In a Little Spanish Town”, and a bald-headed man in his fifties and his bespectacled young companion made their way to the square space that constituted the dance floor. A senior clerk and his secretary, Jacob guessed. Perhaps a trip to the Clandestine represented a prelude to a night of illicit passion. Judging by their expressions, neither of them was excited by the prospect. He could only assume they were saving themselves for later.

His own prospects of a night of passion were non-existent. There were just three other couples. No single women on the lookout for adventure. To console himself, he knocked back his gin, and returned to the bar.

“Quiet in here tonight,” he said to the barman.

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