Читать книгу The Golden Age of Murder - Stephen Bach, Martin Edwards - Страница 13

On a summer evening in 1937, a group of men and women gathered in darkness to perform a macabre ritual. They had invited a special guest to witness their ceremony. She was visiting London from New Zealand and a thrill of excitement ran through her as the appointed time drew near. She loved drama, and at home she worked in the theatre. Now she felt as tense as when the curtain was about to rise. To be a guest at this dinner was a special honour. What would happen next she could not imagine.

Striking to look at, the New Zealander was almost six feet tall, with dark, close-set eyes. Elegant yet enigmatic, she exuded a quiet, natural charm that contrasted with her flamboyant dress sense and artistic taste for the exotic. Fond of wearing men’s clothes, smart slacks, a tie and a beret, this evening she had opted for feminine finery, her favourite fur wrap and extravagant costume jewellery. In common with her hosts, she had a passion for writing detective stories. Like them, she guarded her private life jealously.

Until tonight, she had only known these people from reading about them – and from reading their books. Many were household names, distinguished in politics, education, journalism, religion, and science, as well as literature. Most were British, a handful came from overseas. A young American was here, and so were the Australian granddaughter of a French marquis, and an elderly Hungarian countess who each year made a special journey for the occasion, travelling to England from her home in Monte Carlo.

The ritual was preceded by a lavish banquet in an opulent dining room. As the wine flowed, the visitor fought to conquer her nerves. Her escort, a discreet young Englishman, attentive and admiring, did his best to put her at ease. The food was superb, and the company convivial, but she preferred to let others talk rather than chatter herself. Sipping at her coffee, she half-listened to the speeches. At last came the moment she was waiting for. Everyone rose, and the party retired to another room. At the far end stood a large chair, almost like a throne. On the right side was a little table, and on the left, a lectern and a flagon of wine, its mouth covered with cloth.

All of a sudden, the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. As if at a given signal, everyone else swept out through the door, leaving the woman from New Zealand and her companion alone. She became conscious of a faint chill in the air. Both of them were afraid to break the silence. As the moments ticked away, they dared to exchange a few words, speaking in whispers, as if in church.

Without warning, a door swung open. The Orator had arrived.

Resplendent in scarlet and black robes, and wearing pince-nez, a statuesque woman entered the room. She marched towards the lectern, holding a single taper to light the way. As she mounted the rostrum, the New Zealander saw that, in the folds of her gown, the Orator had secreted a side-arm. The visitor caught her breath. In the gloom, she could not identify the weapon. Was it a pistol, or a six-shooter?

Stern and purposeful, the Orator lit a candle. She gave no hint that she knew anyone was watching. At her command, a sombre procession of men and women in evening dress filed into the room. In the flickering candle-light, the visitor glimpsed unsmiling faces. Four members of the group carried flaming torches. Others clutched lethal weapons: a rope, a blunt instrument, a sword, and a phial of poison. A giant of a man brought up the rear. On the cushion that he carried, beneath a black cloth, squatted a grinning human skull.

The New Zealander was spellbound. The Orator cleared her throat and began to speak. She administered a lengthy oath to a burly man in his sixties. This secretive and elitist gathering had elected him to preside over their affairs, and he pledged to honour the rules of the game they played:

‘To do and detect all crimes by fair and reasonable means; to conceal no vital clues from the reader; to honour the King’s English … and to observe the oath of secrecy in all matters communicated to me within the brotherhood of the Club.’

As the ritual approached its end, the Orator lifted her revolver. Giving a faint smile, she fired a single shot. In the enclosed space, the noise was deafening. Her colleagues let out blood-curdling cries and waved their weapons in the air.

The eyes of the skull lit up the blackness, shining with a fierce red glow.

Stunned, the New Zealander found herself unable to speak. Her companion, familiar with the eccentric humour of crime writers, laughed like a hyena.

The visitor from New Zealand was Ngaio Marsh, who became one of her country’s most admired detective novelists, as well as a legendary theatre director. Her escort, Edmund Cork, was her literary agent, and he also represented Agatha Christie. The Orator who led the procession was Dorothy L. Sayers, and the bearer of the skull was another popular detective novelist, John Rhode. The satiric ritual followed a script so elaborate that Sayers, its author, thoughtfully supplied an explanatory diagram. The occasion was the installation of Edmund Clerihew Bentley as second President of the Detection Club.

Ngaio Marsh remembered that night for the rest of her life. Long after she returned home, she dined out on stories about what she had seen, embellishing details as time passed, and memory played tricks. In one account, she identified the setting for the ritual as Grosvenor House; in her biography, written in old age, she said it was the Dorchester. She also made conflicting claims about whether or not she met Agatha Christie that night. Detective novelists, like their characters, often make suspect witnesses and unreliable narrators.