Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (12 page)

Rowland nodded. “One or two. Wilfred had Quex keep an eye on me when I was at school in England.”

“Quex?”

“Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair. God knows why they call him Quex.”

“Ahh…
The Gay Lord Quex
—a comedy in four acts,” Milton murmured. “Perhaps your cousin was a thespian.”

Rowland smiled. “It probably wouldn't be wise to accuse Quex of that.”

“Well, it's lovely that he wants to see you.” Edna peered curiously at the note. “Were you close?”

“Not at all.”

“Why not?”

Rowland smiled. Edna had always been rather direct.

“I was fifteen when I was sent over here to school,” he said. “Quex is about twenty years older than Wil, and was busy doing whatever it is that admirals do—I really only saw him when I was in some kind of trouble.”

“You don't suppose he knows that you were in Soho last night, do you?” Milton glanced at
The Daily Mail
which lay open on the card table. The paper carried a lurid account of the gentlemen's dance.

Rowland shook his head. Milton alone had taken the fall for their presence at the event. The poet's name had been listed along with Buchan's in what was claimed to be the public interest. The dance was decried across the media as an example of the lax morality and decadent perversion of the upper classes.

For the most part, Milton seemed to regard the incident as a grand joke, though every now and then he was moved to quote Wilde.

“Wilfred may have mentioned it to him,” Clyde speculated. The summons was surely too coincidental.

“I doubt it,” Rowland said. “Wil is usually discreet about my indiscretions.” He sighed as he dropped the letter back onto the tray. “But he may well have let Quex know I'm in London.”

“So, you'll have to go see him?” Edna asked, watching Rowland carefully.

“Yes, eventually.” Rowland checked his watch. Wilfred was sending a car at ten to take him to the Geological Museum—the venue of the London Economic Conference. He was not entirely sure why he was being sent for, but he assumed—hoped—it meant that Stanley Melbourne Bruce had found someone who would give him a hearing.

“We'd best set off,” he said, grabbing his hat from the stand by the door and waiting for Edna to pull on her gloves.

Ethel Bruce had invited the sculptress to join her and Kate for luncheon. Edna was sure that the minister's wife had discovered some tantalising gossip about the late Lord Pierrepont through her networks among the Empire wives. She did, in any case, rather like Mrs. Bruce.

And so they left Clyde and Milton to their own devices.

The black Rolls Royce took them first to the Bruces' terrace in Ennismore Gardens, where Edna alighted to join the ladies and both Bruce and Wilfred climbed in.

Stanley Melbourne Bruce was dressed in the impeccably conservative and elegant style with which Australian caricature artists made him synonymous. He made no mention of the previous night's affair. Rowland's eyes moved to Bruce's feet, checking for spats. Bruce noticed.

He shook his head. “For pity's sake, man, it's the middle of summer!”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“The attire for which you are so obviously looking, which the gullible Antipodean media have convinced hoi polloi I never step outdoors without, is actually an item which is sensibly worn in the winter—helps with chilblains.”

“I see.”

“I'm meeting with Chamberlain today. If the opportunity so arises I shall introduce you, but I'm afraid that's the best I can do. You'll just have to be on hand on the off-chance that I can convince him to have a drink with you.”

“Thank you.”

“You can watch from the public gallery. You might even find it interesting.”

Rowland nodded politely, though he very much doubted it.

The hall in which the conference was being held had been arranged with pew-like desks at which representatives of the sixty-six participating nations took their places in an order determined alphabetically and in French. Wilfred sat with the Australian delegation in the first pew and Bruce sat with his fellow gentlemen of the League of Nations who had organised the conference. From the vantage of the elevated public gallery, Rowland watched with the gathering of London press and a scribbling gaggle of foreign correspondents who followed the proceedings with a zealous attention. In this company, he felt the need to at least feign some sort of appreciation for the importance of the men below, and so he consciously set his face to look engaged.

It was of some consolation that the conference hall was at least visually interesting: the dark-skinned delegates from African nations, the representatives of the subcontinent and, of course, the delegations from Europe. Cordell Hull, the American Secretary of State, stood by his chair in conversation with Daladier, the French
delegate. The Frenchman's hands moved expansively and vigorously as he spoke. The American stood with his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his waistcoat, rocking slightly on his heels.

An enthusiastic member of the British contingent opened with an impassioned presentation on currency exchange. One by one the delegates rose to speak on the subject. Some spoke through interpreters, or with heavy accents. By the sixth delegate, Rowland was restless and becoming desperate for distraction. He had counted the ceiling roses, imagined wives for each delegate, and mentally raced the Spanish translator.

He pulled the artist's notebook from his breast pocket and attempted to clamp it open between his thumb and the cast. Inevitably it slipped from this awkward grasp and fell between the two seats in front of him.

The occupant of one of those seats turned sharply—an old man, small and dumpy with penetrating eyes beneath thick, untidy eyebrows that sloped down in a way that made him seem both enquiring and melancholy. His moustache was wide and thick and he, too, had a notebook.

He reached down to retrieve what Rowland had dropped. The battered leather book had fallen open. Clearing his throat, he paused to take the liberty of leafing through it. Sketches of naked women, as one would expect in the notebook of a young man, and darker drawings of people gathered under Nazi banners, soldiers—strutting, assured—and civilians with their faces turned away. The edges of the pages were stained a dark brown. The notebook had at some time been splattered with blood. All this seemed to pique the old man's interest. He returned the notebook and introduced himself.

“Herbert Wells,” he said in a piping voice. “I say, did you draw these?”

“Rowland Sinclair, Mr. Wells… yes.”

“Not bad, my boy—jolly good in fact. I've been known to pen the odd picshua myself.”

Rowland slipped the notebook back into his jacket. “I'm afraid I find penning anything rather tricky at present,” he said ruefully. Though he'd only been in the cast for a few days, it felt like an age. He nodded towards Wells' notebook. “Are you…?”

“Sketching the conference? In a manner of speaking, my boy. You're an Australian are you?” He scrutinised Rowland as if he could see nationality in his features. “Your countrymen among the delegates have been honing my ear for the Australian inflection. I have been looking in vain for inspiration for my latest book.”

It was only then that Rowland realised that he was talking to the renowned novelist and futurist, H.G. Wells. Clearly it showed on his face, for Wells smiled.

“I am not entirely unknown in the Antipodes then?”

“Not entirely,” Rowland replied. “An honour to make your acquaintance, Mr. Wells. I hope I haven't interrupted your… research.”

“Not at all, my boy. I had hoped for a chapter on vision and hope but I fear I shall have to write instead about petty bickering and self-interested posturing! Even the Soviets are entirely unimpressive.”

Wells beckoned Rowland to the seat beside him.

“The world is in debt, Sinclair, but most of that debt is owed to the Americans.” He pointed to Cordell Hull. “That gentleman there holds the financial future of the civilised planet in his hands. If the Americans can bring themselves to act in the interests of the world as a whole, then perhaps there is a chance, but I would not wager more than a shilling upon it.”

For some reason Rowland recalled then that Cordell Hull was the last person to have seen Pierrepont alive. He wondered what the American Secretary of State thought of the peer's strange demise, if he had indeed been told it was anything out of the ordinary.

“Are they actually making any decisions here?” Rowland asked sceptically. He was not particularly well versed on the processes of international politics but he presumed that in this arena, as in business, all the actual negotiation was done beforehand at the Masonic Temple or other such venue.

Wells nodded. “You have a valid point, Sinclair, but a good businessman keeps his word. A good politician doesn't give the same weight to his promises.” He pointed out MacDonald, Prime Minister of Britain, Daladier of France and Cordell Hull. “Those gentlemen believe they have an agreement, a way forward; that, after this conference, mankind will hail them all as heroes.”

“Are they wrong to believe this?”

Wells shrugged. “Hull has, in the finest American tradition, reminded us of the piety of his nation. With grave and splendid words he has called on the rest of the world to abandon such sins as selfishness. He has called on his God to forbid, and the delegates to resist, the temptation of the serpent that carries local interest in her belly… but to ask that of his own president is perhaps even more than his God could expect.”

“I see.” Rowland was a little surprised by Wells' cynicism. The streets outside were be-flagged and celebratory, expectations were great that the conference would achieve some kind of salvation for the failing economies of the world.

Apparently pleased to have someone receive his learned commentary, Wells set about to educate the young Australian on the games of power being played out before them. He pointed out
delegates, commenting on their influence, their intelligence and allegiances. “Do you see that chap with our lot? The fellow with the rather large mouth?”

Rowland stretched to see whom he meant. There was indeed a man with an extraordinarily wide mouth. “A delegate?”

“No. Keynes is an advisor. Friend of mine—brilliant chap—an economist. He has some rather interesting theories on government investment in public programs to stimulate recovery—quite revolutionary. The Germans have taken it on but Britain is far too democratic to take decisive action!”

Rowland nodded, hoping that Wells wouldn't feel the need to explain Keynes' theories in any more detail.

Perhaps Wells sensed his alarm. He smiled. “I digress. My point is that John Keynes' solution will work for all of us, but politics is a game of petty segregations, while the only true nationality is mankind.”

“I don't suppose you remember a chap called Pierrepont?” Rowland asked suddenly. Wells had clearly been watching the conference since it opened, and Rowland was unwilling to risk the conversation returning to economic theory, however revolutionary. “Alfred Dawe, the Viscount of Pierrepont. He would have been a member of the British delegation.”

Wells nodded. “He died, you know.” He wiggled his moustache as he pondered. “There was, from what I've observed, something odd about it.”

“How do you mean?”

“All too quiet… no speeches about his great service to the nation and the world, no pledges to fix the currencies in his posthumous honour. A news report or two that he was dead, a new man in his chair and that was all.” Wells looked hard at Rowland, his drooping
eyebrows furrowed. “Why do you ask about Pierrepont? He was not a major player by any means.”

“I'm acquainted with his niece, Miss Dawe.”

“Oh yes… skinny young thing in ill-fitting clothes. He brought her once… ordered her to sit in the public gallery to bear witness to his importance.”

“I take it you didn't exactly like Lord Pierrepont?”

“Pompous irrelevant man, an unrepentant hypocrite.”

“Was that the general opinion of his character?” Rowland enquired as casually as he could.

Both Wells' gaze and the angle of his brows sharpened. “You wonder if Pierrepont has been the victim of foul play?” the writer accused. “It seems Mr. Sinclair, you prefer the literary work of Madam Christie to that of H.G. Wells!”

Rowland wasn't quite sure how to respond, uncertain of what professional jealousies existed between Wells and the famous mystery writer. To his relief, Wells smiled. “Actually, I wondered about that myself.” He leaned his elbows on the balustrade and looked down on the conference delegates below. “It's just hard to know which side would have wanted to kill Pierrepont the most.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There are two schools of economic thought below us,” Wells said quietly. “Those who recognise that collective action—world co-operation—is the only way forward, and those who would profit by the world remaining an undisciplined herd of selfish nation states. The British are ostensibly for world co-operation so perhaps Pierrepont was eliminated by the opponents of sane action. On the other hand, I have been privy to rumours that he was breaking ranks, advocating isolationism surreptitiously… in which case perhaps it was the gentlemen who wish to see a global solution who acted.”

“I see,” Rowland replied, not entirely positive that he did. It all seemed a bit convoluted and dramatic for an economic conference.

“Of course, it might not have had anything to do with the conference. Pierrepont moved in some, let me say, rather unsavoury circles,” Wells continued.

“Really? What circles?”

“He was a peer, my boy! Here in Britain we give our oppressors titles.” Wells tapped his nose. “Come the revolution, it'll make them easy to identify.”