In July 1919 a massive victory parade marched through London. It was led by the commanders of the thirteen Allied countries, followed by their troops and bands. Behind them came the British and Empire Troops, with their heavy artillery, bands, and hundreds of regimental standards borne aloft. Wheatley and his parents watched it from the office of a friend in Pont Street, probably the narrowest street it passed through, and they saw the spectacle at close quarters. Wheatley thought it was like something from the days of Rome.
But on the morning of his hung-over victory breakfast, on the 12th November 1918, he had shared a table with an elderly officer who had no cause for celebration. With a sad smile this man explained that now his life was going to change: after drawing full pay for a desk job, with social status and a servant and even a horse, he was going back to lodgings in Cheltenham, scraping along on his pension. “So there were two sides to that wonderful event,” writes Wheatley: “I felt truly sorry for that nice old man.”
The Times Personal Column is dotted with ex-officers down on their luck and seeking work (“motor driver, speaks French, excellent character”). Many would end up in depressing jobs such as prep school teacher or travelling salesman, and the situation must have been doubly difficult for “temporary gentlemen” like Wheatley and Tombe, for whom being an officer had, in terms of social class, been their taste of honey.
Wheatley was far from well off, but at least he was working in his father’s wine business. He was now a Liveryman of the Vintners Company and he attended his first Vintners’ dinner, with mock turtle soup opening a multi-course feast of the sort he always approved of. His day-to-day duties were less grand, selling wines and beer at the cash counter, and helping in the cellar, and doing the books. In the mornings he was expected to go around the great houses in the area calling on the head servants, a two-faced caste who operated, as we have seen, on a system of bribes and backhanders.
Wheatley found a few of these men likeable, and enjoyed having a glass of their master’s wine with them by their firesides below stairs, but most of them were “far from pleasant … they secretly hated their employers and their only interest was racing. To me, some of them were unpleasantly servile and others openly rude.” Consequently Wheatley stopped calling on the majority, and had to spend his mornings sloping off to a Lyons Tea House until it was time to reappear in the office.
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Eric Tombe had meanwhile been employed by the Air Ministry on Kingsway, where his engineering background had set him up for a job administrating aircraft production and visiting factories. At the Air Ministry he had fallen in with a new crony named Ernest Dyer. Son of a brewer’s drayman, Dyer had been a gas fitter before going to Australia, where he tried his hand at engineering, pearl fishing, fruit farming, and horse breeding.
He enlisted in the Australian Engineers as a sapper and was invalided out after being blown up by a mine at Gallipoli. He subsequently re-enlisted in the Royal West Surrey Regiment as an officer and transferred to the Royal Engineers, becoming a captain before being wounded again.
War suited Dyer. In later life he always carried a revolver – people remembered it as a mysterious object under his coat that his hand frequently went towards – and he once said “Yes, I was in the Army. I was a soldier, and I’m a soldier of fortune now: I’ll tackle any proposition.”
Dyer was always interested in horse racing, and in 1920 he allegedly put the whole of his War gratuity on the horse Furious, which was running in the Lincoln Handicap at odds of 33 to 1. It won, and netted Dyer a payout of £15,000 (well over £350,000 today). This may well be true – the recklessness sounds in character – although large on-course wins were also used as an alibi for laundering money.
Tombe left the Ministry when the war ended, but Dyer stayed on through 1919. His job was to oversee compensation claims from factories, for work begun but no longer needed, and Tombe conceived the plan of sending in invoices from non-existent companies, to be approved for payment by Dyer. Tombe printed bogus company letterheads, opened bank accounts, and even had telephone lines answered by one of his mistresses. Tombe and Dyer did well out of this, and Eric set himself up in an expensive serviced flat in Yeoman House on the Haymarket, where he could entertain women.
*
Tombe and Wheatley had been in touch since Wheatley’s return to England, when Tombe had visited him at Staines, and now they went for nights out on the town with girls; Wheatley was womanising to dull the pain of Barbara, and he had a number of minor romances going around this time.
Tombe’s private life was complicated. He had several casual girlfriends and a mistress called Dolly Stern, a secretary who lived in Nevern Place in Earls Court. Always keen on lists, Wheatley catalogued them as “Nellie … Kittie, Peggy, Beatrice, Desiree, la Belle Americaine, Mrs Hall, and of course Dolly”; but the real love of Eric’s life was Beatrice, a dignified and intelligent older woman who was married to a wealthy Northern manufacturer in Huddersfield: Tombe seems to have met her on one of his factory viewing trips for the Air Ministry. Wheatley and Tombe referred to her husband as “ ‘Undreds and ‘Undreds” (probably something Tombe had heard him say), and Tombe had every expectation that Beatrice would one day inherit Undreds’s money.
Beatrice had three children, and from time to time they lived almost as a family with Eric in London. He had meanwhile managed to convince Dolly that he was a British agent who had to go abroad on anti-Bolshevik missions. When Wheatley enquired after Dolly and “the menage” – Tombe, Dolly, and another girl – in the Haymarket, the answer was quintessentially Eric. “She grows more splendid every day,” he said:
– last night we had a long discourse on Masochism and Sadism – she wanted me to buy a dog whip and experiment – I tell you Dennis it warms my old heart – the way she laps up our delightful doctrine, of the maximum of Sensation, and of the Value of Experience. I’ve enjoyed our fortnight tremendously, never once have we committed the sin of being bored, but on Tuesday next I go on a short mission to Poland, poor Dolly resumes the humdrum of her clerical life and thinks of me wrapped in a great fur shutka making my way across eternal snows, and tracked by bearded Bolshies who bristle with automatics, thirsting for my innocent blood – While actually I meet Beatrice and the kiddies – with whom I resume our peaceful existence at the Hyde Park Gate Hotel.
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Tombe and Wheatley collaborated together in an organisation called the Anti-Prohibition League, which Tombe seems to have been involved in setting up. In January 1919 America had embarked on a disastrous attempt to ban alcoholic drinks, so that a man in Michigan was sentenced to life imprisonment for possession of half a bottle of gin.
Wheatley had a newspaper clipping which put the case in stark terms. Headed ‘ “Wets” Final Drink’, it said
January 16th in the United States will go down to history as “Fanatic Friday” … “Such a centralisation of power over the lives and habits of the individual”, says the New York World today, “has never before been realised outside the boundaries of Russia.”
One of the most prominent Prohibitionists in America was William “Pussyfoot” Johnson, so named for the stealth with which he and his men crept up on illicit alcohol. Feelings ran high, and when Pussyfoot came to England in 1919 he was attacked by pro-drink medical students in a prank which went wrong, resulting in the loss of one of his eyes.
Pussyfoot was a heroic man in his way, and he capitalised on this experience with a song, ‘What I See With My Blind Eye.’ He saw a drink-free Britain in five years, and a subsequent rally at Central Hall, Westminster, was held under a banner proclaiming “Pussyfoot’s eye will make England dry. / 1920 – England to be dry – 1925”
In opposition to all this, the Times of July 16th 1919 carried a small announcement in its personal columns, then on the front page. Along with the usual mysteries (“Jack – absolutely nothing doing, old bean – Ivy”) we find
Publicists, Literary Men, Scientists, Statisticians, Doctors and Clergymen who are OPPOSED to the INTEMPERATE and EXAGGERATED CLAIMS of the PROHIBITIONISTS and are willing to assist in propaganda work are invited to COMMUNICATE with the Anti-Prohibition League, 33-34 Chancery Lane WC.
There was a small item inside the paper, recording that ‘The Anti-Prohibition League, “in an announcement in our advertisement columns,” was asking for help in its propaganda work.
Letters were being sent out from 33–34 Chancery Lane, under the auspices of Sir Augustus Fitzgeorge KCVO, outlining the situation: the Prohibitionists were more powerful and serious than was generally realised; Prohibition itself could lead to Bolshevism (presumably by encouraging sober discontent among the working classes); and it would also lead to a considerable tax increase to make up the shortfall in revenue. More than that, it would be an encroachment on personal liberty.
With all that in mind, “We believe that you may be sufficiently interested to know how you can help us, and for this purpose Mr Gordon-Tombe will shortly be calling upon you.”
This had taken months to set up, and Tombe had sought Wheatley’s advice back in January. Wheatley had given him an account of the London drinks trade and some of its key players, with a brief breakdown of how each firm operated, and its specialisation: one was concerned with “treating sick wines, turning sour wines sweet etc. Old established and wealthy,” while another specialised in Australian wines: “We do practically no trade in Australian Wines,” added Wheatley, “but in the suburbs there is a great deal consumed.”
The Anti-Prohibition League was an early instance of Wheatley thinking about publicity and propaganda; these were always key ideas in his mind. The word propaganda was widely used between the wars, to such an extent (for example) that a 1928 booklet offering “Tasty Fish Recipes” is blazoned with the words “Fish Trade National Propaganda Association.”
Wheatley stressed the importance of reaching “the man in the street”, and drafted an advert for “BRITISH LIBERTY’S DEFENCE FUND”, formed to resist the Prohibition Movement
And to fight by Press, Platform and Parliament all bodies who shall endeavour to undermine or restrict the individual liberties and freedom that is the splendid inheritance of every British citizen.
In due course Wheatley became an agent for the cause, with a discreet, private detective-style card:
Telephone:-Holborn 2790
D.Y.WHEATLEY
Special Representative
THE ANTI-PROHIBITION LEAGUE
33–34 Chancery Lane
London, W.C.
*
Wheatley’s chest was again bad in the winter of 1919, and that spring his father sent him on a cruise to Jamaica. He sailed on the SS Canuto, a Fyffes banana boat carrying sixty passengers, bearing with him a letter from the League: “We wish to make known to you Mr D.Y.Wheatley our special representative.”
Wheatley noticed that although Jamaica was a British possession, it was dominated by America. With Prohibition now in force, the US Fleet and Cuba (“virtually a US colony”) were dry, so American sailors would use Jamaica for binge drinking, making the streets dangerous and finally being thrown into patrolling lorries when they were too drunk to walk.
Wheatley’s most memorable experience of his trip was a shipboard affair with a girl named Jean, travelling with her parents. Jean was above Wheatley in terms of class, and he felt it, which must have been part of her appeal. Her family had probably never met a tradesman socially and were surprised to learn how Wheatley made his living, but “after the initial shock” they quite liked him.
After their shipboard romance was over, Wheatley and Jean saw each other only twice; she had him to tea in St.John’s Wood, and years later she came to hear him speak at a Foyle’s Literary Luncheon. In fact they had almost nothing in common: she was of a good county family, with a life of point-to-points and hunt balls, and Wheatley was suburban and he knew it; “Yet for a brief spell the Gods had blessed us with perfect companionship.”
*
Returning to Britain, Wheatley resumed a fast life with Eric. Wheatley had a beautiful sheath-like overcoat made, modelled on Eric’s overcoat, which had no pockets so as not to disturb its tight drape. Together with their girls they would consume bottles of “the Boy” (a deliberately outdated nineteenth-century slang for champagne), and go to restaurants and clubs such as Oddenino’s (“Oddie’s”) on Piccadilly Circus; Ciro’s on Orange Street, famous for Ciro’s Club Coon Orchestra; and Rector’s on Tottenham Court Road: this was a particular favourite of Eric’s, and its basement dance hall featured a big block of ice in the middle to cool the room.
On a not untypical evening Eric took a girl to the Savoy for dinner and dancing, and on leaving the Savoy he said “Look here, what about calling at the flat, I’ve got a bottle of the Boy there and a nice fire, we can have the bottle and then go on to Rectors.” They never got to Rector’s, as he told Wheatley by the same-day post of the time: everything went “according to plan – of course she bought it and everything very splendid – but – we fell asleep – and here we are – all in our top hats – tail coats and evening cloaks – add to which we have run out of money and cannot sally forth to Bond Street to get more in this get up – so will you please beg borrow or steal a fiver and a Bottle and come along here as soon as you can.”
Wheatley needed no prompting, and before long he was at Yeoman House with an overnight suit case and seven bottles of champagne. Wheatley liked Tombe’s friend (“very clever and amusing”) and the three of them had a “a very merry lunch.” Afterwards Wheatley collected a girl of his own; the porter at Yeoman House, “the excellent Sims”, was a confrere of Tombe’s, and he let them have a flat (letting flats for the night and pocketing the money was a profitable sideline). They rejoined the Tombe party for dinner, after which, reported Wheatley at the time, “we drank 6 remaining bottles between the four of us – and – there I draw the curtain—”
*
Sometimes Wheatley would see Eric with two girls he knew, usually Dolly and a friend, and at other times he would simply be with Beatrice, who knew nothing of his other lives. “Dear old Beatrice,” he once said to Wheatley (and then “for a moment his face grew quite tender”); “… you know Dennis this orgy business is all very well – in fact it’s necessary to me, if I didn’t have a week of it now and then I should scream – it is the only thing that enables Beatrice and I to live together so happily – I’ve never lived with any other woman for half the time, it’s three years now, and … we’re as happy as a couple of kiddies together. I’m awfully fond of her.”
“My dear old chap,” said Wheatley, “I do wish you’d give up the other business, you know how often I’ve spoken to you about it.” No, said Tombe, “it is necessary to me. If I were faithful to her I should hate the very sight of her within six months – as it is we may go on for years and years together.”
Wheatley liked Beatrice, and the three of them would often dine together and go to the theatre, particularly to short grand guignol programmes. On another occasion it was Eric’s birthday, and Eric, Beatrice and Wheatley had a champagne dinner at the Savoy before going on to Oscar Asche’s orientalist extravaganza Cairo at His Majesty’s Theatre, which featured a real camel.
They had already seen his more famous Chu Chin Chow at the same theatre, a lavish tale based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Cairo was criticised in its day for its orgy scene, which led an organisation called The London Council for Public Morality to pass a resolution against it. As for Tombe, Wheatley and Beatrice, they felt it was not as good as Chu Chin Chow; “nevertheless”, said Wheatley, “some of the colours are gorgeous, a perfect feast for the senses, and the orgy was very fine from a spectacular point of view” to which Eric said “my dear old boy, we can do that sort of thing so very much better at home.”
*
Wheatley had been on stage earlier in the year. He had spent Christmas at the Grand Hotel Brighton with his parents and some family friends, including Sir Louis Newton, who had recently been Lord Mayor of London, and a Mr. and Mrs. Hilton, whose son persuaded Wheatley to join a South London amateur dramatic group, The Nondescript Players, chiefly for reasons of alcoholic conviviality.
After a rehearsal Wheatley grew more than usually drunk, and discovered it was immense fun – and very amusing for his friends as well – if he smashed every street lamp they passed. He was happily doing this when a policeman took hold of him.
Wheatley stupidly attempted to bribe the policeman – a far more serious offence than smashing street lamps, had the policeman chosen to make something of it – but was taken to the police station. The police were quite well disposed to a middle-class young man like Wheatley, and they let him sit in the office instead of being taken to a cell. It was here that he had another idea, to make a sudden run for it down the corridor. Moments later he was lying on the floor with a policeman on top of him, “But they were awfully pleasant about it.”
On the following Monday morning he had to report to Bromley Magistrate’s Court, where his friend Bertie Davis pulled out all the stops to defend him, stressing his war service and general good character. As usual, Wheatley got off lightly.
There was a sequel to this incident, when Wheatley and his father were over at the Newton’s’ for Sunday lunch. While having a pre-dinner drink, Wheatley noticed that Sir Louis had left the local paper casually open at the report of Wheatley’s arrest and appearance in court for drunkenness, which gave Wheatley a tense few minutes. “Ever-smiling but secretly malicious”, Sir Louis evidently hoped that Wheatley’s father would see it. Little wonder Wheatley disliked and distrusted him, but unfortunately, within a few years, he is going to marry Wheatley’s mother.
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Later that year Wheatley went on holiday with his favourite uncle, Dennis. They went to Corsica via Marseilles, where they saw the famous red light district, later demolished by the Germans. While they were there they went to a brothel, and Wheatley saw his first and only blue movie. Being the keen Dumas reader that he was, he also made a visit to the Chateau d’If, as in The Count of Monte Cristo.
Reaching Corsica, in those days “unspoilt” and with only one hotel, made of wood, Wheatley saw the house in which Napoleon was born, and the steep precipices around Corte, in the mountainous centre of the island, later gave him the idea for his short story ‘Vendetta’. On their return journey they went to Monte Carlo and motored along the coast, which was the beginning of Wheatley’s lifelong love of the South of France. “Those were the days,” he wrote later, “when something of the glamour which attached to it before the First World War still lingered.”
*
Back in England, Wheatley’s rackety life with Tombe continued, with what he calls “romps” and “hectic nights” with women at Yeoman House. For Christmas 1920 Tombe gave him Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex in the complete six volume edition, inscribing it “To my very dear friend wishing him a happy Xmas, and all the happiness he has always given me.”
Wheatley read these books closely, and wrote in them “Eric called these six volumes ‘The Family Bible’ and he was right. For an intellectual sensualist like himself they are truly ‘the book of books.’ ” “Every page is full of interest,” wrote Wheatley, and “much information is given on the customs of the ancients, and Savages.” He decided Volume IV was particularly interesting, “as it discusses the effect of scents, music, wine, colours, etc etc on the human passion. In the hands of an unscrupulous man it is a dangerous book, but extremely interesting to the psychologist.” Altogether the six volumes were “a monument of patience and learning to which too high a tribute cannot be paid. His postscript is beautiful.”
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Tombe was still heavily involved in fraud, although Wheatley claims in his autobiography that he was unaware of it at the time. This was far from being the case. Among Wheatley’s papers is a draft of a mining offer by Tombe, selling some land with mineral rights: we can be fairly sure the land had no minerals, or that it wasn’t Tombe’s to sell, or both. This was just the tip of the iceberg.
Tombe and Dyer had both left the Air Ministry and had a new venture in a racing stables and stud farm at Kenley. Dyer had bought a large house there called The Welcomes with a stable block attached, where he employed a trainer, stable man, and a number of stable lads. He had bought it for £5,000 and insured it for £12,000.
On the night of April 12th 1921, Tombe went out to Kenley dressed in his finest evening clothes: white tie, tails, and top hat. It was important to look his best, because if the police should stop him, he could say he was going to a big dance that was being held in the area. But in fact he wasn’t going to a dance at all: he was going to burn down The Welcomes for the insurance money.
Dyer had packed the place with combustibles and gone to Brighton for the evening. When he got back, he stood in the still smoking ruins with the tears pouring down his cheeks, looking for all the world like a man who had lost everything, instead of a man laughing all the way to the bank. Psychopaths often have a talent for acting. Apropos of this very performance, “after he had plotted the burning of the Welcomes”, Tombe told Wheatley that Dyer was “the most wonderful actor he had ever seen.”
Wheatley’s role in all this was to provide Tombe with an alibi. Wheatley, Dolly and another girl dined that evening in Tombe’s flat, and Tombe joined them around midnight; the idea being, of course, that if need be they would say he had been with them all the time. The girls didn’t know what Tombe was doing, apart from a “night job”, but Wheatley did. Tombe was suitably grateful, writing to Wheatley later “It will always cause me a thrill of happiness to remember how wonderful you were on the evening of my famous stunt that night – I do not forget things like that, my friend.”
The strain was beginning to take its toll on Tombe, who had started to suffer from fainting spells; he wrote to Wheatley “I think it was time I pulled up a wee bit, when that fainting business began.” He started to spend more and more time away with Beatrice – on the Isle of Wight, in America, in Austria and Italy – leaving Wheatley to mind his criminal and romantic affairs in his absence.