The Birthday Party and Other Stories
Author: A A Milne
Date: 2017-09-20 23:00:00+00:00
Keywords: fiction; anthology; kindle
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Title

A. A. Milne

THE

BIRTHDAY PARTY

AND OTHER STORIES

Contents

Contents

Note

Birthday Party

Anne-Marie

The General Takes off his Helmet

Luck Nothing

Breitenstein

Tristram

C.O.D.

Dear Old George

In Vino Veritas

A.V. and R.V.

Night at the Aldwinckles

I Don’t Like Blackmailers

Spring Song

The Shakespearean Theory

The Secret

About the Author

Dedication

To DAPHNE

Whose party it is

With my love

Note

NOTE

IT may be assumed of any collection of stories that some at least of the individuals have led a previous existence in one form or another. This well-known habit of short stories calls for no apology from an author. But for those which have formed part of an earlier collection published over the author’s name an introductory note is necessary.

In 1929, when I had a transitory bibliographical value, a value enhanced on this occasion by the distinction of the company which I kept and the clothes in which I was dressed, a little book called The Secret and Other Stories appeared in an issue of special limited editions, published by the Fountain Press of New York. There were three other stories in this ad hoc collection, of which 300 copies were on sale in England. One of those four stories is now republished. I have put it at the end of the book, where it can most conveniently be ignored by any of the Noble Three Hundred—

Theirs’ not to reason why,

Theirs’ but to go and buy—
who have survived to join the present party.

A. A. M.

Birthday Party

1

David alistair shawn baker came into the world at half-past three on an April morning; and at four o’clock William Henry Baker was kneeling at his wife’s bed, her hand, wet with his tears, held against his cheek.

‘Oh, Will,’ she sighed.

‘Oh, Maggie!’ he sobbed, and felt for his handkerchief with his left hand.

‘Have you seen him?’ she asked faintly.

‘Yes, no, it’s only you, Maggie, that’s all that matters.’

‘Well, that’s a nice thing to say of your son and heir,’ put in Mrs Shawn from the basket wherein David Alistair Shawn lay. Maggie, she considered, had had a very easy time, much easier than her own had been when Maggie was born. All her emotion was for her first grandchild.

‘You must see him, darling.’

He kissed her hand; he wanted to go on kissing it for ever, but knew that he couldn’t. He got up clumsily, and went over to the basket, wiping his eyes. He looked at his son, and felt, as other husbands have felt looking at their firstborn, ‘All that for this; so small, so ugly; and yet what a burden to have borne.’

‘Hallo!’ he said, and had an absurd impulse to chuck it under the chin, but restrained himself, no obvious chin being there. He looked from his son to his wife, wondering at the miracle of their union.

‘Now you must be off,’ said Mrs Shawn. ‘Try to get some sleep, and you may come and say good-bye just before you catch your train.’

He bent down and kissed his wife’s forehead, whispering, ‘Thank you, Maggie dear.’ She gave him a loving smile, so tired, so remote, that the tears came back into his eyes, and he felt again for his handkerchief. He went back to the camp-bed in what was going to be the nursery. ‘Bars on the windows,’ he said to himself. ‘I mustn’t forget that. Oh well, there’s no hurry.’

He had a few minutes with her alone before he caught his train. She had come back into the world, she was herself again; proud and happy.

‘You promise to have a really good dinner, darling? I don’t mean a midday dinner. Proper dinner, and drink David’s health.’

He had had it made clear to him by Mrs Shawn that there was enough to do in the house without looking after a grown-up man who could look after himself. He was to have his meal in town, and come back by a late train. Orders.

‘I will, Maggie. I shall be thinking of you both all day.’

‘You’ll tell them at the office? They knew he was coming, didn’t they?’

He said ‘Yes’ to both questions, and asked again, ‘You did want a boy, didn’t you, dear?’ as if he would have changed it even now if it had not been satisfactory.

‘Of course! Didn’t you?’

He nodded proudly.

William Henry Baker was nearly forty when David was born, and he had been married for ten years. Because his son had been so long in coming, he had been more than usually frightened. He would have been frightened in any case, for he was a timid little man, and his love for Maggie was almost the whole of his life. He had longed for a son: a son, a Shawn Baker, who would not be timid, would not be ineffectual, as he knew himself to be; would not be a clerk in an office who was treated with a tolerant, only just not contemptuous, familiarity by his fellow-clerks. Shawn Baker would be one of those big, strong, masterful men: an explorer, perhaps: a statesman, a great general. That was why Mr Baker had insisted—well, not insisted, he could never do that—had wanted the Shawn in his boy’s name. There must be a hundred David Bakers about, but Shawn Baker was unique. He sounded like somebody. Perhaps, when he became Lord Mayor of London, David would hyphen the name: Sir David Shawn-Baker.

Yes, he had told his fellow-clerks that the baby was coming; far too often, most of them would have said. Never had a baby been so generously shared. The brighter spirits had suggested a sweepstake on the day and hour of its arrival; anything to make a commonplace event more interesting. There had been opportunities for humour which the humorous had not missed. At times Mr Baker wished that he had been more reticent; at other times he was glad to think that Shawn Baker was being talked about already. He pictured them in after years: young Henderson, an elderly man now, managing director of the firm, perhaps, saying to an important client: ‘Yes, I remember the very day he was born, his father coming into the office as pleased as Punch—oh, yes, Shawn Baker’s father was with us then—just an ordinary sort of fellow, you’d never have thought he’d have had such a brilliant son.’ And Miss Clissold, retired and living in the country, saying proudly to the Vicar: ‘Oh, yes, I knew Sir David’s dear father very well. Quite a little excitement, I remember, when Sir David was born. We all drank his health—oh, only in tea, of course.’

But there was another reason why he was sometimes glad and sometimes sorry that he had confided in them. The elder married men were comforting. ‘Pooh, old man, it’s nothing. Danger? Nonsense! In the old days, perhaps, but not to-day. Well, I suppose you and I wouldn’t like it much, but I always say women don’t feel pain in the way men do. Not so sensitive. Besides, they give ’em anaesthetics now. Easy. No, it’s the damned expense of it that’s the real trouble. You’re not having anything to do with these blasted nursing-homes? Quite right. It’s a racket.’ But the younger ones told agonising stories of what they had suffered (and, by inference, their wives) through the long hours of labour. They went into clinical details which both terrified and outraged him; as if, in some way, by talking of these intimate things, the speaker was admitting himself to intimacy with Maggie. Then he wished with all his heart that he had kept his secret to himself.

And the jokes. Horrible.

So now, as he hurried to the station, it came over him suddenly that he did not want to tell them, not to-day. His happiness, his pride, his relief, were too great to share with strangers who could feel none of these things. Just for to-day it would be his secret. Miss Clissold would raise enquiring eyebrows, and he would shrug his shoulders. Henderson would say: ‘Well, old boy, any news of the twins?’ and he wouldn’t answer. He would just be smiling quietly to himself.

He smiled now as he thought of the private happiness which would be his; of the secret which he would carry with him throughout the day.

2

At 6.45 that evening Mr Baker was walking up and down outside the entrance to the Savoy Grill, looking at his watch from time to time, and giving the impression of a man of the world, a well-known clubman, who preferred to meet the Lady Patricia (late as usual) as her Rolls-Royce drew up, and personally to conduct her inside. The Lady Patricia might be a little bewildered, left to herself, having always dined at the Ritz before; might be uncertain of the way into the restaurant—as, indeed, Mr Baker was. He was also not quite sure whether evening dress was necessary. He proposed, therefore, to follow the first arrivals obviously not in evening dress through the swing door with the air of being in their party, leaving his hat and coat where they left theirs, and accompanying them into the restaurant. Up till now he had somehow failed to do this. Each time that the opportunity had come he had told himself that it was still a little before his usual hour for dinner and that there was just time for one more saunter to the Strand and back. In this way, if he were lucky, he would miss the next opportunity also.

The terrifying decision to dine at the Savoy had been taken at lunch that morning. The cup of coffee slopped into the saucer, the baked beans overrunning the side of the plate, the stained marble-topped table which had satisfied William Henry Baker for so long, suddenly disgusted the father of Shawn Baker. Not in these surroundings, not even in the homely comfort of a City chop-house, should Sir David’s health be drunk. To go West into the bright world of fashion, and be one with the heroes and heroines of so many serialized meals was indeed an alarming adventure to him; but to Shawn Baker it would be routine, and the friendly ‘Good evening, Sir David,’ of head-waiters a familiar sound in his ears. Perhaps Mr Baker’s ideas of heredity were a little muddled. Perhaps he was wrong in thinking that a sudden, uncharacteristic display of moral courage by the father can influence the character of a son already born. Perhaps he was right in thinking that a post-natal virtue, if some sign of it could be achieved, would at least be evidence of a latent virtue such as a son might have inherited and would bring to maturity. Right or wrong, fearfully he had pledged himself to dine in style that evening; right or wrong, he had told himself that on the keeping of his pledge the whole future of David Alistair Shawn Baker depended.

The Savoy was the obvious tourney-ground. It was nearest to the familiar City, which was in itself a sort of comfort; it was the most advertised in novels. Moreover, young Dugdale, son of old Dugdale and now taken into partnership, who had begun his career in the clerks’ room (in order to ‘start at the bottom and work my way sideways’, as he put it cheerfully) had spoken so often of the girls he had taken to the Savoy that he had given it a solidity which made the adventure a little more plausible. Mr Baker was one of the firm, dining, as was the firm’s custom, at the Savoy. What was there frightening in that? Nothing. He had the money in his pocket, he was ready for anything, afraid of nobody.

A taxi drew up at the door, and a man and a girl got out. With a weak feeling at the knees and a sick feeling in the stomach, Mr Baker followed them in.

3

The man was Mr Basil St John Wender, and the girl was Miss Charmian Flyte. Unlike David Alistair Shawn Baker, they had chosen (and who better?) their own names. Mr Wender was good-looking in a business-like way; a solid man of fifty with what he thought of (and hoped you would think of) as a Roman nose commanding a strongly coloured face, the red of a sanguine temperament fighting it out with the blue-black of a jaw which, for all his care, never seemed freshly shaved. To make up for this there was always an air of eau-de-Cologne about him. His hands were beautifully manicured; as indeed they should have been, seeing that Miss Charmian Flyte herself attended to them every week. She was what he would have called a pretty little thing; with more character of her own and less admiration for his than he supposed. This was the first time he had taken her out to dinner. Being a man of generous impulses where his own tastes were concerned, he had ordered champagne, and, as a result, they amused each other a good deal.

They also found easy amusement in others. In Mr William Henry Baker, for instance.

He was at a little table in the gangway, alone. With their backs to the glass screen separating them from the lounge they had him under their eyes; had so had him all through his dinner. It would not be true to say that Mr Baker was particularly conscious of them, for he felt that the eyes of all the early diners were upon him, that all the waiters were whispering about him; that, in short, what he was undergoing was not a romantic adventure, but an unpleasant ordeal. The prices of the strangely named foods were far beyond what he had expected, prices more suited to a purchase of the whole animal (whatever it was) from which the dish came. Conveying as best he could the suggestion that he was under doctor’s orders, he chose the most moderately priced dish he could identify, to be followed by the most translatable sweet; and, since wine was essential for the drinking of David’s health, he added a half-bottle of the cheapest Burgundy, telling himself, as he did so, that he was throwing money away, had been a fool to come, and that David’s chance of inheriting anything worth while from his father was now remote. Perhaps he would be like his mother, sons often were, and Maggie was perfect. What would she say when he confessed how wickedly extravagant he had been? He would have to tell her; he had never had any secrets from Maggie.

Some, but not all, of his emotions were visible to Mr Wender and Miss Flyte. As Miss Flyte so well put it, the poor little man seemed like a fish out of water; and though neither of them had seen a fish out of water except on a fishmonger’s slab, when it bore little resemblance to Mr Baker, they agreed laughingly that this was exactly what he did look like.

‘Thought it was an A.B.C.,’ suggested Mr Wender, ‘and then found too late that it wasn’t. Having a little difficulty with his French, isn’t he?’ This was when Mr Baker was deeply involved in the menu. ‘Wonder what he’ll make of the wine-list?’

‘That’s easy, darling. He just says “25”, and there you are.’

‘I may be, but he isn’t. “25” is champagne. He won’t be having champagne,’ said Mr Wender, with the simple ostentation of one who was. ‘Well, girlie, enjoying yourself?’

She nodded. ‘I always say there’s nothing like the dear old Savoy. It’s sort of different, if you know what I mean.’

‘Another glass of Pommery?’

‘Just what Mother ordered,’ laughed Miss Flyte, as he-picked up the bottle.

All through his dinner Mr Wender’s eyes invited the attention of his neighbours. The pretty girl he was entertaining, the lavishness of his entertainment, the forceful personality of the entertainer, were shared with them; even the people drinking cocktails in the lounge behind him could look enviously, admiringly, through the glass screen. Picking up the second bottle, he flicked an eye in that direction so as to include them, said ‘Good God!’ suddenly, and put the bottle down.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Miss Flyte.

His hand to his cheek, his head averted, he told her.

4

It might have been Sir David Shawn Baker himself who lay back in his chair twirling his empty glass. He was at ease with the world. He saw himself taking Maggie to the Savoy on her next birthday. He imagined somebody asking him—not that anybody would—what he thought of the Ritz, and heard himself answering, ‘Well, personally, I prefer the Savoy,’ and perhaps something about ‘my usual table’. He wondered why he had ever been frightened. The whole thing was so easy. You just decided where you would dine that night, went there, chose your dinner (and, of course, your bottle of wine) and dined. There was one trifling impediment which escaped him for the moment. Something which, in certain circumstances, might prevent full enjoyment of the evening. No, not Maggie’s absence; she and David had been with him all the time; at first encouraging him, then, as the half-bottle did its work, sharing his pride and satisfaction. But there had been a moment, a little while back, just before he had begun that second glass of Burgundy, when the roseate cloud in his mind had suddenly darkened. It couldn’t have been very important, because now everything was rosy again. Still, it was silly not to remember . . .

The folded bill on his plate caught his eyes. Ah, that was it. He couldn’t pay the bill. All these potatoes and things added up surprisingly, and the waiter seemed to have made a mistake about the number of the Burgundy. ‘My son, Sir David, will pay it next time he comes in.’ Doubtless something could be arranged. He would give his mind to it directly. Just now it was resting with its feet up in a cosy warmth of contentment.

A big important-looking man was coming to his table. Probably—what was that fellow’s name in that book?—Prince Florizel of Bohemia. Mr Baker was glad to see him.

‘How are you?’ said Mr Wender genially, holding out a large white hand.

Mr Baker, shaking it, said that he was very well. Never better, in fact.

‘That’s good. I noticed that you were dining alone. My friend,’ he indicated her over his shoulder, and added confidentially, ‘one of the most famous actresses from the Comédie Française, is most anxious to meet you. I wonder if you would give us the great pleasure of finishing your meal at our table?’

Mr Baker said that in fact he had finished it, three, or possibly four, minutes ago.

‘Still,’ smiled Mr Wender, in the persuasive voice which had launched a thousand companies, ‘you will let us give you a glass of champagne, a cigar, and a cup of coffee.’ He stopped a passing waiter and said, ‘Sir Joseph is dining with me. Just put that,’ he indicated the bill carelessly, ‘on to mine.’ He bowed to Mr Baker. ‘If you will give me that great pleasure?’

Mr Baker made it clear that he was glad—in a sense, relieved—to give it to him.

‘And now,’ said Mr Wender, helping his guest up, ‘we will join Mademoiselle de—but no. For reasons which you will understand she wishes to remain incognito while in London. By the way, she talks English perfectly—unless, of course, you insist on conversing with her in her own language.’ He waited a moment in case Mr Baker insisted, and went on, ‘Should it be necessary to refer to her by name I am permitted to call her Lady Witterman. You won’t mind my introducing you as Sir Joseph?’

(Undoubtedly Prince Florizel of Bohemia.)

‘Well, actually, my name is——’

Mr Wender waggled a genial hand.

‘No names, no pack-drill, as we used to say in the Guards.’

(Or the Duke of Westminster?)

They came, arm-in-arm, to the table by the glass screen.

‘This, darling,’ said Mr Wender, ‘is Sir Joseph.’

Miss Flyte nodded sulkily.

‘A glass of Pommery, Sir Joseph?’

Mr Baker wondered if champagne went well with Burgundy, and didn’t see why it shouldn’t try.

‘Your very good health. My dear, we must drink Sir Joseph’s health.’

Miss Flyte, her mouth still sullen, raised her glass to Mr Baker. Then, seeing something in his insignificant face, something which she didn’t see in the faces of the men who made love to her, she gave him a sudden warming smile, and said, ‘All the best.’

‘The same to you,’ said Mr Baker, ‘both of you,’ he explained, remembering that the Duke was paying his bill. But, as he drank, he was drinking to Maggie and David. He was drinking their healths in champagne. Real champagne. Pommery. What an evening!

The Pommery seemed to like the Burgundy. It reminded the Burgundy of a very funny thing which their lessor knew about and nobody else did. That was what made it so funny. That was what made Mr Baker laugh so surprisingly.

‘Yes?’ said Mr Wender encouragingly. His eyes went round again to the doorway.

‘What,’ Mr Baker invited them to tell him, ‘do they know of England who only England know?’

‘What?’ wondered Miss Flyte, assuming that it was a riddle.

‘That wasn’t what I said,’ he explained with a happy smile. ‘What I said was nobody knows what happened this morning. Now why does nobody know what happened this morning? Because it’s profound secret.’

‘What did happen?’ asked Miss Flyte.

‘When I say nobody, I mean nobody-but-three. No,’ said Mr Baker, working it out, ‘four. Probably five. Or six or seven. Things get about. Have you ever,’ he asked on a different note, ‘come across Sir David Shawn Baker in Paris or elsewhere?’

‘I seem to have heard of him,’ said Miss Flyte, feeling that it was expected of her. ‘I’ve never actually met him.’

‘I have. Just for a moment.’

‘What’s he like?’

Mr Baker reflected for a little.

‘On the short side,’ he said, summing it up.

Mr Wender rose to his feet. One felt that he had been waiting for this moment. Three people in evening dress were coming in. The big woman who led the way, magnificently under-gowned and over-jewelled, glanced at Mr Wender, stood for a moment in surprise, committed Miss Flyte and Mr Baker to memory, and inclined her head to Mr Wender’s bow. The party moved on. Mr Wender sat down and poured himself out the rest of the champagne. ‘I think that’s all right,’ he murmured, gulping it down.

The waiter brought the bill. Mr Wender put a £10 note on the plate.

‘Look, girlie,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll just go and say a word to those people, while you powder your nose. I’ll meet you both outside.’

They all got up. Mr Baker, surprised to find that he could walk, not only effectively but with a certain dignity, followed Miss Flyte out. She turned to him as soon as they were through the doorway.

‘Hat and coat!’ she snapped. ‘Quick!’ She indicated the cloak-room. Then, as soon as he was ready, ‘Come on!’

‘But what about Mr—er——’

‘Come on!’ She led the way. ‘Ask for a taxi. Tell him Victoria.’

Completely bewildered, Mr Baker, as so often before in his life, obeyed instructions. As he took his place in the taxi beside her he was still saying, ‘What about Mr—er——’

‘To hell with him!’ said Miss Flyte bitterly. ‘Thinking he was going to get away with that!’

5

The fresh air through the open window was doing Mr Baker good. He still wondered why he was there, but now he felt benevolently and intelligently interested in his position.

‘Married men!’ said Miss Flyte. ‘They make me sick.’

Mr Baker waited for further details.

‘He asks me to have dinner with him. Well, why shouldn’t I have dinner with him? What else did he think he was going to get? Not bloody likely. (That’s a quotation, ducky, you needn’t look shocked.) And then suddenly there’s his darling wife in the lounge, plastered with Koh-i-noors and looking like the Queen of Sheba’s Aunt Rachel. He’s told her, see, that he’s dining with Sir Joseph Wotsit so’s to discuss a—what’s that thing men like that discuss, financiers I mean?’

‘Well, they might discuss so many things. Would it be a merger?’

‘Something like that. So now when she comes in and sees him—well, am I going to look like I’m discussing a merger with darling hubby? So I’ve got to be explained somehow, see? Well, he’s a quick thinker, I will say that for him. Well, you see, we’d noticed you at your table—“I wonder who that nice-looking man is,” I said, “seems sort of lonely”—I’d just passed the remark, not thinking any more of it, so now he gets his idea. Because once you’re at our table, he’s all right. There he is, dining with Sir Joseph, and if Sir Joseph brings his wife along, well he can’t help it, can he? So he gets up and bows to her—don’t suppose you noticed, you were telling me about that secret of yours—and then goes up to her table and says, all smiles and handwash, I can just hear him saying it, “Sir Joseph brought the wife along, used to be his secretary, knows all the ins and outs of the business; well, I must be getting along, got to get back to his flat, he’s left some papers behind; how are you, John, how are you, Mary, nice of you to look after the wife while I’m so busy.” Cah! It makes me sick. I’m as good as she is, aren’t I?’

‘But not as married to him as she is,’ said Mr Baker mildly.

‘Who said I was, and who wants to be? He asked me to come out with him, didn’t he? I didn’t ask him. What’s it matter to me what his wife thinks? If he couldn’t stand up to her, he oughtn’t to of asked me. How did I know he had a wife at all? What would he of thought if I’d said, “Don’t look now but there’s my husband over there, you’d better pretend to be the Archbishop of Canterbury”? What sort of a way is that of having a nice little dinner together?’

Mr Baker didn’t feel competent to answer any of these questions, nor did he suppose that an answer was expected. All that mattered was that he had dined at the Savoy and had drunk David’s health in Burgundy and champagne. Now he was sitting in a taxi with an extremely pretty girl. All this on David’s birthday. Miss Flyte seemed to remember suddenly that he was there, and that she had certain obligations towards him.

‘Victoria all right for you?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Catch my train, nicely.’

‘I’m on the District. Ealing. D’you know that part?’

‘No.’

‘Retired Indians mostly. You know what I mean. Not blacks. Nice part, near the Common where we are. Married, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’ She knew by the way he said it that he was in love with his wife.

‘What I said about married men making me sick, of course I didn’t mean you.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have said so to me, even if I had.’

‘I just say anything that comes into my head when I’m angry, and if there’s one thing that makes me angry, it’s bad manners. What’s your real name when you aren’t Sir Joseph?’

He laughed and said, ‘Baker.’

‘Mr Baker,’ she said, looking at him, pondering the name and its owner. ‘Fancy! If it hadn’t been for that wife of his we should never have met. Seems funny, doesn’t it? What: was that secret you were telling me?’

He coughed apologetically.

‘I’m afraid I was a little—I must have been—it’s the first time I’ve ever drunk champagne. And I’d already had half a. bottle of Burgundy.’

‘I say, you were going it! What will Mrs Baker say when you tell her?’

‘She wanted me to have a good dinner, because, you see„ she—we—we had a son early this morning.’

‘First?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was that the secret?’

‘Yes. I didn’t tell them at the office, because I thought—well, it was something rather—I know this sounds silly——’

‘I shan’t laugh.’

‘Well, sort of sacred between Maggie and me. Just for to-day. I didn’t want jokes about it.’

‘And now you’ve told me?’

‘Yes, but that’s different somehow.’

She looked at him wonderingly.

‘How long have you been married?’

‘Ten years.’

‘What are you calling him?’

‘David Alistair Shawn,’ said Mr Baker shyly. ‘Shawn was his mother’s name.’

The taximan opened the window behind him, and said, ‘Which line?’

‘Main line,’ said Miss Flyte, and to her companion, ‘I’ll pay.’

‘No, no,’ he protested. ‘You forget, I didn’t pay for my dinner.’

‘D’you mean he paid?’ Miss Flyte laughed happily. ‘Well, that’s a good one. That’s cheered me up a lot. All the same, I’m going to pay the taxi, and you can put half a crown in David’s money-box specially for me. See?’

‘Oh, that is kind——’

She leant across to him suddenly and kissed him on the cheek.

‘And that’s for yourself. Because you’re different from all the others. See?’

The taxi drew up at the station, and they got out.

6

Mr Baker was happy. He’d done it. He had dined where he had said he would, he had toasted David in champagne, and it hadn’t cost him a penny. His son, he felt modestly, could be proud of him. The Bakers were not to be despised. When put to it, they could hold their own with the best in the land.

What a story to tell Maggie!

Except for that last moment. That, he felt instinctively, must remain untold. The fragrant memory of that touching, unexpected kiss was for himself alone. The thought of keeping anything from Maggie made him a little uneasy, but he assured himself that men and women must always have secrets from each other. When, for instance, Sir David Shawn Baker was Ambassador in Paris, there would be many matters which he would not confide to his wife.

Anne-Marie

We had had a good year, and by way of celebration I was giving a little dinner in my Hampstead flat to heads of departments. We had seen quite enough of each other in the last twelve months, but a dinner is a dinner, and something of the sort seemed to be expected of me. I reckoned that if I gave them enough to drink we should get through the meal somehow, but that the hour or so afterwards, before I could decently kick them out, might be a little sticky. Then I had the brilliant idea of engaging a conjurer. Everybody likes a conjurer.

He introduced himself as the Great Rinaldo. He was a bit of a dago, who wore his evening clothes as if they had been fancy dress; young, apparently, but with a face like old ivory, and thick black hair which he kept shaking back from his forehead. He had the most beautiful hands I have ever seen. I told him that card-tricks would be the most suitable form of entertainment, and he said in a low, melancholy voice that he only did card-tricks now. So card-tricks it was.

They were brilliant. I suppose they could all be explained, but some of them seemed sheer magic. For instance, he held up the four aces between the fingers of his right hand; they were there, they were not there, they were there again. ‘Spade to the Gardener,’ he murmured, ‘Club to the Clubman, Heart to the Lover, Diamond to—well, you must find your own way, I cannot help you. Off with you!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And now, gentlemen, if you would feel in your breast-pockets——’ Well, he could have looked me up in Who’s Who and seen that I belonged to half a dozen clubs; but how did he know that Rogers never stopped talking about his tomatoes, and that Nason was still indecently in love with his wife after twenty years of matrimony? The diamond went to Jewell, the head of our Education department.

One of the most attractive things about him was that he gave us none of that dreary, facetious patter which you get from most conjurers. He talked, of course: conjurers, I understand, have to do this in order to distract the attention; but his talk was more like a musical incantation to the cards, very soothing and restful in his melancholy voice. Altogether he was a great success, and when it was over, I had another bottle of champagne up, filled a glass for him, and we all gathered round his end of the table.

‘You say you only do card-tricks?’ I said, to start him off.

‘Only!’ said Nason, and everybody laughed.

‘Only card-tricks now,’ said the Great Rinaldo. He drank and sighed. I filled his glass again. We all waited . . .

It was three years ago (said Rinaldo), on a Saturday night at Blackpool, that Carlotta left me. Between the shows we had had our last quarrel. Once more she had accused me of loving Anne-Marie more than I loved her, and now at last it was true. One cannot go on saying this to a man without it becoming true in the end. Did I, then, want her to leave me? Not consciously, for I needed both of them. Both of them were indispensable to my art. But down in the subconscious, I suppose, I was saying ‘To hell with Carlotta’.

Carlotta was my partner. She stood by my table looking gay and pretty, and she gave me the accessories of my art as I needed them. From her wide but lovely mouth I drew the flags of all nations; as the Vanishing Lady from the hermetically sealed cabinet she brought our turn to its triumphant conclusion.

I am an artist, and I take my art seriously. When I found Carlotta, she was with a juggler who called himself Hal I. Butt; that, gentlemen, gives you an idea of the life she was leading before she met me. I rescued her from this, but unfortunately I was unable to blot out the past altogether. Our first few months together were happy, and then she began to relapse. She played for laughs. At the close of one of my most brilliant feats, as the audience was about to thunder its applause, Carlotta would look at me with a comically exaggerated awe, and say, ‘Coo!’—and the applause would turn to shouts of laughter. A serious artist does not want laughter. When I asked any gentleman in the audience to lend me his watch, she would frown and shake her head warningly at them, implying by this that I was a confidence trickster. I, the Great Rinaldo! Once, when a gentleman in the front row of the stalls was fumbling for his watch in one pocket after another, she leant over to him and said helpfully, ‘Or a sundial’; which was foolish, and would have made the trick impossible. Always now, when the show was ended, we would have a scene, and always the scene would end with Carlotta in tears, crying that I did not love her any more. Gentlemen, how can one love a woman who says ‘Or a sundial’ when I ask any gentleman in the audience to lend me his watch?

‘You love Anne-Marie more than you love me,’ she would cry for the hundredth time, and now it was true. Anne-Marie was sweet and gentle. She never made a mockery of my art, never tried to be funny at the climax of my professional skill. She had been with me for two years before I found Carlotta, and knew all my ways. We loved each other dearly . . .

Anne-Marie was my rabbit . . .

That last performance at Blackpool. Always, previously, we had made it up before we did our turn again, but now, for the first time, Carlotta and I went on to the stage at enmity with each other. I was afraid. I told myself that she was planning a great humiliation for me to-night, a louder laugh than she had ever got before. To my surprise she played her part perfectly; not a smile from the audience, nothing but that wave of wonder and applause which is so necessary for the serious artist. So we came to the Grand Finale, the Vanishing Lady. I knew then that she had been saving herself up for this. Once she had said to me in her frivolous way, ‘It would be rather funny if I didn’t vanish one night, and when you threw open the doors of the cabinet, I was still there.’

‘Funny?’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes, and I said reproachfully, “Darling, you forgot to leave the corkscrew.” Get a good laugh that would.’

A good laugh! To-night, I told myself, she was playing for the greatest laugh of all.

We came to the finale. She is in the cabinet. Six of the audience, including two sailors, have examined it, have assured themselves that there is no way out. The band plays. I stand there exercising all my will-power, for I feel that it is a struggle of wills between us, and I stand there compelling her to play her part, to do what is needful and to vanish. The band stops. The whole house is hushed. I make a pass over the cabinet, the one that my grandfather has taught me. I cry ‘Voilà!’ as I fling the doors wide. What shall I see?

All is well. She is not there.

The audience applauds. I bow. I hold the applause until Carlotta comes tripping down the centre aisle. She joins me on the stage, and together we make our final bow . . .

But what is this? She does not come! I signal for the curtain to descend. I rush to the wings. ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ The men shake their heads. Nobody has seen her. They ring the curtain up again. I am there bowing. Still no Carlotta tripping down the aisle; still, however, the torrents of applause. And then, suddenly, the applause turns to laughter! Never, gentlemen, have you heard such laughter. It thunders in my ears, and I cannot understand it. Furiously I tell myself that Carlotta has not left the stage, that she is here behind me, making funny faces at the audience. I take a quick look round. She is not there. But at my side—what do I see?

Ah! I know then that, as I had often suspected, the true magic of my grandfather has descended upon me! Carlotta has vanished for ever . . . and down by my feet is Anne-Marie, sitting up on her back paws, and blowing funny kisses at the audience!

The Great Rinaldo tossed the hair back from his eyes, and gulped down what was left of his champagne. I filled his glass again, and said in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘Where was Carlotta?’ He shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture towards the ceiling. We all looked up there, God knows why.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Rinaldo mournfully, ‘have you ever thought what it is for a serious artist like myself to have a funny rabbit who plays for laughs?’

Speaking for all of us Jewell said that he hadn’t.

‘There is a trick, very popular at private parties, in which one cooks a plum pudding in a gentleman’s hat. Is it nice, when I say “Hey Presto!” and remove the handkerchief, not to know whether it is plum pudding or stewed rabbit? When I make the magic cactus grow beneath my fingers, what is this which slowly pushes its way through the sand? The first shoots of the cactus—or Anne-Marie’s ears? She could no longer say “Coo!” at my most baffling trick, but she would fall on her back in a mock swoon, with her paws crossed on her breast—and the house would rock with laughter.’

“Surely,’ said Jewell, “you could have shut her up after you had done your first trick with her?’

“How many times had Carlotta escaped from the cabinet? She knew all about escaping.’

‘Carlotta?’ said Rogers stupidly.

‘Or Anne-Marie. Call her what you like.’

‘I should have said that there was a fortune in a rabbit like that,’ suggested Nason.

The Great Rinaldo looked at him. Just once. Nason hurriedly swallowed another glass of my port.

“So what?’ I said. ‘You gave it up?’

‘I wanted no more partners, I wanted no more rabbits. We came up here to your Heath at dead of night, Carlotta and I, and I pushed her down a burrow, and ran. That was a year ago. Now I do only card-tricks. Nobody can interfere with my card-tricks.’

Lying back in his chair, he put a hand in his pocket and drew out a pack of cards. He shuffled them with one hand, threw them to the ceiling and caught them again. He snapped his fingers and they were gone. Mechanically he leant forward to bow . . . and there on the table beside him, believe it or not, was a rabbit, sitting up and blowing kisses to us.

‘My God!’ he cried. ‘You!’

He seized it by the ears and rushed from the room.

What an artist! What an actor! His fee was twice the usual for this sort of thing, but I couldn’t complain.

The General Takes off his Helmet

GISCO walked behind the General, his thoughts, as usual, rioting round himself. They were inspecting the 27th Division, a mixed crowd of Libyans and Moors under Carthaginian officers. The Division stood to attention and looked unwinking to the front, so that at every step you came under fire from a new pair of eyes; and every pair of those eyes was acknowledging that you were the finest-looking young fellow of them all (as you obviously were), and at the same time pretending to despise you, but really envying you, because you lived so safely and so comfortably—as in a way you did. Well, safely anyhow. You didn’t lead forlorn assaults, and have hot lead poured on you from the walls by shrieking women. No, you were spared that. Comfort, too, up to a point, though not quite what they thought. Good food and good quarters, yes; but it was anything but a comfortable life being A.D.C. to the General when he was in one of his moods. A fellow simply didn’t know where he was.

Hannibal was in one of his moods to-day.

The siege of Saguntum had gone on too long. Gisco was not quite sure why it had ever started. He had understood that they were just marching on Rome, wherever that was; and he had promised the girl he had left behind him in Carthage—the three girls he had left behind him in Carthage—to bring back the head of one of those Senators who were making all the trouble, and a jewelled comb such as the Roman ladies wore. But passing Saguntum on their way, they had stopped to take it . . . and that was eight months ago, and here they still were. Most of the troops had thought, and had gone on thinking, that they were besieging Rome, and that the war was nearly over; but Gisco, being so close to the General, had only thought so for a very short time. Now he knew that the war was just beginning.

The plains between the city and the sea had become an immense parade-ground, and the siege seemed but one of the many activities of barrack life: troops drilling, troops at sword play, troops going through physical exercises, troops under inspection, and troops advancing on Saguntum and drawing off again, leaving their dead behind them. Here and there under the hard blue sky tattered men hung on crosses. To Gisco they meant as much or as little as all the other features of military life by which he was now becoming bored: a life lived under discipline. But to the Commanders of Divisions about to be inspected they offered a problem; for one could never be sure whether the General would be more struck with the vigour of their discipline or with the previous indiscipline which it implied. Discipline, he had told them, must be maintained; maintained at all costs; but the cost must always be reckoned, and to crucify a discontented man was to save the enemy the trouble of killing him. This, he suggested mildly, was a pity—or didn’t they think so? They hastened to think so. In private they told themselves that the General was queer, you never knew where you were with him; and they decided that, since bodies hanging about the place made it look untidy, for the special occasion of a General’s Inspection they had better be taken down. So, in the 27th Divisional quarters this morning there were no dead or dying men looking down on Gisco and envying him his more comfortable lot.

He was taller than Hannibal, but the General’s golden helmet with its flashing plumes overtopped his own, and he had to admit that for an oldish man of thirty Hannibal made a fine figure from the back. And when the General turned round, as he sometimes did, if that were his humour, to test his A.D.C. on some point of equipment, well, you also had to admit that there was something about his face: not beautiful, of course, not like Gisco’s; but with something in it, something behind it, which nobody, not even a foolish young man of twenty, could ever feel quite sure about.

This foolish young man was incapable of putting his feeling for Hannibal into definite words. Had he tried to do so, he might have discovered to his surprise that he felt a sort of affectionate pity, almost contempt, for the Great Man; as for a dreamer who was missing all the good things of life (women, and—well, women) in pursuit of some inescapable end to which, the story went, he had been pledged as a child. You might say that he was something of a child still; sometimes; and though you had to admit that he was a good General and all that, nobody who talked as he did, when he was in that sort of mood, could be called really intelligent. Not like Gisco. But when you had promised your sister (who, after all, had got you the job) to look after the man, you had to look after him. You had to humour him. And somehow—but Gisco never quite knew how—you couldn’t help liking the fellow. You would have liked him, even if he hadn’t written to your sister: ‘I can never thank you enough. Your Gisco is a constant delight and inspiration to me.’

The inspection was over. The General acknowledged his last salute, this time from the Nubian sentries outside his Headquarters, and strode to the inner tent, followed by his faithful A.D.C. As soon as they were alone, his hands went to his head. Wincing slightly he raised the massive golden helmet with its waving plumes until it was clear of his forehead, lowered it in front of him, looked at it malignantly, and then flung it on the ground.

‘Ye gods,’ he cried, ‘how I hate these helmets!’

Gisco picked it up, cosseting the feathers into shape again as he said soothingly, ‘It’s a hot day for helmets anyhow, sir.’

‘You’ve nothing to complain of. Look at the size of yours compared with mine. Here, take this.’ He unbuckled his sword-belt and hung it over the helmet in Gisco’s hands, ruffling the plumes again.

‘True, O Hannibal,’ said Gisco, ‘but then look at the size of your brain compared with mine.’ He said it kindly, with an encouraging smile. This was what an A.D.C. was for. This was what a Gisco did so well.

‘If that’s meant for flattery,’ snapped Hannibal, ‘I don’t want it, and if it’s meant for irony, I won’t have it.’

‘It was meant for the truth, sir,’ said Gisco untruthfully.

‘In that case it was a gross understatement. My helmet is only twice the size of yours.’

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Gisco firmly. Hannibal was in one of his moods, and it was better to close the conversation. Even as it was, he had an idea that he had been insulted. He put the helmet and the sword-belt away; and, as soon as Hannibal had settled himself on his divan, saw that a drink was ready to his hand. Hannibal drank.

‘Those fellows in the little leather caps,’ he said, wiping his mouth and leaning back with a sigh, ‘I envied them, Gisco, I envied them!

‘The sanitary squads, sir?’ said Gisco, surprised.

‘Oh, were those the sanitary squads?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘H’m.’ He frowned to himself. Looking up and seeing Gisco there, he waved at the drinks, murmuring, ‘Oh, my dear boy, please,’ and went back to his thoughts. Gisco helped himself with a ‘Thank you, sir,’ and sat cross-legged on the ground; waiting. The General was coming to an important decision; you could see it in his face. Perhaps he would decide to call the whole campaign off. Perhaps they would be back in Carthage by the autumn. Perhaps Thalyctra and he—if he decided on Thalyctra——

‘Those sanitary squads,’ said Hannibal.

Gisco came back from Carthage with a start, and said automatically, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘How would it be if in future they all wore helmets like mine, and the Commander-in-Chief wore a little leather cap like theirs?’

Gisco gaped and stammered, ‘W-with what object, sir?’ ‘Damn it,’ said Hannibal reasonably, ‘with the object that they’d get headaches and I shouldn’t.’

‘Quite so, sir. Is it an order?’ The poor fellow was crazy, but one must humour him. Take it all quite seriously.

‘I don’t know. I’ll tell you later.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We must consider both sides. I suppose all these feathers and things are more dignified?’

Gisco had a good one for that. One wasn’t an A.D.C. for nothing. One knew instinctively what to say.

‘If you wore the leather cap, sir,’ he said, little knowing how near the truth he was, ‘then very soon the leather cap would be more dignified.’

‘Obviously one would hope that such would be the case, but in actual fact it wouldn’t.’

‘No, sir.’

‘On the other hand, it would be cooler.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Gisco took up his drink again sulkily. There was no doing anything with the man when he was in this mood. He returned to Carthage and Thalyctra, but with no hope now of seeing her in the autumn.

‘Gisco,’ said Hannibal—

(There! He was off again. What now?)

‘—tell me, just for interest, I’ve often wanted to know. If I do make it an order, what exactly happens?’

‘Naturally, sir, it is carried out.’ That was an easy one.

Hannibal considered him thoughtfully.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘sometimes you give the impression of being quite intelligent, and sometimes you give the impression of being completely the reverse. Is there a reason, or is it just chance?’

Gisco began to say as politely as he could (only there were times when it was difficult) that he didn’t know what the poor fellow was talking about; but Hannibal wasn’t listening.

‘There are fortunate men who rose from the ranks to be Commanders,’ he went on. ‘Alas, I didn’t. I was born to it. That puts me at a disadvantage. There are things which I don’t know.’ He sipped his drink and explained, ‘What I want to know now is this: What happens to this order as soon as I have given it to you?’

‘Oh, I see, sir,’ said Gisco, quite cheerful again. Now he was in his element; explaining things to his General, explaining what he knew so well—military routine. ‘It’s like this, sir. I write it out, and when you have signed it, I hand it to your Chief of Staff.’

‘Never mind the signature. I tell you; you tell the Chief of Staff. Whom does he tell?’

‘The Divisional Commanders.’

‘And they?’

‘The Captains commanding Companies.’

‘And they?’

‘The officers commanding the Companies’ sanitary squads.’

‘Ah! And they?’

‘They would make out a requisition for the number of helmets they wanted—and, I suppose, the sizes—and that would go back to the Captains commanding Companies; and they——’

Hannibal held up a hand.

‘Don’t tell me. They would pass it back to the Generals commanding Divisions——’

‘Exactly, sir. And they would pass it back to the Chief of Staff.’

As if he had been through all the motions himself, Gisco helped himself to the second drink which he had so fully earned, and wondered what else he could do for the General.

‘Excellent,’ said Hannibal. ‘You will be glad to hear that so far I have followed you with ease. You will also observe that so far nobody has done anything at all, except tell somebody else to do it. But there must be a terrifying moment when somebody actually has to set to and make a helmet, simply because there is nobody else he can get to do it for him.’ He drank, and said dreamily, ‘Who is that unlucky man?’

Gisco had seen the question coming, and where lesser men might have fallen down, he was ready to stand up to it.

‘Well, sir,’ he said, improvising a little doubtfully, ‘I suppose the requisition would eventually come to the Master-Armourer——’

‘Ah!’ said Hannibal. ‘Thank you.’

‘And he would tell the armourer-sergeants——’

‘I was hasty,’ said Hannibal, making a motion of apology. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Who would tell the armourers to—er—make the helmets.’

‘And they would make them?’

‘Yes, sir.’

There was a short silence, which just gave Gisco time in which to congratulate himself again, and to tell himself that now the General knew all about that; and then Hannibal spoke.

He said, ‘How?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘I said—how?’

‘Er—do you mean how would they make them?’

‘What else could I mean?’

‘Well—er——’

‘Imagine yourself to be an armourer. The armourer-sergeant has just told you to make a hundred and forty-nine helmets. Damn it, Gisco, you can’t do it!’

‘I am not an armourer,’ said Gisco stiffly. I am nursemaid, he told himself, to an infuriating child.

‘You start with a wedge of gold,’ said Hannibal, following out his thoughts, ‘and you beat it into a thin plate. Then you—sort of’—he made arcuate motions with his hands—’bend it—or don’t you?’

Gisco had only heard one word of all this, but it was enough.

‘Sir!’ he said, shocked out of his usual complaisance. ‘Really!’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘You wouldn’t have gold helmets for the sanitary squads?’ Hannibal looked at him solemnly.

‘If even my elephants have ivory tusks,’ he said, ‘are my sanitary squads to be grudged gold helmets?’

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Gisco hastily.

‘What I want you to observe is how very much easier it is to be a Commander-in-Chief than it is to be an armourer. All I do is to say “Let the sanitary squads wear gold helmets,” and in a week from now——’

‘Better say a fortnight from now, to be on the safe side,’ said the man of affairs kindly. One could at least keep him right in matters like that.

‘In three days from now——’ Hannibal corrected himself.

‘Three days, sir, yes, sir.’

‘In three days the sanitary squads are wearing gold helmets. Marvellous! Incredible! I go down to History. And yet what have I done? Nothing that demands the exercise of the intelligence or the operation of manual skill.’ He sighed. ‘Any fool can give orders, Gisco, but it takes a clever man to execute them.’

Gisco had the brightest moment of his day. ‘It takes a genius to give the right orders,’ he said.

Loud applause? No applause. For some reason it was the one thing which was wanted to bring the whole simmering morning to the boil. Hannibal jumped to his feet.

‘And who the Hades,’ he shouted furiously, ‘is to know whether they are right? Do you set yourself up as a judge?’

‘The gods forbid, sir,’ said Gisco, up and backing away.

‘Then who?’

‘Nobody in the army would dare to, sir.’

‘Exactly. I give the order to besiege Saguntum’—his voice rose almost to a scream—’and for two hundred and thirty-seven days we’ve been besieging the blasted town’—his voice dropped almost to a whisper—’and who is to tell me whether I am right or wrong?’

He fell back again on his divan. Gisco refilled his cup and passed it to him, while searching in his mind for something helpful, something soothing, something inspiring.

‘I always understood, sir,’ he said, in case the General had forgotten, ‘that it was meant to be a declaration of war against Rome, Saguntum being under Roman protection.’

Hannibal gave him a gentle smile.

‘What other Commander has ever taken two hundred and thirty-seven days to declare war? Why not march straight on Rome?’

‘Well, sir,’ Gisco tried again, ‘you can’t leave a fortified town in your rear to cut off your line of retreat.’

‘My line of what?’ said Hannibal coldly.

Naturally, thought Gisco, he’d be touchy about a thing like that. Silly of me.

‘I mean, sir, that you can’t have a fortified town like Saguntum harassing your rear as you advance——’

‘My dear Gisco, use words in some relation to their meaning. How can a fortified town harass the rear of a rapidly departing army? It can’t run after us.’

‘No, sir.’

There was another pregnant silence. If you hadn’t known that the General was delighted with you, if you hadn’t known for a fact that you inspired him, there were times when you might have felt a little doubtful about yourself, wondering if you were to take him seriously when he seemed to be differing from you. As it was, one knew that it was just the General’s way. Once again Gisco had given him something to think about; but naturally a Commander-in-Chief doesn’t want to acknowledge too openly that——

‘Or take elephants,’ said Hannibal.

Gisco sat up with a jerk, spilling his wine on the floor of the tent.

‘Take what, sir?’

‘Elephants.’

‘Yes, sir.’ All right, all right, take elephants. They were off again.

‘Am I right to burden myself with all these elephants? Who knows?’

‘Surely, sir, they will strike terror into the hearts of the Romans.’ At least, they would if Romans were at all like Gisco.

‘Possibly—if they ever get within trumpeting distance of one. At present it looks as if some of the young ones may just see the siege of Saguntum out.’ He considered this for a moment, and added: ‘How long do elephants live?’

‘About eighty years, sir, isn’t it?’

‘Some of the very young ones,’ amended Hannibal, closing his eyes.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Gisco dutifully.

‘Suppose I sent them back to Carthage——’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Somebody takes them?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I shouldn’t know how to take thirty-seven elephants back to Carthage—would you?

For one wild moment Gisco thought of saying Yes: of saying that as a boy he had been brought up with elephants—(only Hannibal knew his sister too well to believe that the family was in the elephant business); of saying that he would like to try (only there was nothing he would hate more): of saying anything to get back to Carthage and Thalyctra (and, of course, Daphnis and Melitta) and away from the camp and the questions . . . And the knowledge that there was nothing he could say, and that here he was for another how many years and they hadn’t even begun the real war yet, and that he would never see Melitta again (or Thalyctra or Daphnis), all this turned him suddenly from a charmingly tactful A.D.C. into a very hot, very annoyed young man.

He said contemptuously: ‘I don’t happen to be an authority on elephants,’ and turned his back on his General, and drank to show his indifference.

Still with his eyes shut, Hannibal said:

‘You aren’t an authority on elephants, and you can’t make a helmet. What,’ he asked with interest, ‘can you do?’

Gisco’s temper began to go.

‘If it comes to that, Hannibal,’ he snapped, ‘what can you do?’

Hannibal sighed.

‘This is one of your bad days. For the last twenty minutes I have been confessing my complete inability to do anything; and now you ask me insolently, and with the air of making a point, what I can do.’

‘Oh, I was insolent, was I?’ sneered Gisco.

‘You were. You still are.’ He considered this for a moment, and added, ‘It’s a hot day, of course.’

‘I’m insolent, am I?’ shouted Gisco, his temper quite gone. ‘All right, then, crucify me.’

As soon as he had said this, he wished that he hadn’t. Supposing Hannibal took him at his word? It was an unpleasant form of death, and he didn’t want to die anyhow. Of course his sister might do something at the last moment——Perhaps, even now, if he apologised to the old man——

He waited to see what Hannibal would do . . .

Hannibal did nothing, said nothing. He still lay there with his eyes closed; thinking (Gisco told himself) that this was only a young fool who didn’t know what he was saying. Well, he’d show him. He wasn’t going to stand that sort of thing.

‘Go on!’ he shouted. ‘“Discipline must be maintained”—you’ve said it often enough. Go on! Crucify me!’

Hannibal opened his eyes, and turned to Gisco, shaking his head at him.

‘There you go again,’ he sighed. ‘You’re making a ridiculously unwarranted demand on my powers. I simply don’t know how to begin crucifying anybody.’ He lay back, and looked up at the roof of the tent, thinking it out.

‘One starts by making a cross, I suppose. Well, but where do I get the wood from? And then it has to be shaped—and nailed—no, that wouldn’t do—fitted together in some way, with a—tenon, do you call it?—and braced—is that it?—braced at the back with——You know, the more I think about it, the more complicated it seems.’ He sighed again.

‘You’ve only got to look outside,’ said Gisco viciously. ‘There are plenty of old crosses ready for you. “Discipline must be maintained.”’

Hannibal pulled himself into a sitting position, and looked at Gisco with a new interest.

‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘That’s twice you’ve said that, and in the same unnatural voice. Is it supposed to be an imitation of me?’

‘It is.’

‘Is my voice really like that?’

‘Yes. And I’m sick of the sound of it.’

Hannibal leant forward anxiously.

‘Just let’s try, if you don’t mind. I want to get this established. I’ll go first.’ In the voice in which he might address a conference of his Commanders, he said firmly, ‘Discipline must be maintained!’ and added, ‘Now you say it.’ He turned his head slightly, his ear raised to Gisco, and waited, chin on hand.

‘Discipline must be maintained,’ Gisco said sulkily.

Hannibal shook his head.

‘It’s not very good, is it? Apparently you add to your inability to make helmets and conduct elephants across country, an inability to give recognisable imitations.’

‘Inabilities,’ said Gisco with a low bow, ‘which I have the honour of sharing with my lord Hannibal.’

‘True. And in addition I can’t wear a helmet without getting a headache, I can’t take Saguntum, and I can’t even keep the respect of a very ordinary young man with red ears.’

For perhaps the first time in his life Gisco spoke without hearing himself speak. For perhaps the first time in his life he recognised himself as a very ordinary young man, possibly with red ears. ‘Sir!’ he cried remorsefully, ‘forgive me! I am ashamed, I am not worthy to live!’ He put his hand to his sword-hilt, and at the feel of it became himself again. ‘Say the word,’ he cried dramatically, ‘and I will fall on it!’

Hannibal shook his head.

‘You’d probably miss it,’ he said.

Gisco was beginning to wonder about that too. It was easy enough to say, but how exactly did one do it? He took the short sword in both hands and pressed the point to his chest. That, anyhow, was easy.

‘Say the word,’ he cried again, ‘and I will plunge it into my heart!’

He wished Thalyctra could see him now. He also wished Daphnis could, and Melitta. But they would hear about it. His sister would get a letter from Hannibal, and in a little while the news would be all over Carthage . . .

Hannibal had told Gisco’s sister that her brother was a constant inspiration to him. Perhaps he hadn’t meant it quite in the way that they supposed. But at least Gisco had inspired him now. He leapt to his feet.

‘Ah!’ he cried, ‘there’s something we both could do! We’ve found it at last. No orders to give to others. No wondering afterwards if we were right, or wrong. A decision, private in application, personal in execution, which we can never regret. My sword, Gisco!’

‘Hannibal!’ said Gisco, aghast.

‘At least my orders are obeyed.’

‘I would rather obey any other than that.’

It was true. If Hannibal killed himself, then Gisco must needs kill himself too, and there would be nobody to write to his sister, and tell her how bravely her brother had died. And Thalyctra—and of course Melitta and Daphnis—would never know. Yes, he would obey any order sooner than that one.

‘Curious!’ said Hannibal in a gentle voice. ‘It is the most humane order I have ever given. My sword, Gisco.’

Gisco came forward with the sword-belt and the helmet. Hannibal smiled.

‘The helmet, too,’ he said. ‘We are going to a place where there will be no headaches, we hope. Well, let me try to look like a real General for the last time.’

Gisco stopped suddenly.

‘What’s that?’ he whispered. ‘Listen, sir!’ He held up his hand.

Distant shouts could be heard, voices in argument close at hand, scufflings; and then rapid footsteps, as an officer burst in on them.

‘Well, sir?’ said Hannibal in that cold terrifying voice which all knew.

‘My lord!’ the officer cried. ‘Surrender, my lord! An embassy of surrender from the town! Surrender!’

A little sigh came from Hannibal, so gentle that Gisco could hardly hear it.

‘Ah!’

He turned to his A.D.C. and said, ‘You have my sword there?’ He took the belt and fastened it on. ‘They are being conducted here?’

‘Yes, my lord. It is in here that you will receive them?’

‘Yes. My helmet, Gisco.’

The officer went out. Two of the Nubian bodyguard came in, and stood one on each side of the entrance to the inner tent. Hannibal took the great helmet, and lowered it on to his head. As it touched his forehead, he flinched slightly. The envoys could be heard shuffling through the outer tent.

Hannibal gave the helmet back to Gisco. He took off his sword-belt. With great dignity, and in a loud voice he said:

‘No! They are brave men and have fought bravely. In respect for their valour I shall receive them as equals.’

He took up a commanding position, his hand on his hip, his A.D.C. a little behind him on the left. Helmet or no helmet, sword or no sword, every inch a General. The Nubians stood to attention. The envoys from Saguntum, walking dispiritedly between their guards, came through the opening.

‘My lords!’ said Hannibal, ‘I have the honour to receive you as you come, unarmed and—bare-headed.’

As he said the last word, his chin made an infinitesimal movement towards Gisco. His left eye caught Gisco’s eye. He winked . . .

Well, you couldn’t help liking the man.

Luck Nothing

Aurora delaine was holding a reception at the Savoy in preparation for the first showing of Souls Asunder. She had been smuggled into England with the advance privacy which her prestige required; a privacy calling for an escort of all the unemployed policemen of the country to carry her through the hysterical crowds who fought and fainted in the approaches to the Docks at Southampton, the platform at Waterloo, and the swing doors of the Savoy. Now, after an interval for repairs and the slipping on of a thousand dollars’-worth of something simple, she was telling Pressmen how glad she was to be back in dear old England; that England which she would always regard as her native country. This announcement was thought to be very good of her, and was received with applause.

Somebody asked her, possibly in other words, to what she attributed her present monolatric position in the sidereal system. She turned swimming eyes beneath long, curling lashes upon him, and said modestly, ‘My! that’s a question to ask a girl! Just luck, I reckon.’ There was a murmur of ‘No, no,’ which seemed to give her confidence. In the voice of one who finds herself suddenly in front of a loud-speaker, the world waiting, she said, ‘Well, boys, I’ll be frank with you. Here’s my say. Hard work; hell’s own ambition; and luck’—she waved it away with a flip of her hand—’nothing! But, of course—well, say, I don’t like giving you this——’ (‘Go on, Miss Delaine.’) ‘Well, then, you’ve got to have something first. I don’t say for beauty’—she gave them a ravishing smile which said all that was needed for beauty—‘but talent. Mean to say, you gotta be an artist!’ One young Pressman, flushed with South African sherry, cried, ‘A genius!’ She gave him a private smile, neither confirming, nor denying, just thanking. He began to work his way a little nearer to her.

When, later, in response to a request from her manager, they streamed out, some of them may have been thinking of the little differences which made the difference between World-Wide Fame and Complete Obscurity; between Aurora Delaine, say, and—well, any little girl one sees, a name only to her friends, running beneath one’s window to catch a bus.

For instance, I used to know a little girl called Mary . . .

1

She was born in a small way, Mary Briggs; and for as long as she could remember, which was between the ages of two and twenty, she had lived alone with her Aunt Hester at Sydenham; ‘near the dear old Crystal Palace’, as Aunt Hester would explain, remembering that wonderful day, thirty-five years ago, which had seemed to be the beginning of Romance, and had, in fact, been the end of it. Mary had another aunt, Aunt Julia, who lived at Sandbeach; but Aunt Julia had two daughters of her own, and a little house near the sea almost as small as the house at Sydenham, and as little capable of entertaining visitors—visitors, that is, beyond the age of sharing bedrooms, or even beds, with chattering young cousins. So, for the last few years the families had been—if I may sully these pages with the horrible phrase—’pen pals’ only. Hester corresponding with Julia, and Mary receiving the confidences of Ada, in letters full lately of a certain dispenser in the local hospital at Shrimpington, a less refined resort three miles to the east. The younger daughter, Hilda, was in love with Clark Gable, who needed no introduction to Sydenham.

Mary was neither pretty nor plain. She had a pleasant little face, freckled in the summer, a shy but friendly smile for everybody, and a figure of which she was alternately proud and apprehensive. ‘No true lady,’ Aunt Hester had told her, ‘calls attention to herself in these matters’; and there was an absence of stress, a polite evasion of the point, if we may so put it, in the upper half of her wardrobe, which all true ladies would have approved. Only in the Sydenham Baths could Mary’s figure be compared, and generally to her advantage, with the figures of the unladylike. But though, in her unpretentious way, she never came within the purview of the Casanovas of Sydenham, she had an extraordinary attraction for all stray animals. Lost dogs looked at her with pathetic, lustrous eyes, and followed her home. Cats, appearing from nowhere, did figures of eight between her ankles. As Aunt Hester said, ‘Animals always know.’

If you are one of those girls who ‘Tell Aunt Hester Your Troubles’, as advised to every Thursday, you will have felt all the time that the name was familiar. Yes, it is the same one. She was ‘Aunt Hester’ of Girl, Wife, and Mother. Another expert, Nurse Sunshine, answered the more embarrassing questions of Wife and Mother; Aunt Hester dealt with the problems of the Growing Girl. Of late she had begun to feel that the line of demarcation between the two experts was not so firm as it should be. Indeed, it was almost her weekly custom now, on her visit to the office, to place a few of her letters on Nurse Sunshine’s (Mrs Hopwinkle’s) desk, with the words, ‘I think, dear, you had perhaps—er—yes, I am afraid so, very distressing.’ But in less hygienic matters, on all questions of pure etiquette (and both Aunt Hester and I emphasize the word pure) she remained authoritative. Should a girl accept chocolates from a married man in her office?—Does one bow or shake hands on being introduced?—Would it be all right to go to the pictures with the young man who has been going out with one’s best friend?—You don’t know, I don’t know; but Aunt Hester knew.

Our ignorance can be excused; but it will be seen that Mary, anyhow, should have known all the answers. It does not follow, of course, that she would always give them. She was twenty; and often thought that it would be nicer to be Dorothy Lamour.

2

For some months now Tom Perry had stopped talking about prescriptions to Ada, interested though she seemed to be in them, and had made one or two tentative excursions into compliment; the most promising being an assertion that any day on which Miss Ada came over to Shrimpington was, whatever the barometer said, a fine day. But it was not until the day after the Fête that she could write incoherently to Mary, to give the news that she was ‘really and truly engaged!!!’ The Fête took place in Shelley Park, so named after the Mayor who had presented it to the town, and whose statue, sometimes confused by illiterate visitors with the other Shelley, stood opposite the Bandstand. In one part of the grounds the Hospital, always in debt, had made itself responsible for a Fun Fair, a shilling to go in, and sixpence for almost anything when you got there; all profits to the Building Fund. Tom Perry was, though not of course officially, the chief organiser of the Fair, with Ada as his enthusiastic assistant. The harmony of their combined efforts brought £18 8s. 6d. to the Building Fund, and Tom to Ada—or, as it would be more chivalrous to say, Ada to Tom. Whoever was chiefly responsible, they were now engaged.

It was the engagement, I think, the sudden need for Aunt Julia and Ada to come to London for pre-nuptial shopping, which led to the suggestion that the two sisters should exchange houses for the last fortnight of August. So, Hilda being with a school-friend in Suffolk, Aunt Julia and Ada came to Sydenham. And Aunt Hester and Mary, pleasantly excited at the thought of the sea, came to Sandbeach.

They made the great change on the same day. Their trains crossed, as for a week past their letters had crossed; and this had made it necessary for each side to leave in a prominent place an elaboration of notes: on such matters, for example, as the best and quickest laundry in an emergency, the relative altitude of the Vicar’s liturgy, and what to do if, as sometimes happened, a flush of water was delayed. What interested Mary most was the presence of a key labelled ‘Hut 26’, and the information that, though undressing behind the boulders in the West Bay was now allowed to visitors, the residents naturally preferred to use the huts in the East Bay, and dear Mary would, of course, wish to do the same. But it was most important that the hut should always be kept locked. When the girls bathed, they buried the key in a hole in the sand while actually in the water. It was safer, as there were always prowlers about, and there were cases of clothes being actually stolen.

Mary loved swimming. She had, as a real swimmer should have, a blue one-piece which gave her the freedom of the water. Aunt Hester had tolerated, if she had not altogether approved, her niece’s appearance in this in the Sydenham Baths (Ladies’ Days); but for mixed bathing, in the very mixed society of a seaside resort, she considered it a little, just a little, unladylike. Faced by a slightly rebellious Mary with the pattern in Girl, Wife, and Mother of an attractive two-piece, in which each piece attended to its own business and made no attempt to meet the other half-way, she admitted sadly that she was old-fashioned, and Mary must do as she pleased. Mary kissed her, and said that she was an old darling. However, old darlings do not surrender so easily. When Mary, towel over shoulders, left Hut 26, Aunt Hester followed, camp-stool in hand, key in bag. Mary slipped off the towel and plunged into the sea. When she came, wet and shining, like Venus from the waves, and almost as revealed, Aunt Hester was at the water’s edge to throw the towel of invisibility over her, and hurry her back to sanctuary.

They made many nice friends on the beach. There was old Mrs Gosling, who had had children and operations in abundance, and who gave them much interesting information about both. Some of the grandchildren were almost ready to have their tonsils out; which may have explained her expressed hope that they would meet again in London in the winter. There were also the Amersham girls, who had a great fund of anecdote about the upper reaches of Society, which they were not unwilling to pass on. Mrs Manders, who came to Sandbeach every summer, could tell them of the changes in the amenities and tone of Sandbeach in the last forty years. There were many nice people about . . . and sometimes Mary wondered what Dorothy Lamour would have thought of them.

3

On Saturday they were going back to London. Packing—which always took Aunt Hester a long time, being planned in detail, as a general plans a campaign—would occupy most of Friday. To-day was the last free day, Mary’s last opportunity for a lovely swim in the lovely, lovely sea.

I am very sorry, dear,’ said Aunt Hester after breakfast, ‘but I shall not be able to come with you this morning. I have my girls to look after.’ She held up a bunch of letters, which had been sent on, a little unexpectedly, from the office. She had already opened one of them: from blue eyes (16), whose boy was taking some other girl to the next dance, and who naturally wanted to know if Life had anything else to offer. Aunt Hester was very sound on this, and would explain in the firmest but kindest way that suicide was altogether out of the question.

‘Oh, well, darling, I can go by myself.’

‘Of course, dear, but not, I think, to bathe. Just sit with old Mrs Gosling for a little; or take a look round the shops, or you could listen to the band with those nice Amersham girls.’

‘Very well, Aunt Hester,’ said Mary meekly.

But up in her room she stamped her foot and said that she would bathe, yes, she would. Only, of course, she mustn’t be seen leaving the house with a towel and bathing-dress . . .

She undressed. She put on the blue one-piece. She put a skirt and a hand-knitted jumper over it. Aunt Hester, like the American Board of Censors, didn’t approve of jumpers, but this one had been a present from Aunt Julia, and evidently intended in the first place for Ada, a bigger proposition altogether. It was a catholic jumper, which made no distinction between left and right, back and front; an outrage in orange which even Ada had rejected violently. To Mary this morning it was just a covering to get her down to Hut 26, and out into the sea. She would dry in the sun, slip on the skirt and jumper, and hurry back.

So off she went; and at the gate the golden Labrador, who had been hanging about wistfully for days, joined her.

Nobody ever knew whose dog he was; nobody but the Labrador, who knew he was Mary’s. Previously, when he had proposed to accompany them to the beach, and carry Mary’s towel for her, save her life if drowning, or render any other little service for his beloved which she asked of him, Aunt Hester had shooed him away. He had promptly sat down in the middle of the road and given them one look, of such unfathomable reproach that Mary could hardly bear it. ‘Couldn’t we take him, Aunt Hester?’ she would ask, and Aunt Hester would say, ‘We don’t know whose dog he is, dear. He hasn’t even a collar,’ as if this put him definitely among the submerged classes.

But the Labrador knew. To-day there was no one to shoo him away. Only the beloved was there . . . and the two of them went down together to the beach.

Of Mary’s swim, almost to France and back, we will say nothing. The Labrador went in a little way with her, assured himself that she was a real swimmer, and came back to the water’s edge to wait for her. They returned together to Hut 26.

‘Oh, dear!’ said Mary, ‘I forgot to bury the key!’ She opened the door, and went in. The Labrador, knowing his place, sat on guard outside.

And the skirt and jumper were not there!

It was no good looking for them; telling oneself that they had fallen off their hooks. Even in a well-furnished bedroom the orange jumper would have let its presence be known, however carelessly flung aside. Here concealment was impossible. One of those prowlers, while Mary was off Ushant, had prowled by, seen the key in the door, entered and taken what she could find. Luckily, to-day, only that hideous jumper and a very old skirt.

Well, that didn’t matter so much. What did matter was that she had to get back to Cragsyde, ten minutes’ walk up the hill. She couldn’t, she simply couldn’t, walk all that way in a wet bathing-dress! She didn’t need Aunt Hester here to tell her that no nice girl could. There was only one thing to do. Round two sides of the hut, as a sort of frieze (and very decorative, Aunt Hester had said when they first saw it) was pinned a broad gaily painted streamer, relic of that history-making Fête. Designed, presumably, by Tom Perry, and executed, undoubtedly, by Ada, it said in red letters on a yellow background: ‘don’t miss shrimpington hospital’s fun fair’, a pleasing way, when strung over the entrance into the Park, of calling attention to the Fête’s chief attraction. Here, anyhow, was something to drape round the upper half of the body, something to give her a little more the feeling of being dressed; however casually, in however holiday a spirit.

She draped it diagonally across her chest, over the right shoulder and under the left, and brought it round to the right shoulder again and pinned it; and she shifted it about until it was doing all that Aunt Hester would have liked it to do; and then she went out into the sun. In the bright sun, under the thoroughly approving eye of the Labrador, her self-consciousness left her. She felt a little Spanish, and really a little like Dorothy Lamour—say, a little like Dorothy Lamour at a bull-fight. Almost as if fully dressed, she walked along a singularly deserted beach, followed by the Labrador. Everybody, it seemed, had moved, or was moving, towards a platform by the bandstand. Wondering why, she began to follow them. As she got closer to them, a policeman noticed her, and at once realised the situation. He pushed his way out of the crowd, and came to her.

‘You’re only just in time, Miss,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you in round at the back.’ He took her arm, and, using his authority, made a passage for her. She supposed that the thief had been found, and that she was now to identify her property. She was helped on to the platform; yes, there were other girls there in bathing-dresses who had had their clothes stolen; yes, that’s what it was. Well, thank goodness, now Aunt Hester would never know.

‘Stand here, Miss, at the end,’ said the policeman.

So they stood there—from L to R. ‘Miss Torquay’, ‘Miss Weston-super-Mare’, ‘Miss Brighton’, ‘Miss Bridlinghampton’, ‘Miss Slowcombe-on-Sea’, ‘Miss Bognor Regis’, and ‘Miss Shrimpington’, with their titles on their chests, the finalists in the Bathing Beauties competition for the proud super-title of ‘Miss Southern Resort’.

Next to Miss Shrimpington sat the Labrador, the most beautiful of them all. Among the Judges was Mr Lionel Springe of C.Q.N—certainly the most unattractive.

4

C.Q.N., the world-famous Film Company, once Hollywood had heard of it, was the inspiration of Mr Finkelstein. Having had a classical education (until his father discovered that that was what he was having, and removed him to another school), he decided that it would be a pleasant conceit to call his child the Ciné-qua-non Film Company. As such it began its career; as the Cinequanon it disclosed itself as impossible of a standardised pronunciation. It also sounded un-British, an idea which Mr Finkelstein’s name should have dispelled. Reluctantly he surrendered his joke, but kept it in being as C.Q.N. The fact that nobody outside a few pioneers in the firm could tell you what the initials stood for was not to the Company’s disadvantage. The ‘Q’, one felt, was both intriguing and masterful; and, as it turned out, symbolic.

Mr Lionel Springe was talent-spotter for C.Q.N. He took his powerful field-glasses to a convenient recess in the cliffs and spotted talent. He had been spotting it all yesterday among the boulders in the West Bay. When the Mayor of Sandbeach was unable to fulfil his duties as one of the Judges, owing to a scene with the Mayoress at breakfast which was better described as urgent municipal business, hasty search was made for a substitute. It was known that Mr Lionel Springe of C.Q.N. was staying in the town; it was usually known that he was staying in a town, either through Mr Springe himself or the police; and he was immediately approached. Both for business and personal reasons he was delighted to accept.

Mary still didn’t quite know what was going on. Unpleasant people came and peered at her, and once or twice the Labrador growled warningly. After a little she was removed from the platform; partly because there was a complaint from ‘Miss Torquay’s’ end that the dog at the other end was getting too much attention; partly because somebody in authority had discovered that she ought not to be there at all. ‘Miss Shrimpington’, he remembered, had been eliminated in the semi-finals, and in any case there should, only have been six competitors. But though she and the Labrador left the stage, they had already been spotted. As she turned to go, Mr Springe said softly, ‘Wait until this is over. I must speak to you.’

No, it was not her pleasant little face which appealed to Mr Springe; not even the full charm of her figure, momentarily revealed when the pins came out, and the streamer dropped to the ground—to be picked up hastily and placed, as it should have been at first, over her shoulders, the lettering inwards. The others—Miss Bridlinghampton particularly—had twice what Mary had, everywhere, and a technique which made it look like three times. No; it was the Labrador.

Dogs, horses, fawns, elephants had all woken lately to find themselves famous film-stars: there seemed to be a sudden craze for them. C.Q.N., always in the van of progress, though nearly always on the tail-board, decided that a film about a faithful animal would be original and moving. At a recent conference the executive had been advised to ‘think up some ideas quick’. Mr Springe now had a quick idea. The Company had recently paid £10,000 for the film rights of a novel on the Black Prince, and half a dozen of the best authors in England were turning it into a scenario of the life of Bonnie Prince Charlie. If Bonnie Prince Charlie were followed everywhere in glorious technicolor by a golden Labrador, what a picture it would make! A moment’s doubt in Mr Springe’s mind as to whether Labradors would follow people up oak-trees was accompanied by another moment’s doubt as to whether it was Bonnie Prince Charlie he was thinking of, and the two of them dismissed. The six authors could work that out for themselves.

As soon as the Judges had come to their decision—and it is only fair to record that it went to Miss Bridlinghampton—Mr Springe made for Mary.

‘Now, Miss,’ he said, in his well-known imitation of a business man, ‘about that dog of yours—what d’you call it, by the way?’

‘It’s a golden Labrador.’

‘Yes, yes, I know that. I mean what’s its name?’

‘Well—er——’ began Mary uncomfortably.

‘Weller, eh? That’s good. The faithful servant, eh?’

Mary looked vague.

‘You’re a well-read girl, ain’t you? Know all about that fellow what’s-’is-name, who wrote the book of that film Pickwick Papers, eh? Well, now, I want you to come and see me this afternoon. Here’s my card. I’m at the Royal. And bring the dog. See? 3.30 sharp.’

Mary looked doubtful. Should a girl accept an invitation from a gentleman who had never been introduced? Aunt Hester would know.

‘Quite all right, Miss—er——’

‘Briggs.’

‘Quite all right, Miss Briggs. I’m a married man.’

This reassured Mary. Perhaps if she had known how very much married he was, she would not have been so reassured. If she had known that he had a date for that evening with Miss Bridlinghampton—well, that would have worked both ways. Most reassuring of all, perhaps, would have been the knowledge that as a man he felt no attraction to her, and as a talent-spotter no interest in her. She never knew this. She never knew that it was Weller whom he had so unerringly spotted.

‘All right,’ said Mary breathlessly. ‘I’ll come.’

5

Mary was still a little breathless when she found herself at the C.Q.N. Studios a few weeks later. It was Weller who had seen her through the whole business. Aunt Hester’s first reaction to the idea of taking somebody else’s valuable dog to London was not favourable. ‘Practically tantamount to stealing, dear Mary. Whose dog is it? All we can say with certainty is that it is not ours.’ Weller answered that one. He followed them to the station; he followed them into a third-class carriage; he retired under the seat. Nothing would get him out. ‘Very well,’ said Aunt Hester. ‘You will write to your Aunt Julia, saying that we have the dog, and that if anyone advertises for it——’

No one ever advertised for him, no one claimed him. Nobody ever knew where he came from. The suggestion was made, but did not meet with general acceptance, that he was Mr Gladstone, returned to earth in order to reorganise the Liberal Party. I think that this is unlikely. Anyhow, there he was; and it was he who convinced Aunt Hester that Mary was safe under his chaperonage, even in the wanton atmosphere of a film studio. Secretly she was not sorry to get a little inside knowledge of the Film World, a world in which her girls spent so much of their lives.

The difficulty, for Mary, of getting to the Studios was surmounted; the difficulty, for C.Q.N., of keeping her out of the picture was insoluble. Weller was prepared to bound over the heather with Bonnie Prince Charlie and Mary; pace, with Lord Nelson and Mary, the quarter-deck of the Victory; swim the Hellespont with both Byron and Leander, if Mary came too; but without Mary he would do nothing. Expert cutters and camera-men told the Director to leave it to them; Weller probably told Mary to leave it to him; in the end Weller always won. However cleverly they cut, there was a bit of Mary left over, or a bit of Weller missing. The six authors were told to think up some more ideas.

The idea finally accepted was a good one. Lightly tracing and retracing history, the Black Prince had ended up as Richard Cœur-de-Lion. You remember how Richard was imprisoned in a castle in France, and how somebody who Mr Springe always thought was Blondin sang beneath the walls of all the castles until he came to the right one? One of the executive in a dark-blue singlet, who normally pulled on a rope, suggested that Weller (and Mary) should take the place of Blondin, and that Weller should howl mournfully until he got an answering howl, or cry of recognition, from Richard. The suggestion was promptly elaborated. What about making Mary Margaret of Ongjew, come to save the man she had always loved; photographing her entirely from the back, or when she bent down to confide in Weller; and in the preliminary and subsequent love-scenes (and in constant interpolated close-ups, to remind one of what Margaret was looking like if one could only see her) letting the beautiful and popular Lorna Dooney stand in for Mary? But that is now ancient history. Everybody remembers Wella, the Lion Heart, and the notices which Weller, and in a lesser degree Lorna Dooney, received from the critics . . .

Everybody also remembers (with the exception, of course, of the Russians) that in 1939 England declared war on Hitler. This seemed a favourable moment to Mr Finkelstein and most of the executive to explore new openings for British markets in America. Mr Finkelstein had started to do this in a small way in September, 1938, but had decided, almost as soon as he landed in New York, that the moment was not quite ripe, and had returned as from the necessary reconnaissance. Now he had no doubts. All that was best of C.Q.N. hastened to Hollywood to amalgamate on what terms they could with P.K.Z., the terms naturally including C.Q.N.’s trump-card (as he now was) Weller.

It was in Hollywood that Mary first began to make a frontal attack on the emotions of her audiences. I use the word ‘audiences’ deliberately, for it was there also that she first found her way on to the sound-track. Mr Finkelstein had explained the Mary technique; but Mr Zerfi, with a sentimental weakness for the English at a time when they had their own troubles, and a conviction that he knew their language, said kindly, ‘Hell and Thomas, old eggs, we give the little filly her socks.’ Mr Finkelstein looked as if he were going to explain again, but decided not to. So Mary Bridge, as she now called herself, played the small part of Lynette in the great Arthurian romance Atlantis; and she and Gelert (you remember) saved the life of King Arthur in the famous Mutiny of the Round Table.

But alas! Hollywood did not agree with Weller. He pined for something; a glimpse, perhaps, of an English postman again. He drooped, he took to his bed, and, all too soon, passed to that bourn where beautiful golden Labradors, who are not Mr Gladstone, must all go. Hollywood gave him what almost amounted to a state funeral. Mr Zerfi returned from it, wiping his eyes, to look up Mary’s contract. The enormous salary which he was pledged to pay her for the services of Weller (and, since the two were indivisible, herself) should have had a release clause in the event of Weller’s death. Someone, as Lord Tennyson observed to Lord Palmerston in the super-colossal picture Victoria and Albert, had blundered. There was no release clause. He had Mary on his hands, and, more regrettably, on his salary list, for three more years.

What were they to do with her? It was a question which Hollywood had never found it difficult to answer. They made her into a star. They gave her a new face, they gave her new hair, they gave her a new stream-line, they did something to her tonsils to give her a new, husky voice, and they gave her a new name.

They called her Aurora Delaine.

Breitenstein

1

I was dining with the Hammersleys at Richmond that night. The old man—well, he would seem pretty young to me now, but he was twice my age then—old Hammersley was having his usual birthday party. There were just the three of them, and a few friends. No relations, because, as he said, he saw enough of his relations anyhow, and they would feel that they had to bring presents. Presents were not encouraged. As a matter of fact, I did bring one, a book on Decorative Iron Work which everybody was talking about—I mean everybody who talked about decorative iron work anyway; and I knew he wanted it, because he had said something about not being able to get the damned thing; so I just turned up with it casually, and said I’d happened to see it in a bookshop that day. He took it very nicely, and seemed really grateful—until Sheila told me that she and her mother had both given it to him as a surprise, and he’d bought his own copy as well. Which shows you why I thought him a nice old man, and worthy of being Sheila’s father. He was very keen on iron gates for some reason.

I don’t know why I am telling you about him, because he doesn’t come into the story. This is the story of the only real adventure I have ever had, and I have never told it to anybody. It came back to me suddenly this morning when I found myself driving along one of those little plane-shaded roads in St John’s Wood, and I caught the name Lauriston Gardens just as we turned out of it. And then I thought that perhaps I had better get the story down for you to read, because it ought to be on record somewhere, even though it happened so long ago. Of course, I had the usual experiences, some of them exciting, most of them dull, in the First World War, and of course I talked about them; but what I call an adventure is something which only happens to oneself, and happens out of a clear sky; and when it’s over, you wonder if you dreamt it all. Well, I know I didn’t, because a lot of it got into the papers . . .

Sheila was the girl I was in love with that year. She was fair and slim, and had good features without being exactly pretty, and a mouth which was always breaking into a smile. She also had the most lovely colouring, and this was in the days when all that sort of thing was left to Nature. Nature had been very good to Sheila. Thinking of her as she was then, I feel that what I ought to have said was that she had such an appearance of prettiness that you didn’t notice what good features she had. We played golf together at Sudbrook Park once or twice, and if she had ever hit the ball more than fifty yards, we might have played more often, and she might have learned to love me, and I might never have learnt, until it was too late, that I didn’t love her. She married an Anglo-Indian. I saw her once when she came home with the children; sallow and hard-mouthed, and full of little prides and grievances on various points of Anglo-Indian precedence which I couldn’t follow. I was glad that I had married your mother.

But you must understand, because it is the reason for bringing Sheila into the story, that I was (or thought I was, which is the same thing) completely in love with her that evening; and when we said good night at the gate, I held her hand and looked unutterable things at her, and she, I thought, at me. Good Heavens, no, I didn’t kiss her; one didn’t in those days, not unless one was actually engaged, not a daughter of Mrs Hammersley’s; I just said, ‘I love you, I love you, my darling,’ but quite inaudibly, while taking off my hat. I should have mentioned before that, being in what lady novelists of that time called faultless evening dress, I was wearing a silk hat, a thin black overcoat with silk facings, and a white scarf. Does it matter, you wonder, raising tolerant eyebrows. I have often wondered too. I think perhaps it did matter; yes, I think that in the end it mattered a good deal.

1

I had rooms in Westminster Broadway at that time, and a District train from Richmond to St James’s Park took me almost to the door. I sat alone in a first-class carriage. It is a long time since I travelled on the District Railway, and it may be that class distinctions therein, like so many good and inevitable things, have now been abolished. Did you ever, as a child, have an india-rubber ball with a dent in it? You worked the dent out very carefully and cleverly until the rubber came up with a little pop—and then you found that you had made an entirely new dent in another place. That’s what happens when you try to abolish class distinctions. I’m sorry; that’s as irrelevant as old Hammersley; what I meant to say was that first-class compartments were long corridors just like the others, except that the seats were of red plush.

At Bedford Park, I think it was, two people joined me, waving good-bye to two others on the platform as the train moved off. They sat down in the far comer; and, in the way which foreigners seem to have of always being in the middle of a conversation, continued an unceasing and simultaneous stream of French. The man was big and handsome. He had a finely cut upturned moustache, which, with his bold good looks, qualified him to be the villain in a melodrama. The woman was younger; not more than my own age, I thought, which was twenty-five; and definitely not attractive. I mean not attractive to me, not, as they say, my style; not, I should have said in those days, any Englishman’s style; very much made up, and with nothing which goes in England for beauty or prettiness, but, I dared say, plenty of what they liked in France. At twenty-five the fact that a girl was chic (if she was chic) meant nothing to me. Sheila wasn’t chic, thank Heaven; nor was she ‘a very nice girl’, nor ‘an awfully good sort’, nor any of the things with which one excuses the absence of beauty. I loved her.

I didn’t take much notice of these two people at first, because I was deep in my own happy thoughts. It is not a discovery of my own that anticipation and recollection are the high-lights of happiness; but I may be peculiar in this, that, even when I am enjoying my happiness in company, I am looking forward to, and, in a way longing for, the moment when it will be over, so that I can be alone to enjoy it in retrospect. I had Sheila’s happy face and comradely laugh on which to look back. In front of me were three weeks of the perfect holiday—golf and bathing in Cornwall. Further on still, at the end of the three weeks, was this new job which I had just got at Lancasters, the marine engineers—well, as you know, I am head of it now, though only nominally this last year or two. So, you see, I was happy and everything in the garden was lovely, and in thirty-six hours or less I should be standing on the first tee, with the blue sea twinkling 400 yards away in the gap in the cliffs where the green lay. I would start with a five, one mustn’t expect too much on the first morning . . .

I came out of my thoughts to hear the girl say in a high, emphatic voice, ‘Non, non, non!’ a translation of which was about as far as my public-school French took me. I looked across at them, wondering what it was all about. It was clear from the tones of their voices and their gestures that she was urging something on him which he rejected firmly, and that he was offering some other solution of their problem which she didn’t like. They being foreigners, and I being in an idly romantic mood, I made up the story for them. She was asking him to take her away from it all, and he was saying that Georges was his best friend, he couldn’t betray him, and things would look differently to-morrow, and she was saying, No, no, no, she would never, never go back to Georges, he must take her away . . . And then I thought that as they were foreigners, I might make it a little more exciting; and now he was telling her that there was only one way out, she must poison Georges, and he would send her the arsenic to-morrow, and she was saying, No, no, no, why should she do all the work, he must come home with her tonight and stab Georges, it was quicker . . . And then the man turned round and looked at me, and I looked guiltily away and as if out of the window, and found that I could see them reflected there. And the odd thing was that the man still kept looking round at me, as if considering, as if wondering how he could work me into the story. You can leave me out of it, I thought sleepily. I don’t like your girlfriend anyway, and I’m going to Cornwall to-morrow. Write and tell me all about it.

3

The train stopped. I realised that it was Sloane Square as we moved on again, and thought pleasantly of bed, now only two stations away: Victoria, St James’s Park. The man got up and came towards me. He raised his hat.

‘I make all my apologies, sir,’ he said, ‘but the situation is a little difficult. I have to catch a train at Victoria, while my friend goes on to Charing Cross. She is unused to travelling alone, and does not know your railways. Would you be so very kind as to see that she gets out at Charing Cross, where her brother will meet her? She is very nervous of being alone, but you see how I am placed.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ I said—why does one always say ‘as a matter of fact’?—’I am getting out a little before Charing Cross myself, but I will explain it all to her very carefully before I go. It will only be two stations more, and I will see that she understands.’

‘I am very much obliged to you, sir.’

‘Not at all,’ I said kindly.

He raised his hat again, and went back to his friend, reassuring her, as it seemed. So that was all it was. No elopement, no murder. Simply that she wanted him to come on to Charing Cross with her, and he, naturally, wanted to catch his train at Victoria. And they had been arguing about it simultaneously since Bedford Park. Very French, I told myself complacently.

As we came into Victoria, he bent over her hand and kissed it, raised his hat to me, and left us quickly. Nobody else got in. As soon as the train was moving, I went over to her. I talked to her as one would talk to a deaf child, wondering how much English she knew. I explained very slowly that I got out at the next station; that the station after was Westminster, where she did not get out, and that the station after that was Charing Cross, where she did get out. Simple? You’d have thought so.

She knew English all right. Lots of it. She told me over and over again how ‘nairvous’ she was, how she admired our brave English girls who went everywhere alone, how frightened she was of our railways, how in her country girls never travelled by themselves, but yes, her brother was meeting her, but suppose he were late, what then, suppose he were not there, and she alone on the platform, so nairvous, I was so kind, it was so kind of me to help her, never before had she been alone in a train, not like your brave English girls.

Well, what would you have done? I didn’t find her any more attractive close up, and I wanted to get to bed. Don’t think that she was in any way repulsive or even ill-looking, she was just damned plain, or so I thought, with painted lips and a patch of rouge on sallow cheeks, such as, if she were English, only a prostitute would have shown in those desirable days. The very opposite of clean, fair-haired, sunny Sheila. But what could I do? She was French. I couldn’t help telling myself that the English hadn’t got a very good reputation abroad for manners, for chivalry; that I should be at Charing Cross and back again in ten minutes; and that surely I could give ten minutes to a frightened girl, without demanding first that she should be pretty. For wouldn’t I have gone on with her if she had been pretty? Of course I would. That settled it for me.

‘All right,’ I said resignedly, ‘I’ll come on to Charing Cross with you, and then you’ll have nothing to be nervous about. Is that right?’ I gave her a smile, she gave me a little nervous one back (which made me think that perhaps, after all, she wasn’t much more than twenty), and told me how brave the English girls were. This seemed to be on her mind rather.

We didn’t say much, I was too sleepy. I didn’t take her hand and pat it comfortingly. I didn’t touch her the whole time but just the once, as you will hear; and if you are as clever as a son of mine should be, you will know why I touched her then. We came to Charing Cross.

4

And there was no ‘brother’.

You are not surprised? Nor was I. Even as the train began to slow up, I was putting that brother into inverted commas. All the time we stood on the platform, waiting for it to clear, I was telling myself, with the cynicism which is the self-protection of the young, that of course there had never been a brother; that the whole story, to use that horrible word which we have imported from America, was ‘phoney’. People got out of the train, people got in; it moved away, we were alone on the platform, and there was no brother.

The girl cried, as if making a terrible discovery, ‘My brother! He is not here!’

I said, as politely as I could manage, ‘He may be waiting for you upstairs,’ knowing that he wasn’t.

We went up and looked. Another train came in. We went down to the platform again. It filled and emptied, and of course there was still no brother.

What was the idea, I wondered. I was hardly worth robbing. I had two pounds on me—golden sovereigns in those happy days—two pounds in a silver sovereign purse, a metal watch, valueless studs and links, and a silver cigarette-case. Not worth all the planning. Or was it just an ordinary pick-up? But why so elaborate, when there were a hundred more likely men in Regent Street? Well, the sooner I crossed the line and went back to bed, the better.

She went on crying for her brother, wondering where he was. Well, a real brother might forget whatever arrangement was made, start late for it, fail to find a taxi, go to the wrong station, anything; but I wasn’t going to waste time talking about a brother I didn’t believe in. I said coldly:

‘I’d better get you a taxi. Where do you live?’

‘Yes, but my brother will not be there!’ She said it with an exclamation mark, like that.

I wanted to say of course he won’t, but I said, ‘Does it matter, as long as you’ve got home safely? If he does turn up after you’ve gone, and I’m still here, I’ll tell him.’ And smiling to myself at the thought of this imaginary brother, I added, ‘What’s he like?’

She said, looking at me gravely, ‘He is very like you, you remind me of him very much,’ and then, as if it were a separate means of identification, ‘He is very handsome.’

No. I didn’t fall for it, it was too obvious, but I couldn’t help warming to her a little. Before I could do anything but blush stupidly, she said:

‘But since he is not there, how can I get into the house?’

I said, ‘Doesn’t anybody else live there?’

She shook her head.

‘Well, but you have a latch-key?’

She hadn’t. In her country the young girl——I didn’t want all that again. I said, ‘If you and your brother live alone, I suppose you do the housekeeping. Well, how can you do that, if you can’t shut the door behind you when you go out to shop?’ I thought, complacently, that that had blown up the whole story, until she explained that a woman came in every day. Even so—but it was much too late for this sort of discussion.

‘Are you on the telephone?’ I asked firmly.

She was, luckily.

‘Then give me your brother’s address and telephone number, and I’ll ring up. If anybody is in, I’ll put you in a taxi. If not, we’ll wait a little longer.’

She didn’t seem to think much of that, but I felt that it was something to do. She told me an address: Paul Verray, The Sycamores, Lauriston Gardens, and the telephone number. I wrote them down on the letter I had had from Sheila, asking me to the party. Just as I was going, she stopped me and gave me the purse from her bag, saying, ‘For the telephone.’ I took it, rather surprised, rather ashamed, thinking, ‘Well, I’ve got the first purse anyway.’

Of course, as soon as I had worked it out, which I did as I climbed the stairs to the telephone, I saw why she had done it. If I had her purse, then I had to come back to her. Otherwise—

I gave the number. I put in my ‘two pennies please’, the girl’s two pennies. I said, ‘Is that The Sycamores?’ Fancy calling a house The Sycamores!

To my great relief a voice with a slight foreign accent said, ‘Paul Verray speaking. Who is there, please?’

Well, why should I give him my name; and how go into a long explanation; or say, ‘I’ve got your sister here’; or——Well, what? It was enough that he existed, and was there to open the door. I did begin, ‘Your sister——’ and he said quickly, ‘Marguerite, yes?’ and I said, ‘Yes, it’s like this,’ and saw that it was hopeless and rang off; but I thought I heard him say, a little anxiously, ‘Is that you, Breitenstein?’ And I wondered if Breitenstein was the man in the train.

So I went down to the girl, and gave her the purse, less twopence, and said cheerfully, ‘It’s all right, he’s there. Come on, we’ll find a taxi in the Strand,’ and I added, rather fatuously, ‘So you’re Marguerite?’

She nodded, saying, ‘Paul? Was he all right?’

‘Of course.’ I didn’t know what she meant.

‘Why had he not started?’

‘We didn’t go into that,’ I said. ‘Come along.’

All the way up Villiers Street to the Strand she was telling me again how kind I was, and how clever to understand that other girls were different from English girls, so brave, she admired them so much; and once more I wondered if she really did. All the way up Villiers Street she seemed to be hinting that terrible things happened to a girl, a French girl, alone in a taxi. Well, if she had lived until to-day she would have known that worse things happened to a girl when she wasn’t alone in a taxi; but this was forty years ago, and, as she had told me many times, she was nairvous. So—yes, you have guessed it—I put her into the taxi, gave the address to the driver, and . . . got in after her.

You see, I was feeling a little disgusted with myself. I had been sure that there wasn’t a brother, and there was a brother; and because this part of her story was true, I felt that it was all true, and that I had been a churl about it; had been absurdly suspicious; had not recognised, as I did now, seeing her suddenly by the lights of a jeweller’s shop, that she was just a frightened child under her silly make-up. But I still didn’t understand why she should have been so frightened . . . I don’t really know now.

5

We didn’t talk much. I asked her a few polite questions: Did she like London, what part of France did she come from (as if I knew it all), where did she learn English, and so on; but she didn’t seem to want to go into all that, and I certainly didn’t care. So we left it. But she did say one thing which surprised me.

‘You think I am French, yes?’

‘Well, but——’

‘Because I talk French in the train?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘And now I talk English in the taxi. So I am English, yes? And if I talk German in the steam-boat——’

That was clever of her, and I laughed appreciatively. She looked across at me and said, ‘It is nice to hear you laugh.’

‘Don’t you and your brother have jokes together?’

She shook her head, and looked away from me out of the window.

I felt my gloves, thin evening ones, in my pocket, and put them on. I don’t quite know why. Something to do, perhaps; or a subconscious assertion of physical immunity from her . . . or just one of those things.

As we came into St John’s Wood, she said:

‘You will meet my brother? When I tell him how kind you have been, he will want to thank you.’

I would have preferred him to want to give me a drink; but all my suspicions were now gone, and I was anxious to see this man who was so handsome—and so like me. Well, anybody would. It isn’t vanity, it’s—well, perhaps it is vanity.

‘If you like,’ I said.

We passed a red telephone-box, and she tapped on the window, and waved a turning to the left. Almost immediately after we had turned she tapped again, and the taxi stopped. She was out and paying the man before I could do anything about it. Even while I was protesting to her, he had let his clutch in again, and was off.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ I said.

‘But why should you pay for me?’

I was beginning to explain that I didn’t mind her paying for herself, but I did mind having now to find another taxi for myself at—I looked at my watch—ten minutes to twelve. However, it seemed polite to say nothing. I followed her through the gate and up a little flagged walk to the house. We were within a few yards of it when she stopped. It is difficult to describe the complete suddenness and stillness of her change from motion to immobility.

She whispered, ‘The door is open.’

Fear is infectious. My reassuring laugh got me nowhere; but I did manage to say in quite an ordinary voice, ‘Why not? He went to the post, and left the door open in case you came back while he was out. Should we have passed him if he had?’

‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘No.’

‘Well, there you are.’

‘Yes.’ She looked back at me, and I could not read her face in the darkness. She said, ‘You have been very comforting.’ I hope I had been, for those were the last words she said to me.

6

The door was only just open. She pushed it back with her left hand, and put her right hand out to the switch. There was a click, and nothing happened.

‘Hallo,’ I said, coming in behind her. ‘Fuse gone? Wait a moment, I’ll give you a light.’

Usually I can’t do anything with gloves on, but by some accident I got a match alight at once. I held it up as high as I could reach. She saw him first.

‘Paul!’ she said in astonishment.

He stood up against the coat-rack with his hands outstretched. It looked as if he were just going to get out of his coat . . . and then, as the match burned brighter, as if he had just been going to get out of his coat at the moment when—and, even as we looked, he began to topple sideways, and I saw the red mark under his left shoulder-blade, and he crumpled on to his back, but soundlessly as it seemed to me, and the flame reached my gloved fingers and burnt itself out.

The girl had not moved, only stared, and now it was dark, and I was fumbling for another match.

‘Telephone!’ I whispered. ‘Quick! Police—doctor——’

There was a rustle as now she moved. I was still struggling in my gloves to get a match alight. Then I heard a little ‘O-oh!’ and a long drawn-out sigh which went on and on as if it were the last breath of the world; and the match flared and went out, and I had seen her on her face with that red mark under her left shoulder-blade; and there was a patter of quick footsteps somewhere at the back of the house, running, running, running; out of a window, out into the garden, I saw them still running, all the way back to Charing Cross, the way we had come, and still on, over hills and valleys, to a great beach with the sun setting red at the end of it, very small they looked now, pattering on to the red sunset, but the noise of them like thunder in my ears . . . and then the sun went out, and it was night, and somehow I was sitting on a chair, clinging desperately to consciousness, and telling myself that I would not, would not, would not faint . . .

If I did, it was just for that moment. I got hold of myself again. I struck another match and looked at my watch. It still seemed to be ten to twelve. Then I thought that perhaps I had only imagined those running feet, and the murderer was still in the house, and I blew the match out quickly, and put the stub in my pocket. I felt the back of the chair, and it was wood, not wicker, and right up against the wall, and I knew that, whatever happened, I couldn’t be stabbed as the others had been, under the left shoulder-blade. So I could sit there for a little and think.

It was only when I was in the Cornish Riviera Express next morning that I really thought it out—I mean what it all meant and why I mustn’t be found there. I knew that there were good reasons; but just at the moment I had only this angry determination, not to be involved any further in a business which was none of mine, and into which I had been dragged so reluctantly. Read through what I have written, and you will see that from the very beginning I could have said ‘I told you so’ to the fool who sat in that chair. Well, I would be a fool no longer. Equally I would not be a knave; and it would be a knavish trick just to leave them there, dying or dead. ‘Telephone—police—doctor,’ I had said to Marguerite, and I could not refuse to say it, just as urgently, to myself.

Well, why not? Telephone and then disappear. Yes, and have the whole police force of London looking for me, and the girl’s photograph in the papers, and the taximan coming forward with his evidence, and perhaps people who had noticed the girl (and me) at Charing Cross, and those two at Bedford Park, and Breitenstein, identifying the train, and the Hammersleys knowing that it was the train which I must have caught. Better, much better, to throw my hand in at once . . .

I felt steadier now. I lit another match, and got up from my chair. The girl was lying on her face, her right arm over Paul’s outflung left arm. Yes, Paul was a little like the man whom I saw every morning as I shaved; same build, same colouring, same type of face, only more lined, more mature. Not a double by any means, but like. I looked up at the rack where a silk hat was hanging. Silk hat; thin black coat with silk facings, white scarf. And I said what’s to stop me? Nothing. For suddenly I knew what to do.

Standing there, looking, thinking, had taken more than one match. I picked up all the match-ends which I had dropped, and added them to those in my pocket. I thought for a little, and then let one fall by the door, and two by the girl. I bent over Paul and felt in his overcoat, wriggled out a box of safety-matches from one of the pockets and put my own box of ‘Swan vestas’ in its place. Then, by the light of the last match I was using, I put my hand on the girl’s wrist, and moved her arm gently off Paul’s arm, and raised his arm, and dropped it on Marguerite.

Yes, I told you that you would understand why I touched her—just that once.

7

Don’t go in for crime, my dear boy. There is always some little thing which it is too easy to forget. It was only as I was stepping into the telephone-box that I remembered, and went back to the corner. I had remembered to count the houses to the comer, but I had forgotten to look at the name of the road as I turned into it. Manton Road. I ran back to the telephone-box . . .

‘I am Paul Verray,’ I said breathlessly, in what I hoped was a foreign accent. ‘You must come quick, there has been murder!’

‘And just where do we come, sir?’ said a deep, lazy voice, with all the stolid comfort in it of all English policemen.

‘My sister, she has been stabbed! We drive up in a taxi, there is no one in the house, she go into the house in front of me, she turns the light and there is no light, and then I hear a cry, and she lies there dead!’

‘Quite so, sir, but you still haven’t said where.’

‘The Sycamores, Lauriston Gardens, perhaps she is not dead, you will bring a doctor? Please, a doctor!’

‘Lauriston Gardens.’ The voice became firm and businesslike. ‘Is that where you’re speaking from?’

‘No, no, you see, there are no lights, and the murderer perhaps he is still there.’

‘I see.’ There was just that touch of contempt for the foreigner who ran away. ‘Then where are you now?’

‘I speak from the telephone-box in Manton Road. Now I go back to be with my sister. But you must come quick!’

‘That’s all right, sir.’ His voice became more friendly suddenly. ‘But I shouldn’t go inside. Wait for us at the gate.’

‘Yes, yes, but——’

‘And the name again?’

‘Paul Verray. It is the fifth house on the left. You won’t forget the doctor?’

But he had rung off.

Had I been too foreign? But I had just seen my sister murdered, I was excited, out of breath—and who now could demonstrate just how pronounced, or mispronounced, Paul’s accent had been?

I hurried back as if to the house. Manton Road was well-lit and somebody might be looking out of a window, to see a figure leaving the telephone-box, to notice which way it went. Lauriston Gardens was darker, and I walked past the house, trying to walk firmly and naturally, but desperately wanting to run, until I got to a turning. Then quickly again by little side-roads to a main street; and then, since there was life here, back to the unhurried but purposeful stride of the home-returning diner-out, who had stayed a little too long. My only fear had been lest I should meet the police-car. They would not be looking out for the man who telephoned, but anybody they passed might be the murderer.

I walked back to my rooms. It was a long way, a deadly long way at that time of night, but I walked back. Do you know why? ‘Oh, well,’ you say carelessly, ‘I suppose in a sort of way it was safer. Never mind about that, tell me who these people were, and what the police did, and ‘I’m sorry, dear boy. You may not find this a very satisfactory story, because there is a great deal of it which I can’t tell you, which I never knew; but I have said no word of it for forty years, and now at last that I am telling somebody my side of it, I am going to enjoy telling it. I am the hero of this story, make no mistake. For forty years I have wanted to tell somebody how clever this hero was, how he thought of everything; I mean, of course, how clever he suddenly became, after the incredible event. So now you will have a paragraph from my Manual for Criminals, as composed by me in those few age-long minutes which I could spare for the work.

Nowhere is one such a target for eyes as in a bus, and particularly in a bus at night when there is nothing to draw the eyes outside. Notice for yourself next time you are in one. Automatically your eyes will fasten on somebody and suck the meaning out of him. I don’t count myself a very observant person, I have had so many things to think about in my life, but I have never left a bus or a tube without having one face, one personality, completely registered in my mind. That night I didn’t want to be registered in anybody’s mind. The same with a taxi? Oh, no. A taxi-driver would only have the vaguest impression of his fare. I was already counting on that confidently, as you have seen. I was completely certain that our taxi-driver would identify the dead bodies of Paul and Marguerite Verray with a ‘That’s right, that’s the couple I picked up in the Strand.’ But just suppose that he had picked me up again at the Marble Arch! A thousand-to-one chance, you say. My dear boy, criminals are caught because the thousand-to-one chance comes off against them. If you must take a two-to-one chance, take it boldly. If you need not take a million-to-one chance, don’t take it. That was what I taught myself, coming away from Lauriston Gardens.

I got home. I had the only flat in the building; the rest of it was offices, and a housekeeper lived somewhere underground. Nobody ever knew when I came in. I threw the match-stubs into the waste-paper basket and burnt Sheila’s letter. It was one o’clock as I wound my watch up. It seemed only a few minutes later that I woke to broad daylight and a knocking on the door. My golfing holiday had begun.

8

In a corner-seat (first stop Plymouth) I thought it all out. First, had I been a cad; or, to put it with more dignity, had I betrayed my own ethical standards? One can defy, unhorse, and place a triumphant foot on, any adversary but Conscience. Conscience is always back in the saddle and at you again. Secondly, whether or not running away was justified, had I in fact escaped? Thirdly—the question to which you want the answer—what was it all about? I thought it out in this order, for it was in this order that the answers seemed important.

My self-justification, then, first. Looking back, I see that I told you of old Hammersley’s interest in iron gates, and admitted that it had nothing to do with the story. It would have been more helpful to have said something of Mrs Hammersley. She was a shortish, well-kept-in woman of imposing frontage, whose life-work was the finding of a suitable husband for Sheila. Every unmarried man who came into the house was looked at, and accepted or rejected, as a possible candidate. He could not get on to the short list until his financial position and prospects had come under favourable consideration; but a ‘mere boy’, like myself, with his way to make, could be entered on the books if he were ‘nice’; partly as company for Sheila while waiting, partly as a spur to the more solid candidate of the moment. But there must be no ‘nonsense’; no social impropriety by the Victorian standards of her own girlhood; nothing which could give rise to a suspicion in the genuine suitor’s mind that Sheila was not a ‘thoroughly nice’ girl. I told you that I played golf twice with Sheila. On the first occasion Mrs Hammersley walked round with us; and asked her daughter on every tee why she didn’t hit the ball as far as I did, adding, ‘I’m sure you could if you really tried, dear.’ On the second occasion some other duty kept her at home, and we were only allowed to play on my solemn promise to take two caddies round with us. Well, that was Mrs Hammersley.

I loved Sheila, and I didn’t mean to lose her. If I had stayed for the police to come, I should have lost her. Nice men who are allowed into the houses of thoroughly nice do not get mixed up with murder. They do not up painted young women of foreign extraction in trains, and offer to see them home. They do not—Mrs Hammers-ley’s massive bosom was too well corseted to shake, but it would have struggled to indicate her horror—they do not, my dear Sheila, deliberately go into their houses! ‘Of course Mr—er——’ she would pretend not to remember my name, it was so completely to be put out of Sheila’s mind—’of course he is not a murderer; at least I can say that no murderer has ever come into this house; but I have been grossly deceived as to his character.’

So I am to lose Sheila, for—I think I may say—no fault of my own. I am also, and don’t smile at the anti-climax, to endanger my golfing holiday. For though it was (I thought) extremely unlikely that I should be arrested for murder, my story might well sound thin to the police; they might want to keep me under observation for some time; and they would certainly want me for the inquest. So I should not be going down to Cornwall next day; should not be thinking happy thoughts as we glided through Newbury, Westbury, all the old landmarks; should not look out of the window at Exeter Cathedral as I finished my lunch; should not be filling my pipe as we slid down the estuary, smoking it as we turned westward and came out of little red sandstone tunnels to glimpse for a moment the sparkling sea. All the old landmarks, all the renewals of anticipation to which I had looked forward for twelve long months, all these little preludes to the delight of a crazy golfer in a three weeks’ golfing holiday, gone; gone for a Paul and Marguerite Verray, who were nothing to me.

Well, that’s my side. Now let’s consider theirs. They were dead when I left them. I was absolutely sure of this. I don’t mean that I am absolutely sure, just because they said so at the inquest. I mean that I was sure at the time. Even if they hadn’t been, I had only lost a minute or two, and that could hardly have made the difference. It was merely callous, then, to be thinking first of myself, not of them, poor souls? No, no; one can be sentimental about many things, but not about the sudden, instantaneous death of strangers. One could only be sorry for those who loved them, and were left behind. Who were these? Even if I had known of their existence, and I never did, I could have been as sorry for them (I told Conscience) in Cornwall as in a Coroner’s Court.

No, if I had left a debt unpaid, it was to the community, not to individuals.

Are you interested in the community? Most young artists aren’t. I was not an artist, and I was rather community-minded in those days: Lloyd George (1906) vintage. I did feel that, if a policeman blew his whistle, one ought to join in, however dangerous or inconvenient it might be. I believed in Law and Order and the Pursuit of Murderers. Had I handicapped the police by running away? Well, what did I know which they didn’t know? That Paul had died a minute before, not a few minutes after, Marguerite. I didn’t see that that mattered. What else? Only this: that Paul knew a man called Breitenstein, and that Marguerite knew two people at Bedford Park and a tall man whose description I could give, and who might be Breitenstein. But the Bedford Park people (I thought) were bound to come forward, and they could tell of the man in the train. I should have to wait for the inquest before I knew whether he were Breitenstein or not; whether I still had that one tiny piece of information to give the police.

Fancy worrying about that, I can hear you say; if your Conscience was so prim, I wonder she didn’t point out that whatever happened, you seemed to be telling a good many lies. I don’t think Conscience ever got on to that. Nothing about lying ever passed between us at that time. I admit that, when the story came back to me a few days ago, and I began to write this, she made an absurd attempt to jog me. But I put her in her place. ‘My good woman,’ I said, ‘if circumstances tell wicked lies against me, I am entitled to defend myself with the weapons which they have chosen.’ And to that I hold. So let us get on to Breitenstein, who was the final answer to my first two problems, and, I have always thought, the key to the third.

9

Yes, Breitenstein was the man in the train, though I didn’t know it at the time. So I shall call him by that unlovely name, while I am considering, a little way past Reading, my second problem: Had I escaped? For it all depended on him.

If you were called to the telephone and a voice said, ‘This is James Alcott of the Spencer Galleries,’ and if everything which he said made professional sense to you, and you looked him up when he had finished speaking, and found that he was what he said, well, what more would you want? Of course James Alcott rang you up. And of course Paul Verray rang the police up. And then he went back to the house (as he said he would) and went inside (as a loving brother would, though warned not to) and found the murderer still there (as the police had feared was possible), and was himself murdered . . . and fell across the body of his sister. There’s the hat he was wearing when they came in together. Lit a match for his sister when the switch didn’t work—to see her way into the sitting-room probably—there’s the stub—what did she go for? Torch perhaps—hangs up his hat and the match goes out. The other man’s hiding in the sitting-room; stabs her; she screams, runs into the passage and falls. He lights a match and bends over her, gets into a panic and runs out. Then remembers the telephone-box and runs to it. Comes back, strikes another match as he looks at his sister again . . . Ordinary Swan matches—better just look in his pocket . . . that’s all right—and then, as he stands up, the murderer comes out again, flashes a torch and stabs him . . .

‘Yes, sir, them’s the two I picked up in the Strand. Didn’t see the gent’s face very clearly, not when he give me the address, bit ’ard of ’earing and I bends me ’ead down, and it was the lady wot paid at the other end. But that’s the couple, I’d swear to that, couldn’t mistake the lady, and I sees enough of the gent to know there couldn’t be no mistook about ’im neither. Yes, sir, that’s wot ’e was wearing, top ’at and scarf and all. Time? Well, as it ’appened, I did look, wanting to get ’ome, and expecting a bit more when it’s as late as that. Ten minutes short o’ twelve it is when I drops ’em, and I remember thinking, well I’ll be home by twelve, and that’s the first time this week . . .’

Almost too easy.

But then there was Breitenstein. If he came forward, as I felt sure that he would, what was he going to say?

Well, it depended on whether he were as innocent as I, or, as I was inclined to think, the murderer.

Why on earth should he be the murderer? you ask. No reason at all, except that he was the only man I knew who could be, and that I had idly cast him for the part of villain when I first saw him.

First, then, if he were innocent—and truthful. I said ‘as innocent as I’, but I don’t mean as little truthful as I. Let us suppose him completely truthful.

‘. . . Yes, sir, it was understood that Miss Verray was to be met at Charing Cross by her brother. Unfortunately I have to catch a train at Victoria. She has not been in England long, and is not used to travelling alone—yes, she speaks English well. I ask a young gentleman in the carriage if he will tell her when to get out. He is not going to Charing Cross himself, but says he will see that she gets out there. For myself I do not even know how many more stations are to come, I use the Underground very little. So I say good-bye to Miss Verray at Victoria, and that is the last I see of her.’

‘Thank you, Mr Breitenstein. There is, of course, no doubt that she did get out at Charing Cross, and was duly met by her brother. What I should like you to tell us now, if you can, is whether she showed any particular apprehension in the course of that evening. Mr and Mrs—er—Pargo tell us that she seemed in her usual not very high spirits. Was that how it struck you?’

‘You must understand, sir, that I did not know Miss Verray at all well—even less well than I knew her brother. But from the little I had seen of her she seemed a girl who took life very seriously.’

‘As if she always had something on her mind?’

‘You might say that—yes. She always seemed—nervous.’

‘Ah! But you talked, no doubt, in the train. How was she then?’

‘Well—like that. I supposed, of course, that she was nervous of being left alone in the train. She kept begging me to come on with her to Charing Cross, even to see her home. Almost as if she were afraid that her brother mightn’t be at the station.’

‘Ah! That is very significant. She feared that already something might have happened to her brother. As we know, he met her, and it was not until later——Thank you, Mr Breitenstein, your evidence has been most helpful.’

I could imagine the scene in the Coroner’s Court—just like that. What I could not imagine was that anybody would take the slightest interest in the anonymous young gentleman who was not going to Charing Cross himself. What evidence could he give?

But if Breitenstein were the murderer, then what? I had to put myself in his place, and consider his part in the business, before I could decide how I should be affected. So let us make up a story for him, I said, as we glided through Newbury, and on to Westbury.

Breitenstein had decided to murder Paul. Don’t ask me why. I can think of a hundred reasons why one man should want to murder another; this was one of the reasons. Tonight is to be the night. He has called for Marguerite, and taken her down to the Pargos. Paul cannot come. He has important business (he always has important business) and must be in all evening. Breitenstein will bring the girl back. A little while before they leave to catch their train, he pretends to remember something which will make it extremely inconvenient for him to take her home. But it is all right; he will see her to Charing Cross, and will now ring up Paul and arrange that he shall meet her there. He withdraws to the telephone, smokes a cigarette, and comes back to say that it is all very lucky. Paul is just starting off to keep a sudden appointment in the West End, and will go on to Charing Cross at 11.30 to collect her.

‘Was he all right?’ she asks anxiously.

‘Y-yes,’ he says hesitatingly. And then quickly, ‘Yes, of course. Why not?’

‘Who is he meeting?’ she asks, almost frightened now.

‘He didn’t say.’

Chapter II of my Manual for Criminals says, ‘Simplicity pays. Be as simple as you can.’ Here was the very simple plot, the very simple alibi. He gets out at Victoria, slips into a carriage at the back, and is out at Charing Cross and into the North London tube before we begin to move. He gets out at the nearest station to Lauriston Gardens, kills Paul and is away. Marguerite is not met, waits an indefinite time for her brother, gets home somehow . . . and finds him dead. Breitenstein’s alibi is confirmed by her later. Simple.

But it didn’t happen quite so simply, because he dragged in me.

Why did he drag me in? Perhaps because she insisted. She had supposed he was coming on to Charing Cross with her, and she refused to be left alone. Perhaps because he thought she would be more willing to wait patiently on the platform if she had a young man with her. Perhaps because—a man of the world summing up the innocent young boy at the other end of the carriage—he knew that in the end I would take the girl home, and so provide another suspect for the police and another witness to his alibi. Yes, there were good reasons why he should drag me into it. What was unknown to him was that the girl didn’t attract me, and that I wanted to get back to bed as quickly as I could. What was unexpected was that Paul had slipped out to the post, and that, by the time he returned, we were on the top of him. So, when Marguerite came into the sitting-room, he had to kill her too. He didn’t want to. He was rather sorry for her.

But why not kill me also, while he was about it? Well, why should he? I hadn’t seen him there, and was no danger to him. On the contrary, I was now the only witness to his alibi, I alone could swear that he had left the train at Victoria. Obviously, then, he would emphasise my share in the party—which meant that the police would be looking for me. . . . So, you see, I haven’t escaped. I’m for it! . . .

I was for it until we got to Westbury.

But at Westbury—wait!

When he reads the papers, he will know that I have left the party. The police have not seen me, know nothing about me. I am evidently lying low. Suppose I don’t appear? Suppose I do . . . and say that I saw him slipping back into the train at Victoria . . . or merely deny that he ever spoke to me. He is a murderer and knows it. I am innocent, and he knows it. Whose word will he expect to be believed? Mine. He will not dare to say anything which I might contradict: he will hardly dare to say anything about me which I might not be there to confirm. So he will wait to hear what I say. And if I am not there to say anything; if no one is bothering about the harmless young gentleman at the other end of the carriage (not so harmless now, he realises, but fighting to keep out of it); then he will not bother either. He will be as casual about me as if he had nothing to hide.

‘I ask a young gentleman if he will tell her when to get out. He is not going to Charing Cross himself . . . So I say good-bye to Miss Verray at Victoria . . .’

‘Thank you, Mr Breitenstein. There is, of course, no doubt that she did get out at Charing Cross and was duly met by her brother . . .’

It looked as if I were all right anyway. The only danger—an infinitesimally small one, I thought—was that Breitenstein and the Verrays and the Pargos might all be in an international spy story together, and that none of them would get in touch with the police. Then I should have to speak.

The attendant came along, and I booked a seat for lunch. As I began on the fish, I remembered that I should also have to speak if the man s name were not Breitenstein.

10

I was lodging with a farmer called Lambrick, whose sheep were occasionally to be seen on the course, and on that first evening, just as she had done in previous years, Mrs Lambrick brought in the duck and green peas, and asked me what papers I would like ordered.

‘Mrs Lambrick,’ I said firmly, but with a smile, ‘I’m not going to look at the papers for the next three weeks. I’m going to think of nothing but golf, and get my handicap down to six.’

She smiled back, and said well of course if ever I did want to see anything particular I had only to ask, and she would bring in theirs for me of an evening.

‘You can’t tempt me,’ I said. ‘I don’t care what Lloyd George or the Kaiser do, or who murders whom, I’m here to enjoy myself. And thanks to you, Mrs Lambrick, I’m quite sure I’m going to.’ And I got to work on the duck.

Well, that was the first precaution I took. The other was this.

I looked very young in those days, younger even than the incredibly youthful age, as it seems to me now, of twenty-five. When I went for my interview with Lancasters, the Managing Director commented on it, and advised me humorously to grow a beard if I didn’t want to be mistaken for one of the apprentices. I replied (equally humorously—one needs to keep in step with one’s Managing Director) that I had an old pair of whiskers at home which I would bring out and dust. So next morning I began on a moustache; and I told myself that with three weeks of perpetual golf and sea-bathing, and a three weeks’ old moustache, I should look very different from the pale, clean-shaven Paul Verray who had followed his sister into a taxi at the top of Villiers Street.

For of course you understand that, if in the end I went to the police, it would not be with bowed head, saying, ‘Oh, sir, forgive me, it was I who impersonated Paul Verray and told those wicked lies.’ No, I saw the scene going quite differently.

‘Well, sir, what can I do for you?’

‘Well—er—the fact is, Inspector, I’ve been away on a holiday and haven’t been seeing the papers. So I’ve only just heard about this Verray case.’

‘And you think there’s something you can tell us about it?’

‘Well, I don’t know, but—I say, look here, is it true that the two of them were at the Charing Cross District station late that night, and got a taxi in the Strand?’

‘And if they were, sir?’

‘Well, because I came from Richmond to St James’s Park that night, and at Bedford Park two foreigners got in, and the girl was being met at Charing Cross, and I just wondered——’

‘Ah!’ He becomes interested.

I describe Marguerite. The girl without a doubt. I describe the man. He makes a note of it. Not Paul evidently.

‘And he got out at Victoria, you say, sir? You didn’t happen to hear the girl mention his name?’

I tell my story truthfully—up to Victoria. But I say that, in the short conversation we had before I got out at St James’s Park, she mentioned somebody or something called Breitenstein.

‘I was very sleepy, Inspector, and not paying much attention. I thought she was referring to the man who had just left her, but she may have been telling me where she was born. She jabbered a lot—you know the way they do.’

‘Breitenstein,’ says the Inspector thoughtfully. I seem to have got the name across. He looks up, as if surprised to see me there. ‘Thank you, sir. Quite right to come forward. That might be helpful.’

I retire, respected of all men. The good citizen.

Well, I had to wait for the inquest to know what Breitenstein would do. But, as you see, I wasn’t taking any risks. I remember on my third day playing in a foursome with three people from the hotel, I forget their names, and one of the women asked me what I thought of Asquith’s speech, or whatever it was. We were standing on the fifth tee. I said, ‘S’sh. No politics. I haven’t looked at the papers since I’ve been here and I’m not going to.’ She seemed to think that I was an Under Secretary or something. But I felt that my immunity from current affairs was really getting established.

Of course I did see the papers. I went into the kitchen every night after the Lambricks had gone to bed, and kept in touch with Our Crime Correspondent. And then one day there was an account of the inquest . . .

And Breitenstein—yes, that was his name—gave his evidence. And he said nothing about me!

Did that prove him guilty? At first I thought that it did. If he were innocent, why should he conceal anything? Then I remembered that I was innocent—and was concealing a good deal. But it was funny, wasn’t it? If he were guilty, he must have wondered what I knew, must have thought it safer to keep me out of it, must have been a little frightened of me. Well, I was also a little frightened of him. I hoped that we shouldn’t meet again. In fact, we never did.

I’m sorry, dear boy, but that’s really all. The Verrays were a mysterious couple, and nobody seemed to know much about them. Nobody was ever arrested. To come to more important matters: my moustache was a great success with the Managing Director, and we had a lot of laughs about it. I don’t know whether it would have been a success with Sheila. You see, I had a letter from Mrs Hammersley a few weeks after my return to say that the dear girl had become engaged to a most delightful man in the tea business. I didn’t mind so much as I had expected, because on my last day I had found a much dearer girl in the bunker by the twelfth green. I apologised for driving into her, and she took it so sweetly that——

Well that, my dear John, was how I met your mother . . .

No, I didn’t tell her anything about it. Husbands, you will find, are born complete on the day when they first meet their wives. Adventures in a pre-natal existence, particularly when involving two other young women, are as profitless to recount as last night’s dream.

Tristram

1

On a certain morning towards the end of September, 1943, Colonel Philibert Kaye came into the revolving summer-house at the end of his garden with three unopened air-letters in his hand. The rest of his mail had been read at breakfast, but these three letters were from his boy; and it was his sentimental custom to read all such letters in the garden-house which he had built for Lydia. Here, in the last year of her life, she had followed the sun across the sky; here, on the last day, she had said good-bye to it for ever, her hand in his. That was eight years ago, when Tristram was thirteen. It would be difficult to say which of them she had loved more. The Colonel never knew that almost her last words to Tristram had been, ‘You will be looking after him for me, won’t you? Please, darling.’ She had no need to ask her husband to look after Tristram. Tristram was all of herself which she had left to him.

Twenty years ago a board had stood where the Colonel now sat, offering ‘this valuable freehold building site of 70 acres’ for sale; and all the old inhabitants, who lived in beautiful time-worn houses which seemed to have grown up with the country, shuddered, and told themselves bitterly that in a year or two they would be having the trams. It was not so bad as that. Only twelve houses were put up, each with its five or six acres, and the houses were as much in keeping with local conditions as a modern architect could make them. The first concern of all the new-comers was to screen themselves from their neighbours, and so to give themselves the privacy which a true Englishman demands. They set about planting hedges. The patient ones were more successful than the others. The impatient ones began with lordly thoughts of yew, changed to lonicera, experimented with beech, privet, and hawthorn, and returned years later to lonicera, thus falling behind in the race. But Nature is very persistent; and, in spite of what he now admitted to have been mistakes, Colonel Kaye had made his castle fairly safe from enemy observation. Only in one corner, close to where he now sat, could a spy from Wychelm look over the hedge. Fortunately, when Lydia had lived in the garden-house, Wychelm had been empty.

At breakfast that morning Colonel Kaye had achieved his most supremely happy moment since Lydia’s death. Tristram was an eager and regular correspondent. He had taken his father all round the Cape and into the Middle East; had talked to him from messes and bivvys, deserts and battlefields; had never left him alone for more than a few days at a time . . . and suddenly had vanished. The Colonel waited. Something was ‘on’. When he heard of the landing at Salerno, he felt sure that this was it. When the Germans announced that the whole landing-force had been annihilated, his heart hammered out, ‘Yes, but not my boy. All—but not my boy.’ He knew that he would have to be patient; there could be nothing from Tristram yet; but whenever he heard the postman’s knock he was torn between hope for a letter and fear for a telegram. At a sudden ringing of the bell, ‘Well, this is it,’ he would say, his thoughts a scrap-book of well-weathered phrases: ‘Stiff upper lip . . . bite on the bullet . . . pro patria mori . . . I wouldn’t have had it otherwise.’ And if it were just a woman at the door selling tickets for a dance in the Village Hall, he would gladly have bought them all in gratitude for the respite.

Now, after nearly three weeks of waiting, he came down to breakfast, a well-set-up little man, trim greying moustache, trim greying hair, whistling casually to himself to show that he didn’t expect a letter of any consequence, but one might as well look . . . and there it was: One—Two—Three! Three letters! He studied the postmarks anxiously. As far as he could make out, Sep. 17th, 22nd, and 23rd; all written after that first terrifying week; the last ones written when we were well on the move again. His boy was safe! All through breakfast his eyes went back to the addresses in Tristram’s delicate handwriting, and his heart swelled with happiness at the happiness in store for him. In Lydia’s house, alone with her and Tristram.

So, on this morning, he opened the first of his letters and read, ‘Very dear old man and respected Sir’—Tristram always had some new way of beginning—and smiled to himself, and looked up gratefully to Heaven for his happiness . . . and there, only a few yards away, on the other side of the waist-high hedge, was a stranger.

‘Damn!’ said the Colonel, and put his letters back in his pocket. Monstrous thing to do, to come spying on him like this.

‘Could I speak to you, Colonel Kaye?’ a soft, pleasant voice called to him.

He had seen her in the distance once or twice. She was the nurse who looked after Miss Alladyce. Miss Alladyce, it was understood, had been bombed out of her house in London, and had been herself badly injured. When she had come to Wychelm six months ago, she had let it be known that she couldn’t receive visitors. She was bedridden and invisible. Nobody knew anything about her.

‘Of course, Nurse, of course,’ he said, getting up and coming to the hedge. Why hadn’t she gone to the front door in the proper way?

‘Miss Alladyce wondered if you would be so very kind as to help her. Well, it was really me who suggested it, but she was so pleased at the idea, I wouldn’t have felt right if I hadn’t come to you, I mean after brightening her up like that.’

‘Well, of course, quite right, only too glad. Tell me all about it.’

‘You see, Miss Alladyce has a nephew she’s very fond of—out there’—she waved a hand vaguely—’and he writes to her regularly every week, and he hasn’t written for more than three weeks, and she’s getting so anxious, and it’s upsetting her, and I don’t like that. It’s not good for her.’

‘I should think not indeed. She mustn’t be upset, poor lady. Well now, will you tell her from me that I’ve been in just the same case. I hadn’t heard from my boy for more than three weeks, and then suddenly, this morning, look!’ He whisked the letters out of his pocket, and held them up to her. ‘One, two, three!’ As he took them down, an idea came to him. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘He’s probably in the same Division.’

‘I’ve got all about him written down,’ said Nurse, feeling in the pocket of her apron. ‘Here we are. Fifty-six. Would that be it?’

‘I thought so. Same Division as my boy’s. They were in this Salerno landing.’

‘Miss Alladyce thought it might be Salerno, that’s what’s been worrying her, he wouldn’t tell her, of course——’

‘No, no, they’re not allowed to tell. But they can’t stop us guessing, can they?’ He gave her a friendly laugh, and she laughed in return.

‘Fancy their being together!’

‘London Division. Best Division in the Army,’ said Colonel Kaye proudly, meaning best now that my boy is in it. ‘Yes, well now, you tell Miss Alladyce from me that that’s why she hasn’t heard. And tell her this from me. No news is good news. The War Office will tell us soon enough if anything happens; she would have had a telegram by now—at least, the boy’s next of kin would—anyway, she would be hearing soon enough——’

‘But that’s just it, Colonel Kaye. That’s really why I came to you.’

‘I don’t quite understand, Nurse.’

‘You see, the next of kin is young Mr Roger Dixon’s father, and Miss Alladyce and he, well, she doesn’t even know where he is now.’

‘But surely his son——’

‘No, you see, they have nothing to do with each other.’

The Colonel was horrified. Father and son having nothing to do with each other! His hand went into his breast-pocket and fingered his letters.

‘Miss Alladyce doesn’t like to talk much about it, but Mr Dixon was separated from his wife, that’s her sister, and the boy had been living with his mother, and then she died—I think Mr Dixon had been very unkind to her, and he didn’t see the boy again. This was at the beginning of the war, and Mr Roger went straight into the Army after his mother died, and of course the father was the next of kin. It doesn’t seem right somehow.’

‘Dear, dear,’ said Colonel Kaye thoughtfully. ‘A very awkward situation. And she wants me to see if I can find out about the young man——’

‘If you possibly could. It would be kind of you.’

‘Well, give me that bit of paper, and I’ll see what I can do. But you must come here and tell me at once if she hears from him. I’m generally here for an hour or so after breakfast.’

‘Oh, thank you, Colonel Kaye. This will do her so much good.’

As she turned away, he called after her, ‘And tell her not to worry. It will be quite all right.’

When she was out of sight, he went back to his letters. A little of the glory of the morning was gone. He felt uneasily that it was selfish to be so happy. Something of the weight of all the unhappiness which Salerno had brought to other men and women was on him as he began to read. Then Tristram made him laugh. He forgot all the others and read on, thinking only of Tristram, seeing him there, hearing him laugh too.

Later in the day he wrote to his son, telling him about Miss Alladyce and asking him to find out what he could. He also wrote to a friend of his in Records at Liverpool. So in a little while Miss Alladyce knew that on Sep. 10th T./Capt. R. Dixon of the Queen’s Royal Regt. had been killed in action.

2

It had been the custom of Nurse to come up to the hedge by the garden-house once or twice a week in order to report to, and receive news from, the Colonel; and she was so talking to him one morning at the end of October, giving him, he was distressed to hear, a very poor account of her patient.

‘You see, Colonel Kaye, it was the one thing which kept her going. If she wasn’t knitting him something, she was thinking up a parcel for him, and then I had to buy the things, and we’d have them all out on the bed, and she would wrap each one up so lovingly, and pack them all so carefully in the box, so that they all fitted in, and paint the address beautifully with a brush and very black ink—better than Hitler could do, she said once—I mean it just made it a day to look forward to, it was just——Well, I mean, now she’s got nothing.’

‘Poor lady, I understand. But couldn’t she make things for one of these Societies? I’m sure there’s one in the village——’

‘Well, of course, I did suggest it, but she didn’t seem to take to it somehow. I mean it isn’t personal, is it, it isn’t like anything you’re doing for somebody you love. I mean you can’t see the person opening the parcel, and wearing what you’ve made, and——You do see what I mean, don’t you, Colonel Kaye?’

He nodded absently. He was thinking. He put his hand into his breast-pocket and brought out a letter-case. From the letter-case he took a photograph, looked at it for a moment, and passed it across the hedge to her.

‘My boy Tristram,’ he said awkwardly.

She took it, and held it close to her rather short-sighted eyes.

‘Oh, what a sweet face!’ she said impulsively.

‘Isn’t it?’ agreed the Colonel, proudly but shyly. ‘The image of his mother. Give him one of those tight-fitting hats, and paint in some curls, and you couldn’t tell the difference.’

‘I can imagine her. She must have been sweet.’

‘She was lovely,’ said the Colonel, looking back at the dead Lydia, almost with awe. ‘Oh, but you mustn’t think that Tristram is a namby-pamby,’ he added quickly. ‘Bless you, no. He was in his school Fifteen, and in the Eleven. A thorough boy.’

‘You must be very proud of him,’ she said, passing the photograph back to him across the hedge.

He didn’t take it. He puffed at his pipe and said, ‘Nurse. Do you think that if you showed that photograph to Miss Alladyce, and told her that in his last letter Tristram had said that the sock situation was rapidly getting out of control—do you think that she might be persuaded to do something about it? It would be very kind of her, and the boy would appreciate it enormously. You see, I’m not very good at socks.’

To her surprise Nurse felt a foolish tear coming into one eye.

‘Oh, Colonel Kaye!’ she said. ‘It’s just what—I’ll take it to her at once. Oh, I do think you’re—oh, thank you!’

As she turned to go, he called after her, ‘Tell her I don’t want the photograph back, I’ve got another copy.’ And then more loudly, ‘Size seven! He’s got a very small foot!’

Left alone, the Colonel went back to his chair, shaking his head at himself. It was one of those still, sad, autumn days, bringing nothing for encouragement, offering nothing to fight. A day of regret for the lost opportunity which was never there; of remorse for the wrong which one does not remember to have done. But Colonel Kaye knew what he had done. He had shared his boy with a stranger. He had given her some part of Tristram. No longer would he be Tristram’s only confidant, Tristram’s only outlet for self-expression. Tristram would write to Miss Alladyce, thanking her; she would write long letters back, much better letters, he thought, than I ever write, though, of course, I give him all the news of the Home Guard, and the people in the village; and perhaps when I am thinking that there should be a letter from him this morning, it will be going to her.

‘Oh, well,’ he thought. ‘Poor dear. One couldn’t do less.’

He put his hand to his pocket, and drew it out again. ‘I must look for that other copy,’ he thought. ‘I know I’ve got one somewhere.’

But Miss Alladyce could match his sensitive kindness with her own. When the first pair of socks went out, a letter went with it. Tristram was not to write to her; she knew how busy he was. He could send her a message through his dear father to say he had received them, and to let her know what else he particularly wanted. And she would be sending him a parcel directly, and if there was anything in the parcel which he didn’t much care about, or anything else which he would rather have had, he must tell his father. ‘Now is that quite understood, dear boy? Because I really do mean it. God bless you and keep you safe. Your unknown friend, Christine Alladyce.’

So, in his office, where he filled up innumerable forms for his company of Home Guard, the Colonel typed out the relevant passages in Tristram’s letters; at first no more than an expression of gratitude, with perhaps some extravagant reference to the envy which the socks had excited in the Company Mess, and the subsequent suicide of the O.C. But, as the weeks went on, he found himself going from there into a description of Italian scenery, or a humorous account of a conversation with the Mayor, telling himself that this would interest Miss Alladyce, but also telling himself that he would like her to appreciate his boy’s charm as a letter-writer, his boy’s qualities. In the end he was typing almost the whole letter, only leaving out the love and the little private jokes; and once, as if by accident, letting the love slip in, so that she should know how near and dear his boy was to him. Every morning now Nurse would be at the hedge to give and receive the messages which passed between him and Miss Alladyce.

‘Oh, thank you, Colonel Kaye,’ she would say, taking the envelope from him, ‘we didn’t expect him to write again so soon. And Miss Alladyce wants to know, does he like Turkish Delight?’

‘Well, tell her that I’ve never actually seen him eating it, but I feel quite sure he does.’

‘Oh, that’s good, because we’ve got some. Colonel Kaye, I can’t tell you what all this has meant to her.’

‘And to Tristram,’ he laughed. ‘We mustn’t forget that. Nurse——’ he went on hesitatingly, and then stopped.

‘Yes, Colonel Kaye?’

‘I suppose it would be quite impossible for me to see Miss Alladyce? Talk to her?’

She shook her head sadly.

‘She was so dreadfully burnt. She can’t bear for anyone to see her poor face now. Except me, of course. And the doctor.’

‘Yes. I understand. Poor lady.’

‘And so brave.’

‘She must be. Is there no hope? They do such clever things nowadays.’

‘We pretend sometimes. She says, “When I’m the Belle of Saffron Walden again,” in her joking way. But she has a weak heart; and to go through all that—I don’t think she has very long now, you know.’

‘I see. Yes, I understand.’

‘It’s so wonderful of you to have made the end so happy for her.’

The Colonel put his hand to his eyes, thinking of Lydia, thinking of Tristram disfigured, thinking of that poor woman. Then with a shake of his shoulders—’stiff upper lip’ and all that—he turned away, throwing a ‘Thank you, Nurse,’ at her as he went.

3

It was on an early spring morning in March that Nurse came to the hedge and waited for the Colonel to come out of the garden-house; but he did not come. For some reason she wouldn’t call to him, but moved along the hedge until she could see into the room. And he sat there, with his arms spread out on the table, and his head on his arms. On the floor by his side was a crumpled piece of paper. Before she knew what she was doing, she had cried out.

He started up. She turned away, she could not bear to look at him. Even Miss Alladyce’s poor, disfigured face could be looked at more easily. She put her hand up, as if warding him off, and began to hurry out of his sight. She had gone some twenty yards before he called to her, loudly, firmly.

‘Nurse! Come here!’ It was an order.

She turned. He waited for her. She could look at him now. He was the man she had known: trim, upright, composed: but an older man than she had thought.

‘You are not to say a word of this to Miss Alladyce. You understand?’

‘Yes, Colonel Kaye.’

‘Let her go on just as before. You understand?’

‘Yes, but——’

‘We must plan it out.’

‘There are the parcels—she was just making one up now. To-morrow’s our day for it.’

‘She must send it as usual.’

‘Yes, Colonel Kaye.’

‘Does she put letters in the parcels?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Tell her it’s safer to send them separately. The letters will come back to me. I’ll arrange with his Company Commander to open the parcels. They won’t be wasted.’

‘Oh!’ cried Nurse, excited now. ‘Yes! We could do that!’

‘Of course we can’t keep it secret from anybody else. You realise that?’

‘Nobody sees her but me and the doctor.’

‘Dr Matthews? I’ll warn him.’

‘But what about the letters? His letters, I mean? The bits you send on to her?’

Colonel Kaye fiddled with his pipe and blew down it.

‘She shall have them,’ he mumbled.

‘Oh, Colonel Kaye!’ Poor man, she thought. That lovely boy. It’s worse for him than ever it was for her.

‘Well, Nurse, do you think we can manage it?’

‘Oh, I’m sure we can!’

‘Got to think of everything, you know. One slip and we crash. Ah! There we are, you see. The parcels. Who addresses them, and who posts them?’

‘She addresses them, like I told you, and I take them on my bicycle to the village.’

‘Yes, well, that won’t do. The village will know, and wonder what’s up. Parcels going off every week.’

They both thought this out.

‘I could alter the name before I posted it,’ she said doubtfully. ‘To the one you were saying, the Company Commander. But it seems sort of—well, not quite—I mean, sort of unkind, after all the trouble she has taken, painting the address on. Oh well, that’s just silly, of course.’

‘Not silly at all, Nurse,’ said the Colonel sternly. ‘Only silly to a silly person. I agree with you entirely. What you must do is to bring the parcels to me, and I’ll post them in the town.’ Battalion H.Q. was in the local town ten miles away, and the Colonel’s car made weekly journeys to it.

‘Yes, that would be better.’

‘And when you bring me the parcels, you must bring me a list of what’s inside. You understand? You understand why?’

She understood. She shook the tears out of her eyes as she nodded to him. Poor man! Typing out those imaginary letters, saying Thank you for this and that which his dead boy had never seen.

‘Right. Then I think we’ve got it set. You must exercise your own judgement about the staff.’

‘It’s just the cook and the gardener. They never see her.’

‘Well, I leave that to you.’ He looked at her, giving her for the first time his full attention. ‘Do you think we can keep it up?’

‘Yes, I think so. It won’t be for long, Colonel Kaye. Just midsummer perhaps.’

Without thinking, she stretched out her hand to him across the hedge. He took it, pressed it, and let it go. ‘Fellow conspirators,’ he said, and achieved a smile. She went quickly away.

4

Colonel Kaye was in his office, writing a letter from his son. At first he had found this difficult, for he was not, as Tristram had been, a ready writer. But he had kept in touch with his son’s battalion; he knew within limits where it was; and he had Tristram’s old letters to help him. The Division had gone to Palestine to refit; a year ago it had passed through Palestine on its way to Tunisia; in any case (he reassured himself) one desert was very much like another. Moreover, Tristram’s great friend, Jimmy Ludlow, wrote to him now and then; which made it possible to superimpose on a rather prosaic description of Jerusalem Tristram’s more lively embellishment of an afternoon in Bombay. In the same spirit he had transferred the flora and fauna of Cyrenaica (in which Tristram had taken so much interest) a thousand miles or so to the north-east.

He was glad when the Division had left Italy. Italy had been difficult, because Miss Alladyce knew most of the Italian letters. So, for the first few weeks, Nurse had had to explain that Tristram was very busy, and that what they were doing now was all most secret. Even so, a page or two could be filled; partly with expressions of gratitude, partly with undated and unplaced adventures from the earliest letters. Indeed, there was material from O.C.T.U. days, if carefully edited.

As before, Nurse came to the hedge in the mornings: every day still, for they were always afraid that something might threaten which would have to be guarded against. But nothing threatened. It was just as it had been when Tristram was alive.

‘When Tristram was alive’—but Tristram was living again in these days. The realisation of his death was subdued to this need for keeping him alive in Miss Alladyce’s mind. In the lonely hours of wakefulness, as he lay in his narrow bed, memory did not torture him with pictures of Tristram on his last leave, Tristram in the car with him, Tristram playing golf with him, laughing, singing gaily to himself in his bath; it probed his mind for something to say in his next letter, something amusing from an earlier irrelevant letter which might be worked up.

‘Now those people he met in Cape Town. There was a delightful description of the elder daughter. Oh no, that wouldn’t do; no women. Oh well, I don’t know. W. A. A.F’s and A.T.’s and all. Might do. And that Major on the boat who always had the correct nautical term for everything—damned if I remember what the joke was, but he could meet him again in Palestine, and say, “Did I ever tell you about that Major on the boat?” I must remember to look that up to-morrow. It was his first letter after he had sailed. Easy to find. Yes, to-morrow. .. Sapper Major, wasn’t he? . . . Look it up to-morrow . . . to-morrow.’ And he drifted into sleep.

He had explained about the parcels to Tristram’s Company Commander, and, since he knew what was inside them, it was easy to say, ‘Tell Miss Alladyce—no, Aunt Christine, I’m adopting her—that the soap is absolutely wizard.’ And then, as Tristram had written once in his non-commissioned days, ‘People come from miles around just to sniff at me,’ with something from an Iraq letter about the average Arab. It was because he had ‘never been much of a writer’, as he put it to himself, that he took it all so seriously, gave to it so much of his mind; and so, almost unconsciously, made a protective tent for his broken heart.

So the weeks went on.

It was on July 6th, the eve of Tristram’s birthday, that Nurse brought him the news.

‘Quite peacefully, dear lamb. In her sleep.’

‘Ah!’ he said, looking at her blankly.

‘A merciful release, Colonel Kaye, I think that’s the way we must look at it.’

‘Yes . . . Indeed, yes . . . Poor, dear lady . . . Yes . . . A merciful release.’

He turned away from her as if she were not there, and she watched him, a little surprised, as he made his hurried way across the lawn. Suddenly and overwhelmingly he had realised that he was alone in the world, and that there was no to-morrow.

C.O.D.

‘Did I ever tell you,’ said Mr Reginald Sprocket, that charming but little-known essayist, moistening the stamp and placing it on his letter, ‘of my war-service in the Ministry of Transport?’

The girl behind the counter at the village post-office, drapery and sweet-shop gave him 3½ d. change, and said that he hadn’t. It was, in fact, the first time she had seen him.

Mr Sprocket pushed the office scales a little further along the counter and sat negligently down. ‘This will interest you professionally,’ he said. ‘Stop me if you have heard it.’

Owing to a difference of opinion with the Director as to the relative importance of news (said Mr Sprocket), I had just retired from my post of announcer at the B.B.C.; to the regret of many millions of listeners, some of whom, we may surmise, had already cast on the first stitches of the Christmas bed-socks which they proposed to knit for me. I had held my post for a comparatively short time, and had been unable, therefore, to effect the revolution in the Corporation’s policy for which I had hoped. I mention this because I do not wish you to hold me responsible for the many shortcomings which you find in the service; such as, to take a case, the habitual levity of the Scandinavian Folk Songs in the Third Programme. The blame lies elsewhere. But perhaps I had better tell you first the full story of my connexion with that autocratic body.

For some months I had been Deputy Assistant Director of the Dramatic Sounds Department, being personally responsible for all those noises which give so much more reality to a radio play than mere dialogue: storms at night, mounted men crossing a cobbled bridge, seagulls taking leave of a liner, and rats gnawing their way through woodwork—to give the examples which will occur most readily to your mind. But it had long been my wish to exchange the yellow pullover of the Sounds Department for the full evening dress of the Announcer Corps, and it was with this purpose that I sought an interview with the Chief of Staff.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked courteously.

I explained that I wished to better myself.

‘What are you now?’

I said that for the greater part of the previous week I had been an Austin 7 going into first on mounting a hill, but that for the last two nights I had been a flock of sheep in a mist on the mountains.

‘And what would you like to be?’ he asked kindly.

‘I should like to be an announcer,’ I said.

He looked surprised.

‘You are accustomed to wearing full evening dress?’ he asked.

‘From a child,’ I said.

‘And what other experience have you had?’

I told him that once when Red Hot Roper had had a severe cold, I was the American who said, ‘This is Red Hot Roper and his Razzle Dazzle Swing Boys bidding you all good night, good night, everyone, good night and carry on.’

He seemed impressed.

‘How did it go?’ he asked. ‘Was reception good?’

I said that it might have been a coincidence, but Red Hot had had two proposals of marriage and a box of candied fruit next day.

‘That sounds very promising,’ he said. ‘In the circumstances I think you might announce the 6 o’clock news this evening.’

I thanked him and went home to dress.

When I was handed the script from which to announce, I found that it was full of such clichés as are the despair of a writer like myself. Black smoke habitually poured from tails; patches of oil continually rose to the surface. It was my intention to give new life to all these outworn phrases.

(‘And did you?’ asked the girl, moving along the counter to the sweet department, at which a younger patron was holding out an urgent penny.

‘Unfortunately, no,’ said Mr Sprocket.)

I began (he said) in the orthodox way. ‘This is the B.B.C. Home Service. Here is the 6 o’clock news, and this is Reginald Sprocket reading it, better known to most of you, I dare say, as the author of many charming essays, of which the latest volume, Daffodil Days, to be published shortly by Crump and Webster at the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence——’ It was at this point that there occurred, without warning, what is technically known as a technical hitch; and before it could be put right I was asked to take my pocket-comb with me and leave the building. From the public’s point of view it was a calamity, since I had much to say to them, but from my own it was merely an inspiration to new and greater fields of endeavour. Forgive me for interrupting myself a moment, but what were those charmingly coloured balls which appealed so strongly to our visitor?

(‘Assorted fruit-drops, penny an ounce.’

‘I will have an assortment weighing four ounces,’ said Mr Sprocket . . .)

My first step (continued Mr Sprocket) on being relieved of my arduous duties at the B.B.C, took me to the Ministry of Soap and Whitewash. The Minister, who had recently been promoted or degraded (it was never clear which) from the Ministry of Food, was an old friend of the family. A cousin of mine of the same name had recently written a small monograph on Pressed Flowers, and by some confusion of sound between ‘flour’ and ‘flower’, or miss-association of the subject with the separate industry of Pressed Beef, the book was fortunate enough to catch the attention of the Minister of Food. Meeting me at a Memorial Service, and accidentally hearing my name when I was introduced to him, he said kindly, ‘Ah, Mr Socket, I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. I have been reading with great interest your book on old English porcelain.’ This, I felt, gave me a certain claim on his attention, and I was not surprised when I heard that he would receive me.

‘Well, Mr Spigot,’ he said, ‘I am delighted to meet you again. I have not forgotten the pleasure your book on Chinese coins gave me. Now what can I do for you?’

I explained that I wished to put myself at the service of my country.

‘Yes, well, we are full up here at the moment, but there might be something for you somewhere else. You had better go and see Hammersmith this afternoon. Good morning to you, and let me know how you get on. You must write another book one day.’

I withdrew, and, after a light lunch, boarded a bus to Hammersmith. The Minister had not mentioned what his object was in wishing me to become acquainted with this particular quarter of London, and I may say at once that I spent a profitless afternoon there; but the news which greeted me on my return, that Lord Hammersmith would like me to ring him up, threw a new light on the matter, and almost reconciled me to my fruitless journey.

It never became clear who Lord Hammersmith was, but he appeared to be a capable young man, who found no difficulty in securing me a well-paid post in the Ministry of Transport. I forget who was Minister at the time. They came and went with a certain regularity. One got into the way of calling any new face which had an air of authority ‘Chief’, and assuming that it had come into one’s room in order to raise one’s salary; instead of which (as we writers say) it would reveal itself, as often as not, as a humble addition to the staff, desiring to know its way to the lavatory. When, however, I did at last meet the Minister, I had no difficulty in identifying him as the tall, thin man whose pint of beer I had accidentally drunk at the canteen two days before, leaving him, on some vague impulse of compensation, to pay for both of us. Naturally I did not presume on our previous acquaintance, but said, ‘You sent for me, sir?’ respectfully, and waited to hear why he had summoned me to his presence.

(Mr Sprocket opened his bag of assorted fruit-drops, and chose a green one; but, realising as it approached his lips that it might impede his natural flow of words, checked, and replaced it in the bag.)

Transport in war-time (said Mr Sprocket) is always a difficulty, whether it is Hannibal trying to get his elephants over the Alps or King John conveying the royal baggage across the Wash—though perhaps, to make my meaning quite clear, and avoid unnecessary scandal, I should have used the word impedimenta rather than baggage. In modem war the problem assumes a different shape, and may, perhaps, best be exemplified by the fact that a parcel of unbound essays, travelling from, as it might be, Frome towards the office, to take a case, of Messrs Crump and Webster in London, would think nothing of spending three months on the journey, and being last heard of in Market Bosworth as a box of dried prunes.

(The girl nodded. ‘Shocking it was,’ she said. ‘They used to blame me for it, just as if I had anything to do with it.’)

I had ventured to call the Minister’s attention to this and other matters which were delaying the moment of victory, and now it seemed that he had sent for me to discuss the matter. For if things are put on trains and never get anywhere, where, as the Minister well said, do they get to?

‘Where indeed, sir?’ said I.

‘Suppose, for instance,’ said the Minister, ‘the line is damaged, and the train is unable to proceed? Well? Is it just left there? For ever? That’s bad, Sprocket. We must improve on that. Trains mustn’t be left just lying about.’

I reminded him that passenger trains were similarly inconvenienced, but that there was no record of a passenger being lost entirely.

‘Exactly my point,’ he said. ‘If the line is damaged at Chipping Podbury, the passenger alights and re-embarks at Chipping Salterton. But what does the train do? These are the things we ought to know, Sprocket.’

I suggested that the train backed into a siding until the line was repaired, and then proceeded on its way.

‘With goods on train if goods-train?’ said the Minister tersely.

‘Presumably so, sir.’

‘Then why don’t the goods arrive in course of time, with the train, so to speak, in support?’

‘Perhaps,’ I tried again, ‘they are unloaded at Chipping Podbury before backing, and then when the train resumes its journey, it forgets that it is empty, and accidentally——’

‘But would not somebody—as it might be, a porter at Chipping Podbury—be aware of all this?’

‘He should be, sir.’

‘But apparently he is not. Here are these poor dumb crates dotted about the railway systems of Great Britain, unable to call for help, unable to indicate their latitude and longitude, and nobody can do anything about it. It’s up to us, Sprocket. The Ministry of Transport. Note that word “transport”. Not the Ministry of Immobility in Sidings.’

And then I had my brilliant idea; an idea which, little though I anticipated it, was to lead me into the charming company in which I now find myself.

‘Chief,’ I said, ‘how would it be if I travelled as a crate of goods from Frome to Paddington? I, at least, should not be inarticulate.’

‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that you would put your head through the straw and call for help from time to time?’

‘No, no, sir, you misunderstand me. I should remain silent, but I should be taking notes all the time. Whatever happens to packages on a goods train, or for that matter a passenger train, will happen to me, for I shall be one of them. The only difference will be that when we all arrive at Paddington I shall be in a position to make a full report, as the other packages will not, of the sequence of events which brought us there.’

The Minister was thoughtful.

‘It’s an idea, Sprocket,’ he said at last. ‘Quite an idea. The only objection which occurs to me at the moment is that, when your report is presented on your arrival at Paddington, it may be dismissed by the Cabinet as the senile reminiscences of a garrulous old man.’

I need hardly tell you, dear lady, that I had foreseen this objection. For it was my idea to present a series of interim reports from week to week, as circumstances allowed; emerging from the crate by means of a sliding panel at (as it might be) Chipping Slowcombe-on-the-Whiffer, and dispatching a letter to the Ministry from the local post-office, drapery and sweet-shop.

I explained this to the Minister. His chief apprehension removed, he shook me warmly by the hand.

‘Sprocket,’ he said, ‘you are a gallant fellow, and the Government will not forget it. You will take every precaution? The Ministry cannot afford to lose you.’

I assured him that I should be well prepared.

‘You must keep in mind,’ he said kindly, ‘not only the months which lie ahead of us, but the ensuing seasons as they will recur. Thus, Sprocket, it is a question not only of winter woollies, to which, no doubt, you have given your attention, but of summer light-weight zephyrs, mesh or otherwise. But I can safely leave all this to you. Good luck, to you, my dear fellow.’

I thanked him and withdrew.

Next morning I went down to Frome by car. Naturally our Ministry had its agents everywhere, and at Frome I got into contact with one of our most knowledgeable men. We discussed the venture from every angle. As an example of the minute attention we paid to detail I may instance the consideration we gave to the question whether I should be labelled ‘China and Glass, Fragile or, as I was inclined to prefer, ‘Dynamite, Handle with Care.’ Obviously I did not want to be thrown about. I had boasted to the Minister that I should be in a position to make a continuous report, and it was necessary to remain in that position. On the other hand the whole point of this experiment was that one should not receive special treatment. Any such cri du cœur as ‘Urgent’ would be entirely misconceived. In the end we decided that I should travel quite simply as ‘Books’, with the one small concession to human frailty, ‘This Side Up.’

My home for the next few months (as I supposed) was comfortably padded, and had a sliding panel which could be worked from the inside. Besides clothes for the varying climatic conditions, and a certain amount of tinned food, I had provided myself with refreshment for the mind; notably Paradise Lost, a work with which I was insufficiently acquainted, and an early volume of essays Mornings at Seven (Crump and Webster, 5s.) by the well-known author of Daffodil Days. My idea was that at the many sidings to which I was clearly destined, I would get out, stretch my legs, and eventually fetch up at some house of refreshment, returning to my fellow-travellers in ample time to resume the journey. Emergency rations, therefore, were all that I needed.

I shall not weary you (said Mr Sprocket kindly) with the full tale of my adventures. My companions, as I discerned through one of the many peep-holes with which I had provided myself, were a likely looking lot of young packages, though inclined to be over-familiar. However, a certain irregularity of shape in the roof of my house, which I had thoughtfully insisted on, gave me the freedom of the upper air, and the unrestricted use of my panel. Throughout the whole of my wanderings I was only superimposed upon by one bicycle; a bicycle, however, which seemed, particularly at night, to be composed exclusively of pedals.

At the beginning the procedure was much as would have been expected. We left Frome at 7 o’clock one Monday night, and, travelling uneventfully backwards for some 28 miles, reached Long Sutton and Pitney at 8.30 on Wednesday morning. Here we rested for three days before returning to Frome, and by the following Tuesday were safely back at Long Sutton and Pitney again. I sent a brief report to the Minister giving ‘Poste Restante, Long Sutton and Pitney’ as an accommodation address, and resumed my comfortable quarters and the delightful company of Mornings at Seven . . .

The full tale of my travels will no doubt be published shortly in a White Paper. The life would have been monotonous but for the occasional glimpses we had of the sea. I have always had a passion for this element, and the first sight of the waves breaking on the beach at Bognor Regis gave me new courage for my task. By now I had re-read that charming work Mornings at Seven sixteen times, and if I had not completely mastered Paradise Lost, I had at least got some idea of the plot and general scope of the work. It was not, however, until we were wintering at Merthtyr Tydfil that I first encountered the hero, by name Adam; and it was in the Manchester Ship Canal, I remember, that he was joined by his dear wife—Eve, if I recollect the name aright . . .

‘And that, roughly speaking,’ said Mr Sprocket ten minutes later, ‘is how we brought the guns up from Aix to Ashby de la Zouch. Of my arrival at Basra labelled Small Arms Ammunition; of my life as a vaulting-horse in the gymnasium at Haifa; and of my eventual return labelled Not Wanted on Voyage to Long Sutton and Pitney, this is not the place to speak. Suffice it to say that I am now making what must surely prove to be a temporary stay at your own charming marshalling-yards. For here in this letter’—he held it up—’I have sent in my resignation to the Minister. The war, I understand, is over, and my publishers, Messrs Crump and Webster, tell me that Daffodil Days has at last made the grade, and will be published next month. I feel once more at liberty to resume my profession of writing. Disappointing though the news will be to admirers of the essay as an art-form, I think of trying my hand in my next volume at some form of fictitious narrative. Sadly inexperienced as I am,’ said Mr Sprocket regretfully, ‘I hope in time to develop some slight talent for it,’

He put an assorted fruit-drop in his mouth, swung himself from the counter, and wished the girl a very good afternoon.

‘Crackers,’ said the girl, as the door closed behind him. She went on stamping letters.

Dear Old George

TWO, shapeless, middle-aged women were discussing the latest scandal in their little country town. Ethel Baradell-Smith was the stouter and more dowdy of the two. Nobody could say where her figure ended. Her hair was a grey turmoil. She had a rasping voice, suited to conversation in a tunnel; she seemed always to be talking something or somebody down—the clank of wheels, operatic music, or an equally talkative companion. But now it was time for her to go back to her own house. George would be home, and she had all this to tell him. All this about Tim Ferrars, who had left his wife.

‘Well, there’s one good thing,’ she said with a satisfied smile, ‘I don’t have to worry about dear old George. Dear old George isn’t like that. Somehow I can’t quite see him running away.’

‘You never know, dear,’ said the other woman maliciously.

‘Believe me, I do, darling. Now I shouldn’t wonder at all if Jane wasn’t getting a little anxious about the Major. I think, if I was Jane, I should be getting just a little anxious. He always strikes me as that sort of man. But George is quite, quite different. He’s a different type, if you see what I mean. I haven’t been married twenty-five years to dear old George without knowing what his faults are, and believe me, Polly, he’s not that type. I mean that either you are or you aren’t. And George—well’—she gave her unmusical laugh—’look at him!’ She touched cheeks with her friend and left, calling out something as she went.

She was quite right. George himself could have told her that he would never leave her now.

1

The four children had grown up together: George and Roger Baradell-Smith, Mary Somers and Ethel Pritchard. Roger was a cousin of George’s and spent his holidays with them; his parents lived in India. Mary was the over-worked doctor’s daughter, and was at the square house at the end of the village. Ethel was the much-petted, orphaned granddaughter of the old Vicar. George’s father was an engineer, and always going away. In the holidays the four children went in and out of each other’s houses, and did pretty much what they liked.

Mary was George’s first love. She was quieter than Ethel and not so pretty, but then George was rather a stolid child, and the chattering, laughing, jumping-up-and-down Ethel bothered him. Ethel was better suited to the more dashing Roger. At the awkward age Ethel’s self-consciousness sobered her down. She was now not quite so ready of tongue, fearing to be attacked herself. George found himself liking her better, and for the first time her prettiness attracted him. When they were all grown up, or what they thought was grown up, he was at first as happy with the two of them together as with either alone. They were both of them delightful girls. There was something restful about Mary, and this last year or two had given her a bloom, so that she was almost as pretty as the other. Yet being slow of speech himself, he admired Ethel’s readiness, her flow of high spirits. She was good company when one felt in that mood.

He seemed to take it for granted in his unromantic way that he would marry one of them. He wasn’t in love with either, but he was in love with the idea of getting engaged, getting married, and settling down. He was still a little uncertain which one he preferred, when Roger decided it for him. Roger and Mary announced their engagement. So naturally George married Ethel. Ethel had already promised herself George; Roger was the more dashing, but the more unreliable; George was the safe one. Also, and this was important, he was the better listener.

Roger and Mary went off to South Africa. There was a little correspondence at first between the two girls; but correspondence at that distance was too one-sided to keep them together, and Mary passed out of George’s life. He settled down with Ethel.

Ethel was pretty in those days, attractive of face and body; and George was a born husband. They had one child whom they adored, Penelope. For five years George was happy. Then, when they were all off for a holiday together, Penelope fell out of a train and was killed. Perhaps he thought it was Ethel’s fault—the child was on her side of the carriage; probably she thought he thought so; in fact, it was nobody’s fault. Ethel abandoned herself to grief and an exaggerated remorse. She had killed her child. Never, never, never would she have another. Both George and the local Vicar had tried to console her. The Vicar drew a picture of Penelope in Heaven, released from the cares of this world, and, with more assurance, spoke of Time the Great Healer. He was right. Time went on,’ and they forgot Penelope. But long before this Ethel had let her figure go, for what did anything matter now; and George had ceased to be a husband, and was dear old George.

2

George was a year or two short of fifty when Mary came back into his life. He still had thick black hair without a sign of grey in it, a little close-clipped black moustache, and a trim, well-carried figure; with these to help him there was no reason why he should ever show his age. In the train which the more important people in offices caught every evening he was not noticeable. He wore, like so many of them, a short black coat and striped trousers; he carried, sometimes, a dispatch-case. A fellow-traveller, remote from the business world and contemptuous of their conventional, unimaginative pattern, might perhaps have picked out George from the others as somehow a little more human. He looked likeable, which some of the others didn’t; he might have had, which none of the others had, a quiet sense of humour. He didn’t talk much. One would be safe in putting him up for one’s club. But obviously on the Stock Exchange or somewhere—poor devil.

Mary recognised him at once.

‘Hallo, George,’ she said, as if they had parted last week.

He turned round, taking off his hat automatically, looked at her for a moment, wrinkling up his eyes in that way she knew, and said, ‘Why, it’s Mary, isn’t it? Well!’

They told each other a little of their immediate news, standing on the pavement. He had a business call to make just round the corner in Arlington Street; couldn’t they have tea somewhere afterwards? Roger had died three years ago; she was over in England for a visit, she wasn’t sure if she would stay. Yes, she smiled, she was quite alone in the world; she had a little flat in Chelsea. Couldn’t he come and have tea with her there? He’d love to, he had to catch the 5.30, but he would be with her at 4, and that would give them time for a real good talk. How nice. And Ethel? Ethel was quite well, down in the country. I am glad to see you again, Mary. So am I, George; you don’t look a day older. Nor do you, Mary. She laughed and shook her head at him. She knew how far from the truth it was.

But much further from the truth, thought George, as they sat happily over tea together, was the absurd suggestion that she and Ethel were the same age. Mary was twenty years younger than Ethel, with a figure well under control, a beautifully made-up face, and her own fair hair as shining, as wavy, as ever. Not a day over forty, and a modern forty at that. Whereas Ethel—he looked at her dispassionately when he got home that night. Sixty? Well, it didn’t really matter. It was just the difference between a woman whom you would like to introduce to strangers as your wife, and—and Ethel.

‘Oh, who do you think I ran into to-day? Mary!’

‘Mary Somers?’

‘Yes. She’s a widow now. Roger died three years ago. She’s over in England for a bit.’

‘Well, she might at least have told us. Who do you think I met to-day? The new Mrs Viner!’

‘Who on earth is she?’

‘My dear old George, don’t pretend to be so stupid. You knew that John had married again, and naturally we all wondered what she was going to be like. I said—and I generally know these things, it’s a sort of instinct, I suppose—that he would choose somebody as much like dear Amy as possible. You see, I always feel that there are two types of husband. There’s the type which——’

He listened as he always listened now; saying ‘Yes’ and ‘I think you’re right’ and ‘Really?’, while his mind was elsewhere. How restful Mary was. How nice to be with somebody who liked to hear you talk, who listened, who was interested.

The new Mrs Viner disposed of, Ethel remembered Mary.

‘Fancy Mary again! Would you like to ask her down here, darling?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

She smiled affectionately at him. ‘How right you are, George. It never does, trying to renew old friendships. It isn’t as if we hadn’t got plenty of nice friends here. Too many, I sometimes say.’ She gave the laugh of an almost too popular woman. George felt glad that now he would keep Mary to himself.

He had tea again with her next week. Soon it became a habit. Tea with Mary on Wednesday at 4; leave at 5; catch the 5.30. On special occasions—her birthday, for example, or his, or some still remembered red-lettered day from their childhood—they had lunch together, and shopped, or sat in the Park; but still were back for tea at 4, and always he left at 5, and caught the 5.30. It was his rest hour, an hour of peaceful happiness with a dear woman; the woman whom he ought to have married. The week now was reckoned from Wednesday. One was never more than three days away from it. However harshly, however persistently, Ethel talked, only three days ago Mary’s gentle voice . . . in three days from now Mary’s placid understanding . . . At the end of a year Mary was as much part of his life as the more frequent 5.30.

When she told him one Wednesday that she might be giving up the flat and going back to South Africa, he knew at once that he couldn’t let her go. At first he supposed that he was just asking her not to leave him; begging her not to spoil his Wednesdays, not to take away the one day in the week which made his life consciously happy again. Then he realised that he was saying more than that; he was telling her that if she went, he must go with her. He was reminding her that as children they had sworn to get married. He was on the verge of telling her that he had always loved her.

Mary listened, surprised and deeply touched. She knew that she would miss their Wednesdays as much as he. She could imagine, and would have welcomed, a week of Wednesdays, for she was tired of being alone. Her life with the dashing Roger had reached the heights and the depths. She would never be in love like that again, nor did she want to be. Life with George, she thought, would be very restful, very comfortable. Dear old George! So good, so kind, so right. One could trust him always. One would never see that look in his eyes, that awareness of the other sex, which she had seen so often in Roger’s; so miserably, jealously, often in Roger’s.

They talked it over sensibly. They were two sensible, middle-aged people. George was a good business man, and as soon as he saw that she was wavering, he began to be business-like. At the back of his mind he was still feeling astonished that it was he, George Baradell-Smith, who was actually ‘running away’ from his wife! Getting divorced!

‘Of course,’ he pointed out, ‘you being Mrs Baradell-Smith already——’

‘Wait a moment, George.’ She held up a plump but pretty little hand.

‘What, dear?’

‘You mustn’t rush me.’

‘Mary dear, you do want—I mean——’

‘And I mustn’t rush you.’

‘You did that when you said you were going away. You didn’t think I’d stand for that?’

‘Darling George,’ she smiled. ‘But what I mean, and I mean it seriously, is that we must both think it over.’

They argued about that; George protesting, of course, that he didn’t need to, she saying that neither of them had considered Ethel yet, he saying that—well—er—Ethel—but he was quite sure . . .

‘It’s no good, dear. There are things which we shall both have to think of. Now this is my plan. If neither of us has written to the other in the meantime, we will meet again next Wednesday and decide just how we’re going to go about it. But in this next week we must think it over alone. If you decide, for any reason whatever—I can’t advise you whether or not to talk it over with Ethel—you know best about that; but you must think of her, and of everything else, and if you decide that it would be a mistake to go on with it, just write me a little line, saying that you won’t be here next Wednesday. I shan’t feel injured or resentful in any way. I shall understand perfectly. And if I decide, then I will do the same. But if neither of us hears from the other, then, dear George’—she stood up, holding out her hands to him with a smile, half-mocking, half-loving—’I am yours. And now you must catch your train.’

He looked at the clock on her mantelpiece. ‘Good Lord,’ he said, ‘I’ve missed it! Oh well, I can catch the 6.25.’

3

One could get a carriage to oneself on the 6.25; it was only the Third-Class passengers, the clerks and the office-girls, who had to keep their elbows out of each other’s papers. Mary was quite right, one had to think these things out. Dispassionately. Neither in the cosy quiet of Mary’s room, in the restfulness of her company, nor within sound and sight of Ethel. Here in the train, alone. Money, for instance. If Ethel divorced him, she could claim a third of his income. No, he would be generous, he would give her more than that. He would settle a lump sum on her as well. . . .

The train began to move. There were shouts from the platform as the door was swung open. He saw a girl on the running-board, dangerously off-balance. Suddenly and horribly Penelope came into his mind. He jumped up and pulled her in. By the time he had managed to get the door closed, she had fallen, a little breathless, into the seat opposite.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I oughtn’t to have bothered you.’

He had been prepared to curse her, he had been so shaken by that memory, but now he mumbled that it was all right. ‘You gave me rather a fright for a moment, that’s all.’

‘I know. And that always makes one angry. I was expecting you to say “What the hell?” It was nice of you not to.’ She gave him a grateful smile, took out her compact and considered herself.

This is what Penelope might have been, he thought; a young Diana, with all the spring of life in her. Why did one always think of goddesses as over-size? Juno, Venus, even Diana—compare a woman to one of them, and one immediately pictured a great strapping creature—ridiculous!

She was now looking at her watch a little doubtfully.

‘This is the 6.25 I’ve caught, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘6.25, that’s right.’

‘Then why does my watch say 6.10?’

‘Does it generally say 6.10?’ asked George, rather amused.

‘Well, not generally. Only at ten minutes past six.’

‘It must have stopped.’

‘Then it chose a very inconvenient place to do it in.’ She held the watch to her left ear. Then she held it to her right ear, explaining, ‘It’s possible to be stone deaf in one ear without ever finding it out, I mean until you do something like this.’

‘I hope you’re not finding it out now,’ said George politely.

‘Well, I can’t hear anything in either, so I suppose that’s a good sign.’ She shook it and listened again. ‘Do you know anything about watches?’

‘I’ve learnt one or two things lately,’ he said rather bitterly.

‘Oh, do tell me.’

‘They’re not very helpful, I’m afraid. One is that, if you send a watch to be mended nowadays, it will take six months, and. you will be charged the extortionate price of twenty-five shillings.’

‘Well, but they’re giving you all that time in which to save up. I think that’s rather nice of them.’

‘The other is that if your watch was being very fast or very slow before, you’ll have nothing of that sort to complain of in the future. It now won’t go at all.’

‘I see. And if it didn’t go at all when you sent it, I suppose it would now start going backwards?’

He laughed, and said, ‘Probably. It’s a hell of a world just now. Or don’t you find it so?’

‘Well, I seem to be in it, and I can’t see my way to any other. So I do the best I can.’

He looked at her for a little, and said, almost to himself, ‘Yes, it would be all right for you. You’re young and beautiful.’

‘That seems to want a compliment in exchange.’

‘Good Heavens, no, I wasn’t dreaming of such a thing.’

‘All right, then you won’t get it. So, speaking for myself alone, I’ll say that one can’t spend one’s whole life looking in the glass and saying “God, how beautiful I am!”; and that, if the world is Hell, the younger you are, the more you’re going to have of it. So, if you really think that it’s all right for me, please stop saying it’s a hell of a world.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said George. ‘You must forgive me. It’s the sort of silly thing one gets into the habit of saying without meaning anything.’ He smiled to himself and added, ‘As it happens, I discovered this afternoon that it wasn’t at all a hell of a world. On the contrary, it has great possibilities.’

‘That would cheer it up if it knew,’ she said. ‘Somehow I thought you were enjoying it, in a quiet sort of way.’

With the graceful half-bow of the courtier paying his lady a compliment, George said, ‘Well—er—naturally—I mean—er—you——’

‘Take a little time,’ she nodded, ‘and do us both justice.’

He gave her a very boyish smile suddenly, and shook his head. ‘You’ve ruined it.’

‘Oh!’ She said it like a child who has had its visit to the circus postponed. ‘Never mind. Something else will come to you without thinking, and you’ll blurt it out, and I shall pass it over quickly, and then dwell on it happily after you’ve gone.’

‘Is that what you do?’

‘Always. Don’t you?’

He considered it, trying to recall any compliments which had been paid to him—not, of course, by Ethel.

‘Yes, I think I do,’ he said seriously, ‘only of course I don’t get so much opportunity.’

‘Oh well,’ she smiled, ‘I’ll try to give you an opportunity just before you go.’

‘That’s very kind of you. But why are you so certain that I am going first? You don’t know what my station is.’

‘I know what mine is.’

‘Of course. Stupid of me. You’re going on to the end.’

‘Yes. You ought to have done that more quickly, oughtn’t you?’

‘I’m not very quick, I’m afraid,’ he said humbly.

‘Oh, I don’t know, you’re not doing badly. Do you go up and down every day?’

‘Yes. It’s only an hour each way by my usual train.’

‘Isn’t this your usual?’

‘Oh, no! The 5.30. And the 8.45 in the morning. Full of business men, all going up and down like me.’

‘And what do you all do to pass the time?’

‘Read the papers, and curse the Government, and somebody says “Did you hear about old So-and-so”—getting a divorce or going into liquidation or something, and we all say “Good Lord!” and “Well, I always did think——” and go back to our papers.’ And that has been my life, he thought, and I never knew it.

‘Two hours every day,’ she murmured to herself.

‘You must add a quarter of an hour each end to and from the station.’

‘Three hours a day. Six days a week?’

‘Well, lately, five. You see, f m head partner now.’

‘Fifteen hours a week. How many weeks a year?’

‘On an average, say, forty-four.’

‘That’s—wait a moment——’

‘Six-sixty.’

‘Why did you say you weren’t very quick? Well now, would you like to get that into days first, or shall we multiply by the number of years and then do it?’

‘It’s twelve years—where I am now.’ He didn’t say ‘Where we are now.’ Instinctively he kept Ethel out of it; not knowing whether it was because he had now left her for Mary, or because a married man might be less interesting to a girl like this.

‘Well, come on. Six-sixty hours multiplied by twelve——’

‘Three-thirty days.’

She nodded to herself, saying, ‘Evidently there’s a way of doing these things which I haven’t been told about. Well, that’s nearly a year.’

‘Two years altogether, I should say. I used to live nearer to my work, but then it was six days a week and much less holiday.’

‘Two years of your life! Wasted?’

‘Absolutely. Except for this evening.’

She clapped her hands delightedly.

‘That was just right! I knew you’d do it.’

‘It wasn’t a compliment,’ he said seriously. ‘Just an obvious fact.’

‘Better and better! I must be looking rather special.’ She felt in her bag.

‘I was going to ask you,’ said George, with the sudden bravado of the quiet man; ‘do you always look as nice as this, or ——’

‘I’ll tell you.’ She took out her mirror again.

‘I wondered if there was to be a civic reception on the platform, and you’d dressed up for it.’

‘It’s the hat,’ she announced firmly. ‘That’s what’s doing it.’

‘I have got a theory about hats.’

‘So have I. What’s yours?’

George felt very wise, very much a man of the world, laying down the law about women’s hats.

‘It’s simply this. If a woman’s hat doesn’t make her face more attractive, then it isn’t doing its job. The hat isn’t anything in itself. It’s a beautifier—or nothing.’

‘The exact opposite of a mink coat, in fact.’

‘Precisely. It’s the picture-frame, that’s all.’

‘And the mink coat is the red label saying “Sold”,’ she murmured. ‘And if you guess from that remark that nobody, alas! has ever given me a mink coat, you would be right.’

He felt a sudden wild desire to give her a mink coat; and a more compelling urge not to be a damned fool.

‘What was your idea—I mean about hats?’

‘Oh, much more personal. Simply that this is my sort of hat, and I always knew it was, and, thank Heaven, I can’t afford another for a long, long time. But I think you’re quite right. Tell me some more of your ideas.’

They discussed everything they could think of; she lightly, he a little heavily at times, with an occasional break into lightness which was the more attractive for being long out of use. He had never realised before how few girls had come into his life. All his wife’s friends, now he considered them, were as middle-aged as she; if not as dowdy as Ethel, then, more regretfully, made up beyond all nature to look less dowdy than Ethel. The few girls who lived there—well, he had hardly noticed them, which meant, he supposed, that they were hardly worth noticing. The Travers girl, for example. Or Freda Williams. Nice healthy girls, and who cared?

Her voice fascinated him; and, when it came, her laugh. He wished that he were more amusing. No, he didn’t. It wasn’t her laugh when she was amused which he wanted, but her laugh when she was happy; when she was happily interested in what they were saying to each other. And what was it? Nothing very much. Just two friends eagerly talking. He laughed himself suddenly.

‘Yes?’ she said expectantly.

‘I was just thinking how funny it was that I feel I know you so well, and yet I don’t even know your name.’

‘Miranda,’ she said.

Quite naturally. Just like that. Well, perhaps better like that. ‘Mine’s George,’ he said, absurdly conscious of it as his own intimate property.

‘Oh, no!’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not a bit like you. Not really. Do you mind if we change it?’

‘Into what?’

She looked at him consideringly. ‘I shall call you Peter. It isn’t quite your name yet, but you’ll find yourself gradually getting to feel like it. You’ve been George too long.’

He was going to be George again very soon. Only one more station.

‘The next is mine,’ he said, and hated it.

‘Oh dear! And there are such a lot of things we haven’t discussed.’

‘That’s just it. When are you coming to London again?’

‘I’m coming up to-morrow. After that—I don’t know.’

‘To-morrow.’ He nodded, and made up his mind. “‘Miranda?’

‘Yes, Peter?’

‘Will you lunch with me to-morrow?’

She looked at him frankly.

‘Sure you want me to?’

‘Very much.’

‘All right, Peter.’

‘Thank you.’ He tried to remember a fashionable restaurant. ‘The Millamant? 1.15? I mean 1.15 for you; I shall be there long before, trying to believe that you are really coming.’

‘I shall come.’

‘Well’—he got up—’good-bye, Miranda, till to-morrow.’

‘Good-bye, Peter.’

‘I’m so glad I missed my train.’

‘I’m so glad I caught mine,’ she laughed.

‘Millamant, 1.15.’ The train stopped. He gave her a little bow, and went out.

4

He sat in the lounge of the Millamant, near the swing door. Every time a taxi stopped, every time the door revolved, he anticipated the hat. It would be the same hat. For the first time he realised how many people there were in the world who were not Miranda; how many girls there were, well-dressed girls, pretty girls, who might have been Miranda but weren’t. All followed by men; or waving fingers, as they came in smiling, to men who waited for them—as he was waiting for Miranda’s up-held hand and warming smile. For Miranda’s hat stooping out of the taxi. It was 1.15. She would be a little late; it was a woman’s right; but at any moment now she would come.

Sometimes they didn’t come. A page-boy went through the lounge calling for Mr Peters, and disappeared into the restaurant. He, or another, had come in again, calling for Mr Ransom, and this time Mr Ransom at a near table had beckoned him, and gone off, presumably to the telephone. George had watched him idly, had seen him later, hat in hand, making for the door. Mr Ransom’s girl couldn’t come; she was making some other arrangement. Tea perhaps. George had felt condescendingly sorry for Mr Ransom, because at any moment Miranda would be here . . .

‘Millamant, 1.15.’ There could be no mistake, no mistake about the promise to come. Millamant, 1.15, and already it was 1.30.

He ordered himself a drink. She would understand. She would explain why she was late, and say of course he was having a drink, poor man, and of course he must have another, and then she could have one too. At 1.45 he was having that other one, but she need not know that it was his second. Yes, she was a little late, but he had liked waiting for her, knowing that she would come, and he’d just ordered himself a drink, and what would she have? And then they would raise glasses to each other, and he would be looking at her again, and hearing her voice again, and hearing her laugh . . .

It was 2 o’clock when he left, it was so obvious now that she was not coming. He thought of all the places where she might be, the restaurants where she might have gone by mistake. What about the Mirabelle—was that its name? something like that—but it was too late now, she wouldn’t be waiting there now, not all this time. He felt that he ought to have done something earlier, but he didn’t know what. A younger man would have known. He was both too old and too inexperienced for this kind of thing. He didn’t know what to do when these things happened.

Then, with a sudden lightening of the heart, he told himself that she would be going back by the 6.25. Of course! Then so would he. Why not? He was his own master, and he could go by whatever train he liked. He would see her on the 6.25 again!

He had a hasty lunch at his club, and went back to his office, almost happy. But all through the afternoon’s work she made fleeting visits to his mind, asking him each time if he were sure she would be on the 6.25. Fool, he thought suddenly. Of course I’m not. It is she who has broken our engagement, who for no fault of her own was forced to break our engagement, and it is she who will try to make up for it. She knows that the 5.30 is my usual train, and she will look for me there.

Or won’t she? Isn’t that too much to expect of her? Won’t she look to me to come by her train?

Oh well, which? Obviously both. He must be there for the 5.30, and, if she didn’t come, wait for the 6.25. He would be at the barrier. His friends would say, ‘Hallo, coming along?’ and he would explain that he was waiting for somebody.

He waited. She did not come. He waited until the 6.25 was moving out of the station. She had not come . . .

He had a carriage to himself again. Yesterday she was sitting there opposite to him. To-day, only her ghost. He still had that feeling that he had been stupid, that he had missed something . . . The train was coming to his station, he was standing, hat in hand again, saying, ‘Good-bye, Miranda, till to-morrow,’ when suddenly he remembered; when he heard again her voice saying, ‘I shall call you Peter. You have been George too long,’ and heard again a boy’s shrill voice calling, ‘Mr Peters! Mr Peters!’

‘Oh God!’ he cried aloud. ‘I deserve it!’

Ethel was very much Ethel that evening. She had all this to tell him about Tim Ferrars. As soon as possible after dinner he escaped to what she called his den, saying that he had letters to write. He only wrote one letter. It was to Mary.

In Vino Veritas

I am in a terrible predicament, as you will see directly. I don’t know what to do . . .

‘One of the maxims which I have found most helpful in my career,’ the Superintendent was saying, ‘apart, of course, from employing a good press agent, has been the simple one that appearances are not always deceptive. A crime may be committed exactly as it seems to have been committed, and exactly as it was intended to be committed.’ He helped himself and passed the bottle.

‘I don’t think I follow you,’ I said, hoping thus to lead him on.

I am a writer of detective stories. If you have never heard of me, it can only be because you don’t read detective stories. I wrote Murder on the Back Stairs and The Mystery of the Twisted Eglantine, to mention only two of my successes. It was this fact, I think, which first interested Superintendent Frederick Mortimer in me, and, of course, me in him. He is a big fellow with the face of a Roman Emperor; I am rather the small neat type. We gradually became friends, and so got into the habit of dining together once a month, each in turn being host in his own flat. He liked talking about his cases, and naturally I liked listening. I may say now that Blood on the Eiderdown was suggested to me by an experience of his at Crouch End. He also liked putting me right when I made mistakes, as so many of us do, over such technical matters as finger-prints and Scotland Yard procedure. I had always supposed, for instance, that you could get good finger-prints from butter. This, apparently, is not the case. From buttery fingers on other objects, yes, but not from the pat of butter itself, or, anyhow, not in hot weather. This, of course, was a foolish mistake of mine, as in any case Lady Sybil would not have handled the butter directly in this way, as my detective should have seen. My detective, by the way, is called Sherman Flagg, and is pretty well known by now. Not that this is germane to my present story.

‘I don’t think I follow you,’ I said.

‘I mean that the simple way of committing a murder is often the best way. This doesn’t mean that the murderer is a man of simple mind. On the contrary. He is subtle enough to know that the simple solution is too simple to be credible.’

This sounded anything but simple, so I said, ‘Give me an example.’

‘Well, take the case of the magnum of Tokay which was sent to the Marquis of Hedingham on his lordship’s birthday. Have I never told you about it?’

‘Never.’ I said, and I, too, helped myself and passed the bottle.

He filled his glass and considered. ‘Give me a moment to get it clear,’ he said. ‘It was a long time ago.’ While he closed his eyes, and let the past drift before him, I fetched another bottle of the same: a Château Latour ‘78, of which, I understand, there is very little left in the country.

‘Yes,’ said Mortimer, opening his eyes, ‘I’ve got it now.’

I leant forward, listening eagerly. This is the story he told me.

The first we heard of it at the Yard (said Mortimer) was a brief announcement over the telephone that the Marquis of Hedingham’s butler had died suddenly at his lordship’s town house in Brook Street, and that poison was suspected. This was at 7 o’clock. We went round at once. Inspector Totman had been put in charge of the case; I was a young Detective Sergeant at the time, and I generally worked under Totman. He was a brisk, military sort of fellow, with a little prickly ginger moustache, good at his job, in a showy, orthodox way, but he had no imagination, and he was thinking all the time of what Inspector Totman would get out of it. Quite frankly I didn’t like him. Outwardly we kept friendly, for it doesn’t do to quarrel with one’s superiors; indeed, he was vain enough to think that I had a great admiration for him; but I knew that he was just using me for his own advantage, and I had a shrewd suspicion that I should have been promoted before this, if he hadn’t wanted to keep me under him so that he could profit by my brains.

We found the butler in his pantry, stretched out on the floor. An open bottle of Tokay, a broken wine-glass with the dregs of the liquid still in it, the medical evidence of poisoning, all helped to build up the story for us. The wine had arrived about an hour before, with the card of Sir William Kelso attached to it. On the card was a typewritten message, saying, ‘Bless you, Tommy, and here’s something to celebrate it with.’ Apparently it was his lordship’s birthday, and he was having a small family party for the occasion, of about six people. Sir William Kelso, I should explain, was his oldest friend and a relation by marriage, Lord Hedingham having married his sister; in fact, he was to have been one of the party present that evening. He was a bachelor, about fifty, and a devoted uncle to his nephew and nieces.

Well, the butler had brought up the bottle and the card to his lordship—this was about 6 o’clock; and Lord Hedingham, as he told us, had taken the card, said something like, ‘Good old Bill, we’ll have that to-night, Perkins,’ and Perkins had said, ‘Very good, my lord,’ and gone out again with the bottle, and the card had been left lying on the table. Afterwards, there could be little doubt what had happened. Perkins had opened the bottle with the intention of decanting it, but had been unable to resist the temptation to sample it first. I suspect that in his time he had sampled most of his lordship’s wine, but had never before come across a Tokay of such richness. So he had poured himself out a full glass, drunk it, and died almost immediately.

‘Good Heavens!’ I interrupted. ‘But how extremely providential—I mean, of course, for Lord Hedingham and the’ others.’

‘Exactly,’ said the Superintendent.

The contents of the bottle were analysed (he went on) and found to contain a more than fatal dose of prussic acid. Prussic acid isn’t a difficult thing to get hold of, so that didn’t help much. Of course we did all the routine things, and I and young Roberts, a nice young fellow who often worked with us, went round all the chemists’ shops in the neighbourhood, and Totman examined everybody from Sir William and Lord Hedingham downwards, and Roberts and I took the bottle round to all the well-known wine-merchants, and at the end of a week all we could say was this:

(1) The murderer had a motive for murdering Lord Hedingham; or, possibly, somebody at his party; or, possibly, the whole party. In accordance, we learnt, with the usual custom, his lordship would be the first to taste the wine. A sip would not be fatal, and in a wine of such richness the taste might not be noticeable; so that the whole’ party would then presumably drink his lordship’s health. He would raise his glass to them, and in this way they would all take the poison, and be affected according to how deeply they drank. On the other hand, his lordship might take a good deal more than a sip in the first place, and so be the only one to suffer. My deduction from this was that the motive was revenge rather than gain. The criminal would, revenge himself on Lord Hedingham, if his lordship or any of his family were seriously poisoned; he could only profit if definite people were definitely killed. It took a little time: to get Totman to see this, but he did eventually agree.

(2) The murderer had been able to obtain one of Sir William Kelso’s cards, and knew that John Richard Mervyn Plantaganet Carlow, 10th Marquis of Hedingham, was called ‘Tommy’ by his intimates. Totman deduced from this that he was therefore one of the Hedingham-Kelso circle of relations and friends. I disputed this. I pointed out: (a) that it was rather to strangers than to intimate friends that cards were presented; except in the case of formal calls, when they were left in a bowl or tray in the hall, and anybody could steal one; (b) that the fact that Lord Hedingham was called Tommy must have appeared in Society papers and be known to many people; and, most convincing of all, (c) that the murderer did not know that Sir William Kelso was to be in the party that night. For obviously some reference would have been made to the gift, either on his arrival or when the wine was served; whereupon he would have disclaimed any knowledge of it, and the bottle would immediately have been suspected. As it was, of course, Perkins had drunk from it before Sir William’s arrival. Now both Sir William and Lord Hedingham assured us that they always dined together on each other’s birthday, and they were convinced that any personal friend of theirs would have been aware of the fact. I made Totman question them about this, and he then came round to my opinion.

(3) There was nothing to prove that the wine in the bottle corresponded to the label; and wine experts were naturally reluctant to taste it for us. All they could say from the smell was that it was a Tokay of sorts. This, of course, made it more difficult for us. In fact, I may say that neither from the purchase of the wine nor the nature of the poison did we get any clue.

We had, then, the following picture of the murderer. He had a cause for grievance, legitimate or fancied, against Lord Hedingham, and did not scruple to take the most terrible revenge. He knew that Sir William Kelso was a friend of his lordship’s and called him Tommy, and that he might reasonably give him a bottle of wine on his birthday. He did not know that Sir William would be dining there that night; that is to say, even as late as 6 o’clock that evening, he did not know. He was not likely, therefore, to be anyone at present employed or living in Lord Hedingham’s house. Finally, he had had an opportunity, for what this was worth, to get hold of a card of Sir William’s.

As it happened, there was somebody who fitted completely into this picture. It was a fellow called—wait a bit, Merrivale, Medley—oh well, it doesn’t matter. Merton, that was it. Merton. He had been his lordship’s valet for six months, had been suspected of stealing, and dismissed without a character. Just the man we wanted. So for a fortnight we searched for Merton. And then, when at last we got on to him, we discovered that he had the most complete alibi imaginable. (The Superintendent held up his hand, and it came into my mind that he must have stopped the traffic as a young man with just that gesture.) Yes, I know what you’re going to say, what you detective-story writers always say—the better an alibi, the worse it is. Well, sometimes, I admit; but not in this case. For Merton was in gaol, under another name, and he had been inside for the last two months. And what do you think he was suspected of, and now waiting trial for? Oh well, of course you guess, I’ve as good as told you. He was on a charge of murder—and murder, mark you, by poison.

(‘Good Heavens,’ I interjected. I seized the opportunity to refill my friend’s glass. He said, ‘Exactly,’ and took a long drink. I thought fancifully that he was drinking to drown that terrible disappointment of so many years ago.)

You can imagine (he went on) what a shock this was to us. You see, a certain sort of murder had been committed; we had deduced that it was done by a certain man without knowing whether he was in the least capable of such a crime; and now, having proved to the hilt that he was capable of it, we had simultaneously proved that he didn’t do it. We had proved ourselves right—and our case mud.

I said to Totman, ‘Let’s take a couple of days off, and each of us think it out, and then pool our ideas and start afresh.’

Totman frisked up his little moustache, and laughed in his conceited way.

‘You don’t think I’m going to admit myself wrong, do you, when I’ve just proved I’m right?’ Totman saying ‘I’, when he had got everything from me! ‘Merton’s my man. He’d got the bottle ready and somebody else delivered it for him. That’s all. He had to wait for the birthday, you see, and when he found himself in prison, his wife or somebody——’

‘—took round the bottle, all nicely labelled “Poison; not to be delivered till Christmas Day”.’ I had to say it, I was so annoyed with him.

‘Don’t be more of a damned fool than you can help,’ he shouted, ‘and don’t be insolent, or you’ll get into trouble.’

I apologised humbly, and told him how much I liked working with him. He forgave me—and we were friends again. He patted me on the shoulder.

‘You take a day off,’ he said kindly, ‘you’ve been working too hard. Take a bus into the country and make up a good story for me; the story of that bottle, and how it came from Merton’s lodging to Brook Street, and who took it and why. I admit I don’t see it at present, but that’s the bottle, you can bet your life. I’m going down to Leatherhead. Report here on Friday morning, and we’ll see what we’ve got. My birthday as it happens, and I feel I’m going to be lucky.’ Leatherhead was where this old woman had been poisoned. That was the third time in a week he’d told me when his entirely misconceived birthday was. He was like that.

I took a bus to Hampstead Heath. I walked round the Leg of Mutton Pond twenty times. And each time that I went round, Totman’s theory seemed sillier than the last time. And each time I felt more and more strongly that we were being forced into an entirely artificial interpretation of things. It sounds fantastic, I know, but I could almost feel the murderer behind us, pushing us along the way he wanted us to go.

I sat down on a seat, and I filled a pipe and I said, ‘Right! The murderer’s a man who wanted me to believe all that I have believed. When I’ve told myself that the murderer intended to do so-and-so, he intended me to believe that, and therefore he didn’t do so-and-so. When I’ve told myself that the murderer wanted to mislead me, he wanted me to think he wanted to mislead me, which meant that the truth was exactly as it seemed to be. Now then, Fred, you’ll begin all over again, and you’ll take things as they are, and won’t be too clever about them. Because the murderer expects you to be clever, and wants you to be clever, and from now on you aren’t going to take your orders from him.’

And, of course, the first thing which leaped to my mind was that the murderer meant to murder the butler!

It seemed incredible now that we could ever have missed it. Didn’t every butler sample his master’s wines? Why, it was an absolute certainty that Perkins would be the first victim of a poisoned bottle of a very special vintage. What butler could resist pouring himself out a glass as he decanted it?

Wait, though. Mustn’t be in a hurry. Two objections. One: Perkins might be the one butler in a thousand who wasn’t a wine-sampler. Two: Even if he were like any other butler, he might be out of sorts on that particular evening, and have put by a glass to drink later. Wouldn’t it be much too risky for a murderer who only wanted to destroy Perkins, and had no grudge against Lord Hedingham’s family, to depend so absolutely on the butler drinking first?

For a little while this held me up, but not for long. Suddenly I saw the complete solution.

It would not be risky if (a) the murderer had certain knowledge of the butler’s habits; and (b) could, if necessary, at the last moment, prevent the family from drinking. In other words, if he were an intimate of the family, were himself present at the party, and without bringing suspicion on himself, could bring the wine under suspicion.

In other words, and only, and finally, and definitely—if he were Sir William Kelso. For Sir William was the only man in the world who could say, ‘Don’t drink this wine. I’m supposed to have sent it to you, and I didn’t, so that proves it’s a fake.’ The only man.

Why hadn’t we suspected him from the beginning? One reason, of course, was that we had supposed the intended victim to be one of the Hedingham family, and of Sir William’s devotion to his sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and nieces, there was never any doubt. But the chief reason was our assumption that the last thing a murderer would do would be to give himself away by sending his own card round with the poisoned bottle. ‘The last thing a murderer would do’—and therefore the first thing a really clever murderer would do. For it couldn’t be explained as ‘the one mistake which every murderer makes’; he couldn’t send his own card accidentally. ‘Impossible,’ we said, that a murderer should do it deliberately! But the correct answer was, Impossible that we should not be deceived if it were done deliberately—and therefore brilliantly clever.

To make my case complete to myself, for I had little hope as yet of converting Totman, I had to establish motive. Why should Sir William want to murder Perkins? I gave myself the pleasure of having tea that afternoon with Lord Hedingham’s cook-housekeeper. We had caught each other’s eye on other occasions when I had been at the house, and—well, I suppose I can say it now—I had a way with the women in those days. When I left, I knew two things. Perkins had been generally unpopular, not only downstairs, but upstairs; ‘it was a wonder how they put up with him’. And her ladyship had been ‘a different woman lately’.

‘How different?’ I asked.

‘So much younger, if you know what I mean, Sergeant Mortimer. Almost like a girl again, bless her heart.’

I did know. And that was that. Blackmail.

What was I to do? What did my evidence amount to? Nothing. It was all corroborative evidence. If Kelso had done one suspicious thing, or left one real clue, then the story I had made up would have convinced any jury. As it was, in the eyes of a jury he had done one completely unsuspicious thing, and left one real clue to his innocence—his visiting-card. Totman would just laugh at me.

I disliked the thought of being laughed at by Totman. I wondered how I could get the laugh of him. I took a bus to Baker Street, and walked into Regent’s Park, not minding where I was going, but just thinking. And then, as I got opposite Hanover Terrace, who should I see but young Roberts.

‘Hallo, young fellow, what have you been up to?’

‘Hallo, Sarge,’ he grinned. ‘Been calling on my old school-chum, Sir Woppity Wotsit—or rather, his valet. Tottie thought he might have known Merton. Speaking as one valet to another, so to speak.’

‘Is Inspector Totman back?’ I asked.

Roberts stood to attention, and said, ‘No, Sergeant Mortimer, Inspector Totman is not expected to return from Leatherhead, Surrey, until a late hour to-night.’

You couldn’t be angry with the boy. At least I couldn’t. He had no respect for anybody, but he was a good lad. And he had an eye like a hawk. Saw everything and forgot none of it.

‘I suppose by Sir Woppity Wotsit you mean Sir William Kelso?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know he lived up this way.’

Roberts pointed across the road. ‘Observe the august mansion. Five minutes ago you’d have found me in the basement, talking to a cock-eyed churchwarden who thought Merton was in Surrey. As it is, of course.’

I had a sudden crazy idea.

‘Well, now you’re going back there,’ I said. ‘I’m going to call on Sir William, and I want you handy. Would they let you in at the basement again, or are they sick of you?’

‘Sarge, they just love me. When I went, they said, “Must you go?

We say at the Yard, ‘Once a murderer, always a murderer.’ Perhaps that was why I had an absurd feeling that I should like young Roberts within call. Because I was going to tell Sir William Kelso what I’d been thinking about by the Leg of Mutton Pond. I’d only seen him once, but he gave me the idea of being the sort of man who wouldn’t mind killing, but didn’t like lying. I thought he would give himself away . . . and then—well, there might be a rough house, and young Roberts would be useful.

As we walked in at the gate together, I looked in my pocket-book for a card. Luckily I had one left, though it wasn’t very clean. Roberts, who never missed anything, said, ‘Personally I always use blotting-paper,’ and went on whistling. If I hadn’t known him, I shouldn’t have known what he was talking about. I said, ‘Oh, do you?’ and rang the bell. I gave the maid my card, and asked if Sir William could see me, and at the same time Roberts gave her a wink, and indicated the back door. She nodded to him, and asked me to come in. Roberts went down and waited for her at the basement. I felt safer.

Sir William was a big man, as big as I was. But of course a lot older. He said, ‘Well, Sergeant, what can I do for you?’ twiddling my card in his fingers. He seemed quite friendly about it. ‘Sit down, won’t you?’

I said, ‘I think I’ll stand, Sir William. I wanted just to ask you one question if I might.’ Yes, I know I was crazy, but somehow I felt kind of inspired.

‘By all means,’ he said, obviously not much interested.

‘When did you first discover that Perkins was blackmailing Lady Hedingham?’

He was standing in front of his big desk, and I was opposite to him. He stopped fiddling with my card, and became absolutely still; and there was a silence so complete that I could feel it in every nerve of my body. I kept my eyes on his, you may be sure. We stood there, I don’t know how long.

‘Is that the only question?’ he asked. The thing that frightened me was that his voice was just the same as before. Ordinary.

‘Well, just one more. Have you a Corona typewriter in your house?’ You see, we knew that a Corona had been used, but there was nothing distinctive about it, and it might have been any one in a thousand. Just corroborative evidence again, that’s all. But it told him that I knew.

He gave a long sigh, tossed the card into the waste-paper basket, and walked to the window. He stood there with his back to me, looking out but seeing nothing. Thinking. He must have stood there for a couple of minutes. Then he turned round, and to my amazement he had a friendly smile on his face. ‘I think we’d both better sit down,’ he said. We did.

‘There is a Corona in the house which I sometimes use,’ he began. ‘I dare say you use one too.’

‘I do.’

‘And so do thousands of other people—including, it may be, the murderer you are looking for.’

‘Thousands of people including the murderer,’ I agreed.

He noticed the difference, and smiled. ‘People’ I had said, not ‘other people’. And I didn’t say I was looking for him. Because I had found him.

‘So much for that. There is nothing in the actual wording of the typed message to which you would call my attention?’

‘No. Except that it was exactly right.’

‘Oh, my dear fellow, anyone could have got it right. A simple birthday greeting.’

‘Anyone in your own class, Sir William, who knew you both. But that’s all. It’s Inspector Totman’s birthday tomorrow——’ (‘As he keeps telling us, damn him,’ I added to myself.) ‘If I sent him a bottle of whisky, young Roberts—that’s the constable who’s in on this case, you may have seen him about, he’s waiting for me now down below’—I thought this was rather a neat way of getting that in—‘Roberts could make a guess at what I’d say, and so could anybody at the Yard who knows us both, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. But you couldn’t, Sir William.’

He looked at me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. I wondered what he was thinking. At last he said:

‘A long life and all the best, with the admiring good wishes of——How’s that?’

It was devilish. First that he had really been thinking it out, when he had so much else to think about, and then that he’d got it so right. That ‘admiring’; which meant that he’d studied Totman just as he was studying me, and knew how I’d play up to him.

‘You see,’ he smiled, ‘it isn’t really difficult. And the fact that my card was used is in itself convincing evidence of my innocence, don’t you think?’

‘To a jury perhaps,’ I said, ‘but not to me.’

‘I wish I could convince you,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Well, what are you doing about it?’

‘I shall, of course, put my reconstruction of the case in front of Inspector Totman to-morrow.’

‘Ah! A nice birthday surprise for him. And, knowing your Totman, what do you think he will do?’

He had me there, and he knew it.

‘I think you know him too, Sir,’ I said.

‘I do,’ he smiled.

‘And me, I dare say, and anybody else you meet. Quick as lightning. But even ordinary men like me have a sort of sudden understanding of people sometimes. As I’ve got of you, Sir. And I’ve a sort of feeling that, if ever we get you into a witness-box, and you’ve taken the oath, you won’t find perjury so much to your liking as murder. Or what the Law calls murder.’

‘But you don’t?’ he said quickly.

‘I think,’ I said, ‘that there are a lot of people who ought to be killed. But I’m a policeman, and what I think isn’t evidence. You killed Perkins, didn’t you?’

He nodded; and said, almost with a grin at me, ‘A nervous affection of the head, if you put it in evidence. I could get a specialist to swear to it.’ My God, he was a good sort of man. I was really sorry when they found him next day on the Underground. Or what was left of him. And yet what else could he do?

I was furious with Fred Mortimer. That was no way to end a story. Suddenly, like that, as if he were tired of it. I told him so.

‘My dear little Cyril,’ he said, ‘it isn’t the end. We’re just coming to the exciting part. This will make your hair curl.’

‘Oh!’ I said sarcastically. ‘Then I suppose all that you’ve told me so far is just introduction?’

‘That’s right. Now listen. On the Friday morning, before we heard of Sir William’s death, I went in to report to Inspector Totman. He wasn’t there. Nobody knew where he was. They rang up his block of flats. Now hold tight to the leg of the table or something. When the porter got into his flat, he found Totman’s body. Poisoned.’

‘Good Heavens!’ I ejaculated.

‘You may say so. There he was, and on the table was a newly opened bottle of whisky, and by the side of it was a visiting-card. And whose card do you think it was? Mine! And what do you think it said? A long life and all the best with the admiring good wishes of—me! Lucky for me I had had young Roberts with me. Lucky for me he had this genius for noticing and remembering. Lucky for me he could swear to the exact shape of the smudge of ink on that card. And I might add, lucky for me that they believed me when I told them word for word what had been said at my interview with Sir William, as I have just told you. I was reprimanded, of course, for exceeding my duty, as I most certainly had, but that was only official. Unofficially they were very pleased with me. We couldn’t prove anything, naturally, and Sir William’s death had looked as accidental as anything could, so we just had to leave it. But a month later I was promoted to Inspector.’

He filled his glass and drank, while I revolved his extraordinary story in my mind.

‘The theory,’ I said, polishing my pince-nez thoughtfully, ‘was, I suppose, this. Sir William sent the poisoned whisky, not so much to get rid of Totman, from whom he had little to fear, as to discredit you by bringing you under suspicion, and entirely to discredit your own theory of the other murder?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And then, at the last moment, he realised that he couldn’t go on with it, or the weight of his crimes became suddenly too much for him, or——’

‘Something of the sort. Nobody ever knew, of course.’

I looked across the table with sudden excitement; almost with awe.

‘Do you remember what he said to you?’ I asked, giving the words their full meaning as I slowly quoted them. ‘“The fact that my card was used is convincing evidence of my innocence.” And you said, “Not to me.” And he said, “I wish I could convince you.” And that was how he did it! The fact that your card was used was convincing evidence of your innocence!’

‘With the other things. The proof that he was in possession of the particular card of mine which was used, and the certainty that he had committed the other murder. Once a poisoner, always a poisoner.’

‘True . . . yes . . . Well, thanks very much for the story, Fred. All the same, you know,’ I said, shaking my head at him, ‘it doesn’t altogether prove what you set out to prove.’

‘What was that?’

‘That the simple explanation is generally the true one. In the case of Perkins, yes. But not in the case of Totman.’

‘Sorry, I don’t follow.’

‘My dear fellow,’ I said, putting up a finger to emphasise my point, for he seemed a little hazy with the wine suddenly; ‘the simple explanation of Totman’s death—surely?—would have been that you had sent him the poisoned whisky.’

Superintendent Mortimer looked a little surprised.

‘But I did,’ he said.

So now you see my terrible predicament. I could hardly listen as he went on dreamily: ‘I never liked Totman, and he stood in my way; but I hadn’t seriously thought of getting rid of him, until I got that card into my hands again. As I told you, he dropped it into the basket, and turned to the window, and I thought, “Damn it, you can afford to chuck about visiting-cards, but I can’t, and it’s the only one I’ve got left, and if you don’t want it, I do.” So I bent down very naturally to do up my boot-lace, and felt in the basket behind me, because of course it was rather an undignified thing to do, and I didn’t want to be seen; and it was just as I was putting it into my pocket that I saw that ink-smudge again, and I remembered that Roberts had seen it. And in a flash the whole plan came to me; simple; fool-proof. And from that moment everything I said to him was in preparation of it. Course we were quite alone, but you never know who might be listening, and besides’—he twiddled the stem of his empty wine-glass—‘p’r’aps I’m like Sir William, rather tell the truth than not, and it was true, all of it, as I told the Super, how Sir William came to know about Totman’s birthday, and knew that those were the very words I should have used. Made it very convincing, me just repeating to the Super what had really been said. Don’t think I wanted to put anything on to Sir William that wasn’t his. I liked him. But he as good as told me he wasn’t going to wait for what was coming to him, and he’d done one murder anyway. That was why I slipped down with the bottle that evening, and left it outside Totman’s flat. Didn’t dare wait till the morning, in case Sir William closed his account that night.’ He stood up and stretched himself. ‘Ah, well, it was a long time ago. Good-bye, old man, I must be off. Thanks for a grand dinner. Don’t forget, you’re dining with me next month. I’ve got a new cocktail for you. You’ll like it.’—He swaggered out, leaving me to my thoughts.

‘Once a murderer, always a murderer . . .’ And tomorrow he will wake up and remember what he has told me! And I shall be the only person in the world who knows his secret! . . .

Perhaps he won’t remember. Perhaps he was drunk . . .

In vino veritas. Wasn’t it the younger Pliny who said that? A profound observation. Truth in the bottle . . .

‘Once a poisoner, always a poisoner . . .’

‘I’ve got a new cocktail for you. You’ll like it.’

Yes, but—shall I?

A.V. and R.V.

1

‘Mummy!’ said Pamela on the last Sunday afternoon of the holidays.

‘Yes, dear?’

‘It is true that everything in the Bible’s true, isn’t it?’

Mrs Haverstock, a little surprised, looked up from her knitting.

‘Darling! What a question to ask!’

‘Yes, but is it?’

‘Well, of course, darling! It was just that it was such a funny question to ask. The Bible is God’s Word.’ Uncertain whether to be shocked or amused, she added, ‘You didn’t think that God would tell lies?

‘You mean He wrote it Himself?’

‘Pamela, dear, you aren’t a little girl now, you’re growing up. You oughtn’t to ask these silly questions.’

‘Why is it silly what I asked?’

‘Darling, you were taught all these things in the nursery by Nanny and me, you had everything explained to you by Mr Donkin at the Children’s Afternoon Services, you go to Church every Sunday, you were actually top of your scripture class this term—Daddy was very pleased about that—and Miss Waters was talking to me only the other day about your taking Confirmation next Easter. And now you ask me if God wrote His own Book!’

‘Did He, Mummy?’

‘Yes, dear, of course,’ said Mrs Haverstock sharply. She went on with her knitting in silence for a little, and then, feeling that some modification of this was needed, said, ‘When Daddy writes letters at his office, he dictates them to his secretary; he tells his secretary what to say; it doesn’t mean that he writes the letters with his own hand.’

‘You mean God dictated the Bible?’

‘Yes. That’s to say, certain very good and very wise men, prophets and so on, wrote it under His inspiration. Everything which they wrote was put into their hearts by God. He inspired them. So that’s how we know that it is true.’

‘Miss Kellaway said that Shakespeare——’

‘Kellaway? Oh, that’s your new English mistress.’ Glad to change the subject, she asked, ‘Do you like her, darling?’

‘No. She squiggles.’

‘How ever do you do that?’

‘You know. All spectacles and wriggles. We’re doing Shakespeare’s As You Like It.’

‘Yes, I was talking to Miss Waters about that. I did wonder a little—but she assured me that it would be all right.’

‘Wondered about what?’

‘Never mind, darling.’

‘Squiggles said that Shakespeare was inspired.’

Mrs Haverstock saw that she had still a little way to go.

‘Oh! Well—yes,’ she said. ‘But that’s rather different. Of course, all poets are inspired in a way, but—well, it’s different. God may put it into one man’s head to write a little play to amuse people, and into another man’s heart to write the beautiful Psalms. But it isn’t quite the same thing. It is the difference between Fiction and Truth. All Shakespeare’s plays—you do understand that, dear?—are Fiction.’

‘And all the Bible is Truth. That’s what I wanted to know, Mummy. Thank you.’

Mrs Haverstock endured a rather ominous silence for as long as she could, and then said:

‘Pamela, dear, there is something on your mind. I wish you would tell me. It isn’t’—her voice became more anxious—’it isn’t Adam and Eve?’

‘Of course not!’ said Pamela scornfully.

Mrs Haverstock put down her knitting, and gave her whole mind to her daughter.

‘I think, darling, I may have misled you just now. There are certain stories in the Bible which are just—stories. They are put there in order to teach us lessons. It doesn’t really matter whether they are true or not, as long as we learn from them what God is trying to teach us. When we are told that Jonah was three days in the—er—stomach of the whale, it is just a picturesque Eastern way of saying that he was in—in spiritual darkness for three days, shut off from God. And the Flood and the Tower of Babel, I’m sure that Mr Donkin has explained to you the moral of these stories. So you see, darling, it doesn’t matter whether they are actually true or not, they are true in spirit, that is the great thing.’ A little uncertain of the spiritual truth of Methuselah’s recorded age and other matters which occurred to her, she went on firmly, ‘What you must not think, Pamela, is that, because you can’t believe this or that story which doesn’t matter, you needn’t believe the things which are true and which do matter. Do you see what I mean, darling?’

‘I don’t mind about Noah and the silly old whale,’ Pamela burst out, ‘but if it’s something about God Himself, then I’ve got to believe it, and I don’t believe it, and that’s why I asked you if the Bible was true.’

Mrs Haverstock was shocked. For a moment she wished that her husband were there to help her; and then she remembered that he was playing golf, as he always did on Sunday, and she saw how much more helpful it would be if Mr Donkin were there.

‘I think you had better tell me about it, dear,’ she said quietly.

Pamela told her very loudly and quickly.

It’s in Samuel, we did Samuel last term, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since, because David numbered the people, and I asked Rosemary, she’s in the Sixth, if numbering people was wrong, and she said do you mean in drill, and I said no, numbering people in a country to see how many there were, and she said of course not, silly, we do it every ten years, it’s called Ascensus. I don’t know how you spell it but we do it every ten years, and when David did it God was very angry with him and sent a pestilence which killed 70,000 people, little babies who’d never done any wrong to anybody, because babies always die first in pestilences, and even if David was wrong, though I don’t see why if we do it every ten years, I think that to kill innocent little babies just to punish him—oh, Mummy, how can people get up in Church and pretend that God loves little children if that’s what He does, I think He’s cruel, and I don’t love Him, I don’t, I don’t’ !She found a rather dirty handkerchief somewhere in her clothes and sobbed noisily into it.

Mrs Haverstock got up and shook her until she stopped.

‘Pamela, dear, please! Here!’ She took out her own handkerchief. ‘Wipe your eyes, and blow your nose properly. No, I’m not angry, dear, I quite understand; but if we lose control of ourselves, we can’t think it out together quietly, which is what we are going to do.’ Seeing her daughter’s woebegone face, she went on, ‘If it is any comfort to you, darling, I was just as unhappy about it all, when I was your age, as you are now. And then Granny explained it all to me so clearly that I never had any doubts again. I wish I could remember all that she said. It was so comforting.’

‘About David?’ asked Pamela hopefully.

‘I forget just what it was that I couldn’t understand. It was something about that time, I mean David, or it may have been Abraham, but I just felt I couldn’t believe it; and then, knowing how many unhappy people there were in the world, and sick people—Granny’s sister was paralysed all her life!—I just didn’t see how there could be a loving God who looked after us, as He looked after the Israelites when He took them through those terrible deserts. Daddy was there in the War, you know, with General Allenby, and he says they are simply terrible.’

Mrs Haverstock had hoped that if she went on talking, she would suddenly remember what her own mother had said which was so comforting; but it still hadn’t quite come back to her.

‘Well, now, darling, we’ve got to remember first that God can see into people’s hearts. We can’t. All we can see is what people do; we can’t see why they do it. One can do quite innocent-looking things with a bad motive, and one can do what seem like wrong things with a good motive. You do understand that, don’t you?’

‘You mean like drowning Fluff’s kittens last week?’

‘Well—yes. Of course we were all very sorry for poor Fluff, but it was the best thing to do. Daddy did explain. And in the same way every wicked man does things which are perfectly innocent in themselves, but they are done for his own wicked purposes.’

‘You mean like sharpening a carving-knife, which Daddy’s so good at, in order to plunge it into somebody’s heart?’

‘Well—yes. Though that’s rather a gruesome example, darling. So you see, we don’t know what was in David’s heart when he numbered the people, but God knew; and we can easily see that David may have had some unworthy reason for it, like pride or vainglory or—or something, which we don’t have when we do it.’

‘Killing 70,000 babies because somebody else was proud——’

‘Pamela, Pamela, one thing at a time. We can now be sure, can’t we, although it isn’t explained very clearly to us in the Bible, that David sinned in some way. He must have done, or God wouldn’t have been angry with him. That’s logic, isn’t it?’

‘Y-yes. But——’

‘Well then, that’s something. Now about the pestilence. This does seem at first rather hard to understand. Yes, I remember now this was one of my difficulties when I was your age. But Granny pointed out to me, and I think it’s so true, that God’s ways are not our ways. He can see into our hearts, but we cannot see into His. We are not told anything about these people who were killed, but we can be sure of two things. Those of them who were wicked were rightly punished for their wickedness, and those of them who were innocent were mercifully released from the troubles of this world, and have been ever since in the company of God’s angels, in that other more beautiful world which God has prepared for us. Yes, I think it was something like that which Granny pointed out to me, and it made it so clear, it made all the suffering in the world so beautifully clear, because it’s just a preparation for the next world. Now, darling, don’t think about it any more; all these little difficulties will be made clear to us one day, not in our time but in His; just ask God in your prayers to-night to strengthen your faith in Him, and you will find that He always answers. Faith—that is what we want. Whatever happens, and whatever happened in the past, whether in Jerusalem or anywhere else, we know that it is God’s will, and for the best. Now run along, and wash your face properly before tea, there’s a darling; Mrs Parry is coming, but I think you’ll do as you are, and you can escape to the nursery as soon as you like afterwards.’

‘Oo, thank you, darling,’ said Pamela, relieved that attendance on Mrs Parry was not to be compulsory; and she kissed her mother and ran along. And as she got into the House basket-ball team next term, and was working very hard for the School Certificate, she didn’t think of these disturbing things any more. Indeed, when, many years later, her own little girl had similar misgivings about those 70,000 poor, disfigured bodies, she was able to give her an explanation of it all, just as beautifully clear as the one which her own mother had once given her, on that distant Sunday afternoon . . .

There is, for those who are interested, another explanation, another version of what happened, which makes it, perhaps, even clearer.

2

Abiezer the Physician came to David and said, ‘Have I the King’s leave to speak?’ And David said, ‘Speak on.’

‘Well,’ said Abiezer, ‘it’s what I was saying.’

‘Not that again?’ said David, frowning. ‘I understood that we had finished with the subject.’

‘The trouble is that it hasn’t finished with us.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said David, adroitly ignoring this, ‘I am glad that you dropped in this morning, because I want you to have a look at the Queen. She has been a little feverish lately.’

‘Which Queen?’ asked Abiezer tactlessly.

‘Bathsheba, of course.’

‘And she is feverish?’

‘In a feverish mood. Nothing to speak of, but since you are here——’

‘As I was saying, and have been saying for the last six months,’ observed Abiezer, returning to his theme with equal adroitness, ‘unless the drainage system of Jerusalem is entirely re-planned—assuming that what we have can be called a drainage system—in a short time many thousands of your people will have begun by feeling a little feverish, and will have ended——’ David sat up alertly.

‘You are not suggesting that the Queen——’

‘As far as she is concerned, you need have no immediate alarm. But there are a million other of your people——’

‘Oh, many more than that. That reminds me, I must have them numbered again. The Queen is always on at me about it. But it was a good many more than a million some years ago. I could send for the figures, if you were interested.’

‘One million, or five million, or fifty million, when once the plague gets among them, there will not be many left.’

‘Oh, nonsense! Why do you come here to talk such nonsense?’

‘I have the honour,’ said Abiezer stiffly, ‘to be the King’s Physician.’

‘At the moment, yes. It isn’t a life appointment.’

‘So long as I hold it, I shall try to do my duty; and my duty is to warn you that Jerusalem must be given a proper drainage system at once. If that is impossible, then some form of sanitary drill must be enforced.’

‘Drainage system! Drill! You don’t seem to realise that these things cost money.’

‘I prepared an estimate for you the last time we spoke on the subject.’

‘I should say you did! How many million shekels was it? Where do you think the money is coming from? What do you think my Army costs, as it is?’

‘One might reply, David, that your third question answers your second.’

King David pulled at his beard, giving himself a little time in which to think this out. Then he said coldly:

‘You know, Abiezer, I am almost certain that that amounts to treason. Indeed, I am not at all sure that it isn’t blasphemy. When you remember how Yah-weh feels about war, and that our whole history under His beneficent guidance has been one long battle, then—well, I must consult the authorities, and see how you stand. Treason and blasphemy, I am inclined to think, and I don’t know which is worse.’

Abiezer bowed.

‘Then you will not wish me to look in on Queen Bathsheba?’

‘Now don’t be hasty,’ said David. ‘I am only warning you. Of course you must go and see her. A little run down, that’s all. I just want—I mean, she just wants you to tell her not to be so interf—so active. Tell her to take things quietly for a spell; perhaps a change of air for a few days might do her good. And about this other matter; I am sure that you are drawing too gloomy a picture. Did I ever tell you in this connexion of a rather odd experience I had once in the Cave of Adullam?’

One of the penalties of being the King’s Physician is that one has to listen to rather odd experiences in caves, however often one has heard them before. Abiezer listened . . .

Abiezer came to David a year later, rubbing his hands, and said, ‘Have I the King’s leave to speak?’ And David said, ‘Speak on.’

‘Well,’ said Abiezer cheerfully, ‘I bring good news. I think we have got it under.’

‘Look, Abiezer, I am getting an old man now. How old would you say I was?’

‘Sixty-eight.’

‘Nine hundred and sixty-eight, that’s right. It’s a considerable age. If I am no longer able to pick up what was evidently left over from a conversation of some previous month and have it immediately under control, you must forgive me. You say that we have got it under. What have we got under? What are we talking about?’

‘The plague,’ said Abiezer grimly.

‘The plague. Ah, yes, I remember now. And you say that we have got it under?’

‘I think I may say that the worst is over. I think I can promise that we have turned the corner now. But during those terrible first three days it looked as if the whole of Jerusalem would be wiped out. If we had gone on like that——’

‘In the circumstances you were quite right not to alarm me unnecessarily. Have you any idea of the death-roll? I am afraid, from what you have been telling me, that it must run into several hundreds!’

‘It is impossible to give actual figures. We have been burning and burying the bodies in heaps as soon as we could, without much thought of anything else. But at a rough estimate I should put it at between sixty and eighty thousand. Say seventy.’

‘Seventy thousand? Dear, dear! That’s bad. That’s worse than I thought.’ He considered for a little, and asked anxiously, ‘You haven’t been able to classify them at all?’

‘As one would expect, mostly women and young children. Particularly children. I should say that the Army, if that is what is worrying you, David, is pretty nearly intact.’

‘Things don’t worry me,’ said David, annoyed. ‘One cannot rule over a great nation for nearly forty years, and allow oneself to be perpetually worried by things. “Worry” is a superlatively ill-chosen word. Looking at my reception of your news with scientific detachment, I should say that my emotional response had been, in part, kingly calm; in part, overwhelming grief at the calamity which has overtaken my people; and, in part, profound gratitude that so many of us have been spared. Indeed, I may tell you that the first phrases of a suitable psalm of thanksgiving are already in my mind. As for the Army, you overlook the religious aspect of the matter. We are Yah-weh’s chosen people, destined by Him to conquer the world. Naturally, then, my first thoughts must always be for my Army. That is why I numbered the people the other day; that is why I rejoice now that of the recorded million and a half fighting men—a million and a half, Abiezer, think of that!—only a few have been taken from us. Worry, indeed!’

When he had made an end of speaking, Abiezer said:

‘Nevertheless, David, your Army is—worrying. If I do not use a stronger word, it is that I may not—alarm you unnecessarily.’

‘What have they got to worry about? Of all my people the most favoured!’

‘Pestilence distributes her favours more doubtfully. The Army objects to seeing its wives and children die in agony before its eyes.’

David started up.

‘What are they saying?’

‘They know what I have been saying these twelve months past. They paid little heed to me; and now that the calamity has come upon them, they do not blame themselves for their heedlessness. As is the way of men, they tell themselves that somebody else should have done something. They say that their King should have given them their orders. Are they not soldiers? How could they act if they had not been given orders?’

‘They blame me?’

‘They think that if Adonijah the son of Haggith had been King, this would not have happened.’

‘Rebellion!’ cried David.

‘No, not rebellion yet. But they murmur it among themselves and soon they will say it more loudly. Then it will be rebellion.’

David muttered in his beard, and looked this way and that. He felt very old suddenly.

‘Have I the King’s leave to speak?’ said Abiezer.

‘Speak on.’

‘When you took Bathsheba from Uriah——’

A wistful look came into David’s eyes.

‘She was very beautiful,’ he said simply. ‘I have never seen anything so beautiful as she was that day.’ He sighed. ‘What a difference a few years make to a woman!’

‘It is many years now, David. But, even so, you remember that, when her son was born, you gave orders that it should not live, fearing that it might be Uriah’s son.’

‘How was anyone to know whose son it was?’

‘But when your orders had been obeyed, you were afraid of what you had done, and you lamented openly, and declared that Yah-weh had punished you for your sin in the matter of Bathsheba by taking away your beloved child. And the people believed you and pitied you.’

‘You use such strange words, Abiezer. Kings are not pitied!’

‘But they may sometimes be believed?’

‘You seem to have an idea in your mind. What is it?’

‘There is a young woman named Aiah——’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said David hastily.

‘Wife of Alihud——’

‘The whole story is completely untrue.’

‘Soldiers do not blame a man for such things. Rather they admire him and envy him. As I understand, she is an unusually beautiful young woman——’

‘She is one of the most——I have never even seen her.’

‘If you were to give it out that Yah-weh had sent this pestilence as a punishment for your sin in the matter of Aiah——’

‘Now I see your point. You think that they would be more reconciled to what has happened?’

‘Men can rebel against the acts of a King. They cannot rebel against the acts of a God.’

David was silent for a long time. Then he said:

‘In this matter of Maraiah, if I heard the name correctly, I mean this young woman whom you were telling me about, you say that soldiers do not blame a man for such things. Has it occurred to you that Bathsheba bears a marked dissimilarity to soldiers in this respect?’

Abiezer’s face fell. It had not occurred to him.

‘We must therefore,’ said David firmly, ‘think of something else . . .

‘Something, however,’ said David, ‘on the same lines, but not involving a beautiful young woman . . .

‘Something, rather, if this were possible, involving Bathsheba . . .

‘Something I had done,’ said David, working it out, ‘which was generally known to have been approved by the Queen . . .

‘Or, better still, instigated . . .

‘In short,’ said David triumphantly, ‘as I always maintained, this pestilence has nothing to do with the extremely efficient sanitary system of the city. It was sent by Yah-weh as a punishment on Bathsheba for the wicked and vain-glorious pride which insisted that I should number the people. But, of course,’ he added magnanimously, ‘I accept all responsibility. I shall take the blame on my own shoulders.’

Abiezer regarded him with reluctant admiration. It must be wonderful, he thought, to be like that.

‘Well?’ said David jauntily.

Abiezer nodded slowly.

‘It will do,’ he said. ‘It seems a little—what shall I say?—out of proportion. But if the people will swallow it——’

‘People, I find,’ said David, ‘will swallow almost anything. If it concerns their God,’ he added, ‘then they will swallow anything.’

Night at the Aldwinckles

It seems that I have lost Gabrielle. I don’t admit that it is my fault, because I don’t know what else I could have done. Looking at it in another way, you can say that Gabrielle has lost’ me. Well, she has only herself to blame. If she had listened to my explanation, she might have been happily married to me by now. ‘Happily’ is, perhaps, putting it too strongly. I don’t see how a marriage can be happy when one party to it does not trust the other party; when one party refuses to accept from the other party, as occasion demands, simple, straightforward explanations of what (admittedly) may seem unusual circumstances.

‘When a guest, on his first visit to one’s house,’ said Gabrielle coldly, ‘is discovered by the butler at 8 o’clock in the morning, stretched out on the drawing-room floor in crumpled evening clothes and a drunken sleep, surrounded by a litter of smashed glass and china——’

‘It was the housemaid who broke in on my sleep,’ I corrected her, ‘and I should put it at nearer 7.30 than 8. But since you have made it clear that you do not wish to know the truth, what do these details matter?’

‘What indeed? After a drunken debauch like that——’

‘I understand that, thanks to the kindly forethought of Mrs Aldwinckle, my bags have already been packed, and that the car will be at the door in half an hour. In the circumstances, I prefer to walk to the station and pick up my luggage there. Good-bye, Miss Aldwinckle.’

‘Good-bye, Mr Wibberley.’

As you see, I left with dignity. I did not write to Mrs Aldwinckle thanking her for a very pleasant visit, because there are, I hold, limits to the conventional insincerities of Society; nor did I make any further attempt to justify my behaviour on the night of January 25/26 by a reassertion of the facts. None the less, having thought the matter over in the weeks which followed, I have now decided that the truth shall be known; if not to Mrs and Miss G. Aldwinckle, then to those of our mutual friends who have been hearing a garbled version of the incident. Here, then, is the plain, unvarnished truth.

Perhaps I have misled you into thinking that I was actually engaged to Gabrielle. Such was not the case. I desire my readers to feel confident of the good faith of the present historian, and I shall therefore confess that at the time of my projected visit to The Towers I was still hesitating between Gabrielle and Mrs Aldwinckle. It was only the discovery on my arrival that Mr Aldwinckle was still alive which made me realise that Gabrielle, beyond a doubt, was my predestined mate. She was (or so I thought then) a charming girl: frank, merry, good-natured, and at times quite pretty. Mrs Aldwinckle (Bella, as I had been calling her in my mind) was physically even more attractive, and, during her lifetime, the bulk of the money would presumably be hers. Of course, the discovery that Mr Aldwinckle was still alive altered the financial position considerably; but I would emphasise that money never played a major role in my emotional reactions to the two ladies. Mrs Aldwinckle, charmingly youthful though she might be, was a year or two older than I, and this, I always think, is a mistake. Gabrielle was seven years younger, which seemed to me the correct interval between husband and wife.

You will have guessed by now that Gabrielle was Mrs Aldwinckle’s stepdaughter. Old Mr Aldwinckle had married three times. When he was in the sixties, his first wife died, and he then married a girl forty years younger than himself, Gabrielle’s mother. When Gabrielle was fifteen, he divorced this second wife; and being now eighty, and unable to profit by experience, married a still younger third wife, Bella. Even after what has passed between us, I have no wish to say anything against the present Mrs Aldwinckle, however temporary she may turn out to be; but if she did not marry him for his money, it is difficult to surmise what she did marry him for. He was an extremely disagreeable old man.

I had met Mrs and Miss Aldwinckle in London on several occasions, and, as I say, had found myself attracted by both of them. When I was asked to the Towers for some late January dances in the neighbourhood, I had no expectation of meeting a Mr Aldwinckle. I arrived at about 5 o’clock, and was shown by a devious route into the drawing-room. The topography of the house, which is important to my story, will be explained later. The two ladies rose to welcome me, and led me up to an old gentleman glooming by the fire. Naturally expecting Mrs Aldwinckle to say ‘This is my grandfather’, I was startled to hear that he was her husband; but I pulled myself together, bowed to him, and murmured politely that he was not to get up. This was an unfortunate beginning. He immediately put his hand to his ear and shouted, ‘What’s that? Speak up! I can’t hear’; after which it was obvious that the need for begging him to remain seated would have passed by the time I had made myself audible. I therefore substituted a word of friendly greeting, which Mrs Aldwinckle broadcast for me, and we left it at that.

‘My husband likes his tea punctually at 4.15,’ she said to me, ‘so we are having ours in the billiard-room. Take him along, Gabrielle. I’ll join you in a minute.’ As we went out of the room I heard Mr Aldwinckle say, ‘And who the devil might that be?’ referring evidently to myself, and then the door closed behind us.

When I say that the door closed behind us, I mean just that. All the doors in the lower regions of the house closed themselves automatically. Moreover, when one room led into another—as now, when we passed from the drawing-room into the library—there were double doors: that is, each room had its own door, and there was a sort of Priest’s Hole between the two. This, as I guessed from my brief sight of Mr Aldwinckle, was a protection against draughts and noise, such as would be demanded by an ill-tempered old man of seventy with a child of five in the house. Protection against noise was no longer needed, but careless young women might still leave doors open. In Mr Aldwinckle’s house they couldn’t.

There was a big log-fire in the billiard-room and a cheerful-looking tea laid out. With its comfortable armchairs it was a welcome change from the drawing-room. I had only had a glimpse of this, of course, but it was enough for me to be sure that it had been furnished by the first Mrs Aldwinckle under the personal influence of Queen Victoria. It was full of occasional tables and uneasy chairs; and objets d’art, as they used to call them, and silver photograph frames were crowded on to every piece of furniture which could hold them. Even with its full-size table the billiard-room seemed open country in comparison with it.

A Mr and Mrs Stephens, I was told, were coming to dinner; after which we were driving to a small private dance some miles away. When I say ‘we’, I do not include Mr Aldwinckle. However, he was a great nuisance at dinner, though one recognised that his presence there could not be helped. All I need to say about the dance is that Gabrielle was my partner for the greater part of the evening, and that Mrs Aldwinckle, almost literally, went straight into the arms of a Major Fosdyke and remained there until we left. Loth as I am to saying anything against Mrs Aldwinckle, it is, I think, my duty to record that, even though several hours were to elapse before she ordered my bags to be packed (and this despite a perfectly simple explanation of my position on the drawing-room floor), yet even now I realised how fortunate it was that Mr Aldwinckle was physically incapable of listening to rumour.

We drove back, dropping Mr and Mrs Stephens on the way. I suppose it was about 2 o’clock when we got home, and found whisky and soft drinks laid out in the billiard-room. The fire was still flickering, the room still warm. I poured orange squash for the ladies, and mixed myself a whisky-and-soda. I had this in my hand as they got up to go to bed.

‘And what about you, Mr Wibberley?’ said my hostess. ‘You haven’t finished your drink. Don’t hurry, so long as you remember to turn the lights out.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said. ‘I did rather want to look at the evening paper before I went to bed. I suppose there will be one somewhere?’

Gabrielle laughed. Mrs Aldwinckle said, ‘Oh, yes, you’ll find it in the drawing-room. This naughty girl laughed because her father takes it there after dinner and reads it from the first word of the leading article to the last word of the advertisements. We never get a sight of it. But he doesn’t take it to bed with him. So if you know your way to the drawing-room——’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘I think so.’

‘Through the aquarium and the library, and on the left,’ said Gabrielle.

Mrs Aldwinckle laughed and said, ‘Naughty girl’ again. We all went out into the hall.

‘You switch on the upstairs lights from here,’ she explained, ‘and you’ll find a switch outside your bedroom which turns it off. I suppose you remember which your bedroom is?’ she added, with a smile which I should have thought provocative, had I not remembered Major Fosdyke—and, of course, Mr Aldwinckle.

‘I remember,’ I smiled back. I did think of saying something a little daring in reply (but lightly, of course), and doubtless should have done so if only one of them had been there. With the two of them it was difficult.

‘Then good night and pleasant dreams.’

‘Good night, Mr Wibberley,’ said Gabrielle, from a little way up the stairs, waggling her fingers at me; ‘I enjoyed our dances.’

‘So did I,’ I said. ‘Enormously. Good night—and thank you.’ I said this to both of them, gave them a little bow, and went back to the billiard-room, making a mental note to get engaged to Gabrielle before I left. She was delightful.

My particular reason for wishing to see the evening paper (a local one, I supposed) was to acquaint myself with the progress of our cricket team in Australia. Though I have never played games myself with any proficiency, I consider that it is an Englishman’s duty to take a patriotic interest in his national side, particularly when it is engaged in the most national of all pastimes, cricket. Moreover, I had wagered £5 against an old college friend of mine, a Trinity man, that England would not win a single one of the Test Matches, as they are called, and I was anxious to see what my prospects were. I suppose it would be true to say that, if I had not had this patriotic enthusiasm for the game, I should never have lost Gabrielle. Well, I am not ashamed of it. It is an enthusiasm which I share with many distinguished men. The other contributory cause to my downfall, as far as I can see, was a dogged determination not to be beaten by events. Of this also I am not ashamed. It is a boast of the Wibberleys that when they set their hand to the plough, they do not turn back.

Having finished my drink, I put down my glass and went into the hall. I walked across this into what Gabrielle called the aquarium. If you can imagine the Palm Court of a seaside hotel in the off-season, slightly reduced in size and only in touch with the outside world through its glass roof, you will get some idea of this curious interposition within the architecture of The Towers. I am too young to have seen The Towers as first designed in 1860 or thereabouts; I was denied the opportunity of seeing it from outside in its yet more splendid rejuvenescence. Doubtless its name was well-derived; doubtless it had also an observatory which offered for a moment of indecision an alternative name. As I say, I never saw it from the outside; and I am glad that I didn’t.

The shortness of my visit also prevented me from discovering whether the aquarium actually held fish. All I can say is that it looked as if it ought to. It was lit by a faint green light in the lofty roof, apparently always kept burning. There may be fish for whom this is a pathological necessity; or it may have been designed to give an under-water feeling to the night visitor. It was all a little eerie, and I was glad to get across the place and into the library.

I was now in Mr Aldwinckle’s territory, and the outer library door closed behind me as I opened the inner one. I put my left hand up for the switch, but could not find it. Almost certainly it should have been there; and undoubtedly I should have investigated the matter in daylight to discover why I had missed it. The biased attitude of Mrs Aldwinckle in ordering bags to be packed immediately after breakfast explains why I am still (as I was then) in the dark. I can only hazard the opinion that the switch was hidden within one of the bookshelves which lined the room. However this may be, my natural reaction was to take out my match-box, and so to make the unfortunate discovery that it was empty.

Possibly a less resolute character would have gone back at this point to seek illumination from the billiard-room. This was a weakness which I would not allow myself. It was easy to feel my way along the books until I reached the far left-hand comer of the room, where the door led into the drawing-room. I did this; I passed through the first door into the Priest’s Hole; and I stood there for a moment, the second door held open with my right hand, my left hand feeling for the switch . . .

I will ask my readers to pause with me in this moment, and to search their hearts to see if they can find anything as yet with which to reproach me. Let me recapitulate. I have good and patriotic reasons for wishing to see the evening paper. I have the permission, even encouragement, of my hostess to fetch it from the drawing-room. I am arrived there in face of a set-back which might have deterred a less resolute man. Is there aught for blame in all this? Nothing, you say. Then I shall assume that you are with me in spirit, your hand, metaphorically, also on the switch, waiting, as I, for more light to be thrown on the matter.

Again there was no switch. But this time the explanation, or so I thought, was simpler. My hand touched, not the wall, but a screen; pulled up close to the door as a further reinforcement against an imaginary draught. I suppose that, at the age of about forty, Mr Aldwinckle had woken up one morning with a crick in the neck, and had decided to spend the rest of his life guarding against another. Very gently I pulled my end of the screen a little towards me, so as to get my hand behind it, and immediately wished that I hadn’t. It was one of those folding screens, stretched out, evidently, to its limit, and the least movement made it wonder nervously if its limit hadn’t been reached. When it had settled down again, I reconsidered the position. A weak character would have groped his way back to the billiard-room, had another drink, and gone to bed. An ordinary man would have carried out the first two parts of the programme, but returned, suitably equipped, to fulfil his original intention. The Wibberleys come from a different mould. I have a cousin who shoots lions, rhinoceroses, and other local inhabitants of Central Africa. I shall refer to him again later, but I mention him now to say that we are of the same blood.

Since the screen could not be moved, I must walk round it; guiding myself gently by the finger-tips until I reached the end, and returning by similar means on its other side to the switch in the wall. I reached the end safely, and turned. My left knee struck a small table; there was a gentle tinkling sound, not unmusical in itself, which seemed to indicate that some objet d’art had fallen into disuse. I moved hastily away, and struck another table with the other knee. This table was more lightly balanced. It see-sawed from side to side, sliding things off its slippery top with each movement: photograph frames, I judged, from the more metallic noise of their fall, a surmise which the occasional crack of broken glass seemed to confirm. I realised that any further attempt to reach the switch would be ill-judged.

Reculer pour mieux sauter, I am not ashamed to confess, has often been the practice of the Wibberleys. I remember my cousin Bernard telling me how he had once surprised a lioness (or more accurately, I suppose, had been surprised by one) when strolling a little way from his tent; and how he had withdrawn backwards, keeping his eye firmly but reassuringly on the animal, until he was within reach of his gun. The skin now hangs in the smoking-room. In the same spirit I was prepared to withdraw to the billiard-room until I reached a box of matches, keeping my eye firmly, so to speak, on my object, the evening paper. I turned therefore to the door, bumping my hip painfully against something more solid than usual; made a short detour to avoid this; turned again, like Whittington, but, unlike him, striking some sort of jardinière with the other hip; felt ghostly fingers playing over my face and heard the dull crack of breaking pottery; stretched my hands out to guard against any more of these enforced contacts, sweeping something, I know not what, to the floor . . . and in a sudden panic, such as I have never before experienced, realised that I was lost.

My cousin Bernard was lost once in the Njaio Forest. He has described the scene to me. The tall impenetrable trees which the fiercest rays of the sun could not pierce: the matted undergrowth: the cold realisation that it was as impossible to go forward as to go back, since one did not know which was which: the awful knowledge that nothing human was within sight or sound: the sharp cry of some animal: the sudden deathly silence. Then the panic.

So it was with me.

In these circumstances, my cousin Bernard told me, the only thing to do is to sit down quietly and reason the thing out. I sat down, therefore, but not so quietly as I had hoped. It is immaterial to the authenticity of my story whether it was a photograph frame or a piece of pottery on which I sat, but I had let out a sharp cry before silence again descended upon the forest. I was lost; of that there could be no sort of doubt. The door might now have been in any direction. At 3 o’clock in the morning in an English January the sun’s rays are not fierce; but even if they had been of tropical intensity no faintest gleam could have penetrated the thickness of the draught-proof curtains. All round me—and, as I had just discovered, underneath me—dangers lurked. Here I was; and here I must stay, until a rescue-party found me.

It was not an inviting prospect, but once one has made up one’s mind to anything, one can bear it. Like an old campaigner I set about making myself as comfortable as possible. Thanks to Mr Aldwinckle’s early experience at the age of forty, the floor was draughtless, the room fairly warm. Squatting down and extending my arms cautiously, as if swimming, I cleared a space on the floor for my torso. My head was under one occasional table, my feet under another. For pillow I had my pocket-book wrapped in two handkerchiefs. As I settled down on my right cheek and side, my customary position in bed, my outflung left hand felt something. Disgusted, possibly, with the closing advertisements, Mr Aldwinckle had hurled his evening paper to the floor. Now I had it in my hands. I withdrew my head cautiously from its table, and wrapped The Northampton Evening Courier round my ankles. It was this, you remember, which I had come into the drawing-room to get. I had got it.

There is no need to go into the morning’s proceedings at any length. I slept the sleep of a good man with nothing on his conscience but the knowledge that he had done what he had set out to do. The housemaid’s immediate reaction on drawing the curtains and turning to face the room again did not wholly wake me. Her piercing scream, her shrieks of’ Help! Murder! Thieves!’ as she rushed to the domestic quarters, left me with the vague feeling that it was time to rouse myself and drink my morning tea. The fact that I greeted the arrival of the butler (poker in hand) with a loud oath and a crash of yet more broken china was due to the fact that I had (naturally) sat up in bed for this purpose, thus hitting my head violently on the underside of the occasional table. I was already feeling in my pocket-book, in reply to his ‘Well, well, well, Mr Wibberley!’, hoping that we could come to some arrangement by which the debris was swept up, and the remaining objets d’art reshuffled on the occasional tables so as to avoid any noticeable vacuum, when the attendance of the rest of the staff, with further shrieks of horror, made any business-like ending to the affair impossible. Within minutes the parlourmaid was taking up tea to her mistress, and Mrs Aldwinckle was giving orders that my bags should be packed.

That is the true story. Looking back on it, I still fail to see in what respect my conduct fell short of good manners, good sense, and a high standard of endeavour. Mrs Aldwinckle and Miss G. Aldwinckle made it quite clear that they did detect a shortage. So be it. Yesterday, by a curious coincidence, I met Mr Aldwinckle’s second wife. She is still quite young, a widow, and apparently well provided for. I told her the whole story, and she was greatly amused. I am going to tea with her to-morrow.

I Don’t Like Blackmailers

1
mr cedric watherston (Watherston and Reeves, Solicitors), a stout, old-young man of forty, sat at his office table, knitting. He was not a good knitter, but he was proud of the fact that he could knit at all. He had learned when a prisoner-of-war in 1917, having walked straight into a German trench on his first journey up the line; and with the passage of years the circumstance of his capture had also become, in some odd way, a matter for pride. He liked sentences which began ‘I remember when I was a prisoner in Holzminden’, and would go a long way to encourage them. When a client was announced he put the ball of wool, the needles, and the unfinished sock in the top left-hand drawer, drew a bunch of keys on the end of a chain from his right-hand pocket, locked the drawer, returned the keys, smoothed his hair with both hands, and waited for the visitor to be shown in.

‘Sir Vernon Filmer.’

Mr Watherston rose to shake hands with one of his most distinguished clients. He would shake hands again with him when the interview was over. He seemed to like shaking hands.

‘Glad to see you, Sir Vernon. You don’t often give us the pleasure. On no unpleasant business, I trust?’

Sir Vernon did not look as if he were glad to see Mr Watherston. He was a tall, fair, cold man, with pale blue eyes, a prominent nose, and a small prim mouth. He was one of those natural politicians who are always conveniently there when Ministerial posts are being given out. If there were to be ten Knighthoods on New Year’s Day for what could only be described as ‘public services’, and nine had been decided upon, his name would come irresistibly to the mind for the tenth place. It might be difficult to think of a reason why Vernon Filmer should have a Knighthood or a seat in the Cabinet, but it was almost impossible to think of a reason why he shouldn’t; and that goes a long way in politics.

‘Cigarette?’

Sir Vernon waved it away. Mr Watherston lit one for himself, leant back in his chair, remembered to put his finger-tips together, and said, ‘Well?’

‘I am being blackmailed.’

‘Dear, dear, we must do something about that,’ said Mr Watherston with an exaggerated calm which hid most of the emotions. Surprise was the least of them, for he had a dislike of politicians.

‘That is naturally what I am expecting.’

Mr Watherston tried over a few sentences in his mind until he got the right opening.

‘Blackmail,’ he said delicately, ‘implies the previous commission, or alleged commission, of some offence. Offences can be classified as offences against the Law, offences against morality, and offences against the social code. Perhaps, in this case, one should add political offences. Which class or classes of offence, Sir Vernon, does the threatened exposure allege?’

‘Legal,’ said Sir Vernon; adding primly, ‘I have nothing whatever on my conscience.’

Yes, yes, thought Mr Watherston, but your conscience must be in pretty good training by now, and it is precisely the legal offence which is most serious to a lawyer.

‘To put it frankly, then, Sir Vernon, the blackmailer is threatening to reveal some action of yours which is punishable by law; an indictable offence?’

‘Yes. To put it with greater accuracy, if the truth had come out at the time, I might have been charged, but need not necessarily have been convicted. I should think that today there was no possibility of conviction.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Nearly thirty years ago. 1909, to be exact.’

‘Ah! So it is the social and political consequences which really matter to-day?’

‘Obviously. As they did, to an overwhelming extent, at the time. Do you not think it would be illuminating if I told you about it?’

Mr Watherston held up a hasty hand. He had had no experience of blackmail, and he disliked the idea of being accessory after the fact to an apparently undiscovered crime. His mind wandered vaguely back to 1909, trying to think of the sort of contemporary illegalities in which Sir Vernon, a young man of 22, might have been mixed up. Having himself been a boy of 12 at the time, he came to no conclusion.

‘Sir Vernon,’ he said. ‘It will be distressing for you to confide this story to anyone. To have to make a needless confession of it would be intolerable. Let us consider the matter on general lines for the moment. There are three ways of dealing with a blackmailer. The first is to submit to his demands.’

Sir Vernon indicated what he thought of that.

‘The second is to prosecute him. As you know, this can be done anonymously.’

Sir Vernon gave another short, unpleasant and obviously sarcastic laugh.

‘Under the disarming soubriquet of Mr X,’ the solicitor went on, unperturbed. ‘There is a pleasant legal fiction that nobody ever gets to know who Mr X is. In the case of a public personality like yourself, this legal fiction is even more amusing than most legal fictions. Prosecution means complete publicity.’

‘Of course.’

‘The only remaining method is to deal with the blackmailer out of court. I could pay his demands for you; I could instruct the prosecution for you; but frankly, Sir Vernon, I am not competent to get the better of a scoundrel whether by negotiation, threat, or personal violence.’ He let tills sink in for a moment, and then added, ‘Fortunately I know the man who is.’

‘Private detective, or shady solicitor? I have no use for either.’

‘Solicitor. A shady solicitor in the sense that he usually acts for the submerged classes, but entirely loyal to his clients, whether prostitutes or Prime Ministers. And a very able man.’

‘You know him personally?’

‘Oh, yes. A most pleasant fellow. The fortunes of war threw us together at Holzminden, where we happened to be prisoners.’

‘H’m,’ said Sir Vernon doubtfully.

‘I understand your dislike of confiding in a stranger. Perhaps I should have added that he has very strong feelings about the detestable crime of blackmail. It is the one charge which he has always refused to defend in Court—which is more than can be said for the whole of the Bar. To get the better of a blackmailer he would go to the extreme length of his purse, his time, and—the Law.’

There was a short silence.

‘Your firm,’ said Sir Vernon pompously, ‘has been my legal adviser for many years, Mr Watherston. I come to it now for advice, and that is its considered advice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well. I agree to accept its advice. I had better see this fellow in my own house at, say, 9 o’clock this evening. Will you arrange that?’

Mr Watherston made a note, saying, ‘His name is Scroope.’ He meditated a small but well-tried joke about ‘unscrupulous’, looked up into Sir Vernon’s face, and decided that it would not be helpful. He got up and held out his hand.

‘Perhaps you will let me know how the matter goes on.

And if there is anything else I can do, Sir Vernon——’

They shook hands and went to the door together.

‘Cold fish,’ thought Mr Watherston, as he returned to his table. ‘One can’t help disliking him. I wonder what he did.’

He picked up the telephone. Afterwards, there being nothing else to do, he went back to his knitting.

2

Being asked by an interviewer to what he attributed his success in life, Mr Scroope replied, ‘My eyebrows.’ These had a natural quirk which seemed to express a good-tempered amusement with the world, and to admit his companion of the moment to an equal share in that amusement. ‘You and I,’ they seemed to say; ‘we know.’ Whether the eyebrows had conformed to the man, or the man, subconsciously or deliberately, to the eyebrows, need not be considered. They were now all one piece. It is doubtful if anybody had ever had a private joke with Sir Vernon, nor was he the man to wish to be on confidential terms with anyone less important than himself, least of all a shady solicitor; but even he recognised the eyebrows as evidence of a knowledge of the world. Mr Scroope obviously knew his way about.

‘A cigar, thanks,’ said Mr Scroope. ‘Nothing to drink. Now then, Sir Vernon, Watherston tells me that you are being blackmailed. Who told you?

‘I don’t understand,’ said Sir Vernon coldly.

‘Dammit, one doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, “I’ve a sort of feeling that there are blackmailers about.” Something must have given you the idea.’

‘Naturally I had a letter.’

‘Why naturally? You might have had a telephone message. Or,’ went on Mr Scroope, enjoying himself, ‘a dark but exotic lady in whose toils you were entangled might have——Is that the letter?’

Sir Vernon released it, saying, ‘It came this morning through the post.’

‘H’m. Typed. Signed “Well Wisher”. Humorous. D’you know who wrote it?’

‘Not with any certainty.’

‘£500 in pound notes on Saturday as a guarantee of good faith, followed by five hundred every quarter-day. Sounds as if he wanted to get married. Well, that gives us six weeks before the second payment. Six weeks in which to think of something.’

‘You suggest that I should pay the first five hundred?’

‘Oh, certainly. At least, you won’t, I will. We’ll keep you out of it.’

‘Read the rest of the letter.’

‘I have. You are given till Saturday to get the money; you are to communicate with nobody; you are to have your car waiting outside your door on Saturday morning, ready to drive yourself to a rendezvous which will be given you by letter just before you start. A cautious gentleman.’

‘Perhaps you are not aware that I am lunching at Chequers on Saturday?’

‘Nobody tells me anything,’ said Mr Scroope sadly. ‘But why shouldn’t you? The food’s quite good, I hear. And who could give you a better alibi than the Prime Minister?’

‘You propose to keep the rendezvous yourself?’

‘As Sir Vernon Filmer? Do I look like it? But I dare say I can find somebody who will pass for you at a distance. All you’ll be asked to do, I fancy, is to leave the money in a certain spot, where he will pick it up afterwards. He’s giving nothing away. Now then, he says, “I have a letter written on board the Ladybird in September, 1909. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten it.”’ He looked up. ‘Have you forgotten it?’

‘No.’

‘Right. Then you’d better tell me.’

There were three of them on the Ladybird on that summer afternoon: Robert Hayforth the owner, Filmer, and a local hand called Towers. They had been fishing close inshore. Hayforth, a powerful and devoted swimmer, had suggested a bathe. The wind was freshening, the sea uninviting now, and Filmer stayed on board. Hayforth, whose idea of a swim was half a mile out and half a mile back, had been gone about ten minutes, when suddenly——

‘He came sidling up to me, his right hand behind his back. I’d never liked him, nobody in the place did, but he was a useful man in a boat, and Hayforth often took him on. He had a bottle in his hand, and he was holding it like a club. He—he accused me of’—Sir Vernon’s face could still show disgust at the idea—’ “messing about with his wife”.’

‘Were you?’

Sir Vernon looked at him contemptuously, and went on, ‘I asked him what the devil he was talking about. I thought he was drunk. He said that when he had finished with me I’d have the sort of face that nobody’s girl would want to mess about with. It was horrible. Such a foul weapon, and he was much more powerful than I. Hayforth was out of sight and hailing distance. I was at the man’s mercy. It was his life or mine. I saw red.’

He poured himself out a brandy and swallowed it quickly. In another moment, thought Scroope, all his past life will flash before his eyes. Why must politicians always talk in clichés?

‘And you killed him. How?’

‘I don’t know to this day how I did it. I seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength. Fear, I suppose, and furious indignation at that loathsome weapon.’

‘You killed him, and you went on killing him. Is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And when you had finished, it didn’t look like self-defence, it looked like deliberate, premeditated, brutal murder. Is that right?’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t.’

‘It’s what things look like which matter to the Law. Well, and then Hayforth yelled “Ship ahoy!” from under the starboard counter or whatever you call it, and you helped him on board, and he saw the body and said, “Lawks a mussy, what’s all this?” And you told him. And he agreed to help you. Is that right?’

‘Agreed on conditions.’

‘Ah, yes, now I’m seeing it. That letter was to him. Exonerating him and admitting sole responsibility. Why a letter? Couldn’t he trust you?’

‘If anything had happened to me, and the body had been washed up later——’

‘It would have been damned awkward for him. Because, stop me if I’m wrong, he was the man who had been messing about.’

‘Yes. I had had no idea of it, but I suppose there were other people who had guessed.’

‘So, when he had got the letter safely in his pocket, you put out to sea—the wind was freshening, you said—and it sounded sufficiently plausible to say that Towers had been washed overboard. No attempt to save him?’

‘It blew up into a gale, we didn’t pick up our moorings until three o’clock next morning; we put the accident at just after midnight. In the dark, in that weather, only two of us to work the boat, what could we have done? We nearly followed him as it was. I never expected to see land again.’

‘Convincing. And no suspicions by anybody?’

‘None that I heard of. He was a thorough-paced rascal. Nobody missed him.’

‘Not even his wife?’

‘She least of all.’ Sir Vernon cleared his throat and added, ‘I should explain that my whole career was in the balance at this time, and that I had no other course open to me. I had just left Oxford with unusually brilliant prospects——’

‘Yes, well, that’s for the Archangel Gabriel or somebody. All that matters now is that politicians stand to be shot at, and here’s some good ammunition.’ He picked up the letter. ‘D’you think this is Hayforth?’

‘It might be, of course. Equally, I suppose, he might be dead, and somebody might have found my letter among his papers. I lost sight of him in the war, and haven’t heard of him since.’

‘That sort of man?’

‘Obviously not in those days, or he wouldn’t have been my friend. But he was always a reckless fellow, and might have been knocked about by the war, have fallen on hard times, and slowly sunk to—this. The war,’ said Sir Vernon, who had fortunately missed it, ‘did not improve people’s characters.’

‘That also can be discussed with Gabriel. Is there anything in this letter which indicates knowledge not contained in your letter to Hayforth?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘For instance, why should it be taken for granted that you can drive your own car? Lots of people can’t.’

For the first time that evening Sir Vernon looked at Scroope with respect.

‘That’s true,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Were you driving a car at this time?’

‘My wife gave me a Rolls as a wedding-present a few months later.’

‘I congratulate you. Driven Hayforth in it?’

‘Probably. I saw something of him up to the war.’

Scroope got up and threw the end of his cigar into the fire.

‘Obviously we must find the man first. I shall sleep here on Friday night, so as to be with you when your instructions come.’ He took a note-book and pencil from his pocket. ‘Turn your head to one side, I want the profile.’ He began to draw. ‘About five feet eleven inches, aren’t you? I think I’ve got just the man. Muffled and goggled, of course, which is what anyone would be who was keeping a date with a blackmailer. My man—Dean is his name—will come in the back way at 8 o’clock on Saturday morning. With false moustache. This is going to be fun. There, that’s not bad.’ He held the drawing up and admired it. ‘Thank God, it’s money that he’s after.’

‘What else are blackmailers ever after?’ asked Sir Vernon contemptuously.

‘Seats in the Cabinet,’ said Mr Scroope. ‘The way I’m going to work, that would have made it more difficult.’

3

At 8.30 on Saturday morning Sir Vernon Filmer came out of his front door and walked across to his garage. It was a chilly February morning, and even for that short distance he thought it well to wear a thick, fawn travelling coat and a check cap. He brought his car round to the front door and left it there. Mr Scroope and breakfast were waiting for him in the morning-room. The former had already introduced himself to the latter.

‘Now then,’ he said, his mouth full of omelette, ‘let’s get down to it. You are to be at the fifth milestone between Wellborough and Chiselton at 12.30. You say you know the road. How?’

‘It was near Chiselton that Hayforth kept his boat.’

‘Good. How long would it take you to get there?’

‘Three hours.’

‘Then Dean must take three hours. We’ll have him in directly, and you can show him the place on the map. What’s the country like?’

‘Absolutely flat. No houses, no trees, no possibility of concealment, as I remember. A long, almost straight road of ten or twelve miles.’

‘You hide the money behind the milestone—nothing elaborate, just enough not to catch the eye of a passer-by. Then you drive on, turning off at Chiselton and coming back to London another way. Obviously he’ll be a little way behind you up to the milestone. He may be outside the house now—he was in London last night to post the letter—in which case he’ll follow you down. Well, it doesn’t matter, but we’re taking no risks. Dean in your coat and cap will be good enough for him. So that’s that.’

Sir Vernon had picked up the letter again, and was studying it.

‘You talk of “him” all the time,’ he said. ‘Does it not occur to you that it is more likely to be the work of a gang?’

‘With a master-mind at the centre of the spider’s web?’ said Mr Scroope hopefully.

‘You notice he says that one of his men will be watching me at this end, one will be at Chiselton to see that I turn off there, one will collect the money for him, and he himself——’

‘That’s four; and with Moriarty and the Ace of Spades and Red Anna we have seven. I must build up my strength. I must have another piece of toast.’

‘I gather,’ said Sir Vernon coldly, ‘that you think otherwise.’

Scroope pushed the toast away, and spoke seriously.

‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll tell you my plans. You’re paying for this treat, and you’re entitled to know. I think that if two young men go out in a boat for a summer afternoon’s off-shore fishing and bathing, they will not be wearing oilskins. I think that if one of them has just had a desperate fight for his life, any letter which he writes immediately after, with a shaking hand and under the stress of great emotion, will be uncharacteristic and only just legible. I think that if a small boat, manned by two people in flannels, is fighting a gale for eight hours, the occupants will not merely be wet, but soaked literally to the skin. And I think that after it’s all over, and now that the unexpected storm has removed all possibility of suspicion, Mr Robert Hayforth will find a piece of sodden paper in his pocket with not a single decipherable word on it, will wonder what the devil it is, and then throw it away with a laugh at the ridiculous caution which inspired it. What that piece of paper would have looked like thirty years later baffles the imagination. In short, Sir Vernon, you may be quite certain that the blackmailer is Hayforth himself, and that it is only his word against yours.’

Sir Vernon permitted himself a little enthusiasm.

‘But that is most satisfactory, Mr Scroope. You relieve my mind considerably.’

‘Yes, but even so he can be extremely mischievous. So, since blackmailers are better out of action, I propose, with your financial assistance, to put him out of action.’

‘Now that we know who he is——’

‘We don’t. We only know who he was; a face and a name of thirty years ago. That doesn’t help. But this letter shows that he is sticking to familiar ground. It is probable that he is living in the district, and almost certain that he has a car. Ever studied History?’

‘I got a First in History in my Final Schools at Oxford,’ said Sir Vernon, obviously surprised that this was not generally known.

‘Pooh, I don’t mean that sort of dead-alive History. Real History. Criminal History. There is no variation of crime which a criminal has not already employed, no method of detection which has not previously found him out. If you know History, you know everything. Ever studied the Lindbergh case?’

There was no need to wait for an answer, Sir Vernon’s delicate shrug had given it.

‘What it came to in the end was that they knew all about the man except who he was. However, he had the ransom notes—numbers taken, of course—and one day he would use them. That was their only hope of getting him. But how? By the time a tradesman has identified the note he has forgotten who gave it to him, and anyway the man has gone. So what? Every gasolene station in the neighbourhood was given a list of the notes, and told to write down secretly on the back of any ten-dollar bill paid in exchange for gas, the number of the car which was filled. Then the list of ransom notes could be consulted at leisure in the evening. Simple. And so, after weeks of waiting, they got him.’

‘Most ingenious. And you have taken the numbers of the notes?’

‘Of course. And I shall go down to Wellborough this afternoon and make arrangements. Not being official it will cost money. But by the time we’ve made the second payment to Hayforth, I shall know what he’s calling himself and where he lives. I’ll tell you something else. He says that he will give you the second rendezvous on March 25th, and that it will be in an entirely different part of the country. It won’t. If his plan works successfully to-day, as I mean it to do, he will repeat it exactly. It leaves you just as uncertain until the last moment, and saves him the trouble of looking for an equally convenient place. He’s clever—but so am I.’

‘And when you’ve found him, what then?’

‘Then,’ said Mr Scroope with a happy, anticipatory smile, ‘the real fun begins.’

4

When Mr Reginald Hastings was arrested for possessing and uttering forged notes he did what all intelligent prisoners do, he sent for Mr Scroope. Luckily Mr Scroope was able to attend him.

‘Well,’ said Mr Scroope, twinkling at him, ‘what’s the story, Mr Hastings?’ He looked at the man with interest, summed him up as a gentleman gone to the bad, than which nothing was worse, and offered him a cigarette.

‘Thanks. I’ve been arrested, God knows why, for——’

‘Yes, I know the police story, now I want to know yours.’

‘I swear to you that I am——’

‘—absolutely innocent. Naturally. But we still need a story to explain why a quantity of forged notes was found in your safe, and why several others which had been passed in the neighbourhood were traced to you. What is that story?’

‘Just that. I know nothing about them. They were planted on me.’

‘By whom?’

‘God knows. Some enemy, I suppose.’

‘Got a lot of enemies like that?’

‘Anyone who knocks about the world makes enemies.’

‘No particular one in your mind?’

‘No.’

‘I see. What about the notes in circulation which have been through your hands?’

‘They must have gone through many hands. Why pick on me?’

‘Obviously because you had such a large store in your safe from which to draw. It isn’t good enough, Mr Hastings, is it? An enemy might plant forged notes in your safe, but he couldn’t force you to circulate them. The ordinary chances of circulation might pass a few forged notes through your hands, but it wouldn’t fill your safe with them. We want a better story than that.’

‘I can’t tell you anything better than the truth.’

‘The truth being that you have no idea how these particular notes got into your safe?’

‘None. It’s a complete mystery to me.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Scroope politely, ‘I will wish you good morning.’ He got up. ‘Just one word of advice, if I may. The story which you will be telling to some other solicitor need not be true; but it must sound sufficiently like the truth to allow him a temporary hallucination that it was possible.’ He held out his hand with a smile. ‘Good luck to your invention.’

Mr Reginald Hastings waved the hand away.

‘Wait,’ he said, and gnawed his forefinger.

‘Thinking?’ asked Scroope.

‘You may as well have it. I found the damned things.’

‘That’s better. That’s much better. Where?’

‘Oh, hidden under a stone somewhere.’

‘You know, I don’t think that that will quite carry conviction—using the word “conviction” in its less technical sense, of course. It must have been rather a moment in your life when you found such a large packet of notes. You would be expected to remember the historic spot.’

‘Oh, well, if you want the exact place, it was behind the fifth milestone on the Wellborough-Chiselton road.’

‘You counted—and remembered?’

The man who called himself Reginald Hastings looked up angrily.

‘What the devil do you mean? It said “Wellborough, 5 miles”, didn’t it? Naturally I noticed.’

‘You were looking behind milestones for something?’

‘I happened to sit down there. Convenient to lean against for a few minutes. I noticed that the ground was disturbed, and, idly, as anyone would, investigated, and——’

‘And said, “Hallo, what’s this?”——’

‘Exactly.’

‘And what was it?’

‘A parcel of pound notes. Damned odd, I thought.’ ‘Well, anyway, you counted those. How many?’

‘Five hundred, in packets of a hundred.’

‘And nine hundred and fifty were found in your safe six weeks later. Nobody would think anything of it if they had been rabbits; but Treasury notes——’

‘I must have counted wrong. Perhaps it was a thousand.’

‘And so, five hundred or a thousand, and not minding which, you decided to steal them?’

‘What’s that?’

‘You wish to plead guilty to an alternative charge of stealing by finding. Is that right?’

Mr Reginald Hastings gnawed his forefinger again.

‘Right!’ he said suddenly. ‘I stole them. Like that. Finding. That’s not very serious, is it? Well, now you’ve got the truth.’

‘At least we’re getting on. So, having found them accidentally, you decided to say nothing about them, stuffed them in your pocket, and drove off with them?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Fill up with petrol anywhere on the way home, paying with one of the notes?’

‘No,’ said the man, surprised. ‘I’d filled up before I started. Why?’

‘I just wondered why a man, driving along the Well-borough-Chiselton road on a cold and frosty morning, should stop at precisely the fifth milestone, lean against it rather than against the cushions of his car, fiddle about behind it, and——’

The man calling himself Reginald Hastings jumped to his feet, and said angrily, ‘What’s all this? You trying to trap me?’

‘I’m trying to do,’ said Scroope mildly, ‘what Counsel for the Prosecution will do much more thoroughly. Because it is necessary for you to know what you will be up against.’

‘Sorry. I see the point; but naturally’—he gave an awkward little laugh—’I’m a bit upset about the whole thing. But I do absolutely swear, and it’s Gospel truth, that I didn’t know that the notes were forged, and that I found them precisely where I said I did.’

‘Knowing that they would be there?’

‘I’ve told you my story, and I’m sticking to it. I happened to find them. Let them make what they bloody well like of that. It’s all they’re going to get.’

‘Oh, come, we must give them a little more. They know now that you happened to find them, they know where you happened to find them, what about telling them when you happened to find them?’

‘When?’

‘Take your time——When?’

‘I can’t remember the exact date. Does it matter?’

‘Well, it depends which date you can’t remember.’

Mr Reginald Hastings wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and said, ‘I haven’t the vaguest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I want the date which you can’t exactly remember, when you got out of your car, leant against the fifth milestone, and accidentally found a packet of notes. Just a rough guess.’

‘Roughly about the first week in February. Satisfied?’

‘Quite. The first forged note which came to hand was paid to the Lion Garage at Chiselton on February 18th. So that fits nicely. Now what about the second date? When you again got out of your car, leant against the fifth milestone, and accidentally found a second packet of notes.’

Mr Reginald Hastings licked his lips and said, ‘What makes you think I did that?’

‘Two parcels were found in your safe. One, opened, contained about four hundred and fifty forged notes. The other, unopened—or, possibly, opened, examined, and tied up again—contained five hundred.’

‘Wait a moment.’

‘No hurry.’

‘I can explain that. It’s all coming back to me. The parcel which I found’——

‘In the first week in February?’

‘Yes. It was really two parcels, done up together. I counted the top one and it was £500, which was what made me say five hundred just now. I was forgetting for the moment about the other parcel, which I didn’t open. Obviously there was another five hundred in that. Making the thousand as you were saying.’ He drew the back of his hand across his forehead again and added, ‘Silly of me.’

‘Not at all. Very natural. Then all that we have left to explain,’ said Mr Scroope cheerfully, ‘is why the inner wrapper of the second parcel was a double sheet of the Western Morning News dated March 24th.’

‘I—I——’

‘You are about to tell me that on March 25th you suddenly decided to repack the second parcel in the previous day’s paper; explaining that, as you five on the East Coast, you preserve your mental balance by taking in the Western Morning News. Tell me, by all means, Mr Hastings, I have a romantic nature; but don’t tell twelve hard-headed British jurymen.’

Robert Hayforth banged the table with his hand, and cried, ‘God damn and blast him, he’s framed me!’

‘Who?’

‘The snivelling devil!’

‘Who is sniveller? Who is he?’ murmured Mr Scroope to himself.

‘The Right Honourable Sir Vernon Filmer.’ He dragged the words out sneeringly. ‘All right, you’ve got it. It was hush money. He killed a man, murdered him; that’s your—Right Honourable. You want me to tell the truth in Court. Right, I’ll tell it—and we’ll go down together.’

Mr Scroope got up.

‘You must arrange that as you please, Mr Hastings, with whatever solicitor you engage. I must tell you now that I have made it an inexorable rule never to defend blackmail cases. On the other hand, of course, everything which you have told me is in the strictest confidence, and I now fade out of the case entirely. But I will just warn you in parting that the penalty for blackmail is, next to that for murder, the severest known to the Law. Any written evidence which you may have had against Sir Vernon Filmer will be in possession of the police, and you will not be permitted to use it. An unsupported accusation of murder made in defence against the present charge would only make your case worse and your punishment more severe. If you take my unprofessional advice, you will plead “Not Guilty” to the present charge, give no evidence, and leave it to your Counsel to suggest that in some undefined way you are the innocent victim of a conspiracy.’

He picked up his hat and went to the door.

‘Oh, by the way,’ he added, ‘if it gets about, though I don’t see why it should, that I declined this case, you will not be prejudiced.’ The eyebrows went up in that humorous quirk of his. ‘It may even do you good. There is an absurd legend in legal circles that I only defend the guilty.’

5

Mr Watherston returned his keys to his pocket, picked up the telephone, and said, ‘Watherston here.’

‘Busy?’

‘Just turning the heel.’

There was a laugh, and the voice said, ‘Anyone listening in?’

‘My dear fellow!’

‘Right. Then I thought you would like to know that your friend is relieved of all anxiety for five years.’

‘Five years! Or would it be four?’

‘Well, it might be four.’

‘Fancy! I do congratulate you. I was reading an interesting case this morning, forging and uttering and all that sort of thing, and oddly enough—but, of course, it’s only a coincidence.’

‘I expect so. A respectable family lawyer shouldn’t read criminal cases.’

It just caught the eye. Tell me, where did you get the—er—ground-bait from, if I am not overrating your ingenuity?’

‘Legacy from an old case.’

‘Did you get him off?’

‘Of course. But he’s a reformed character now.’

‘Says he and says you.’

‘I never defend the same man twice.’

‘Ah, then he would have to be. Going back a little, what do you think will happen at the end of the five, or possibly four years?’

‘That’s going forward a little, isn’t it? Leave the future to take care of itself. But if you want my personal opinion——’

‘I should value it highly.’

‘I think that you will lose a distinguished client, and the country a distinguished servant. Quite suddenly.’

‘Ah! I was fearing the same thing myself.’ Mr Watherston chuckled. ‘You know, you’re a very naughty man. Here was a perfectly ordinary case of blackmail, such as must be almost normal procedure in the Cabinet, and there is hardly a crime in the calendar which you have not committed, in order to bring the blackmailer to Justice. If,’ he added, ‘you know what I mean by justice.’

‘Well, you see,’ the voice said apologetically, ‘I don’t like blackmailers.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘Come to that, I don’t like Sir Vernon Filmer.’

‘How right you are,’ said Mr Watherston cheerfully.

Spring Song

1

IN the Spring (said a more popular poet than either of them, but popularity isn’t everything) a young man’s fancy (and they were both young) lightly turns to thoughts of love. So it was with Claud Byles and Cecil Urbage. It was unfortunate that in this particular spring their fancies turned in the same direction.

She also was young, and to a lover beautiful. Possibly her nose was a shade too long, her mouth a trifle too small, her chin—but we need not anatomise her. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and at this frenzied moment of the year they both thought her beautiful. By day she was ‘Miss Smith, forward’ in the Glove Department of the Riverstead Bon Marché; by night she was Jessie to her father and mother at Rose Villa.

Claud could be described (and, in fact, was by Cecil) as a whipper-snapper, just as Cecil might strike one (and did so strike Claud) as a jelly-bag; which is saying little more than that one was small and neat, and the other large and unconfined. Claud described himself diffidently as a poet; he was hoping that his genius or his size or something would prevent him from being pushed down a coal mine before he had written his masterpiece. At this time he was trifling with what used to be called vers de société. Cecil described himself truculently as a poet. He also was relying on his genius or his size, but particularly his genius, to keep him above ground until he had made his name. At this time he was experimenting with what is now called poetry.

All this being so, it was fortunate that each of them had an independent income of £500 a year, and still more fortunate that this came from Government stock ‘not taxed at source’. When, a year ago, Claud had received his first income-tax form, followed by a series of demands that the matter should engage his immediate attention, he returned his professional earnings truthfully as ‘Mf and, in a broadminded way, halved his unearned income on the rational grounds that the price of everything had doubled. Cecil had received half a guinea six months before for an appreciation of T. S. Eliot, but pride forbade him to exhibit this as a year’s earnings. He added, therefore, half his patrimony to it, and then, very naturally, forgot about the other half. His official income was thus established at £250 10s. 6d., or 10s. 6d. more than Claud’s.

It was an invitation to a wedding which first brought Claud and Jessie together. He had remembered as the hour approached that he had left his only pair of gloves in a waiting-room at Waterloo three weeks ago, and as it was his pride to be the best-dressed man in any company (which may have been what Cecil meant by a whipper-snapper), and since it was too late now to go back to Waterloo to look for them, he had dropped in at the Bon Marché.

‘Gloves? Certainly, sir. Miss Smith, forward,’ said an obviously over-dressed gentleman with a wave of the hand, and, Jessie thus introduced, strolled magnificently away. Except for the other customers and an assistant or two, the lovers were alone together.

Claud took a deep draught of oblivion. All the girls of all the previous springs were forgotten.

‘Gloves,’ he whispered, with as much emotion as the word would bear.

‘Size?’ she asked, with as little emotion as the question warranted.

This was their first exchange of thought.

He held out his hand, hoping that she would now fondle it with a tape-measure, forgetting that hands were an open book to her. She gave it a brief glance and said, ‘Seven. Colour?’

Claud realised that any prolonged conversation with the loved one would have to receive its impetus from his end.

‘Lavender, grey, slate, elephant,’ he said nervously; ‘stop me when I strike a chord. Or possibly you have other suggestions. What we want is something appropriate for a wedding between a heedless young cousin and the profound mistake she is making.’

‘Black?’ offered Miss Smith.

‘No, no, you misunderstand me. Not now, not now. Far from it, my dear Miss Smith. I will be frank with you,’ he went on, though she had not asked him to be, ‘there was a time——’

She handed him a pair, and stated the price. His love-life seemed of less importance to her than the needs of other customers. One of them was a tall, stout young man on whose ears the words ‘Scarves? Certainly, sir. Miss Smith, forward’ had just fallen. She wrote out a bill with one hand, held out the other for his Clothing Book, gave a seemingly casual glance at the name, snipped out the coupons, returned it with the bill, said, ‘Pay at the desk,’ and offered herself to the next customer, wondering what ‘Claude Byles’ did for a living. Claud gave the side of her face a look which said all, and went over to the cashier. ‘A marvellous day,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘How are you feeling?’ She gave him his change without telling him. The Riverstead Bon Marché was doing little this morning to promote that Host-and-Guest relationship of which it boasted in its advertisements.

Cecil Urbage was not a well-dressed man. Like many stout people he was careful of his health, and one cannot be well-dressed and wear three pullovers at the same time. There was a pleasant freshness in the spring air this morning, and such mornings were dangerous. I need not enter into the reasons why he could not get so close to his side of the counter as Claud; nor could he look into her eyes from the same level; but even a distant, foreshortened view of Miss Smith was enough. He quivered with emotion. Possibly this is what Claud meant by a jelly-bag.

‘I want a warm scarf,’ he said.

‘Lady or gentleman?’

‘Gentle——Well, I mean it’s for me.’

‘Any particular colour?’

‘So long as it affords protection for the throat, the colour is immaterial.’

She brought him a box.

‘Have you anything thicker?’ he asked.

She brought him another box.

‘I suppose these are guaranteed to wear well?’ he wondered.

‘Should do. You never know nowadays.’

‘I’ll have this,’ he said, picking out a dirty yellow one. ‘No, don’t wrap it up.’ He wound it round his throat several times. ‘Rather a sharp morning.’

Miss Smith seemed indifferent to the sharpness of the morning. She said, ‘You pay at the desk. I’ll take the coupons.’

‘Ah, coupons. I was forgetting,’ said Cecil. He unwound himself to get at them. ‘I seem to have two books,’ he discovered. ‘Would that be right?’ He put them both on the counter.

Miss Smith showed the first real flicker of interest in her morning’s work. Mr Claud Byles had had only 12 coupons left. Mr Cecil Urbage, as he seemed to be, had 54. A young man, however stout, who has 54 clothing coupons left is worth any girl’s attention. It was this which gave Cecil his start over Claud. She smiled at him, as she had not smiled at his rival. Cecil gave her a return smile, which for a moment put him back where he began, but the 54 coupons had the greater staying power. She decided to see more of Mr Urbage. When she had attended to the wants of the next seventeen customers, all women, she thought that it would also be nice to see Mr Byles again.

2

Well, there we have the Eternal Triangle once more, with Cecil in the more advantageous corner. The next phase was confusing and difficult for both of them. In order to see the beloved they had to make purchases at her counter; in order to make purchases they had to have clothing coupons.

Claud’s problem soon became simple. He had seven pairs of gloves and no coupons.

Cecil’s problem was more complex. He had all the coupons which a lover needs; but every one which he exchanged for the delight of the loved one’s presence made him that much less attractive to her. He had misunderstood that first smile, supposing it to be of admiration at the approach of so big and handsome a gentleman, or of shyness in the presence of genius. Unknown to him, she was calling for the invitation which never came: the invitation to tea in the Queen Alexandra Café on early closing afternoon, when she could have told him about that new spring costume, and lamented that a mere lack of coupons separated her from it. ‘I suppose,’ she would have said innocently, ‘you don’t know of anyone who has a few to spare?’ and Mr Urbage (it was hoped) would unwind himself and feel for his pocketbook.

She knew something of both of them by now, and they knew something of each other. On the day when he bought his last pair of gloves she had said carelessly to Claud, ‘Did you ever meet a Mr Urbage?’

‘Urbage?’ said Claud. ‘Do you mean—he made a swimming motion with his hands, indicating a semicircle about four feet in diameter—’that man?’

‘Taller than you by a good bit,’ she said coldly. ‘Matter of fact, he’s a well-known poet.’

‘Well known for what?’ asked Claud.

‘Poetry,’ said Jessie, after a little thought.

‘Oh, I thought you meant——’

‘Fancy! He’s got fifty-four clothing coupons left! At least, he had,’ she amended. ‘He’s only got forty-eight now.’

Later, when she was serving him, she asked Cecil if he had ever come across a boy called Claud Byles.

‘Claud Byles?’ said Cecil. ‘Do you mean’—he held a hand, palm downwards, about three feet from the ground—’that man?’

‘A slim boy with a very good figure,’ said Jessie coldly. ‘He writes—like you.’ She picked up her scissors.

‘Not in the least like me,’ said Cecil with dignity. ‘An artist is a unique personality. I don’t write like Milton. Milton,’ he added, to avoid any misapprehension, ‘doesn’t write like me.’

‘Then who does he write like?’ she snapped—and clipped.

‘Like Milton,’ said Cecil.

‘Well, anyway, you’ve only got forty-seven coupons left. What do you want with all these scarves?’

She wondered a little sadly next day if Claud had now left her life, but he was there as usual.

‘I want,’ he said, ‘a pair of gardening gloves. My spies tell me that they come under the heading of “Industrial”, and are thus coupon-free. How are you this morning, Miss Smith? You’re looking as charming as ever.’

‘Anything like that would be in Garden Implements on the second floor, Mr Byles.’

‘Believe me, there is nothing like that on the second floor. Charm in the Riverstead Bon Marché is confined entirely to the Glove Department.’

‘Don’t be silly, Mr Byles,’ said Jessie, trying to be business-like, but handicapped by a slight feeling of pinkness. ‘And I can’t spend my time talking to customers if I’m not selling them anything.’

‘Not if I promise to buy several garden implements immediately afterwards? The Directors wouldn’t want you to miss a good stroke of business like that.’

‘There’s Mr Urbage coming in. I expect he’s wanting to buy a scarf. Excuse me.’

‘Very well. But I shall be back to-morrow to make another small purchase.’

The rivals met; one going, the other coming. They stood and looked at each other. Cecil drew his chin in, as one peering down at something on the floor. Claud moved his head slowly from side to side; what one wanted, he seemed to be saying, was a wide-angle lens . . .

Claud was there next morning as he had promised.

‘I want,’ he said, ‘a small bicycle-lamp. Leaving that for the moment, how are you this morning, Miss Smith? Isn’t it a lovely day? I have just heard a small boy imitating a cuckoo.’

‘This is the Glove Department,’ said Miss Smith, with all the dignity she could manage.

‘Then why do you sell scarves to a captive balloon?’

‘Well, anyway, we don’t sell bicycle-lamps to——’

Claud held up a hand.

‘Don’t say anything which you will regret afterwards. And I didn’t ask you to sell me a bicycle-lamp, Miss Smith. I merely mentioned, by way of making conversation, that I was in need of a small one; just as you, it may be, long for a diamond tiara and a little cooking-fat. Surely we can give voice to our simple aspirations without introducing a sordid financial element. Have you seen Mr Urbage, some of Mr Urbage, again?’

‘He bought another scarf half an hour ago,’ said Miss Smith with a sort of gloomy pride.

‘Have you ever thought of strangling him in one?’

‘He’s a poet, did I tell you? He’s got a piece of poetry coming out in the Messenger next week. That’s more than some people could do.’

‘Has he, indeed? Very well. I accept the challenge and fling back the gauntlet. Do you sell gauntlets, by the way? I want the heavy iron sort, coupon-free, for flinging. Put it down on your order list. For, mark my words, Miss Smith, if poetry wrings your heart, I, too, will have a poem in the Messenger next week. What is more, it will be addressed, not to a drain-pipe, as Mr Urbage’s best poems are, but to the most beautiful girl in Riverstead; and the original manuscript will be presented to her in the course of a short ceremony in the Glove Department, on, let us say, next Tuesday. Meanwhile, I shall be making another small purchase tomorrow. Until then, farewell.’

He raised his hat and left her.

3

So began the third phase: the local Eisteddfod, so to speak, in the Riverstead Messenger.

Miss Smith was truly informed when she said that Mr Urbage had a piece of poetry coming out in that paper. Moved by the ferment in his blood at this season of the year, Cecil had been delivered of a poem called Spring in Alicante. It went roughly like this: I say roughly, partly because there is a rugged grandeur about it which is characteristic of all Urbage’s work, and partly because I quote from memory and may have left out some of the words. There will be those who think that this can’t have mattered much, but they will understand that an author might be sensitive on the point. Here, as I was saying, is the poem.

Spring in Alicante
steam-hammers like white thoughts clanking
as once (once)

‘as once’ in Nanking
once in months the visceral bull
target-centered enters
papal palpable

China-town China-town China-town
crockery and mockery
thighs dew-ridden in the pastoral yoke
egg-white rag-red
steam-hammers
pulsing and repulsing equal and opposite

Ice.

It is not my business to annotate the work of an Urbage, and I should hesitate to do so now, were it not for that one word ‘Ice’, which I remember so vividly: a word singularly out of place, as it seemed, in a poem on Spring. Up to that last electric line we feel that we have followed the poet’s train of thought through its numerous changes, shuntings, backings, and overrunning of points. Then, suddenly, just as we reach the terminus with a sigh of satisfaction, we are jerked into a confusion of doubt by that startling ice. I cannot leave it like that. I dare not entrust an Urbage opus to the speculations of posterity, the varia lectio of some as yet unborn critic, when a glance at the MS. (at one time in the possession of Mrs Jessie Waterfield, and under the short leg of the kitchen table, but I think not now extant) has made the whole matter clear to me.

Like all poets Urbage was an experimentalist. He had tried leaving out capital letters at the beginning of his lines, and he had tried putting them into the middle of his words, in the hope of so achieving what has been called the Great Thrill of poetry. Italics and Roman type were equally at his command. In this poem he had tentatively essayed a more daring experiment. It will have been noticed that the word ‘once’ comes four times into the first four lines. It is, in fact, the keynote of the poem, as it should be of any poem if poetry is to preserve its reputation as ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’. Now, it is always effective to strike the keynote again at the end of an improvisation, and this is exactly what Urbage had planned to do. But on this occasion he had given a new touch to it.

He had written it ‘Ice’.

Claud Byles was wedded to a more old-fashioned Muse who thought that poetry should rhyme, and the oftener the better, and if it didn’t scan why was it called poetry? I’m afraid that she took it all rather lightly anyhow. Claud and his Muse got together on Sunday morning, and prepared to write an ode to Miss Smith.

They began by considering rhymes to Smith. All that his Rhyming Dictionary could give them on the subject was ‘pith’ and ‘frith’, neither of which seemed to express what he wanted to say, even if he had known what a ‘frith’ was. ‘Monolith’, which came to him in a flash of inspiration, received only a shake of the head from his Muse. If Miss Smith were Mrs Byles, the situation would be easier, but in that case he wouldn’t want to write a poem to her. ‘Irony,’ he said to his Muse, and she agreed with him.

He wondered what her Christian name was. If Mabel, then able, stable, and cable; full of promise. If Ruth, then youth and truth; still better. If Jacynth—no, that was worse than Smith. Damn it, he said suddenly, why don’t I choose an imaginary name, as all the Elizabethan poets did? Chloe, Amanda, Lucasta, Julia? None of these. Who was the most beautiful girl in the world? Miss Smith of Riverstead. Who was the most beautiful woman in history? Helen of Troy. ‘To Helen.’ Why, the lines almost wrote themselves.

To Helen

When I fell in

Love with Helen—

O, the sweet entrancing creature!

(One supposes

That her nose is

Probably her fairest feature)—

Did I dare to

Hope, and swear to

Love and cherish, have and hold her,

Fears arrested

As she nested

With her head upon my shoulder?

Was she guessing

(I confessing)

What the throbbing of my heart meant? . . .

’Tis a dream, I

Only see my

Helen in the Glove Department.

No editor, he felt, could refuse such a poem, no true woman refuse the hand of its author. On his way to the Messenger office next morning, he looked in at the Bon Marché to ask Miss Smith if she had any silk-lined boxing-gloves with the town arms worked on the back. Hearing, with a start of surprise, that she hadn’t, and was not expecting any in for the next few days, he said that he would just come round early to-morrow in case, and that he was now going to enter into financial negotiations with the Editor of the Riverstead Messenger for the publication of an important work.

‘Oh, Mr Byles,’ said Jessie, excited, as what girl would not be, ‘does that mean——,

‘It means,’ said Claud, ‘that we shall be going down to posterity together; one of the advantages of posterity being that no coupons are required there. Au revoir.’

When the Proprietor and Editor of the Riverstead Messenger received Spring in Alicante, he read it, blotted out the title with his blue pencil, and passed it to the Assistant Editor, as his son and office-boy called himself when the Editor wasn’t there.

‘What would you call that, Tom?’

The Assistant Editor read it and told him.

‘I meant title. Would you call it “Spring in Alicante”?’

‘No,’ said the Assistant Editor, ‘I told you what I’d call it.’

‘I think we’d better just call it “Spring”,’ mused the Editor.

‘Or what I said,’ repeated the Assistant Editor doggedly.

The Editor wrote ‘Mag. Page Fill-Up’ in the corner and sent it down to the printer. The Thursday ‘Magazine Page’, which started going to press in a leisurely way ten days beforehand, was still not quite filled up when Claud reached the office. This was because the latest instalment of ‘Behind the Scenes in the Secret Service’, by Raymond Strong, which was making such a sensation in Riverstead, had had to do without its usual illustration this week, the artist having been directed into the cotton industry. Claud was even more welcome than he had expected.

‘I have brought you a little poem,’ he said to the Editor’s back.

Without looking round, the Editor held out a hand for it, glanced at it for length, said, ‘Fine,’ wrote V on it, and passed it to the Assistant Editor.

‘That other bit’s “2”. General title “Poetry” and let readers sort it out for themselves.’

‘Bit dogomatic, isn’t it?’ said the Assistant Editor. ‘Just “Poetry” like that. “Poetry Corner” would sort of ease it in better.’

‘Have it your own way.’ He looked round and seemed surprised that Claud was still there. ‘Thank you, Mr—er—good morning.’

‘There’s just the little question of the fee,’ said Claud with an ingratiating smile. ‘You haven’t said anything about that.’

‘That’s all right, Mr—er——’ said the Editor kindly. ‘On the assumption that you will be buying at least a dozen copies to give to your friends, we don’t charge any fee. Good morning.’

‘Good morning,’ said Claud, a little dazed. The financial negotiations seemed to be over.

When the Magazine Page came up it was still a couple of lines short.

‘We’ll give Poetry Corner a sub-title,’ said the Editor. ‘Think of something.’

The Assistant Editor thought of what he had thought of before, but it was again passed over.

‘Give that first one its old title “To Helen”. That’ll do it.’

But it didn’t come under the T’ as it should have done, and both poems were thus addressed to Helen.

4

For the last phase we go over to Rose Villa.

‘Well, which of them do you like best, dear?’ said Mrs Smith.

‘I thought you were engaged to young Waterfield,’ said Mr Smith, scowling at his daughter. He was a morose man who suffered from indigestion and too many women in the house.

‘Well, yes and no,’ said Mrs Smith. ‘A girl must do the best she can for herself these days. Joe isn’t all that.’

‘He’s making £600 a year, and his mother’s dead,’ said Mr Smith, looking up at the ceiling; not as a last salute to the departed, but because Mrs Smith’s mother was still there.

‘Well, what’s Mr Urbage making, Dad? You ought to know.’

‘Of course your father ought to know, and he’ll make it his business to know. How many scarves do you say he’s bought?’

‘Twelve.’

‘That sounds like money. And Mr Byles sounds like money too. But which do you like best, dear? It’s always something to fall back on, if you like them.’

‘Do they mean anything,’ said Mr Smith, ‘or are they just trifling with the affections of another man’s fiancée? That’s the point.’

‘I thought it was a very nice bit of poetry Mr Byles wrote,’ said Mrs Smith, ‘but I don’t quite know why he called you Helen. I thought Helen was the girl at the ribbon counter.’

‘So she is. I said thank you for nothing until he told me who she was, the most beautiful woman who ever lived, he said. They fought a great battle over her, she was so beautiful.’

‘When was that?’ asked Mr Smith.

‘Four thousand years ago. Fancy!’

‘Dead now?’

‘Of course, Dad.’

‘That’s something,’ said Mr Smith, looking up at the ceiling again. ‘Though it’s a long time to wait,’ he added gloomily.

‘Writers make a lot of money,’ said Mrs Smith. ‘Look at what that Raymond Strong must be making, with all those stories he writes.’

‘I don’t think poetry is so well paid, from what Claud said.’

‘Well, we’ll go into all that on Sunday,’ said Mr Smith. He helped himself to bicarbonate of soda, put on his hat, and went round to his club.

‘Mr Urbage doesn’t use his clothes coupons,’ said Jessie to her mother. ‘I mean not in the ordinary way. One’s got to think of everything.’

‘I didn’t think his poem was very nice,’ said Mrs Smith. ‘I don’t say I understood it, but there was something about “thighs” which I thought was better left unsaid. It isn’t a word one likes to see used in a public print about one’s own daughter.’

‘It was the bull, Mum, not me.’

‘All the same, people get ideas,’ said her mother darkly. ‘One can’t be too careful.’

So Mr Byles and Mr Urbage came to tea on Sunday, and as Claud was nervous and talkative the meal went gaily enough, except that Mrs Smith’s mother tapped twice on the ceiling to ask (presumably) how she could be expected to get her afternoon’s nap with all that noise going on. Poltergeist,’ explained Mr Smith briefly, ‘we have a lot of trouble with it,’ and asked Jessie if she had seen young Waterfield lately.

As soon as tea was over, he took the two young men into his office and came to business.

‘Now then, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I understand that you both want to marry Jessie, been writing poetry to her and all that, so naturally, as her father, I’d like to know something about you. For instance, supposing my little girl’s fancy should turn towards one of you, and I don’t say it will, mark you, I should want to be sure that he could support her properly.’ He took out his pocket-book and fingered the pencil absently.

‘What would you call properly?’ asked Claud.

‘Suppose we say £700 a year.’

Cecil quivered slightly, recovered himself, and said, ‘Chicken-feed.’ Mr Smith made a note, and looked towards Claud.

‘I don’t keep chickens,’ said Claud, ‘but I can only say that, if I did, I should be ashamed to starve them like that.’

‘Well, that’s very satisfactory. And earned, I hope? I shouldn’t care to have an idle son-in-law. Mr Urbage?’

‘All except a trifling £500 a year,’ said Cecil. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t object to that?’

Mr Smith made another note, and turned to Claud.

‘Well,’ said Claud, ‘there is a little something which comes in every six months. I forget exactly how many hundreds it is. My chief income, of course——’ He looked at the fingers of his right hand and waggled them, as if all this writing was beginning to give trouble.

‘That’s good. Now, Mr Urbage, you won’t mind my asking just how you earn your money.’

‘I am a poet,’ said Cecil proudly.

‘As a spare-time occupation I have nothing against it, but——’

‘I write other things as well. Naturally.’

‘Such as——’

Cecil swallowed and said, ‘I don’t want this generally known, Mr Smith, but I am—I am—I am Raymond Strong.’

‘Good Heavens,’ said Claud, ‘are you the man behind the scenes in the Secret Service?’

‘I am.’

‘They must be very big scenes,’ said Claud thoughtfully.

‘I was under the impression,’ said Mr Smith sarcastically, ‘that your name was Cecil Urbage.’

‘He writes under an omnibus,’ explained Claud. ‘Lots of us do,’ he added, seeing that his turn was coming next.

‘Let’s have this clear. Your real name is Urbage, but when you write under an omnibus’—he frowned at Claud, and corrected himself—’ when you write anonymously—or, rather, under a pseudonym—you call yourself Raymond Strong?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You must make a great deal of money, Mr Urbage. Raymond Strong is a very popular author, according to all accounts.’

Cecil shrugged modestly.

‘In fact, we might put your income at’—he poised his pencil over the note-book—’what shall we say? About £5,000?’

‘About that.’

‘That’s very satisfactory,’ said Mr Smith, making another note. ‘And now, what about you, Mr Byles? Apart from this hobby of poetry indulged in under your own name, do you also write under an om——’ He stopped himself just in time ‘—anonymously, or under a pseudonym?’

‘Of course. One has to nowadays.’

‘And what have you been writing—under what name?’

‘Forever Amber’ said Claud simply. ‘I,’ he went on dramatically, without really stopping to think, ‘am Charlotte Brontë.’

There was an awed silence . . . Anyway, there was a silence.

‘Same initials, you see,’ said Claud, noting the coincidence with surprise, and feeling that it ought to mean something. ‘Because of underclothes,’ he explained. ‘Or rather,’ he corrected himself, ‘dressing-cases. Underclothes would be different anyway. Silly of me.’

Mr Smith, who was no strip-tease artist, but a serious-minded business man, said, ‘Never mind underclothes, let’s come down to figures. What do you make? Can we say £5,000 a year like Mr Urbage?’

‘Six,’ said Claud, determined not to be like Mr Urbage.

‘Six thousand,’ said Mr Smith. Having made a final note, he permitted himself to rub his hands lightly together; and what he thought of as a smile flickered out of one side of his moustache and crept back again.

‘Thank you for being so frank, gentlemen. It is up to me to be equally so.’ He put his note-book back in his pocket. ‘You have told me who you are in your professional capacities, and it is only fair that I should tell you who I am.’

‘Don’t say you’re not Jessie’s father,’ pleaded Claud. ‘You can’t be sure.’

‘I,’ said Jessie’s father grimly, ‘am F. X. Smith.’

The two young lovers left together; they left almost at once; they had the same appointment with the same man about the same dog; they would have gone arm-in-arm if they had been more nearly the same height.

After a long silence Claud said:

‘I always hated that name.’

‘So did I,’ said Cecil. ‘Indecent.’

There was another silence.

‘I rather think of going to live in London,’ said Claud. ‘More scope there for a writer.’

‘Much. God knows why we’ve stayed here so long.’

After another interval for thought Claud summed the matter up.

‘Jessie,’ he said, ‘is a very nice girl, but one got carried away.’

‘Spring fever,’ agreed Cecil.

‘Looking at it in the more mellow light of approaching summer, one sees that one simply cannot marry the daughter of one’s Income-Tax Collector.’

‘Practically incest.’

‘By the way, that reminds me—you’re not really Raymond Strong, of course?’

‘No.’

Claud decided to be frank.

‘I’—he said—’am not Charlotte Brontë.’

The Shakespearean Theory

Extracted from the secret diary of a horse-holder, and deciphered for modern reading.

Thursday. April 23, an. dom. 1594. With this my Birth Day I begin a new volume. Well, I am 30. How many more years have I in which to discharge the rich cargo of my mind? Never have I been so laden with notions, and with words, words, words in which to set them free. If I could stop thinking for a little, then I could write as I wish to write: if I could stop writing for a little, then I could think. But thoughts and words tumble in my head so restlessly, day and night, that no sooner does a thought present itself than pat! there comes a line of verse for it. This is not the way to write, this is not the way to think. And I am 30, and have little time left.

May 1. Dick Burbage grows more difficult every day. There are no half-shades in his character, as there are (far too many) in mine. To him a thing is Yes or No. Either a play is a tragedy, in which case all the leading characters must be strangled, poisoned, or stabbed (himself last of all): or it is not a tragedy, in which case they must all marry each other willy-nilly, the villains, if any, repenting at the church door. Also he has this fixed idea that no actor can leave the stage without saying a rhymed couplet first. Nothing in nature corresponds with this; one can leave the stage at any time. Also his notion of humour is hard to bear. The scenes between rustic clowns which he inserts into my plays to tickle the ears of the groundlings are so lacking in true comedy that I can no longer listen to them at rehearsal. When I am not to be found, they say that I am ‘holding a horse for somebody’ outside the theatre. This is because, the first time I got up and left the rehearsal, I made the excuse that I had promised to hold a man’s horse for him. If only I had my own theatre, and could produce and write my plays as I wish to!

On reading this through I see that I might have begun, ‘Will Shakespeare grows more difficult every day.’

May 3. I suddenly found myself writing an Essay this morning. Of Innovations. It is good discipline for me to write prose. Short sentences packed with meaning. No getting carried away by my own music. I must do more of this. I have an idea for one on Youth and Age.

May 10. Dick is a good fellow, and I have been unjust to him. He tells me now that these, as they are called, comic scenes with which he peppers my plays are not written by him but by an obscure lawyer called Bacon; who is persuaded that Nature meant him for a playwriter. I asked Dick why an obscure lawyer called Bacon should have a right of entry into my plays, and he said that Bacon was a very clever young man of good family who would probably be Lord Chancellor one day; in which case one would wish not to have offended him. Dear Dick! To lick absurd pomp, and crook the pregnant hinges of the knee—well, as he must do it, he must. But if I had my own theatre . . . Wrote an Essay on Fortune.

May 14. Last night I went through my plays and read again what are called the comic scenes. The strange thing is that this man Bacon is reputed a wit in his conversation. No, that is not strange. The pen and mouth are separate instruments. The strange thing is that a man of high birth should neglect the life which he knows, and insist on writing of common people of whom he is ignorant.

On reading this it came to me that I, a country man of middle-class birth, write mostly of Kings and Courts.

May 15. Have begun a play of rustic life, to be called, I think, ‘A Village Revel’, and to contain many true comedy scenes for lowly characters.

June 25. I have been much occupied with my play, Dick wanting me to set the scene in Athens, as we have the dresses from Titus Andronicus. I know not what my rustics will be doing in Athens, and have therefore called it A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which excuses all. I have nearly enough Essays for a book.

July 1. My book is ready. Dick is opposed to my putting it out over my own name. He says that I am known as a play-writer and a poet, and that it is not good for his theatre that I should play tricks with my reputation. I fear he is right. So I must think of a name for myself. . . . ‘Essays by John Falstaff’. There is an air about that.

July 2. Curious. All day I have been seeing him as a tall, stout, roystering fellow. Then I do not see how he could have written these Essays.

July 9. For the last week I have been working at a play on the Life of Henry IV. It is written round a jolly, fat fellow called Sir John Falstaff, I think my best character so far. He came into my head complete, so soon as I had written down the name. I must think of another author for my book.

July 15. I have met this man Bacon. He came to the theatre when I was with Dick. He is a shifty-eyed creature, with a lean and hungry look. He has three ambitions, as I read him. To be Lord Chancellor—which he may be, since he is apt at intrigue; to be known as a writer—which he will never be, as he cannot write; and to make money—which he is well qualified to do, having no scruples. Let no such man be trusted.

July 20. ‘Essays by William Page’. ‘Essays by John Old-castle’. ‘Essays by——’

July 22. I do not like this idea of putting out these Essays under a made-up name. I would rather that Dick Burbage lent his name to them, for then at least he could recommend the book to his acquaintance. John Oldcastle can do nothing to sell so much as one copy. I did but write them as a curb to my style, and for my own instruction, and if now they be of profit to others, and make a little money for myself, I care not who fathers them.

July 23. Met Bacon again. I have no doubt but that I judged his character aright.

July 25. I think Bacon is the man.

July 31. Bacon comes to my lodging to-morrow.

Aug. 1. It is done! My book is to come out as ‘Essays, by Francis Bacon’. He has read them, and is proud to think that he wrote them—as, in truth, he does almost persuade himself. It is a deception after his own heart, for it gives him all that he most wants. I offered him one half of the money; but in the end he has given me his Note (so worded that he dare not repudiate it) for One Hundred Pounds within six months of its putting out. This, without doubt, will be at the moment which he considers most favourable to his advancement; for there is a tide in the affairs of all men, which, taken at the flood, leads most quickly to fortune. But I care not for that, for now it is off my mind, and I can give myself to my Great Project.

Aug. 2. Began The Advancement of Learning.

The Secret

Once upon a time there was a Princess who was so beautiful that she could not do anything for herself. If she wished to get up in the morning, somebody had to dress her, and if she wished to go to bed in the evening, somebody had to undress her. She could not go into a room until somebody had opened the door for her, she could not sit down until somebody arranged a chair for her, she could not admire a piece of embroidery until somebody had found a piece of embroidery for her to admire and shown her the place where she had left off admiring it the day before. She was very proud, she was very beautiful; and because she was so beautiful, everybody said what a sweet nature she had.

One day she was riding through the Forest with her attendants when she came upon a young man who was seated on a fallen tree, whittling at a lump of wood with his knife. She drew in her horse so that he might have the opportunity of rising and bowing to her, but he just looked up and nodded in a friendly way and went on whittling. She sat there, looking down at him, and frowning to herself, waiting for him to speak. But he was not thinking of her.

‘Well?’ she said coldly, when she had waited as long as she was able.

‘It is well,’ said he.

‘Do you not know who I am?’

‘No,’ said he.

‘I am the Princess Elvira.’

‘Oh! said he. And then, fearing that he was discourteous, he added, ‘I am called Simon.’

‘You did not hear me,’ she said more coldly still. ‘I am the Princess.’

He looked up at her then, and his eyes went from her face to the faces of her companions, and back to hers again.

‘That explains,’ he nodded, and went on with his work.

The attendants of the Princess hastened to tell Her Royal Highness that the man was some poor crazy fellow, yet harmless, and that if it was Her Royal Highness’ kindly wish that an end should be made to his sufferings, she had but to ride on, and there would be those left behind who would see to it.

‘You hear?’ she said to Simon.

‘No,’ said Simon, looking up in surprise. ‘I wasn’t listening. What was it?’

‘They were asking me if they should kill you.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I have not answered yet. I am wondering.’

‘Doubtless I shall know when you have decided,’ he said, and fell to whittling again.

‘Kill him!’ said the Princess in sudden anger, and two of them got down from their horses and drew their swords. But the young man took no notice of them.

‘Wait!’ called the Princess. She turned to the young man and asked petulantly, ‘Do you wish to be killed?’

He smiled and said, ‘Do you wish to kill me?’

For a long time the Princess made no answer. Then all at once, as if against her will, she cried out ‘No!’, and called harshly to her attendants, and in a sudden scurry of hooves and jingle of harness they were gone.

‘What a strange young woman,’ said the man called Simon to himself, as he went on with his work.

Now the Princess was eighteen years old, and it was considered well by her father the King that she should marry. This and that Prince were sent for, and came gladly to the Court because of the great beauty of the Princess and the great wealth of her father; and this or that one, seeing her, vowed that he lived only to please her, and that, when the light of her eyes was turned away, the world held no more joy for him; whereat she turned her eyes away from him, and the young man went back to his feasting, and thought of some new thing to say to her on the morrow. But the Princess took no pleasure in them, neither in their words nor in their faces. So a morning came when she could bear with them no longer, and she left them and rode again into the Forest, taking but one servant to attend her; and in a little while, whether by accident or intent, they came again to the man called Simon.

He was there, as before, carving his wood.

‘Well?’ said the Princess, looking down at him scornfully.

Simon looked up.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, and looked down again.

‘You remember me?’

‘There are not many who come into the Forest.’

‘You remember my name?’

Simon rubbed his head in a puzzled sort of way.

‘How should I? I have other things to think of. Viola, was it? Let it be Viola, He went on with his carving. Then, fearing that he was discourteous, he added, ‘I am called Simon.’

The attendant broke in roughly, ‘Fool, this is Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elvira.’

‘Elvira, of course,’ he nodded.

‘You remember,’ asked the Princess, ‘what happened last time?’

‘I remember. I was carving a heron in flight. You interrupted me. I finished it later. It was a good heron.’

‘I spared your life,’ said the Princess with great dignity.

‘Alas, I did not know that it was yours.’

‘Am I not the Princess?’

‘Am I not Simon?’

‘What of that?’

‘There are many Princesses, but I know of no other Simon.’

‘That would not stay me, if I wished to have you killed.’

Simon looked up at her, wrinkling his brow.

‘You talk always of killing,’ he said plaintively. ‘Does it interest you so much?’

The Princess Elvira opened her lovely mouth to say something, but could think of nothing to say. There was silence for a little . . .

Simon held his work at arm’s length and pondered it, his head on one side. It was the figure of a crouching leopard. He turned it this way and that.

‘A crouching leopard!’ he murmured to himself. ‘Oh, my poor Simon! It is a tame cat at milk-time. I hear it purr. No, no!’ And he fell upon it urgently.

‘Oh, I hate you, I hate you!’ cried the Princess in fury, and wrenched her horse’s head round, and spurred it to a wild gallop, her silver whip rising and falling until she was out of the Forest. So, without drawing rein, she fled to the safety of the Castle and the comfort of her princes and courtiers, to whom she said, ‘Am I not beautiful?’ and they to her, ‘More lovely than words can tell,’ which brought her ease again.

And the days went on, and still she would not pledge herself to marry. One day she said to her father:

‘Are there no other princes, for I am weary of these?’

‘There is the great Prince Simon,’ said the Kung.

‘Send for him.’

‘If he will come,’ said the King.

‘He will come,’ said the Princess, looking at herself in a mirror.

So the King sent messengers to him. Then the Princess told herself that she would ride into the Forest for the last time, and would come back and marry the great and powerful Prince Simon and live with him ever afterwards. So she rode into the Forest . . .

He looked up as he heard her come to him, and nodded.

‘Have you come to kill me?’ he smiled.

‘No,’ she said meekly. Then, after a little silence, ‘May I look?’

He stood up and gave her the figure he was carving.

‘She is very beautiful,’ said the Princess.

‘She is beautiful,’ said Simon.

‘I seem to know her face.’

‘You have never seen her.’

‘Is it someone you love?’ she asked, a little scornfully.

‘I would not love her,’ he said quickly. ‘She has a temper. She is cruel.’

The Princess looked at the figure again.

‘You have shown it,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘What is her name?’

‘Her name,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Her name. Wait . . . It is on the tip of my tongue. Yes, I have it. Elvira.’

‘I?’ she cried in amazement.

‘You,’ he nodded. ‘Did you not recognise it?’

Indignation flamed in her face.

‘How dare you!’

‘What have I dared?’

‘You dare to talk of being in love with me?

He shook his head.

‘I talked of not being in love with you,’ he said pleasantly.

‘That is worse!’

‘Would you have me in love with you? To what end? You would not marry me.’

‘I marry you!’ She laughed scornfully.

‘Well! Why should you want me to be unhappy?’ He looked at her wonderingly. ‘You are a strange girl,’ he went on. ‘First you want to kill me, and then you want me to break my heart for you. You never seem contented unless somebody else is suffering. What a creature!’

‘It is not true,’ she cried indignantly.

‘What is not true?’

‘That I am what you say I am.’ Then, almost in tears, like a little child, she said, ‘I—I don’t mean any harm.’

For a while neither of them spoke. Then he held out his hand, and said gently, ‘May I have it back?’

She unclenched her hand, and he took from her the little figure of Elvira.

‘It is not right,’ he said, shaking his head over it. ‘I saw what was not there. When you come again, I will show you.’ And he continued to look intently at the face he had carved.

‘I shall not come again,’ she said coldly.

‘Then good-bye,’ he said, without looking up.

She seemed about to speak, but no words came. She turned her horse and rode slowly out of the Forest. The great Prince Simon was waiting for her . . .

He was not waiting. Messengers had come to say that he was on a journey in distant lands. They brought with them a hundred tales of the market-place, but this only was certain. He was not coming.

The Princess Elvira dismissed her attendants and sat alone. There were thoughts and hopes and wonders in her heart which she could show to no others, and feared even to show to herself. This man Simon whom she so nearly loved—was this love?—this man Simon whom she had hated, who despised her, this man whom she loved—ah! how she loved him, but could never marry him—this man Simon who might be brought to love her—could he? Oh, if he could, now that she might indeed marry him—this man Simon was——Who was he?

What had he said? ‘I know of no other Simon.’ It was true. There was only one Simon. The great and powerful Prince Simon. Who but a Prince could be so sure of himself? Who but a Prince would treat her as an equal? And where was Prince Simon? It was rumoured this and rumoured that, but who could say with certainty. Surely only she! He was in the Forest waiting for her!

Then, if he were in the Forest, he had come there for her sake! He had wanted her love. But he would have her love him for himself, not for what he was. Ah, but she had indeed loved him for himself, before she had guessed his secret. It would still be a secret until he chose to declare it. He was Simon, she Elvira, and they loved each other. How wise, how beautiful of him to have it so! Even from the beginning he would not call her ‘Princess’. She was to be just Elvira, he just Simon. Now she would go to Simon.

In the morning she went.

‘I have come,’ she said.

He held up to her the little figure of Elvira.

‘I think it is better now,’ he told her.

She looked at it.

‘There is no cruelty here, no scorn,’ she said wonderingly.

He nodded.

‘It is better so,’ he answered; ‘it is more like her.’

‘Is it, Simon?’ she asked wistfully.

‘That is how I think of her now.’

‘Always think of her like that, Simon, even if it be not true.’

‘If I have put it there, it is true.’

‘Oh, it shall be true,’ she cried passionately. ‘I will make it true.’

‘Then you will be happy,’ he said. ‘I am glad.’

‘And you?’

‘I have my work.’

‘Is that enough?’

He looked up at her suddenly . . . and looked away again.

‘Enough,’ he said.

She nodded, but did not move. Then, with a sigh, ‘Farewell, Simon,’ she said.

‘Farewell, Princess.’

He moved away from her as if to busy himself with this work of his, and fingered this and that, but still she did not move. . . . She was there, behind him . . .

‘Why have you not gone?’ he cried, turning round on her violently.

‘The Princess is gone, Simon,’ she said meekly.

He stared at her, but could not speak.

‘But Elvira,’ she went on, ‘is—oh, Simon, have you nothing to say to her?’

But still he could only look . . . and suddenly she smiled adorably on him.

‘Yes, I think that is what I mean, Simon,’ she nodded.

He held out his arms to her, and she slipped into them . . .

But the secret remained a secret. Many times in the days that followed Elvira would look at Simon, and smile to herself, and say to herself, ‘Why does he not tell me?’—and say to herself, ‘He wants to try me further; he wants to be sure that he can trust my love.’ When they talked, they talked of Simon’s work, and how much he could earn by it, and how she could help him by going into the towns and selling it for him.

‘Wait,’ said Simon. ‘In a few days we will go from here. The people here are foolish. They do not love good work. One here, one there; that is all. We will wander from this place to that; always we shall find one or two who will understand. That will be enough for us, enough for our simple wants.’

And Elvira smiled to herself. She saw what was coming. They would wander here, they would wander there, until at last they came to his own country. Then, having proved her, he would reveal himself to her, and they would take their places again as Prince and Princess. Happy days those would be, but meanwhile these were happy days too. It was fun being married to Simon. The bargaining was fun; the little hardships were fun; managing was fun; watching him work was fun. She loved him.

The secret was fun too.

‘What did you mean, Simon,’ she asked him mischievously one day, ‘when you said that there was only one Simon?’

‘There is only one Simon,’ he smiled back.

‘And who is he?’ she went on innocently.

He tapped his chest.

‘I, Simon the Carver. There is none who carves as I. Kings come and go, and lie forgotten, but the artist endures for ever. A thousand years from now men will say, “Simon carved that,” and none will ask, “Which Simon?” There is no other Simon.’

‘Little bits of wood,’ she scoffed.

‘Not always wood,’ he said seriously. ‘Bone and ivory one day, perhaps. Why not? Perhaps even stone or metal—who knows?’

‘And will you always—just carve?’ She had to turn away then to hide the sudden smile.

‘What else is there to do?’ he asked, grave-faced like a child.

‘Oh, I love you, Simon,’ she cried impetuously, and took his head in her hands, and kissed it. ‘Whatever you do, whenever you do it, I shall be content.’

He said nothing, but went on with his work.

So they wandered from place to place, living their gipsy life on the outskirts of this town or that; he following his fancies, she planning, managing, buying, selling, cooking, tending; she always watching over him.

It was fun. Was it fun? There were hard days, weary days, bad days; days when she longed to cry out, ‘Simon, Simon, have I not proved my love? Simon, I cannot go on! Let us go back to your own country, and take our places in the world. How can you doubt any longer that I love you? See what I have given up for you!’ But she did not. She could be as obstinate as he. Let him speak first, if that was how he wished it.

She loved him. Did she love him? If it was love, that which she had first felt for him, then this was not love. That was something outside her which came gloriously upon her; this was something growing up from the very roots of her, until it was part of her body, of her soul, of herself, to be separated from which was death. Was this love? Then the other was but a little thing. How strange that by so little a thing she should come upon life.

Yes, she loved him. But was life fun? Was she happy? She did not know.

It was two years later. In the Forest which was their home Elvira sat and watched her baby; her two babies. She was content. The secret was still a secret, but it was a golden secret; a magic key to unlock the prison doors whenever her prison was too hard for her. She had but to say, ‘Simon, I am tired of being Elvira. I will be a Princess again,’ and she would be a Princess. She had but to say, ‘Simon, we must think of our child,’ and they would go back to their kingdom. She had but to say, ‘Simon, we have pretended long enough,’ and the secret would be out.

But she did not want to say it. Not now. She was happy. It was enough that she could say it when she needed to say it. Perhaps now she would never use that key. So long as she had it, she was not in a prison, she was free. What happiness to be so free! With her two babies. Big Simon and Little Simon.

Outside the hut, Simon the Carver was still carving. In ivory now. He, too, was happy; happy in his work, happy in his wife, happy in his child. Perhaps one day his son would be a great carver too. Another Simon! Simon the Elder and Simon the Younger. Two of them . . .

There was a third Simon somewhere. Prince Simon. But of him Simon the Carver had never heard. The son of a charcoal-burner has not much acquaintance with Courts, however great an artist he turns out to be.

About the Author

A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne (Alan Alexander) was born in London in 1882 and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1902 he was Editor of Granta, the University magazine, and moved back to London the following year to enter journalism. By 1906 he was Assistant Editor of Punch, a post which he held until the beginning of the First World War when he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. While in the army in 1917 he started on a career writing plays of which his best known are Mr. Pim Passes By, The Dover Road and an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows – Toad of Toad Hall. He married Dorothy de Selincourt in 1913 and in 1920 had a son, Christopher Robin. By 1924 Milne was a highly successful playwright, and published the first of his four books for children, a set of poems called When We Were Very Young, which he wrote for his son. This was followed by the storybook Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926, more poems in Now We Are Six (1927) and further stories in The House at Pooh Corner (1928). In addition to his now famous works, Milne wrote many novels, volumes of essays, a well known detective story The Red House Mystery and light verse, works which attracted great success at the time. He continued to be a prolific writer until his death in 1956.

About Bello

Bello
hidden talent rediscovered

Bello is a digital-only imprint of Pan Macmillan,established to breathe new life into previously published,classic books.

At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination,of a good story, narrative and entertainment, and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

We publish in ebook and print-on-demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

www.panmacmillan.com/imprint-publishers/bello

Copyright

First published in 1949 by Methuen & Co. Ltd

This edition published 2017 by Bello
an imprint of Pan Macmillan

20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com/imprint-publishers/bello

ISBN 978-1-5098-6968-8 EPUB

ISBN 978-1-5098-6967-1 PB

Copyright © The Estate of the Late Lesley Milne Limited, 1949

The right of A.A. Milne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or persons,living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book remains true to the original in every way. Some aspects may appear out-of-date to modern-day readers. Bello makes no apology for this, as to retrospectively change any content would be anachronistic and undermine the authenticity of the original.

Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for,any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Ellipsis, Glasgow

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without
the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than
that in which it is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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