by Cyril Hare
His train of thought was interrupted by a loud laugh, of peculiarly unpleasant quality, from a table near by. He did not need to look round to know who it came from, but he looked round none the less. Rickaby was sitting with a pretty, much made-up girl from the typing pool, whom Pettigrew had seen more than once on his occasional visits to the White Hart, Marsett Bay’s principal licensed house. She too was laughing, and he wondered why she seemed so pleased with her company. For Rickaby was, of all the employees of the Control, the one whom Pettigrew disliked the most. He disliked everything about him, from his fair, slightly curly hair to his elegant pointed shoes. He disliked his vulgarity, his noisiness, the easy familiarity with which he masked without disguising his contempt for his elders. In a word (which he had coined specially for the occasion) he disliked his unsnubbability.
Pettigrew was too much of a realist not to have wondered more than once whether the root of his dislike was not the fact that Rickaby was by many years his junior, and enjoyed life, after his fashion, to a degree not given to a middle-aged bachelor in war-time. But he had been strengthened in his antipathy when he found that it was shared by most of his fellow residents at Fernlea, and that Wood, who had had to work with him at one time, complained of his incurable idleness. Above all, he had been delighted to observe that Miss Brown, at whom Rickaby had, in his own phrase, made a pass, had quietly but firmly rejected him. His confidence in her judgment in this matter was not quite in keeping with his doubts where Phillips was concerned but even middle-aged bachelors cannot be realists all the time.
Meanwhile, Rickaby was evidently enjoying his joke, and so also was his companion. It appeared from his gestures and elaborate mouthings that he was giving an imitation of somebody. Then, in mid career of his impersonation, something occurred to interrupt him. He glanced over his shoulder towards the door, dug his neighbour violently in the ribs and at the same time assumed an air of exaggerated solemnity. This, as was to be expected, had the effect of extracting from her another peal of laughter, which she vainly tried to suppress by stuffing a handkerchief into her mouth.
Pettigrew, following Rickaby’s eyes, saw Miss Danville coming down the middle of the room. He did not find anything in the spectacle in the least laughable. The poor woman was obviously distraught. She had been crying, and seemed hardly to know what she was doing. With shaking hands she endeavoured to help herself at the serving table, but only succeeded in dropping a plate. She stared at it stupidly as it lay on the floor, making no attempt to pick it up.
To Pettigrew’s fury, this only caused further bursts of merriment from Rickaby’s table. He half rose in his seat, undecided what to do. Before he could make up his mind, however, Miss Brown had intervened. Taking in the situation with a quickness that won Pettigrew’s approval, she hurried across the room, put her arm round Miss Danville and led her to her own table. Leaving her there for a moment, she was back again almost at once with a cup of coffee and some sandwiches. Then, sitting down beside her, she began what was evidently a successful attempt to calm her. Phillips, his broad, good-natured face expressing the keenest sympathy, joined in the quiet conversation, and by the time Pettigrew left the canteen, Miss Danville appeared to be restored to tranquillity.
Miss Brown did not appear in Pettigrew’s room till a quarter of an hour later.
“I am sorry I was so long over my lunch,” she said. “But something happened to delay me.”
“You needn’t apologize,” he replied. “I saw what happened, and, if you will allow me to say so, I think you behaved very well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pettigrew.”
“If anybody ought to apologize,” Pettigrew went on, “I think that I should. I ought not to have tried to be funny at Miss Danville’s expense. It was in very bad taste. Please forget it.”
Miss Brown once more gave him the benefit of her brilliant blue eyes.
“Of course,” she murmured. “I’ve brought you the draft amendments to the new Regulation, Mr. Pettigrew. Do you want to go through them now?”
“That will be delightful,” Pettigrew said meekly.
Delightful or not, the draft amendments claimed his attention to the exclusion of everything else for the next two hours. At the end of that time, an ear-piercing whistle was heard outside his room. It continued for half a minute or so, and then hurried footsteps were heard in the corridor and the noise ceased abruptly.
“What on earth was that terrible din?” he asked Miss Brown, when she brought in his tea shortly afterwards.
“Miss Danville’s new kettle. I’m afraid it sounds rather loud in here, but of course the gas-ring is only just next door.”
“So I had observed. But why should Miss Danville’s new kettle be of this peculiarly strident type?”
“I do hope you won’t find it too disturbing, Mr. Pettigrew, but it was my idea, really. You see, Miss Danville makes the tea for all this side of the building—that reminds me, she asked me to collect one and eightpence from you for this month—and last week she let a kettle burn right through because she forgot all about it. You know, she is rather apt to forget things sometimes,” she added in the tone of one deprecating the shortcomings of a much loved pet dog.
“That also I had noticed, but I am glad she doesn’t forget to collect her dues. Here’s your one and eightpence. Then the musical kettle is intended as a gentle reminder of her duties? In principle it seems an excellent idea, but need it be quite so loud?”
“Well,” said Miss Brown as though she were confessing to a weakness of her own, “the fact is, Miss Danville is just a little deaf. You won’t tell anyone, will you? I don’t think she would like it to be known. So when I bought the kettle, naturally I got the loudest one I could find. But of course, if you object, Mr. Pettigrew——”
“Object? When my afternoon tea and Miss Danville’s peace of mind are at stake? Certainly not. I shall look forward to it every day with eagerness. By the way, are these kettles expensive things? Because if so, you must let me contribute——”
“I couldn’t think of it, Mr. Pettigrew. Have you finished with your tray?”
Chapter 5
ENCOUNTER AT “THE GAMECOCK”
Looking back afterwards, Pettigrew dated from these events the beginning of a new and decidedly less agreeable period in his life at the Control, particularly so far as the part of it that was spent at Fernlea was concerned. The atmosphere at the Residential Club, he found, had changed entirely. Its inhabitants, instead of being a collection of individuals trying, more or less successfully, to tolerate one another’s peculiarities, showed now an ever increasing tendency to divide themselves into two sharply opposed groups. The fact, that there was only one sitting-room in which to spend the lengthening winter evenings made the split all the more apparent.
The dividing line between the two parties was their attitude towards the criminal fantasy in process of being devised by Wood—“the Plot”, as it was called by its adepts; and the fact that determined to which party any individual should belong was soon seen to be a purely personal one—his or her attitude to Miss Danville. She had made it clear from the start that she disapproved of the whole business, and the fact that she had been cast for the crucial role in it without her knowledge had the effect of transforming what had been begun as an amusing parlour game into a kind of conspiracy from which she had to be vigorously excluded. Used as she was to living in a world of her own, she would probably not have resented being left in a minority of one, even if she had noticed it. But Miss Brown, who had now assumed the function of protector towards her, saw to it that she was not. Under her influence, Phillips too deserted the ranks of the plotters and the trio formed a solid group every evening in one corner of the room, while the opposition party occupied another.
The leader of the plotters was, of course, Wood, who was now never without a sheaf of notes from which he would regale his admirers with the latest ideas that had occurred to him during the day. Edelman was a powerful supporter—a trifle too po
werful for the author’s taste, sometimes, when his fertile imagination threatened to take charge of the plot altogether, or, as Wood put it, “upset the whole balance of the story”. Miss Clarke, too, had now come out wholeheartedly in its favour. Her previous objections were outweighed by the prospect of putting Miss Danville in a ridiculous light, and she was prepared even to co-operate with Edelman, against whom, inside the office, she was still waging an endless war of memoranda regarding the condition of the Blenkinsop file. Mrs. Hopkinson, now a more frequent visitor than ever, was of little practical assistance but was a noisy and uncritical admirer of everything that anybody else thought of. Finally, even Rickaby was initiated into the scheme, less because he had become any more popular with the others than because it was obviously impossible for him to belong to the opposition.
To Pettigrew, hovering uneasily between the two parties and striving to keep on good terms with both, it was a somewhat disquieting situation. For one thing, his orderly, legal mind was offended by the fact that the plotters seemed to have no notion of what they proposed to do with the plot which they were perpetually discussing, altering and elaborating. Wood, indeed, evidently had the vague idea that at some future date it might, when suitably disguised, form the foundation for a publishable novel; and this was at least reasonable. Mrs. Hopkinson more than once made the wholly impracticable suggestion that the thing should be somehow transmogrified into an entertainment which could be acted for the amusement of the staff at Christmas. (She caused some amusement to the others when she offered to dye her hair in order to play one of the parts more effectively.) But for the rest, they appeared to be content with the exercise of their imaginations on a theme that grew steadily more and more fantastic.
It was, he concluded, the effect of the situation in which they found themselves. None of them had any interests in Marsett Bay outside their work. Many of the married employees had managed to transfer their families to the neighbourhood and so to maintain a more or less normal existence out of office hours. But except for Edelman, whose wife and child were in America, the Fernlea residents were unmarried. Time hung heavy on their hands, and it was natural that they should employ it in some way. But he wished devoutly that they could have hit upon some other. It was, he felt obscurely, decidedly unhealthy. More particularly, he could not believe that Miss Danville could be kept indefinitely in ignorance of the part assigned to her in what Mrs. Hopkinson had inevitably christened “the Perfect Crime”. And from what he knew of her, he feared that the disclosure when it came might have a serious effect upon her. He ventured to mention this consideration to Edelman, whom he judged to be the most reasonable member of his set. The result was disappointing. Edelman listened to him gravely, and remarked in a dispassionate tone that he was probably right, and that although it was impossible to predict human reactions with any real accuracy, the results would certainly be of interest. Pettigrew felt as though he was listening to a chemist discussing the possible outcome of an experiment. He did not pursue the subject any further.
On the day of this conversation, Pettigrew received a letter which served to relieve him of at least one of his anxieties. It came from his tenant in the Temple.
“Dear Frank,” it ran. “Many thanks for your letter. I have made the inquiries you asked for. As I expected, old Tillotson professed to be shocked at my demand, which he quite properly regarded as an attempt to induce a breach of professional confidence. As I also expected, he ended by coming across with what I wanted. I enclose a copy of his letter. It all seems quite satisfactory, though the gentleman must be getting a bit long in the tooth for a second marriage, to judge by the dates.
“Three circuit briefs have come my way recently, marked ‘for Mr. Pettigrew, on war service’. The half fees will be duly paid into your account, as we arranged. I was at Rampleford Assizes last week. Your absence was much deplored, but the mess is only a shadow of itself these days. Yours ever, Bill.”
The enclosure was in the following terms:
“Your friend need not be in any doubt that Mr. Phillips is in fact a widower—unless he has re-married, as to which, I have, of course, no information. My firm acted for him in securing probate of the late Mrs. Sarah Emily Phillips’s will as long ago as 1931. On turning up the papers, I see that she actually died on the 19th September in that year at Bloomington Hospital, Herts, her husband being sole executor. I think that this information should serve his purpose, and he will, I know, treat it as strictly confidential.
“Perhaps I should add that Mr. Phillips entered the firm’s employment in 1919, and while with us gave complete satisfaction. The particular branch of our activities with which he was concerned came to a standstill on the declaration of war, and although we should have been glad to employ him in another capacity at a not very reduced salary, he expressed a desire to find work elsewhere more closely associated with the war effort. We should certainly be prepared to consider his re-employment on the cessation of hostilities, should an opening then exist. I should point out, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, that the statutory provisions governing Reinstatement in Civil Employment, do not apply in his case.”
Nothing, Pettigrew told himself, could be more satisfactory. And if, at the same time, he felt a wholly illogical twinge of disappointment, that was clearly attributable to the craving for melodrama that clings even to mature men engaged in the most humdrum occupations. Henceforward, he could watch the development of the romance with disinterested eyes. Provided, of course, that it did not interfere with Miss Brown’s work—and so far there was no sign of that.
In the course of the next week or so he realized that there were other eyes on the situation which were not quite so disinterested. Mrs. Hopkinson began to manifest unmistakable signs of dislike for Phillips. Hitherto, there had never, so far as Pettigrew’s observation went, been anything “between” them, either by way of affection or the reverse. But, as Phillips grew progressively more and more engrossed with Miss Brown, the Merry Widow became steadily sourer towards him. At the same time, after her proposal for a dramatic version of the Plot had been rejected for the last time, her interest in it abruptly fell off. By way of compensation, apparently, she decided to devote her energies to “taking up”, or alternatively “bringing out” Miss Brown, in whom she had always shewn a rather embarrassing maternal interest. And to this operation, Phillips was an obvious and annoying obstacle. The alliance between Miss Brown and Miss Danville, whom she openly despised, naturally added to her ill humour.
To his dismay, Pettigrew found himself, not for the first time, the recipient of unwanted confidences. Penning him in a corner of the room, Mrs. Hopkinson bewailed to him that the girl was getting into the wrong hands. Something, she insisted vaguely, should be done about it. Did Pettigrew know that she had three hundred a year of her own? Pettigrew did not, and wondered very much whether Mrs. Hopkinson did, or whether she had invented the figure as a likely one. Three hundred a year! she repeated, nodding her copper curls, and no boy friends! It wasn’t natural, at that age, was it? As to Phillips, it was obvious that he was a fortune-hunter. There was only his word for it that he was a widower at all. Ten to one he had a wife and half a dozen kids somewhere. She knew that sort. It made her downright sick to see him getting away with it, and that old looney of a Danville egging her on all the time. A young thing like that ought to be enjoying herself and seeing life, the same as she had when she was a girl, instead of tying herself up with a man old enough to be her father. She knew, Mrs. Hopkinson concluded reminiscently, what it was to make a mistake of that kind, and it wasn’t everybody who was as lucky as she had been, either.
Pettigrew, left to conclude that Mrs. Hopkinson’s luck had consisted in Mr. Hopkinson deciding to die conveniently early, contented himself with inarticulate murmurs and managed to avoid committing himself. Privately, he felt bound to admit that the Merry Widow’s views, though differently expressed, were not so very far from those which he had himself felt only a short time before. He
did not feel at liberty to set her mind at rest regarding Phillips’s widowerhood, and when pressed further for his opinion in the matter, evaded the issue by pointing out that Miss Brown had not tied herself up yet.
Indeed, it was singularly difficult to say as yet whether Miss Brown did in fact propose to tie herself up with Phillips or not. His intentions were obvious. So was Miss Danville’s enthusiastic support of his suit. No match-making mother ever encouraged a man more. Mrs. Hopkinson, never given to finesse, could not have made her disapproval plainer. Miss Brown remained the sole unknown quantity. Always calm and quiet, she appeared equally serene and contented whether she was by herself, with Phillips, with Miss Danville, or, as more often happened, in the company of the two together. She even seemed to tolerate Mrs. Hopkinson, though that lady complained bitterly that she “could get nothing out of her”. Her self-possession, Pettigrew felt, was admirable. He began to wonder whether she was not better able to look after herself than he had supposed.
One evening, Pettigrew felt that he could stand the atmosphere of the Fernlea no longer. He had had a tiring day. The Controller had been exceptionally obstructive over the amendments by which Pettigrew had hoped to introduce some semblance of logic into the wild ramifications of the latest Order governing the marketing of pins. Miss Danville had neglected to make the tea until her whistling kettle had blown its piercing blast for five agonizing minutes. The war news was depressing. And now the evening session in the lounge was in full swing. The plotters were huddled in their corner, eagerly discussing some new absurdity introduced by Edelman. From time to time their colloquy was interrupted by bursts of laughter, interspersed with meaning glances in the direction of Miss Danville and no less meaning cries of “Sh-h!” Miss Danville, her lips moving slowly, was absorbed in her book, from which she raised her eyes occasionally to cast approving glances at Miss Brown and Phillips, sitting together on the sofa, speaking little but apparently satisfied in each other’s company. When the door opened to admit Mrs. Hopkinson, Pettigrew decided on action. Side-stepping her neatly, he slipped into the hall, took his hat and coat off the peg and walked out of the house.