by Cyril Hare
His mind had barely time to register the sight before the man had straightened himself, and, hands in pockets, began strolling quietly towards him with an excellent assumption of ease. The light was behind him, and it was not until he was quite close that he could be recognized. It was Wood.
“Good afternoon,” said Wood when he reached Pettigrew, in a tone which might have been intended to be casual, but succeeded in sounding rather sheepish.
“Good afternoon,” Pettigrew echoed. There seemed to be nothing else to say.
Wood was about to walk on, when from behind the open door a high-pitched giggle suddenly made itself heard. It had a familiar ring, and Pettigrew was not surprised when Mrs. Hopkinson emerged, holding a handkerchief to her mouth, her face red with ill-suppressed laughter.
“Are there any more of your friends about?” he asked Wood. He tried to make the question sound as disagreeable as possible. Marsett Bay, from being a bore, seemed fast becoming a Bedlam, and he did not feel at all like suffering these particular Bedlamites gladly.
Wood’s assurance, he was glad to note, had begun to desert him.
“Would you—would you please not talk too loud?” he murmured. “You see, we’re not supposed to be here, and—and——”
Pettigrew had no intention of helping him out, and the Merry Widow seemed quite incapable of speech. He might have continued to splutter indefinitely if assistance had not come from elsewhere.
“I’m afraid we’re in rather a spot,” said a suave voice, as Edelman emerged from the pantry next door. “Would you mind very much, old fellow, if we all came into your room for a moment? This is a bit public.”
Pettigrew minded very much being called “old fellow” by Edelman at that moment, but none the less he allowed himself to be swept back into his room with the three intruders close on his heels. Recovering the initiative, he quickly entrenched himself behind his desk and sat down. Once safely there, he felt himself in a judicial position from which he could regard the trespassers with a proper air of superiority.
“I think,” Edelman began in an easy manner, “that the moment has arrived, in the classic phrase, to tell all.”
Pettigrew judged that the fatuity of this remark would be best underlined by making no reply to it. He accordingly remained silent, and waited for Edelman to try again.
“It is rather a ridiculous position to find oneself in,” the latter continued. “The fact is, Wood was trying out a little experiment and Mrs. Hopkinson and I were engaged meanwhile in—how shall I put it——?”
“Keeping cave,” the Merry Widow interposed with a giggle.
“Er—yes, I think that that schoolboy expression does just about describe this rather schoolboyish episode. Wood was naturally anxious not to be detected in an action that was rather apt to be misconstrued, and——”
Pettigrew began to lose patience.
“If you mean he didn’t want to be seen looking through the Controller’s keyhole, I can quite believe you,” he said. “But would you oblige me now by cutting the cackle and telling me exactly what you were all up to?”
“Up to?” Mrs. Hopkinson broke in. “D’you mean you didn’t tumble to it? We were rehearsing the giddy plot, of course!”
Pettigrew looked in bewilderment from one to another of the three faces confronting him.
“I think it’s up to me to explain, as I’m really responsible,” Wood said. “It’s a little difficult for anyone who isn’t himself a writer to appreciate the position, but I have always rather prided myself on getting my facts right. I—I belong to the realist school of fiction, I suppose if you like to put it that way. Or perhaps you might say, I’m even a bit deficient in imagination. The point is, I simply cannot write about a thing or place until I’ve seen it for myself. I must have a factual background to my stories, and to get that I sometimes stray into rather queer situations. Perhaps you’ll understand the difficulty when I tell you that while I was getting material for Death on the Bakerloo I was twice arrested for trespassing on the Underground——”
“Begging everyone’s pardon for the interruption,” said Mrs. Hopkinson, “but if I don’t run along now, I shall have Judith on my tail next minute! It’s all very well for Mr. Edelman, who’s a law to himself, and everyone knows how slack Enforcement is, but it’s different for poor little me. She thinks I’m in the you know what——” she nodded in the direction of the ladies’ cloakroom, “but you can’t spend half the day there, can you? Cheerybye, Mr. Pettigrew! you won’t be a spoil-sport, will you?”
“Let me get this clear,” said Pettigrew after she had gone. “I don’t see that it is any concern of mine, really, but as you have started to explain I think the explanation should be complete. So I understand, Wood, that you were investigating the possibilities of this part of the building as a setting for a crime story?”
“That’s it, exactly,” Wood agreed. “You’ll remember, the first evening this idea was ever discussed, you suggested yourself what an admirable spot for the crime the library would be. Well, I’ve only been in the room once, and I simply had to have another squint at it.”
“Besides,” Edelman added, “it was essential to the plot to know just how much of the room could be seen by an observer through the keyhole.”
“Exactly. Then we had to try all this out under actual conditions. I was very much worried with the problem of how to get my murderer to the library without being seen. This needed a good deal of study on the spot.”
“We had to find out just who was liable to go along that corridor at different times of the day, and when—study the routes of messengers and so on,” said Edelman. “Find out when the Controller was most likely to be alone——”
“Devise the getaway,” Wood put in. The pair were picking up each other’s cues now like a couple of well-trained comedians.
“But,” Pettigrew expostulated, “this is sheer, unadulterated nonsense! If you want to write a book surely you arrange the geography of your background and the movements of your characters to suit the plot, not vice versa. Do you really expect me to credit all this?”
“In a sense,” said Edelman after rather a long pause, “that is a perfectly valid piece of criticism, I admit. But you see, we’re not exactly writing a book at the moment.”
“I thought that was what you were telling me you were doing, Wood.”
“I can’t answer for Wood, of course,” Edelman continued before Wood had time to say anything. “He is a writer and I am not. So far as my part in it is concerned, we were simply doing what Mrs. Hopkinson said just now—rehearsing the plot. We were seeing whether it would be possible to carry out in practice the fictitious crime which we have been engaged in devising. After all, it would be a waste of time to work out a thing of this kind in vacuo if you were not going to see whether it could be put into practice.”
“The whole thing is a waste of time, so far as I can see,” said Pettigrew. “And——”
But Edelman, with raised forefinger, motioned him to be silent. From the little room next door the kettle was whistling quietly, getting up steam for its full-voiced scream. Edelman looked at his watch and turned to Wood.
“Ten and a half minutes,” he said. “I think that will just allow time for everything.” Then, as Miss Danville’s hurried steps were heard, he went on, “Here she comes, the deed completed. And during all this time, observe, nobody but ourselves has been down the corridor. It really works out very well.”
“Why on earth must you drag Miss Danville into your imbecilities?”
“Well, we agreed that she should be the murderer, didn’t we? Besides, if you insist on being so matter of fact, she is quite capable of killing the Controller—or anyone else for that matter—if she’s handled the right way. She’s extremely suggestible. I know that from personal experience.”
Wood murmured something to Edelman which Pettigrew could not catch.
“Ah, yes! Wood reminds me that your secretary, who disapproves of our activities, will
no doubt be bringing in your tea directly, so we had better make ourselves scarce, with apologies for having taken up your time. I think I can promise that you are not likely to be disturbed again by any rehearsals. We have fixed everything now—even to the weapon. I ought just to tell you about that, as you are so curious as to our doings. You must have noticed those long skewer things the clerks use making holes in papers to tie the files up with. Pointed and very sharp. Known locally as bodkins. We’ve decided on one of those. It seems so entirely appropriate, don’t you think? And now, we must be off. Once more, our apologies.”
Over his tea, which came with such suspicious promptitude after the intruders’ departure as to suggest that Miss Brown was aware of their visit, Pettigrew reflected on the extraordinary story he had just heard. The more he thought about it, the harder he found it to believe. On consideration, he was most perplexed by Edelman’s part in the affair. He had made himself the principal apologist, and seemed to have gone out of his way to take the words out of the mouths of the others. But could he really be devoting part of his working hours to such an absurd, time-wasting scheme? Mrs. Hopkinson was different. Pettigrew judged her to be an addlepated creature, to whom one form of what she called “fun and games” was as good as another. Wood was an author; and all writers were a little cracked in one way or another. But if Edelman was anything, he was a prodigious worker. It seemed utterly out of character for him to neglect his job in so purposeless a fashion. And yet, if he was not telling the truth, what conceivable explanation for his behaviour could there be?
Pettigrew frowned. He had the uneasy impression that Edelman was not a man who did things without some object, and he was by no means convinced that his objects would necessarily be desirable ones. He particularly disliked his easy reference to Miss Danville’s suggestibility. It tied up with his calm appraisal of the chances of her being seriously affected should she get to learn of the part allotted to her in the plot. Was it possible that for some reason the fellow intended some harm to that poor vulnerable soul? And if so, to what end?
He shook himself. This positively would not do! Once more he was beginning to indulge in melodramatic suspicions about his fellows, and with even less cause than on the last occasion. It wasn’t like him. Decidedly the atmosphere of Marsett Bay was beginning to affect him. To calm himself, he took up the file which had reached him just before he had surprised Wood at the Controller’s door. He saw with interest that his opinion was required on the advisability of taking proceedings for a serious case of unlawful trading. Evidently this was the matter which Mallett had spoken of at their last meeting. The firm’s name, he observed, was Blenkinsop. It seemed vaguely familiar. Then he recollected having heard the words “the Blenkinsop file” being uttered in various tones of annoyance and reproof by Miss Clarke at the Fernlea, though in what connection he could not say.
Presently he was absorbed in Mallett’s report, which was certainly a model of its kind. The case clearly had possibilities, but it was too intricate to master at a sitting at the fag-end of the day. Still he read on, hoping at least to have some general picture of the case to work on when he came to tackle it in detail on the morrow. But before long, he found himself distracted by noises outside his door. They were familiar noises too—the shuffling of feet, the murmur of voices, the ripple of suppressed laughter. . . . Really it was too much! He had hardly expected Edelman and Wood to keep their promise that he should not be further disturbed, but to break it within an hour was simply insulting.
In a mood of quiet fury, he once more strode to his door and threw it open. But this time it was not to see anybody at the door of the Controller’s room. What he saw instead was his own secretary’s door hurriedly closing and Mr. Phillips, rather pink in the face, walking quickly away from it.
Pettigrew went back to his room as quickly as he could. This was the last thing in the world he could have wished to happen. To find himself caught spying on Miss Brown’s private affairs, even by the merest accident, was simply degrading. What on earth would she think of him? He felt like rushing into her room to apologize for his behaviour, but that would only make matters worse. She would probably want to apologize too and that would be unbearable. It was entirely Phillips’s fault, of course, but that didn’t make things any better. Damn Phillips! Damn Edelman! Damn the Control and everything connected with it, including the Blenkinsop file! A great wave of nostalgia for the Temple swept over him. He felt utterly miserable.
Chapter 9
THE BALLOON GOES UP
Although Miss Brown confronted him next morning with unruffled calm, it was with some relief that Pettigrew heard her announce that she had been granted three days’ leave and would be catching the afternoon train for London that day. He politely wished her an enjoyable holiday, and in answer to her apologies for the short notice assured her that in the present state of the legal adviser’s work her absence would not cause him any undue inconvenience.
“I congratulate you on getting even such a small instalment of freedom,” he said. “The Establishment Officer brutally told me that I am not entitled to any leave this side of Christmas.”
“Neither am I, really,” Miss Brown told him. “I got him to give me this as a special concession.”
“Oh, yes?”
Pettigrew felt he had had quite enough of Miss Brown’s private affairs, and was determined not to ask her by what plea she had managed to soften the heart of authority; but she continued, “I didn’t like to bother you, Mr. Pettigrew, but I got particulars from those other insurance people you mentioned, and Tom and I agreed that the Empyrean terms suited me best.”
Tom? Oh, of course, that was Phillips’s name. Funny he had never heard her call him that before.
“They want a medical examination, so I persuaded the Establishment Officer to advance me leave to go up for it.”
“I must say that was very clever of you. The Establishment Officer always sounds such a solid piece of work, but you seem to have found a soft spot in the structure somewhere. A bit of the cement that hadn’t set properly, or something. Well, when do we meet again? Let me see, to-day’s Tuesday. Your leave runs from Wednesday, I suppose. That carries you on to Saturday. I shall expect you on Monday, then, to tidy up the messes I shall make between now and then.”
Miss Brown shook her head.
“My leave runs from midday to-day,” she said. “Strictly, I ought to be back in the office by noon on Friday. I’ve been allowed to stay away till Friday night, but I must be working again on Saturday morning.”
“Monstrous!” said Pettigrew. “I take back what I said about the soft spot. The man must be ferro-concrete right through.”
“It doesn’t matter much to me,” answered Miss Brown. “Besides the examination, there’s only a little shopping I want to get done and I can fit it in quite easily. I shall be glad of the extra day’s leave later on, I expect.”
It suddenly occurred to Pettigrew what the object of the little shopping was, and the purpose to which the extra day’s leave would be devoted later on. For some reason, the idea of her going off alone to insure her life and buy her meagre war-time trousseau preparatory to spending the balance of her leave on a honeymoon with Phillips struck him as pathetic. But there was nothing he could do about it, except to disguise from her the fact that she was an object of sympathy.
“Well,” he said, “at least there’s no reason why you should waste any more time in the office this morning. No, don’t tell me that it isn’t midday yet. There’s nothing to be done that can’t very well wait till you get back.”
“I was going to index the Board of Trade memoranda on Colonial Preference,” Miss Brown began doubtfully, but he cut her short.
“My dear girl, if the expression was not slightly blasphemous in this place, I should say that I don’t care two pins for the Board of Trade memoranda. Be off with you. Get some sandwiches at the Black Market café in Bridge Street and be at the station in good time. Then you may get a seat, if th
e ruffians from the Contract Ministry haven’t filled the train up at Greenlake.”
And having got rid of his secretary with a greater sense of relief than he would ever have thought possible, he settled down to a quiet morning’s study of the delinquencies of the firm of Blenkinsop.
On the whole, the period of Miss Brown’s absence passed better for Pettigrew than he had expected. Only once did he try the experiment of sending through to the pool for a shorthand writer. His call produced a smart young person with a pretty face. Pettigrew could not place her, but she vaguely reminded him of some unpleasant incident in the past that was only just over the borders of his memory. He remembered what it was the instant that she left the room; for outside his door he heard the vulgar, confident voice of Rickaby, complaining that he had been waiting there ten minutes to take her to lunch.
He felt that it only wanted Rickaby to make his corridor, which he had once thought so sequestered, the resort of all the imbeciles in the Control. Thereafter, he abjured any substitute for Miss Brown and contented himself with compiling sheets of scrawled manuscript for her to decipher on her return. The telephone gave him less trouble. To any caller who sounded tiresome he ejaculated gruffly, and truthfully, “Mr. Pettigrew’s secretary is out. Is there any message?” Very few people, he was gratified to note, cared to entrust their messages to a mere secretary’s deputy, and a surly one at that.
Life at the Fernlea, too, seemed to have become for the time being distinctly more civilized. On Tuesday night, Wood dined out with friends, with the result that the Plot, deprived of its arch-plotter, failed to establish itself against the rival attraction of the Brains Trust. Later, Edelman, who had (in his own words) been goaded into it, treated the company to a brilliant and perverse onslaught on every kind of social and political reform. His display of verbal pyrotechnics was cut short by the belated entrance of Mrs. Hopkinson, slightly drunk. Unlike any other woman Pettigrew had ever met, she was distinctly the better for being in liquor. Her unbridled cheerfulness communicated itself to the others and before they quite knew how it had happened, they were all sitting down playing Racing Demon with ferocious abandon. The game went on till long past the usual decorous Fernlea hours and broke up at last with Phillips a pronounced winner. The next evening, Miss Clarke and the Merry Widow went to the cinema, while Rickaby took himself off to the White Hart. The four remaining men played an amicable rubber of bridge, with cards slightly creased by the orgy of the preceding night, leaving Miss Danville in peaceful contemplation of her devotional book. As he went up to bed afterwards, Pettigrew reflected that he had enjoyed the last two evenings more than any others since he had been at Marsett Bay. Chronic ill luck had made him something of a pessimist, and he found himself wondering whether this was not altogether too good to last.