Death and the Visiting Firemen

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Don’t suppose I fooled you, Mr Schlemberger. A little trick I learnt all of forty years ago. I couldn’t resist seeing if I could still do it, for fun instead of in earnest.’

  ‘Guess I had my suspicions,’ said Schlemberger.

  ‘I must see if I can do it a little better tomorrow,’ Hamyadis said. ‘We mustn’t disappoint our audience. Everybody must be ready to play their part. Mr Dagg, I want no remarks about sheriffs. In fact you had better keep silent.’

  ‘All right, Air Marshal, I know I’m ignorant. I’m so ignorant they wanted to take me round the schools as a horrible example. I’m not like my boy here: I haven’t had education with no expense spared. But I can keep my mouth shut when called upon.’

  ‘There was one thing,’ Fremitt said. ‘It seemed to me that the pistol produced quite a large explosion. Is it really safe with so much powder in it?’

  ‘Safe as houses,’ the major said. ‘All that I’ve done is to convert the weapon into a child’s toy pistol. It fires what amounts to a cap.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Fremitt said. ‘It looked to me as if there was some danger of the hand getting scorched.’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Major Mortenson, ‘But I’ll put a little less powder in for tomorrow if you like. Let me have the pistol, Peter. I won’t load it till the morning in case it gets damp, but I don’t want it left in the coach all night. It’s too precious to me for that.’

  ‘Peter,’ said Hamyadis, ‘put the gun back under the seat.’

  The boy hesitated, looked from Hamyadis to the major.

  The major stood up abruptly. The coach rocked.

  ‘I prefer to keep the pistol myself,’ he said. ‘It’s a valuable piece.’

  ‘You can charge expenses, major,’ said Hamyadis. ‘But that gun stays on the coach tonight. I don’t want it forgotten again.’

  ‘But the coach house is unlocked,’ the major said. ‘Anybody could come in and take it. There are plenty of people about with precious little sense of meum and tuum.’

  ‘Put the pistol under your seat, Peter,’ said Hamyadis.

  The elaborate pretence of weariness. The enjoyment of power.

  ‘Very well,’ Major Mortenson said. ‘I’ll allow it to stay there but under protest.’

  ‘If there’s nothing else to fix up,’ Schlemberger said, ‘I guess if you’ll pardon me, everybody, I’ll go and discuss the conference arrangements with my committee.’

  He climbed down the iron ladder on the coach side and walked away, purposefully.

  ‘Thank you very much for your assistance,’ said Hamyadis. ‘Thank you, everybody. I think it should go all right tomorrow. I won’t be on the coach at all. And I’m keeping it secret just when the highwayman is going to appear. It will aid the illusion.’

  He went back into the inn. A heavy torn cat, walking alone.

  The others dismounted, talking a little about the weather and the sights of Winchester. Not about the rehearsal. John Fremitt did not contribute to the conversation. He sat still until all the others had got down and would have stayed longer had Smithers not looked up and asked him if he was coming.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a start. ‘I’m sorry, my dear fellow. I was … That is I was thinking.’

  ‘There is a good deal to think about,’ said Smithers as they walked across the cobbled yard.

  Fremitt made no reply.

  At breakfast next day it was Joe Dagg who warned them that the time of departure had been fixed for ten o’clock. It was he who collected Hamyadis’s three big cases, each with his initials stamped in large letters, from where they were piled in the hall, slightly in everyone’s way.

  And Joe saw that the whole party was safely installed before, surrounded once again by demonstrating conference delegates, they set off in bright sunshine, with three horn calls, with a clatter of hooves, to the sound of cheers.

  ‘Well, Joe,’ said the major when the horses had settled down to a steady trot and the outskirts of Winchester were slipping quietly by, ‘I see you’re in charge of us this morning.’

  ‘Don’t know anything about anybody being in charge, colonel,’ said Joe. ‘All I know is that the boss gave me my orders before that silly rehearsal business yesterday. Start out at ten, he says, and follow the route.’

  ‘I suppose it was a bit silly, his little trick,’ Daisy said. ‘But I couldn’t help admiring him for it. You know, I’ve known him for years and years and I’d no idea he could ride a horse. Let alone do it so well. Kristen, were you in the secret? Was it a put up job between you?’

  ‘The hell it was,’ said Kristen. ‘He never tells me anything he doesn’t want to. I tell you I haven’t seen hair or hide of him from the time he left us last night. Not that I wanted to, only he might have just popped in all the same.’

  ‘Don’t you really know when this famous hold-up’s going to happen?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Kristen said, ‘I wish it wasn’t going to be today though, I don’t feel up to it.’

  ‘Does anybody know about the hold-up?’ the major asked. ‘I certainly don’t. Of course he discussed the general idea with me, but I thought it was to take place later in the journey.’

  ‘That’s what Kristen told me in the first place,’ Richard Wemyss said. ‘I thought it was to happen much nearer London, where the press and everyone could see it. I think the whole thing’s been bungled.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Joe from the driver’s seat. ‘He told me. It was going to be on Friday on the telly. But they couldn’t do it. So it’s going to be filmed. The film car’s picking us up in an hour or so.’

  ‘Then the hold-up shouldn’t be long,’ said the major.

  Wemyss took off his hat and brushed it with the sleeve of his coat.

  ‘Wrong again,’ said Joe. ‘They’re following all day if need be. The boss said it was the only way to make it really exciting. He thinks of these things. You’ve got to hand it to him for that.’

  ‘So it might happen at any time,’ said Schlemberger. ‘What about my boys then? They’d surely like to see me at the wrong end of a pistol.’

  ‘They’re following us today,’ said Joe. ‘All the way until the hold-up.’

  ‘I didn’t know we were going to be televised,’ Fremitt said. ‘I’m not sure that I’ve considered all the implications. Doesn’t anybody really know when it’s going to take place? I should like at least the opportunity of not being present. Smithers, were you consulted?’

  ‘Only in the most general terms,’ Smithers answered. ‘I submitted a memorandum on the sort of thing that happened when a highwayman stopped a coach. But I heard nothing about the actual particulars. This television business comes as much of a shock to me as to you.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to spoil it all,’ said Wemyss. ‘It may be something like a bad smell to you, but it’s important to me. And to Daisy and Kristen. That’s what we made the journey for. Isn’t it, Kris?’

  ‘I don’t know about Daisy, but I had my own reasons for coming.’

  An irrelevance. Meant if anything to tease.

  ‘I suppose’, said Smithers, ‘that having undertaken the trip one ought to go through with everything involved. Though I must say I take it badly that Hamyadis didn’t give me full particulars.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Wemyss.

  He smiled. With charm. For almost the first time on the trip.

  ‘But all the same,’ he added, ‘I think you must be beginning to see my point about our absent friend. A bit much, eh?’

  ‘I will admit’, said Smithers, ‘that there has been an atmosphere about this whole trip that I didn’t expect.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve noticed it at last,’ said Wemyss. ‘I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. Of course, I came to it as a complete outsider. I hadn’t met our friend until the evening before we started and I only saw him for a few moments then. But right from the start it looked odd to me. What
about you, sir?’ He turned to Schlemberger. ‘You’re as much of a newcomer to it all as I am. Did you notice anything odd?’

  ‘It certainly hasn’t quite gone as I’d have expected,’ said Schlemberger. ‘I feel a mite responsible.’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Fremitt, ‘if anybody should feel responsible, and I really don’t think that they should, then it must be myself. After all I am your official host.’

  The shy smile.

  ‘That’s pretty big of you,’ said Schlemberger. ‘But it’s just not so. I fixed all the arrangements. My organization picked Hamyadis Tours on my say-so, I’ve got to admit that.’

  He sat back. A penitent freed.

  ‘Dad,’ said Peter Dagg sitting next to his father on the box, ‘what does it mean the trip having an atmosphere? The old coach does smell a bit inside, but it’s all right when you get used to it.’

  ‘I don’t know what it means any more than you do, son,’ said Joe. ‘I never noticed any atmosphere.’

  ‘But we did,’ said Wemyss.

  ‘Perhaps it was the cause of your premonition,’ the major said to Daisy. ‘I feel concerned.’

  ‘No,’ she answered, ‘the premonition was something quite different. I thought it had all come true when I spoke to George lying there on the cobbles and he didn’t answer. I was almost glad. I thought, “Well, at least it’s nothing worse”. I never somehow expected George to die a quiet death, not in all the years I’ve known him.’

  ‘You’ve known him a long time, have you?’ said Wemyss.

  A pounce.

  ‘No,’ Daisy said. ‘I haven’t. Or did I say I had? I’ll tell you how it was. I met him first years and years ago. And we’ve always been very pally when we bump into each other, you know how it is in the profession. But if you’re asking whether I know him really: the answer is I don’t. I certainly don’t.’

  ‘But you must know quite a bit about him,’ said Wemyss.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  Firmness. A lesson.

  ‘I’ve heard quite a bit about him, but that’s not the same thing.’

  ‘But…’ Wemyss began. ‘Tell me, Miss Miller,’ Smithers interrupted.

  ‘Miss Miller,’ said Daisy. ‘You ought to call me by my christian name. You’re a friend.’

  An acknowledgement.

  ‘Well, then, Daisy. I was going to ask you if you were worried about your premonition still. But perhaps you’d rather not speak of it.’

  ‘Oh, no, dear. I want to talk about it all the time. It’s the only way. Otherwise I wouldn’t leave it at just wishing I would go home: I’d suddenly pack my bags and go right in the middle of the night.’

  ‘But if you’re worried, you ought to do just that, dear lady,’ said the major.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Daisy said. ‘But anyhow I can’t go, so there it is.’

  ‘But if you’re worried I could certainly persuade Hamyadis to release you from any contract,’ said the major.

  I could easily kill a giant.

  ‘No.’

  From Daisy a pistol shot.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, major,’ she added quickly. ‘I don’t want to break a contract. I never have in all the years I’ve been on the stage.’

  ‘People are always saying that,’ Kristen broke in. ‘I think it’s silly. If you don’t treat ‘em rough they treat you rough.’

  ‘You be careful, dear,’ Daisy said. ‘You can break too many. I ought to know. When I was a young thing I used to walk out of show after show.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ said Schlemberger.

  The alert owl.

  ‘Pardon me, didn’t I understand you to say you had never broken a contract? I’m purely a suspicious old hick.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I did say,’ Daisy replied. ‘When you get to my age it’s what you do say. It helps to spread the trouper tradition.’

  ‘And I thought the fire business was tricky,’ said Schlemberger.

  ‘I expect it is, dear,’ said Daisy, ‘in its own way. But there’s no denying it, the profession does look very like a jungle on the days when you’re feeling a bit low. I dare say it does on the days you’re feeling good too. Only then you’re one of the wild beasts and happy about it.’

  ‘Talking of wild beasts,’ said Smithers. ‘Would I be right in thinking that one of them has just begun to stalk us?’

  They all turned round. About fifty yards behind them running quietly along the broad sweep of the main road there was a small smartly painted lorry, on it, pointing at them, the lenses of a film camera.

  ‘And aren’t those the coaches coming after?’ said Wemyss.

  ‘So we can expect the hold-up at any moment, I suppose,’ Fremitt said.

  ‘I feel quite excited already,’ Daisy said. ‘George was quite right. Not knowing when does give it a bit of real excitement.’

  ‘We’ve a tidy way to go yet today,’ said Joe Dagg. ‘You may have to wait.’

  ‘Do you know the road ahead, major?’ asked Schlemberger. ‘Can you tell us what would be a likely point for this attack to take place?’

  ‘I was just trying to think,’ said the major. ‘Of course, we’re on an old Roman road from here nearly to Basingstoke and it doesn’t pass through many places. They mostly lie off it a bit to one side or the other. So there will be plenty of opportunities.’

  ‘And did you tell all this to Hamyadis?’ Schlemberger said.

  With excitement.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ said the major. ‘But, mind you, that was a fortnight or so ago. We went over the whole route together then. I doubt if he’d remember it all.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Kristen said. ‘He was talking about it to me yesterday. He knew everything about it.’

  ‘He certainly is a remarkable man in many ways,’ said Schlemberger.

  ‘I’m glad somebody thinks so,’ said Kristen. ‘But then you’ve no cause to be jealous, have you, Mr Schlemberger?’

  She turned and looked up into Richard Wemyss’s face. Coquetry.

  ‘Don’t you flatter yourself, my girl,’ said Wemyss.

  A sudden flush of anger.

  ‘I only go by what I hear,’ Kristen said.

  ‘Well then,’ said Wemyss, ‘you can hear this.’

  The colour mounting in his cheeks. A reversal resented.

  ‘I know quite well why you insisted on me coming on this trip with you. But I came because it suited me, and for no other reason. Don’t let’s have any misunderstandings about that.’

  He spoke quietly, leaning towards her, but with too much force for all that he said not to be clearly heard by everybody. Even Joe Dagg sitting above them. He turned round in his seat and said:

  ‘You go in and win, captain. You go in and show her you’re one better than a stinking rich old dago.’

  Wemyss suddenly white. The nostrils rigid.

  ‘You don’t want to be shy, captain,’ Joe went on.

  A plough tears cheerfully at spider strands, at mouse work.

  ‘I think you completely misunderstand the situation,’ said Wemyss.

  ‘’Course I do, captain,’ Joe said. ‘If I saw the vicar’s wife kissing the cowman behind the milking sheds I’d misunderstand the situation. That’s what I was born for. But I can’t help opening my big mouth. And what I say is: when there’s a chance of putting a wog in his place it ought to be did, and quick.’

  ‘I’m beginning to wish this wretched highwayman business would start,’ Smithers said quietly to Fremitt.

  Richard Wemyss stood up and faced Joe, swaying slightly to the rhythm of the coach.

  ‘I think I must ask you to mind your own business,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘it is our business you know. We none of us like to see young love going astray.’

  ‘I notice nobody else associates themselves with your remarks,’ Wemyss said.

  ‘Oh, well, perhaps they don’t, not in so many words. But I’m sure … Oh, never mind.’


  A sudden wrinkle in the smooth balloon.

  ‘I’ll say no more. Only that if I spoke out of turn, it was because I’ve more reason to than most.’

  He put his arm round the shoulders of his son and the coach jogged on in silence.

  But not for long.

  ‘It’s a curious thing,’ said Schlemberger, ‘but neither of my exes ever thought to marry again. You never can tell with a woman. As soon as my second left me she and my first got together about the alimony and they’ve been together about it ever since. The whole business of marriage is entirely beyond my comprehension.’

  Some salt for an open wound.

  ‘Well, you know, Mr Schlemberger,’ Smithers said, ‘we over here are apt to feel that the idea of marriage is beyond the comprehension of America as a whole.’

  A bull grasped by the horns converted into a discussion group, neatly sitting round.

  ‘Oh, come now,’ said Daisy, ‘you won’t often find me defending America, dear. But you mustn’t think it’s only Reno, you know. Even in the profession there are lots and lots of nice people never thinking of divorce or anything, just happily quarrelling on from year to year like everybody else.’

  Then Schlemberger: something in agreement.

  And the major: a doubt.

  Smithers next: an admission of hastiness.

  Now even Wemyss: some contribution a little off the point.

  And Kristen: a contradiction.

  Amounting in all to a conversation, a quiet conversation, a veneer of normality.

  And before and behind them the road slowly clopped away. Cars passed with faces craned to watch. Horses in a field galloped as far as they could racing the team in the traces. At a discreet distance the film lorry kept its camera trained, behind it the coaches of the delegates, emitting a cheer at anything like an incident. Above, the sun from a cloudless sky. Only the faintest of breezes from the motion of the coach to relieve the heat. The acrid smell of the horses. Drowsiness. The conversation trickling away to warm silence. The pace varying with the road, slowing almost to a stop up an incline, briskening for a slope down.

  At the bottom of a long gentle hill with the hooves now clacketing out sharply with a stir of exhilaration, suddenly from Joe Dagg ever alert: