The Magicians

by J. B. Priestley

  “To finish with life. Why are you so foolish?”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “I forgive. But is better to listen. Sepman drive into that place because he think death is there. Is like our society. We are in Sepman age. We have wars—each more terrible. We have inquest—with important officials all shouting and understanding nothing. Verdict is that it is big accident—not other thing—suicide. But I tell you it is all same.”

  “It is not the same here,” T. Brigden Coss shouted. “The two verdicts would be entirely different. It’s quite possible that this unfortunate man genuinely mistook the road——”

  “Is still all the same,” Perperek roared. “But if you will not try to think—and will be important official shouting—do not ask me any more questions. I say is suicide caused by accident. I say is accident that is really suicide. Or I say just accident. Or I say just suicide. And I also say you are very foolish little man——”

  “Inspector Triffett!”

  “Sir?”

  “I propose to charge this witness with contempt of court—and in the meantime detail one of your men to take him into custody.”

  “Yes, sir.” Through an excited hubbub, Inspector Triffett marched up to Perperek, who had now come closer to Ravenstreet, who in his turn had jumped to his feet, about to protest.

  “I go to prison?” said Perperek, by no means panic-stricken, only rather rueful. “Always is the same when I am foolish and try to tell truth to officials.”

  “This is preposterous,” Ravenstreet began angrily.

  “Quiet! Inspector, hurry up—and make sure that Sir Charles Ravenstreet does not leave this court.”

  “Now you stay here, sir,” said the inspector to Ravenstreet, and then led away Perperek, who, to Ravenstreet’s relief, looked quite composed. As the place quietened down, it was discovered that the foreman of the jury was trying to make himself heard.

  “I wondered if I could ask this gentleman a question or two,” said the foreman, a solid fellow. “Then I think we could reach a verdict.”

  T. Brigden Coss closed his eyes, folded away his mouth, hunched his shoulders, so that he was now almost all nose. He stayed like this for several moments, presumably to show his disapproval. Then he opened his eyes and unfolded his mouth. “Very well. But I must warn you that in my opinion—and I have had a great deal of experience—this is not a reliable witness.”

  “If you’ll ask a few sensible questions,” Ravenstreet told the foreman, “I’ll try to answer them.”

  “When you followed Sepman, did you think he might try to commit suicide?”

  “No, I didn’t. But I thought he was in a bad state of mind to be driving a car in the middle of the night. He hadn’t told me he was going, hadn’t said good-bye, although our relations right up to the last moment had been quite friendly. He hadn’t given his wife a chance to say anything.”

  “It is not clear to me why Mrs. Sepman, with whom, we are told, he had quarrelled, allowed herself to be rushed away like that.” This was the Coroner. He stared angrily at Ravenstreet. “I cannot help suspecting that we are not being told the whole truth.”

  Ravenstreet ignored him.

  “What do you say to that sir?” asked the foreman.

  “What can I say? I wasn’t there when he decided to leave. If she had felt absolutely desperate, I imagine that she would have got away from him or at least screamed for help. She didn’t. Having made him so angry, probably she felt she daren’t disobey him. But I don’t know. Nobody knows. What I do know is that he was in a thoroughly bad mood, probably feeling reckless, was driving the car at what must have been a dangerous speed, and so easily might have had an accident in a place that would have been no danger to an ordinary motorist.”

  “That’s sense, that is,” cried one of the jury, a stout elderly man. “Let’s stick to that, and have done with it.”

  This was too much for T. Brigden Coss. “That will do, that will do,” he shouted. “All this is highly irregular. I don’t think we need waste any more time examining this witness. But I cannot allow you to leave the court, Sir Charles Ravenstreet. Inspector Triffett, kindly note that. Now who is representing the local authorities?”

  In spite of this reference to wasted time, the best part of an hour crawled by while T. Brigden Coss, now restored to his former majesty, examined several more witnesses. There was no further reference to Sepman and his troubles, these witnesses being there to answer questions about the road and the entrance to the quarry. Finally, the Coroner addressed the jury, with at least one eye throughout on the reporters. The story, as he told it, was almost there already in headlines—Big Business Orgies—What Happened at the Manor—Pretty Wife’s Grave Lapse—Wonder Chemist’s Despair—Jealousy Then Madness—Drink, Sex and Death! T. Brigden Coss, who appeared to think that a sermon had been demanded from him, pointed many a moral lesson along the way and did not hesitate to castigate those frailties of the age that must have played a part in bringing about the premature decease of this gifted research worker and his still youthful and handsome wife. There were probably some unsavoury elements in the case still undisclosed, but enough had been said to present a sad picture of two valuable lives wasted, for which it would not be just to blame the negligence of the local authorities, whose expert witnesses had indeed denied any such negligence—and so it went on, for nearly forty minutes. After which the jury, with what T. Brigden Coss clearly regarded as suspicious promptness, recommended a verdict of Accidental Death.

  Ravenstreet came out of his stupor to attach himself to Inspector Triffett. “This is monstrous, y’know, Inspector. What have you done to Mr. Perperek?”

  “I have done,” said Inspector Triffett with immense deliberation, “what I was instructed to do, sir. I got my sergeant to take him along to the station—couldn’t do anything else.”

  “But it’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s as may be, sir. But that’s how it is. I’m going to have a quiet word with the Coroner now, sir—to see if he’s changed his mind. And you’d better wait here, ’cos seeing you isn’t going to encourage him to let your friend off, is it? Quite so, sir.”

  After a few minutes he came creaking back, his expression poised nicely between his two extremes of bewilderment and baffled rage. “Adamant,” he an­nounced, “that’s all you can call it, sir. Adamant. You two ought to have been more careful. I tried to warn you. Between you and me and the gatepost, Mr. Brigden Coss is a tartar. But that’s how it is. So now everything’ll have to take its course. I suppose you want to see your friend at the station?”

  “Yes, of course I do. Idiotic business!”

  “Then I’ll go ahead in my car and you follow closely in yours, sir. I don’t say the case is hopeless. Strings might be pulled, as you might say, by somebody getting in touch with the Powers That Be. But once the machinery is set in motion—then—well, that’s how it is.”

  It was of course the same police station, the one he had been taken to towards the end of the post-quarry nightmare. Now it looked different, just a police station, yet it still refused to be commonplace, for as soon as Ravenstreet followed the inspector past the entrance he knew there was something wrong. Once inside the inspector’s little office, he told him so. The office had been recently colour-washed a startling pink so that it almost appeared to be blushing.

  “Wrong?” said Inspector Triffett, all wooden be­wilderment. “All that’s wrong here, so far as you’re concerned, sir, is that this foreign friend of yours has been here for about a couple of hours now. What else could be wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I just felt the moment I came in that something was wrong. I’m being fanciful, I suppose. Since I stopped being a busy industrialist, I’ve been rather fanciful. It might mean I’m beginning to break up, ten years too early, or it might mean I’m beginning to live. Well, let me talk to my friend Perperek, please. I take it you haven’t got him chained in some dungeon?”

  “Now, now, sir, none of that.�
�� Inspector Triffett did not smile because his facial limitations did not permit such antics, but there was a faint suggestion of what would have been a smile on an ordinary face. “He’s been better off than we’ve been, I can tell you, probably enjoying his smokes and some cups of tea and nobody to worry him. Now, sir, don’t you get too fanciful about this place. We have to obey orders, whether we agree with ’em or not—that’s how it is. But if nobody gives any trouble, it’s all nice and friendly. Now we’ll have a word with the sergeant in charge first.” And he asked for Sergeant Parks.

  Even Inspector Triffett could see there was some­thing wrong with Sergeant Parks, who was a fat red-faced man who appeared to be too fat, too red-faced, as if he were about to burst.

  “It’s about this foreign gentleman, Mr. Perperek, you took in,” the inspector began.

  Sergeant Parks nodded vigorously. His lips were compressed; he had a wild look; he was sweating hard.

  “This gentleman, Sir Charles Ravenstreet, is a friend of his, come to try and fix things up. You’ve had Mr. Perperek nice and comfortable, eh?”

  The sergeant nodded as before, looking if anything nearer bursting point.

  “No trouble with him, I don’t suppose?”

  Sergeant Parks shook his head with what would have been enthusiasm if he had not looked so desperate.

  “Here—here—here!” cried Inspector Triffett. “What’s all this head-wagging for? Can’t you talk, Sergeant? Got toothache—or something?”

  Straining away, Sergeant Parks said: “No, Inspector. Inspector, no. Toothache no. No toothache.”

  “By Christmas—you’ve been drinking——”

  “Inspector, no. No, Inspector. Drinking no——”

  “Stop that! What d’you think you are—a Zulu or something?” Now talk properly—or I’ll have some stripes off you for drinking on duty.”

  Scarlet, sweating, bursting, Sergeant Parks made a supreme effort. “Properly can’t hour,” he stammered desperately, “talk for an——”

  “You what? Say it again.”

  The sergeant mopped his brow with a shaking handkerchief, shut his eyes, and tried again. “For talk—an hour—properly can’t.”

  All baffled rage now, Inspector Triffett pushed him aside, threw open the door, and bellowed for a con­stable. A moment later, a bony young man with red hair came in, took one look at Sergeant Parks and then turned on to the inspector one of the sickliest grins Ravenstreet had ever seen.

  “Take that grin off your face, Dawe. Now what’s going on here?”

  “Talk can’t sir, properly——”

  “Don’t you start that——”

  “Help sir I can’t it——”

  “Help sir I can’t it!” the inspector repeated in a fury. “What sort of talk’s that? If you mean you can’t help it, why don’t you say so?”

  “No, that won’t do, Inspector,” said Ravenstreet. “Because if he could say so, he could help it.”

  Both the sergeant and the constable, relieved at having found an interpreter, nodded together, but the sight of his staff performing like figures on a Swiss clock only made the inspector angrier. “I’ll be obliged if you’ll keep out of this,” he told Ravenstreet. “This is my business. Though I’ll be buttered and sugared if I can make head or tail of it.”

  “Well, I did say I felt there was something wrong, didn’t I?”

  The inspector ignored that. He looked severely at his two wretched subordinates. “Now don’t try talking for a minute or two. Answer me by giving me a nod or shaking your head. Only don’t go on and on—just once’ll do. Now then. You’re both sober? Right. But you can’t talk properly—get the words wrong way round? Right. And this has been going on for the last hour? I see. Well, this beats me. I could understand one of you getting it—sort of brain mix-up. But both of you! Well, we’ll have to go into this—get the M.O. round. Now the sooner this gentleman’s away, the better it’ll be for all of us, so we’ll go along and talk to his friend. Go on, Sergeant—lead the way—let’s get it done with. And don’t try and talk—I can’t stand it.”

  All four of them marched to the end of the corridor, down a short flight of steps, then turned a corner and halted before a stout door. The sergeant, no longer wrestling with speech, produced a bunch of keys with something of a flourish, and was about to unlock the door when the angry inspector pushed him away.

  “It isn’t even shut, you blockhead,” cried the inspector, throwing the door wide open. “He’s not here. Where is he?”

  Sergeant Parks and Constable Dawe forgot their disability and started talking both at once and at full speed, still with all their words jumbled, so that it was impossible to understand what they were saying.

  “That’ll do,” roared Inspector Triffett. “Enough to drive a man barmy!” He gave Ravenstreet a hard look. “Now, sir, you go back to my office and wait there. And don’t make any mistake about it, I want you there when I get back.”

  Ravenstreet was there about half-an-hour, ample time to reflect upon Perperek’s humorous devices, before the inspector returned. It was obvious at once there would be no more easy informality. Here was no figure of fun. Even his very woodenness made Inspector Triffett more impressive, suggesting an implacable quality. He was like one stiff cog in some incredibly vast machine of detection, arrest and punishment that had the whole world in its grip.

  “I’ll want a good deal of information from you, sir,” the inspector began. “And there’ll be trouble if I think there’s any funny business. This is serious now. Before, it wasn’t. Now it’s different. Make up your mind about that, sir.”

  “I take it that Perperek worked that trick on your sergeant and constable and then walked out while they were trying to understand each other?”

  “No doubt about it. And we’re bringing him back, wherever he is. He can’t make a monkey out of us and hope to get away with it. We’re after him now.” Inspector Triffett tapped his desk. “I’ll tell you another thing. A chap that can work a trick like that and coolly walk out of a police station, he’s an old hand, been in trouble before. If he’s an ordinary sort of merchant, over here for a holiday, my name’s Mulligan. What is this chap? One of these foreign hypnotists?”

  “I don’t think I’d know a foreign hypnotist if I saw one,” said Ravenstreet. “Don’t forget I’ve already told you all I do know about him.”

  “Are you sure? Because I think you’re leaving something out. However.” And Inspector Triffett stood up, looking grim and purposeful. “You’re driving home, and I’m following you in my car. And don’t try to lose me, to get back first and warn him, because then you really would be in trouble. Now let’s be off.”

  They arrived together at the Manor in a melancholy late-evening spatter of rain. The house looked forlorn. Wiverson met them in the hall, and Ravenstreet saw at once that something had already happened to shatter the day’s routine.

  “Wiverson, this is Inspector Triffett. He wants to see Mr. Perperek.”

  Wiverson’s surprise was genuine. “But he isn’t here, Sir Charles. I thought he was with you. He never came back. And the other two gentlemen have gone.”

  “When? Where?”

  “They left about three hours ago, Sir Charles—just packed up and went. They didn’t say where they were going.”

  “Now just a minute,” said the inspector. “You say this Mr. Perperek didn’t come back? You’re sure of that? Well, did he get in touch with them—ring ’em up—send a message?”

  “No, he didn’t. Nothing happened. They just went.”

  The inspector stared at him. “And that’s all you know.”

  “Yes—he never came back—the other two left——”

  “I see.” The inspector turned away, and immediately Wiverson looked relieved. The next moment, the inspector was staring at him again, and this time pointing an accusing finger. “Knew you were hiding something. Now then, let’s have it.”

  “Go on, Wiverson,” said Ravenstreet wearily. />
  “Mr. Wayland left a letter for you——”

  “All right, bring it here.” He regarded the inspector with some distaste. “I suppose you’d better see it or you’ll be imagining we’re all in some great con­spiracy.”

  “Well, if you’re not, sir, there’ll be no harm done, will there? And let me tell you something. People like you look nastily at people like us and say ‘great con­spiracy’ with a nasty sneer, as if there couldn’t be any such things as conspiracies any longer. But let me tell you there are more now than there ever were before—all sorts, from stealing atom bomb secrets to working out how to take van-loads of pound notes. We live in a queer world now, and one thing it’s full of is con­spiracies.”

  “I believe you, Inspector. But you won’t find one here. And I’ve no more idea what’s in this letter than you have, and you’re welcome to take a look at it.”

  So they read it together, after Wiverson had been dismissed.

  My dear Ravenstreet, Wayland had written, We must apologise for leaving you so hastily, but Perperek has com­municated with us and as we could not have stayed with you much longer anyhow, we have decided to go at once and join him, to continue our discussions elsewhere. We are all most grateful for your hospitality and many kindnesses, and you may be sure you will be often in our thoughts. If we could make you a happy man we would do so, but that is a man’s own responsibility. However, Marot, who knows most about such things, asks me to tell you that of the various choices offered to you in the near future, the one that seems to offer least will be the best, though it appears to be nothing but pain and dark­ness. And we shall meet again: don’t be impatient: the six dimensions of reality offer us many worlds, many times.

  “Could be a sort of code,” the inspector muttered.

  “It could be, but it isn’t,” Ravenstreet told him wearily. Now that the Magicians had gone, he felt dry and empty, further away than ever from time alive. “It means just what it says.”