The Broken Penny
Page 21
‘Nobody.’
‘Good.’ Sir Alfred took off his glasses, put away his pen and spoke with an uncomfortable kind of joviality: ‘It is your opinion, then, that you were betrayed by a traitor in the organisation?’
The question seemed somehow faintly ridiculous. ‘Yes.’
‘Let us see.’ Perhaps he pressed a bell. Garden was aware of other people in the room. He turned and they stood looking at him like monsters in a dream, the red-faced Colonel, the pale and pimply Bretherton and dapper little Hards with his umbrella. Garden stood up. Ilona also got up, and ran over to him.
‘You have beard the indictment,’ Sir Alfred said in a voice which was now openly mocking. ‘Mr Hards, I am bound to ask you whether you killed the man Peterson, alias Floy.’
Mr Hards raised his umbrella and in a moment sunlight flashed on a thin, beautiful blade. With a low comedian’s bow the little man replaced the blade in his umbrella.
‘I take that gesture to indicate assent. Why did you kill him?’
‘Orders.’ Mr Hards jerked his thumb at the Colonel.
‘Why did you give orders that Peterson should be killed, Hunt?’
Colonel Hunt’s fingers combed his bald head. ‘Discovered he was passing information back to some little group abroad. Wormed his way into our team. A spy.’
Sir Alfred put his fingers together in a gesture that, again, reminded Garden of something he had seen recently. ‘You see, Mr Garden, that the Colonel regarded this man as a spy. Naturally, therefore, he had to be eliminated. Are you satisfied?’
It was Lepkin who had put together long, thin fingers a few minutes before he died. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Let us see if we can make things perfectly clear to you. Bretherton, what was Garden’s position inside our organisation? A brief general recapitulation might be in order.’
Bretherton’s voice was a little bored. ‘The position abroad was a difficult one for the government – ’
Sir Alfred broke in heavily. ‘Bretherton, you understand, is not referring to the government of this country, but to the government of the country you visited.’
The pale man ignored the interruption. ‘There was a widespread plot involving several groups ranging from dispossessed aristocrats and members of the officer caste to liberal idealists and Social Democrats. Very fortunately, Peplov was on the inside of this conspiracy from an early stage. He fostered it carefully, and made himself the conspirators’ chief agent in the north. He passed on all information he received, including the fact that the conspirators were able to use very effectively the so-called incorruptibility of the bourgeois liberal politician Arbitzer. Peplov was responsible for the suggestion that Arbitzer should be persuaded to return, so that he could be arrested on arrival and placed publicly on trial. The people could then understand precisely the nature of this saviour whose name they invoked so hopefully.
‘It proved difficult, however, to persuade Arbitzer that it might be to his advantage to return, even when we tried to make him believe through Latterley that his return would have unofficial backing from the British Government.’ A shade of contempt now coloured Bretherton’s voice. ‘We had made little headway when there occurred to Latterley what he personally described as a brainwave. He offered to enlist the services of a disreputable down-at-heel adventurer named Garden, who had had some past connection with Arbitzer. He thought that Garden might be able to persuade Arbitzer that their mission would be successful. If Garden accompanied Arbitzer it would be very easy, in view of Garden’s past activities, to implicate the British Government at the trial. At the same time, to supply additional pressure, Peplov persuaded the conspirators’ committee to send over Granz. At this end the plan was carried out. At the other end–’ Bretherton shrugged his shoulders.
‘You see,’ Sir Alfred said in his thick voice. ‘You see. From Bretherton’s point of view there is no traitor here except you, Mr Garden.’
Tentatively Ilona put out her hand and touched Garden’s arm. He got up, walked over to the side of the room and stood staring out at a landscape that showed no slightest sign of change. Inside the room nobody spoke. Without turning round Garden asked, ‘What are you going to do now?’
‘You know too much, Mr Garden. Our organisation lost track of you after you escaped from Peplov. Had you gone to a certain branch of Scotland Yard you would have caused a great deal of trouble. Not to me, you understand. I should simply have denied knowledge of you. I am untouchable.’ He said this with a kind of solid and terrifying assurance. ‘But to my friends. They hastily dissolved their little organisation which you visited, in case of trouble. But Latterley said that there would be no trouble, that you would have no suspicions, that you would play the game to the end. He was right, as he very often is.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Garden asked again.
‘We shall do what is necessary, if you understand me.’
It was necessary, Garden thought. ‘And Ilona?’
‘And Miss Arbitzer, yes. There is no other way. I hope you will accept that. Believe me, I greatly regret the necessity.’ Sir Alfred expressed his regret in the formal, unembarrassed voice that he must often have used in Parliamentary answers. Something in that voice made Garden angry. He whirled now upon his heel, abandoning the outer world of green fields and happiness, confronting their hostile or indifferent faces with the shreds of his own belief.
‘And you will greatly regret the necessity when your own time comes, and half a dozen people decide that you have played your part and are no longer required by the strategy of power?’ He brushed violently aside the response that the other seemed ready to make. ‘You work in the shadow of deceit and by the force of violence. You organise the masses to behave like violent delinquents while you encourage them to believe in a world where delinquency will not exist. Why should you hope that the world you create will do anything but destroy you? You are merely the weak precursors of the truly inhuman man of the future. That is something which must be secretly known to you all. And since it is known, why should you work for your own destruction?’
Bretherton shifted restlessly. Hards tapped his jaw politely to conceal an enormous yawn. Sir Alfred, however, twirled his horn-rimmed spectacles and leaned forward with every appearance of interest. His thick voice was muted to almost wooing tones. ‘But, Mr Garden, were you not also committed to deceit and violence when you supported Arbitzer? Were you not attempting to seize power by a conspiracy?’
‘In a different interest. Only force can answer force. Arbitzer was not a man who would have tolerated personal dictatorship.’ Even as he spoke these words Garden felt doubt. Was not the Arbitzer who had gone out with him the perfect figurehead for a dictator?
‘Ah ha.’ The great head was pushed forward. ‘You base your claim, then, upon the superior virtue of your liberal friend. You believe in force just as we do, but you think that there is some quality in the candidate you support which would permit him to apply power with divine wisdom. But that is a matter of opinion, is it not? I may attribute that very quality of divine wisdom to the candidate of my own choice. And as to which of us is right – that again is simply a question of personal preference.’
‘As much a matter of personal preference as whether Marcus Aurelius was more intelligent and civilised than Nero.’
Outside the lift whirred faintly. ‘Latterley,’ Bretherton said. The sun disappeared behind cloud again. The room seemed to become dark and slightly chilly.
Now Sir Alfred stood up behind his desk and spoke in a voice of thunder. ‘I tell you that I know these liberal politicians and that whatever coat they wear – whether they call themselves progressive Conservatives or good trade union men – the reality of power lies behind their fine words about freedom and democracy and self-determination. I have worked with them for years, I have seen them crush projects for social reform in Britain and the colonies. They use nothing so harsh as a heel, you understand, the good weight of their broad bottoms is enough.
The time, they will tell you, is not ripe for action. I answer that the time is never ripe except when men make it so. Oh, let me tell you, those men know the realities of power, Garden, only they never admit it. They deny the power by which they live. Upon their atomic destruction they drop the balm of crocodile tears. With the words honour and morality upon their lips they are busy making a shambles of the world. We acknowledge the reality of force, we say that lip-service to the sacredness of human life, yours and mine, is sentimental. We announce the truth that without power there can be no place for pity.’ With finger outstretched, great head thrust forward, the Minister asked, ‘Do you prefer their morals, Garden, or ours?’
‘What does it matter?’ said Bretherton.
The door opened and Latterley stood there looking at them. His hair was ruffled, his face pale. Almost reluctantly Sir Alfred lowered his finger. ‘Geoffrey. You are late.’
Slowly, with the exact step of a somnambulist, Latterley walked into the room. On his face was a look which might have expressed anguish or despair; and then again, so doubtfully does the human face indicate human feelings, that look might have been one of joy or resignation. Behind Latterley there appeared, like a clue to the ambiguity of his expression, four men. Three of them were unknown to Garden. The fourth man had the slightly popping eyes and the handlebar moustache of the man who had been fishing off Brightsand pier.
The men already in the room stayed quite still for a moment, as if stunned. Then Sir Alfred said with elaborate patience: ‘Kind of you to bring back my friend Latterley. I suppose all this has something to do with the exercise.’
The man with the handlebar moustache said, ‘It is nothing to do with the exercise. Look outside on your sun roof.’
Sir Alfred deliberately put on his great horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘I shall do nothing of the kind. Who the devil are you?’
‘Name’s Pressway, Special Security,’ Handlebar said, and at that moment Mr Hards acted. Even Garden, who was behind the little man, could hardly follow the speed with which he drew the blade from his umbrella, flung it across the room and with his left hand brought the revolver from his hip. But quick as Hards was, he was not quite quick enough. There was a crack and a cry of pain. The revolver clattered to the floor. The sword-stick went through the cushion in one of the armchairs and stayed there, quivering. And there, Garden saw with a sense of anticlimax, the little flurry of violence was ending. Bretherton and Colonel Hunt had plainly no thought of resistance, and Latterley stood in the middle of the room in his private dream.
‘That’s no use. Nothing is any use,’ Handlebar said as though he were demonstrating an academic point. He said to Sir Alfred with a certain deference. ‘Just take a look outside and you’ll see that this building is surrounded. We picked up the trail of Latterley and our friends here soon after they left London.’
Sir Alfred walked with a firm tread to the sun-roof door. He opened it and stepped out. They watched him move slowly round the roof looking down. Then he nodded, came back to the doorway and stood looking at them with his head hunched forward on his shoulders. ‘I congratulate you,’ he said to Pressway. ‘Very efficient. But you won’t find it easy to identify me with whatever these fellows may have been up to.’
Handlebar coughed. ‘That won’t be difficult, sir. We have Latterley, you see, who was your link with what you might call the active side of the organisation. A born squealer if ever I saw one, Latterley.’
‘Oh, Latterley,’ Sir Alfred waved a hand dismissively.
‘And then Miss Bone. You were very unwise to carry on a little affair with her, if I may say so. Never trust a woman. I dare say you expressed yourself pretty incautiously to her from time to time in what you might call the heat of the moment.’ Garden suddenly remembered little Hards’ remark about Miss Bone’s one particular friend.
Sir Alfred’s head seemed to be sinking back into his shoulders. ‘A jealous bitch. She can be discredited.’
‘And more important than Latterley or Miss Bone–’ Handlebar looked at Garden. ‘You won’t find it easy to discredit him. An honest man.’
‘An honest man, yes. They are always dangerous.’ Sir Alfred’s head was now completely hunched into his great shoulders. ‘All this would mean a trial, something of that sort. They would never be prepared for that.’
Handlebar tugged reflectively at his moustache. He seemed to choose his next words with painful care. ‘If necessary – I am instructed to say – yes. The necessity, of course, would be much regretted.’ An irony involved in the use of these words escaped Garden at the time. More painfully still Handlebar said, ‘It is hoped – that the necessity – may not arise.’
‘I see.’ Sir Alfred’s next remark was apparently irrelevant. ‘These walls are a kind of perspex, not glass. You couldn’t put your fist through them. Have to cut.’ Handlebar nodded intelligently. ‘So that if I lock this door–’ He walked out to the sun roof and did so. Then he stood there looking at them all with a heavy but not unfriendly gaze. The barrier between them was invisible, and yet impenetrable. Out there on the roof he was living in the world he had created, the world of which he was supreme ruler. He took several steps to the edge of the roof, and stood again looking down. Then, taking care to avoid the flowering shrubs in pots that had been planted by the safety railing, he clambered awkwardly over to the foot-wide parapet beyond it. Inside the room they stood intently, spectators watching the last act of a drama in which their own parts had ended, and only the final catastrophe remained to be enacted.
He stayed for perhaps a minute holding the safety rail behind him, looking out over his empire. Hards began to laugh. ‘He’s windy. What a joke when he climbs back.’ But at that moment Sir Alfred let go of the safety rail, and stood there in the darkened afternoon with his arms spread like a bird about to fly. He seemed to sway for a moment as though uncertain of his direction, half-turned and fumbled in a pocket as though there were some last message that might be scribbled to change the course of the world. Then he jumped.
Chapter Four
‘The best thing you can do about all this is to forget it,’ Pressway said to Garden and Ilona. They sat in his uncomfortable clean aseptic office. A dejected-looking old man came in with a tea trolley. ‘Have a cup of char. It comes in the category of army tea, hot water browned off, but at least it’s liquid. Sugar?’
Garden stirred his tea round and round. ‘What happens now?’
‘Nothing much. What do you expect?’
‘When will that lot – Hards and Bretherton and the Colonel – come to trial?’
‘They won’t. Do you think we want them blabbing out their connection with our late respected Sir Alfred, and saying an ex-Minister was engaged in a treasonable plot? No, my lad, we’ve got this nicely settled as a case of suicide while balance of mind was disturbed, and it’s going to stay that way.’
‘What’s going to happen to them?’
‘Nothing. They’re not even in custody.’ Pressway raised a hand. ‘It’s no use you riding your high horse about it. The big fish was the one we wanted to get. The others aren’t important or dangerous, but he was a dangerous man.’ He sucked up tea through his handlebar moustache. ‘Dangerous to his country, I mean. Which is your country, and mine too.’
‘And Latterley?’
‘He’s resigned his job. Nothing else will happen to him. Might have a future in public relations. He’s a small fish too.’
‘If you knew all about this plot, why didn’t you stop us from leaving England?’
‘Wanted to get the big fish. Besides, we only knew the general outline, couldn’t think what they were playing at trying to get you and Arbitzer out of England, except that it must be a bit of no good.’
‘What happened to the man who helped us to escape?’ Ilona asked. ‘Trelawney.’
‘Oh, Trelawney’s all right. Back in England as a matter of fact. Rather a good story.’ Pressway began to laugh. ‘Peplov put two and two together and deduced that it was someone
in the English party at Dravina who’d helped you. Wanted to arrest ’em all. But Peplov’s bosses thought he was pulling a fast one to cover up for himself, and wouldn’t have any of it. They arrested him instead. I doubt if there will be any more news of Peplov.’ Pressway began to push tobacco into a pipe bowl with a stubby finger, looking shrewdly at Garden. ‘What are you going to do now?’
Ilona said, ‘We’re going to get married.’
Pressway put a match to the pipe. Smoke drifted up. He was still looking at Garden. ‘You’re not thinking of going back?’
Garden thought of Theo’s face in the bungalow at Brightsand, dark and eager, and then of Theo as he had last seen him in the fisherman’s cottage. It seemed to him that all the past had turned to ruin in his hands. He thought of the country shaped like a broken penny as he had last seen it, a shadow on the blue horizon. ‘No, I shan’t go back.’
‘Good. It really would be awkward for us if you tried to go back. We should have to do something about it.’ Pressway laughed heartily to show that this was a joke. ‘You’ve quite made up your mind.’
‘Yes. You heard Ilona say that we were going to get married.’
‘Congratulations. I’ll send you a present. Anything else I can do for you?’
Ilona said hesitantly, ‘My uncle. He left some money. It would come to me as his nearest relative. We shall need it now that Charles is going back to his job as night watchman–’
‘Night watchman!’ Pressway began to laugh.
Ilona looked at him in surprise. ‘What’s the matter? Of course he hopes to get a better job later on.’
‘Nothing at all. Got a crude sense of humour, I’m afraid. Go on.’
‘If you are not making any announcement about Jacob’s disappearance the authorities will not pay me the money. Isn’t that right?’
‘Um, yes,’ Pressway made a note on a pad in front of him. ‘I’ll contact the appropriate department and get them to put a special confidential clearance through. Glad to. Anything else?’