Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper

by Donald Henderson

  She saw all this and laughed outright.

  ‘Dry up,’ she laughed, when he said, what, clear out and leave him holding the baby? It was all very fine.

  She roared with delight.

  ‘Daph’s no baby,’ she cried delightedly.

  He turned crimson.

  ‘Daph? I should like to know …?’

  ‘Be your age,’ she laughed at him. She blew her nose again and stopped laughing. ‘Well,’ she concluded pleasantly (he simply couldn’t take a joke), ‘so that’s that.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said rather coldly. ‘When are you going?’

  ‘I’m going today. Why not? There’s nothing to stop for,’ she said brightly, and ignoring his act. ‘I’ll just put things in order, of course. And pack.’

  … He was seeing her off in a taxi, when he saw Mr Bowling getting into a taxi too.

  This depressed him very much indeed. Secretly delighted at the turn of events, he had made up his mind to concentrate very particularly on Mr Bowling, on behalf of the British Government. But when Mrs Farthing had driven cheerfully off, and had cried gaily to the driver—‘Waterloo?’ Mr Bowling came solemnly out of the Heights carrying a small brown suitcase, and said in that refined accent of his, ‘Can you get me a taxi, porter? I want to go to Charing Cross.’ There happened to be a taxi there waiting.

  After some forty hours of the most acute suspense, Mr Bowling’s power of endurance split in two, and with a loud and amazed laugh, to himself, he decided on his only possible course of action. He stood in his flat and exploded into a loud laugh, coming to his decision. The thing had really reached the ludicrous.

  Life certainly could have the laugh of you sometimes.

  The Belgian servant heard him laugh, but made no sign of any kind, and when he started to put on his hat and coat, she merely watched his lips moving, and heard him saying something or other, but her expression didn’t change. She had the idea that he was leaving for good, for he went out of his way to shake hands with her, and then gave her an English five pound note. She wasn’t at all sure what it was really worth, but somebody would probably tell her, and Mr Bowling saw her calmly and unemotionally take out a little purse which hung down inside her figure on a black tape, and put the note in with some others. He thought she was saving so as to start a home again after the war, when Providence permitted her to return to her native land. He smiled and said goodbye to her, nodded, picked up his suitcase and went out, thinking:

  ‘I don’t suppose she has the faintest idea what I was talking about, poor old dear, and I don’t suppose she will tell the manager anything whatever—but who cares!’ Outside, he saw that fellow Farthing seeing his old woman into a taxi, and watching him as usual, and he thought: ‘Thank goodness I shan’t have to look at that chap again, he’s a positive eyesore!’ The taxi-driver was bright, and he had a lot to say about the bashing the Nazis were getting in various places, and he whistled along to Charing Cross saying what he was looking forward to was when we could parachute ourselves a bit nearer Berlin itself, and knock the daylights out of the bastards.

  Mr Bowling sat in the back at his ease and smiled.

  Charing Cross was full of the Forces, going and coming, and he whistled his way along to the booking hall and bought a first class ticket to Knockholt.

  ‘Single or return?’ enquired the clerk.

  ‘Single,’ said Mr Bowling chirpily, good-humouredly reflecting that he would enjoy the return half on the Government.

  He felt amused when he thought of the taxi-man reading his paper tonight, and when perhaps, he saw Mr Bowling’s snapshot with the caption:

  ‘Knockholt Murderer Gives Himself Up.’

  The dear old chappie would push back his cap and cry:

  ‘Blimey! Struth! … Jim? Fred? Come ’ere … look! I drove this perisher to Charin’ Ruddy Cross!’

  It was rather fun.

  At the bookstall, Mr Bowling decided that he was tired of the newspapers, and tired of Picture Post, and that he would spend his time in the train in quiet contemplation. He would read a great deal of the Bible in prison, there was so much in it, the world’s best seller, yet one never spared a moment to have a good go at it.

  He got an empty carriage and sat in comfort, trying once again to puzzle out why on earth nothing of any kind had happened during the last forty hours. Mrs Nandle knew his address, it had been she who had written to him to ask him to come for the weekend, and although it was just possible she had completely forgotten the address, it was very unlikely. And, in any case, why had the papers not cried aloud with the Knockholt case? Granted, space was short, but there was always room for a paragraph about murder.

  Finally he had come to the conclusion that she had lost the address, absurd though it seemed, and that she had lost his letter. ‘I surely put my address on my letter?’ he thought. ‘I always do!’ But he thought: ‘Well, perhaps, for once, I didn’t …! But what is the matter with the police? They had only to trace my car to Godfrey Davis, who decidedly have my address and my telephone number.’

  Irritated to anger, he had kicked the footstool across his sitting room, burst out laughing and exclaimed (to himself):

  ‘B’rf! Well, my God, I’ll go and bally well give myself up! Though in some ways it’s a darned tame ending!’

  Putting on his overcoat, he thought:

  ‘I’ll be careful about my statement, when they caution me. Counsel will insist on my pleading not guilty, and then I’ll deny having given myself up at all, later. That’ll pep it up a bit. Must have some fun for my money—and it’ll please my public.’ He was rather intrigued by the idea of having a public at last, it released a principal frustration, as he saw it. ‘Composer charged with murder!’ In the public eye at last—and as a composer! ‘Pure vanity, of course,’ he smiled to himself ruefully. ‘Yet, hang it all, why on earth not, what?’ He sat with his legs crossed, the crease very neatly pointed to the floor. London started to recede and blitzed buildings slipped by. The country got slowly nearer, it was a very short journey. ‘These electric trains are so damn speedy,’ he regretted.

  The carriage door opened slowly and with difficulty, and a little girl came in from the corridor.

  ‘Hallo,’ she said coyly.

  Further down the train, a working woman woke from a doze and observed that Dot was once again missing.

  ‘That blessed, bloomin’ child,’ she cried, and pulled her massive body up.

  She lumbered and swayed up and down the train calling:

  ‘Doris? Doris?’ peering in at carriages and going: ‘Dot? You wait till I …!’

  She bumped and swayed about.

  Finally, she swayed into the position of being able to recount for years ahead, how Dot had the bleedin’ sauce to go into a First Class carriage and sit, if you please, on a gen’lman’s knee! There they were, like a couple of lovebirds, grinning at each other fit to kill! Oh, sir, I said, I said, sir, I do beg your pardon, I’m shaw, but that Doris’ll be the death of me! And I said, fond of children, sir? … Sad? I never seen a man look so sad, my dear, never! None of your own, then, sir, I said, I said, well, they do have their points, but they’re proper little b. . . . .s when they like, if you’ll pardon my French?’

  CHAPTER XV

  ‘WHERE is the police station?’ Mr Bowling enquired of a chauffeur at Knockholt.

  The chauffeur told him to go straight ahead, and then to turn right, and then to turn left, and it was somewhere down there.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Bowling in a subdued voice.

  Something had saddened him. Perhaps it was the fact that it was such a bright day. The sky was a cold blue, and it showed up the chalk cliff there by the railway line, making you think of that sharp whiteness which summer often brought.

  The fields seemed over-green and over-brown, like an excessively exaggerated painting. A horny old chap, with only one tag to his braces, was ploughing up a twisty hill.

  He was enjoying this walk of his, his last in fr
eedom for a little time, but which might seem a long time, due to impatience and inaction. It would, of course, be relieved by lively moments, and he did hope counsel for both sides would be lively and alert, and not half dead and disinterested. It would be hateful to develop into a sort of bread-and-butter case, glassy-eyed solicitors looking unimportant but pleased. Humiliating, to say the least. Rooks overhead made him think of the superstition whereby you could shout your wish to them, and they would fly off quickly and set about making it come true. Mary Webb, of course, he remembered. Then he thought of The Rookery, and wondered in which direction it lay. When he had driven down that day (how long ago? Only last Saturday?), it had been pelting with rain, and he hadn’t had much idea of the outside scenery, merely shouting through the window now and again: ‘I say, old boy, could you kindly tell me the way to a house called The Rookery? Mr Nandle’s place?’ Today the whole place seemed quite new to him, such was the frequent effect of rain. He saw the main road ahead, but had been told to turn here, and so he turned. As he walked, he said a goodbye, or an au revoir, for he saw life that way. ‘Surely I can stick a few weeks monotony and discomfort in prison?’ he argued to himself. ‘And I believe gaolers, or whatever they call them, are often pretty decent fellows.’ He took it easily and reached the little police station in about half an hour. He walked down a street and saw a reddish building of very unpretentious dimensions, up the road a bit, and asked a boy:

  ‘Is that the police station, old lad?’

  ‘Yep,’ said the boy, staring with some slight interest.

  ‘Thank you so much!’

  ‘It’s O.K.’

  He felt the boy’s eyes on him as he smiled and passed on with his little suitcase. He reached the police station, paused, and surveyed the entrance. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘goodbye to all that, it’s a bit different to what I’d imagined, all this, but things usually are, and it surely isn’t entirely without a spot of drama?’ He said half aloud: ‘I suppose one walks straight in? There’s nobody about, though?’ He took a bit of a deep breath, gave a last glance behind him at what the world so sadly knew as freedom, and went in.

  There was nobody about.

  There was a charge desk, he recognised that, because he had once taken Ivy to an Edgar Wallace play, and there had been a charge desk in that. But there had also been plenty of policemen, though one had to realise that this was the country, and not Vine Street.

  As he stood there undecided, echoing footsteps were to be heard approaching, making him think of his public school, the cads were coming to rag him. It was rather funny, and his mouth went oddly dry, and he had the same tummy pain now as he had had then, when they’d trooped towards him crying:

  ‘I know what, let’s scalp that filthy cad Bowling—at him, men?’ And then they would make a dive at him, and all would be arms and legs and squeals, until old Guts came in, licking his lips and saying sharply: ‘At it again, Bowling? … Come and see me in my study in ten minutes’ time? And no need to stuff your trousers—I shall examine for that!’

  He felt now, when the sergeant came in with two young men in civvies, that he was going to be caned, he didn’t really mind, but the sooner it was over, the better.

  Then he was suddenly disconcerted to notice that the two young men were handcuffed together. One, it became clear, was a detective, and the other was a prisoner.

  Mr Bowling was conscious of a slight feeling of sickness, when the sergeant turned to him and said:

  ‘Yes? What can I do for you, sir?’ in bass tones, and the two other figures in the room stood staring.

  He cleared his throat. And he felt as an actor might feel, who, about to say a famous and dramatic line which, as he well knew, the audience already knew and appreciated, and wanted to hear very much indeed again, when he said in rather a quiet, dry voice:

  ‘The name is Bowling. Bowling. I think you may be wanting to see me.’

  And he managed a sad little smile. He stood waiting.

  The bass voice said:

  ‘Bowling? Oh, yes, I … do seem to know the name …!’

  He looked a little embarrassed, and his eyes lit with a tiny flame of something, and he asked Mr Bowling to sit down, if he would, on the wooden bench.

  Then he quickly went out of the room, calling over his shoulder: ‘Take him away, Joe, and lock him up. I’ll see you in a few minutes.’

  The sergeant went out, Joe took the boy out and down-some wooden stairs, and Mr Bowling sat sadly contemplating a faded picture of Lord Trenchard. ‘I wonder,’ he thought, ‘will the sergeant get some commission on this?’ He also thought: ‘I wonder they leave me alone like this? Supposing I were to run away again?’ But just then another policeman came in, said, ‘good day,’ in rather an embarrassed manner, gave him a long, low look and obviously pretended to be busy at the charge desk with some papers. Clearly, the sergeant had sent him in. ‘Go in there, Dick, hurry,’ the sergeant had probably whispered out there. ‘We’ve got Bowling! Bowling, you idiot! I’ll slip and fetch Chief Inspector Smith!’

  But his name was Chief Inspector Thwaite.

  His entrance was, to Mr Bowling, the very opposite of what he had expected. He had expected the sinister, and the bullying, and cold, calculating looks.

  Chief Inspector Thwaite came very breezily in, wearing a comfortable lounge suit, shook him warmly by the hand and cried:

  ‘Why, how nice of you to have come along, Mr Bowling—I suppose Mrs Nandle managed to get in touch with you at last, well, that’s perfectly splendid … But what a shocking thing, poor Mr Nandle, eh—but poor Mrs Nandle too, the place being burnt to the ground like that? A terrible shock, you know,’ he frowned, ‘it must be, coming home from church, of all places, and finding your home, and your husband’s poor body, just one mass of charred ashes? Rather makes you have a bit of a think about God?’

  And he said:

  ‘Well, let’s go along to Sevenoaks and just have a chat with the two poor ladies, shall we? Routine, don’t you know, and all said and done, you were the last to see the old chap alive, so far as is known?’

  … Both Miss Souter and Mrs Nandle were exceedingly touched by the way the tragedy had upset Mr Bowling, who did not, after all, know poor Delius so well as all that. He seemed thoroughly down, and nothing that kind Inspector Thwaite could say, seemed able to make Mr Bowling see the bright side.

  But people were affected differently by death, were they not? Miss Souter kept assuring Mr Bowling, as she had assured poor dear Fairy, darling Delius could not have suffered any pain. She didn’t in the least believe it, and she hadn’t a notion how on earth the silly man could have got himself burnt to death, when there were windows to jump out of and doors to walk through. ‘Perhaps he was thinking of the blackout,’ she wondered once, but it did seem that even as stupid a man as Delius must have realised that, with the house on fire, one more little light would hardly have mattered very much.

  Mrs Nandle, stunned by the suddenness of the whole thing, was not in a mental condition to form any conclusion. She just knew Delius, and that the poor dear was hopeless and helpless, and she supposed he had fallen asleep and awakened to find himself surrounded by flame and smoke, perhaps half unconscious already, goodness knew the poor dear was three parts unconscious in any case.

  It was a sad, affectionate little party in the hotel lounge in Sevenoaks, when Inspector Thwaite had gone. How kind he had been, and the inquest was obviously going to be a very simple and not at all an unpleasant ceremony. Both ladies wore deepest black, but Mr Bowling had evidently been too distrait to remember mourning, perhaps, and, little doubt, with the gay and sophisticated life he led in London, he didn’t believe in such old-fashioned ideas. Plenty of people didn’t, in fact, she had once read an article by somebody of obviously advanced and modern views, who had declared funerals should be attended in the happy atmosphere of tennis parties—‘guests wearing white, and looking bright, and sucking lemonade through straws’. There was nothing white about Miss Souter
and Mrs Nandle, however, except their faces, and the streaks of greyish white in their hair. They both wore black, feathery clothes, having been able to rescue a chest of clothes from the ruins, and a few items from a semi-burnt wardrobe. It was about all they did rescue, how like the blitz it was, Mrs Nandle said it reminded her of when Delius and Niggs had taken her to visit Eastcheap and Moorgate, and they had stood in the gutted ruins in the falling dusk, and felt they stood in a desolate city which God had destroyed for its sins. Poor city, it hadn’t sinned, had it? And poor Delius, he hadn’t sinned, not for ages—he hadn’t had the chance. Or had he? The hotel lounge was dark and cosy, and the log fire there was very like the log fireplace at The Rookery. Mrs Nandle put a handkerchief to her eyes again, and peeped at the pot of beech leaves in the corner there, thinking: ‘I can’t bear it! To think that this must be our home now, until the insurance company pay out! I can’t stand it!’

  ‘You’ve still got me, dear,’ Niggs patted her blackly gloved hand and said, ‘You must try not to give way!’ Niggs was working hard, what with trying to make Mr Bowling see the bright side, and what with trying to steer Fairy away from a further emotional breakdown (she would have it that she had not been a good wife to Delius), and what with wondering if it would look callous were she to knock back a second piece of fruit cake, it just happened to be her favourite sort. Blushing slightly, and trying to look as if she couldn’t eat a thing, without it practically choking her, she snicked the coveted piece on to her plate, leaving it there for at least thirty seconds before getting down to it. ‘We must try and see the bright side,’ she told Mr Bowling in gentle tones. ‘But naturally it is a dreadful shock to the three of us. And after such a jolly weekend.’