Tourists Are for Trapping

by Marian Babson

  “It isn’t my imagination, Jim, is it?”

  “It isn’t.” He shook his head. “This little lot give me the ice-cold collywobbles. There’s something dead wrong about them all.”

  “They’ve had a frightful time, of course.” She was trying to rationalise, but I could see she was even more disquieted because Jim wasn’t trying to laugh away her nerves. “They’re probably still in a state of shock.”

  “They’re in some kind of state, all right.” Jim took a final drag on his cigarette and pitched it away. “Know what bothers me most? They don’t talk—not even to each other. Did you ever see a bunch of Yanks that didn’t chatter away like parrots in a jungle? I never did before. This lot just sit there. I keep getting the feeling that I want to turn around and look to see if they’re still there.”

  “Perhaps it’s the change of climate, change of water,” I suggested hopefully. “They may liven up, now they’ve had their midmorning coffee.”

  “Take more than that to liven them up. A barrel of brandy, maybe. Then again, maybe not.” Jim looked gloomily down the narrow street. “Here they come now. Not overfond of their own company, are they?” He turned and clambered back into the bus.

  The bus moved forward, across Holborn Viaduct, to pass the Old Bailey. Jim slowed, so that they could look up and see the blindfolded statue of Justice on top of the building.

  “And this is probably the most famous court in the world,” Kathryn recited, a bit mechanically. “The Central Criminal Court, where lawbreakers are brought before the bar of justice …”

  Without moving, the occupants of the bus gave the effect of withdrawing. Faces that had warmed into appreciation crossing the splendid Victorian excesses of Holborn Viaduct now closed. Eyes dulled, shoulders rubbed restlessly against the backs of seats.

  At the front of the bus, Kate froze, with the panic of an actress losing her audience, but unable to tell what she had done wrong. Jim stepped on the accelerator and the Old Bailey slid away behind them. No one appeared to notice, but the atmosphere lightened.

  From my seat, I could see Jim’s lips move in the driving mirror as he muttered to Kate, “Let’s speed it up and drop these bleeders early.”

  “We can’t,” she answered him soundlessly. “We’re booked for the full afternoon tour—”

  “Naughty, naughty,” the voice we were beginning to recognize spoke up brightly. “No secrets. It’s impolite. Besides, we’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

  Kate raised her head and smiled blandly at Professor Tablor. “We are now approaching the Old Lady of Thread-needle Street—the famous Bank of England—”

  “Are we supposed to be impressed by these old piles of junk all over the place?” Horace Rogers had decided to add the full weight of his seventeen years to the occasion. “I think it’s all pretty stupid. If you want to know, it doesn’t impress me at all.”

  “Now, Horace,” his mother said fondly, “she’s just doing her job.”

  “I’m sure we’re very happy about it.” Paula Drayton leaned forward, talking to Kate, but at Hortense Rogers. “I think any properly brought up young person ought to appreciate the finer things in life and the values of all those older generations.”

  “I can understand that.” Hortense smiled in the adjusted driving mirror, a prim, precise, dangerous smile. “People who have never given their children a stable home life always feel strongly about history. As though it could make up for everything they’ve missed. But my late husband always used to say that there was no substitute for a father who came home every night. The same father every night, of course.”

  “Lumme,” Jim muttered, “we’ve got two cats amongst these pigeons.”

  “Personally,” Paula said, “I’ve always understood that emotional stability was more important than dull routine. When children know they’re loved—”

  Kate signaled frantically to Jim and the bus swept past St. Paul’s Cathedral and down Ludgate Hill before she could get a word in edgewise—or perhaps she didn’t want to.

  The bus hurried down Fleet Street and came to an abrupt halt. “Lunch,” Kate said hastily. “Just follow me across the street. We’re having our lunch at Dr. Johnson’s pub—the famous Cheshire Cheese.”

  Was there an imperceptible hesitation before they began to move? A cold drawing away from some unknown intangible that had suddenly been flung into their midst? Before I could analyse the abrupt change in atmosphere, Professor Tablor rose to his feet and took command.

  “Did you hear that, folks?” he asked enthusiastically. “Dr. Johnson’s pub! Dr. Johnson’s pub,” he repeated—he seemed to be taking it big. (Funny, for some reason, I’d have sworn literature wasn’t his subject—but I could have been wrong. I often am.) “And we’re going to eat there—won’t that be something to write home about?”

  They began to move, then. “Dr. Johnson’s pub!” Little murmuring cries took up the rallying call. I’d no idea Dr. Johnson was such a popular folk figure back in the States. Perhaps it was some new fad.

  They flowed across the street and up the dark alleyway like a tidal wave. I splashed along in the rear, trying to convince myself that there were no undercurrents beneath the surface.

  “Meet you back here in about an hour,” I heard Jim tell Kate. “Won’t be able to park. If you’re not here, I’ll keep circling until you come out.”

  She nodded to him and hurried to join me. There were lines of strain on her face that hadn’t been there this morning. Well, no one had ever suggested that the tourist trade was an easy way to get rich quick. And this little lot gave every promise of being more difficult than most. Perhaps you couldn’t blame them for it—but it didn’t make it any easier for those who had to deal with them.

  I’d hoped that we couriers might be able to sit at some side table away from the main group; but no, they had saved places for us at the long table. It was the kind of thoughtfulness I felt I could do without. From her strained smile, Kate, too, would have preferred a brief respite from the job. It was not to be, however, and there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet.

  This time, mindful of my duty, I gave a strong lead by plumping heavily for the steak-and-kidney pie. Trustingly, they followed me. I left them to their own devices for the first course, and pleading the necessity of an urgent telephone call, I avoided the Brown Windsor soup. As I went, I heard Kate beginning a long and chatty exposition on Dr. Johnson, his life, work, and pubs. She sounded as though she had done her homework extremely well. I made a mental note to tender warmest congratulations to Neil. If all the guides were as good as she was, Larkin’s Luxury Tours would put him into the luxury bracket himself very shortly.

  In the telephone booth, I rang the office number again. It was still too early for Penny to be there, but Gerry ought to be back by this time. He ought to be.

  I heard the phone ringing monotonously at the other end. Just as I was about to hang up, there was a sudden clatter and I was through to the office. He must have just come through the door.

  “Gerry?” I said. “Gerry?”

  “Prryow?” an obliging little voice commented at the other end of the line.,

  “Gerry? Are you there?”

  “Prreh?” There was a strange sliding, thudding sound, as though an ear were being rubbed against a receiver slipping out of reach.

  “Pandora,” I yelled, “I can’t talk to you—hang up!” Then, of course, I realised that she couldn’t—even if she’d understood and wanted to.

  I leaned weakly against the side of the telephone kiosk and cursed the well-known Perkins luck. A fine thing—I had a partner out on the tiles, and a domesticated cat who answered the telephone. Somewhere, there must be a happy medium!

  A resounding clatter jerked me upright again. The receiver must have slipped off the desk. A steady thumping told me it was swinging against the side of the desk. Or perhaps Pandora had leaped to the floor and was playing with it. Now that I came to think of it, there was a certain lack of playth
ings for her. Perhaps I ought to see if the funds could run to a catnip mouse or something.

  An uneven clatter, interposed with little hunting cries, told me my guess was correct—she was playing with the swinging receiver. I hung up wearily. There was nothing I could do about it. When Penny or Gerry arrived, they could deal with the situation. I wondered, with brief amusement, what Pandora would do if British Telecom put the screamer on the line to signal the receiver needed replacing. She didn’t like loud noises. It would annoy her intensely …

  Back at the Cheshire Cheese, the steak-and-kidney pie had arrived and been dealt out. Tour 79 was tucking into it with every evidence of enjoyment—they were nearly finished.

  The same couldn’t be said for Kathryn Lamb. Her plate looked almost untouched, and she was still talking, with a trace of desperation in her tone, about Dr. Johnson and his circle. Tour 79 appeared to be hanging on her words and encouraged her with murmurs of interest whenever she seemed to be flagging. She looked as though she could have done with a less appreciative audience; but I wondered whether they were really so interested in the Johnson circle, or whether a running commentary throughout the meal was desirable to them because it saved them from having to make polite conversation with each other.

  I hurriedly gulped down my own meal, preparatory to taking over from her for the dessert course. I might not know much about Dr. Johnson, but some time in the States had taught me quite a bit about Americans. One way or another, I felt I could hold this audience as well as she could and give her a chance to rest her voice. She still had the afternoon tour to talk through.

  Down at the other end of the table, they were already reaching for the menu again, while the waiter began clearing away their plates. A couple of them lit cigarettes, but I decided not to say anything. What the hell, we weren’t going to have a toast to the Queen, anyway.

  Kate paused to take a couple of mouthfuls and a neutral debate on the merits of the respective desserts broke out cautiously at the end of the table. I decided to put a word in for an Olde Englishe favourite.

  “I’d like to recommend the Stilton,” I said.

  Everyone stopped talking. Faces turned toward me, blank, unbelieving. Once again I had the sensation of having tripped over a step that wasn’t there. They couldn’t have understood me. Heaven knows what they thought I’d said. I ran hurriedly over my somewhat dated stock of American slang obscenities. Unless something new had been added, I was in the clear there. But they still looked distinctly shocked.

  “Stilton cheese,” I elucidated. “One of the finest English cheeses. I always feel that there’s nothing to round off a meal like crackers and Stilton cheese.”

  Hortense Rogers screamed abruptly. She threw down her napkin and still screaming, pushed back her chair so violently it toppled over.

  “How could you?” she flung at me. “How could you?” And burst into sobs.

  The schoolteachers fixed me with somber accusing looks, then rose and advanced on Hortense. One on each side, they bore her off to the ladies’ room.

  What had I said? I went back over the words. They were completely innocuous. At least, so far as I knew. Certainly there had been nothing in them to cause this reaction. Was it something I had done?

  Kathryn Lamb rose quickly and followed the women out of the dining room. Her backward look at me was harassed, but frankly puzzled. So, she didn’t know, either.

  In the embarrassed silence, no one seemed ready to enlighten me. Some of the tour had already retreated behind the menu again.

  I found I had lost my appetite. Also any desire to be helpful. “All right,” I said bitterly, “have the trifle, then!” That would teach them.

  I pushed back my own chair and stood up. No one made any move to stop me. “You’ll excuse me, I’m sure,” I said.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of Young Horace slipping quietly out of his seat. There seemed to be a nasty glint in his eye. I moved a bit more quickly, just in case he had any notions about chivalry and the need to avenge his mother’s honour. I was in no mood for duels—especially when I didn’t even know what I had done.

  I was nearly out of the door when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.

  “Son,” Professor Tablor drawled, “I think it’s high time you and me had a little talk.” The hand pushed me firmly through the doorway.

  Chapter 4

  The relentless hand on my shoulder propelled me onward; down the stairs, out the door, down the alley, down Fleet Street, up a side turning, until—finally—we were sitting in a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, with cups of coffee in front of us. Professor Tablor—I didn’t feel like calling him Tris at the moment—faced me across the table with the sort of expression I hadn’t seen since the days when I used to be ushered into the headmaster’s study. Perhaps it was an occupational hazard with teachers—their faces automatically fell into such a mask when they were called upon to be serious, but it didn’t make me feel any better. My iniquities were about to be pointed out to me—in gory detail. All that would be missing would be the prophecy of what would become of me once I left the sheltering and understanding halls of ivy. On second thought—I glanced at his face again—I might get that, too. I was obviously fated to come to no good end. The fact that I was in public relations would undoubtedly signal to any headmaster type that I was already well on the skids. There were days when I felt that way about it myself—and this was one of them.

  Professor Tablor cleared his throat and spoke in slow, measured cadences. “Hortense,” he said, “is a very sensitive woman. She has been on the Board of Governors for many years now; and I, personally, have dealt with her, man and boy, across more than twenty years. She is a very sensitive woman.”

  There was no arguing with that one. Unless I wanted to take the position that he was putting it too mildly. So far as I could see, Hortense was a shrieking neurotic. I nodded.

  “Mind you,” he went on thoughtfully, “I blame myself.”

  I decided I wouldn’t even try to analyse that one. I just waited.

  “She seemed so much better. She even mentioned that she’d stopped taking them, and I was very pleased about it, because she couldn’t have gone on the way she was going. I thought—” He brought his hands up and seemed about to bury his face in them. At the last moment he looked at them in surprise and lowered them again helplessly. “I thought the trip was working.”

  “I see,” I said carefully. “But should we just be sitting here? Now that she’s had another of her … um … turns, oughtn’t we to get her to a doctor, or something?”

  “A doctor?” He raised his head and stared at me in amazement. “Son, what are you talking about?”

  “Hortense Rogers,” I said uncertainly. “Weren’t you?”

  “Hortense?—never!” he said. “Why should I be? Why there’s nothing wrong with Hortense. Apart from her being so sensitive, that is. No, I was talking about Carrie.”

  “Carrie?” I ran my mind back over the list. There was no Carrie on it. But—

  “Poor, dear Carrie.” He dipped his head in tribute. “She was a good woman, and a wonderful teacher, but she got too involved with her students.”

  It was clearer now. “Carrie is”—there must be a delicate way of wording this—“the one you … left behind in Switzerland?”

  He nodded. “That’s Carrie.” He paused and corrected himself. “That was Carrie.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. It seemed as adequate a comment as any.

  “We were all sorry.” He sighed heavily. “Poor Carrie hadn’t been having an easy passage lately. There was a serious incident … a tragedy, really … at the college last year. Involving a student. A young man … only twenty-three—”

  There was time for several lurid speculations about lady teachers and young male students to race through my mind before he spoke again.

  “He was a good student—not as brilliant as she thought he was, not by any means—but difficult. Very difficult. I know, because
he was one of my students, too. Carrie had him for English literature, and I teach chemistry and physics. Mind you, I supported her in the fight when the board wanted to expel him. After all, he’d been to Vietnam before coming to college— it does things to them. Not that some of our hometown kids, who’d never been farther away than New York, didn’t smoke pot, too. But you can’t expel them all—not these days. And the board were all for making an example of someone who wouldn’t cause any local controversy. Peter fitted the bill, especially as he was so noisy about everything.”

  “So, they expelled him,” I said, “and it upset her.”

  “No,” he said, “it never came to that. Before we’d finished arguing the matter, Peter committed suicide. Carrie discovered the body, hanging from the shower rail in his room. She went round when he missed a class—thought perhaps he was sick, or drugged—she was always covering for him. And of course, he needed extra protection with the Board of Governors on the rampage.”

  He was shaking his head, and I shook mine. “That’s too bad,” I said. “That she should have discovered him. That was really unfortunate.”

  “It was,” he said. “She got the fixation that it was all her fault, that she had failed him in some way. It was nonsense, of course. Why, it would have been as sensible to have blamed me. I probably upset him more than she’d ever done. When they’re so delicately balanced, you never know what slight push might send them over the edge. And I had to tell him he wasn’t as brilliant as he thought he was. That that formula he was ranting about had been discovered and discarded years ago.” We shook heads again. “They never want to believe that they can be following in older footsteps, especially unsuccessful ones. If anything sent Peter off, it was far more likely that than anything Carrie might have said or done.”

  “Terrible,” I said, remembering a couple of fellow students at Harvard School of Business Administration who’d been deeply shocked and upset to learn that their theories on strike-breaking techniques had been tried in the last century by the robber barons and subsequently outlawed by the Supreme Court. “I suppose you must see a lot of that sort of thing in the course of a few academic years?”