Charity Ends At Home f-5

by Colin Watson

  “And now,” he said, “I should like to introduce to you boys a very special guest. He is the gentleman you see sitting next to our ever-helpful friend from the Ministry of Labour, Mr O’Toole. I refer to Mr Mortimer Hive.”

  Dutiful hand-clapping almost, but not quite, drowned the contribution by a few wits of the lower sixth of a high buzzing sound, as of angry bees. Mr Booker looked up sharply towards its origin and made a pencilled note on the back of an envelope.

  “Mr Hive,” the headmaster went on, “is from London.”

  “Big deal!” breathed the Youth Employment Coordinator. Purbright glanced across at him and thought he looked more like a recumbent beachcomber than ever.

  “And when I say he is from London, I do not think I betray any interests of, ah, national security by telling you that his work—from which he has now retired—was of a highly significant nature.” Mr Clay half turned. “I am right, am I not, Mr Hive?”

  Hive grinned prodigiously and, somewhat to Mr Clay’s surprise, hooked the fingers of both hands together above his head in the manner of a triumphant prize-fighter.

  The boys, too, were surprised—but pleasantly so. The gesture, like Mr Hideaway’s gavel beating, held prospect of light relief. One boy subjected Mr Hive to long and careful scrutiny and then, with all the certitude of the expert, declared to his companions: “He’s pissed.” Hopes ran very high.

  “Before I invite you to put questions to members of our panel, a word of explanation to those boys—and I see there are one or two of them—who have not attended one of these little functions before. You may ask these good gentlemen anything you like, provided,”—Mr Clay paused portentously—”provided, I say, that the question is relevent to the matter of employment. What I do not want...NOT want to hear—and I assure you that Mr Booker will not want to hear them either—are questions of a fatuous or, ah, provocative nature. You know what I mean. And Mr Booker knows what I mean. Very well, then. First boy...”

  And Mr Clay sat down.

  Purbright, whose first visit to the school in an advisory capacity this was, tried to think what he might be asked. Please, sir, how do I become a detective? That wouldn’t be too bad. A short summary of recruitment procedure—branches of the Force—promotion. He could cope with that. Please, sir, is there an examination for getting into the police? Please, sir, is it all right for anyone who has to wear glasses? Please, sir...

  “Please, sir, could the inspector tell us what his job is worth? Salary, I mean sir. And perks.”

  The questioner was a grave-faced boy of fifteen. Purbright thought he looked about twenty-four.

  Purbright said: “Well...” which seemed as good a beginning as any. Then he saw that the headmaster’s hand was raised.

  “No, Rawlings. I do not think we should frame our questions in quite such a personal—directly personal—form. If, as you very reasonably might, you wish to learn the scale of emoluments in the Police Force, I feel sure that our good friend Mr O’Toole will be pleased to provide you with the appropriate literature. Oh, and Rawlings...I am confident that Inspector Purbright will not contradict me when I say that police officers in this country do not receive, ah, perquisites.”

  The boy stared archly at Mr Clay. “I didn’t mean bribes, sir. Not in the sense that you...”

  “That will do, Rawlings,” Mr Clay resumed his seat with the uncomfortable suspicion that he had been manoeuvred into slandering somebody.

  The ensuing silence was pierced by a thin, tinny sound. Music. Booker stiffened and looked towards the back rows of desks. The sound rose suddenly to a crescendo, then was cut off. Some of the boys at the back craned their necks at one another and shuffled to close ranks.

  Booker left his seat and, crouching, crept silently up the side aisle. Those on the platform pretended not to notice.

  “Next question,” called Mr Clay. He waited, rigidly facing front.

  Booker eased his way along the back row as far as the fourth desk. He held out his hand. The plump, nervous boy who was vainly trying to conceal a transistor radio set between his knees gazed at the hand in mute disbelief, as though it were unattached and had arrived there of its own volition.

  “Come along,” said Mr Booker, very quietly. The fingers of the hand curled, inviting sacrifice.

  The boy swallowed. “But it’s not mine, sir. It’s Wagstaff’s. I was just looking at it.”

  The hand remained. It was very still. It looked a strong and patient hand. Somewhere else in the room a question was being asked about saw-mills.

  The plump boy surrendered the radio that was not his own and Mr Booker went creeping back to his seat. Purbright noticed that he was smiling.

  “Please, sir, can Mr Scorpe tell us if soliciting is a good profession, sir?”

  This was asked by a youth with an expression so innocent that Purbright guessed he had been coaxed or coerced by his fellows. The fact that he wore rather prominent glasses—in parody, as it were, of Mr Scorpe’s—could also have influenced his selection as spokesman.

  If the insult had registered, the lawyer gave no sign. He nodded very solemnly, yo-yoed his Adam’s apple once or twice, and spoke.

  “The question, as I understand it, is this. Does the calling of the solicitor” (he pronounced the -OR part most sonorously) “bring rewards consistent with his dignity? Financially, I regret to say, it does not...”

  “Oh, Christ!” came distinctly from the direction of Mr O’Toole.

  “By which I mean to say,” continued Mr Scorpe, “that his is a grossly undervalued profession, and that the public receive from him a service of immeasurably greater worth than his mere fee. It would, however, be invidious to pursue such a theme without pointing out...”

  Mr Scorpe went on a lot longer and evinced many impressive arguments. What they boiled down to was that lawyers alone were penurious in a pampered world.

  The boys were unsympathetic. What they had over-heard from parents in the matter of Mr Scorpe’s bills, particularly those relating to house purchase, had created the image of a licensed extortioner. Now he had simply made the impression worse by boring the pants off them.

  The headmaster, too, had grown edgy. Time was running out and his capture of the evening, the illustrious Mr Hive, had not yet been given a cue. Mr Clay felt like an impressario whose leading tenor was being kept off the boards by lack of a work permit.

  But Mr Scorpe’s tendentious recital rolled at last to an end. Before he could slip in an encore, a tall youth with an incipient moustache hastily expressed interest in auctioneering and Mr Hideaway took over. He told several stories of his trade in a fruity, quick-fire voice and with a wealth of market-place rhetoric. They were climaxed by a tale of a farm labourer from Gosby Vale who had bartered for a motorcycle his wife and five pounds of kidney beans.

  To Purbright, the story was already familiar. He had heard it, indeed, as a complaint from the man who had parted with the motorcycle. “You’d think the mean bugger’d ’ve put ’em in a bag,” he had said of the beans.

  The headmaster, who had made a mental note not to invite Mr Hideaway again, looked at his watch. It was ten past nine. He hoped no one would now ask anything about timber mills or accountancy: that Barnstaple person looked the sort to meander on for hours without getting a proper answer out. He stole a glance at his prize guest—then primped his mouth in dismay.

  Mr Hive was fast asleep.

  The boy Rawlings had made the same observation. He raised his hand.

  “Please, sir, do you think the gentleman from London could tell us something about employment prospects in his own line of business—whatever that is, sir?”

  “Thank you, Rawlings.” Blast the boy! A born troublemaker, if ever there was one, “Ah, Mr Hive...”

  For several seconds, every boy in the room watched the contented sleep-mask. Like certain magistrates, and all judges, Mr Hive had the art of quitting consciousness gracefully. He did not loll. He did not snore. His eyes were closed, certainly, but in tha
t placid manner one associates with listening to music or enjoying the scent of flowers.

  “Um, ah, Mr Hive...”

  There brushed past the sleeper’s elegant, full-fashioned moustache a light sigh.

  The headmaster tried to catch the eye of Mr O’Toole by making discreet little pecking gestures in the air with finger and thumb. Eventually, O’Toole got the message. He grinned and rammed his elbow into Mr Hive. “Hey, sailor! You’re wanted on deck!”

  Hive’s reaction was as dramatic as any of the audience could have wished. It was also—in Mr Clay’s view, at any rate—quite inexplicable.

  The man reared to his feet and stood leaning slightly forward and sideways with hands raised to the level of his face, one above the other. As he squinted between the hands, one eye dosed, he cried: “Watch the birdie, dear lady! You, too, sir. And no embarrassment, I beg!”

  The boys laughed. Some clapped as well. Mr Hive lowered his arms. He looked mildly surprised.

  “What did I tell you,” remarked the boy who had diagnosed intoxication. His neighbour slipped him a toffee in tribute.

  Mr Clay waited for the excitement to subside. The shrewder side of his intelligence had already grasped the simple cause of Mr Hive’s curious behaviour. It urged him to bring the proceedings to a close there and then in a firm and dignified manner. But Mr Clay was a proud and, in certain respects, a daring man.

  He forced as broad a smile as the tightness of his skin would allow. “I see that Mr Hive would have us believe that it was in the photographic field that he achieved his reputation. Ah, but we know—do we not?—that one does not receive official citation for taking snapshots!”

  Hive laughed so heartily at this that he had difficulty in keeping his balance. It was only the timely aid of Mr Barnstaple, who reached up and grabbed his arm, that prevented his falling from the dais.

  He stopped laughing and stared thoughtfully at Mr Barnstaple’s hand. Then he looked at the boys, at Inspector Purbright and Mr Hideaway, at Mr Clay. He frowned and bent close to the ear of Mr O’Toole.

  “Who are all those boys?” he whispered.

  “What boys?”

  “Boys. Bundles of boys...My God, it isn’t a choir, is it?”

  There stirred suddenly in Mr O’Toole some sympathetic instinct, a sort of drinker’s loyalty. He breathed rapid explanation: “School—speeches—usual guff—you—Now!” and with a heave under Hive’s elbow set him in a more or less perpendicular pose.

  Mr Hive was so grateful for enlightenment concerning what was immediately expected of him that he pushed from his mind the still unsolved riddle of how he had come to wake up in a school, of all places. He would puzzle that out later; it was probably something to do with The Case. One thing was sure—and he smiled wryly at the thought—there was always some new demand on a detective’s versatility.

  “Boys!...No (a roguishly wagged finger)—Gentlemen! When your headmaster (a bow to Purbright) was kind enough to ask me to come along and present your prizes today, do you know the first thing I said to him? The very first thing I said? You don’t. No. Never mind. (An up-brushing of Mr Hive’s moustache with splayed fingers.) You see, in the game of...Ah. Now, then. Now. There’s one thing that’s all...All-important, this thing. When your headmaster was kind enough to ask me to come along he said in the game of life. No no no—I said. Me. Winning not the main thing. These prizes, you see. Some people don’t want. Get ’em. Don’t want ’em. More’n they bargain for. When your headmaster...no, said that. (Another rummage in the moustache.) People with prizes didn’t want in the game of life—sent for me. Hive, they said...Important people, mind. Oooo, very important. Rubbed shoulders with aristocracy. (A sly, lop-sided smirk.) Not just shoulders either. Never mind that. Hive, they said, don’t want it—sick of it—want another one. For crysake get rid. And that was it, gentlemen. Tokens of appreciation to show. (Groping into his watch pocket.) Oh, and beautiful memories. Tell you one when your headmaster kind enough to ask. Tell you one. Ever seen a birthmark...know what birthmark is?—course you do. ...Ever seen a birthmark exactly same shape as Statue fliberty, torch an’ all? Haven’t, have you? Not torch an’ all. I have, though. In the game of life...no, not game, profession. Profession. I’ll tell you kind enough to ask. On Lady Felicity Hoop’s left buttock. (A squinting search of memory.) No. As you were. Right buttock. Right, yes—torch an’ all. Lovely woman. Dead now.”

  Mr Hive bowed his head, as if to inaugurate a two minutes’ silence.

  The headmaster seized his chance. He hastened round to the front of the demonstration bench, commanded the nearest boy to open the door and told the assembly to file out quietly.

  As the boys shuffled from the room, they glanced secretively and with awe at the figure of Mr Hive, who, oblivious of their departure, still swayed in silent tribute to the late Lady Felicity.

  One boy hung back. It was Wagstaff. He climbed on to the platform and made his way to Mr Booker.

  “Please, sir, may I have my transistor back now, sir?”

  “Transistor? What transistor, boy?”

  “That one, sir. It’s mine.”

  Purbright watched him point to the set that Booker had laid on the bench before him.

  “That,” said Booker, “was in the possession of Holly. He was misbehaving and suffered the penalty. It is confiscated.”

  “But it isn’t Holly’s, sir. He was just looking at it. It’s mine.”

  “It is confiscated.”

  “But, sir...”

  “I really don’t see that I can put the matter any more plainly, Wagstaff. We all must pay for our transgressions. If you feel that you are the victim of injustice—and I cannot understand why you should—you will just have to thrash it out with your friend Holly.”

  The boy stood a few moments longer in tearful perplexity, but Booker had swivelled round in his chair and was now staring thoughtfully at Mr Hive, who had abandoned his posture of grief and was searching for something. Wagstaff took a last lingering look at his radio and slouched away.

  “Where’s my camera?” demanded Mr Hive, a little sobered by alarm.

  Mr Hideaway and Mr Barnstaple looked under chairs. Mr O’Toole shrugged and picked at one of his back teeth with his little fingernail. “Now what’s he want?” the headmaster inquired irritably of Mr Booker.

  Hive began to feel through his pockets.

  “He says he’s lost his camera.”

  “I saw no camera,” said Mr Clay. “He was carrying a sort of suitcase when we were in that hotel.”

  “He hasn’t got it now.”

  “Well I cannot help that. He must be got out of the school. I rely on you to see to it. Oh, and Booker...a word with you before assembly in the morning, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Mr Clay turned away and put a hand on Purbright’s arm. “A little refreshment before you leave, Inspector? One of Mrs Wilson’s excellent concoctions is doubtless awaiting us in the common room.”

  The headmaster herded into the corridor all his guests save Mr Hive. He, watched by Booker from the doorway, continued for several minutes to wander up and down, peering under desks.

  “You must have left it in the pub.”

  Hive stood still. “Pub?” He looked immensely grateful. Even the most mystifying losses could, he knew, be made good if only one could find again the right pub.

  “The Three Crowns,” said Booker. “Just around the corner. I’ll show you.”

  At the gates of the school, Booker pointed to a street lamp about twenty yards away that marked the opening of a narrow lane. “In that lane. You’ll see it as soon as you get to the corner.”

  Hive strode off resolutely towards his objective. Some small trouble with one of his legs gave him a tendency to veer off course, but he corrected this at intervals so that his progress was a series of arcs. Booker watched him reach the corner lamp, swing round it twice and shoot off at a nicely judged tangent into the lane’s mouth.

  The barmaid at the Three Crowns showed gr
eat concern on hearing of the loss of Mr Hive’s case. She even left the bar long enough to search beneath every table, parting the customers’ legs as though they were stems of undergrowth. Hive hovered close by, and gained some compensation from his new and very advantageous viewpoint of the girls’ bosom. Of the camera, however, there was no sign.

  Hive loitered only for one double brandy before making his way back to the school gates. These he was chagrined to find locked. He shook them and shouted several times, but to no avail. He tried to climb one of the gates and succeeded only in getting one shoe wedged in some scrollwork. By the time he had unlaced it, withdrawn his foot, extricated the shoe and put it on again, all notion of getting back into the school had evaporated. Camera or no camera, the task of the night was waiting to be done. A man of resource could be disarmed but never dismayed. Have at them, Hive! Forward to...to...Ah, yes—Hambourne Dyke—Forward to Hambourne Dyke! (First left after level crossing, second cottage, bedroom at back, window by water-barrel.) Moment of truth. Moment of Hive!