‘Call it just action,’ Dave said. ‘Pile into the scrimmage, and without being too particular about dangerous use of the feet. Nobody’s going to blow a whistle in this game.’
Averell didn’t find Dave’s image heartening. He dimly recalled mixed hockey as an extremely hazardous sport. Mixed rugger didn’t bear thinking about. He wanted to say, ‘But we’re not on a playing-field, and the people we’re after have twice attempted murder.’ But he refrained, aware that any wet-blanket effect he put up would now be merely counter-productive. And this was the state of the case when they arrived at Uffington Street.
It proved to be in a distinguishably run-down area near Holland Park. The houses were enormous affairs that might have been described as ‘towering’ a generation ago, and they looked as if the same generation had passed since anything much had been done to their peeling stucco. The bank was tucked into the ground floor of one of them, and presented the only trim appearance in the row. Dave slowed down as they came abreast of it, and they took a good look at this first scene of action. Business was going on there as usual; there might be chaos and lurking squads of police within; customers, however, were coming and going with complete unconcern. Averell had been supposing, in his uninstructed manner, that the final assault upon its strong-rooms must have required the use of high explosive, and that there would be shattered windows (a sight familiar on television) all around. He even felt a shade of disappointment that this was not so. It wasn’t a sensible feeling at all.
And now here was the squatters’ house. Dave drew his car to a halt, and leapt out of it in a fashion suggesting the arrival of Action Man in the imagination of a rumbustious small boy. They all jumped out and, as it were, stormed the place. Anybody watching (and what sinister adversary, after all, mightn’t be?) would have felt that something decisively dramatic was in hand. There was, in fact, one visible watcher in the person of a constable stationed on the pavement close to the front-door steps. The constable made no movement; he did, indeed, cast an eye on these arrivals, but it was with an air of indifference which, if tempered by anything at all, was tempered only by a mildly benevolent regard. The front door was ajar. They marched in.
There was a big shabby hall, floored with cracked tiles which had once been designed to simulate the splendours of marble paving in a bold and obscurely Pompeian design. It was unfurnished except for an abandoned receptacle in chipped porcelain which took the grotesque form of the severed leg of an out-size elephant. Incongruously, there were a couple of quite spruce umbrellas located in this, together with a short thick stick, bulbous at the end, which Averell thought of as a knobkerrie, and which might certainly have been accepted as an offensive weapon if produced before a magistrate. But, if Tim and his friends were right, squatters were invariably wholly inoffensive persons. Perhaps this object had been left around by some former tenant with an interest in African antiquities.
There was a sound of conversation – or rather of monologue – from one of the ground-floor rooms – the door of which Dave promptly opened to usher them all inside. It contained a large packing-case which served as a table, and round this was ranged a much over-stuffed three piece suite. On the sofa two small children of indeterminate sex were engaged in fisticuffs of a controlled and decorous sort. In one chair a mild-looking man with square spectacles and a square-cut beard was reading aloud in what Averell instantly recognized as the tongue of ancient Greece; he was being listened to by a woman suckling a baby in the other. The man put down his book at their entrance, and various introductions were performed. They might have been taking place in a drawing-room in one of the better parts of Kensington. But here were squatters, all the same. Nobody seemed to feel anything untoward in their situation. Averell, although he succeeded in producing conventional murmurs in proper form, was naturally a little at sea.
‘Yes, indeed,’ the bearded man (whose name was Adrian) was saying to Tim, ‘we were closely interrogated about the whole affair. It was perfectly proper, no doubt. And we were accorded a civil congé in batches as soon at it became apparent that we were substantially without criminal proclivities. But some are still – I fear, and as the vulgar phrase has it – helping the police with their inquiries. All in all, it has been undeniably a vexatious episode.’
Tim failed to receive this temperate and cultivated speech too well. Presumably Adrian (and his wife and children, as they no doubt were) belonged to a section of squatting society of which he was unable wholly to approve. Yet they seemed likely to be less devoted to pop music than to Bach, and presented very much the domestic note which Tim had been anxious to capture for the edification of the readers of En Vedette. More muddle, Averell told himself. Adrian must belong to what he had somewhere seen described as the over-qualified unemployed. Nobody would hire him to give public readings of Xenophon (for the book was in fact the Anabasis) and he was perhaps very reasonably disinclined to take up any less learned employment. Averell felt an immediate sympathy with this person, in whose shoes he himself might conceivably be standing but for the convenient fortune handed on to him by his father. It had to be admitted, however, that Adrian appeared to be a man unlikely to assist at all notably in the running to earth of a gang of crooks. (But this, as frequently with Averell’s conjectures, was to prove not entirely accurate.)
‘I think we ought to have some tea,’ Adrian’s wife announced in a pleasant but distinctly upper-class accent. She had satisfied the requirements of her infant and composedly returned him (or her) to a soap box which Averell had not previously noticed as an additional furnishing of the room. ‘And I shall invite Twite,’ the lady added. ‘Twite is a little cast down because the police are still holding on to his wife. It seems that the poor dear – really the sweetest woman, Mr Averell – has quite a record of receiving stolen goods. Only in the way, it seems, of what are apparently called second-hand wardrobes. The term is a misleading one, and suggestive of discarded furniture. It means old clothes.’
‘Mr and Mrs Twite,’ Adrian said seriously, ‘having cast off clothing of every description, cordially invite personal inspection. I can recall the admirable couple as advertising in a newsagent’s window in those terms. One would suppose a jest or équivoque to have been intended, but they have assured me it was not so. By all means, Hortensia, bid the good fellow to a dish of tea.’
‘That will be very nice,’ Tim said – but not in the tone of one who believed that a quiet tea-drinking was at the moment the appropriate thing. ‘But I’ll just show Uncle Gilbert round while it’s brewing.’ He led Averell from the room. ‘I know Twite,’ he then said. ‘A harmless little man, and it’s a great shame they’re holding on to his equally harmless little wife. I wonder whether I could get hold of a solicitor and make a row?’
‘I don’t at all know. Nor do I know, Tim, just where we’re going. Whether we’re after those people as bank robbers or as would-be murderers, I can’t see what happens even if we run them to earth. You can’t be imagining visiting some purely private retribution on them. The only possibility would be to call in the police.’
‘Oh, yes – I suppose so. But at least we’d be showing the fuzz we can out-point them at their own game. They’d look uncommonly silly, wouldn’t they, if we marched this whole gang in on them already in fetters? I wonder where one can buy fetters? There must be people who cater for eccentric tastes by selling manacles and whips and things.’
In face of this childishness Averell gave up again, and they began to wander through the house. Fewer of its former occupants had returned into residence than Tim had appeared to expect. Averell felt this to be scarcely surprising. The new race of beings to whom he was being introduced were of at least semi-nomadic habit, travelling so light that they could very readily move on to quarters less unpropitious than the Uffington Street house had proved to be. In one upstairs room there was a group of half a dozen young men and women in a state of torpor into which Tim seemed indisposed to
inquire, and in another there was a family rather like Adrian’s, except that its head was absorbed not in the Anabasis but in an out-dated copy of the News of the World. There were also three elderly women who sat knitting in an empty room in a sinister and Norn-like manner. None of these people seemed much interested in the recent sensational events in the house.
‘We’d better go down to that tea party,’ Tim said, ‘and then think again.’ He appeared to be discouraged by the results of this exploration so far. ‘These people are all half-witted, more or less. And I wonder about searching the place thoroughly? We might come on some sort of clue.’
‘We might, Tim. But it isn’t at all probable. I expect the police are at least pretty efficient at that.’
‘They’ve sealed up both entrances to the cellars where the tunnel begins. So it’s no go there. Hullo! What was that?’
Somebody had given a peremptory shout from the hall to which they were now descending. And this was immediately repeated on a yet louder note.
‘Electric!’ the voice bellowed. It proved to belong to a heavily moustached man, wearing dark glasses and carrying a clipboard and an electric torch. ‘Never been here before,’ the man said in an aggrieved manner. ‘Where’s the bloody meter?’
‘Where you bloody find it,’ Tim replied cheerfully. ‘I don’t carry it round with me, mate.’
The man gave an indignant snort (which was not wholly unjustifiable) and disappeared into a room on the right of the hall, which could just be glimpsed as probably constituting the sleeping quarters of Adrian and his family.
‘How very odd,’ Averell said. ‘I’d expect the electricity and gas to be switched off when a house is being occupied in this – well, irregular manner.’
‘The owner often leaves them on and foots the bill, as a matter of fact. Random means of heating and lighting and cooking is disliked by insurance companies as enormously increasing the risk of fire. Here he is again. He won’t have had any luck in there.’
The electricity man had emerged and was making across the hall. He threw open the door of Adrian’s living-room and marched in. Tim and his uncle followed. The occupants were already at tea, and had been joined by a diminutive man with an indecisive beard who was presumably Mr Twite.
‘Where’s your meter?’ the intruder shouted again, and glared around him. Despite his glasses, it appeared to Averell possible to detect that he was a good deal more interested in the company than in the whereabouts of the elusive meter. And it was perhaps Dave who particularly arrested his attention. ‘You,’ he said aggressively. ‘Do you know where it is?’
‘Look in the cupboard at the back of the hall, you great oaf.’ Dave was uncommonly angry. ‘That’s where the thing’s usually found. And clear out. We don’t like you.’ Dave had got to his feet, and was advancing upon the intruder in a manner sufficiently hostile to send him hastily backing out of the room, banging the door behind him. There were several more bangs – the last of them as this outrageous person, having presumably effected his purpose, left the house.
‘Horrible chap,’ Dave said, retrieving his teacup. ‘No manners at all.’
‘You were perhaps a little short with him yourself, Dave,’ Adrian said mildly. Adrian, although pouring tea into cracked mugs with perfect propriety, could be detected as anxious to get back to Xenophon. ‘But I must say that I was a little doubtful about him. Did anybody ask him for his card?’
‘His card?’ Dave repeated. ‘You mean a visiting card?’
‘Oh, no – not that.’ Adrian was unconscious of any ironical intention in Dave’s query. ‘I doubt whether persons of that sort ever carried anything of the kind. But I believe the electricity company, if that be the name for it, commonly provides its employees with the means of authenticating themselves. As it is, he might have been a criminal. And we don’t want anybody of that kidney here.’
‘Do you know,’ Mr Twite said suddenly, ‘that I believe I’ve seen him before? Or, rather, heard him before. Yes, I am confident I recognized the voice. Rather a nasty voice. Not that he wasn’t a most satisfactory customer. Undiscriminating, perhaps. But decidedly free with his cash.’
‘Just what do you mean by that?’ Tim had straightened up alertly. ‘In your shop, was it?’
‘Yes, in my business premises.’ Twite turned to Averell, whom he seemed disposed to treat as a person of superior consequence. Twite was another individual who had Averell guessing. He couldn’t quite be called a cockney, but he certainly hadn’t been Tim’s or Dave’s schoolfellow. ‘We carry, I must explain, a very large stock, a very large stock indeed, and lately we have followed a policy of diversification. It’s why we’re no longer able to live above the shop, my wife and I. Upstairs is now part of the shop too.’
‘So what?’ Dave asked.
‘This man – I’m sure it was this man, although he hadn’t those glasses or just that sort of moustache – came in and bought quite a lot in the garments department. That, you know, was our original line, and we’re very strong in it. He had rather a garish taste, running to what you might call the drop-out image in a rather heavy fashion. Male garments, you understand, and a good deal in the way of accessories. We’re strong on accessories as well. Rather barbaric stuff, I’d say he chose. He explained, you see, that he was setting up four or five young friends in business as a pop group. Why, have I surprised you?’
The party from Boxes were certainly surprised; they were considerably startled as well. Here, out of the blue, was confirmation of pretty well the only theory of the robbery they had arrived at.
‘And then he went up to the musical instruments,’ Twite went on. ‘That’s rather a new departure with us, and we’re not too knowledgeable about it, to tell you the truth. I never could remember, myself, which is a viola and which a violin. Not that he wanted obsolete affairs like that. Come to think of it, though, he did buy a double bass, complete with a case the size of a coffin. And half a dozen other things as well – and with no more than a casual twang at any of them before forking out the asking price. A most satisfactory customer, as I said.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Tim asked, ‘that he had any notion that you and your wife had moved in here?’
‘Of course he hadn’t. How could he? We don’t advertise the fact. Our image might suffer if we were thought to be in straitened circumstances.’
Anne and Lou, who had sat silent during the making of this remarkable communication, now both spoke at once – and to what proved to be the same effect. Why had this munificent patron of avant-garde music incontinently transformed himself into a reader of electric meters? No prize need be offered for the answer. It had been his business to confirm that Dave had not been satisfactorily warned off the trail by the message planted on him by the fat woman on the M4. So they’d better take care of Dave. Otherwise Dave might be taken care of in the sinister sense of the phrase current in the world of gangsterdom.
At this point Dave behaved much as if the sun were shining on him again. It was as if he hadn’t really liked playing second fiddle to Tim as a threatened person, and was delighted by this evidence of having received promotion. But Dave’s changed manner, Averell felt, was only to be accounted for in part on this assumption. It was as if some perception had come to him which he was disposed to keep to himself for the present.
‘Well, well, well!’ Dave said in his easiest manner. ‘And did this admirable customer of yours leave his name and address, by any chance, and arrange for you to deliver the goods?’
‘Dear me, no.’ Twite seemed to regard this idea as absurd. ‘Ours is a cash and carry business, you see. Our transactions are invariably on that footing. Transport is the customer’s liability. We write that up, in fact, on a notice in the shop – along with “Please do not ask for credit. A refusal may offend”. It’s always as well to be clear about those things.’
‘So what did the ch
ap do?’
‘He had a little tip-up truck, with a two-wheel light trailer hitched on behind it. He simply piled the stuff on that, paid up, and drove away.’
‘A pity you didn’t follow him,’ Dave said.
‘Why on earth should I follow him?’ Twite was perplexed. ‘His flyers were all right. I know a forged flyer by this time, believe you me.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, there’s no possibility of trailing the villain to his lair. So let’s begin to think of another plan. Half a minute, though. I’m going to the loo.’
With this simple announcement, Dave left the room. Adrian’s wife (who appeared to confine herself to domestic cares and the exercise of hospitality) watered the teapot. Adrian’s children now sat at each end of the sofa, munching biscuits. Some little time elapsed. And then a sound from the street brought Anne to her feet and hurriedly to the window. It was the sound of a departing car. Anne turned round.
‘That was Dave,’ she said. ‘He has just driven off – and without a word! What can it mean?’
‘Dave’s sometimes taken that way, Anne.’ Tim, although clearly much troubled, said this quietly. ‘He’s not ditching us or anything. He’ll be back.’
‘I believe he tumbled to something we didn’t,’ Lou said. ‘And he’s off to take advantage of it. I call it a bit mean.’
‘It’s nothing of the sort – and we must just hope it isn’t dangerous. Dave sees a thing, you see, and charges at it. Ever since a kid, he’s had an urge to be the lone ranger.’
14
Several hours went by, and Dave didn’t come back. Midnight arrived. There was no Dave still.
Nothing so uncomfortable had ever happened to Gilbert Averell before. The mere physical unease for a start irked him to an extent he’d have been ashamed to confess. The resources of Adrian’s ménage, although made freely available, were limited in the extreme. When the children had been put to bed Averell was accommodated on the sofa, and the young people scrounged around and borrowed several kitchen chairs. At a late hour they all drank more tea and consumed an emergency supply of fish fingers. It was rather like being in a play by Samuel Beckett, wherein all things are reduced to an absolute minimum.
Going It Alone Page 11