The Postmaster General

by Hilaire Belloc

  There had been ups and downs, though he had told her frankly of certain misjudgements or bits of bad luck; but on balance he had always been going upwards—and to what a height! For of all that large solid income nine-tenths was saved and went to swell the pile. There was the salary as well, so long as he was in office. And as for Number 7, Eliza Grove, slavey and all, and the taxis they were always taking, and the visits and the rest, the whole thing didn’t come to fifteen hundred a year. She had good reason to be proud of him.

  In these few moments of concentration during which he interrupted that conversation with his wife, which he was very careful to maintain, Jack Williams had captured with his bright sharp eyes one point after another in the financial news before him. He had seen that the Indian Loan was steady, he had been a little annoyed at the head-lines on the Third Central Bank; there had been a half smile on his face for half a second at an absurd puff of the New Guaranty Loan, which he had heavily sold forward upon good official knowledge, shared by not more than half-a-dozen other men. Then his expression changed again and became arrested and almost excited. His wife noticed the expression, but she could not tell what caused it.

  What had caused it had been something very small but very significant. It was a line in the middle of the industrial shares, the line concerning Billies on the New York Exchange after London had closed the evening before. That line said simply:

  “Durr. Imp. Tel. Ord. 29s. 6d.—31s. 6d.”

  The Home Secretary gave a very low whistle, for which he politely begged his wife’s pardon. He put the paper down, and asked Mrs. Williams what she thought on a vexed question which had been a good deal debated between them: whether they should make a bid for the cottage in Surrey on the fringe of the park palings which they had hitherto leased from their very good friends and constant hosts in the big house at Henbury.

  Mrs. Williams was always voluble on that subject; she knew that her husband was against buying, while she was in favour. Mr. Williams therefore expected—and got—a good long re-statement as usual of all her reasons. As she made it he nodded, taking in every point, though he had heard it twenty times before—and it gave him leisure to think without her knowing how his mind was working.

  He was not bothering about the cottage. He was wondering about Billies. It would perhaps be too strong to say that he was cursing himself inwardly for not having watched the tape; he had been glued all night to the Treasury Bench, right up to the cry of “Who goes home?” ringing through the vaults of the House of Commons, he had come home too tired to think of anything, he had gone to bed at once, and meanwhile he had missed his opportunity. Lord! How Billies had jumped in New York! Nearly eight bob! Twenty-nine bob, thirty-one, from twenty-two … What on earth had made them jump like …

  The voice of his wife came to him across the table (for men like this can attend to two things at once).

  “You’re always saying as you don’t want the place —saying it’s always better to look tenants of theirs anyhow—more friendly-like, and doesn’t make people call us forward. But that’s all nonsense, Mr. Williams. You never know what’s going to happen in this world, and we’ve been there now all those weeks every summer for these five years, and I couldn’t abear to part with it.”

  “If they was to take it away we could buy them out big house and all,” said Mr. Williams proudly.

  “Not open, we couldn’t,” answered his wife.

  “My dear, there’s a great deal in what you say, but they won’t turn us out.”

  Mr. Williams spoke gently and kindly—but the words that were passing through his mind were quite different: he was saying to himself:

  “It’s still early, I can arrange for Gunter to get my packet before that broker leaves his house for the City: but it’s nearly ten bob a share lost already anyhow, dammit!”

  Then he continued aloud, to Mrs. Williams: “I shall always do what you want in the matter, my dear—you know that: I shall always do what you want.”

  And the sentence running in his mind was more like this; “They’re blazing! I’ve missed the first eight shillings, but I’ll bet they’ll go to forty and over!”

  “Thank you, Jack,” said Mrs. Williams. She called him Jack every time she got her way. She rose, with a little difficulty, waddled round the table, and kissed him on the forehead. He fondled her hand, murmuring: “Anything you want, dear, I allus do say, anything you want.”

  But in his mind there was running something like this:

  “I’m that sure, I think I’ll cover fifty thousand.”

  He pulled out his watch and sprang from his seat.

  “Hullo, it’s later than I thought,” he said. “I must telephone.”

  He went off to the telephone in the narrow hall. He heard his wife’s slow and heavy step proceeding to the kitchen to give her orders for the day to the unique servant, the symbol of their humility. And then, taking off the receiver, he talked to one of the gentlemen with whom he dealt—indirectly—for some at least of his business affairs.

  “Is that you, Gunter? … yes, Jack speaking. Fifty thousand. … No, I know what I’m saying. … Yes, I know all about that. … Never mind what I missed. Perhaps I didn’t miss it. Anyhow, that’s what I say. … No, it’s not too much. … Yes, I do know best. Yes, fifty thousand. The second name, the one we agreed on last week. … No, no top figure. There’ll be time enough for selling. I’ll tell you when.”

  He hung up the receiver again.

  The Rt. Honourable Jack Williams, M.P., one of H.M. Ministers, Secretary of State for Home Affairs, loved exercise, as any healthy, successful Englishman will. And though it threatened rain upon this early March day, he would walk, as was his custom, from Victoria to Whitehall. He would be at the office by ten.

  As the train took him up to Town his mind was full of that which so often mixes with public affairs in the minds of great statesmen. He was wondering why Billies had kangarooed.

  Obviously they had jumped because someone had wind, or believed he had wind, of the contract’s going to Durrant’s. But what was the nature of the information? What was its value? By the time he got to Victoria he had it well sorted out in his mind.

  There were four possibilities:—

  First, McAuley and his crowd, the Durrant crowd, might have had an assurance; they might have that assurance in their pockets now, and however much they wanted to conceal the fact in order to give them time to buy before the rise, it might have leaked out through a servant or a spy, or someone through whose hands the document had passed: in the typewriting as like as not—if anyone had been fool enough to have it typewritten.

  That was one possibility. The second possibility was that James Haggismuir McAuley, having got his assurance solidly in writing, had deliberately released the knowledge of it indirectly, having already bought at the lowest during the little slump of yesterday, Wednesday morning, and desiring to catch a profit in passing before the big business began.

  The third possibility was that there was no assurance at all, and that James, in a laudable effort to catch the same quick profit, had let it be thought that he had an assurance, though he had it not. In that case the shares would slump badly sooner or later, and must be watched. For the moment they were bound to be blazing, because all London would be reading the quotation from New York in the paper this morning.

  The fourth possibility was that someone in New York had lied brazenly for his own purposes, and that there was as yet no assurance given to Durrant’s at all, or, if there was, no leakage of the assurance voluntary or involuntary, no funny business on this side at any rate.

  He had got that far in his analysis, he was out of the train and on his way to walk straight to his office in Whitehall, when he suddenly remembered another factor, and he went round by back streets to the river so as to have time to think it over. The factor he had remembered was the Committee’s report—adverse to Durrant’s. Someone had set aside that report. No mere rumour would have raised the shares in face of the
news that had leaked out — the news that the Committee had reported in favour of Reynier’s and against Durrant’s. Only one man could set aside that report, and that one man was the Postmaster-General.

  He saw it clearly now. At some hour of the yesterday Wednesday March the 4th—or possibly late on Tuesday the 3rd—McAuley had squared the P.M.G.

  Jack Williams grew more and more convinced as he walked briskly up the river side from Horseferry Road, with the rain still threatening but not falling, and the brave south-west wind ruffling the water against the tide. As he passed the Houses of Parliament his conclusion was fixed. It was a good omen that he should have arrived at it just as he passed those august walls, which shed so benign an influence over meditations of this kind. Yes, he was absolutely certain. James Haggismuir McAuley had got his assurance in black and white with Halterton’s name on it and had released the knowledge through his own channels. Billies would blaze and soar. He was glad he had given the order! He possessed his soul in peace.

  All the morning the Rt. Honourable John Williams attended to the business for which he was paid by a grateful nation his £100 a week. His rapidity of decision, his excellent manner with subordinates, the health of his presence, pervaded the place. He commuted the sentence of one man, decided to hang another (on competent advice, of course), and read with real care the report on the trouble in the “C” division, summoned the clerk who had written the minute, grasped every detail, came to a wise decision, devoted all the rest of his time to the great Police Reform, and then went out to cross the Park toward the Club at lunch time feeling that he had earned his money—which indeed he had: he was a good workman.

  He glanced at the general tape as he went in, holding it up to his face, paying particular attention to the news of the Royal Wedding in Italy, but with his right eye he was shooting glances at the other ribbon to catch the price of Billies. He had to wait a little time till they came round.

  “12.56 p.m.; Pelham Pref. 108 — 109, Reefers 79 ex.” so and so, and so on and so on … then, at last, Billies:—

  “Dur. Imp. Tel. Ord. 35s.—36s.”

  Another man would have smiled. Jack Williams put on a troubled look as of slight grief, bent again for a moment over the news of the Italian Royal Wedding, sighed, and went on into the dining-room.

  Chapter IV

  Just when Jack Williams was finishing his breakfast, his colleague, Wilfrid Halterton, was determining far off that he must ring up James McAuley, for the sixth time.

  He was a little ashamed to be going on like this—but what was he to do? There was some misunderstanding, and it must be cleared up. If James Haggismuir McAuley could meet him face to face the extraordinary situation would straighten out—but James Haggismuir seemed so difficult to find just now. The telephone was never very satisfactory, but there it was. So after five early efforts—before nine o’clock—all failures, Wilfrid Halterton once more rang up the flat at the Marble Arch. He heard from the voice of a manservant that the great financier was in his bath. Wilfrid Halterton, who was himself not very far advanced in dressing, went back to his bedroom, sat on the bed, and thought matters over. At first he came to no conclusion—save this, which he reached in about ten minutes—that somehow, something had gone wrong. Then he went off again to the telephone, and this time the voice of the manservant answered that Mr. McAuley would be at the instrument at once. Next came the decisive voice, for once in a way irritated.

  “Look here, Wilfrid, man, what’s all this? Don’t keep on ringing me up at these godless hours! I’m not dressed yet! What d’ye want? It is you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I want to see you. I must see you. There’s some misunderstanding. I don’t think you quite caught what I was saying to you last night at the Balcombe’s—at least, you were at the Balcombe’s—I was talking from the House, as I told you. I don’t think you quite understood what I was saying, did you, eh? Something went wrong. Can I come round and see you this morning—now? In a quarter of an hour?”

  There was a good long interval, in which no answer came, though Halterton filled it up with a few remarks such as “Eh? What?” and “I say—Exchange!” Then came J.’s voice again, a little lower, and with the irritation gone out of it.

  “Look ye here, Wilfrid, all this is just a tangle. You get ye round here just after ten. Ye’ll find me at breakfast. I don’t understand what it’s all about. Ye seem to have lost some letter from someone? Isn’t that it? But no matter … Come you round and see me at a quarter past ten.”

  Before the Postmaster-General could say another word J. rang off. As for Wilfrid Halterton, he mused for a moment, standing before his wireless radiator, staring down at the glowing grid; he shook his head twice, and muttered: “Most mysterious!”

  The short interval seemed interminable, and he got to the Marble Arch a little before his time, sauntered through the lounge, and did not ring for the lift until his watch assured him that it really was ten o’clock. He did not want to seem in a hurry, though if ever haste and anxiety were imprinted on drawn face and unquiet fingers they radiated from the various corners of that Minister.

  He found J. sitting comfortably alone at his breakfast table. J. could not trouble to get up, but just nodded him towards a chair and asked him if he would care for a cup of tea. Wilfrid Halterton thanked him. It afforded a moment’s reprieve during which he could pull himself together. He did so, and then, avoiding McAuley’s eye, he said:

  “I say, you know—you know what I’ve come about?”

  “No, I’m damned if I do!” McAuley, abandoning his sausage, laid down his knife and fork and looked up squarely, compelling his guest to turn his face towards him.

  “I’m damned if I do! I suppose ye want my advice about something? Ye spoke about some letter having gone wrong. Spit it out.”

  “My dear J.,” said Halterton, glancing at the door and a little frightened by the loud voice, “it’s quite simple. All I have come for is to ask you whether I could have another letter in the place of the one I had from you yesterday evening. I’ve mislaid it. It’s very unfortunate. A thing like that ought not to be left lying about. Someone might find it. But anyhow, I must have a duplicate. You can see that, can’t you?”

  “I don’t in the least understand you!” James Haggismuir McAuley pronounced these words very deliberately, with his sharp eyes trained upon the Postmaster-General like two small calibre gun-muzzles. “What letter?”

  “Why,” faltered the other, “the letter you gave me, of course.”

  “My dear Wilfrid, there have been plenty of letters between us.”

  The Postmaster-General suddenly got up and strode towards the door rather more rapidly than was customary to his step. He opened it, peeped round, satisfied himself that there was no one about, shut it again, came back, and said:

  “Look here, I don’t understand, either. … I must have a duplicate of that letter.”

  James McAuley put a clenched hand down on the table, either side of his plate, and cried:

  “We’re at sixes and sevens, man, somehow! Ye were talking last night on the telephone o’ somewhat you thought I knew; but I don’t—now, there! I don’t know what it’s all about.”

  Wilfrid Halterton’s mind turned a somersault, and left him bewildered. It dazed him, and he hadn’t yet found his feet. However, he acted with complete simplicity. He said:

  “Why, the letter you gave me Tuesday night, J. After you got my letter accepting the contract. I took your letter, didn’t I? That undated one, you know … you remember what was in it? Well, anyhow, that undated letter. You remember. The one signed by you. I put it in an envelope. … I put it in my pocket. …”

  “This is all Greek to me,” sighed J. “I’ve got your letter all right, of course. We both of us know that. And I’m sincerely grateful to ye for it, Wilfrid. It’s made all the difference. And apart from that,” he went on, as Halterton seemed about to interrupt him, “I think you’ve done well by the country. I’m sure” — this emphati
cally—” I’m as sure as I am of the daylight that ours is the only system that will work the thing as it should be worked. I don’t deny it’s to my advantage. Of course it is. Everybody knows it is, and that I’ve been urging for it. But you’ve done the right thing by the public, and they’ll thank you, and so do I.” He held out his right hand, open. Halterton took it, rather weakly.

  “Thank you, J.,” he said, “thank you. Thank you very much. But now look here. There’s some grievous misunderstanding. You must let me have a duplicate of that lost letter.”

  “There is some misunderstanding,” answered J. in a voice now half an octave below that which he had used even at his deepest in this pathetic interview. “’Tis a very grave misunderstanding. Ye’ve been mixing things up.”

  Then, before Halterton could interject a contradiction, a master thought struck the presiding genius of Durrant’s Imperial Television Company.

  “Look ye here, man, the best thing for ye to do is to get ye home and write down just what it is ye want. Somehow or other, mayhap, ye’re mixing me up with some other body—or mayhap ye’re getting confused between one document and another. Anyhow, ye think there was a letter, given you—by me. ’Twas not by me. It must a’ been by someone else just before or after. ’Tis easy to get mixed up in such things. But there’s no harm done. If there’s something ye want me to do in connection with your contract, get ye home, I say, and put it all down fair on paper. Then we’ll talk it over with all the facts before us.”

  Wilfrid Halterton was taken aback, breathless.

  “You want me to write to you about what … what was offered me? You want it in my own handwriting? You want me to do that?” he said, in rising but somewhat tremulous accents. “In my own handwriting?”

  J. shook his head.

  “There’s no making anything of all this!” he said.