Baruch turned his chair round and looked at her.
“I thought you were going into the asylum voluntarily?”
Catherine began to cry.
“I’m ridiculous,” she said, “don’t take any notice of me, but I’m wretched. I don’t know what I want, and I don’t really want to go into the asylum, but it’s the only place where I have a home when I’m cranky and cracked. If I were always in touch with a person like you, with a golden sanity like yours, I wouldn’t think of such things.”
“The Folliots are quite sane,” said Baruch gently, smiling.
“I’m mixed up in too many emotional relations with them. I was in love with Fulke at one time, and I disliked Marion at others for her trailing Michael round. You can understand.”
They talked for a long time about odds and ends, while they felt the blood rushing through their hearts to a new measure. They talked automatically and disjointedly and unnecessarily, so that the conversation would soon drop and a silence would come when they could look at each other with full glances, questioning and responsive, understanding, hesitating. They grew more corpulent spiritually, they felt stronger, they grew to their full height. Innocent fancies filled them, they had a temptation to speak with a familiar simplicity which made them smile to themselves. They lived thus for several hours.
“I feel better,” said Catherine soon. “I wish I had not arranged to go to Forestville, but now I must. I am going to help with the instruction in the workshops.”
“Don’t go,” said Baruch.
“You won’t be here long, Baruch. I can’t antagonise them. I must have a haven to go to, when you are not here any more and I am upset.”
“Do I really make so much difference?”
“Of course.”
He touched her hand. She got up and put on her hat.
“Well, I am going home. I am tired out, and I have to pack a little bag, not much. I must see Mother, for I have told her quite a different story, that I am instructor at the asylum. Thanks very much. Good night!”
He came downstairs with her, and at the door made a stiff European bow.
10
A chapter of accidents: two poor men in gaol,
Montagu skips, three poor men without a job.
Jo’s mother sums up.
It was a steamy white Friday towards the end of September. The weather promised to be exceptionally hot, the afternoons shone copper, the meteorologists announced a drought, and the people in the west had already had a succession of days at one hundred and ten degrees in the shade. In the city they were glad of the wind off the water. Joseph went up in the morning to buy a cheap bathing-suit in royal blue at the fire-sale shop, “The Hive, Where Biz Hums”. There were always plenty of bankruptcies to supply the “Hive” with cheap stuff. “With the ‘Hive’, you can’t go naked,” said Joseph’s mother comfortably, when daily inspecting its advertisements.
Joseph spread out the royal blue bathing-suit on the window-sill and contemplated it. Baruch came in, jubilated.
“Am I dreaming? Have you bought something, something absolutely unnecessary? Boy, aren’t we rich? aren’t we smart?”
“I can’t go swimming without, especially with a girl,” said Joseph, rolling it up and busying himself about, with his back to Baruch.
“A girl! You close wretch; you’ve been keeping a girl from me all this time. I might have known it when you appeared with a new tie last week.”
Joseph grinned, then said in an offhand manner:
“Don’t tell the boys, there’s a good chap. You know what they are!”
“Why should I tell them? You know I don’t talk about people’s affairs. A man’s business is his own: I never interfere.”
Joseph, happily engrossed in his work, whistled under his breath. Presently he heard Baruch’s voice at the door.
“Mr Montagu’s not here, this is not his office, we haven’t seen him since last week. Will you come back in half an hour when Mr Chamberlain is here?”
A thick-set man of middle height, with a well-tailored grey suit, hat on his head and hard inquisitive glance, looked down insolently at Baruch, and put him aside with his hand.
“Let me come in. I’ve got a warrant.”
“Show it to me,” said Baruch.
The man thrust a paper at him as he shouldered past him into the office. Baruch followed him in and asked:
“What’s up?”
“A lot,” answered the man. “What do you know about him?”
“Nothing,” said Baruch. “He comes here from time to time, sometimes as a client, but he doesn’t give us much work, and he hasn’t been here for a week.”
“Pretty thick with your boss, eh?” asked the detective, looking at the account-books and putting his fingers casually on papers lying round the office.
“As far as I know, it’s a business acquaintanceship,” said Baruch carelessly. “Why, what’s up? Someone after him?”
“Too right!” answered the man.
“What charge?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”The man grinned, “Eh, sticky-beak?”
“It’s a human weakness,” laughed Baruch. “What makes you go in for the career of detective, eh? A genial impulse to know what’s going on in whited sepulchres, coupled with the timid bloodhound’s abstract scientific passion to know where a smell leads to.”
The detective put his hat on the desk, and lighting a cigarette, tilted back in the chair.
“You’re wrong,” said he. “Everybody has a down on a detective: but we’re the servants of public morality. Look how we dig up crime. The place would be overrun with smugglers, burglars, rapers, murderers”—he waved his hand—“cheap swindlers, counterfeiters, Communists, drug-runners.” He smoked hard on his cigarette. “People like a bobby because he’s in the street, you can hit him on the head, or run him down when he’s not looking, but no one likes a detective because he’s a wise bird and gets up in the morning earlier than you do.”
“Funny,” said Baruch, “it’s every boy’s ambition to be a detective at one time or another, isn’t it? Not mine, though.”
“Yuh,” replied the detective, not abandoning his pose of careless self-mastery. “When they’re young, they’re smart; when they get older, their minds gets routine. Now to be a detective, you’ve got to be fresh, you’ve got to think of the unlikely, the bizarre, and you’ve got to get an oblique way of looking at human nature. And you’ve got to know human nature. Now I know all types of men. Some are obvious—there’s a signboard on their mugs which says, ‘Don’t trust me!’ Others are quiet little fellows that you’d give the management of your estate—if you have one,” he added, winking at Baruch, Joseph and Williams. “Others are big hail-fellow-well-met, frank-looking blokes, they’re the confidence-trick sort!” He paused. “In fact, I’ve got a private little theory: I’ve had plenty of experience and I know human nature.”
“The theory of a man about his own business is always illuminating,” remarked Baruch earnestly.
The man lighted another cigarette, and looking Baruch straight in the eye, said gravely:
“My theory is that every man is a potential criminal: there’s no difference between criminals and honest men; it’s just a question of how tight a corner you’re in. There’s plenty of crimes, light offences and ghastly crimes, that are never known by anyone. That’s why we couldn’t manage if we had twice as many secret police in the service.”
“You ought to write detective stories,” said Baruch. “How do detective stories appeal to you, a detective?”
“Rotten,” said he energetically. “To begin with, things never happen the way those writers describe them, and then you get better stories out of the papers every day. I don’t know why they don’t take stories out of the papers or police records. And then you have to know police methods to describe it right. They make so many bloomers, I can’t read them: I put them down in disgust.”
“What about the murder of Marie Roget, and t
he murders in the Rue Morgue, and the Purloined Letter?”
“Yuh, Poe, you mean? Well, it’s not possible they would have missed a letter if they’d ripped the place to pieces. Still, he would have made a good sleuth. No, it’s too easy; an author makes up a plot, he knows the answer, and then he finds it out. It isn’t like that in real life. A chap has four aliases, three passports, he’s not stupid, but smart as hell, he’s up to all the dodges in creation: and there are a lot of criminal businesses that have a perfected technique, like—printing, banking, anything you like; drug-running, for instance. They have organisations bigger than international banks. Governments get mixed up in it themselves sometimes. Like in—well, you don’t know about that.”
The detective stopped talking. “Well,” he concluded, “it’s a career, it’s a career, but a hard one. You usually run up against a blank wall. In detective romances they’re always solved one hundred times out of a hundred.”
“You ought to write some detective stories, on the basis of the crimes that aren’t found out and aren’t solved.”
The man looked wise. “When I get through,” he said, “I may. Or when I get more time; I’ve often thought of it. I thought of a good scheme like that; start a paper giving half a dozen unsolved mysteries a month—real ones, mind you! Then offer prizes for the best solutions. Don’t you see? The hidden criminals would often write in for the prizes; they know the solutions, don’t they? They usually need the money. It’s a peach of an idea. But you need money to start the paper.”
“You’d run it for private profit?”
“You bet. I’d become the Sherlock of Australia; no one would know how I got the info. I’d run the paper under an assumed name—take some smart feller, who knew how to write—you, for example—you could run it from the printing-office; it doesn’t need any editing, I give you the stories. A peach of an idea; but don’t worry, they’d soon find out and stop my scheme.”
“It could be done,” said Baruch. “It’s a first-rate idea. To begin with, criminals are proud of their little feats when they don’t get pinched.”
“Of course, that’s my idea.”
“Listen,” said Baruch. “It’s hot here, isn’t it? A pity there’s no window in the office. Do you want a whisky and soda?”
“I don’t mind.”
Baruch began to get out the bottles and glass, saying quietly:
“I don’t care twopence about this Montagu or whatever his name is, I’ve only seen him a few times, but he strikes me as a bounder, and as you say, he’s got ‘Don’t trust me’ written on his mug. But I’d like to know what he’s been up to; is it misrepresentation selling his antiques?”
“No,” said the man, taking his glass, “I can’t tell you; but it’s not that, it’s worse.”
“What, smuggling?”
“Don’t ask,” said the man. “I can’t tell you. You’ll know soon enough.”
“It’s all right, it’s only ‘insatiable curiosity’,” said Baruch, grinning. He hesitated a moment. “Some more whisky?”
“All right. I don’t turn a hair at a bottle even. I’ve got the levellest head in the city.”
“Do you think it’s going to snow?” asked Baruch.
“What?”
“Snow?” said Baruch.
The detective winked at him. “You’re smart, feller, aren’t you? I certainly would have you to run my paper, if I could get it started. You’ve got a taking way that is just the thing. You’d make a good crook. Professional adviser, eh?”
“No,” said Baruch, walking out of the office. “It’s my honesty that makes me charming; without it, I’d have no appeal.” He called the boy and started his machine.
Withers stalked in gloomily, and presently the printing-room was working at top pressure.
“Where’s the boss?” said Baruch. “There’s a visitor waiting for him.”
Withers looked at the visitor, gloomily noted the glass beside him.
“Looks like a dick to me!” said he. “They’ve got ‘private detective’ written all over their faces. With suspecting everybody and regarding the least accident as a stepping-stone in their career, with each brutal murder and desolating embezzlement of the funds of widows and children meaning a new star or stripe for them, they get mean, ferrety faces: I hate ’em.”
The detective got up and circulated sedately, with a casual expression, round the machines.
Fulke Folliot appeared at the door, looked for Baruch and came in saying:
“I’ve got a job for you, Mendelssohn!”
He saw the stranger and stopped, looking him over. He turned casually on his heel and beckoned Baruch into the office.
“Come in; I want to explain to you what I want.”
When they got in, Fulke said, leaning over a bit of paper on which he sketched with a pencil:
“That fellow belongs to the Federal Police. I’ve seen him before, and it’s my business to know their faces.”
“I know,” said Baruch. “He’s in the drug squad, I think.”
“I’m always running into them, it’s rotten luck. I’m fated to run into the crew,” said Fulke. “Look here, it’s a pamphlet I promised Winter to bring out. You know his pet study, the profits raked off by local capitalists, each year? By the way, you know he’s in quod?”
“No!”
“Yes, on a charge of sedition, inciting to riot, etc., for a speech he made to seamen at the Union’s offices, on Monday. They wanted to get someone, and didn’t dare take anybody important; I nearly expected it to be me.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry,” said Baruch peacefully. “You’ll get let out if any over-zealous blue takes you up.”
“What makes you think so?” asked Fulke, flushing. “I’ve been in gaol before this.”
“And will be again, perhaps,” answered Baruch easily, looking up at the motion of the big press. “But we must both realise that we are makeshifts so far as the workers are concerned. We are not workers and don’t fight with the bloody ardour necessary, and it’s touch and go whether we’d sell out for a nice home and quiet life, if we thought the Capitalist system was going to last our lifetime. You have an income; it’s a philanthropic hobby with you, just as Christian works are with Milt Dean, that’s all. And you get a travelling allowance by it.”
“The uneducated working classes have to be led by devoted men from a wealthier stratum,” said Fulke stormily.
“But our career is miserably short,” said Baruch heavily. “It’s not our class. We are fighting a battle with our own class who hate us and our poorer brothers who suspect us. We don’t trust each other. Our own people regard us as rats that leave thinking the ship sinking: we are homeless men, the dispossessed of the world. Dispossessed! Because we straddle two ages; keen-sighted for the same reason. What is there to do but to throw yourself heart and soul into the elucidation of the present tangle? But do you or do I want to do it? The world is still full of promise for young men of the middle class; perhaps it will not be in ten years—we don’t want to lose our last chances. But the shadow is already on us. You have no children—because you don’t believe in your future. I don’t even want to marry—I don’t know if the system will even last fifteen years. Our Catherine is in a lunatic asylum. Which one of us has plans for the future? We are lost men, for a hundred years the world belonged to our fathers, intelligent scheming, smart combinations in the business world paid a hundred times over. A clever man had only to turn his attention to the exploitation of raw materials or a single invention to make his fortune. There were swindles, but they were small in turnover and return, and rare compared with great merchandising businesses. Now, the merchant world is totally disorganised—only protection, confidence tricks, swindling, can make giant fortunes or keep Governments afloat. Great robbers can only flourish in dark ages. We are their poor relations. Dishonest is our business, dubious our future.”
“Well, throw in your lot with the working classes; you are a working man and with no pers
onal fortune and no relations to speak of,” said Fulke.
Baruch laughed uneasily. “I was born to the idea of success. I shall perhaps, even here, or even in America, never see the triumph of the working classes. I can stand that idea, but not yet; when I am older, when I have been disappointed and worn by the career I have chosen, I will be able to. At present I am full of hope. I expect to get a lot of experience in politics and finance, I may be enabled to repeat the history of Henry George.”
Fulke smiled.
“Henry George? Yes, why not? But these wild fruits have not much savour; it is better to submit yourself to a strict intellectual discipline, follow a principle; we need men of your calibre.”
Baruch looked cold.
“But not in my state of mind; I can’t do it yet. I must know what is going on on the other side of the fence. Working men don’t know it. They should. They should know that their enemy is resolute, wide-awake, informed, armed—and in what manner.”
“I sowed my wild oats years ago, and they weren’t worth sowing,” said Fulke, debonair, friendly, smiling in a peculiar manner at Baruch’s bent head.
“I am sowing drought wheat to come up in lean times,” said Baruch sombrely, over his cogs and spindles. “The lean times are coming. Give me the material for the pamphlet; is it all here?”
“Yes; get it up in as cheap a form as you can. Ask Chamberlain to donate it; see if you can persuade him.”
“There’s no hurry?”
“As soon as you can; I want to take Winter a copy in gaol.”
“I’ll give it to Baguenault.”
Folliot waved his hand round the workshop.
“So long, boys. I’ve got to skip.”
“Goo’bye,” said Withers as Fulke went out. “That’s a nice fellow, Baruch: I know you don’t like him, but you underrate him. Let me tell you, a couple of sophisticated chaps like that are what they need in the Labour Party and the Communist Party: they have no illusions about how you get things done—practical men.”
“There’s a lot of difference between the means of the Labour and the Communist Parties,” said Baruch, smiling.
Seven Poor Men of Sydney Page 33