Paint Gold and Blood

by Michael Gilbert

  “Nothing like that. In fact my last job, which I’ve just chucked in was a stumer.”

  He told him about the encyclopaedias.

  “In that case,” said Stewart, “my offer would seem to have come at the moment critique. I’m sure you’ll find the job

  I have in mind for you interesting. And well suited to your capabilities.”

  They were back in their study, three years ago. It was a sort of game. Stewart would indicate that he had some scheme in mind and would talk all round it. If, in the end, he forced you to ask him directly what it was, he had won a point and you had lost one.

  Peter decided that it would be quicker to surrender. He said, “What does Starfax do?”

  “Well, I imagine you’ve read the columns in the papers. ‘You and your Stars’. That sort of thing.”

  “I’ve seen them. I don’t bother to read them.”

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t seem to mean much, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Exactly. They’re impersonal. The millions of people born between certain dates are labelled with a so-called sign of the zodiac and given the same advice. And pretty woolly advice at that. ‘If you have certain plans in mind, now is a good time to put them into operation.’ ‘You’ll find it easy to get started, but don’t jump to conclusions.’ I mean, what’s the use of that sort of thing?”

  “No use at all.”

  “Now Starfax is quite different. We start at the other end. We invite people to consult us.”

  “And do they?”

  “Certainly. Our advertisements are discreet, but well placed. At the moment we’re dealing with between fifty and sixty replies a week. We make people a simple offer. If they will let us have the day and year of their birth, together with the exact hour, if they happen to know it – which a lot of people seem to do – and will enclose the preliminary fee of five pounds, we will take a look at them. If we feel for any reason that we are unable to help them, we will return the five pounds. That enables us to weed out the duds and the practical jokers from the genuine enquirers.”

  “How do you know the difference?”

  “Instinct mainly. We’re very rarely wrong. If we can accept them, we write back and tell them so. As soon as they have sent us forty-five pounds – that makes up the full fee of fifty pounds – we will get to work on their case. Incidentally this gets rid of a few more duds that we may have missed on the first trawl. Very few people are prepared to pursue a joke enquiry at the cost of fifty pounds.”

  “When you say, get to work on them, what exactly do you mean?”

  “That’s where my staff of external investigators come in. They’re all in jobs which put them into contact with members of the public. Ron is a freelance journalist who specialises in business topics. He is also a part-time opinion pollster. Len is, among other things, a typewriter mechanic. That gives him the entrée to almost any office. Even if he gets slung out he’ll probably have time to chat up the secretaries and typists. Their cousin, Les, moves in a different stratum of society. He’s a bookmaker’s assistant, runner and debt-collector. He was also, at one time, a good boxer in the light-heavyweight class. Those are our regulars. We’ve got a number of occasional helpers who happen to be well placed. One of them’s a female traffic warden in Kensington. And there’s an Indian dentist. You’d be surprised how chatty people get when they’re in the torture chamber.”

  “That’s all very well. But suppose it occurs to someone to blow the gaff. You’d look pretty silly if one of the popular newspapers came out with ‘Starfax a Fraud’.”

  “It’s a chance we have to take,” said Stewart. “But it’s not as risky as you think. Ron, Len and Les are solid. And the others aren’t given the whole picture. All they’re told is that we want to know if the applicant exists before we waste our analytic expertise on them. The extra information they always seem to bring is incidental. We don’t ask for it.”

  “O.K.,” said Peter. “You’ve got people who can get round and ask questions. But what, exactly, are they supposed to be finding out?”

  “First, of course, as I said, whether the people exist. We’ve been given a name and an address. If either of these is phoney – it is sometimes – then we drop them. The forty-five pounds goes straight back, with a cold missive saying we can’t deal with people who aren’t candid with us. And although you might not believe this, in about half of these cases they apologise and say they were using a pseudonym or an accommodation address because they were a bit shy of their families – or friends – finding out what they were up to and they send the forty-five pounds back again, along with correct particulars. In this game once someone’s truly hooked he’s almost impossible to shake off.”

  Peter thought about it. Like all Stewart’s schemes it was outrageous and fantastic, but there was a wild logic somewhere at the heart of it. He said, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Help me with the letters.”

  “Answer them, you mean?”

  “Of course. If you can manage four or five a day that would be splendid.”

  “But what am I supposed to say?”

  “In most cases you’ll have a report from our field staff to work on. One thing they always try to discover is what the correspondent really wants to do. Give you an example. One man was a solicitor’s clerk who went in for amateur theatricals. What he was longing to do, as Len found out, was to sing. We told him that he was destined to be an opera star so he joined the local operatic group and was a great success. Took the leading part in the Desert Song. All he’d needed, you see, was self-confidence. And the Voice of the Stars gave him plenty of that. He was so pleased that he told all the other members of the company about us and we got half a dozen new clients. I remember we told one of them he was a born comic. He started telling funny stories on every possible occasion and became such a menace that they turned him out of the company. That wasn’t one of our successes. You have to take the rough with the smooth in this job.”

  “You want me to start straight away?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “You realise I’ll have to write my answers in longhand?”

  “And I’ll have to type them out. So the quicker you learn to type the better. I’ve still got the Instruction Manual that I used. It seems as good as any of them. Take it home with that typewriter and get stuck in.”

  When Peter reached his flat he found Lisa waiting for him. She said, “What have you been up to now? It must have been an effort lugging that typewriter up three flights of stairs.”

  “It nearly killed me,” said Peter. “And I’m devilish hungry. Do you think you could knock up some scrambled eggs or something?”

  “I could do you eggs and corned beef. And you can have half a tin of sardines for starters.”

  Over this impromptu meal Peter tried to explain his new job. “Stewart’s paying me four hundred pounds a month to begin with. It’ll go up as I get into it. He can afford it, you know. His turnover must be nearly ten thousand pounds a month and that’s increasing by leaps and bounds. If it gets beyond the two of us, he did wonder whether you’d care to be roped in. After all, you can type.”

  “I wouldn’t want to give up my present job. It’s the most interesting I’ve had.”

  “Something to do with pictures, you said.”

  “Pictures and panels and tapestries. Mostly they come from France and we sell them here and abroad. A lot of them go to South America. Anyway, I don’t see Starfax lasting. Sooner or later someone will blow the gaff. It’s on a par with the crazy sort of things Stewart went in for at school.”

  “Crazy maybe. But they got me an extra year at Chelborough, remember?”

  “And might have got both of you the sack. It’s clear why he went in for it. He enjoyed pitting his wits against old Brindy. Also, of course, he did it for love of you. And for God’s sake stop looking embarrassed. Aren’t we allowed to refer to one male person loving another without being supposed to imp
ly that they sleep together? All right, then. What was I saying?”

  “You were saying that Stewart goes in for these mad schemes because he loves excitement and me.”

  “Exactly. That business of burgling Brindy’s study. Surely he could have got the information he wanted without going as far as that?”

  “I don’t quite see how,” said Peter doubtfully. “And I’ve got to admit that it affected me, too. I don’t just mean that I was excited. Most of the time I was in a blue funk. But there were moments when all my senses seemed to be functioning exceptionally well. Something to do with adrenalin, no doubt. When we were in his study I suddenly realised that Brindy was asleep just above us and I found I was able to look right through the ceiling and through the mattress and I saw him quite clearly lying in bed with his thin legs sticking out of his nightshirt.”

  “Did he really wear a nightshirt?”

  “That bit was imagination.”

  Much later that night Lisa said, “One day he’ll get involved in something too big for him and he’ll get hurt.”

  Peter knew she was talking about Stewart.

  By the end of the week he had got into the swing of his work. He found that a few platitudes went a long way. ‘One of your friends will start making unreasonable demands on you. Be firm.’ ‘There are bargains to be picked up if you keep your eyes open.’ This was based on a tip from Len that the woman concerned spent a lot of her time at local auctions. ‘There is a busy period ahead of you, so take every opportunity to rest and relax.’ This suited almost all the applicants, male or female.

  Typing went ahead too, but proved more difficult to master than prophecy. “You must tackle it properly,” said Lisa. “It’s no good hunting and pecking. Put a handkerchief over the keyboard and bash on with it. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. All you’ve got to do is remember the letters for the four fingers on each hand. Don’t worry about the thumb. Keep that for the space bar. Now then – the left hand—”

  “QAZ: WSX: EDC: RFV: TGB.”

  “Ten out of ten.”

  “It’s easy enough to recite them, when you give yourself time to think. It’s when you have to hammer them out that I panic.”

  “Practice makes perfect. Let’s try some Xs and Zs. ‘My ex-cousin plays the sax in the jazz band’.”

  Peter groaned.

  On Friday evening he revolted. He said, “I got my first pay today. We’re a pair of capitalists. Do you realise that between us we earn well over one thousand pounds a month?”

  “Less tax.”

  “A trifle of PAYE.”

  “And it’s not capital. It’s income.”

  “Don’t be such a filthy realist. We’re going to celebrate. As secretary to the head man you must have become an expert at booking tables. Book us one at the most expensive restaurant you can think of.”

  Lisa said, ‘Wow’, and got busy on the telephone. She chose a very well-known and expensive restaurant in Jermyn Street that one of her previous employers had sometimes taken her to. The head waiter remembered her, showed them to their table himself and proffered the massive bill of fare as though it were a sacred missal.

  “We’re only pretending to be rich,” said Lisa. “So let’s do it thoroughly. We’ll kick off with smoked salmon.”

  “And to drink,” said Peter, consulting the equally impressive wine list, “I suggest champagne to start with and then a bottle of Chateau Loudenne. It’s just down the road from Lambrécie.”

  They had a superb meal. Peter had no doubt about what he wanted to do afterwards, but the food and wine were too much for him and he fell asleep before he could undo a single button of Lisa’s pyjamas.

  On the Monday of the following week Stewart pushed a letter across to him. It was on expensive cream-laid paper and the address was Hertford Street.

  “Fringe of Mayfair,” he said. “Rather an exclusive part of London. And he sounds a bit of a nob. We’d better send Len to look into it.” The signature at the bottom, in an aggressive scrawl, was ‘H. L. Meyer’.

  “Don’t bother about Len,” said Peter. “I can find out all we need to know. That happens to be Lisa’s current employer.”

  “How strange are the workings of providence,” said Stewart.

  When Lisa came home that evening Peter showed her the letter.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ it said, ‘I am in receipt of your communication accepting me as one of your clients and demanding a further forty-five pounds. I enclose my cheque for this amount. I have little doubt that you are charlatans, but am prepared to take a long chance on it. If you can provide me with definite and helpful information I shall not be ungrateful.’

  She said, “Absolutely typical. He accepts your offer, but is careful to insult you at the same time.”

  “What sort of man is he?”

  “I can give you some background because when I was offered the job I made a few enquiries from a friend who seems to be able to find things out. The truth was that the pay was so good that I thought I was taking the first step into white slavery. Five minutes with Harry Meyer dispelled that idea. He’s not interested in girls. Only in pictures. And in money, of course. He’s Belgian by birth. His father, who got out of Belgium in 1939 just ahead of Hitler, brought him over with him. Papa somehow managed to get himself naturalised, so it seems that Harry has dual nationality, which is no doubt very useful to him. He’s certainly got plenty of contacts in Belgium and France.”

  “Fine. But what sort of person is he?”

  “He’s a physical fitness freak. He’s got his own gym and swimming-bath in his private house. He must be over fifty, but he likes to behave as if he was a super-fit thirty. Bounces about on his toes. Prefers to work standing up. That sort of thing. Also he’s a bully. He doesn’t bully me, because my mother has already bought two or three pictures from him and plans to buy more. But he takes it out of his assistant, a nice middle-aged pansy called Colin Chaytor, who does a bit of painting on the side. And when I say he’s a pansy I don’t mean he behaves like one, just that he looks like one. Long hair and floppy bow ties and a squeaky voice. Actually I believe he’s quite happily married. When his wife turned up at the office the other day it was obvious she was the driving end of the axis.”

  Peter thought about all this. It was interesting, but didn’t give him quite what he wanted. He said, “Meyer is interested in pictures and money, bien entendu. But is he interested in anything else? Has he got private ambitions to perform brain surgery or conduct an orchestra?”

  “All I can tell you is that when he can get away from the office he goes racing. And he’s got a credit account with the Tote. I know that, because his settlement statements come in monthly.”

  “Yes. That might be useful. He wouldn’t spend a lot of money on betting unless he thought himself a judge of horse flesh. I’ll throw a fly and see if he bites.”

  The next morning he composed a letter. He gave a lot of thought to it. He had no premonition that he was dropping a stone into the water, the ripples from which would spread to unimaginable shores. But he realised that the occasion was important.

  ‘Thank you for your letter. Though expressed in somewhat rough terms it denotes a measure of confidence in our ability to help you, which will not, we hope, prove ill-founded. The hour and date of your birth are most important. In your case particularly so. In the early hours of September 23rd the sun was leaving the house of Virgo and commencing its descent through Libra. It is generally accepted that persons who happen to be born on this day and at this hour will have an interest in the pictorial and graphic arts. What an uninstructed investigator might have failed to note is the pre-eminence at that juncture of the star Denebola in Leo. It is not, of course, to be confused with Deneb in the Swan. Although its meaning derives from the Arabic dhanab-al-asad, the tail of the lion, it has from earliest times been associated also with the horse, an animal held by the Arabs in equal regard with the king of beasts. In your case this suggests something more than a generalised i
nterest in horses. It should lead you to a study of them as serious and scholarly as the curriculum of any student from our ancient universities.’

  He signed the letter ‘Starfactor’, a name used also by Stewart. In case it became necessary at a later date to differentiate their letters Peter signed at the left-hand and Stewart at the right-hand bottom corner.

  When Peter handed this letter to Stewart to type he said, “Good stuff, don’t you think?”

  “Excellent,” said Stewart. “You are rapidly becoming as big a charlatan as I am.”

  “You mean you don’t believe in it?”

  “If I did I couldn’t write the convincing nonsense that I do.”

  “Well, I’m glad of that. I had an uneasy feeling that an Intelligence might be at work up there, waiting to pounce on anyone who made fun of it.”

  Stewart said, “Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t disbelieve in the existence of a First Cause. There must, indeed, have been an Intelligence to start things off.” When he settled back comfortably in his chair Peter suspected that a homily was pending. When Stewart lit a cigarette he was sure of it.

  “What I absolutely refuse to believe is that this supra-normal unbelievably intelligent Intelligence can have the faintest reason for fiddling round with the conjunction of certain astral bodies, or that such conjunctions can possibly affect human lives and characters on this planet. If you think that the relative position of stars and planets does have such an influence, then you must suppose it to be permanently accurate. Right? However, because of the influence exerted by Precession – which is, as I expect you know, the westward movement of the equinoxes on the ecliptic—”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “—the signs of the zodiac do not now agree with the constellations. For example, the first point of Aries is now in the constellation of Pisces. And if that doesn’t convince you—”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re right.”

  “—Then consider one further point. Suppose you had been born on September the fourteenth 1752. A happy member of the class of Virgo. Quite suddenly you learn that, as a result of the Calendar Act passed that year September the fourteenth has become September the twenty-fifth! You are now a Libran! Your whole character has been changed, by Act of Parliament.”