Young Petrella

by Michael Gilbert

  “Do you think we ought to drop the case, sir?”

  Superintendent Barstow slowly turned a dusky red. “By God, I don’t,” he said. “What you’ve got to do is win it.”

  Unconscious of the clouds of political magnitude which were banking in the west, Petrella made his way quietly home that evening to his lodgings. His path took him through Barnaby Passage, and in the darkest part of the passage two figures came out to meet him. His heart gave a jump, then steadied again. They were only boys; as he now saw, two of the Harrington children, Ron, the ten-year-old, and a smaller one whose name he had forgotten. Ron seemed to have something he wanted to say, but as he spoke in a disjointed and breathless whisper it took quite a long time for him to get it across.

  When at last he had made his meaning clear, Petrella was filled with a deep and unholy joy.

  “Are you absolutely sure?” he said.

  “Course I’m sure,” said Ron. “Hazel’s got a friend whose sister chars for Missus Williams. She saw it. She didn’t like to say anything, see. But it’s there all right. On a little plate. It’s inside the back of the clock. That’s why Missus Williams never seen it.”

  “Ron,” said Petrella, “next time I’m here I’m going to bring you the biggest and most unsuitable box of sweets that money can buy.”

  “S’all right,” said Ron. “Corky, he won my money, by cheating, see. That’s why we thought we’d tell you. We don’t want no sweets.”

  “You shall have ‘em all the same,” said Petrella.

  The Case of the Police against Williams (and others) was one of the most remarkable ever heard in Helenwood Magistrates Court. And its crises were none the less real for not all being apparent on the surface.

  The presiding magistrate, Mr. Benkall, was not what is popularly called a “policeman’s magistrate”. He decided cases on the evidence produced and in the light of his own rugged common sense. But even he could not be unaware of the implications of the case he was hearing; of the crowds round the door, of the packed public benches, of eminent counsel in their places, and a press box, usually occupied by one elderly reporter from the Highside Mercury, but now bulging with representatives of the national Press.

  It took an hour to clear the routine matters and the case was called just before midday.

  By four o’clock in the afternoon it was apparent that the police were winning. The insidious Mr. Marsham-Tallboys had done his best with Mrs. Williams and his worst with the police, but on the whole it seemed probable that the evidence of one clergyman, six boys, one detective sergeant and one detective constable was going to be preferred to that of a mother, however sympathetically represented.

  It was time for the defence to call up its reserves. At four o’clock Mr. Councillor Hayes entered the box. He appeared as witness to character and told the magistrate that he had always found Williams a cheerful, honest and truthful boy, of very good family. He knew his mother well. A widow and a very worthy citizen. The family was a credit to Highside. He could not for a moment believe that a boy from such an excellent family would do the things imputed to him.

  When Mr. Collins rose to cross-examine, he seemed, for a moment, to have forgotten what he wanted to ask. He was an amiable teddy bear of a man, with the untidiest wig at the Old Bailey, and his kindliness and apparent vagueness had been deceiving criminals to their undoing for the past twenty-five years. He said at last, apologetically, “I’m afraid I missed your names – Mr. Hayes. Your Christian names, I mean. Could you repeat them?”

  Mr. Hayes, surprised, said, “Cedric Winstanley,” in the strangled tones of a man unexpectedly asked to repeat his Christian names in public.

  Mr. Collins repeated, “Cedric Winstanley Hayes,” in a dreamy voice and made a careful note on the margin of his brief. “You have, I believe, always been interested in local government topics?”

  “That is so.”

  “Am I right in saying that you gave a series of lectures on them, some years ago, to the London Institute of Civic Studies?”

  “That is correct.”

  “In fact, I believe, so appreciative were your students, that they presented you, at the end of the course, with a handsome walnut clock, with a small plate inside the back, as a token of their appreciation.”

  “I—yes—That is so.”

  “And this was one of the articles stolen from your house, some nine months ago, and never recovered.”

  “The police,” said Mr. Hayes with heavy sarcasm, and a glance at the Press, “have not succeeded in restoring it to me – yes.”

  “Really, Mr. Collins,” said the magistrate. “Wide though the latitude is that is permitted to counsel in this court, I fail to see—”

  He was interrupted. Mrs. Williams was observed to be on her feet and fighting her way through the crowd, towards the exit. The face that she turned over her shoulder as she reached the door was as white as paper.

  “I was only going to ask the witness,” said Mr. Collins gently, “whether he was aware that the clock was at this very moment to be found on Mrs. Williams’ drawing room mantelpiece. It can easily be identified from a plate in the back. . .”

  “How very satisfactory,” said Superintendent Barstow. “How really very satisfactory.” He ticked the points of satisfaction off on his fingers. “First, of course, that we won the case. I notice that has killed the news story dead. Secondly, that old Hayes should have made a perfect fool of himself in public – giving evidence about that woman’s respectability when all the time she’d got a clock stolen from him on her drawing room mantelpiece. Thirdly, that clock’s going to be a very useful bit of evidence when we go against Mrs. Williams for receiving goods stolen within the last twelve months: Section 43 of the Larceny Act, I needn’t tell you – and if she doesn’t go down this time, what with all the rest of the stuff we found in her cellar, I’m a Dutchman. And fourthly—” his finger waggled for a moment. There was, he knew, a fourth cause for satisfaction.

  “Oh, yes. Petrella’s promotion has come through. He’s a sergeant now. Probationary, of course.”

  Voyage into Illusion

  The steward was young, and the band of freckles across the top of his nose made him look even younger. He was carrying, not very expertly, a tray with glasses on it.

  A tall glass of iced lager went to the savage-looking woman who wore her bangles with the air of an experienced gladiator coming out for another dusty battle in the arena of life. A brandy-and-soda for the savage lady’s red-faced, white-moustached husband. Major and Mrs. Corret, said the steward to himself. A large part of his job was getting the right names attached to the right faces.

  A medium-sized gin with French vermouth for the girl in the cut-away linen dress with the gold hair and the biscuit-coloured suntan. French. Marianne something-or-other. You could always get by with a French girl by calling her M’selle.

  A large gin to Mr. Clinton, the owner of the yacht Medea. Mr. Clinton was his employer and had a smooth, round face, a smooth, round smile, and a sharp pair of eyes. A very large gin for Captain Harbert, the certificated skipper of the yacht. The second part of the steward’s trade was observation, and he saw that the Captain was already a little drunk. The large gin with a splash of water would take him a long step further.

  As he turned to go, the girl said lazily, “Oh, steward.”

  “M’selle?”

  “I take it you mixed this martini yourself?”

  “Yes, M’selle.”

  “By the light of your own unaided intelligence?”

  “Certainly, M’selle.”

  “Next time I suggest you use the book. It requires half as much gin, twice as much vermouth, and a dash of bitters.”

  The steward flushed, bowed slightly, and withdrew. As he closed the door he heard Clinton say reproachfully, “Stewards aren’t all that easy to get, Marianne.”

  The steward, moving away down the passage, shook his head like a diver surfacing after a deep dive. But there was no time for resentment. The
re was too much to do.

  The Medea, though all of two hundred tons’ capacity, could hardly be expected to carry such a luxury as a second steward. Until the four passengers were all safely tucked up in their own, or each other’s, bunks he was going to be on the run. If the weather had been bad, his job might have been easier, but the Solent had never looked calmer. The afterglow of a long summer’s day lay on the smooth sea like a mantle. How lovely it would be, he thought, to strip off the tight white uniform and dive into the water and swim to some beach where the sand was still warm from the sun.

  Major Corret’s cabin. There were two suitcases thrown on the bunk, one opened, the other one closed but unlocked. And a battered leather holdall containing brushes and a razor. A seasoned traveller, the Major. The steward’s fingers moved deftly, removing clothes and packing them neatly away in the built-in cupboard under the bunk. He seemed, somehow, to be cleverer at this part of his trade than he was at handing round drinks. One of the ties that he unpacked bore the broad stripes of the Brigade of Guards. Lower down in the case he found a Rifle Brigade blazer and a Royal Artillery silk square. An all-round man, the Major.

  His next call was the galley. The Breton cook, twenty stone of well-laid yellow fat, was in a temper. He had been in a difficult mood ever since the company had come on board at tea-time, and had been made no pleasanter by a criticism of his gateaux uttered by Mrs. Corret and incautiously passed on to him by the steward.

  He was chopping carrots with a very heavy, very sharp knife, and looking as if he wished it was Mrs. Corret’s fingers that he was shortening. “Any further grunts from the sty?” he enquired gracefully.

  “They’re drinking now.”

  “And soon they will stop drinking and start—” The cook employed a farmyard metaphor which lost nothing from being in earthy Breton.

  The bell in the little pantry sounded. With a sigh the steward picked up the tray. It occurred to him to wonder if the job was going to be as amusing as it had seemed when he was offered it.

  At ten that evening, on the top of the tide, the mooring cable was slipped and the Medea headed down the Solent. At eleven o’clock Major and Mrs. Corret retired to their cabins. At half past eleven Marianne followed. The steward, who happened to be in the companion-way outside the saloon, held open her cabin door for her and was rewarded, this time, with a smile. A minute later he heard the bolt click in the lock. At a quarter to twelve he fetched a drink for Mr. Clinton. At twelve o’clock, a further drink. At half past twelve he found the saloon empty, cleared up the glasses, and washed them in the sink in the pantry.

  The bell sounded, this time from the bridge. The steward frowned slightly, and made his way forward.

  At the wheel in the small, enclosed bridge-house he found the mate, Cairns, a monkey-like man who rarely spoke and never drank. The skipper was sitting against the side of the bridge-house, his head on his chest.

  “The skipper,” said Cairns, “would like some coffee. Black coffee.”

  “At once, sir.”

  “And I could do with some, too.”

  The coffee took time to brew. When the steward came back with it, the skipper was stretched flat, his head pillowed on a life-jacket.

  “The skipper no longer requires any coffee,” said Cairns. “You may have the other cup yourself.”

  The Medea was dipping softly now as it cleared the southern tip of the island and met the up-channel swell. The twin diesel engines purred like cats with a full night’s work in prospect. A big liner, remote but ablaze with light, snailed across ahead of them.

  “You’d better get your head down,” said Cairns. “You’ll have a lot to do tomorrow.”

  By eleven o’clock next morning the steward felt that he had already finished a heavy day’s work. The Correts had breakfasted and were reading in the saloon. Neither Clinton nor Marianne had appeared. The steward snatched a moment’s respite to creep on deck and see just where the enchantress Medea might have set them down.

  They lay in the land-locked estuary of the River Odet, half a mile above the fishing village of Benodet. The steward had never been to southern Brittany before, but he was aware of a feeling of familiarity. Indeed, it was more Cornish than Cornwall itself. The steep, high, enclosing riverbanks, close-carpeted with blue-black woods; the river, dark in colour, but clear; the glimpse of a grey stone roof among the treetops.

  Came a pattering of steps on the deck beside him, and a body went through the air in a kingfisher flash of blue and gold, and smashed the looking-glass of the river. He held his breath until she came up, twenty yards nearer the shore. Then he moved.

  Down in his cabin, a tiny cupboard off the pantry, he kept a pair of binoculars. His porthole commanded the eastern riverbank, and presently he picked out the white bathing cap. The girl was making for a wooden hulk, beached on the mud. She went on until she could hold the wooden stern post, and there she rested for a moment. Then she turned and started back, swimming lazily but happily, as if water was her element.

  A fat laugh blew off in his ear, nearly making him drop the glasses. The cook, silent in rubber soles, had padded in behind him.

  “Ravishing,” he agreed. “But not on the menu for you, mon gars. Now, suppose we get on with laying the lunch?”

  Clinton appeared in time for a pre-lunch gin. The steward was an adaptable young man. It had not taken him long to realise that if a servant behaved discreetly people would talk in front of him as though he did not exist. Perhaps he did not exist. Perhaps nothing was real in this floating world of silver and polished wood and old-young people . . . perhaps it was all an illusion.

  “I’ve never been treated so before in my life,” said Mrs. Corret. Her ugly little mouth was well shaped for sentences like that. “What do they suppose we are? A boatload of weekend trippers?”

  “Hardly, my dear. Hardly,” said her husband.

  “Then why should they come to my cabin this morning, when I was barely out of it, and search my luggage? They were there for an hour.”

  “You were lucky,” said Clinton. “I was still in bed.”

  “Bit unusual, isn’t it?” said the Major.

  “The routine varies,” said Clinton. “They’re well within their rights, of course. Benodet’s a customs station. But it’s the first time I’ve known them search the baggage.”

  “And what’s this about not going ashore?”

  “I think there’s been some confusion over that,” said Clinton. “A message from Paris that’s been misunderstood. It will all be cleared up by tonight, I’m sure.”

  “Meanwhile,” said the girl, “I am the only one of you whose feet have touched the soil of France. And very muddy soil it was.” She wriggled her bare toes in her sandals.

  “They’re not being unreasonable,” said Clinton. “I told them the cook would have to go ashore for stores this afternoon. They raised no objection.”

  “Decent of them,” drawled the Major.

  The steward made a mental note. He would have to see whether he could go with the cook. Actually it was quite easy. The cook raised no objection. He appeared to have taken a liking to the steward.

  They put two large store baskets into the dinghy and rowed the half mile downstream to the ferry and the landing stage. The cook, for all his bulk, handled the oars daintily; every time he leaned forward at the top of his stroke his singlet gapped away from his chest and showed the words Toto Cherie in startling purple relief.

  They tied up below the Bac and went ashore. It took an hour to find all the fruit and vegetables and fish they wanted. At the end of it the cook headed for a fisherman’s bistro near the port.

  “But I ought to be serving tea,” said the steward.

  “Let the pigs forage for themselves,” said the cook. “I require a drink.”

  It was a small, dark place, which looked like a general store, but had a bar tucked away at one end. The cook ordered pineapple squash and rum, which he mixed together and drank with slow enjoyment. The steward
had a cup of gritty chocolate. As they were finishing, the man behind the bar said something in the harsh local dialect and the cook hauled himself up and rolled across. For a minute the conversation continued.

  The bulk of the cook obscured the space in front of him, but it seemed to the steward that something was being pushed across the zinc counter. He got to his feet and moved over. The cook’s big hand closed on something. It looked like a flat packet of cigarettes. The next moment it was gone.

  “Really,” said the steward, “it is past five.”

  “Let us go then,” agreed the cook.

  Nothing was said as they walked back to the dinghy. Nothing as the cook bent again to the oars. As they neared the yacht, however, he paused for a moment in his labours and said, “Nothing, I suggest, need be mentioned of a visit to the bistro.”

  “I agree, of course,” said the steward solemnly. Nevertheless, he seemed to be deeply preoccupied.

  So much so that he made several mistakes in serving drinks that evening and was pulled up sharply by Clinton. There was a feeling of tension in the saloon, which was not improved by the fact that general permission to land, though expected, had not yet been received. When, at last, the steward got to bed, he did something he had not done before. He slipped home the bolt on the door of the little steel cupboard where he slept.

  Next morning the atmosphere was lightened. A customs officer arrived, full of smiles and apologies. A grave mistake had been made. Of course the passengers might land.

  It was too late to organise a lunch ashore, but a picnic tea was packed by the steward into a hamper and lowered into the dinghy. He had half expected that he would be detailed to accompany the party, but in the end it was one of the deck-hands who rowed them to the jetty at the foot of the wooded slope and shouldered the basket as the party set out on the winding path, the girl running ahead, and disappeared into the bluey-green of the woods.

  The steward had out his useful glasses and watched them as they went. His attitude seemed to suggest that he felt some crisis in his affairs to be approaching.