Beggar’s Choice
Page 4
I hadn’t any idea how to find Falcon Street. People who hadn’t any more idea than I had told me to turn to the left and then to the right and keep straight on for half a mile and turn sharp to the left by the policeman. When you ask a man the way, he never says he doesn’t know. I went a good bit out of my way after listening for about five minutes to an old gentleman with a beard and a string bag full of lettuce.
When I found Falcon Street, I didn’t like the look of it very much. The houses were shabby, and most of them had dirty curtains in the upper windows. One end of the street had a sprinkling of brass plates, but most of the houses looked like cheap lodgings. At the other end were the sort of shops that serve that sort of street-a butcher, whose shop was pretty good propaganda for vegetarianism; a baker, with a window full of flies and wasps; and, bang on the corner, a flourishing looking public house.
The baker was 186, and the butcher 184, so I crossed over, and found the numbers on the other side all muddled up in the crazy way you sometimes find in a London street. The first I struck were 1, 2, 3; and I found that they were, properly, part of Falcon Crescent, which started round the corner. I worked back to 1, and next to it were 203 and 204-and goodness knows what they belonged to. Then I struck 186a, which was a little mixed sweet-shop, very grubby. And next to it there was a tobacconist with no number at all. Tobacconists always know everything, so I thought I’d go in and ask for 187 and the International Employment Exchange.
The shop was very dark and stiflingly hot, and thick with the smell of tobacco cum fish and chips. I should say at a guess that about six people had been eating fish and chips and drinking beer in some windowless lair opening off the shop. There were seven or eight men banked up between me and the counter, and a girl in a scarlet blouse and a lot of pearls was behind it. I got into a corner out of the way of the door and waited. As I hadn’t come to buy, I thought I had better wait until the crowd cleared off. The bother was that it didn’t seem to clear. Three of the men were young fellows, lads of the local village, and they were chaffing the girl and getting back rather better than they gave. Then there was a beery old man who said he hadn’t got his right change, and a pal of his who was trying to persuade him that he had, and a very large man with a very soft voice who was trying to get the girl to listen whilst he told her what sort of pipe he wanted. The place was like an oven.
I had got out my handkerchief, and had begun to mop my face, when another man came in. He was a fat man in City clothes. He went through the crowd and up to the counter as if the place belonged to him. Perhaps it does. Anyhow the lads rather melted away, and the girl stopped giggling and went out through a door at the back of the shop. There was an appalling influx of fish and chips-so I was right about the lair. And then she came back with a little sallow greasy man with a diamond ring on his little finger and hair oil that I could smell through all the other things.
I worked round nearer the counter so as to try and catch the girl when the large man who wanted a pipe had said his piece. And as I stood waiting, I heard the fat City man ask,
“Any news?”
The other man said, “Not yet.” And then he said, “There hasn’t been time-is there?”
I couldn’t help taking notice of what they said, because the fat man looked so out of place in that beastly hole, and besides, I thought I knew his voice. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see his face. He turned his shoulder, leaned on the counter, and said,
“No, there hasn’t been time-to-morrow would be the earliest-but did Benno…” His voice went away into a mumble and I lost the rest.
Fortunately the girl with the red blouse had stopped giggling. The large man was choosing his pipe as slowly and carefully as if his life depended on it. She was most awfully bored, and only said “Yes” and “No” between yawns.
The little man with the hair oil spread out his hands in an eager sort of way.
“Benno give it him-oh yes, he give it him nice-he shove it right into his hand-and there he stand and read it with all his eyes. Five hundred pounds! Something to read about-isn’t it?”
He laughed, and I took out my handkerchief and began to mop my face again, and as I mopped it I edged backwards into the dark corner by the door. I didn’t think I’d got to go any farther to find No. 187 and the International Employment Exchange. It seemed to me that I’d landed right in the middle of it, and I wanted pretty badly to hear some more about Benno and what he’d been up to. I got into the darkest place I could find and kept my handkerchief handy. And all the time I was puzzling about where I’d heard the fat man’s voice, and whilst I was puzzling he took off his bowler and had a mop at his head with a silk handkerchief, and the top of his head was bald. That ought to have been a help, but for the life of me. I couldn’t place him. I listened all the harder.
“Bound to rise-he’s absolutely on his uppers. Now look here-it’s just possible he may come in here. He’s at a loose end, and he may get it into his head to come nosing around. If he does, you don’t know anything-naturally.”
The little man spread out his hands again, and the diamond on his finger twinkled.
“Not a word. How do I know? If he come, I say nothing-I know nothing-I speak nothing-isn’t it?”
The fat man put on his bowler and nodded. Then he beat with his hand on the counter.
“Now look here-that isn’t all. If he does come, I want to know what he’s looking like and how he speaks. I want you to be sharp. Get him into talk about anything you like and watch him a bit. I want to know how keen he is. You understand?”
The hands went out again.
“Yes, yes, yes-if he come, I see how he look. Hungry?” He threw an abominable cunning into his voice and looked knowingly out of screwed up eyes. “Yes, he will be hungry. Five hundred pounds is a good dinner! He will be hungry to swallow it-isn’t it? Oh, my, my, my, my, my!” He began to laugh. “And not a word to the other-no, no, no!”
The man in the bowler lifted the flap of the counter and walked through.
“I want a word with you about that,” he said, and they went out through the door at the back of the shop, and as soon as they were gone I nipped out into the street and got round the corner.
I thought I had found the International Employment Exchange, and I thought I would post my letter even if it did cost me a penny halfpenny; for I had no manner of doubt that I had heard Hair-oil told to size me up, and I thought I wouldn’t give him the chance.
VI
September 15th-Something has happened which I can’t understand at all. I was too wild to write about it last night, but I’m going to put everything down to-day.
I posted my letter to the International Employment Exchange and came back to my room, where I made quite a decent supper of bread and cheese. I was just about ready for it, as I hadn’t had anything since breakfast. I’m getting quite good at knowing how long one can go without it’s being uneconomic in the long run. I suppose one really used to eat a great deal too much.
When I had finished my supper I opened the drawer where I had put Isobel’s letter-and it wasn’t there. That sounds awfully bald, but that’s how I felt. It wasn’t there. I felt as if I’d tried to take a step that wasn’t there to take. You know how that brings you up short. I took everything out of the drawer-there wasn’t much to take-but the letter wasn’t there. Then I went through the other drawers, and every minute I was getting angrier because, although I felt bound to go on looking, I knew that the letter was gone, and that meant that some one had come into my room and taken it. I turned out everything I’d got, and I went through my pockets. But the letter was gone.
I went downstairs in a rage and tackled Mrs. Bell. At first she was as angry as I was, and said no one hadn’t ever accused her of thieving. But after a bit she sobered down and was pretty decent about it in a sentimental sympathizing sort of way, so I had to beg her pardon, though I really preferred her being angry. I don’t know why she should have thought it was a girl’s letter, because of cour
se I took care to say it was about business. She told me a long story about a letter she’d had from her husband before they were engaged, and how there was mischief made-“And you couldn’t believe the artfulness, nor the perseveringness of that girl Maud. All was fish that came to her net, whether it was her own young gentleman or some one else’s-and a bad end was what she did ought to have come to, instead of marrying the greengrocer and riding in her Morris car like a lady. Some folks have all the luck. And don’t you never trust a red-haired girl, Mr. Fairfax. Sandy eyelashes too, she had.”
She’s not a bad old thing. Just as I was going out, she called me back.
“What about that rent, Mr. Fairfax?” she said in a hesitating sort of voice.
I felt an awful brute.
“I haven’t got it, Mrs. Bell.”
“Well, you’d give it me if you had-I know that.”
I thought I had better know the worst, so I asked her if she wanted me to go, but she flared up all over again, and said she wasn’t a bloodsucker nor a thief, and folks that misjudged other folks would live to be sorry for it. And then she began to cry and talk about her son that was killed at Mons, and I patted her on the shoulder, and she said I was his living image-which I hope to goodness I’m not, because the photograph she’s so proud of is pretty awful. And then she got to calling me “my dear,” and I escaped. She’s an awfully good old soul.
On the way upstairs I met Fay. Her door opened just as I passed. She had on the green lace frock she was making yesterday, and I should think she’d used the best part of a box of make-up on her face. I can’t think why. Her skin’s good enough when she leaves it alone. She came out looking at me as if she wanted me to flirt with her. It didn’t improve my temper. Women always seem to think they’ve only to look at you through their eyelashes, to get anything out of you that they want. It makes me wild. So I was going on; but then I thought of something, so I turned back.
“Did you come up to my room for anything whilst I was out?”
She began to put a sort of scarf thing over her head.
“Why should I?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
She looked over her shoulder.
“Would you have been sorry if you’d missed me?”
I suppose it was rude of me, but I said “No.” Fay wants whipping.
She whirled round in a rage.
“Thank you! How polite you are! Do you really flatter yourself that I should come running after you into your beastly attic?”
I said, “I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense. I can’t think why you can’t answer a plain question. I’ve lost an important letter, and if you’d been up to my room-”
She stamped her foot.
“Why should I come up to your room?”
“You might have wanted me-and you might have noticed the letter if I’d left it on the table.” Of course I knew I hadn’t left Isobel’s letter on the table. I knew I had put it in the right-hand top drawer of the chest of drawers.
Fay dropped being angry.
“Would you like me to come and pay you a visit?”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
“Perhaps I will some day.”
It’s no good talking to her when she’s in that mood. I turned my back and went upstairs, and when I was about half way up I heard her run down into the hall so fast that I was afraid she’d break her neck. She didn’t. She went out and banged the door as hard as she could.
I went back to my room, and when I opened the door something rustled. I bent down to look. There was a scrap of paper dragging along with the door-I could just see the edge of it. I got it out with a match and looked at it under the gas. It was a scrap of writing-paper with one word on it. The word was, “hide.” Isobel had written it. The piece of paper had been torn from her letter. I looked everywhere, but there were no more pieces. Some one had come into my room whilst I was out and torn up Isobel’s letter. I didn’t believe it was Mrs. Bell.
VII
September l7th; morning-I’ve got a lot to write, but I’ll begin at the beginning.
I got an answer from Box Z.10 by the first post. It was typed, and there was no address at the top of the paper, only Box Z.10, and underneath that: “Your letter received. Ring up Victoria 00087 and ask for Mr. Smith between eleven and eleven-fifteen.” There was no signature.
I thought that was an odd way of doing business, and I began to feel sure that there was something fishy about the whole thing-no address, no signature, only Mr. Smith and a telephone number. I pretty soon found out that the number belonged to a shop. The name was Levens, and it was a stationer’s. Lots of shops of that sort have a telephone that their customers can use, and I thought that Mr. Z.10 Smith was going to stroll in at eleven o’clock and take my call. It would be the easiest thing in the world-he’d go in and say he was expecting to be rung up, and it would be no odds to anybody so long as he was willing to pay for his use of the telephone; and if any one came along and asked questions, I was ready to bet that nobody in the shop would know anything about him. What I thought the fishiest part was having his letters sent to one place, and getting himself rung up at another. Falcon Road is N. W., and Victoria 00087 is S. W. I thought it was damned fishy.
I waited till five minutes past eleven, and then I rang up. A woman answered me at first. She had one of those die-away voices that you can’t really hear. I kept on saying “Mr. Smith-I want to speak to Mr. Smith”; and she kept blowing into the telephone and making sounds like a swooning mosquito. And then, just as I was wondering whether the whole thing was a plant, she faded out altogether, and I heard a door shut. Then somebody else said “Hullo!” and I said “Hullo!” And then he-I thought it was a man-said, “Mr. Smith speaking. Who are you?” And I said, “Carthew Fairfax.” The voice had called itself Mr. Smith, but I couldn’t have been sure that it was a man who was speaking.
As soon as I had said my name he said,
“I’m here in answer to your letter.”
I said, “Yes?”
“Am I to understant you wish to proceed?”
“I would like to have particulars-I said so in my letter.”
“Yes-certainly-but this is a confidential matter.”
“You’re either prepared to tell me what you want, or else I don’t see how I can be of any use to you.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Smith-“exactly. But the matter is confidential, and my client would wish to be assured of your discretion.”
“Your client?”
“I am acting for a client.”
I wondered if he was. I said,
“I don’t see how you can be assured of my discretion. In fact, I’m not prepared to give any assurances. I want to know what it’s all about.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Smith-“exactly. Will you be outside the corner house of Churt Row and Olding Crescent to-night at ten o’clock?”
I wondered whether I would. I waited for a moment, and Mr. Smith said,
“Will you be there?”
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t let his voice get eager, but I could tell he was keeping himself in. He said,
“You don’t know whether you want the money?”
I didn’t want him to think I was suspicious, so I rose to the bait. I said I’d come. He sounded quite chirpy after that, and began to boss me.
“Mind you’re not late. And please remember to bring the advertisement with you, together with the letter you received this morning. These will be your credentials, and it will be useless to present yourself without them. Good-morning.” He rang off.
I walked home in two minds whether I would go or not. If it hadn’t been for Fay, I don’t think I’d have touched it. No-I don’t know whether that’s true-the mere fact of the thing being so fishy intrigued me-I wanted to know why I had been picked out to have a spoof advertisement palmed on me, and why Mr. Smith was being so careful to cover his tracks. Letters to Falcon Street, N. W. An accommodation telephone somewhere in Victoria.
A rendezvous somewhere else. I hadn’t the remotest idea where Churt Row and Olding Crescent might be. And, most unpleasantly suspicious of all, I was to bring my “credentials.” I wasn’t under any illusion as to what that meant. Mr. Smith was going to make sure that neither the advertisement nor his careful typewritten letter remained in my hands. When I had presented my “credentials” they would vanish-at least that’s what I thought. And just because I thought all that, I wanted to go. I believe the worst part of the sort of life I’ve been living for the last three years is its dull, grinding monotony. You go on and on, just keeping alive. You get jobs, and you lose them. If you don’t get them, you go under. Nothing happens.
I’d a bit of trouble finding out where Churt Row and Olding Crescent were-no one ever seemed to have heard of either of them. I had to go down to Mrs. Bell’s cousin, who keeps a little newspaper shop, and ask him to let me have a look at a tape map-he sells that sort of thing as a side line. I found I should have a longish walk. Churt Row was in Putney, and there was something that might have been Olding Crescent running out of it, but there was a worn place where the map had been folded, and I couldn’t be sure of the name. I thought it was good enough.
It was a darkish evening and warm. I allowed plenty of time and meant to get there early, but after I crossed the bridge I took the wrong turning and it got dark suddenly. There was some heavy clouds about, and I wondered if it was going to rain at last. I found Churt Row, a little quiet street with trees on either side and houses with pocket-handkerchief gardens in front of them. Olding Crescent ran out of one end. The houses were bigger and only ran along one side of it; on the other there was the high brick wall of some big garden.
I began to walk up and down and wonder whether Mr. Smith was going to keep me waiting. I heard ten o’clock strike on a church clock, and before the air was quiet again a car drew up at the curb-a Morris four-seater with the hood up. The driver put out his head.