The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  “Do it all by late tomorrow morning,” Sir Austin said emphatically, as he rose to his feet. ‘I’ll look in at noon with your plane tickets, sufficient allowance in currency to take care of all your needs for three months, and an address where you can reach me in an emergency. Be prepared to leave London Airport at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You’ll land at Orly Airport outside Paris. Do not forget your passport.”

  “But I can be back in London in three months and it’ll be safe?”

  “Three months, four at the most. I promise you.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Then it is arranged. Remember this. Speak to no one outside your immediate relatives. Make no telephone calls and accept none from this moment on.”

  “One more thing. In Europe—Paris—what if someone recognizes me?”

  “No harm done. Simply keep your lips sealed, and certainly stay out of sight as much as possible until the trial is over. Good night, Miss Hart, and good luck to both of us.”

  To her amazement, it had all gone off without an incident. She left London and arrived in Paris as anonymously as any shopgirl on her way to a fortnight of fun.

  Sir Austin’s warning and assistance had come in the nick of time. Two days later, in the air editions of the London newspapers and in the international edition of the New York Herald Tribune, Medora Hart found herself the celebrated “mystery party girl” of the Jameson affair. The third of Jameson’s gay tarts had given herself up, turned Crown’s evidence, and named three other girls, one of them being Medora, and named a dozen lovers of these girls, one of them being Sydney Ormsby.

  Despite the fact that the English Channel stood between her and the scandal, Medora continued to be apprehensive about her personal safety. When the police learned that she had left the country for some unknown destination abroad, she had expected hounds to come baying after her. But there were no statements in the press that she was being sought as a witness, and no authorities of the law, either English or French, who appeared at her Left Bank hotel to make inquiries. Feeling safer, she began to relax and enjoy her new celebrity in print.

  Because Medora had been the youngest and most appealing of Paddy’s harem, because several of her men had been among the most illustrious names cited, and, above all, because she had seemingly vanished into thin air, she had been made into the most glamorous of the participants by the fiction writers of Fleet Street and the American wire services. At first, it frightened her, but soon she came to relish it, except for the difficulties of writing denials and explanations to her mother, who had been bombarding her with hysterical letters sent care of Cook’s in Paris.

  Six weeks after her flight to Paris, the long-awaited trial got underway in the majestic courtroom of the historic Old Bailey. From her hideout, Medora followed every word reported on the trial with curious detachment. It was as if she were viewing on television an entertainment featuring players she had never known. There were, indeed, marvelous strangers: the High Court Justice with his nylon wig and billowing black gown; the prosecution’s counsel with his hatchet features and knifing sarcasm; the defense counsel with his chubby bland sweetness and Church of England background. There were also the ones that she had known, but hardly knew now, speaking lines she seemed never to have heard before and mentioning acts that fascinated and shocked her. There they were, the victims, cornered: Paddy Jameson, the defendant, stuttering, shrill, dismayingly unamusing; the five girls, prosecution witnesses, overdressed, ashamed or defiant, posturing, defensive, self-pitying, determinedly respectable; the parade of males, England’s best, the ruling class, laconic, surprised, tricked, irritated, angry Paddy-victims.

  The legal festival went on and on, a smash hit, provocative reviews, standing room only. There was the mention of Sydney Ormsby’s name by two witnesses, one shown to be malicious, the other possibly unreliable. Sydney’s name but no Sydney, for there existed no solid evidence that he had known Paddy Jameson or one of Jameson’s girls—since the only conceivable material witness who might accuse him was missing, was unavailable to the prosecution. And throughout the trial, it was the elusive Medora Hart, constantly mentioned, who was becoming the star.

  She gloried in the attention, and read with fascination the serialized biographies of her life and times and loves in The People and the News of the World, the widely circulated newspapers that had always been her favorite reading. She reveled in her notoriety, which had some distinction, some naughty-Cinderella quality about it, and she did not understand her fame or infamy at all—until it was explained to her by a psychologist-journalist in The Observer, who could have picked, Medora thought, better photographs of her from the old ones in her mother’s album. According to the psychologist-journalist, the cast of characters involved in the scandal appeared captivating, colorful, exotic, when you saw them from afar or only read of their adventures. Paddy seemed a dashing gay Casanova and his girls seemed like so many fun-loving Nell Gwyns, and grudgingly, you either admired or envied them for daring to defy convention and rebel against the straitlaced mores of society, for being unlicensed and above and beyond ordinary man’s laws. But that was when you observed them from a distance, themselves indistinct but the image of them and of their behavior rather something to covet secretly. For these were of a class that made you restless with your own life, so limited, so anxiety-ridden, so repressed, so awfully dull, and you would look at these women and men and know you were missing too much that was a part of life, and that you would live and you would die and never once enjoy such audacious experiences.

  But then, suddenly, the members of the cast of characters were no longer to be seen from afar. They were right before you, right under your nose, dragged by the scruffs of the necks, defrocked of dignity and independence and privacy, and they were made to stand up within the four walls of a people’s room, within the confines of a witness box, and be tried for their misdeeds. And up close, they were less attractive, no Casanovas, no Nell Gwyns, but small drifting people, blemished, warped, misshapen, nasty, common, as viewed publicly by Justice’s clear eye looking through Freud’s relentless magnifying glass. You could see that they were not gay or cheerfully amoral, this clique of pleasure seekers, only lonely and lost and weak and afraid, self-destructive in their sexual aberrations, perversions, loveless givings and takings. Up close they were pathetic, they were tawdry, they were cheaply depraved, the petty thieves of normality and the frightened fugitives of life. The men were incapable of natural intercourse with healthy women. The girls were no better than ten-bob knocks behind the officers’ mess.

  Only one member of the cast of characters in the Jameson affair had not disappointed her public, the psychologist-journalist wrote, and this one was Medora Hart, and she had succeeded where her friends had failed only because she was not there to be seen in the flesh, close up, for what she really was, a tart like the rest of Paddy’s girls. It was because the disenchanted public still wanted its illusions that they had seized upon Medora Hart, romanticized her background, her beauty, her character, her indulgences, her immorality. Medora Hart alone would remain the single romantic figure of the trial, a desirable sex goddess, because, as ever, distance made hearts grow fonder. The only possible analogy was courtship and marriage. When you desired a mate but could not have her, when she was remote and inaccessible, you worshiped and loved her with abiding passion and imagined her as being able to dispense unspeakable delights, such as you imagined were offered by Helen of Troy or Cleopatra. But once she was brought close, yours in legal marriage, attained, possessed, brought down, divested of mystery and marvel, once she had become familiar and habitual, all foolish romanticism ended. Up close, the woman who seemed a goddess from afar became the tiresome, gossipy, bedraggled accountant of your income and caretaker of your snotty children. Medora Hart would remain the solitary authentic sex goddess of the miserable Jameson affair only as long as she kept her distance.

  This was bewildering to Medora, this analysis of her celebrity read in the c
onfines of her Paris hideout, and it bothered her, all that mean junk about Paddy and the girls and what they had been forced to do because that’s the way life was and that’s the way untutored and hungry young girls like herself were corrupted by older men who had power and riches.

  But soon there was more to read, and by now, bored with her anonymity and inactivity, eager to be free to reap the rewards of her fresh fame and return home, Medora impatiently waited for the trial to end and finally, it was over and done with, judgment made, sentence passed, implacable justice served. Poor Paddy. Of the five criminal charges on which he had been tried, there were three, all concerned with his role in promoting prostitution, on which he had been found not guilty; but on the remaining two, both concerned with his efforts at blackmail and his attempts to sell to foreign embassies the Government secrets he had acquired through his girls, he had been found guilty. He had been sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment.

  This was unhappy news, this cruel persecution of Paddy, but Medora’s distress was quickly alleviated by happy news for herself. The prosecution had decided that, since it had failed to convince the jurors that Jameson had been a procurer, it was not in possession of enough firsthand evidence to convict Jameson’s five party girls who were present, and Miss Hart, in absentia, of prostitution. Moreover, the public weal would not be served by extending the scandal through another series of sensational trials. And so the prosecution announced that it was dropping charges against the Jameson girls, the missing Medora Hart included, and that the Jameson affair was, once and for all time, closed.

  For Medora, in Paris, the thrilling proclamation of freedom was greeted with the excitement of an adolescent on birthday morning, on the last day of school, on social debut. For her, the wearying travail was ended, and just in time. It was almost three months since she had fled London, and in recent weeks the enforced hiding had become almost unendurable. Also, her allowance from Sir Austin Ormsby had almost run out. There was less than £150 in francs in her hotel safe-deposit box downstairs. There was but one formality left to her before homecoming. She must write to Sir Austin Ormsby, at the box number he had given her, to inform him of her intention so she could be positively assured that the prosecutor’s public statement had been no ruse and that she was, as were the other Jameson girls, absolutely safe. Ecstatically, she telephoned her mother long-distance to ask her to prepare her old room, and take some of her furnishings out of storage, and be ready to welcome her home. And then with great care, no reference to the trial, of course, she wrote a guarded letter to Sir Austin in care of his London post-office box and sent it off.

  After purchasing her plane ticket back to London, and while impatiently waiting for Sir Austin’s green light, she shopped for gifts for the family and neighborhood friends in the Rue de Rivoli and in the Faubourg St.-Honoré. A week passed, and there was no reply from Sir Austin. This worried her. They had not once dared exchange correspondence after she had left London, and somehow she had expected him to respond gratefully by return airmail to her first letter, in celebration of their mutual triumph. Yet, nothing had come in the post. Then, on the tenth day of freedom and waiting, a letter in a familiar hand arrived—familiar because it had been penned in her own hand. It was her own letter to Sir Austin, returned to her, the envelope coldly stamped by the Post Office RETURN TO SENDER.

  Upset, she placed the same letter in a fresh envelope, addressing this one to Sir Austin at the offices of his newspaper publishing firm, and she waited two days, five days, seven. Distraught, she wrote him three letters at the same time, addressing them to his business, to his country manor, and to Westminster Palace, all of them airmail and exprès. Not one was acknowledged. Frenzied by the frustration of it, as well as by her dangerously low funds, she sent Sir Austin one telegram, then a second. And these were not acknowledged. Now her hysterical anxiety gave way to anger—it was like the selfishness of a man you loved who, finished with you, simply turned over and went to sleep—and she determined to do what would have been unthinkable earlier. She telephoned Sir Austin at Ormsby Press Enterprises, Ltd., in London, and reached his secretary, and told the woman that she must speak to Sir Austin personally on a matter of urgency, and she gave her name, and she waited, self-assured once more. After a long interval, the secretary returned and said simply, “Sorry to have kept you, miss, but Sir Austin is unavailable.” In a temper, she demanded to know when he would be available. The secretary coolly replied, “I’m afraid I can’t say, miss. Sorry,” and hung up in her ear. Infuriated by the effrontery of the beast for not even pretending to be out of the city, she telephoned Sir Austin twice the following day, but apparently a warning about her calls had been sent down to the switchboard, for she got no further than the company operator who merely said, “Sir Austin is unavailable today.”

  With effort, that night, Medora contained her bad temper and tried to reason out why Sir Austin Ormsby was refusing to speak to her or even acknowledge her existence. Only one logical answer existed: Considering his position, he was afraid to have any contact with her or own up to knowing her. It was unfair, but at least it made sense. At once, she realized that she was overvaluing the necessity of any good word from Sir Austin. At this point, to be positively realistic, she had no need of him. Their lives had crossed briefly in a moment of bad crisis. He had helped her. She had helped him. The crisis was no more for either of them. Their relationship had ended, because the awful trial was over. The danger to herself was nonexistent. She was truly on her own. The air was free.

  The next morning, aboard a Caravelle jetliner, her heart singing, Medora flew from Paris back to her beloved London.

  The same afternoon, six hours later, tearful and in a state of near collapse, Medora flew from London back to Paris.

  Returned to Orly, still in a daze, she directed her luggage to be placed in a taxi and ordered the taxi to take her to the British Embassy. In thirty minutes, she was deposited at 35 Faubourg St.-Honoré. After tipping the driver to stand by with her luggage, she hastened into the horrid old building. The receptionist, bewildered by Medora’s incoherence, directed her to an office on the ground floor, and the gentleman there sent her to another office, and the lady there made several interoffice telephone calls and at last guided Medora to the young consular official, who was the one to see about her special problem.

  The young consular official, a brash and cheeky boy from Manchester, tried to be attentive and serious, as he ogled her bosom throughout her recital. Desperately attempting to calm herself, to be lucid, Medora poured out details of the morning’s shocking events at London Airport. She was a British citizen because she was included on her father’s naturalization papers, and she had been returning home from her holiday with her perfectly good British passport, but when she routinely displayed it to the uniformed immigration man, he had got as far as her name, suddenly stopped, studied her face and the photograph in the passport, and said, “You are Miss Medora Hart?” She had confirmed her identity. The immigration officer had said, “Will you have a seat, Miss Hart? Please excuse me. There is something here I must check.”

  Bureaucratic red tape, she had thought, and waited twenty minutes, with mounting annoyance, until the immigration man returned carrying not only her passport but a manila folder. Reluctantly, like a physician disclosing the discovery of a fatal disease to a patient, he had told her that due to special circumstances she could not be admitted to England at this time, at least not until her citizenship status had been fully investigated and reviewed. She had treated this news as a sadistic joke. But then, it had been the truth, the incredible, monstrous truth. She was being temporarily banned from her own homeland. She was Alice, and he was the Mad Hatter, and one of them was insane.

  Her protests, her demands for an explanation, her outrage, hastily brought a second immigration official to the aid of his colleague. Together, they had tried to clarify her position. Medora’s long-dead father had migrated from Hungary to England and become a naturalized c
itizen, but a very recent investigation had revealed that his application had what might be called “misrepresentations” in it, and so the legality of his naturalization was being questioned. The entire matter was up before the Secretary of State for the Home Office and his advisory committee, and eventually, it would be judged, but for the time being, the letter of the law must be observed. Members of his family were technically aliens, as he had been, and because of this circumstance, as well as the fact that Medora had been born in Budapest when her parents once visited their relatives there, she could not be permitted to re-enter England from abroad, at least not until the matter was settled. Since the citizenship case was pending, Miss Hart would be permitted, for the time, to retain her British passport—with a special restrictive stamp inside it—for use abroad, and she would have the status of a British protected person, but she would not be permitted to enter any part of the United Kingdom unless a favorable decision on her father’s certificate of naturalization was eventually rendered.

  In relating this to the British consular official in Paris, she could hardly recall what had happened to her next at London Airport. Dimly, she recollected that she had begun to rail and shout at the immigration officers, call them bloody lunatics, perverts. Nazis, anything obscene that had sprung to her mind. She had shrieked that she was as British as any of them, that this country was her home and no one was going to keep her from her home—and then she had tried to make a run for it. One of the immigration officers, and an airport guard, had caught her, held her, and she had beat at them and cursed them, and ranted about a plot against her, an illegal plot by filthy Government officials who were trying to convict her without trial a second time because they didn’t succeed the first time, and they were afraid of her.