So far as he was concerned, the north side which he had previously been guarding, could be burgled or burnt down or thrown wide open and he wouldn’t be expected to raise so much as a finger to stop it.
4
There was a man coming down the steps of Mr Barks’ office block. He made a small dejected figure as he emerged into the roadway, and anybody catching sight of him and noticing the company that he’d been keeping might have taken him for someone caught up at the wrong end of a judgment summons. But it was nothing of the sort, really. He wasn’t a debtor: he was a benefactor.
He was Mr Frederick Josser. And all because of a silly thought and a dream, he’d just made himself responsible for the extra hundred pounds of Percy Boon’s defence.
Chapter XLIV
1
Connie had got two gas‐masks.
Not that there was anything dishonest about that. The second one had been practically forced on her right back at the time of the Munich scare. Simply because her head was so small she had been asked to go over to the other, the children’s queue, and they’d given her a different gas‐mask, case and all. Naturally she didn’t grumble. She simply said ‘Thank you’ and walked out with the kid’s model hanging over her arm and the misfit stowed away inside her coat. The little straps and all that beautiful rubber still looked as though they might come in useful sometime.
She had taken a lot of care of the one that really fitted her. She had put moth‐balls in it. That was why every time she tried it on she nearly choked. But it was worth it. She didn’t intend to find the mask full of holes just when she needed it.
It was time to try it on again to‐night and she’d put it out on the table for an airing. When her eye caught it, she shuddered. There was something sinister and skull‐like about it resting there. It gave her the creeps. But only for a moment. When she had actually got it on, she couldn’t help laughing. She didn’t recognise herself with that grey, pig‐like snout in front. And it was rather fun going boogie‐woogie at her own image – at the grey pig’s image, that is – in the mirror.
But while she was standing there, a thought that crossed her mind took all the fun out of it. She remembered Duke. Snatching the mask off her head the way the man at the distribution centre had shown her not to, she went over and stood underneath the cage.
‘Poor little Dukey‐bird,’ she said. ‘If the nasty stuff comes, Auntie’ll hold a handkerchief over Dukey’s beak so that he shan’t smell it. Auntie won’t let little Dukey‐bird get frightened.’
But it was one thing to be cheerful to a canary, and quite another to believe what you say. She’d only been talking that way so that Duke shouldn’t start worrying. It didn’t help her any. She was frightened. And it was no use pretending that she wasn’t.
Not being frightened of being hurt. Or knocked unconscious. Or losing a leg. Or anything like that. Just frightened of dying. And this was odd because the older she got and the less she had to live for, the more frightened she became. ‘I’m no dewy rose‐bud. You couldn’t cut me off in my prime if you tried,’ she told herself. But it didn’t help. She still didn’t want to die. She had only to close her eyes and see herself stretched out cold on the bed, so small that it might have been a dead child lying there, for tears to overcome her.
And that was largely because of the funeral. There wasn’t a soul in all London, not one out of the eight million – except perhaps Mr Josser – who would take the trouble to go to the graveside. There wouldn’t even be any graveside. She had once after bronchitis joined a burial society. But the payments had lapsed years ago – as soon as she really got better in fact. When her Maker called, it would be the Parish that would have to take over, unless the Actors’ Benevolent stepped in. It wasn’t a consoling thought, was it? Not at Connie’s age.
There was a footstep outside, and she paused for a moment to listen. It was Mr Puddy. There was something about his footsteps – slow, ponderous, majestic – that intrigued her. It was like the County Hall coming downstairs. Behind that tread was weight, and an imperturbable solidity. It was sheer mass in motion.
Then an idea came to her. Slipping her child’s gas‐mask over her head again she pulled the door ajar and stood behind it.
‘Boo,’ she said at him as he went past.
She hadn’t forgotten that he’d accused her to her face as it were of trying to steal his sugar that time the cupboard fell, and she’d been looking forward to getting her own back on him.
2
Percy was seeing Mr Barks for about the six hundredth time. It was rather flattering in a way having Mr Barks turn up at all hours. But it was a strain, too. Mr Barks took notes of everything you said, and if you didn’t say the same thing twice running Mr Barks caught you out on it. Just to show how clever he was. But not so clever as he thought. Percy was beginning to see through him.
To‐day, however, everything had passed off very smoothly. Mr Barks was in a good humour. In a new blue suit and wearing a buttonhole, he looked more like the best man at a registry office wedding. He didn’t tell Percy straightaway what it was that had made him so obviously pleased with himself. Instead, he lectured him on the virtues of truthfulness.
‘No r’p’tble s’lic’tor ever undertakes a case ’less he’s satisfied as to the acc’racy of his client’s story,’ he insisted. ‘Simply isn’t done.’ Mr Barks sucked in a quick mouthful of air and continued: ‘B’t ’isn’t only that,’ he said. ‘It’s the jury. They’re the people who notice. One slip – just one little slip – and you’re out. That’s the one thing a jury looks out for – inconsist’ncy.’
The jury! Percy felt a little trickle of cold run down his spine. He’d got nothing to worry about. Mr Barks had told him so. All the same he couldn’t help feeling nervy. It was having to say the same thing over and over again to Mr Barks that made him feel that way.
‘I’ll remember,’ he said.
‘Not that you’ve got anything to worry about,’ Mr Barks went on, using the same comforting phrase that Percy clutched at every time he heard it. ‘I’ve got Veesey Blaize f ’you.’
Percy looked blank, and then he grinned politely.
‘Veesey Blaize, y’know,’ Mr Barks repeated.
Percy grinned again. Evidently Mr Barks had done him a good turn. ‘Heard of Veesey Blaize, haven’t you?’ he asked.
Percy shook his head.
This display of ignorance seemed to annoy Mr Barks and he tt‐tited with his tongue against his teeth.
‘Ver’ big man,’ he said. ‘Ver’ big man, indeed. Leadin’ counsel, y’know. S’pose you know what a leadin’ counsel is?’
Percy nodded. He couldn’t go on admitting that he didn’t know what things were. If he did, Mr Barks would lose his respect for him. In any case, whatever it was, if Mr Barks was pleased about it, it suited him.
‘Only just agreed. Needed p’suading. Ver’ busy man.’
Percy grinned again. It made him feel a fool having Mr Barks going on talking like that without explaining himself. Perhaps it would have been easier to follow him if only he didn’t talk so fast. He hadn’t even understood at first that Veesey Blaize was a man. He sounded more like a sort of patent fire‐lighter.
‘What’s he going to do?’ he blurted out.
And then he was sorry he’d said it, because it made him sound silly.
‘Goin’ t’do?’ Mr Barks asked in amazement. ‘He’s goin’ t’defend you. That’s what he’s goin’ t’do.’
A doubt came into Percy’s mind, and that unsettled nervy feeling returned to his stomach.
‘D’you mean you’re… you’re chucking it?’ he asked.
‘Chucking it?’ Mr Barks repeated. ‘I’m ’structing him.’
‘O.K.,’ said Percy. ‘I get you.’
Mr Barks, however, could see that he hadn’t got him. He was just getting ready to leave. But he stayed long enough to give his client a short course in criminal law.
‘Small cases, police court stuff,’ said Mr
Barks dismissing nine‐tenths of his practice with a wave of his hand, ‘S’lic’tor appears in person. County Court, take your choice. Sometimes one thing, sometimes t’other. High Court and Central Crim’nal Court, quite different. S’lic’tor doesn’t appear at all. Not allowed. Wouldn’t be proper. Only counsel.’
Percy tried to get the blank look off his face. Things were getting clearer.
‘Is… is the man you said just now the judge?’ he asked.
But Mr Barks was too much engrossed in trying to make the two flaps of his brief‐case come together to explain any further.
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he said. ‘You’ll find out. May want to come here. May not. Ver’ busy man. Trial’s not so far off, you know. Haven’t got long to wait now.’
Mr Barks tapped loudly on the cell door with the cap of his fountain pen and the warder came along to let him out.
In the half‐open doorway Mr Barks turned and looked back again. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘and try to remember about the catch on the car‐door. If it was loose, you’d remember it. In a case like this ev’rything’s ’portant. Try to remember by next time I see you. Don’t worry.’
And Mr Barks was gone.
Try to remember! That’s the one thing you can’t try to do. Either you remember, or you don’t. You can’t just sit down and start remembering things you’ve forgotten. It doesn’t make sense. Of course, if Mr Barks wanted the car door to be loose, he could have it that way. Percy didn’t mind. Mr Barks could have the bloody thing clean off its hinges so far as Percy was concerned.
And so could Mr… Mr… the man Mr Barks had said.
Mr Barks had just been passed through the last of the locked doors and he had given the curt but friendly parting nod with which a prosperous solicitor salutes a policeman. With his black Homburg hat tilted a little to the back of his head because the weather was so hot, he looked a pleasantly robust sort of figure in the shabby surroundings of the prison. He was stumping along, his shiny shoes twinkling.
‘Elementary education,’ he kept saying to himself. ‘Elementary education. What does the tax‐payer get for it? What does any one get? What do the teachers do with themselves? Look at Boon. Left school at fourteen and never heard of Veesey Blaize. Never even heard of Veesey Blaize.’
3
Mr Squales had found it very hard to forgive Mr Puddy the incident of the salmon. Not merely the sordid indignity of it, but the sheer physical injury as well. His ankle if not actually broken or sprained, was at least badly twisted and he could get about only by resting his weight heavily on an ebony and silver cane that had once been Mr Vizzard’s.
Not that it mattered so far as looks are concerned. There is something oddly attractive – with a hint of bravery and old war‐wounds about it – in a well‐dressed, well‐built man having to support his weight on a walking‐stick. Mr Squales practised sitting down with the cane between his knees and his two hands clasped thoughtfully on the knob. Besides, he rather liked the stick for itself alone: the knob had got a hall‐mark – lion and everything – stamped there. It seemed too good to be kept in the back of a lumber cupboard.
And it was most important that he should learn to use it properly because he had a date with Mrs Jan Byl on the Tuesday. Not merely a business engagement either. This was something more in the social way of things. An invitation to take tea. Mr Squales had been slightly disappointed when he had first heard. But Mrs Jan Byl had hinted that there might be one or two other guests who might be useful to him. Then Mr Squales tumbled to it at once. She was giving him a break. All that he had to do was to go along and look interesting and see if his luck was in. On the financial side there was clearly nothing for it but to grit his teeth and, with Mrs Vizzard’s help, to hold on a bit longer.
He managed to get out of the house without telling Mrs Vizzard where he was going. It wasn’t easy because Mrs Vizzard was more loving and solicitous than ever. Almost too loving in fact. It came at times dangerously close to the cloying. She was all over him. Like a spaniel. But that was simply because she was afraid of losing him. Her anxiety and her infatuation were such in fact that Mr Squales realised that if he had been the mercenary sort he could easily have taken advantage of her.
‘And why the devil don’t I want to tell her where I’m going?’ he asked himself. ‘It won’t do any harm. It’s not an address to be ashamed of – Hyde Park Drive. It’s good hunting. Why can’t I? I don’t know. But I can’t.’
The words ‘Hyde Park Drive’ made a rather pleasant pattern in his mind and he kept repeating them. ‘From Dulcimer Street to Hyde Park Drive’ he said to himself once or twice. ‘From a back bed‐sitter to a butled spread.’
The bus put him down as usual at John Barker’s and he took a taxi round the corner in case Mrs Jan Byl or any of her useful friends should be standing at the front window as he was arriving. But the taxi couldn’t put him down exactly outside the house because there was a pantechnicon there. Mr Squales’ stomach went cold inside him.
And what he found left him stunned and dismayed. Mrs Jan Byl was apparently moving house. Moving house without having said a word to him about it. The front door was open and a roll of drugget extended up the wide staircase that last time had been carpeted in a very nice piece of rich red Turkey. Coming down the staircase was a bureau, or escritoire or something, supported by two men and with a piece of sacking tied round it to protect the corners. Mr Squales stood politely to one side, sucking the silver knob of his walking stick, waiting for them to pass. Then he went up the steps and rang the bell.
Evidently the whole smooth running of the household had been dislocated, and it was a few moments before anything happened. Mr Squales was just about to ring the bell again when one of the house‐maids appeared with a kind of dusterish thing tied round her head.
‘Mrs Jan Byl?’ Mr Squales asked politely.
‘I don’t think she’s at home, sir,’ the maid told him. ‘What name is it, please.’
‘Qualito,’ he answered. ‘Professor Qualito.’
‘Will you come in, sir?’ she asked. ‘I’ll see if Madame is in.’
‘I am expected,’ Mr Squales said simply.
She showed him into a small morning‐room from which the furniture had gone already. There were now only boxes and packing cases left. Mr Squales considered sitting down on one of them but, remembering nails and his own new grey trousers, thought better of it. He remained standing in a dignified, superior sort of fashion, watching bookcases, what‐nots and ornamental statuary go past him down the stairs and out into the van.
It had just occurred to Mr Squales that they had obviously forgotten all about him when he heard Mrs Jan Byl’s voice. He rested his weight on the silver and ebony stick and arranged his face in a polite incredulous smile. But even though Mrs Jan Byl was coming down the stairs in his direction, she appeared to be somewhat preoccupied.
‘…then they’ll have to take them all out again and pack them separately,’ she was saying. ‘They might just as well be left here as thrown into a case without sufficient wrapping. Good gracious!’
She had come into the room and found Mr Squales standing there.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I… I understood that I had been asked to tea,’ Mr Squales replied.
Mrs Jan Byl pinned back one of the curls that had escaped over her forehead.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘but I asked my secretary to phone you. She said she couldn’t find the number, and I told her to go on trying.’
Mr Squales carefully preserved the smile that he was wearing. But inside he was angry. Very angry. Apparently he’d come tagging half‐way across London just to be made a monkey of.
‘Didn’t your maid announce me?’ he asked.
Mrs Jan Byl was testing the rope round one of the packing cases. ‘Someone did knock on my door,’ she admitted. ‘But I sent her away again. I was far too busy.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Squales slowly. ‘Then I can o
nly apologise. I fear that I’m intruding.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Jan Byl. ‘Since you’re here, you may as well have a cup of tea. You’d better come up into my study. I need someone to talk to.’
‘I only heard the other night from someone right inside the Cabinet exactly what the Germans intend to do if there is a war,’ Mrs Jan Byl was saying. ‘They’re coming over here with ten thousand planes straight away, as soon as it’s been declared, if not before, and they’re going to destroy London. Of course, Mr Chamberlain may still be able to do something. But my friend says that he knows for a fact that Chamberlain doesn’t really like Hitler any more. And where there’s no love, there’s no understanding. You see what I mean?’
‘Quite,’ Mr Squales told her, without either.
‘The whole government’s in a panic, all except Mr Chamberlain,’ Mrs Jan Byl continued. ‘I know that for a fact. There aren’t enough air‐raid shelters to go round. That’s why they’re buying shrouds. They’re clearing all the big hospitals, too. My maid told me.’
‘And so you’re moving out of London?’ Mr Squales asked politely. ‘Only going down to Withydean,’ she told him. ‘You’re surely not stopping in town yourself ?’
Put that way, the question rattled him. It made the security of Dulcimer Street seem somehow less secure. But there was only one thing to do and that was to be big and manly about it.
‘I shall remain where my work is,’ he said.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mrs Jan Byl answered. ‘I suppose you’ll be called up in any case if there’s a war. How old are you?’
Mr Squales hated these direct questions. They stirred up everything in him that was best left unstirred. So he answered evasively.
‘Not too old to fight,’ he said. ‘Not too old to do my bit.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Jan Byl brusquely. ‘I mustn’t sit here gossiping. I’ve got work to do. You’d better come down to Withydean yourself if the raids get too bad. That is, if there is going to be a war, of course. You don’t know anything, I suppose?’
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