The Crack In the Teacup

by Michael Gilbert

  “You shall have it.”

  “I’m talking about your Borough Engineer and Surveyor.”

  “Hamish Macintyre? A difficult man to deal with. I should hardly have said a crook. Have you got any proof?”

  “Nothing concrete. He seems to be trying to drive Colonel Barrow out of business.” He repeated what he had been told that afternoon.

  “The law’s the law,” said Mr. Sudderby. “It’s hard on a private householder, but if those really are the regulations, he’s got to enforce them.”

  “It was the drainage line that stuck in my throat. It looks as if he’s persuaded the Council to proceed under the Private Street Works Act so that Colonel Barrow will have to pay for it.”

  “What would be the object of a manoeuvre like that?”

  “If the school was forced to sell up,” said Anthony, slowly, “someone could get their hands on a very valuable bit of building land, right in the middle of the new town development—if the development goes out that way.”

  “And you think that Macintyre might be going in for land speculation.”

  What was missing in Mr. Sudderby’s reactions, thought Anthony, was any sense of outrage. His lips were framing the right sentences, but there was nothing behind them. It was running like a good scene played by a bad actor.

  He said, “There have been hints – in the local press – that Macintyre had a personal interest in the new underground car park on the front. It’s got a very profitable monopoly. And it’s helped by the fact that there’s no municipal car park within easy walking distance of the sea.”

  “I should say, myself, that that was just newspaper speculation.”

  “I thought so too when I read it,” said Anthony. “Now, I’m not so sure. Who told the police not to press the case against Roper and Mason?”

  “Roper and Mason?” Mr. Sudderby looked blank for a moment. “Oh—those two boys. I don’t know. I suppose they weren’t worth powder and shot.”

  “If they can prosecute me for parking six inches outside a white line, surely they can do something about boys who break up a dance hall.”

  “But I thought you were defending them.”

  “I was. And I want to. But I can’t. If the case had gone on, I might have been able to find out who owns the Pleasuredrome.”

  Mr. Sudderby remained silent for so long that Anthony looked up. When he had put the same point to Inspector Ashford it had kindled a slow anger. Fear was an even more surprising reaction.

  When Anthony had gone, Mr. Sudderby took out his pen and started to answer his letter.

  “Dear Eric,” he wrote. “It was nice—”

  But his hand was shaking so much that he had to stop.

  Chapter Nine

  The Independent Caucus Holds a Meeting

  All the windows in the small committee room behind the Council building were open, but it was still too hot. The Independent Party was assembled in nearly full strength.

  At one side of the table sat Raymond Southern, dapper and at ease; Lincoln-Bright looking important, Jack Crawford sulky, and Miss Cable bemused.

  Opposite them, General Crispen, with the neat army look which had been stamped on him at Woolwich and which had not worn out in more than half a century; Miss Barnes, adjusting her new hearing-aid; Mrs. Coverdale, in all her many satin-covered inches a parson’s widow, and Willie Law, brown of face, slow of speech and rooted in the soil of the Liberties. Miss Cable, proprietrix of the Marine Hotel, was at the far end. At the head of the table sat Mrs. Lord, fragile, inconsequent, and yet, in her own indefinable way, more secure than any of them.

  “I think that’s the lot, Madam Chairman,” said Southern. “George Gulland, I know, can’t get here, and I have an apology for absence from Mr. Andrews. Would you like to start the proceedings?”

  Mrs. Lord considered the matter. It was clear that something was expected of her. A prayer? Perhaps not. A vote of thanks? But that usually came at the end. To gain time, she switched on her smile of womanly helplessness.

  “You do these things so much better than I do, Mr. Southern,” she said. “I abdicate in your favour.”

  “You flatter me,” said Southern. “Then if the meeting has no objection—?”

  The meeting had none.

  “Our object this morning is to consider our tactics, as a party, in the forthcoming elections. As you know, by the ancient constitution of this Council, one-third of its members retire each year. This year five of us go out. We are, of course, all eligible for re-election—if we wish to stand again.”

  He paused for a moment, as if inviting comment, but got no more than a cough from Mrs. Coverdale.

  “This year, the five longest in office are myself, my colleague in the Victoria Park Ward, Mr. Lincoln-Bright, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Law and Mr. Sellinge.”

  “You must add me to your list,” sighed Mrs. Lord. “I have done my duty – and more than my duty – to Barhaven. It is time that age and experience yielded place to youth and new ideas.”

  There was a murmur round the table which might equally have been dissent or applause.

  “This isn’t the time for any of us to back down,” said Crawford sharply.

  “I’m not talking of backing down, Mr. Crawford. I’m talking of yielding my seat to another who will support the Independent code.”

  There was a sharp click. Miss Barnes had at last got her hearing apparatus in working order. She said, “I think it’s a great pity we have any party divisions on the Council at all.”

  “I think it’s a pity,” said Southern. “But since we’ve got them, we have to operate that way.”

  “We didn’t start it,” said Lincoln-Bright. “It was only when those left-wingers got together and started calling themselves Progressives and voting as a bloc that the rest of us – the Conservative element – had to protect themselves.”

  “I still think it’s a lot of nonsense,” said Miss Barnes.

  “When I first went to my preparatory school,” observed General Crispen, “a large boy grabbed hold of me and said, ‘Are you Oxford or Cambridge?’ I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about, so I said, ‘Which are you?’ and he said, ‘Oxford’ so I said, ‘So am I’. I’ve supported Oxford ever since, with undiminished partisanship.”

  “What I take it you’re saying,” said Southern, “– and if it is, I agree with you – is that all you really need is two sides. It doesn’t matter what you call them, Conservative and Socialist, Republican and Democrat, Black and White. Once you’ve got two sides, all questions can be argued out between them.”

  “Surely,” said Mrs. Coverdale, “you are ignoring the question of Right and Wrong.”

  “Right and Left, you mean,” said Crawford.

  “You can talk till next Tuesday,” said Miss Barnes, “you won’t persuade me that there’s any God-given reason why Barhaven should extend east rather than west. We, as Independents – stupid name – why not be honest and call ourselves Tories? – we happen to have sponsored a plan to go east. All right. It’s a plan. Let’s stick to it. But don’t let’s pretend it’s a judgement from Mount Sinai.”

  “Do we have to listen to all this guff,” muttered Crawford.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Miss Barnes, slewing round.

  “Really, Crawford—”

  “I think,” said Mrs. Lord, “that that might have been expressed more tastefully.”

  “Hear hear,” said Willie Law.

  “All right, all right,” said Crawford. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a formal meeting. Perhaps I used informal language. If it gave offence, I apologise.”

  “I’m far from certain,” said Miss Barnes, with a face like stone, “that I accept your apology. And might I suggest, that if there’s one thing more likely than another to harm the Independent cause, it’s the behaviour, in public, of the senior member for Marine East.”

  Crawford turned scarlet and there was a moment of silence.

  “And I’ve no intention of apologis
ing for that,” added Miss Barnes.

  Southern got up, went across to the door, and switched on an electric fan. Then he came back, sat down and said, “If we might take it that the preliminaries are concluded, should we get down to business?”

  Mrs. Lord, who had watched the scene with bright, birdlike eyes, said, “If we don’t, all the shops will be shut, and I have a piece of lace I particularly want to match.”

  Southern glanced round the table. No one else seemed to have anything to say.

  “The real object of our meeting seems to have been in danger of being overlooked,” he said. “By an unhappy coincidence, at this most urgent moment in the municipal history of Barhaven, no fewer than four out of the eleven members of our Independent group are due for re-election. And only one of the so-called Progressive opposition. I suggest we don’t waste our time arguing about the merits of the party system in local politics. Let’s just face the mathematics of it. If three out of the four of us fail to appeal to the voters of Barhaven”—his eyes rested for a moment on Crawford—“and three of the opposition get in, our numbers in Council will, by my calculation, be equal. But since one of us has, at the moment, the honour of being Lady Mayoress, and therefore, ex officio Chairman, we would, in that case, have the benefit of her casting vote which I am bold enough to assume would be exercised in our favour. Nevertheless, as I think you’d agree, the situation would be too tight to be comfortable.”

  “That’s an extra, very strong argument, Madam Chairman,” said Lincoln-Bright, with a gallant gleam of his well-fitting dentures, “against your depriving us of your support and advice at this critical moment.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Lord. She was drawing a dog on the pad in front of her. It looked as if it was going to turn out to be a long-haired dachshund. “Do you realise that simply by being a councillor, I am depriving the town of one representative. We have sixteen elective seats. Even if I resigned my seat in the Dollington Ward, as Mayoress, I should still, ex officio, be a member of the Council. And,” she added with a sweet smile at Lincoln-Bright, “entitled to the casting vote on which you set such store.”

  “That’s true,” said Mrs. Coverdale, “but suppose a Progressive got your seat. The votes would then be nine eight and there wouldn’t be any question of a casting vote.”

  “That’s true enough,” said Southern. “And it underlines the fact which I’ve been trying to rub into all of you – and which, I repeat, is the purpose of this meeting. We have to fight this election, and we have to fight damned hard. We don’t want to lose any seats.”

  “You and Lincoln-Bright should be safe enough,” said General Crispen. “The Victoria Park Ward is business. And businessmen mostly vote Conservative.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Southern, “because neither Jack nor I have had much time for canvassing.”

  “And I don’t see Mr. Law coming unstuck.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Law. “We’ve got a lot of new smallholders in the Liberties these days. And don’t forget the caravan site. When you put those people up there last year, I warned you.”

  “Do they get a vote?”

  “Certainly. A caravan’s a house, for voting purposes. And they’ve put up a candidate of their own. Will Stitchley.”

  “In that case,” said Crawford, “we might as well write the seat off. They’re bolshies to a man. And they can outvote the farmers two to one.”

  “I think it’s scandalous,” said Mrs. Coverdale, “that a man with a van – here today, gone tomorrow – can vote equally with a man who has farmed five hundred acres for a generation.”

  “Scandal or not,” said Southern, “it’s a fact. It looks as though we’ve got to regard Willie Law’s seat as doubtful. Then we come to you, Jack.”

  “Don’t bother about me,” said Crawford. “I can take a hint. If my face doesn’t fit, I’m quite prepared to stand down.”

  There was a murmur of dissent.

  “If you stand down now, Jack,” said Southern, “there’ll be no time to nominate another candidate. That means that your opponent gets a walk-over.”

  “Who is standing against Mr. Crawford in Marine East?” asked the General.

  “My opponent,” said Crawford, “is that eminent journalist and crackpot, Mr. Arthur Ambrose.”

  “We can’t have him,” said Lincoln-Bright.

  “Terrible man,” said Miss Cable.

  “He would no doubt enliven our proceedings,” said Southern, “but I think, on the whole, we should get on better without him.”

  “Do I take it, then,” said Crawford, with a sour smile, “that it is the general feeling of the meeting that I should not stand down?” He directed a venomous look at Miss Barnes, who ignored it.

  “My dear Jack,” said Southern, “we none of us want you to withdraw. The idea was entirely your own. Now then – to details. First, the usual eve-of-poll meetings—”

  Chapter Ten

  Anthony’s First Visit to London

  Anthony caught the Commuters’ Special to London and at ten o’clock was entering the offices of Messrs. Moule, Mainwaring & Co. in Bedford Row. He was shown straight into Dudley Powell’s room. Dudley was a few years older than Anthony and had a wife, two small boys, and a passion for boats. Photographs of all of these were arranged on his mantelpiece, the wife smiling, the boys scowling, and the boats heeling over at improbable angles.

  “I’ve fixed a con with Martin Hiscoe for half-past ten,” he said. “That’ll give us plenty of time to stroll down. How’s Barhaven?”

  “Pretty crowded, just at this moment.”

  “I often wish that I lived in a proper town. I’ve a feeling I should enjoy local politics.”

  “Come to Barhaven. We’ve got plenty of them.”

  “It’s an idea,” said Dudley. “No, seriously, I mean it. Now that the boys are growing up we shall have to think of getting out of London. I’d get some sailing, too.”

  “If I see a house, I’ll let you know. Incidentally, your best chance of getting one is probably on this very development we’re opposing.”

  They talked about this as they walked along Bedford Row, across High Holborn, and through Lincoln’s Inn on their way to the Middle Temple.

  “This is local politics,” said Anthony. “The Independent Party on the Council – they’re the Tories really – want to go east. The Progressives – who are Radicals – want to go west.”

  “Unusual, that,” said Dudley. “Reds usually seem to be drawn to the east. We can take a short-cut through the courts here.”

  “The eastern development’s logical enough,” said Anthony. “But it happens to be the wrong side of the town. And it’ll mean putting up the wrong sort of house. Nice, expensive, detached residences for the idle rich.”

  “Like me.”

  “Quite so. But if the town went west, on to its existing roads and drains and services, we could put up a lot of economical little houses – maybe even a few blocks of council flats – and then we might manage to start rehousing the people who live in the slums.”

  “Do seaside towns have slums?”

  “They have them,” said Anthony, “but they keep them behind the main line railway station, so that visitors will have their backs to them when they arrive.”

  As they crossed the Strand and plunged down Middle Temple Lane Anthony added, “Another thing against going east is that we shall lose our cricket ground.”

  “That’s the strongest argument I’ve heard so far,” said Powell.

  Mr. Martin Hiscoe, of Counsel, was a very tall man and his clothes seemed to have been specially designed to accentuate his length. He wore tight, well-creased, striped trousers, a black coat, cut long in the tail, and a high old-fashioned collar. On top of the collar was balanced an incongruous, round, pink babyish face.

  “Come in,” he said. “Come along. Good morning, Mr. Powell. Nice to see you again. This is—oh, yes—Mr. Brydon. I’ve met your father. A fine man. I
met him at Sandwich in 1935 in the Halford-Hewitt Cup. He was playing for Tonbridge. I was for Charterhouse. We both lost our matches.”

  Anthony gazed round the agreeable book-lined room, more a study than an office, with its view across the Temple Gardens of the Embankment and the river. Like most busy solicitors, he envied Counsel their dignity, their power to pick and choose their clients, their opportunity to specialise, their soft path upwards to the dignity of the Bench.

  “An interesting case,” Mr. Hiscoe was saying, as he untied the red tape from the fat bundle of papers. “But not without its difficulties. On the face of it, this is simply an appeal by Mr. Shanklin, a householder of Haven Road, Barhaven, against the refusal of the Kent County Council as planning authority to allow the building of a terrace of four shops with accommodation over. He was advised that his best course was to make an application to develop, knowing that it was likely to be turned down, since it conflicted with the plans of the Borough Council – quite so. He then appealed against the refusal, and has succeeded in forcing a local enquiry.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And where exactly is this development going?”

  “It falls into three parts. There’s the piece which belongs to the Council already, behind the promenade extension. They salvaged that, and no one disputes that they’re entitled to do what they like with it. And there’s the southern nine holes of the Municipal Golf Course.”

  “I’ve had many a game on it,” said Mr. Hiscoe, a real spark of enthusiasm warming his voice for the first time. “Many a game – it must be one of the best municipal courses in the south of England.”

  “It won’t be if they cut off the last nine holes,” said Powell.

  “I suppose not. But I interrupted you.”

  “That’s typical of the whole scheme. It’ll take away the cheap, public course from the local inhabitants and leave the expensive one – that’s the Splash Point Country Club – for wealthy visitors and a few local residents who’ve got enough pull or money to get into the Country Club.”

  Mr. Hiscoe looked at Anthony for a moment, with his head on one side, and then said “Deplorable,” in a neutral sort of voice. “But proceed.”