by L. P. Davies
Nolan was startled at the abrupt change of topic. He had to think. “A little over ten years, Mr. Champlee.”
“When did they make you a director?” Cunningly worded. Not ‘How long ago?’ but ‘When?’
Nolan answered both. “Three years ago, sir—in nineteen sixty-six.”
A Sunday in 1969, he was saying, with no proof to back up his statement. .
A Monday in 1979 was Louise’s story, and she had the proof of the handbook.
Axel said: “You came here to help me. Very well. When I came away from Barkley House I left papers behind. Papers that I need now. Can you get them for me?”
Nolan looked down at his knees. Shiny blue-serge knees. Cheap cloth, cheap off-the-hook suit. The Sunday suit of a labourer or mechanic, not the working clothes of a company director.
“Can you do that for me?” Axel wondered, knowing what the answer would be.
“Barkley House. The Holy of Holies.” Nolan looked up. “Virtually a fortress, sir. You know that. Burglarproof; you made it that way. Even if I had the keys—” He shook his head, lips pursed. “I don’t think that’s a job anyone could tackle, Mr. Champlee.”
“You wouldn’t be afraid?”
“Afraid? Oh—I see what you mean, sir. No, it’s not that I’m afraid. I know something of your sister; I don’t think she could have anything to do with her husband’s plan to break you. She didn’t drug you, sir. I’m sure of that. Neither did Gregson. Who else was there, sir?”
Who else— Axel thought back. “Only the maid. What’s her name? Hazel.”
“She could have been got at.” Upper teeth nibbling lower lip, Nolan frowned over his thoughts. The idea took hold, grew. He looked up, small features animated. “That’s what must have happened, Mr. Champlee. It all makes sense. Hazel was bribed to drug you in the hope that you would think your sister responsible. This would cause dissension between the two of you. I think you did what they hoped you would do. You got out of the house as quickly as you could. Leaving the field open for Kendall Ibbetson to work without fear of interruption.”
“You are going to suggest that I ought to go back.”
“I honestly think you should, Mr. Champlee,” said Nolan fervently. “You can do no good here.”
“Could you take me there?” Axel wanted to know. “Could I walk out of this house now, seat myself in your car and have you drive me to Grenfelle and my own front door?”
“Of course, sir.” The little man seemed perplexed by the precise way in which the journey had been described. “Only—” His voice tailed away.
Axel raised one sandy-brown eyebrow. “Only what, Mr. Nolan?”
“With respect, sir, I think we ought to wait until it is dark. You have enemies—that much we are sure of. They will almost certainly be watching Barkley House. In any case, sir, you won’t be able to do much today.”
“It being Sunday,” Axel said, teeth slightly on edge from an overdose of over-servility. “So we wait for darkness.”
“And another thing, sir … They may even have traced you out here as I did. They may be watching the place now.”
“I wait for nightfall, Mr. Nolan, and then I creep out on my figurative hands and knees to meet you at some prearranged place. Is that what you have in mind?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that would be the best.” On his feet, suddenly anxious to be away, it seemed, Nolan pointed. “At the end of this lane, sir, the corner where it joins the other road. I’ll meet you at ten o’clock.”
“And drive me to Barkley House.” Axel looked directly into the other’s eyes.
There was no flicker there, no hesitation. Nolan was telling the truth when he replied: “Yes, Mr. Champlee.”
In the hall Axel asked a question he had been saving. “Do you know anything about a concern called Mosaic, Mr. Nolan?”
Nolan, a few paces ahead, halted abruptly in mid-stride, was slow about bringing his foot to the ground, took his time in replying.
“No, I don’t think I’ve heard the name before, Mr. Champlee.”
“A Grenfelle firm.” Axel opened the front door. “Their building—offices, I suppose—are on the corner of Barkley Mews.”
“Yesterday,” said Nolan regretfully, “was the first time I’d ever visited Grenfelle. I live on the other side of London.”
He shook Axel’s hand—“An honour meeting you, Mr. Champlee; a great honour.”—climbed into his car, backed into the drive and drove away with one hand lifted in salute.
Axel went back indoors.
According to Nolan, 1969. According to Louise, 1979.
Which?
The proof of the date of the handbook, said the memory of Louise; and if more is needed, you have seen for yourself that there is no such place as Barkley House.
On the other hand … Axel felt certain that Nolan hadn’t been lying when he had said that tonight they would go together to Barkley House. Or had he only believed Nolan because he had wanted to believe?
No. He shook his head. It had been the truth. The house existed as he had always known it did. His memories of it were too vivid for it to be fantasy. Barkley House was real, and so this was the year 1969. And the handbook? Faked; specially printed for the occasion. Could such a thing be faked?
Axel looked round the hall. He went back into the library, from there to the pink and gold room, then to the dining room, the kitchen, even the larder and a wash-house. He went upstairs, into each bedroom in turn, into the bathroom and the solitary tiny attic.
There wasn’t a newspaper of any kind in the house, not even used as linings for drawers or under carpets. Like the Swan, there was neither radio nor television. There was no telephone directory. There were no old letters tucked away in pigeon-holes or in the corners of pictures. The only calendar in the place was in the kitchen, a white-enamel perpetual calendar that told the day, the date and the month, but not the year.
8
It was half past eleven when Louise returned.
“I’m afraid I’ve been longer than I thought, Axel. Did you think to make yourself a drink? I forgot to tell you there’s coffee and stuff in the larder.”
Make himself a cup of coffee … He had never had to do anything like that in his life.
“No. Did you find out anything, Louise?”
“Let me get the kettle on first. I’m parched.”
He followed her into the kitchen. Draping her cardigan over the back of a chair she busied herself filling a kettle.
“I found out something, Axel.” She set the kettle on the stove. “How it all fits, God alone knows. At least it sort of tightens things up.” She opened a cupboard. “It’ll have to be instant coffee, do you mind?” And: “Oh—your things are in the car. I hope they’ll suit you.”
He restrained himself with an effort. “And just what have you found out?” -
She grimaced. “Not so much as I might have done if I hadn’t happened to glance up and see one of our friends of last night’s kidnap attempt watching me through the window. At least I think it was the one who tried to grab me. He was some distance away, skulking behind shelves. I slipped out through a side entrance and drove round Norwich a while just to make sure he wasn’t following me.”
She brought cups and saucers to the table.
“I’d better start at the beginning. There was an oldish man in charge of the reference library. I told him I was interested in buying shares, that someone had recommended Mosaic to me and I wanted to find out about the firm. He was very surprised 1’d never heard of them. He said the advice was good but too late, that even if I could lay my hands on any of their shares I’d have to pay the world for them. If I’d bought a few years back, I would have made a small fortune. Anyway, he brought me some books, helped me find the right pages and talked while I was reading. So now I know quite a lot about Mosaic. It was started in nineteen seventy-three by one Moses Coxby—”
“Yes.” Axel nodded without having to be asked. “I know the name. I’ve heard it somew
here before.”
Louise smiled complacently. “I had the feeling you would have done. If any more bells ring, tell me. Well, Coxby used the name Mosaic because it was similar to his own first name, Moses. It was an advertising agency at first. Press promotion-adverts in papers and magazines. Then another man— an actor-producer—came in with him, and they started branching out. I’ll keep this new name till later, Axel. They started making commercials—you know—adverts for the commercial television—in—I forget what year. I made notes of all the dates. They’re in my handbag—”
She would have gone for it, but Axel motioned for her to stay in the kitchen. “That can wait. I want to hear the rest of this.”
“I’ll have to guess at the dates, then.” The kettle boiled and she flew to the stove, there to pour boiling water into a jug, wafting steam away so that she could watch him while she continued with her story.
“For a time Mosaic were content to go on making adverts for the commercial television companies. Then—in nineteen seventy-six, I think it was—a new company called Independent Countrywide Network, ICN, started up. And in the following year Mosaic applied for their charter to start broadcasting on their own.
“Which, according to my library informant, was nothing more than a cunning move. Mosaic’s idea was to get the new station going nicely, then sell out to ICN at a profit. But it didn’t work out that way.”
Louise brought the coffee to the table. “Black or white, Axel?”
“White.”
“Say when. It didn’t work out, because ICN weren’t interested. So Mosaic were left holding the baby. And just as they were on the point of collapse, three more men joined the company, bringing money with them. They launched out with new programmes, including one, ‘Midas,’ which turned out to be very successful. Mythology, by the sound. And, according to my friend at the library, who was inclined to be scathing about it, something of a gimmick. But Mosaic got away with it, and the boot was on the other foot. They drew viewers in large numbers away from not only ICN and the other commercial companies, but even from the BBC. ICN is now sinking into the depths while Mosaic is riding the crest. Their place we saw in Bridford is only a small affair. The main studios and transmitter are just outside Birmingham. And that’s it, Axel. Except for the bits I’ve saved to the last. The name of the man who first teamed up with Coxby is Adrian Wolfax. He’s one of the directors now. And one of the other directors has a very familiar name. Julius Sibault. And don’t you dare shout coincidence at me.”
“I won’t.” Axel put his cup down, laid his hands flat on the table, one on either side. “I know all those names. And not a damn one means anything.”
“I was brooding about it on my way back,” the girl said. “There’s a fight going on between ICN and Mosaic. A fight to the death, I suppose. A great deal of money must be involved. Do you think you could be mixed up in it in some way?”
“I don’t know.” He studied his splayed fingers, soft white fingers that must never have seen manual work. “If I said either yes or no, I’d only be guessing. Louise—” He looked up. “This house … What do you know about the people it belongs to?”
She gaped at him, cup poised halfway between table and lips. “That was a sudden change of topic.”
“I have a reason.”
“Name—Renfrew.” Her cup completed its journey and she frowned over its rim with the effort of assembling scraps of knowledge. “Friends of Uncle Vince. I’ve never met them. Oldish, I think. He used to be a surgeon.”
“How long has the house stood empty?”
“Quite a long time. Must be three months or more. They’re on a world cruise.”
“That could partly explain it,” he mused.
“Explain what, for heaven’s sake?”
“No letters or bills knocking round, no old newspapers, none of the usual junk one might expect to find lying round.” “Tidy people,” Louise said, watching his face. “You’ve only to explore the kitchen. You can tell a person’s character by the state of their odds-and-ends drawers. Apple-pie order.”
“No telephone directory and not a calendar in the place that tells the year.”
“So that is it.” She put her cup down. “I had half an idea you were on that track. So you still won’t accept—”
“While you were away,” Axel broke in, “I had a visitor.”
She listened intently, engrossed, coffee growing cold. Her first interruption came early on. “That matches the description of the man who followed me to Bridford on Sunday morning, and who came looking for a room at the Swan.”
And later—angry and incredulous: “You mean he actually told you it was nineteen sixty-nine?”
“And Sunday,” he added. “Not Monday.”
“We can soon sort that part out for you,” she declared. “Go and look in the car—all the stuff I’ve bought. Shops don’t open on a Sunday.”
And when he had finished: “He said he would do that?
He actually said he would take you to Barkley House? You’re not going to meet him, Axel?”
“No,” he told his cup.
“Because deep down you know he must be lying.” She made a statement of it, not a question.
“That’s not the reason. He was telling the truth; he can take me back home again. But I daren’t let him. What they want me to do, they want me to do in Barkley House. Nolan was sent to persuade me to go back.”
“Oh!” Furious now, Louise was on her feet. “Damn him, whoever he is! Now we’re right back at the start. You’ll never be able to bring back the real you while they keep this up. They wait until I’m out of the way. The minute I’m gone—” She looked at him. “He came as soon as I’d left?”
“I thought it was you coming back for something you’d forgotten.”
“I didn’t pass a solitary car along the lane. Or the road.”
Axel smiled sideways. “I didn’t imagine it.”
“You brought him inside?”
“We talked in the library.” And as she made to leave the kitchen: “You won’t find anything. I couldn’t offer him a drink. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t even move a chair.”
But she went just the same. But to go on a tour of the house, by her footsteps; still furious, by the slamming of distant doors. Still smiling his sardonic smile, Axel went into the hall to wait for her.
She came storming down the stairs, face flushed, hair dancing to her angry steps. “This is just plain stupid! There must be something in the place I can use to prove what year it is!” The library door was open. “Books!” she cried; “publication dates… Those’ll settle it once and for all!”
He stood in the doorway while her tour of the shelves turned into a rampage. Shelves of old books, collected works. Thackeray, Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen. Space-fillers and nothing else, it seemed. Bought for the cheap snob dignity of leather bindings and gilt titles. The Handbook was the only volume there to carry a date later than 1969.
She swept past him into the hall, across it and into the room of rose-pink walls and spindle-legged furniture. And there the twentieth century ugliness of the telephone shouted its existence at her from pseudo-Louis XIV fragile, faded elegance.
She made for it. “What did he say the name of his firm was?” she flung back over her shoulder.
“Towton Engineering,” Axel told her from another doorway.
Louise dialled with vicious stabs of her finger.
“Exchange? Put me through to the Norwich Public Library … No, I don’t know the number. I don’t have a director}’.” She waited, one foot tapping out her impatience. Looking up she caught Axel’s gaze. “You’ll see,” she told it. And: “Will you put me through to the reference section, please … I was in earlier enquiring about a firm called Mosaic … Yes, that’s right … I wonder if you could help me again … Towton Engineering … I’ll hold on. Thank you.”
She beckoned peremptorily to Axel. “I know what they’re going to tell me. I want you to hear for yourself.
”
He went to stand at her side. She held the receiver equidistant between their ears. And after a short wait a man’s voice said: “I’m afraid there is no firm of that name listed in any of the directories. Are you sure you have the right name?”
“I’m sure. Thank you.” The girl replaced the receiver. “Well?”
“Nolan told me it was only a subsidiary company,” Axel said. “It will probably be listed under the parent company.” “Oh—” Louise restrained herself with a visible effort. “There’s got to be some way.” She looked at the telephone. Her expression changed. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
She picked up the receiver again, stabbed at the dial again. “Exchange?” She met Axel’s puzzled gaze. “I would like to put through a call to a place called Grenfelle. The address is Champlee, Barkley House.”
“There was no need to have bothered the exchange,” he said mildly. “1 could have given you the number myself.”
“No doubt you could,” she retorted drily. “And no doubt someone would have answered. Whoever’s behind all this has things pretty well organised. But one thing they can’t do, and that is drag in the entire staff of the telephone exchange. So any moment now you’re going to hear someone saying that there is no such place as Grenfelle, no such address as—”
“My phone is out of order,” he reminded her.
“That was Friday—three days ago. No phone stays out of order that long. Ah—” She held up the receiver. “Now listen to this, Axel.”
“This is a recording,” a woman’s voice announced. “Mr. Axel Champlee of Barkley House, Grenfelle, regrets that owing to pressure of work he is unable to accept any personal calls, now or at any time in the future. He thanks you for calling him and hopes you will understand why he is unable to talk to you.” A click, and the dialling tone was back.
The anger flush faded from the girl’s face. She stared at the receiver as if it was something alive.
“They put me through—” she breathed incredulously. “No questions, no hesitation—they put me through.” She looked up. “To a place that doesn’t exist…”