‘You certainly are,’ agreed the ex-Inspector. ‘You’d like to change things a bit, I daresay?’
Mr Howard drank deeply from his tankard and his small green eyes narrowed.
‘I could resign, myself, and join one of the big clubs,’ he said, ‘but then I shouldn’t be a secretary – not for years, anyway – and I like organising. It satisfies you if you’ve got it in you. Besides, if you can see the way to work really difficult things like runs and club dinners and sight-seeing tours and you haven’t got the authority it gets on your nerves to see someone else doing it badly.’
He spoke feelingly, and Blest nodded his complete agreement.
Stimulated by a second pint Mr Howard spoke again.
‘If we called ourselves by a proper name – the Merton Road C.C. or something like that – and got rid of our stage associations we could be one of the finest, smartest little clubs in London,’ he said with sad conviction. ‘As it is, what happens? Where are we going? Our real tiptop-liners are leaving us for clubs with more scope, while a handful of older members who like to get round the stage-door run this bloke’s publicity stunt for him. They get free passes for the show – we all do, I admit that – but I’m a cyclist. I like fresh air and the road under me.’
He paused and refused the cigarette Campion offered him, explaining that smoking was bad for his wind.
‘They’ve given him a presentation machine,’ he said in a burst of confidence which he obviously considered indiscreet but was unable to control. ‘Silver-plated and all slap-up. I did the collecting because I was asked to and I’m good at collecting. I’ve got the gift, I like it. But I don’t approve of it. I think a silver-plated bike is silly. I think if the other clubs get to hear of it they’ll laugh at us – and rightly so. That’s the kind of thing that irks you. If you’re a first-class man awheel, well up to any amateur standard, you don’t want to feel that every other user of the road privately feels that your club is nothing but a pack of pansies on bicycles. It’s degrading – degrading. I’ll get my own way in the end, but it’s taking time. There’s a lot of snobbery to fight. There’s a posh flavour about anything connected with the stage and some of the silly beggars fall for it. I’m very nice to Konrad when I see him, though I don’t like him personally. In the finish he’ll drop out of sight and we’ll get on with making a first-class job of the club.’
At this point Mr Campion bought another round and the conversation became general. Mr Howard was consumed by his enthusiasm for his chosen sport, however, and returned to it almost at once.
‘He’s useful in a way, of course,’ he admitted. ‘He’s got influence. An article like this, now, needed writing, you know. It was time it was said.’
He pulled a folded evening paper from his coat pocket. It was the first of the fuller editions and contained a short topical article on the magazine page with the heading: ‘Murder on the Roads: A Cyclist’s View. By Benny Konrad, President of the Speedo Cycle Club.’
Blest skimmed through it, with Campion reading over his shoulder. It was a bright little essay written with deliberate intolerance and printed to provoke correspondence. Cyclists were briefly mentioned, but the danger of the speeding motorist was the main argument.
‘It’s come at a good moment,’ said Mr Howard, replacing the paper in his pocket. ‘There’s thousands of us chaps on the road, every one of us with our lives in our hands. These motorists just kill us. They can’t see us half the time. This article could have been much stronger, but I don’t suppose the Editor would stand for it. He’s got to think of his advertisers. Still, it’s come after that business in the paper yesterday where Jimmy Sutane ran down some poor girl and killed her. Did you see the bit? Konrad is in the same show as Sutane and their names are linked together. I expect that’s why he wrote this and the paper, noticing the connexion, printed it. That’s how they work these things. Anything topical. That’s the motto of the newspapers.’
They finished their beer and went out into the sunlight, where they parted from Mr Howard. Blest glanced after his jaunty figure and sniffed.
‘Well, that’s not him,’ he said, ‘is it?’
Mr Campion agreed. ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No, that’s not the accomplice. A trying lad in his own way, no doubt, but not a dirty little tick. There’s nothing underhand about our Mr Howard. Konrad doesn’t seem to be too popular with him, does he?’
The ex-Inspector grunted.
‘If you ask me, young Mr Konrad won’t be too popular in other quarters this afternoon,’ he said. ‘He’s employed by Mr Sutane, isn’t he? What the hell does he think he’s playing at, coming out with an article like that? He couldn’t have written it in the time, of course. That’s something they’ve had by them. But he must have authorised the use of his name. They probably read it to him over the telephone.’
Campion frowned. ‘I don’t think there’s much in that,’ he said with more hope than conviction. ‘After all, there’s very little actual connexion …’
‘Don’t you believe it!’ Blest interrupted him. ‘That’s an example of the association of ideas. There’s whole campaigns of advertising run on that principle. You know and I know that Sutane has done nothing reprehensible and there’s no mention of his name in that article. But who reads a newspaper accurately? – one in a hundred. The average half-interested person sees one day that Sutane has been in an accident in which a woman has been killed, and the next day he sees “Murder on the Road” by Benny Konrad. The name “Konrad” makes him think of the name “Sutane” and the last thing he heard in connexion with it. The two ideas are put together in his own mind. It’s child’s play. I had it all explained to me once.’
‘He’d hardly dare do it deliberately,’ said Campion slowly.
‘Maybe not.’ Blest was vigorous. ‘But whatever it was it wasn’t tactful. If you ask me, Master Konrad is shouting for trouble and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he got it.’
Campion looked at him aghast, a certain little chain of incidents returning to his mind.
‘Oh no,’ he said vehemently. ‘No.’
Blest cocked an eye at him.
‘You’ve got something up your sleeve,’ he said. ‘I’ve noticed it all the morning. But don’t trouble to tell me. I shall know sooner or later. This is only the beginning of this business. I can feel it in my bones.’
Mr Campion sighed and his lean face looked suddenly drawn.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said, but added heavily after a pause, ‘or at least I hope to God you are.’
15
My dear Campion – Uncle William’s cramped hand fluttered crazily over the page. Since your rather extraordinary desertion I have stuck to my post, gathering up such odd scraps of information as have come my way. I have no doubt that you know what you are up to and have some very good reason for going off in this remarkable manner. I shall be glad to hear it when we meet in the near future. Let me say now that I have absolute faith in you, as I have always had, and I am perfectly sure that you are well equipped to bring to a satisfactory solution all the little difficulties with which we now find ourselves beset.
This house is not a very happy harbour at the moment, I am afraid. Konrad’s bicycle is still in the cloakroom, I noticed this morning, so I suppose we still have a visit from him hanging over our heads. This depresses Linda, I fancy, for she seems a little less her usual laughing self.
Eve is a curious girl. I used at one time to have a light sure hand with a woman, but I confess I can make but little of her. She has some secret; I am sure of it. Such long hours alone, brooding are not natural in a girl of her age. In nineteen-twenty (you will remember you asked me to inquire particularly into that date) she was one year old and lived with her dear mother in Poole, while Jimmy was away on the Continent. Afterwards she was sent to a convent school in the West Country, her mother dying when she was eight. From that time the good nuns looked after her until two years ago, when her brother conceded to her request that she might
attend an art school in London. She has finished there and now there is some talk of her continuing her studies in Paris. From what I remember of that city it seems hardly the place to send a young girl to alone, but I have no doubt it is greatly changed. The war saddened but purified. A pity if true in the case of Paris, but there you are.
To returns to the girl. Her lassitude puzzles me. At seventeen one should be up and doing, straining at the leash, the blood boiling in the veins, but she is not really anxious to continue her art work and speaks of it without great enthusiasm. I shall hammer away at her, gently of course, but at the moment she remains an enigma.
Jimmy returns here each day and is growing rapidly more and more distraught before my eyes. Sometimes I feel it is only his work and his indomitable courage which keep him going at all. Young Petrie flits in and out in a newer car, his own having gone to perdition long past its time, and Richard Poyser, a type I cannot bring myself wholly to trust, has visited us once. He was here to lunch and seemed very excited over a foolish article which some wretched newspaper fellow persuaded young Konrad to set his name to. I read it and confess I saw nothing in it, but both Poyser and Jimmy seemed to think it unfortunate, of course one is apt to forget that Art is a hard taskmaster, and when a man like Jimmy is suffering from overstrain ‘how easy is a bush supposed a bear’, as my immortal namesake says.
Squire Mercer, with typical callousness and what I think I may allow myself to call d—d selfishness, has flown to Paris to attend some function but is expected to return before the end of the week, if not in time for the funeral.
The only happy people here are the child and your man Lugg. He is shaping as well as can be expected and appears to have become devoted to little Sarah, whom he insists upon calling ‘the young Mistress’, an appellation which seems to afford them both great pleasure. I fancy I detect a note of derision in it at times, but she seems to have grown very fond of him in this short time, which speaks well for the kindness of his heart, a virtue which, in my opinion, must much more than outweigh any other shortcomings.
In spite of the noise they make between them as they practise opening doors to visitors, answering bells and so on, I think that Linda is very glad of him. He certainly provides a touch of gaiety in an otherwise sad, unhappy house.
I hope to see you at the funeral of Chloe Pye (what a trial to others that woman must have been in her life, and now in death she retains the same character. De mortuis!)
I shall come to Town with Jimmy. The relative, who seems a very ordinary sort of person (I think you met her), has shown an almost morbid anxiety to have everyone connected with the woman’s death and her work represented at her funeral. Jimmy is naturally anxious to give no offence and I understand that he and all the male principals in my show, as well as those of us present at the house-party, will follow the coffin to its last resting place. I am particularly anxious that you should do your duty and appear. The arrangement is that we shall follow the bears to the cemetery and afterwards return to the house for a few minutes. I did protest at the latter suggestion, which seems unnecessary, for it is not, thank God, as though we were near relatives, but the good Mrs Pole seems adamant and Jimmy is bent on humouring her, a very wise move taken by and large. I hope to see you, therefore at 101, Portalington Road, tomorrow, Friday, at five minutes to two o’clock. Do not disappoint us. I have sung your praises so loudly to Jimmy that I feel I have a personal responsibility.
With kind regards, my dear boy,
Believe me, ever yours,
William R. Faraday.
P.S. Have just opened this letter again after a turn round the garden, during which I made a somewhat strange discovery. I fear it may lead to nothing more interesting than some pretty yokel idyll, but I report it for what it is worth. Deviating from my usual route round the flowerbeds and the lake I took a path through the plantation. There are some very fine trees here and the sight of them reminded me of my boyhood’s bird’s-nesting days. Although a little late in the season, I determined to try my luck and see if my eye had lost its cunning. Rather foolish, you will think, no doubt, but it was lucky in a way that the notion came to me, for I soon discovered a this year’s mavis nest just within reach of my hand in the crutch of a young elm. I put my fingers in and drew out a screw of paper, of all things! It was a sheet of plain white note and the words upon it were scrawled in pencil in a hand so hurried I could not hope to recognise it instantly even had it been known to me, which I do not think it was. I copied out the message in my notebook and I now send you the page for what it is worth. I left the note where it was, not liking to take it, but I have the calligraphy pretty well photographed in my mind and you can rely on me to look out for it.
W.F.
The enclosure consisted of the memorandum left from a pocket diary and the message, written in Uncle William’s flurried pencil, was brief but quite remarkably to the point. On the back of the page he had scribbled an explanatory note: Found Thursday, mid-afternoon, in bird’s-nest in crutch of tree, quarter of a mile inside the White Walls boundary (rough estimate).
The message consisted of a single line, poignant even in that shaking stylised hand:
I love you. I love you. Oh, I love you.
16
THE small room with the bay window and the clean, hard, stuffed furniture was heavy with the smell of flowers. The sweet cloying scent hung over the whole house, half hiding those other smells, cooking from the kitchen, camphor, floor stain, and the miserable, mean odour of damp handkerchiefs. Petals lay on the imitation parquet in the dining-room, on the imitation Chinese carpet in the parlour and on the imitation Persian runner in the hall. They lay, too, on the narrow staircase down whose sleek red steps the elaborate casket with the silver-plated handles had come swaying dangerously less than an hour before.
It was over. Chloe Pye had gone. The hideous yellow earth in the cemetery had opened and taken her in. The crowd, attracted by her name, her profession, the manner of her dying and the eminence of her mourners, had gone shuffling off again, stumbling over unnamed graves or pausing idly to read the inscriptions on the more ostentatious headstones.
Campion stood in a corner of the parlour fireplace, bending his head a little to one side to avoid the shaded tassel of a hanging candle-holder. The room was packed to bursting point, as were the other two downstairs rooms, but there was no murmur of conversation to alleviate the sense of physical discomfort and the sombre, dark-suited throng stood miserably in a dreadful intimacy, shoulders to breasts and stomachs to backs, their voices hushed and husky and self-conscious.
Outside in the sunlit suburban street a few people still waited. They were curious; but silent and well mannered because of the nature of the occasion. The great moment, when the procession, with black horses, silver trimmings and a glass-sided hearse topped with flowers and old-fashioned black plumes like folded sweeps’ brushes, had set out at a snail’s pace, was a thing of the past. Mrs Pole’s first essay at pageantry was over, but there still remained a few well-known mourners to be seen again.
The houses over the road had blinds drawn as a mark of respect in all the rooms below stairs, but behind the net half-curtains of the bedroom windows bright inquisitive eyes peeped out eagerly, and from the house on the left came sudden flashes as the afternoon sun caught the lenses of a pair of opera-glasses.
A scrawny maid with a black armlet on a black dress, assisted by a perspiring waiter hired from the nearest restaurant, struggled through the crowd with trays on which there were goblets of bright crimson port and dull yellow sherry. As they approached one they would each mutter an imperfectly comprehended formula concerning whisky and soda on the dining-room sideboard ‘if any gentleman would care for it’.
Sutane stood on the hearthrug, outwardly at ease. The bones of his head were unusually apparent, but his blank dark eyes regarded the crush in front of him steadily, if sombrely. There was no way of telling if he was thinking at all.
Uncle William was held in the crush
on the other side of the room. Campion caught a glimpse between two black hats of his indecorous pink face and gaily blue eyes. He was not attempting to move because to do so he would have had to pass through the small open circle surrounding Mrs Pole, her son and a solid daughter, fat and self-conscious in a hideous black suit but sticking to her mother’s side gallantly with the stoic heroism of adolescence.
Mrs Pole was triumphant and deeply happy but she played her part still, never allowing the satisfaction which filled her so exquisitely to show sufficiently to mar the perfection of her presentation of patient and dignified grief.
It was at the moment when physical discomfort and mental unease seemed to have reached their ultimate pitch that the woman with the glass in her hand came burrowing through the crowd towards Sutane. She stood just in front of him and looked up with a little sly, secretive movement of her head which brought her face just below his own. It was an indescribable gesture, arch and yet ashamed, and it was not at all pleasant.
Campion glanced down at her and experienced that little sense of shock that is part disgust and part irritation at oneself for being disgusted.
She was white and bloated in the face and poor and bent in the body. Her loose black coat was not very clean, and yet the small eye-veil on her hat was arranged by fingers which had known deftness. Her eyes were greasy and shiftless, and there was an ominous twitch at one side of her mouth.
Dancers in Mourning Page 18