Be Shot For Six Pence

by Michael Gilbert

  “That’s Victor,” she said.

  I remembered Victor, a thin, whitefaced boy.

  “A bundle of nerves,” said Henry. “The time I had with him. Night after night. If I could get him to sleep by ten o’clock I was lucky.” The picture showed him on his way to the palace to receive his V.C.

  “How did last winter go?” I asked, as I settled carefully down in one of her high backed chairs. (“Don’t slouch, Master Philip. It weakens the spine.”)

  “Terrible,” said Henry. “France and Ireland were here. Neither of them good matches. No Calcutta Cup and no Welsh match. That’s the match I like. Right from the start. You should see the little men in cloth caps run out and tie the leeks on to the cross bars, and the policemen chase them.”

  I agreed that the Welsh match was fun. “But still, you had the seven-a-sides.”

  “I expect it was Colin you came to talk about,” said Henry, suddenly. “Rugger’s not really your game. You might have made a scrum half if you’d been a bit wider in the hips.”

  “I expect that’s because I didn’t always sit up straight at table,” I said. “Yes, it was about Colin.”

  “Have the advertisements started?”

  “They started yesterday.”

  Henry looked steadily at me, but said nothing. If I hadn’t been sure before, I knew now that Colin was her real favourite. Above Aubrey, who got so near to the top of Everest; above Victor, for all his V.C.; and a long way above me.

  “Show it me,” she said.

  I took the cutting out of my pocket and passed it across. She read it carefully. Her old eyes scorned spectacles.

  “A pity,” was all she said.

  “I expect you’d better tell me what he said.”

  “It was four months ago. I’d just got back from watching the Harlequins play Oxford, and I found him waiting on my doorstep. He looked a little fatter than usual, but otherwise just the same. He never changes.”

  I nodded. Colin’s craggy face settled into its adult mould when he was about fifteen and has remained practically unchanged since.

  “Whilst I was boiling the kettle for tea he told me what he’d been up to. ‘You’re quite right, Henry,’ he said. ‘I am getting fat. It’s because I do nothing but sit still, in a fairy palace, waiting for something to happen. It’s quite exciting, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I have to do a lot of sitting still, and too much eating, and too much drinking.’

  “Then, when we were having tea, he told me something else. I can’t remember it exactly – not word for word – but what he said was this. ‘It’s not my show. I’m only in it as a guest artist, I’ve got no standing at all. And it’s so secret that I don’t suppose there’s anything more secret in the world today. That’s why I’m telling you as little as I can.’”

  Henry broke off and gave one of her dry laughs. “You know why he said that to me? Once when he was very small, he came along to me and said, ‘I know a tremendous secret. I’ll tell it you if you like,’ and I said: ‘Certainly not. If it’s a secret you mustn’t tell anyone.’ He was terribly deflated, but he hadn’t forgotten it. Have another crumpet?”

  “I oughtn’t to,” I said, “but I will.”

  “You take as much interest in your figure as a ballerina. Well, then he told me about the advertisement. ‘I’ve got to do it that way,’ he said, ‘Because that way doesn’t leave any possible line that anyone else in the world can follow up. I told you, it isn’t my secret. That’s why I’ve got to be so careful.’

  “’Supposing he doesn’t see it,’ I said.

  “’That’s a chance I’ve got to take,’ said Colin. ‘But it’s not a serious one. I’ll let it run for a week. It’ll catch his eye all right.’ And so it did.”

  “So it did,” I said. “What message did he leave?”

  “You’re to go to Cologne, and walk across the Hohenzollern Bridge. Be in the middle of the bridge, leaning over the parapet, looking down-river at nine o’clock in the morning.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “It seemed quite clear to me,” said Henry. “Now that I’ve told it to you, I’ve no need to remember it any more. In fact, I’ve forgotten it already.”

  It was true. The information was now mine and mine alone. I do not believe that any power on earth would have extracted it from Henry before, and when she said that she was going to forget it, that was true too. She could control her memory as rigidly as she had controlled everything else in her Spartan life.

  “Have one of those cakes,” said Henry. “Gateaux, the shops call them. I can’t think why. They look just like cakes to me.”

  I left Barkas Road at six and since I had a dinner date at eight I decided against walking back and made for the Underground station.

  Near the entrance to the platform I almost bumped into a little man with a long nose.

  The dinner was with a girl called Marianne, but as she doesn’t come into this story, all I need say about her is that her estimate of the value of her virtue was much higher than mine, so I was back at the Club shortly after eleven.

  The porter said, somewhat apologetically, “Mrs. Pastonberry has been on the telephone twice, sir.”

  “Did she leave a message?”

  “She wanted you to ring her back.”

  “Well, it’s a little late.”

  “She did say, sir, that it was important. And she told me to tell you, that it was not about herself.”

  “That sounds unlike Mrs. Pastonberry,” I said. “However—”

  When she answered I got a surprise. I have heard Penny in all sorts of moods before, but I have never, till then, heard her frightened.

  “Darling,” she said. “Thank goodness you rang. What have you been doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you mean to say you don’t know? I’ve had a man round here all this afternoon asking me the most terrible questions.”

  “And I’ve no doubt you gave him some terrible answers.”

  “It’s no laughing matter. He was from M.I.5.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. There’ve been so many bogus gas inspectors about lately that I made him sit right down whilst I rang up the police. He was genuine all right. I say?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not a spy, are you?”

  That’s a question I defy anyone to answer with a straight yes or no. “Look here,” I said. “I’m very sorry you’ve been put through this—”

  “Well, in a way it was rather exciting. It’s you I was thinking about. I didn’t tell him a thing.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Because you know absolutely nothing to tell.”

  “Now you’re being horrid again.”

  I rang off before the quarrel could develop.

  I was furious with myself, for my stupidity. Of course the authorities would know about the advertisement even if (lacking the one piece of knowledge that mattered) they could not follow up. It had not been difficult to identify me as Philip – it was no secret that I was one of Colin’s oldest friends. And equally obvious I should rush round to Printing House Square as soon as I read the thing.

  All they had to do was to have a little man hang round the entrance, armed with my photograph, and follow me when I came out.

  I would lead him straight to Henry.

  And I had!

  Or had I? Come to think of it, little long-nose hadn’t shown up in Barkas Road. On the contrary, when I ran into him again he was hanging, rather forlornly, round Twickenham Station. Well, that one would keep for tomorrow. I was for bed.

  Immediately after breakfast I put on my hat and walked out of the Club, down the steps by the Duke of York’s column, and along into Green Park. I walked quite slowly and I didn’t trouble to look behind me. I knew I should be followed.

  It was a different man, and new on the job, I thought. After all, I had seen long-nose twice without taking much notice of him. This one looked like a re
tired sergeant major and clamoured for attention. When I moved, he moved ten paces behind me. When I sat down, he did likewise. As soon as I was sure of him I walked over and sat down beside him.

  “At ease,” I said. “I’d like a word with you.”

  “I’m afraid—”

  “Let’s not worry about all that. All I want from you is some information.”

  “Who—”

  “I want to see your boss in the – what would it be – Foreign Office? Technically I suppose I could go and ring the front door bell and ask for the Foreign Secretary, but I feel sure that I should only be shunted from department to department, and waste the whole morning. What I want from you is the name and room number of the man who’s interested in my ‘case’.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then you’re just not trying,” I said. “If you won’t let me have the name I’m going to call that policeman and report you for molesting me. You won’t get a bouquet from the department for that.”

  I saw doubt in his eye.

  “Really, sir. I can’t—”

  “Just the name.”

  “It’s most irregular.”

  The policeman was approaching.

  “You might find that Captain Forestier was the man you wanted.”

  “Where does he hang out?”

  “96 Sloane Square.”

  “I’m obliged to you,” I said. I got up, made my way into Piccadilly and caught a bus. The Sergeant Major was still devotedly following me. He got on to the same bus and went upstairs. (Standard technique number one, for lulling your quarry’s suspicions.) I felt that the least I could do was to pay his fare, and I did so.

  96 Sloane Square looked like all other small office blocks. There were the plates of a number of professional firms and a porter, in a hutch, reading the Continental Edition of the Daily Mail.

  “I want to see a Captain Forestier,” I said.

  “Which firm would that be, sir?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “Well, that makes it a bit difficult,” said the porter. “There’s five of ‘em – not counting the company that stores sports goods in the basement.”

  I looked at the board. From Kyle and Coppit, Chartered Surveyors on the ground floor to Theobald Whittlesea Belize and Partners on the fourth floor all seemed equally straightforward and equally blameless.

  “You wouldn’t be in the trade?” said the porter. “Carbons, paper, drawing pins and such.”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “And if I had been, I can tell you I shouldn’t be dithering round here. I should have said I wanted to see Mr. Kyle of Kyle and Coppit and walked straight on up.”

  “That’s right,” said the porter. “So you would. Bags of go, those chaps. But Captain Forestier – I’d help you if I could. What line’s he in?”

  “Well, I think it’s some sort of security.”

  “Security?”

  It meant nothing to him. I might just as well have said “Doorhandles.”

  I had a sudden inspiration. I looked out into the street. Sure enough the Sergeant Major was still there. He was gazing into a shop window (technique number two).

  “Which floor?” I shouted.

  He looked at me reproachfully, then raised his hand with four fingers and thumb extended.

  I went back. “Fifth floor, “I said.

  “Oh, them,” said the porter. “They’re new. Haven’t even put a plate up yet. Some sort of Civil Servants. Security, you said?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well!” He shook his head. “You take the lift to the fourth, then you got to walk.”

  “I expect I can manage one floor,” I said.

  I got out of the lift on to the fourth storey landing, which was close carpeted, and was presumably the joint property of Mr. Theobald, Mr. Whittlesea, the two Mr. Belizes and their partners. None of them were in evidence. On my left was a narrow flight of stairs, covered with new brown linoleum. I went up the stairs, and through a swing door which said “Enter.”

  At a table, thumbing severely through a Telephone Directory, was a very young lady with brown hair, a tip tilted nose and a mouth full of lovely, toothpaste advertisement teeth. The newspaper she had been reading before she heard me coming was inaccurately hidden behind her chair.

  “Yes?” she said, invitingly.

  “Yes, indeed,” I said. “I mean, I wanted to see Captain Forestier.”

  “Had you an appointment?”

  “Half-past ten. I’m afraid I’m a few minutes late.”

  She started off gaily towards one of the doors, then frowned, and came back and said, “I’m always forgetting things. I should have asked your name”.

  “I have no name,” I said severely. “Only a number.”

  Her great saucer eyes grew even larger. If she’d actually been a kitten that would have been the moment I would have picked her up and given her stomach a little tickle.

  “97259. And it won’t have escaped your notice that it’s a number divisible by 7. That means that I have killed a man with my bare hands.”

  A shade of doubt clouded her face. She walked away, as haughtily as a girl of her build can walk, and knocked at one of the doors. A crisp voice said, “Come in.” She went in; the door shut. Almost at once it opened again. She was furious. It made her look even more like a kitten.

  Before she could start I said, “He doesn’t know me. All right. Tell him it’s about an advertisement in The Times. Go on. Go on. He can’t bite you.”

  She looked doubtful, opened the door again, went in. More voices. Quite a lot of talk. Then she reappeared.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “Now he does want to see me.”

  As I went past her the temptation to tickle her became almost overmastering. I mastered it and walked in.

  Captain Forestier got up as I came in. He did not come forward and shake hands nor did he offer me an easy chair. Not a chummy sort of man, I suspected. He had a brick red face under startlingly light, reddish hair, and light blue eyes. He was in mufti, but I am quite certain that his medal ribbons could have stretched from here to there.

  “Well?”

  It was a voice which had made roomfuls of recruits jump to attention.

  “What about asking me to sit down?” I said.

  He never batted an eyelid.

  “I’ll ask you to sit down when I think you’ve got anything to say to me.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. There was only one spare chair in the room, so I annexed it. “If you hadn’t thought that I might have something to say to you, you’d never have let me in. Little Pussykin would have told a white lie and said you were in conference.”

  He flexed himself once or twice on the balls of his feet, like an athlete who’s about to go for a standing jump record, and said, “I’ll give you three minutes.”

  I resisted the temptation to say, “You’ll give; me just as long as it takes.” There was no sense in annoying him unnecessarily. I said, “I’m Philip.”

  “I see.” The Captain lowered himself very cautiously into his chair, as if he expected it to bite him, and said, in a very slightly less aggressive voice: “Good of you to come round. Incidentally, why here?”

  “I asked your bloodhound. The second one.”

  “And he told you?”

  “Under duress. I threatened to report him for molesting me.”

  “And was he?”

  “Not actually molesting, no. But he’s been following me about all this morning. Yesterday it was your other bloodhound. The small one, with the long nose. He was much better at it. He picked me up in Printing House Square, and followed me down to Twickenham – or did he?”

  “I’m afraid you walked him off his feet. He had to give up at Kew.”

  “How very unenterprising. He could have taken a taxi.”

  “Not across Richmond Park.”

  “Provoking. So you still don’t know who Henry is.”


  “I expect we shall locate him in due course,” said Captain Forestier, very smoothly. “But it really doesn’t matter now, as you had the good sense to come straight to us.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Now suppose you tell me what it’s all about.”

  “I’m afraid that’s quite impossible,” said Captain Forestier, seriously.

  I controlled myself.

  “Is Studd-Thompson officially involved?”

  “No. And even if he had been—”

  “You can trust him, but you can’t trust me. Is that it?”

  “I’m sure Studd-Thompson is an excellent man in his own line,” said the Captain. “But he wasn’t in my department. He was only on loan to us, you know, from the Foreign Service.”

  The way in which this was said made several things absolutely plain to me.

  First, that as a dyed-in-the-wool Intelligence operative he resented having a stray character from the Foreign Service wished on to him; secondly, that Colin had already managed to put his back up; thirdly, that he regarded Colin’s advertisement as something between a howling indiscretion and actual treason; and fourthly and lastly, that he loved me not at all, but was prepared to tag along with me just long enough to see whether I was going to be a good boy or another Colin. It’s remarkable what a trained Secret Service man can give away in a couple of sentences.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “I suppose this is all pretty confidential.”

  He looked at me as if he hardly believed in my existence. Then he said: “You don’t know a lot about this sort of thing do you?”

  “I did get mixed up in it once,” I said. “Not enough to teach me anything, except to dislike it.”

  He said in a much more friendly voice: “The real trouble is, no one ever tells anyone else the truth about anything. You get a project—” he laid his big hand on the table; the fur on the back of it was like a fox’s pelt—”say four people know about it. It might be two in the Pentagon and two in Whitehall. But when they start to work it out they’ve got to tell other people. So they tell them a story. Not the truth. They bring in other people; and the other people get told a second story. And so on. Even by the time I get it, it’s probably been wrapped up three or four times.”