Trial and Error

by Anthony Berkeley

  What Wilson said therefore upon the present state of affairs Mr Todhunter found himself compelled to accept, and the knowledge distressed him. The thing seemed so alien to the whole spirit of the London Review. For Mr Todhunter, like everyone else connected with it, took a peculiar pride in the dignity and traditions of the paper and was proud to work for it.

  “Dear me, dear me,” he murmured, his small bony face showing his concern. “But doesn’t Lord Felixbourne know what is going on?”

  “He does—and yet he won’t. He’s given this chap a free hand, you see, and he just dam’ well won’t go back on it.”.

  “But apart from the injustice, if things are really as bad as you say a great deal of real hardship is surely being caused too? I don’t imagine that all these men are going to find other jobs quite at once. And no doubt some of them have wives and families like Ogilvie.”

  “That’s just the damnable part,” Wilson almost shouted. “Half of them won’t ever get a job again. They’re too old. Ogilvie himself may, because he’s exceptionally good; but I doubt if even he will. I tell you it’s enough to make a cat cry.”

  Mr Todhunter nodded. A sudden thought had struck him so forcibly as to make him catch his breath and remember his aneurism; for in the emotion of the preceding ten minutes he had quite forgotten it.

  “Mind you,” Wilson was going on, “I don’t say that not a single one of the chaps didn’t deserve to go. There are one or two who won’t be missed at all. But the other dozen . . .”

  “It’s really as many as that?” Mr Todhunter spoke a little absently. He was wondering what young Wilson would say if he were to tell him, straight out, that in another three or four months he would be dead. Mr Todhunter had an absurd longing to make the confidence and soothe himself with Wilson’s inarticulate sympathy.

  “Quite as many. More. And there’ll be a dozen more before the little devil’s through. Armstrong doesn’t care. Fischmann put him there, and he licks Fischmann’s boots clean every morning when he comes to the office. That’s a fine thing for a firm like this. Good God, we might be the Daily Wire.”

  Mr Todhunter shot his head forward and fixed his glasses on the young man’s face.

  “And what would happen if Fischmann were dismissed himself?”

  Wilson laughed harshly. “He won’t be. There’s no one to do it but himself, and I don’t quite see that happening.”

  “Well, we’ll say if he had a serious illness and had to resign. Would Lord Felixbourne appoint someone else—possibly even someone worse?” asked Mr Todhunter, thinking of Hitler and movements that have to play themselves out.

  “There couldn’t be anyone worse,” replied Wilson. “No, but seriously, I think Felixbourne wouldn’t be sorry. At any rate I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t appoint anyone else to the same job. We’d be left to ourselves again. And without Fischmann, Armstrong wouldn’t last long. Then with a decent man like Ferrers running the London Review we could make something of the old rag once more.”

  “Ferrers?”

  “Oh yes. He’ll be the next editor. Been marked out for it for years, and Felixbourne at least has the sense to recognise one good man when he sees him. In fact he’ll probably be managing editor soon—boss of the whole concern. That’s why Ferrers hasn’t been sacked like the others, because you can be pretty sure he doesn’t kowtow to that little swine. And that,” added young Mr Wilson candidly “is the only reason I’m still here, because I told our Mr Fischmann pretty well what I thought of him the first week he was here; and Ferrers stopped me from getting the sack. God knows how.”

  “And if Ferrers were made managing editor,” said Mr Todhunter carefully, “would he do anything about the men who have been unjustly dismissed?”

  “Of course he would,” cried the young man indignantly. “Ferrers is a dam’ decent chap. The very first thing he’d do as editor would be to bring ’em all back again. And what’s more, Felixbourne would let him too.”

  “I see,” Mr Todhunter nodded thoughtfully. “Er—these notices of dismissal, are they sent out at any time or on a special day?”

  “Saturday mornings. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said Mr Todhunter.

  CHAPTER III

  Mr Todhunter was not going to murder Fischmann (to call the man by his real name) without careful enquiry first. As has been shown, it had never been Mr Todhunter’s habit to commit himself to any course of action without consulting a great number of people as to the advisability or not of his intentions, and he was going to make no exception in such a matter as murder. Having allowed his mind to be made up concerning the deed, he had now to assure himself that the proposed victim was up to sample. One must, in short, make sure.

  The first step in making sure was to pay a call at Ogilvie’s flat in Hammersmith, and this Mr Todhunter did on the day following his conversation with Wilson.

  Mr Todhunter found Ogilvie in his shirt sleeves, writing furiously. Mrs Ogilvie, a small, rather faded little woman, tittered for a moment and then vanished. Mr Todhunter politely asked Ogilvie how he was.

  “Not at all well,” said Ogilvie with gloom. He was a large, fleshy man, as the husbands of small, faded wives so often are; his heavy face bore now an expression even more serious than usual.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Mr Todhunter, taking a chair.

  “This business has upset me a great deal,” pronounced Ogilvie. “You’ve heard, of course, that I’ve left the London Review?”

  “Yes, Ferrers told me.”

  “It’s brought on my indigestion very badly.”

  “Worry always brings my indigestion on too,” agreed Mr Todhunter, perhaps with more sympathy for himself than for his friend.

  “I haven’t been able to touch meat since It Happened.”

  “I have to be very careful about meat too,” said Mr Todhunter with gloomy relish. “In fact my doctor says—”

  “Even tea—”

  “Only one small glass of port—”

  “It’s very upsetting,” said Ogilvie heavily, “after all these years.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “What can I do? I shall never get another job.”

  “Oh,” said Mr Todhunter uneasily, “don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true. I’m too old. So I’ve begun a novel. After all,” said Ogilvie, the cloud of depression lifting a little, “William de Morgan didn’t begin writing his novels till he was over seventy.”

  “And you can write, at any rate . . . But what are your private feelings about the matter, Ogilvie? I understand your dismissal is only one of many.”

  “It’s appalling,” asserted Ogilvie solemnly. “Upon my word, I think the man must be a lunatic. Apart from my own case, his actions have been quite unjustifiable. It seems that he’s determined to get rid of every good man in the place. I simply can’t understand it.”

  “Perhaps he is mad, in a way?”

  “I’m not at all sure that he isn’t. That seems to me the only way of accounting for it.”

  “In any case,” said Mr Todhunter carefully, “quite apart, as you say, from your own case, it’s your conviction that this man Fischmann is a menace to the happiness of a great many persons, without adequate justification or even excuse?”

  “I certainly do. He’s caused a great deal of misery already, and he’s going on to cause more. I know of several hard cases of men he’s dismissed without the faintest reason so far as their work goes, who have wives and families and not a penny saved. What they’re going to do I can’t imagine. Luckily we’re not in that position, but the outlook is serious enough for us. Really, Todhunter, it’s pitiable that one man—one swollen-headed crook, rather—should be able to reduce a hundred people to such a state of abject terror as they are reduced to every Saturday morning. It’s enough to make one a Communist.”

  “Ah yes,” nodded Mr Todhunter. “Saturday morning.” He ruminated. “The man ought to be shot,” he said at last in real i
ndignation.

  “He ought, indeed,” agreed Ogilvie; and somehow the well-worn phrase seemed to have been used by the one and accepted by the other more literally than is generally the case.

  2

  On any Saturday morning the huge building occupied by Consolidated Periodicals Ltd. is a centre of activity. A couple of months ago this activity had been not unpleasurable. Enlivened by thoughts of leisure ahead, assistant editors of the bright weeklies in which Consolidated Periodicals specialised would stop for a chat with the lady secretaries past whose desks their way took them; art editors would pause to exchange a quick story with film reviewers; even editors would swing their umbrellas with a more jaunty air, for the editors at Consolidated Periodicals are not a haughty lot of men.

  But on this particular Saturday morning, as indeed for the last five Saturday mornings, there were no such pleasant interludes. Assistant editors dashed past secretaries with a frown of preoccupation, as if intent only upon reaching their desks; art editors and film reviewers alike wore expressions intended to convey that work and the firm’s interests were the only preoccupations of their minds; and editors walked delicately and with reluctance. There was indeed a hum of activity throughout the warren of offices, but its note was sharp now with fear. In one or two of the cubbyholes in which the main work was carried on the note was even shrill with something very like hysteria.

  Very soon rumours were spreading.

  On the third floor young Bennett, assistant editor of the Peepshow, had hardly settled himself at his table, exceedingly conscious of arriving there ten minutes late, when the door opened and the tall figure of Owen Staithes, the art editor, came into the room.

  “Oh, about those blocks for the centre page, Benney,” he began loudly and then, as the door closed behind him, changed abruptly to a lower tone. “Not got yours?”

  “Not yet. Has anyone?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. It’s a bit early yet.”

  “He usually sends them round about eleven.”

  “Yes.” Staithes fiddled with the coins in his pocket. He looked worried. “Damn these Saturday mornings. I’ve got the wind up, badly.” Staithes was married and had a small son.

  “Oh, you’re safe enough.”

  “Am I? What about poor old Gregory last week? It’s my belief he wants to be rid of all us art editors.”

  “But you’re doing Greg’s work. He couldn’t leave the Housewife as well as the Peepshow without an art editor.”

  “God knows what he could do.” Staithes kicked moodily at the leg of Bennett’s table. “Seen Mac yet?”

  “No. I say, I was ten minutes late.”

  “The devil you were. Did you run into him?”

  “No. But I had to pass his door and it’s my belief he can see clean through it. I’m expecting a chit at any minute.”

  “Don’t be an ass. . .. Oh, hullo, young Butts.”

  Young Butts, so known to distinguish him from his uncle, the editor of Film Fancy, sidled in with an uneasy grin.

  “Hullo, chaps. I say, is it true that Fletcher’s got his?”

  “Fletcher? Surely not.” Staithes looked surprised. “What would the Sunday Messenger be without Fletcher?”

  “You might just as well have asked a month ago what it would be like without Purefoy, or what the Film Trader would be without Fitch. Dash it, Fitch founded the thing and ran it for twenty years at a pretty useful profit; but that didn’t save him.”

  “It’s the devil,” muttered Staithes.

  There was a knock at the door and a girl looked in, pencil and notebook still in her hands. She was a pretty girl, but the men looked at her as if she were Medusa herself.

  “Mr Bennett, Mr Fisher wants to see you at once in his room.”

  Bennett stood up awkwardly. “Me-me?” he stammered.

  “Yes.” A look of sympathy crossed the girl’s face. “Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you, but Mr Southey’s just told Mr Fisher he saw you come in a quarter of an hour late this morning.”

  “Oh hell,” groaned the young man. “That’s torn it. All right, thanks, Miss Merriman,” he added with an attempt at jauntiness. “Tell the little rat to get his cup of cold poison ready, and I’ll be along to drink it.”

  The girl went out, and the others looked at each other.

  “My God!” burst out Staithes. “Southey used to be a decent chap once. It’s a bit thick seeing decent fellows turned into skunks and taletellers and toadies just because they’re afraid of losing their jobs.”

  “You’re right, Owen,” said young Bennett. “And what’s more, I’m going to tell him so. So long, you chaps. Wait for the condemned man here.”

  Bennett was out of the room only five minutes. While he was away Staithes and young Butts exchanged no more than three sentences.

  “Southey’s married, you know,” said the latter.

  “Well, so am I,” retorted Staithes. “But I’m damned if I’ll come down to that sort of level.”

  “Then you’ll be getting yours,” replied young Butts simply.

  Bennett, when he came back, wore a slightly bewildered air.

  “No,” he said in reply to the question on the others’ faces. “No, I haven’t been sacked. He said if it had been anyone else he’d have sacked me, but he thought—what the blazes did he think?—that I was a good man really, or some rot. And he asked me to lunch.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Yes. I think he’s mad.”

  The other two exchanged a long glance.

  “Then you didn’t tell him what you thought of him?”

  “Under the circs,” said Bennett, “no.”

  Once more there was a knock at the door. “Mr Staithes?” said the office boy. “Couldn’t find you in your own room, sir. Sorry, sir,” he added awkwardly. “We’ll all be sorry, sir.”

  Staithes took the envelope with barely a glance.

  “Thanks, Jim . . . Well, Benney, I think I’ll tell him myself. It won’t do any good, but it won’t do any harm. I may give him a clout as well.”

  He went out.

  “I told him only two-three minutes ago he’d be getting his,” said young Butts.

  “And how the blazes,” demanded Bennett savagely, “does Fisher think we’re going to run the Peepshow without an art editor? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Ask him at lunch,” suggested young Butts, lounging out of the room.

  As Bennett sat down once more at his desk Mr Todhunter uncoiled himself from the chair in which he had been partially concealed behind a filing cabinet.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said courteously, “my name’s Todhunter. Wilson, of the London Review, asked me to let him know whether you could lunch with him today.”

  Bennett turned slightly glazed eyes on him. “Today? No, not today.”

  “I’ll tell him,” promised Mr Todhunter and escaped into the passage. He did not wonder at that time why Bennett’s eyes looked so curiously glazed, but he was surprised that the young man should not have asked him how long he had been there and how much he had overheard.

  On the stone stairs leading down to the street Mr Todhunter shook his head several times. His mind might not have been quite made up even yet, but he had reached the stage of wondering where he could buy a revolver and what formalities had to be observed first.

  Someone coming up the stairs bumped into him. Vaguely Mr Todhunter realized it was young Butts.

  “Sorry,” said young Butts.

  “Yes,” said Mr Todhunter absently. “Er—can you tell me where I could buy a revolver?”

  “A what?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” mumbled Mr Todhunter in confusion.

  3

  Mr Todhunter bought a revolver, with surprisingly little difficulty, at a gunsmith’s in the Strand. It was an old army revolver, a heavy weapon firing a .45 bullet, and the salesman assured him it was no more than shop soiled; it had never been used in action. He promised to give it a good cleanup during the next day or two, f
or Mr Todhunter could not take the weapon away with him. There were forms to be filled out, for registration in the usual way; and Mr Todhunter could not obtain possession until a firearms certificate had been issued.

  It is doubtful whether the authorities, in devising this means of delaying a bargain of this kind, were actually influenced by the consideration that it is better not to allow an angry man to walk into a shop and walk straight out again with a lethal weapon; but whether they did or not, the effect upon Mr Todhunter was salutary. For by the time the revolver was actually delivered, which was nearly a week later, Mr Todhunter had had time to think things over. And by the very process his indignation had lessened. Similarly the notion that he, Lawrence Butterfield Todhunter, had actually planned to murder in cold blood a complete stranger, out of really nothing more than sheer officiousness, had grown correspondingly more fantastic.

  To put it shortly, Mr Todhunter had determined, days before the revolver was even delivered, that he would be shut of the whole affair; and, looking at the unpleasant weapon when it arrived, he considered himself lucky to have come to his senses.

  That was on the Friday morning.

  Precisely at fifteen minutes past six the next evening Edith brought into the library the usual copy of the Evening Mercury, neatly folded on a salver. The headline on the front page caught Mr Todhunter’s eye even before he had taken the paper into his hands. The result, for the next half an hour, was something like chaos.

  “Heaven bless us,” panted Mrs Greenhill to Edie when they had cleared away at last the hot water, the cold compresses, the ice, the sal volatile, the brandy, the drops, the basins, the towels, the eau de cologne, the hot-water bottles, the blankets, the burnt feathers and everything else, useful or useless, that two distracted women could frenziedly collect for an employer with a face like chalk and blue lips. “Heaven save us all, that was a near thing, I’m thinking.”