The suitcase, and/or its contents, must be disposed of to the best possible advantage. Obviousness dictated the coast. Hence Yarborough, since Brighton would have been ridiculous. But all that was yet to be arranged. Inspiration would arrive.
Tadema smiled and the man who had been watching him so intently for the past ten minutes from the other side of the platform moved a little nearer.
Duds Wallace walked round Tadema, eyeing him covertly. The height was okay, he decided. So were the shoulders. And there was about the same room round the waist. But, above all, the style was right and in Duds’ opinion, style was what mattered.
With a certain section of the Railway police Duds Wallace was something of a pet and a curiosity. He was unique. His long criminal record, which comprised some sixteen convictions, related an odd history of misdemeanour and proved conclusively that whatever other qualities Mr. Wallace might have possessed the gods had not made him versatile. His programme was always the same. Whenever his somewhat finicky taste dictated that he required a new outfit he stole a suitcase.
This in itself was sufficiently unenterprising but he carried his orthodoxy a step further. Invariably he stole a suitcase from a railway station and—invariably this was the hallmark of a Wallace activity—his victim was a man who closely resembled himself in build, colouring and a quiet, inexpensive taste.
The obvious disadvantages of his unoriginal methods never seemed to dawn on him, with the result that any slightly stocky complainant of medium height who reported the loss of a good-sized suitcase was instantly handed over to Sergeant Buller, who would grant his visitor one glance and reach for the telephone.
Two or three hours later Mr. Wallace, in private life a comparatively respectable bookmaker’s clerk, would be pulled in, always astonished and explanatory, but more often than not actually clad in his victim’s missing garments.
It was typical of Duds’ mentality that he complained bitterly in court that the police would pick on him.
Buller, who was a logical-minded man, had explained the whole business to Duds over and over again, but Mr. Wallace continued to be repetitive and remained astonished.
At the moment Mr. Wallace, whose sartorial ambitions alone seemed to lead him into wrong-doing, was downright ashamed of his appearance.
He was dead shabby about the elbows and his suit had that skinny appearance which comes with age. It looked as if he and the garment had been immersed in water for some time and had dried without being separated.
His shirt was not good either. There was a long thin hole where the cuffs had frayed. Duds’ sharp brown eyes rested on Tadema’s portmanteau. There was a suit in that, he would bet on it; a suit, shirts, pyjamas and with luck a pair of shoes.
He glanced at the actor manager’s feet and those decent brown shoes with the round toes swept away his last remnants of doubt.
Having made up his mind, Duds followed his routine closely. When the train came into the main platform Tadema selected an empty second class compartment, placed his bag on the corner seat to reserve it, and, as his watcher confidendy expected, stepped out on the platform again and wandered off to look for a paper.
As soon as he was lost to sight Duds entered another empty second a little lower down the train. Instead of sitting down he passed on into the corridor and wandered up to Tadema’s compartment. His casual manner was excellent. He gripped the suitcase with just the right familiarity and carried it out into the corridor.
As he passed on down the train he glanced into each carriage inquiringly as he went by. Tadema was nowhere to be seen. It was really very simple.
When Mr. Wallace reached the end of the train, which had pulled into the shadow of the passenger bridge, he walked out of the last compartment, passed through the main booking hall and, turning up the dark hill, melted quietly into the street.
Tadema discovered his loss when it was too late to do anything about it. When he returned to his compartment the train was on the point of starting and, missing his case, he came to the conclusion that he was in the wrong carriage and walked out into the corridor to locate his property.
They had passed Ilford, at the beginning of a long non-stop run, before he was convinced that his bag was not on the train. Irritated and disconsolate, he threw himself down in a corner seat and glowered.
Apart from the normal sense of insult which invariably comes to one on discovering that the misfortunes which seem so natural in others should have overtaken oneself, Tadema felt he had a special grievance. Without his clothes there was really no point in him going to the coast at all, yet here he was, entrained for Yarborough of all places. The very foundation of the plan he had intended to evolve upon this journey was removed. Moreover, he could have no redress for the loss of his property. In the circumstances he could hardly go to the police. It was all very exasperating and augured, he could not help feeling, bad luck to the venture.
He reviewed his position gloomily. If things were not going to go right they were going to go very badly indeed. However, he comforted himself with the thought of the sensation in the morrow’s papers and, after some moments of happy contemplation, some of his old confidence returned and he leant back, content to wait for inspiration to arrive. Something, no doubt, would turn up. He slept.
He woke with a start at one minute to four in the morning to find himself bundled out on to a dark and clammily cold railway station, without overcoat or luggage. His first thought was that he was by some monstrous injustice or mistake in hell, but afterwards, when the kaleidoscopic events of the previous afternoon and evening returned to him, he reconsidered his decision and concluded he was mad.
But in ten minutes or so his indomitable faith in himself had returned. He had been forced into a delicate situation, compelled to take an unconventional line. A regrettable but minor mishap had deprived him of his bag, but he was still the captain of his press, still the keeper of the personality.
He looked about him. No provincial town is at its best at four o’clock on an autumn morning. Tadema did not know the place and did not particularly want to. His best plan, he decided, was to leave Yarborough. He consulted a weary porter.
“First train, sir? Where for, sir?”
“Anywhere,” said Tadema recklessly. “The first train to leave this station.”
The man looked at him curiously and replied that there was a slow branch line train leaving in an hour.
“Take you to Ebury, Lessing and Saffronden,” he concluded.
Saffronden. The name struck a familiar note in Tadema’s memory. There was a theatre in Saffronden, or rather there had once been a theatre there; the Theatre Royal, a little dark house with a smell. Through the years that smell crept back and assailed again the nostrils of Tadema, a camphory, dampish odour with a bite in it, unique and unforgettable.
The old “Hearts Afire” company under Benny Fancy had played there for a week way back in 19… Tadema forgot the year.
Another memory returned to him. It was very vague but it conjured up a sensation of warmth and stuffiness and amusement. It was a joke, he fancied, and something to do with cocoa of all things; something excruciatingly funny. He brightened up.
“I’ll go on to Saffronden,” he said, adding abruptly as he returned to the temporarily forgotten porter, “There’s a bookstall there, isn’t there? What time do the morning papers arrive?”
Both bewildered replies having proved satisfactory, Tadema, the fugitive, entered the Saffronden train.
He was waiting on Saffronden station when the papers arrived and he pounced upon a copy of the Trumpeter and turned the pages over feverishly. At first he thought he was not mentioned at all and a feeling of bewilderment passed over him. It was not until the third time that he searched the paper that he found the small paragraph tucked away at the bottom of a page:
“Sir Geoffrey Tadema, the well-known actor manager, was forced by indisposition to retire from the cast of ‘Lovers’ Meeting”, now enjoying a successful run at the Gre
sham. Sir Geoffrey’s part in the third act was played by his understudy, Paul Ritchie. Sir Geoffrey is confidently expected to return to his role at this evening’s performance.”
Tadema swore softly under his breath. What an idiot Wentworth was! As a business manager he was intelligent and economical, but in an emergency he always did the wrong thing. If only the fool knew it he was wasting precious time. Oh, well, he’d have to rely on the evening papers. The lunatic would be sure to do something by that time. Doubtless he had the wind up properly. Tadema could not repress a chuckle at the spectacle. “Dashing about like a demented hen,” he said to himself as he walked down the winding hill from the station into the main road of the town, which had miraculously become much smaller and sleepier than he remembered it.
By the time he was breakfasting in the commercial room of the Red Lion his trepidation had returned. Time was so very short. By this time tomorrow Chloe would be well on her way to Athens and a short time later the wires would be buzzing.
He was beside himself with impatience and a growing sense of impotence in the matter. There was nothing he could possibly-do to speed things up. A wire to Wentworth saying “I’ve disappeared you fool” would be ludicrous and quite horribly disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands.
Moreover, this temporary setback was taking his attention from the plan he had to evolve. He had relied upon the morning newspapers to give him a lead. Whatever he did, it had got to be good. Tadema did not shut his eyes to the danger of the whole thing fizzling out into an incident that had to be explained away: “Temporary amnesia”, “actor finds strain too great”, “betrothed’s flight breaks up elderly fiance”. That was the sort of thing which had to be avoided at all costs.
By the end of breakfast he had decided to wait. Nothing could be done at the moment, so much was painfully obvious.
By paying in advance and sending out for some pyjamas Tadema dispelled any doubts which the clerk at the Red Lion might have entertained concerning him and, having bathed and shaved, he retired to bed, leaving instructions that he was to be called with a cup of tea and an evening paper as soon as that sheet should have arrived.
He lay awake for some time, fuming at Wentworth and worrying over his predicament, but his night’s journey had been long and uncomfortable and he dropped off into a fitful and uneasy sleep.
However, he was awake and pacing up and down the room in pyjamas and a bed quilt when the chambermaid arrived. The girl set down the tea, and would have spoken, but Tadema had pounced upon the folded paper and she went out again huffily.
For a moment Tadema’s eyes refused to focus, and he was conscious of a thrill of pure apprehension as he shook out the paper. The next moment, however, he was staring, his pale eyes starting out of his head.
Right across the front page and surmounting a large photograph of himself were the words:
“TRAGIC DEATH OF FAMOUS ACTOR. Dies in Stage Clothes. Early this morning a man was knocked down and terribly mutilated in the Gray’s Inn Road. From papers in his pocket the police discovered him to be the famous stage actor Sir Geoffrey Tadema. The actor manager had not been seen by any of his associates since the interval after the second act of ‘Lovers’ Meeting” at the Gresham Theatre last night.
“When Sir Geoffrey’s body was found it was clad in the clothes which he wore in the play. His friends can give no explanation for the tragedy.
“Mr. Henry Sharper, Sir Geoffrey’s valet, broke down at the mortuary when he identified the body, and has been taken home to relatives, suffering from shock.”
Tadema let the paper drop from his hand. His eyes were glazed and the expression upon his face was mainly pathetic.
“Well—I’m damned,” he said aloud, and added as a gleam ol intelligence returned to his blue eyes, “I am, too.”
“Tragic death”. Tadema sat on the edge of his bed in his new pyjamas and re-read the words until they became meaningless and afterwards horribly clear again. He was, of course, completely unaware of the existence, or rather the pre-existence, of Duds Wallace, that luckless seeker after sartorial correctness, who, clad in his new glory, had blundered blindly into a car when on his way to air his plumage.
But it was obvious that some such disaster must have occurred. Tadema read every word the paper had printed about himself and then, with disaster weighing numbingly upon him, he dressed carefully and went downstairs.
He collected the other papers and carried them off to his room. They had the same story, of course, but with a few added details.
There was only one mention of Chloe. The Trumpeter observed that Sir Geoffrey’s fiancee, Lady Chloe Staratt, was out of London.
“Thinking of some way of cashing in on the story,” thought Tadema grimly. “Or, more likely, trying to prevent the young lout from blethering his side of the affair.”
For the first time a faint smile passed over the actor’s lips. Chloe was frustrated all right: temporarily rendered speechless, it seemed. His enjoyment in this aspect of the affair was short-lived as his own position became painfully apparent. As far as publicity was concerned, he had certainly scored heavily. His name and prowess filled all three papers, but what of the future? There was an ancient jest concerning the young man who, on being promised a legacy if he got his name in the news, cut his throat to achieve it. The similarity of his own story made Tadema squirm. What could he do? What on earth could he do? How could he return without providing the greatest anticlimax of all time?
He toyed with the idea of simply walking back into his part and meeting the subsequent inquiry with a more or less plausible story. That would be a sensational course in all conscience and would serve his purpose very well unless Chloe eloped. And she would; he knew it instinctively. Chloe would elope and people would draw the inevitable and unfortunately true conclusions.
The only way to prevent her going off and marrying someone else immediately was for him to remain dead. If he remained dead, how could he ever resurrect himself? How could he ever explain why he had allowed some unknown man to be buried in his stead?
Thinking of burial, Tadema returned to the newspapers. “The funeral arrangements will be published later.” This was a dreadful side of the farce. In his mind’s eye he saw old Wentworth flying about in a panic, poor Sharper prostrate in the house of inquisitive relations, the company, the wretched author, the flowers, the solemn ceremony and the grief of the few people who were fond of him; Ma Biggs, his housekeeper and old Wally Bell, the comedian.
No, it was horrible. It was dreadful. It had got to stop. But what could he do?
He wandered out into the town. Some of the passers-by glanced at the stranger in their midst with the mild interest of country folk and Tadema might have been alarmed for the safety of his incognito had he cared about it.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, he was perfectly safe. The carefully taken studio portraits reproduced in the newspapers showed a man twenty years younger, with darker eyes and deeper and more interesting shadows than this pale, worried-looking, middle-aged man who hurried along so fast and yet, had they known it, so aimlessly. As far as the man in the street was concerned Sir Geoffrey Tadema was dead.
The queue outside the pit impeded his progress and finally pulled him up. He stood staring at the shabby old theatre for a moment with the first interest he had shown in externals since the advent of the evening papers.
The Theatre Royal was on its last legs, or at least its plaster pillars were crumbling. Tadema was shocked. A genteel shabbi-ness it had always possessed, besides its characteristic smell, but in the old days it had never looked like this. The meanest cinema in the meanest street had not this dreadful decayed poverty. To Tadema the Theatre Royal Saffronden looked like some depraved and leering old harridan clad in filthy finery, all the more depressing because he had known her in her better days.
The Chasberg Stock Company was playing there, he gathered from the bills. The piece that week was “Beggar’s Choice”. Tadema took a box.
He remembered the play as soon as the curtain rose. It was an ancient melodrama about a racehorse, an impoverished lord and the inevitable Lady Mary. He had played in it himself many times in his old rep days.
He almost enjoyed it. The contemplation of the past at least took his mind off the horror of the present. Seated well back among the crimson curtains, the pungent camphory smell tingling in his nostrils, he looked down at the old stage and remembered with a hint of sadness something he had long forgotten, the excitement of those early days.
His job had kept him busy then. Plays had followed so fast upon one another in those days that no one was ever word perfect. The underpaid stage managers were always unreliable. No one knew if the props would turn up in their right places, or even if the curtain would descend at the end of the act. It would be nerve-racking and terrible now, but in those days it had been rather fun.
Tadema, already extremely sorry for himself, nearly wept when he remembered how long ago it all was.
He had been watching the Lady Mary for some minutes before he recognised her. It was a trick of her voice which finally caught his attention, and made him lean forward in the box and peer more closely at her face. She was older, of course—far too old for the part. Tadema could not remember her name but her voice was familiar and she had a way of smiling that came back to him.
He could not see his programme and relied upon his memory. What was the woman’s name? Chrissie something, he was inclined to think, and they had travelled together. It must have been in the old rep days.
She had improved, he thought suddenly. That was it; in the old days she had been appalling. Appalling and rather sweet. His mind, anxious to escape from the world of reality outside the theatre, seized avidly on the problem within. Tadema closed his eyes and delved back into the past. The voices on the stage helped him considerably. He remembered whole sequences and there was one scene on the steps of a hotel just off the racecourse which returned so vividly to his mind that he sat up abruptly. That was it! Her name was Chrissie and they must have played this part together.
Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories Page 3