*
We only made love once. And that was just before she left again in the morning. (I had agreed very reluctantly, for her to carry on as normal for a day or two longer.) For almost all the rest of the night was spent talking about the inimitable Treasure and how to proceed if, and when, I got my toys back. She advised not proceeding at all, but just leaving everything to the proper authorities — the police. I said we should go just one stage further, and then go to the police — the stage being after we had clamped our beady eyes on the diary. For Arabella confirmed what she had said before — that he was an avid diarist, and most evenings at ten-thirty, he would shut himself away and write, though where he kept his diary she did not know. I said, the little book might be anywhere — in the attics, in some secret panel or safe, like in detective fiction, or even in the barns. She said she doubted it; he seemed to have fairly easy access to it. He did not seem to go up in the attics at all, to her knowledge. And she had a feeling, from what he had said over the months, that all the diaries must be kept together somewhere. He kind of spoke of them that way. She added, too, that he had often said he didn’t believe in safes. ‘For every safe, there’s a built-in safe-cracker at no extra charge,’ was his usual wisecrack about them.
So you can see that part of the night was none too fruitful. Still, she was beautiful to feel, moored alongside me, as we talked.
So she left, having made me promise I would go to the police immediately I had found the diaries, or, without fail, in two days’ time if I was unsuccessful. I sealed the agreement with a kiss, and reluctantly let her go. I never realized before how soppy I could get over someone with spray-booth hair.
Not long afterwards, I was getting the Beetle out of the garage, (if it leaned much more, I’d soon be getting the garage out of the Beetle) and beginning my fateful journey towards Lulworth and the giant’s eerie hideaway, with my faithful Gus at my side. I had told Arabella not to turn up there until lunchtime, just in case there were some unhealthy fireworks. She went ashen at the thought, but at last I got her to promise.
It was as we pulled into Treasure’s driveway, that I noticed a distinct bulge in Gus’s sweater. And by the time I stopped outside the huge studded oak and stone entrance, I had more or less worked out what had been causing it. I unclipped my seat belt, leaned over his way, and whispered, ‘Don’t do anything silly, Gus.’ His eyes instinctively flitted down to his waistline. ‘Yes, I mean that, Gus. Where on earth did you get it, anyway?’
He looked terribly disappointed. ‘From one of those soldiers manning the gun emplacement on Studland beach — during the war it was. Gave him a fiver he owed to a bookie.’
I pulled up his sweater, and saw, as they say, ‘the cold steel’ of an army issue.38 revolver (my father used to have one) tucked into his trouser top.
‘Is it loaded?’ I asked nervously.
He nodded.
‘Well, don’t fire it accidentally, while you’re sitting there waiting for me, will you? Otherwise, that lady friend in Weymouth will have to go looking for another boy.’
He looked horrified, as I don’t think he had thought about where the muzzle was pointing. Gus is full of surprises.
I gave a Churchillian ‘V’ sign, and he reversed it back to me, as I got out of the car. Pretty soon Mrs Fitzpayne had ushered me into the giant’s parlour, and I gave an involuntary shiver, there being no beanstalk hanging about to help me, and this was no fairy tale.
‘Sit down, Mr Marklin. I know the sun isn’t even near the yard-arm, let alone over it, but can I offer you a drink?’ His voice, for once, was treacled with charm. I felt the same unease I had on my first visit so I declined.
‘Well then, Mr Marklin, let me say at once how glad I am that, this time, you have gained access to my house by more conventional means. You are not the most subtle of intruders, you know. Broken glass, footprints, broken doors and door frames, axes — dear me, what would Raffles have thought of you?’
I assumed his question was rhetorical so I didn’t make a guess. Instead, I asked him a question. ‘Tell me, Mr Treasure, why didn’t your super-duper burglar alarm go off, when I opened that window? It’s been intriguing me.’
Treasure poured himself a neat Scotch, and sat down opposite me.
‘I’m so pleased I intrigue you, Mr Marklin. Yes, I’ll tell you. It’s very simple. It didn’t go off, because it wasn’t turned on.’
He saw my look of surprise.
‘You see, Mr Marklin, I had a feeling you might eventually try to search the house to find your splendid toys so I thought I’d make it easy for you. I saw to it that you would know I was going abroad for a day or two and before I left, I disconnected the alarm system. Simple.’
‘So I would discover the cupboard bare, and give up suspecting you.’
‘How astute you are, Mr Marklin. I like a man who doesn’t need everything spelled out for him.’
‘Then I needn’t spell out that I’m not leaving until I’ve got my toys in my car, which is standing in the driveway, with a rather tough friend of mine sitting in it to see fair play.’
‘You don’t need to tell me, Mr Marklin. I saw you arrive through the window. There are not that many old Volkswagen convertibles in this neck of the woods, and not many people like your friend. I’ve noticed him quite a few times over the Spitfire affair.’
I stood up. I didn’t want this meeting to go on any longer than was necessary, as I was feeling distinctly like a fly to his spider.
‘Look, just get me the toys. I haven’t come here to pass the time of day.’
He didn’t move from his seat, but waved a hairy hand at me, in what he intended to be a calming gesture. ‘I have them all packed up ready for you, Mr Marklin.’
‘All?’ I enquired, and he got my meaning.
‘I’m afraid there are only ten of them. You see, I already had a P2 Alfa Romeo, so I sold it to a fellow collector in Geneva on my trip. You must forgive me. I’ll let you have your estimation of its value in cash, of course.’
I looked across at him. ‘Why did you steal them? You’ve got all the money in the world.’
He looked genuinely disappointed.
‘Mr Marklin, Arabella must have read you wrong. She has told me you are a sensitive, intelligent, romantic sort of fellow. Now if all that is true, you’ll know why without asking.’
‘Because there are some things money just can’t buy.’
‘Mr Marklin, I could not have expressed it better myself. Those toys are a unique collection, in unique condition, and Chalmers would never have sold them. I know him a little from the odd business deal. So what option did I have? I nearly always manage to get what I want — eventually.’
He got up and paced around my chair like a caged tiger.
‘You see,’ he continued huskily, ‘for as long as I can remember I have lived life on a high level of expectation. I can’t understand people who don’t. Their lives must be deplorably and unutterably dull, without any meaning whatsoever. No wonder they need alcohol, drugs, uppers and downers. I am my own “upper”, you see. But the down side is that I find it hard to take disappointment, of course — a very deep down side, indeed …’ His voice tailed off, and he went back and sat down. For a second, his arrogance had receded. But only for a second.
‘Mr Treasure, I want my toys. And I want them now.’
‘You will have them, the instant you promise never to harass me again — for any reason you might concoct.’
‘Like where your wife is, for instance?’ I asked quietly.
‘I imagined from your phone call you were starting some other line of vicious rumour-mongering, Mr Marklin. That’s why I agreed to see you. You can have your toys, if you stop indulging your fondness for unfounded allegations. And, I mean right now.’
‘But my allegations about your stealing my toys weren’t unfounded, were they? And, what’s more, you have to give me my toys or I will go straight to the police.’
Treasure smiled grimly, and
I could see his hand strengthen its grip on his glass.
‘You’re beautifully naive, Mr Marklin. The instant you leave here, those toys will disappear forever. Not a trace of them will ever be found — even with the most diligent police search. And I will get you for breaking and entering my premises on two occasions. I do have the evidence for both, my dear fellow.’ He drained his Scotch. ‘And talking of police, Mr Marklin, they have already interviewed me twice about the whereabouts of my wife since that other skeleton was discovered at the Spitfire site, and, as far as I can tell, I am eliminated from their enquiries. What’s more, they told me they doubt if the bones can ever be definitely identified as a great deal of the skull is missing.’
I could feel the ground slipping away from under me, but had the feeling he would not have agreed to see me at all if he were a hundred per cent confident of his position.
‘One day someone will discover all about you, Mr Treasure. And I hope it’s soon. But meanwhile, I want those toys and I want them now, otherwise I’ll attract a great deal of attention to the activities of your henchman, the irresistible Mr Gates.’
‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Marklin.’ Treasure rose and went to the door. ‘I had intended to give you the toys as some slight reward, not for yourself, but for Arabella. She is a very persuasive lady, you know.’
‘Keep her out of this, Treasure,’ I said with some vehemence.
‘She’s already in it, Mr Marklin, isn’t she? And if you now go to the police, and tell them you recovered the toys from me, she’ll be in it even further. And she’s had enough trouble in her short life.’
I moved quickly across the room to where he stood by the door. I was tempted to grab him by his hairy tweed suit, but thought better of it. I compromised with, ‘What do you mean, you bastard?’
He smiled. ‘Well, no one will know that she wasn’t my accomplice all along, will they? Love my girlfriend, love me, Mr Marklin. It’s a fair exchange, don’t you agree?’
He held out a hairy hand, and showed me into the huge hall, where, lined up by the front door, was a neat stack of ten boxes.
Eleven
I wasn’t taking any more chances with those toys. Directly I had checked they were all there, bar the P2 Alfa, that is, Gus and I drove at a rate of knots, out of the castle’s grounds and took the road that would lead us westwards to Bridport, Chalmers’ country seat.
Gus kept muttering about ‘We should get back, as otherwise, we might be late to move Mrs Blunt’s daughter-in-law’s furniture.’ I described, rather rudely, what Mrs Blunt’s daughter-in-law could do right then with her furniture, and he shut up. That’s what friends are for — to shut up sometimes.
Chalmers’ house was even bigger than Treasure’s, and I began wondering what the hell I was doing wrong, living over an ex-sweet shop. Gus helped me carry in the ten boxes, and I showed all the contents to a dark girl, who I discovered was Chalmers’ daughter. She looked too young to be anybody’s wife. She said Mr Chalmers was away for a couple of days, and got the housekeeper to get her a proper receipt pad from somewhere in the huge house, and, in a rather flowery hand, signed each description of each toy as I wrote them in front of her. (I wanted belt and braces on this one.) I asked for some notepaper, and jotted down a brief message for Chalmers about the missing P2 Alfa Romeo. I said I could either find one for him, or give him the money. I did not explain how I had found the toys. Chalmers wouldn’t care. Collectors are like that: possession is the whole story.
The journey back to Studland was a joy. The sun was celebrating too, and I stopped and put the top down. You’d think Gus had just been and had an elaborate hair-do by the fuss he kicked up about the stream of fresh air. I couldn’t think why. (The draughts in his Ford Popular saloon blew you about more than my open convertible. And that’s with all its windows closed.)
When we got back, I offered to buy Gus a slap-up bangers and mash at our usual hostelry, and all the Heinekens he could down, and to my surprise he accepted. Usually Gus does not go for anything that smacks of charity. You even have to be careful of thanking him for anything too profusely. Before we went into the pub, I did, however, ask him to get rid of the bump in his sweater. He was most indignant.
‘I’m not leaving it in your car. You’ve had enough stolen from that, just recently.’
I grabbed him by the arm.
‘Look, Gus, you can’t walk into a pub in England with a.38 down your crotch. It’s not done, unless you’ve got a stocking over your head. And I’m not letting you go home and get one either.’
I made to put my hand down the front of his rather stained trousers, when a pub customer came past and saw us. He was blase enough only to raise his eyebrows. Other pub customers would have raised the local constabulary.
‘Oh all right,’ he grumbled, and I managed to get him to put the gun under the passenger seat. ‘But you’ll owe me a fiver if it gets nicked, mind.’
Dear old Gus. All the time I’ve known him, he has never ever made any allowance for inflation. (He told me the other day that he would never waste l/9d. going to no film.)
It was a good lunch. Not a great lunch, but a good one, because I felt more relaxed than I had done for what now seemed an age. We drank to the Abbey National Building Society. We drank to Barclays Bank, Nat West and Lloyds. We offered toasts to every pawnbroker and moneylender in the land, without being too specific about actual names. We saluted debt collectors, the Inland Revenue, and the Royal Mint. And we were just about to raise our glasses to the great world of international insurance, when we got thrown out. That’s how good a lunch it was.
I can hardly remember parking the Beetle back in the garage, or going down to Gus’s to leave his gun. Nor indeed, our, no doubt, rather meandering walk down to the beach, where Gus kept his old boat. I do, however, vaguely recall the enormous effort it seemed to take to get the wheeled cradle down to the water. And how Gus seemed to disappear under the boat once we got it floating. He didn’t do it intentionally, you understand; he just went on pushing, after the cradle had stopped. It seemed to sober him up a bit, though. And I’ll swear it’s the first time that grey-blue sweater of his had seen water since the war.
So, dripping though unbowed, we set out for Mudeford, which is Christchurch way, just a bit further eastwards round the bay from Bournemouth. And true to his word, Gus did not take me too far from dry land the whole way across — which was just as well, as there was a bit of a swell running, and that and the beer made me distinctly unseaworthy.
I won’t bore you with all the details of how, when we got there, Gus could not find their house (he had written their address on the back of his hand and his sea-walking had washed it off), and how he’d had to ring Mrs Blunt, and she had to ring her daughter-in-law, who had to ring her husband to get him to bring down a handcart on which to drag the table and chairs to the jetty, and so on, and so on. Suffice it to say, we were away from the boat for about two and a half hours, which was far longer than Gus had originally promised the whole round trip would take.
Once the dining-room table and six chairs were stowed on board, we looked a damn sight more ridiculous than we had done with the three piece suite from Lulworth. And, of course, Gus’s sodden appearance (in every way) didn’t exactly help. I was relieved when Gus got the old diesel throbbing at the usual eightieth go, and we headed back towards Studland and Swanage. At least I could not hear the laughter and ribald comments any more. I sat at the dining table, with Gus at the other end, and we began laughing — what else could you do? We knew we looked absurd.
But we didn’t laugh long. About five minutes or so after leaving Mudeford there was a blinding flash and I felt myself being blown back, then sucked up in the air, surrounded by pieces of I know not what. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion somehow, and for a split second I thought I must be dreaming some alcoholic dream. Then I heard the detonation, my ear drums tried to bury themselves in my mouth, and I knew I was screaming and then … nothing. And for how
long there was nothing, I don’t know.
Then I remember choking and coughing, and my lungs filling with water, salty and ice-cold. My whole being was ice cold. I was beginning to surface. I looked around. My eyes could just pick out jagged pieces of wood bobbing about by me. Then I remembered what I had been doing, and with whom I had been doing it. I tried to strike out with my arms, but my left one wasn’t obeying me. Frantically I tried to keep myself afloat while looking everywhere for any sign at all of Gus. But all I could see was made of wood, hundreds of pieces, big and small. I made for the largest section, which I recognized as part of the prow of Gus’s boat and, once there, clung onto it with my right hand. I looked around again, but still I couldn’t see Gus, or anything that looked a bit like him. I turned and tried to see the shore line, and then thanked God I was a bad sailor. It was only some two hundred and fifty yards or so away, otherwise I would definitely have been a goner. The furthest I can swim with two good arms is four hundred yards.
I looked around for Gus once more, but there was still no sign. I began paddling my legs, and succeeded in turning the section of prow towards the shore. I just hoped my good arm wouldn’t give up the struggle before I felt sand under my feet.
After what must have been about a minute, I came across the top of the dining-room table, amazingly almost intact, with one leg still attached to it, sticking grotesquely into the sky. Then I spotted what looked like a hand holding onto the base of the leg, and I paddled furiously with my legs towards it. The hand was attached to an arm, and it was Gus’s. The arm disappeared under the water and I couldn’t see if it was still attached to anything. And then, suddenly, a head seemed to rise like Neptune from the deep, and I almost screamed with fear and anguish. The head spluttered water and blood, and the eyes rolled in their sockets.
I reached out with my hand, and the head turned and shouted, ‘Don’t hold onto me, you idiot. I can hardly keep myself afloat.’
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