Under the Hammer

by John Mortimer

  ‘It can’t have.’ Mousekin seemed on the verge of tears.

  ‘If anything has happened to our manuscript, Glazier,’ Hector told him with icy calm, ‘we shall hold you personally responsible.’

  The family were all looking at Ben with varying degrees of hostility. He got away from them as quickly as possible, sacrificing breakfast and promising to search and see if by any chance the precious manuscript had been left at Klinsky’s. He would call them as soon as he had any news. It was Lucky who got him a taxi for the station and Hector who, with a set jaw, refused him even the coldest of farewells.

  Back at Klinsky’s, Ben made a cursory search of his office, but he knew when he had last seen ‘The Spectre’. He was about to call on Maggie when Shrimsley entered the room in the manner of a brisk police inspector carrying out a dawn raid, and told him that the Lord Chairman wanted to see him at once. When Ben asked if he were under arrest, Shrimsley replied, ‘Not yet,’ and marched him off. Indeed the atmosphere in the Chairman’s office was not unlike that in the interview room of a particularly unfriendly nick.

  Holloway was outraged. ‘A Member of Parliament! Parliamentary Private Secretary at what, Shrimsley?’

  ‘European Union, Lord Chairman.’

  ‘At European Union. A man of unimpeachable character who has made it pretty plain to me, on the telephone, Glazier, that he suspects you of having ...’

  ‘Half-inched?’ Ben suggested helpfully.

  ‘Of having stolen – I hope you realize the seriousness of the situation – stolen what he says is a valuable manuscript. Is it a valuable manuscript?’

  ‘Extremely valuable.’

  ‘And have you stolen it?’

  ‘Not guilty! What’s this? A judgement by my peers?’

  ‘It was only by the use of the greatest tact that I managed to stop him calling in the police.’ And Holloway, in a distinctly unfriendly manner, added, ‘For the time being.’

  ‘I went down there. I was reading it in bed. I put it on the bedside table and in the morning ...’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that the family at Bovington stole their own property?’ Shrimsley was at his most flatly ironic. ‘I don’t think you’ll find your average jury would take very kindly to that idea.’

  ‘Well, what idea would they take kindly to? One of the dogs ate it? A ghost? Why not?’ Ben asked them, in all innocence, it’s a ghost story.’

  ‘I think I should tell the meeting that Mr Glazier asked Accounts for a certain amount of his salary in advance,’ Shrimsley was delighted to be able to say.

  ‘I had my eye,’ Ben explained, ‘on something rather glamorous.’

  ‘You mean a woman?’ Lord Holloway made what was, to him, a natural assumption.

  ‘No, I mean a BMW K1100LT,’ Ben told them. ‘With an electronic windscreen.’

  ‘Are we to understand that you stole a Dickens manuscript to buy a motor bike?’ Like King Lear, the Lord Chairman seemed to fear the onset of madness.

  ‘Of course not,’ Ben reassured him. ‘The idea is ridiculous!’

  ‘In fact it’s extremely serious,’ Holloway corrected him. it’s a case which, in our opinion, calls for a ruthless investigation.’

  And then Ben, fed up to the teeth with all these absurd suspicions from the man who wouldn’t know the Martini horseman from a cocktail, lost his temper, stood up, and decided to end his long and occasionally brilliant career at Klinsky’s. ‘Then let me tell you what you can do for a start. You can take my job and bloody catalogue it. You can put it in the next sale and knock it down to the lowest bidder and I hope you do a terrible deal. You can ask Hector Bovington, MP exactly where he intends to flog the precious manuscript he pinched off his dear old Ma. And when you’ve done all that, you can write me a letter of grovelling apology, care of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. Sorry, Shrimsley, I’ve forgotten the postcode!’ And with that he banged out of the room and, so far as he was concerned, out of their lives for ever.

  People who leave their jobs, Ben knew, are meant to clear their desks. On the face of it that sounds a fairly simple proposition, sweep the notepad, the pen tray and the photo of the wife and kids into a briefcase and slope off. But when he sat down in front of his desk and started to grub about in it, he was faced with a job that would take at least a week and might call for packing cases and a pantechnicon. Just one deep drawer was found to contain a pullover, a spare pair of socks, three spectacle cases, a guide to Urbino, two tins of butterscotch, the remains of a bottle of Glenfiddich, shoe trees, a small watering-can, a tweed cap, a compass, about thirty tapes – most of which had been put in the wrong boxes – and a tinned Christmas pudding. He had taken a swig from the Glenfiddich bottle and was wondering how on earth Gregorian chants had got into Golden Moments from ‘French Cancan, when Maggie burst in on him, considerably aggrieved. ‘You’re not going to do it!’ she ordered.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Leave?’ The news had spread round Klinsky’s like wildfire.

  ‘Oh, yes, I am.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ll be perfectly content’ – Ben did his best to sound dreamy – ‘cadging drinks in Harry’s Bar. Showing rich Americans round the Botticellis. Sitting in the sunshine doing the Daily Telegraph crossword in the Piazza della Signoria. That’s if I’m not arrested at the airport. If Lord Fishfingers down there doesn’t get me sewing mailbags in Wandsworth.’

  She looked at him then, in a way he found highly inconvenient, ‘I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Maggie. Don’t say things like that!’

  ‘I’m going to miss you very much.’

  ‘Shut up!’ he said, and then talked about simpler, more practical matters. ‘That manuscript didn’t just melt into thin air, you know. “The Spectre at the Feast” didn’t just glide into the other world. Our Hector stole it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because he needed ready money to pay his young hopeful’s school fees at some highly expensive penal colony. He wanted to steal it from Mrs Bovington, whose property it undoubtedly is. He didn’t want to have to split his share of the boodle with his boring brother. He nipped into my bedroom when I was enjoying my beauty sleep and now he’s off on a parliamentary mission to Tokyo, looking for an anonymous millionaire who has a secret store of Dickens manuscripts.’

  Maggie thought about his scenario for a little and then said, ‘I’ve had some dealings with Hector Bovington.’

  ‘Of course you have! The Rubens that wasn’t.’

  ‘He made me a quite extraordinary proposition.’

  ‘What do you mean exactly?’

  ‘I suppose he thinks he rather fancies me.’

  ‘It’s not an uncommon complaint, unfortunately.’

  ‘I might be able to find out if he’s got it.’

  ‘You have ways of making him talk.’

  ‘Anyway, don’t you leave!’ Maggie’s mind was made up. ‘Not till I’ve had a go at it.’

  ‘I’m not going to stick round here.’ Ben was sure of that, ‘I’m not going to give Lord Muesli the satisfaction.’

  ‘Go home, say you’re ill,’ Maggie called out her instructions as she left. ‘Skulk in your tent. Say you’re dead. It shouldn’t take me too long.’

  Back in her office Maggie called European Union and got the Parliamentary Private Secretary with alarming rapidity. He came on the line, switched on and with his engine running, ‘Hector Bovington, here.’ Annabelle, the Old Master Number Two, was listening eagerly as Maggie chatted back, ‘Oh, hello, Hector. This is Maggie. Maggie Perowne. From Klinsky’s. Yes. Well, I know Klinsky’s is a dirty word to you, but I’ve got an idea. I might be able to help. There’s a party. Old Master drawings. We could have a drink and a quiet word perhaps. Around seven thirty?’

  She put down the phone and made a small gesture of disgust. He had accepted with quite horrible enthusiasm.

  The gallery was crowded with potential buyers and practising d
rinkers, but Hector Bovington, MP had Maggie in a corner and was making it clear that he was seriously angry. ‘Not blaming you, of course, but I’ve told your Chairman straight. I told Holloway that unless Klinsky’s and your friend Glazier cough up our manuscript in forty-eight hours I’m turning the whole shooting match over the the police.’

  ‘Quite right!’ Maggie agreed heartily.

  ‘What?’ Hector was surprised.

  ‘That’s the best thing for you to do. Oh, by the way, that’s a Rubens. Just in case you’d like to know what one looks like.’

  ‘But didn’t you want to persuade me not to report Glazier?’ He was too busy to more than glance at the drawing on the wall.

  ‘Oh, no. If he’s stolen the thing, that’s exactly what you should do. Rather a special little Tiepolo too, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Then if you don’t want to protect Glazier, why did you ask me here? The truth now!’ Hector added making it clear he wasn’t going to be mucked about.

  Maggie smiled, raised her hand shyly, and just touched his jacket. ‘I suppose,’ she almost whispered, ‘I’ve been thinking about you rather a lot.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you quite a lot too,’ he was delighted to tell her.

  ‘I mean, we seemed to get on quite well together ...’

  ‘Absolutely! We hit it off,’ he agreed.

  ‘I always think there’s something so glamorous about an MP. I suppose it’s power.’

  ‘And I do think you’re an absolutely super girl!’ He made a quick lunge at her but she stepped smartly away.

  ‘No, Hector. Not here. Couldn’t you take me out to dinner? Somewhere exciting? Not the Reform Club.’

  ‘Somewhere really exciting?’ The light of battle was in his eyes. ‘I bet you’ve never been to the Conundrum?’

  The Conundrum Club, somewhere behind Jermyn Street, wasn’t very full nor did it seem to Maggie particularly clean. There was a small dance floor, pink spotlights and waitresses (they, she thought, had been the appeal of the place for the eternal schoolboy MP), not-so-young blondes, bursting out of gym slips, with school ties and boaters, and suspenders straining across white thighs to grab their black stockings.

  Hector and Maggie had been eating prawn cocktails and coq au vin by candlelight. He was holding her hand at all opportunities and looking at her with enormous interest, while she tried hard to remain charming and, on the whole, succeeded. Then the time came for him to explain his tastes in women. ‘I do like girls who are smallish, but ...’

  ‘Sort of perfect,’ she helped him out.

  ‘The elfin quality! Now my wife Mousekin is hardly elfin.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Maggie sounded genuinely sympathetic. ‘She’s larger, actually, than I expected when I took her on. We don’t sleep together now, you know. Never share a bedroom. Even when we’re staying at Ma’s.’

  ‘How fantastically interesting! But I did say that I thought I could help you.’

  ‘You are helping me!’ Hector assured her. ‘You’re helping me put up with, well, all the things I have to put up with. All the bloody worries. The European biscuit regulations and having to face years of school fees for Malcolm – and, well, Mousekin. I don’t mean to treat her badly. It’s just when I actually catch sight of her, looking like some clueless junior who’s letting down the house, I lose my temper! Now, when I catch sight of you, it’s something entirely different. Any chance of a kiss?’

  ‘Before we start on all that’ – Maggie was firm – ‘could we discuss a bit of business?’

  ‘What sort of business?’ Hector became cautious.

  ‘That manuscript. You know, there’s no need to sell it through Klinsky’s.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘We could find an eccentric millionaire. Someone with a secret collection, who’d just like to feel he owns the thing and doesn’t want to show it around. That way we’d save Klinsky’s commission.’

  ‘Very interesting.’ Hector was still guarded.

  ‘And another advantage ...?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your family need never know it’s been recovered. You wouldn’t have to share out the dosh. It could be yours, Hector, all yours. And you could take me out to this wonderful, glamorous club again ...’

  ‘Wouldn’t you want a little more than that?’ He was becoming businesslike.

  ‘Oh, Hector! What a mind-reader you are. And so sensitive. I suppose that’s why you’ve had such a brilliant career in politics.’

  ‘Probably. So the deal is, you arrange a private sale. Not a word to Ma. I get the proceeds and you get ...?’

  ‘Oh, a little something.’ Maggie smiled modestly. ‘So I’ll always think of you with astonishing gratitude.’

  He looked at her and he smiled back. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘All right, we’ll drink to it.’ She raised her glass.

  ‘Why not dance to it?’ Maggie thought about this and decided to be brave. She said, without enthusiasm, ‘Lovely.’

  So Hector got up to dance round with zeal, prancing as he had at college balls ten years before. Maggie danced minimally, doing her best to avoid physical contact.

  ‘You’ll hand over the article in question,’ she told him as he gyrated.

  ‘You mean, you’ll get it from your friend, Glazier. He’s got it, of course.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of course he hasn’t.’

  ‘Who has, then?’

  ‘You have.’

  ‘What?’ Hector’s fists were clenched, his arms waving and he seemed to be squatting into a sort of twist.

  ‘You took it off Ben’s bedside table.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t.’

  ‘Pull the other one! Tell us where it is and we’re in business.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, I promise you, I didn’t take it.’

  Maggie stopped any attempt at dancing and looked at him in deep disappointment. She said, ‘You’re telling the truth!’

  ‘As a matter of fact I am.’ Hector also juddered to a stop. ‘Glazier’s got it. It’s perfectly obvious.’

  ‘It wasn’t you.’ By now she was furious with him.

  ‘Of course not. Weren’t we dancing?’

  ‘Good-night, Hector.’ There was absolutely no point in her spending a moment longer with this ghastly man. She made for the door.

  ‘Maggie. Maggie darling! Where’re you going?’

  ‘Home!’ And she was gone. He ran after her into the street and saw her slam the door of a small white car. She had started the engine as he called out angrily, ‘But aren’t we going on somewhere? Your flat, for instance?’ But she had escaped him.

  He had never thought it would happen but Ben found himself missing Klinsky’s. He didn’t bother to dress but stood in the kitchen and cooked himself a kipper. Well, surely, after all that had happened, he deserved some sort of a treat. After breakfast he could, he supposed, shave. He could get the Harley-Davidson out and go up to Hampstead Heath. He could speed down to Brighton and sit on the pier in a high wind, with a row of lonely men looking at the grey sea and facing eventual old age. He could plan his departure to Florence. He could write letters. Instead he put on a tape of Porgy and Bess, listened to it Ain’t Necessarily So’, and ate as slowly as possible. Then the doorbell rang and he did his best to conceal his delight as he let in Maggie.

  ‘Kippers and a morning roll. What our Glasgow Granny always gave us on Saturdays. Something we keenly looked forward to after a week of porridge. Now, I suppose, I could have kippers every day. Nothing much else to do.’

  ‘He hasn’t got it.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Hector hasn’t got the manuscript.’

  ‘Who says he hasn’t?’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Then he’s lying through his horrible upper-class teeth.’

  ‘No!’ Maggie wa
s sure of it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know he wasn’t lying. He’d swallowed my story hook, line and sinker. We were going to do a deal, avoiding Klinsky’s, finding a mad collector, cheating the family. We’d shaken hands on it. So I asked him about producing the goods and he said he hadn’t stolen anything. He sounded quite apologetic about not being the thief.’

  ‘Who does he reckon was?’

  ‘You, of course. He thought I’d get it off you and then we could do a deal. You haven’t got it, by any chance?’

  Ben looked at her and shook his head.

  ‘So who else is there?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Gone mad and pinched her own property?’

  ‘A burglar?’

  ‘A cat bibliophile, shinning up the drainpipe after nothing but a Dickens story? Henry Quarles in a stocking mask? Don’t you find that rather improbable?’

  ‘The other son – Mike?’

  Ben thought it over carefully and said, ‘A man who hates Dickens is capable of any enormity.’

  When Maggie passed the Klinsky’s reception desk on her way back to work, a fair-haired woman called out to her, peeled herself away from Lucy Starr, and crossed the marble floor, reminding her that she was Lucky, ‘Mike Bovington’s Lucky’, and that she needed an urgent meeting with Mr Glazier, ‘on this ghastly subject of the Dickens manuscript. Is he available right now?’

  ‘He’s at home,’ Maggie told her. ‘I don’t think he’ll be in here today. Can you tell me about it?’

  ‘Well, I guess not. No, it should be Mr Glazier. You got his home number? Do you think he’ll see me?’

  The tall, blonde woman seemed nervous, yet excited. Maggie came to the conclusion that Ben would rather talk to Lucky than sit alone with a skeleton kipper, and so passed on the address.

  Lucky Bovington wasn’t the only woman with troubles at Klinsky’s that morning. Maggie had hardly got to the Old Masters office, when she was received with a cold smile and a meaningful glance at the clock by Annabelle Straddling-Smith who said, ‘Traffic awful was it, Maggie? It’s a good thing one of us got in early. Camilla’s been on the phone pretty well since dawn. She says she’s got bad news for you.’

  The news was so bad, it seemed, that it couldn’t be spoken of in Klinsky’s, so they had to go out to the Italian cafe (‘Are you going out again? What shall I tell people?’ Annabelle asked). There Camilla fell on a Danish pastry as though it were a stiff brandy and poured out her troubles, it’s that horrific girl in your department,’ she confided between mouthfuls.