by Nevil Shute
— Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem.
It had been a part of my youth, that phrase, as I suppose it is a part of the youth of many young men who have been in love. I could not bear to go on reading Horace after that, and I sat thinking of sweetly smiling, soft-spoken Lalage on her way to Alice Springs in a long-distance bus, until I broke away from morbid fancies and got up and put the book back in the shelf.
It must have been about a week after that that Derek Harris came into my room as the client went out. Derek is one of our two articled clerks, and one day I expect to make him a partner; a pleasant fresh-faced lad. He said, “Could you spare a few minutes for a stranger, sir?”
“What sort of stranger?” I enquired.
He said, “A man called Harman. He came about an hour ago without any appointment and asked to see you. Sergeant Gunning asked if I would see him as you were engaged, and I had a talk with him, but it’s you that he wants to see. I understand that it’s something to do with Miss Paget.”
I knew now where I had heard that name before, but it was quite incredible. I asked, “What sort of a man is he?”
He grinned broadly. “Some sort of a colonial, I should think. Probably Australian. He’s an outdoor type, anyway.”
“Is he a reasonable person?”
“Oh, I think so, sir. He’s some sort of a countryman, I should say.”
It was all beginning to fit in, and yet it was incredible that an Australian stockman should have found his way to my office in Chancery Lane. “Is his name Joseph, by any chance?” I asked.
“You know him, do you, sir? Joe Harman. Shall I ask him to come up?”
I nodded. “I’ll see him now.” Harris went down to fetch him, and I stood by my window looking out into the grey street, wondering what this visit meant and how it had come about, and how much of my client’s business I could tell this man.
Harris showed him in, and I turned from the window to meet him.
He was a fair-haired man, about five feet ten in height. He was thickset but not fat; I judged him to be between thirty and thirty-five years old. His face was deeply tanned but his skin was clear; he had very bright blue eyes. He was not a handsome man; his face was too square and positive for that, but it was a simple and good-natured face. He walked towards me with a curious, stiff gait.
I shook hands with him. “Mr. Harman?” I said. “My name is Strachan. Do you want to see me?” And as I spoke, I was unable to resist the temptation to look down at his hand. There was a huge scar on the back of it.
He said a little awkwardly, “I don’t want to keep you long.” He was ill at ease and obviously embarrassed.
“Not at all,” I said. “Sit down, Mr. Harman, and tell me what I can do for you.” I put him in the client’s chair before my desk and gave him a cigarette. He pulled from his pocket a tin box of wax matches of a style that was strange to me, and cracked one expertly with his thumbnail without burning himself. He was wearing a very ready-made suit, quite new, and an unusually ornamental tie for London wear.
“I was wondering if you could tell me about Miss Jean Paget,” he said. “Where she lives, or anything like that.”
I smiled. “Miss Paget is a client of mine, Mr. Harman,” I said. “You evidently know that. But a client’s business is entirely confidential, you know. Are you a friend of hers?”
The question seemed to embarrass him still further. “Sort of,” he replied. “We met once in the war, in Malaya that was. I’ll have to tell you who I am, of course. I’m a Queenslander. I run a station in the Gulf country, about twenty miles from Willstown.” He spoke very slowly and deliberately, not from embarrassment but because that seemed to be his way. “I mean, the homestead is twenty miles from town, but one limb of the land runs down the creek to within five miles. Midhurst, that’s the name of my station. Midhurst, Willstown, is the address.”
I made a note upon my pad, and smiled at him again. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Harman,” I said.
“Too right,” he replied. “I don’t know nobody in England except Miss Paget and a cobber I met in the prison camp who lives at a place called Gateshead in the north of England. I came here for a holiday, you might say, and I thought perhaps Miss Paget might be glad to know that I’m in England, but I don’t know her address.”
“Rather a long way to come for a holiday?” I observed.
He smiled a little sheepishly. “I struck it lucky. I won the Casket.”
“The Casket?”
“The Golden Casket. Don’t you have that here?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.”
“Oh my word,” he said. “We couldn’t get along without the Casket in Queensland. It’s the State lottery that gets the money to build hospitals.”
“I see,” I said. “Did you win a prize in the lottery?”
“Oh my word,” he repeated. “Did I win a prize? I won a thousand pounds — not English pounds, of course, Australian pounds, but it’s a thousand pounds to us. I always take a ticket in every Casket like everybody else because if you don’t get a prize you get a hospital and there’s times when that’s more useful. You ought to see the hospital the Casket built at Willstown. Three wards it’s got, with two beds in each, and two rooms for the sisters, and a separate house for the doctor only we can’t get a doctor to come yet because Willstown’s a bit isolated, you see. We’ve got an X-ray apparatus there and a wireless so that the sister can call for the Cairns Ambulance — the aeroplane, you know. We couldn’t do without the Casket.”
I must say I was a little bit interested. “Does the Casket pay for the aeroplane, too?”
He shook his head. “You pay seven pounds ten a year to the Cairns Ambulance, each family, that is. Then if you get sick and have to go to Cairns the sister calls Cairns on the wireless and the aeroplane comes out to take you into Cairns to hospital. That’s free, provided that you pay the seven pounds ten each year.”
“How far are you from Cairns?”
“About three hundred miles.”
I reverted to the business in hand. “Tell me, Mr. Harman,” I said, “how did you get to know that I was Miss Paget’s solicitor?”
“She told me in Malaya when we met, she lived in Southampton,” he said. “I didn’t know any address, so I went there and stayed in a hotel, because I thought maybe she’d like to know I was in England. I never saw a city that had been bombed before — oh my word. Well, then I looked in the telephone book and asked a lot of people but I couldn’t find out nothing except she had an aunt that lived in Wales at a place called Colwyn Bay. So then I went to Colwyn Bay.”
“You went right up there, did you?”
He nodded. “I think her aunt thought I was up to some crook game or other,” he said simply. “She wouldn’t tell me where she lived or anything. All she said was that you were her trustee, whatever that means. So I came here.”
“When did you arrive in England?” I asked.
“Last Thursday. Five days ago.”
“You landed at Southampton, did you?”
He shook his head. “I flew from Australia, by Qantas. You see, I got a good stockman looking after Midhurst for me, but I can’t afford to be away so long. Jim Lennon’s all right for a time, but I wouldn’t want to be away from Midhurst more’n three months. You see, this is a slack time in the Gulf country. We mustered in March this year on account of the late season and drove the stock down to Julia Creek in April — that’s railhead, you know. I had about fourteen hundred stores I sold down to Rockhampton, for fattening. Well, after getting them on rail I had to get back up to Midhurst on account of the bore crew. I got Mrs. Spears — she’s the owner of Midhurst — I got her to agree we sink a bore at Willow Creek, that’s about twenty miles south-east of the homestead, to get water down at that end in the dry, and we got a bonza bore, we did. She’s flowing over thirty thousand gallons a day; it’s going to make a lot of difference down at that end. Well, that took up to about th
ree weeks ago before I got that finished up, and I must be back at Midhurst by the end of October for getting in the stores and that before the wet begins at Christmas. So I thought that coming on this holiday I’d better fly.”
Flying to England, I thought, must have made a considerable hole in his thousand pounds. “You came to London, then, and went straight down to Southampton?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“And from there you went up to North Wales. And from there you came here?”
“That’s right.”
I looked him in the eyes, and smiled. “You must want to see Miss Paget very much.”
He met my gaze. “I do.”
I leaned back in my chair. “I’ve got a disappointment for you, I’m afraid, Mr. Harman. Miss Paget is abroad.”
He stared down at his hat for a moment. Then he raised his head. “Is she far away?” he asked. “I mean, is it France or anything like that, where I could get to see her?”
I shook my head. “She’s travelling in the East.”
He said quietly, “I see.”
I couldn’t help liking and respecting this man. It was perfectly obvious that he had come twelve thousand miles or so mainly to find Jean Paget, and now he wasn’t going to find her. It was bad luck, to say the least of it, and he was taking it well. I felt that I wanted a little time to consider this affair.
“The most that I can do for you,” I said, “is to forward a letter. I can do that, if you care to write one, and I’ll send it to her by air mail. But I’m afraid that you may have to wait a month or so before you get an answer.”
He brightened. “I’d like to do that. I never thought that after coming all this way I’d find that she’s gone walkabout.” He thought for a minute. “What address should I put upon the letter?”
“I can’t give you my client’s address, Mr. Harman,” I said. “What I suggest that you should do is to write her a letter and bring it in to me here tomorrow morning. I will send it on with a short covering note explaining how it came into my hands. Then if she wants to see you she will get in touch with you herself.”
“You don’t think she’ll want to see me?” he said heavily.
I smiled. “I didn’t say anything of the sort, Mr. Harman. I’m quite sure that when she hears you’ve been in England looking for her she will write to you. What I’m saying is that I have her interests to consider, and I’m not going to give her address to anyone who comes into this office and cares to ask for it.” I paused. “There’s one thing that you’d better know,” I said. “Miss Paget is a fairly wealthy woman. Women who have command of a good deal of money are apt to be troubled by touts. I’m not saying that you’re a tout or that you’re after her money. I am saying that you must write to her first of all, and then let her decide if she wants to meet you. If you’re a friend of hers you’ll see that that’s reasonable.”
He stared at me. “I never knew that she had money. She told me she was just a typist in an office.”
“That’s quite true,” I said. “She inherited some money recently.”
He was silent.
“Suppose you come back tomorrow morning, Mr. Harman,” I said. I glanced at my engagement diary. “Say, twelve o’clock tomorrow morning. Write her a letter saying whatever it is you want to say, and bring it here then. I will forward it to her tomorrow evening.”
“All right,” he said. He got up and I got up with him. “Where are you staying, Mr. Harman?” I asked.
“At the Kingsway Palace Hotel.”
“All right, Mr. Harman,” I said. “I shall expect you tomorrow morning, at twelve o’clock.”
I spent most of that evening wondering if I had done the right thing in refusing Mr. Harman the address. I thought ruefully that Jean would have been very angry if she had known I had done such a thing, especially when she was looking for him all over Australia. At the same time, what I had done would not delay a letter from him reaching her, and there was no sense in putting all her cards upon the table for him to see just at present. One thing that puzzled me a little was, why had he suddenly awoken to the fact that he wanted to meet Jean Paget again, after six years? A question or two upon that point seemed to be in order, and I prepared a small interrogation for him when he came to see me with his letter.
Twelve o’clock next morning came, and he didn’t turn up for his appointment. I waited in for him till one o’clock, and then I went to lunch.
By three o’clock I was a little bit concerned. The initiative had passed into his hands. If he should vanish into thin air now and never come back to see me again, Jean Paget would be very cross with me, and rightly so. Between clients I put in a telephone call to the Kingsway Palace Hotel and asked to speak to Mr. Joseph Harman. The answer was that Mr. Harman had gone out after breakfast, and had left no message at the desk. I left one for him, asking him to ring me as soon as he came in.
He did not ring that day.
At half-past ten that night I rang the hotel again, but I was told that Mr. Harman was not in.
At eight o’clock next morning I rang again. They told me that Mr. Harman had not checked out and his luggage was still in his room, but that he had not slept in the room that night.
As soon as I got into the office I sent for Derek Harris. “Harris,” I said. “I want you to try and find that man Harman. He’s an Australian.” I told him briefly what had happened. “I should try the hotel again, and if you draw a blank, ring round the various police courts. I think I may have given him some rather unwelcome news, and it’s quite possible he’s been out on a blind.”
He came back in a quarter of an hour. “You must have second sight, sir,” he said. “He’s coming up at Bow Street this morning, drunk and disorderly. They had him in the cooler for the night.”
“He’s a friend of Miss Paget’s,” I said. “Get along down to Bow Street, Harris, and make yourself known to him. Which court is he coming up in?”
“Mr. Horler’s.”
I glanced at my watch. “Get along down there right away. Stay with Harman and pay the fine if he hasn’t got any money. Then give me a ring, and if it’s all in order take him in a taxi to my flat. I’ll meet you there.”
There was nothing on my desk that day that could not be postponed or handled by Lester. I got back to my flat in time to catch my charwoman at work and tell her to make up the spare room bed. I told her I should want food in the flat for three or four meals, and I gave her money and sent her out to buy whatever food she could get off the ration.
Harris arrived with Harman half an hour later, and the Australian looked a little bit the worse for wear. He was cheerful and sober after his night in the cells, but he had lost one shoe and he had lost his collar stud and his hat. I met him in the hall. “Morning, Mr. Harman,” I said. “I thought perhaps you’d rather come round here and clean up. You’d better not go back to the hotel looking like that.”
He looked me in the eyes. “I’ve been on the grog,” he said.
“So I see. The water’s hot for a bath if you want one, and there’s a razor in the bathroom.” I took him and showed him the geography of the house. “You can use this room.” I looked him up and down, smiling. “I’ll get you a clean shirt and collar. You can try a pair of my shoes; if they’re too small I’ll send out for a pair.”
He wagged his head. “I dunno why you want to do this for me. I’ll be all right.”
“You’ll be righter when you’ve had a bath and a shave,” I said. “Miss Paget would never forgive me if I let a friend of hers go wandering about the streets like that.”
He looked at me curiously, but I left him and went back to the sitting-room. Harris was waiting for me there. “Thanks, Derek,” I said. “There was a fine, I suppose?”
“Forty shillings,” he said. “I paid it.”
I gave him the money. “He was cleaned out?”
“He’s got four and fourpence halfpenny,” he replied. “He thinks he had about seventy pounds, but he’s not sur
e.”
“It doesn’t seem to worry him,” I said.
He laughed. “I don’t think it does. He seems quite cheerful over it.”
I sent Harris back to the office and settled down to write a few letters while Harman was in the bath. He came into the sitting-room presently looking a bit sheepish, and again I noticed the curious, stiff gait with which he walked. “I dunno what to say,” he said in his slow way. “Those jokers I was with got all the money I had on me so Mr. Harris had to pay the fine. But I got some more. I got a thing called a letter of credit that the bank in Brisbane gave me. I can get some money on that and pay him back.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Have you had any breakfast?”
“No.”
“Want any?”
“Well, I dunno. Maybe I’ll get something round at the hotel.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “My woman’s here still; she’ll get you some breakfast.” I went out and organised this, and then I came back and found him standing by the window. “You didn’t come back with that letter,” I observed.
“I changed my mind,” he said. “I’m going to give it away.”
“Give it away?”
“That’s right,” he said. “I won’t be writing any letter.”
“That seems rather a pity,” I said quietly.
“Maybe. I had a good long think about it, and I won’t be writing any letter. I decided that. That’s why I didn’t come back at the time you said.”
“As you like,” I said. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me a bit more about it when you’ve had some breakfast.”
I left him to his breakfast and went on with my letters. My woman took it to the dining-room and he went in there to eat it; a quarter of an hour later he came back to me in the sitting-room.
“I’d better be getting along now,” he said awkwardly. “Will it be all right if I come round later in the day and leave these shoes with the woman?”
I got up and offered him a cigarette. “Will you tell me a bit more about yourself before you go?” I asked. “You see, I shall be writing to Miss Paget in a day or two, and she’s sure to want to know all about you.”