The Tumbled House

by Winston Graham

  “A copy of the letter and the verses will be sent to every newspaper,” Henry said. “ You’ll be given all reasonable grounds.”

  Michael glanced angrily at de Courville and then said: “ Look, you two. Why don’t we get together somewhere and talk it over. Why not get out of this crush and discuss it in private—argue it out in a friendly way. After all you’ve been friends for years. There’s no point in washing all our dirty linen in public.”

  “Your father might have thought of that earlier,” said Don.

  “Well, maybe, but the damage is done. Why be vindictive?”

  Don looked at Michael with an almost gentle curiosity. “ Is that how you really see it?”

  “Well, I quite understand——”

  Roger stopped him with a hand on his arm. The Laycocks had not moved away.

  “Listen, Don. In your anger—and apparently with the encouragement of this gentleman—you’re getting yourself out on a limb. The plagiarism has already been proved by the article in The Observer. I can prove the unprofessional conduct just as easily. But——”

  “Then prove it.”

  “It will be at your expense.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Roger said: “ But if it will help to settle this in a civilised way I’m quite prepared to offer you an apology here and now. I’m extremely sorry that I’ve hurt you and offended you. I can understand how you feel and very much wish it could have been otherwise. If you like I’ll put that apology in writing and you can pin it in the Suggestions Book.”

  “And are you willing to take back what you said in The Gazette?”

  “About your father?”

  “Of course. What you say about me is neither here nor there.”

  Roger shook his head. “ I obviously can’t take back the truth.”

  Don smiled slightly. “Then I’m sorry. There’s no sale.”

  “Then there’s nothing more to be said, is there?”

  “Quite a lot.”

  “Publicly?”

  “Oh, yes, publicly. I shall go on blackguarding you for ever.”

  Roger made a gesture which asked the world—or at any rate the Laycocks—to comprehend and acknowledge that he could do no more.

  “It’s up to you. But don’t say that you haven’t been warned.”

  When he was free Roger rang Robinson at his home number.

  Robinson said: “ I think you’re crazy. Of course he’s angling for you to take legal action. Therefore to take it is playing his game. What do a few rude letters matter?”

  “They could matter. If they went on indefinitely.”

  “Nonsense. The first lesson a journalist should learn is sticks and stones may break my bones but words etc. I sang it in my cradle.”

  “Yes,” said Roger. “ Maybe you did.” He was in no position to explain his peculiar sensitiveness to abuse at the present time.

  “And I’m right. Forget it.”

  “All the same,” said Roger, “I’d like to know where I stand if I do decide to fight him.”

  “In what way?”

  “Last time we met you said The Gazette stood behind its contributors. What could that mean in this case?”

  There was a pause at the other end. Roger could visualise the ci-devant distinguished face twisted into loose furrows of distaste.

  “It could mean a lot or a little. I don’t see the point of your rushing into a legal action just to satisfy your injured pride. Do you want our space, you mean?”

  “I think it’s gone further than space now. Certainly I’ll not sue unless compelled. But if I am compelled?”

  “If you’re compelled we’ll advance five hundred for costs. If you lose, which seems improbable, we’ll foot the rest of the bill. It’s all publicity.”

  “Thank you,” said Roger. “That was what I wanted to know.”

  “It’s all publicity, as I say, but I’m still certain you’re a fool even to think of accepting his challenge. One thing. Before you take any definite step see our solicitors. They’ll know better than we do what the chances are of your succeeding.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Roger.

  Four days later he began proceedings for libel.

  When he left his father Michael picked up his brief-case at the door and walked along Piccadilly. But he walked in the opposite direction from his flat. His mood got bleaker with every step.

  All the evidences of money at the Academy today had particularly hit at him because of his new lack of it. In a way, although he had wanted a place of his own, being away from his father meant being away from the centre of things and in a backwater where there was more likelihood than ever of being overlooked and forgotten. His present job was not only a dead end but the wrong dead end. He was all set for frustration and mediocrity, a grain in the desert, moving as the wind blew, without any chance of being able to show enterprise or initiative. There were a hundred million like him. Cannon fodder, John Sucker, the man in the street: they all applied. To become a personality, one, not one of the many, was the greatest single need.

  What was worse, his love for Bennie was at a dead end too. He had not even seen her since the night of the party, and he knew now that a bigger obstacle than ever separated them. While this stupid feud raged he had no chance at all of coming closer to her. He couldn’t really blame her if she sided with Don. He felt as if a gigantic confidence trick had been played on him. He was left to angry despair.

  He turned up Shaftesbury Avenue and made his way to the Middle Pocket. Rather to his surprise Dick Ballance let him in.

  “Well, well, come right in, man. Peter’s here. How did you know?”

  The big Negro was in a green gaberdine jacket zipped up the front, with fawn trousers and fawn and white casuals. In the inner room there was no sign of the proprietor, but with Peter Waldo was the big young man with the stunted nose. Only a single light burned by the piano to back up the anaemic daylight.

  “How did you know we were talking about you, dear boy? You remember Boy Kenny?”

  “Too well.”

  “Now, now, no hard feelings. Pour him a slug, Dick, to soften up that iron heart.”

  There was a clink and bobble as Dick Ballance put some whisky in a glass. “ Like a reefer, brother?”

  Michael shook his head.

  “Have one of mine,” said Kenny. “ They kill you slower, like.” Michael shook his head again.

  “Awkward, ain’t he?”

  “Michael’s the least awkward of men,” said Peter, “but he feels a justifiable anger at the destruction of his elderly radiogram. We have had it on our conscience, Michael. Indeed just before you came in we were discussing a way of providing you with a magnificent new one, value one hundred and eighty guineas, in part exchange.”

  Ballance played a soft chord on the piano, and the light gleamed on the shining skin of his face. “ Not me, brothers,” he said. “Leave me out. I like my fun other ways.”

  “It’s a crazy idea anyhow,” said Boy fingering his white foulard tie. “Who’d be such a fool? Not me.”

  “What’s the matter?” Peter Waldo inquired pleasantly. “Why be scared?”

  “Shut up about scared. Who’re you to talk? I’ve done more than you ever will!”

  “It astonishes me, Boy, it really does, how unintelligently you and your little gang behave sometimes. You told me you once did a smash an’ grab.”

  “Well, man,” said Dick Ballance, rising from the piano stool; “kindly hand me my parachute. This is where I bale out.”

  “So we did,” said Boy truculently. “And got away with it!”

  Peter Waldo was flicking a bottle opener round on his finger. “Nobody but a fool ever attempts smash and grab. It’s clumsy, it’s violent and it’s vulgar. I suppose you learned that sort of thing at Borstal?”

  “Anyone can talk,” said Boy, drawing at a stub of cigarette. “You certainly can. Anyway, if the radiogram’s for him, let him do the job instead of me.”

  “I d
on’t know what you’re driving at,” Michael said impatiently. “Are you thinking of stealing the thing?”

  Peter coughed. “Put bluntly, that was the idea.”

  “Oh, don’t talk rot.”

  Dick Ballance had gone into the darker part of the deserted night club but he had not left them. They could hear him moving about behind the bar. Peter Waldo got nip and walked across the dance floor.

  “It’s not altogether rot, Michael. Sometimes it’s necessary for one’s self-respect to cock a snook at authority. This in a way would be both a test and a protest. It would be a protest against all the debased cheap shoddy swindles of today that get by in the name of society and good taste and law and order. And it would be a test of one’s own intelligence and guts.”

  It was not often that Peter jarred on Michael, but he did today. Michael was sick of empty attitudes. “So what?”

  “Well, in that very handsome store, Charles Richards and Co., on the first floor there is a handsome radiogram, offering you stereophonic sound and costing one hundred and eighty guineas. There are three assistants in the gramophone department, the manager and two girls. At twelve-thirty every day one of the girls goes to lunch. At one-fifteen the manager goes. At one-thirty the first girl comes back and the other girl goes. That means that from one-fifteen onwards only one assistant is available to serve customers. Got that?”

  “For what it’s worth.”

  Peter glanced at his friend. “ Now at Kimbers, the carriers, just off King’s Road, there are always at least three plain vans standing idle between one and two while the drivers have their lunch. They’re all Morris vans, all with identical keys. Anyway I have keys to fit. The men have their meal in the back of the building and no one will hear a van drive away. At ten minutes past one next Monday Boy and I will walk up in white coats and take one of the vans.”

  “So you say,” observed Boy.

  “We shall drive it to the side entrance of Charles Richards’s and walk up to the first floor. There we shall go across to the gramophone, grumbling a good deal, cover it in a white dust sheet, carry it downstairs and into the van and then deliver it to your flat. Afterwards we will leave the van in some convenient parking lot, return to your flat and tune in to Listen With Mother.”

  Ballance had come slowly back while Peter was speaking. He stood by the piano and pressed down three treble keys with his fingers. Michael said: “ What if you were challenged?”

  “We shall say we’re taking it back to the works for testing—manager’s orders.”

  Michael finished his drink and yawned offensively. “Anybody heard the cricket scores?”

  “You don’t think I’m in earnest?” Peter said.

  “I know you’re not.” Michael looked from one to the other with contempt. “ It’s not so much smash and grab as talk and gab that you two specialise in.”

  “’Ere,” said Boy. “ Lay off that.”

  “Care to bet me?” said Peter.

  “I won’t bet you can’t do it. I’ll bet you ten pounds you won’t even try!”

  Peter looked at Dick. “You’ll hold the stakes, dear boy?”

  The Negro shrugged. “It’s not my business, man; it’s not my line at all; I don’t believe in taking risks unless the risks is worth while.”

  “I make one condition,” Peter said to Michael. He did not seem put out by the other’s attitude. “And that’s that you should be there to see it happen. Go into Richards’s at one o’clock on Monday and ask the price of a TV set. That way you’ll be on the spot, and at the same time you’ll be able to engage the attention of the one assistant. Whatever happens you don’t know us, have never seen us before. Agreed?”

  “Oh, forget it,” Michael said sulkily. “Got any new calypsoes, Dick?”

  “Dick’s right,” muttered Boy, cleaning his nails with the nails of the other hand. “If you’re going to take a chance like that, take it for something big or not at all.”

  Peter leaned over the piano and lifted Ballance’s hands off the keys just as he was going to play. “Darling boy, it isn’t just the money you get out of a thing like this, it’s the intelligence you put in. I’m trying to prove something to you, Boy. If I suggested we should knock an old woman down in a dark lane and steal her bag you’d think that a smart idea. To you breaking the law is something done with a jemmy and a knuckleduster. It needn’t be just that. And I now also want to prove something to Michael as well.”

  Michael finished his drink and left soon, after, with Peter’s acceptance of his challenge not withdrawn. Of course it would be withdrawn, he told himself irritably as he walked away, but he was not going to be the one to make the first move. Peter’s windy nonsense needed an occasional prick of reality to deflate it, to keep it on the ground.

  Yet under this assumption Michael was slightly uneasy. They had been talking about the thing before he got there. Dick Ballance had been emphatic in his refusal to be mixed up in it. And despite his nonsense, Peter had flair and intelligence and sometimes determination of a high order. Once you accepted one of his slightly zany propositions the rest followed logically enough. In this case, if you accepted the fact that you were going to steal a radiogram.…

  Oh, yes, it might come off. But who would try? Not he. Not even to the extent of being a spectator. Yet was he prepared to back out, to withdraw?

  Well, there would be some way out. He was damned if he was going to climb down at this stage. Monday was three days off.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Letter from Messrs Price & Cobb, solicitors, of Cripplegate, E.C. I. to D. J. A. Marlowe Esq.

  Dear Sir,

  Our client Mr Roger Shorn has consulted us with regard to a letter you wrote to the Secretary of the Hanover Club, and also with regard to certain verses written in the Suggestions Book of that club and signed by you. These grossly libellous communications refer by name to our client. We are instructed that the handwriting is yours and we do not think you will wish to deny your authorship. On this assumption we must demand your unequivocal assurance that you will write first to our client a full apology for your behaviour in terms to be settled by ourselves, and secondly to the Secretary of the Hanover Club apologising for your letter and for this entry in the Suggestions Book and requesting its immediate deletion and destruction and asking for a copy of each of these letters to be displayed prominently on the Club Notice Board. In default of such assurance our instructions are to commence proceedings against you forthwith without further reference to you and to claim appropriate damages.

  We await hearing from you within the next seven days.

  Yours faithfully.

  Letter from Messrs Tranter, Page & Whitehouse of Chancery Lane, W.C. to Messrs Price & Cobb of Cripplegate, E.G. I.

  Dear Sirs,

  Our client Mr D. J. A. Marlowe has handed us your letter

  of the 10th instant.

  We are instructed to accept service on his behalf of any

  process in such action as you may institute.

  Yours faithfully.

  Letter from Messrs Price & Cobb to Messrs Tranter, Page & Whitehouse.

  Dear Sirs,

  We duly received your communication of the 15th inst.,

  and now enclose the writ together with a copy for service.

  Will you please return the writ endorsed with your acceptance

  of service?

  Yours faithfully.

  Enclosure:

  In the High Court of Justice

  Queen’s Bench Division.

  Writ of Summons

  Between Roger Norman Shorn

  Plaintiff

  And Donald John Anthony Marlowe

  Defendant.

  Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of our Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faiths.

  Donald John Anthony Marlowe of 126 Trevor Square, S. W.7 in the County of London, We Command You that wit
hin eight days after service of this writ on you, inclusive of the day of such service, you do cause an appearance to be entered for you in an action at the suit of Roger Norman Shorn of 69 Belgrave Street, S.W.I. And take notice, that in default of your so doing, the plaintiff

  may proceed therein, and judgement may be given in your absence. Witness, Henry Viscount Aldershot Lord High Chancellor of

  Great Britain.

  On Wednesday afternoon, coming off duty early, Bennie did not leave the tube at her usual station but went on to Charing Cross and from there took a bus to Aldwych. Then she walked up to the Opera House and, after a little interrogation, was allowed in.

  The auditorium was dark, and stage hands were working on the set for the night’s opera performance. But there was music off, and Bennie found the orchestra in the Crush Bar playing Petroushka. She stood listening behind a curtain until the music stopped.

  “Good,” said Don. “I think we’ve time for this movement just once more.”

  Players eased their positions, turning back their music, wiping mouthpieces, tuning strings. A murmur of talk.

  Don said: “There’s just one thing, fiddles, in the third bar after 91, the pp start was good but I want a really big crescendo up to the C, a bar before you start the tune. We didn’t quite make it last time.”

  Various members of the orchestra indicated that they understood, though one or two looked too tired to be interested in advice. As they were about to go on Don caught sight of Bennie and raised an eyebrow as well as his baton. The orchestra played the movement through. When it was over he came across to her.

  “You do look trim and smart. Is this a formal call?”

  “I came right on; I haven’t been home. I wanted to talk to you, Don.”

  “More trouble?”

  “No, not specially.” The leader came across and spoke to Don and was introduced. When he had moved away, Bennie said: “How is it going?”

  “What, this? So—so. They’re putting me on to do the four acts of Swan Lake tomorrow without a single orchestral rehearsal.”