Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  All this Mr Franklin learned, whether he would or no, from the indefatigable Jake, who naturally gravitated to Lancing Manor as soon as its owner was in residence. It occurred to Jake that Mr Franklin was more preoccupied and taciturn than usual, but since this merely afforded the ancient an even greater opportunity to talk unchecked, he was glad enough to accept it.

  `Wouldn't know where ole Bessie Reeve's cottage was, the way things is now,' he said, having waylaid Mr Franklin on the front drive. 'Them Paddies is making short work of the new houses, ain't they just. You'll 'ave been over for a look, sir, I expect.'

  'Yes,' said Mr Franklin. He had taken a walk to Lye, wondering what Inspector Crawford would have thought about the miscreant returning to the scene of the crime, and had been astonished at the progress made. Of the old cottage there was no sign, even its garden and surrounding hedge were gone, and the thicket itself consisted of only a few outlying trees. Across the levelled land there now stretched an orderly row of concrete foundations with the beginnings of their brick walls already in place, and gangs of men with picks, shovels, trowels, and barrows swarming busily on the site, watched by a bowler-hatted foreman who stood discussing blue-prints with the builder outside the temporary wooden office. As nearly as Mr Franklin could estimate from memory, the main concrete-mixer was parked on the spot where the bones of Kid Curry had lain undisturbed for five years - and would have lain forever if he had not allowed Sir Charles to persuade him to sell Lye Cottage to Lacy. That was the truly wonderful irony - that by doing his enemy a reluctant favour, he had put his own life in jeopardy. Strange that it had never even crossed his mind that Lacy's building operations might well uncover Curry's grave; four years of confident security should not have blunted his sense of self-preservation so badly, but they had. No thought of danger had been in his mind when he had listened to Sir Charles . . . `I'm not asking you to do it for Lacy's sake, but for your own. Coals of fire. ..' And what he had done `for his own sake' had almost put his head in the noose; Lacy, who had sworn vengeance on him years ago, would never realise how close he had come to the ultimate revenge. But then, Lacy had already had sweet revenge enough, with Peggy; he had paid off his scores with interest. Mr Franklin wondered idly if she had had anything to do with her father's plea to him to sell Lye Cottage; if, at her lover's prompting, she had put the idea into the old man's head, and all unwittingly brought her husband into deadly danger. If so, it had been doubly ironic. Coals of fire, all right.

  It would all have been vastly amusing to Kid Curry, Mr Franklin decided, if he had only been alive to appreciate it. He had wondered, as he turned away from the activity of the Lye building site, what they had done with the Kid's inopportune remains, and what unlikely grave now housed the former scourge of the Union Pacific and farmers' banks. What with Glenwood Springs, Lye Thicket, and the new spot, wherever it was, Curry must be about the buriedest man on record, which was a consoling thought, in its way.

  'Course, the work was held up there a couple o' weeks,' observed Jake, settling himself into his favourite resting position on his spade. 'Yeah, Major Blake an' the police closed it up, packed off the navvies an' all. They say as summat was found under the old thicket - Mr Thornhill was sure it was treasure trove, and was all for a crowner's inquest, in case it was archi-malogical, but they warned him off. 'Ad a copper on it day an' night, they did, wi' a red lamp, for nigh on a fortnight. Then they opened the site up again, an' that were that.'

  'Did anyone find out what it was?' Mr Franklin could not help asking, and Jake grinned and spat.

  'No one ever learned official-like,' said he, 'but there was some as said it was a body. A ole skeleting, as 'adn't been buried proper. Well, it must ha' been summat like that, or why was the coppers askin' so many questions? 'Ad anyone seen a little stranger, might ha' been an American, 'angin' round the village four or five years ago? Well, I knew who they meant - it were that little bugger as came askin' for you the winter afore the ole King died. Yeah, that was him, right enough, I reckoned. But who it was they found in the ground - if they found anyone, like - I dunno.'

  Mr Franklin said nothing, and Jake, having considered putting his spade to the use its makers had intended, and changed his mind, added reflectively:

  'Anyways, they was askin' all over, the coppers was. Course, they asked me. "There's on'y one American 'ereabouts, or ever 'as been," says I, "'an' that's the squire. Why don't you ask'im?'," I says. Maybe they did ask you, I dunno. They asked everyone else, an' precious little good it done 'em. Who're they, anyway, to come stickin' their noses into Castle Lancin' business? What's buried in our ground is our affair, I reckon.' Jake chuckled. 'Jack Prior gave 'em a proper answer, when this 'tec come in the Apple Tree, wantin' to know about you. "Mr Franklin lives in Lancin' Manor," says 'e. "You want to know about him, you go an' knock on his front door," says Jack. "I did, an' 'e ain't there," says the 'tec. "Then you better wait till 'e comes back, 'adn't you?" says Jack. "I'm seekin' information," says the 'tec. "Well, you got all I can give you, so bugger off," says Jack. "Mind your lip," says the 'tec. "I understand as this Mr Franklin ain't a local man, is that right?" I thought Jack was goin' to clock him. "Not local?", says 'e. "You go up the church, look at the stones, see whether 'e's local or not." Maybe the 'tec went up there, I dunno. Maybe 'e asked you, I dunno,' said Jake, and stuck his spade in the soil, at last, reluctantly. 'Bloody cheek them coppers 'as got.'

  Little was seen of Mr Franklin in the village; he did not visit the Apple Tree, and beyond an occasional call at Mrs Laker's shop he kept to the Manor grounds, minding his own affairs as he had always done. Thornhill looked in once, for tea, and they discussed local gossip briefly, and the Irish question at some length; the news was that the King had taken the extraordinary step of convening a conference of all the leading parties, Government, Irish Nationalist, and Ulstermen, at Buckingham Palace, in a last desperate attempt to avert civil war. By comparison the news that at the other end of Europe Austria was virtually demanding a total surrender of Serbian independence, was of small account.

  'These damned Irish,' said Thornhill, 'will have us all at each other's throats before they're finished. The old King was right: "For God's sake, let 'em have home rule for Ireland, then perhaps we can have home rule for England." No fool, your friend Edward. I just hope they get these Mick workmen away from Castle Lancing before the shooting starts - we had our civil war in the 1640s, and we're not quite ready for another just yet.'

  But the only other visitor to Lancing Manor arrived on the following day; he was waiting on the front drive when Mr Franklin came back from a solitary walk along the Oxton Road. It was fairly late in the evening, and for a moment, as he checked at the unexpected sight of a large man in tweeds sauntering before his front door, Mr Franklin did not recognise him in the fading light. And then the big man turned, and he saw that it was Arthur Clayton.

  'Hullo, Mark,' he said, and stood jauntily embarrassed while Mr Franklin returned his greeting and invited him inside. They crossed the hall to the study, and Arthur fidgetted while Mr Franklin poured whisky without undue haste and asked him how he was.

  'Oh, I'm fine. Fine.' Arthur grinned nervously, the glass lost in his enormous fist, and then thrust his free hand through his hair and said:

  'Look, Mark, I can't apologise, can I? I mean, I've diddled you out of ten thousand quid, and the only excuse I can offer is that I didn't do it for myself. I can't even offer to pay it back some day, because I'll never have it - and if I did, I'd be bound to send it after the first lot. So - it was a cad's trick, if you like - but there was no other place to get it. And without it, there'd have been no ship, no arms for our people to defend themselves when - well, when the war starts. As it will, within the next few weeks. Here's how.' He raised his glass and drank.

  'You think it's going to start, then?' said Mr Franklin. 'I thought Devlin and Carson and Asquith were meeting at the palace to make sure it didn't.'

  'They don't have a hope,' said Arthur flatly.
'Even Carson couldn't stop it now. We're not going to be part of a "free Ireland", and that's all about it.' The boyish nervousness had left him abruptly; the young face was hard. Then he realised what he had come for, and some of his half-humorous uneasiness returned.

  'Anyway, I can't apologise. I just wish it hadn't been you - because you've been so decent, for one thing, and because you're ... well, you, don't you know? But I wanted to explain why '

  'You don't have to,' said Mr Franklin. 'I got it all from Peggy. As I said to her - you might have asked me. That's all.'

  'I know. Peg told me,' Arthur took another gulp at his drink. 'We thought we couldn't - that you'd refuse. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had - it's not your fight, after all, is it? But that's not the point.' He put down his glass and avoided Mr Franklin's eye. 'I saw Peg last night.'

  He hesitated, and Mr Franklin filled the gap by asking how she was.

  'Oh, full of beans, as usual - off to some giddy bun fight somewhere - the Berkeley, I think. You know Peg - the brightest of the bright young things.' Arthur paused unhappily. 'Look, Mark - I gather all isn't well between you ... is that right?'

  Mr Franklin considered him, and asked: 'What makes you think that?'

  'Well, that proves it, doesn't it? If all was well, you'd say so.' Arthur shrugged. 'Oh, just Peggy, you know. I asked how you were - how you'd taken the ten thousand business, and she said, fairly grim, but you hadn't had apoplexy. But when I quizzed her a bit more she said you'd gone off, and she didn't know when you'd come back.' He paused and scratched his head. 'If ever. That knocked me over, I confess. Then she said you'd had an unholy row the other week, and look, old fellow, this isn't hellish easy for me. But have you?'

  'I don't know that you'd call it an unholy row,' said Mr Franklin. 'But let's say certain ... differences have arisen.' He took Arthur's glass and refilled it. 'But I don't think Peggy minds too much, somehow.'

  Arthur took his glass gloomily. 'I know what you mean. It was the same when we were kids; she'd just go her own sweet way, and damn what anybody thought or said. Got a hide like a bloody hippo, our Peg. Cheers.' He drank and, then said: 'That's what I came to see you about, anyway. You and Peg. Look, Mark - if it's about the ten thousand, I just wanted you to know it wasn't her fault. It was my idea to get it from you, with all that boloney about leaving the Army and going into business -it was bloody unprincipled, and one part of me is as ashamed as hell. But I had to do it. And Peg was dead against it, at first. She said flat that she couldn't do that to you - that you'd been damned generous to her, and to me, and Father .. all that sort of thing. Which I knew, of course. But I told her there was no choice, it was you or nothing.'

  Arthur emptied his glass and stood staring moodily at the carpet. 'So in the end, she agreed. She said to leave it to her - she said she couldn't ask you for it, but she'd get it somehow. Knowing Peg, I imagined she'd vamp it out of you, but I didn't ask her. Anyway, she got it - but what I'm trying to explain, Mark, is that it wasn't' her fault, d'you see? I put her up to it - and I felt utterly rotten about it, anyway. But if I thought that it had ... well, busted you and Peg ... Oh, Jesus, Mark, I'm sorry! I really am!'

  He stood looking large and contrite on Mr Franklin's rug, watching anxiously to see how his host was taking it. Unemotionally, so far as Arthur could see. Mr Franklin was leaning against his desk, arms folded, his own glass neglected on the table.

  'You can set your mind at rest, Arthur,' he said. 'The business of the money certainly drove in a middling-sized wedge, but not what you'd call a fatal one. Looked at objectively, I'd say it was as dirty a trick as even I have ever heard of, and I'm still not too happy about having been on the receiving end of it. Still, I guess political crimes are held to be in a higher class than ordinary sneak-thieving, so ... the money side of it doesn't matter, anyway. Ten thousand isn't that important.'

  Arthur's fair face had flushed while Mr Franklin was speaking, but at this he looked solemn. 'Ten thousand's a hell of a lot of money,' he said. 'And if it had broken you and Peggy up ... well, I wouldn't have been surprised, I suppose. I'm glad it didn't, though.' And being Arthur, his natural curiosity prompted him to ask: 'What has - I mean, if anything has, and Peg isn't just being dramatic?'

  Mr Franklin looked at him thoughtfully. 'I don't wish to sound unfriendly or ungrateful for your interest, Arthur,' he said. 'But I don't really think that my relations with your sister are any of your business.'

  To his surprise, Arthur looked neither angry nor hurt. Indeed, he seemed impressed, rather. 'By gum, she's really got into your midst, hasn't she?' he said. 'Mind you, I can see how she would. Oh, well ... I just hope it isn't anything serious, that's all.' He took another rumple at his fair hair and asked: 'Seen Father, have you, since you've been down?'

  'Not as yet,' said Mr Franklin, and could not refrain from adding: 'My conversations with members of the Clayton family don't seem to have been over-profitable of late. I'm not hurrying out of my way to start any new ones.'

  Arthur stared at him glumly, hands in pockets. 'No ... I suppose

  not. And I don't seem to have made things any better, do I? Look - is it Peg carrying on?' Meeting Mr Franklin's cold stare, he added hurriedly: 'I mean - oh, she's a silly little bitch! But ... well .. she's not a bad kid, really - '

  'Arthur,' said Mr Franklin quietly, 'right now you're not exactly on the first page of my good books, if you know what I mean. Don't make it any worse. Did Peggy ask you to come here?'

  'Good God, no!' Mr Franklin believed him, and felt a stab of disappointment. 'Lord, Peggy would never do that - you know what she's like. Proud as Lucifer.'

  'Yes,' said Mr Franklin. 'That's never apparently stopped one Clayton from doing another's dirty work, though, has it? No,' he added, 'I'll except your father. He's been straight. Like another drink?'

  Arthur shook his head. 'No, thanks. Mark ...' He stopped and then shrugged hopelessly. 'Look, I know you must feel bitter about - '

  'I don't feel in the least bitter,' said Mr Franklin. 'But I confess I do feel tired. And more than a little ... disturbed. Have you had any supper?'

  'No, I just caught the afternoon train down, but - '

  'Then we'd better get you some, and you can bunk down here for the night.'

  'Oh, that's all right - no, I'd better get over to Oxton and see the guv'nor. I'm going up to Town tomorrow, catching the night boat to Dublin. My leave's up on Monday, and I'll have to be back at the Curragh.'

  'I'd forgotten you've been on leave.' He switched his mind away from his own preoccupations. 'Are you going to stay in the Army, then - what about when the civil war breaks out?'

  'Yes, I'm staying. I don't know what's going to happen; maybe there'll be another mutiny - maybe the Army'll go over to Carson, even. Some regiments, anyway.'

  'You'd do that?'

  'Yes.'

  Mr Franklin frowned. 'I know you take this thing pretty seriously, Arthur - in fact, if anyone's had striking proof of it, I guess I have. But - I don't quite know your regulations, but aren't you bound by oath? Aren't you the King's man?'

  'Ulster's a damned sight more loyal to the King than that Fenian rabble who want a separate Ireland,' said Arthur, and again that hard look was on his face. 'Just because Asquith's ready to sell out doesn't mean a thing. The Army's the King's, not the government's.'

  'Well, I can't argue with you about that - British constitutional niceties are over the head of an ignorant colonial. But wouldn't it be ... better to see if you can't find a peaceful way out first?'

  'It's been tried, hasn't it? I imagine they're trying now, at Buck House. But they'll fail.' Arthur shook his head. 'Anyway, I'd better be getting along . . .' He looked at his brother-in-law with his rueful Arthur-ish grin. 'Oh, God, old son - I am sorry. I don't mean about the cash - but about you and Peg. I hope it comes out all right. I'll be honest,' he added thoughtfully, 'I think it would be hell being married to her - some of the time, anyway. Because there's no doing anything with her. But it
could be a hell of a lot of fun, too, I should think.'

  'Because she's not a bad kid?' wondered Mr Franklin.

  'Well, she's not. Bloody good-looking, too. And she likes you, you know - she really does. Anyway, I hope it comes out right.' He hesitated, and then held out his hand. 'So-long, Mark.'

  Mr Franklin looked at the hand, and glanced at Arthur, who looked inquiringly whimsical. Mr Franklin shrugged.

  'I guess I can't refuse to shake with any man who's got as much sheer hard neck as you have, Arthur,' he said, and took his brother-in-law's hand. They went to the front door together, Mr Franklin offered to run him to Oxton, and Arthur said he'd get a lift from the village. Mr Franklin watched the big figure striding down his drive in the dusk, turning to wave before the trees hid him from sight.

  That was on a Friday. On the next day the papers carried the news that the Buckingham Palace negotiatons between the contending Irish elements and the government had broken down irretrievably; most of the papers plainly regarded this as the gravest possible news, although one or two were beginning to follow the lead set by The Times of the previous day and wonder if perhaps Austria's policy towards Serbia did not present an equally serious threat to the general peace. But by Monday foreign affairs had receded into the background again before the alarming news from Dublin.