by Richard Hull
Anstruther came straight to the point.
‘What do you want to see me about?’
It was not Ford’s way to come so very directly to business. Nevertheless he managed without much fuss to produce both the letters. The doctor read them carefully and returned them without speaking a word; during the whole time the expression on his face never varied.
The silence was broken by Ford.
‘Well?’
‘Fairly well – yes.’
The secretary was surprised. He had expected Anstruther to take up one of two attitudes. He might well have shown alarm. After all, the situation was an even worse one for the doctor. But Ford’s chief fear was that Anstruther, whom he believed to be a strong-minded man, would have taken up the line of ‘let the fellow do his worst’; and, while between them they might have managed to bluff their way through, there was a risk, a very great risk, and Ford preferred safety. The committee they probably would be able to manage, but supposing the blackmailer went to the police and Morrison was exhumed? Even if it were ultimately found that he did die of heart failure, it would be a nasty scandal.
‘If only we knew what he did die of,’ he groaned aloud.
‘Precisely. We should know the time then.’
‘The time?’
‘How long we have to wait.’
Ford looked puzzled.
‘With every day that passes this fellow’s hold on us gets less. If we knew what poison it was, I could tell you pretty accurately when exhumation would be safe. Meanwhile – play for time.’
‘I see. Just deal with these little points sufficiently to satisfy him.’
‘No.’ Anstruther seemed annoyed at Ford’s stupidity. Once before he had to stop him from being a chatterbox; now he had to prevent his being a fool. ‘Much the best way is implicit obedience, so long as it is possible, and it probably will be. The man won’t be so stupid as to drive you to desperation. After all, why not try to run the Club efficiently?’
‘Well, really. I had an impression I did.’ The more that Ford became convinced that criticism was justified, the more bitterly he resented it.
‘Look at the list he gives you. So far as I know they are all true. Look at that clock, for instance. And this tray my coffee’s on.’ He pointed to two dents and several places where the paint had peeled off.
Silence fell for a moment while Ford swallowed his anger as best he might. Outside, the Sunday calm was broken only by an occasional omnibus passing close to the windows of the smoking-room.
Ford surveyed the bus angrily.
‘So like the Crown to have put up our rent one day and then altered the traffic rules the next, so that buses stop immediately outside our windows and make this room nearly uninhabitable.’
‘Yes. And so like you to have let them.’
‘Like me? Why, what on earth could I have done about it?’
After a few seconds’ consideration Anstruther agreed to the justice of this. Once more silence fell, broken only by the noise of the coffee tray which, being dented at the bottom, did not lie quite flat. Consequently, when the coffee-pot was picked up, the other end settled down with a slight clang and when it was put down, the motion was reversed, spilling some of the coffee into the saucer.
As the hands of the clock approached two, Ford’s eyes became glued to the door. If the writer of the letter was to receive his sign, he must come in soon. Two minutes to two, and nothing had happened. One minute to, and still nothing. As the clock on the mantelpiece was striking two the door slowly opened. Ford half rose from the settee. A page-boy came slowly in and put coal on the fire. Then he crossed the room towards them and enquired if he should remove the coffee tray. As the door closed behind him silence reigned once more. It was broken at last by Ford. ‘Just half a minute more; I’d forgotten that clock was fast.’
‘For what?’
‘For him to come in and see us here.’
Anstruther smiled.
‘I don’t imagine the man is quite so simple as that. He probably walked past the window some time ago, or perhaps went by on a bus. In fact that’s almost certainly right. Here, come with me.’
With that he got up and walked out of the Club. The bus stop was not far round the corner. In silence he went to the top of the bus and took two penny tickets. As the bus went slowly past the Club smoking-room, the settee on which they had been sitting became plainly visible. Indeed it was the only part of the room where faces could have been easily recognised. He turned to Ford.
‘You see,’ was his only comment.
But his companion was red in the face.
‘What fools we are! Who was that pretending to pick up a newspaper in the room? Somebody arrived, just too late, to see us. He won’t know we’ve been there. And we’ve just missed seeing him. We’ve failed to catch him and he won’t be satisfied. And all because you hurried us out.’ He looked reproachfully at the doctor.
Anstruther smiled quietly.
‘Now I wonder what is worrying you most? I should like to think that you were taking my good advice and were prepared to do just what you are told – within reason. But, as a matter of fact, I think you’re wrong. After his remarks about the clock being fast, your friend would never have been late.’ Abruptly he said ‘Good-bye’ and got up.
Before Ford had time to answer, the doctor was down the steps and disappearing round the corner. The secretary shrugged his shoulders and let him go. Then, making his way back, he interviewed the smoking-room waiter. So far as Johnson, the waiter in question, knew, no one had gone into the smoking-room since Ford had gone out; but then he had not been in there, and certainly no one had rung.
‘But then, sir, I always hear footsteps going down the passage and generally go to see if anything is wanted. And I didn’t hear anyone. Of course, sir, some members move more quietly than others.’
There was nothing for it but to nod and go. A good servant to the Club, Johnson – and so, thought Ford truculently, they all were. If this fellow tried to cause trouble about the staff, he really would have to put his foot down. For if Ford was lazy, he had the redeeming virtue of being loyal.
He went back to the smoking-room and found it still empty. Who had appeared just while he was out? He found himself looking round the room for possible hiding places. There was none – unless the fellow had concealed himself by crouching down behind an arm-chair in the far corner? It hardly seemed possible – and yet he wondered. He got down on his hands and knees to see, and then found himself trying to invent some plausible reason which might explain why he was there to Pargiter, who had just come in. In the end his suggestion that he was looking to see if the carpet was worn gave that gentleman an excellent opportunity to use his eyebrows and congratulate him on his energy on looking after every detail.
‘And I hear, too, we are to have a new set of billiards balls.’
‘Who told you, sir?’ Ford was all eagerness.
‘Now why this interest? I fancy it was the billiards-marker.’
His hopes dashed again, Ford started off to check up the list of the twelve points. He was quite sure his letter writer would not have been so foolish as to have hidden behind that chair at any rate. Anstruther was right. There was nothing for it but to fall in for the time being with all demands. He spent the Sunday afternoon making a very overdue inspection. It was not, however, until nearly tea time that he found which ash-tray leaked, but eventually he discovered it in the corridor outside the non-smoking library.
Standing in the iciest draught in that room he handed it over to Hughes with orders to see that it was mended. He was well aware it was not the waiter’s business, but he was not quite sure how to set about it himself. Hughes looked at it doubtfully, and remembered that only a couple of days before, Benson had been complaining that the secretary was trying to run the Club. He suggested handing the offending bowl over to the steward.
Ford, gazing at the tops of the passing buses, wearily agreed. Anstruther was right. They must hav
e been seen from a bus. A sound fellow, Anstruther, if a little abrupt and a little unkind in his comments. Best to do what he told him. Obey Anstruther, obey this letter-writing man – easiest course in the end. Comforting himself with the futile remark that it would all be the same thing a hundred years hence, he went up to his own room. A short snooze before dinner would be pleasant after such a busy day. It was, after all, Sunday.
10
A Quiet Rubber
‘Take some sherry, and pass it on, would you?’ Cardonnel had gathered three of his legal friends from the Club to dine with him and enjoy a quiet rubber of bridge. Not contract, which Cardonnel’s lively mind would have preferred, but auction, owing to the prejudices of Skinner, the County Court judge sitting on his left. His Honour had stated that auction was a gentleman’s game, but contract was not. Nobody had thought of a sufficiently polite rejoinder as yet. Besides, Judge Skinner’s game had been described as ‘a triumph of hope over experience’, and with him as a partner contract might have been too exciting. Apart from anything else, he was far too absent-minded ever to remember which suit was trumps.
Opposite to his host, Gladwin the K.C., who was generally regarded as having turned one of the best of juniors into one of the least successful of K.Cs when he took silk, sipped his sherry attentively.
‘This seems familiar; isn’t it the one we used to have on at the Club?’
‘Let me see if I know before you answer,’ put in the fourth man.
He took a little and put his head on one side, an attitude which is recognised to help greatly in the proper appreciation of wine.
‘I think Gladwin’s right, though I should never have spotted it myself.’
‘Quite right,’ Cardonnel purred. He liked his guests to take an intelligent interest in their wine. ‘I got in some when the Club put it on to the wine list, many years ago now. Shan’t pay the new one the same compliment, though.’
‘No. Too sweet for me.’ The Judge shook his head wisely.
As a mere solicitor, Knight, his opposite neighbour, did not like to express his opinion too freely. Privately he thought the new Club sherry a trifle bitter. He compromised by remarking that it was not a patch on the old one.
‘I can’t help thinking that Ford made rather a fool of himself. Didn’t he ignore the Wine Committee and follow the advice of self-appointed experts?’
The Judge, who considered himself an expert, but whom Ford had failed to consult, agreed heartily that the wrong experts had been consulted.
‘Sauce with your turbot, Skinner?’ Cardonnel scented slightly dangerous ground.
‘What I can’t make out is what’s come over Ford these last few days.’ Gladwin helped himself to salt. ‘He seems to be an absolute bundle of nerves.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, Laming was talking to me about the fish the other day, and I admit we were both grumbling a bit. As it happened, Ford overheard it. Sorry, of course; wouldn’t talk at a man on purpose. All the same I was amazed to see how upset Ford was about it.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested the Judge, ‘it was because Laming’s the chairman this year.’
‘May have been. I must say I do think that while he is the chairman, he might keep his complaints to himself, or say them straight to Ford. Rather a bad show, grousing to me or any other member.’
‘Quite right. Never did think much of that twittering little Laming. So like the Civil Service.’
The three other legal heads nodded in agreement with Skinner.
‘But just come back to Ford,’ Cardonnel came in, ‘I think Gladwin’s quite right. He has been very odd the last ten days.’
‘Ever since Morrison died,’ put in Knight.
Cardonnel gave him a sharp glance and continued: ‘Yes. Especially the last few days. He’s in a state of nervous activity instead of being his usual self. I like Ford. He’s courteous and obliging, but all the same I have always thought he was a bit lazy, and I must admit I have occasionally seen to it that he stayed awake.’ (A smile passed over the faces of the other three – Cardonnel’s little ways were well known.) ‘But the last few days his temper has been thin – which is unusual. He has been very touchy, which is strange, too, and he’s been going round and round the Club looking at all the tiny points and trying to find out what was wrong and put it right, which is definitely odd.’
‘Why odd?’ The judicial mind disliked being hurried.
‘Because it’s so unlike his character. He’s usually placid, urbane and all that sort of thing. Not exactly tactful, because he’s trying to be too tactful, but the kind of man who always agrees with you, because he hasn’t got the courage to disagree, and then does nothing about it; always putting off all the awkward things until another day and never facing a difficulty squarely. And now he’s running like a bull at a red rag at all sorts of things. Wants the Committee to have new tea-trays of some artistic pattern; [the Judge snorted] and he’s even trying to reorganise the Card Committee. Some more saddle, Knight? There’s only a savoury coming.’
‘No, thanks. I know the size and excellence of your savouries.’
‘Nor for me, thank you. Just in parenthesis what is this Burgundy? Apologies for being so inquisitive all through about my drink.’
‘No need to apologise.’ Cardonnel smiled at the K.C. ‘I like people to take an interest in what they are drinking, as you know. It’s a Chambertin 1923. Bit young yet, I’m afraid.’
‘Not a bit. It’s magnificent.’ The Judge looked at it with increased respect and tried to disguise the fact that he had not been considering it properly up to that moment. He took advantage in the turn of the conversation to refill his glass and look wise while he drank it. Then he fixed the solicitor with his well-known glare. ‘Granted that the man is behaving a bit peculiarly, as Cardonnel tells us, why did you say just now “Ever since Morrison died”?’
Cardonnel echoed the query. ‘Yes, why? I meant to ask you too. Thank you, Skinner.’
‘Oh, just, I don’t know. Nothing special. Only that it was a day or so after that, that like you, I began to notice the change. I suppose it’s only a coincidence.’
‘I wonder,’ Gladwin said quietly.
‘Why, surely you don’t suggest –?’ Skinner looked at him severely.
‘No, I’m suggesting nothing.’
‘Well, do you mean that it just gave him a bad shake-up?’
‘Perhaps that was all I meant.’
‘Well, I really can’t see why because a fellow dies of heart failure in a Club, it should make the secretary object to someone criticising the fish. Still less why it should make him change the composition of the Card Committee.’
Cardonnel laughed, and with a half pleading look at Gladwin to let the old man have his way, suggested some more mushrooms. These being a particular weakness of the Judge’s, he conveniently, and apparently genuinely, forgot that he had had any at all and helped himself to a further generous double helping. The suggestion had the additional advantage of causing the subject to be changed to that of food. It is difficult to say which is the best theme for conversation, food or drink, for while the remarks which can be made about drinks are of a more cultured nature, and the very mention of a good wine is a pleasure, there is more variety in what can be said about food, if less subtlety. Perhaps only such a man as Cardonnel would have tried to combine the best of both by saying that the Cox’s apples of 1934 were the best he had known since 1911, and during that year he had to admit he had been in a part of Hereford where the drought had not been severe.
And so, inevitably, though for once at the end instead of the beginning of dinner, the conversation turned on the weather. When at about a quarter to twelve the party broke up, his guests were prepared to agree that if Cardonnel was a bit too sharp sometimes, he certainly made a most perfect host, and even the terrors of the Judge’s bridge were worth facing for so pleasant an evening.
Catching his host’s eye, Gladwin stayed behind on the excuse of a final drink
.
‘Help yourself,’ murmured the ever hospitable Cardonnel.
‘No, thanks. All I want, thank you. I fancied, though, you wanted to say something.’
‘Yes. I thought you had something on your mind really about Morrison, but very wisely didn’t say it to Skinner.’
‘You’re quite right. I had, but, dear old boy though the Judge is, there are moods when it is best not to argue with him, or really to tell him too much.’
Cardonnel smiled and waited for Gladwin to go on.
‘I used to know Morrison fairly well. I didn’t like him and I didn’t want to know him. In fact I did my best to avoid him, but he was never rude to me, and apart from trying to escape, I had no reason to be offensive. After all, one must show common civility.’ Gladwin seemed almost to be apologising.
‘Tiresome for you, no doubt, but all the same, of course you had to.’
‘It certainly was tiresome. Anyone other than Morrison would have realised that I didn’t want him, but he seemed impervious, and the more I edged off, the more he would talk. I suppose he was lonely.’
‘I think he was. I don’t believe he had a friend in the world. Did anyone go to his funeral?’
‘No idea. Anyhow, he used to confide his sorrows to me a bit. Mostly little personal bits of spite – very dull and sordid. I used to suffer abysses of boredom when he caught me. He’s often driven me out of the Club. But the one subject that was most dreadful of all was his health. He suffered, according to himself, from every known disease – except that his heart was perfectly good.’
‘And yet he died of heart failure!’ Cardonnel whistled.
‘Precisely.’
‘He may have been wrong, though?’
‘Undoubtedly he might. I am sure he did not have half the things he thought he had, so it is quite likely that he had in fact got the one thing he thought he had not. That’s why I have said nothing.’
‘I don’t quite see how you could have said anything. Was Anstruther his doctor, by the way?’
