Keep It Quiet

by Richard Hull

  ‘Yes, I think so. He certainly attended him once, because I remember Morrison telling me that though he loathed the sight of him, he was at least certain he could keep his mouth shut. He went on to make the most unwarranted – and dull – comments on the medical profession.’

  ‘Well, if that is so, it seems to me there is nothing we can do or say.’

  ‘No, except keep our ears and eyes open.’

  Cardonnel grinned. He was perfectly aware of his own character.

  ‘That is a thing I always do. I find it – entertaining.’ The last word was thrown out, almost a question, as if the speaker was in search of the exact adjective, and was not quite sure he had obtained it.

  11

  ‘Palmer’

  The sitting-room of Anstruther’s flat near Wigmore Street led out of his consulting room. Like its owner, it was a severe room. Each end was covered by a long bookcase, one containing medical books only, the other standard works of literature. There was some fiction included, but nothing light, little even that contained much humour. Apparently his favourite type of novel was by authors such as Henry James, Meredith, Louis Couperus, Hardy in his most analytical mood, while Dickens was considered frivolous, and Scott too elementary.

  On the right of the door was a small gas fire giving out far too little heat in view of the two foot or so by which the large window opposite had been opened. Despite the slight fog of the winter evening, the curtains were not drawn across it, and the papers on the desk below were inclined to blow about. Ignoring such comfort as was offered by a not very inviting arm-chair, the doctor was sitting at the desk reading a letter.

  He turned it over, glanced at the end, and then pressed a bell by his side.

  ‘How did this arrive?’ He held up the envelope.

  ‘I found it in the letter box, sir, about half past four. By hand, I suppose, sir, but I heard no ring.’

  ‘I see. Thank you.’

  He returned to reading the letter. When Ford received letters from this correspondent, they came through the post, because, of course, clubs do not have convenient letter boxes. Apparently, however, the blackmailer was sufficiently economical to save the three halfpence where possible. A slight point in his character that might help to trace him.

  Sardonically he received the blackmailer’s congratulations on his having had the good sense to sit quietly on the required settee for the whole quarter of an hour and not move away until after two o’clock. It had made it easier, so his correspondent informed him, to see from outside. All this was interesting. He had guessed at the time, more or less, from where he would have been observed. With the slightly bored air of one who expected something better, he let the first page flutter down on to the desk and started on the next. Here he was glad to see the man was coming to the point.

  And now to tell you exactly where you come in.

  Of course I do not deny that you are very useful in keeping Ford in order. There is no limit to the possible folly of fools, and a sensible man to keep him on the straight path of obedience is undoubtedly useful. Firstly, then, you will make quite sure that you see all letters that I write to him. On second thoughts, perhaps, it would be best if I sent you a carbon copy by hand.

  So it was the postage! With a barely audible chuckle, Anstruther went on reading.

  I wish I knew more about you as a doctor. I have been making discreet enquiries as to your abilities as a matter of fact, but nobody seems to know much about your particular bent. Is this professional etiquette, I wonder? Or ignorance? Or are you in fact incapable of doing anything in particular and conceal your incompetence under a cloak of silence, and an air of extreme wisdom?

  ‘I wish he’d mind his own business and not talk so much,’ Anstruther muttered.

  I hope at least you are fairly expert in the matter of poisons. If you are, well and good. If you are not, you will set to work at once to read up the subject, a most useful one professionally, since that is how you are going to be useful to me.

  You see, this Morrison business has intrigued me. Apparently it is possible to poison a man and get away with it, provided one has a complacent and helpful doctor handy. And if one murder can be managed, why not others? I am sure an occasion will one day arrive when the ability to do so will be useful.

  But for the immediate future, I am not so ambitious. Have you, by the way, ever read a novel of Stevenson’s called The Wrong Box? I fear it is too light for your taste. Anyhow, there is an admirable reflection of Michael Finsbury’s, ‘Anything to give pain’, which I have adopted as my motto. Like him also, I shall probably only consider driving to Scotland Yard without, I hope, actually going.

  To give pain to you, to Ford, to anyone, mentally or physically, that is one kind of amusement, and on the whole the mental form gives the most refined, the most exquisite pleasure; but it is a little difficult to arrange daily. The giving, then, of mere physical pain can also be used as a substitute. And here you, with the knowledge you have or soon will have, will be useful. A little something to be slipped on to a plate, or into a glass or a cup, and I shall see some normally unpleasantly healthy man giving the most amazing exhibition, all the more intense because he is so unused to pain; and then on top of that there will be a suspicion of carelessness in the kitchen – after the perchloride of mercury neither you nor Ford will welcome enquiry – and there will be the added pleasure of seeing what arises from that.

  So, you see, I shall want to know several good poisons. A suitable one for killing somebody perhaps, easy to administer and hard to detect, although of course, as you will fake the death certificate, that will not be so important. And another with which to hurt strong, healthy people. Here I shall not have the advantage of having you to shield me, so it had better be something which might reasonably occur in food, and something not likely to be fatal.

  On this kind of point, I shall require you to coach me, and remember, please, that your safety will depend just as much as mine on your keeping quiet. Quite how you are to communicate with me, I have not decided, nor how you are to convey the various ingredients that we may jointly decide that I shall require, but that I shall settle later. By the way, I do not insist on your using expensive drugs. You will know best, too, what you can get most easily.

  ‘Thank you,’ murmured Anstruther, with grave irony.

  For the moment then, you will merely start to read (if necessary) and be prepared to write. Perhaps you will be good enough to convey to me your acquiescence in this matter through what I believe to be the usual channel in these matters, the personal column of The Times. Sign your message ‘Palmer’ after our old friend from Rugeley – an admirable man, in advance of his time, but a bungler. I leave the exact wording to you. There is no need as in the case of your colleague, Ford, to leave nothing to the imagination.

  Rather sadly Anstruther got up and prepared to go out. There was just time to reach The Times sub-office in Regent Street.

  ‘What I object to most,’ he said, ‘is being bracketed with Palmer.’

  He walked steadily down towards Piccadilly Circus, and with no sign that he was doing anything unusual, or was under the influence of any particular emotion, took the proffered sheet of paper and wrote ‘Fillets to you, Palmer’. Then, after a moment’s consideration he tore it up and substituted ‘Fried and curled within reason’. Attaching the same signature he pocketed such change as he got and went on down to the Club, more surprised on the whole at his lapse into the humorous in the wording than at having sent the message at all.

  In his opinion one thing was very unfair. His correspondent economised on stamps, but expected him to choose a very expensive way of writing. ‘At any rate,’ he thought as he went up to the secretary’s office, ‘I don’t see why Ford shouldn’t pay half the cost of advertising – and of drugs, for that matter.’

  12

  Unusual Activity

  There is no more popular target for abuse than the committee of a club. It would be worse than inaccurate, it wou
ld be dull, to belong to a club, or for that matter to any other society, and admit that it was at all times perfectly managed. If a body of angels, endowed with perfect wisdom and all the gold wherewith the streets of Heaven are paved, were to take over the government of the country, they would undoubtedly be defeated at the next election, but if they took over the management of a club, all the members would resign out of pure boredom.

  So then, complaint being necessary, it is essential to find someone on whom to put the blame, since, after a while, the attribution of every moral and social failing to an abstract ‘they’ becomes unsatisfying. To be the butt of such criticism is one of the main duties of a club secretary, but since he must, if he is to remain sane, have someone behind whom to shield, a committee is selected annually.

  Not, of course, that they really manage the club. It has, in fact, never been discovered who does. Perhaps, after all, it is really the page-boys, the only people who have been a sufficiently short while in the institution to retain ambition, even of a local nature. There was once even a boy who delivered a telephone message correctly, but he went off and joined the Royal Corps of Signals, and never did such a thing again.

  But as to the Committee, there are various accepted axioms. First, it is assumed that they are a narrow, self-electing and self-elected clique. Secondly, they are known to desire to control the club for some sinister if undefined purpose, which may be love of power, self-assertiveness, a desire to thwart their fellow members, or merely a constitutional inability to mind their own business, but anyhow is very obscure and very wrong. Thirdly, it is recognised that they wish to run the club as badly as possible.

  It is none of it, of course, in the slightest degree true, but it serves as an admirable point d’appui from which to let loose pet stalking horses. Moreover those on the Committee forget that they held such views before they joined that august if reviled body. They forget, too, that in a few years’ time they will hold them again.

  Of course in fact nothing of any real importance occurs at a committee meeting. You cannot expect twenty-four people to meet together and arrive at a sensible decision; the number is far too high. The proceedings, therefore, are in the nature of a formality.

  In the Whitehall Club the meeting was usually opened by the reading of some highly complicated figures as to coffee-room receipts, which included the average sum spent per head both at lunch and at dinner. As this included sums spent on entertaining guests, it was generally a little higher than the ordinary member spent on his own entertainment. The Committee were therefore able to start the meeting with a virtuous feeling that they were not doing themselves too well, but with little other information.

  The next item was the reading out of the ‘backed’ bills, the recognised method by which members would express complaint or evert gratification about the food. These invariably were referred to the secretary to refer to the chef, or perhaps the steward, or the head waiter, which Ford, with his customary desire to avoid trouble, generally neglected to do. However, a little amusement could always be derived by trying to guess the identity of the writer.

  At this point, Laming, during his year of office, usually tried to declare the meeting closed. Otherwise – who knew? – someone might go and propose something, and before you knew where you were a decision might have to be made and responsibility taken.

  On this day, early in December, however, he was not so lucky. He cleared his throat, and in his reedy, tenor voice began:

  ‘Well, gentlemen, if that is all – you have read the minutes, Ford? – yes, well then–’

  The pause given by the question about the minutes had been fatal. Cardonnel had come to the meeting without having quite made up his mind – an unusual state of affairs with him. If Laming had closed the meeting promptly, he might have remained silent, but during the momentary check, decision came to him.

  ‘I am afraid, Mr Chairman, there is a point I wish to raise.’

  A sigh went round the meeting. Cardonnel’s points so frequently were unanswerable.

  ‘A great many things seem to be being done in the Club without the authority of the Committee.’

  Laming, glancing round the faces at the table, saw that this was not a matter to be brushed aside lightly. The Committee were quite prepared to let things be done in fact without their authority, but not in theory.

  ‘Such as?’ he queried.

  ‘Well, first, this rather peculiar notice which I found in the library. May I read it?’

  Barely waiting for silence to imply assent, he went on: ‘“In view of the difficulty which is occasioned by books being inadvertently returned to the wrong shelves, members are requested to hand volumes they have finished with” – I shudder at the grammar, Mr Chairman – “to the librarian or the library waiter.” Apart from the fact that I have yet to be convinced that Hughes, our excellent library waiter, is any more capable than I am of returning a book to its proper place, I should like to know on whose authority that notice was put up.’

  Ford turned a little red. It would have been a little difficult to explain how his hand had been forced.

  ‘I will certainly take the notice down and reword it if Mr Cardonnel would assist me, sir.’

  Cardonnel was a little annoyed that the secretary should think that he could be deceived by so transparent a red herring. He returned to the charge.

  ‘But has this Committee decided that a notice of such a kind should be put up?’

  ‘Mr Cardonnel is quite right, sir. I thought the matter was too trivial to trouble the Committee with. De minimis non curat lex, you know, sir.’

  ‘But Cardonnel, though a lawyer, does care, Ford. Your quotation’s misleading,’ came good-humouredly from the far end of the table.

  Seeing his chance, Laming took his opportunity.

  ‘Well, well. Don’t want to fetter initiative. Quite right, though – put point in order. Authorise notice now? Perhaps, Cardonnel, you would help draft? Well, gentlemen, if that is all –?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Chairman, but there is a further matter.’

  This was really getting annoying! Laming openly looked at his watch.

  ‘I have an appointment quite shortly, Cardonnel.’

  The remark was unfortunate. Cardonnel was the mildest and kindest of men when it came to realities, but it was always advisable to let him go about things in his own way. The attempt to stifle discussion merely served to rouse his blood.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he remarked acidly, ‘that you thought it unnecessary to allot more than so very short a period of your time to the affairs of the Club. I know our meetings are often brief, perhaps too brief, but just occasionally things do arise. However, sorry though we shall be to miss your guidance, perhaps the vice-chairman–’

  ‘Well, well, perhaps can manage.’ Laming became more jerky than ever. ‘Short time more. Your point is?’

  ‘I hear that arrangements are being made to do away with the tea-trays in the Club and replace them with wooden ones, said to be more artistic and less noisy. I am by no means certain to be opposed to such a project. There is much to be said against the old ones; in fact I consider them a disgrace to the Club; but again I ask, Mr Chairman, under whose authority this expense is being incurred, or who has decided upon the new pattern? I do not think the House and Furnishing Sub-Committee has met. I might say I do not think it has met for several years.’

  At the mention of the word ‘expense’ every man sitting round the table stirred slightly. It is an established tradition in the minds of all such Englishmen, vaguely associated in their minds with Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort, and the British Constitution, that the control of expenditure cannot be devolved. Even Laming looked a little reproachfully at Ford. After all, why should he worry to try to defend what appeared to be a little peccadillo of the secretary’s? Especially as apparently such a defence would not even gain time.

  For a moment there was silence. Then Ford hurriedly tried to explain the matter away. No decision, of course, had
been reached. He fully realised that it was one on which he could not act by himself, but he had received numerous complaints about the trays, and so he was merely getting a few samples just to let the Committee see. No question of expense was yet involved.

  ‘But at least one is in use. I saw it yesterday.’ A hitherto silent member spoke.

  ‘Oh, yes – yes. A free sample – just to see. An ounce of practice, you know, sir, is worth–’ His voice trailed off, the rest of the sentence having deserted him. He could only think of ‘a pint of theory’, which he was sure was wrong. Privately he hoped he could withdraw the other three trays he had issued, and with luck nobody would find the rest of the dozen in his office. If the Committee approved in the end all would be well. If not, he would have to pay for them himself. So much for doing what he was told too readily! Once more he vowed not to give way so easily to all and sundry. There was, however, no more chance of his keeping the vow than there had been in the past.

  ‘Quite, quite. No expense as yet, you see, Cardonnel. Examine the sample after use at our next meeting. Agreed? Good. Well, gentlemen, if that is all–’

  ‘I hear a rumour, Mr Chairman’ – another member had plucked up sufficient courage to make himself slightly conspicuous – ‘that the composition of the sub-committees is to be reconsidered.’

  ‘Nothing so definite as that. Ford raised the point with me. Sounded a few people. Nothing decided.’

  With alarm Laming noticed that Cardonnel was turning over the pages of the Club bye-laws. The combination was invariably ominous.

  ‘I much regret, Mr Chairman, that according to Bye-Law 43 such a reorganisation is impossible. You see it stated there that certain sub-committees must be elected annually by the Committee from amongst its members, power being given to add other gentlemen belonging to the Club who are not on the Committee – obviously where technical advice is required. But you see we only have power to elect them annually; we have no power to change them in the middle of the year. Of course we can put on additional members, I presume.’