by George Sims
An unnatural posture compounded of things as trivial as sweating made him feel like an old man. He stopped walking, straightened up and looked at the sky. Usually a few days of such oppressive heat in England would bring a thunderstorm in its wake, but there was no sign of this happening. There were just a few widely spaced high white clouds in an azure sky. With luck he might have been looking at them now with Judy, watching them travel slowly across the skylight as they lay together. It was pillow talk of an intimate nature that Leo craved just as much as the sexual act.
‘Hello, my dear. Quo vadis?’ It was Professor H. Immanuel Klein gravely raising his homburg hat to Leo Selver as if to a passing funeral.
‘Hello, Manny. Just going back to the shop. Did you want to see me?’
‘Yes, my dear. I’ve something to show you. Perhaps—here? I’ve been to your shop once already and walking the streets today…This heat…’
Klein made an irritable grabbing movement as if removing an invisible fly from the air. He had made no compromise in his clothing to deal with a temperature in the eighties, wearing his usual heavy, navy three-piece suit. Klein had been a Professor of Semantics at Frankfurt till 1933 and since then had followed various occupations, ending up as a fairly successful ‘kitchen table’ dealer in antiques. He spent two or three days of each week in visiting remote country junk shops searching for things he could sell to West End dealers. His bulky brief-case always contained the current ABC Rail Guide, and he could rattle off the best morning trains for Canterbury, Yarmouth and Yeovil. He lived in the basement flat of a gloomy house in Westbourne Grove, immured by a broken doorbell and increasing deafness. His rooms had grimy ceilings, and walls covered with fading photographs in crumbling frames. He owned a gramophone that did not work, a pile of antique opera records in dusty brown paper covers, and an equally old wireless set that had started to blare out again after a decade of silence. In his flat there were no newspapers, magazines or television; its atmosphere had stuck in the 1930s, while a desk calendar remained fixed at 22.10.41. He was known variously in the trade as ‘Manny’, ‘the Prof’, and ‘that fucking know-all Klein’.
Klein began to laboriously undo the various straps and locks which guarded his heavy hide case. He breathed heavily at the effort and Selver longed to curtail the performance by helping him, but knew from experience that this would not be welcome. Klein’s sensitive mouth and pebble glasses were surrounded by a beard of bristly black and white whiskers. Behind the thick lenses there were pale, wise, opaque eyes. He kept on fiddling with an intransigent buckle, but scrutinized Selver’s face like a jeweller examining a watch. His lips moved silently, as if he was working out a problem. A biscuit crumb trembled on one wiry white whisker. Selver looked at him admiringly, thinking that he could not imagine the circumstances in which Klein would lose his natural dignity. He remembered the hectic, nervous face reflected in the bathroom mirror and thought: Christ, I’ve lost any chance of dignity myself by telling too many lies and acting so deviously. What a strange life I’ve made for myself. What a web we weave indeed.
Klein gave Selver a searching look and said, ‘You worry me, my dear. Lately you’ve changed. It’s like talking to a different man.’
Selver smiled unnaturally, unable to think of a reply.
‘Always in a hurry, rushing here, there and everywhere. Whenever I call at your shop they say you’re out and usually they don’t seem to know where you are. It’s not like the old days. And what’s this I hear about a move? Davies Street? Can that be true?’
‘A possibility. No more than that. I’ve been to see some premises there. It’s strictly comme ci comme ça at the moment.’
Klein had given up struggling with the tight strap as though it presented an insoluble problem; he leant back heavily against the wall of the small public garden.
‘Surely—such premises—would they not be very expensive, my dear? And the rates there, what kind of rates must they pay next door to Claridge’s?’ Klein looked apprehensive suddenly, struck by a troublesome thought. ‘You’re not thinking of a partnership with your friend Mr Chard?’
Selver was able to laugh spontaneously. ‘Good God no. Not a chance in a thousand. Sid would hate that as much as I would.’ He wanted to reassure the old man, knowing Klein’s deep-seated dislike of Sidney Chard. ‘My only possible change will be a short move—only a few streets away—if I make it. Nothing else. Just the same old set-up. You’ll keep on finding me nice things and I shall keep on buying them.’
‘So you say, and you probably mean it now. But molehills can become mountains, if you see what I mean.’ Klein’s tone was becoming general and discursive which usually Selver welcomed and found instructive, but it was a different matter when standing sweating in the glare of the sun.
‘For instance, my dear,’ Klein paused, obviously reaching out for facts to fit a theory, ‘example given—in 1905 an obscure young man, only a Technical Officer, Third Class, in the Swiss Patent Office, submitted four brief articles to the Annalen der Physik. Hardly noticed at the time, they were to bring radical changes in man’s view of the world. I refer, of course, to Albert Einstein.’
‘Oh really, Manny! Come on! The connection eludes me. An Einstein I’m not.’
‘My dear, I was only trying to explain…that I’ve trained myself to observe all changes and other factors—things going on about me—and try to foresee what may develop. Every time I see you at a sale now you’re talking away to Mr Chard. Like conspirators! Then I hear of the expensive move. It’s ambitious, very ambitious. Out of character, if I may be so bold. So I think perhaps it’s going to be Chard & Selver Ltd.’
‘He won’t listen to me!’ Selver appealed to an invisible audience. ‘What do you do when your old friend won’t believe you?’ He had felt increasingly uneasy as Klein made his prediction: in a way it came much closer to the truth than he liked. It was comparable to having your hand read by a gipsy who turned out to have an insight into traits you preferred to keep secret. The myopic old man with failing hearing appeared to be a poor observer. In fact, immune to many general interests, with a marked distaste for politics and sport, he was in a good position to concentrate his thinking only on people and objets d’art, as if bringing them into crucial focus under a microscope.
Klein muttered something in German, nodding his head. ‘Yes, quite a combination! Your taste and flair together with that man’s drive and ambition. I have to admit, though, that I should not welcome it personally. You know he would not be pleased for me…’
‘Tears!’ Selver pointed to his eyes dramatically. He knew the old boy liked a joky approach. ‘I shall be crying soon if you won’t listen. No, repeat no, partnership is in the offing.’
Klein undid the last strap and reached into his capacious bag, pulling out a vase-shaped object wrapped up in blue tissue-paper which he slowly undid to reveal white tissue-paper. He said, ‘Something unusual. As soon as I saw it I thought it would appeal to you.’
Selver had foolishly run out of patience. ‘May I?’ he said, reaching out to take the tissue-paper parcel.
Klein held on to it firmly, saying, ‘No. If you won’t listen to the sales talk you can’t buy the piece.’
‘Now he wants me to change the habits of a lifetime and be patient.’
The white tissue-paper was teased off slowly as Klein muttered ‘Something special’ and made one of his more or less tactile acts of cognition with the mysterious object, then held up a silver hare’s head very close before his eyes.
Selver touched the finely modelled ears of the hare. ‘A stirrup cup. Rare like that. The foxhead cups are comparatively common. No base, but that’s the original state. It was handed full to the mounted rider who held it by the fox’s muzzle or the hare’s ears as he drank. About 1800 I should say.’
Klein savoured the moment as if a secret diagnosis had been confirmed. ‘I didn’t know…You see I took a chance an
d paid quite a sum. I thought you would like it.’
‘I do like it.’ Selver took hold of the cup and looked at it closely. ‘1809. Made by Ermes and Barnard.’ He rolled his eyes in a comical fashion and did an imitation of a cockney ‘kitchen table’ dealer which he knew would amuse Klein. Well, Sir, that’s your veritable picturesque! What an item! Oh quite unique! The old party what sold it to me was heartbroken to part with it! Nothing else quite like it in Lunnon, Sir!’ He continued to examine it carefully as he spoke. ‘You see these words engraved round the rim? A toast to a hunt in the Forest of Bowland. Yes, this is rare as well as attractive—haven’t had one like it before. Can you leave it with me for a few days, Manny, and we’ll work out a good price?’
‘Of course, my dear. But you appreciate I couldn’t come to such an arrangement with your friend Mr Chard.’
‘No, perhaps not. Well, you know Sid. He’s a bit short on tact.’
‘No tact. No sense of occasion. No…Well of course it’s all a game, this business of dealing, but even a game has to have some rules…’
‘Yes, of course.’ Selver was anxious to cut short this analysis of Sidney Chard’s character. ‘Got time for a cup of char?’
‘Not today, my dear, though it is nice of you to ask me. I want to get home now. My feet ache. This heat…’
‘Okay then, Manny, we’ll leave it like that. Many thanks for offering me this piece. I’ll be in touch.’ Selver walked off, holding the stirrup cup casually by one of the hare’s ears. His pleasure in such things had once been genuine but had fallen away during the years and now was largely feigned, just part of his professional approach. He turned once to wave to the old man and walked on briskly as if he was looking forward to returning to his shop, though in fact the prospect of an afternoon of business was as dull as an evening of his own company. It was strange how the strong conceit of I, I, I always led one forward.
Selver was again oblivious of his familiar surroundings. He was looking into his future and finding it bleak. Propped up by the redoubtable Sidney Chard M.M., he would no doubt survive the tricky, dangerous next few weeks; he would become wealthier and this would lead to more success in his business; he would achieve his move to Davies Street and a few remaining ambitions of that kind. There would be Judy and later on other girls like Judy, none of whom would give a damn for him, and it would all be empty, empty, empty.
He remembered his foolish excitement, like that of a love-sick youth, on looking into Judy’s greenish-blue eyes while her sharp-nailed fingers held his wrist. On two occasions she had made quite a performance of doing this while she looked at his watch, and he had found her faintly possessive air in these flirtatious moments very pleasurable. Knowing how stupid he was to persist with an affair with a girl half his age, yet there was nothing else he looked forward to apart from the proposed meeting in Stephen Street.
He moved his wrist-watch and mentally dictated a résumé of his position: Dear psychiatrist. Well, here I am at fifty. From here on it is downhill all the way. No beliefs, no causes attract me. So what’s the prognosis, doc? Obsessional Oedipus complex? The Albertine syndrome?
Selver realized he had spoken the last word out loud, inadvertently, and looked round to see if any passer-by had noticed. This made him feel foolish and even hotter than before. Sweating in the glaring sunlight at the Baker Street crossing, waiting for the traffic signals to change colour, he thought in a moment of rare detachment: The cause of most of my troubles has been my inability to deny myself anything.
Chapter V
The man wearing white cotton gloves had a mind made sick and blind by the past. He was ruled by an idée fixe: the constant necessity for imposing a pattern upon chaos. This day-time obsession was coupled with an ever-recurring dream of a ruthless hand-to-hand fight for existence in which he just managed to survive. The dream had a hundred variations but the central theme was always that of obtaining a superior position in the bloody struggle by forethought and planning.
The man straightening the fingers of the white cotton gloves thought of himself as X. In his wallet, along with a dozen other press-cuttings which he considered of particular significance, he always carried one with the headline the UNKNOWN FACTOR X. In the equation let X equal the unknown factor: X stood for unrivalled strength, meticulous planning and all-round efficiency. X always felt intensely alone, as if he was the only man alive in a world otherwise peopled by phantoms.
The man using white-gloved fingers to open a black leather brief-case stood in the shadow of a derelict cottage in the Chilterns. A cottage without a name at the edge of a wood known as the Oaken Grove. A pathway, which would be muddy in winter but now was of bone-dry clay along which a car could be driven with care, led from the cottage along the edge of the wood to a farm gate where it joined another path leading through the Oaken Grove and a rough track that ran down to the A4155 road connecting Marlow and Henley.
For three weeks X had quartered the Home Counties with a mental list of requirements which he could not put to any house agent, namely: (1) deserted house or cottage yet one not obviously tumble-down; (2) secluded site; (3) reasonably easy access by car; (4) privacy; (5) deep pond within short distance.
The nameless cottage by the Oaken Grove which looked as if it must have housed a gamekeeper earlier in the century filled all these requirements. Most of the tiles on the roof were intact at the front of the cottage though they had given way at the back: all the front window-frames were still present and X had hung up grimy net curtains so that from twenty feet the cottage looked inhabited. The seclusion and privacy were all that could be hoped for, with no person living within a mile. The track from the A4155 was steep and stony, but negotiable by car. A winter stream ran through the wood, feeding a pond at what had been the end of the cottage garden; the pond was ten feet deep with black, stagnant water, covered in duckweed.
X re-checked the contents of the brief-case which he had laid on the ground-elder-covered path at the side of the cottage. The case contained a replica Frontier Colt revolver, a facsimile so exact that it would escape detection unless it was examined closely; a roll of wire, wire-cutters and pliers; a tin of plasters; a papier-mâché mask. In purchasing the mask, X had appeared to be casual in the shop, as if buying it was a caprice, but he had studied the selection with care. It was the most natural one he could find, so that from a distance it did look like a face. A hideous yellow or grey one made to put on a Guy Fawkes dummy might appear to be more frightening, but the nearly normal visage had a subtlety about it that appealed to X. Years before, in the orphanage, he had been frightened by a boy in a similar mask, and that was the kind of thing he never forgot.
X straightened up from his examination of the vital equipment. He cast an exact shadow on the sunlit path. The early morning mist had changed to a flimsy cloud flotilla vanishing to the north and leaving behind it a clear blue sky. X was tempted to explore the derelict cottage once more. He liked the walls from which layers of varicoloured papers had come unstuck to reveal damp patches and fungus; the wavy brick floor decorated with moss and grimy streaks of bird-droppings; the gaping chimney in the tiny living-room; the brambles and nettles that flourished by the walls; the flagstones in the kitchen fringed with knot-grass; the pervasive smell of decay. X stared in through a window at the dank kitchen: he had left the side door to it open to facilitate immediate access when his hands would be full.
X looked at his watch. It was 8.55 a.m. and there were only five minutes to pass before Mr Sidney Chard was due for his appointment. Having studied Chard’s character he did not expect him to be late. Indeed X would have been willing to take a bet and give good odds that Chard would both be punctual and stick to the agreement of coming alone; Chard was an extreme individualist with a high opinion of his ability to deal with anything that came his way. Of course, X had to be prepared for the other possibility even though it was remote; if there was someone else with Chard, X
had prepared a simple alternative scenario: one in which he would disappear as soon as the car with two passengers came into sight, climbing under the wire fence into the wood and making his way down through the Oaken Grove to the spot where he had hidden his Volkswagen, just off the road leading to Marlow.
8.58 a.m. on Wednesday, 15 August 1973. No doubt Chard considered this was likely to be an important day in his life; but he did not realize that it was one of vital importance, more eventful even than the day in 1944 when Corporal Sidney Chard of the Lancashire Fusiliers had led an attack on Point 445, a German outpost in front of the Monastery Hill at Cassino. X had studied an account of the battle and knew that Chard had been awarded the Military Medal for his bravery in a hand-to-hand fight during which he had been wounded in the knee by a bullet from an M.G. 42. Qualm: a sensation of fear and uneasiness. In tackling a man like Chard, ‘fearless and resourceful’, one was bound to take a risk. The best plans could go wrong. Quarry: to prey or feed, to hunt down. X was attracted by words that began with a Q and could rattle off dictionary definitions of half a dozen which had a particular significance for him.
9.00 a.m. A khaki-coloured robin watched X with beady eyes. X watched an orb spider that had strung its large web in a corner of the ramshackle front-door porch. X was fascinated by spiders and knew a good deal about them, including the superstition that spiders are fond of music because they become excited when a musical instrument sets a web trembling. A particularly interesting fact was their ability, while making sticky spirals to catch their prey, to spin dry radial threads on which to approach the victims. The common garden spider sat at the centre of its web waiting for an insect to get caught in the sticky drops on the spiral threads. X waited, with sticky spirals and dry radials all prepared, concealed by the old wooden porch, to spy upon Sidney Chard’s approach.
