‘That’s bad.’ Again Lord Arthur felt inadequate. ‘Did you ring up Scotland Yard and ask them to trace the call?’
‘No need. At my own request Scotland Yard have been listening in on my telephone ever since I… came clean.’ Mr Lloyd-Evans smiled wanly. ‘I’ve already heard that the call had been made from a public call-box. When the police got there it was of course empty. By the way, I’ve released Lesley from his promise of secrecy. I thought it would be more helpful if other police officials could know that I was at any rate involved.’
‘That was good of you, in the circumstances.’
‘It can’t make any difference now,’ said Lloyd-Evans, drearily. ‘I’m finished anyhow.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t give up yet,’ Lord Arthur returned, with a heartiness that to his own ears rang dismally false. ‘Er – at all events they haven’t dealt with you as they did with Mansel.’
‘No, they haven’t,’ agreed Mr Lloyd-Evans with sudden energy. ‘But why not? That’s been puzzling me. As soon as I heard about Mansel of course I expected the same. But there’s been no attempt. I know I’m guarded – well guarded; but upon my word I’m beginning to believe these people can get past any guards if they’ve the mind. Why did they kill Mansel, but not me?’
‘Mansel must have known more. And they got him before he had a chance to talk. You’ve done so already.’
‘Yes, I suppose that must be it. And after all, I don’t know very much. Just the faces of a few of the smaller fry. No, I suppose I’m of no real importance to them. They’ll just break me, and make me a present of my life,’ Lloyd-Evans said bitterly.
Lord Arthur broke an uncomfortable silence.
‘You haven’t seen the man they caught, I suppose? The fellow who blew up my office?’
‘Yes, indeed I have. I was taken to Scotland Yard yesterday evening, and was able to identify him as one of the men who had once given me instructions. Not the man I met in the restaurant; another Indian. At least I’ve been able to give the authorities that much help.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ Lord Arthur rallied him.
‘Not a great deal, I fear,’ Lloyd-Evans sighed. ‘Well, you’ll be wanting to know why I asked you to come here. It’s for this reason. I told you I have written out my resignation; but I haven’t sent it to the Prime Minister yet. I propose in fact to postpone doing so for twenty-four hours: by which time,’ added Mr Lloyd-Evans with a ghastly smile, ‘there may be no need.’
‘What exactly do you mean?’ Lord Arthur asked uneasily. Mr Lloyd-Evans reminded him in a grotesque way of a schoolmaster. It seemed somehow indecent to be present when a schoolmaster was baring his soul. Schoolmasters ought not to bare their own souls. Their job is to bare other people’s.
‘Quite simple,’ said Mr Lloyd-Evans. ‘I’d like to do a useful job before I go. I want to make that speech in the House tomorrow, instead of… well, I don’t know who is to make it, but he can’t fail to be of more use than I can ever be, now.’
‘You know the risk?’ Lord Arthur asked mechanically. He was wondering if this was a clever plan to elicit the name of the speaker: information to be passed on to the Terrorists in a final bid for their silence. It seemed cruel to suspect the unhappy man before him of such a piece of treachery, but Lord Arthur was in the mood to trust no one. And after all, Lloyd-Evans had already shown his base metal.
‘The risk? You mean, the certainty. Oh, yes, I know. But in a way I welcome it. My life’s over. I can’t face disgrace, and possible public prosecution… and yet I know I should never have the courage to kill myself. If these persons would be kind enough to do it for me…’
‘Come, don’t let’s be melodramatic,’ Lord Arthur said sharply. ‘If your offer’s genuine, it’s a brave one whatever may be prompting it. But you should make it to the Prime Minister, not to me.’
‘I know that; I know that,’ returned Mr Lloyd-Evans, testily. ‘And of course I shall do so, in due course. I merely wished to consult you, as Under-Secretary for the Department, to learn if you approved.’
‘Why should I disapprove? Except that in my opinion the job is properly my own. In fact I’ve already offered to do it, but my offer has not been accepted.’
‘That means… yes, I feared as much… the Prime Minister is going…’ Mr Lloyd-Evans threw an interrogative glance, perhaps an involuntary one, at his visitor.
‘I have no information concerning the proposed speaker,’ Lord Arthur answered it stiffly.
‘Of course not. After all, it is the Cabinet’s privilege… and duty… exactly. In any case, Linton, we won’t beat about the bush. You are understood to be in the Prime Minister’s confidence over this matter. I should be obliged if you would use all your powers of persuasion on him to allow me to speak on the Bill on Monday. There is no need to mention my forthcoming resignation. As I said, if I am privileged to speak I anticipate that matter will not arise. I am under no illusions. To speak on Monday, I’m convinced, will be certain death… for anyone. I am the only person to whom death would be a relief, and the easiest way out. Therefore I ask you earnestly to further my cause with the Prime Minister.’
Lord Arthur was moved. In contrast to the touch of the dramatic in his earlier manner, Lloyd-Evans had spoken simply and quietly. If ever a man was sincere, thought Lord Arthur, this one was. And what he said was plain sense too. If this wretched secret was really as bad as he seemed to think, if it really involved a possible criminal prosecution, then he would be much better dead than exposed, for his own sake as well as that of his wife and daughter.
‘Write your offer to the Prime Minister,’ Lord Arthur said. ‘I’ll take it round myself, at once; and I give you my word that I’ll use every effort to persuade him to accept it.’
‘Thank you, Linton; that’s very good of you.’
Without a further word Mr Lloyd-Evans drew a piece of notepaper out of the drawer beside his hand and began to write.
No sooner had the silence settled than Lord Arthur began to fret. Uneasy doubts presented themselves. Was Lloyd-Evans really to be trusted? He had the reputation of a clever, almost too clever man. Was he really throwing in his hand like this? It did not seem like him. But if there was anything wrong, what was his object in wanting to speak? How could he help the Terrorists by doing so… assuming that this was one last tremendous bid to rehabilitate himself with them and, even at the last, almost impossible moment, buy off exposure and disgrace? It was true that the man had sounded pathetically genuine, but… he had been an actor, and…
Lord Arthur caught his breath. Supposing that Lloyd-Evans wanted to gain the floor not to speak for the Bill at all but to move its abandonment?
The Government benches would be taken completely by surprise. The Prime Minister might not even be in the House at all. Only three or four minutes would be needed, and…
Why, in three or four minutes the whole game might be deliberately lost. It was touch and go as things were. There would be no lack of supporters from the Opposition. The whole thing might even be prearranged, with Lacy or someone, or even Dickson himself, ready to jump up the moment the Government benches tumbled to what was happening, second the motion and force a snap division. And if the proposal actually came from the Government side of the House, the result of a division would almost certainly be against the Bill.
Lord Arthur’s mind raced.
‘Here you are, then,’ said Mr Lloyd-Evans, sealing the envelope. ‘I really am most grateful to you, Linton.’
‘That’s all right,’ Lord Arthur muttered. He took the letter and put it in his breast pocket, but did not rise to go. Somehow, he felt, he must clarify his ideas before trying to see the Prime Minister. What could he usefully ask Lloyd-Evans?
‘And just in case, perhaps you’d let me have a copy of poor Wellacombe’s speech,’ he heard Lloyd-Evans saying, in an almost cheerful voice. ‘No need for you to waste your time going through it with me. I’ll just read it off.’
‘I’ll send a copy ro
und,’ said Lord Arthur, mechanically. He added the first question that came into his head: ‘Who gave you that anonymous letter to deliver to No. 10?’
Lloyd-Evans looked surprised. ‘That letter from the… Brown Hand? No one. I told Lesley. It wasn’t I who delivered it.’
‘Not you?’ It was Lord Arthur’s turn to look surprised. ‘But I thought…’
‘Oh, you had every reason for thinking so, no doubt,’ said Mr Lloyd-Evans with acridity. ‘I remember now that it was among the accusations you hurled at me in our previous conversation. I was too taken aback by the large number that were true to collect my wits sufficiently to deny the false.’
‘Then… it was someone impersonating you all the time?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
Lord Arthur considered this new development: or rather, this return to the old status quo ante.
‘It’s queer. Very queer, taken in conjunction with that box of thorns. They seem to have been deliberately trying to throw suspicion on you, in spite of the fact that you were helping them – and very usefully. I don’t understand it at all.
You haven’t any personal enemy who could be mixed up with them, have you? It would be a valuable pointer if you had.’
‘The police asked me that. I can’t think of anyone.’
Lord Arthur reflected. Mr Lloyd-Evans was a rich man: or rather, he had been prudent enough to marry an extremely rich wife, the young widow of an elderly shipping magnate. Rich men always have enemies; but unfortunately the majority are hidden enemies, from the obscure employee nursing some grudge to a jealous rival of equal standing. No, there was not likely to be much help there.
He stood up abruptly.
‘Well, I’ll be off. I may not be able to see the Prime Minister, and even if I do it’s very doubtful whether he’ll listen to me. I have no more influence with him than you have yourself. In either case I’ll notify you as soon as possible.’
Mr Lloyd-Evans went with him to get his hat and coat. Passing through the hall as Lord Arthur came out of the cloakroom was Mrs Lloyd-Evans, and he stopped for a word with her. The young widow of the shipping magnate was now a handsome matron and the mother of a remarkably pretty daughter. Most people, Lord Arthur knew, were a little afraid of her, for she had a biting wit, inspired by a penetrating intelligence, and she seldom hesitated to use it; but he found her refreshing and honest. Her husband’s disgrace would be a terrible shock to her, for his career had been largely her work.
Feeling uncommonly depressed, Lord Arthur waited for his sleuths to disentangle themselves from the still more numerous sleuths guarding the Lloyd-Evans house and then, deep in uneasy thought, turned into the Mall and walked rapidly towards Whitehall.
It was a quarter to four when he reached No. 10. By four o’clock he was ringing up Lloyd-Evans in accordance with his promise. Five minutes the Prime Minister had been able to spare him, but five minutes had been more than enough.
Glancing quickly through Lloyd-Evans’ note, the Prime Minister had said:
‘Yes? And what have you to say about this, Arthur?’
‘I strongly urge you to accept the offer, sir.’ Lord Arthur had decided in the end to back Lloyd-Evans against his own doubts.
‘It’s very handsome of Lloyd-Evans. Frankly, I shouldn’t have thought he had it in him. Ring him up for me and thank him, Arthur, and say I much regret that other arrangements have already been concluded. He doesn’t know what arrangements, of course?’
‘No, sir.’ Lord Arthur hesitated. ‘You still intend…? Honestly, sir, it’s madness. The country can’t afford to lose you. It’s your duty to keep alive. You must let me make that speech-or Lloyd-Evans, of course, if you prefer.’
The Prime Minister smiled. ‘The Opposition newspapers call me an obstinate old man, Arthur. I am. Now run along. By the way, Isabel knows, so you can discuss my obstinacy with her. But I rather fancy you’ll find she shares the same brand.’
Lord Arthur went. He knew it was no use to persist further.
Isabel was in the morning-room, filing some press cuttings.
‘Isabel, I want you to come back to Whitehall Court with me,’ Lord Arthur said, abruptly. ‘I’ve just seen your father, and he’s quite determined. If I can’t persuade him to change his mind, at least I can still try to save him. I’ve got an idea. It sounds quite fantastic and it’s probably all wrong, but it’s the only idea I’ve got. It involves rehearsing that speech of Wellacombe’s, perhaps a dozen times over. Could you bear it?’
Isabel asked no questions.
‘I’ll get my hat,’ she said.
chapter twenty
The Bill Is Presented
On Monday morning the newspapers were in full cry.
Smarting under the uncricketerlike march stolen on them, they had let themselves go. Banner headlines, leaded type, all the attributes of the modern goddess of Publicitas Stridens were employed to the full. Threats of murder, murder as threatened, terrorism at Westminster, extermination of the Cabinet… there was plenty of scope. The only wonder was that the newspapers of the Left, faced with this menace to all they professed to hold most dear, namely democratic government, were yet loudest in the denunciation not of the threateners but of those whose determination it was to repress such threats. Logic, however, never has marched with politics. (It is, after all, not so long since politicians of a certain complexion found themselves in a most irksome dilemma by realising that they were morally bound to clamour for force to be applied to a particularly undemocratic aggressor State and, in the same breath, denounce the increased armaments with which that force was to be applied.)
There is, however, one thing to be said for the people of England. Provided only that the favourite does not go down in the Derby, they remain calm. Politicians may be assassinated, terrorism may come to Westminster, India may be in the very act of bombing her way out of the Empire, the very heavens themselves may fall: but provided only that they do not fall on the pitch at the Oval, the people of England remain calm. How much one wishes that the misguided denizens of the Continent would but try to follow this devastating example.
The people of England, then, remained calm. They were interested, certainly; they were even mildly excited, though not, of course, to the same pitch as the crowd at a heavyweight boxing contest; bets were freely offered and taken on the next Minister’s chances of survival. The odds, it turned out when the thing had been put on some sort of organised footing, were a shade against the Minister: five to four was the figure finally reckoned as fair. Many people thus found a new interest in politics which had been lacking before.
There was, however, some grumbling at the lack of any authoritative statement from the Government as to the measures proposed to be taken, which might have given a clearer opportunity of estimating the chances.
It has already been written that the Government of this country is not a dictatorship. Indeed, we all know that it is a democracy: the model, in fact, of all democracies. To leave the matter baldly at that is, however, to reckon without the reverence for compromise which made England what she was. Government by dictatorship has certain great and definite advantages for the governors; it also has some minor advantages for the governed, such as saving them all the pains of deciding difficult questions for themselves. It is only to be expected, therefore, that some germ of authoritarianism (if one may coin such a hideous word) should manage neatly to introduce itself into our body politic. The result is to be seen in the fact that, provided he is able to hold his Cabinet in check by cajolery, intimidation or any other means, there is nothing to stop a British Prime Minister from acting in a perfectly totalitarian way, committing his country to any course of action which, although repugnant even to a majority of its citizens, Parliament may find the greatest difficulty in reversing. The Prime Minister is always able to explain to the House how admirable his intentions were and how the country did not know what was best for it; and provided that his intentions really were admirable, sincerity will always w
in with the great heart of the House of Commons against any such dull qualities as wisdom, far-sightedness or statesmanship.
When, however, a suspicion of dictatorialism is mingled, as it was in this instance, not merely with sincerity but with statesmanship as well, then a Prime Minister may look out for trouble. It was not without something of this in mind that Mr Franklin had determined that he and he only must speak on the Indian Bill that afternoon; for as he frankly told Lord Arthur in a short interview they had that morning for the purpose of going through the more vital points in the Wellacombe speech, he doubted the ability of any other of his Ministers to carry the House with him.
Lord Arthur pushed his way through the usual hysterical crowd which gathers in Downing Street and Whitehall at any national crisis for the purpose of gaping at the important persons going in or coming out of No. 10 and cheering everyone indiscriminately from the Prime Minister himself to the police constable who pushes them back: the same crowd which gathers to mob visiting film stars, international athletes, or anyone else in the public news, and whose plaudits and encouragement a wise Minister does not take as representative of the genuine, inarticulate national feeling.
There were many matters awaiting Lord Arthur’s attention at the India Office, now that he was acting for the Secretary of State as well as continuing with his own duties; and for the life of him he did not see what else he could do.
For two hours yesterday he had rehearsed the Wellacombe speech to Isabel. Without telling her the idea that had come to him, he had declaimed as Lord Wellacombe, as Middleton, as the Prime Minister, and even as himself, using what he could remember of the characteristic tricks of intonation, gesture and so forth affected by each; and in the end, when he had performed one or two passages, as it were, in slow motion, Isabel had realised with a little cry of astonishment what he had in mind. They had discussed the possibilities then for a further hour or more, and even then had not felt sure; there were so many difficulties still in the theory that neither could feel able to put too much faith in it, but it was the only theory they had and they hoped desperately that they might be on the right track. Isabel had undertaken to report it to her father alone and almost at the last minute, so that no hint of it should have a chance of reaching the wrong quarters too early, and to give him the warning which Lord Arthur’s rehearsal had suggested.
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