Deadline (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  ‘Could the News take over the Globe? I thought they sold fewer copies.’

  ‘They do but the News has greater assets. It’s a richer organization. Still, nothing will happen till the old men give up the ghost. They can’t stand each other.’

  ‘So they don’t approve?’

  Bognor liked port. He rolled it round his mouth and helped himself to another biscuit.

  ‘How well do you know Elliston Gravelle?’ he asked.

  ‘Not socially. Well, we might have a drink in here. Occasionally at weekends. He’s a first rate shot. I saw him get a woodcock once in a force seven gale and hail, after lighting up time. I didn’t even know there was a bird there. But I see a fair bit of him in the office. As political editor I’m nominally a departmental head, so I have what’s laughingly known as “access” to him.’

  ‘If Wharfedale thought that Bertie Harris might sell out his interests after he succeeded what would he do?’

  Spencer Nugent looked across to Harris and Gravelle who were engrossed in serious talk. ‘They look like conspirators, don’t they?’ he ventured, ‘but they’re probably discussing form or women. They both have something of a reputation as ladies’ men. I gather they were notorious at the House.’ He sipped port. ‘But in answer to your question. Two things. First I should think Wharfedale has made Bertie swear in blood that he will hang on to the Globe come hell or high water. Second I should imagine that if he had serious doubts he would probably disinherit. There are nephews who could take over. It’s unlikely though.’

  Bognor sucked his teeth and wondered if it would be permissible to start making lists in the members’ dining room at Pring’s. Almost certainly not, he decided. Sort of thing a fellow would be blackballed for. Worse than cheating at cards.

  ‘But,’ he persisted, ‘you really think it’s conceivable that Bertie Harris might eventually sell the family newspaper to his most deadly rival?’

  ‘He’s not a deadly rival of Elliston’s,’ said Spencer. ‘They’re old muckers. It’s the fathers who are the deadly rivals.’ He leant forward across the heavy silver plate pepper and salt, and lowered his voice.

  ‘I’ve heard it said that it’s in writing already.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An agreement to merge the two groups when they’ve both inherited.’

  ‘Merge?’

  ‘Polite formula. Bertie would stay on as nominal vice chairman or some such rubbish and he’d get a lot of money.’

  ‘How sure are you about this?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I’ve heard things. My contacts are pretty good. Anyway why are you so keen to know? You don’t have to worry. When I’m Editor of the News of the Globe or whatever they’re going to call it I’ll make sure you’re sitting pretty.’

  They changed the subject to the awfulness of the Prime Minister and his speech and shortly afterwards returned to Fleet Street.

  6

  AS HE WAS ABOUT to open the door of the Samuel Pepys office Bognor was aware of noise within. Men’s voices were raised in heated altercation. Bognor heard the rumble of obscene expletives from a voice he judged through the stout timbers of the door to be that of Milborn Port, while in answer the more tremulous whining tones of Eric Gringe replied with sentences which sounded just as rude. Bognor hesitated and then decided to risk the inevitable unpleasantness. He tempered the abruptness of his entrance by knocking first.

  Inside he found that the effect of rage had been to send Milborn scarlet while the equally choleric Granny Gringe had had all the colour drained from him so that he was pallid to the point of yellowness.

  ‘Aha,’ said Milborn, ‘Bognor will confirm it, you whited sepulchre. Tell him, Bognor. Just tell him.’ The stench of alcoholic mint was unbearable.

  ‘Tell him what?’ Bognor was genuinely unaware of what it could possibly be that he was supposed to tell.

  ‘There is nothing you can possibly tell which will alter the obvious and distressing fact that he is as drunk … as drunk.’ Mr Gringe was evidently unable to find anything which could possibly be as drunk as Mr Port … ‘. … as a newt,’ he ended finally, the word rasping from his pursed lips with inapposite venom.

  ‘You said he owned horses, you little wet,’ shouted Milborn, his eyes rolling, ‘and he’s never been near a horse in his life.’ He’s allergic to them.’

  ‘I said nothing about horses, I said he made films.’

  ‘You said he owned Coffeegrinder.’

  ‘I said he made a film called The Coffee Grinders.’

  ‘Balls!’

  ‘Lies!’

  Bognor, mesmerized by this performance, snapped out of his trance. ‘Are we talking about Mr Silverberg?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ they agreed hoarsely. He had the impression that the row had been going on for some time. Both men seemed near exhaustion.

  ‘Well what do you want me to tell you?’ he asked meekly and in as polite and soft a voice as was possible through his still livid lips and after a respectable quantity of Pring’s claret and port.

  ‘What happened?’ said Gringe, with a prissy air of imminent triumph. ‘Just tell me what happened. That’s all I need to know. Then I’ll break you, Port. I’ll break you.’ Mr Gringe looked incapable of breaking anyone. His fury made him seem more frail and put upon than ever and Bognor saw to his dismay that his eyebrow had again gone out of control.

  ‘Nothing much to tell,’ said Bognor, wondering how much would be tactful and if he was going to take sides whose side it would be most politic to be on. ‘We arrived at the Hyde Park Hotel and Milborn asked for Mr Silverberg and the clerk said he didn’t think Mr Silverberg was in so Milborn said he’d wait in the bar and then Mr Silverberg’s assistant turned up and joined us and then I had to leave for the Albert Hall.’

  ‘That’s not all … that’s not all,’ screamed Gringe, enraged. ‘What name did he give. He gave a false name.’

  ‘He gave the name Milborn Port,’ said Bognor.

  ‘But he prefixed it. He prefixed it.’

  ‘Yes,’ conceded Bognor reluctantly, ‘he did say “Sir Milborn Port”.’

  ‘Liar!’ shouted Gringe. ‘Imbecile! Impostor!’

  ‘I’m entitled to it,’ Milborn bellowed back. ‘It’s my name damn you. Sir Milborn Port. I’m the fourteenth baronet.’

  ‘Papal baronet!’ Mr Gringe spat it out in such a way that papal became as derogatory a word as the ‘paper’ in ‘paper tiger’.

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Honestly,’ said Bognor, ‘I don’t see that it matters. After all what’s in a name? Sticks and stones may break your bones, but …’ He was sadly aware that he was being fatuous.

  ‘That’s not all’ said Gringe. ‘Nothing like all. That’s only the beginning. In all my years of journalism I have never experienced such deceit.’

  ‘All your years of journalism, my arse. You don’t begin to be a journalist. You’ve never been further than bloody Bromley. You’ve spent all your years of journalism sitting in this office doing bugger all while the rest of us go out and get the stories and do the real work.’

  ‘Gentlemen, really,’ Bognor attempted a second intercession, ‘I still don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Perfectly simple,’ said Milborn, ‘you saw the first bit. There I was sitting in the bar chatting up Silverberg’s assistant, all nice and cosy, and suddenly I realize that not only does he not know the first thing about horses but nor does Silverberg. So he starts to get shirty and tries to leave without paying.’

  ‘Without paying?’

  ‘He’d drunk half the champagne and the little bugger wouldn’t even pay his share. So there was a row. All because this incompetent granny here gave me a totally wrong briefing.’

  Mr Gringe interrupted. ‘I was sitting here trying to work under exceptionally difficult circumstances when the telephone rang and the hotel manager said that a man purporting to be a member of my staff was making a scene in the bar. I need hardly say that I knew
immediately to whom he was referring.’

  ‘Not surprising since you’d sent me there in the first place.’

  Mr Gringe ignored the remark. ‘I naturally went straight to the hotel, leaving the office unmanned, and managed to settle the affair as amicably as possible. I very much hope that no official complaint is made to Lord Wharfedale. You owe me eight pounds for the champagne and the broken ash tray.’

  ‘You can’t have it. You should never have paid. It’s your own bloody fault.’

  ‘In that case I shall dock it from your expenses.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’

  ‘We all know why you were brought home from Russia. You’ll be finished after this.’

  At the mention of Russia Milborn seemed to subside. He sat down heavily and without any thought of the others pulled the flask from his coat and drank noisily from it. Then he wiped his mouth and replaced the cap before glancing up at Gringe, who was staring down at him with an expression of mixed anger, contempt and incredulity.

  ‘This is beyond belief,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, you prissy old puritan, give over,’ said Milborn, wearily. ‘I’ve had about at much as I can take.’

  ‘You most certainly have,’ exclaimed Gringe. He was now, Bognor realized, incensed beyond anything that had gone earlier. Something had snapped inside him. With a sudden lunge he made a grab at the flask, took Milborn by surprise and succeeded in making off with it. He scuttled back to his desk holding the offending object at arm’s length and slammed it into a drawer. He then turned a key on it and sat back with a smirk of manic triumph on his face, rather as if he had succeeded in ensnaring and caging some dangerous wild animal. Throughout this Bognor had remained gaping, open-mouthed, but now with a realization that someone had to control the situation, he tried for a third time to restore sanity. He was too late.

  The theft of his alcohol re-galvanized Milborn. Gringe’s grab had caught him unprepared and it took him a moment to realize that a crime had been committed. Then just as Gringe was looking at his smuggest with the offending alcohol safely under lock and key, Port let out a stentorian bellow which would have done credit to a Guards Drill Sergeant:

  ‘GIVE ME BACK MY BLOODY BOOZE!’

  ‘I shall not,’ said Gringe, evidently feeling himself in the superior position. Very deliberately he put the key in his trouser pocket. ‘You may have it back after work but not until. From now on there will be sobriety in this office. I have had enough of this persistent drunkenness.’ Bognor felt he was being unwise. It seemed to him that Gringe’s position was more precarious than it might seem to him. And so it immediately transpired.

  With another bellow, this time totally incoherent, Milborn Port, looking every inch the wronged fourteenth baronet, papal or not, strode towards his boss. Too late Eric Gringe realized his danger. Too late he tried to temporize. Too late he called to Bognor for help. In a trice ‘Sir’ Milborn had grabbed the maroon cardigan by the shoulders and hauled the helpless wearer to his feet, then steadying his target with his left hand he took a mighty swipe with his right and let go. Mr Gringe crumpled and fell back into his chair. His attacker eyed him and then wordlessly felt in the trouser pocket, fetched out the key, unlocked the drawer and retrieved his possession. He then went to the coat hooks, removed his overcoat which he put over one arm and a trilby hat which he jammed jauntily on the back of his head.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said to Bognor. ‘See you at the Sevens.’ And then he was gone.

  No sooner had he done so than Bertie Harris entered.

  ‘Just passed Milborn on his way out,’ he said jauntily, ‘looking pleased with himself in a thunderously boozed fashion. What’s … ah.’ He noticed Mr Gringe who was just beginning to stir groggily in his chair. ‘I see,’ said Mr Harris. ‘That’s what he was so pleased about.’

  Mr Gringe was regaining consciousness steadily. The blow had caught him on the side of his face and it had, Bognor reckoned, been its shock and surprise rather than strength which had caused him to pass out. At any rate it did not look as if there was any real reason to worry about his health despite the low whine he was now emitting and the cautious and aggrieved way in which he was exploring his face with tentative fingers.

  Bertie Harris said nothing but looked inquiringly.

  ‘There was a row over an interview with Irving G. Silverberg. Milborn cocked it up.’

  ‘The race horse owner,’ said Bertie authoritatively.

  ‘No. That was the trouble. The film producer. Milborn was certain he was a race horse owner and behaved accordingly and one way and another the results were disastrous. Granny had to go and rescue him from the Hyde Park Hotel and cough up for a bottle of Pommery and a broken ash tray.’

  They both stared at the injured party.

  ‘Let’s give him a lift,’ said Bertie and together they gently hauled him up and arranged him comfortably in his chair.

  ‘Don’t suppose he’s used to it,’ said Bertie. He glanced at Bognor’s still puffy appearance and rubbed his jaw reflectively. ‘There seems to be a quite terrifying rise in the incidence of violent assault around these offices,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were a member of Pring’s.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Bognor. ‘I was taken there by Spencer Nugent.’

  ‘I see. Elliston Gravelle says he’s one of his bright young men. I always feel there’s something essentially unsound in his writing, but then I don’t pretend to an expert knowledge.’

  ‘I knew him at Oxford.’

  ‘How curious. Elliston and I were at Oxford. I’d never thought of Pring’s as an extension to the Grid.’

  ‘Err …’ A long dry rasping entreaty came from the semi-comatose figure of Eric Gringe. Both men bent down to listen. ‘Water,’ said Bognor, after straining for a moment. ‘He wants water.’

  Bertie Harris said he would fetch some from the iced water machine outside the Editor’s office and left Bognor to Mr Gringe and his thoughts. Bognor’s thoughts were once more confused. He remembered the right hook which Milborn had used. It had been a useful punch. Then he closed his eyes and tried to recall last night. He wished he hadn’t been so drunk. It seemed to him that his punch was not unlike the one that had poleaxed Gringe. And yet one punch was very much like another. He opened his eyes and saw Gringe staring at him balefully.

  ‘I … er …’ he murmured but Bognor put a finger to his lips and said ‘Shhhh’. ‘I wouldn’t try to talk yet,’ he added. ‘It’s too painful. Wait till you’ve got your water.’ Then he returned to his theories. If it had been Milborn who hit him last night why had Molly confessed on Willy Wimbledon’s behalf? It suggested conspiracy. Perhaps it had been Milborn and the Wimbledon story was a decoy. To suggest that the hot-headed Viscount had struck him for reasons of sexual jealousy was better than admitting that Milborn had misguidedly attacked him in an effort to warn him away from meddling in murder. He sighed. Perhaps it was just coincidence. The papal baronet’s motive for attacking Gringe was obvious enough even if it was palpably silly. The Viscount’s for hitting him was equally absurd but just as plausible. Given the tightening tension of the atmosphere it was perhaps not unnatural for people to start laying into each other. The strain was just too much for them all.

  Bertie Harris came back with the iced water, closely followed by Molly Mortimer, Wimbledon and the temporary secretary. Bognor gave them a quick résumé while Bertie administered water.

  ‘Brandy would be better,’ said Molly.

  Gringe went a whiter shade of pale and Bognor made as if to kick her shins.

  ‘I don’t think alcohol is a safe or constructive topic of conversation,’ said Bertie, holding the glass to Gringe’s lips. ‘It would help if you all sat down at your desks. There’s no point in crowding the poor fellow.’

  Bognor and the others recognized the authority in Harris’s voice and did as they were told. Half-heartedly he toiled with the stories Gringe had given him earlier and wrote a leaden acco
unt of the Prime Minister’s speech to the philatelists, highlighting the ponderous quip about ‘Stamp Duty’ and suggesting the same words as the headline. His heart was not in it. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Gringe regain consciousness and composure. When he had finally done so Bertie Harris whispered to him almost fiercely with a great deal of finger wagging. Then he turned to the rest of them and said, ‘I don’t think Eric is in any state to stay on for the rest of this afternoon so I’ve asked him to go home and get a decent sleep. We can cope quite adequately on our own.’ Slightly to Bognor’s surprise Mr Gringe did not demur. There was now a nasty pink patch where he’d been punched but otherwise he was still deathly pale. Bognor guessed it was more than the physical pain that was disconcerting him. He too must be wondering about Milborn. If he could knock out one boss for the confiscation of a hip flask, why couldn’t he stab another with a paper knife for a similarly paltry reason? Or push a secretary under a tube train? To Bognor that seemed less likely. There was a coldness about that crime, if crime it was, which did not tie in with Milborn Port’s boozy brand of aggression. Nevertheless it didn’t look good. If St John Derby had been blackmailing him over the Russians then …

  ‘I say, have you finished?’ It was Viscount Wimbledon, a great deal more diffident than he had been under the Chelsea lamp-post the night before.

  ‘Yes actually.’ Bognor, despite his lack of concentration, had just completed a colourful description of the forthcoming Regimental Dinner of the 13th/39th Queen’s Cuirassiers, nicknamed the Pink and Purples. He had dwelt lovingly on the Regiment’s traditions and silver, which were, of course, intimately connected and had laid ghoulish emphasis on the jewel encrusted human skull acquired during the Abyssinian campaign from the Emperor Theodore. It was his fifth story and he felt he had acquitted himself well.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry about last night,’ said the Viscount. ‘I just wanted to apologize. It was all a mistake.’