Inch of Fortune

by Simon Raven

while she lived in what had once been a tart's flat in Battersea. Then there was a further twist to the situation. Mrs Chaser and Mrs Valley had at once recognized in each other fellow-members of the downtrodden section of the gentility. They were in alliance — an alliance formed by envy, hatred, and avarice. Mrs Valley had Sandra's car in a social way, Mrs Chaser had it by way of business. Where one fell down the other moved in. Mrs Chaser could complain about Esme's expense accounts, Mrs Valley about his behaviour. As a combination they were unassailable. And though no word passed between them on the subject, they did not need to tell each other that a new tutor was, for different reasons, fair and desirable game for both.

  But all this had yet to be made plain to Esme, who put on his very best act of 'I'm just a little boy, please won't you mother me?' and minced round her office between telephone calls asking what he could do. Terence and he were finally packed off for the morning with a minute cheque to be cashed (which was one way of getting them out of the house) and otherwise complete carte blanche.

  The consequence of this was that they had soon arrived at Merlin's Bookstore, St Martin's Lane, where Terence intended to refurnish his stock of pulp literature.

  It had, Esme found, its compensations. While Terence was ferreting away amidst a selection of space-ships, corpses, and women with anti gamma-ray discs on their breasts, he himself was at leisure to explore a considerable range of pornography, permanent and ephemeral. The permanent stuff was the usual stockin-trade of sixth-formers everywhere, but the periodicals were of more interest. To start with, they were all scaled to the public gaze by a piece of sticky tape (all, that is, except for provoking covers of people on swings who were wearing silk stockings). Secondly, he noticed that they ranged back in date to considerably before the war, and that whereas yesterday's productions were going for five shillings, last year's would be up to ten, and those of the last decade could seldom be bought for under two pounds. Here, too, it seemed at first, there was a collector's snobbery of age.

  But this was only in part the explanation. What happened, it appeared, was that you made your purchase and carried it bashfully away, but if you brought it back again you received half-price. It was then sealed up to await another client. The result was that you could develop a permanent, if intermittent, affection for a certain issue, which could be resold and rebought indefinitely. As time went on, of course, the man explained to Esme, certain issues tended to disappear or else to become so thoroughly thumbed that they really had to go out of circulation. Accordingly someone who was deeply devoted to the 1938 number of Paris ce Soir might find there were only about two copies still in existence, and was therefore prepared, since affection of this nature for some reason died very hard, to pay a stiff price for a week with his old favourite. From his long acquaintance he was prepared to give a personal recommendation of the bosoms of '39 vintage and the bottoms of '35. Should Esme be interested, he could even — Esme hurriedly bought something of very recent date for the good of the house, and went to find Terence.

  Terence had supplied himself with a pile of magazines about a foot and a half high, and a few American dailies of the previous week.

  'Whatever do you want these for?' said Esme.

  'Might come in handy,' was the vague answer. 'Documents of historical interest perhaps.'

  'But whatever'd your mother say, spending all this money on back dailies. Comics are one thing, but these . . . And who's to pay?'

  'You,' said Terence: 'the expense account can bear the charge of a taxi here and some tea there which will soon cover this lot - and that,' he added, eyeing poor Esme's copy of Tit for Tat with a look of unfeigned complicity.

  'I suppose it could,' said Esme weakly; 'all I ask is that you keep it all hidden away.'

  'I put them under her bed,' said Terence: 'she conducts little searches of my room but as she doesn't suspect herself of buying these things she never looks in her own. Simple.'

  'But supposing — ' Terence took the point.

  'She's got a bathroom just next door,' he said, 'and a bladder like an ox.'

  As Esme had stipulated, he was going out to lunch that day with a friend. They were then driving down to Badlock at half past three.

  It was when he came out of his club after lunch, slightly unsteady and having left his friend to sleep it off, that a most peculiar thing happened. Drawn up at the bottom of the steps was a large black Rolls with an immaculate chauffeur standing by it. The man whipped his cap off and placed it under his arm.

  'Mr Esme Sa Foy?' he said. Esme nodded.

  'Get in, if you please, sir. We are rather late.'

  God, thought Esme to himself, Mrs Fairweather in a last-minute hurry', and here he was keeping her waiting and rather tight. Had he been less so, he would have recalled that Mrs Fairweather had no black Rolls, for the time being no chauffeur, and no knowledge of where he was lunching. After about five minutes of going in what even he saw to be the wrong direction, something of this nature did indeed occur to him.

  'Where are we going?' he asked.

  'I do assure you, sir,' said the chauffeur, 'that everything is all right. You'll be back in good time to leave for the country.'

  One might as well, supposed Esme, spend the interim riding in someone else's Rolls as standing about tight at 6, St Ambrose Gate.

  'Very well,' he said.

  Meanwhile they had crossed Oxford Street and were weaving about in a network of roads alternately opulent and shabby. Finally they drew up in front of a block of flats in Hallam Street.

  'Here we are, sir,' said the chauffeur.

  Esme followed him into a lift which seemed to do everything automatically except play music. They left it at the sixth floor, and proceeded silently down a series of passages as complicated as Minos' labyrinth. When they eventually stopped in front of an unnumbered door, the chauffeur pressed the bell and vanished — almost as magically as the Slave of the Lamp and without a smell of cordite. The door was opened by a gross man in an unpleasant suit.

  'Mr Sa Foy?' said a fruity voice.

  'Yes.'

  'Come in please.'

  Esme followed him into a luxuriously — and tastefully — appointed sitting-room. The fixtures were cleverly chosen and the sideboard was loaded with all the many-coloured bottles that puzzle and delight travellers in a French bar.

  'Sit down please, Mr Sa Foy. You will require, I suppose, both apologies and explanations. And an introduction,' he added thoughtfully: 'You shall have them all, dear boy, you shall have them all. I am Mr Chynnon, Mr Edward Chynnon; this is not my normal place of residence, you understand, just a little — er — something I keep in the background. Apologies therefore for bringing you here — and so suddenly, dear boy.'

  Something clicked in Esme's memory.

  ' "Eddie" Chynnon?' he enquired.

  'To some, Mr Sa Foy,' said Mr Chynnon, raising his eyebrows; 'I see you have heard of me. From your employer?'

  Esme thought so.

  'Quite, I understand she is rather fond of bringing me into the conversation?' he tilted a blotchy scalp towards Esme.

  Esme wouldn't know. It had only happened once, and in any case he hardly knew Mrs Fairweather.

  'That is exactly the point, Mr Sa Foy. Time is short, and I am grateful to you for raising it so quickly. You hardly know her and yet you have heard her discuss me. Now tell me, dear boy, was the context of a disparaging nature?'

  'It was a bit,' admitted Esme.

  'That is again the point. Now I must tell you, dear boy, that I have reason to believe, in fact I know, that your employer is in the habit of constantly making such statements at my expense. Constantly and publicly. Such things can do one a good deal of harm — especially,' he said more fruitily than ever, 'if there is some grain — you are a man of the world, Mr Sa Foy — some small grain of truth in what is said, sufficient, shall we say, to prevent one taking any sort of action that might make public what is liable to misinterpretation.'

  Here he allowed him
self a repulsive look of self-connivance. 'Now tell me, Mr Sa Foy, as a young man who has had his ups and downs (I have made wide enquiries, you need deny nothing), how would you yourself react to such a situation? What steps would it occur to you to take?'

  'I don't really know,' said Esme: 'for one thing, what reason has she for this? If you could discover that, make amends, and then ask her to put it about that she had been mistaken...'

  'Passable in theory, dear boy — that I admit. But in the first place I fancy her motive for such talk, if it is not the mere wantonness of an idle mind, is so deeply entangled in a neurotic and restless nature — a fancied slight perhaps — that nothing will serve to root it out, let alone convince her that it was baseless.

  'And in any case,' he went on, 'even supposing she should agree to make it publicly known she had been misled, no one, after months of such pleasurable gossip, would go to the pains of believing her renunciation. Dirt sticks, dear boy — as who should know better than you? No, the damage is done: remember that, dear boy, whatever happens the damage is done. Think again, if you please.'

  'There's only one thing left for me to think,' said Esme, ' — that whatever steps you took would be for personal satisfaction rather than actual redress of wrong.'

  'Precisely, dear boy—I have in fact no alternative but to equate the two. And what do you deduce from this?'

  'I suppose that there is very little you can do except repay her in her own currency.'

  'But such intelligence,' cried Mr Chynnon. 'I must ask you, however, to soften your term a little. No more of Repayment, dear boy, I beg of you — such primitive and biblical associations. Justice, there is the keyword — one must become the agent of justice. And indeed what more could one ask? An interest independent of the years, a positively objective occupation — not to say intellectual, for in what terms docs justice deal save those of the truth? Yes,' he said, 'the truth, Mr Sa Foy. You take my meaning?'

  'Not entirely,' said Esme.

  'Well then, dear boy, I must explain to you. "Repayment in her own currency" was your phrase — harsh, if I may say so, coarse, without subtlety, but let it pass — very well, but what is her currency? To put it briefly, scandal. But the agent of justice cannot afford to traffick in mere scandal. Your employer has been frequently married, dear boy, but she has always been released on her own terms, she is the friend of Great Ones, her war record is an official and impressive document, she has a name for good works — in short, she is above suspicion. No mere fictions, however entertaining, will serve our — my purpose. Justice is an exact science, dear boy, and an individual act of justice, in order to be feasible, must be flawless. In other words, it must be based on Truth. Do you understand me now?'

  'Perhaps,' said Esme; 'correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that in order to return Mrs Fairweather the treatment she has meted out to you, you wish to know something about her — something incontrovertible and discreditable — that may be put gently into circulation among persons of her acquaintance.' Pompousness, it seemed, was infectious.

  'Right,' said Mr Chynnon, almost with a scream, 'dear boy, you are dead right.'

  'Well then,' said Esme, who was roughly speaking in possession of himself, 'it is now your turn to explain. You have so far treated me to the history of a rather sordid set of circumstances, and bullied me into a deduction which, given a certain rather depraved turn of mind, was more or less tautological. Unless it is your custom to conduct elementary exercises in logic with perfect strangers, at 2.30 in the afternoon, in a flat which more nearly resembles a brothel, I imagine there is something more to come.' 'Such intelligence,' said Mr Chynnon with a cross between a sneer and a simper, 'dear boy, you are, once again, dead right.'

  'Then give,' said Esme in unconscious reminiscence of Terence. 'Very well, dear boy, I will give. Please to let me have your very best attention. I must now admit that, on hearing of your recent appointment, I examined your past career both with interest and admiration. Above all you seemed to possess two qualities which the world too often allows to proceed in conjunction — intelligence and penury. This being the case, it occurred to me that you might be prepared to bear service, for a suitable reward of course, in the cause of Justice. May I add that your previous record gave me no very substantial reason to anticipate a refusal?'

  'If you would care to be more concrete ...' murmured Esme.

  'But certainly. I should even care to make an offer. Mr Sa Foy,' said Edward Chynnon, 'I am prepared to offer you five pounds a week if you will do no more than assure me that during the time you are in Mrs Fairweather's service you will do your best to follow the clue I shall now give you — or any others that might come to your notice. I am aware,' he continued, 'that this may seem a small sum for difficult service in the cause of Justice. But the temples of the goddess are well stocked. Should you follow the clue I mention to a successful and final conclusion, provided of course that your result is verifiable by myself, I am prepared to -I will give you,' he drew a deep breath, 'the sum of one thousand pounds. No less. For a few words that will pass between us, I will give you one thousand pounds. I need hardly add that your anonymity will receive all the respect so obviously necessary in a case of this kind. What do you say to that, Mr Sa Foy?'

  There was a momentary pause. Then:

  'Twenty pounds in advance, no telephone calls, and all payments in cash,' said Esme, who seemed to himself to be operating on someone else's reflexes.

  'Very reasonable,' said Mr Chynnon without a stir, 'very reasonable, dear boy. And in return I must stipulate that you send a fortnightly report — one must protect one's interests — a fortnightly report, no matter how brief, to an address I shall give you shortly. But all this is an irrelevance. Time is short. I must insist that you pay the strictest attention to what I am now about to tell you.

  'In primis, then, here is an envelope containing twenty pounds, and an address which will always find me. Don't be surprised at such preparation, dear boy — you would hardly have asked for less and I would never have given more. One month from this date, provided your reports are regular and to my satisfaction, you will start receiving registered envelopes, at the rate of one a week, each containing five pound notes — and perhaps a little extra if your efforts have warranted it. So much for administration.

  'However, what really concerns us at the moment is the clue I promised you. Now you will bear in mind that your task is to find some one fact that may serve as a suitable rod for the just chastisement of Mrs Fairweather. Her life has been erratic but not lubricious. Above all, her present existence, while more erratic than ever, is completely blameless. You will therefore confine your attentions to her past — and largely to one particular section of that past. Even there, I'm afraid, possibilities are few. But possibilities there are, and these I will now outline.

  'Know then that your employer has had three husbands. Of these neither the first nor the last need detain us, for whatever the rights and wrongs may have been, both were divorced by her — with plenty of ill will, I don't doubt, but without resistance on their part or noticeable breach of conduct on hers. The man who concerns us is the second husband — a Mr Earl Marshal Acre, an American of wealth, reputation, chivalrous instincts, and bad blood. You may or may not know that after the honeymoon had lasted a bare three weeks he was found stone dead in the Californian hotel where they were staying. He left a note confessing to suicide — a mere confession, nothing more — and about two million dollars, which went, of course, to his wife.' He paused to take breath and prepare for an analysis. Esme did not feel up to making comment.

  'Now in view of the note there is little enough possibility of foul play in anybody's case, and none at all in Mrs Fairweather's. She was already a very rich woman quite apart from anything else. What has puzzled many people since, however, is Marshal Acre's motive. He was nondescript but likeable: he had no enemies and a lot of money; and there was no suggestion of blackmail, scandal or drugs. What is more, he adored his wife,
and though he was doubtless in for a fair dose of disillusion, it could hardly have come—at any rate through the normal channels — within three weeks. Even Sandra couldn't madden a man to the extent of suicide within that time. What then is the explanation?'

  He looked wistfully at Esme.

  'There has been no explanation. In fact nothing else whatever is known about it. They had friends in America, of course, but many of them disappeared in the war, and in any case I have not been able to trace one of them who was in California at the time. Nor did anyone find out anything subsequently. It was hardly the topic people introduced the moment they met her, she was entirely natural and reticent about her grief, and for that matter very little was seen of her for some while afterwards. In fact most people would say I was a fool to bother about what is, on the face of it, a complete and seemingly rather dull, mystery.'

  Here he leant forward as if about to say something rather remarkable. As it happened it was merely intense.

  'Nevertheless, dear boy,' he said, 'I have a hunch about this. I have an idea that if there's any dirt going it can be traced back to that Californian honeymoon hotel. It is to this incident that I wish to direct your attention, though I must admit, dear boy, that where I promised you a clue I probably appear to be saddling for your use one big and cumbrous white elephant. Which is why the final price I offer is so high,' he added.

  'But haven't you any more details,' enquired Esme from his dream, 'names, dates, places...?'

  Mr Chynnon shrugged his shoulders.

  'I have here,' he said, 'for your use a list of the Acres' American friends, and on which you'll also find the people resident in their hotel — The Ten Ways, Palm Beach — at the time. Of the former category, the majority, as I told you, are dead, while in any case none were present at Palm Beach when the so-called tragedy occurred. As for the other guests at the hotel, they were all thoroughly investigated at the time and were in any event complete strangers to the Acres. Marshal Acre never had a girlfriend or an enemy in his life. It's dirt I want,' he said suddenly and viciously, 'not suspects.'