The Smiler With the Knife

by Nicholas Blake

  “I do understand, Peter,” said Georgia gently. “But you can’t keep the rules when you’re fighting anything as big and unscrupulous as the E.B. You’ve got to set your teeth and plunge into the muck.”

  “I reckon there are limits. I wouldn’t like to see you laying for Canteloe—well, in that way. It’d save a lot of trouble if I shot him straight off.” He chuckled grimly, half aware of his own naïveté. Georgia had forgotten how dizzily his temperament could swing him from hilarity into the deepest gloom. That was the damnable thing about this business—you lost track of your friends, you got calloused and insensitive to everything but the enemy’s movements, like fighters in a guerrilla war.

  “We’ll have to get hold of his plans before we shoot Canteloe,” she said.

  “Well, here he is, coming along with that cod-faced secretary of his. You’d better ask him for them.”

  They giggled at each other, keyed up to action again, back in a brittle polished world of make-believe that shuddered like thin ice under their feet.

  “Very well, David, you’ll see to that, then?” said Canteloe. The secretary turned back to the house, his black morning-suit and bald, bland head looking absurdly incongruous amid these sylvan surroundings.

  “And what are you two conspiring about?”

  “Peter’s just given me a frightful licking. He’s a master at clock-golf. I’d back him against Henry Cotton.”

  A faint shadow of petulance appeared on Chilton Canteloe’s face. He gazed speculatively at Peter for a moment, then challenged him to a game. Perched on the window-sill of the marble summerhouse, Georgia watched them. They both played with almost uncanny skill: but, whereas Peter struck the ball nonchalantly and did not seem to mind whether he won or lost, Chilton was all rigid, furious concentration. The little white balls ran, dipped, curled over the undulating turf: after the first time round, the opponents were all square: they decided to play another twelve holes. Georgia found herself desperately willing Peter to win. It was as if great issues hung on the result. Chilton obtained a lead of two holes; but Peter, pulling out a flash of extraordinary brilliance, holed out in one twice running and pegged him back: then he started to go ahead.

  Chilton cracked. He couldn’t do anything right: his ball shot far past the mark or only crawled half way towards it. In a moment, Georgia realised he wasn’t trying—or rather, that he was deliberately playing badly so that victory would leave a nasty taste in his opponent’s mouth. It was incredible. This man, who already controlled so many lives and might in a few months’ time be controlling the destinies of an empire, was sulking like a peevish schoolboy over a footling little game. He couldn’t bear to be beaten at anything. His morale would crack up under pressure. It seemed of immense significance to Georgia: never again would she think of Chilton Canteloe and the E.B. as invulnerable, invincible: she would no longer be fighting a power huge and resistless as Fate—only a man who lost his temper at clock-golf.

  It did not occur to her at the time that her presence exacerbated Chilton’s defeat. She was thinking, rather, how great his egotism must be to permit him thus to sulk in public. A less self-confident man would have made some attempt to conceal his pique.

  When the game was over, Chilton gave her a wry, ugly smile, and without a word went abruptly off into the summerhouse.

  “He doesn’t like losing, does he?” whispered Peter.

  “Sh!”

  Chilton Canteloe, having put his putter away, emerged again between the two caryatids. For a moment his Grecian face seemed inhuman as theirs. He surveyed the putting-green that lay mapped out beneath the summerhouse.

  Lips curved in a remote smile, nostrils distended, legs planted apart, he looked in that instant, thought Georgia, like a general surveying a battlefield. Then his expression relaxed, he chatted to them good-humouredly for a few moments, and set off towards the house.

  “Girlie’s recovered her poise,” said Peter, nodding at Chilton’s retreating back. “Hey, Georgia, are you going off into a trance?”

  Georgia was standing between the two caryatids, gazing over the clock-golf course as Chilton had done. What had brought that imperious, secret expression into Chilton’s face? She stared at the green, and gradually its contours shaped themselves into something familiar.

  “Peter, come up here,” she called softly. He stood on the top step of the miniature temple beside her.

  “When is a clock not a clock?” she asked.

  “All right. You tell me.”

  “When it’s a map. A nice, bumpy contour map. Peter, you’re going to play some more golf. You need practice. Go round the course, playing two balls. Start at Number One mark, hit the balls up to the hole, then stroll after them. Only put one foot in front of the other, so I get the distances measured out in feet. If any one’s watching from the house, they’ll think you’re just pottering about: your feet will be screened by those beech-hedges. Walk back from the pin to the first tee, then measure out the distance between that and Number Two mark—knocking the balls along in front of you. I’ll do the counting: you concentrate on walking naturally. I want the number of feet between each successive tee, and between each tee and the pin. Take some cross measurements, too. That’ll help, as I shall only be able to calculate the angles roughly.”

  “O.K. But what is all this about?”

  “It may be a boss shot. But I have an idea that this green represents a map of England. The humps and ridges—well, look, can’t you see a suggestion of the Pennine Chain over there, and the Cotswolds, and the Chilterns? And, if I’m right, maybe the position of the hole and the twelve starting-marks will tell us something.”

  “Good Lord! But, look here, do you seriously suggest that Chilton would lay out a plan of the doings right beneath every one’s noses?”

  “It sounds crazy. But he is a touch crazy. He’s the kind that gets a kick out of tempting providence; reckless, a bit of an exhibitionist, too. We know that he laid out this green personally. Just now he surveyed it—well, like looking down on all the kingdoms of the world. He snapped out of his sulks right away. He was seeing things in perspective again. Can’t you imagine him coming up here, brooding over it like a Napoleon, drawing inspiration from it—the map of England, and he’s the man who’s going to change it? And at the same time getting a sort of schoolboyish fun out of the idea that his plan, which the Secret Service is bursting itself to get a sniff of, is staring up out of this green with oh such an innocent expression on its face? Do get on with it,” Georgia added irritably: “It’s probably just another hunch of mine gone wrong, but get on with it!”

  Watching him through the summerhouse window, she sketched out on paper a rough plan of the green and filled in the measurements as Peter paced them out. The insect-drone of a lawn-mower came over from the cricket-ground where this afternoon Peter would be facing the local talent. There were faint, spasmodic cries from the tennis-courts, and once or twice a peacock gave its outraged scream. The sounds wove themselves into a background for the tap of Peter’s club, the stir of her own pencil on the paper. . . .

  An hour later Georgia was sitting behind a locked door in her bedroom. The map of England lay open before her. First she must establish what spot on the map corresponded with the hole which lay in the centre of the putting-green. Why not Chilton Ashwell itself? She made some rough calculations, scaling her own plan till it fitted the map. A stab of misgiving struck her. Unless Chilton had planned out his green accurately to scale, she would get no further. Well, the E.B. paid great attention to detail, so perhaps their leader had done likewise. The question was—what did the numbered disks on the green represent? There are twelve of them. Wait a minute, the E.B. had divided up the country into six districts, with an organiser over each. Supposing the odd or the even six disks indicated district centres? She suspected that the Mayfield stables in Berkshire was such a one: and she knew there was an arms-dump beneath Major Keston’s house in Devonshire. Breathing hard, Georgia calculated distance, plo
tted positions. She had three given points—Chilton Ashwell, Yarnold Farm, the Mayfields. Yes, the points on her plan which corresponded roughly to the two latter places were both even numbers. But they corresponded too roughly, that was the trouble. Number Six fell between twenty and thirty miles north of Yarnold Farm, for instance: the Mayfield point was too far north, also. It looked as if the whole thing would be a wash-out. Her plan must be far more accurate than this if it was to be of any use to Sir John.

  Her first point of reference might be wrong, though. She was only assuming that the centre of the green indicated Chilton Ashwell. If her other two reference points were given their approximately correct position on the map, the central point would fall further south, between twenty and thirty miles south—would fall, she muttered excitedly, as near as nothing slap on Nottingham. Nottingham, the centre of England! Yes, why not? Nothing could be more symbolic, or more likely. There was a huge armaments factory near Nottingham, for one thing.

  Now she had these three points firmly fixed, it was possible to plot the others with fair hope of accuracy. The even numbers, she noticed, fell in country districts—Northumberland, Norfolk, Berkshire, Devonshire, Carmarthen, Cheshire. She had half expected the odd numbers to coincide with the great cities of England, but they fell at random and she was inclined to discount them. Thinking it over, she began to change her opinion that the even numbers denoted the bases of the six district organisations: some of these, at least, would surely be in big towns. Major Keston’s house certainly was an arms dump. Why should not the other five be the same?—great reservoirs of arms which had gradually been filling during the last two years, dotted widely over the country in strategic positions, from which—when the time came—arms could be distributed to the centres of the rising.

  Georgia locked her plan away, and sat back with a sigh. Half her work was now surely done. Even though her calculations could not indicate accurately the positions of the E.B. arms reservoirs, they were near enough to enable Sir John to draw a cordon round these districts at the first sign of trouble. Unless the arms had already been distributed from them, the rising was as good as crippled.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE EPISODE OF THE NOTTINGHAM EARTHQUAKE

  THOUGH CHILTON PRESSED her to stay longer, and Peter hoped she would come over with some of the other guests to see him playing at Trent Bridge on the Wednesday, Georgia returned to London on Tuesday. She wanted to make sure that her plan would be conveyed safely to Sir John Strangeways. She believed, too, that her early departure would heighten Chilton’s interest in her, for he was a man little accustomed to having his pressing invitations so firmly declined.

  By leaving when she did, Georgia missed an incident that—in more ways than one—shook Nottingham. She was not there at Trent Bridge when the bails fell off the wickets though no ball had been bowled and no wind was blowing. If she had stayed, she might not have lost a friend, but equally she might well have lost all chance of penetrating deeper into the warped and complex mind of Chilton Canteloe.

  On Tuesday morning, after Georgia had gone, Peter Braithwaite was sitting rather disconsolately on the terrace. He felt out of place here, and a little bored. He tried to fix his mind on to-morrow’s match. Trent Bridge was not one of his lucky grounds. He must not start cutting those fast out-swingers of Joe Marston’s this time till he’d got properly set—Joe knew his little weakness a sight too well. Cricket. There’d be no more cricket if the E.B. succeeded; they’d all be too busy forming fours and yapping “Heil, Canteloe” at each other. Well, give him his due, Chilton probably wouldn’t stop the cricket. But to be fooling about with bat and ball when this hellish infernal machine was ticking away in England’s heart—that got you down.

  Rosa Alvarez got you down too. When Georgia was about, it didn’t seem so bad: she put life into you, made you feel right on top of your game, made you feel the game was worth the candle. Playing up to Rosa had seemed a good game too, at the time. But now you could only remember that flushed, silly, terrified face—the way you’d handed her back to the executioners without a murmur, half glad to be shut of her, kidding yourself that you’d just done your duty and England Expects and all that ballyhoo. Well, get on with it, then: do something to justify your place in the team: why not have a snoop round in Chilton’s study, for a start? Jerusalem! What a hope!

  For all that, Peter got to his feet and moved silently along the terrace to where the french windows of the study opened out on the summer day. Though he had worked long enough for Sir John, off and on, he could never quite rid himself of the feeling that he was in the middle of one of those spy dramas he had acted in several times himself, where red lights flash over doors and hands appear out of panelling and papers marked “Secret” in red ink are strewn about in full view of the audience.

  As he approached the study windows, a telephone bell rang inside. He stood still, gazing out across the park, listening hard. He was supposed to be playing tennis with the other guests, so Chilton would not expect any one to be here. Presently he heard the voice of David Renton, Canteloe’s secretary, saying:

  “From Mr. Blackham. He’s sending Goltz up, sir. He’ll be passing through at 4.15. Do you wish to speak to Mr. Blackham?”

  “No. Just leave the address for Goltz. He knows where to find it, presumably?”

  “Quite.”

  There was the slight ting of a receiver laid down on its rest. Canteloe began dictating a business letter to his secretary. Peter found it all very above-board and boring. He’d have to find his way into the study some other time: those two were evidently in for a long session.

  He walked down to the tennis court, and stood watching the players. For such an indolent-looking houri, that Mainwaring girl wields a ferocious racket, he thought. Seeking to retrieve a hard shot down the side line, Mrs. Mainwaring slashed under the ball and hit it out of the court into a shrubbery. Peter hurried to retrieve it.

  “Oh, thanks, Mr. Braithwaite,” she said, giving him a lustrous glance. “You know where to find it? In that laurel bush, I think.”

  Peter tossed the ball over into the court. There was something peeping out at the back of his mind. “You know where to find it.” When had somebody said that before? Of course. Chilton. Leave the address for Goltz, he knows where to find it, presumably. Well now, that was surely a little peculiar. If this Mr. Goltz was “passing through at 4.15”—passing through what? the village? in a car? by train?—why couldn’t someone simply tell him the address? “Knows where to find it” almost suggested that the address was hidden in some way. A curious method of doing business.

  The young cricketer’s mood of depression cleared up like an April sky, replaced by that tingling in the veins, that sense of buoyancy and clear-headedness which for him always preluded a big innings. He decided to keep a watchful eye on David Renton. If there was anything shady about Goltz, he would not be coming to the house, for it was part of Chilton’s policy never to give E.B. agents any reason for identifying him with the movement. The secretary would have to “leave the address for Goltz” further afield.

  Peter must allow the secretary to lead him to Goltz, then he must follow Goltz. He packed his bag, put it in his two-seater, and at lunch announced that he would be leaving Chilton Ashwell in the afternoon; he had to join up with his team at Nottingham, in readiness for to-morrow’s match.

  “Can I give you a lift into the village?” he asked David Renton, who had said that he would be going in to fetch a parcel from Ashwell station.

  “No thanks. I haven’t time to walk back, so I’d better take one of our own cars.”

  Shortly after 3 p.m. the secretary went off. Peter got into his own car and followed at a respectful distance for the three miles into the village. When they reached the first houses of Ashwell, he closed up a bit. Lucky this is the road to Nottingham, he thought: it’s my lucky day. His quarry did not, as he had half expected, stop at the Post Office, but went straight through the long village street and, just short
of the railway bridge that spanned the road, turned sharp right, making up the station approach.

  Peter’s mind worked in a flash. He had planned to see where David Renton stopped, let him depart again, then inquire himself whether there was a message for Mr. Goltz. His natural modesty had blinded him to the fact that Peter Braithwaite would be recognised anywhere in this cricket-loving county and could never pass himself off as Goltz. He realised it now, however; in the hundred yards that separated him from Renton’s car, he altered his plans. Sweeping past the end of the station approach, he went under the bridge and turned right, up towards the goods yard. He could see a string of empty coal-trucks in the siding, they would screen his car from Renton’s eyes. He drove up quietly, got out, stood under the lee of a coal-truck to light a ciagrette.

  The little branch-line station, its name picked out in stones amid a pattern of bright flowers—the station-master’s pride—dozed under the afternoon sunlight. There was a smell of creosote from the sleepers. A voice from the opposite platform carried lazily through the air.

  “That’s raight, Mr. Renton. I put it here, ready for you. Joost saign this invoice. Can y’ manage?”

  Renton and a porter went together into the waiting-room.

  “I hear you’ve ’ad yoong Braithwaite up at Chilton Ashwell. A nice bat, he is. I fancy Joe Marston’ll have him to-morrow, though. He never could play Joe. They’re a bit soft, these Soothern chaps.”