The Smiler With the Knife

by Nicholas Blake

  “All right, I’ll talk. I can’t stand any more of this. For God’s sake give me a drink and let me stand up,” he said, surprised by the weakness of his own voice. They had to guide the water to his mouth. He stood up, staggered, clutched at the work-bench for support. He was all in, they knew. They’d made a sorry mess of him. Half in horror at their own handiwork, half with a kind of respect, the men made way for him as he swayed and staggered over the floor.

  That was their mistake. Before they realised what he was after, before any one could lay a hand on him, Peter’s feet had carried him in a drunken, faltering rush across to the bench where, on first entering, he had noticed the man filling bombs. With his right hand—his left was horribly crushed—he took up a bomb. The charging figures stopped dead a few feet away from him, as if they had been checked by an invisible ray. They began to back, showing their teeth, surly or whimpering. Instinctively they pressed themselves close against the wall, leaving Peter’s way clear to the far entrance of the underground passage.

  But he could not make it. He knew that. They would not dare to attack him for fear of detonating the bomb, but he had not enough strength to carry him through the passage. Already he felt the mists swirling back. Tooley had said they were deep down here. Peter hoped he was right. He didn’t want to kill innocent people.

  He tossed the bomb meditatively up and down in his hand. So, on the cricket-field, he would juggle with the ball at the end of an over before throwing it to the new bowler. The action was quite unconscious. Peter was only deciding where he could best throw the bomb in order to make sure that the whole dump would go up; but it made the five men wince and shut tight their eyes.

  “Here, look here, mate,” one of them quavered. “Call it quits. We’ll let you go. Straight, we will.”

  Gritting his teeth, Peter Braithwaite came away from the support of the bench. He’d take it standing up, not like those quitters grovelling against the wall over there. His last words were characteristic, and not unworthy of his life and death.

  “Well, I always did like fireworks,” he said, and with the unerring, side-arm flick which had surprised many confident run-stealers before now, he jerked the bomb bails-high at a heap of cases in the far corner of the arsenal. . . .

  A policeman, passing along the road that bordered the waste land, felt the earth shake beneath his feet. A great, thudding, suffocated cough and rumble seemed to come up from the earth. The policeman had been brought up in a mining village; he had heard that kind of noise before, and knew what it meant. But there were no pit-galleries under here. The derelict factory caught his eye. It was tottering, collapsing, falling in upon itself and sliding down to the ground like shale. “Here, what’s all this?” said the policeman from force of habit. He blew his whistle and started running out on to the waste ground. . . .

  At Trent Bridge the second over was just beginning. Joe Marston ran up to bowl; but before he reached the crease the green turf quivered and the bails fell off the wickets at both ends. Joe Marston stopped dead. “Eh, lad, it’s an earthquake,” he said to the umpire. A wag in the crowd yelled out:

  “Hey, Joe, you’re putting on weight!”

  The crowd roared. It was as good a valediction as any for Peter Braithwaite.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE EPISODE OF THE UNFORCED LANDING

  THUS, IN DARK passages, innocent villages, street corners, shady little shops, and no less behind the plateglass of great offices or the elegant façades of country mansions, was waged the undeclared war between Sir John Strangeways’ men and the E.B. As the year turned towards autumn, Chilton Canteloe’s campaign for his unemployment plan alternated with European crisis and rumour of crisis to keep Britain’s nerves on the stretch. Like the first symptoms of a plague, ugly incidents began to break out sporadically over the country; a riot here, an attempted assassination or unexplained piece of sabotage there, sudden panics on the Stock Exchange, hints and rumours flawing the calm surface of English life. Public opinion was bewildered and growing resentful. The European dictators continued on their triumphal path. Our own Government, thought the man in the street, seemed to have lost its nerve entirely; it made concession after concession abroad, while at home it was dilly-dallying over the Chilton plan that had so kindled public enthusiasm. This inarticulate resentment was cleverly exploited by the E.B., whose policy was, by constantly embarrassing the present Government, to discredit the principle of parliamentary government altogether.

  The events of the autumn soon put out of people’s minds that nine-day wonder of August, when the headlines had flared with “Disappearance of Test Cricketer.” This sensation relegated to a quarter-column of an unimportant page the seismic disturbance which had been felt throughout Trent Bridge ground and its immediate environs. Several newspaper humorists had made cracks about the relative news-value of earthquakes and English cricketers, but no closer connection was made between the two events as far as the public was concerned. Frank Haskings, who had received Peter’s note and directed the police to 420 Easthwaite Street, was sworn to secrecy. The police had found Sam Silver’s basement with its furniture curiously deranged by the blast of the explosion. Digging through the blocked passage, they discovered enough to tell them what had been going on in the underground chamber. Sir John Strangeways got it announced that a secret arms-dump of the I.R.A. had accidentally blown up; in private, thrusting out of his mind the merry face of Peter Braithwaite and the familiar figure he would never again see at Lord’s, set to work on the plan he had received from Georgia.

  Georgia herself, though Sir John sent no word, had put two and two together. So when, a week after her departure from Chilton Ashwell, Chilton rang up and invited her to lunch at the Berkeley, she knew that she would now be facing her most difficult ordeal. Chilton might well suspect that her relation with Peter Braithwaite had been more than a personal friendship, though of this he could surely have no proof. At the same time, she must act the part of a woman who was a member of the E.B. and thus could make a pretty accurate guess as to what had really lain behind the “Nottingham earthquake” and Peter’s disappearance. It was going to be a ticklish business.

  Many heads turned in the Berkeley dining-room when Georgia and Chilton entered. Indeed, she felt her own head in danger of being turned by the obsequious array of waiters clustering round their table, the gorgeous sheaf of dark-red roses that Chilton had ordered for her, the solicitous way he arranged for her comfort. She felt like a favourite aunt taken out to lunch by a charming schoolboy nephew. His pleasure in her company seemed almost naïf, as if playing the host was a new and entrancing game for him.

  She could not help being flattered, too, by the way he deferred to her opinion. He had considerable holdings in China, and asked her about the Chinese “back-door,” the road recently constructed by Chiang Kai Shek to the Burmese frontier. Having travelled in this country, though not since the road was built, she could give him a fair idea of the conditions and the potentialities for transport which the new road opened up. Absorbed in this subject, she was taken unawares when Chilton said:

  “And, talking of travel, where’s Peter Braithwaite pushed off: to?”

  “Peter? I only wish I knew. I simply can’t understand it.”

  “You don’t think he’d got into any trouble, or had a brainstorm or something, and decided to go off on a trip?”

  “Oh, no, that’s impossible. He seemed perfectly himself last week-end, and he’d never go off and leave his team in the lurch like that, unless he’d gone crazy. Besides, with all the rumpus the papers have been making about it, he’d have been found by now.”

  “Well, then, what was it? Suicide? He never seemed that type to me. Murder? Kidnapping? That’s an idea! Kidnap Peter Braithwaite and sting the M.C.C. for a whacking ransom. They’ll need him in Australia.”

  Chilton realised at once that his flippancy had struck a jarring note for her. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he went on, “he was so full of life and humour, it’s
difficult to think anything serious could have happened to him. I was forgetting what a great friend of yours he is.”

  You smooth, handsome devil, you weren’t forgetting anything, Georgia thought. You like operating on people’s feelings without anæsthetics.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I don’t feel I really knew—know him well, though. I got the impression that there’s more to him than the cricket-field idol. I wonder——”

  “Yes?”

  “This I.R.A. dump that blew up at Nottingham. You don’t suppose Peter was mixed up in that some-how?”

  She contemplated Chilton from under her long lashes. His gold-flecked eyes expressed nothing but surprise and incredulity.

  “Why, however——?”

  “Well, he might have been working for the police. After all, he was seen last in Nottingham. The police said the bodies were unrecognisable, but it may just have suited their book not to admit that Peter——”

  “Oh, come now, Georgia, that’s fantastic. You’ll be saying next that it wasn’t an I.R.A. dump at all, but a German plot or something.” He gave her one of his most engaging smiles. “Now, if any one gives me the impression of living a double life of that kind, it’s you.”

  Georgia glanced back at him candidly, her brown eyes twinkling. “And why do you pick on me, sir, for these dreadful insinuations?”

  “You’re a woman in love with adventure. Every one knows that. And you have the ability, the means to gratify it. Instead of which we find you trotting round dull house-parties and lunching with me at the Berkeley. It’s very suspicious. There must be something behind it.”

  “Perhaps lunching with you at the Berkeley is an adventure?”

  “I wish I could believe you meant that,” he said in a different voice, gazing deep into her eyes.

  “For a middle-aged, provincial woman? Of course it is.”

  “Don’t belittle yourself, my dear. It’s not in character.”

  They were like two deadly enemies, groping for each other in a pitch-dark room, thought Georgia. There was a certain wariness about Chilton, even when his words, his tone of voice made love to her. Even had she been willing, she believed that to yield to him would not solve her problem; beneath his attentions, his lively interest, lay the profound indifference of the egoist. She could only hold him by keeping him at arm’s length.

  Georgia decided that the moment had come for an attacking move. Attack was the best defence, and it was vitally necessary to dispel any suspicion that she might be working against him. Burying her face in the sheaf of roses he had given her, she said:

  “I wish I knew how far I could trust you.”

  “Trust me? You sound very much en grand serieux, my dear.”

  “Have you ever heard of the E.B.?” she asked, not looking up.

  His fingers twiddled the stem of his wine-glass. “The E.B.? It sounds very mysterious. What is it?”

  She could tell by his voice that he had been disconcerted. She went on to describe the harmless mysticism of the English Banner, very much as Alice Mayfield had described it to her months ago. And Chilton made much the same comment as she herself had made to Alice.

  “My dear! Playing at mediævalism? Surely you’ve not taken up with that kind of nostalgic nonsense?”

  Well, well, she thought with secret amusement; to think that I should be trying to convert the leader of the E.B. to his own movement. She said:

  “Put like that, it is nonsense. And the English Banner is a bit absurd and cranky. But don’t you think the principle behind it is sound? The principle that some men are born to rule the rest? I used to be all for democracy, but recent history doesn’t show it up in a very favourable light. Look at the mess England has been making of things lately.”

  “Have you gone fascist?”

  “You can’t frighten me with words. I don’t like their methods, but they get things done. We don’t want that kind of fascism over here. We might create a new brand of aristocracy, though, a home-made product. I’d have thought you would approve. That speech of yours, when you first launched the Chilton Plan—you sounded impatient enough with parliamentary government. And there’s yourself.” For the first time she looked straight at him, her eyes glowing. “You have all the qualities of a great ruler——”

  “Now, my dear. You flatter me.”

  “—Except ambition, should I say? Except the nerve for responsibility.”

  “I’m responsible for quite a lot already.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean your high finance, your unemployment plans, your philanthropy and your racehorses. Can’t you think bigger than that? You’d be——” She broke off sharply, as though afraid she would betray too much.

  “And what is all this leading up to, little Georgia?”

  His glance was quizzical. He was evidently enjoying the joke, and she believed he had no idea now that she shared it. But there was a suppressed excitement in his face too, a thinly-disguised leaping of pride.

  “Leading up to?” she replied cautiously. “That’s really for you to say. Leading up to a leader—a man who could be a great leader. If he had the right organisation behind him.”

  “But, supposing there was such an organisation, wouldn’t it have chos—wouldn’t it choose its own leader?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that the best man should, and would, get to the top.”

  Chilton laughed pleasantly. “Well, good luck to him. I’m too lazy. I can’t keep up with you and your voices, Madam Joan of Arc Strangeways. You won’t make me a Dauphin of your storm. . . . Unless——”

  “Unless?”

  He leant forward over the table, picked up one of the roses, and touched her thin brown hand with it. “If you loved me, I might do great things. Yes, I might surprise myself.”

  “No, Chilton. Please. . . . Not yet.”

  There was a short silence. Then he said, “So you’re dedicated to the Cause, are you?” He had recovered his gay, bantering manner. For the rest of the lunch he teased her and flirted with her gently. Georgia felt convinced that the load of suspicion had been taken off his mind. The position between them, though, seemed to have developed into a stalemate, and such it remained for the next three months. They went about together a great deal, few days passing when Georgia did not receive from him a present of flowers, an invitation to dinner, theatre or concert. She for her part kept up towards him an attitude of cool, elusive affection; at intervals she hinted at the existence of the E.B., but Chilton—as elusive here as herself—refused either to promise his support or admit any complicity. It was a war of attrition between them, whose incidents gave her a deeper understanding of his complex character but brought her no nearer to the E.B.’s secret—the plans for the rising which, she was convinced, must be in Chilton’s possession.

  Time was growing short. Georgia was burdened by the knowledge of how much depended upon her. Sir John Strangeways could only take direct action against Chilton as a last resort. The millionaire’s influence in the country was so great that, if Sir John took the offensive—intercepted Chilton’s correspondence, for instance, or sent agents to ransack secretly his town and country houses—and they were discovered, his own position as head of C. Department would be in the gravest jeopardy. Besides, he did not want to explode the mine prematurely. “Give them rope and they’ll hang themselves “was the motto of his department. But, Georgia feared, Chilton was a person who made other, less desirable uses of the rope you allowed him. . . .

  It was not till the last week of November that the break came. Chilton had invited her to another house-party, and was flying her down to Chilton Ashwell in his private plane. He was in terrific good spirits that afternoon, like a schoolboy who has received an unexpected half-holiday. He piloted the plane himself. Now and then, out of sheer exuberance, he gambolled with it in the air, then turned towards her his flushed face and sparkling eyes as if to make sure that she too was enjoying the fun. The green checker-board of the country streamed
and tilted beneath them. Chilton pointed down, put his lips to the speaking-tube.

  “All the kingdoms of the earth, Georgia. Don’t you feel tempted? Or would you rather have the sun and the sky? Look, I’ll lay them at your feet.”

  He turned the machine over and they were flying upside down, the illimitable sky beneath their feet. Georgia could not help being charmed, exhilarated by her enemy’s love-making. He carried it off so much in the grand manner. Not long afterwards they flew over a sprawling, industrial city. Chilton came down low, so that she saw the honeycomb of streets and houses enlarged. Towards the town’s outskirts there lay an open patch of green, with small figures scurrying over it.

  “Oh, look, they’re playing football,” she said. “I haven’t seen a football match for ages.”

  “Well, you shall see one now. We’ll go and watch.”

  At first Georgia assumed that he intended to fly to and fro over the playing-fields; but he cut out his engine and began to circle down, and she realised with a pang of horror that he intended to land down there amongst all those tiny midgets whose faces were already beginning to turn up to them like white flowers opening in the sun.

  “No, Chilton, you mustn’t,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t mean—it’s too dangerous. You’ll get into fearful trouble.”

  “‘She lived in storm and strife.’ Another adventure for you, my dear. Besides, the engine’s cut out. I expect the petrol-feed is choked. Better to land here than on one of those roofs.”

  He grinned mischievously at her. So that’s how he proposes to get away with it. Pretend it was a forced landing. He must be mad. Of course he’s mad.

  “Stop showing off, Chilton,” she cried. “It’s contemptible.”

  But he paid not the least attention. Showmanship on this scale left you gasping. You might as well have accused the Great Ziegfeld of showing off. They were very low now. The playing-fields and those small figures, some breaking wildly to either side, a few seemingly paralysed in the airplane’s path, rushed towards them with horribly-increasing momentum. A larger figure dashed out and pulled two of the smaller ones aside. Georgia realised that they were children who had been playing here, who at any moment might be cut down in swathes by the hurtling machine.