John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics)

by Leon Garfield

  With a shock I realized that this noise was silence. The passage had ended; and there before me was a secret patch of grass, a secret tree, and a secret rectangle of houses that seemed to have been trapped, forgotten and died. It was Foxes Court.

  Afterwards I discovered that there were many such quiet enclosures in the town—little pockets lined with green, in which it kept small, tattered mementos of the countryside where it had been born.

  But as I stood and gazed at the stones over which my father must have walked, and the rusty seat that encircled the tree where once he must have sat, and the tall thin houses among which he must have moved with easy familiarity, I felt it to be the most deeply concealed and haunted place in all the world.

  5

  MR K’NEE (ATTORNEY-AT-LAW) lived on the third floor of the darkest and dirtiest house in the court.

  According to a signboard nailed inside the doorway, he shared the premises with an astonishing number of other Attorneys, Solicitors and Notaries, all of whom were ready to Draw Up Wills, Convey Property, and Administer the Swearing of Oaths; which, at that time, I supposed to mean that they offered facilities for gentlemen to come and curse in private, rather than out in the open street.

  If so, then some of them must have been in too much of a hurry to wait; for they’d scrawled their curses all over the walls. I wondered if any of them had been Mr Diamond’s, when he’d found out that he’d been cheated by his friend. I began to mount the stairs.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  I stopped and came down again.

  The voice came from a newspaper with two hands and two feet, sitting on a chair half in a cupboard under the stairs.

  ‘If you please,’ I said, ‘I’m going to see Mr K’Nee.’

  The newspaper shifted slightly, and a large, queerly refined face appeared round the edge of it. I was examined.

  ‘If it’s a Document,’ said the face, ‘you can give it to me. If it’s a Summons, you can hand it in yourself.’

  The face vanished.

  ‘It—it’s private,’ I said.

  ‘Got an appointment?’

  ‘No … no.’

  ‘Won’t see you, then. Good day.’

  ‘But I must see him! I must—I must!’

  With a sound of irritation the newspaper was put aside and the owner of the refined face got up off his chair. For a moment, I thought he’d stepped into a hole, as he seemed to go down at least six inches; then I saw that he was a dwarf.

  ‘Must? Must?’ he said angrily. ‘Must is for the king! Come along then. I’ll take you up, your majesty!’

  He stumped fiercely across the hall, unlocked a door and stepped inside a tall wooden box, rather like a large coffin. It turned out to be a kind of hoist, operated by two ropes on which the dwarf pulled vigorously, and, I thought, with pleasure.

  It was the strangest of journeys, rising up secretly through the filthy, rickety old house, where lawyers lived like mice, and Mr K’Nee waited for the son of Mr Jones.

  At last we stopped and I stepped out on the third floor landing, which differed only from the others by being a little dirtier.

  ‘Pay me when you go out,’ said the dwarf, and sank away, leaving a terrible hole behind.

  I knocked on Mr K’Nee’s door and was told to come in; and Mr K’Nee’s clerk, a smart young man in very cramped quarters, changed what had been a smile into a frown when he saw that it was only a boy.

  ‘If you please, sir,’ I said. ‘I would like to see Mr K’Nee.’

  ‘So would a lot of people,’ said he, sitting back in his chair and tilting it against the wall, which was only a couple of inches off. ‘So would a lot of people, young feller-me-lad. That’s why we ’ave clerks and appointments. Mr K’Nee’s time is valuable. We can’t ’ave ’im wastin’ it on boys from the street.’

  ‘Please, please, sir—I must see Mr K’Nee! I’ve come a long way …’

  At this point, I’m sorry to say, I began to cry. It seemed intolerable that, after all I’d suffered, I should be turned away.

  ‘Who’s that, Jenkins?’ came a voice from the other side of the inner door.

  ‘Just a boy, Mr K’Nee. I’ll send ’im packin’ in a minute.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘To see you, Mr K’Nee.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘What’s your name, boy?’ asked Jenkins severely.

  ‘William Jones, sir.’

  ‘William Jones, Mr K’Nee.’

  ‘Don’t know him. Send him away.’

  “Jones! Jones!’ I shouted desperately. ‘I’m William Jones—the son of Mr David Jones who’s just died! Please, Mr K’Nee!’

  There was a pause in which Jenkins busied himself with a paper and pretended not to be interested.

  ‘David Jones?’ came Mr K’Nee’s voice. ‘David Jones in coffee?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’

  The door opened.

  ‘Come inside, David Jones’s son! Come inside!’

  Mr K’Nee was not alone. There was a Mr Needleman with him and they’d been playing cards.

  Mr K’Nee was an old man with a face like a clenched fist from which a great nose stuck out like a shiny prominent knuckle. It was a clever, ugly face; and I thought he was a clever, ugly man.

  I didn’t see much of Mr Needleman as he was standing up. Here I must explain that there seemed to be no window in Mr K’Nee’s room and the only light came from three or four deeply shaded candles and a quiet fire. Consequently the upper part of the room was cast in heavy shadow; and when people sat down, you couldn’t see much more than mouths, chins and hands.

  Mr Needleman, as I’ve said, was standing up, and he might as well have had a black bag over his head.

  ‘I always thought,’ said Mr Needleman, when Mr K’Nee had shut the door, opened it sharply as if to see if Jenkins’s ear was to it, and shut it again, ‘that David Jones was a smart man.’

  ‘So he was,’ agreed Mr K’Nee, sitting down at his desk. ‘Very smart.’

  ‘Then the boy here don’t take after him. Shabby little ruffian with stockings tied round his neck.’

  ‘That’s very sharp of you, Mr Needleman,’ said Mr K’Nee. ‘Quite up to your name.’ And he made a little movement with his finger suggestive of a needle going through something soft, like me.

  His gesture really did seem to puncture me, and let a large part of my confidence escape. I felt that Mr K’Nee did not even believe that I was David Jones’s son. I felt lost and alone as I realized that, to these two gentlemen, I was nothing more than a travel-stained ruffian, come in off the street.

  Mr Needleman sat down beside Mr K’Nee, and came into view as far as the bottom of his nose.

  For a moment I thought of throwing myself on their mercy; but somehow I felt that that article would turn out to be uncomfortable, and that I’d be impaled on it, like a spike. Then I remembered the watch. I produced it and Mr K’Nee examined it carefully, passed it to Mr Needleman, and then gave it back.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is David Jones’s watch all right.’

  At once I felt such a rush of happiness and affection towards Mr K’Nee for believing that I was my father’s son, that my chief purpose seemed to have been achieved. I almost forgot about Mr Diamond.

  ‘So,’ said Mr K’Nee to Mr Needleman. ‘David Jones isn’t with us any more. He was a younger man than me. It comes to us all, Needleman; it comes to us all. Has he been gone long, David Jones’s son? Passed away, I mean?’

  ‘A week, sir. He was buried yesterday morning.’

  ‘Leaves a widow, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And I’ve got two sisters—’

  ‘Well provided for!’

  ‘Oh yes! We’ve a big house in—’

  ‘—Don’t tell where!’ said Mr K’Nee, abruptly cutting me off. ‘I don’t want to know where David Jones hid himself, living or dead.’

  As he said that, I saw Mr Needleman look at him sharply. In f
act, Mr Needleman, as if flattered by Mr K’Nee’s observation about the aptness of his name, kept on making sharp, sudden movements all the time.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr K’Nee. ‘You have your father’s watch. What else have you got of your father’s, that brings you to Foxes Court!’

  At once I felt unaccountably guilty, as if Mr K’Nee, like my uncle, suspected me of being a thief.

  ‘Nothing—nothing! That’s all he gave me … just before he died!’

  ‘So why have you run away from your comfortable home and come to see Mr K’Nee in Foxes Court?’

  ‘I—I haven’t run away …’

  ‘Come come! David Jones’s son doesn’t burst in, like a mad thing, with stockings round his neck, and wearing two shirts, just to pass the time of day! Why have you come?’

  ‘I—I want to find Mr Diamond, sir!’

  Another sharp movement from Mr Needleman.

  ‘What for?’ This from Mr K’Nee, who seemed to respond to Mr Needleman’s sharp movements as if he was being invisibly pricked. I felt that Mr K’Nee without Mr Needleman, would have been a different man altogether.

  ‘I—I wanted to tell him that—that Pa was dead,’ I said. Although I guessed that Mr K’Nee knew all about my father having ruined Mr Diamond, I felt I couldn’t say anything about it. In fact, I found it hard to say anything—even to breathe, at times—in that close, secretive room with its hovering shadow, like a large black hat, pulled down over Mr Needleman’s and Mr K’Nee’s eyes.

  Mr Needleman had picked up the cards he’d been playing with, and studied them intently. Mr K’Nee asked me if my father had had a long illness and if he’d talked much about the old days in London and Foxes Court.

  I told him that it had been a long illness, but my father had only mentioned himself and Foxes Court on the last night of all, and to me alone. I kept the ghostly footsteps out of it; which, I suppose, made him think that I was hiding something of value.

  ‘So why don’t you ask him?’ said Mr Needleman, snapping up the cards he’d been holding spread out in a fan.

  ‘Do you think he knows anything?’ murmured Mr K’Nee.

  ‘So why is he here, asking for Diamond?’

  ‘He’s only a child.’

  ‘So he’s a child. But a man like David Jones don’t go to his grave with ten thousand pounds in a drawer and never say a word. That’s not in human nature.’

  Mr K’Nee picked up his own cards and, holding them close to his waistcoat, examined them one by one.

  ‘Do you know what we’ve been talking about, David Jones’s son?’

  I confessed that I didn’t, and that the conversation had been mysterious in the extreme.

  So Mr K’Nee told me about a curious and tantalizing circumstance that had long fascinated Foxes Court. There was a story that my father had accomplished a stroke of business before he’d retired and that ten thousand pounds, either in banknotes, gold or diamonds—the matter was in dispute—had vanished into thin air.

  Nobody knew what had become of it; and no trace of it had ever been found. Mr Needleman, in spite of Mr K’Nee’s shaking his head, was convinced that my father had deposited it in some place of safety in the town. He was sure it was still waiting to be found. He kept urging Mr K’Nee, with sharp movements of his head and elbow, to ask me, over and over again, if my father had given me anything else besides his watch. Had he mentioned any particular place, any particular name, had he given me a key, perhaps, or a piece of paper with an address?

  As the questioning went on, I felt that Mr Needleman and Mr K’Nee were like two masked old pirates, digging in a dark place for long-buried treasure; and that I was becoming infected with the same fantastic hope of finding it, intact and undisturbed, after twenty years. I went over and over in my mind, every word my father had uttered on that night before he’d died; but I could find nothing of any help.

  At length, Mr K’Nee—but not, I thought, Mr Needleman—gave up.

  ‘You had better go back to your home, David Jones’s son,’ he said. ‘Wherever it may be.’

  ‘It’s in—’ I began; when once again he stopped me.

  ‘Come here, David Jones’s son,’ he said, beckoning me to his side. ‘Now Mr Needleman and I are playing cards. These are mine. You notice that I keep them hidden from him. If I didn’t, I might lose. As it is, he doesn’t know what I hold. So … he plays a Queen … and I trump it! He plays a King … and I trump it! He plays an Ace, even … and I trump that, too! Always something in reserve, David Jones’s son. Always something kept back in reserve.’

  I thanked him for his advice.

  ‘Goodbye, David Jones’s son. My regards to the widow and the daughters.’

  ‘But what about Mr Diamond!’ I cried. ‘I wanted to see Mr Diamond!’

  Another sharp movement from Mr Needleman.

  ‘Forget about Mr Diamond,’ said Mr K’Nee. ‘Go back to your comfortable home. This is no place for you. You don’t hold the right cards, David Jones’s son; and even if you did, you wouldn’t know how to play them. Go back before someone thinks you hold the Ace of Trumps, and knocks you on the head.’

  ‘But I must find Mr Diamond first! I must!’

  ‘Mr Diamond,’ said Mr K’Nee harshly, ‘Mr Alfred Diamond is dead.’

  For a moment I did not take in what he said. I stood there, looking so utterly bewildered that Mr K’Nee repeated his words.

  ‘Mr Diamond is dead.’

  I felt such a tremendous rush of dismay that I could scarcely stand up. The strange, half-black room, with its secret mouths and chins and grasping hands, began to swim in a mist of misery as I realized what I had done. I had fled from my home with only one object, only one hope in the world. Now, at a single blow, I had lost both: my hope, and my home. I dared not go back; and I could not go on.

  The two attorneys sat at their cards, and made no effort to help me out of the room.

  I tried to look nonchalant when I got into the outer office, as if I’d concluded a successful piece of business and was quite calm.

  Jenkins, the smart young clerk, however, was not deceived.

  ‘Cheer up, David Jones’s son!’ he muttered, assisting me to the outer door. ‘It ain’t the end of the world. Guess what! You ain’t the only son. Mr Diamond’s got one, too. “Live and kickin’.” Meet me in the Horse Boy, back of Mallerd’s Court at eight o’clock on the nail; and I’ll—’

  Mr K’Nee’s door opened and Jenkins shut up as if he’d been slammed.

  ‘Remember what I told you, David Jones’s son,’ said Mr K’Nee; ‘about the Ace of Trumps.’

  6

  REJECTING MY FIRST idea, which had been to throw myself down the black hole into which the dwarf had earlier vanished, I went down by the stairs instead.

  The sudden news of Mr Diamond’s death had put me into such a frantic state of mind that I found myself, without thinking, stopping on every landing and reading aloud the scrawled-up curses that seemed to cover every single wall in that hateful house.

  I wondered how many people, like me, had come out of the various dusty doors and thought of jumping down the hole in despair; and then, like me, had changed their minds because of some crumb of hope a lawyer or his clerk had let fall, and so contented themselves with merely cursing the world instead of leaving it.

  I wondered how many people had come out of the doors without any hope, and thrown themselves down; and how did the dwarf ever get their broken bodies off the top of his hoist? I wondered if that was how Mr Diamond had died, and if it had been just after he’d found out that my father had swindled him?

  ‘If Alfred Diamond is dead, I killed him,’ my father had said.

  As I remembered his exact words, I remembered the mystery of the ten thousand pounds, and Mr Needleman’s curious insistence that I might have been told something of great importance; and I had an uncomfortable feeling that Mr K’Nee’s remark, about the Ace of Trumps and being knocked on the head for it, had not been entirely idle. I wonde
red what it was that I knew that could be of danger to me.

  ‘Oh no you don’t!’ came a voice from behind the stairs. ‘Oh no you don’t creep off without paying!’

  It was the dwarf. He emerged from his cupboard and hobbled towards me with his hand outstretched. I saw that his fingers were so short that they might have been chopped off

  ‘That’ll be a penny,’ he said.

  I gave it to him. He stood on tiptoe and looked into my purse, as if to make sure I could afford it.

  ‘Why didn’t you shout for me to fetch you down? That’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘I—I didn’t think of it.’

  ‘There’s notices up. Call for Mr Seed.’

  ‘I didn’t see them.’

  ‘Too busy reading rude words, eh? I heard you. You ought to have read the notice and called.’

  He was a very angry little man and had taken great offence over not being called. I supposed it was because he’d have earned another penny by taking me down in his hoist; so I offered him one.

  He took it—or, rather, snatched it—and at the same time snapped that he wasn’t a child to be bought off so cheap. He was, he judged—turning his great face sideways and estimating me—about four times my age and forty times as clever.

  I wondered if I ought to offer him a third penny to placate him, as I wanted to ask him the way to the Horse Boy, where I was to meet Mr K’Nee’s clerk. But I hesitated as he seemed unpleasantly sensitive and ready to fly into a rage at anything.

  I felt he was sneering at me for being better dressed than he was, and having more money, and being taller, even though he was four times as old and forty times as clever.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Please could you tell me,’ I began; when a voice from upstairs shouted:

  ‘Seed! Mr Seed, please! Second floor!’

  ‘Wait here!’ said the dwarf; and hobbled away into his hoist and shut the door after him.

  I waited, listening to the shuddering of the hoist ascending, and then coming down. The door opened and there was the dwarf, with a full-grown gentleman beside him, exactly as if he’d made him up out of nothing, inside the wooden box. I thought the dwarf looked rather pleased with himself. The gentleman paid him and went away