‘Good heavens, no! The poor young man possessed, as I have said, only the most moderate share of brains. I had the impression, indeed, that he had been in on some queer affairs about the world – but definitely, I should think, as a reliable subordinate. Good physique, no nerves, and a straight eye.’
‘He probably had no precise notion of the sort of work you do?’
‘His ideas on that would almost certainly be of the vaguest.’
Cadover thought for a moment. ‘And there is nothing – absolutely nothing – further of any significance about him, or about your interview with him, that occurs to you?’
‘I think not.’ Sir Bernard Paxton frowned. ‘And yet – at luncheon, I think – there was something–’ He broke off.
‘There was something, and it just eludes me. And yet something, connected with yourself a few moments ago–’
‘Something about me?’ Cadover was surprised.
And suddenly Sir Bernard snapped his fingers. ‘You offered a pleasantry – something about atomic warfare and the world’s cities. It was not – you will forgive me – quite to my liking. Now, that was what happened with Captain Cox at luncheon. He said something that I took to be intended as a jest, and it displeased me for the moment. I judged it to be somewhat familiar and a little fatuous. Sir Bernard paused, aware that in this there might be an implication not altogether polite. ‘I need hardly say that in your jest it was not similar qualities that disturbed me. Yours, far from being fatuous, held a little too much salt.’
Cadover could still hear his watch ticking. But, even with his adored son’s safety at unknown hazard, this august personage had his own tempo.
‘I was proposing to give Captain Cox some sketch of the Irish household in which he would find himself, and I began – I recall the word precisely – by saying that the Bolderwood family was most respectable. Whereupon the young man said, “Ah, they wouldn’t be the Bolderwoods I know.” I supposed him to be making the facetious suggestion that he himself was without respectable connexions and moved only in rag-tag and bobtail circles.’ Sir Bernard Paxton hesitated. ‘I even suspected mockery of what I am aware of in myself as a certain stiffness of manner to which, by persons uncharitably inclined, the name of pomposity might be given.’
For perhaps the first time since he had seen Peter Cox’s dead body, Cadover felt a momentary disposition to laughter. Genius apparently had its naïve side, and nothing could be more exquisitely pompous in itself than the complicated cadence in which Sir Bernard had framed this confession. He checked himself. ‘But actually, sir, you think–?’
‘It now comes to me that he may have meant exactly what he said. He happened to know some disreputable Bolderwoods, and he was dismissing the supposition that I could have anything to do with them. Viewed in that light, the unfortunate young man’s observation was a perfectly proper one.’
‘Perfectly proper. But I don’t see–’ Cadover broke off with a sudden exclamation. ‘Could that fellow Jollard have heard all this?’
‘Assuredly he could. He was waiting table at the time.’
‘And after this happened Cox remained with you for a substantial interval? There would have been an opportunity, I mean, for Jollard to contact his associates on the telephone and arrange for the bogus Humphrey to waylay Cox when he left?’
Sir Bernard thought for a moment. ‘I am fairly sure there would. We had coffee together, and then we spent about an hour in going over Humphrey’s school reports.’
‘That would certainly be time enough. And now I think we may be said to have got quite a long way.’ Cadover paused. ‘It would be nearly all the way, indeed, but for one thing. You remember, sir, my mentioning the blackmailer, Clodd? He hoped to make a victim of your son, and recently he seems to have had little that was more hopeful on his hands. As a result, he has had your household under pretty close observation. You might call it professional observation, so far as a knowledge of crooks and their ways goes. And Clodd – who is probably dead by now – came to the conclusion that it was not a matter of one gang or organization being interested in your affairs. He was convinced that there are two. If that is true, and if we now go all out in one direction, we may simply be leaving Humphrey – and in some danger, let us admit – farther and farther behind. And there is something else that I am uneasy about as well. You have spoken of this vital plan which you revise monthly as existing in a single copy that stays with you. Does that mean here in your own house?’
Sir Bernard raised his eyebrows. ‘Good heavens, no! I mean simply that, so long as the present organization of things holds, nobody ever sees it except myself. It stays in a place of security – of quite fantastic security, I may say – to the innermost part of which I alone have access, and access that is very strictly controlled at that.’
‘That sounds good enough.’
‘But it is true that I do keep one file of highly confidential ancillary papers here in the house. It is an essential time-saving convenience when I am visited by any of the people with whom I am permitted to discuss – well, the project in general. That file tends to get known, quite inaccurately, as the plan. And it is important enough, goodness knows.’
‘It might have been known to, say, Jollard as the plan?’
‘Quite possibly. And he has seen it in my hands half a dozen times.’
Cadover considered. ‘I think I should like to see it myself.’
‘See the file, my dear Inspector? I hardly think–’
‘I mean, see it in your hands – safe and sound. Where is it kept?’
‘In a strong-room in the basement, which was put in for me by the Government during the war. It opens on a combination known only to myself, and I am given to understand that it represents about the last word in security available today.’
‘Well, sir, I think I’ll just ask you to make sure. Would you mind? And I’ll stop here and make one or two more telephone calls.’
Without a word, Sir Bernard Paxton left the room. Cadover made two quick calls, and then walked to the window. Broad daylight had flooded this prosperous part of London long ago. The vista disclosed was unexciting, but it spoke of a security so massive as to be almost smug. Here and there one could perhaps spy signs that it was on the down grade; nevertheless, it was civilization’s (as Plutonium Blonde was art’s) supreme achievement to date. Taking civilization, that was to say, as meaning the commercial civilization built up in the nineteenth century. It had all, Cadover reflected, come out of the spout of James Watt’s kettle. And the probability was that it would all dissolve again in some more extensive manufacture of steam contrived by Sir Bernard Paxton and his kind.
Cadover turned round at the sound of a door thrown violently open behind him. Sir Bernard stood framed in it, pale and trembling.
‘It’s gone!’ he said. ‘The strong-room was locked as I left it. But the file has gone.’
20
Dawn had found Mr Thewless fast asleep. The regular pulse of light flowing over his ceiling had grown faint before the early approaches of the sun and then had ceased – the lighthouse-keeper having first turned off his machine and then betaken himself to slumber. The day promised to be calm and bright. From far below, the sea murmured its suggestion of just such another obstinate refusal to come awake as that of Humphrey Paxton’s unconscious tutor; had one looked out at it, however, one would have judged it impossible that any sound at all could come from a sheet of silver so unflawed. No wind ruffled it, and in the little hamlet by its side the pale blue peat smoke was beginning to rise straight to the deep blue of heaven. No keel furrowed it, for the foreign trawlers were already gone from the harbour, and gone too was the motor-cruiser whose riding-light Mr Thewless had remarked in the darkness not many hours before. Only on the horizon the brown sails of outward-going fishing-smacks were already vanishing through the faint line between sea and sky.
This marine solitude at one distance was matched by a mountain solitude at another; indeed, the actual appearance o
f the sun had been delayed a full hour by the interposition, to the east, of a single peak, obtuse and massive, about the bare slopes and outcropping rocks of which clouds were still lazily disparting. Below this, where the white cottages in their invisible lanes glistened like sparsely-strung pearls flung down upon a mantle of brown and green, more tenuous vapours drifted, broke, fragmented themselves to a point at which, mere fleecy wisps, they matched the nibbling sheep now moving slowly up the hillsides to meet them. Nearer still, from little valleys yet lost in shadow, diminutive figures in bright homespun or sombre black climbed to the potato fields or set out, a donkey beside them, on the long trudge to the turf. Another day had begun.
And about Killyboffin itself there was some stir of life. The poultry, perhaps indignant at having been so unjustly cast under a cloud in the estimation of their owner, maintained a constantly augmented volume of angry cackle; the half-Ayrshire and several of her fellows, sequacious of the milkmaid, mooed impatiently outside a byre; dogs barked; Billy Bone clumped noisily about a cobbled yard; and through the house itself sundry servants, presumably released by their employer from their nocturnal segregation, bustled amid floods of lively conversation. And still Mr Thewless slept.
When he was finally aroused, indeed, it was by olfactory rather than by auditory sensation. His eyes, prompted by some titillation of the nostril, opened upon a large and steaming cup of China tea. It was a composing sight; nevertheless, Mr Thewless sat up with a celerity that spoke of a clearly returning consciousness of something untoward in his situation. A glance about the room told him that he had a visitor. Cyril Bolderwood, in an ancient and unassuming bath-robe made of turkish towelling, was sitting in his familiar position in the window embrasure. And now Cyril Bolderwood, observing that he was awake, gave him a cheerful smile. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Good morning, my dear fellow.’
Mr Thewless remembered with something of an effort that he was this genial person’s guest – his dear fellow, indeed – and that Ireland and the Atlantic Ocean lay around him. He stretched out his hand, secured the handsome cup, and sipped his tea. ‘Good morning,’ he replied. He was aware of something circumspect – provisional, almost – in his own tone.
‘A really nice day. In fact, I should say that we are in for a spell of fine weather. And in August, on the west coast of Ireland, that is something, I am bound to admit.’
Mr Thewless considered this – and also certain matters now returning somewhat confusedly to his mind. ‘Um,’ he ventured.
‘And – what’s more – I have some rather good news.’ Cyril Bolderwood got up and obligingly tested the temperature of a jug of hot water standing in Mr Thewless’ wash-basin. He shook his head disapprovingly, picked up the jug, and, not without splashing and accompanying imprecation, ejected it from the room. ‘Gracie,’ he bawled down the corridor. ‘What good-for-nothing, idle, chattering chit brought this disgustingly tepid stuff to Mr Thewless? Don’t they know what’s due to a man of his great learning? Don’t they know that in London there’s but the turning of a shining tap and you can scald yourself like a milk-pail at will? Send up a great jug, now, that won’t disgrace us all, you worthless woman.’ And the master of Killyboffin, flushed and irate, banged the door to and returned to his perch in the window. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he pursued with instantly recovered equanimity; ‘capital news. Last night, you know, I put my foot down. I made a real row.’
Mr Thewless remembered a row – and although it had begun in dreams he was tolerably confident that it had indeed been a real row in the end. ‘Ah,’ he said cautiously.
‘The result is that at breakfast, I’m glad to say, there will be a couple of eggs all round. I was afraid, you know, that there would be nothing but champ.’
‘Champ?’ said Mr Thewless. The constitution of this dish was not one of the matters upon which he felt any urgent wish to be informed. But for the moment he was at a loss how to broach more relevant topics.
‘Yes, champ. I won’t say that I haven’t had a very tolerable champ in the north – and particularly in County Down.’ Cyril Bolderwood was judicial. ‘But here in the south I don’t recall anybody as being able to make it really palatable. They’re too lazy, I should say, to pound it properly with the beetle. That means that it comes out sloppy. And nobody, you’ll agree, could pretend to enjoy a sloppy champ.’
‘No,’ said Mr Thewless. ‘Nobody could do that.’
‘But I expect young Humphrey – a nice lad, I’m bound to say, although his father is said to be uncommonly stiff – I expect young Humphrey will enjoy his couple of eggs. If he turns up for them, that is to say.’
‘If he turns up for them!’ Mr Thewless set down his cup in frank dismay.
‘He was off and away hours ago. Exploring, I don’t doubt. There’s a strong streak of wanderlust in Humphrey, if you ask me.’
Mr Thewless was fleetingly conscious that this suggestion – in which he saw no special cogency – had been made to him before. ‘You think he will be all right?’ he asked. ‘I am bound to say I feel a little anxious for his safety.’
‘As right as rain.’ Cyril Bolderwood’s reassurance was so confident as to have no need of being emphatic. ‘Of course, this countryside is full of every sort of rascal, as I think I’ve told you. But they wouldn’t harm a lad – and especially an English lad. It’s astonishing how popular the English are in Eire. Just the same as in India, nowadays. Nothing too good for them. And all because they’ve climbed down and cleared out. Why, if it wasn’t for the presence of yourself and Humphrey, it would probably be champ this morning after all – and that in spite of all the fuss I made yesterday.’
Mr Thewless had by this time finished his tea, got out of bed, and wrapped himself in a dressing-gown. It ought to have been pleasant to shave while enjoying the society of one so informally companionable as his host. But somehow he felt slightly intruded upon – he was growing old and secretive, he supposed – and in an endeavour to dissipate this churlish feeling he too moved over to the window. ‘Ah,’ he said; ‘I see that the motor-cruiser has gone.’
‘It has – and I don’t think we’ll see it again.’
‘I don’t see any sign of Humphrey.’ Mr Thewless, dazzled by the morning light, was peering vaguely at the distant mountain, rather as if his charge might appear in infinitesimal silhouette on the summit of it. ‘And I am rather anxious, I must repeat.’
‘The boy will be quite all right, you may be sure.’ Once more Cyril Bolderwood was soothing. ‘As a matter of fact, I rather think that Ivor must have gone with him – or, at any rate, that Ivor has followed him out. They had some plan, you may remember, of going off early together.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Mr Thewless wished that he could be certain of just what he did remember. That the night had held wild doings he was well assured. But there might, he judged, be humiliating reasons for his preserving only a somewhat distorted recollection of them. ‘I am afraid,’ he pursued, ‘that – after last night, you know – I am in a decidedly nervous state of mind.’
‘Last night?’ Cyril Bolderwood looked momentarily puzzled. Then he laughed heartily. ‘To be sure – and I am afraid you really had rather a bad time. It’s not being used to nonsense of that sort.’
‘I see.’ But Mr Thewless was very certain that he did not see. ‘Nonsense?’ he queried diffidently.
‘Atrocious and rascally criminals,’ said Cyril Bolderwood. He spoke with the greatest good humour. ‘Abominable and thieving ruffians, breaking in in the middle of the night. And yet one can’t be angry with them for long. Children, my dear fellow – mere children. And, of course, you must remember their religion.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Thewless. He was beginning to feel slightly unnerved.
‘I’ve had them break in before. It’s why I shut up so carefully at nights. But the tiresome villains managed to get in somehow. They were after the whisky, you know – nothing but the whisky. How could they tell that you and I hadn’t left much of it, eh?’ And Cyril Bolderwood la
ughed more boisterously still.
Mr Thewless’ discomfort increased. He took his host’s last reference to be by way of tactful reminder that any distorted picture of the night’s adventures which be might cherish had its origin in potations which could not with delicacy be more specifically referred to. It was true that he had drunk rather a lot of whisky – and, moreover, to Irish whisky he was quite unused. Conceivably it had some quite special hallucinatory power. Yet by all this he was not, in his heart, quite convinced. ‘My impression,’ he said boldly, ‘was decidedly different. I thought they were after, not the whisky, but Humphrey.’
‘Humphrey? Good lord!’ And Cyril Bolderwood delightedly chuckled. ‘Why, that’s just the sort of notion the dear, fanciful lad would think up himself.’
This was disturbingly true; it cohered absolutely with Mr Thewless’ own obstinate reading of much in his recent experience. Nevertheless, he tried again. ‘I have a recollection – really quite a distinct recollection – of these intruders dogging me through the house. I was convinced that they were trailing me to Humphrey’s room.’
‘Odd,’ said Cyril Bolderwood easily. ‘A very odd trick for the mind to play. But, of course, we must remember that you had been thoroughly fatigued.’
‘And my recollection stretches further. I had, just before the general alarm, a direct encounter with one of the prowlers. He was wrapped in a sheet.’
‘A sheet!’ Cyril Bolderwood looked blankly at his guest.
‘And I threw something at him. I think it was a candlestick. The sheet fell and I had a moment in which I recognized him. He had travelled with me on the train from Euston to just before Heysham.’
‘Dear me.’ This time Cyril Bolderwood was not amused. He was mildly embarrassed, as a man must be to whom a guest obstinately propounds fantasies that have come to him in vino. ‘That is very curious, to be sure – very curious, indeed. But I must really leave you, my dear fellow, to finish dressing. Breakfast will be in a quarter of an hour. I think you may find that a cup or two of strong coffee may do you a world of good. And – don’t forget! – champ is off and eggs are on. Now I’ll go out for a stroll and try if I can see the others.’
The Journeying Boy Page 27
