The Best of British Crime omnibus

by Andrew Garve

  I finished my soup and sat back to study the delegates. Mullett himself, a big tall man in his late fifties, had seemed to have a certain dignity and power on the platform, but at close quarters it was no longer apparent. He had a large, obstinate forehead with receding red hair. His eyes were small and closely set, and a trick of peering up just under the top rims of his heavy glasses gave him an oddly suspicious expression. He had a little button mouth and a double chin. Altogether, his features looked too small for the size of his face. His hands were white and fat, and as they clove the air in illustration of some point he was making – he was always, it seemed, making a point – pale freckles showed on the backs, and tufts of red hair glistened below each knuckle. His Fleet Street nickname of ‘Red’ Mullett was evidently due quite as much to his physical as to his political characteristics.

  On his right, looking slightly subdued, was his protégé and pupil in the Russian language, Joe Cressey, a stocky, solid figure in a patently new dark-blue suit. Cressey’s pink face was as smooth and shiny as a schoolboy’s, and his black hair was plastered down as though he were just off to a party. A long, heavy chin gave him a somewhat ponderous appearance, and his reactions seemed slow.

  Robson Bolting was at the second table, with the Professor and Tranter. If I’d known nothing about him I’d have put him down as a successful business man rather than a Labour politician of extreme views. He was about forty-five, with a well-fed, well-dressed appearance and an air of self-confidence and strength. His thick brown hair was swept back from a broad forehead, and he wore glasses with heavy tortoiseshell rims. Though I abhorred his politics, I decided that on the whole I rather liked his face, which was intelligent and not without humour. By contrast, Professor Schofield had a lean and hungry look. He was a man nearer Mullett’s age, I guessed; tall, with greying hair and thin sardonic lips. His clothes hung on him and his side-pockets bulged. Tranter, who was quite unknown to me, might have been anything between forty and sixty. A head of beautiful white hair gave him a rather Quakerish appearance and his face had the earnest look of a man devoted to Causes.

  Bolting and the Professor seemed to be getting on pretty well together, and their conversation covered a wide field. Tranter made very little contribution himself, but appeared interested and rather impressed by the range of their talk. The other table was still dominated by Mullett, who was telling a long story about how he had been hurriedly evacuated from Moscow to Kuibishev in 1941. I could see Perdita and Islwyn Thomas becoming increasingly restive under his ceaseless monologue. When the arrival of coffee temporarily silenced him, Thomas plunged abruptly into a new topic.

  ‘The snow should be in wonderful condition after this fall,’ he said. ‘How about trying to get some skiing, Perdita?’

  She gave him a pitying smile. ‘I can’t think of anything I should loathe more.’ She didn’t look as though outdoor sports were much in her line.

  Thomas turned to the other table. ‘You’ll come, Bolting, won’t you?’

  Bolting shook his head. ‘Sorry, Islwyn, count me out. Last time I skied in Moscow I fractured my skull. It’ll be a long time before I try again.’

  ‘What a misfortune!’ said Mullett. ‘Very bad luck. However, I’m sure you had the best possible treatment. That’s one thing you can always count on in the Soviet Union, Cressey – good medical treatment. I remember… ’

  ‘We’ll have to make up a party somehow,’ Thomas persisted. ‘What about you, Cressey? Shake your liver up a bit.’

  Cressey glanced at Mullett. ‘Well, I’d like to try, Mr Thomas, if it wouldn’t inconvenience anybody.’

  Mullett looked owlish. ‘I think we should remember,’ he said, ‘that we’re a serious delegation, and that we have a heavy programme in front of us. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t take a little recreation, of course, but our hosts have gone to considerable expense to bring us out here and we must be careful not to fritter away our time. As a matter of fact, this may be a suitable moment to discuss our time-table. I had a message from Madame Mirnova just before we left Warsaw, suggesting that if the delegation had any special desires… ’ He stopped suddenly, and seemed to remember my presence. ‘I hope we’re not disturbing you, Mr Verney? Of course, this isn’t of any professional interest to you… ’

  ‘I’m off duty,’ I said shortly.

  ‘Ah – quite so.’ He screwed up his eyes at me and turned back to the others. ‘Well, now, as we shall have only a fortnight I think we shall probably have to divide up in order to cover as much ground as possible. I imagine that you, Professor, will wish to meet some fellow economists and possibly spend some time at the State Planning Commission. Mr Thomas has expressed a wish to devote himself mainly to the Minorities question. Cressey will certainly need to talk to fellow-workers in the factories and trade unions. Mrs Clarke will no doubt be interested in – er – let us say crèches and housing. Mr Tranter will be making a special report on the attitude of the Russian man-in-the-street towards Peace – perhaps the most vital aspect of our work. I myself shall hope for an opportunity to see something of the religious life of the community.’

  Professor Schofield gave his thin-lipped smile. ‘I don’t suppose anyone will wish to deprive you of it, Mullett.’

  ‘Now what about you, Miss Manning?’ Mullett went on, ostentatiously ignoring the Professor. ‘Is there anything special you have in mind, or will you just cover the general field of culture?’

  ‘I think I’ll leave my plans until we get there,’ drawled Perdita. ‘I’m rather hoping to be able to do a portrait bust of Stalin.’ She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though she were contemplating taking a ride on the Metro.

  Mullett’s fat neck went red. ‘I see. I wasn’t aware of that. You don’t think, perhaps, that such a request would be stretching hospitality rather far? We don’t want to abuse our friends’ kindness by making impossible demands.’

  ‘I see no harm in asking,’ said Perdita icily.

  ‘Well, of course, it’s entirely up to you.’ Mullett was obviously very angry, and trying hard to control himself. ‘I would have thought, though, that if you concentrate on such a very specialised – and, if I may say so, personal aim – you’ll hardly have time for anything else. After all, we are a delegation and we have responsibilities towards one another.’

  Perdita gave him a look that would have slain a more sensitive man. ‘It’s no more a specialised interest than visiting idiotic churches,’ she said. ‘That is a waste of time.’

  Mullett had recovered himself. ‘You seem to forget, Miss Manning,’ he said with great dignity, ‘how the Soviet Union has been maligned in this matter. It’s of the greatest importance that the world should know how free the Russian people are to worship in their own way. Cressey here probably thinks that religion is persecuted, eh, Cressey. Well, you’ll see that nothing could be further from the truth.’

  Schofield took his pipe from his mouth. ‘At the same time, Mullett, I think Miss Manning has a point. If we’re short of time, first things should come first. You yourself attach great importance to these superstitious survivals but I doubt if the working man in England is any more interested in ikons than he is in busts of Stalin. It’s the bread-and-butter business that he wants to know about – how far economic planning is offering security and better standards.’

  ‘Now, Schofield,’ said Mullett indulgently, ‘you and I know that we differ on these matters, but because you happen to be an expert in your own – shall I say, rather limited field, you mustn’t underestimate the value of the spiritual side. Faith, you know, can move mountains.’

  ‘I’d like to see that demonstrated,’ said the Professor.

  I suspected that he was baiting Mullett, but if so he got no satisfaction, for Mullett merely said, ‘Well, I don’t think we ought to hold up these good people any longer,’ meaning the waiters, and they all got up and straggled out of the dining-car. I sat for a while over a cigarette, thinking about them. Though they were ‘fellow-traveller
s,’ one and all, they seemed to be travelling Moscow wards for very different reasons, and I imagined that their individual reasons might be fascinating if one could get to the bottom of them. Mullett, of course, was a fairly clear case. He was a woolly wishful-thinker who happened to be inordinately vain as well, and the combination had left him to espouse an outrageous cause that kept him well in the limelight. Bolting’s motives must be very different. He might deceive others, but he was, I felt again, much too astute to deceive himself. Possibly he was the hard-headed, ambitious type of Left-wing M.P who saw ‘fellow-travelling’ as a stepping stone to notoriety, nuisance value, and ultimate advancement. His timing wasn’t very good, perhaps, but plenty of people in the Labour Movement had started that way and finished up very respectably in the Cabinet.

  The Professor, again, was another type. He seemed, as Thomas had said, a cold-blooded sort of fish, and I could believe that his interest in the Soviet Union was as detached as that of the vivisectionist in what was on the slab. Thomas himself was, politically, just a retarded adolescent, and in any Communist revolution would be certain of achieving the martyrdom he was inviting. No doubt he’d been included in the delegation on the old Communist principle of mobilising every variety of malcontent.

  As for Perdita, she was a typical drawing-room Red. She had about as much in common with the proletariat as I had with Mullett. Something, I felt, must have gone badly wrong with her life to bring her into this company – some deep personal dissatisfaction or grievance. Perhaps she had an inflated ego, and having failed to get what she considered proper recognition of her talents at home, had embraced Marxism in return for flattery and homage. In any case, for a person with an inferiority complex the chance of setting up as an authority on a subject where there could be few informed critics must have been attractive.

  Tranter had me guessing a little. Tentatively I put him down as one of those high-principled, head-in-the-air idealists who work in blinkers and never suspect that some of those who go along with them and shout for peace are grinding axes for anything but pacific ends. Mrs Clarke, I thought, was typical of thousands of Labour housewives who attend meetings and organise Whist Drives and move resolutions and serve on committees. With a hearty and perhaps overgenerous nature like hers, it was natural that she should be attracted by what she thought was ‘fair do’s’ for the under-privileged, and as she was such an outspoken member of her class her value to the Russians was obvious. The same thing went for Cressey. He also seemed representative of a type – the straightforward, down-to-earth working man, whose report on his visit would carry weight. The delegation had undoubtedly been chosen with great skill.

  Presently I strolled back to the sleeping-car. Mullett had somehow managed to pin down one of the Red Army officers in a corner of the corridor and appeared to be giving him a lecture on the Soviet Union, in quite execrable Russian. Thomas was in the Professor’s compartment and they were discussing the ‘great man’ theory of history. I gathered that what Wales needed was a Lenin, and I wondered if Thomas could possibly have cast himself for the role. Perdita had taken advantage of his preoccupation to assume a decorative pose in Bolting’s compartment, and was obviously trying to flirt with him. He had laid aside a copy of the New Statesman and Nation and was regarding her with an interested but slightly cynical smile. I hadn’t a doubt that he was fully capable of keeping his end up.

  As I walked towards my own compartment, Joe Cressey came shambling along the corridor. He gave me a rather shy smile as he pressed himself against the partition to let me pass, and I stopped.

  ‘How’s the Russian going?’ I asked him.

  His face clouded. ‘I’m afraid it’s going to be too much for me,’ he said. ‘It’s the letters being upside-down and back-to-front that worries me. Mr Tranter thinks it’s a waste of time to bother with the alphabet – he says he’s going to learn a few simple words and manage with them. But Mr Mullett says if a thing’s worth doing it’s worth doing properly.’ He seemed really worried.

  ‘From what I’ve just been hearing of Mr Mullett’s Russian,’ I said, ‘I doubt if he’s qualified to teach you. I shouldn’t take him too seriously.’

  Cressey looked surprised.

  ‘The way most people learn, of course,’ I added, ‘is to wait until they get to Moscow and then find a nice girlfriend. It rarely fails.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think Mrs Cressey would approve of that,’ he said dubiously. ‘She didn’t really like the idea of me coming at all.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  He scratched his long chin. ‘Well, you see, I was chosen, so I had to. It was this way. I’m in a firm that makes electric light fittings, and Mr Mullett, he knows our chairman. They’re both Methodists, or something like that. I don’t know all the ins-and-outs, but I think what happened is they got into a bit of an argument about Russia, friendly-like, and Mr Mullett said why didn’t our chairman let one of the chaps from the factory go out with his delegation and see for himself what it was like. So Mr Grove – that’s our chairman, he’s a very progressive man – he called a meeting and he said there was a free trip going, sort of holiday-with-pay, and what about electing somebody they could all trust, to give a fair report. And blowed if they didn’t elect me! I’m a mechanic, really, and I don’t understand all these things they talk about. Come to that,’ he added morosely, ‘I don’t know that I want to.’

  I laughed. ‘Quite a responsibility, eh?’

  ‘It is. That’s what worries me.’

  ‘I don’t see why it should,’ I said. ‘I’d sooner take your view than – well, Mrs Clarke’s, for instance.’

  He brightened. P’ raps so. But the others, they all know so much. At least, Mr Tranter’s all right – he hasn’t been to Russia before – but the others seem to know everything about the place. I don’t know why they bother to come. Mind you, I’ve nothing against them – they’re all very nice to me. Especially Mr Bolting – he doesn’t keep on at me the way some of them do.’

  I felt sorry for him. Mullett, I considered, had worked a pretty dirty trick. He’d brought this chap out, and the whole lot of them would proselytise him for a fortnight, and, of course, the Russians would make a tremendous fuss of him and almost choke him with hospitality, and he’d be practically bound to get a favourable impression, and even if he didn’t he wouldn’t have a chance to get his point of view over when it came to preparing a joint report. He’d be under greater pressure than the odd man on a jury. And when the trip was over, of course, the joint verdict would be quoted as his, and one more honest man would have been made a Communist tool.

  I said, ‘What do you think of Mr Mullett?’

  Cressey said disgustedly, ‘Between you and me, I think he’s an old fool.’ Then he added, as if slightly ashamed of himself, ‘What I mean is, I sometimes wonder if these people that are paid to talk so much ever stop to think.’

  I moved on to my own compartment feeling greatly cheered. Evidently Mr Cressey wasn’t nearly as slow-witted as he looked. They might, after all, have to empanel another jury.

  We reached the Polish-Russian frontier late that afternoon and the delegates became very excited, as though they could already hear the trumpets sounding for them on the other side. The station was unfamiliar to me – the border had been moved far to the west, of course, compared with the pre-war line – but the reception technique hadn’t changed. The usual bannered arches had been rigged up over the railway line with ‘Workers of the World, Unite!’ slogans in a variety of languages, and there was a sort of tawdry gaiety about the decor of the station. We crossed the snow-covered platform in the gathering dusk, watched by a dozen stolid, silent peasants and a group of ragged, peaky-looking children. The delegates escaped all customs formalities and I think some of their reflected glory must have fallen on me, for my own bags were given only a perfunctory examination. We passed through a comfortable waiting-room with a carpet and soft chairs and a picture of an avuncular Stalin embracing a small girl, and on int
o a quite presentable restaurant. Here, the usual segregation followed. Mullett’s crowd had been officially greeted by some local big-wig – probably the district mayor – and his retinue, and were now escorted to a magnificently-spread table near the window for what in any other country would have been called a banquet. There were hors d’oeuvres of every description, cold meats and game, ice puddings and fruits and chocolates, with vodka and two or three different wines and liqueurs to induce a comradely flow of talk. In the centre of the table was a sheaf of little flags – the Union Jack, the Soviet Hammer and Sickle, and a cross of St David ‘specially for Thomas. On occasions such as this, the Russians were thorough. They had stream-lined their instinctive hospitality to make it an instrument of policy, and if circumstances required it they could lay on a spread like this at a few hours’ notice in the remotest part of the Union. If necessary they simply flew the whole thing to the spot, waiters, toothpicks and all.

  I was accommodated at a small table nearby, and I must say I also had nothing to complain of. I ordered some zakuski and a couple of hundred grammes of Moscow vodka and effaced myself.

  The banquet followed a well-established pattern. The proceedings were opened by the Mayor, or whoever it was, who welcomed the delegation in a short speech. Mullett replied in a slightly longer one. Then they fell to. On the left of each guest sat a Russian host, smiling, friendly and courteous, ready to meet all wants, to engage in appropriate conversation, and to ply the visitor with liquor. The Russians toasted the delegation, collectively and individually, and the delegation toasted the Russians, collectively and individually. Then they drank to Anglo-Soviet co-operation, and peace, and confusion to the imperialist aggressors, and as they got less inhibited Islwyn Thomas toasted Stalin in passionate Welsh (‘Oh Izzle-win, how dramatic of you!’ said Perdita as he sat down), and Perdita, to be different, toasted Mao Tse-tung, and the Mayor gallantly toasted lady sculptors and one in particular and kissed Perdita’s fingertips amid applause, and it became quite a party. I almost forgot we were at a railway station. Mullett, I noticed, drank nothing but mineral water, but then he was a man who didn’t need alcohol to loosen his tongue. Cressey seemed to be holding his own surprisingly well with a hard-drinking neighbour who evidently wanted to have to carry him on to the train, and my respect for him rose. Mrs Clarke, however she might try, was being seduced again into intemperance.