Small Change 03: Half A Crown

by Jo Walton

  “I’d be delighted myself,” Carmichael said.

  “But how—,” Jacobson began, as there was a knock on the door.

  “That will be Ogilvie,” he said, as Ogilvie put his head around the door. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Chief,” Ogilvie said, cheerfully. “You picked a terrible day to take off, I must say, though not as bad as Lieutenant-Commander Jacobson here, who has chosen to take next Tuesday off.”

  “Next Tuesday? Why on earth next Tuesday, Jacobson, with the conference due to start on Wednesday?” Carmichael asked.

  “Passover,” Jacobson said, with a set jaw.

  “Oh.” Carmichael had only the faintest idea what Passover was, something to do with unleavened bread and the Last Supper? “Nothing wrong with that, Ogilvie, no need to be unpleasant about it.”

  “Oh, he’s our model Jew, sir, we all know that.” Ogilvie smiled at Jacobson unconvincingly. On one occasion in 1955 Carmichael had had to call Sergeant Richards to separate his two subordinates.

  “Is there anything else, Jacobson?” Carmichael asked.

  “A couple of minor things, but they’ll wait until this afternoon,” Jacobson said, getting up.

  “I have the order for the procession ready for your approval,” Ogilvie said. “I’m closing off Central London completely from the night before, tripling the security checkpoints so nobody can get in or out without us knowing who they are. Oh, and the Japanese are causing trouble, wanting to go to dodgy nightclubs and to see famous landmarks outside London. But there’s a real problem about the Duke of Windsor.”

  Jacobson, who had been halfway out of the room, lingered in the doorway. Carmichael waved him away. “What about the Duke of Windsor now?” he asked.

  “Well, apparently we changed our minds, is that right?” he asked.

  “More like we took a little time to decide whether we had an opinion,” Carmichael said. “And what we did decide was that we had enough problems without adding in that horrible little man.”

  “Yes, sir. The Palace apparently expressed the same sort of opinion. But we’d said we could cope at first, and the HO had gone with that, and he was already here before we said firmly enough that we didn’t want him.”

  “Damn,” Carmichael said. “Sorry. Go on.”

  Ogilvie looked down at his notebook. “Well, now his equerry, Captain Hickmott, is trying frantically not to have him deported, which is more awkward, as you can imagine, than not admitting him in the first place, and also the Duchess wants to join him.”

  “She telephoned me,” Carmichael said. “Keep sending a firm no on that one. And as for the Duke, we want a squad on him at all times. I want to know every contact, every word. Get him six of our men as honor guards and a whole surveillance team, I don’t care what you scant to get it. I don’t want him to drop a crumb on his trousers without us hearing about it. If he so much as orders a whisky, I want to know which.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ogilvie said, making a note. “Why, if I may ask?”

  “I think he’s tied up with this stupid British Power thing,” Carmichael said. “I haven’t told the PM yet, and I don’t have any proof that would stand up against a Royal Duke, an ex-king for God’s sake! But I’m pretty sure he’s at the bottom of that one, not any singer from Liverpool.”

  Ogilvie looked surprised. “I didn’t get so much as a sniff of that from the report I did on them.”

  “I have an informer,” Carmichael said.

  “Are you sure you can trust him?” Ogilvie asked. “I’m not questioning you, but there has been a tremendous amount of fuss about the deportations, at high levels too. It’s somewhere we’d have to be very sure before acting if we didn’t want to provoke an outcry.”

  “Quite. That’s why I’m asking you to keep a close eye on him, so that if he does anything at all, we’ll know and can stop him right away. I’ll have the PM’s backing on this. I’d have spoken to him already if I’d known the Duke was in the country.”

  “Bad day to take off, as I said, sir,” Ogilvie said. “Oh well, these things happen. I’ll put a squad on him right away, and let you know any developments.”

  “Where is he, exactly?” Carmichael asked.

  “He’s staying at the Dorchester Hotel. He has a suite,” Ogilvie said, all the details at his fingertips as always.

  “If he makes any overt British Power connections there or anywhere, arrest him right away. Throw him in the Tower, that’s the procedure. I don’t suppose anyone will be really sorry.” Carmichael leaned forward. “This is really important. I want it to be your priority.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything else? I do have some other calls I need to make.”

  Ogilvie hesitated, then said, “Big Wheels won’t like this, but we couldn’t find the Liverpool singer. He’s disappeared completely.”

  “Damn. Keep looking.”

  “Yes, sir. We are. One more thing, is it all right if the Jap prince goes to Salisbury?”

  Carmichael raised his eyebrows. “I suppose so, but why on earth does he want to?”

  “He wants to see Stonehenge. The Japs came up with a whole list of things they want to see, all tourist stuff, but that’s the only one that’s in an easy day’s range of London. No accounting for foreigners, is there, sir?” Ogilvie shook his head in wonder.

  “I suppose if you and I went to Japan we’d want to see, well, temples and palaces and things. Stonehenge should be safe enough. Make sure there are people watching him—and the same if they go to restaurants or nightclubs or whatever. He’s pretty powerful at home, isn’t he? And haven’t they sent some general, too?”

  “That’s right. They’ve sent very powerful people, because these negotiations are very important to them—all the business about the border, and the proposed buffer states in what used to be Russia.” Ogilvie shrugged.

  “Well, give them the go-ahead on Stonehenge, but make sure we don’t lose track of any of them. They’re having dinner with Her Majesty one day soon, they won’t run off before that,” Carmichael said. “Anything else?”

  “If I can leave the procession list with you, I think that’s all that’s urgent. The total clampdown beforehand begins on Monday night. I thought it best to let no Jews at all in Central London that day. I’ll issue our friend Jacobson a special pass for Wednesday, assuming he’s back from Passover by then. Pass, Passover, get it?”

  “Very funny,” Carmichael snarled. “Go and get on with it.”

  He looked at his list as Miss Duthie came in with the mail. He nodded to her, and she left the neat pile on the corner of his desk. “Any priorities?” he asked.

  She smiled. “You should look at all these today, sir, but I don’t think there’s anything really urgent. Mostly reports. Do you want another pot of tea? You look as if you could do with one.”

  Carmichael looked down with surprise and saw that his cup was empty. “Yes, thank you,” he said, and she scurried off. He should speak to the press, but first to Captain Hickmott, and certainly to Penn-Barkis. He picked up the receiver and dialed the Yard.

  Of all the people in the world Carmichael could be said to hate, Chief-Inspector Penn-Barkis of Scotland Yard came second only to Mark Normanby. It had been Penn-Barkis who had personally forced Carmichael to betray everything he believed in. Though these days he was almost as powerful as his old boss, Carmichael still braced himself when he had to speak to him.

  “You left a message for me, sir,” Carmichael said, when he got through.

  “What do you think you’re playing at with this Paddington business?” Penn-Barkis said, without pausing for pleasantries. “I have a complaint about you, went straight up through the Met and ended up on my desk. Taking away a suspect into Watch protection who turns out to be your niece or some such nonsense. And now you want to get hold of confiscated property.”

  “Sergeant Royston’s daughter Elvira got caught up in the riot through no fault of her own and I was retrieving her,” Carmichael said.
Penn-Barkis couldn’t resist any opportunity to needle him; he knew that was all there was to it and kept his voice deliberately even. “The so-called suspect property the thugs at Paddington hung on to was her handbag, which contains nothing more suspicious than her purse, lipstick, and a string of pearls. The boys in the Met will have to cut back on their graft this time. We want it back.”

  “Innocently caught up doesn’t seem like half of it. It seems as if she was taken to the rally by one of the chief organizers of the British Power movement.”

  “Sir Alan Bellingham?” Carmichael put in, inquiringly. “Yes, we’re certainly investigating him. The connections are running into some very odd corners. But my ward barely knows him, he’s the sweetheart of an old school friend of hers. I’d regard it as a favor if you’d look out for her property, and anything I find out about Bellingham that might have significance to your operation I’ll share with you at once—though at the moment it all seems tiresomely political and thoroughly in the Watch’s bailiwick. I quite agree that our services should cooperate at the top levels when it’s relevant.”

  Penn-Barkis grunted, and Carmichael smiled to himself. He’d taken the wind out of his sails. “I thought everyone arrested on the British Power side was being sent off to the Continent,” he said. “The papers are full of complaints about it.”

  “Elvira wasn’t on the British Power side,” Carmichael said.

  “Not what it says on the papers on my desk,” Penn-Barkis said. “You have her in Watch custody, don’t you? Is she in the cells?”

  “No,” Carmichael said, flatly.

  “Well, do you know where she is, who she’s seeing?” Penn-Barkis asked impatiently.

  “I know exactly where she is. She has nothing to do with anything. I’m intending to release her from nominal custody today.” Bellingham, Carmichael wrote on his pad.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Penn-Barkis said. “Not while there’s a chance she’s important.”

  “It is the business of the Watch to take care of political—”

  “Allegations of corruption in the Watch are something we take very seriously in Scotland Yard’s role of watchdog on all Britain’s police forces, including the Watch,” Penn-Barkis interrupted. “And while we’re on the subject, there is also the matter of detainees escaping to Ireland, which some allege takes place with Watch connivance.”

  Carmichael ground his teeth. “You’re trying to push me beyond where I will go, sir,” he said. “There is no corruption in the Watch. Any occasional escapes of detainees, which do happen despite all we can do, are a red herring. We’re talking here about my ward. If I can’t protect my own people, what is my position worth?” I sold out my integrity for this, you bastard, he thought, at very least I should be able to protect those I care about.

  “No doubt you know best,” Penn-Barkis conceded. “But keep her in custody on the books, and do keep an eye on her. She seems to be caught up with some very funny people. Who are these Maynards? Why did she have pearls in her handbag anyway, rather than around her neck? It all looks suspicious. Watch corruption … well. The allegations have been made. We certainly can’t let you have the handbag back until we’re sure about her. And do let me know if you get any more on Bellingham.”

  “Certainly,” Carmichael said. “And you should know I’ll be speaking to Mr. Normanby about this.”

  “You do that,” Penn-Barkis agreed silkily.

  Carmichael put the phone down. As soon as the heavy black receiver was back on the cradle, he picked up the internal telephone. “Jacobson?” he said. “If you have a minute, could you get me a dossier on an Alan Bellingham, Baronet. Anything known, you know the drill. My ward knows him, and I’ve just had a tip-off that he might be one of the British Power boys. Also a friend of his called Sir Mortimer, surname not known, and Mr. and Mrs. Maynard of Belgravia.”

  “I’ll get someone on them right away,” Jacobson said. “Reports by Monday morning?”

  “The sooner the better,” Carmichael said.

  “While you’re on the line, what was that about the Duke of Windsor, sir?” Jacobson asked anxiously.

  “He’s in London. But we’re keeping a very close eye on him. Ogilvie’s putting a team on him, don’t worry. He won’t be able to sneeze without us hearing about it.”

  “Thank you. I’ll get the reports up to you as soon as possible, sir,” Jacobson said.

  Carmichael hung up, took one long breath looking at his Grimshaw print, thought about the papers and the BBC, and decided not to make any more calls until he had had another cup of tea.

  13

  The fittings took longer than any sensible person would believe possible. The dressmaker managed to simultaneously cluck over Betsy’s arm and reassure her that she’d be the most beautiful deb ever. Then she said the same thing to me, while sticking a pin into my hip and warning me not to do without my beauty sleep. I suppose I still wasn’t properly caught up after my night in the cells. Her assistants fussed around tacking on drapes of fabric. It took half the morning just getting the trains the right length. It would have been much quicker to have had them made in Paris when we were there anyway, but it wasn’t the done thing so naturally we hadn’t done it.

  We spent the afternoon resting and after dinner played checkers decorously with Mr. Maynard. Life seemed to be resuming its normal pattern.

  On Saturday morning, as I looked in vain for the Times on the breakfast table, I realized I hadn’t seen the papers for days. Usually Betsy and I skimmed the front page and looked at the society pages for pictures of ourselves or our friends “enjoying a joke” the night before. I sat down and buttered myself some chilly toast from the toast rack. I was alone in the breakfast room, save for the disapproving be-ruffed gaze of some Tudor Maynard ancestors. Mr. Maynard had finished eating already and left for whatever it was he did at his office. Mrs. Maynard never came down to breakfast, and Betsy was having a tray in her room. Goldfarb happened to pass through the dining room on his way to do something butlery and mysterious, so I asked him. “Where are the papers, Goldfarb?”

  He didn’t meet my eye. “I don’t think they have been delivered today, Miss Elvira.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “You’ll have to ask Madam about that,” he said, and glided off noiselessly on his errand. I stared after him in disgust and took the silver cover off the bacon dish.

  When I asked Betsy about it later she said that her parents were probably keeping the papers from us because they would be talking about the riot. It seemed quite unnecessary to me. I wanted the gossip pages, not the news. “Anything actually interesting will be in the Tatler on Wednesday,” Betsy said philosophically. “What can I possibly wear to the ball?”

  In the end she wore her blue backless dress, because it was sleeveless as well, which was necessary with her arm in a cast. Nanny insisted she wear her one kid glove on her other hand, and fussed and fussed over the flowers standing up in her hair. Red hair is so very difficult. Every time I saw Betsy going through this kind of thing I felt grateful for my own mousy locks. She ended up with two yellow carnations and a dog daisy. Her mother, fortunately, didn’t say a word about her choosing the seed pearl pendant. The backless dress made the most of her figure, and if it showed rather a lot of freckles, that couldn’t be helped. Anyway, the sling covered a lot of them.

  My own hair swept up rather nicely, for once, and I put one of Sir Alan’s pale pink roses in it, one the color of may blossom. I wore my cream silk Parisian dress and my lovely new pearls. I put talcum powder into Betsy’s single long glove, and both of mine, and helped her pull hers up. “Sometimes I think dressing to go out is the best part of the evening,” she said, frowning at herself critically in the long glass behind her bedroom door.

  “You’ll enjoy it once you get there, you won’t want to come home,” Nanny said, in exactly the tone she would have used to a four-year-old reluctant to go to a nursery party.

  I spent the early part of the evening rather
bored. Even though my season hadn’t formally begun, I’d already been to half a dozen balls since I came back from Switzerland. This was only to be expected, because thanks to Mrs. Maynard’s formal sponsorship, I was on the 1960 List. The balls were all very similar. They started with a dinner party—well, a number of dinner parties, really, groups of people going to the same ball who were dining together in tens and dozens. Dinner was either at the Maynards’ or at one of the other debs’ houses, or in one of what my father would have called the posh hotels—the Ritz, the Dorchester, Claridge’s, and so on. The good thing about this from our point of view was that the men who came to our dinner party were pretty much obliged to dance with us, which meant, at the beginning of the season when we didn’t know anyone, that our cards weren’t such an appalling blank as they otherwise would have been. I don’t know what the advantage was from the men’s point of view. A free dinner, I suppose. In Switzerland I read a German book about an anthropologist spending time with the Hottentots and observing their peculiar customs. I sometimes wondered, as I moved under the chandeliers of another ballroom, what a Hottentot observer would make of ours. I’d picture him sitting tucked up in the corner, black and nearly naked and with a bone through his nose, scribbling away in a notebook. Sometimes I wished he really was there so I could go up and talk to him. I felt that we’d have a lot in common. I didn’t really belong here either. I just had better camouflage.

  Anyway, after dinner we all went on to the ball, crammed four or five together in black taxis, trying hard not to crush our dresses, timing it carefully to arrive after it had properly started—nobody wanted to be first—but while the hostess was still receiving. Nobody wanted to be late, either. Later in the season Betsy and I would give our own ball, in the Maynards’ ballroom, which was being turned out for the purpose. Goldfarb, who had been with the Maynard family since before the War, said it hadn’t been used for a ball since Mr. Maynard’s youngest sister Diana came out in the glittering season of 1943. I was dreading it, especially standing there shaking everyone’s hand as they came in and having to remember all their names.