The Department of Dead Ends

by Roy Vickers

  At Oxford, the following evening, Haddenham burst into Stentoller’s room.

  ‘I say, Stentoller! Perfectly splendid news! I know you’ll be pleased! I needn’t say anything at the Radder dinner after all. Apparently, that bank manager was getting over a thick night when he was so gloomy about those death duties.…’

  There was a joyous fantasy on the habits of bank managers. But, again, there was nothing more about the Radlington Club.

  Chapter Three

  Cuthbert Stentoller’s marriage to the daughter of one of the youngest High Court judges neither advanced nor retarded his progress to the inner core, which did not concern itself with the judiciary. For the next ten years he absorbed himself in business and family life, while keeping his eyes open. One year, to please his wife, he was seen in the royal enclosure at Ascot.

  As his father had warned him, this was a waste of energy. The inner core would attend Levees, Drawing-Rooms, and State ceremonies, but had no interest in the fashion-paper aspect of royalty, which to them was purely an Office of State. Without leaders, without tangible organization, without policy except the preservation of Britain, they held aloof from domestic politics, ignored elections, but subtly coiled themselves round Governments in being.

  He discovered that the equivalent of the Radlington was the Terracotta Club. It was housed in a rather dingy building off Whitehall. The servants, like most of the members, were appointed on the hereditary principle and were never discharged except for larceny which, in effect, never occurred. The fashionable world of spenders had scarcely heard of it and none had ever entered it, for it admitted no guests. But the Chancelleries of Europe knew all about it.

  Stentoller intended to become a member. This time he would make no mistakes. He reckoned that it might take him twenty years to procure an invitation to join. Actually, it took twenty-three years of strenuous and successful living, unobtrusively observed and as unobtrusively approved by the inner core.

  On the death of his father, he had sold the family mansion on the fringe of the City, already surrounded by offices, and transferred the furniture to a modern house, with a hundred acres of land, in the Surrey hills, some forty miles out of London. He sold a corner of this to Weslake, a young baronet in the Guards who was a member of the Terracotta. He also arranged for the building of a house for him. But he did not ask how one became a member of the Terracotta Club, because he knew.

  Haddenham, who had gone into the Diplomatic Service and was nearly always abroad, kept the friendship in being and never missed seeing him when on leave. He had married about the same time. His wife had enough money for them to live without anxiety, but not enough to keep up Haddenham Castle, which was let on long lease.

  ‘It would be an odd twist,’ remarked Stentoller at one of their reunion dinners, ‘if your youngster and mine were to take a fancy to each other later on.’

  ‘Yes rather! Nothing I should like better!’ returned Haddenham, but Stentoller knew that he did not mean it.

  Yet it happened ten years later, after the youngsters had been thrown together during a fortnight’s holiday on the Riviera. Stentoller had remained at home. His wife had barely told him her suspicions before Derek Hendon himself turned up.

  ‘I say, sir! I want to marry Gwen. She said I must ask you. Is it okay?’

  ‘For a budding diplomat, young man, your approach is somewhat direct,’ smiled Stentoller. ‘Adverting to your question, I have pleasure in announcing on behalf of her mother and myself that it is eminently – er – okay by us.’ A moment later he asked: ‘I take it you have consulted your father?’

  ‘Consult him, sir? He won’t need consulting. He’ll whoop, when he gets my cable to-morrow.’

  Events in the life of Cuthbert Stentoller began to gallop. After dinner, his neighbour, Weslake, turned up on his way home. When Derek Hendon had been congratulated, the two elders drifted to the study.

  ‘They’ve dipped in the lucky bag and pulled me out for a Foreign Office job in Turkey,’ said Weslake. ‘That means a year out there, beginning on the twelfth. There’s a Levee on the tenth, so I shall go by air. Had a sort of farewell lunch at the Terracotta. A lot of fellers you know were present.’ He named them and became so discursive that Stentoller’s pulse quickened. Twenty-three years he had waited for this moment.

  ‘I wonder, Stentoller, if you’d care to join the Terracotta? I’d be glad to put you up, and Tharme would second you.’ Presently Weslake was explaining: ‘There’s a committee meeting after the Levee on the tenth. I’m not on the committee, but Tharme is. They’ll probably write you the same day.’

  So it was a foregone conclusion! They had talked it over and agreed to accept him. Weslake was chattering about Turkey, in no hurry to go. The Terracotta at last! His marriage had staled after five years, and he was aware that his wife had hoped for a divorce; but she knew about the Terracotta, though he had never mentioned it. God, she was a good woman! Weslake was gaping at the showcase.

  ‘A lot of interesting things you’ve got here, Stentoller. I suppose they all have a history.’

  ‘I’ll show you something,’ said Stentoller, to break his own absorption in the Terracotta. He opened the case and took out the gold snuff-box.

  ‘Is that the Haddenham snuff-box mentioned in Kyle’s Life of George IV? – “I pledge the King’s honour on the King’s gift”? But, of course, I see it is!’

  ‘I shall celebrate Gwen’s engagement by solemnly handing that to Haddenham next time I see him,’ said Stentoller – a flourish which, indirectly, hanged him.

  Gwen was a willowy blonde, springy and vital, with her share of the Stentoller sternness behind a mask of modernity – nearly everything he had wanted her to be. He meant to say something impressive to her but funked it at the last moment.

  ‘Rushing away from your ageing parents at the first opportunity? Nasty bit o’ work, darling, aren’t you!’

  ‘It’s not the first opportunity! Daddy, you do like him, don’t you!’

  ‘Very much! But d’you think you’re going to like stooging around one Embassy after another?’

  ‘I shall love it. But I’m weak in Italian and German – get me a couple of good crammers, please. And when we’re in England I wonder whether you’d let us have the cottage. Mother said the other day she wished you’d get rid of it.’

  Here was the chance to say something impressive.

  ‘When you’re in England, I’ll let you have Haddenham Castle.’

  ‘But you can’t! There’s a tenant there for years yet.’

  ‘I know. But I’m going to make friends with the tenant.’

  ‘But we shan’t really need the Castle till he’s an ambassador.’ She looked up at him gravely. ‘Daddy, you aren’t going berserk, are you?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting all my life to go berserk. Now run off to bed, miss! I want to talk to your mother before she turns in.’

  His wife had expected him and was pottering about her room – a severe room dominated by a large picture of Notre Dame.

  ‘It’s what you wanted, Cuthbert, isn’t it!’ Her smile was ambiguous. ‘I don’t think he has said a word to his father. If Lady Haddenham were alive she might have made difficulties. She was very old-fashioned.’

  They exchanged platitudes about the engagement. A stiff and pointless conversation – irritating, too, because he had not come to talk about Gwen, as there was nothing that need be said.

  ‘Did you know, Hilda, that I – had a sort of idea once that I might join the Terracotta?’

  ‘I’ve known for years.’ She caught her breath. ‘Weslake – in the study to-night? Did he –?’

  ‘Yes. There were a lot of them there to-day and they talked it over. He’s proposing, and Lord Tharme is seconding. Tharme is on the committee.’

  ‘Oh, Cuthbert, I am so glad!’ He had not guessed that she would take it like that. She was holding him, and he could tell from her voice that she was crying. ‘Then our marriage hasn’t been – such an awful
failure, after all – has it!’

  Chapter Four

  If Haddenham did not whoop, he did send a cordial cable, followed by a letter saying he would be in London for the Levee on the tenth, and that they must dine at the Varsity, to which they both belonged, as did Weslake. In those days it had massive premises in a cul-de-sac off Piccadilly giving on to a slip-gate into the Green Park.

  Haddenham had aged more than Stentoller. He had become a tubby little man, bald, with a long, stringy throat. He had held ambassadorial rank for five years without being affected with pomposity, for he was as unimpressed with his own position as he was with that of any man. He had the air, typical of his caste, of amiable omnipotence, the air that could make kings and communists feel self-conscious and apologetic, ready to be flattered into obedience.

  ‘I say, Stentoller!’ He shook hands with something approaching genius. ‘D’you realize that, all being well, we’re within measurable distance of being grandfathers! I still think of you as a rather grubby little fag trying to clean out Ellerson’s study and making it a darned sight dustier than it was.’

  That was the keynote of their conversation during dinner. Stentoller steered from reminiscence to the dynamic present.

  ‘I say, Hendon! Have you ever heard of your great-grandfather’s snuff-box?’

  ‘Rather! Brought up on the legend. “Your words, Mr Stentoller, touch the edge of treason” – By Jove, it never occurred to me that must mean you!’

  ‘I have the snuff-box here!’ said Stentoller. ‘As our families are to be linked, I want you to take it back. I – dammit, I’ve left it in my overcoat! I’ll go and get it.’

  ‘Thanks most awfully! But don’t bother now, old man. When we go down will do. We’ve got to talk about the youngsters. I can’t give Derek more than the five hundred a year he’s getting now.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I shall make a settlement on Gwen. In the meantime, I’ve bought the lease of Haddenham Castle – the tenant has contracted to vacate at three months’ notice. I shall give the lease to Derek for a wedding-present.’

  ‘My dear old boy, you take my breath away! I never expected we’d be back in my lifetime. The youngsters’ll probably let me have the Chichester Wing when I retire.’

  ‘It’ll make a foothold for them when they’re in England.’

  ‘Ah, I was coming to that! I think that, in view of the very happy change in Derek’s circumstances, he would be well advised to transfer to the Foreign Office – and be employed permanently at home – drop the Diplomatic branch altogether.’

  Stentoller felt himself bristling, for reasons he did not yet understand.

  ‘Gwen will be disappointed, Hendon. She’s already cramming Italian and German – she’s practically bilingual in French. She’s looking forward to doing a round of the embassies. Means to make him an ambassador, like his father, eh!’

  A minute twitch of the other’s eyebrow reminded Stentoller that members of the inner core never acknowledge personal ambition. He had said the wrong thing.

  ‘If she’s looking forward to being the wife of a diplomat, it’s because the dear girl doesn’t know what she’s letting herself in for. Nor does Derek, yet. The romance of it is pure nonsense. It’s deadly dull for the first fifteen or twenty years. And very parochial. You dovetail work and play inside a very small circle, who are nearly all your relations, or your wife’s relations, or relations of relations.’

  So that was it! Relations again! But he was no longer an undergraduate to be frightened by the implications of that word. Anger was slowly mounting – checked by the chief steward approaching Haddenham.

  ‘Telephone message from Colonel Hallingburn, my lord. Can you spare him half an hour?’

  ‘Thanks. Don’t call me a taxi – it’s quicker to slip through the Park.’

  Stentoller knew, as well as the chief steward, that this was a summons to report at the Palace.

  ‘I expect They want a first hand account of that Bulgarian hullabaloo,’ said Haddenham, rising. ‘But Their half an hour means just thirty minutes. I’m coming back here to collect that snuff-box from you, if you’re still here. Lord, what a day! Arrived by air at breakfast time. Reported to the Cabinet at ten: a Levee at eleven, followed by a stand-up lunch. And then a committee meeting at the Terracotta!’

  Stentoller felt as if an ice block were pressing on his chest. But he managed to speak before the other had moved out of earshot.

  ‘Did you sit at a committee meeting of the Terracotta this afternoon?’

  Haddenham turned back. His face looked drawn – and sad – and he was groping for words.

  ‘Stentoller, old man, I’m sorry – very sorry indeed – that you did not consult me before letting Weslake and Tharme propose you.’

  ‘Why, Hendon?’

  ‘I must go – They mustn’t be kept waiting. We’ll talk when I come back.’

  Blackballed, obviously!

  Control was in danger of slipping. He tried to will himself back to the moment before this moment of disaster – which his imagination was refusing to accept. He told himself that the ambition of twenty-three years had been shattered. But he was actually thinking of Hilda clinging to him, crying with happiness because her faithfulness had been rewarded with his success. He did not see how he could live that down. For the first time he experienced the suicide impulse.

  Suddenly, all emotion left him. He felt as he had once felt after drinking an excessive amount of old brandy – cool, clear-headed, and determined in the pursuit of some purpose which was unknown to him.

  He was certain that it was Haddenham himself who had blackballed him. Because long ago at Oxford he had tried to lever himself into the Radlington, thereby proving that he lacked the self-effacement required of the inner core.

  ‘I must keep faith with Haddenham. Give him his snuff-box before I demand a showdown.’ He had always thought it a little ungentlemanly of his own great-grandfather to retain that snuff-box.

  That dangerous mood would have passed without doing any material harm, had not the malignant fates chosen to thrust a sword into his hand – a sword, in all preposterous literality!

  He could not breathe easily in the club. He could wait for Haddenham by the slip-gate into the Park. As he approached the cloakroom he heard the voice of Weslake protesting to the attendant.

  ‘But what the dickens am I to do with it? I’m leaving the country by air at seven to-morrow. I’ll have to cable my wife to call here for it. Oh, hullo, Stentoller! Look here – I changed here for the Levee and my batman packed the sword under the straps of the Gladstone because it wouldn’t go inside. And the railway people have sent it back because in law it’s a lethal weapon. A dress sword a lethal weapon! It couldn’t cut a loaf of bread, and the point is about as sharp as the point of an umbrella.’

  ‘Give to to me!’ Stentoller spoke automatically out of the cold, white haze. ‘I’ll take it, and give it to Lady Weslake in the morning.’

  While Weslake was gratefully accepting, Stentoller reclaimed his coat. In the hall, he took the sword from Weslake. The belt, in girdle form, dangled awkwardly.

  ‘I can slip that off and roll it up,’ said Weslake. ‘I don’t know whether you’ve room for it in your overcoat?’

  There was a book in one pocket and the gold snuff-box in the other. Stentoller transferred the snuff-box to the breast pocket.

  ‘Oh! That’s the Haddenham one, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But Haddenham slipped off before I could give it to him.’

  Farewells and good wishes, while Stentoller wondered why Gwen’s relations should prevent Derek from being a diplomat. But he knew the answer.

  Gripping, in mid-scabbard, the sword of the Order of St Severell of Antioch, supplied by the tailor who made the robes, he left the club, entered the Park by the slip-gate that gave on to the narrow tree-lined path.

  It was little used as a thoroughfare and there were no seats for lovers. Moonlight shone intermittently through wind-driven clouds.


  What a lot of nonsense his father had talked about the inner core! They hadn’t been able to stop the South African war. They had failed to handle the Kaiser in 1914, and now they were cold-shouldering Churchill and letting the Premier grovel to Hitler and Mussolini, to say nothing of the Japanese. The ‘real people’ indeed! As if they were some special kind of human being! The Americans had taped them a hundred and fifty years ago. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal –’ Nothing there about a man’s relations –

  ‘I say, Stentoller!’ Haddenham’s voice broke the interlude of reverie. ‘Aren’t you cold waiting out here?’

  ‘I’ve got your snuff-box. You said you would accept it.’

  ‘Oh – thanks most awfully!’ Haddenham put it in his pocket. ‘Shall we go back to the Club?’

  ‘Hendon, did you blackball me at the Terracotta?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to ask that sort of question. The voting is secret.’

  The moonlight illumined a scowl on Haddenham’s face, illumined his long, stringy throat.

  Chapter Five

  The point of the sword might be little sharper than that of an umbrella: indeed, the police thought at first that an umbrella had been used – one of the thin, expensive kind, having a steel shaft – by a man who had been taught how to put weight behind a lunge.

  When Haddenham was dead, Stentoller wiped the blade on the bordering grass and returned it to its scabbard. He strode back through the slip-gate to the car park on the other side of Piccadilly.

  When he arrived home, shortly after midnight, his wife and daughter had gone to bed. He took the sword to his room. He drew the blade, noticed that it was stiff in the scabbard. He held it to the light at arm’s length. It was slightly bent. Better not try to correct it – it was a wonder the blade had not snapped. These tailor’s blades were made of some inferior alloy, plated over. Although it appeared to be clean, he rinsed and dried it.