The woman spoke first: "Are you looking for someone, dear?"
"Sorry to butt in. Wanted to talk about becoming a subscriber to the theatre. Join the club."
"Why yes, of course. How nice," she said, getting up and walking over to him; "How very nice." She took his left hand in both her own and squeezed it, stepping back at the same time and extending her arms to their full length. It was. her chatelaine gesture — Lady Macbeth receives Duncan. She put her head on one side and smiled girlishly, retained his hand and led him across the stage to the opposite wing. A door led into a tiny office littered with old programmes and posters, greasepaint, false hair and tawdry pieces of nautical costume.
"Have you seen our panto this year? 'Treasure Island? Such a gratifying success. And so much more social content, don't you think, than those vulgar nursery tales?"
Mendel said: "Yes, wasn't it," without the least idea of what she was talking about when his eye caught a pile of bills rather' neatly assembled and held together by a bull-dog clip. The top one was made out to Mrs. Ludo Oriel and was four months overdue.
She was looking at him shrewdly through her glasses. She was small and dark, with lines on her neck and a great deal of make-up. The lines under her eyes had been levelled off with greasepaint but the effect had not lasted. She was wearing slacks and a chunky pullover liberally splashed with distemper. She smoked incessantly. Her mouth was very long, and as she held her cigarette in the middle of it in a direct line beneath her nose, her lips formed an exaggerated convex curve, distorting the lower half of her face and giving her an ill-tempered and impatient look. Mendel thought she would probably be difficult and clever. It was a relief to think she couldn't pay her bills.
"You do want to join the club, don't you?"
"No."
She suddenly flew into a rage. "If you're another bloody tradesman you can get out. I've said I'll pay and I will, just don't pester me. If you let people think I'm finished I will be and you'll be the losers, not me?"
"I'm not a creditor, Mrs. Oriel. I've come to offer you money?"
She was waiting.
"I'm a divorce agent. Rich client. Like to ask you a few questions. We're prepared to pay for your time?"
"Christ," she said with relief. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" They both laughed. Mendel put five pounds on top of the bills, counting them down.
"Now," said Mendel; "how do you keep your club subscription list? What are the benefits of joining?"
"Well, we have watery coffee on stage every morning at eleven sharp. Members of the club can mix with the cast during the break between rehearsals from 11.00 to 11.45. They pay for whatever they have, of course but entry is strictly limited to club members."
"Quite."
"That's probably the part that interests you. We seem to get nothing but pansies and nymphos In the morning?"
"It may be. What else goes on?"
"We put on a different show every fortnight. Members can reserve seats for a particular day of each run — the second Wednesday of each run, and so on. We always begin a run on the first and third Mondays of the month. The show begins at 7.30 and we hold the club reservations until 7.20. The girl at the box office has the seating plan and strikes off each seat as it's sold. Club reservations are marked in red and aren't sold off till last."
"I see. So if one of your members doesn't take his usual seat, it would be marked off on the seating plan?"
"Only if it's sold."
"Of course."
"We’re not ften full after the first week We're trying to do a show a week, you see, but it's not easy to get the — er — facilities. There isn't the support for two-week runs really."
''No, no, quite. Do you keep old seating plans?"
"Sometimes, for the accounts."'
"How about Tuesday the third of January?"
She opened a cupboard and took out a sheaf of printed seating plans. "This is the second fortnight of our pantomime, of course. Tradition."
"Quite," said Mendel.
"Now who is it you're so interested in?" asked Mrs. Oriel, picking up a ledger from the desk.
"Small blonde party, aged about forty-two or three. Name of Fennan, Elsa Fennan"
Mrs. Oriel opened her ledger. Mendel quite shamelessly looked over her shoulder. The names of club members were entered neatly in the left-hand column. A red tick on the extreme left of the page indicated that the member had paid his subscription. On the right-hand side of the page were notes of standing reservations made for the year. There were about eighty members.
"Name doesn't ring a bell. Where does she sit?"
"No idea." "Oh, yes, here we are. Merridale Lane, Walliston. Merridale! — I ask you. Let's look. A rear stall at the end of a row. Very odd choice, don't you think? Seat number R2. But God knows whether she took it on 3rd January. I shouldn't think we've got the plan any more, though I've never thrown anything away in my life. Things just evaporate, don't they?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering whether she'd earned her five pounds. "Tell you what, we'll ask the Virgin." She got up and walked to the door: "Fennan... Fennan ... :' she said. "Half a sec, that does ring a bell. I wonder why. Well I'm damned — of course — the music case:' She opened the door. "Where's the Virgin?" she said, talking to someone on the stage.
"God knows."
"Helpful pig," said Mrs. Oriel, and closed the door again. She turned to Mendel; "The Virgin's our white hope. English rose, local solicitor's stage-struck daughter, all lisle stockings and get-me-if-you-can. We loathe her. She gets a part occasionally because her father pays tuition fees. She does seating in the evenings sometimes when there's a rush — she and Mrs. Torr, the cleaner, who does cloaks. When things are quiet, Mrs. Torr does the whole thing and the Virgin mopes about in the wings hoping the female lead will drop dead:' She paused. "I'm damned sure I remember Fennan. Damn sure I do. I wonder where that cow is:' She disappeared for a couple of minutes and returned with a tall and rather pretty girl with fuzzy blonde hair and pink cheeks — good at tennis and swimming.
"This is Elizabeth Pidgeon. She may be able to help. Darling, we want to find out a Mrs. Fennan, a club member. Didn't you tell me something about her?"
"Oh, yes, Ludo," She must have thought she sounded sweet. She smiled vapidly at Mendel, put her head on one side and twined her fingers together. Mendel jerked his head towards her.
"Do you know her?" asked Mrs. Oriel.
"Oh yes, Ludo. She's madly musical; at least I think she must be because she always brings her music. She's madly thin and odd. She's foreign, isn't she, Ludo?"
"Why odd?" asked Mendel.
"Oh, well, last time she came she got in a frightful pet about the seat next to her. It was a club reservation you see and simply hours after twenty past. We'd just started the panto season and there were millions of people wanting seats so I let it go. She kept on saying she was sure the person would come because he always did:"
"Did he?" asked Mendel.
"No. I let the seat go. She must have been in an awful pet because she left after the second act, and forgot to collect her music case."
"This person she was so sure would turn up," said Mendel; "is he friendly with Mrs. Fennan?" Ludo Oriel gave Mendel a suggestive wink.
"Well, gosh, I should think so, he's her husband, isn't he?"
Mendel looked at her for a minute and then smiled: "Couldn't we find a chair for Elizabeth?" he said.
"Gosh, thanks," said the Virgin, and sat on the edge of an old gilt chair like the prompter's chair in the wings. She put her red, fat hands on her knees and leaned forward, smiling all the time, thrilled to be the centre of so much interest. Mrs. Oriel looked at her venomously.
"What makes you think he was her husband, Elizabeth?" There was an edge to his voice which had not been there before.
"Well, I know they arrive separately, but I thought that as they had seats apart from the rest of the club reservations, they must be husband and wife. And of course h
e always brings a music case too?"
"I see. What else can you remember about that evening, Elizabeth?"
"Oh, well, lots really because you see I felt awful about her leaving in such a pet and then later that night she rang up. Mrs. Fennan did, I mean. She said her name and said she'd left early and forgotten her music case. She'd lost the ticket for it, too, and was in a frightful state. It sounded as if she was crying. I heard someone's voice in the background, and then she said someone would drop in and get it if that would be all right without the ticket. I said of course and half an hour later the man came. He's rather super. Tall and fair."
"I see" said Mendel; "thank you very much, Elizabeth,, you've been very help fuI."
"Gosh, that's O.K." She got up.
"Incidentally", said Mendel. "This man who collected her music case — he wasn’t by any chance the same man who sits beside her in the theatre, was he?"
"Rather. Gosh, sorry, I should have said that."
"Did you talk to him?"
"Well, just to say here you are, sort of thing:
"What kind of voice had he?"
"Oh, foreign, like Mrs. Ferman's — she is foreign, isn't she? That's what I put it down to — all her fuss and state — foreign temperament."
She smiled at Mendel, waited a moment then walked out like Alice.
"Cow," said Mrs. Oriel, looking at the closed door. Her eyes turned to Mendel. "Well, I hope you've got your five quids' worth."
"I think so," said Mendel.
XI
The Unrespectable Club
Mendel found Smiley sitting in an armchair fully dressed. Peter Guillam was stretched luxuriously on the bed, a pale green folder held casually in his hand. Outside, the sky was black and menacing.
"Enter the third murderer," said Guillam as Mendel walked in. Mendel sat down at the end of the bed and nodded happily to Smiley, who looked pale and depressed.
"Congratulations. Nice to see you on your feet."
"Thank you. I'm afraid if you did see me on my feet you wouldn't congratulate me. I feel as weak as a kitten."
"When are they letting you go?"
"I don't know when they expect me to go —"
"Haven't you asked?"
"No."
"Well, you'd better. I've got news for you. I don't know what it means but it means something."
"Well, well," said Guillam; "everyone's got news for everyone else. Isn't that exciting. George has been looking at my family snaps" — he raised the green folder a fraction of an inch — "and recognises all his old chums."
Mendel felt baffled and rather left out of things. Smiley intervened: "I'll tell you all about it over dinner tomorrow evening. I'm getting out of here in the morning, whatever they say. I think we've found the murderer and a lot more besides. Now let's have your news:' There was no triumph in his eyes. Only anxiety.
Membership of the club to which Smiley belonged is not quoted among the respectable acquisitions of those who adorn the pages of "Who's Who:" It was formed by a young renegade of the Junior Carlton named Steed- Asprey, who had been warned off by the Secretary for blaspheming within the hearing of a South African bishop. He persuaded his former Oxford landlady to leave her quiet house in Hollywell and take over two rooms and a cellar in Manchester Square which a monied relative put at his disposal. It had once had forty members who each paid fifty guineas a year. There were thirty-one left. There were no women and no rules, no secretary and no bishops. You could take sandwiches and buy a bottle of beer, you could take sandwiches and buy nothing at all. As long as you were reasonably sober and minded your own busi ness no one gave twopence what you wore, did or said, or whom you brought with you. Mrs. Sturgeon no longer devilled at the bar, or brought you your chop in front of the fire in the cellar, but presided in genial comfort over the ministrations of two retired sergeants from a small border regiment.
Naturally enough, most of the members were approximate contemporaries of Smiley at Oxford. It had always been agreed that the club was to serve one generation only, that it would grow old and die with its members. The war had taken its toll of Jebedee and others, but no one had ever suggested they should elect new members. Besides, the premises were now their own, Mrs. Sturgeon's future had been taken care of and the club was solvent.
It was a Saturday evening and only half a dozen people were there. Smiley had ordered their meal, and a table was set for them in the cellar, where a bright coal fire burned 1n. a brick hearth. They were alone, there was Sirloin and claret; outside the rain fell continuously For all three of them the world seemed an untroubled and decent place that night, despite the strange business that brought them together.
"To make sense of what I have to tell you," began Smiley at last, addressing himself principally to Mendel, "I shall have to talk at length about myself I'm an intelligence officer by trade as you know — I've been in the Service since the Flood, long before we were mixed up in power politics with Whitehall. In those days we were understaffed and underpaid. After the usual training and probation in South America and Central Europe, I took a job lecturing at a German University, talent spotting for young Germans with an agent potential." He paused, smiled at Mendel and said: "Forgive the jargon." Mendel nodded solemnly and Smiley went on. He knew he was being pompous, and didn't know how to prevent himself.
"It was shortly before the last war, a terrible time in Germany then, intolerance run mad. I would have been a lunatic to approach anyone myself. My only chance was to be as nondescript as I could, politically and socially colourless, and to put forward candidates for recruitment by someone else. I tried to bring some back to England for short periods on students' tours. I made a point of having no contact at all with the Department when I came over because we hadn't any idea in those days of the efficiency of German Counter Intelligence. I never knew who was approached, and of course it was much better that way. In case I was blown, I mean.
"My story really begins in 1938. I was alone in my rooms one summer evening. It had been a beautiful day, warm and peaceful. Fascism might never have been heard of. I was working in my shirt sleeves at a desk by my window, not working very hard because it was such a wonderful evening."’
He paused, embarrassed for some reason, and fussed a little with the port. Two pink spots appeared high on his cheeks. He felt slightly drunk though he had had very little wine.
"To resume;" he said, and felt an ass: "I'm sorry, I feel a little inarticulate ... Anyway, as I sat there, there was a knock on the door and a young student came in. He was nineteen, in fact, but he looked younger. His name was Dieter Frey. He was a pupil of mine, an intelligent boy and remarkable to look at?" Smiley paused again, staring before him. Perhaps it was his illness, his weakness, which brought the memory so vividly before him.
"Dieter was a very handsome boy, with a high forehead and a lot of unruly black hair. The lower part of his body was deformed, I think by infantile paralysis. He carried a stick and leaned heavily upon it when he walked. Naturally he cut a rather romantic figure at a small university; they thought him Byronic and so on. In fact I could never find him romantic myself. The Germans have a passion for discovering young genius, you know, from Herder to Stefan George — somebody lionised them practically from the cradle. But you couldn't lionise Dieter. There was a fierce independence, a ruthlessness about him which scared off the most determined patron. This defensiveness in Dieter derived not only from his deformity, but his race, which was Jewish. How on earth he kept his place at University I could never understand. It was possible that they didn't know he was a Jew — his beauty might have been southern, I suppose, Italian, but I don't really see how. To me he was obviously Jewish."
"Dieter was a socialist. He made no secret of his views even in those days. I once considered him for recruitment, but it seemed futile to take on anyone who was so obviously earmarked for concentration camp. Besides he was too volatile, too swift to react, too brightly painted, too vam. He led all the societies at the University
— debating, political, poetry and so on. In all the athletic guilds he held honorary positions. He had the nerve not to drink in a University where you proved your manhood by being drunk most of your first year."
"That was Dieter, then: a tall, handsome, commanding cripple, the idol of his generation; a Jew. And that was the man who came to see me that hot summer evening."
"I sat him down and offered him a drink, which he refused. I made some coffee, I think, on a gas ring. We spoke in a desultory way about my last lecture on Keats. I had complained about the application of German critical methods to English poetry, and this had led to some discussion — as usual — on the Nazi interpretation of 'decadence' in art. Dieter dragged it all up again and became more and more outspoken in his condemnation of modern Germany and finally of Nazism itself. Naturally, I was guarded — I think I was less of a fool in those days than I am now. In the end he asked me point blank what I thought of the Nazis. I replied rather pointedly that I was disinclined to criticise my hosts, and that anyway I didn't think politics were much fun. I shall never forget his reply. He was furious, struggled to his feet and shouted at me: 'Von Freude ist nicht die Rede!' — 'We're not talking about fun!'" Smiley broke off and looked across the table to Guillam: "I'm sorry Peter, I'm being rather long-winded"
"Nonsense, old dear. You tell the story in your own way." Mendel grunted his approval; he was sitting rather stiffly with both hands on the table before him. There was no light in the room now except the bright glow of the fire, which threw tall shadows on the rough-cast wall behind them. The port decanter was three parts empty; Smiley gave himself a little and passed it on.
"He raved at me. He simply did not understand how I could apply an independent standard of criticism to art and remain so insensitive to politics, how I could bleat about artistic freedom when a third of Europe was in chains. Did it mean nothing to me that contemporary civilisation was being bled to death? What was so sacred about the eighteenth century that I could throw the twentieth away? He had come to me because he enjoyed my seminars and thought me an enlightened man, but he now realised that I was worse than all of them."
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