The Case of the 'Hail Mary' Celeste

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘They were, Cheadle.’ He gave me a sharp stare and suddenly looked relieved. He hadn’t been wrong. Those days at Barmouth as children had been grand.

  ‘But who could have been telling tales on you?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘Not Apsley?’

  ‘Who else? Who else in the world would care enough? He wanted me back. He needed me.’

  ‘What a rotten, rotten bloody scoundrel!’

  ‘He’s the unhappiest man I ever met. You know what he wanted, don’t you?’

  ‘I think I would rather you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘It’s not what you imagine. He wanted me to hold him and say, “There, there . . .”’

  ‘There, there?’

  ‘Does it surprise you?’

  ‘Of course it does. Lord Apsley, the hero of Elandslaagte. He would have had you shot for saying something like that.’

  ‘That’s how it works, isn’t it? The mind.’

  ‘I don’t pretend to know how the mind works. The stuff I’ve heard, about these analyst chaps . . . sounds like mumbo jumbo to me.’

  ‘I expect most of it is. But some things you see for yourself in life. We hate in others the faults we deny in ourselves. Those analyst chaps have a word for it, but I can’t remember what it is. It hardly matters.’

  ‘Why then, after all that, did you go back to him?’

  ‘Because I am a coward. Always was.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I didn’t go back, he was going to tell the Dingleman about Tumby. Dingleman always swore he would kill the real culprit if he ever found out who it was. He made a promise to Magdalena. As I said, I’m a coward.’

  ‘But the Dingleman knew about Tumby. He knew it was you who stole the money.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I saw him before I came here. He told me to tell you. I think he’s always known.’

  He nodded slowly, as if this crowning irony was no more than he deserved. ‘As I said, Jack, I’m a coward. I used to envy Cadbury so much. He wasn’t scared of anything.’

  ‘You were what you were. You didn’t choose it, no more than Cadbury chose to be fearless.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. We don’t choose to be the way we are. But there are times in life when we can choose. You now, Jack. Think on what I have told you. We had a lovely time at Ilfracombe. We stayed a week, but my only regret is we didn’t stay a month.’

  ‘Cheadle, how can I find Room 42?’

  ‘Not easily, Jack. In the old days it was easy. They used to wear plumed hats and big fat jewels to help you. They turned up on your wedding day and debauched your bride. If they didn’t like you they took you to the Tower. They left you in no doubt. But they are smarter now, more subtle. They don’t advertise. They are sly and conceal the vulgarity of their power behind a facade of stupefying dullness.’

  ‘But the . . . the wickedness of it.’

  ‘No, they are not even wicked. They don’t have the passion for it.’

  ‘If they are so powerful, what are they afraid of?’

  ‘You, Jack. And me. People. They are afraid of the common folk.’

  THE BOY’S OWN RAILWAY GOSLING ANNUAL

  Vol.VII 1931 Price: 1/-

  Replies to our readers’ letters

  S. MARIGOLD, TAUNTON—There are no recorded instances of a cow flying through the air after having been hit by an express train.

  FRUSTRATED, ST IVES—Wouldn’t it be better to follow the example set by our Lord and forgive him? He is only eight.

  THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF RAILWAY GOSLING CADBURY HOLT – ON THE TRAIL OF THE MISSING NUNS!

  Through the Land of the Giants

  There were five porters ahead of me and five behind and each was laden with a basket on his head, except the one immediately behind me who held a spear pointed at my kidneys. The baskets contained gifts, and goods to exchange for the supplies that we would need. I carried the box containing the Chief’s tribute. It gave off an odour of carrion and by noon of the first day had turned black with flies.

  There was no attempt made to catch game along the track. Instead we ate dried unleavened breads and strips of cured meat that they assured me through a series of preposterous mime displays was monkey; but yet I declined because of a presentiment deep within my bowels that it may have been the forbidden flesh of that particular breed of ape that the natives call ‘monkey who wears a hat’. I discovered later that there was a reason for not stopping to hunt. The bearers were most anxious to complete the journey as soon as possible as they were all mortally afraid of Mama !Mkuu. Most of the time the forest canopy closed above our heads, cutting off the light and making our world as gloomy as a coal mine. But occasionally we would enter an area less densely entangled and lo! The mountains would loom above us, impossibly high, pale green in hue and snow-capped.

  Behind us the forest retreated until we could turn and look out upon a carpet of green stretching for hundreds of miles and from which no individual tree could any longer be distinguished. The River Pishon glinted like pewter in the green, and as the afternoon faded and the sun began to wane, this colour brightened to liquid silver. It began to grow chilly. As we climbed, the wall of the mountain grew sheer and a stone staircase began to traverse its face, moving horizontally. The sky blushed and ravished our hearts with a rose garden in the clouds, just as we arrived at a door in the edge of our world and which the very sun begged us to desist from entering. From a distance I had assumed it to be a rock outcrop but, as we approached, the brooding dark resolved itself into twin effigies of giant faces set in the towers overseeing an entrance into the mountain. The faces had the ancient haunting quality of those one finds in the postcards travellers send from Easter Island, or in the Sumerian friezes at the British Museum. The lips were carved into a snarl betokening their haughty contempt for us feeble leprechaun invaders; but mostly was my heart abashed by the cold obsidian of their eyes. They seemed to contain within their dark pools the cruel certainty of those lost giants that we were unworthy vermin and our tiny hearts would be crushed by the unbearable secrets and wonders contained in the world to which we insisted on travelling against all sensible advice; crushed as the Soley-Soley moth beneath the elephant’s foot. We passed the gate; our hearts quailed and the very core of our being was sickened with presentiments too heavy for mortal flesh to bear. We passed into a tunnel that had been bored through the face of the mountain. The tunnel was dark, sporadically illuminated by the flickering light of torches set in the wall. The air was thick with the reek of burning pitch. The light of the torches writhed like drunken plague victims in the dance of death, and the wall sparkled, returning the reflex of the flames from mirrors that I knew with rising terror were human eyes lodged in a thousand faces belonging to a thousand heads, spitted on pikes set in the walls, and which lined the way like a procession of sightseers at the Devil’s Coronation. This was the work, they said, of Mama !Mkuu.

  Chapter 18

  As I walked through town Cheadle’s words echoed in my mind like footsteps in a long corridor. They are afraid of the common folk. I now knew what I had to do. I would need to return to the station to fetch the implement that would be the undoing of the people from Room 42: my Great Western fireman’s shovel. There were not many folk about, it was still early, but those that I saw seemed already possessed of the anticipation that builds on new year’s eve. The ringing of bells heralded the arrival of a fire engine. It raced past me. I looked up and saw smoke above the rooftops, coming from the direction of the town square. People began to move in that general direction. Even before I reached the square I could feel the warmth. Mr Dombey’s shop was ablaze, fiercely so. Orange and yellow flames roared from the window, like rivers of fire disappearing upwards into the night. I stood behind the lines of people gathered to watch, held back by the heat. The firemen stood far back too, aiming their hoses at the flames but unable to enter. Inside, a black timber crashed down, throwing off showers of sparks. A wooden framed building
filled with dust-dry books, there was no way to stop it. A man in front of me explained to the new arrivals: the owner was dead, they took him out in an ambulance earlier, before the blaze fully took hold. Overcome by the smoke. It seemed a fitting end for the shop that had printed the missing Gosling annual, on this the last night in existence of the Great Western Railway. I was sick at heart and weary. When I retrieved the shovel from my office I found also a telegram slipped under the door. It was from Hershey Lindt.

  HAVE NEWS THAT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE STOP ARRIVING BRISTOL 31 DEC SHIP KOWLOON STAR STOP CABOT WHARF BERTH 5 STOP MEET AT SEAMAN’S MISSION 10.25PM STOP WILL WAIT 30 MIN NO MORE STOP

  I glanced at the clock. It was just after ten. There was a train to Bristol this evening at six which would arrive at 10.05. The train to Chirk took an hour and twenty. The walk to Povington Priory about a quarter of an hour. This should give me more than enough time to get there and back in time for the evening train to Bristol. It would depend on how long I spent at the priory. But how long does a man need to dig up a grave?

  It was foggy as I alighted from the train at Chirk, a cold clammy veil that contained pinpricks of water which the wind puffed into my face, like those greenfly sprays that lie on the potting-shed table. There were probably a thousand other men carrying a shovel that afternoon on the eve of new year, but I felt as if the whole world could see into my heart and discern my terrible purpose. The walk from Chirk railway station to the priory seemed much longer this time. There was no soul about, and no owl hooted to mock me. I stood at the grave’s edge, stared down and slammed the shovel into the earth. To the layman, a shovel is a shovel, but not to the fireman who wields it. The GWR shovel is considered to be the best, even by the men from the other companies . . . The blade sliced into the earth. I put my foot on it and pressed my weight down. I levered the handle and forced the clay apart. The shovel fell again. I dug. Before long the metal hit wood. Ten minutes later and sufficient soil had been removed. I stepped down and knelt on the coffin. The wood was wet and spongy, rotten. It did not put up much resistance. I pulled pieces away to make a hole; it was no more difficult to break apart than the crust of a meat pie. A smell rose up, similar to the smell from a sack of potatoes that has lain at the back of a garden shed, in which the potatoes have been consumed by a white rot. I clicked on my torch light and trained the beam down into the hole. It gleamed on bone. Yellow. The thin eggshell of a nasal cavity. Darkness either side. Below that the gleaming grin of teeth. And before the teeth, five grey twigs pressed against another five twigs; these were her fingers pressed together in prayer. Her wrists were enclosed by metal bracelets that were joined by a chain. Shackles. They glimmered in the light of my torch. The metal was darkened with a bloom that was familiar to a man who had worked on the footplate of a steam engine. The metal had been scorched. They are afraid of the common folk, Cheadle had said. And what of me? Had I become a Jacobin?

  A voice broke the silence with an insolence that I recognised. ‘Are you having a nice dig?’

  I turned. It was the boy, Mr Young, who appeared in my office the day after Jenny came, and whom I had threatened to hit with the shovel I was now holding.

  ‘This is a revolver, in case you were wondering.’ He wiggled his hand and the barrel of his pistol sparkled. ‘I seldom get a chance to use it, so bear that in mind.’

  ‘Is that your way of saying you would like to use it?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Have you ever shot a man? I can tell that you haven’t.’

  ‘Well, there’s always a first time, and I doubt I will have many opportunities as good as this. You are trespassing on Army land, probably a spy I shouldn’t wonder. There would be very little paperwork. Maybe none.’

  ‘You’ve chosen a good spot for it.’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite a popular place for getting rid of nosy parkers.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Turn round and walk towards the gate. I will be right behind, hoping you give me a good reason to shoot.’

  I did as I was told. At the gate he directed me right and past the great hall on to the main thoroughfare. I walked slowly up the road, wondering if there was any point in running. We passed the ruined post office and came to what had once been a village hall. A seal grey Morris 1000 was parked outside. There was music from within. I paused at the threshold and the boy gave me an encouraging prod in the back with his revolver. I pushed the door open and walked in. The room was mostly bare. Some paper decorations hung from the light fittings, paper chains in a gaudy rainbow. A trestle table was laid along one wall. It was covered in a festive paper tablecloth and the remains of a small buffet; there were sandwiches and cake and jelly, and some white paper plates. A gramophone record was playing, a voice crooning ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. Chairs were stacked against the opposite wall and five of them were gathered in front of the buffet table, around an upturned tea chest that acted as a table. Somehow it accentuated the emptiness of the hall. Mr Old sat on a chair, smoking a cigarette. ‘This is a pleasant surprise,’ he said.

  ‘I found him doing some gardening,’ said Young.

  ‘Come to wish us a happy new year, no doubt,’ said Old. His voice was slurring, infused with a bitter tone that often comes to unhappy men after the initial joy of a drink has faded. ‘Digging, eh? Are you rehearsing for a part in Hamlet? Alas, poor Yorick . . . is that who you are, Jack? Hamlet? Are you well? You don’t appear to be yourself.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I am myself. To tell the truth, I am no longer sure I know what myself is.’

  ‘So you are Hamlet. Or have you come to bandy modernist philosophy?’

  ‘There’s nothing modern about it. I think it’s pretty old-fashioned. A man dedicates his life to the service of those he was told were his betters and he discovers one day that the people he had served were rotten scoundrels—’

  ‘Oh dear, who told him?’

  ‘You are a lot of scoundrels. Where is Lord Apsley?’

  Mr Old chuckled quietly to himself. ‘You missed him. Is he a scoundrel too?’

  ‘He is. Moreover, I have reason to suspect that His Majesty the King might also be a scoundrel.’

  Mr Old gave a sour laugh.

  ‘You should be careful what you say. Mr Young might shoot you for treason. I’m sure he’d like to.’

  I turned to face Mr Young and raised the shovel.

  He smiled but there was fear, too, in his eyes. He said, ‘Drop the shovel.’

  I tightened my grip on the handle. I raised the shovel as if winding up for a swing. It was a bluff and it fell flat. He stepped smartly backward, out of range, and levelled the pistol at my chest.

  Mr Old said, ‘I’d drop the shovel, if I were you. He’d like nothing more than to kill a man. He thinks it will compensate for all the things wrong with his character. That one simple act of murder. He’s like a savage who eats a lion’s heart thinking it will give him the lion’s courage. I try telling him it won’t make any difference, but he won’t listen. He’s young.’ He picked up a whisky tumbler and swirled the contents before taking a gulp in a sharp and world-hating act.

  ‘It’s up to you, Wenlock,’ said Young.

  I lowered the shovel but did not drop it.

  ‘Suppose you tell us what you are doing here, digging things . . .’ said Old. He reached for his glass on the table and finding it empty, stopped and looked puzzled. ‘And calling the King names.’

  ‘What have you done with Jenny?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re a bit late. You’ve missed her, she was here but she had to . . . leave.’

  ‘Leave to where?’

  ‘Somewhere she will be taken care of,’ said Old. ‘She got a bit upset when Mr Young told her that her aunt had died. Understandable, I suppose. There is no easy way to break such news.’ He was quite morosely drunk now and giving vent to a lifetime’s pent-up bitterness.

  ‘Isn’t that right, Mr Young?’ There was no answer. ‘Lord Apsl
ey took her away. He’ll be back in a while. You can have a drink. Give the man a drink.’

  Young looked affronted and said, ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Old, ‘in this sort of set-up the man with the gun almost never has to make the drinks. And I don’t see how I can oblige, I can’t stand up from my chair.’

  ‘I don’t want a drink. I desire you to tell me where they have taken Jenny.’

  Mr Old looked at me through a mist of confusion and blinked it away. ‘You know, I’m not sure if I can remember.’

  ‘Room 42,’ said Young. ‘That’s where she is. Trouble is, no one knows where that is. Maybe it’s here.’

  ‘It used to be a hotel room,’ said Old. ‘All decent hotels have a Room 42. You could rely on it. It was where a chap would go when he’d let the side down, to blow his brains out.’

  ‘Your girl got quite flighty when we told her about her aunt,’ said Young. ‘Caused quite a scene.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Young had to lay the law down, didn’t you, eh? He’s good at laying the law down with people who can’t hit back.’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Young.

  ‘But what am I saying? She did hit back, didn’t she? Gave you quite a wallop. Although not compared to the one you gave her.’

  I faced Mr Young with eyes narrowing. ‘Did you . . . raise your hand to Jenny?’

  He looked at me and, even though he was pointing a gun at me, he swallowed with fear. ‘No,’ he said.

  Old gave a bitter and mirthless laugh designed to contradict that utterance.

  ‘Where has Apsley taken her?’

  ‘To get some steak,’ said Old. ‘To put on her blue eye. We only have sausage rolls.’

  ‘It was her own fault,’ said Young. ‘Silly cow.’

  Inside me, a cold fury was building.

  ‘Own fault,’ Old repeated.

  ‘Shut your trap,’ Young said. ‘I’ve had as much as I can take from you.’