The Cummings Report

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

I took up a pen and began to sketch Peter Ghent’s launch in as much detail as I could remember; it was the only tangible clue I had — that, and the smug, sulky face of its owner. I found it difficult to control the pen. My brittle nerves had already taken more of a beating than they were usually able to stand; I began to wonder when the next attack would come — indeed, it should have come before. Only the instinct for self-preservation, no doubt, had staved off the inevitable attack that I get in a crisis.

  *

  Even going down in the elevator I had the feeling I was being watched. For all I knew, the entire hotel staff was in Stutyen’s pay. I was being hunted both by the law and its most dangerous enemies. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

  “Street level,” said the elevator boy.

  There were quite a few people sitting in the hall. Some of them looked up from their newspapers as the lift doors opened. One of these could have been a man detailed to watch me. Resolutely, I walked over to one of the phone-booths, half expecting to be stopped on the way. But I made it.

  I put a dime in the machine and dialled Lord Robdale’s number. This amiable, influential Jew was the only man in town I dared to trust. If he was in town. He could be in England, or the Bahamas or ...

  I recognized his voice.

  “Robdale speaking,” he said.

  I had known Lord Robdale ever since we were at school together. He wasn’t at all the run-of-the-mill Etonian. Even at school he had demonstrated that. For one thing he showed extreme independence from normal discipline, but his personality was such that he got away with it. There were few people who hadn’t fallen under his spell. At that time he had been just plain Pyke, a languid individual with a wealthy father. Now he was head of one of the biggest international industrial set-ups in the world. At school he had excelled at nothing, except, perhaps, at the art of being a human being. Now lie went from strength to strength, building on an empire where his father left off.

  We had renewed our friendship in London, when he had backed a show for me: and later in New York, when the same show hit this town. He did not move in the circles of that tight little community known as the ‘English Colony’ — and remained doubly English as a result, making friends in every walk of life, though he never became ‘palsy-walsy’. His natural dignity, though never worn on his sleeve, never left him. Consequently, he had earned popularity of a far more genuine nature than others who had assumed a pseudo-democratic air at the expense of their responsibilities.

  “This is Joel Cummings,” I said.

  There was a pause at the other end. Then: “Is it true what they are saying about you?”

  It was a simple question, requiring a simple answer. “No, David, it isn’t.”

  “Thank God for that,” he said. “Are you here — in New York?”

  “In the person of Thomas A. Hedley, resident of theHotel Ajax, yes.”

  “Then you’ll be needing help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know theBar Jermaine, on Madison?”

  “I can find it.”

  “Right. Meet me there in half an hour.” He hung up.

  All I had to do now was to get there — without being followed. To achieve this, I had to take someone else partially into my confidence. There was only one possible choice.

  I persuaded Shapello to take me into his little office. “What seems to be the problem?” he posed, spitting accurately into the cuspidor.

  I told him I was a British agent, engaged in counter espionage. (Which was, after all, no less than the truth, whether anyone in authority believed it or not.) Was there a back way out? ... There was, and I could use it; but he clearly didn’t believe a word of my story. He hoped, he added, that I wasn’t in more trouble than he thought I was. Bad for the hotel.

  I found myself on 44th Street, and spent one valuable dollar on a taxi ride to theBar Jermaine.

  So far as I could guess, nobody had followed me here, or if they had, they hadn’t ventured inside. Even so, the only safe thing would be for Robdale and myself to leave separately ...

  He came in, a handsome young man of millions. When he saw me from half-way along the narrow room he smiled a greeting as if this were the most ordinary social engagement. It was a genuine smile.

  “David,” I said, “am I glad to see you!”

  He was cautious. “Well, let’s see first whether I can be of any help to you.” To the waiter: “Scotch and soda, please.”

  “How’s Susan?” I asked.

  “Fine. Loathing New York, of course. Never mind, we go back to England soon.” His tone changed. “I gather,” he said, “that you’re in pretty serious trouble. What’s the score?”

  As long as the piano player kept at it, I reckoned we could not be overheard. So I told him everything, as briefly as I could. It took me about twenty minutes and three bourbons to give him the story. When I had finished he gave a long, low whistle.

  “Do you intend going back to the hotel?” he asked.

  “I think I shall have to,” I said. “For one thing, it’s my only chance of keeping in touch with these gentry, and finding out what they’re really up to.”

  “I think your estimate of twelve hours for that photograph appearing in the papers was pretty optimistic, for a start,” he commented. “My guess is that if you buy an evening paper in an hour or so you’ll see your mug on the front page. So that rules out the hotel.”

  “I’ve paid a week’s board there,” I said. “I was practically forced to do so by a gentleman who has more faith in the dollar than he has in human nature!”

  “Never mind about the money,” said David, “I’ll take care of that. And as for somewhere to stay, you’d better put up with us. They’ll never suspect me.”

  “Are you sure you want to get mixed up in this?”

  “I’m most intrigued.”

  “But you don’t know I’m telling the truth.”

  “My dear fellow,” he exclaimed, “nobody could ever expect a chap to believe such a fantastic story unless it were the truth. I should think Alice Redgate will realize that.”

  “Don’t forget,” I said, “that Alice won’t be thinking as a human being. She’s an official, with a great deal of responsibility.”

  “Are you sure that they’re not bluffing in London? I mean, they might know you’re innocent, but want to give the impression to the other side that they think you’re guilty.”

  I was inclined to doubt this, though it had already occurred to me. Stutyen and his friends were far too thorough in their methods to have overplayed their hand in planting the evidence.

  “Well, what about the girl Jill? (She sounds jolly nice, incidentally. You’ve picked a good one there!) Won’t she be able to persuade them that you haven’t gone utterly, completely mad?”

  “She is, I like to think, in love with me, David. And that damns her from the start.”

  “I see.” He stubbed out his special-brand cigarette meticulously. “Well, there are a number of things I can do straight away. First, I’ll check up on that launch. It’ll take time though; they probably aren’t operating from Long Island, otherwise they wouldn’t have said so. And as for Gary Brand and his fictitious friend Peter Ghent, I know they’re talking absolute bunk because I had lunch with Gary only last week, and he’s in residence — very much in residence! — at his Long Island address whichis, incidentally, calledYankee’s Rest, unlikely though it may seem. So if you had gone to the police with that story you certainly wouldn’t have done much to convince them of your innocence. Nor would Gary have taken very kindly to your accusations!” David knocked a fresh, gold-tipped cigarette on the glass counter of the table, and lit the offensive thing.

  “You sketch a bit, don’t you, Joel?”

  “I can usually get a likeness. You want a drawing of Peter Ghent?” I did a rough sketch on the spot, in so far as I could remember him. David talked on while I did so.

  “You mustn’t be seen leaving here with me, in the unlikely event of your having b
een followed. But you know my address. So meet me at home in about an hour. Meanwhile, I have brought you five hundred dollars in cash, here in this envelope.” He handed it to me. “Do you want me to try and clear you with the F.B.L?”

  At length I said: “No, David; they wouldn’t believe even you, I’m afraid. They’d merely tell you that you had been taken in. Besides, in a way we can achieve more if our friends still know I am on the run. After all, that was their main purpose of turning me loose here — as a sort of decoy duck, I suppose.”

  ‘Mmm! It’s a bit hard to believe that that is really their purpose. After all, they went to a lot of trouble bringing you here, just to cover up something they have no reason to believe will be discovered. No, they’re pretty ingenious people, your friends. I’d say they’ve got something fairly interesting in store for you! My advice to you is not to attempt any private sleuthing, but to keep well out of their way ...”

  *

  I made my way swiftly towards Grand Central, where I knew of rather a special barber. He didn’t know me, but he had treated the hair of many of my former theatrical company. His shop was in Lexington Avenue, not far from the great station itself.

  I thought if I had my hair bleached and given a crew cut I would be less obviously recognizable, and I explained what I wanted to the proprietor. To him, this was the most normal thing in the world; and indeed, while I spoke to him, a prominent actor climbed out of the adjustable chair to inspect the way his newly grown beard had been trimmed. He seemed satisfied, and cordially told this celebrated barber so. I envied him: the only people he had to deceive was the audience at the Shubert Theatre. I hoped that the sun-glasses that I had picked up at a drugstore on the way would prevent him from remembering me at a later date, when the inevitable picture appeared in the papers.

  It was four-thirty by the time the job was done; already an hour since I had left theBar Jermaine. So I found a taxi outside theBillmore and directed him to drive me to 875, Fifth Avenue.

  Susan greeted me at the door of the apartment, high up in the building.

  “Holy smoke!” she exclaimed. I knew what she meant. I looked like the murderer inRear Window.

  “David will be in soon,” she said. “Meanwhile, have some tea.”

  We solemnly drank tea and ate cinnamon toast and talked about the New York theatre, while the police in their hundreds wore searching a nation.

  “Of course,” she said, “I try and imagine it’s London really. When I go to the theatre around Broadway I pretend it’s Shaftesbury Avenue — then I enjoy the play much more.

  “Anyway,” she added, busy with the sugar tongs, “thank heavens you’ve turned up. I’ve got someone to groan to now — David won’t listen any more.”

  She completely ignored the fact that I was wanted by at least two police organizations, and that she and her husband could be deported for harbouring me.

  It was more or less at that moment, while I languidly sipped tea, and gazed out of the window at the concrete skyline, that I realized I could not possibly stay here and take advantage of these kind people. I would stay for dinner, slip out in the late evening and find some rooms where I couldn’t easily be traced.

  CHAPTER 12

  WHEN Jill Crescent, tense from a sleepless night, arrived for the emergency conference in Prescott-Healey’s office, she knew what a hopeless disadvantage she was up against in any attempt she might make to convince these people of a man’s innocence. Because she had been so indiscreet as to become involved with me her testimony would be discounted.

  “Good morning, Miss Crescent,” greeted Miles sympathetically. “Sit down, will you? There’s Miss Redgate still to come.”

  Jill looked round the room appraisingly, like the Counsel for the Defence assessing the prosecution witnesses. She found little cause for encouragement in the faces she saw.

  Cy Harford, the American, nodded to her briefly — there was no doubt in her mind what this staunch Republican thought about it. Inspector Ferguson she recognized. It had been he who had intercepted the telephone call from Paddington. Now he was inscrutable; like the blank screen of a television set before the programme was switched on.

  The other man she knew to be from M.I.5, but she had never met him. He sat in a far corner, impatiently fiddling with his hat. And there was Sir George Horrocks himself, who looked incomplete, she thought, without his Rolls; rather like Liberace without his piano ... He was the best bet, thought Jill; for no one knew the mind of Joel Cummings better than he did.

  Alice came in with her usual feminine flurry, dropping a file as she did so.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, slightly out of breath. “I’ve had the U.S. Embassy on the line for nearly half an hour.”

  “Rather you than me,” said Miles. “I stalled them off. I thought it would be better for us all to have a talk before we told them too much.”

  Miles stood up and walked over to the fireplace.

  “All right,” he said. “The first thing I’d like to say is this. We’ve all been taken for the most monumental ride, and I’ve been had the most of all. I take full responsibility and don’t propose to make excuses to anyone. All I’ll say is this: the cover plan, the glorious, Solid Gold Cadillac of a red herring that kept us right off the scent, was one of the neatest tricks, to my knowledge, in the history of espionage. They laid the trail and we followed like hounds on a drag hunt, doing everything they wanted us to do exactly when they wanted us to do it. They no doubt had a lot of fun at our expense.

  “Well, we’ve got to stop behaving like performing seals. Already it may be too late to win back the confidence of our American friends; and who can blame them? Once again our security has broken down like a dilapidated, pre 1914 hearse. In a month, don’t let us forget, the Senate are to consider a motion concerning the exchange of secrets between our two countries. I leave it to your imaginations to decide what the result of that will be, if we don’t do anything to vindicate ourselves between now and then. Any comment, Cy?”

  Harford took off those thick-rimmed glasses of his and polished the lenses thoughtfully. “Trouble is,” he said, “we Americans are apt to forget our own crass mistakes, when somebody else slips a bit. Especially in the Senate.”

  Miles paced over to the window. “Right. So now you know the situation. Let’s try and sort it out. And first of all I’d like to ask Sir George, who has kindly come along to give his opinion, what he thinks about the character and emotional stability of Joel Cummings.”

  Alice could see the agony that Jill was going through, and tried to comfort her with a smile. But it was hard enough for Alice herself to face up to the situation as the evidence portrayed it.

  Sir George never failed to rise to an occasion. Here was the Harley Street Man called in to help Queen and Country.

  “Of course, it is intensely important,” he said, “to understand the sort of mind we are dealing with. It is not a diseased mind; there is no insanity. There is no question of a split personality here, or someone who is not responsible for his actions.

  “Draw a circle on the wall, and show it to a dog, then feed the dog. Do it again, and again, and eventually the dog will start to slobber when you show it the circle.

  “Now draw an ellipse. At first the dog isn’t sure. He is puzzled. It doesn’t look quite like a circle. Will he get the food? You give it to him. Then show him the circle, and don’t give him the food. Then change the shape of the ellipse, so that it is very nearly a circle. And so on. Gradually the dog gets muddled. He doesn’t know when to expect the food. He gets anxious, hysterical. He may even go mad. You have produced atension.

  “The dog is worse off than a human being, because he has no power of judgment. In a human an equivalent treatment might produce an anxiety neurosis, or a trauma, but it wouldn’t send him mad, unless he was already psychotic. Cummings is not a psychotic.

  “But heisslightly epileptic. Thus atension can produce a temporary and recurring condition which could be almost anything, b
ut which in his case takes the form of dizziness and black-outs. Besides these violent manifestations of the disorder, there goes with it a permanent state of anxiety which seldom relents, and which is very wearing and exhausting for the sufferer. If the sufferer is unhappy in other ways, this condition can drag him down nervously and constitutionally until a so-called ‘nervous breakdown’ ensues. This condition is really a state where the victim, consciously or otherwise, can stand the situation no longer. He gives in to the ceaseless jangling of his nerves and loses control.

  “Cummings was in such a condition when he came to me just over two years ago. What causes the trouble? Well, with the dog, remember, it was the confusion between an oval and a circle — the wretched animal was in a permanent state of uncertainty. And the time would come when long after you had ceased to subject it to the circle-oval treatment, on offering it food it would at once think of those shapes on the wall. Thus, someone who didn’t know the dog’s history might think it was allergic to food; but the original owner would know that the real reason was the circle-oval business that had become inextricably associated in the dog’s mind with the eating of food.

  “Now, the science of psychiatry devotes itself to discovering therealcause of such phobias, and also, of course, what the tensions actually are. Sometimes they are extremely obscure, and almost always the patient — however anxious to be helped — does his best to conceal them, either because he is ashamed of them or because they are repulsive and frightening, and he does not wish to remember. Thus we spend many hours talking to the patient, and breaking down his subconscious resistance to finding the truth. Once we have found that key, we may or may not be able to help him — so you see it is by no means a sure science. But what is almost always the case is this: the patient is quite unaware of the thing that is disturbing him. ‘Thesubconscious mind knows, of course, but, like the proverbial uncooperative suspect being put through the third degree, it ‘won’t talk’.

  “Thus Cummings had no idea that he was mortally afraid of railway trains — in fact, he told me he always enjoys travelling on them. That can be explained too, but I won’t trouble you with it now.