The Proprietor's Daughter

by Lewis Orde

  Brian saw the bar twitch. His last thought was not of the pain and grief that would tear his grandfather apart. Nor was it of Katherine and the Eagle staff, the first classy people to ever treat him as an equal. Instead, the last thought, oddly enough, concerned Ginger. What an actor! What a bloody marvelous actor to have strung him along like this, and then turned him in. What a bloody great performance! Then all the lights went out.

  Ginger grabbed Brian’s hands, Venables held his feet. They flung him across the rails, gleaming dully now in the light of the train that was half a mile away and picking up speed as it swept past the fifty-mile-an-hour mark. Venables and Ginger turned and ran up the grassy bank. Venables jumped into the car. Ginger climbed on Brian’s motorcycle. Both engines roared into life, drowning out the train klaxon, then the screech of brakes as the engineer spotted the untidy bundle lying on the track. By the time the train stopped — with the locomotive fifty yards beyond where Brian lay — Venables and Ginger were out of the dark street, joining traffic on the main road.

  Ginger followed the blue Austin for five miles until they reached the River Lea at Tottenham. There, he pushed the motorcycle into the water, and watched the last connection to Brian Waters sink beneath the surface.

  *

  Katherine received a shock when she stepped into Archie Waters’s elevator the following morning. Archie’s face was a mask, with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. Every line showed like a tiny crevice. He hadn’t even shaved.

  “Archie, what’s the matter?”

  “Brian’s disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  “He was home when I went to bed last night. I got up this morning at six, like I always do. No sign of him. No motorcycle. His bed hasn’t even been slept in.”

  “Maybe he had a date.”

  “He would have told me if he was going out.”

  “Have you spoken to anyone?”

  “I called the police to see if there’s been any report of a motorcycle accident. They’d heard nothing.”

  “Archie, if you’re so upset, why did you come in?”

  “What am I going to do — stay at home by myself?”

  Katherine could not argue with that.

  When she reached her desk, she instructed Derek Simon and Heather Harvey to check for all incidents in London, anything where the victim could possibly be Brian Waters. Less than ten minutes passed before they brought her information about an unidentified young man being run over by the London-Glasgow night train. Derek contacted the police for further details. Although the body had been cut in half by the train’s wheels, the police description left Katherine with little doubt that it was Brian.

  “Oh, God.” She buried her face in her hands and started to weep. Ten minutes passed before she was in control of herself. She telephoned Sally Roberts, saying she needed to see her urgently. Sally invited her up to the executive floor. Rather than risk getting into Archie’s elevator, Katherine walked the two flights of stairs.

  “You look terrible,” Sally remarked when Katherine entered the office. “Have you been crying?”

  “Yes.” Katherine wiped her eyes and sat down on the sofa facing Sally’s desk. “Archie Waters says that Brian disappeared last night. We’ve since learned that an unidentified man was run over by a train. What’s left of him —” She bit back tears. “What’s left of him fits Brian’s description.”

  “Katherine, it could probably fit the description of a thousand other young men as well.”

  “No. Right here” — she touched the pit of her stomach — “I know it’s Brian. And I put him there by having him spy on the British Patriotic League. Now how the hell do we tell Archie?”

  Sally came around the desk and joined Katherine on the sofa, placing an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. “How about we tell him together?”

  Sally instructed her secretary to bring Archie up to the editorial director’s office. When he arrived three minutes later, he looked from Katherine’s red-rimmed eyes to Sally’s painfully composed face, and he knew immediately why he had been summoned. “It’s Brian, isn’t it? What’s happened to him?”

  “We don’t know anything for certain, Archie,” Katherine answered. “It’s just . . .” She broke off and looked beseechingly at Sally.

  “There was an accident sometime late last night. On the main line. A young man was killed. He had no identification on him, but his age and appearance matched Brian’s.”

  “My Brian run over by a bloody train?” Archie’s worn face creased into a horrified grimace at the injustice.

  “We don’t know anything. We just picked up the report, that’s all. Would you like us to call the police?”

  Archie nodded. “Clear it up, would you? One way or the other, clear it up.”

  Sally telephoned the police station handling the incident. She spoke for a minute, then turned to Archie. “Would you be willing to look at the body? The face is recognizable.”

  Again, Archie nodded. He’d seen plenty of corpses during his military career, enough with faces that were unrecognizable.

  Sally, Katherine, and Archie rode in a taxi to the morgue. While the two women remained in a cold waiting room that smelled of antiseptic, Archie accompanied a police officer down a long corridor. Ten minutes later, the two men returned. Archie stared straight ahead, his face set in rigid lines. His shoulders were squared, his back straight, stomach in, chest out. He was a soldier on parade once more, holding back his inner grief because he did not want to spoil the company formation.

  “Archie?” Sally asked nervously.

  “It’s Brian. Shall we go?”

  Outside, they found another taxi. “Do you want us to take you home?” Katherine asked.

  “No. I want to return to the Eagle building. I need to find things out.” Archie sat on one of the jumpseats, facing both women. “The police seem to think it was an accident, but it wasn’t, was it?”

  “What would he have been doing there to accidentally get hit by a train?” Sally asked in response.

  “Nothing.” For an instant, the veneer slipped. Archie leaned back, tired, eyes dropping. “I knew no good would come out of his mixing with these swine. Even if he was doing it for a good cause.” His eyes opened to impale Katherine. “I’m sorry Miss Eagles. I don’t mean to blame you.”

  Katherine reached out to pat Archie’s gnarled hand. “I feel as bad about this as you do, believe me.

  “I know. He liked you, Brian did. When you stayed at the flat those few evenings, and he got to know you, I think that was some kind of turning point for Brian. That, and when you helped him out in court. You opened his eyes, showed him there was more to life than what he had been satisfied with up till then.” He laid his other hand on top of Katherine’s, sandwiching it between his own. “Too bad it had to end like this.”

  “I’ll speak to the police,” Katherine said.

  “What will you tell them?”

  “That I think Brian was murdered. And about the man called Ginger, who’d seen Brian with me.” Katherine told Archie of the night Brian had become a group commander of the British Brigade, the ensuing fight, and then Ginger’s apparent friendship.

  “And all the time he was setting up my grandson for this,” Archie muttered. “What was his real name, this Ginger?”

  “I never knew. I can show you what he looks like, though.”

  When they reached the Eagle building, Katherine took Sally and Archie down to another kind of morgue — the Daily Eagle morgue. There, she leafed through back issues until she found the two stories she was seeking: the first article she’d written on the soccer fans, and the report of the British Patriotic League’s Brixton rally. “That’s him there. Ginger.”

  Archie studied the pictures that accompanied both stories. “Could I get copies of these?”

  “I’m sure Sid Hall would make you a print or two,” Katherine answered unsuspectingly.

  *

  Katherine made her
statement. She explained the undercover work Brian Waters had been performing for the Eagle, and she told the detectives about Brian’s fear of being exposed by the young man called Ginger. “That’s why I don’t think his death was an accident. I think he was murdered.”

  “Was Waters your source?” a detective asked. “Was he the man who was supposed to have always identified himself with a prearranged codeword?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you give us his identity in the first place?”

  “I was protecting him.”

  “If that’s the case, and he was murdered, you did a bloody awful job,” the detective said callously, and guilt overwhelmed Katherine.

  Detectives interviewed Ginger, real name Michael Edwards, at his place of employment, a coat manufacturer in the East End of London called Marco Modes. Ginger had a perfect alibi. He’d been in bed, asleep, in the council house he shared with his parents and younger brother.

  When asked if he could prove he’d been at home, asleep, all night, Ginger snapped back, “You prove I wasn’t.”

  When he was questioned about his membership in the British Brigade, Ginger sneered. “Not me, mate. The only thing I know about that lot is what I read in the papers.”

  The police also visited Patriot House to interview Alan Venables. He was ready for them. The instant Brian had been killed, Venables had contacted the remaining group commanders and issued the order to terminate the British Brigade. He was certain he had nothing to fear from the police now.

  Venables freely admitted that both Ginger and Brian Waters had been associated with the League. When faced with Katherine’s charge that Brian had been murdered because of his undercover work for the Eagle, Venables just laughed. “If Waters was the one who’s been giving the Eagle this information, then all I can say is that he had the most fertile imagination I’ve ever seen. Nothing of what they printed about us was true.”

  The police came away from Patriot House without a single shred of evidence. It seemed that Katherine’s accusation of murder was just another thrust-and-parry in the war that raged between the British Patriotic League and the Daily Eagle. Katherine’s only victory, and a minor one at that, came during the inquest, when the coroner recorded an open verdict.

  When Brian was laid to rest alongside his father, Archie Waters’s late son, the majority of mourners were from Eagle Newspapers. There was even a guard of honor, six young men in motorcycle leathers and crash helmets standing by the casket — Brian’s fellow workers from Mercury Messengers.

  After the interment, as the crowd dispersed, Katherine and her father approached Archie. “If there’s anything we can do . . .,” Roland began.

  Archie gave the proprietor of Eagle Newspapers an enigmatic smile. “Bring him back, can you, sir?”

  “I wish I could, Archie. Everything I own, I’d give away to be able to perform that miracle.”

  The smile altered slightly, became warmer. “Thank you, sir, I believe you really would. Shame, isn’t it? We don’t have a major war for more than thirty years, and the youngsters still find ways to die. I’d like some time off, sir, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Take as much time as you wish.”

  “Yes,” Archie murmured as though talking to himself. “Got a few loose ends to clear up.” He touched a hand to his forehead and marched briskly away.

  *

  Archie had only knowingly broken the law once in his entire life. That was in 1952, when he’d returned to England after serving in Korea. In his kit he had carried, quite illegally, an American Colt .45 automatic, which he had won in a poker game. He had considered turning it in before leaving Korea, but the explaining he’d have to do had deterred him. Back in England, the weapon became a problem. He had no firearms certificate. Without one, he was scared to take the weapon to a police station, even for a purpose as innocent as turning it in. So the Colt .45, with its magazine full of ammunition, remained in his possession.

  When he returned from his grandson’s funeral, Archie went into his bedroom, wheeled out the bed, and pulled back the edge of the carpet. He paused for a few seconds to gather his breath, then lifted a loose floorboard. Beneath was a large biscuit tin. Archie opened it, and took out the weapon. A fine coat of oil made it gleam dully. He dropped the magazine into his hand and worked the slide. The action was as smooth and easy as it had been that day when he’d won the weapon.

  He stayed in for most of the following day, sitting around in pajamas and dressing gown. The telephone rang just once, Katherine calling to learn how he felt. He told her he was fine, and thanked her for showing concern.

  At three o’clock, he began to prepare himself. He bathed and shaved. After dressing himself in his elevator operator’s uniform, he stood in front of a full-length mirror to check his appearance. The brass buttons sparkled. The patent leather belt crossing from his left shoulder to his right hip shone like a black mirror; his shoes matched that gleam. He pinned his combat decorations to his chest, and snapped a sharp salute at the figure in the mirror.

  At four-fifteen, he left the flat, wearing a raincoat in which he carried the Colt. He caught a bus, passing the journey to the East End by studying one of the photographs Sid Hall had provided for him. It was from the Brixton rally, cropped down to give a close-up of Ginger. Michael Edwards, as Archie now knew him to be. Katherine had passed on whatever personal information she’d learned from the police. Archie memorized every hair of Michael Edwards, every pore, every mark. He did not want to make a mistake.

  At ten minutes before five, Archie was standing outside the coat factory called Marco Modes, checking the faces of everyone who went in and out of the building. At five o’clock, the movement of people quickened. There! Shoving his way through the doors, wearing corduroy trousers and a pale green bomber jacket, was the young man in the photograph. There could be no mistaking that blazing beacon of hair.

  Archie stood right in Ginger’s path. His voice carried the parade-ground authority of a lifetime earlier. “Are you Michael Edwards, also known as Ginger?”

  Ginger stopped. Copper? No, too old. “What’s it to you?”

  “Don’t be insubordinate!” Archie roared. The people spilling out of factories and offices stopped their homeward rush to watch. “When a sergeant asks you a question, you answer!”

  “Sergeant?” The raincoat flapped open, and Ginger caught a glimpse of the uniform. “You’re a bloody doorman!”

  “For the last time, are you Michael Edwards?”

  “Yes!” Ginger shouted back. “Now get out of my way before I give you a good kicking, you stupid old sod.”

  Archie reached his right hand into his raincoat pocket. It reappeared clutching the Colt. Screams of panic erupted as bystanders fled in all directions. Quite suddenly alone, Archie and Ginger faced each other.

  Ginger’s voice changed pitch, became the begging, snivelling whine that Brian had heard and fallen for. “Please don’t shoot. What did I ever do to you, old man?”

  “You piece of scum, you killed my grandson,” Archie answered, and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet smashed into the bridge of Ginger’s nose, ripping away the back of his head. Archie did not even look. He simply raised the weapon to his own temple, and squeezed the trigger a second time. No explosion came, no relief to the agony that had torn through him ever since the moment he had seen Brian lying in the morgue. Just a click. Unaware of the hundreds of people who had stopped their flight to watch, Archie worked the slide to eject the bullet that had fallen victim to the vagaries of time, raised the weapon to his head again, and blew his own brains out.

  *

  The earth covering Brian Waters was still fresh when the casket containing his grandfather was interred in the family plot.

  A white-robed minister positioned himself at the head of the grave. Katherine, standing between her father and Sally, blotted out the minister’s toneless homily of a tragedy-plagued family finding eternal peace in God’s arms. If sh
e listened to the words, she knew she would break down. Instead, she thought about herself. For the second time in less than a week, she was wearing black. A wide black hat, a black coat, sheer black stockings, and low-heeled black shoes. And all because of one lousy story she had refused to let go. All because of the Daily Eagle. All because of the newspaper her father had founded — the newspaper on which she had wanted to work from the very moment of its launch. In that moment, she hated everything about the newspaper.

  Just what had she achieved with this vendetta against the British Patriotic League? Had she exposed its evil? Yes, she had, but she knew that wasn’t the question she should really be asking herself. Had she made people believe her — that was the true test. And the true answer, she feared, was exactly what John Saxon had prophesied it would be. A loud, resounding “No!” Because people just didn’t care. They didn’t give a damn.

  The service finished. As Arthur Parsons guided the Bentley out of the cemetery parking lot, Roland said, “I feel like we just buried part of Eagle Newspapers. Archie was there from the very beginning. The place won’t be the same without him.”

  Perhaps it was the words her father used, perhaps it was his tone. Katherine could not be sure. All she understood was the finality of the remark. They had buried part of the company that morning, and Eagle Newspapers would never be the same again.

  Katherine returned home from the cemetery. After changing into slacks, a crew-neck sweater, tweed jacket, and hiking shoes, she went walking across Hampstead Heath, needing the exercise to clear the fog that enveloped her mind. She was out for three hours. When she returned, her cheeks were red, and her mind was icily clear.

  She telephoned John Saxon at his office. “John, you were perfectly right. I wrote my heart out, and no one cared. The scum at the British Patriotic League are untouched, and two people I cared for very much are dead.”

  “It was the old man’s funeral this morning, wasn’t it? I should have gone. It was because of him that I met you.”