The Tumbled House

by Winston Graham

  Today had shown up to him the stretch at which he had been living since the time of the Any Questions robbery. For weeks he had been taut as a wire, chain-smoking when he could and drinking quite a lot in the evenings. The sun and the rest today had done as much good as his father’s company. Almost he would have been willing to wipe out the last weeks and return to the era of youth and dependence and day dreams.

  He let himself in, first by the door common to all the fiats, then by his own personal door. Letters scraped as he pushed it open. He went into the big living-room and switched on the light though it was not yet quite dark, drew the curtains and went to collect his post.

  Two bills and a plain envelope with a printed address. He recognised this as Peter Waldo’s script and quickly tore it open.

  Dear M,

  They got him this morning about noon, together with another

  man called Adam. Revenge on an enemy is a second life. Kong

  will sleep quieter now.

  Peter.

  P. S. Do get yourself a telephone.

  There wasn’t much to drink in the flat. Michael found his throat very dry, and tried to open the one bottle of Worthington. He went round the flat, aimlessly opening and shutting drawers and cupboards, looking for a flipper. After a few minutes he stooped in the middle of the living-room and began to prise off the top with a key. His hands were greasy and kept slipping. The top came off. The warm weather had made the beer lively and it frothed all over his fingers before he could find a glass. When he got it in the glass he could hardly drink it for the head.

  He stood there sipping and wiping the froth off his lips.

  All his new peace of mind had fizzled away in a second. He was down in the ring again. Now what? How did Peter come to know so soon what had happened? In spite of their break it would be better to see him at once.

  Michael swallowed his drink, picked out a cigarette and lit it. Then he switched off the light and went to the door. When he opened it two men were standing there.

  The nerves in his body seemed to jump about two feet while in fact he showed no outward surprise.

  “Mr Michael Shorn?”

  “Yes?”

  “I wonder if we could have a word with you? We’re police officers and we wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  They were back in the room. Michael, his hands in his pockets and his black hair in a shock over his forehead, stood with his back to the empty fireplace; one plain-clothes policeman stood by the window admiring the view, the other turned the pages of his notebook as if looking casually for something he had mislaid.

  “What can I do for you?”

  The policeman by the window said: “Do you know a man called Boy Kenny?”

  So this was it. “ I’ve spoken to him once or twice.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “In a night club in Pawle Street off Wardour Street. The Middle Pocket it’s called.”

  “Oh, yes. I know the place. It’s changed its name several times in the last few years.”

  “Has it? I didn’t know.”

  “Did you also meet a man called Adam there?”

  “I don’t remember him.”

  “A big man with a dash of the tar brush. Thick woolly hair.”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever had business dealings with Kenny, Mr Shorn?”

  “Why? Is he in trouble?”

  “Just a little. We’re checking up on some of his friends.”

  “I don’t think you could rate me in on that. What has he done?”

  “Can you remember when you last saw him?”

  Michael’s frown deepened. “It was at the night club two or three weeks ago.”

  “Was he in company? Did you know anyone he was with?”

  “I can’t say that I remember.”

  “Has he ever been here?”

  “I don’t think—oh, yes, he did come to a party once.”

  The policeman by the window continued to admire the view. The other made a note in his book. Silence fell. They’re waiting for me to talk, Michael thought. Well, let them wait.

  To his suprise he found himself saying: “What’s this all about? Why have you come here? Kenny is nothing to me.”

  The man by the window said: “We’re only checking up, Mr Shorn. Kenny was arrested this morning in possession of stolen property. We found your name and address in his pocket book.”

  “My address? Well, that’s pretty surprising. Weren’t there others?”

  “Oh, yes, there were others. We’re working through them.”

  So Boy hadn’t talked. Relief drummed in his ears. But it was still a dangerous link.

  “Can you suggest why he should have bothered to have your name and address?”

  “Didn’t you ask him?”

  The man by the window smiled grimly. “Well, that isn’t the point, is it? We’re asking you.”

  Michael said: “I don’t know what goes on in the mind of a man like that. He may have thought he could touch me for a loan or use my name somehow.”

  And then he noticed the policeman with the notebook looking at the radiogram.

  As a child Michael had had one persistent nightmare of being chased by an immeasurable terror down endless dark passages. It had begun soon after Roger had married a second time, and it had recurred at intervals all his life. He felt an echo of it now. He was at the end of the passage; sunshine and green grass and the voices of friends were not far away, but across the mouth of the passage the steel talons were closing.…

  “Well, thank you, Mr Shorn,” said the man by the window. “I’m sorry you can’t help us.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you often go to the Middle Pocket?”

  “I’ve dropped it off.”

  “A good thing, I’d say. It’s getting an unsavoury reputation.”

  “Time it was closed,” said Michael.

  “You think so? Well, I’ll pass that on to the appropriate quarters.”

  Michael laughed politely as the man by the window began to move out.

  “That’s a lovely radiogram you have, Mr Shorn,” said the man with the notebook. “It’s a new one, isn’t it? I’ve seen them advertised.”

  “Not quite new. I bought it second hand from a friend who didn’t like the tone.”

  “Not from Boy Kenny, I suppose?”

  “He wouldn’t have a thing like this.”

  “You can never tell with someone like Kenny what he’ll have. Has he ever offered to sell you anything cheap? An etching or Georgian silver or a Swiss clock or a wrist watch?”

  Michael shook his head. “ I’m sorry. I haven’t got any stolen property for you. For that I think you’ll have to try some of his real friends.”

  The man with the notebook smiled. “ Well, you see, until we go round and make this check-up, we don’t know who were his real friends, do we?”

  No, thought Michael, as he showed them out, he was never a real friend of mine. Peter is responsible for this mess entirely.

  He felt he had got through the interview pretty well. He had given nothing away. Yet he bitterly resented his own fright—his hands trembling, his knees turned to jelly. The mere authority of the law was enough, like the judge’s wig, the red robes, the trumpets; they were impositions upon the spirit, part of a centuries old sham.

  The first and most obvious thing was to get rid of the radiogram.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Boy Kenny and his friend Adam got three months. Peter Waldo was furious.

  “They nearly ducked it altogether. There was nothing in the garage from the Henley robbery and only three things from Tordean; he must have sold more than he told us. There was only that ring that Boy thought was real and turned out not to be, a wrist watch and the fur you took—none of them valuable. They couldn’t pin anything else on them. Three of their beautiful friends, all respectability and white silk mufflers and greased hair, went into the witness-box and swore that Boy had been a
t Epsom with them on the evening of the Any Questions affair. The police tried an identification parade for the man who saw him at Henley, but it didn’t work. So the magistrate rules that there is no case to be sent for trial on that charge. Then they agree to be dealt with summarily on a charge of receiving, and he gives them three months each, the fool. Any innocent type who happens to drive a car when he’s disqualified can get twice as much as that. It shows you how topsy-turvy the laws of this benighted country have become.”

  “D’you think they know we gave them away?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past their powers of deduction, and.…”

  “And?”

  “Well, there’s room in the world for us all, but perhaps Boy and Adam may not think so when they come out.”

  “Oh, to hell with them,” Michael said contemptuously.

  “You may be right. Anyway, it leaves time for some nice quiet job to be pulled off before then.”

  “You can do it on your own,” Michael said.

  On a hot afternoon in late July Don called in to see Paul Whitehouse.

  Whitehouse said: “I’m sorry we’ve been so unsuccessful in tracing Mrs Delaney. It doesn’t of course mean we’re giving up; but we’re anxious so far as possible not to run up the costs on your behalf.”

  Don said: “ The costs will have to take care of themselves. You’ve no news from Egypt?”

  “I’m afraid a good deal of feeling exists there still, so that our inquiries are not always met with the best will to help. However, there’s time yet.”

  “Any approximate date?”

  “The Michaelmas Sittings begin on October I and we’re not too far down the list. I should have thought late October.”

  “That will suit me. I shall be out of work then.”

  Paul Whitehouse smiled uneasily. He was never quite sure about his client’s humour. “I may say we had a good deal of trouble with the interrogatories. Junior counsel, Mr Borgward, and our clerk were before the Master several times trying to get more precise details of the accusations levelled at your father.”

  “And the proofs?”

  “Not the proofs. Proofs are for the judge and jury. I wish we could feel that Miss Chislehurst was not going to be so hostile. She can do a great deal of damage.”

  “And means to,” Don said.

  “Yes, well, it’s the other side that’s bringing her into court, isn’t it? She may not feel too kindly disposed towards them if she is put in the box against her will.”

  “I’m certain she’s not on very strong ground and knows it. Doutelle ought to shake something out of her.”

  “With such a witness the danger is one may well shake out something one doesn’t want.”

  Don got up and took a few paces about the office, like a lion at feeding time. “Doutelle asked for evidence disproving the Moonraker articles as cast-iron as we could make it. Well, some sides of the case he ought to feel happier about; now that we’ve got that barrister who was at Cheltenham on the Salem case to give evidence—what’s his name?.…”

  “Taylor Hutton.”

  “Taylor Hutton, now that he’s giving evidence we should be able to plug that hole satisfactorily. But the Chislehurst angle is a disaster.”

  “I think if Mr Doutelle gives the impression that we have a hard fight on our hands it’s mainly for that reason. And of course that fact that you abused Shorn in those rather—er—unduly extravagant terms. I wish you had come to me for advice first.”

  “I did.”

  “Yes, but not on that point.”

  “Well, you would have advised against it.”

  “Maybe … yes, I suppose I should. But the libel could have been couched more moderately. It’s easier, for instance, to justify calling a man a liar and a coward than to justify the use of words like louse and skunk and jackal.”

  “Doesn’t it amount to very much the same thing?”

  “Not quite in law. Anyway, I think we have to face the situation and do the best we can with it. By the way, Doutelle has advised a smallish payment into court. It’s not unusual, and he suggests twenty-five pounds. It’s a long shot but it might save you costs.”

  “How?”

  “Well, it is in effect an offer of settlement. They won’t take it of course, but it puts the onus on them of continuing; and it’s a valuable insurance for you if the outcome isn’t clear cut.… Oh, yes, and there’s another development. We know that two Gazette reporters have been assigned to this case during the last month or so. They’ve been making a lot of new inquiries into your father’s private life and reputation. From that it looks as if our opposite numbers are pressing for extra proofs too.”

  That night Don was due to give the first of the two concerts which had been allotted him at the Albert Hall that season, but between leaving the lawyers and taking up his baton he had a flaming row with Joanna, which seemed to shoot suddenly out of nothing at all.

  Joanna had had a hard day: a telerecording at Television House which went as wrong as it could go: an ungrateful part, a delayed beginning because of a technical breakdown, a “scene” between the chief actor and the producer, both pansies, and a long argument at the end about cutting three minutes of the first scene. Coming away she met Roger who had been upstairs recording a talk; and although for her the fatal charm was no longer working and even the word “darling” on his lips had a staleness that cloyed, he yet contrived to get under her skin with a remark or two which hurt and at the same time disturbed.

  They separated at the door but not before Don, coming up Kingsway, had seen whom she was with. There it had all begun. He suggested angrily that she might be more choosey of her company, and suddenly they were knee deep in the worst quarrel of their married life. From small beginnings the sky was suddenly the limit on both sides, and by the time they reached the parked car even their future together seemed in question. They drove in the car along the Strand until she demanded to be put down so that she didn’t have to bear him any longer. Then, stopping in a “No Waiting” area, they managed to cool off a bit before the first policeman came.

  Even so she left him there, refusing a suggestion that they should have a drink together. At the last moment, as a sort of gesture, she apologised to the policeman and took all the blame for the delay on herself, thus probably saving Don a ticket and indicating that she still had thought for his welfare.

  She had been going to the concert, and for a while after she left Don she couldn’t make up her mind what to do. But at the last minute she caught a taxi and got in just as the orchestra was tuning up.

  She normally liked listening to Don, but tonight with the desolate exhausted ashes of the row inside her, she found it hard to uncouple the personal issues from the musical ones. It took an overture and half of Max Bruch to put things right.

  Looking at her husband she suspected, not for the first time, that the rather simple man of everyday life was not so simple as he seemed. Certainly he didn’t give that impression when angry; nor when playing the piano in the quietness of his own home; nor now, not even the back view which was all she could see. It was as if the stability of his everyday life was hardly more than a compass by which he navigated on a good deal of uncharted sea.

  The first part of the concert went well. The solo violinist was a woman and a favourite. Don retired to his room, felt his collar and decided it would last; and wondered what in hell had got into him that he should quarrel with Joanna so. She was as high strung as a pony, and he ought to know it. He had had no particular excuse for being tetchy himself. He had been rehearsing all morning, but this orchestra and this programme presented no problems. Also the first pressures of the ballet season were over. Les Ambassadeurs had had a mixed Press, but it was drawing full houses whenever it was put on, and de Courville and Bellegarde seemed satisfied. From now on it was a period of consolidation until November, by which time his contract would have expired.

  Well, was it the libel action that was getting under his skin? What had s
he said today? “I don’t feel anything at this moment except utter exasperation and despair. I wish to Heaven we’d never heard of the action! I asked you and begged you to drop the thing before we got too involved; now it’s seeped right through into our bones. We can’t do anything, we can’t think anything, we can’t breathe without worrying how that’s going to be affected. If only for ten minutes you were possibly able to forget it.” “ The minute you see Roger you seem to have no difficulty in forgetting it completely.” “ What has Roger to do with this? Surely this is between ourselves. If we don’t come to terms with each other, temperamentally, then we shall have lost more than the libel action before it begins!”

  Was that true? Yes, certainly it must be true. Yet how could he drop it at this late stage? Only by going to Roger or writing to Roger and eating his words. And even then, if he did all that, would it really leave them free to live their own lives?

  When the second half was due to begin he walked slowly out along the passage and on to the platform where the orchestra were waiting for him; he bowed to the audience, smiled at the leader, glanced briefly at the microphone, raised his stick.

  Dvorak’s New World; a sure-fire hit with any popular audience. The violas and the ’cellos gave out the first sombre phrase; then came the warning note of the horn, followed by the woodwind picking up the introductory theme. The music died for a second before the full orchestra made its emphatic entry. In that silence a flashlight clicked from one of the boxes at the side, flickering through the darkened amphitheatre like lightning. Then came another one and a third.

  Don put his baton down. The first notes of the full orchestra never came; instead a few strangled mews from fiddle and flute died to nothing as the players lowered their instruments and looked at their conductor in surprise. There was complete silence in the auditorium and then a whispering, growing murmur. Don turned back the page to the opening of the symphony. He leaned down to the leader, Paul Lane.

  He said: “These bastards have no right in the hall. We’ll start again.”

  Lane nodded mutely, smiled, and passed the word to the violinist next to him. But all the orchestra had quickly guessed his intentions.