by Jay Hopler
Mr Cholmondeley said, “They do a very good Maiden’s Dream. Not to speak of Alpine Glow. Or the Knickerbocker Glory.” “I haven’t had a thing since Calais.”
“Give me the letter,” Mr Cholmondeley said. “Thank you.” He told the waitress, “I’ll have an Alpine Glow with a glass of kummel over it.”
“The money,” Raven said.
“Here in this case.”
“They are all fivers.”
“You can’t expect to be paid two hundred in small change. And it’s nothing to do with me,” Mr Cholmondeley said. “I’m merely the agent.” His eyes softened as they rested on a Raspberry Split at the next table. He confessed wistfully to Raven, “I’ve got a sweet tooth.”
“Don’t you want to hear about it?” Raven said. “The old woman—”
“Please, please,” Mr Cholmondeley said, “I want to hear nothing. I’m just an agent. I take no responsibility. My clients—”
Raven twisted his harelip at him with sour contempt. “That’s a fine name for them.”
“How long the waitress is with my parfait,” Mr Cholmondeley complained. “My clients are really quite the best people. These acts of violence—they regard them as war.”
“And I and the old man …” Raven said.
“Are in the front trench.” He began to laugh softly at his own humor. His great white open face was like a curtain on which you can throw grotesque images: a rabbit, a man with horns. His small eyes twinkled with pleasure at the mass of iced cream that was borne toward him in a tall glass. He said, “You did your work very well, very neatly. They are quite satisfied with you. You’ll be able to take a long holiday now.” He was fat, he was vulgar, he was false, but he gave an impression of great power as he sat there with the cream dripping from his mouth. He was prosperity, he was one of those who possessed things; but Raven possessed nothing but the contents of the wallet, the clothes he stood up in, the harelip, the automatic he should have left behind.
He said, “I’ll be moving.”
“Good-bye, my man, good-bye,” Mr Cholmondeley said, sucking through a straw.
Raven rose and went. Dark and thin and made for destruction, he wasn’t at ease among the little tables, among the bright fruit drinks. He went out into the Circus and up Shaftesbury Avenue. The shop windows were full of tinsel and hard red Christmas berries. It maddened him, the sentiment of it. His hands clenched in his pockets. He leaned his face against a modiste’s window and jeered silently through the glass A Jewish girl with a neat curved figure bent over a dummy. He fed his eyes contemptuously on her legs and hips; so much flesh, he thought, on sale in the Christmas window.
A kind of subdued cruelty drove him into the shop. He let his harelip loose on the girl when she came toward him with the same pleasure that he might have turned a machine gun on a picture gallery. He said, “That dress in the window. How much?”
She said, “Five guineas.” She wouldn’t “sir” him. His lip was like a badge of class. It revealed the poverty of parents who couldn’t afford a clever surgeon.
He said, “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
She lisped at him genteely, “It’s been vewwy much admired.”
“Soft. Thin. You’d have to take care of a dress like that, eh? Do for someone pretty and well off?”
She lied without interest, “It’s a model.” She was a woman; she knew all about it; she knew how cheap and vulgar the little shop really was.
“It’s got class, eh?”
“Oh yes,” she said, catching the eye of a dago in a purple suit through the pane, “it’s got class.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll give you five pounds for it.” He took a note from Mr Cholmondeley’s wallet.
“Shall I pack it up?”
“No,” he said. “The girl’ll fetch it.” He grinned at her with his raw lip. “You see, she’s class. This the best dress you have?” And when she nodded and took the note away he said, “It’ll just suit Alice then.”
And so out into the avenue with a little of his scorn expressed, out into Frith Street and round the corner into the German café where he kept a room. A shock awaited him there, a little fir tree in a tub hung with colored glass, a crib. He said to the old man who owned the café, “You believe in this? This junk?”
“Is there going to be war again?” the old man said. “It’s terrible what you read.”
“All this business of no room in the inn. They used to give us plum pudding. A decree from Caesar Augustus. You see I know the stuff, I’m educated. We used to have it read us once a year.”
“I have seen one war.”
“I hate the sentiment.”
“Well,” the old man said, “it’s good for business.”
Raven picked up the bambino. The cradle came with it all of a piece: cheap painted plaster. “They put him on the spot, eh? You see I know the whole story. I’m educated.”
He went upstairs to his room. It hadn’t been seen to: there was still dirty water in the basin, and the ewer was empty. He remembered the fat man saying, “Chumley, my man, Chumley. It’s pronounced Chumley,” flashing his emerald ring. He called furiously, “Alice,” over the banisters.
She came out of the next room, a slattern, one shoulder too high, with wisps of fair bleached hair over her face. She said, “You needn’t shout.”
He said, “It’s a pigsty in there. You can’t treat me like that. Go in and clean it.” He hit her on the side of the head, and she cringed away from him, not daring to say anything but, “Who do you think you are?”
“Get on,” he said, “you humpbacked bitch.” He began to laugh at her when she crouched over the bed. “I’ve bought you a Christmas dress, Alice. Here’s the receipt. Go and fetch it. It’s a lovely dress. It’ll suit you.”
“You think you’re funny,” she said.
“I’ve paid a fiver for this joke. Hurry, Alice, or the shop’ll be shut.” But she got her own back calling up the stairs, “I won’t look worse than what you do with that split lip.” Everyone in the house could hear her: the old man in the café, his wife in the parlor, the customers at the counter. He imagined their smiles. “Go it, Alice, what an ugly pair you are.” He didn’t really suffer: he had been fed the poison from boyhood drop by drop; he hardly noticed its bitterness now.
He went to the window and opened it and scratched on the sill. The kitten came to him, making little rushes along the drainpipe, feinting at his hand. “You little bitch,” he said, “you little bitch.” He took a small two-penny carton of cream out of his overcoat pocket and spilled it in his soap dish. She stopped playing and rushed at him with a tiny cry. He picked her up by the scruff and put her on top of his chest of drawers with the cream. She wriggled from his hand; she was no larger than the rat he’d trained in the home, but softer. He scratched her behind the ear, and she struck back at him in a preoccupied way. Her tongue quivered on the surface of the milk.
Dinnertime, he told himself. With all that money he could go anywhere. He could have a slap-up meal at Simpson’s with the businessmen—cut off the joint and any number of vegs.
When he got by the public call box in the dark corner below the stairs he caught his name, “Raven.” The old man said, “He always has a room here. He’s been away.”
“You,” a strange voice said. “What’s your name—Alice—show me his room. Keep an eye on the door, Saunders.”
Raven went on his knees inside the telephone box. He left the door ajar because he never liked to be shut in. He couldn’t see out, but he had no need to see the owner of the voice to recognize police, plain clothes, the Yard accent. The man was so near that the floor of the box vibrated to his tread. Then he came down again. “There’s no one there. He’s taken his hat and coat. He must have gone out.”
“He might have,” the old man said. “He’s a soft-walking sort of fellow.”
The stranger began to question them. “What’s he like?”
The old man and the girl both said in a breath, �
�A harelip.”
“That’s useful,” the detective said. “Don’t touch his room. I’ll be sending a man round to take his fingerprints. What sort of a fellow is he?”
Raven could hear every word. He couldn’t imagine what they were after. He knew he’d left no clues: he wasn’t a man who imagined things, he knew. He carried the picture of that room and flat in his brain as clearly as if he had the photographs. They had nothing against him. It had been against his orders to keep the automatic, but he could feel it now safe under his armpit. Besides, if they had picked up any clue they’d have stopped him at Dover. He listened to the voices with a dull anger: he wanted his dinner; he hadn’t had a square meal for twenty-four hours, and now with two hundred pounds in his pocket he could buy anything, anything.
“I can believe it,” the old man said. “Why tonight he even made fun of my poor wife’s crib.”
“A bloody bully,” the girl said. “I shan’t be sorry when you’ve locked him up.”
He told himself with surprise, they hate me.
She said, “He’s ugly through and through. That lip of his. It gives you the creeps.”
“An ugly customer all right.”
“I wouldn’t have him in the house,” the old man said. “But he pays. You can’t turn away someone who pays. Not in these days.”
“Has he friends?”
“You make me laugh,” Alice said. “Him friends. What would he do with friends?”
He began to laugh quietly to himself on the floor of the little dark box: That’s me they’re talking about, me. He stared up at the pane of glass with his hand on his automatic.
“You seem kind of bitter. What’s he been doing to you? He was going to give you a dress, wasn’t he?”
“Just his dirty joke.”
“You were going to take it, though.”
“You bet I wasn’t. Do you think I’d take a present from him? I was going to sell it back to them and show him the money, and wasn’t I going to laugh?”
He thought again with bitter interest, they hate me. If they open this door I’ll shoot the lot.
“I’d like to take a swipe at that lip of his. I’d laugh. I’d say I’d laugh.”
“I’ll put a man,” the strange voice said, “across the road. Tip him the wink if our man comes in.” The café door closed.
“Oh,” the old man said. “I wish my wife was here. She would not miss this for ten shillings.”
“I’ll give her a ring,” Alice said. “She’ll be chatting at Mason’s. She can come right over and bring Mrs Mason, too. Let ‘em all join in the fun. It was only a week ago Mrs Mason said she didn’t want to see his ugly face in her shop again.”
“Yes, be a good girl, Alice. Give her a ring.”
Raven reached up his hand and took the bulb out of the fitment: he stood up and flattened himself against the wall of the box. Alice opened the door and shut herself in with him. He put his hand over her mouth before she had time to cry.
He said, “Don’t you put the pennies in the box. I’ll shoot if you do. I’ll shoot if you call out. Do what I say.” He whispered in her ear. They were as close together as if they were in a single bed. He could feel her crooked shoulder pressed against his chest. He said, “Lift the receiver. Pretend you’re talking to the old woman. Go on. I don’t care a damn if I shoot you. Say, Hello, Frau Groener.”
“Hello, Frau Groener.”
“Spill the whole story.”
“They are after Raven.”
“Why?”
“That five-pound note. They were waiting at the shop.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’d got its number. It was stolen.”
He’d been double-crossed. His mind worked with mechanical accuracy like a ready-reckoner. You only had to supply it with the figures and it gave you the answer. He was possessed by a deep sullen rage. If Mr Cholmondeley had been in the box with him he would have shot him: he wouldn’t have cared a damn.
“Stolen from where?”
“You ought to know that.”
“Don’t give me any lip. Where from?”
He didn’t even know who Cholmondeley’s employers were. It was obvious what had happened: they hadn’t trusted him. They had arranged this so that he might be put away. A newsboy went by outside calling, “Ultimatum. Ultimatum.” His mind registered the fact, but no more; it seemed to have nothing to do with him. He repeated, “Where from?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
With the automatic stuck against her back he tried to plead with her. “Remember, can’t you? It’s important. I didn’t do it.”
“I bet you didn’t,” she said bitterly into the unconnected phone.
“Give me a break. All I want you to do is remember.”
She said, “On your life I won’t.”
“I gave you that dress, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t. You tried to plant your money, that’s all. You didn’t know they’d circulated the numbers to every shop in town. We’ve even got them in the café.”
“If I’d done it, why should I want to know where they came from?”
“It’ll be a bigger laugh than ever if you get jugged for something you didn’t do.”
“Alice,” the old man called from the café, “is she coming?”
“I’ll give you ten pounds.”
“Phony notes. No thank you, Mr Generosity.”
“Alice,” the old man called again; they could hear him coming along the passage.
“Justice,” he said bitterly, jabbing her between the ribs with the automatic.
“You don’t need to talk about justice,” she said. “Driving me like I was in prison. Hitting me when you feel like it. Spilling ash all over the floor. I’ve got enough to do with your slops. Milk in the soap dish. Don’t talk about justice.”
Pressed against him in the tiny dark box she suddenly came alive to him. He was so astonished that he forgot the old man till he had the door of the box open. He whispered passionately, out of the dark, “Don’t say a word or I’ll plug you.” He had them both out of the box in front of him. He said, “Understand this. They aren’t going to get me. I’m not going to prison. I don’t care a damn if I plug one of you. I don’t care if I hang. My father hanged. … What’s good enough for him … Get along in front of me up to my room. There’s hell coming to somebody for this.”
When he had them there he locked the door. A customer was ringing the café bell over and over again. He turned on them. “I’ve got a good mind to plug you. Telling them about my harelip. Why can’t you play fair?” He went to the window; he knew there was an easy way down: that was why he had chosen the room. The kitten caught his eye, prowling like a toy tiger in a cage up and down the edge of the chest of drawers, afraid to jump. He lifted her up and threw her on his bed; she tried to bite his finger as she went. Then he got through onto the leads. The clouds were massing up across the moon, and the earth seemed to move with them, an icy barren globe, through the vast darkness.
4
Anne Crowder walked up and down the small room in her heavy tweed coat; she didn’t want to waste a shilling on the gas meter, because she wouldn’t get her shilling’s worth before morning. She told herself, I’m lucky to have got that job. I’m glad to be going off to work again. But she wasn’t convinced. It was eight now; they would have four hours together till midnight. She would have to deceive him and tell him she was catching the nine-o’clock, not the five-o’clock train, or he would be sending her back to bed early. He was like that. No romance. She smiled with tenderness and blew on her fingers.
The telephone at the bottom of the house was ringing. She thought it was the doorbell and ran to the mirror in the wardrobe. There wasn’t enough light from the dull globe to tell her if her makeup would stand the brilliance of the Astoria Dance Hall. She began making up all over again; if she was pale he would take her home early.
The landlady stuck her head in at the door and said, “
It’s your gentleman. On the phone.”
“On the phone?”
“Yes,” the landlady said, sidling in for a good chat, “he sounded all of a jump. Impatient, I should say. Half barked my head off when I wished him good evening.”
“Oh,” she said despairingly, “it’s only his way. You mustn’t mind him.”
“He’s going to call off the evening, I suppose,” the landlady said. “It’s always the same. You girls who go traveling round never get a square deal. You said Dick Whittington, didn’t you?”
“No, no; Aladdin.”
She pelted down the stairs. She didn’t care a damn who saw her hurry. She said, “Is that you, darling?” There was always something wrong with their telephone. She could hear his voice so hoarsely vibrating against her ear she could hardly realize it was his. He said, “You’ve been ages. This is a public call box. I’ve put in my last pennies. Listen, Anne, I can’t be with you. I’m sorry. It’s work. We’re onto the man in that safe robbery I told you about. I shall be out all night on it. We’ve traced one of the notes.” His voice beat excitedly against her ear.
She said, “Oh, that’s fine, darling. I know you wanted …” But she couldn’t keep it up. “Jimmy,” she said, “I shan’t be seeing you again. For weeks.”
He said, “It’s tough, I know. I’d been dreaming of … Listen. You’d better not catch that early train; what’s the point? There isn’t a nine-o’clock. I’ve been looking them up.”
“I know. I just said—”
“You’d better go tonight. Then you can get a rest before rehearsals. Midnight from Euston.”
“But I haven’t packed. …”
He took no notice. It was his favorite occupation, planning things, making decisions. He said, “If I’m near the station, I’ll try—”
“Your two minutes up.”
He said, “Oh hell, I’ve no coppers. Darling, I love you.”
She struggled to bring it out herself, but his name stood in the way, impeded her tongue. She could never bring it out without hesitation. “Ji—” The line went dead on her. She thought bitterly, he oughtn’t to go out without coppers. She thought, it’s not right, cutting off a detective like that. Then she went back up the stairs. She wasn’t crying; it was just as if somebody had died and left her alone and scared, scared of the new faces and the new job, the harsh provincial jokes, the fellows who were fresh; scared of herself, scared of not being able to remember clearly how good it was to be loved.
