The Confidential Agent

  ‘Clara,’ D. said, ‘is a young prostitute. You ought to be able to find her easily enough. Presumably the letter will explain what all this means.’

  ‘It sounds clear enough what’s written here.’

  ‘Our plan,’ D. went on dully, ‘was simply this: I was going to take her away to-day from the hotel.’

  ‘Below the age of consent,’ the detective said.

  ‘I am not a beast. I asked Miss Cullen to find her a job.’

  The detective said, ‘Would it be right to say that you had got her to agree to go away with you, promising her employment?’

  ‘Of course it wouldn’t.’

  ‘It’s what you said. And what about this woman called Clara? Where does she come in?’

  ‘She had invited the child to come and be her maid. It didn’t seem to me – suitable.’

  The detective began to write: ‘She had been offered employment by a young woman, but it did not seem to me suitable, so I persuaded her to come away with me . . .’

  D. said, ‘You don’t write, do you, as well as she did.’

  ‘This isn’t a joking matter.’

  Rage grew in him slowly like a cancer. He began to remember phrases – ‘Most of the boarders like kippers’, turns of the head, her fear at being left alone, the appalling immaturity of her devotion. ‘I’m not joking. I’m telling you there was no question of suicide. I charge the manageress and Mr K. with deliberate murder. She must have been pushed . . .’

  The detective said, ‘It’s up to us to do the charging. The manageress has been questioned – naturally. She was very upset. She admits she’s been cross with the child, for slatternly ways. As for Mr K., I’ve never heard of him. There’s no one of that name in the hotel.’

  He said, ‘I’m warning you. If you don’t do the job I will.’

  ‘That’s enough now,’ the detective said. ‘You won’t be doing anything more in this country. It’s time we moved.’

  ‘There’s not enough evidence to arrest me.’

  ‘Not on this charge there isn’t – yet. But the gentleman here says you are carrying a false passport . . .’

  D. said slowly, ‘All right. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘We’ve got a car outside.’

  D. stood up. He said, ‘Do you put on handcuffs?’ The detective mellowed a little. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary.’

  ‘Will you need me?’ the secretary asked.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll be wanted down at the station, sir. You see, we haven’t any right here – it’s your country. In case there’s questions asked by some of these politicians we’ll need a statement that you called us in. I suppose there may be more charges to come. Peters,’ he said, ‘go and see if the car’s outside. We don’t want to stand about in this fog.’

  It was apparently the absolute end – not only the end of Else but of thousands at home . . . because there would be no coal now. Her death was only the first, and perhaps the most horrible because she was alone; the others would die in company in underground shelters. Rage slowly ate its way . . . he had been pushed around. . . . He watched Peters out of the room. He said to the detective, ‘That’s my birthplace over there – that village under the mountains.’ The detective turned and looked at it. He said, ‘It’s very picturesque,’ and D. struck – right on the secretary’s Adam’s apple just where the high white collar ended. He went down with a whistle of pain, scrabbling for his gun. That helped. D. had it in his hand before the detective moved. He said quickly, ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t shoot. I’m on active service.’

  ‘Now,’ the detective said, holding up his hand as coolly as if he were on point duty, ‘don’t act wild – what we’ve got on you won’t put you away for more than three months.’

  D. said to the secretary, ‘Get over to that wall. I’ve had a gang of traitors after me ever since I came across. Now I’m going to do the shooting.’

  ‘Put away that gun,’ the detective said in a gentle reasonable voice. ‘You’ve got overwrought. We’ll look into your story when we get to the station.’

  D. started to move backwards towards the door. ‘Peters,’ the detective called sharply. D. had his hand on the handle: he began to turn it, but met resistance. Somebody outside wanted to get in. He dropped his hand and stood back against the wall with the gun covering the detective. The door swung open, hiding him. Peters said, ‘What is it, Sarge?’

  ‘Look out!’ But Peters had advanced into the room. D. turned the gun on him. ‘Back against the wall with the others,’ he said.

  The elderly detective said, ‘You are acting foolish. If you do get out of here, you’ll be picked up in a few hours. Drop that gun and we’ll say no more about it.’

  D. said, ‘I need the gun.’

  The door was open. He went backwards slowly and slammed the door to. He couldn’t lock it. He called, ‘I’ll fire at the first one who opens the door.’ He was in the hall, among tall old portraits and marble consoles. He heard Rose say, ‘What are you doing?’ and swung round, the gun in his hand. Forbes was beside her. He said, ‘No time to talk. That child was murdered. Somebody’s going to die.’

  Forbes said, ‘Drop that gun, you fool. This is London.’

  He took no notice of him at all. He said, ‘My name is D.’ He felt that much of an avowal was due to Rose. He wasn’t likely to see her again: he didn’t want her to believe that she was always double-crossed by everyone. He said, ‘There must be some way of checking up . . .’ She was watching the gun with horror; she was probably not listening. He said, ‘I once gave a copy of my book to the Museum – inscribed to the reading-room attendants – in thanks.’ The handle began to turn. He called out sharply, ‘Let go or I’ll fire.’ A man in black carrying a portfolio came running lightly down the wide marble steps. He exclaimed, ‘I say!’ seeing the gun and stood stock still. They made quite a crowd in the hall now, waiting for something to happen. D. hesitated; he had a belief that she would say something, something important like ‘Good luck’ or ‘Be careful’, but she was silent, staring at the gun. It was Forbes who spoke. He said in a puzzled voice, ‘You know there’s a police car just outside.’ The man on the stairs said, ‘I say!’ again, incredulously. A bell tinkled and was silent. Forbes said, ‘Don’t forget they’ve got the telephone in there.’

  He had forgotten it. He backed quickly, then by the glass doors of the hall thrust the gun in his pocket and walked quickly out. The police car was there, against the kerb. If Forbes called to the others he hadn’t ten yards’ start. He walked as fast as he dared; the driver gave him a sharp look – he had forgotten that he had no hat. In the fog it was possible to see for about twenty yards. He dared not run.

  Perhaps Forbes hadn’t called. He looked back; the car was obscured – he could see the tail light, that was all. He started to run on his toes. Behind there was suddenly a clash of voices, the starting of an engine. They were after him. He ran – but there was no exit. He hadn’t noticed that the embassy was in a square to which there was only one entrance; he had turned the wrong way and had three sides to cover. There wasn’t time. . . . He could hear the car whine into top. They were not wasting time by turning – they were driving straight round the square.

  Was this the end again? He nearly lost his head, running down the railings in what was now the direction of the car. Then his hand missed the railing: there was a gap: the head of basement stairs. He ran to the bottom and crouched close under the wall and heard the car go by above. He was saved for the moment by fog. They couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t all the time just ahead. They couldn’t be certain he hadn’t turned when they started and outrun them to the street.

  But they weren’t taking chances. He could hear a whistle blowing and presently footsteps coming slowly round the square: they were looking in the areas. One must be going round one way, one the other. The car probably blocked the street and they would be getting more men. Had they lost their fear of his gun, or had t
hey arms of their own in the police car? He didn’t know how these things went in England. They were coming close.

  There wasn’t a light on. That alone was dangerous: they wouldn’t expect to find him in an occupied basement. He peered through the window; he couldn’t see much – the corner of what looked like a divan. It was probably a basement flat. There was a notice on the door: ‘No milk till Monday’. He tore it down. There was a little brass plate beside the bell: Glover. He tried the door: hopeless: bolted and double-locked. The footsteps came nearer, very slowly. They must be searching thoroughly. There was only one chance – people were careless. He took out a knife and slipped it under the catch of the window, levered it: the pane slid up. He scrambled through and fell – silently – on the divan. He could hear somebody working up the square the other way; he felt weak and out of breath, but he daren’t rest yet. He closed the window and turned on the light.

  The place was stuffy with the smell of pot-pourri from a decorated pot on the mantelpiece; a divan covered with an art needlework counterpane: blue-and-orange cushions: a gas fire. He took it quickly in to the home-made water-colours on the walls and the radio set by the dressing-table. It spoke to him of an unmarried ageing woman with few interests. He heard steps coming down into the area. On no account must the place seem empty. He looked for the switch, plugged in the radio. A bright feminine voice said, ‘But what is the young housewife to do if her table only seats four? To borrow from a neighbour at such short notice may be difficult.’ He opened a door at random and found himself in the bathroom. ‘Why not put two tables of the same height on end? The join will not be visible under the cloth. But where is the cloth to come from?’ Somebody – it could only be a policeman – rang the area bell. ‘Even this need not be borrowed if you have a plain counterpane upon your bed.’

  Rage dictated his movements. They were pushing him around still: his turn had got to come. He opened a cupboard door, found what he wanted – one of the tiny razors women use for their armpits, and a stick of shaving soap, a towel. He tucked the towel into his collar, lathered over his moustache and the scar on his chin. The bell rang again. A voice said, ‘That was Lady Mersham in the second talk of a series, Hints to the Young Housewife.’

  D. moved slowly to the door, opened it. A policeman stood outside. He had a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. He said, ‘Seeing as this said “No milk till Monday”, I thought the flat might be empty and the light left on.’ He peered at D. closely. D. said, pronouncing his words carefully as if he had to pass an examination in English, ‘That was last week.’

  ‘You haven’t seen any stranger about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good morning,’ the man said and moved reluctantly away. Suddenly he came back and said sharply, ‘Funny sort of razor you use.’

  D. realised that he was holding the woman’s razor in his hand. He said, ‘Oh, it’s my sister’s. I lost my own. Why?’

  It was a young man. He lost his poise and said, ‘Oh well, sir. We got to keep our eyes open.’

  D. said, ‘You’ll excuse me. I am in rather a hurry.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir.’ He watched the man climb up into the fog. Then he closed the door and went back into the bathroom. The trapdoor had opened and let him out. He cleared the soap away from his mouth: no moustache. It made a difference, an enormous difference. It took ten years off his age. Rage was like vitality in his veins. Now they were going to have some of their own medicine. He had stood up to the watcher, the beating, the bullet: now it was their turn. Let them stand up to it equally well if they could. He thought of Mr K. and the manageress and the dead child, and moving back into the stuffy female room which smelt of dead roses he swore that from now on he would be the hunter, the watcher, the marksman in the mews.

  PART TWO

  The Hunter

  [1]

  A hollow B.B.C. voice said: ‘Before we turn you over to the Northern Regional for a cinema organ recital from the Super-Palace, Newcastle, here is an SOS from Scotland Yard: “Wanted by the police: an alien passing under the name of D. who was arrested this morning at the request of the ⎯⎯ Embassy and made his escape after assaulting the Ambassador’s secretary. Aged about forty-five, five feet nine inches in height, hair dark inclined to grey, a heavy moustache, a scar on the right side of his chin. He is believed to carry a revolver.”’

  The waitress said, ‘That’s funny. You got a scar too. Don’t you go and get into trouble.’

  ‘No,’ D. said, ‘no. I must be careful, mustn’t I?’

  ‘The things that happen,’ the waitress said. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? I was just going down the street, an’ there was a crowd. Somebody committed suicide, they said, out of a window. Of course I stopped an’ watched, but there wasn’t anything to see. So at lunchtime I go round to the hotel – to see Else an’ ask what it was all about. When they said it was Else, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.’

  ‘You and she were friends?’

  ‘Oh, she hadn’t got a better.’

  ‘And of course you’re upset?’

  ‘I can’t hardly believe it yet.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely, does it, a girl of that age? You don’t think it was – perhaps – an accident?’

  ‘Oh, it couldn’t a’ been. If you ask me, it’s a case of still waters – I know more than most people, an’ I think she was crossed in love.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes – with a married man living in Highbury.’

  ‘Have you told the police that?’

  ‘I’m to be called at the inquest.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘Oh no. She was a quiet one. But you pick up things.’ He watched her with horror: this was friendship. He watched the small brown heartless eyes while she invented things even as she talked. There wasn’t a man at Highbury except in that romantic and squalid brain. Was it she who had lent Else those novelettes which had conditioned her speech ? She said, ‘I think it was the children was the difficulty.’ There was a kind of gusto of creation in the voice. Else was safely dead; she could be reconstructed now to suit anybody at all. ‘Else was mad about him. It was a proper spell.’

  He laid the money down beside his plate. He said, ‘Well, it was interesting to hear about your – adventure.’

  ‘It’ll be a long while before I forget it. I tell you – you could’ve knocked me down . . .’

  He went out into the icy evening; it had been just chance which had led him to that café, or the fact that it was only two blocks from the hotel, and he wanted to make up his mind on the spot. The story was in all the papers now – ‘Gunman in Embassy’ stared at him from a poster. They had his description, the charge – entering the country with a false passport, and one of the papers had routed out from somebody the fact that he had been staying in a hotel where a maid had committed suicide that morning. The fact was printed with a hint at a mystery, at developments to follow. . . . Well, there were going to be developments.

  He moved boldly down the road towards the hotel. The fog had nearly lifted now. He felt like a man exposed by the drawing back of a curtain. He wondered if they would have posted a policeman at the hotel; he came cautiously along the railings, holding an evening paper in front of his face, reading. . . . There was nobody about; the door stood open, as usual. He went quickly in, through the glass inner door, closing it behind him. The keys hung on their hooks; he took down his own. A voice – it was the manageress’s – called down from the first floor, ‘Is that Mr Muckerji?’

  He said, ‘Yes,’ hoping that Mr Muckerji had no pet phrase . . . two foreign intonations were much alike. She seemed satisfied. He heard no more. The whole place was oddly quiet, as if death had touched it. No clatter of forks from the dining-room – no sound from the kitchen. He trod softly up the carpeted stairs. The door of the manageress’s room was half shut; he went by and up the wooden stairs. What window had she dropped from? He put the key into his door and softly opened it.
Somewhere out of sight somebody was coughing – cough, cough, cough. He left the door ajar behind him; he wanted to listen. Sooner or later he would hear Mr K. He had marked down Mr K. as the simplest to deal with; he would break quicker than the manageress when the screw was turned.

  He turned into the dim room. The curtains were drawn for a death. He reached the bed and realised with a shock that she was there, laid out ready for burial. Did they have to wait for the inquest? Presumably it was the only vacant room – her own would already have been filled – life goes on. She lay there stiff, clean and unnatural. People talked as if death were like sleep: it was like nothing but itself. He was reminded of a bird discovered at the bottom of a cage on its back, with the claws rigid as grape stalks; nothing could look more dead. He had seen people dead in the street after an air raid, but they fell in curious humped positions – a lot of embryos in the womb. This was different – a unique position reserved for one occasion. Nobody in pain or asleep lay like this.

  Some people might pray. That was a passive part: he was anxious to express himself in action. Lying there the body seemed to erase the fear of pain; he could have faced the chauffeur now on any lonely road. He felt fear like an irrelevancy. He didn’t speak to the body: it couldn’t hear – it was no longer she. He heard steps on the stairs, voices. . . . He went behind the curtain, sat back on the sill to keep his feet off the floor. Light came into the room. The manageress’s voice said, ‘I could have sworn I locked that door. There! That’s her.’

  A girl’s voice said with avid emotion, ‘She looks lovely.’

  ‘She often talked of you, Clara,’ the manageress said heavily.

  ‘The dear . . . of course she did. Whatever made her, do you think . . . ?’