The Confidential Agent

  ‘We never know – do we? – another person’s heart.’ He could see one of them now through a crack between the curtains – a girl with a coarse amiable pretty face a little smudged with tears. She asked, ‘Was it here?’ in a tone of awe.

  ‘Yes. Through that window.’

  This window: but why hadn’t she struggled? he wondered. Why were there no marks for the police to see?

  ‘That very window?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They began to move across the room. Were they going to examine the scene a little more closely and discover him? Feet came towards him, paused as Clara spoke.

  ‘If she’d come to me, it wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘She was all right here,’ the manageress said, ‘before he came.’

  ‘He’s got something on his conscience all right. Though when she wrote to me she was going away with him, I never thought she meant this way.’ He thought: then even that letter doesn’t help. She had been, poor child, incurably vague to the last with her novelette phrases.

  The manageress said, ‘If you don’t mind I’ll bring up Mr Muckerji. He was most anxious to see her for the last time.’

  ‘It’s only right,’ Clara said. He heard the manageress go. Through the crack he could see Clara making up – the dab of powder, the lipstick – a man was on his way. But she didn’t touch the tears – they were only proper.

  The manageress returned. She was alone. She said, ‘It’s very odd. He’s not in his room.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s not come in.’

  ‘I heard him, though. He was in the hall taking his key. I called out to him and he answered.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s in – you know – the place.’

  ‘Oh no. I tried the door.’ She was ill at ease. She said, ‘I can’t understand. Somebody came in.’

  Clara said, ‘It sort of makes you think of ghosts, doesn’t it, this sort of thing.’

  ‘I think I’ll go upstairs,’ she said, ‘and see how things are going. We have to get the room ready, you know, for the new maid.’

  ‘Else wasn’t much – was she? – for cleanness. Poor dear. I don’t suppose she’d ’ave suited me. You want things just so when you have gentlemen friends.’ She was framed for a moment in the crack of the curtain, looking complacently down at the invisible dead. ‘Well, I must be going now. A gentleman has an appointment for eight sharp. And he doesn’t like to be kept.’ She moved out of sight. The manageress’s voice said, ‘You don’t mind if I don’t come down with you, dear, do you? There’s things . . .’

  He put his hand upon his gun, waiting. The light went out. The door shut. He heard the lock turn; the manageress must have her master-key with her. He gave her a small start and then came out from behind the curtain. He didn’t look at the body again: it had no interest now that it had no voice, no brain. . . . If you believed in God, you could also believe that it had been saved from much misery and had a finer future. You could leave punishment, then, to God . . . just because there was no need of punishments when all a murderer did was to deliver. . . . But he hadn’t that particular faith. Unless people received their deserts, the world to him was chaos, he was faced with despair. He unlocked the door.

  The manageress was on the floor above, talking. He closed the door behind him very softly; he didn’t lock it – let them be haunted by the inexplicable. Suddenly he heard K.’s voice, ‘You just forgot, I suppose. What else could it be?’

  ‘I don’t forget things,’ the manageress said. ‘And, anyway, who answered me if it wasn’t Mr Muckerji?’

  ‘He may have gone out again.’

  ‘It isn’t like him to pop in and out.’

  There was a strong smell of paint. D. slowly mounted. He could see into the room now: the light was on, while he bowed in obscurity on the dark stairs. Mr K. was standing by the window with a paint-brush – of course D. saw it now – it was from her own window she had fallen; there had been scratches, but there were no scratches any more. The room was redecorated for the next maid – the whole place whitened and freshened and free from crime. But Mr K. had been awkward with the brush – they had been afraid to use a handyman – he had green paint on his jacket: it had even got on to his steel-rimmed spectacles. He said, ‘Who could it have been, anyway?’

  ‘I thought of D.’

  ‘He’d never dare.’ He asked sharply, for reassurance, ‘Surely he’d never dare?’

  ‘You can’t tell what a man will dare when he hasn’t anything to lose.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know. You don’t really believe he’s here – now – somewhere in the house? Perhaps – with her.’ His voice broke a little. ‘What could he want here?’

  ‘He might be wanting us.’

  It was a pleasure to D. to watch Mr K.’s face, puckered behind the steel rims. Unquestionably he’d break under pressure. He said, ‘O God, the radio says he has a gun . . .’

  ‘Better not talk so loud. He may be listening. We can’t tell where he is. I’m sure I locked that door.’

  Mr K. screamed at her, ‘You can tell – can’t you – if he has the key.’

  ‘Shsh!’ She wasn’t easy herself – the big spotty face was pastier than ever. ‘To think he may have been there with me and Clara.’

  D. began to move back down the stairs. He heard Mr K. call sharply, ‘Don’t leave me alone,’ and her contemptuous reply, ‘We’ve got to be sure. I’ll just go down and see if the key’s there on the rack for his room. If it’s not, we can always dial the police,’ she added, doubtfully.

  D. went quickly down, risking a creaking stair, risking the Indian on the second floor – perhaps he’d packed and gone: people don’t like a suicide in the house. Everything was very quiet. He hung up his key – no need for the police to interfere in this vendetta – then stood inside the dining-room door and listened. He heard the manageress come cautiously down into the hall, heavily breathing, and then call out, ‘The key’s here.’ Mr K. could be heard on the stairs; he was moving very quickly, the paint slopped up and down in its pot. She called out encouragingly, ‘It must have been a mistake. Just feel the door as you go by.’

  ‘I don’t like to.’

  ‘Go on, you fool. I locked it only a minute ago.’

  He panted down to her, ‘It’s not locked now.’

  D. could see her face in a mirror over the aspidistra: it showed more than fear – calculation, listening . . . It occurred to him that she mightn’t want to call the police while the paint was still wet upstairs and the smell of it about the house: the less they had to explain the better. Mr K. was in the hall now. He said anxiously, ‘You must have thought you turned the key. He wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘And the voice?’

  ‘Of course it was Mr Muckerji . . .’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘here he is, isn’t he? You can ask him now for yourself.’ The hall door opened. In the mirror he could see her eyes . . . absorbed, planning. . . . She said, ‘You’re late, Mr Muckerji. I thought I heard you ten minutes ago . . .’

  ‘Not me, madam. I have been busy, very busy . . . among the neighbours.’

  ‘O God,’ Mr K. said, ‘then it was . . .’

  ‘What have you been busy about, Mr Muckerji?’

  ‘Well – you will not be offended – you have a phrase, “The show goes on,” haven’t you? and when that poor child committed suicide, it seemed an occasion – of sociological importance. You know how it is, Mrs Mendrill, we mass observers are always on duty.’

  What was that? D. wondered. He could make no sense of it.

  ‘So I have been collecting data. All the many reasons for her death – a married man in Highbury, a boy in Lambeth – all untrue, of course, but it shows the working of their minds. We know, of course, that the foreign gentleman . . .’

  ‘Listen,’ Mr K. said, ‘listen. I won’t stay here. Get the police.’

  Mr Muckerji said reprovingly, ‘There has been a lot of hysteria, too. And this will interest you, Mrs Mendrill. There was someb
ody who said she saw the child fall. But she didn’t.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Because she told me the wrong window. Everything else was right – but she had read the papers, you see, so she filled in – about your being there, trying to hold her back . . . the scream . . . all of it. But she got the window wrong. That is very interesting, I think.’

  ‘What do you do,’ the manageress said, ‘with all this information?’

  ‘I type it out on my little Corona and send it to the organisers. We call it Mass Observation.’

  ‘Do they print it?’

  ‘They file it for reference. Perhaps one day in a big book – without my name. We work,’ he said regretfully, ‘for science.’

  Mr K. said, ‘You’ve got to send for the police.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ the manageress said sharply. She explained, ‘He sees that man – you know, the one who drove her to it – he sees him everywhere.’

  Mr Muckerji said automatically, ‘That is interesting.’ He sniffed. ‘Ah, repainting. That is very interesting, too. Are you being practical – to eliminate traces – or superstitious?’

  ‘What do you mean – traces?’ Mr K. said, excitedly.

  ‘Oh, I mean untidiness, stains . . . things you do not want in an elegant hotel, which you were planning to re-do in any case. Or is it superstition? Because there has been a death. You see, there are tribes in West Africa who behave like that. They will even destroy the hut, the clothes, everything of the dead person. They want quite to forget that there has been a death. I am anxious to discover if your desire to put a new coat of paint over your hotel belongs to that category.’

  Mr K. said, ‘I’m going. I can’t stand this. If you want any help . . .’

  Suddenly D. realised that he, too, was visible to the manageress in the same mirror. Their eyes had met. The manageress said slowly, ‘I shall be all right. With Mr Muckerji. It’s you who had better be careful.’ She said, ‘Didn’t you want to see the body, Mr Muckerji?’

  ‘Yes. If it is convenient. I have brought a few flowers. . . . That is superstition, but it is also practical. Because of the scent . . .’

  ‘I don’t like flowers in a bedroom as a rule, but in this case I don’t suppose it matters, does it?’

  D. watched her narrowly and she returned his look at second-hand. There were people, he thought, who could shoot like that. At shows. With the help of a mirror.

  Mr K. said, ‘I’m going, Marie,’ as if he expected something more than this heartless warning. It was as though, in the mirror, she were encouraging D. to do his worst. She was strong, all right; she would be the last to break. Square and spotty and determined, she surrendered him, as it were, one victim. . . .

  Mr Muckerji said, ‘A moment. I left my glasses, I think, in the dining-room at breakfast-time.’ D. drew the gun from his pocket and waited.

  ‘Oh no, Mr Muckerji,’ the manageress said, ‘you’ll find them in your room. We always clear away.’ She led him up the stairs with a hand on his arm. He was carrying a few untidy flowers wrapped in newspaper. It was extraordinary how the whole world could alter after a single violent act. They had thought they would put him safely away, but it was he now who was safe . . . because he had nothing to think about now but punishment, no duties . . . and it was they who welcomed the presence of Mr Muckerji as he had done only that morning.

  The hall door shut; he followed Mr K. into the street. Mr K. walked fast without looking behind him, carrying an umbrella. They went rapidly down towards the Gray’s Inn Road – D. twenty paces behind. He made no effort to disguise his pursuit; it seemed improbable that Mr K. would really have the nerve to call a policeman. Suddenly, desperately, Mr K. came to bay – on the pavement, by a bus stop; he must have heard the footsteps behind him, crossing the road when he crossed, pausing when he paused. He turned and watched D. approach. He had a cigarette in his hand: it wobbled. He said, ‘Excuse me. Might I have a light?’

  ‘Certainly.’ D. struck the match and held it, so that it lit the scared short-sighted eyes. They peered at him with haunted relief: no recognition. It was astonishing what difference a moustache made. He had to steady the cigarette with his own fingers. K. said, ‘I see you’ve got an evening paper in your pocket. Might I see?’ He was the kind of man who always borrowed if he could: he saved a match and saved a paper.

  ‘You can have it,’ D. said. They had had only two interviews together, he and K., but something about the voice worried the man. He looked up sharply and then down at the paper again. He wasn’t sure. A bus drew up. He said, ‘Thank you,’ climbing on board. D. followed up to the top deck. They swayed forward one behind the other. Mr K. took the front seat: D. was just behind. Mr K. looked sharply up and saw D.’s face reflected in the glass. He sat there, not reading the paper, thinking, hunched in his seat; his old and seedy overcoat registered sickness like a cat’s fur.

  The bus turned into Holborn: the queue was going into the Empire: big windows full of office furniture lined the street: a milk bar, then more furniture. The bus moved west. D. watched Mr K.’s face in the window. Where did he live? Had he the courage to go home? They crossed St Giles’s Circus into Oxford Street; Mr K. looked out and down with a kind of nostalgia at the policeman on point duty, the dance couples outside the Astoria. He took off his spectacles and rubbed the glass; he wanted to see clearly. The paper was open on his knee at the story of the gunman in the Embassy. He began to read the description as if he could trust that more than his own memory. Once again he took a quick snaky look at D.’s face; his eyes were on the scar this time. He said sharply, ‘Oh!’ before he could stop himself.

  ‘Did you speak to me?’ D. asked, leaning forward.

  ‘Me? Oh no,’ Mr K. said. He coughed with a dry throat – hack, hack, hack. He got on his feet, swaying with the bus.

  ‘Do you get out here?’

  ‘Me? Yes. Yes.’

  ‘So do I,’ said D. ‘You look ill. Do you want a hand?’

  ‘No, no. I’m quite all right.’

  He made for the stairs, and D. followed at his heels.

  They were side by side on the pavement, waiting for the traffic lights to change. D. said, ‘Things have changed for the better, haven’t they?’ He felt himself shaken by a reckless and malicious mirth.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mr K. said.

  ‘I mean the weather. This morning there was so much fog.’

  The traffic lights turned green and they crossed the entrance of Bond Street, side by side. He could see Mr K. taking quick looks in the plate-glass windows at his companion, but he couldn’t see – his eyes were spoilt by poverty and too much reading, and he daren’t speak directly. It was as if, so long as D. did not declare himself, he wasn’t D.

  He suddenly turned into a doorway, into a dark passage, and almost ran towards the electric globe at the far end. The passage was somehow familiar; D. had been too absorbed to notice where they had come. He followed after Mr K.: an old lift was wheezing down towards his victim. Mr K. suddenly said, in a voice pitched high to go up the lift shaft to the rooms above, ‘You are following me. Why are you following me?’

  D. said gently, ‘Surely you ought to be speaking Entrenationo – to a pupil.’ He laid his hand confidingly on Mr K.’s sleeve. ‘I should never have believed a moustache made all that difference.’

  Mr K. pulled the lift door open. He said, ‘I don’t want any more to do with you.’

  ‘But we’re on the same side, surely?’

  ‘You were superseded.’

  D. pushed him gently backwards and shut the lift gates. He said, ‘I forgot. This is the night of the soirée, isn’t it?’

  ‘You ought to be on your way home by now.’

  ‘But I’ve been prevented. You must know that.’ He touched the emergency button and they stopped between two floors.

  Mr K. said, ‘Why did you do that?’ He leant against the lift wall, blinking, blinking behind the steel rims. Somebody was playing a piano upstairs rat
her badly.

  D. said, ‘Did you ever read Goldthorb’s detective stories?’

  ‘Let me out of here,’ Mr K. said.

  ‘School-teachers generally read detective stories.’

  ‘I shall scream,’ Mr K. said, ‘I shall scream.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be good manners at a soirée. By the way, you’ve still got some of that paint on your coat. That’s not clever of you.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It was so lucky that Mr Muckerji found the woman who saw it happen – from the other window.’

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ Mr K. said. ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘Let me out.’

  ‘But I was telling you about Goldthorb’s detective story. One man killed another in a lift. Rang the lift down. Walked up the stairs. Rang the lift up and – before witnesses – discovered the body. Of course, luck was on his side. You have to have a fortunate hand for murder.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘I was just telling you Goldthorb’s story.’

  Mr K. said weakly, ‘There’s no such man. The name’s absurd.’

  ‘He wrote in Entrenationo, you see.’

  Mr K. said, ‘The police are looking for you. You’d better clear out – quickly.’

  ‘They have no picture and the description’s wrong.’ He said mildly, ‘If there were a way of dropping you down the lift-shaft. To make the punishment, you know, fit the crime . . .’

  Suddenly the lift began to move upwards. Mr K. said triumphantly, ‘There. You see. You’d better run for it.’ It wheezed and shook very slowly beyond the second floor – the offices of Mental Health.

  D. said, ‘I shouldn’t speak if I were you. You read about the revolver.’

  ‘It’s not me you need be afraid of,’ Mr K. said. ‘I bear you no malice – but Miss Carpenter or Dr Bellows . . .’

  There wasn’t time to finish; the lift stopped, and Dr Bellows came out of the big waiting-room to greet them; a faded woman in brown silk got into the lift, waving a hand thick with art jewellery like barnacles, squeaking a mysterious phrase which sounded like ‘Nougat’. Dr Bellows said, ‘Bona nuche. Bona nuche,’ and smiled at them happily.