The Confidential Agent

  ‘Rose told me she writes to you – regularly. So she remembers you.’

  ‘At Christmas,’ Mrs Bennett said. ‘Yes. She doesn’t say much – but, of course, she hasn’t time in London with parties and so on. I thought she might have told me what His Majesty said to her . . . but then . . .’

  ‘Perhaps he said nothing.’

  ‘Of course he said something. She’s a lovely girl.’

  ‘Yes. Lovely.’

  ‘I only hope,’ Mrs. Bennett said, looking daggers across the china ornaments, ‘she knows her true friends.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d be easy to deceive,’ he said, thinking of Mr Forbes and the private detectives and the whole dreary background of distrust.

  ‘You don’t know her like I do. I remember once – at Gwyn Cottage – she cried her eyes out. She was only four and that boy Peter Triffen – deceitful little monkey – he’d got a clockwork mouse.’ The old face flushed with ancient battle, ‘I’ll be sworn that boy never came to any good.’ It was strange to think that in a way this woman had made her. Her influence had probably been as great as the mother’s who had died; perhaps the old bony face sometimes bore expressions he could detect in Rose, if he knew her better. The old woman said suddenly, ‘You’re a foreigner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah!’

  He said, ‘Miss Cullen will have told you that I’m here on business.’

  ‘She didn’t write what business.’

  ‘She thought you could tell me a few things about Benditch.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I wondered who was the local union leader.’

  ‘You don’t want to see him, do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t help you,’ Mrs Bennett said. ‘We don’t mix with their kind. An’ you can’t tell me Miss Cullen wants anything to do with that lot. Socialists.’

  ‘After all . . . her mother . . .’

  ‘We know what her mother was,’ Mrs Bennett said sharply, ‘but she’s dead now, an’ what’s dead’s forgotten.’

  ‘Then you can’t help me at all?’

  ‘Won’t’s the word.’

  ‘Not even his name?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll find that out soon enough. For yourself. It’s Bates.’ A car went by outside; they could hear the brakes go on. ‘Now who,’ Mrs Bennett said, ‘would be stopping at the “Red Lion”?’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Down Pit Street. We had royalty once,’ Mrs Bennett said, with her face against the window, trying to see the car. ‘Such a pleasant-spoken young man. He came into this house and had a cup of tea – just to show him there was miners’ folk who kept their homes clean. He wanted to go into Mrs Terry’s, but they told him she was sick. It’s as bare as a bone at Terry’s. That’s why, of course. It wouldn’t have been nice for him.’

  ‘I must be going.’

  ‘You can tell her from me,’ Mrs Bennett said, ‘that she’s got no business with Bates.’ She spoke with bitter and wavering authority, the manner of one who could at one time have commanded anything – ‘Change your stockings. No more sweets. Drink up that medicine,’ – but is now afraid that things have changed.

  Luggage was being carried into the ‘Red Lion’, and the street had come alive. People stood in knots, defensively, as if ready to retreat, watching the car. He heard a child say, ‘Is it a Dook?’ He wondered whether Lord Benditch was already acting. It would be quick work: the contract had been signed yesterday. Suddenly a rumour began; you couldn’t tell where it started. Somebody called out, ‘The pit’s opening.’ The knots, converged together, became a small crowd; they stared at the car as if on its polished and luxurious body they could read definite news. A woman raised a feeble cheer which died out doubtfully. D. said to a man, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Lord Benditch’s agent.’

  ‘Can you tell me where Pit Street is?’

  ‘Turn left at the end of the road.’

  People were coming out of their houses now all the way along; he walked against a growing tide of hope. A woman called up to a bedroom window, ‘The agent’s at the “Red Lion”, Nell.’ He was reminded of an occasion when in the hungry capital a rumour spread that food had arrived; he had watched them swarming down on to the quay, just like this. It hadn’t been food but tanks, and they had watched the tanks unloaded with angry indifference. Yet they had needed tanks. He stopped a man and said, ‘Where’s Bates?’

  ‘Number seventeen – if he’s there.’

  It was just beyond the Baptist chapel, a grey stony symbol of religion with a slate roof. A ‘Wayside Thought’ said enigmatically, ‘The Beauty of Life is only Invisible to Tired Eyes.’

  He knocked on the door of No. 17 again and again; nobody answered, and all the time the people went by – the old mackintoshes which wouldn’t keep out the cold, the shirt too often washed for any warmth to be left in the thinned flannel. They were the people he was fighting for, and he had a frightening sense now that they were his enemies: he was here to stand between them and hope. He knocked and knocked and knocked without reply.

  Then he tried No. 19, and the door came open at once before he expected it. He was off his guard. He looked up and there was Else.

  She said, ‘Well, who do you want?’ standing there like a ghost in the stone doorway, harried and under-nourished and too young. He was shaken; he had to look closely before he saw the differences – the gland scar on the neck, a missing tooth. Of course it wasn’t Else. It was only somebody out of the same mould of injustice and bad food.

  ‘I was looking for Mr Bates.’

  ‘He’s next door.’

  ‘I can’t make anyone hear.’

  ‘He’ll have gone up to the “Red Lion”, then – most like.’

  ‘There seems to be a lot of excitement.’

  ‘They say the pit’s starting.’

  ‘Aren’t you going up?’

  ‘Somebody,’ she said, ‘’as got to light the fire, I suppose.’ She looked at him with faint curiosity, ‘You the foreigner that came in the train with George Jarvis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He said you wasn’t up to no good.’ He thought, with a touch of fear, that he hadn’t been much good to her double. Why carry this burden of violence into another country? Better be beaten at home, perhaps, than involve others. That was undoubtedly heresy. His party were quite right, of course, not to trust him. She said kindly, ‘Not that anyone pays attention to George. What do you want Bates for?’

  Well, he wanted everyone to know: this, after all, was a democracy; he’d got to begin sometime – why not here? He said, ‘I wanted to tell him where the coal’s going – to the rebels in my country.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said wearily, ‘you’re one of that lot, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s it to do with Bates?’

  ‘I want the men to refuse to work the pits.’

  She looked at him with amazement. ‘Refuse? Us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re off your nut,’ she said. ‘What’s it got to do with us where the coal goes?’

  He turned away. It was hopeless – he felt it now as a conviction. Out of the mouths of children. . . . She called after him, ‘You’re crazy. Why should we care?’ He went stubbornly back up the street; he had to go on trying until they shut him up, hanged him, shot him, stopped his mouth somehow and relieved him of loyalty and let him rest.

  They were singing now outside the ‘Red Lion’: events must be moving fast. There must have been some definite announcement. Two songs were fighting for supremacy – both old ones. He had heard them both when he was working in London years ago. The poor were extraordinarily faithful to old tunes. ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ – the crowd swayed between the two, and the secular song won. More people knew it. He could see papers being handed from hand to hand – Sunday papers. There seemed to be loads of them on the back seat of the car. D. caught a man’s arm and said ur
gently, ‘Where’s Bates?’

  ‘He’s upstairs with the agent.’

  He struggled through the crowd. Somebody stuck a paper into his hand. He couldn’t help seeing the headlines – ‘Foreign Coal Deal. Pits to Reopen.’ It was a staid Sunday paper of limited imagination which carried conviction. He ran into the lounge of the hotel; he felt an urgent need to do something now, before the hope was too strong. The place was empty – big stuffed fish hung on the walls in glass cases – there must have been a time when people came to the district for sport. He went upstairs – nobody about. They were cheering now outside; something was happening. He threw open a big door marked ‘Drawing Room’ and immediately faced his own image in a tall gilt mirror – unshaven, with cotton-wool hanging out of the plaster dressing. A big french window was open; a man was speaking. There were two men at a table with their backs to him. The place smelt of musty velvet.

  ‘All the stokers, lift-men, mechanics are wanted at once – first thing in the morning. But don’t be afraid. There’ll be work for every man jack of you in less than a week. This is the end of your depression.’ He said, ‘You can ask your Mr Bates in here. This isn’t a four-day week for you – it’s a three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day year.’ He lifted himself up and down on his toes in the window, a little dark astute man in gaiters who looked like an estate agent.

  D. came across the room behind him. He said, ‘Excuse me – may I have a word with you?’

  ‘Not now. Not now,’ the little man said, without turning round. He said, ‘Now go home and have a good time. There’ll be work for everyone before Christmas. And in return we hope⎯⎯’

  D. said to the two backs, ‘Is one of you Mr Bates?’

  Both men turned. One of them was L.

  ‘That you’ll put your backs into it. You can trust the Benditch Colliery Company to help you.’

  ‘I’m Bates,’ the other said.

  He could tell that L. hadn’t quite recognised him. He was looking puzzled. . . . D. said, ‘Well, I see you’ve met the General’s agent, then. It’s time I had a word.’ Then L.’s face cleared. He gave a tiny smile of recognition, an eyelid twitched. . . .

  The orator turned from the window and said, ‘What’s all this?’

  D. said, ‘This coal contract – it’s said to be for Holland – it’s nothing of the kind.’ He had his eye on Bates, a youngish man with a melodramatic shock of hair and a weak mouth. He said, ‘What’s this got to do with me?’

  ‘The men trust you, I suppose. Tell them to keep away from the pit.’

  ‘Look here. Look here,’ Benditch’s agent said.

  D. said, ‘Your union has declared it would never work for them.’

  ‘This is for Holland,’ Bates said.

  ‘That’s cover. I came over to buy coal for the Government. That man there had my credentials stolen.’

  ‘He’s mad,’ the agent said with conviction, lifting himself up and down on his toes. ‘That gentleman’s a friend of Lord Benditch.’

  Bates shifted uneasily. ‘What can I do?’ he said. ‘It’s a Government matter.’

  L. said gently, ‘I do know this man. He’s a fanatic – and he’s wanted by the police.’

  ‘Send for a constable,’ the agent said.

  ‘I’ve got a gun in my pocket,’ D. said. He kept his eye on Bates. He said, ‘I know this means a year’s work to your people. But it’s death to ours. Why, it’s been death to yours too if you only knew.’

  Bates suddenly broke out furiously. He said, ‘Why the hell should I believe a story like that? This is coal for Holland.’

  He had an uncertain night-school accent; he had risen – you could see that – and the marks of his rising he had tucked away with shame. He said, ‘I’ve never heard such a story.’ But D. knew that he half-believed. His weak mouth carried his shock of hair like a disguise, suggesting a violence, a radicalism which wasn’t his at all.

  D. said, ‘If you won’t speak to them, I will.’ The agent started for the door. D. said, ‘Sit down. You can call the police when I’ve done. I’m not trying to escape, am I? You can ask that man there – how many charges . . . I begin to forget. False passport, stealing a car, carrying firearms without a licence. Now I’m going to add incitement to violence.’

  He went to the window and called out, ‘Comrades!’ At the back of the crowd he could see old Jarvis watching him sceptically. There were about a hundred and fifty people outside; a good many had already gone to spread the news. He said, ‘I’ve got to speak to you.’ Somebody called out, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘You don’t know where this coal’s going.’

  They were hilarious and triumphant. A voice said, ‘The North Pole.’ He said, ‘It’s not going to Holland . . .’ They began to drift away; he had been a lecturer once, but he had never been a public speaker: he didn’t know how to hold them. He said, ‘By God! you’ve got to listen.’ He picked up an ash-tray from the table and smashed the window with it.

  ‘Here,’ Bates said in a shocked voice, ‘that’s hotel property.’

  The sound of breaking glass brought the crowd round. D. said, ‘Do you want to dig coal to kill children with?’

  ‘Aw, shut up,’ a voice said.

  He said, ‘I know this means a lot to you. But it means everything to us.’ Glancing sideways he saw in the mirror L.’s face – complacent, unmoved, waiting for him to finish. Nothing would make any difference. He shouted, ‘Why do they want your coal? Because the miners at home won’t work for them. They shoot them, but they won’t work. . . .’ Over the heads of the crowd he could see old George Jarvis, keeping a little apart, secretive, not believing a word about anything. Somebody called out, ‘Let’s hear Joe Bates,’ and the cry was taken up here and there. ‘Joe Bates! Joe!’

  D. said, ‘Here’s your chance,’ turning back into the room towards the union secretary.

  The little man like an estate agent said, ‘I’ll see you get six months for this.’

  ‘Go on,’ D. said.

  Bates went unwillingly to the window. He had a mannerism learned from his leaders of tossing back his unruly hair – it was the only unruly thing, D. thought, about him. He said, ‘Comrades! You’ve heard a very serious charge.’ Was it possible, after all, that he was going to act?

  A woman’s voice shouted, ‘Charity begins at ’ome.’

  ‘I think the best thing we can do,’ Bates said, ‘is to ask a definite assurance from Lord Benditch’s agent that this coal is going to Holland – and only Holland.’

  ‘What’s the good of an assurance?’ D. said.

  ‘If he gives us that, why, we can go to work tomorrow with a clear conscience.’

  The little man in gaiters bustled forward. He said, ‘That’s right. Mr Bates is right. And I give you the assurance in Lord Benditch’s name . . .’ What he said was drowned in cheers. D. found himself alone with L. as the cheers went on and the two men moved from the window. L. said ‘You should have taken my offer, you know. You’re in a very awkward situation. . . . Mr K. has been found.’

  ‘Mr K.?’

  ‘A woman called Glover came home late last night. She told the police she had psychic feelings. It’s in the papers this morning.’

  The agent was saying, ‘As for this man, he’s wanted by the police for fraud . . . and theft . . .’

  L. said, ‘They want to interview a man who was seen in the flat with a young woman – by a man called Fortescue. He had a bandaged cheek, but the police seem to think that may have hidden a scar.’

  Bates said, ‘Let the constable pass, men.’

  ‘You’d better go, hadn’t you?’ L. said.

  ‘I’ve a bullet left.’

  ‘You mean me – or yourself?’

  ‘Oh,’ D. said, ‘I wish I knew just how far you’d go.’ He wanted to be driven to shoot – to know that L. had given the orders for the child’s death: to hate him, despise him and shoot. But L. and the child hadn’t belonged to the same world – it was unbelievable that he could have given any o
rder . . . You had to have something in common with people you killed, unless death was dealt out impersonally from a long-range gun or a plane.

  ‘Come up here, constable,’ Lord Benditch’s agent called out of the window to somebody below. He had the simple faith of his class that one constable could deal with an armed man.

  L. said, ‘Almost any distance . . . to get back . . .’ It was unnecessary to say what or where: a whole way of life lay behind the quiet unfrightened voice – long corridors and formal gardens and expensive books, a picture gallery, a buhl desk and old servants who admired him. But would it be ‘getting back’ to have a ghost tagged for ever at your side as a reminder? . . . D. hesitated with the gun pointed through his pocket. L. said, ‘I know what you’re thinking . . . but that woman was mad – literally mad.’

  D. said, ‘Thank you. In that case . . .’ He felt a sudden lightening of the heart as if madness had brought a kind of normality into his world. It even eased his own responsibility a little. He made for the door.

  Lord Benditch’s agent turned from the window and said, ‘Stop him!’

  ‘Let him go,’ L. said. ‘The police . . .’

  He ran down the stairs: the police constable, an elderly man, was coming into the hall. He looked sharply at D. and said, ‘Hi, sir! have you seen . . .’

  ‘Up the stairs, officer.’

  He turned towards the yard at the back; Lord Benditch’s agent squealed over the banisters, ‘That’s him, officer. That’s him.’

  D. ran. He had a few yards’ start: the yard looked empty. He heard a shout and a crash behind him – the constable had slipped. A voice said, ‘This way mate,’ and he swerved automatically into an outside lavatory. Things were going too fast. Somebody said, ‘Give him a leg up,’ and he found himself being propelled over a wall. He fell heavily on his knees beside a rubbish can, and a voice whispered, ‘Quiet.’ He was in a tiny back garden – a few square feet of thin grass, a cinder track, a piece of ragged coconut hanging on a broken brick to attract birds. He said, ‘What are you doing? What’s the good?’ This must be Mrs Bennett’s, he wanted to explain; what was the good? She’d only call the police . . . but everybody had gone. He was alone like something you throw over a wall and forget. There was a lot of shouting in the street. He knelt exhausted, like a garden image, while thoughts raced this way and that – he might have been holding a bird-bath. He felt sick and angry; he was being pushed around again. What was the good ? He was finished. A prison cell attracted him like quiet. Surely he’d tried enough. He put his head between his knees to cure his dizziness. He remembered he had had nothing to eat since a rock bun at the soirée.