The Walking Stick

‘Or it’s postponed,’ I said. ‘Perhaps next month.’

  ‘The same sale won’t be on then, will it?’

  ‘There’ll be others.’

  ‘What others?’

  Silence. There was a constricting band round my lungs. After the early cold the studio was now overheated.

  ‘Would you do it?’ asked Jack Foil.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘Look,’ said Jack Foil, ‘don’t upset yourself, Miss Dainton. Calm down and have a little drink of this. Leigh, pour her out a finger or so. Just a dash of soda . . . That’s right. Of course, you refuse. Anyone would at first thought. The way you were brought up – the elite sort of way – I see exactly how you feel. It’s brought on you suddenly, but you see it was brought on us suddenly and we felt rather desperate in a way and thought, well, Deborah’s done so much, been so much help. Maybe . . .’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry.’

  ‘So are we all. But we won’t press you; we’ll leave you to think it over.’

  ‘Don’t do that – ’

  ‘But before I go, just let me say what would happen. Just let me say, so that you can judge better. Just let me say . . . Wednesday evening, people leaving, you get ready to leave, hat and coat, gloves, scarf, all on. People leaving. Right! You leave, they think. But instead you slip into one of those cupboards. You know. They’re all over the building. It’s made for hide and seek. Lovely big cupboards. A bit dusty, maybe, some full, some half full, some empty: I’ve seen them. You sit down. You’ve a watch. It’ll be a long wait. But not too hard really. No risk really. You wait. And at two-twenty, you come out, just when the guard’s gone by; then you slip up to the boss’s office on the ground floor, avoiding the telephone room where the other guard is, just slip in to the boss’s office and switch off the two alarm switches. Right?’ He wiped the corners of his eyes. ‘Then what? Then you just walk down the corridor to the back door, knowing the patrolling guard’s upstairs, and let yourself out. And you don’t lock the door after you. Then you go home. That’s all. Don’t even need to see us. Never see us. No connection. Off you go home. Finished. Done with. It isn’t too hard, is it? I’ll leave you to think about it.’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  Mr Irons spoke. ‘How do we get the code word? I couldn’t promise to do the job in less than a couple of hours, minimum.’

  ‘Oh, that could be seen to,’ Jack Foil said. ‘Ted can tap the wire. He wasn’t in the PO for two years for nothing. He can tap it about midnight. No difficulty there. If Miss Dainton could do her part.’

  ‘Look, Jack—’ Leigh said.

  ‘Oh, I know, I know. We’ll say nothing more now. But I do ask her to think about it. I ask you both to think about it. She’s done so much – helped so much – more than this, I believe. It’s due to her we could plan at all. This . . . I know it’s a bit overfacing at first sight, at first thought. But it means three moves, that’s all. She pretends to leave and doesn’t, sits in a cupboard. Move one. Move two, she goes up the stairs and switches off the alarms. Move three, she leaves by the back door and leaves it unlocked.’

  ‘Oh, it’s asking a lot,’ said Ted, chewing his cigarette and twitching. ‘It’s nerve. You got to have nerve.’

  ‘Miss Dainton’s got nerve. Don’t tell me different. She’s one of those people you can see.’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Jack,’ said Leigh.

  ‘Look, Leigh. I’m putting my cards on the table. I’m not,’ said Jack Foil, smiling at me, ‘I’m not bullying anybody. If this thing falls through because Miss Dainton won’t help that’s just very, very unfortunate. We’re all a lot poorer, and disappointed, very disappointed because we’ve missed all we planned to do. But don’t tell me Miss Dainton wouldn’t have the nerve if she so felt like it. That’s not flattery or bribery or anything else. I’d put a lot of money on her if she felt like it. I try,’ he said, ‘to be efficient, so I think I know efficiency in other folk. Well, she may be a slip of a girl, and a trifle handicapped at that; but I’d rather choose her than any of you men here if I was in a tight corner!’

  Leigh said: ‘You shouldn’t have come here, any of you! You shouldn’t have asked her!’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Jack. ‘She doesn’t need your protection. Or advice. It’s up to her. I’ve got confidence in her judgement. Come along, boys, we’ve said all we can.’

  The bedside lamp that we’d bought made three concentric light rings on the ceiling, like a target. Into the target area an insect was crawling – a small beetle. We were troubled with beetles here; they came in from the river or bred in the damp timbers of the balcony. Some I hated, but this was small and harmless. It moved very slowly, stopping now and then as if without purpose. Each ring was brighter than the last, and you could see it hesitating before moving into a yet clearer light. It should have had a shadow but its legs were too short.

  Leigh said: ‘Let’s go to sleep, love. The argument’s over.’

  Over? But how over? Nothing conclusive, nothing decided. All my refusals accepted, but accepted in the way an advancing army accepts casualties without halting the advance. Two escapes, really, only two: hysteria or illness. Neither will I stoop to. But only blank refusal. Leigh on their side or mine?

  ‘Go to sleep, Deborah,’ he said again.

  ‘You really want me to do it?’

  ‘How can I say?’

  ‘Well, you can say.’

  ‘No . . . They’d no bloody right to ask you – that’s what I feel at heart. But there’s so much preparation been made, there’s so much at stake – for us to gain. It gives me the works to think of you getting involved in any serious way, in any danger. And I think, of course she mustn’t, mustn’t think of it. And then I think of you not doing it and all our plans coming to nothing and having to start at square one again – and I think of the shop we want to buy, and putting a deposit down and moving in and beginning to alter it, and having enough money to set up and buy a bit of stock and start in business together. And that makes the difference. It’s awful. There may be other chances, of course, but they may be next year, or they may not ever come like this again. In any case this shop’ll go. God, I don’t know what to say, really I don’t!’

  ‘You’ve said it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve said it. We’ve talked it out. Can you go to sleep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can’t we put out the light and see?’

  ‘No.’

  The beetle had crawled into the second brighter band, but then, disliking it, or perhaps being diverted by some current of interest perceptible only to itself, it turned and moved off into the greyer band again.

  Which is the worst step? The first, the tiny movement over the forbidden line, into the forbidden territory – or a wild overrunning? Which is asking the most?

  Leigh said: ‘Irons is a queer bird, isn’t he?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘John Irons.’

  ‘Oh, yes . . .’

  ‘I only met him last month. Jack’s known him for some time. The absolute pro. D’you know he told me he’s never broken in anywhere since he was twenty? When it’s ready for him, he walks in and does his part of the job. Like a surgeon, almost. Other people have to make all the preparation.’

  The beetle had come back again, seemed agitated, and then suddenly stopped dead and made no move, became just a mark on the ceiling.

  ‘Of course he’s been inside two or three times. He’s the only one connected with us with a record. It’s a pity to have anyone the police know, but you can’t do without one expert in this.’

  ‘I would call Jack an expert.’

  ‘Well, in his own line, yes. But he’s too smart to have been caught. He organizes. But not often, that’s the point. He lives off antiques. He stays in the background.’

  After a minute I said: ‘I think his wife’s scared of him.’

  ‘Who? Doreen? Of Jack? Whatever makes you say that?’

  ‘Aren’t you, Leigh?’

&nb
sp; ‘What, scared of Jack? . . . Why should I be? Maybe he’s the leader because he’s got the know-how, the connections. But scared . . .’

  ‘So he is the leader?’

  ‘Yes . . . so far as anyone is. He has the ideas. But it’s all a pretty friendly set-up, as you can see.’

  ‘There wasn’t anyone else at our party?’

  ‘No . . . But in the early stages Jack wanted to be anonymous. It’s just a precaution.’

  ‘You’re always different when he’s around.’

  ‘Different? How?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Less positive. He takes sureness from you.’

  ‘Well, he’s given me a lot in return.’

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘He was the first person, ever, to treat me seriously as a painter.’

  The beetle had moved again, started forward into the brightest circle of light. It was in the bull’s-eye. I don’t know what attraction or repulsion moved in its primitive nerve centres, but it began to go round in a circle itself, moving as it were on a central pivot, as if afraid of attack. This went on for a minute or more and then, perhaps intimidated by danger I couldn’t see, it abruptly abandoned its defence and scuttled off, from bright ring to less bright, to grey, to dark, and then was lost to view in the shadows of the corner.

  ‘Put out the light,’ I said to Leigh.

  Tuesday was even more foggy than Monday. It was a return to the worst conditions before smokeless zones. London Airport was closed, trains were cancelled, ships were dockbound. Statistics were released, no one knew how gleaned, of deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia, although so far only two days of fog had had to be endured. I overcame my allergy for tubes and reached Whittington’s via Rotherhithe, Whitechapel, Holborn and Green Park. The tubes were crammed, over-hot and over-draughty, people shuffling, docile, waiting, pressing, coughing. I came up into the sun-tempered haze of Piccadilly like Lazarus emerging from his tomb.

  Whittington’s was quiet. Traffic choked the streets but fewer people than usual came to the West End from choice. It was the second view day for the jewellery sale. Emeralds stared up from their glass cases cosseted in cream silk. The splendid Plouth diamonds shone with white fire. Parker and Davidson and Jones and Armitage were on watch. To those who came with expert inquiries the cases could be discreetly opened and the jewels examined, but never except under the polite but careful gaze of two of our men. At the door Anson and Harper, two more of our commissionaires, both ex-paratroopers, were casually ready to block any hurried exit. Of course it was not expected, had never happened, but it always could happen and therefore must be guarded against. The ordinary visitor, interested perhaps in investing a few hundreds in a modest diamond or two, saw nothing to remark.

  Downstairs we were going through a miscellaneous collection of china which had belonged to Lady Stockton. Surprisingly enough it had never properly been itemized even for insurance purposes and some of it was difficult to ascribe and value. As we finished looking at each piece, Mary Fent wrote down what I told her and we stacked the piece in the cupboard beside the bookcases – those bookcases which were full of all the most authoritative reference books on china and porcelain ever published. This was not one of the big cupboards, being only half length with open shelves beneath. There was a big cupboard by the door, at present in an untidy mess with piles of old catalogues and art magazines and reports of sales in Paris and New York; on its left wall were pegs on which we hung our hats and coats and where my now discarded stick was propped. There were also two big cupboards in the passage outside. Both were crammed to the doors with miscellaneous articles which had been accepted for sale and then not sold. (Some had not reached their reserve and waited collection by owners who now appeared to have forgotten them; some we had withdrawn because they had been proved to be useless fakes before they were offered; some had been mistakenly accepted with better things and were being held over in the expectation that some day they could be fitted into a new sale of odds and ends.) At the end of this passage from our office was the private office of Smith-Williams, and opposite that a smaller but emptier cupboard. On this corner the passage made a T, the left-hand turn leading to the furniture department and stairs up to the ground floor, the right-hand one leading to the strong room, and beyond that to the small antiquities department and two rooms used for storing pictures.

  I left that evening at six and was surprised to find Leigh waiting. The fog had come down again; it got into your nose and throat like diluted tear gas. He took my arm and led me among misted figures and the haloes of cars. We groped our way across Bond Street and walked toward Cork Street. I expected his little Triumph, but we stopped at a big old Austin waiting at a parking meter. Inside was Jack Foil. We all got in the back.

  ‘Miss Dainton . . . It is easier this way than meeting at a house. And this fog makes difficulties for us all . . . I wanted to thank you . . .’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘I think it will be easy for you. I think so. You’ve – er – picked where you can wait?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  Leigh took my hand.

  Jack Foil said: ‘We agree to your conditions that it should be at one-thirty and not at two-thirty. I quite appreciate . . . the waiting will be difficult – quite the hardest part of it, I should say. You have a good watch?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘With a luminous face?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then all is quite simple. Really simple, Miss Dainton – no real cause for nerves or tension, believe me. I’ve given Leigh a paper with it all typed out.’

  He paused. A man with a pear-shaped hat walked past: in the fog you couldn’t be absolutely sure.

  The heavy, almost-educated voice went on: ‘The Safeguard at the telephone rings his headquarters at a quarter to one, a quarter past one, a quarter to two. The Safeguard on patrol, clocks in in the basement at one o’clock, on the first floor at twenty past one, on the ground floor at twenty to two. You will leave your place of hiding at exactly twenty minutes past one, proceed slowly up the stairs and go into Mr Greeley’s office and switch off the alarms at twenty-two minutes past one. At this time you will know that the patrolling Safeguard is on the first floor, having just clocked in. You will then come to the back door and unlock it and open it and we shall be waiting to come in. As we come in you will go out, your job nicely done.’

  ‘How shall I get home?’

  ‘Drive yourself. A young lady like you, who is easy to remember – if you’ll pardon me – shouldn’t be seen catching a late bus or waiting in a tube or perhaps be remembered by a taxi driver. Leigh will hire a Mini tomorrow and when he comes on this job will park it in Berkeley Square – on the south side – and you will pick it up there. You’ll have a key. Do you know where Farthing Street is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Leigh will show you. It’s a cul-de-sac off East Lane, which runs off Abbey Street. His own car will be parked there. You just change cars and drive home. We’ll pick up the Mini on Thursday.’

  I said: ‘What about the two Safeguards?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘You’ll have to—’

  ‘Oh, they won’t be hurt, I can tell you. They’ll take care themselves for that. They’ll do their duty – naturally – but when there’s four to one, they’ll show common sense.’

  A man came out of the fog and tapped on the window. Jack Foil lowered it.

  ‘Can you tell me which way to Burlington Arcade?’ Australian voice.

  ‘Straight down. Straight down this way and cross the street. You can’t miss it.’

  After the window was raised there was silence in the car.

  ‘One thing,’ said Jack Foil, and wiped his eyes. ‘One thing, Miss Dainton, if anything goes wrong at the beginning, don’t try to carry on – just drop everything and pretend to be ill. If one of the Safeguards should see you, it’s all up, because he’d identify you anywhere and through you the police would reach Leigh – and perhaps
even me. If they come on you, say you twisted your leg and fainted, couldn’t remember where you were. Or if they find you in the cupboard, say you went in to find something and felt faint and someone must have shut the cupboard door. I leave you to make up the best story. But get them to send for a doctor. I’ve given Leigh a pill for you to take before the doctor comes. It’s a simple emetic – but it’s much more convincing if you really are sick. Do excuse me for putting such thoughts in your head, but to organize you have to prepare. Efficiency – you remember we talked about it once.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  The smell of carnation overlaid the smell of petrol and dusty leather.

  ‘What time do we meet tomorrow night?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘Midnight. We pick up John Irons at 12.45, park here at 1.10. Perhaps the earlier time will be an advantage after all. In a manner of speaking the more people there are about the better.’

  I put my hand on the door handle.

  ‘Our car’s just round the corner,’ Leigh said. ‘What if it’s foggy like this, Jack?’

  ‘The forecast says clearing. But if it doesn’t we’ll meet an hour earlier in case of delays. One last thing, Miss Dainton.’

  I paused. He had sunk back into his corner and the thick spectacles only gave off a sort of aquarium light.

  ‘This is a big effort for you, Miss Dainton, we fully understand. I never forget an injury and I never forget a favour. I’ll see you and Leigh do well out of this. You’ll do very well indeed. So good luck for tomorrow.’

  I was moving to get out when Leigh nudged my attention to Jack’s outstretched hand. I took it; it was cool and very soft; the metal of the ring was colder.

  ‘Good luck for tomorrow,’ he said again.

  Tuesdays was usually our West End night, but tonight we would have gone home had there been anything at home but silence and thoughts and waiting. Instead a light meal at a Chicken Inn and then the London Pavilion to see the latest teenage pop-singer hit. For about an hour the film was gorgeously noisy and actually squeezed the tension and the fear out of the centre of one’s mind. But the noise began to fail with repetition, and as soon as it began to fail it began to jar. So in the end I couldn’t sit it out and we left at ten and began to grope our way home.