The Tumbled House

  “Oh,” said Bennie quietly.

  “He can also be the Champion Tearer-Down when it comes to art or—or reputation. And yet he’s not dishonest. And I’d take his judgement before almost anyone else’s. Because of his sense of fairness and balance.”

  “Fairness?”

  “Yes … which itself runs him into contradictions. I don’t know if you understand me, but he—he can speak kinder of his enemies than his friends—not because he likes them better but because his judgement, his sense of balance corrects his goodwill or ill-will almost at the source. He often says: ‘I’m devoted to young So-and-So, but.…’ And he really does like him, but his eye for the flaw.…”

  “It must be fun having a man like that as a father.”

  “It doesn’t leave much room for wonder.” Joanna had been listening to herself with a certain amount of interest. Talking about Roger confidentially with someone for almost the first time, her thoughts had made their own shape as she went on. Yet a month ago she wouldn’t have talked like this. Did one discover other people through a discovery of oneself?

  Bennie said: “ Then how did you feel when Roger first made those charges against Daddy?”

  “When I knew it was Roger,” Joanna said carefully, “I certainly took far more notice of them.”

  “You think he believes they’re true?”

  “I feel sure he does. But, Bennie, I don’t know him so well that I can see into the depths of his—his motives. It could be envy of Don and of your father, just for being what they are. I’m sure he thinks Don has got on too well too soon. And in a way it could be the jealousy of a sophisticated man for those who know instinctively—and show it—that sophistication alone isn’t enough. Or … Do we go through Staines?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or it could be a quite genuine expression of his sense of balance and proportion, an honest attempt to shoot down what he would look on as a preposterous sham.… Or it could be one masquerading as the other, unknown even to himself. Proof? If he hadn’t got proofs he couldn’t go on. But they may not be so very watertight. Remember he began this anonymously. He never expected to be dragged out into the light, his own name tacked on to it. He didn’t want this libel action. But he couldn’t afford to admit himself to be a complete liar, and nothing else would satisfy Don.”

  “Do you wish that something less would?”

  “Yes. I think we’re running into a fight with no holds barred, and no one’s going to come out of it any better than they went in.”

  “In the meantime if I suddenly married Michael.…”

  “Well, it would be a scoop for the Press. But that wouldn’t stop you if you felt like it—I hope.”

  “No,” said Bennie.

  Chapter Twenty

  In Peter Waldo’s flat Peter was leaning against a table in the centre of the room, his elbows on it, reading a book. At the window Michael stared down on the traffic of Portland Place and smoked a cigarette to hide his tension at this sudden summons. Boy Kenny was sprawled in a chair. He was wearing a black gaberdine suit from one of the “American” shops in Charing Cross Road and a navy blue shirt with a narrow white tie. His black-faced wrist watch was on the inside of his wrist with a wide heavy silver expanding strap. There was a grease mark on the breast-pocket of his jacket, and the top of a comb showed why.

  Still reading his book, Peter said: “ Ingenious, these alarms. This mercury gadget, for instance. Practically makes a safe safe for democracy.”

  “Who’s thinking of breaking into a safe?” said Boy. “I thought you was above that.”

  “Not above it. I just don’t think it’s our line of country. But when I enter a profession I believe in having a working knowledge of all its branches.… You’ve brought the rest of the money, I suppose?”

  “I couldn’t get what I ought to’ve done for those etchings. Man who took ’em didn’t want them, says they’re hot, he’ll have to flog them abroad, see, cost more money. It’s rake off, rake off all the way, he says. Not like silver you can melt down. Melt those down, he says, an’ you get ashes.”

  “All right, we’ll dispense with the emotional content. How much did you get?”

  “Three hundred.”

  Peter Waldo turned a page and straightened up. “The one Goya was worth more than three hundred.”

  “Maybe. But who’s going to give it you for that sort of stuff?”

  “Twenty-three etchings and sketches,” said Peter. “A life’s collection. At a minimum they were worth fourteen hundred.”

  “I done my best. If you don’t like it, shop elsewhere.”

  Peter Waldo looked at the sprawling inimical figure in the chair. His eyes were slightly adrift, as if he were seeing not Boy Kenny but an abstract and distasteful principle.

  “Where’s the money?”

  Boy indicated with his thumb the cheap fibre attaché-case he bad brought. Peter did not move but in turn gestured to Michael. Michael went across and brought the case to the table and opened it. Inside was a mass of loose pound notes, as twisted and bent as leaves swept up in a dust-pan.

  “You go on,” Peter said to Michael. “ I never could count above thirty-five.”

  With a feeling in his spine Michael lifted out the notes and began to count Peter said: “ People are disgusting the way they treat money.”

  “Some types aren’t well bred, now, are they?” said Boy. Silence fell. Michael said: “ I make it a hundred and ninety-nine.”

  “Scheming bastard,” said Boy. “ He must of given me one short.”

  “You said three hundred,” said Peter.

  “Oh, I’ve taken my cut.”

  Peter looked more directly at Boy. Boy struck a match with his thumb nail and lit a cigarette. He flicked the match still alight into the grate where it lay smoking.

  “Any objections?”

  Peter took out his note-case and offered a ten-shilling note to Michael. “Give me a hundred. We won’t quibble with this awkward little man.”

  In silence the deal was done. Michael split his money into four twenty-fives, putting each lot into a different pocket. As he did so he thought: that’s for Bennie, that’s for me, that’s for civil engineering, that’s for living costs. It was the only way his mind could rationalise and accept the event.

  “The other stuff?” said Peter.

  “It’s still in the garage. Pity there wasn’t more silver.”

  “What about the furs?”

  “Cool off a bit. I got a man from Stepney interested. But you not got to be too eager—that’s the way to send the price down.”

  Peter’s money was still on the table. He made no move to pick it up. “I suppose we can look for three or four hundred each out of our trial run. It’s not as much as we should have got, but it’s something. The new job in prospect is more ambitious.”

  Michael’s mind came back sharply from the thought of Bennie. “A new job?”

  “Earlier than I expected but it happens to have cropped up and it can’t wait.”

  With his thumb and forefinger Boy took the cigarette from one corner of his mouth, and blew the smoke in a narrow stream from the other. “ Got something good?”

  “Can it be that you are now going to take an interest in your work?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Only that I felt your part in disposing of the goods was putting a strain on your resources.”

  Boy frowned. “Clip it. What’s the job?”

  “I was at a dinner last night with my mother and eight other people. Two of the others were a Mr Hamilton White and his third wife. He’s a New York lawyer and rich. His wife is quite a looker, but not at all worried at the thought of gilding the lily. Mr While has been supplying Mrs White with some very handsome jewellery, and what she wore last night must have been worth ten or fifteen thousand pounds.”

  “If they’re not paste,” said Boy, rubbing his decayed nose.

  “Mrs White, as well as being a looker, h
as the look of someone who would want to be at the jewellers on the day. To give Mr Hamilton White credit, he has the look of someone who has forgotten that imitations exist.”

  “So?”

  “The Whites have accepted an invitation to spend the weekend—this next week-end—with Lord Mules at his house near Henley. I happen to know the house.”

  Michael found the muscles of his arms cramped, and to relax them he yawned and stretched.

  “How?”

  “I went there to dinner with my mother in February. I thought then what an easy house it would be to get into.”

  “See,” said Boy, jocular in an elephantine way, “ criminal instincts from the start.”

  Michael said: “ You’re not suggesting we should break into a house when it’s full of guests?”

  “Why not? That’s the time when no one will be expecting us.”

  “In the middle of the night when everyone is asleep?”

  “No. I mean about ten p.m. Get up, Boy, out of my best armchair and come here.”

  After a minute they were all round the table. Peter said: “It’s not a very big house. Look.” He picked out three of the cleaner pound notes and put them on the table in the form of an H. “Centre piece is the hall. Front door here—stairs opposite. Drawing-room on the left, with french windows—study and conservatory behind. Mules employs a man and wife—man serves at table, wife cooks. I don’t think the front door has a catch—just a normal handle with key and bolt which wouldn’t be locked in the evening. Best time to go in would be during a meal, but thanks to daylight saving we couldn’t do it at this time of the year, even though they dine late. Next best is ten o’clock or as soon as the light goes out in the dining-room. What’s happening then? People are fed. Back they go to the drawing-room; manservant brings coffee and liqueurs. When he’s done that he goes to the kitchen and helps his wife clear away and wash up. For half an hour or more there’s no traffic in the hall. Servants are busy. Men and women have all been to powder their noses. Too early to go to bed. Impolite to leave until eleven. So in we go and up the stairs.”

  “What happens if the front door is locked?” Michael asked.

  “We go in through the dining-room instead. There’ll certainly be windows open.”

  “And how do we know which bedroom to try?”

  “We don’t. There can’t be more than six. Why worry? There may be pickings in the other rooms too. Mrs White has a black mink. And that doesn’t mean a couple of hundred from your miserly fences, Boy.”

  Boy Kenny shrugged. “ You don’t realise you’ve missed the one thing that tapes up the whole plan. This dopey will be wearing her jewels when she’s down having dinner. Fine lot of use it’ll be searching her room when she’s carrying it all in the shop window.”

  “Darling boy, Mrs White is spending three nights with the Mules. That means a different frock each night. And that means different jewellery. Oh, I know, there’s a basic equipment, but on the top of that she’ll ring the changes to suit what she’s wearing. And Mr White, being a man of taste, won’t let her glitter too much. I shall be surprised if we don’t get away with twenty thousand pounds’ worth from her alone.”

  They thought it over—each in his own way. Calculations. Ten from the fences. Threes into ten. What I could do with three thousand three hundred.

  Peter said: “It’s bigger stuff than I’d intended, but I don’t think the risk’s greater. The trouble with the big jobs is when the risk increases in proportion.”

  Michael said: “ But the risk is greater, far more than the first one. Supposing somebody runs upstairs for a handkerchief. Suppose they ring for more coffee. Any of twenty things——”

  “If someone surprises us they’ll be too surprised themselves to stop us getting away.”

  “Supposing, unknown to you, they have a dog——”

  “They have.”

  “Then——”

  “Not unknown to me. That’s what will make them careless. But before we go on let me counsel you that there isn’t any way to get rich quick without any risk at all——”

  “I don’t like dogs,” said Boy.

  “You wouldn’t like this one. He’s a big Chow with a bad temper and the loudest bark in Henley. And he’s in the garden every day from nine in the morning until eleven at night. Last week they had trouble with him because he bit the postman. Lord Mules was telling us about it at the party.”

  “Poison’s not easy to work,” Boy muttered. “And you’re not always sure with a crow first hit.”

  Peter Waldo began to gather up his notes and arrange them into neat piles of ten. Boy watched him as if he couldn’t keep his eyes off the money.

  Peter said: “I happen to be fond of dogs. You touch that Chow with a crowbar and I’ll use it on you.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Michael.

  “Between now and Sunday, darling boy, I hope to make a round of the pet shops and dogs’ homes. I propose to buy a bitch in season.”

  “Oh,” said Michael. “Would it——”

  Boy said: “What’s the idea?”

  “It seems that you’re both unaware of the facts of life or didn’t have the advantage of holidays on a farm. I can tell you that no dog yet born will resist the temptation. It turns the wildest man-eater into a lap-dog. You just walk up to the gate with the bitch. If the dog should bark before he catches the scent, he’ll stop as soon as he does. But if you approach from the right direction he’ll get the scent first. Then all you have to do is open the gate and he’ll trot out and follow you as gently as a lamb.”

  “Any dog?” said Boy.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Boy shook out another cigarette and stuck it in a corner of his mouth, did the match-lighting trick and flicked the smoking stick out of the open window. “I don’t like it. It’s too clever. It’s pretty-pretty.”

  “It’s brilliant,” said Michael. “That part of it. It’s the other part of it I don’t like.”

  They argued for a few minutes, then Peter said: “ It’s two to one, Boy. Anyway, I’m the one to take the risk with the dog. If it goes wrong, I carry the can, you don’t start. If I go right then you two come in.”

  “Yes, but you have the easy end.”

  “It’s unavoidable. Too many people know me there. Whatever pretty mask I wore, there’d be the danger of being recognised.”

  They went on and on, picking over the details. Again Peter said, directing his remark at Michael as if excusing himself: “ We weren’t going into the big stuff, but this is too big a plum to miss. There’s no point in taking a risk for two thousand when you can take an equal risk for twenty.”

  “Twenty thousand,” said Boy, moving his wet cigarette end round in his lips. “ I’d do a lot for that.”

  “You don’t need to do a lot. Just do what you’re told. And above all no violence if anything goes wrong.”

  They fixed it for the following Sunday evening, the third night of the Whites’ stay. Peter felt it was the night when it was least likely that there would be guests from outside. They went down twice during the week and made a study of the house. On the second visit Boy went near enough to the gate to set the Chow barking. He had a deep angry note and they moved quickly off.

  Michael had arranged to see Bennie on the Sunday morning, but on the Friday he phoned her and made an excuse. He didn’t feel he would have the mental ease to enjoy being with her, and she was pretty acute.

  Saturday was a trying day. The office did not open, and by afternoon he regretted not having pressed Peter to act on Saturday instead of Sunday. The twenty-four hours would seem a week long, and if it could have happened tonight he would have been able to meet Bennie tomorrow morning with the thing off his mind.

  He had plenty of work to do for his office, but the very sight of the thin carbon sheets of typescript made him restless. So he pottered through the day, and it wasn’t until well on in the afternoon that he lost himself for a while in studying some cross-section
drawings of the Tirso dam in Sardinia.

  He left his car more or less permanently outside the flat, and presently he went to the window and stared out at it, wondering if a mechanical job would suit him better. The exhaust was “puttering” a bit. He knew a garage where on a Saturday afternoon he might have the use of an inspection pit.

  A girl in a grey uniform was coming down the street on the opposite side and turned his thoughts to Bennie. Then something bumped inside him when he saw it was Bennie and that she was crossing the street to call on him.

  He ran to kick a pair of slippers under a chair, grab a frying-pan out of the grate. Ash-trays to be emptied, two old bottles thrust away, dust on a table, push back his hair, twist his tie straight, the bell went; damn the rugs, why did they always kick up; he went to the door. “Bennie!”

  She smiled up at him from a lower step. “ I’m just off duty and.…”

  “Marvellous! Why didn’t we think of this before?” He drew her inside and hugged her and kissed her.

  She said against his face: “ I can’t stop terribly long, Michael; but when I got out of the tube I somehow turned west instead of south.”

  “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever done. Let me fix you a drink.”

  “No, thanks. Oh, what a lovely chair! Is it meant for rest, or only for ornament?”

  “Both when you sit in it.”

  “You certainly buy expensive things,” she said. “I suppose this is part of the legacy?”