The Tumbled House

  Darling, I love you so much.

  Michael.

  He didn’t sleep. The throbbing kept up most of the night, and when he tried to get out of bed about nine next morning it was as if all the muscles had seized up, and every movement was an agony. He was weak too and still shaky.

  Eventually, like someone with acute arthritis, he forced himself inch by inch to raise himself, to edge out of bed, to lower his feet. Then he stood up and nearly fainted.

  Kneeling on the floor he crawled to the kitchen, drank whisky, switched on the kettle. When he had made tea he buttered a chunk of bread and crawled back to bed. The wound had now quite stopped bleeding.

  Peter came about eleven. He had his own key so was able to let himself in. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom looking at Michael with his innocent dazed blue eyes.

  “Bad?”

  “Have you brought the papers?”

  “There are some in the car if you want them. But it’s too early to mention us. Tomorrow’s rags will flutter, no doubt.”

  “Did you manage the stuff?”

  “It’s stowed away. But we’ll have to watch our step. It has occurred to me that you are really luckier than I am. At least you weren’t seen. I wonder how accurately that fat thug will be able to describe me.”

  “Have you done anything about a doctor yet?”

  “No. I came to see how you were first. I wasn’t up at crack.”

  “Did you deliver the letter?”

  “Yes. Now I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  Michael said he wasn’t hungry, but in the end he ate something and felt better for it. Peter went off and did not show again until five in the afternoon.

  “It’s all laid on. A man called Gros is coming to see you, but he won’t come until after dark. Now I’ll get your lunch. Meals are a bit off time today.”

  “D’you know anything about him?”

  “Not much except that he’s a fifth-year student at St James’s who periodically runs into debt and works it off this way.”

  “He probably doesn’t know a damned thing.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s done his surgery. In any case I’m told he’s been working on little jobs like this on the side for years.”

  They spent the time playing cards, though Michael was in too much pain to concentrate. Peter was restless and kept looking at his watch. At times his eyes seemed to have a film over them like a cat’s.

  “Look,” Michael said at last, “ don’t wait if you don’t want to. I can get along.”

  “No, no. No, no. I’ll stay till Doctor has been.”

  This visitor didn’t come until nearly eleven. Then the bell rang, and Peter led in a plump short young man with wispy fair hair that was thinning to a bald patch on the crown. He looked quite thirty, and high living had already sewn little pockets under his eyes. He was wearing a Harris tweed hacking jacket over a T-shirt, with corduroy trousers and brown suede shoes.

  “Evening, old man. ’ Fraid I’m a little late. Busy these days. Swotting most of the time.” His glance flickered once swiftly round the room, making sure they were alone. “Nice place you have here,” he added perfunctorily. “ Bit of trouble, eh? I expect you’re pretty uncomfortable. When did this happen?”

  “At a party last night,” said Michael. “ Things got a bit wild at the end. You know the sort of thing.”

  “Don’t I just.” Gros came into the room on crêpe soles. Michael could see a big stain on his trousers.

  “My friend doesn’t want anyone to know what happened,” said Peter. “Might lose his job, you understand.”

  “Don’t I understand,” said Gros unbelieving. “Parties. They’re hell. Let’s see, did we say twenty pounds?”

  “It’s here.” Peter pointed to an envelope on the table. “Care to count it?”

  “No, no, that’s not necessary between friends.” The envelope was taken up in the plump capable fingers, felt once for thickness between thumb and tobacco-stained forefinger, slipped into his pocket. “ Parties, they’re hell. So are the girls. Now, old man, let’s see the bomb damage. We’ll try not to be rough.”

  He bent over Michael breathing whisky and the peppermint he was still chewing. The pupils of his pale grey eyes were haloed with a paler band. He uncovered the bullet hole, pulling away the bandages where they were stuck together with dried blood.

  “Well, well. Clean as a whistle, eh? Don’t think it’s taken anything in with it either.” He opened his attaché-case and rattled about. “Pretty deep, old man, that’s the only trouble. We’ll have to take it carefully.”

  “Ever done this sort of thing before?” Michael asked.

  “My dear chap, I’m always on the go. All the people who want things done on the quiet. You’d be surprised. I believe it’s the Health Service. People don’t trust the ordinary G.P. nowadays. And I don’t blame ’em.”

  “All right. Get on with it.”

  “Any more light? Shadowy, y’know.… Ah, thanks, that’s better. And I shall need some boiled water. Towels? Ah, yes, goody.” Peter went out. Gros probed the wound. Michael grunted.

  Time passed. Gros said: “Bloody thing’s gone off course. I’ll give you a local, old man. It may help a bit. Never can tell with a bullet, once the bloody thing’s inside you.”

  He gave an injection and stood up. Peter had been looking bleakly at a Sunday newspaper.

  “Ever go to the Panhandle?” Gros said. “Jolly little spot. They certainly have a line in girls. But you’ve got to pay, my God. The price goes up with the vital statistics.” He laughed. Nobody laughed with him.

  Michael wiped the sweat off his forehead with a corner of the sheet.

  “Any easier yet? Give it another minute.” Gros belched behind his hand. “Pardon. D’you happen to have a cigarette?”

  “There’s a packet on the mantelpiece.”

  Presently he got to work again. Michael could stand it better this time. After a few minutes Gros stood up.

  “Got it?” Michael asked.

  Gros flattened his thin hair and reached for his cigarette which had been smouldering in the ash-tray.

  “No. ’Fraid not, old man.”

  Michael rolled over. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Know anything about anatomy? No, well, it doesn’t matter. The bullet seems to have missed the bone and lodged against the femoral artery. Never can tell what they’ll do, once they’re inside you.”

  “Well, can’t you get it?”

  “I can touch it. I can touch it with my probe, but I can feel it pulsating. Afraid you’ll have to go to hospital.”

  Michael tried to sit up, and winced. “I tell you I can’t do that. Why can’t you take it out?”

  The ash from the cigarette drifted down the front of the Harris jacket. “It must be lying right alongside the artery. If I start yanking at it I’m likely to damage the artery. Get me? If you start bleeding there, brother, you go on bleeding. Too high up for a tourniquet, y’see.”

  Peter said: “ People in the old days had their legs off anywhere an accident happened.”

  “That’s butcher’s work, old man.”

  In the silence they all listened to a door opening and footsteps going to the flat upstairs.

  Michael said: “ Look, you know I don’t want to go to hospital.

  Do you know the name of a qualified man who would do this job here?”

  “Think I don’t know what I’m talking about? No qualified man would take the risk. Want to bet on it?” Gros blinked through the smoke. “I’ll take a hundred to eight.”

  “Yes, but——”

  “It’s got to be done at a hospital. If it goes wrong there they can operate at once. No trouble then.”

  A further silence fell while Gros lit another cigarette.

  Michael said: “And if I don’t have the bullet taken out?”

  Gros shrugged. “The wound will heal—seven to ten days. It’s not likely to go septic, bullets are usually sterile. I should say that’s your b
est bet, chum.”

  “Permanently?”

  “Not permanently, good God, no. If you leave the bloody thing there too long it may erode the vessel and give you trouble that way.”

  “Well, how long can I leave it?”

  “It’ll probably be all right for two or three months. Take it easy, of course.”

  Michael let out a slow breath. “ That seems to be the answer.”

  “It’d be my answer if I badly wanted to keep it quiet.… In the meantime I’ll give you a shot of penicillin, be on the safe side. You’re a bit sweaty now, but I expect it’s me mucking about in the hole. If you run a temperature, send for me and I can drop round again tomorrow evening.”

  “At twenty pounds a time?”

  “Well, health’s everything, don’t you think? Not but that I mightn’t make it fifteen next time. We’ve got to help each other in this world. That’s what I said to my girl friend last night.”

  “Did she agree?” Peter asked.

  Gros smiled slyly. “No.” He pinched off the tip of the cigarette in the ash-tray, and slipped the end into his cigarette case where there were half a dozen ends already.

  “Let’s hope you won’t need me again, old man. No reason why you should. With luck you’ll be on your feet again in a couple of days.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  On Monday Whitehouse said: “Not until Wednesday or Thursday, I think. The Lord Chief going ill has put things a day behind, and this enticement case has lasted longer than anyone expected. But definitely this week.”

  On Monday Michael tried to get up, but again had to go through all the painful business of loosening muscles which during the night had clamped themselves round the wound in a knot. As the day wore on he was able to get about with a stick. Peter didn’t come until the afternoon, when they spent an hour reading the papers together. “Captain Gilbert, brother of the owner, who had returned from Kenya only that day.…” “ One thief, wounded, left bloodstains as far as the empty lot where they had parked their car. The other, a young man of good appearance.…” “Some eight thousand pounds’ worth of valuables and objets d’art.…” “ Police are anxious to trace …”

  “We left tyre marks,” said Peter, “and your old bag.”

  On Tuesday Bennie waited for the 11 a.m. post and nearly missed her plane. She had thought there would be a letter from Michael giving his address in Liverpool. On Wednesday Roger called to see his son.

  By now the worst of the pain had gone and Michael could get about on a stick for short periods. There had been no return of the fever and therefore no return of Gros.

  When the bell rang Michael limped cautiously to the door and was startled to see his father.

  “Hullo. Can I come in? I’m glad to see you’re up.”

  Michael opened the door wider. “ How did you know?”

  “I met Bartlett at the club. He told me you’d been away this week with a sprained back. I thought I’d call.”

  “Oh, thanks. I’m fine now, thanks.”

  “Well, you don’t look fine. You look terrible. Have you shaved today?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been getting some breakfast.”

  “What does the doctor say? Is it a slipped disc?”

  “Oh, no. Just a sprain.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I’m afraid I made rather a fool of myself. Went to a party on Saturday night, slipped on the stairs. Peter Waldo brought me home in a taxi, and I’ve been here ever since.”

  “Peter Waldo? Oh, yes, I remember.” Roger, in his usual quietly distinguished clothes, looked out of place as he stood in the chaos of the living-room. “Have you got anyone to do for you? How long will you be before you’re all right again?”

  “Another couple of days. Not more.” Michael let himself slowly down into a chair. “ Dad, I think I ought to tell you something, although it’s supposed to be a secret until after the action. I’m engaged to be married to Bennie.”

  Roger’s eyes flickered. “ I can’t say the news pleases me. Does Don know?”

  “Not yet. When does the action come on?”

  “Friday probably.”

  “I see. Well, I hope it will turn out all right for you.”

  “As a matter of fact I was just on my way to my solicitors. Another witness has come to light—the woman Delaney that John Marlowe nearly married. Apparently she’s going to give evidence for the other side, and I’m just going along to hear a summary of it. I don’t know what it is yet, but I gather it will mean an alteration in the way we put our case.”

  “Well, it’ll be a good thing when it’s all over.”

  Roger eyed his son. “Look, Michael, I know you’ve your own life to live; you’re going to be independent and marry Bennie Marlowe et cetera. But why don’t you come home and occupy your old bedroom for a few days and get properly looked after? This flat and your much prized independence will still be here next week when you’re well again.”

  Michael spent a few seconds untying and retying the cord of his dressing-gown. As at Wimbledon, he found the old childhood and adolescent ties clinging when he had thought them quite cut away. He was like a sailor who has a nostalgic feeling for the safe anchorage he has left behind for ever.

  “No,” he said sharply. “I can’t do that.”

  Roger put the handle of his rolled umbrella thoughtfully against his teeth. “Just as you say, Michael.”

  Michael eased his leg, careful not to show the spasm of pain. “Sorry,” he said. “ I get frightfully irritable being pinned down like this. Sorry.”

  “My dear boy, I was only trying to help. Are you getting on all right with Bartlett? Or are you still hankering after engineering?”

  “It’s a pretty forlorn hope.”

  Roger put his umbrella down. “I want to tell you something, Michael. If you’ll keep in step with me for another few months I’ll not leave you with Bartlett a day longer than I can help. I have big plans.”

  “What sort of plans?”

  “Well, I may be able to offer you more the sort of job you might like. Not engineering in its narrowest sense but possibly an approach to industry and engineering through journalism. Something that will give you an opportunity to show your keenness and insight. Certainly a job with plenty of scope and a substantial salary.”

  Michael stared at him, not sure if there was some catch. “I’d like that.”

  “Well, it could be yours in a matter of months.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it.”

  “Well, of course I’d like that very much. I—Bennie wants to go on working after we’re married but I’m determined she shan’t.”

  “I’m not doing this for one of the Marlowes, I’m doing it for you.”

  They talked a few minutes longer. As they went to the door Michael said: “I still don’t know quite the sort of job you mean.”

  “Well, I’m thinking aloud now, but something in the nature of industrial correspondent—or motoring correspondent—for a big newspaper. Something that would entail travel abroad and opportunities to study engineering projects of all sorts at first hand.”

  Michael didn’t speak until his father was on the top step.

  “I’d really love that.”

  “Good.”

  Michael still stared at his father. “God, I wish I’d known about it a couple of weeks earlier!”

  “Why?”

  “Oh … it doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. Never mind, it’s good to know it now, and … thanks. You’re …” he hesitated, “… such a good sort.”

  Roger smiled. “Everyone wouldn’t agree, I’m afraid.”

  All the week Peter had been pretty good, but on Wednesday evening he came with a more than ever unfocused look in his eyes.

  “Money,” he said, putting his attaché-ease on the side. “A cut-throat price, but we couldn’t hang on this time.”

  “How much?”


  “Eight hundred each.”

  “For the whole lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “God, that was throwing it away!”

  “Maybe.” Peter began to light a cigarette. “How’s the leg?”

  “Better; I can get about the room. But——”

  “Good. You see, darling boy, it may soon be every man for himself.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, I hear that the gun-happy psycho from Kenya has supplied the police with a pretty good description of me. That by itself is unhelpful. But it isn’t by itself. Run your eye over this.”

  He passed a cutting from The Times.

  “£1000 Reward. Stolen on the night of the 10th/11th October from 241 Sloane Street, S.W.I, fine lacquer and emerald brooch, solitaire diamond ring, Elizabethan loving cup, Epstein, bust of sleeping child, Dégas drawing of a violinist, Louis XIII French crested silver spoons etc. One of the two thieves was wounded with .25 automatic pistol. The above reward will be paid by Moriarty & Co., Lloyds Avenue, Fenchurch Street, E.C. 3, to the first person giving such information to them as will lead to the apprehension of the thieves, and to the recovery of the property intact or pro rata.”

  Michael passed the cutting back. “Does it add to our troubles?”

  “Think beyond the tips of your toes. A seedy fifth-year medical student with an expensive taste in blondes tried to take a bullet out of you on Sunday. This mentions that one of the thieves is wounded. What are the chances, d’you think, if he sees this, of his wanting to make an easy £1000?”

  Michael shifted. “But could he?”

  “He hasn’t to go to the police—only to the underwriters. Then somebody will check up on the other man who was with you when he called, and that will fix it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get out while the going’s good. The perspective will be better in Estoril.”

  “I can’t very well come with you.”

  “Well.…” Peter hesitated. “I don’t want to seem to be ratting on you, but you’d be as welcome with me as a culture of conform bacteria. From now on it will be fatal for us to be seen together.”