That knack of his of finding his way about books of reference was very evident here. He made one or two false starts—for instance, he found Whitaker’s Almanack for once in a way singularly unhelpful—but in two hours he had accumulated all the facts he needed, by the aid of three gazetteers, a handbook on What to See in Paris, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and a Dictionary of French Technical Terms. The plans for a raid on Paris were taking shape rapidly in his mind. The two or three important pieces of apparatus which he would need he could take in his pockets to avoid questions at the customs examination which he expected. With the aid of the technical dictionary he would be able to buy the more ordinary pieces—they were things which anyone might want and could buy without exciting suspicion in a radio shop. He had looked up the items in the dictionary to make sure.
For the rest—he knew now what was the voltage and cycles per second of the Paris electricity supply. He knew that the generating station was at Colombes, on the Seine bank opposite Argenteuil, a couple of miles from the centre of Paris. He had studied the maps of Paris, and he had decided that the thickest traffic ought to be somewhere along the Rue de Rivoli; in his mind he had picked out the intersection of the Rue du Pont Neuf, but that could wait until he was able to study the situation with his own eyes. It was all very straightforward. He could find his way to Paris, he supposed—he would have to encounter French customs officers and French railway porters and find a train in a French station, but if the worst came to the worst he could follow some English people who appeared to be sure of what they were doing. Then—a room in an hotel, a rapid purchase of the materials he would need, a couple of days spent on the construction of the new condenser and emitter, and he could attack the Paris traffic from his hotel room.
Dr. Pethwick put all his books back tidily on the shelves and walked out, smiling his thanks to the Librarian. He would carry out the scheme shortly; before he could set about it he intended to make a further attempt to stir London out of its sluggishness—and, more important still, he had to decide how to persuade Mary to agree to his leaving her for a few days. That was going to be difficult; they had not been separated for as much as a night for ten years. He would have to think out how best to set about it while he was proceeding with his next move.
He walked down the steps of the library into the High Street again. His eye was caught by the posters of a man selling evening papers—‘Peacemaker’s New Impertinence.’ Presumably that was a comment on his brief letter to The Times which had appeared that morning. He did not buy a paper—he had read enough newspaper criticism for one day, and he was already experienced enough to guess at the tone of this new effusion. His mouth set hard again at the thought of it. Quite unconsciously he quickened his steps so as to hasten his entry upon his new move.
Lenham’s garage was some way down the High Street from the station. Dr. Pethwick walked in up the crescent-shaped cement path beside the petrol pumps, and stood for a moment hesitating at the open doors of the big workshop, where innumerable motor-cars in all stages of dissection—one of two of them, perhaps, were there as the result of his efforts of the previous days—were being dealt with by mechanics. Then Pethwick smiled as a lean young man in blue overalls came hastening up to him.
‘Good afternoon, Lenham,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
‘Good afternoon, Doctor. It’s very nice to see you here.’
Young Lenham—son and heir of old Lenham who owned the garage—had been a favourite pupil of Dr. Pethwick’s five years ago. He still cherished an affection for the kindly man who had initiated him into the mysteries of electricity and magnetism and statics. His white teeth showed up in his swarthy sunburned face as he grinned hospitably at the Doctor.
‘I’ve seen you once or twice at the station lately, sir,’ said Lenham, ‘but you always seemed to be in a bit of a hurry.’
‘Yes, I’ve been busy for the last day or two,’ said Pethwick.
There was a little pause in which they went on smiling at each other. Pethwick’s heart was warmed by this discovery that there was one person at least in the world who seemed pleased to see him. Then he realised that he ought to state his business; it was a little bit of an effort to take the plunge.
‘What I want to talk to you about,’ he said, at length, ‘is that I want a motor-car.’
‘A car?’ said Lenham.
Automatically Lenham’s face assumed the expression common to all dealers in motor-cars when possible purchases are under discussion—the same alert impassivity as can be seen on the face of an Irish horse-dealer; but he grinned again immediately. He did not want to make money out of the Doctor.
‘A new one?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Dr. Pethwick. ‘It will have to be an old one. I haven’t very much money.’
‘None of us have,’ grinned Lenham. ‘But I expect I can find something for you. What sort of a car do you want? Two-seater?’
‘No,’ said Pethwick. ‘I want an enclosed car. I think it’s called a saloon.’
‘Yes,’ said Lenham. He was quick to realise that there actually existed on earth people who were doubtful about the differences between saloons and coupés and touring-cars.
‘How much were you thinking of spending?’ he asked.
‘Not very much,’ said Pethwick, who had only the vaguest notion as to how much a second-hand saloon motor-car might cost. All he knew was that occasionally in common-room conversations he had heard stray allusions to the cheapness of second-hand cars.
‘Well,’ explained Lenham, patiently. ‘It’s this way. You can get a second-hand car for ten pounds. But you can pay two hundred if you want to.’
It was a very laudable effort on Lenham’s part to let drop the former statement. Beginners with money in their pockets who want to pay cash for a second-hand motor-car are everybody’s prey. But he managed to curb his acquired instincts. He wanted to treat Dr. Pethwick fairly.
‘Ten pounds sounds very like the figure I want to pay,’ said Pethwick. ‘I don’t want anything very elaborate. I just want—I just want—’
‘Something which goes and keeps the rain out?’ said Lenham.
‘That’s right.’
‘Let me see,’ said Lenham. For the life of him he could not stop himself from making that thoughtful little pause, as though he was considering the matter deeply. He stroked his chin in apparent cogitation—although he had already decided on what Dr. Pethwick ought to have.
‘I know what’ll suit you,’ said Lenham. ‘George, give me the key to Number Four.’
Lenham led Dr. Pethwick round behind the workshop to the row of lock-up garages. He undid a padlock, swung open the doors, and with a gesture invited Dr. Pethwick’s consideration of the contents.
‘Yes,’ said Dr. Pethwick, vaguely, peering inside. ‘Yes. It looks very nice.’
‘There’s your cheap car, sir,’ said Lenham, walking in. ‘1925 Morris. It’ll run as long as ever you want—it’s got the old Vickers engine, you know.’
Dr. Pethwick eyed the vehicle. Up to this time one motorcar had been very like another motor-car to Dr. Pethwick. That bull-nosed bonnet, that box-like body, meant nothing to him. He did not realise that in the eyes of the illuminati they indicated that the car was eight years old and therefore as much out of date as a sedan chair or an ancient British chariot. He literally meant what he said when he said that all he wanted was a car which would go along and keep the rain out—the snobbishness which insists on a this year’s model is usually a later growth in the motoring mind.
‘Would you like to try her?’ asked Lenham.
‘Yes,’ said Dr. Pethwick. ‘I should. But I can’t drive a car.’
Lenham tried to look as if every day of the week he met people who could not drive a car.
‘As a matter of fact, Lenham,’ went on Dr. Pethwick, ‘I was going to ask you if you would teach me, as well as finding a car for me.’
‘I should like to, sir,’ said Lenham, and he meant it. ‘Have you got a licence??
??
‘No,’ said Dr. Pethwick. ‘I can’t drive.’
Lenham smiled again, forbearingly, while he explained that a driving licence is not a testimonial of skill but a mere licence to drive. He went on to a further disquisition on the law of motor-car insurance and the British government’s method of taxation.
‘I’ll see about all that for you, sir,’ he concluded, ‘if you buy her.’
‘That’s very good of you, Lenham,’ said Dr. Pethwick. ‘I will.’
In the office Dr. Pethwick signed a cheque for fifteen pounds for the car, and a cheque for ten pounds in payment of tax to the end of the year and insurance.
‘Now you go to County Hall to-morrow and get your licence,’ said Lenham, ‘and we’ll take her out to-morrow afternoon. I suppose you’ll be wanting to drive by Bank Holiday.’
Bank Holiday was next Monday—four days off. Pethwick nodded. He had not the least idea how long it took to learn to drive, but he could rely on Lenham. Now that he had brought himself to it he felt an odd constriction round the heart at the thought of driving that ponderous machine out into the roaring traffic of the High Street. But he had to go through with it now. Meanwhile, this evening there was another letter to be written to The Times, and—Dr. Pethwick still had some concern for elementary methods of escaping detection—it would have to be posted somewhere quite distant from his address.
‘I’ll see you to-morrow afternoon, then,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
At the door he remembered something else, and paused.
‘By the way,’ he said awkwardly, ‘would you mind not saying anything about this? My wife—’
The sentence trailed off into nothingness, but Lenham nodded paternally—this interview had made him feel really paternal towards this rather pathetic figure.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You want it to be a surprise.’
Lenham had sold motor-cars to certainly not less than a hundred excited husbands who wanted to give their wives a surprise. That fact saved Pethwick from telling the only lie he had been able to think of, to the effect that his wife did not approve of motor-cars.
Chapter Nineteen
So that on the Friday before Bank Holiday Pethwick had a busy day. First he had to go to Hammer Court, and set up his apparatus, and set the Klein–Pethwick Effect at work upon the main traffic crossing in front of the Royal Exchange; as he was not intending to remain in the office to shift the emitter about he selected the most vulnerable part of the City for his demonstration. Then, leaving the apparatus at work, and at the very moment when London fell into the turmoil which was beginning to be almost its usual condition, he locked his office door and hurried off to Westminster Bridge to obtain his driving licence.
With that in his possession he came back to the City—casually thinking the while of the oddity of a world which hands over with less than half an hour’s formality a permit to anyone to make use of a machine which could be quite as dangerous to innocent people as a high-explosive bomb—and he won his way with difficulty back to Hammer Court. Queen Victoria Street and Cannon Street were crammed as ever with congested traffic; the usual policemen were diverting everything from the heart of the City. Near the Mansion House Pethwick saw the emergency horses coming up to help—already the policemen had made permanent arrangements for teams to pull helpless vehicles out of the way.
Locked again in his office, Pethwick spent one half hour on making the task of the police more difficult by turning the emitter steadily round on its centre, catching Cannon Street at its very worst and positively raising Cain by holding paralysed everything at the corner of Cheapside and King Street, where a busy police inspector, emboldened by the apparent permanence of the stay of the Klein–Pethwick Effect outside the Royal Exchange, had been sending traffic by the comparatively short detour through Gresham Street and Throgmorton Street.
The mischief completed, Pethwick dismantled his apparatus again, locked his cupboard and his office door, and started back for home. There was a most unusual and very pleasant bubble of excitement in his breast as he walked back over London Bridge. Even Dr. Pethwick, a dry-as-dust professor, and one furthermore with all his serious purposes in view, could feel a little thrill of exhilaration at the thought that he was actually going to drive a motor-car to-day.
New interests had been rare in Dr. Pethwick’s life. He had hardly ever had a chance to be an ordinary human being—and on the last occasion Dorothy had been torn from him. There was something amazingly cheerful about the prospect of learning to drive; it might be due in part—the possibility is one which at least merits consideration—to the fact that it involved the companionship of Lenham. Pethwick had been fond of Lenham when he had been his pupil, and he liked him even better now. Human society had been denied to Pethwick for a long time, and recent events had both increased and made him more conscious of his feeling of isolation. The man who was so savagely condemned by the whole Press of England was immeasurably pleased at young Lenham’s evident pleasure in seeing him again.
After his midday dinner Pethwick started out for Lenham’s garage. He did not notice Mary’s keen glance at him when he announced his intention of being out all the afternoon. A factor which he had not allowed for in his plans was developing which might wreck them, and he was still unaware of it. Pethwick was used to dealing with apparatus and with mathematical expressions—reliable instruments, whose behaviour in given circumstances was at least calculable. But his own reactions, and those of his wife, were not calculable. He had never thought that at the prospect of driving a motor-car he would rise from the table exhibiting pleasurable anticipation; nor had he expected that his wife would be observant enough to take notice of it.
Pethwick found Lenham standing beside the open bonnet of the Morris.
‘Shall we begin at the beginning, sir?’ he asked.
‘Er—yes, I suppose we had better,’ said Pethwick.
It says much for the fantastic nature of Pethwick’s upbringing that, although a Doctor of Science, he had never once looked inside the bonnet of a motor-car. But at least Pethwick’s enormous theoretical knowledge enabled him to follow with ease Lenham’s brief lecture upon the mechanics of the internal-combustion vehicle. The clutch and the gearbox, ignition and the variation in the timing thereof, were all things with which Pethwick was quite familiar in diagrams and to some extent in bench demonstrations.
‘Well, that’s everything,’ said Lenham, pulling the jack away. He had just jacked up and changed a wheel, to the accompaniment of Pethwick’s unbounded admiration for his technique, in a minute and a quarter, as a final part of his instruction in running repairs. ‘Let’s take her out now. We’ll go round to the quiet streets—Dalkeith Road is the best. Will you drive her there?’
Pethwick thought of the roaring High Street traffic, of coloured lights and constables.
‘I think it would be better if you did,’ he said.
Yet all the same Pethwick proved himself a not very slow pupil. He knew before he set out to drive what it was he had to learn. He knew of the necessity for adjusting engine speed to road speed, so that double declutching came easily to him. He fully appreciated the need for letting in the clutch gently, and for keeping the engine going, come what might. The manipulative skill acquired at the experimental bench came to his rescue, too. By the third attempt he was feeling the gear lever into position like a good driver, and the most complex problem of driving was simpler than some of the operations he had had to perform in the physics laboratory—he did not get flurried when he had to sound his horn, put out his hand, turn his wheel, apply his brakes, and change gear practically simultaneously.
‘There ought to be something to do with your teeth as well,’ said Lenham, making the little stock joke he always employed at this stage of the tuition; but Pethwick was keeping such a clear head that on this occasion the point of the joke was not quite so obvious.
As one would expect, Pethwick’s main trouble arose from lack of self-confidence. He had to scr
ew up his nerve to plunge into traffic when the time came; he took his foot hastily off the accelerator at the very first sign of trouble ahead. When he had to make a right-hand turn out of a busy street he found it hard to believe that these lordly other drivers would pay attention to his outstretched hand and let him through—and as a matter of fact the far-too-common drivers with bad road manners did their best to discourage him.
‘Don’t you worry about the people behind,’ insisted Lenham. ‘Put your hand out in plenty of time, and then round you go. It’s only the damn’ fools you have to look out for.’
All very well, but Pethwick had been treated all his life with such scant courtesy that he found difficulty in expecting consideration. Nor, with his ignorance of humanity, did he make allowance for the fact that other drivers, seeing all the danger signals of his indecision, would avoid him like the plague. And he was inexperienced in making lightning estimates of speed and distances; he found it difficult to judge whether he had time in hand to turn across an oncoming vehicle, or whether a gap which presented itself before him would remain open long enough for him to avail himself of it. So that during the second hour he began to feel nervous exhaustion overcoming him.
‘Do you mind if we have a rest?’ he asked, when they turned once more into a quiet side street. Lenham was all contrition at once.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Let’s stop here for a bit. You were getting on so well that I was forgetting this was only your first time out.’
Pethwick pulled up carefully at the kerb, and they sat side by side in the car, while Pethwick revelled in the relief from strain and glowed warmly with this last encomium from Lenham.
‘Have you seen anything of this Peacemaker business in the City?’ asked Lenham.
It was an inevitable question, one which everyone interested in motor-cars was bound to ask in an idle moment. Pethwick took a grip on himself before he answered.
‘Yes,’ he said, slowly. ‘Two or three times, as it happens.’