Whether or no they were fair criticism, Nigel’s heart warmed to the author of these cannonading periods. The chapter which they concluded began with an account of General Thoresby’s period of service as O.C. the troops in the colony. He had clearly been at loggerheads with the Governor-General over the steps which should be taken in view of its unsettled condition, and had been recalled to England just before the disturbances actually broke out.
… And Millicent Miles, before she had realised that Stephen Protheroe was not alone in his room, had asked him how to spell ‘holocaust’ …
What Nigel had so far read of Time to Fight compelled respect both for the General’s professional abilities and his literary style. When he used the word ‘holocaust,’ he would use it in its correct modern meaning of ‘complete destruction by fire’—perhaps, considering his indignation against Blair-Chatterley, in its original meaning of a ‘a sacrifice wholly consumed by fire.’
General Thoresby’s book showed him a brilliant soldier, fanatical over his own conceptions of strategy, tactics and logistics. Nigel turned back to the first of the two libellous passages. Here, describing a certain push in France in 1944, the General had written:
The offensive was entirely successful, except on the Paume-Luzières sector. Here, during a mercifully brief period of command, General Blair-Chatterley’s costive and Crimean conduct of operations achieved 2586 casualties among his own troops and a noticeable heightening of the enemy’s morale.
All but the first sentence of this passage had been deleted, then stetted. Though one might fault it for excessive alliteration, its panache made Nigel all the more eager to meet its author. An appointment at the General’s Club had been fixed by telephone, and thither Nigel now betook himself.
A waiter showed Nigel to the Library, where General Thoresby was sitting alone, deep in a volume of Proust.
‘Ah, Strangeways? You drink I hope? Two Armagnacs—large ones.’
A small, erect, dapper man shook hands with Nigel. The General’s face presented an odd combination of the don and the pirate: grey hair, a high forehead, dreamy blue eyes; but beneath them the swashbuckling moustache, full red lips, a ram of a jaw. His voice was gentle, but turned staccato at moments of excitement.
Nigel complimented him, with sincerity, on what he had read of his book.
‘Surprised to find a soldier literate?’ The General chuckled.
‘I’m surprised to find anyone literate nowadays.’
‘Geraldine tells me you’re looking for the culprit. Don’t know if I encourage that. Good luck to the fellow, I’d say.’
‘But you didn’t creep back into the office and do the dirty work yourself, sir?’
Thoresby chuckled again. ‘I’d have done it if I could, but they’d have spotted me. Of course, I might have bribed one of Geraldine’s minions to do it for me. Had you thought of that?’ The blue eyes gave Nigel a schoolboy’s mock-innocent stare.
‘As a matter of fact, I had.’
‘But I didn’t. Word of honour. Ah, here are the drinks.’
General Thoresby lifted his glass to Nigel. ‘Good health. I won’t say good hunting. I see you’re trying to sum me up. Don’t be misled by my moustache. Grew it to impress the troops, and can’t be bothered to remove it now. Camouflage. Goes well with a bowler hat, too.’
Nigel took the reference. ‘You were retired after your row with the Governor-General?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you mind if I ask you a very straight question, sir?’
‘Ask away and I’ll see.’
‘Your attacks on General Blair-Chatterley in this book—were they, well, you know, pro-bono-publico criticisms, or have you some personal feeling against him?’
‘A bit of both. He needs showing up. Also, one of the two young officers burnt alive with their men in the Ulombo barracks was a protégé of mine.’
There was a pause. The General frowned fiercely at the volume of Proust on the table beside him.
‘I see,’ said Nigel presently. ‘That makes things more awkward still.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘In the libel suit. The plaintiff will be able to allege a personal grudge on your part. Difficult for you to plead fair comment.’
‘The plaintiff might find that allegation cutting both ways,’ said the General mildly.
‘He had a grudge against you? Before the appearance of the book?’
‘My report on the political unrest in the Colony, and the military dispositions that should have been made to counter it—not at all gratifying to old B. -C.’
‘But he was—’
‘Oh, yes, he was whitewashed, after the damage had been done. A deal of influence in high quarters, has B.-C.’ General Thoresby’s voice became staccato. ‘A nice lot of whitewash. A nice bit of hushing-up. Reasons of high policy. Politicians make me vomit.’
‘I see.’
‘What do you see, my friend?’ The blue eyes were piercing now, and alight with intelligence.
‘You want this libel case to go forward. You want Blair-Chatterley’s bungling brought out in the open—all the whitewash scraped off—and a libel action is the only way it can be done. Even though it could ruin you financially. I call it rather public-spirited.’
‘I can assure you of one thing. I’d have done just the same if that young friend of mine had not been killed out there.’
‘Yes. I’m not trying to be censorious; but Wenham & Geraldine, and the printers—they never asked to be dragged into this battle of yours.’
The reckless, piratical aspect of General Thoresby now came uppermost. ‘They can take their chance. Publishers insure against libel, don’t they? And they’ve got some sort of defence—they did their best to have these bits cut out of the book.’
‘That’s no defence. They want to settle out of court, you know.’
‘Old B.-C. won’t consent,’ replied the General with glee. ‘He daren’t. The thing’s spread around too far already. He’s got to come and play in the mud. Have some more brandy.’
‘No thanks. And your defence—?’
‘I’ve had it out with my needle-nose. He’s instructed to plead that I told the truth in those passages, and told it for the public benefit.’
‘Well, it’s your funeral. You can support your statements?’
‘My dear chap, I’ve been occupying much of my enforced leisure during the last few years in accumulating evidence to support my charges. I’ve got quite a dossier on old B.-C. Even my needle-nose was impressed. I may be mad, but I’m not a fool.’
Nigel lit a cigarette. ‘Good luck to you then, sir. But I’m afraid all this gets me no further with my little problem.’
‘Let’s have the picture.’
Nigel gave it to him, briefly. The General’s quick intelligence appeared in his comment:
‘So almost everyone in the firm had the opportunity. You’ll have to go for motive then. Some vindictive type, bless his heart, who wanted to do me down and didn’t realise he was doing me a favour.’
‘Or wanted to injure the firm. Yes.’ Nigel gazed round at the fusty-looking books which lined the walls. ‘Did you ever come across a woman called Miles—Millicent Miles?’
‘What? The writer? Did I not? Absurd woman. Smacked her bottom for her once—metaphorically.’
Nigel asked for more. General Thoresby went on:
‘Early in 1940, it must have been. My battalion was sitting about on the East coast, waiting for the real war to begin. Troops getting browned off. They sent us some lecturers, including your Miss Miles. She came down and gave a talk about novels. Literature-for-the-tots stuff. Condescending. She bent down so far to our pathetic intellectual level, you could hear her stays creak. And she dragged in some palaver about how wicked war is. Bad form, under the circumstances. Nobody knows better than the professional soldier that war is about the bloody silliest pastime ever thought up by humanity. And the troops don’t like you patronising them—they were champing wi
th fury before she was half-way through.’ A reminiscent gleam lit up the General’s eye. ‘So afterwards, when she was dining with us in the mess, we did rather take her to bits.’
‘I’d like to have been there.’
‘The lady’s not a friend of yours? Good. Well, we had some clever chaps on the strength; and I read myself, y’know. So we launched a counter-demonstration, a real highbrow free-for-all. The air was thick with chunks of Henry James, Proust, Dostoevsky, Finnegan’s Wake—the whole works. The Miles woman simply couldn’t compete. Hide like an ox, of course: but after a bit she realised what was happening to her. Didn’t like it at all. Outrage by the brutal and licentious soldiery. Refined female exposed in all her intellectual nakedness. Handsome sort of woman though: if you like horses.’
‘Have you met her since?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘She still calls you “Thor.”’
‘Still calls me—? Well, the infernal impudence! Never seen the woman, before that occasion or after. Why are we talking about her, anyway?’
‘She was working at Wenham & Geraldine’s when your proof was interfered with.’
This seemed a good curtain-line, so Nigel rose to go.
‘Well, goodbye, Strangeways. Enjoyed our chat. Keep me in the picture. If you find the miscreant, I’ll slip him a thanks-offering: or her, as the case may be.’
Nigel’s next interview was of a very different nature. He had telephone Mr. Bates, the late Production Manager at Wenham & Geraldine, saying he would like to discuss a business matter with him. Nigel did not usually care for conducting interviews under false pretences; but in this case he judged it necessary.
Herbert Bates lived in a villa at Golders Green. His black suit, high stiff collar, and rather lugubrious face gave him the appearance of a family retainer—which, in a sense, he had been. His manner, too, was ceremonious, discreet, respectful. A hushed personality.
‘If you will come into the lounge, Mr. Strangeways. I think you will find it warm and comfortable in this inclement weather.’
Mr. Strangeways explained that, having recently received a large legacy and always been interested in publishing, he was thinking of setting up for himself in the business, and in the meantime had joined Mr. Bates’s old firm to get practical experience.
‘And no better House could you find for that purpose, if I may say so, Mr. Strangeways.’
‘It’s all very much in the air at present. But, if my plans go forward, Mr. Bates, would you consider taking up the post of Production Manager for me? Miss Wenham speaks of you in the highest terms.’
Nigel was extremely relieved to notice that no gleam of eagerness appeared in Mr. Bates’s eyes.
‘I greatly appreciate the suggestion, sir, and Miss Wenham’s kind recommendation,’ Mr. Bates replied in his tired, toneless voice. ‘But I fear that, at my age—’
‘Oh, come now, Mr. Bates, you can’t be sixty. Surely you don’t want to retire permanently yet?’
‘Sixty-one next birthday. I had intended to stay on with the firm till I was sixty-five: but—er—events transpired which made a somewhat earlier retirement—ah—feasible.’
Nigel nodded gravely at these diplomatic circumlocutions. ‘I am sure Miss Wenham and Mr. Geraldine must have greatly regretted your decision. Mr. Ryle’s acquaintance I have hardly made as yet: my impression, though, is that he does not quite—? Nigel left the sentence dangling delicately in the air, and Mr. Bates came to the lure after a moment’s hesitation.
‘No doubt he will learn Our Ways in good time, sir. I confess I did not always see eye-to-eye with him myself. A publishing house is not, after all, a factory. Ah well, youth will be served, as they say.’
Mr. Bates gave a resigned sigh. If this man is capable of bearing resentment, thought Nigel, then thistles can bear figs. Further gentle probing confirmed him in this impression, so he went off on another tack.
‘I’ve just been having a talk with General Thoresby,’ he said. ‘Interesting man.’
Mr. Bates looked severe. ‘Disgraceful! I should have expected better from a man of his standing. But you never trust authors—slippery customers, the lot of them—and no gratitude either. A deliberate attempt to involve us in a libel action.’
‘The attempt has succeeded.’
Mr. Bates was flabbergasted, not having heard of the most recent developments, which Nigel now summarised for him.
The expression on Mr. Bates’s face was that of an old family retainer who has found a skeleton in the family cupboard—shocked, but a trifle prurient.
‘And the partners think it must have been done by someone in the firm, you say, sir? God bless my soul! The imagination boggles at such an enormity. It is quite unprecedented in Our Annals. I well recollect Mr. Protheroe bringing in the proof copy that morning. After all that trouble with the author, and falling behind schedule, I was glad to get it off to press. I remember passing a remark to that effect, while my secretary was typing a note for the printer and parcelling up the proof; and Mr. Protheroe—he was sitting beside me, as it might be the way you are now, sir, except of course that I was at my desk—Mr. Protheroe responding with a witticism to the effect that the soldier’s pole had at last fallen—an expression first used, of course, by the Swan of Avon.’
‘How very interesting—’ Nigel’s comment referred to the matter rather than the manner of this discourse. ‘So Mr. Protheroe was with you all the time you were having the proof despatched?’
‘Just so, sir. A matter of a few minutes perhaps. But we had a very pleasant little chat, I recollect. Conversation with Mr. Protheroe I found all the more agreeable for its being a rare occurrence. An able mind there, Mr. Strangeways: whimsical; a little eccentric, perhaps: but keen—Oh, a fine judge of literature is Mr. Protheroe. It will be a sad day for Wenham & Geraldine when Mr. Protheroe reads his last MS.’
Nigel thought, rather irritably, that all this trouble could have been saved if Stephen had told him he was present when Time to Fight was dispatched from Mr. Bates’s department. The late Production Manager could clearly be eliminated from suspicion. He could not so easily be shaken off, however. Combining the upper servant’s passion for gossip with the power to make it sound like the stately exchanges of old-fashioned diplomacy, Mr. Bates offered no conversational loopholes through which the visitor could escape.
If he could not be stopped, though, he could be switched. And Nigel switched him on to the present partners in Wenham & Geraldine. Liz Wenham, he already knew, was the founder’s granddaughter. Arthur Geraldine was a great-nephew of the original John Geraldine. Though Arthur was technically the senior partner, Liz Wenham in Mr. Bates’s view provided the firm’s mainspring: she had her grand-father’s head for business. She was not always, however, quite so happy in her dealings with authors (Mr. Bates’s lips primmed at the mention of these distasteful but necessary adjuncts to a publishing business). Here was the strength of Mr. Geraldine, who had ‘a way with him’ and conducted much of the personal negotiations with the genus irritabile. Mr. Geraldine also possessed an almost uncanny flair for estimating in advance the sale of a book. This, Mr. Bates gratuitously pointed out, is a most essential requirement for success as a publisher: print too large a first impression, and you are left with a load of unsold stock on your hands: print too few at the start, and you may be unable to reprint soon enough to satisfy the unexpected demand. Either way, money is lost. Mr. Geraldine had the priceless faculty for pre-assessing the public response in terms of copies sold.
After a number of anecdotes illustrating this gift of Mr. Geraldine’s, Mr. Bates moved on to the new partner. Basil Ryle had replaced a Mr. Charles Wainwright, who was killed in a motor accident the previous year. Ryle had started his own publishing business after the war. It had promised well at first: but rapidly rising costs, and the lack of a good solid back-list, had defeated him. Last year, when it became evident that he was nearing the rocks, Wenham & Geraldine had begun negotiations with him, finally taking ov
er the stock and goodwill of his business and giving him a partnership.
‘Was Miss Miles part of his stock, so to speak?’ asked Nigel.
‘He had not published her; but I believe he had commissioned her autobiography—or at any rate, was negotiating for it.’
‘A valuable property.’
‘In terms of potential sales, I agree.’
‘But not in any other terms?’
‘The author’s life has been, I am told, somewhat irregular,’ pronounced Mr. Bates.
‘Her book,’ Nigel could not resist asking, ‘might be calculated to bring a blush to the young girl’s cheek?’
‘I doubt if it will prove to be wholesome family reading,’ Mr. Bates assented. ‘You know, perhaps, that she is a divorcée?’
Nigel expressed suitable horror.
‘Married three times. Not to mention, hr’rm.’
‘You don’t say so! Any children?’
‘There is a son by the first marriage. Cyprian Gleed. A ne’er-do-well, I regret to say. Gave us great trouble a few months ago.’
‘What? Gave the firm trouble, you mean?’
‘Yes. He wanted us to back him in starting a literary periodical. He’s one of those young fellows who never settle down to anything—Bohemian—a hanger-on of the world of letters.’
‘He was refused?’
‘Certainly. Miss Wenham and Mr. Geraldine were rightly adamant. But he pestered them for quite a time—kept turning up, with or without an appointment. His mother made it all the more difficult: she had been lent a room to work in, and we could not very well refuse him access to her.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘A few months ago. Let me see, last July it would have been.’
‘You don’t remember if he paid one of those visits the day Time to Fight was sent to press?’