The Gigantic Shadow (15 page)

Eight-thirty. He went into a pub, and with a half pint of beer in front of him, sat down and tried to think. I have been stupid, he told himself, I have been unbelievably stupid all along. Was it too late to rectify that stupidity now? He looked down at the shiny new suitcase by his side, the suitcase filled with stinking money that was no use to him or to anybody, he looked at the faint pollen-like marks on his fingers, and he saw clearly enough the outline of the net that had almost closed over him.

Item, he said to himself, looking into the yellow depths of the golden beer that tasted like acid, whatever Anthea wanted or didn’t want, whether I am right in believing that she loves me or whether she simply meant to use me as a tool, she wanted to get hold of this money. Therefore she meant to meet me at the den. Since she did not come there, she must have been prevented from doing so.

Item, it is a reasonable assumption that the person who stopped her was connected with the fact that she obtained drugs. How did she get the drugs? What was the only thing that interested her according to her stepfather, the thing that occupied much of her time? The Patriotic Fellowship Circle. In some way she got the drugs through the Circle.

Item the last, Hunter said to himself as he emptied the beer. It is quite certain that Crambo noticed those marks on my fingers. Why didn’t he arrest me there and then? Because he expected me to lead him to the money, the money that lies stinking now at my feet. As soon as I left him he will have put a man on to follow me. This man – will there be one man or two? – will now be on the telephone asking for instructions, telling Crambo that I went into Westmark’s apartment empty-handed and came out with a suitcase.

He picked up the suitcase, walked to the bar. ‘Is there another way out of here?’

The barmaid gaped at him. ‘What?’

‘Another way out. There’s a friend I don’t want to miss. He may be in another bar.’

‘There’s the public, through that door.’

He walked through the door that led into the public bar, across that bar and out. An inconspicuous man in a grey raincoat stood by the kerb. He advanced and said, ‘Excuse me, have you got a light?’

Hunter swung the suitcase up at the man’s chest. Even as he did so he had a vivid image of the case bursting open and the wads of money being scattered all over the road as in some old French film. But he was lucky. The lock of the suitcase held as the edge of it, with the impact of an upper-cut looped up from the floor, caught the man on the chin. He gave an inarticulate cry in which the two ingredients were evidently rage and surprise, and fell backwards. Hunter, still holding the suitcase, ran down an alley by the side of the pub.

It was symptomatic, no doubt – but of precisely what? – that he should dive underground for security, as now he clattered down the steps of Hyde Park tube station. The backward look for a pursuer, the somehow furtive passage through the barrier, the quick run down the moving staircase, he had done all these or something very much like them before, and now as before nobody followed him, so that the whole tale of drugs and stolen money and Anthea’s disappearance might have been part of some fantastic dream. The suitcase in his hand, however, like some compromising prop in a farce, the pair of knickers left on a chair in the drawing room, was a reminder that the dream was reality. Should he leave the suitcase in the Underground train? Somehow he found himself unable to do so. The money was useless, no doubt, yet it seemed to be the only thing, now, that bound him to the image of Anthea as it receded into the distance. To abandon the suitcase would be to admit that the image of Anthea had never been real.

He travelled for two stations, got out at Piccadilly Circus, walked down Lower Regent Street and turned off it. The brass plate said PFC 1st Floor, but it was not this that he was looking for now. The plate he wanted was a dingy one low down on the other side of the door. It said, ‘Caretaker. Night Only. Please Press.’

Hunter pressed the bell. There was no sound within the dark building. He pressed it again, and the door opened. A little old man with a four-day growth of beard peered at him.

‘No good ringing like that. I got to come up from the basement and I have to take my time. Not so young as I was, you know.’

Which of us is, Hunter thought. Hunter tapped the suitcase. ‘I’ve got some stuff here for the PFC. They told me it would be all right if I brought it along and saw you. I’m sorry to trouble you at this time of night.’ He put his hand into his pocket, and then, when the caretaker’s look of disapproval did not change, into his wallet.

At the sight of the note the old man’s face changed as though a light had gone on inside it. ‘You’re a gentleman,’ he said with apparent deep feeling. ‘Bless you, sir, you’re a gentleman.’ What would he have said, Hunter wondered, how impossibly refulgent would his features have become, at sight of the suitcase’s contents? ‘You’d be a friend of Mr Pine, I expect. A real gentleman, Mr Pine, one of the old sort.’

‘That’s right. He has quite a few friends coming up here, I suppose.’

‘A few. I wouldn’t say a lot.’

‘And Miss Moorhouse? She comes up too, I expect.’

The little eyes peering at him were slightly suspicious now, the voice’s whine sharpened a little in tone. ‘You’ve got your key.’

If I say no he won’t let me go up, Hunter thought. ‘Yes.’

‘Shut this front door when you go out. I’d come up with you, but I got to look after the boilers.’ The caretaker shuffled away, and disappeared in the darkness of the passage. Hunter went up the stairs.

It is hardly possible to spend ten months in prison, let alone ten years, without learning how to pick simple locks. The lock of the glass entrance door was of the kind that can be opened with a thin piece of wire. Hunter managed it with the aid of two bent paper clips which he found in his pockets.

The cover was over the typewriter in the outer office. Hunter glanced at the filing cabinet, rejected it as too public a repository for secrets, and opened the door lettered in gold,
Mr H A Pine.
He entered a small room with a carpet, a desk, a hatstand, a cupboard. The cupboard contained stationery, pencils, a hand printing machine at which he glanced briefly. The desk, then? It was a standard type of kneehole desk in light oak, with ‘In’ and ‘Out’ trays filled with papers, a clean blotter, an engagement pad, a tube of Alka Seltzer, and a bottle containing a well-known brand of health salts guaranteed to give, as the advertisements put it, a beneficial shake-up to the whole system.

The engagement pad did not mention Anthea Moorhouse’s name, nor even her initials. The engagements listed over the past two weeks seemed to consist of occasions at which Pine had spoken, or had taken the chair. There were one or two notes like: ‘Lunch Blake 1.0. Discuss Rhodesian trip. Travers and Johnson evening. Drinks and dinner. Possibilities New Zealand development.’ He looked quickly through the papers in the trays. Arrangements for meetings, trips, discussions, answers to inquiries about the objects of the PFC. Nothing which indicated that Pine was anything but what he appeared to be, a busy man concerned with preserving the bonds of Empire. He tried the drawers of the desk. Three on each side were open, and contained what seemed to be perfectly innocent papers and memoranda. The fourth drawer on each side was locked. These drawers would have to be forced.

He tried his own pen knife, broke the blade of it, and looked round for a chisel or a screwdriver. But the PFC had apparently no chisels or screwdrivers for the assistance of burglars. He went back into the outer office and then into Rawlinson’s room, which was a slightly larger version of Pine’s. There was no chisel or screwdriver here, but in one of the cupboards he found an old file, which tapered to a point.

He tried without success to insert this file in the slight gap between the top of the desk and the locked drawer. There was a small single steel filing cabinet in the outer office, and he used this as a very inadequate hammer. At last he was able to force the file between the two pieces of wood. After that it was only a matter of time, while he worked at the wood round the lock. When he had the file right inside he levered on it. For a moment he was afraid that the file would break. Then there was a tearing sound, and the wood round the lock gave way.

He opened the drawer, and stared disbelievingly at its contents. There were some twenty little envelopes in the drawer, of the kind used as wage packets. He picked up the envelopes one by one, and examined them. They were exactly what they appeared to be, and they were empty.

Hunter looked at the other drawer, and wondered whether there was any point in forcing it. A man who kept empty wage packets in one locked drawer might keep a ready reckoner in the other. But why, then, did friends of Pine’s come up to this office in the evening? He began to work on the other drawer.

Five minutes later he had it open, and he began to laugh. The drawer contained two more tubes of Alka Seltzer and two more jars of health salts. There were also some papers. They contained lists of some two hundred and fifty names and addresses, headed, ‘Regular Monthly Contributors to PFC Funds.’ Most of the names were of women, and some of them were titled.

Hunter stopped laughing. He wondered why a man should want to keep so many bottles of Alka Seltzer and health salts in his office, and why he should keep them under lock and key. There was a wash basin in the room, with a plastic mug by its side. He put water in the mug, shook some of the powder from the jar of health salts on the desk into it. The mixture fizzed like health salts, and tasted like health salts. He repeated the operation with powder from both jars in the drawer. It did not fizz. He emptied out the water and put the white powder on his tongue. It tasted bitter.

He repeated the test with the Alka Seltzer tablets, which in every case fizzed, and bounced up to the surface. The Alka Seltzer was genuine.

The outer office contained a telephone directory. In the L–R section he found Pine, H A, 34 Mallorby Gardens, SW7.

Hunter put the two jars containing drugs into his pocket. He picked up the suitcase, went down the stairs and out, without seeing the caretaker. He closed the door of the office block behind him. As he turned again into Lower Regent Street, his face was solemn.

Nine-fifteen. As he walked up Mallorby Gardens, which led off a South Kensington square, the rain fell again on his shoulders, gentle as feathers. The road was a Regency terrace, the houses elegant and elongated, decayed but smart. There were neat wrought-iron balconies on the first floors, some of them containing pots from which creepers trailed ornamentally about. The doors had been painted in different bright colours. Hunter trudged up the road regardless of the rain, a man set in some sort of obscure dream like a fly in jelly, the suitcase heavy at his side. He said aloud, ‘Twenty-six, twenty-eight, thirty.’ Then he stopped in surprise.

The door of number thirty-four Mallorby Gardens stood open. From inside the house came the steady but not furious buzz of voices which indicates that a party is going on. There were occasional bursts of laughter. Shadow people moved against the ground floor curtains. Like all group activities this party, with its lights and dynamic hum of conversation, produced an impression of gaiety and unity almost unbearable to those left outside it. On the steps Hunter paused, overwhelmed by his own loneliness, appalled that he was about to force this loneliness and sense of loss upon those within. Then he walked up the steps and through the open door into a long narrow hall. A stairway faced him. From rooms on his left he heard voices, less agreeable now that they could be individually distinguished.

The door of the nearest room opened, and a coffee-coloured young man came out. He wore a yellow pullover, tight grey corduroy trousers and plum-coloured suede shoes. His eyes were brilliant.

‘Welcome to the Circle,’ he said. ‘May the bonds of our Empire grow even stronger.’ He extended his hand and, when Hunter took it, attempted to shake hands so that their fingers interlaced. He looked surprised at Hunter’s resistance. ‘You do not know the Brothers’ Grip?’

‘I want to see Mr Pine.’

‘You are a new Link. Come in.’

His companion turned, and entered the room on the left. Hunter saw a cupboard, opened it, and pushed the shiny suitcase among the brooms and carpet sweeper inside. Then he closed the cupboard door, and followed the young man.

Inside the room, the crowd swayed like that in an Underground train during the rush hour. Many of them were in, or just out of, their teens, and they fell into easily definable groups, eager and serious students from the Colonies, other Colonial students of a more raffish kind like the one who had just spoken to Hunter, and the English varieties he had already seen at the meeting, scoutmasters, Blimps, scorbutic young men. In one corner, near the window, a group of Chinese stood, grave and quiet. Nearer to him an Indian with gold-rimmed spectacles was arguing with one of the scorbutic young men. Standing on tiptoe Hunter saw through an archway a further room crowded with people. Beyond them he glimpsed a bar. He looked round hopefully for Anthea, but could not see. Nor could he see Pine or Rawlinson, or even the coffee-coloured young man in the yellow pullover.

‘Mountbatten was England’s saviour,’ the Indian with gold-rimmed spectacles said. ‘Without Mountbatten, with one of your old Imperialist Viceroys, today India would have broken away. A link in the chain would be broken.’

‘You’re talking rot, old boy,’ the young Englishman said. His voice was loud and confident. Red pustules glowed angrily on his pale face. ‘Trouble with you chaps is you disregard the whole course of Imperial history, just concentrate on the last few years. Nothing against Mountbatten personally, but he was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time –’

Dear God, Hunter thought, have I come here to listen to this? He tried to move, and found his buttocks firmly pressed against those of a young Indian girl wearing a sari. She turned her head and looked coldly at him. Hunter said, ‘Excuse me,’ and tried to push, but the mass of bodies surrounding him appeared impermeable. Snatches of conversation, less intelligible the longer he listened, came from all about him.

‘The Empire ideal is not the Imperialist ideal, you must realise that.’

‘I am surprised to hear even an Englishman attempt to maintain the proposition that there was anything at all idealistic about Imperialism –’

That was Gold Rims, no doubt.

‘You know the Fellowship slogan, forge the links and make the chain.’

‘It is said also that the strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link. At the moment that link is –’

‘Admit the difficulties in South Africa, and you must still agree –’

‘–a strong hand at the helm. That’s what makes the difference between success and failure.’

‘–what Disraeli was doing was –’

‘–the Primrose League –’

‘–don’t forget that Disraeli was a Jew –’

‘My dear, I thought I’d never make it,’ a voice said. It was the young man in the yellow pullover, and he held a large glass filled with yellow liquid in his hand. It was an extremely innocuous cider cup.

‘My name is Hassan,’ the young man said.

‘Yes. Are you Egyptian?’

‘My father was Egyptian, but I come from Malaya. What is your name?’

‘Hunter. Bill Hunter.’ There was no longer any point in concealment. ‘Do you know Miss Moorhouse?’

‘I thought you wanted to see Arthur Pine.’

‘I do, but I want to talk to Miss Moorhouse as well. Do you know her?’

‘I think so,’ Hassan said vaguely. ‘Arthur – Mr Pine – is not here just now. He is engaged. We have these meetings every month, do you like them? They are to introduce new Links and old ones.’

‘You said that before. What is a Link – a member?’

‘Yes. Many Links make the chain,’ Hassan said solemnly. ‘And the complete chain makes the Circle. Every new Link learns the Brothers’ Grip. I showed you before, like this.’ He caught Hunter’s hand and twined his fingers in it.

‘I think I’d better have a look round. I haven’t got much time.’

‘Hush.’ Hassan looked at him sidewise. ‘Later I will help you. Now we are to sing the Song of the Circle.’

Hassan took Hunter’s right hand, and twined his fingers in the Brothers’ Grip. At the same time his left hand was taken by the Indian with gold-rimmed spectacles. All over the room little circles were being formed by the interlaced hands. Except that their hands were not crossed, it was strongly reminiscent of Auld Lang Syne. Someone clapped, and Hunter saw through the archway the awkward figure of Mr Rawlinson bob up on what seemed to be an improvised platform. The Adam’s apple moved up and down.

‘We will now – ah – sing the Song of the Circle,’ he said. Somebody put on a gramophone record and they followed the words, their voices ragged at first, but gathering strength and unity after a couple of lines. As they sang they moved round together slowly.

Workers of hand, workers of brain,

Forge the Links that make the Chain,

The Chain that with its Brothers’ grip

Joins us in deepest Fellowship.

From deserts, islands, lands of gold,

Come black and white, come young and old,

To join hands in the Brother’s grip

And sing of Empire Fellowship.

At one side of him Hassan sang the words with deep feeling. On the other the Indian seemed under the impression that he was singing a dirge. There were several verses, and Hunter found his attention wandering after four or five of them. At the other end of the room, beyond the archway, there was some sort of movement. For a moment he saw in the doorway the thin, nervous, handsome face of Pine. This face looked rapidly round the room as if in search of something or somebody, the lips moving. Then it was withdrawn.

In the next moment he saw Anthea. She was in one of the circles in the other room, near Rawlinson. She was wearing a green frock, cut low at the back. He glimpsed her profile, classic and severe, and then the movement of the circles hid her from him. He tried to break out of his own circle but Hassan and the Indian held their fingers tightly laced with his. Hassan gave him one reproachful glance, shook his head slightly, and went on singing. When at last the song was over, he spoke.

‘You must not break the Circle, it is strictly forbidden. It means you are a weak Link.’

‘If you will excuse me,’ the Indian said politely, ‘I should like to discuss with you the question of the Empire. Are you of the opinion that the best way to preserve the bonds of Empire is by absolute possibility of self-determination for all peoples?’

‘Some other time,’ Hunter said. ‘I must just talk to someone.’

He pushed his way across the room, after Anthea in her green dress. It was like trying to move through a sea of flesh. Impermeable bodies and the faces attached to them, black, yellow, pinkish, nodding like flowers on their stalks, barred his way. Beneath the continual babble of sound he tried to order his own thoughts, to understand the meaning of Anthea’s presence. Noise can intoxicate, in its different way, as much as drink, and his head was fuzzy with it. ‘Mr Smith,’ a voice said, as at last he reached the archway, ‘I say, Mr Smith.’

A hand grasped his arm. He turned his head. Rawlinson’s face, the false teeth in full grin, was inches from his own. ‘How delightful to see you, Mr Smith,’ he said.

‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’m looking for Miss Moorhouse.’

Rawlinson stood directly in front of him now, blocking his path. ‘Always extremely glad to see new faces. This is one of the get-togethers I told you about, if you remember. Have you signed the Bond?’

Hunter tried desperately to look beyond him. ‘Miss Moorhouse was quite close to you during the song. You must have seen her.’

Among the noise of voices, it seemed really impossible to make verbal contact. Rawlinson now, with his smile fixed like the grin on a skull, said, ‘The Bond is for every new Link. In it you agree to do your level best to strengthen the ties of Empire–’

Hunter took Rawlinson by the arm and shook him slightly. ‘Anthea Moorhouse. Where is she?’

Rawlinson’s eyes protruded like those of a fish. ‘Miss Moorhouse? Why, I haven’t seen her.’

Hunter pushed him away. Now the once-impermeable crowds seemed to melt under the glow of his anger, so that it was suddenly easy to get across to the bar. But where was Anthea? Hunter saw her in the green dress with her back to him, standing near the door. Anger spurted in him again, anger that she should have so utterly deceived him. He walked over, placed his hand on her bare shoulder and spun her round, saying harshly, ‘Anthea.’

The girl in the green dress stared at him. She was not Anthea, she was not even like Anthea, now that he saw her full face. There was a similarity of profile, nothing more. The girl’s face was red with annoyance. She raised her hand and struck Hunter on the cheek. He mumbled something, inarticulate words of apology, and turned away to face, on a level well below his own, the china blue eyes of Tanya Broderick.

In her precise little voice she said, ‘You newspapermen really do get around, don’t you? Where’s your friend?’

‘He’s working this evening.’

‘Finding the vital witness? Such a funny man with that long nose.’ Her voice mocked him openly. Tonight she wore a frock the colour of her eyes, and her nails also were enamelled blue. The shoes she wore were like stilts, but even so she hardly came up to his shoulder.

‘What are you doing here?’ Hunter asked. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you’re a Link.’

‘Of course.’ She giggled and then looked serious. ‘But you’re not. What are
you
doing here, I should like to know. What do you want?’

‘I’m here to find a girl named Anthea Moorhouse.’

‘You’re a bit behind the times. She’s been kidnapped.’

‘I read that. I want to talk to Pine.’

‘She has been kidnapped, hasn’t she? If you know anything about it, tell me.’ The anxiety in her voice puzzled him.

‘That’s what the papers say. But I believe Pine knows something about it.’

‘Why should he know anything? Anyway, she’s not here.’ Now the anxiety in her voice was unmistakable. ‘You’d better get out.’

‘I’ll go after I’ve talked to Pine.’

‘You’re out to make trouble, I can see that. You’re no more a newspaperman than you’re my Aunt Fanny. Don’t think you ever fooled me. Not for a minute you didn’t.’

‘You’re very smart. But I still want to see Pine.’

‘You do? I’ll tell you something. You’re a fool.’

She was turning away when Hassan’s voice said, ‘Excuse me. Am I an interruption?’

Hunter said, ‘Why no, Hassan. I’m glad to see you.’

The boy looked at him, and then began to giggle. ‘Please forgive me, Mr Hunter. It looked very funny, although I am sure embarrassing.’

‘What was that?’

‘The little incident a minute or two ago. You made a certain suggestion, as English newspapers say, and it was repulsed.’

‘That’s not the way it was at all.’

‘Ah, no. I am only saying what appeared, if you understand me. I know that is not the case, because you are my friend, Mr Hunter. I wish to help you.’

‘Then can you find Miss Moorhouse?’

‘I have not seen her this evening. But I think I can help you to find Mr Pine. That will do just as well, if you understand me.’ Hassan giggled again. ‘Come with me.’

They went out of the door again into the passage. Hassan led the way upstairs.