The Paper Chase (18 page)

At half past seven that evening a curious little party left Bramley Hall. Hedda, wearing a blue jersey and black slacks and looking more than usually determined, crouched over the wheel of the old car. Applegate sat next to her, thinly cloaking by a masquerade of self-possession a particular nervousness about his mission and a general nervousness about her driving. In the back Maureen Gardner contentedly ate the congress tarts and doughnuts which she had bought earlier in the day at the village shop.

The reason for this tripartite mission was Hedda’s immediately expressed conviction that he was walking into a trap. She was eloquent upon the subject. Her blue eyes blazed as she talked about it, and Applegate found her arguments the more difficult to resist because privately he agreed with them. He was less convinced that the situation would be improved if she accompanied him, but about this again she was so insistent that he gave way. Feebly he mentioned the police, a little shame-faced when he heard her mocking laughter.

“The police, indeed. What are you going to tell them? That a gang of crooks think you’ve stolen some immensely valuable thing they’re after, whereas really you’re perfectly innocent but want to bring them to justice. Can you imagine what Inspector Murray would say to that?”

Maureen, who had been listening in silence, suddenly said: “Who did steal it? This thing, I mean, whatever it is.”

“Obvious,” Hedda said promptly. “Shalson. That’s a kind of a friend of Charles’ who was once a secret service agent and is still very handy with a gun.”

“I’m not quite sure…” Applegate said slowly.

She snapped her fingers in irritation. “Simple enough, surely. Jenks and his lot haven’t got it. We haven’t got it. There’s nobody left but Shalson.”

It seemed to Applegate that there was a flaw in this logic, but he was unable to formulate precisely his objection to it. “All right. I suppose you’d better come, although I can’t think what use it will be for two of us to walk into a trap rather than one.”

Smiling like an amiable tigress, she assured him that in her company his strength would be as the strength of ten.

“I want to come.” They had forgotten Maureen. “I don’t want to be left alone here. Those men might come back. Besides, it’s – it’s eerie. Please take me with you.”

Applegate and Hedda looked at each other. “You’d be better off with Enid Klug.”

“Who’s Enid Klug?” Hedda asked.

“She’s found the ideal life in Essex. A hundred acres in Essex with madrigals, hand crafts and Morris dancing.”

“He’s being facetious,” Maureen said without heat. “It’s the Anarchist Country Community, you remember I told you about it. I’m going there in a few days. I don’t want to be murdered before I go, if you know what I mean.”

“We shall have to take her,” Hedda said. “After all, she did see Barney and Arthur. She’s a witness.”

“And three heads are better than two, particularly when one of them is mine,” Maureen said complacently.

Applegate said nothing. It seemed to him that he was sunk beneath an immense wave of feminine self-esteem.

Hedda’s driving into Murdstone was even more erratic than usual. Applegate felt impelled to protest when she pulled out behind a lorry and almost shaved the wheels of an oncoming charabanc.

“Don’t take so many chances,” he said.

“What?” The noise as the car rattled along was tremendous. “I can get seventy out of her. Hold on to your seat.” The noise increased, the needle crept up to sixty-five, in the back seat Maureen gave a delighted small scream. The car swayed like a ship in a storm. They rounded a corner. In front of them a large car was parked, another car came towards them rapidly on the other side of the road. Applegate closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable. When he opened his eyes again after an agonised screaming of brakes they were some six inches behind the large car, and Hedda was smiling like a cat who has lapped cream.

“Phew! You do drive well,” Maureen said from the back.

“Don’t I,” Hedda delightedly agreed.

They reached the Rivoli in time for the last ten minutes of the show, and stood at the back of the hall. The audience seemed to be composed of the same, or almost exactly similar, figures, and Applegate could not see anyone he knew. Suddenly he was touched on the arm, and turned to meet Jenks’ apologetic smile. Barney and Arthur were a yard or two behind him. “So glad you could come,” Jenks whispered. His smile became almost a grimace as he saw Hedda.

“There they are,” Maureen said loudly. “The men who attacked me.”

The boy Arthur put his hand in his pocket. Barney looked at Jenks, who wriggled unhappily.

“Shall I get the police?” Maureen took a step towards the exit. Barney and Arthur moved between her and the door.

“Be quiet, little girl,” Jenks furiously whispered. “You shall have an ice cream when this is over.”

“Yes, be quiet, Maureen,” Hedda said. Maureen subsided. Applegate turned his attention momentarily to the stage. In spite of what had been promised, the turn now was one he had seen before. The stringy blonde climbed the steps in her dirty nightdress and Barnacle Bill staggered on from the other side of the stage, croaking:

“‘It’s only me from over the sea,’

Cried Barnacle Bill the sailor.

‘I’m all lit up like a Christmas tree,’

Cried Barnacle Bill the sailor.”

To Applegate’s surprise he saw that Jenks also was looking with marked attention, first at the stage and then at him. There was something wrong, or at least something strange. What was it?

“I’ll carm dahn and let you in, I’ll carm dahn and let you in,” sang the stringy blonde. Barnacle Bill huffed and puffed about the stage, took a swig from the bottle, took off his false nose to use his handkerchief (that was a new bit of business, Applegate remembered), and roared:

“‘Then hurry before I bust in the door,’

Cried Barnacle Bill the sailor.”

There was one other new turn, in which Barnacle Bill sang alone, with enormous gusto, an unintelligible song rather reminiscent of one sung by Charlie Chaplin, which in his case was accompanied by vigorous gestures, apparently of defiance. This was received coldly, and about the whole performance there seemed, indeed, to be something wrong. Applegate was still wondering what it was when the curtain came down and Barnacle Bill and the Limpets stepped out to take their share of genteel hand clapping. It was when Barnacle Bill stepped forward that Applegate noticed that his hair was not grey streaked with black dye, but genuine dark hair. The concert party disappeared and Murdstone’s octogenarians, with a sprinkling of fifty-year-old youngsters, began to move towards the exits.

“Come along now, there’s somebody I want you to meet.” Jenks went to the right.

Applegate hesitated. “What about my friends?”

“Oh, they must come along, by all means. We’re all friends here, I hope.”

Applegate jerked a thumb at Hedda, and they pushed their way against the stream in a line of which the tail was brought up by the watchful Arthur. Jenks opened a door which led into a small passage, and the passage took them back-stage. Then he opened another little door. They walked by a small room where the Limpets, chattering like sparrows, could be glimpsed putting on shabby street clothes. Jenks paid them no attention, but knocked on a door at the end of this passage. Not until a deep and pleasant voice called, “Come in,” did he turn the handle and stand aside, with a certain obsequious flourish, while they made their entrance.

Inside the room a man stood in shirt and trousers, his braces patterned with dancing girls. The man was rubbing grease paint off his face and looking into a cracked glass on the wall. “What do they give the boss himself but a piece of mirror the size of a postage stamp?” he grumbled cheerfully. “It’s a scandal. Remind me to put down a question about it in the House, Henry, will you?”

Then the man turned round, holding a towel in one hand, and saw them – or perhaps he had seen them all the time. “Mr Applegate, I presume,” he said. “Mr Applegate and party. Make yourselves at home.”

The man was stocky, almost fat. His thick curly hair was abundant, and it was hardly streaked with grey. The head was well shaped but jowly, and about the body too there was more than a suggestion of flabbiness. The eyes were remarkable. In colour they were a slaty blue-grey. They were large and fringed by dark, thick lashes. But the remarkable thing about them was that these beautiful eyes lacked all the warmth and friendliness that was in the man’s voice. They were cold, assessing eyes, and Applegate saw them move quickly, consideringly, from him to Hedda, on to Maureen, and then back to him. Then he said the simple words that he had never expected to say, words that ended a quest.

“You’re Johnny Bogue.”

Like all quests fulfilled, he thought as he stood there in the crowded little room, this one ended in disappointment. Here was the enigmatic Johnny Bogue, marvellously alive, the Johnny Bogue who had occupied so many of his thoughts over these last days, the invisible hare of the paper chase, the seducer, shyster, confidence trickster, whose personality had seemed to present an insoluble problem. Now here was the figure about whom he had woven fantasies, a chunky little man running to fat, and what was there complex about him, after all? One of nature’s vulgarians, evidently – consider the dancing girls, the jocose greeting, the slight clownishness for which Applegate had been unprepared. An insignificant little man, even, except for those hard eyes. And it was very possible that he was indulging a fantasy even about the eyes. He remembered Tarboe’s words. “You are too romantic, Mr Applegate.”

Hedda put a hand to her mouth, startled for once out of her usual coolness. “I thought he was dead.”

“Everybody thinks I’m dead. They’ve thought so for so long that I’d resigned myself to being a permanent corpse above ground. But circumstances said no. You’re Miss Pont.” The blue-grey eyes made a bold appraisement of her, an appraisement, Applegate realised, which held a sexual quality missing when the same eyes had looked at him. It was a commonplace enough look, a vulgarian look, yet beneath it Hedda flinched as if she had been slightly scorched. “And what’s your name, young lady? I don’t believe I’ve heard of you.”

Maureen eyed him with undisguised interest and admiration. “I’m Maureen Gardner. I’m at the school, was rather, until it finished.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m leaving at the end of the week to join the Anarchist Country Community at Shovels End in Essex.”

“Are you now?” Bogue turned round to the cracked section of glass and talked while he knotted his tie. “I used to be very interested in Anarchism when I was a young man. In fact, I’ll tell you a secret, I spoke on Anarchist platforms in Glasgow just after the war, that was the First War, you know. I was a red-hot revolutionary then, hot as you are now, I expect. Trouble with Anarchism, I found, was it’s against human nature. In a small group, yes, providing you’re all idealists, Anarchism’s fine, answers all the problems. In a feudal society – well, yes, it’s still got some kind of answer. But once you get labour-saving machines, motor cars, aeroplanes, not to mention all the bombs we’re inventing to save civilisation, what can Anarchists do but settle down in country communities at Shovels End?” Bogue turned round and appealed to her, his arms spread wide, his face serious.

Maureen goggled at him. She had been won over, Applegate saw, won over as only a girl could be who had perhaps never been taken seriously before. “You think I shouldn’t go?”

“Not at all.” Bogue thrust his arms into jacket sleeves. “We learn from our mistakes, if we ever learn. But the important thing is to have the capacity for making mistakes. To anyone of your age, faced with a choice, I’d say just this. Do the daring thing, the unusual thing, don’t do the commonplace thing.”

“Yes.” Maureen expelled what Applegate unhappily felt to be an almost reverent sigh.

“That’s what I’ve just been doing, turning up here as Barnacle Bill the Sailor. Was I good? All right, don’t answer that, but you’ll agree it was unexpected.”

Jenks was fidgeting. “I don’t want to hurry you, Johnny, but…”

The glance Bogue gave Jenks was different again in quality, the easy contemptuous look of a man sure of his own superiority. “Don’t get St. Vitus’ Dance, Henry. You know Henry,” he appealed to Applegate.

“I know Henry.”

“I’ve known a lot of Henrys,” Bogue said meditatively. “And you could roll them all up into one, a Henry who’s a little bit shifty and very, very nervous and is always hoping to fiddle something for himself on the side, but never has the guts to do it successfully. And that’s Henry Caution here to a T. My old Dutch, he is, faithful unto death. Never let him tell you anything else. Has he told you anything else?” Bogue looked at him now with such quizzical roguishness that Applegate could not help laughing.

“He may have done.”

“Don’t let him kid you. Henry loves me, don’t you, Henry? He thinks I’m a genius.” Jenks smiled unhappily as Bogue put an arm round his shoulders.

“Shall we go? There’s a lot to talk over.”

“Suppose we don’t want to go,” Hedda said.

Bogue dropped his arm from Jenks’ shoulders, looked surprised. “If you don’t want to come, you don’t want to talk, all right. I can’t make you.”

With her thumb Hedda gestured at Barney and Arthur by the door.

Bogue laughed. “What those boys have been up to before I got here I don’t know, but while Johnny Bogue’s here there’ll be no rough stuff. Stand away from that door, boys.”

Reluctantly they moved a couple of steps away from the door. Bogue shook a cigarette from a packet, lighted it, stared at Hedda. “If you want to go, Miss Pont, nobody’s stopping you. If you want to stay and hear a few explanations…” He held out the packet of cigarettes.

Hedda looked at the door, then at Applegate, and took a cigarette. It was, he felt, somehow a gesture of capitulation.

Barney drove the car. Hedda sat with him in the front, and Bogue was by her side. The other four sat in the back. When they reached the water tower Bogue jumped out and walked quickly round to the little side door, which opened before he could ring the bell. The rest of them followed at leisure.

“Johnny,” Eileen Delaney said, “was it all right, Johnny?”

“Of course it was all right. They loved me, isn’t that so?” He appealed to the others.

“It was a mad thing to do, but if you’re sure it was all right, nobody noticed –”

“Don’t fuss, Del. You know I don’t like to be fussed. Is Max back yet?”

“He rang up from London. He should be here in half an hour. You shouldn’t have done it, Johnny, it was crazy.” Down the parrot nose two tears slowly rolled.

“I like to be crazy, didn’t you know? Del, we’ve got guests. Applegate, here, you know, and I know him too.” He jerked a thumb. “You saw me when I was looking out of an upper window like a character in the
Prisoner of Zenda
or something. But now, do you know Miss Pont and Miss Gardner?” He made this introduction with a formal gravity that obviously delighted Maureen. Was Hedda similarly impressed by it? Applegate could not be sure.

Eileen Delaney was still expressing her ladylike pleasure at meeting Hedda and Maureen when a key turned in the door. It opened and Deverell came in. He stood for a moment stock-still, expressionless. Bogue said: “You know him, but I don’t think you know who he is. My son, Geoffrey.”

Now that he saw the two together, Applegate wondered how he could have failed to recognise Deverell’s likeness to the snap of Bogue, a likeness not of particular features but of general aspect. Bogue was speaking again.

“Geoffrey’s been what you might call masquerading for a day or two at my old home.” Old home, Applegate thought with a slight shock of surprise, of course it was Bogue’s old home.

“You killed Montague,” Applegate said. He spoke with certainty.

“He ran into a little trouble, but nothing that can’t be straightened out,” Bogue said. Deverell said nothing, but looked at Applegate thoughtfully. “Now, Del, my dear, aren’t we going to be a little bit crowded for our conference? I don’t want to say I prefer anybody’s room to his company, but Barney and this boy here, what’s his name – ?”

“Arthur,” said Arthur.

“You make Miss Gardner nervous and perhaps you make Miss Pont nervous. I’m not sure you don’t make me nervous, so just take a walk round the houses, will you.”

Arthur looked at Jenks. “I don’t think –”

“You don’t think and you’ll never learn to think, so why not button your mouth,” Bogue said lightly. “You’re talking to me, not Henry. Don’t mix me up with Henry. I’m not like Henry in any way at all.”

“Should we go and have a hand of nap upstairs, chief?” Barney asked in his hoarse voice.

“Nap, draw poker or blind man’s buff as long as you get out of here.” When they had gone up the stone staircase Bogue pulled at his tie and threw it off, then turned a chair round and sat with his arms round the top of it, smiling at them. Remember what he is, Applegate said to himself, he’s a cheat, a blackmailer, a man who traded on the misery of Jews. Yet even while he told himself these things he felt the waves of Bogue’s easy charm washing over him. He shook his head like a man trying to disperse the early fumes of alcohol, and looked at Hedda to see if she was similarly affected. She was staring at her shoes.

“Let’s talk.” Bogue waved a hand at Applegate. “Will you begin or shall I? What do I call you, Charles, Mr Applegate, it’s up to you? But you’d better call me Johnny. Everybody else does.”

“Call me what you like.” Applegate found it necessary to clear his throat. “You begin. Tell us why you’re here at all, and why everybody thinks you’re dead. A man named Shalson told me he’d shot you twice.”

“Did Skid tell you that?” Bogue laughed. “He was always a bit of a romancer. You shouldn’t believe everything Skid says. You want a proof he didn’t shoot me – well, here I am. But you’ll only get mixed up, listening to a romancer like Skid. Would you like me to tell you the story now, straight up, just the way it was? All right. Let’s begin in 1943, when I said goodbye to England, home and beauty. Things were rather awkward then.”

“They found out you were acting as a double agent, and decided you were expendable.” Applegate quoted from Colonel Tarboe.

“Is that what they told you? Then let it go,” Bogue’s voice did not lose any of its warmth and richness, but Applegate thought he saw a momentary flash of something like anger in the blue-grey eyes. He tried to press home what seemed in some way to be a tactical advantage.

“And you were just going to become the richest man in the world.”

“Yes. You know all about that.” Why should he assume that, Applegate wondered? “Counter espionage decided to murder me, it doesn’t sound so pretty when you put it like that, does it? Skid was told to do the job, but changed his mind at the last moment. Where is Skid, by the way?”

The boy who now had to be thought of as Geoffrey said in his soft voice: “He left the Bramley Arms this morning and took a train to London.”

Bogue pulled at his jowl and frowned. “Skid’s not a fool. I wonder.” He dismissed whatever it was he wondered. “So Skid and I jumped together. We parted company soon after we landed. The plane crashed and the death of Johnny Bogue was announced. I must say he didn’t seem to be greatly lamented. It’s rather a shock to read your obituary notices, but it’s better than being dead.”

“That was more than ten years ago.”

“So it’s a life history you’re wanting, is it? Here’s my card.” Applegate took it and read:
Norman P Gambal.
In the bottom right-hand corner of the card was printed:
Gambal United Enterprises, 133 Calle Getulio Vargas, São Paulo.

“Mr Mallory-Eckberger comes from São Paulo too.”

“It’s a great city,” Bogue said enthusiastically. “Second city in Brazil, shooting up faster than Los Angeles, and full of opportunities for a commercial genius like me. You ought to come out to São Paulo, Charles. Organise the cultural side of life there, it’s a bit lacking in culture.”

“Drinks and sandwiches.” Eileen Delaney reappeared from behind a curtain that must lead into a tiny kitchen.

“This is real hospitality,” said Bogue. “Have some whisky, Hedda. You look like a girl who’d drink whisky.”

“Do I?” As Bogue handed her the glass their fingers touched. Applegate was surprised to feel in himself a twinge of jealousy.

“Ham sandwich? Del’s own cutting, but she won’t mind me saying it’s not like what we had at Bramley in the old days. They were real parties we gave then, you’d have enjoyed them, Hedda.”

“I’m sure I would.” Now Hedda turned on Bogue the full light of her blazing eyes.

“Did Nella Fish enjoy them too?” Applegate asked.

He had been hoping to disconcert Bogue, but perhaps that was impossible. The plump little man put down the half-eaten sandwich and stared at him thoughtfully, then said with what was surely a deceptive mildness: “That was such a long time ago. I’ve forgotten. Don’t ride me too hard, Charles, or we shan’t be able to do business, and that would be a pity.”

“What were you doing in the concert party?” Applegate heard Maureen’s voice almost with a shock.

“Do you know, I’m almost ashamed to tell you, it’s so silly.” Bogue smiled shyly, disarmingly. “And Charles here will never believe anything I say anyway, because he’s been listening to the gossip of too many old women. The fact is, a boat dropped me off here a couple of days ago, and since then I’ve been waiting for Max. I got bored, and I found out that Barnacle Bill used to be an old chum of mine. I did a lot of amateur theatricals when I was at Bramley Hall, did you know that? I thought it would be fun to take his place just for one performance. So Barney slipped him a tenner, didn’t mention my name of course, and he stepped out for one performance. Does it sound like fun, Maureen?”

“Oh, yes.”

“It was madness, Johnny, and you know it,” Eileen Delaney said.

Bogue pushed away his chair, walked over to a window and stood beside it, gesticulating excitedly. “All right, all right, it was madness, you say. I say it was the kind of thing a man like me has to do every so often if he’s going to stay alive. Do you know what was out there, Del? A lot of old crows and fossils who wouldn’t have anything to do with Johnny Bogue when he was in his prime. Can’t let that man Bogue have the Town Hall for a speech, he’s a Fascist. Don’t go to Bogue’s parties, he’s a vulgar fellow. Can’t accept the money he’s given towards the new school, it might be tainted.” Bogue’s voice was high, almost out of control. His hands were shaking. “They had a genius here and they didn’t know it. They had a genius in this country, and first they put him in prison, then they give instructions he should be knocked off. Do you know what’s wrong with them all, politicians and soldiers and security boys and all? They’re jealous. They were jealous of Johnny Bogue, afraid he would show them up for what they were, mediocrities and lickspittles. That goes for them all, from Ramsay Mac onwards and downwards. They put their foot on Johnny and pressed hard. But Johnny Bogue was too smart for them. You have to wake up early in the morning to be smarter than Johnny. Did you understand that song I sang them, any of you? Of course you didn’t, you’re too polite. It was in back slang and it went: ‘You sons of bitches, you can kiss my–’”

“Johnny,” Eileen Delaney said sharply.

He stopped. My God, Applegate thought in fascinated horror, he believes all that, it’s real to him, the man really is a bit mad. All that stuff about injustice and mediocrities, part of him believes it. Slowly Bogue’s face lost its mottled, purplish look and he regained control of his hands. In his usual rich, warm voice he said: “That’s the answer to your question, Maureen. It was the Anarchist in me coming out.”

Maureen’s “Yes” was a whisper.

“Now, let’s get down to it. I’m dealing with you, Charles, is that right?”

“You’re dealing with me,” Applegate said.

“All right. You’ve got the stuff through a bit of luck. When Geoffrey went to look a couple of days ago it was still there, packed up. Now it’s gone. But having the stuff doesn’t mean you can do anything with it. I can do something with it, but I haven’t got it. Now, where is it?”

“You don’t expect me to tell you that.”

“All right, you’ve tucked it away somewhere. What’s your proposition?”

“I don’t see why I should make any proposition.”

“Really, Charles, all this fencing,” Jenks said reproachfully. “I shouldn’t have expected it from a
direct
sort of person like you.”

“You won’t make a proposition, all right. Here’s mine.” Bogue was talking quickly and sharply now, partly to confuse him, Applegate thought, partly to obliterate the recollection of that outburst. “A five per cent cut of the proceeds. That’s after deducting expenses.”

“Five per cent.” He was genuinely surprised. “That seems very little.”

“My dear Charles, have you any idea of how much we shall clear on this deal? With any luck at all it will be half a million pounds. Net.”

Applegate pursed his lips for whistling, but made no sound. He looked at the other faces. Hedda, lips slightly parted, was looking at Bogue. Eileen Delaney leaned back in her chair, one thin veiny hand tapping on the other. Jenks snickered suddenly, cut the sound off. Deverell (to give him the name that seemed to come most easily) stared at Bogue with painful concentration. Tension increased in the room, quite tangibly, as if a switch had been turned on that rarefied the atmosphere. From this tension only Maureen Gardner, sitting back on a sofa, seemed immune.

Bogue went on. “That makes your share twenty-five thousand. Is that too bad for a lucky discovery? Bearing in mind that you’ll keep right out of the picture, taking none of the risk.”

Applegate found it necessary to touch his own lips with his tongue. “I didn’t know it was as much as that.”

“For a lucky dip like yours, I should say it was pretty good.”

“How do you make out that we’re taking none of the risk?” Hedda asked. “You’re going to Brazil, right?”

“We’re going to Brazil,” Bogue agreed.

“You’re leaving an unsolved murder behind you. The police won’t like to leave it that way.”

“Well?”

“Do I have to spell out every word? Charles is linked with the murder, and so am I. If we’re to be clear, arrangements will have to be made to hand over” – she looked hard at Bogue –“the guilty party.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you? It’s a point you’ve got there, but I’d sooner talk about the cash side of it first. When we’ve come to an agreement on that –”

“No.” Hedda said it decisively. “First of all we’ve got to know we’re safe.”

Bogue stared at her hard for a minute, then burst out laughing. “That’s some girl you’ve got there, Charles.”

“He hasn’t got me, nobody’s got me. Are we going to talk about that or shall we go?”

Bogue laughed again, laughed until he had to wipe his eyes. From his rumpled jacket he produced a case with cigars in it, and offered them round. Some not very obscure compulsion made Applegate, who rarely smoked them, accept one of the fat, formidable cylinders. A great deal of puffing and flaring went on while the cigars were lighted. Jenks, Eileen Delaney, Deverell and Hedda lighted cigarettes. Blue smoke rose into the air, producing, curiously, a relaxation of the tension in the room. Bogue waved his cigar at Hedda. “You have the floor, my dear. Tell us what you want.” He sat down in a chair, leaned back and closed his eyes. His cigar pointed upwards.

“First we ought to get it clear what did happen,” Hedda said in her hard voice. “There’s a lot Charles and I don’t know, we admit it. Eddie Martin was killed by Barney because he wanted to play it alone, is that right?”

Eileen Delaney croaked an answer. “Six weeks ago now Johnny got in touch and told us what he’d been able to arrange with Max. Without Max it was no good, you understand that?”

Hedda nodded. Did they know that, Applegate wondered, and how?

“That was the first we heard of Johnny, the first we knew he was alive. He didn’t trouble to get in touch until he wanted something. That’s Johnny’s kind of faithfulness, years of silence until he wants you. You want to remember that.”