The Paper Chase (9 page)

“I knocked it on something down there.” Deverell looked at him quizzically and said nothing.

“Did either of you see somebody come up out of the cellar a couple of minutes ago? Somebody in a hurry?” Hedda asked. Maureen had just come downstairs and Deverell had been in the garden. Neither of them had seen anything.

“You look pale,” Hedda said solicitously to Applegate. “A breath of air would do you good.”

“I feel all right.” She pressed his arm in a significant manner. They went out into the garden and walked round to the back of the house, by the disused tennis court.

“Did you notice?” she asked.

“Notice what?”

“Deverell said he had been out in the garden. He was wearing red slippers. It rained last night and the garden’s muddy.”

“All right. He likes walking in a muddy garden with slippers.”

“But there was no mud on his slippers.”

He was shaken, but not convinced. “That’s odd, but I find it hard to believe that Deverell – after all, he’s only a boy.”

“So is Derek Winterbottom, but nobody has any doubt that he’s capable of murder. Anyway, we’re on to something, don’t you agree? And it’s something to do with Bogue and this house. There’s a man in Bramley who can tell us things about Bogue, if anybody can. That’s old Anscombe, who keeps the general store and post office. Let’s go down and see him now.”

The village store of legend has a window in which gobstoppers, liquorice bootlaces and sherbet suckers nestle side by side with little bits of local pottery. There will be teapots made in the form of cottages and milk bowls with such mottoes as “He complains soon who complains of his porridge” or “Look before you leap.” A bell tinkles when the door is opened. Inside the place is very poky but spotlessly clean, and the storekeeper is able to produce from some little box in an almost inaccessible cranny anything you want – as long as what you want is sufficiently quaint and unusual, like an ounce of snuff or a cut-throat razor.

The village store at Bramley was not very much like that. Its window had been filled with boxes of soapless detergent piled high in a pyramid. Some of these had fallen on their sides to reveal the words “Dummy Packet for Display” on them. The little bell was there, and tinkled when Hedda opened the door. Inside Applegate noted with approval gobstoppers and liquorice bootlaces, but a film of dirt seemed to rest over the whole interior. Two bad oranges were slowly corrupting the good ones in a bowl. Decorations and party hats unsold at Christmas stood at one end of the counter. At the other end a great neuter cat rested happily on some wrapped toffees, and regarded disdainfully an old, dull-looking piece of ham.

The girl who came from an inner room to serve them was lank-haired and sluttish. What a delicious little essay on the decay of the English countryside could be prompted by this village shop, Applegate reflected happily – and how many such essays had no doubt already been written. Hedda, he was amused to see, adopted a lady of the manor briskness in speaking to the girl, quite unlike her usual speech.

“Good morning, Jennifer.” Jennifer, Applegate thought with a sense of outrage, her name should be Ellen. “Father in?”

“Yes, Miss Pont.” The girl opened the door and shouted: “Dad.” A little, red-faced, cheerful man came in, wiping his hands on his trousers. Like the bell and the gobstoppers, he appeared faithful to the legend. “Morning, Miss Pont. Terrible affair that up at the school. Have they found that young Winterbottom yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Mark my words, Miss Pont, and I mean no disrespect to anyone by saying it, school is no place for young rascals like that. We talked about this very subject last week in the Murdstone and district discussion group.” Oh, dear, Applegate thought, another segment of the legend dissolving. Discussion group, indeed. “The question was, are we too kind to our juvenile delinquents, and we had a very good speaker down, Mr Ormsby from the headquarters of the Kent Juvenile Welfare. He had a rough passage, I can tell you. I hope I’m as progressive as the next man, but spare the rod and spoil the child, you know, there’s a lot in it.”

Had the rod, Applegate wondered, been spared with Jennifer, who now stood listening to her father with her mouth slightly open? Hedda quite evidently took this kind of conversation in her stride. “We shan’t agree about that,” she said, with an air of finality. “What I wanted from you, Mr Anscombe, was a little information.”

Anscombe had protuberant eyes, and at these words they seemed to stand out a little farther, so that the bulging, slightly watery eyeball was plainly discernible.

“About Johnny Bogue,” Hedda said.

“Bogue.” Was it Applegate’s imagination, or was there a shade of restraint now in Anscombe’s loquacity? “What do you want to know about him, Miss Pont?”

“Anything you can tell me.” Hedda sat down on an upturned packing case.

“That’s a tall order. Get off the toffees, cat.” The cat turned amber eyes on him and leapt in a leisurely way to the floor. “Fact is, I got in a bit of trouble for talking about Johnny Bogue. During the war it was, when everyone said he was a German spy. I faced them out about it. Had some rare arguments. Nothing I enjoy more than a good argument.”

“Didn’t like it the night they ducked you in the pond,” his daughter said.

“That wasn’t argument, my girl, it was hooliganism. And who was proved right in the end? Wasn’t he killed on a mission for his country?”

“And died owing you a hundred pounds you never saw.”

“I got my share of the estate like everybody else. If Johnny had lived I’d have got the lot.” The protuberant eyes glared angrily at her. “You go out back and help your mother. I’ll tend to the shop.”

She shrugged and went out, banging the door behind her. “They’re prejudiced against him because of the money,” Anscombe said. “But I think nothing of that. Do you know what Johnny – that’s what I used to call him to his face
and
he liked it – would do? He’d always pay his bill in fivers, sometimes every month, sometimes not for six months, and he’d never take any change. If the bill was twenty-one pounds he’d give me five fivers. I’d offer him the change. ‘Keep it, Bill,’ he’d say. ‘What is it, after all? It’s only money.’”

Applegate felt it was time he said something. “You liked him,” he remarked rather feebly.

“More than that, sir. I’m proud to have known him. I remember the first time he came in this shop. He put his arms on the counter and said: ‘I’m Johnny Bogue. I’ve just come to Bramley Hall. Expect you’ve heard of me.’ Of course the word had gone around that he was coming to live down here, and some were pleased and others weren’t. ‘I don’t know
what
you’ve heard,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you some facts. Once I was an MP and now I’m not. Once I was in prison and now I’m out. Don’t think that means I’m a back number, or that you won’t get your bills paid. You play straight by me and you won’t be sorry.’ And I never was sorry.”

“That was some time in the thirties,” Hedda said.

“When he started his New Radical Party, nineteen thirty-
four
. Wanted to make a clean sweep of everything, he did. No more Parliament. A government of businessmen was what he was after, with
a real man
at the top of it. He was that all right. He was for cutting down Income Tax by half, and do you know how he was going to do it? Through a State lottery and a tax on betting. You’re an enlightened woman, Miss Pont, no doubt you’re a progressive man, Mr–”

“Applegate.”

“Applegate. Wasn’t that sensible? But the politicians wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t have anything to do with his ideas though they didn’t mind drinking his champagne at weekends. Look at these.” From a box labelled “Cigarettes, various,” he selected three from a batch of old photographs. They all showed the curly-headed, arrogant figure of Jenks’ snap. Here he stood wearing an umpire’s white jacket, a glass of beer in his hand, with the Bramley cricket team; here knelt laughing with one hand round a girl’s ankle (“Judging the ankle competition at our local show,” said Anscombe. “The girls loved him.”) and here stood outside Bramley Hall in the middle of a group among whom he recognised Barney Craigen and Eileen Delaney. Hedda’s finger jabbed. “Who are those two?”

Anscombe put on horn-rimmed spectacles which gave him a surprisingly scholarly appearance. “That’s Miss Delaney, she was what you might call his business partner. Being polite, you know. Johnny was always one for the ladies. The man, I’ve seen him often, but I don’t know his name. But some of the real nobs used to come down – all political parties,
and
the aristocracy too. Pretty well every weekend they’d be down here eating his food and guzzling his drink, without giving him any more than a thank you. I’d tell him straight that he was wasting his money, if he ever thought he’d get anything out of them. But you know what he’d say? He’d put his finger to his nose and say, ‘Trust Johnny, he’s not such a fool after all.’ That’s why he had the Hall enlarged, you know, for parties and all that. Had one part done in what you might call the old style and the other very modern. What you’d call original.” Applegate nodded in answer to his inquiring look. “Of course people used to talk, ask where the money came from, but then people always will talk.”

Hedda shifted on her case. “What happened in the war?”

“
People,
” the shopkeeper said with ineffable contempt. “Said he was too friendly with the Germans, ought to be interned.”

“And he wasn’t?”

“We-e-ll.” Anscombe was cautious. “There were a lot of Germans used to come down here, business men who were over here, so it was said. But that all stopped when the war came. And it was then he told me what these Germans had really come for. Do you know what it was, and why Johnny used to see them? He was in a little group that was helping the Jews escape from the Nazis, arranging the ships and all that to get them out of the country. That’s the sort of man Johnny Bogue was, and that’s what he did. But you know what people are – ignorant. They got it in their heads Johnny was a Nazi himself. I told them different. I said he was a patriot. Stands to reason he was, else Churchill would never have employed him. You know he was on a mission, important mission, when he was killed.”

“What sort of mission?”

“Ah, that I don’t know. He never gave away Government secrets, Miss Pont. Johnny was
not
that kind of man.”

“Did he say anything about money at that time? Did he say he was going to make a lot of money soon, or he’d just made a lot, or anything?”

“Miss Hedda. With all due respect, Miss Hedda, you don’t understand that man. He wasn’t interested in money. I told you what he said, ‘It’s only money.’”

“He liked having it, though,” Applegate suggested.

“Which of us doesn’t?” The shopkeeper roared with laughter as if this were a good joke. “But he did say a funny thing to me a couple of weeks before he died. He came down to the shop and put his arms on the counter the way he always did, and ordered some things to be sent up. Then he gave his smile, and said: ‘Hear they ducked you in the pond on my account.’ That was on account of a little argument I had with Bill Noakes and Jerry Thomas and some others in the pub, when they said Johnny Bogue ought to be shut up and I told them there was a name for people like them, and if they wanted to know what it was, R-A-T spelt rat. Do you know that Johnny had paid all the hospital expenses for Bill Noakes’ wife when she was in six weeks with a broken hip, and that Jerry Thomas, who was our local builder then, must have done thousands of pounds worth of work for him? So one thing led to another and half a dozen of them said I was as bad as he was, and they put me in the pond. I’ve no hard feelings, though, I’m a natural philosopher. Where was I?”

“Something funny he said.”

“Ah, yes. We chewed the fat about that for a bit, and Johnny said: ‘That was a real friendly act, and I appreciate it.’ Then he gave his grin, and asked: ‘Worried about getting paid?’ There was only one answer to that, and I gave it. So then he said: ‘Do you know, Bill, in a week or two’s time I shall be the richest man in the world. And what does that mean? I’ll tell you. Just nothing at all.’”

They waited expectantly. “Is that all?” Hedda asked.

“That’s all. Funny thing to say though, or the way he said it was funny. Just about two weeks afterwards he died.”

Two small boys came in. Anscombe served them with bull’s-eyes and tinned herrings. Applegate raised his brows, and Hedda nodded. “We must be getting on.”

They were at the door when Anscombe said: “There was somebody in yesterday asking questions about Johnny, and what he was saying and doing just before he died. Funny coincidence that.”

“A tall, thin man, dressed in a dark suit,” Applegate asked.

“No. This man was medium height. Nothing special about him. Ah, yes, there was one thing I remember. The lobe of his left ear was torn, missing almost, as if he’d been in a fight.”

In the office of the
Murdstone and District Gazette a
blubber-faced girl dozed over a typewriter. Behind a glass panel a little bald man with glasses well down on his nose inspected galleys. The office was steamily warm. Applegate coughed and the girl woke with a start. “Pardon,” she said thickly.

“Can I see the editor?”

“Did you wish to place an advertisement?”

“No, just to see the editor.”

“Mr Fish is busy. Is it the list of prize-winners for the Benfold whist drive?”

“It is a private matter,” Applegate said. “And urgent.”

“I don’t know whether Mr Fish can be disturbed. It’s press day, you see.” At this moment the little man, who had been observing this colloquy with increasing impatience, opened the door that separated him from the main office.

“What now, Miss Tranter? Am I to have no peace?”

“Gentleman says he wants to see you.” The girl flapped hands helplessly.

“Press day. Very busy.” He waved the galleys.

“I told him that, Mr Fish. Said it was urgent.”

“Can’t be done, Miss Tranter. Copy to the printer. Working against time.” The glass door closed.

“There you are, you see.” The girl looked nervously up at the clock. “He’s working against time.”

Applegate was not easily moved to annoyance, but he felt a certain indignation at the fact that his presence had been totally ignored during this conversation. He lifted the flap of the counter and began to walk through. The blubber-faced girl barred his way with an appearance of resolution until their knees touched. Then she backed away with an anguished scream and took refuge behind her typewriter. The glass door opened again and the little man popped out.

“This is an outrage, sir. An unwarrantable intrusion. Has the individual no rights today? Does lawlessness walk rampant?” He addressed the questions to the air.

“This won’t take a minute.”

“Last week the water jug broken at the Council meeting. Not by accident, mark you, but deliberately, in a fit of temper. Now this. Call the police, Miss Tranter. Let us see whether the law maintains its majesty.”

Applegate moved to the telephone and placed his hand upon it. His forehead felt moist, whether from the steamy warmth or from anxiety he was unsure. He said pleadingly: “Look, this really is urgent. I simply want some information connected with a murder…”

The little man pushed the glasses up on his nose. He was magnificent. “Remove your hand, sir, from that telephone,” he thundered.

“ – and about a man named Bogue.”

“Bogue.” The little man pushed down the glasses again, looked at Applegate over them. “You have some connection with him?”

“Not exactly. I just want a little information –”

“Come in.” He darted into his office, seized the galleys and pushed them into the hands of the blubber-faced girl. “Correct these, Miss Tranter. Correct and deliver. Be on your mental toes. Watch for literals. And remember, time is the essence of the contract.” The blubber-faced girl grunted, and flashed Applegate a glance of pure hatred. The little man sat down in a swivel-chair, made a complete turn in it, and said: “You mentioned murder. Kindly explain.”

Applegate explained, making what seemed to him judicious omissions. He told of Montague’s murder, of his interview with Jenks and the scene in the hotel bar. He described the way in which he had been hit on the head in the cellar. Mr Fish punctuated his narrative with little exclamations and cries of excitement. At the end of it he said: “You really believe that there is a fortune hidden at Bramley Hall and that these – ah – rival gangs are after it?” Applegate said he did. “And what do you want of me, may I ask?”

“Miss Pont and I would like to know anything you can tell us about the Martin case. And I hoped to get some information about Bogue from the paper. I presume you had an obituary notice.”

“We had. I wrote it myself. It was a fine piece of journalism.” He stared at Applegate. “It’s a tall story. Why not go to the police?”

“They wouldn’t believe us.”

“Neither do I. You’re playing some game of your own, I don’t doubt that. Suppose
I
telephone the police?”

“Then they won’t believe you either. Do you think we could have that window open?”

“Open a window, let in a cold. However…” He opened it two inches. “Does that suit you?”

“Much better,” Applegate said untruthfully. “You remember about this man Martin.”

“Certainly. Perfectly straightforward case. Death by misadventure. No puzzle there. About Bogue now. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“How do you mean?”

“Miss Tranter,” the little man cried. The blubber-faced girl came in. “Down to the printer, Miss Tranter. And within ten minutes. Time and tide, you know.”

“I haven’t finished correcting.”

“To the devil with corrections. Let the presses roll.” She sighed, took more proofs down from the wall, bundled them all together, and went out. “What were we saying?”

“You said I was barking up the wrong tree about Bogue.”

“About his fortune, yes. He had no fortune when he died.”

“How do you know that?”

“Ten days before his death he borrowed two hundred pounds from me. I never saw a penny of it back.” There was a vague, soft look in Mr Fish’s eyes. “You think I’m a fool. You never heard him talk.”

“He talked you into it?”

“Nothing of the kind. But he was a wonderful talker. His voice could be soft and smooth like silk, and then again it could be cold as a knife blade. And enthusiasm, he had enthusiasm. When he talked about Britain’s future and about democracy, and said the Royal Family should be the Radical leaders of a great radical people, he could bring the tears to your eyes.”

“He was convincing.”

“Certainly not.”

“But you said–”

“I know what I said, young man. He was the finest talker I ever heard, but he wasn’t convincing. You’re too young to understand, but it isn’t the same thing at all. There was always something wrong about Bogue. You could feel it. I always knew he was a scoundrel, but it made no difference. It made no difference about Nella, either.”

“Who was Nella?”

“My daughter. Did somebody send you here, talk to you about her, eh? Is that the game you’re playing?”

With as much earnestness as he could manage Applegate said: “I swear that I’d never heard of your daughter, and didn’t even know your name, when I came in here.”

For a long moment Mr Fish looked at Applegate. Then he nodded. “All right. I believe you. Nella was eighteen when she met Bogue. He took her up for a time, took us all up. Used to go to the Hall for dinner most Saturdays or Sundays, Nella and my wife and I. Bogue was going to start a new weekly paper, political paper, you know. Talked about it a lot. Some pretty important men down there, and they seemed to take him seriously. I did too. He was going to make me editor. Expect you think I was a fool to believe that.”

“No.”

“He was after Nella, she was all he wanted. But he was clever. He took much less notice of her than he did of my wife and me. And he played up to me. Knew what it was I’d always wanted. National journalism, a chance to make my voice heard. I would have made it heard, too, I’d have shaken them all. Don’t suppose you believe it. All right, don’t answer that. I took what he said as true, that’s all that matters.” He took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes. They were weak old eyes, Applegate saw. Beneath the huffing and puffing he was a weak little man. His voice would never have been heard in national journalism, and probably he knew it. Tears formed in the weak eyes, he wiped them.

“What happened?” Applegate asked.

“We were fools, my wife and I. Never guessed what was going on until one day Nella went off to a so-called job in London. Fortnight later I went up and found she was living with him. That lasted for twelve months. Then she came back home. Never talked about what had happened, and we didn’t ask questions. She was in a state of collapse when she came home, but we nursed her back to health.”

“And then?”

“Then? Why, nothing. Never saw Bogue, of course, no invitations, nothing at all. Nella married a young chap down here who’d always been fond of her. Went off farming in New Zealand. Two years later they were both killed in a train crash. Then the war came. Bogue was very quiet at first, lying low. Rumours were that he was a spy, but I never believed them. Saw him sometimes, but never spoke, never acknowledged him, although he always smiled and nodded to me. Then he was supposed to be on these missions, some sort of secret work. Couldn’t believe it when one day he pushed open the door here, walked in, said: ‘Hallo, Fishy, still letting the presses roll?’ Would you believe it, would you believe it possible a man would have the nerve to do that?” The question was rhetorical. “You think I should have shown him the door, I expect. So I should have done. But do you know what he said right away, very next words? He said: ‘You won’t have to let ’em roll much longer. Not here, anyway. You remember that little job I promised you. It’s all fixed.’ He talked and I listened. What do you think of that? What kind of a man was I to listen, after the way he’d treated Nella.”

Applegate said nothing. There seemed nothing to say. Mr Fish blew his nose violently and put on his spectacles again.

“I believe he was the devil, Johnny Bogue. He knew your weakness, and knew just how to play on it. Knew what I wanted. You don’t need to tell me I shall never get it now. Never would have done any good with it, I dare say is what you’re thinking. Probably this is all I was fit for.” He pushed over a copy of the
Murdstone and District Gazette
and Applegate looked at the headlines.
“Scandalous Scene in Council Chamber.” “Farmer’s Licence endorsed. Break-Neck Speed, says Lorry Driver.” “Marsh Farmers to visit Germany in late Spring.” “Young Hooligans on Assault Charge.”

“What I’m fitted for,” Mr Fish repeated. “But Bogue knew what I wanted. The tale he told me was that he’d been asked to edit a series of official publications for the COI. All to do with the country’s war effort, propaganda booklets. But written by our finest writers, something quite new. He was to be head of this special section, but he wouldn’t have much time to give to the detail work. He’d asked for me as his assistant. You think I was a fool to believe him, after all that had happened?”

“He must have had a lot of charm,” Applegate said evasively.

“Charm, I don’t know. You’d have believed him too. He had a lot of papers he showed me, letters from different people talking about the valuable work he was doing. And a letter from 10 Downing Street asking him to produce these booklets and pick his own staff.”

“Forged,” Applegate said. “He played a trick like that before.”

“I don’t know. Very likely. Then he sat on the edge of my desk, swinging his leg and humming. ‘I’m hard up,’ he said. ‘Lend me five hundred pounds for a month, Fishy.’ You think I’m a fool, but I’m not such a fool as that. I told him I hadn’t got the money. He went on humming and said he thought I’d have done that much to oblige a friend. At that I fairly let him have it, you can guess, and told him how much of a friend I thought he was after the way he’d treated Nella. He stopped humming, then, and a sort of change came over his face.

“‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ve tried to do it politely. Now I shall have to be rough. I thought Nella didn’t tell you.’ I asked him what he meant. ‘Why, I’m not really asking for myself. I thought you’d be interested in your grandson’s education. But I see this is a shock to you. I believe I’ve brought some papers.’ He had a copy of the certificate, showing the birth of a boy named Geoffrey Bogue to himself and Nella. I asked him questions – oh, don’t think I didn’t ask questions. He said Nella had left him because she didn’t like his ways of doing business. ‘She’s like you, Daddy Fish,’ he said. ‘At heart she’s respectable.’ I couldn’t understand why Nella had left the child, or why she hadn’t forced him to marry her. At that he burst out laughing. ‘Nella made up her mind she didn’t want to marry me. She found out that I’m not the marrying kind. She wanted Geoffrey, but I made up my mind to keep him. He’s my son, you know. I wanted a son and now I’ve got one I mean to keep him. In the end she understood that I meant what I said. Here’s a snap.’ He gave me a snapshot of Nella and the baby. I’ve still got it.”

The little man picked up from his desk a photograph in a small, leather frame. It showed a thin, intense-looking girl holding in her arms a small bundle of indistinguishable sex and appearance. “‘He’s a bright-looking little chap now,’ Bogue said. ‘I’ve got him up in the north, but if you wanted him to pay you a visit that could be arranged’.”

Fish had been staring at the photograph. Now he put it back on his desk. “Cut it short, cut it short,” he said, with a momentary return to the impatience he had shown earlier. “I gave Bogue two hundred pounds. In return I got the address of a Cumberland farmhouse where he said the boy was living. He told me I should hear in a few days about the job as his assistant. Of course I heard nothing. That was the last time I saw him, and I think I saw him then for the first time as he really was. You know, he took a pleasure in telling me that story.”

“And what happened?”

“I wrote to Mrs Averill, the woman who was supposed to be looking after Geoffrey at the farmhouse. The letter came back marked ‘Gone away.’ I went up there and found that there had been a woman staying at the farmhouse with a small boy. They had left, giving no address, after receiving a telephone call on the day that Bogue saw me. The farmer and his wife were a decent couple, but they couldn’t help me. The little boy was named Geoffrey. They never heard his other name.”

“What about Bogue?”

“It was a Wednesday when he came to see me. On Wednesday night I wrote to Cumberland, Saturday I got the letter back, Sunday I went up there. Most of the next week I spent in London trying to find Bogue. I went to his flat, saw people who knew him. Nobody could tell me where he was. Friday of the next week he was killed in the plane. Whether it crashed or was shot down was never found out.”