Traitor's Purse (22 page)

‘You’ve had a most nerve-racking experience, I don’t doubt,’ he said. ‘Until we got into the terminus this morning I had no inkling of the extraordinary situation. You’ll have to forgive me, my boy. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks and I admit quite freely that I find it very difficult to get used to this – this transpontine world we suddenly seem to be living in.’

He was quite incomprehensible to Campion, who gave up trying to save himself. His astonishment showed in his face. Sir Henry misunderstood it and laughed briefly in his embarrassment.

‘Even the word belongs to another era,’ he said bitterly. ‘“Transpontine.” Over the bridge. Over Waterloo Bridge to the Vic and the Surrey, the homes of melodrama. Blood tubs, we used to call them. That’s the world we’re living in today. I can’t get into tune with it as fast as perhaps I ought. Enemy soldiers disguised as nuns, carrying machine-guns and portable bicycles, descending by parachute. Armed secret societies. Microphones in the walls of railway carriages – it’s all boy’s halfpenny paper stuff to me still. I can’t force my mind to be on guard for its numberless ingenuities. I did no actual harm, I hope. The police got their man, no doubt.’

Campion snatched at his scattering wits and faced the situation. ‘Microphones in the walls of railway carriages’? Was it possible that the old boy actually thought …? He
did
obviously. Having once convinced himself that the world had gone mad, he was evidently prepared to see lunacy everywhere.

The question remained unanswered and the man repeated it.

‘Did they take the fellow?’

‘No,’ said Campion. ‘No. Not that it matters.’

‘You don’t think so? I’m very relieved to hear you say that.’ Sir Henry had turned in his chair. He looked an old man, very tired and very anxious. ‘I’ve been going over everything that passed and I realize I said nothing of value. Fortunately my training prevented me from being actually indiscreet. But I do realize I must have put you in a very awkward position. You see, when they stopped the train for me at Coachingford and I found you in my reserved carriage I immediately thought that you wanted a word with me in private. It never went through my head that you were there to look after me and that we might be overheard or overlooked. To be frank, I didn’t understand your manner in the least, although it ought to have warned me. Then, when we arrived and the station people told me that the train was being searched, I saw the whole thing in a flash. This Fifth Column activity is incredible. They didn’t get him, you say?’

‘Not yet,’

‘They will.’ Sir Henry spoke with satisfaction. ‘They’re wonderful people. They’re probably on his track at this moment.’

‘More than probably,’ said Campion absently. He could hardly assimilate the facts even now when they were presented to him on a plate, but he forced himself to accept them without question. There was so much to do and so little time.

Meanwhile, Sir Henry was so unused to making mistakes that he was still offering explanations in his own defence.

‘I usually stay the night after a meeting of the Masters,’ he said, ‘but it was imperative that I got back early today, so Peter Lett phoned the station-master and reserved me a
carriage.
Then we were held up on the road and I walked on to the platform to see the train starting. They held it for me but there was no time for explanations. I had no notion you were in the compartment until I saw you. I recognized you at once, of course, and then as I say I did not grasp the significance of the situation. I had been hearing from my fellow Masters that you were in the town and I simply thought you wanted a word with me. You see exactly how it happened, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ said Campion. ‘Exactly,’ he added after a pause. Obviously the Masters had not heard of the assault on Hutch and so far the man in front of him knew nothing of the St Jude’s Hospital episode. ‘I do want to see you,’ he went on hurriedly. ‘I want to talk about Anscombe.’

‘Anscombe?’ Sir Henry frowned. ‘Poor fellow,’ he said. ‘I heard about him as soon as I arrived, of course. What do you want to know?’

‘Why did Anscombe die wondering if he ought not to come to you? Why did he convert every halfpenny he possessed into cash and then debate in his own mind if he ought not to come and see you?’

‘Did he?’ Sir Henry was surprised but not bewildered. ‘He was a silly fellow. I’ve known him for years of course. He was too small a man altogether for his commitments. That’s the weakness of these hereditary appointments. Old Anscombe ought to have been secretary of a cricket club, or a churchwarden perhaps. I always understood that personal finances were his difficulty. He ought to have been perfectly all right, but his father played Old Harry with the Secretaryship. That income was mortgaged out of hand and the children were left very modestly provided for. Anscombe himself was even more improvident. Between ourselves, we financed him over and over again, but finally we had to put a stop to it. So he converted what little money he had into cash, did he? What was he going to do? Try to make a dash from his local creditors?’

Campion shook his head. ‘His sister seems to have had a rather different idea,’ he said. ‘She suggests that he may
have
been going to make some sort of gesture. “In expiation” were the words she used.’

‘To me? Really? What for?’ Curiously enough, the suggestion did not seem to strike Sir Henry as entirely fantastic. ‘I see you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘The Secretaryship of the Masters isn’t quite the important office it sounds. The Secretary is the – how shall I say? – well, the steward of the club and the general clerk of the domestic arrangements. His office is comparatively modern. His main job is to look after the premises. It would not astonish me to hear that Anscombe had done anything. He was a remarkably silly man, one of those theatrical, hysterical types. What did you discover he had done? Filched a pound or two from the petty funds?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Miss Anscombe wondered if he had allowed the caverns in the Nag to be used for contraband.’

‘Really? I can’t believe that. That would have been sacrilege. No, I don’t think so. I fancy I know where that story comes from. I did hear something. What was it? Lett mentioned it. I think a great deal of wine was actually taken into the Nag some time before the war. It represented a sum of money which was due to us for the sale of our share of a Rhenish vineyard. The money could not be taken out of Germany so we received its equivalent in wine. I don’t know the full facts. Our Bursar would tell you that. Anscombe would probably be responsible for the storage of the wine. That was the, kind of thing he did attend to. He had nothing to do with the main function of the Brotherhood.’

‘Which is?’

‘The welfare of our country, young man.’ It was an oddly dignified answer, completely unaffected.

Once again Campion took a sudden liking to this canny old man with his dogged stance and the streak of unselfconscious patriotism which showed in him every so often.

‘Our principal business is the Institute,’ Sir Henry added more specifically. ‘That place is a great national possession.’

‘National?’

The older man smiled with a depreciation which was very faint.

‘The Masters of Bridge are the nation,’ he said, unaware of any naïveté. ‘That is, they’re typical of the best of it. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes.’ It was now or never and the ground was very uncertain. ‘Tell me about Minute Fifteen.’

Once the question was out of his mouth the deepest misgivings seized him as he saw astonishment growing in the intelligent eyes.

‘Minute Fifteen?’ The man was not at ease. He seemed puzzled and slightly alarmed. ‘I don’t know what I can tell you that you don’t know already,’ he said at last. ‘The whole world will know about it tomorrow, or I sincerely hope so. As for details of the publicity, I understand that you were one of the few men who had known about that from the outset. What do you want from me? The financial details of the actual loan? The Chancellor of the Exchequer will be explaining them on the radio tomorrow evening.’

‘Why was the loan called Minute Fifteen?’ he ventured.

‘Ah, I see your difficulty. That
was
confusing.’ Sir Henry seemed relieved. ‘It wasn’t. The Defence Loan had its own name, the Fifty Victory. Minute Fifteen simply covers the plan of its presentation. It was thought wisest to keep that anonymous since it was an innovation and secrecy was such an integral part of it, so it simply went under its own number on the agenda of the Cabinet meeting which approved it. However, this really isn’t my pigeon at all. I can put you on to someone if you want details.’

‘I don’t.’ Campion spoke desperately. ‘I want to know its exact importance. I mean,’ he added hastily, as a flash of bewilderment appeared in the older man’s eyes, ‘in regard to every aspect of the immediate situation. Has it appreciated or decreased?’

‘My dear boy,’ there was nothing but grimness in the old face now, ‘its success is imperative. I wish I had never used those words before. They’re stale and inadequate. We must have no hitch whatever in raising the money. We are edging
along
such a precipice now that I hardly dare watch, and I am no coward where money is concerned. Use your common sense. Would we ever embark on a gigantic and drastic project like this, which virtually means that we are putting the British Empire on a company footing, with a personal invitation to every taxpayer to invest his all in it, if it wasn’t absolutely vital? The forms which are going out tonight are, practically speaking, prospectuses. There is no other word for them. We’re walking on the water. It’s only the faith of the man in the street which is going to hold us from going under.’

Campion sat very still. It was coming. Behind the curtain hanging across his mind like an arras something of tremendous importance was trying to shine through. He could feel the emotion belonging to it. It was fear.

‘Nothing must go wrong,’ he said stupidly.

Sir Henry Bull pushed back his chair. He looked a dynamic figure, his white hair bristling and his long gown flowing round him.

‘I said just now that I am never indiscreet,’ he said. ‘I am not. Both my training and my natural inclination are against it. But I am not made of wood. Now look here, Campion, I have heard whispers. Mind you, they have been little more than whispers, but they have come from most unexpected quarters and they are so terrible that I dare not even think of them. One of my informants named you as probably the only man who knew the full truth of the danger. I am not going to ask you for information, so you can take that blank expression off your face. I cannot and will not believe that the incredible story which I have heard has any reality, but, if It has, if it has, Campion, well then … the Dark Ages again, that’s what it will mean.’

There was silence for a moment or so and then the old man leant on the table and looked full at his visitor.

‘I think I can tell you what you’re hesitating to ask,’ he said. ‘It is true that at this moment Britain depends practically entirely on her faith in herself and on her own internal stability. If that could be destroyed suddenly, by a single
stroke,
there would come confusion, exhaustion, and finally decay. At this particular point in history everything hangs on Britain’s faith. Europe is conquered; the New World is not yet prepared. So, should this thing happen, it means that there will come once again the Dark Ages which followed Attila, and tomorrow civilization is a thousand years away. It
could
happen; that is the lesson of this generation. World barbarism is still possible. The Beast is not dead. It has not even slept. All these years it has been lying there watching with lidless eyes. To a man of my age that is the most awful discovery that could ever have been made. That is what you wanted to know, isn’t it?’

The younger man did not speak and his host, with a little twist of the lips which was alarming because his face was not one used to weakness, demanded abruptly: ‘How bad is it?’ Campion felt cold. His fingers were numbed and there was a chill in the small of his back. His determination to make a clean breast of his own disability, should Sir Henry seem as alarmed as Oates had been, faded before the question in those anxious eyes.

It was the same story. Everyone was turning to himself for assurance. He dared not reveal the dreadful emptiness of his mind. Somehow he must struggle on, blind and half-witted though he was. There was to be no outside help. He was quite alone.

‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know. These prospectuses, or whatever they are, for Minute Fifteen; they go out tonight, do they?’

‘Yes. I can’t understand why you didn’t realize that. It hasn’t been possible to keep the thing a complete secret. Quite a number of important committees, including the Masters of Bridge who are going to take up large portions of the loan, have had to be prepared for it. I was talking to the Masters on the subject myself last night. Then the Post Offices had to be warned that they will be expected to deal with the enormous traffic, while the local tax authorities have had to put the thing out. So a tremendous number of people know something about it. Only taxpayers will be
approached,
of course, but that’s half the country. It must not fail, Campion. Nothing must happen to make it fail or to …’ He shook his head. ‘That eventuality won’t bear considering,’ he said.

Campion nodded. He was thinking fast. More corners of the jigsaw were forming, although the whole picture was still obscure. Meanwhile the great missing portion was assuming an incredible shape. He wondered how he could persuade Sir Henry to be more specific. It was not going to be easy. The old man was very quick and already he had been puzzled several times by little exhibitions of ignorance.

Campion thought he knew the man. He was a realist, a believer of facts. A gambler, perhaps, but only in form, and that meant that once he discovered his visitor’s mental condition he would never take a chance. Campion saw himself pushed into hospital again and not one word of anything he had to say believed or even considered until the doctors pronounced him lucid. The urgency of the situation would not make any difference to Sir Henry. Campion’s disability would simply go down on the debit side.