Children of the Archbishop (62 page)

And now, with the knowledge that Sweetie and Ginger were
safe, a weakness that he had tried to fight against, had come over him. He felt tired, feeble, enervated. He was even angry with himself for having been so anxious. He despised himself.

But no matter how tired he felt, there was no opportunity for resting. The police alone would have been enough to see to that. They were round morning, noon and night, from ordinary police constables up to chief inspectors, with their big boots and their small notebooks, making what they called routine inquiries. And it was only Sweetie and Ginger in whom they were interested.

So far as Margaret was concerned, there was nothing to excite them there: she was merely someone giving her right name and an address that could easily be verified, who had gone off rather unexpectedly. They ignored her.

But about Sweetie and Ginger they wanted to know everything—ancestry so far as ascertainable, physical history, criminal tendencies, punishments. They examined the punishment book and took down an exact record of the number of strokes that Ginger had received on each occasion; they visited the cell in which Sweetie had been confined and took measurements of the size, the height of the window above the ground, the distance of the bed from the door. They tramped through the dormitories. Walked imperiously into the kitchens. Even went up and down the fire-escapes.

And, as soon as they had departed, there were other visitors. An inspector called from a Child Welfare Society. The governors began endeavouring to find out what really was going on. Three probation officers, two male, one female, arrived on the same day.

And, finally, just when everything seemed to be dying down, the Home Office announced that it intended to hold an inquiry.

It was this last communication that really shook Dr. Trump. Think of the publicity! And all of it undesirable too. Why, with an inquiry, the whole deplorable incident would be kept alive and in the papers for weeks; even months possibly. The blind, bureaucratic folly of it simply staggered him. If only the Home Office had turned to him for guidance, he could have explained to them how foolish they were being.

And there was someone else who was every bit as angry, bitterly angry, about the idea of an inquiry. And that was Dame Eleanor.
In all her thirty years of public service she had never had any of her activities inquired into before. And she did not intend to start now. She was, indeed, confident right up to the last moment that she could scotch this one. Never so much as doubted it for a single moment. She began simply and imperiously by writing to the Under-Secretary telling him that the whole thing was ill-conceived and should be called off immediately. And then when she discovered that the Under-Secretary was one of the obstinate and upstart kind without the manliness to admit that he had blundered, she tried other means. She marshalled resources. She mobilised. She got her brother, the Bishop, to speak personally to the Home Secretary and arranged for her cousin, the judge, to drop a hint to the legal department. Then as a final insurance, she arranged for a nephew who was always in and out of the Central Office to say a word inside the party. And having done as much she sat back, grim, confident, battleworthy.

“Pull yourself together, man,” she told Dr. Trump. “We're not ruled by Whitehall. Take my word for it, we shall hear no more of this. They'll think better of it, if I know them.”

And that was what made it so infuriating when she opened her paper the following morning and saw the name of Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes, K.C. who had been appointed to preside over the inquiry.

Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes, K.C., arrived punctually at the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital at ten minutes to ten on the morning of Tuesday, October the 23rd; and he arrived by taxi.

Dr. Trump saw the arrival. He was standing, restless and apprehensive, at the front window of the Warden's Lodging; had been there ever since nine-fifteen, in fact. And because his night had been an unusually troubled one and his nerves in a state of tension, he had been doing nothing but stand there, drumming with his fingers on the window-frame and telling himself that he must remain calm, unrattled, imperturbable.

He stopped drumming for a moment when the taxi drew up. But that was only because he was secretly rather surprised that
K.C.s should go bundling about London by taxi: he had expected something very long and low and black to draw up outside; a Rolls or a Daimler or a Humber, possibly. But as soon as he saw Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes he realised that he was the sort of man who could have gone about by bicycle and still have contrived to remain dignified.

It was Mr. Sparkes's head that appeared first; then, a surprisingly long time afterwards, the thin sloping shoulders; and after a further pause, the high narrow waist came into view. Mr. Sparkes was evidently a tall man: Dr. Trump felt that at least he had established that much.

And Mr. Sparkes was equally clearly in no hurry: the arrangement of arriving at nine-fifty had satisfactorily safeguarded against that. He paid the driver slowly and carefully, counting meticulously through his small change as though he were sorting uncut diamonds and expected to come upon one or two real little beauties if he searched long enough.

It was then that Dr. Trump noticed Mr. Sparkes's stoop. But, no. Stoop wasn't the right word at all. A leaning forward, rather. On the end of the long, flamingo-like neck, the head came pushing to the front as though for some reason it wanted to get there quickly.

Dr. Trump could not see his face at the time: for as soon as Mr. Sparkes turned and came forward, the top of the Archbishop Bodkin wall cut Mr. Sparkes clean off from him. But, later that same morning, Dr. Trump got to know the face. And, as he regarded it at close quarters, Dr. Trump understood why it was that the neck was unnaturally drawn out in that way. One glimpse at the face was sufficient to show that it would have drawn a coal-cart, let alone a neck, if it had happened to be attached on behind it.

By contrast with the nose, Mr. Sparkes's eyes, pale and slightly watery, seemed unusually deep-set. But with Mr. Sparkes's nose any eyes would have seemed deep-set. For the bridge came arching sharply outwards, as though the whole thing had been carved separately and then added some time afterwards. And this suggestion was further borne out by the fact that the skin of the face was only just sufficient to cover it. Even at that, it was clearly at full stretch: one size larger, or the bridge just one degree more steeply arched, and the bone would have been showing right through.

It was not until ten-fifteen that Dr. Trump's own presence was
required. Some little clerk person in the Home Office had already written to Dr. Trump and told him so. The first fifteen minutes—from ten o'clock precisely—were to be spent with Dame Eleanor.

Dr. Trump had not moved away from the window when Mrs. Warple entered. And he could tell from her manner that she was in high spirits. Indeed her high spirits this morning had been positively unforgivable. All through breakfast she had been fairly spoiling for a fight—not with her son-in-law, whom she vigorously defended, but with his inquisitors and tormentors. And, now that the moment had come, she very nearly had her sleeves rolled up.

“They've just sent over,” she said. “They're ready for you.” She paused significantly. “My word, I wish it was me they'd sent for,” she went on. “I'd tell 'em a thing or two. I'd show 'em where they got off.”

She paused again and then to Dr. Trump's intense distaste, she patted him on the back. It was an affectionate and encouraging pat; the kind of pat that an owner gives a nervous race-horse just before a big race.

“Don't spare 'em,” she said. “After all, they can't hang you.”

It was the Board Room that had been set aside for the Inquiry. And, as Dr. Trump entered, it seemed to him unreal and somewhat nightmarish to see Mr. Sparkes installed in Dame Eleanor's chair. But everything about the room was unreal and nightmarish this morning. The little clerk fellow from the Home Office was sitting cocky as a robin, in Dr. Trump's own chair; and a strange, frowning stenographer, her pencil at the ready, was perched on the edge of the seat, where Miss Phrynne should have been.

The place reserved for Dr. Trump was at the far end, the bottom end. And, at the sight of it, he shuddered: it was the place normally reserved for people like Miss Britt, or Miss Gurge, the laundry superintendent, when they were summoned in person for their half-yearly reports. But what was still worse was to think how else the place was going to be occupied later on. Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes would see merely a procession of faces with Dr. Trump's as one of them.

But already Mr. Sparkes had risen. With his head and shoulders extended—he was more than ever like a flamingo by now—he was
waving a long thin foot—no, no, how silly of me, Dr. Trump corrected himself: it is a hand, not a foot that he is holding out to me—and inviting him to be seated. Already, too, Mr. Sparkes was speaking. And, in place of the harsh croak that Dr. Trump had expected he was annoyed to find that the voice was full, mellow and rather gentle. It was a churchman's voice.

“Ah, Dr. Trump,” he was saying, “do pray be seated.”

“Thank you, Mr. …” Dr. Trump began coldly, but courteously, and then stopped himself. It was only now that he had realised that despite all his rehearsals he did not know how to address the man. Mr. Sparkes? Sir? Your Lordship? What the deuce should it be?

Mr. Sparkes, however, did not appear to have noticed anything amiss. In beautiful, cathedral-like tones he was addressing Dr. Trump again.

“Now this is not a Court of Law,” he began saying …

“Quite so,” Dr. Trump interrupted him.

“… it is an inquiry instituted by the Home Secretary …”

“Quite so,” Dr. Trump said again.

“… with powers to invite witnesses, but not subpoena them.”

Mr. Sparkes paused, and Dr. Trump attempted something in the way of a friendly and understanding smile that he hoped would serve to bridge the great gulf of polished pine, and the still greater gulf between witness and investigator, that at the moment divided them.

Mr. Sparkes, however, ignored him.

“You will not be called upon to speak on oath …” he continued.

Here Dr. Trump braced himself. He wished Mr. Sparkes to know from the very outset the manner of man with whom he was dealing.

“I always speak on oath,” he said. “That is to say that … er … the force of my words is the same as if I were speaking on oath,” he corrected himself. “I … I … I mean I always speak the truth.”

The two pale eyes of Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes fixed themselves unwaveringly upon the Warden.

“It would never have occurred to me to think otherwise,” he replied. “My object in reminding witnesses that they are not upon oath is merely to reassure any that may need such reassurance that in the event of error they cannot be committed for perjury.”

Dr. Trump again braced himself.

“And if I choose,” he asked, “am I free to refuse altogether to answer any question?”

“Quite free,” Mr. Sparkes told him. “The choice is yours entirely.” He paused. “Your refusal would, however, be noted. That is something I could not prevent.”

Dr. Trump's eyebrows contracted violently, and his breathing suddenly became flutelike.

“I … I asked only in the spirit of seeking information,” he explained.

“And it was in the same spirit that I gave my answer,” Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes assured him.

They were getting on a bit faster by now. Mr. Sparkes after a whole battery of questions that had seemed impertinent and meaningless to Dr. Trump, was now devoting himself exclusively to Ginger.

“You are a believer then in corporal punishment, Dr. Trump?” he asked blandly.

“If the circumstances require it,” Dr. Trump replied.

“And so far as this boy was concerned, am I to conclude that you felt that the circumstances always did require it?”

Dr. Trump nodded.

“That is so,” he said. “Otherwise I should not have caned him.”

“Can you remember how many times in all you have caned him?”

There was a pause.

“The details are all contained in the punishment book,” Dr. Trump replied stiffly.

It seemed at that moment as though Mr. Sparkes's neck had suddenly become several feet longer. The pale, watery eyes were quite close to Dr. Trump's now, and they were staring into his.

“I am aware that the details are all there,” Mr. Sparkes told him. “I have examined them myself. But what I am asking you now is whether
you
can remember.”

Dr. Trump felt himself sweating. This was dreadful. Perfectly dreadful. Of course, he couldn't remember: there had been so many more important things to think about. But how could Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes possibly be expected to understand that? He might even attribute Dr. Trump's ignorance to mere callousness.

“I haven't the total in my head, if that is what you mean,” he replied rather sulkily.

He looked away as he said it, and saw the frowning stenographer, frowning harder than ever and scribbling down his words after him.

“Yes, that is exactly what I do mean,” Mr. Sparkes told him. “So perhaps I should refresh your memory for you.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Trump replied.

Mr. Sparkes paused.

“Would it surprise you,” he asked, “to know that you have apparently chastised this boy upon as many as seventeen different occasions?”

Would it surprise him? Was there a catch of some kind here? Dr. Trump wondered. Remembering the stenographer, should he say ‘yes' or ‘no?'

“Yes,” he replied at last.

“It would surprise you,” Mr. Sparkes repeated, still in the same placid voice as though he himself had never been surprised by anything.

Dr. Trump thought again. Suppose that seventeen was right. How dreadfully slack it would seem if a simple fact like that surprised him.