Fear to Tread (32 page)

“Touché,” agreed Mr. Harbart, lighting his own cigarette.

“Also because he had other interests. He was, I think, a whisky broker in the City. And he was concerned in large scale tobacco purchase.”

“Quite an all-round man.”

“As you can imagine, the profits and, of course, the commitments of such a man would have rocketed during the recent war. Equally, he felt the draught very sharply in the years that followed the Armistice. No more of the easy money of the war years. Instead, increased food rationing, whisky almost unobtainable, tobacco taxed to the limit.”

“I weep for him,” said Mr. Harbart. “What did he do?”

“He took to crime,” said Mr. Wetherall.

The words fell into a deep pool of silence, broken only by the brisk ticking of the French gilt clock in its glass case on the mantleshelf.

Mr. Wetherall’s heart matched the beat of the pendulum. (Well, what was it going to be? Flat denial, boisterous laughter, threats?)

“Do go on,” said Mr. Harbart. “I’m sure you haven’t come to the end of your story yet.”

“If you wish. As I say, he decided to take to crime. But he determined to do so in such a way that his connection with it would defy suspicion. A number of people have had that idea before, but I should think that very few have taken the trouble to work it out quite so cleverly or so thoroughly. What he needed first was a reliable ally. And he had just the man for the job – a Mr. Holloman.”

“Holloman. The name sounds familiar.”

“I expect it must be, seeing that you are the majority shareholder in Holloman’s company.”

“That’s it, of course. The man who runs it calls himself Holloman, doesn’t he. It’s not his real name, I believe—”

“His real name is Michaels. There’s still a record of a court martial of a Sergeant Michaels, in Germany, in 1919, in connection with a defalcation of company accounts. Incidentally he was acquitted, after an outstandingly brilliant defence. The defending officer was a Captain Harbart.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Harbart. “Yes.” The way he said it, it was quite without emphasis, yet it sounded, somehow, like a qualified admission.

“When this gentleman decided to turn to crime, he thought of Holloman, who, I might add, had not been idle since his lucky escape in 1919. In that time he had served one stiff sentence for blackmail and one for embezzlement and had founded and dissolved no less than three patent medicine businesses. Two had failed for economic reasons, one through police interference following complaints from purchasers who had bought an embrocation which contained an unfortunately high element of pure caustic. Despite these failures he was still convinced – and I should hesitate to say that he was wrong – that all you need to succeed handsomely in that line is experience and sufficient capital. The experience he had. The capital was lacking. The gentleman I mentioned was therefore well-placed to do a deal with Holloman, who possessed every possible qualification for a crook’s middle man. He could be counted on for loyalty. He knew all the necessary small fry in the criminal world. His wife, a considerable character in her own right, kept a public house in Soho which served as an admirable meeting ground between Holloman and the rank and file. In short, he was the perfect instrument. All he needed was intelligent handling.”

“And the intelligence,” said Mr. Harbart with a smile, “was supplied by—your hero.”

“Certainly. Figure it out for yourself. In his own way he was even better placed than Holloman. The field, in which they were pioneering, was the organised distribution of stolen food and drink. This man had all the proper contacts. In a legitimate way of business – and his own business, remember, continued on strictly legitimate fines – he knew every restaurateur, hotel keeper and club caterer in London. He knew what was plentiful and what was scarce. What they could obtain legitimately and what they had to fiddle for. He had a shrewd idea, too, as to which of them would be likely to fiddle.”

“It sounds like money for jam,” said Mr. Harbart. “And just the sort of thing to appeal to a man who had money already. It’s only the rich man who has any incentive to crime these days. If he makes ten pounds honestly he has to give away nine to the state. On the other hand, every penny he fiddles he keeps for himself. Yes. Highly profitable, I should imagine. And very difficult to bring home to—your hero. Unless Holloman chose to talk. He doesn’t sound to me to be the talking type.”

“I agree,” said Mr. Wetherall.

“And even more difficult to prove in court.”

“Possibly so. However, you will remember the saying that there are two things which can never remain entirely secret – the spilling of blood and the payment of money.”

“Hmp!” said Mr. Harbart judgmatically.

“Arrange the matter how they would, there was still this difficulty to surmount. At some time and in some way, Holloman had to pay over to his employer his share of the profits. His employer was living in a style”—Mr. Wetherall allowed his gaze to wander for a moment round the room—”a style which called for frequent and sizable injections of ready money. He had an expensive household and a wife to maintain and a son and daughter at well-known schools.”

“Shall we,” said Mr. Harbart, in a voice from which all trace of affability had vanished, “leave our families out of this?”

“No,” said Mr. Wetherall, “we shall not.”

Mr. Harbart half rose in his seat. “I presume you want to finish this conversation.”

“Yes. But so do you. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have let me get as far as this.”

Mr. Harbart resettled himself slowly.

“Apart from which, this talk of leaving families out of it strikes me as one-sided. You may not be aware of it, but your friend Holloman paid me a visit in the early hours of yesterday morning. His object was to tell me that unless I ceased to interfere he would arrange for his employees to manhandle my wife – beating up of women is one of their specialities. He did not actually add – but the suggestion was there – that she was far enough pregnant for the treatment to be especially effective in her case.”

“I see,” said Mr. Harbart. His voice was under control again, but it was rough at the edges. “I notice we are dropping the third-party fiction. That’s all right. Finish your story. I’m looking forward to the moment when you come to the proof.”

“I’ve very little more to say. You held three shares in Holloman’s company. It looked innocuous, but it gave you control of what capital you had loaned him. It did more. If, in spite of all your precautions, and the roundabout way it was managed, and the fact that all payments were in cash – if, in spite of all this it should be possible to demonstrate that large sums of money had passed from Holloman to you – then you had your answer ready made. Any money you got was your share in the profits of the extremely profitable Holloman Company.”

Mr. Harbart said: “Ah.” If he had said, aloud, “So you know that too, do you?” it could not have been plainer.

“One other thing. If you were to preserve the fiction that your only connection with Holloman was that you happened to hold a few shares in his company, then plainly, you had to guard against seeing him, or even telephoning him, too frequently. You needed a further intermediary. And that is where, if I may criticise, you were a little bit too clever. You chose a creature of yours – a man called Helliby.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Harbart again.

“I believe he’s your personnel manager. Something like that. Anyway he was yours to promote or sack, yours to make or break, yours from the soles of his feet to the top set of his state-owned dentures. He would do what you told him and keep his mouth shut. Right? So he would. But what you hadn’t calculated on was this. Observing so much profitable fiddling going on all round him he started fiddling himself. Which was quite fatal. Because Holloman caught him at it. And has been blackmailing him ever since. The
Kite
identified Helliby last night, and he made a statement this morning.”

There was a silence.

“And is that all.”

“That’s it.”

“And do you seriously imagine you can frighten me with some statement made, under pressure, by one of my own employees. No court will listen to it.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Mr. Wetherall. “In fact, I was present this morning at a conference with the legal adviser to the
Kite.
He advised us that our evidence was insufficient to lead to a prosecution.”

“I see,” said Mr. Harbart, slowly. “Nice of you to tell me.”

“That was really why I’ve come to see you this afternoon. I have brought with me”—Mr. Wetherall dipped into his document case—”a full and factual account of your activities. At least, it’s as full as we’ve been able to make it in the time. It’s quite comprehensive. There’s a short bit at the end, saying that you’ve read it through and agree with it. We want you to sign it.”

There was a further instalment of silence.

“Assuming for a moment that this isn’t some elaborate sort of practical joke,” said Mr. Harbart, at last, “perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining just why I should do anything of the kind.”

“Certainly. If you refuse, the
Kite
is to start publication, almost at once, of a series of articles. I wrote them myself, so I can assure you they are good, strong stuff. And most outspoken. No ‘Mr. X’ and ‘Mr. Y.’ Real names and addresses and everything. Perhaps you’d like to see my maiden effort?”

He dipped again into the case and brought out a folder. Mr. Harbart opened it.

“Where did you get that photograph?”

“Is that the one of you and your wife? I don’t know. All the big newspapers have a lot of those things on their files. The penalty of fame. There’s rather an amusing one of your son winning the high jump at his Prep school, but I think that comes in the second article.”

“You’d never dare—”

“It’s going to save a lot of trouble if I simply repeat to you what Macrea said to us this morning. He said: ‘You haven’t got enough to found a criminal prosecution, but there’s a wide difference between criminal proceedings and civil proceedings, and in my view you’ve got enough
to put up a fighting defence to any libel action you may provoke. You’ll have to plead
justification and the public interest and go the whole hog. You may even get away with nominal damages. It’ll be a jury case, and juries don’t love black marketeers.”

“It would never come to a libel suit. The court would stop the printing—”

“We considered the point. If it was a book, you might be able to do that, but a daily paper’s not all that easy to stop. Suppose you got your injunction on the same afternoon that the first article appeared. It would already be too late. The damage would be done. You’d be forced to sue. And that would afford further opportunities for—shall we say, developing the story.”

“I don’t believe that any responsible newspaper—”

“Responsible fiddlesticks,” said Mr. Wetherall. “This is the mildest of three schemes that Robarts had in mind. What he really wanted was a spontaneous lynching. And I believe he could have organised it, too. You really ought to have left Todd alone.”

Mr. Harbart said nothing. He was turning the folder over and over in his fingers, not looking at it.

“Tear it up, if you like,” said Mr. Wetherall helpfully. “We’ve got dozens of copies.”

Mr. Harbart looked up. His face was white, but his eyes were ugly. “Have you thought about your own position if you try to go through with this?”

“Hot air and nonsense,” said Mr. Wetherall. “If that’s the last shot in your locker, we can get down to business. I’m off to Canada – with my wife – in a few days’ time. I don’t believe that your organisation will be likely to bother me much there. And if you’re thinking of pressing a button and summoning the boys, I might as well warn you that I’ve brought my own escort with me. They’re all crime reporters. One happens to be a middle-weight boxer as well.”

Mr. Harbart went over to his chair and sat down.

“What is your proposition?” he said.

“It’s quite simple. You sign what amounts to a confession. Then you close down the whole machine. And the existence of this confession will ensure that it stays closed down.”

“I see.”

“And if you’re worrying about Holloman, you needn’t. He’s going to have plenty of worries of his own quite soon. Whether he, for his part, will be prepared to take what’s coming to him and keep his mouth shut – that’s a chance you’ll have to take.”

“And if I sign this document, I have your word that nothing further will happen – provided I keep my side of the bargain.”

“That is correct,” said Mr. Wetherall, looking at him curiously.

“And I have to rely on your word for that.”

“You have to rely entirely on my word.”

Even at that point, Mr. Wetherall could not avoid the thought that a lesser man would have hesitated longer.

Mr. Harbart picked up his pen.

“Wait a minute,” said Mr. Wetherall. He went to the window, threw it open, and beckoned.

A moment later, three more visitors were being shown into the room. Mr. Harbart stared hard at the small man who stood between his larger companions, but he said nothing. The small man looked everywhere except at Mr. Harbart.

“Just watch him signing, Mr. Helliby. Then add your name underneath his as a witness. That’s right. You’d better initial each of the pages, too. Splendid. Then we won’t take up any more of your time, Mr. Harbart. Don’t bother about the maid. We can show ourselves out.”

A moment later the front door banged.

From outside came the noise of a car starting up. Increased, diminished, and muttered away into the distance.

Mr. Harbart sat without moving. He sat so still that when the maid came in to lay the tea she thought that the room was empty.

“Well, that’s that,” said Mrs. Wetherall. “It’s been a rush, but I think we’ve fixed everything. Lucky it was a furnished flat. They’re easy enough to get rid of.”

“Easier to get rid of than get hold of,” agreed her husband.

“If we’ve a moment to spare for it, we ought to have a little celebration.”

“It’s not a victory,” said Mr. Wetherall. He was cross and tired. “At the most, a sort of success.”