The Journeying Boy (9 page)

‘It is far from a safe assumption. And if the booking of
ABC
and
DE
respectively were indeed entirely independent it is also a difficult one.’

Morton nodded glumly. ‘I suppose that’s so. But this usherette’s response – the one who showed the boy and girl out – corresponds oddly to that of the other – the one who showed a man and boy to
BC
.’

‘You mean that she felt there was something wrong about the boy?’

‘No, not that – although there is the odd fact of her being in doubt about his age. I mean that a bit of class-consciousness again came in. She was aware of the bowler hat as a manifesto – as saying, “My education costs papa at least two hundred a year”.’

‘Your manner of questioning usherettes must be extraordinarily skilful.’ Cadover spoke quite without irony. ‘But does this lead out anywhere?’

‘Only to this – that the usherette then went on to distinguish the girl as not coming out of at all the same drawer. Whatever the feminine equivalent of the bowler hat may be, the girl didn’t possess it. “A cheap little thing” – that’s what the usherette called her.’ And Morton shook his head. ‘It’s extraordinary how snobbish people are. But it’s a little stroke added to the picture – though whether to
our
picture one can’t say. We do know one thing we have to look for. If the two lads were
not
the same, and if the usherette’s nice social sense was not astray, we have to find and question a prosperous youth of problematical age who was giving some little shop-girl an afternoon at the pictures.’

Cadover nodded. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said seriously, ‘that it opens what might be called a wide field of reference. One of the uses of prosperity is to entertain little shop-girls in that way… There is nothing else on the cinema side of the affair?’

‘Nothing at all, so far. And I doubt whether more will emerge. It’s already more than we might hope for.’

‘I agree with you. Now, what about this diary which was in a hip pocket and therefore missed? Can we make much of it?’

‘It’s most tiresomely new.’ Morton stood up and walked to a window. ‘One might guess that the dead man lost his diary something like a fortnight ago, that he then bought this new one, and that, anyway, he didn’t use such a thing very much. The first entry occurs a week last Tuesday and says, “
Smith’s 7.30
”. Is that right?’

‘Just that. It sounds like a dinner engagement.’

‘And with a pal who couldn’t have a less helpful name.’ Morton was drumming moodily on a window-pane. ‘“Robinson” wouldn’t be so hopeless by half.’

‘I don’t at all know about it’s being hopeless.’ Cadover had looked up sharply. ‘It might be the restaurant, might it not?’

‘Good lord – you’ve got something there! It’s the first real light we’ve struck, likely enough. Can you work the same trick with the other entries? The next is on Monday, isn’t it? Just the name “
Bolderwood
” followed by something odd that I’ve forgotten.’

‘It’s followed by “
Hump
” – just that. The way it’s arranged looks rather like the beginning of an address. We might do worse than look for somebody of the name of Bolderwood living at–’ Cadover shook his head. ‘Some English villages have precious queer names, but I doubt whether we’d find one called Hump.’

‘What about a house?’ Morton’s face brightened. ‘People give the most idiotic names to houses. Dash Bolderwood, Esqre, The Hump… What do you think of that?’

‘At the moment I think we’ll pass on. The next entry occurs yesterday. “
N I police re guns etc
.” – and immediately below “
Light railway from Dundrane
”.’

‘Well,
Dundrane
explains
N I
, because it’s a town in Northern Ireland. And seeing police about guns may not be as sinister as it sounds. If you travel to Eire by way of Northern Ireland and want to take dutiable objects in with you and out again you have to collect some sort of certificate from the Northern Ireland Police on the way.’ Morton sat down, well pleased with his own grasp here. ‘Again, it is the remoter parts of Ireland which are served by light railways, and it’s a reasonable inference that the dead man was proposing a trip there and had been making some inquiries about how to proceed. And, of course, there seems to be a tie-up with the final entry – that under today’s date. “
Gun for boy 1.15
” it reads, doesn’t it? The figures can scarcely represent a bore, or anything technical like that. They must be a time of day – and presumably not in the middle of the night. At a quarter past one this afternoon something was to be done about a gun for a boy. And if guns and the dead man were going to Ireland so presumably was the boy. And a boy was with the dead man in this cinema within an hour of that time. Now, you don’t
hunt out
a gun for a boy at one fifteen, or
forward
one, or
pack
one. That note of a precise time means an appointment – and, ten to one, an appointment to
buy
a gun. They bought a gun together – a shot-gun of some sort, one must presume – and then they came on here, and then the boy was a party to the man’s murder and to the concealment of his identity. It’s a most extraordinary picture.’

Cadover as he listened to this efficient analysis was gloomily pacing the room. He paused before the Dürer. This one was a fantastic representation of the Assumption of the Magdalen. She was poised nude in air and appeared to be sprouting cherubs all over her like a Surinam toad. Down below a clerkly person raised a hand as if to study this phenomenon against the glare of the sun. Probably the clerkly person was blankly incredulous. But the world really is full of tall stories… ‘Yes,’ said Cadover; ‘it’s a most extraordinary picture.’

‘But gives us several lines.’

‘Quite so. They will have photographs of the dead man by now. I can try Smith’s. In the morning I can try the likely gunsmiths. Then there are possible bookings to Ireland by anyone with the initials PC. Then what about it being by a light railway from Dundrane that one reaches Mr Bolderwood of the Hump? As you say, there are several lines.’

‘To be sure there are.’ And Morton looked at his watch and stood up – a man not dissatisfied. ‘The problem’s a tough one, but it can be worn down in time.’

Cadover had risen too, and now he reached for his hat – his bowler hat. ‘Has it occurred to you,’ he asked abruptly, ‘that this crime may have no meaning in itself?’

‘In itself?’

‘Just that. It may be a mere clearing the ground for some other devilish thing – perhaps in a few hours’ time, perhaps tomorrow or the next day. I’ll make what speed I can. Good night.’

Dinner was over and the train still ran through sunshine. Double Summer Time – England’s last and most detestable contribution to civilization, Mr Thewless irritably thought – made the evening uneasy and unreal. The engine, a creature whose ancient pride had been to enter stations unblown and on the dot, now pursued with depressed but dogged wheezings a timetable hopelessly beyond its senescent powers. On either side the forlorn and dismal backs of terrace houses stretched like a tedious and inescapable discouraging argument; through their windows peered hideous vases, iron bedsteads, the plywood backs of showy dressing-tables being bought at eighteen pence a week. As a refined person, Mr Thewless felt guilty and glum as he ran this gauntlet. Those miles of brick concealed squalors at which he could only guess; they also concealed heroisms which he was unlikely to touch, Mr Thewless sat back and meditated the building of a better England. For the achieving of that, after all, how many people more talented and powerful than he must passionately care! And yet how slow, how painful every step that was being won! For his own part, he felt very helpless, very irrelevant. An usher, a comparatively expensive leader of privileged little bears… He looked at Humphrey Paxton, curled up on the seat opposite. And a new thought came to him. Perhaps that sense of his own irrelevance was no more than a discouragement whispered by the Devil – say, by way of protecting those dark satanic mills of his which here smoked on the horizon. Perhaps to set Humphrey straight was to set England straighter forty years on. For how much might a single able and imaginative man achieve!

Mr Thewless frowned at himself, distrusting inflated notions, distrusting these wafts of emotion. He picked up
The Times
. It was true that he had read most of it already. But he would convince himself that he was mildly diverted by the fourth leader…

At this moment the elderly lady put down her book and glanced rather nervously about her. Hitherto she had not spoken. But now she looked at Humphrey. ‘Have
you
got an exciting story?’ she asked.

‘Thank you; it is quite exciting here and there.’

Mr Thewless stirred uneasily. Humphrey, he had noticed, was provided with a number of books of a suitable if slightly juvenile sort; these dealt with the heroic and surprising exploits of aeronauts in various quarters of the globe. But in addition to these the boy had others, and of these the only one that Mr Thewless had been able to survey was the book he was reading now. It was the late George Moore’s version of the erotic romance of
Daphnis and Chloe
. That Humphrey should inform himself from this volume – and even find it quite exciting here and there – Mr Thewless as an enlightened pedagogue judged not reprehensible. Nevertheless, he was not quite pleased. And now this amiable lady would perhaps peer at the book and be a little shocked.

Sure enough, the lady peered.
‘The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe
,’ she read aloud. ‘Ah, yes – I remember quite liking that. There are pirates, are there not? But I don’t remember if they are important in the story.’

Humphrey, startled, mumbled some inaudible reply. The bearded man with pebble glasses appeared to consider joining in the conversation and to think better of it. The elderly lady tapped the volume on her lap. ‘Now, this really makes me quite nervous. In your book there is nothing that could actually happen to one. Is there?’

At this Humphrey blushed a bright scarlet beneath his dark hair and mumbled more hopelessly than before.

‘For example, pirates are quite out of date. But this’ – and again the elderly lady tapped her book – ‘is a Secret Service novel. And quite a lot of it takes place in a
train
.’

‘I should have thought the Secret Service a bit out of date too.’ The bearded man spoke in an appropriately rumbling voice. ‘The sort of thing that is exciting in time of war.’

‘But I assure you that it is always going on!’ And the elderly lady nodded with surprising emphasis. ‘I have been told so by persons who are
most
well-informed. Only this April I met an extremely interesting woman at Bournemouth who had good reason to believe that an intimate friend of her brother’s was nothing less than a special agent of the Government! I confess that it is since that meeting that I have been inclined to read novels of this sort.’

Humphrey had tucked
Daphnis and Chloe
unobtrusively away and was looking at the elderly lady intently. ‘My name is Humphrey Paxton,’ he said abruptly.

‘And mine is Margaret Liberty.’ The elderly lady gave a brisk nod by way of completing the introduction. There was a smile of pleasure on her face.

Mr Thewless’ uneasy feeling grew. He was aware of a mounting tension in his pupil. He was aware too of the stirring, once more, of just those alarming doubts and fantasies which he had promised himself to banish from his own mind.

‘Do you think,’ asked Humphrey, ‘that in things of that sort – spies and so on – truth is really stranger than fiction?’

Miss Liberty shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t say that. I only say that things of that sort do happen, and that sometimes quite ordinary people – people like ourselves in this compartment – become mixed up in them. And that, of course, is why this book makes me a little nervous; one can never be quite sure – and particularly in
trains
.’

From behind the shelter of
The Times
Mr Thewless cursed the woman heartily. For if Humphrey irrationally believed himself to be surrounded by blackmail and conspiracy what sort of talk could be more injurious than this? And Mr Thewless put down his newspaper. ‘I myself,’ he said firmly, ‘am quite sure – even during a railway journey. I have no inclination to believe that melodrama will leap out at me from between the pages of a novel. And, even if I were myself nervous, I would hesitate before doing anything to propagate the feeling.’

Some little time before he got to the end of this speech, Mr Thewless became aware that it was not a success. For one thing – and even if the elderly lady called Miss Liberty had prattled foolishly – it was definitely uncivil. But also – and this was more important – it was untrue. Mr Thewless was himself substantially jittery. By what stages the feeling had grown again he could now scarcely say. But it was as if a sinister and improbable world really
had
escaped from Miss Liberty’s book. If the man with the beard and the pebble glasses had whipped off both these appearances and incontinently revealed himself as a beautiful adventuress toying with an automatic pistol, Mr Thewless would have been alarmed, certainly, but scarcely surprised.

Miss Liberty smiled brightly. She had every appearance of one who is not easily snubbed. ‘What the writers of these books know so well how to contrive,’ she said, ‘is
distrust
. Who knows anything, really, about anybody else? How often in our casual relationships with others we take their very identity for granted! I am taking it for granted now that this young man’s name is truly Humphrey Paxton – just as he is perhaps taking it for granted that mine is Margaret Liberty.’

From across the compartment Mr Thewless heard Humphrey give his characteristic gasp. There was now a glitter – a positively frightening glitter – in the concentrated glance he was directing upon this cursed busybody. And suddenly he burst into speech. ‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘I mayn’t be Humphrey Paxton at all.’ He laughed queerly. ‘I may just be having somebody on.’