Touchstone (40 page)

“Scram, now,” he ordered. “Get it out of here.”

The gears clashed and with a race of the engine and a juddering motion, the vehicle moved away. It didn’t die, and the driver didn’t run anyone down in the first hundred yards.

Stuyvesant brushed off his hands. “Those kids are going to be hugely disappointed if the Strike gets settled before they can save London from starvation and barbarism.”

“The Strike won’t be settled,” Grey replied.

“You don’t think they’ll find a compromise?”

“The government, especially Churchill, have been eating humiliation since last summer, and are telling themselves that if a stand is not made, the Bolsheviks will be at the door. And the Unions persist in their starry-eyed illusions. They’ll strike because they have to, but they won’t win.”

“Your sister wouldn’t like to hear you say that.”

“Nonetheless, it is true. Why should a London bus driver lose his job to protect a Yorkshire coal miner? Coal is dirty and faraway and a dying industry anyway, and no urban worker is going to sacrifice his own livelihood just to nurse it along for a few more years.”

“So our boys there will have their chance to save the city.”

Grey snorted, a sentiment Stuyvesant could agree with.

They found Grey’s remembered house of refreshment and passed an enjoyable couple of hours there, drinking just enough to maintain a degree of open-armed amiability without actually descending into drunkenness. By eight o’clock, they adjourned to the restaurant down the street and polished off three satisfactory courses and a quantity of more than satisfactory wine. By ten o’clock, Stuyvesant was prepared to return to the hotel, but Grey looked at his pocket-watch and suggested a night-cap.

Stuyvesant shook his head, then stopped at the spinning of the room: French wine was stronger than he’d thought.

“Christ,” he said. “Your sister wanted me to ’phone her.”

“Do it tomorrow.”

“She said tonight.”

“So do it from here.”

Stuyvesant thought about it, and decided that he might as well. He asked for a telephone and dialed the number she had given him. When her voice responded, he opened his mouth and only then realized that he was too drunk for this.

“Sorry,” he told her.

“I beg your—Harris? Is that you?”

“I think so.”

“You sound—have you been drinking?”

“I fear so, my lady.”

She laughed, and the sound traveled down his spine to stir some interesting sensations. “Are you sober enough that you’ll remember this conversation in the morning? Because if not, I’m going to ring off now.”

“I could never forget words shared with you.”

“You are indeed feeling no pain,” she said. But she did not sound resentful about it, so he took courage and went on.

“I’ve been entertaining your hollow-legged brother.”

“He didn’t go home to Cornwall, then?”

“He has not.”

“Damn,” she swore. “He said he was thinking about it, when I saw him at lunch-time.”

“Well,” Stuyvesant said, “he did not. He spent the day buying books.”

“I know. Is he all right?”

“He is feeling no pain.”

“I can imagine. Has he told you when he’s leaving?”

“No.”

“London will not do him any good at all. Oh well. In any case, Harris, I asked my brother to have you ’phone so I could offer to show you the women’s clinic Laura and I run. Since you expressed an interest.”

“I’d like that. And come to lunch with me before we visit your ladies. Or to dinner afterwards. Or both. And,” he added, belatedly remembering the plan he’d laid before Carstairs, “if your friend Laura wants to join us, I’d be happy to see her, as well.”

“I’m awfully busy tomorrow. Would Wednesday do?”

“I shall pine for you until Wednesday,” he said, and the laugh came again. He wasn’t happy about delaying another twenty-four hours, but surely by Wednesday he could convince Grey to retreat to his quiet corner of the world, leaving Stuyvesant to focus on his job. Tomorrow Grey might still be here, and be tempted into joining any luncheon that involved Laura Hurleigh. A complication Stuyvesant would rather avoid, just now. “Wednesday would be superb.”

“Give me your number and I’ll ring you in the morning to say when and where. And I’ll let you know then if Laura will join us.”

He retrieved the hotel’s number and read it out to her, then said, “I could ’phone you, if you’d rather.”

“Oh no. This way I don’t have to wonder if you’ve remembered tonight’s conversation. Good night, Harris. Take good care of my brother.”

“Good night, Sarah,” he said, but she had already gone.

He paid the check for the dinner, and they went for a night-cap. By the time the pubs closed, they’d had quite a few.

Chapter Fifty-Three

A
T ONE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING,
Harris Stuyvesant walked through his hotel room, strewing garments across the floor and furniture, to fall between the bed-clothes. He slept there like the drunken man he was until the hounds of hell began to clamor at his door at some ungodly hour the following morning.

He fell out of bed, fumbled his dressing gown out from the back of the bath-room door, and snugged the tie around him as if it might squeeze his brain into action. He went to the door, running his hands vigorously over his bristled face; the pounding came again, louder than ever.

“Jesus wept,” he grumbled. “Give a man a chance.”

The man in the hallway was someone he might have known, later in the day and with a pot of coffee in him. As it was, Stuyvesant screwed up his face against the light and wondered where he’d seen this scrawny, balding customer in the shiny-kneed suit before.

“Major Carstairs requires your presence,” the stranger informed him. After a minute, Stuyvesant’s brain began to turn over, reluctant as a winter engine. Carstairs: a weedy male secretary in his outer office;
this
weedy male secretary.

He squinted at the intruder. “Lackey?”

“Lakely,” the fellow corrected him.

“Right. Carstairs. Wants to see me.”

“Yes. It is urgent.”

“Yeah, I sorta guessed. What’s it about?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Stuyvesant eyed him, knowing it was a lie, knowing too that the man wasn’t about to tell him.

“Twenty minutes,” he told the secretary. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“It is truly urgent.”

“Twenty-five minutes, then.” He shut the door in the man’s face and stood for a while trying to rub some life into his skin. What the hell had he drunk last night, anyway? The damn Prohibition regulations meant he was out of practice with tying one on. God. Coffee.

He spoke an order into the telephone and went to set the cold taps running into the bath-tub, glad to find the hall-way empty. He yelped as he stepped in, scrubbed himself until he was shivering, then pulled out the plug and exchanged cold water for hot. At the end of it his skin was awake and his hands steady enough for a razor.

A light but insistent rapping at the bath-room door reminded him that he had asked for coffee, so he slung a towel around his hips and cracked the door open. Bennett Grey stood in the hall-way, a tray in his hand. He eyed Stuyvesant’s garment.

“A good thing I intercepted the young lady with your coffee,” he said. “She’d have been rather taken aback.”

Stuyvesant glanced down. “Young ladies need some kind of thrill to make the job worth-while,” he said. “I hope you don’t expect me to give you her tip.”

“No, just a cup of my own will do nicely, thank you.”

Stuyvesant retreated to his shaving mug. Grey balanced the tray on the edge of the tub and poured, placing one cup within reach of the man at the looking-glass. The other he raised to his lips, leaning against the frame of the open door. The green eyes traveled over the American’s bare back, taking in the stripe from the pool cue, reviewing as well the signs of scars going back to childhood. Belt, he’d thought in the Oxford Turkish baths. The buckle end, he now decided.

“Is it going yellow yet?” Stuyvesant asked. Grey transferred his gaze to the mirror, noticing the shadows of metal shard that had hit in a spray, from chest to temple.

“A little greenish around the edges. The lad sure caught you a good one.”

“I deserved it, turning my back on him.”

“Lucky he didn’t land it across your neck.”

Stuyvesant grunted, squinted at the bloodshot eyes in the glass, then moved his gaze over to the reflection of the clean, rested-looking person in the doorway. “Why don’t you look as pissing awful as I do? You put away as much as I did, last night.”

“Because I haven’t tried to sober up. Haven’t been truly sober since Robbie’s brother drove me to Penzance five days ago, come to that.”

“You drink like that all the time?”

“Heavens no, I’ll climb back onto the wagon when I go home.”

“I don’t envy you your head then.”

“Robbie’s mother is the local witch, she has a brew that takes the top of your skull gently off and sets it back down again. I believe it’s mostly opium—she has a suspicious fondness for poppies in her herbaceous border. Was that a summons from the Major?”

Stuyvesant paused to pick up the cup, which had cooled enough that he could swallow half of it at one go. He did so, then started on his left cheek. “He’s got a burr in his blanket, sent his secretary to fetch me, but the guy wouldn’t tell me what it was about. You want me to ’phone here as soon as I find out what’s going on? What train were you planning on catching?”

“I had thought to stay on another day.”

Stuyvesant met the green eyes in the mirror, razor poised over his neck. “Why?”

“My dear Stuyvesant, a person would think you were trying to get rid of me.”

“Why the hell would you want to stay in a place that makes you drink in order to keep from screaming?”

“Perhaps to prove to myself that I can.”

Stuyvesant shook his head. He finished without shedding too much blood, drained his cup, took one bite of the cold toast the kitchen had sent along, then went to find a clean shirt.

As he did his tie, he glanced out the window (raining again) then at the other man.

“Grey, you don’t have anything to prove. You’ve got more guts than any ten men I know. There’s no shame at going home to Cornwall, no more than a fish should feel at needing to be in the water.”

“A noble speech, my friend,” Grey said lightly. “And I will go back, soon. Just not today.”

Light dawned in Stuyvesant’s head. “It’s Laura, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” Grey said, but not quickly enough.

“It’s to prove yourself to her.”

“Certainly not—”

“Ah, damn it, I should’ve known. Bennett, she’s moved on. It doesn’t matter if you sprout wings and fly, she’s with Bunsen now, she’s not going to come back to you.”

Grey’s face went cold with fury, and he clattered his cup and saucer down on the tray before turning for the door. “Ring me when you’ve found what the Major wants,” he ordered, and was gone.

“Shit,” Stuyvesant said into the empty room.

Halfway across London, Stuyvesant began to wonder if the weedy secretary’s appearance might not be a disguise. Certainly it was belied by his driving, which was that of a race-car driver, dodging in and out of traffic and using his horn indiscriminately when beer wagon, omnibus, perambulator, or schoolboy came into range. At the end of it, Stuyvesant peeled his fingers out of the leather and flung open his door, not waiting for the man to lead him.

“Aldous Carstairs,” he shot at the building’s watch-dog, the same one who’d been there that first day. This time he didn’t call up, just detached himself from the desk and took Stuyvesant to the lift, folding back the outer door and pushing open the inner one for Stuyvesant to enter. The secretary slipped in, and the lift rode upwards.

“What took you so long?” Aldous Carstairs demanded.

Stuyvesant overrode the secretary’s attempt at explanation by saying, “You got me out of bed, what d’you want?”

Carstairs transferred his scowl from the secretary to Stuyvesant, then jerked his head to dismiss the man. When the door was closed, he reached for his box of cigarillos.

“Something’s come up.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” Stuyvesant snapped, dropping into a chair without waiting for an invitation. “Look, can we get some coffee here? Your man dragged me away before I could drink mine,” he lied.

Carstairs picked up the telephone on his desk and said, “Lakely? Bring my guest a pot of strong coffee, and some toast or muffins or something.”

Stuyvesant didn’t know whether to feel mollified or disquieted at this clear indication that Carstairs intended to keep him here for long enough to eat toast. He put on his poker face, and prepared to listen.

“The proposed meeting at Hurleigh House between the miners and the Prime Minister has been approved. Unless word of it leaks out to the press, it will go ahead.”

“Okay.”

“Hurleigh House, as you have seen, is ideally suited for such a gathering, being private land with severely limited access—the one road and, if necessary, flat ground behind the ridge that can be used as an air strip. Once the representatives are in, there is no way for the public or the newspapers to spy on them.”

“Seems a pretty fancy place to talk about coal mining.”

“You’ll find that the miners’ representatives have come a long way since they worked in the pits themselves,” Carstairs said dryly.

There was a knock at the door and the race-driver secretary came in with a tray. He filled two cups, placed one in front of his boss and one in front of Stuyvesant, then shifted the tray towards the guest’s side of the desk so Stuyvesant could help himself to the traditional cold toast and lumps of what looked like gray rocks.

“Scotch eggs,” Lakely said, then turned on his heel and left.

Stuyvesant ignored the plates but took the beverage, hoping that before too long his brain would begin to fire, and Carstairs might explain why it was so damned urgent.

“The parties coming together are five: the Prime Minister, two representatives for the miners, and two for the mine owners. Each side approved its opposite members, so that all five are men who might be expected to listen to reason. Each will be permitted a staff of three, be they secretaries, valets, bodyguards, or strolling minstrels. The conference will begin informally on Friday evening, meet in more formal settings throughout the day Saturday, dine at Hurleigh Saturday night, and join in a church service in the Hurleigh chapel on Sunday. The idea being that, given the format of a weekend house party, talk will be less constrained and consensus more possible.”

“It’s worth a try,” Stuyvesant commented.

Carstairs ignored him. “It has come to my attention that one of the two Union representatives will be Matthew Ruddle, M.P.”

“Bunsen’s mentor.

“Ruddle is a member of the Trades Union Committee, assistant secretary of the T.U.C.’s General Council. He is in public a firebrand, popular with the Unions in general and his electrical Union in particular, but in private given to reason. And as you know, he is a friend and mentor of Richard Bunsen in the Unions. Bunsen will almost certainly be one of his three permitted assistants.”

“Okay,” Stuyvesant said.

“I want you to be one of the other two.”

“Never gonna happen. I haven’t even got close to Bunsen, yet, much less his boss.”

“You will have a clear opportunity tomorrow. The gambling club James Balham goes to will be raided tonight.”

“Fine,” Stuyvesant said, knowing full well how many things could go wrong with that plan. “I’m having lunch with Sarah Grey tomorrow, and possibly Laura Hurleigh, as well.”

“You must convince Bunsen to take you on.”

“I probably won’t even see him.”

“Try,” Carstairs urged.

Stuyvesant set down his cup so as not to throw it at the man. “Look. Up to now, I’ve been working on this all by my lonesome. Why the sudden interest? They’re never going to take along a newly hired driver, and not even Ruddle’s driver, at that.”

“You can try.”

“I will try, of course I will. But you haven’t told me what you want me to do if I manage to get dragged into it. Listen at the keyhole? Snap incriminating pictures?” Carstairs fiddled with his thin brown cigar, and Stuyvesant eyed him narrowly. “What the hell are you not telling me?”

Carstairs sighed, and gave it to him at last. “There may be, hmm, a bomb.”