Who Pays the Piper? (33 page)

Emanuel Holt shut the door behind him. As he did so, the sirens began to sound overhead.

The man advanced to the table, holding an old cloth cap in his right hand. His hair, rather long, fell in a lock over one eye, giving him the look of a music-hall travesty of Hitler—a Hitler swollen to the size of a balloon. He came right up to the table, dumped the cap and the string bag, and began to disentangle the parcel.

“Name of Rogers,” he said in a soft, wheezing voice. “And I take it you're Mr. Merridew?”

“Yes.”

“Of the firm of Girding, Ramsbottom, Girding and Merridew?”

“Yes.”

“The clerk said so, but I've got to be careful. Not to give it to no one but Mr. Merridew himself—that's my instructions. And do I stick to them, guvnor? I do—like glue! And that's gospel true.” A large smile creased his face. “Po'try, that is—I'm a dab at making po'try. And this bit's gospel true, which is more than you can say for most.”

He hauled the parcel clear of the bag and set it down upon the blotting-pad. Philip Merridew looked at it—a box done up untidily in layers of rough brown paper and tied with strong tarred twine. It was addressed in sprawling capitals to “Antony Rossiter, Esq. By hand.” There was no more address than that.

The fat man winked. “There's no need to name any more names as I can see. What you know yourself don't do you any harm, and a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse. Now if you was going to ask me how I come by that, I should take leave to say, ‘A pennorth of silence is worth two pennorth of gab.'”

Mr. Merridew looked up with a frown. Before he could speak the man went on.

“Someone pitches me a tale, and I come along and pitch it to you. I know my man, but you don't know me. Natural enough you smell a rat. But it's on the level, guvnor, so far as I know.”

Philip Merridew said sharply, “What do you mean?”

The man reached over and tapped the parcel with a corrugated finger. “Like I told you—a bloke brings it along to me, and I brings it along to you. I don't ask him no questions—and why don't I? Good of my health—that's why. And if you don't ask me none, there'll be two of us—see? I take it you know this bloke who's got his name on it, Antony Rossiter, Esquire?” He mouthed the words and winked again. “Pretty, isn't it—kind of a fancy sound. I suppose he's real? Not that it matters to me either way.” He stuffed the string bag into the pocket of his rain-coat and fumbled with his cap. “Well, guvnor, what about it?”

Philip Merridew moved the parcel to one side of the desk. He seemed to accept the responsibility.

Mr. Rogers continued to fumble with his cap.

“All the way from we won't say where, to say nothing of getting back again. And the loss of my valyable time. What about it, guvnor?”

“A shilling?” said Philip Merridew.

Mr. Rogers' large Hitlerian visage expressed surprise and pain. He continued to twist his cap.

“Half-a-crown then?”

“‘Will be well rewarded'—that was the expression, guvnor, so far as I can bring it to mind. It might have been ‘handsomely rewarded' but I won't take my Bible oath to that. What about ten bob?”

Mr. Merridew brought out two half-crowns and pushed them across the table. After a short silence Mr. Rogers pocketed them.

“Here today and gone tomorrow,” he said with gloomy philosophy. “You never know your luck, do you? Well, I'll be getting along. Afternoon, guvnor.”

He slouched out of the room with his rolling walk. Mr. Merridew gave him a moment, and touched the bell. When Emanuel Holt came in he said,

“Just get me the papers in the Tweddle case, will you.”

“Is that you, Holt?”

The voice differed so much from Mr. Merridew's accustomed hearty accents that Mr. Holt was a good deal affected. He replied as cheerfully as he found possible.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Really impossible to believe that Mr. Merridew had come to this—his air of conscious omnipotence so completely changed to a look which seemed to say in an almost pleading fashion, “I'm not so bad after all. They haven't told you I'm so bad, have they, Emanuel? I'm not
dying,
Emanuel Holt?” Very affecting, indeed. Such a strong man, such a vigorous brain, such a grasp, so much integrity and self-control. And that it should be this superman who had been struck down, and Emanuel Holt, who really mattered to no one except of course his own family, who had been spared. For a moment Rosie and Doris were, as it were, obliterated by the magnitude of the misfortune which had befallen the firm through this its indispensable head, and Emanuel was able to say with sincerity, “I only wish it had been me.”

Mr. Merridew's pale lips moved into a smile.

“Believe you really meant that,” he whispered.

“Oh, yes, sir!” Mr. Holt's small neat features quivered with the earnestness of his reply.

If the bomb which had smashed its way through the offices of Girding, Ramsbottom, Girding & Merridew had by the agency of a flying splinter laid Emanuel Holt upon this stretcherlike hospital bed and Philip Merridew had gone scot free, the firm would have looked after Rosie—oh, yes, it was that sort of firm—and Emanuel would have been saved the horrible weight of responsibility which now rested upon his shoulders. Mr. Merridew would have seen to everything. Ruined premises, dislocated business, clients' interest, the dispersal and only too certain destruction of valuable papers—none of these things would have presented any difficulty to Mr. Merridew. In the words of a striking quotation whose origin for the moment escaped Emanuel, Mr. Merridew was at all points equipped “to ride the whirlwind and command the storm.” The phrase had a scriptural flavour, and should of course be metaphorically considered—but apt, very apt. Whereas he could not possibly regard himself, nor be regarded, in the light of a storm-controller. It wasn't even as if he were the managing clerk. Mr. Peterson had always kept things very much in his own hands—a very able managing clerk and good for another ten years if it hadn't been for the bomb. The ways of Providence were certainly inscrutable—Mr. Peterson dead, and Mr. Merridew lying here looking as near to a ghost as anyone could who was still alive, whilst Emanuel Holt, who couldn't really be considered to matter at all, sat on an upright chair in a hospital ward with a dreadful sense of responsibility on his mind and all his physical health and strength intact.

These thoughts took no time at all to pass through his mind. Indeed, they could hardly be said to pass through it, constituting, as they did, his whole attitude towards the horrifying calamity which had overtaken the firm.

Mr. Merridew moistened his lips and said, “Don't waste time—they won't let you stay. What's been saved?”

Emanuel passed a hand over his hair. Once ashen fair, it was now of an indeterminate grey. Together with a complete absence of eyebrow or any other hair upon the face, it gave him rather the appearance of a good and serious ferret—a ferret of an affectionate disposition which would never conceivably bite anyone.

He hastened to be as reassuring as possible.

“The two safes are intact, sir, and some of the deed-boxes. Mr. Peterson's office was, I am afraid, completely wrecked.”

“Yes—poor Peterson. But my room, Holt—what about my room?”

Emanuel leaned forward. There was a deprecating sound in his voice. “I don't know how much you remember, sir, after such a shock, but you had just sent for the papers in the Tweddle case. I was standing on the other side of your table, and was actually about to hand them to you when the explosion occurred.”

“I had forgotten about the papers—they're no matter. But I'm told you saved my life—if it is saved—by pulling me down.”

Emanuel looked apologetic. “I'm afraid it was a liberty, sir, and not as successful as I could have wished, but a friend of my daughter's, a young man in a reserved occupation who has gone in quite a lot for A.R.P. he laid great stress, if I may say so, on the necessity of throwing oneself down as soon as that rather peculiar whistling sound occurs, so I took the liberty, and I hope—”

“No harm in hoping,” said Philip Merridew with ironic faintness. Then, rather more strongly, “But the papers, man—the papers on my desk—”

“The papers in the Tweddle case, sir?”

“No, Holt—
not
the papers in the Tweddle case. The papers in the Tweddle case may go to blazes. The papers on my table, man—the papers on my table!”

Emanuel concentrated earnestly.

“Well, the table itself was a good deal damaged, sir. You were, if I may say so, unconscious, and portions of the ceiling continued to fall. As soon as I had dragged you to the doorway—my daughter's friend has always assured us that a doorway was likely to afford some protection in the case of a house being wrecked—I returned to the table and hastily gathered up everything I could see or reach. I must explain that the table was more or less submerged by rubble, and had also been so to speak telescoped by the force of the explosion. The contents of the drawers will, I trust, be mainly intact.”

Philip Merridew's eyes rested insistently on his clerk's face. “What did you save, man—what did you save?”

“The Tweddle papers—”

“Blast the Tweddle papers! What else?”

“Well, sir, you must bear in mind that owing to the presence of such large quantities of dust and rubble, my powers of selection were very much handicapped. Bits of the ceiling were coming down all the time, and wardens who had come to our assistance were shouting to me to come away. When I reached the street I found that I had unnecessarily burdened myself with your blotting-pad, inkstand, and calendar. There was also the framed photograph of Miss Delia—”

“Nothing else?” said Philip Merridew.

“There was a package done up in brown paper addressed to Antony Rossiter, Esq.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Merridew. He seemed to relax, and closed his eyes. Presently he opened them again. He was smiling a little. “Rather a noble fellow, aren't you, Holt?”

Emanuel looked shocked.

“Oh, no, sir.”

“I'm glad you saved Delia's photograph,” said Philip Merridew, still with that faint smile.

III

Emanuel Holt came home with a serious face. He was not as worried as he had been, on account of having seen Mr. Merridew and having received instructions from him which did in a way lift some part of the responsibility from his shoulders. And then Mr. Merridew had been so very kind—“Rather a noble fellow, aren't you, Holt?” Well now, just think of Mr. Merridew saying that! It made you feel quite hot about the collar. But it would be something to tell Rosie. Rosie would be pleased.

The Holts lived in a street of small yellow brick houses which, for some reason long forgotten, had been called Adelaide Terrace. It was not an old enough street to have been named after Queen Adelaide of dim but pious memory. Perhaps the builder's wife had been called Adelaide. Nobody knew, and certainly nobody cared. The houses were semi-detached and all exactly alike. Two steps up to the door and you were in the hall, with the stairs going up in front of you. There were three floors, and two rooms on each—sitting-room and kitchen on the ground floor, bedroom, bathroom and lavatory up the stairs, and two attics above. The front rooms looked to the street, and the back rooms to a very small yard.

Emanuel hung up his hat and coat in the hall and went through to the kitchen, where Mrs. Holt was frying herrings for tea. Twenty years they had been married, but he had never stopped having just that queer pleasurable feeling of anticipation as he walked down the passage and put out his hand to open the door. Perhaps it was because he was secretly a very romantic person. Perhaps it was because Rosie was so comfortable to come home to. Rain or shine, wet or dry, up or down, there she always was when he came home, and if things hadn't gone just right—well, Rosie was comfortable. There was no other word for it.

He opened the door, and there she was, firm and comely, with an apron over her dark red dress, and her cheeks as red as the stuff. Twenty years ago Rosie Adams had been a village beauty—cheeks like apple-blossom, hair and eyes as black as sloes, and a waist as slim as you please. The hair and the eyes were as black as ever, but the apple-blow pink was now apple red, and the waist no longer slim.

She turned round with the frying-pan in her hand.

“You're early, ducks.” And then, as he came over and kissed her, “Cold, too, aren't you? More like January than October. We won't wait for Doris—I can keep hers hot. You just sit right down and have your tea.”

Emanuel held his hands to the range.

“I didn't feel it till I came in here.” He pulled a chair to the warmth and sat down.

Mrs. Holt began to make the tea. With the kettle in her hand, she said, “Did you see him?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Well, that's something. Did they say how he was at all?”

“I'm afraid he's very bad,” said Emanuel slowly.

Mrs. Holt set the teapot and a dish of herrings on the table and sat down. “Pull your chair up, ducks. You'll feel better when you've got some tea inside you. If he was all that bad, they wouldn't have let you see him.”

Emanuel pulled in his chair.

“I don't know, Rosie—they might. You see, they might think it didn't matter. And they told me I mustn't stay. I think really they only let me in because he was going on so, and they thought perhaps it would quieten him down. They as good as told me that—said I was to tell him everything was all right and not to worry, and then come away quick. But I said to them, ‘If you'd worked for Mr. Merridew for twenty years like I have, you'd know better than to think he'd be put off that way. He'll be satisfied with the truth and not one word short of it, and if he isn't satisfied he won't rest.' And I didn't like to ask then what they thought of him, but I got hold of the nurse when I was coming out, and from what she said I'm afraid he's very bad, but she did allow that there was always a chance.”