A Crooked Sixpence Page 10

  ‘Now why would he have recognised you, Mr. Green?’

  ‘I’m not an ordinary-looking chap,’ said Mr. Green. ‘My moustache, for instance. Very noticeable. And these glasses.’

  ‘I have a very distinctive appearance, as I wear a moustache and horn-rimmed spectacles,’ typed O’Toole, ‘I do not know the gatekeepers personally because there are 1,500 men working with me, but I am absolutely certain one of the gatekeepers would have recognised me.’

  ‘I think we should make this pretty clear and definite, Mr. Green,’ said O’Toole, If you had left your job—I’m not saying you did, of course—you’d have had to walk home, of course. How long would that take?’

  ‘Oh, a good twenty minutes.’

  ‘Each way?’

  ‘No, there and back. I ought to know, I often nip home for lunch.’

  ‘Not this time, of course.’ O’Toole forced a good-natured laugh.

  ‘Oh, no. I wasn’t hungry that day.’

  ‘Now, let’s get that down,’ said O’Toole. He typed: ‘I could not possibly have come home and returned to work unobserved, as I would have had to do if there was a grain of truth in these filthy rumours. It would have taken me a good ten minutes each way, and someone would have missed me.’

  ‘Now where do you work in the dock, exactly?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘Oh, I’m in and out of ships. Sort of moving about, like.’

  ‘Perhaps we’d better leave that out,’ said O’Toole. ‘Don’t want to give the wrong impression, do we? Anyway, the neighbours would have been bound to see you, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Oh, yes. There was a bit of mist about, but that wouldn’t make any difference.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said O’Toole. ‘I think we’ll just put a bit on the end in which you appeal for justice, which you’re so richly entitled to. Something like this: “So I appeal to you, fair-minded people of Britain, to study my watertight alibi and see how cruelly these thoughtless gossips have wronged an innocent man.” How does that sound?’

  ‘All right, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, that should do the trick,’ said O’Toole. ‘There’s only one other little formality, Mr. Green.’ He snatched the sheet of paper from his typewriter. ‘I’d just like you to sign the end of this-just—as a guarantee that not a word will be changed, of course.’ O’Toole smiled sincerely.

  ‘Well, how much?’ asked Mr. Green.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ O’Toole dispensed with the superfluous smile.

  ‘What do I get for signing this lot?’

  ‘I don’t quite understand, Mr. Green,’ said O’Toole. ‘I’m here to get justice for you. Suppose it leaked out we’d actually given you money, then it’d weaken your case, mightn’t it? I mean, what would people say?’ O’Toole implied that giving people money was worse than murder.

  ‘I think I ought to get something,’ said Mr. Green.

  ‘I quite understand,’ said O’Toole. ‘More in the way of expenses. I’ll tell my editor what a dreadful time you’ve been through and I’m sure he’ll be generous.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the best you can do,’ said Mr. Green doubtfully.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said O’Toole. ‘It’s the policy of our paper to see that no reader asks for justice in vain.’

  ‘I’d like it in cash,’ said Mr. Green.

  ‘I’ll do my level best, don’t you worry,’ said O’Toole. ‘Now, if you’d just sign here...’ He thrust a pen into Mr. Green’s hand. Mr. Green signed. O’Toole blinked, recovered, pressed on.

  ‘Better put your initials on the bottom of each page, too. You don’t want us to slip a page in, do you now?’

  ‘You’d better not. I still don’t know if I’ve done the right thing or not.’

  But he initialled, and O’Toole softly clicked his typewriter shut, pocketed the statement and stood up. Mr. Green maintained his hard grudging suspicion to the last. There seemed no point in wishing him luck (at what?) or hoping for better times.

  ‘You’ll be grateful to us for clearing your name,’ said O’Toole on the doorstep.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Mr. Green.

  As O’Toole turned to go, the policeman over the road quickly turned his blue-coated back. Mr. Green looked up and down the street, then shut the door. Fog was gathering round the street lights.

  XIII

  IT WAS three in the morning when O’Toole, sour in the mouth, arrived at Euston. He had smoked and dozed alone in his dusty plush first-class compartment, while slivers of a pork pie he’d bought in Liverpool fermented back to their original chemical components between his teeth. The dying gasp of the locomotive hung, yellow-white, between the matt black girders of the station roof. Three pimply young soldiers clicked ahead of him off the platform. The cabby didn’t want to go to South Kensington, or anywhere else. Even the whores had gone home from Park Lane. London was empty and dead, except for the automatic traffic lights drilling along Oxford Street, the control boxes tapping in thought on the street corners as they directed invisible streams of cars and buses through the night, like sleepless policemen in a malted-milk ad.

  ‘How much will that be, driver?’ asked O’Toole, outside his house.

  ‘Five bob, guvn’er, normally like.’

  O’Toole found a ten-shilling note. ‘Give me a couple of bob,’ he said. The cabbie started to fumble. O’Toole leaned back against the cab door, indicating he had plenty of time. The cabbie found two shillings and handed it over.

  ‘Good night,’ said O’Toole, but the cabbie turned the square backside of the cab at him, broke a cloud of diesel smoke and derisively fut-futted off.

  The typewriter was a dead weight to drag up the three flights of stairs. The keyhole was hard to find in the dark.

  Inside, the flat was silent, but with a spacious, echoing feel. O’Toole, hearing no sleeper in the studio, risked the light.

  The room was empty. Bare. Stripped. The piano, the painted chest, the glass globes and the fishnet had vanished.

  Then Macedon, yawning, in his underwear, came in.

  ‘Oh, there you are, old boy,’ he said. ‘How nice to see you. There’s been...an incident while you were away. Thought I’d better give you the score. Not to worry, though, it will soon be sorted out.’

  ‘Burglars?’ asked O’Toole. ‘Surely not. Not everything.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Macedon. ‘Bailiffs. Estreated my chattels, I think that’s the phrase. Just a minute, I’ll find you the form.’

  O’Toole put his typewriter down and sat on it. Macedon came back with a printed form. The typefaces were the sort popular for playbills around 1890. O’Toole glanced through the text:

  ‘Greetings. By these presents be it known...estreat the aforesaid chattels...distrain, seize, remove...whomsoever shall conceal, or attempt to conceal the aforesaid chattels SHALL SUFFER SIX MONTHS RESTRAINT IN THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION...God Save the Queen.’

  ‘I gather this is an official document of some sort,’ said O’Toole. ‘Seems to have a very patriotic flavour.’

  ‘My word,’ said Macedon. ‘It’s a court order.’

  ‘Exactly what does “estreat the chattels” mean?’

  ‘Take away the furniture, old boy. Of course, I’ll get a chance to buy it back myself. Damned decent of them, when you come to think of it.’

  ‘Didn’t they leave you anything?’

  ‘They left a bed, table and chair. That’s the law.’

  ‘Only one bed.’

  ‘Only one. Mine. Yours had to go. I’m sorry old boy, just couldn’t be helped.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have told them I was sleeping on it, Michael? Appeal to their better nature, or something like that?’

  ‘Sorry, out of the question. I couldn’t let on you were living here. This is partly about some rent owing, you see, and I’m not supposed to sub-let the rooms, I couldn’t tell them I had a lodger, so I told them it was the guest-room. They’ve cleaned it right out, I’m afraid.’

  ‘How about my
clothes?’

  ‘They’re all right. I told them they were mine. Gift parcel of hand-me-downs from a relative in Australia. From you, as a matter of fact. They seemed to be quite touched and left them all.’

  ‘Are you much behind in the rent, then?’

  ‘I am a bit, as a matter of fact. About four and a half years, to be exact. No need for panic, though, they’ll never find anyone else to pay the rent I’m paying, or rather not paying, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Am I right in assuming I’ll be sleeping on the floor?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘Don’t get bitter about this, James, really,’ said Macedon. ‘I thought you people were used to roughing it.’

  ‘Beaten earth’s what I’m really used to,’ said O’Toole. ‘I’m looking forward to a nice soft, wooden floor.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said Macedon. ‘After the vultures left, I pondered, naturally, about the plight of the lower ranks, telephoned a few people, and a friend in the LCC put me on to a perfect substitute. You’ll be as snug as you please.’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said O’Toole.

  He opened the door of his room as an archaeologist opens a pharaoh’s tomb. The bed, striped cover, wardrobe, carpet and curtains had gone. His clothes were neatly piled in a corner, and in the middle of the room was a thick green rectangle about five feet long.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s your new bed,’ said Macedon. ‘Temporary, let me emphasise. It used to be a bus seat. I picked three of them up from a disposals place for five bob each. Marvellous, really, soft and springy.’

  ‘It’s a bit short, isn’t it?’

  ‘You can curl up. It’s not a cold night, so you won’t need blankets and sheets, and they’ve gone anyway. Just curl up in some old clothes, with your overcoat over you, and you’ll sleep like a baby. It might be a good idea to sneak your typewriter out of here in the morning.’

  ‘But it belongs to me. They can’t take that.’

  ‘I’m afraid they can,’ said Macedon. ‘That’s where the part comes in about concealing the chattels and going to the House of Correction. Everything here is supposed to belong to me, or at any rate people are not supposed to bring their belongings to a place which is being combed over by the bailiffs. They’ve put another notice on the front door warning everyone off.’

  ‘That means I’m liable to the House of Correction even if I do take it away in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, technically you are,’ said Macedon. ‘However, there’s only one bailiff coming round, and I’ll install the fellow in the kitchen, which is where he belongs anyway. When he’s settled down you can sneak out and Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘If there’s no other way,’ said O’Toole. ‘Just in passing, where is the House of Correction?’

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest, I’m afraid I’m a bit out of touch. By the way, there’s another bit here you’ll like. The threatening part of the form finishes up: “Six months in the House of Correction without bail or mainprize”.’

  ‘I’m familiar with bail,’ said O’Toole. ‘What’s mainprize?’

  ‘You’d better go quietly in the morning, or you might find out,’ said Macedon. ‘Whatever it is, it hurts like hell when you can’t get it for six months.’

  ‘I have an idea what it might be,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘We all have our pet fancies,’ said Macedon. ‘Whatever it is, we must get as much of it as we can while there’s still time. Sleep well, old boy, and don’t worry, I’ll soon get this sorted out.’

  ‘I have great confidence in you,’ said O’Toole. ‘Anyway, I’ve been doing without mainprize for months.’

  He put on a sweater and two pairs of socks, arranged his overcoat on the bus seat and slid his train-stiff body under it. The seat sloped alarmingly. In the dim starlight from the uncurtained window he got up again, pushed the seat against the wall and crept into the valley so formed. His knees creaked as he bent them.

  Mainprize, thought O’Toole. The thing most desired. The thing you can’t have. Not so hard as wood, or so soft as soap or so wet as water or so warm as wool, but a thing you don’t know you had until you don’t have it any more. Losing your mainprize is the house of correction.

  O’Toole woke in a stabbing violet light from the naked window. His mouth was wounded and bruised from too many cigarettes. By his watch it was ten, late for the office with the high-spot of his career. He forced stiff limbs into clothes and walked as briskly as he could manage to the kitchen.

  Macedon was talking to a square-built man in braces and a collarless shirt fastened with an artificial ruby stud. To be more precise, with this man, it had to be an artificial ruby.

  ‘I really think you’ve gone far enough, Hicks,’ Macedon was saying. ‘How long are you planning to stay in my kitchen?’

  ‘I’m just as anxious to go as you are to see me go, Mr. Macedon,’ the man said briskly, ‘I always make a point of explaining that to me customers. We know people aren’t all that glad to see us. I’ve seen hundreds of these unpleasant cases, and I always try to be civil and helpful, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘You mean you’re going to sit here until I pay up?’

  ‘You could put it more nicely than that, Mr. Macedon. Let’s say I’m going to remind you about certain matters you ought to attend to.’

  ‘There’s no need to adopt that hypocritical snivelling tone, Hicks,’ said Macedon. ‘We both know what you’re here for.’

  ‘Don’t take it too hard,’ said Hicks. ‘I’ve got me job to do.’

  ‘You’re sure you’re comfortable?’ asked Macedon. ‘I suppose you left that chair behind so you could sit on it yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I’m right as rain, Mr. Macedon. I’ll just sit here quietly doing me pools, and you needn’t give me a second thought. I’ve had a world of experience with this type of case, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ said Macedon. Turning, he noticed O’Toole. ‘Ah, good morning, James.’

  ‘I just dropped in as I was passing the flat,’ said O’Toole, glancing toward the bailiff.

  ‘How thoughtful,’ said Macedon. ‘Let’s go and—er—stand in the other room, shall we?’

  They went to O’Toole’s room.

  ‘That’s the bailiff, is it?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘That’s him,’ said Macedon. ‘Name of Hicks. He’s the man in possession, I think the term is. He’s costing me two guineas a day which all goes on what I owe.’

  ‘He seems very respectful.’

  ‘Of course he is. Knows his place, Hicks. Quite a decent chap, really, if only he’d go away. By the way, I forgot to tell you, I’m having a party tonight. Too late to cancel it. Drop into the studio on your way home from the office.’

  ‘I’ll come for a few minutes, anyway,’ said O’Toole. ‘Are you asking Hicks?’

  ‘Be reasonable, old boy. There has to be a limit somewhere. He’ll be quite happy in the kitchen. Now, I’ll keep an eye on him while you sneak out with your typewriter.’

  Starsh was waiting in the newsroom, frowning:

  ‘This really won’t do,’ he said. ‘An hour late. Where have you been?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said O’Toole. ‘A minor domestic crisis.’

  ‘Mustn’t let your personal life interfere with the work of the office,’ said Starsh. ‘Did you get the story?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good lad! He signed up all right?’

  ‘Here it is.’

  Starsh skimmed through it. ‘Not bad at all,’ he said. ‘We were banking on this, and I can tell you Cam would have had your blood, if you’d missed. Late, too.’

  ‘Well, there it is,’ said O’Toole. ‘I can hardly believe it myself.’

  ‘I’ll go and touch it up a bit before I turn it over to the editor,’ said Starsh. ‘I think he’s got the head done already, as a matter of fact. In the meantime, you’ve got a visitor.’

  O’Toole peeped through the glass door of the waiting-room and saw the grey gh
ost of Father Sweeney.

  ‘It’s Sweeney,’ he told Starsh. ‘You remember the priest who heard the rain beating on the tin roof of his church while the jungle drums et cetera et cetera.’

  ‘What does he want? More money?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. The story didn’t turn out the way he expected and he’s been worrying me about it.’

  ‘He’s got a nerve.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like to explain that to him, would you, Nick?’

  Starsh jumped back in real fright. Oh no, dear boy, please don’t,’ he said. ‘You’re here to protect me from the public. I don’t want to talk to him under any circumstances. You get rid of him and then come and see Cam.’

  O’Toole went into the waiting-room. Sweeney, anguished, rose and grabbed his arm.

  ‘Mr. Towel, you’ve got to help me, you must,’ he implored.

  ‘Now, sit down and take it easy, Mr. Sweeney,’ said O’Toole. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘I’m desperate,’ said Sweeney, wringing white hands. ‘I haven’t had a moment’s peace since that dreadful article was published. I’m a branded man, Mr. Towel.’

  ‘You’re still in trouble with the Church?’

  ‘Terrible trouble. They say I must undo some of the harm I have done them before they can offer me any help. I can’t find any kind of work because everyone seems to have seen your article, and as soon as they see my name or my face they turn me away. Can’t you print a little note, just a few words to say I wasn’t responsible for what appeared in your paper?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said O’Toole. ‘The owners of this newspaper are prepared to do almost anything for a reader, but one of the things they won’t do is deny a story they’ve paid money for.’

  ‘But it would cost you nothing, Mr. Towel, and it might mean a new life for me.’

  ‘The trouble is, it would spoil the gay, generous tone of the paper,’ said O’Toole. ‘I know that’s hard to follow from your point of view, but I assure you that’s the case.’

  ‘It’s no use seeing your editor, is it, Mr. Towel?’ asked Sweeney. ‘Even appealing to him in the name of Christian charity?’

  ‘That was just a formal flourish in the story,’ said O’Toole, ‘I wouldn’t attach too much importance to it. Look, could I lend you a few pounds? Might help to keep you going.’