The Blackmailer, page 9
He had inherited from his father, an unromantic but efficient business man, some sixty thousand pounds, and none of his money sense. A good deal of what was left from his kind and cultural extravagances at Cambridge was invested in Hanescu Lane & Co.
At the moment it was Miss Vanderbank again.
‘She’s too generous,’ he said to Judith, loping about on the pale grey carpet. ‘Really too generous. It makes her do things, you know, which she thinks she’s too wise to do. But she’s not at all—too wise, I mean. This man Reeves, for instance—I don’t think she ought to take up with him, I really don’t.’
‘Has she been too generous to him?’ asked Judith, very coldly.
Fisher blushed. ‘She had lunch with him,’ he said.
‘Yes?’ said Judith.
‘Yesterday,’ said Fisher, as if that made it worse.
Miss Vanderbank happening at that moment to come in with some letters, Judith said to her, casually: ‘I hear you’ve been seeing our friend Reeves.’
‘Oh! . . .’ Fisher, betrayed, turned his back.
‘Oh yes,’ Miss Vanderbank said, blithely. ‘He gave me lunch.’
‘Was he nice?’ asked Judith, looking through her letters. ‘Amusing?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Vanderbank. ‘We talked about all sorts of things—he’s so interesting, isn’t he? But . . .’ seeing her opportunity, ‘Mainly you.’
‘Me?’ said Judith.
‘Oh, he wanted to know everything about you,’ said Miss Vanderbank, happily. ‘On and on and on. Said he was too shy to ask you himself. I think that sort of man often is shy, don’t you? In spite of that confident manner. Sensitive really.’
‘Did he say . . . ?’ asked Judith. ‘What did he say—about me, I mean.’
‘Well, he didn’t so much say anything,’ said Miss Vanderbank. ‘Just sort of implied.’
‘Implied?’ said Judith.
‘Well, yes, implied,’ said Miss Vanderbank.
‘How very odd,’ said Judith.
‘Well, I must say, I wondered, when he asked me out to lunch,’ said Miss Vanderbank. ‘But that’s what it was, to ask about you.’
Feliks was shouting in the outer office. ‘Where is everyone? Jimmy’s here, Judith. In my room.’
‘Coming,’ called Judith. She smiled at Fisher, who was looking a little shame-faced, and went out of the room, disturbed by Miss Vanderbank’s revelations.
When Jimmy Chandos-Wright had been in business, he had had no time for showing off. He had been a largish man in a rather shapeless suit, hard-working, conscientious, and an expert at his job. Only since his retirement had he taken to wearing astrakhan collars and talking as he thought a gangster should.
Most of his life had been spent in burglary. Starting young, he had worked his way to the top. He had imagination, an excellent talent for organisation, and the control over both himself and those who worked for him which is essential in a good crook. There was a time when if you wanted a big job done, anywhere in the world, you asked Jimmy Chandos-Wright (né Green) to do it. He had a reputation for reliability seldom equalled in his particular metier. The police knew all about him, of course, because his work was usually unmistakeable; in fact, the morning after most of his coups, not only the police of the world but all the other burglars, blackmailers, dog-dopers, con-men or what you will, opening their newspapers said: ‘That’s Jimmy.’ He was never caught, not in his heyday—there had been times, before he was really experienced, when he had had a spell or two ‘inside’—but in his heyday they couldn’t touch him.
Nobody knew what he had done in the war: he himself was uncharacteristically shifty about it, but he had certainly made money. Afterwards he did very well on the Black Market, and fixed one or two big deals in scrap which brought him in a nice sum. He lived in Tangier for a time and undertook a variety of commissions for people who were prepared to pay enormously for him to arrange some irregularity or other.
At last, his fortune made and Lucille, his red-haired girl, having always had a leaning towards respectability, they married and went to live in Eastbourne. They bought a yacht and spent a considerable part of the year in Cannes, but the only risk Jimmy took these days was at the tables, where as a matter of fact he had exceptional luck.
Several publishers had tried, without success, to persuade him to write his memoirs, but Hanescu’s approach had been sartorial. He had introduced him to his tailor, who made something in wide chalk stripes, much collared and cuffed, which delighted Jimmy, and to his shirt-maker, who produced a succession of silk initialled shirts and a masterpiece in horizontal green stripes. It was probably the offer of an introduction to his boot-maker (he had not in fact got one) which finally won Jimmy for Hanescu.
The friendship thus auspiciously begun had thrived, and when the jolly forty-ish Lucille produced the son who was now his parents’ pride and joy, the boy was christened Feliks, and Hanescu, together with a rich Jewish bank-breaker, was a god-father.
‘Sandy’s your boy,’ Jimmy said, when Hanescu asked his advice for Judith. ‘Sandy’ll do you fine. He’s a nice boy and doesn’t make mistakes.’
He was wearing a black and white check suit and a yellow waistcoat. ‘How beastly you look,’ Feliks had said when he came in. ‘That’s not Denton—he’d rather die.’
‘Little fellow in Shepherd’s Market—very expensive,’ said Jimmy. ‘King of Spain recommended me.’
‘The King of Spain?’ said Feliks.
‘That’s who he said he was,’ said Jimmy.
Feliks had explained that Judith might find it necessary to dispose of somebody. Jimmy, unsurprised, praised the talents and discretion of his friend Sandy.
‘He’s in dog-doping,’ he said. ‘But he’s not happy there. There’s money in it of course, but no scope. He was in Tangier with me, one of my best boys. But it got a bit hot and he came back to something quiet and steady for a time. You’ll like him, and he’ll be glad of a chance to get out of the rut. He’s reliable too—I doubt if there’s a better man in Europe for what you want, certainly not in England. I’ll give him a ring.’ He stretched one large hand towards Feliks’s white telephone.
‘Oh, but.…’ said Judith.
‘Worried about the price?’ asked Jimmy, benignly. ‘There isn’t a man in London could get better terms for you than I can. What d’you want to pay?’
‘I don’t really know what the usual thing is,’ said Judith.
‘He’ll probably want a grand,’ said Jimmy. ‘Of course he’s a good man. I know fellows who’d do it for a monkey at the drop of a hat, but then you’d be taking more of a risk. Sandy’s a real expert. I’ll get it done for less than his usual fee, that I can promise you.’
‘The only thing is,’ said Judith desperately, ‘I’m not quite sure yet whether it will be necessary.’
‘All right,’ said Jimmy. ‘You let me know when you’re ready and I’ll tip him off. O.K.?’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Judith.
‘That’s right,’ said Feliks, patting her shoulder. ‘You let Jimmy know. You’ll fix it, won’t you, Jimmy?’
‘Of course, of course, anything for a friend,’ said Jimmy. ‘Don’t you worry, my dear, there’s no risk, not with Sandy. Never slipped up yet, Sandy.’
‘I knew we could rely on you, Jimmy,’ said Feliks.
7
To a certain extent, of course, Judith was a prig. To a certain, quite small, extent, she was still the scrubbed sixteen-year-old who had commanded the school of which she had been head girl with such devoted efficiency.
Even in her ‘intellectual’ days, that is to say in the years between her leaving school and her marriage, she had never quite lost that way of looking at things. For instance, though the code she then adopted involved tolerance and even admiration for any sort of unconventional behaviour among her friends, she herself had never really lost her head girl’s healthy opinion that ‘sex was silly’. This had lasted even beyond her marriage, the principle being only slightly modified—that is to say, sex became silly except with one’s husband.
Indeed, it was only in the realm of ideas that she was the free spirit she thought herself. Where behaviour was concerned, where life was to be led, her inclination was towards the safe, the conventional, the duty-guided. Her intelligence, which was not as exceptional as she thought it but was perhaps unusual in a woman, and her eagerness to find a duty whose path to follow, had led her into some strange friendships, into, even, a rather strange marriage; but in spite of everything she had had few moral doubts. Right was right and wrong was wrong. She would not have liked to have heard it expressed by that cliché, but though it perhaps debased her attitude, it more or less summed it up.
With it, she was a fatalist. It was perhaps this last, together with an altogether feminine desire for self-immolation, which made her need to devote herself to a duty, for duty breathed life into the inevitability of events, gave them, if not a meaning, at least something to be suffered for.
Her liking for responsibility was one reason for her liking for Jean-Claude. She wanted dependents. She had enjoyed the days when her widowed father had relied on her; she would have liked to have had a lot of children; in long daydreams she gave herself a kingdom and ruled it with scrupulous fairness and devotion. Jean-Claude was solitary and helpless. He needed to be fed, kept warm, and allowed to cook and clean; that was all he wanted, and Judith, in providing it, gladly assumed him as one of her duties.
When, therefore, Baldwin Reeves after four days of brooding arrived at her house in a self-made rage and ordered her to dismiss Jean-Claude, she was deeply upset. She would rather have paid any money in the world, and said so.
During the last few days, the midget had assumed a disproportionate importance in Baldwin’s eyes. The latter’s reasoning, being now influenced by various emotions not clear even to himself, was not particularly valid, but it ran, roughly, along these lines. He had found out that to get money from Judith was not hard, but his success had not had what now seemed to be the desired effect on her, for instead of fearing him and acknowledging his power, it was quite obvious that she not only disliked but despised him. She had thawed briefly during one lunch, but had quickly reverted to her usual icy evidence of distaste. He had expected his power to extend to all sorts of aspects of her life: it remained purely financial. This midget had aroused an irritating and unnecessary liking on her part. To force her to get rid of him would show her how much he, Baldwin Reeves, was to be feared, and would at the same time remove the object of, and therefore soon the existence of, this annoying affection.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I must insist.’
She had turned pale. When he had told her why he had come there had been a pause, and then, quite suddenly, her face had gone white, and he had thought for a moment that she might faint. It had not occurred to him to change his mind, partly because he felt for some reason as though he had no control now, the whole business simply had to be gone through with: he was obeying orders, even though they were his own.
‘Are you not going to give me any reason?’ she asked.
‘I can’t,’ said Baldwin.
‘But what can anyone have against Jean-Claude?’ she asked. ‘What can he have done?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more,’ said Baldwin. ‘I simply want him to go.’
‘But what will he do?’
‘There are employment agencies, aren’t there?’ said Baldwin.
‘But who’d want a midget?’ asked Judith.
‘You did,’ said Baldwin.
‘That’s different,’ said Judith. ‘Besides, he’s so ugly.’
‘He could go back to France,’ said Baldwin.
‘Can I keep him until he gets another job?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid he must go tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ she said, horrified. ‘But where will he go?’
‘You can give him some money, can’t you?’ said Baldwin, who had not thought of all these details.
Judith began to walk up and down the room.
‘I’ve told you I’ll give you any money you want,’ she said.
‘I don’t want money,’ he said.
‘You do,’ she said. ‘You’re always saying how much you need money. Or have you found another source of income?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you find some more widows with a little money to help me to keep you? Why should I be the only one? I’ve no doubt you could find plenty more.’
‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘I simply want you to get rid of the dwarf. I’m not here to discuss money.’
‘I want to discuss money,’ said Judith. ‘I’ll give you £500 in three days’ time if you leave Jean-Claude alone—and more later. Which would you rather have, £500 or the sadistic pleasure of seeing a harmless midget suffer?’
‘Harmless midget suffer,’ said Baldwin.
‘What about £1,000?’ said Judith.
‘No,’ said Baldwin.
‘Anything,’ said Judith. ‘The house—anything.…’
She was pale and obviously deeply agitated, but he felt in a way she should be crying, throwing herself at his feet—then he hoped she wouldn’t.
‘I must go,’ he said. ‘And the dwarf tomorrow.’
‘No, wait,’ she put her hand on his arm. ‘Wait.’ Would she hit him, he thought confusedly, or throw herself round his neck, or——? ‘Wait, isn’t there anything you’d rather have?’
He looked at her without saying anything at all, one hand on the door.
‘Isn’t there?’ she said.
The scene became suddenly meaningless to Baldwin. He could hardly remember what it was all about. He wanted desperately to go.
‘No, there’s nothing,’ he said, turning away. ‘Nothing at all,’ and he went out of the house.
Left alone, Judith sat down to think, to be calm and reasonable and think of a way out, but the whole situation had become so monstrous that her thoughts floundered on the borders of nightmare: she could see no solution. She worked herself up into a rage against Baldwin, for the first time really considering and facing the horror of his behaviour. The rage abated, and left her tired.
Some hours after Baldwin had left, she went downstairs to find Jean-Claude. He was in his small sitting-room, polishing the silver, which was already gleaming, and listening to the wireless, which was turned so low as to be almost inaudible.
‘You can have it louder than that,’ said Judith. ‘It doesn’t disturb me at all.’
‘S’all right, s’all right,’ said Jean-Claude. ‘I don’t listen.’ He turned the wireless off.
There was a silence, broken only by the click of the clean forks dropping into their places.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Jean-Claude. ‘Fish day.’ He wrinkled his broad nose. Although he cooked it beautifully, he always expressed the liveliest distaste for all species of fish. ‘And for Bertie skin but no bones.’ He grinned, because when he had first come, Judith had had great difficulty in making him believe that fish-bones were bad for dogs. ‘Dogs eat bones,’ he had obstinately repeated, until Judith had threatened to give Bertie his meals herself, which Jean-Claude had considered quite unsuitable.
‘Yes,’ said Judith. ‘Oh, by the way.…’
‘Yes?’ said Jean-Claude.
‘I’m afraid.…’ Judith said. ‘I’m afraid there’s some rather bad news. I’ve got to—that is, things have been going rather badly, you see, and I’m afraid I shall have to—it won’t be possible for me to keep you.’
‘Keep . . . ?’ Jean-Claude had not understood.
‘I mean that I shan’t be able to afford to go on having you here,’ said Judith. ‘I only wish I could—I’m very upset about it—it’s not that I don’t wish you could stay for years, but it just—won’t be possible you see.’
There was a long pause while Jean-Claude absorbed this information. At last his evident bewilderment gave way to a broad smile.
‘Ah, I know,’ he said. ‘It’s always the same old money, money. I know. But look. I wait, I want nothing, later you get rich, you start to pay me again. I wait.’
‘Oh, but you see,’ Judith said. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I shall probably have to move from here, and go somewhere smaller where there’s no room for you.’
‘No small room?’ Jean-Claude looked disbelieving. ‘You find somewhere with a small room where I go.’
‘Well, I.…’ said Judith. ‘I don’t know that I shall be able to.’
‘You try,’ Jean-Claude said.
‘Well, yes, I’ll try, of course,’ said Judith. ‘But I may not be able to.’
‘Well, then so bad,’ said Jean-Claude, shrugging his shoulders. ‘But perhaps yes. And until then I stay here and we don’t worry.’
‘Well, the thing is,’ said Judith. ‘I know it must seem odd, and I really wouldn’t do it if it weren’t absolutely necessary—I mean really it’s just as bad for me—only I’m afraid it’s absolutely essential for you to leave tomorrow.’
There was another pause, then Jean-Claude said in amazement: ‘Demain? Je pars demain?’
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Judith. ‘I really am. You can’t imagine how awful it is for me.’
‘You want me to go tomorrow?’ he asked again.
‘I don’t want you to go at all,’ said Judith. ‘I wish to goodness you needn’t. But I’m afraid you must.’
Jean-Claude had put down the fork he was polishing. Now, very slowly, he picked it up again and began to rub it with his chamois leather. ‘So I go tomorrow,’ he said.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Judith. ‘Of course you’ll easily get another job—I’ll give you references and everything—and we’ll find you somewhere to stay of course.’
‘I go tomorrow,’ said Jean-Claude, nodding slowly.
