From London Far (10 page)

Jean Halliwell looked at him with a sort of comical gravity. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t think of it like that. We went down and had a drink – which is worse and worse, I fear – and he talked a great deal. At first he talked just like one of his books, which was entertaining enough – though unsound, no doubt. But I could see that he had something else on his mind, and that he had collared me and was being fascinating only because he felt that was how the great big male Higbed should move about the world.’ Jean Halliwell looked candidly at Meredith. ‘Picking up superior girls in good hotels.’

‘My dear Jean!’ Meredith was startled into this address. ‘Pray come to what he had on his mind.’

‘Pantechnicons.’

‘What?’

‘Just that. Big furniture-removing vans. Mighty forms that do not live. Like living things moved slowly through his mind by day, and were a trouble to his dreams… You can’t say that
my
conversation isn’t improving. It is replete with apposite references to the great monuments of our culture. But there’s the fact. The all-learned Higbed was scared of removal vans. They kept on following him round. Or so he had managed to convince himself.’

Meredith looked at Jean in perplexity. ‘However did he come to make you this extraordinary confidence?’

‘Quite suddenly. He was talking away about mandates, or micro-chemistry, or mysticism in Mandalay, and at the same time conscientiously eyeing my knees in a very lascivious way–’ Jean paused. ‘I’m terribly sorry. It’s the fathering business that tempts me to say these things. Anyway, Higbed was jawing away like that when he suddenly did a sort of breakdown. Rather startling in one whose profession is breaking up breakdowns, in a manner speaking. What happened was this. Mandalay or microchemistry incontinently died away on his lips, and he leant forward and whispered agitatedly: “Have you noticed what a lot of furniture vans have been about recently?”

‘It would have been a queer enough thing to have said to one in any circumstances, wouldn’t it? But, considering what I had just been on the track of, it was positively head-swirling. And my head swirled. “There
have
been a lot, haven’t there?” he said. It was quite piteous. He had even forgotten to look at me as the great male Higbed should. But I hadn’t quite forgiven him – I suppose I don’t awfully like being fascinated in hotel lounges, after all – and I felt a bit vicious. “A lot of them?” I said. “Not a bit of it. They grow scarcer and scarcer, like whisky and taxis. I haven’t noticed one for months.”

‘And that floored him altogether. “It’s a neurosis,” he whimpered. “It’s a new and horrible neurosis. And I’ve got it bad!” For a minute he was quite weepy, and then he plucked up and started gassing about it. Nothing so interesting had come his way for a long time. He was suffering from the hallucination of being followed about by furniture vans. Plainly they were symbols of the maternal womb. But while everybody sought a return to the maternal womb, he had never heard of anyone being pursued by it. Yet here was a great uterine symbol dogging him about the streets first of London and then of Edinburgh. He had come down to give a lecture on the psychopathology of colour-blindness, and one of these vans had trailed him to Euston. When he got out of the train in Edinburgh there was another of them waiting.’

Meredith shook his head. ‘I can’t really believe–’

‘It took a bit of swallowing. But I asked him a crucial question at once: had he noticed the name on the Edinburgh maternal symbol? And he had. It was the name of the perfectly respectable Princes Street firm that had been used by the bogus van in the Pentlands affair. I simply looked at Higbed and goggled.

‘Higbed is no Titian. In fact, he would have made a very striking portrait by Sargent. It didn’t seem possible that they were after him as a work of art – so what could this extraordinary story mean? If it hadn’t been Higbed, a well-known public figure, I should have suspected that the friends of the bearded and dark glasses man were after me still, and that this yarn was some fantastic trap. As it was, the thing was either really a hallucination, in which case I had bumped up against an astounding coincidence, or it was a sober fact – in which case it was putting me on the trail again, however unaccountable it might be in itself. So what should I do? Obviously, test it out.

‘“It’s bad,” I said; “isn’t it? The sort of neurosis that leads straight on into something thoroughly psychotic.” Higbed fairly slavered at that; he might have been Giotto in one of his most hangdog moments. “But perhaps”, I said, “it’s not too late to pull up. Or, rather, to let yourself go. Because I suspect the trouble is some sort of inhibition. Probably you’ve been deferring too much to a narrow conventional morality. After all, there’s nothing like moral purity for slipping one into the looney-bin.” Higbed didn’t quite know how to take that. So I gave him an amorous
oeillade
or speaking look – one that would have utterly shocked Don Juan, if I may say so. And after a second Higbed registered it.’

Meredith fairly groaned. ‘All this’, he said, ‘is worse than I could have supposed. Your involvement in the affair has put you to the most disagreeable necessities.’

‘Quite so. Well, he registered it, as I say. And then I proposed a walkabout. We were to stroll through Auld Reekie’s dusk together. Do you know Edinburgh? There is a hill just short of the village of Corstorphine which goes by the name of Rest-and-be-thankful. And through its bosky recesses there winds quite a lovers’ lane. Delicately indicating all this–’

Meredith agitatedly stirred his tea.

‘Well, we were to go there. I could see that it was all much too rapid for the great, big, predatory Higgy. Still, he was quite sure that he ought to be fascinated and compelled–’

‘Abominable!’ said Meredith.

‘But, after all, the man’s bread and butter is grounded in the conviction that Rest-and-be-thankful is something the sexual man just doesn’t know.
Vénus toute entière à sa proie attachée
right round the clock. Anyway, we set out, romantically seated side by side on the top of an electric tram. It was dusk by this time, all right, and I sat staring straight ahead of me.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

‘I mean that I didn’t try to peer out and see if there was a great big pantechnicon following the great big amorist and me. That could wait. It waited until the tram stopped at the foot of an eminently respectable thoroughfare called Murrayfield Road. Along this lay our route to dalliance, and off we got. And there was the pantechnicon, sure enough. I was suddenly and utterly afraid.’

‘And not unreasonably, my dear. These people had killed one of your friends and a policeman. What you were doing was incredibly rash. But, since you must have had a certain amount of intelligent anticipation, it was extremely courageous as well.’

‘It was just what you might call bringing matters to a head. If pantechnicons had dogged Higbed through a couple of capital cities, it wasn’t with a view to his summary liquidation. They wanted the live – the so terribly live and vital – man. Now they were going to get him, and I was going to be the pound of tea thrown in by the way. We walked up on the left of this Murrayfield Road, with the kerb on one side of us and a high stone wall on the other. When we were about a hundred yards up, the van turned in from the main road and followed us. I think Higbed heard the engine; anyway, he turned his head and saw the thing. “I’m seeing it,” he said in a desperate voice. “It’s coming up the hill.” I looked round too and did my best to stare into empty space – which wasn’t altogether easy, for really the great bulk of the thing looked uncommonly sinister and threatening. “How very interesting,” I said. “There isn’t even a shadow on the ground to suggest such a thing. I think we’d better hurry on.”

‘And now the van was pretty well abreast of us. On the one side of the road was this high wall. On the other were two semi-detached villas without a sign of life. I was just trying to imagine that I heard the footfalls of a bobby on his beat when the thing happened. The van stopped, enclosing us in a sort of canyon. Higbed gave a horrid yelp. “Don’t be an ass,” I said. “You’re fancying things.” And then the big doors at the back of the van opened and our capture was effected without the slightest fuss. No revolvers, no knocking on the head. We were simply hustled in. The road to Rest-and-be-thankful had passed, you might say, straight through Chicago.’

‘Bless me!’ Meredith looked at Jean with renewed astonishment. ‘I thought I did something uncommonly out-of-the-way when I stepped through that little tobacconist’s trapdoor. But to lay yourself out to be abducted by known assassins–’

‘The return to the womb. I must just have had a neurosis, like Higbed. And there he was – his uterine symbol suddenly materialized, and himself swallowed up in it as surprised as could be. Having myself had a Biblical childhood rather than a scientific one, I felt much more as if it were the whale, and Jonah’s catastrophe had included an unknown
compagnon de voyage
. Not that the inside of the pantechnicon held anything to reinforce either suggestion. For one thing, it was brightly lit. And for another, it was just like an office in a high-rental area. Everything smart and very compact. Typewriter, filing cabinets, and two clerkly men sitting on each side of a desk. A little form was provided for Higbed and myself; it was meagre and moderately uncomfortable; just the sort of thing you would keep minor clients waiting on if you wanted to make them feel small.’

‘I cannot imagine that any business could be successfully conducted–’

‘You’re behind the times. But that is less disturbing than being behind two stout wood and iron doors painted to look like the back of a furniture van. Higbed was gasping like a fish, and I suppose it was a bit of a shock to realize that he was in his right mind after all – if he did realize it, which I rather doubt. One of the clerkly men was looking at me with a good deal of disfavour. “I don’t think we wanted a woman as well,” he said – rather doubtfully, and fumbling in some sort of card-index the while. His companion was much more decisive. “We certainly don’t want a woman,” he said. “We have absolutely no occasion for one. It’s an extremely awkward thing.”

‘There were two plug-uglies inside the van as well; they had done the greater part of the bustling. It was plain that they resented the second clerkly man’s attitude a good deal. To my mind, they had done a pretty good job, and it was rather tough to blame them for landing their bosses with a slight
embarras de richesses
. But now the clerkly men were checking up on Higbed from a file. “It’s him, all right,” said the first. “But who would want a fellow like that?” “Who, indeed,” said the second. “Can you see yourself leaving a thousand pounds in notes to get
him
back again? Blessed if I can.” “It’s nothing like that,” said the first. “Lord knows what it is, but it’s nothing like that. Perhaps he did a little double-crossing – something a bit too nasty to have him just dumped quietly in the Forth for.” And then he looked at me. “As for the girl,” he said, “we’d better dump her there at once.” “Oh, decidedly,” said the second. “Tell them to drive there straight away. And get out a sack.” And, sure enough, one of the plug-uglies gave orders to the driver through a little shutter, and the other fished out a sack from a locker. “Here,” he said – and it was the first word that had been directly addressed to either of us – “get into this.”

‘I didn’t feel too good. Compared with the inside of a sack destined for the bottom of the Firth of Forth, that furniture van was just all that the warm precincts of the cheerful day could be. I even cast one longing ling’ring look at Higgy. And at that moment the first clerkly man – the indecisive one – took a good look at me. Not at all an interested look – but, after all, he wouldn’t have another chance. “Hold hard,” he said. “I think that girl’s on the list.” He turned to the other fellow. “Where’s the requisition book?” he asked. “I’ve got an idea you’ll find this girl’s mug in it, after all.” And the other fellow fumbled in a drawer. Presently he was ransacking the whole van. “That’s funny,” he said. “In fact, it’s uncommon awkward. I don’t often lose the requisition book.” And he took a squint at me. “But you’re right,” he said. “She’s there, for certain. I’ve got it! She’s one of Marsden’s girls.” “Do you think so?” said the first man – a bit doubtfully. “I don’t seem to remember–” “Of course she is,” said the decided man. And he turned to me. “You’re one of Marsden’s girls, aren’t you?”

Jean Halliwell paused and followed Meredith’s gaze thoughtfully out to the plane trees. ‘Well, it seemed that or the Forth. “Of course I am,” I said. “I’m Marsden’s best girl.” And after that, as you might say, the die was cast.’

Meredith reached over and peered into the teapot. ‘It was a bold move,’ he said.

‘Well, if they had no occasion for a plain girl, Marsden’s girl it must be. And, if Marsden’s girl at all, why not his best girl? I certainly didn’t at all know what I was letting myself in for – any more than you did when you became Vogelsang. But anything was better than a sack. My kittenish days, as you must have remarked, are long since over, and that sort of drowning just didn’t appeal. So I became one of Marsden’s girls and remained so until we did our bolt this afternoon. Indeed, I don’t suppose it has yet occurred to them that I am anything else.’ Jean Halliwell fished out her last night’s packet of cigarettes. ‘And that’s all I have to tell.’

Meredith looked at her in perplexity. ‘But my dear Jean – if my years may give me the privilege of calling you so – you have brought your astonishing narrative only to the point–’

‘But the rest you can pretty well infer. Marsden is some rival racketeer in
objets d’art
. And he had lifted the Mykonos Marbles from the Properjohn-Bubear lot – who must in turn somehow have contrived to lift them from their home in Budapest. That was why somebody of Marsden’s was wanted who might be induced to spill the beans.’

‘Spill the beans?’ Meredith shook his head. ‘Do you know, I believe your idiom in these matters is sometimes as obsolete as my own? And here, surely, is a sign of the instability of the times. Formerly, canting language was quite durable, and Robert Greene’s foists and coney-catchers would have been substantially intelligible to Fielding’s Jonathan Wild. But nowadays the language of criminals renews itself every lustre.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘But this is typical of the futility of the scholar’s calling today. We take refuge from unpleasant present facts in the mere fripperies of philology. And your predicament was certainly an unpleasant fact enough. If it were not that here you are safe and sound in this room, I could scarcely bear to think of it.’