Kept (36 page)

If Grace noticed this manoeuvre of Mr. Pardew’s he did not acknowledge it but continued to brood over a copy of
Bell’s Life
. Mr. Pardew looked at the keys. They had certainly been excellently turned, he thought to himself as he slid first one then the other into his hand, and would certainly serve for the purpose he had in mind. Something about their respective size and the set of their teeth struck him, and, still with his eye on Grace, he placed the first key on the wooden surface of the desk with the second balanced on top of it. The suspicion that had lurked in his mind being confirmed by this experiment, he fetched a sheet of cartridge paper and a pencil out of his drawer and, laying the keys side by side, traced rapidly around their edges with the pencil point. Having accomplished this task, he stared for a long while at the resultant outlines, biting his lip and occasionally referring to the keys themselves. “The fool,” Mr. Pardew said finally to himself. “He has brought me duplicates of the same key!” For a moment he tried to convince himself that this was not so, that there was some tiny variation in the metal which would differentiate them, but it was no good: the two keys, he now saw, were identical. For a moment Mr. Pardew’s spirits sank to the point where the enterprise he had determined upon scarcely seemed worth continuing. Then, after a short interval, during which time Mr. Pardew looked out of the window and cast his eye over certain melancholy documents that lay on his desk, they revived. “Well, I suppose I shall have to bring it off at Folkestone,” he said again to himself.

Looking up from his desk, and at the keys, from which even now he had some difficulty in removing his gaze, Mr. Pardew saw that his clerk’s eye was fixed firmly on him, and that the copy of
Bell’s Life
had been scrunched up and hidden out of sight. There was something about Grace’s expression that Mr. Pardew did not at all like, for it spoke of shared confidences and painful secrets; nevertheless, he determined to meet it head-on. Still Grace continued to stare.

“What is it? Why do you gawp at me in that way?”

Grace drummed his finger ends on the desk, took a fresh nib from a little box he had beneath the desktop and inspected it as if it might be something good to eat.

“Keys is a blessed noosance,” he suggested.

“Eh? What is that? What business is it of yours if I have a pair of keys on my desk?”

Grace appeared not to hear. He was still evincing the greatest interest in the nib, which he now held between finger and thumb, preparatory to fixing it onto his pen.

“Mr. File is a man who knows all about keys,” he continued meditatively. “An excellent man to talk to, I believe, if there’s anything wanting in the key line.”

“Eh?” Mr. Pardew said again. “Mr. File? I will not have Mr. File’s name mentioned in this office, do you hear?”

“Certainly,” Grace replied. “Mr. File not to be mentioned. And his address in Amwell Street to be took out of the book, and no letter to be sent there, nor anything else, I suppose.”

All this was horrible to Mr. Pardew for he understood, or he thought he understood, exactly what Grace meant by it. For a moment he thought—and the imagining was very pleasant to him—that he might usefully dismiss the man on the spot. Prudence, however, as Mr. Pardew soon acknowledged to himself, counselled caution. A Grace who sat in Mr. Pardew’s office, under Mr. Pardew’s eye, however great his impertinence or dirty his shirtfront, was preferable to one who roamed the world outside it and, embittered by harsh treatment, breathed all kinds of things to all manner of people. It occurred to Mr. Pardew that the present moment would be a good one in which to take Grace into his confidence, and yet even here he hesitated. If he began to explain to Grace things of which the clerk was already aware, he would appear exceedingly foolish. If, on the other hand, he imparted information to Grace which Grace did not know, he might compromise himself still further. Mr. Pardew cursed under his breath and wished Grace at the bottom of the Thames.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we had better have a little conversation. There are certain affairs in which I am currently engaged of which I don’t doubt you are aware. I take it you have a fair idea of what I am about?”

“A pretty fair idea, sir, I believe,” Grace acknowledged meekly. “Though of course Mr. File’s name is not to be mentioned.”

This, too, was horrible to Mr. Pardew, but still he persevered.

“I find that I am obliged to pay a visit to the coast. To Folkestone, in fact. Perhaps you had better accompany me.”

“It shall be as you say, sir.”

“We may very well set off this afternoon.”

“To Folkestone, sir?”

“Yes, to Folkestone.”

“Where the mail steamers go across to Boulogne?”

“Yes. Where the mail steamers go across to Boulogne.” The look on Mr. Pardew’s face as he said this was positively devilish, and once again he wished Grace at the bottom of the Thames. “Now, is there anything outstanding?”

“Samuelson’s bill is due for renewal. Forty pounds at six weeks, I recollect.”

“Do you think he will pay it?”

“Last time he was a-talking of his cousin as is a clergyman that might put his signature to it.”

“I don’t like clergymen’s paper. No good ever came of it. You had better go round there. No, send Latch to call on him. By the by,” Mr. Pardew enquired, “how do you find Latch?”

“He is an obliging young man, sir, as does his duty.”

Mr. Pardew said that he was very glad to hear it and again wished Grace at the bottom of the Thames.

Before departing for Folkestone on the early afternoon train, Mr. Pardew undertook certain preparations of a highly confidential nature. To accomplish these, it was absolutely necessary that he should be undisturbed. Thus, having despatched Grace with a copy of Mr. Samuelson’s promissory note, and having instructed that gentleman that he would meet him at London Bridge at two o’clock, he shut the office door, turned the key in the lock, pulled down the blinds upon the bleary window and seated himself once more at his desk. Here he took a final look at the keys, holding first one and then the other up to his face, before replacing them in the packet and locking it in the
office safe. This done, he wandered over into a little back room that adjoined the main part of the office where was a coat stand, a chair with a broken leg which nobody had ever troubled to have repaired and a box of miscellaneous items such as dusters, India rubbers and the like. Mr. Pardew turned the contents of the box over in his fingers for some time before finding precisely what he wanted.

When he returned to his desk some moments later, he carried in one hand a short length of candle stuck into a saucer and in the other two slender half cylinders of metal resembling the halves of a very slim pencil split lengthwise. Placing the candle on the desktop and lighting it with a sulphur match from a box that lay nearby, Mr. Pardew took the first of the metal cylinders between finger and thumb and held it to the flame. When it was quite black from the heat, he withdrew it, laid it carefully on a sheet of blotting paper and performed the same manoeuvre with the second. A lick of air coursing in from beneath the locked door caused the candle to flare up and scorch his thumb, but such was Mr. Pardew’s absorption in his task that he paid it no heed. A short while later both of the metal cylinders, each stained black with carbon, lay side by side on the blotting paper before him. Seeing them there, Mr. Pardew frowned. Then, reaching into the drawer of his desk, he drew forth an ancient tobacco pouch, poked his fingers into it to ensure that no strands of tobacco remained within, and very gingerly, taking care to handle the cylinders only by their extremities, pushed them inside. Stowing the pouch in his coat pocket, extinguishing the candle, drawing up the blind and unlocking the office door, Mr. Pardew, having fastened the door once more behind him, set off at a rapid pace in the direction of Blackfriars.

WM BARCLAY, ESQ.

Director

South-Eastern Railway Company

Dear Sir,

I refer to your communication of the 14th inst., in which the
directors, while declaring themselves perfectly satisfied with the arrangements for the conveyance of bullion to the Continent, requested further particulars with regard to the procedures at Folkestone.

The railway office is situated on the pier, under the supervision of Mr. Chapman. This gentleman has been in the company’s service for five years, and we repose the greatest confidence in his abilities and general trustworthiness. There is in addition an assistant, Allman, and a clerk. Our regulations state that the office is to be manned at all times. However, on such occasions when the officials are obliged to meet the steamer the room is left unattended but with the door securely locked. I am informed by Mr. Chapman that this period is rarely longer than a few moments’ duration.

The safe key is, of course, kept locked up in a repository on the premises. The key to this is in the sole possession of Mr. Chapman.

I should add that in addition to the precautions here outlined, the pier is patrolled by the police on a regular basis during the hours of daylight.

I shall be delighted to supply you with any further information that you or other members of the board may require.

Having the honour to remain your obedient servant,

I am, sir, yours most faithfully,

J. HARKER
Secretary to the Board

 

A disinterested observer, travelling down to Dover by way of Folkestone on the train from London Bridge that afternoon, would perhaps have observed the following. Mr. Pardew and his clerk stepped into their carriage together—indeed the latter held the carriage door open for the former—but it could not be deduced from these civilities that they knew each other, nor that they were connected by any object other than their journey. During this transit Mr. Pardew read a newspaper,
made calculations with a bit of old pencil in a notebook and grasped his stick with a remorselessness that suggested the slightest loosening of his grip would see it dance off down the corridor. Grace, alternatively, looked out of the window, admired a young lady in a muslin frock being escorted to the seaside by an old gentleman in a billycock hat and finally went to sleep with his mouth open, much to his employer’s secret disgust.

At Folkestone, where the sea breeze blew in across the platform and the young lady in the muslin frock, looking delightfully fresh-cheeked, clutched her straw hat anxiously to her head, it could have been assumed that there was some slight relationship between them, for they set off together in the direction of the town—or rather Mr. Pardew stalked a yard or two in front while Grace strolled meekly in his wake, Mr. Pardew throwing back certain remarks over his shoulder which his clerk either did or did not catch depending on the severity of the breeze. In truth, as the train had left London Bridge the confidence that Mr. Pardew habitually felt in his abilities had altogether deserted him. He was aware that the mission on which he was now embarked involved a considerable risk, and the thought frightened him. He was also aware that he could not allow himself to impart any of these misgivings to Grace. In this way, Mr. Pardew brooding with his eyes seeming to bore into the very surface of the road, Grace moving jauntily through the crowds of people pressing back and forth from the esplanade, they came eventually to the Pavilion Hotel, where Mr. Pardew, having checked his watch and assured himself that the steamer would not be docking for a further two hours, proposed that they might eat an early dinner. For myself, I like nothing better than to dine early on a day in summer in sight of the sea, but I do not think that Mr. Pardew enjoyed his meal. Certainly, he was surly with the waiter and, having eaten his broiled fowl, lapsed altogether into silence. Grace, on the other hand, gave every impression of relishing the food that was set before him, ordered an extra chop and sent word to the orchestra—the Pavilion is a select establishment—asking, would they play “Garryowen”?

Presently a ship’s horn sounded in the distance. Mr. Pardew broke out of his reverie, looked suspiciously across the table as if he could not
imagine how the plates, serving dishes and glasses had got there, called for the bill and paid it. As he and his companion strolled through the hotel foyer into the busy high street and thence in the direction of the pier, it could be observed that Grace’s demeanour had altogether changed, that he kept close to his employer and that certain words were spoken of which he took precise note. The pier, when they came to it, was thronged with people: passengers for the steamer, with porters bringing their baggage behind them, townsfolk come to patronise the refreshment rooms. At the further end they could see the grey bulk of the steamer moving slowly towards its mooring place. Mr. Pardew’s spirits rose, for he knew that a crowd was as advantageous to his schemes as solitude.

At the same time, the scheme was dependent on a precise set of circumstances whose existence he could not at all guarantee. Thinking to reconnoitre, and indicating to Grace that he should remain a short distance behind him, he moved forward along the pier, walking quickly but affecting to take an interest in the lemonade stalls and the souvenir shops. Five minutes spent in this way brought him to the railway office. Here the press of people was less great, enabling him without difficulty to observe that the outer door was ajar and that a clerk in a railway company uniform was stationed at a counter within. Having noted this fact, and then turned his head to examine the hovering gulls and the grey sweep of the sea, Mr. Pardew proceeded a little further along the pier, almost to the point where the docking apparatus began and men in oilskins and woollen jerseys stood ready to set about their business. Here the line of shops and stalls gave way to bare deck, and he was able to stand with his arms on the pier rail (Grace, meanwhile, occupying a similar position a dozen yards away) apparently entranced by the heaving deeps before and beyond him, but in fact keeping one eye on the pier walk that he had just traversed. He had been there but a moment or so when two railway officials came walking up very rapidly towards the steamer. Mr. Pardew waited another moment until they had passed, still staring out over the grey horizon, and then, lifting his face skywards with the expression of one who delights in the briny air, walked purposefully back in the direction he had come. As he had anticipated, he found the railway office shut up and the outer door
firmly closed and locked. Observing that there were several people in the near vicinity, Mr. Pardew made a great show of trying the door and feigning exasperation when it did not yield.