The Great Wash Read online

  “What is it? What is what?”

  “Breathing-space; wait and see!”

  Nothing more was said until Halfacre came back. “Definitely peculiar,” he said. “Brighthaven has got a Sergeant Ayrton, and a Detective Bosworth, but neither of them have left the town today. Brighthaven received Hobson’s report by telephone, but have done nothing about it as yet. It seems there’s an outbreak of crime in Brighthaven—bunch of roughs smashed up a tea dance at the Casino de Paris there. . . . Where the hell is that idiot Hobson, for God’s sake?”

  The constable came, at last, looking very severe; and then, when Halfacre went to work upon that perspiring, important old policeman, it was impossible not to be reminded of a callous little boy dismembering a fat blue fly. Halfacre now had all the quiet seriousness of a child at play . . . Was Hobson acquainted with the Brighthaven Police Force? Yes. Did he know Detective Bosworth and Sergeant Ayrton? . . . By name, yes; by sight, no . . . One wing was torn off and laid aside, and Hobson began to buzz, grounded, in wide circles. . . . He had received telephonic notification that these two men were to call, had he? Oh, he had. It had not occurred to him, at that point, to telephone the Inspector at Brighthaven for confirmation, had it? So that, therefore, all any Tom, Dick or Harry needed to do, to have the Law at his mercy, was, drop two pennies in a telephone box, eh? . . . Off came the other wing, and now Halfacre had him by a leg. Mr. Syd, his face creased with pity, brought tankards of bitter, and the tortured fly, looking in two hundred directions at once, moistened his agonised proboscis . . . Was Hobson aware that the two men he had brought to the Hither Valley were impostors? That they might be international crooks who, through his stupidity—his culpable incompetence, his inane ineptitude, practically with his connivance—had got away with a vast sum of money, in American dollars at that? . . . Did Hobson realise that he had acted like a blithering idiot and a pompous slob? Did it occur to Hobson that Halfacre could have his pension taken away for less than this? Could he, at least, give a detailed description of these two men? . . .

  The sixth leg was out of its socket; Hobson could only writhe. Of course he couldn’t describe the men who had said that they were police officers from Brighthaven; what policeman looks at another policeman with a view to identifying him—let alone a policeman wearing the stripes or carrying the card of authority?

  It was Syd who came to the rescue, saying: “Mr. Hobson did mention that the Sergeant’s tunic was much too tight across the shoulders, and a little bit short in the sleeves . . . Didn’t you, Hobson?”

  “That’s right,” said Hobson, brightening. “But it was a brand-new tunic, you see——”

  “—So that he wouldn’t have had time to get it fitted, and him a sergeant—is that what you’re trying to tell me?” said Halfacre. “Don’t make matters worse, Hobson. You’ve made a pretty nice mess already, for one day. . . . What else did you notice, Mr. Syd?”

  “The plain-clothes man was wearing a single-breasted dark brown suit, obviously ready-made. His coat being unbuttoned, when he leaned forward, I couldn’t help noticing his tie. That was when we were in my office bending over the safe; I had my glasses on. I noticed that the maker’s label on the thin end of the tie said Sulka, and that struck me as being a bit out of the way, for a common or garden plain-clothes man. I hope you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “I should hope not; lucky if we can afford to buy a tie at all. Go on, please. You’d recognise the man if you saw him again, I daresay?”

  “Fresh-faced, presentable young man, not big-built, about three inches shorter than me, which would make him about five feet ten. Lightish-mousey hair; the sort of man that has bluey-grey eyes. The sergeant was shorter and broader, quite dark, and his hair grew low down on his forehead; he had big ears.”

  “Thanks. They come in a car?”

  “They did, sir,” said Hobson. “An Austin 12, colour dark blue.” And he blinked hopefully.

  “—Of which, of course, you didn’t dream of taking the number?”

  “On the assumption it was a bona fide police-car, with bona fide officers from Brighthaven . . .”

  “—You’re a bright spark, aren’t you?”

  “I assure you, sir, as a general rule, I make it a habit to notice number-plates, but under the circumstances——”

  “—I’ll give you circumstances,” Halfacre muttered, through his teeth, and he proceeded to complete his destruction of Hobson, head, thorax, and abdomen.

  But Syd said: “Everything was done so fast and smooth, you see, Inspector. They let Constable Hobson into the car first—”

  “—And that, in itself, would have aroused the suspicion of a child of six!” growled Halfacre.

  “—But I saw them off. By the way, when the plain-clothes man bent down to get in, I saw he had a pistol in his hip pocket. I’m accustomed to noticing these things, you see, because for several years I owned the Café de la Paix de Novembre Onze on the waterfront at Bordeaux, where it paid to keep your eyes open for that kind of nonsense. . . .” Halfacre looked at him with interest and approval. He went on: “I thought it was rather strange, especially in these parts, for a detective to be carrying a pistol. But then again, I’d seen his credentials, and he was backed up by the uniformed police, and he was carrying the pistol on his hip. If it had been under his arm, perhaps I might have given it a second thought. The bulge was flattish for a revolver, so I should say it was an automatic. However, I believe our police do carry automatics sometimes, don’t they, Inspector? So that was that . . . Anyway, I did happen to notice the number of the car. It was T P Y 3141.”

  “I’ll trouble you for the use of your phone again, if I may, Mr. Syd,” said Halfacre. To Hobson he said: “That’s all for now, you. Go about your business, and mind nobody steals your bicycle”—and went back to the telephone.

  It was like a film run backwards: Hobson reassembled and rearticulated himself in a couple of seconds, and left with a ponderous “Good-evening, gentlemen” as if it were he who had sent the Chief Inspector about his business.

  But we learned, later, that someone had stolen his bicycle—or rather, hidden it in the hen-house just for a lark. A pink-haired hoyden of bad reputation was accused of having done this thing, but she had an alibi—it was proven that she was in solitary confinement in her bedroom at that time, on suspicion of petty larceny in the matter of plum jam in her own mother’s house, evidence of which was discovered in her ears. So that case fell through. I believe Hobson hushed it up. Rest assured, however, it made folklore. Hobson’s blue shoulder was starred by a startled pullet. . . . Thus, he was made an Inspector, or something, because a hen ran off on his bicycle . . . A few years from now she will have laid a golden egg in his pocket. Anything for a good laugh at Law and Order. . . .

  I wish this were a light-hearted tale; or, at least, that I could see it in long perspective. But I can’t. I am too close to it, so that it still troubles my dreams; and if I laugh sometimes in telling it, it is that I may not weep.

  Mr. Syd had returned to the bar long before Chief Inspector Halfacre came back. Evening was closing in. Looking at the western corner of the sky, into the half-closed inflamed eye of the afternoon, I could see that the Black Hope had the better of it again and waited for the raising of a bloody half-moon. George Oaks said nothing, and I had nothing to say. We sat in the darkening dining-room until Halfacre came in.

  “Well? Begin to see what I mean?” said Oaks.

  Halfacre licked his lips, and said: “All right, George. Now look here, friendship aside. If you’re leading me any kind of a dance here, take my word for it, there’ll be hell to pay. Is that clear?”

  “Clear. There’s going to be hell to pay anyway, Halfacre. But first things first, as poor old Monty said: do you begin to get my point? Do you begin to see that we’re up against a certain something? Eh?”

  Putti
ng aside George Oaks’s probing finger, Halfacre said: “So what? Now listen to me. I’m not going all over what I said before. I believe you knew these papers you were talking of were definitely not here among this man’s effects. If there were any papers—and I believe you and Mr. Kemp when you say, on your honour, that you saw them—they must be either on your person or in Mr. Kemp’s house. George, I’ll deal honestly with you—and with you too, Mr. Kemp—I told Bollard to take a look around Mr. Kemp’s house in our absence. I told him to go through everything, but that’s a tall order. I know that, strictly speaking, I have no right to give any such instructions, but I know you and your tricks, George, and I was sure Mr. Kemp wouldn’t mind——”

  “In the circumstances,” I said, “it’s all the same if I do, isn’t it?”

  “—Don’t be bitter, Mr. Kemp. George started all this. If I was supposed to take him seriously, which I’m sure you both intended, what else was I to do? Don’t worry, Mr. Kemp, Bollard will have put everything back exactly where he found it, and nobody’ll be a penny the worse—unless you happen to be concealing something; in which case I’ll have to do my duty. . . . Now, George, and you, Mr. Kemp, give me an honest answer. On your honour, mind! Apart from baggage, etcetera; do you know of anything that was in the possession of this so-called Monty Cello, which is concealed on your persons or in Mr. Kemp’s house?”

  George Oaks said, without hesitation: “Halfacre, on my honour, I have concealed nothing.”

  “How about you, Mr. Kemp?”

  I said: “For my part, I can swear to you that I have concealed nothing. I saw the papers to which George referred last night, before I went to bed. I haven’t any idea what might have happened to them between that time and this. The last time I saw them, they were in George Oaks’s hands, and if George gives his word of honour, for my part I accept it. I’m willing to be searched, if you like, and I daresay so is George.” I looked at Oaks bitterly as I said this.

  “Well, let’s stroll back,” said Halfacre. “I’ll take your word, Mr. Kemp.”

  We walked back to the house. Sergeant Bollard was reading the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, open to Page 3o5, FUB/FUG.

  “Well, Bollard?” said Halfacre. “It’s all right, speak up. The gentlemen know all about it.”

  Sergeant Bollard said: “I went over the house from top to bottom, sir, as thoroughly as I could in the time. I expected you to ring before you started back, as you said you would——”

  “—wasn’t necessary. The gentlemen know all about it.”

  “I turned over the pages of all the books, sir. There are 2,950 of them.”

  Then Chief Inspector Halfacre said: “Chimney in the man’s room?”

  “Nothing there, sir, as far as a broom would reach. . . . I’m sorry to say I accidentally got some soot on the rug.”

  “How about the fireplace down here?”

  “Fireplace?” I said, and my voice must have sounded strange, because Halfacre looked twice at me before saying: “Fireplace. Last place anyone’d be likely to look . . . Well?”

  “First place I looked,” said Sergeant Bollard.

  “Quite right, Bollard. . . . Old trick, Mr. Kemp. Some genius like yourself writes a detective story; a certain party has to hide a document. Where? Unlikeliest place for important document—unlaid fire. In the story, it fools everybody, especially the copper in the bowler hat. Fact of the matter is, even coppers have read Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. People take that for granted nowadays—assume the policeman, therefore, will go straight for the obvious. Therefore adds artistic touch—lights fire in August to draw attention to it, thereby making the obvious doubly obvious . . . you know? . . . You looked in that rubbish incinerator, of course? . . . Poked down the barrels of those old muskets, or whoever you call them? . . . Did it occur to you to shake out the telephone directory? . . . It did? Good. . . Very well, then, Bollard. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Oaks are stopping at the Hither Valley overnight. Mr. Kemp will give you his keys. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Oaks will see you and me off on the next train. I’ll go on to London, but you’ll get off where I change trains a couple of miles up the line, double back, let yourself in, show no light, and lie doggo until further orders, sleeping light if at all, standing by for monkey business. The rest is taken care of. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir,” said Sergeant Bollard.

  “Better put out something cold to eat and drink, with Mr. Kemp’s permission, and do it now, because you won’t be back till pitch dark. . . . Now, let’s lock up behind us, gentlemen, and be off.”

  Halfacre and Bollard caught the last train. It seemed to me that the hedgerows were as full of eyes as the sky of stars. “Calm, calm,” said George Oaks, punching me in the back, “let us stop at your place to pick up the papers, and then back to the Hither Valley.”

  I said: “George, you gave your word of honour, and I stood by you as near as I could this side of a dirty lie!”

  “Albert, remember what I said, will you? I gave my word that the papers were not in your house, not on your person or mine, and not concealed, did I not?”

  “Where are they, then?”

  “It was always possible that Monty Cello might have changed his mind overnight, so after you were asleep I got up and put the papers somewhere else.”

  “But where?”

  George Oaks began to laugh. “Dear old Halfacre and his ‘obvious and doubly obvious’! Him and his Edgar Allan Poe, eh? I doubled back to the ludicrous. You remember Monty Cello noticed that old out-house just beyond your garden? Well, quite simply, I slipped out and spiked Kurt Brevis’s papers on the nail there. So I told the truth; they aren’t on your premises, they’re on Oversmith’s land; and since the door has fallen down they are not even concealed. So this is quite literally a case of the handwriting on the wall, eh? He reads Edgar Allan Poe, does he? Well, here’s The Purloined Letter in all its sublime simplicity. To the out-house!”

  “And what then?” I asked.

  “To the hotel. Everything is going beautifully, Albert. By tomorrow we’ll have the most unscrupulous and powerful gang of criminals in the world on our track, closely followed by the most terrible police force in the world. Good, eh?”

  “So that, really and truly, you and I are nothing but decoy ducks, is that it?”

  “Nothing of the sort. We are hunted buffaloes in the long grass, retreating in a perfect circle, sweetheart, our goal being our hunters’ backside. Get it?”

  “You really think, then, that there will be an attempt on the house tonight?”

  “I think there must be, once Chatterton has found out there’s nothing but money in that belt. . . . Don’t worry about Bollard; as I guess, Halfacre will have somebody watching from the outside, tonight. Worry about yourself, Albert, because we’re due for the works at any moment now. Well, I always said that you were one man I’d like to have with me on a wiring-party. Tomorrow, you and I are going to take Kurt Brevis’s papers to my old friend, Ohm Robertson, and I lay you a horse to a hen, Albert, we’ll be shadowed every inch of the way by coppers and robbers, cowboys and Indians, alike . . .

  “This kind of game is good for the nerves, if you manage to survive it. One way or another, it takes you out of yourself.”

  So he took the papers off the nail in the disused out-house, and we walked back to the hotel down the twilit road.

  Syd had allotted to us the Bridal Chamber, a large room furnished with two bright brass beds which, at the slightest touch, went off like the thousand twangling instruments in Caliban’s dream, and were covered with plump dimpled pink eiderdowns. We locked ourselves in, after supper, with two tankards of Dog’s Nose, and sat on our beds to talk. I was unaccountably happy, vividly alert. The Dog’s Nose—like a happy life—was not too bitter and not too sweet. There was a whimsical kind of music in the plangent bedsp
rings, to which I listened with smiling satisfaction, while with the other ear I heard and enjoyed the noises in the Darts room below: old Mrs. Hawthorne, the matriarch of Cockney hop-pickers (I would know her voice in a million), was singing and dancing “Knees Up, Mother Brown” to the accompaniment of an abused piano that must have been strung with baling wire and lacked the middle C . . .

  Knees Up, Mother Brown,

  Knees Up, Mother Brown,

  Under the table you must go,

  Eee – i – ee – i – ee – i – oh!

  If I catch you bending,

  I’ll turn you upside down,

  So knees up, knees up,

  Don’t get the breeze up,

  Knees Up, Mother Brown! . . .

  (Piercing Scream)

  . . . with a great thunder of boots on the sturdy, long-suffering floor. Somewhere in the background a man was trying to sing “Down Mexico Way”, which had been popular when he was young and in his prime ten years before—I knew him, too; his name was Holiday; he lost a leg at Anzio.

  This was one of those moments—how shall I put it?—one of those moments in which, looking away from the crushed husks of lives, you see the expressed wine, and, in a flash of sublime understanding, perceive the ultimate goodness of many little things. . . . I found a mothball under the eiderdown, and balanced it on my palm, and it caught the light and threw its own shadows in such a way that I might have been holding in my hand the full moon in all its mystery; so I kept very still, knowing that one false move would roll it away for ever beyond recapture. This mothball, poised in that moment, was something no one had seen before or would ever see again.