'I'd like to please you.'
'There's the telephone,' Sir Marcus said. 'At any rate, you can use your influence. I never ask a man for more than he can do.'
The Chief Constable said: 'They are a good lot of boys. I've been down often to the station of an evening and had a drink or two. They're keen. You couldn't have keener men. They'll get him. You needn't be afraid, Sir Marcus.'
'You mean dead?'
'Alive or dead. They won't let him escape. They are good boys.'
'But he has got to be dead,' Sir Marcus said. He sneezed. The intake of breath seemed to have exhausted him. He lay back again, panting gently.
'I couldn't ask them, Sir Marcus, not like that. Why, it's like murder.'
'Nonsense.'
'Those evenings with the boys mean a lot to me. I wouldn't even be able to go down there again after doing that. I'd rather stay what I am. They'll give me a tribunal. As long as there's wars there'll be conchies.'
'There'd be no commission of any kind for you,' Sir Marcus said. 'I could see to that.' The smell of moth-balls came up from Calkin's evening shirt to mock him. 'I can arrange too that you shan't be Chief Constable much longer. You and Piker.' He gave a queer little whistle through the nose. He was too old to laugh, to use his lungs wastefully. 'Come. Have another glass.'
'No. I don't think I'd better. Listen, Sir Marcus, I'll put detectives at your office. I'll have Davis guarded.'
' I don't much mind about Davis,' Sir Marcus said.' Will you get my chauffeur?'
'I'd like to do what you want, Sir Marcus. Won't you come back and see the ladies?'
'No, no,' Sir Marcus whispered, 'not with that dog there. ' He had to be helped to his feet and handed his stick; a few dry crumbs lay in his beard. He said, 'If you change your mind tonight, you can ring me up. I shall be awake. ' A man at his age, the Chief Constable thought charitably, would obviously think differently of death; it threatened him every moment on the slippery pavement, in a piece of soap at the bottom of a bath. It must seem quite a natural thing he was asking; great age was an abnormal condition: you had to make allowances. But watching Sir Marcus helped down the drive and into his deep wide car, he couldn't help saying over to himself, 'Colonel Calkin. Colonel Calkin. ' After a moment he added, 'C. B.'.
The dog was yapping in the drawing-room. They must have lured it out. It was highly bred and nervous, and if a stranger spoke to it too suddenly or sharply, it would rush around in circles, foaming at the mouth, crying out in a horribly human way, its low fur sweeping the carpet like a vacuum cleaner. I might slip down, the Chief Constable thought, and have a drink with the boys. But the idea brought no lightening of his gloom and indecision. Was it possible that Sir Marcus could rob him of even that? But he had robbed him of it already. He couldn't face the superintendent or the inspector with this on his mind. He went into his study and sat down by the telephone. In five minutes Sir Marcus would be home. So much stolen from him already, surely there was little more he could lose by acquiescence. But he sat there doing nothing, a small plump bullying henpecked profiteer.
His wife put her head in at the door. 'Whatever are you doing, Joseph?' she said. 'Come at once and talk to Mrs Piker.'
4
Sir Marcus lived with his valet who was also a trained nurse at the top of the big building in the Tanneries. It was his only home. In London he stayed at Claridge's, in Cannes at the Carlton. His valet met him at the door of the building with his Bath chair and pushed him into the lift, then out along the passage to his study. The heat of the room had been turned up to the right degree, the tape-machine was gently ticking beside his desk. The curtains were not drawn and through the wide double-panes the night sky spread out over Nottwich striped by the searchlights from Hanlow aerodrome. 'You can go to bed, Mollison. I shan't be sleeping.' Sir Marcus slept very little these days. In the little time left him to live a few hours of sleep made a distinct impression. And he didn't really need the sleep. No physical exertion demanded it. Now with the telephone within his reach he began to read first the memorandum on his desk, then the strips of tape. He read the arrangements for the gas drill in the morning. All the clerks on the ground floor who might happen to be needed for outside work were already supplied with gas masks. The sirens were expected to go almost immediately the rush hour was over and work in the offices had begun. Members of the transport staff, lorry drivers and special messengers would wear their masks immediately they started work. It was the only way to ensure that they wouldn't leave them behind somewhere and be caught unprotected during the hours of the practice and so waste in hospital the valuable hours of Midland Steel.
More valuable than they had ever been since November, 1918. Sir Marcus read the tape prices. Armament shares continued to rise, and with them steel. It made no difference at all that the British Government had stopped all export licences; the country itself was now absorbing more armaments than it had ever done since the peak year of Haig's assaults on the Hindenburg Line. Sir Marcus had many friends, in many countries; he wintered with them regularly at Cannes or in Soppelsa's yacht off Rhodes; he was the intimate friend of Mrs Cranbeim. It was impossible now to export arms, but it was still possible to export nickel and most of the other metals which were necessary to the arming of nations. Even when war was declared, Mrs Cranbeim had been able to say quite definitely, that evening when the yacht pitched a little and Rosen was so distressingly sick over Mrs Ziffo's black satin, the British Government would not forbid the export of nickel to Switzerland or other neutral countries so long as the British requirements were first met. The future was very rosy indeed, for you could trust Mrs Cranbeim's word. She spoke directly from the horse's mouth, if you could so describe the elder statesman whose confidence she shared.
It seemed quite certain now; Sir Marcus read, in the tape messages, that the two governments chiefly concerned would not either amend or accept the terms of the ultimatum. Probably within five days, at least four countries would be at war and the consumption of munitions have risen to several million pounds a day.
And yet Sir Marcus was not quite happy. Davis had bungled things. When he had told Davis that a murderer ought not to be allowed to benefit from his crime, he had never expected all this silly business of the stolen notes. Now he must wait up all night for the telephone to ring. The old thin body made itself as comfortable as it could on the air-blown cushions: Sir Marcus was as painfully aware of his bones as a skeleton must be, wearing itself away against the leaden lining of its last suit. A clock struck midnight; he had lived one more whole day.
Chapter 5
1
RAVEN groped through the dark of the small shed till he had found the sacks. He piled them up, shaking them as one shakes a pillow. He whispered anxiously: 'You'll be able to rest there a bit?' Anne let his hand guide her to the corner. She said, 'It's freezing.'
'Lie down and I'll find more sacks.' He struck a match and the tiny flame went wandering through the close cold darkness. He brought the sacks and spread them over her, dropping the match.
'Can't we have a little light?' Anne asked. 'It's not safe. Anyway,' he said, 'it's a break for me. You can't see me in the dark. You can't see this.' He touched his lip secretly. He was listening at the door; he heard feet stumble on the tangle of metal and cinders and after a time a low voice spoke. He said, 'I've got to think. They know I'm here. Perhaps you'd better go. They've got nothing on you. If they come there's going to be shooting.'