A Gun for Sale

       'Is he dead?'

       'Not yet. He's shot in the stomach. He must have gone on whistling—'

       Saunders had a moment of vicious rage. 'Stand aside, boys,' he said, 'and let the lady see.' They drew back in an embarrassed unwilling way as if they'd been hiding a dirty chalk picture on the wall and showed the white drained face which looked as if it had never been alive, never known the warm circulation of blood. You couldn't call the expression peaceful; it was just nothing at all. The blood was all over the trousers the men had loosened, was caked on the charcoal of the path. Saunders said, 'Two of you take this lady to the station. I'll stay here till the ambulance comes.'

2

Mather said, 'If you want to make a statement I must warn you. Anything you say may be used in evidence.'

       'I haven't got a statement to make,' Anne said. 'I want to talk to you, Jimmy.'

       Mather said, 'If the superintendent had been here, I should have asked him to take the case. I want you to understand that I'm not letting personal—that my not having charged you doesn't mean—'

       'You might give a girl a cup of coffee,' Anne said. 'It's nearly breakfast time.'

       Mather struck the table furiously. 'Where was he going?'

       'Give me time,' Anne said, 'I've got plenty to tell. But you won't believe it.'

       'You saw the man he shot,' Mather said. 'He's got a wife and two children. They've rung up from the hospital. He's bleeding internally.'

       'What's the time?' Anne said.

       'Eight o'clock. It won't make any difference your keeping quiet. He can't escape us now. In an hour the air raid signals go. There won't be a soul on the streets without a mask. He'll be spotted at once. What's he wearing?'

       'If you'd give me something to eat. I haven't had a thing for twenty-four hours. I could think then.'

       Mather said, 'There's only one chance you won't be charged with complicity. If you make a statement.'

       'Is this the third degree?' Anne said.

       'Why do you want to shelter him? Why keep your word to him when you don't—?'

       'Go on,' Anne said. 'Be personal. No one can blame you. I don't. But I don't want you to think I'd keep my word to him. He killed the old man. He told me so.'

       'What old man?'

       'The War Minister.'

       'You've got to think up something better than that,' Mather said.

       'But it's true. He never stole those notes. They double-crossed him. It was what they'd paid him to do the job.'

       'He spun you a fancy yarn,' Mather said. 'But I know where those notes came from.'

       'So do I. I can guess. From somewhere in this town.'

       'He told you wrong. They came from United Rail Makers in Victoria Street.'

       Anne shook her head. 'They didn't start from there. They came from Midland Steel.'

       'So that's where he's going, to Midland Steel—in the Tanneries?'

       'Yes,' Anne said. There was a sound of finality about the word which daunted her. She hated Raven now, the policeman she had seen bleeding on the ground called at her heart for Raven's death, but she couldn't help remembering the hut, the cold, the pile of sacks, his complete and hopeless trust. She sat with bowed head while Mather lifted the receiver and gave his orders. 'We'll wait for him there,' he said. 'Who is it he wants to see?'

       'He doesn't know.'

       'There might be something in it,' Mather said. 'Some connection between the two. He's probably been double-crossed by some clerk.'

       'It wasn't a clerk who paid him all that money, who tried to kill me just because I knew—'

       Mather said, 'Your fairy tale can wait.' He rang a bell and told the constable who came, 'Hold this girl for further inquiries. You can give her a sandwich and a cup of coffee now.'

       'Where are you going?'

       'To bring in your boy friend,' Mather said.

       'He'll shoot. He's quicker than you are. Why can't you let the others—?' She implored him, 'I'll make a full statement. How he killed a man called Kite too.'

       'Take it,' Mather said to the constable. He put on his coat. 'The fog's clearing.'

       She said, 'Don't you see that if it's true—only give him time to find his man and there won't be—war.'

       'He was telling you a fairy story.'

       'He was telling me the truth—but, of course, you weren't there—you didn't hear him. It sounds differently to you. I thought I was saving—everyone.'

       'All you did,' Mather said brutally, 'was get a man killed.'

       'The whole thing sounds so differently in here. Kind of fantastic. But he believed. Maybe,' she said hopelessly, 'he was mad.'

       Mather opened the door. She suddenly cried to him, 'Jimmy, he wasn't mad. They tried to kill me.'

       He said, I'll read your statement when I get back,' and closed the door.

Chapter 7

1

THEY were all having the hell of a time at the hospital. It was the biggest rag they'd had since the day of the street collection when they kidnapped old Piker and ran him to the edge of the Weevil and threatened to duck him if he didn't pay a ransom. Good old Fergusson, good old Buddy, was organizing it all. They had three ambulances out in the courtyard and one had a death's-head banner on it for the dead ones. Somebody shrieked that Mike was taking out the petrol with a nasal syringe, so they began to pelt him with flour and soot; they had it ready in great buckets. It was the unofficial part of the programme: all the casualties were going to be rubbed with it, except the dead ones the death's-head ambulance picked up. They were going to be put in the cellar where the refrigerating plant kept the corpses for dissection fresh.

       One of the senior surgeons passed rapidly and nervously across a corner of the courtyard. He was on the way to a Caesarian operation, but he had no confidence whatever that the students wouldn't pelt him or duck him; only five years ago there had been a scandal and an inquiry because a woman had died on the day of a rag. The surgeon attending her had been kidnapped and carried all over town dressed as Guy Fawkes. Luckily she wasn't a paying patient, and, though her husband had been hysterical at the inquest, the coroner had decided that one must make allowance for youth. The coroner had been a student himself once and remembered with pleasure the day when they had pelted the Vice-Chancellor of the University with soot.

       The senior surgeon had been present that day too. Once safely inside the glass corridor he could smile at the memory. The Vice-Chancellor had been unpopular; he had been a classic which wasn't very suitable for a provincial university. He had translated Lucan's Pharsalia into some complicated metre of his own invention. The senior surgeon remembered something vaguely about stresses. He could still see the little wizened frightened Liberal face trying to smile when his pince-nez broke, trying to be a good sportsman. But anyone could tell that he wasn't really a good sportsman. That was why they pelted him so hard.

       The senior surgeon, quite safe now, smiled tenderly down at the rabble in the courtyard. Their white coats were already black with soot. Somebody had got hold of a stomach pump. Very soon they'd be raiding the shop in the High Street and seizing their mascot, the stuffed and rather moth-eaten tiger. Youth, youth, he thought, laughing gently when he saw Colson, the treasurer, scuttle from door to door with a scared expression: perhaps they'll catch him: no, they've let him by: what a joke it all was, 'trailing clouds of glory', 'turn as swimmers into cleanness leaping'.