The girl worried Saunders more than anything. He couldn't help admiring her courage and impertinence at the same time as he hated her for making Mather suffer. He was ready to hate anyone who hurt Mather. 'She'll have to be taken to the Yard,' Mather said. 'There may be a charge against her. Put her in a locked carriage on the three-five. I don't want to see her until this thing's cleared up.' The only cheerful thing about the whole business was that the constable whom Raven had shot in the coal-yard was pulling through.
Saunders came out of Midland Steel into the Tanneries with an odd sensation of having nothing to do. He went into a public-house at the corner of the market and had half a pint of bitter and two cold sausages. It was as if life had sunk again to the normal level, was flowing quietly by once more between its banks. A card hanging behind the bar next a few cinema posters caught his eye. 'A New Cure for Stammerers. ' Mr Montague Phelps, M. A., was holding a public meeting in the Masonic Hall to explain his new treatment. Entrance was free, but there would be a silver collection. Two o'clock sharp. At one cinema Eddie Cantor. At another George Arliss. Saunders didn't want to go back to the police station until it was time to take the girl to the train. He had tried a good many cures for stammering; he might as well try one more.
It was a large hall. On the walls hung large photographs of masonic dignitaries. They all wore ribbons and badges of strange significance. There was an air of oppressive well-being, of successful groceries, about the photographs. They hung, the well-fed, the successful, the assured, over the small gathering of misfits, in old mackintoshes, in rather faded mauve felt hats, in school ties. Saunders entered behind a fat furtive woman and a steward stammered at him, 'T-t-t—?'
'One,' Saunders said. He sat down near the front and heard a stammered conversation going on behind him, like the twitters of two Chinamen. Little bursts of impetuous talk and then the fatal impediment. There were about fifty people in the hall. They eyed each other rather as an ugly man eyes himself in shop windows: from this angle, he thinks, I am really not too bad. They gained a sense of companionship; their mutual lack of communication was in itself like a communication. They waited together for a miracle.
Saunders waited with them: waited as he had waited on the windless side of the coal truck, with the same patience. He wasn't unhappy. He knew that he probably exaggerated the value of what he lacked; even if he could speak freely, without care to avoid the dentals which betrayed him, he would probably find it no easier to express his admiration and his affection. The power to speak didn't give you words.
Mr Montague Phelps, M. A., came on to the platform. He wore a frock-coat and his hair was dark and oiled. His blue chin was lightly powdered and he carried himself with a rather aggressive sangfroid, as much as to say to the depressed inhibited gathering, 'See what you too might become with a little more self-confidence, after a few lessons from me.' He was a man of about forty-two who had lived well, who obviously had a private life. One thought in his presence of comfortable beds and heavy meals and Brighton hotels. For a moment he reminded Saunders of Mr Davis who had bustled so importantly into the offices of Midland Steel that morning and had died very painfully and suddenly half an hour later.
It almost seemed as if Raven's act had had no consequences: as if to kill was just as much an illusion as to dream. Here was Mr Davis all over again; they were turned out of a mould, and you couldn't break the mould, and suddenly over Mr Montague Phelps's shoulder Saunders saw the photograph of the Grand Master of the Lodge, above the platform: an old face and a crooked nose and a tuft of beard, Sir Marcus.
Major Calkin was very white when he left Midland Steel. He had seen for the first time the effect of violent death. That was war. He made his way as quickly as he could to the police station and was glad to find the superintendent in. He asked quite humbly for a spot of whisky. He said, 'It shakes you up. Only last night he had dinner at my house. Mrs Piker was there with her dog. What a time we had stopping him knowing the dog was there.'
'That dog,' the superintendent said, 'gives us more trouble than any man in Nottwich. Did I ever tell you the time it got in the women's lavatory in Higham Street? That dog isn't much to look at, but every once in a while it goes crazy. If it wasn't Mrs Piker's we'd have had it destroyed many a time.'
3
Major Calkin said, 'He wanted me to give orders to your men to shoot this fellow on sight. I told him I couldn't. Now I can't help thinking we might have saved two lives.'
'Don't you worry, sir,' the superintendent said, 'we couldn't have taken orders like that. Not from the Home Secretary himself.'
'He was an odd fellow,' Major Calkin said. 'He seemed to think I'd be certain to have a hold over some of you. He promised me all kinds of things. I suppose he was what you'd call a genius. We shan't see his like again. What a waste.' He poured himself out some more whisky. 'Just at a time, too, when we need men like him. War—' Major Calkin paused with his hand on his glass. He stared into the whisky, seeing things, the remount depot, his uniform in the cupboard. He would never be a colonel now, but on the other hand Sir Marcus could not prevent... but curiously he felt no elation at the thought of once more presiding over the tribunal. He said, 'The gas practice seems to have gone off well. But I don't know that it was wise to leave so much to the medical students. They don't know where to stop.'
'There was a pack of them,' the superintendent said, 'went howling past here looking for the Mayor. I don't know how it is Mr Piker seems to be like catmint to those students.'
'Good old Piker,' Major Calkin said mechanically.
'They go too far,' the superintendent said. 'I had a ring from Higginbotham, the cashier at the Westminster. He said his daughter went into the garage and found one of the students there without his trousers.'
Life began to come back to Major Calkin. He said, 'That'll be Rose Higginbotham, I suppose. Trust Rose. What did she do?'
'He said she gave him a dressing down.'
'Dressing down's good,' Major Calkin said. He twisted his glass and drained his whisky. 'I must tell that to old Piker. What did you say?'
'I told him his daughter was lucky not to find a murdered man in the garage. You see that's where Raven must have got his clothes and his mask.'
'What was the boy doing at the Higginbothams' anyway?' Major Calkin said. 'I think I'll go and cash a cheque and ask old Higginbotham that.' He began to laugh; the air was clear again; life was going on quite in the old way: a little scandal, a drink with the super., a story to tell old Piker. On his way to the Westminster he nearly ran into Mrs Piker. He had to dive hastily into a shop to avoid her, and for a horrible moment he thought Chinky, who was some way ahead of her, was going to follow him inside. He made motions of throwing a ball down the street, but Chinky was not a sporting dog and anyway he was trailing a gas-mask in his teeth. Major Calkin had to turn his back abruptly and lean over a counter. He found it was a small haberdasher's. He had never been in the shop before. 'What can I get you, sir?'
'Suspenders,' Major Calkin said desperately. 'A pair of suspenders.'
'What colour, sir?' Out of the corner of his eye Major Calkin saw Chinky trot on past the shop door followed by Mrs Piker. 'Mauve,' he said with relief.