“The matter being of such a very confidential nature, you will not think it unreasonable if there is some little delay about entrusting it to you. To be quite frank, my principal would like an opportunity of testing your capabilities.”
“In what way?” I asked.
He did not answer me directly.
“My principal proposes that you should be paid a retaining fee until such time as it may appear advisable to call upon you for the service which will earn the offered five hundred pounds.”
I repeated the words “a retaining fee” with a question in my voice.
“A sum of ten pounds down, and a salary of three pounds a week.”
I stood stock still in amazement and heard the crackle of a bank note not six inches from my right elbow. Ten pounds… It sounded like the sort of dream you have when you’ve gone short of water and you think you hear a running stream. That happened to me once in Africa. It was a dream, and I woke up and there wasn’t any water. The crackle of that note sounded awfully real.
Old Z.10 had let go of my arm and was doing something with a pocket-book. All of a sudden there was a click and a little round blob of light no bigger than a shilling popped out of the dark and slid across the tarnished silver edge of a leather note-case and the black and white of a half unfolded note. It came to rest on the big “Five” in one corner. If a note sounded good, it looked even better. I had sixpence in my pocket-sixpence. And if I pawned anything more, I shouldn’t have a change of clothes. Five pounds-ten pounds-ten pounds down… I heard the running stream, and I wondered when I was going to wake up.
“Well, Mr. Fairfax?”
I made myself look away from the patch of light.
“What have I got to do for this?”
“For this? Nothing. It is merely a retaining fee.”
“To what extent does it commit me?”
“It does not commit you at all-it merely enables my principal to make the observations which he considers necessary and advisable. Let me explain. He wishes to see you without being seen. To this end he wishes you to go to certain public places, which will afford him an opportunity of observing you. To do this you will have to replenish your wardrobe. Ten pounds will not, perhaps, go very far, but it should enable you to pass muster. You possess dress clothes?”
I didn’t think it necessary to tell him that they were in pawn, so I said,
“Yes.”
“Well, Mr. Fairfax,” he said again, “do you accept?”
There was something I meant to ask, but I didn’t know how to put it. I hesitated, and then got it out.
“Is your principal a woman?” Because if it was Anna, I thought I was going to prefer the workhouse after all.
He sounded most awfully surprised as he said,
“A woman? Certainly not. May I ask what suggested this idea to you?”
Naturally I wasn’t going to tell him that.
He slid the spotlight back on to the case, picked up two fivers, and held them out.
“You accept then?”
I took the notes and put them in the pocket with the sixpence.
“What am I to do?” I asked.
His hand with the torch in it had fallen to his side. The little circle of light swung to and fro on the worn edge of the road. It had been tarred, and the tar had broken away into holes that looked like the pictures of dead craters in the moon.
“Why,” he said, “nothing very arduous. This is Tuesday. To-morrow you will dine at Leonardo’s.”
“Alone?” I said.
“No-no-” He seemed to be considering the question. “No-I don’t think so. You had better invite a lady to accompany you.”
I laughed. I don’t know why, but the thing tickled me.
“I’m afraid I don’t know any lady whom I could ask.”
The little round shilling’s worth of light went swinging to and fro over the dead craters of the moon and a dry leaf or two and the dust of the road.
“Surely-surely,” he said. “Come, Mr. Fairfax-you do yourself an injustice. There is surely some one.”
“There is Mrs. Bell,” I suggested, and as soon as I’d said it I could tell that he knew Mrs. Bell was my landlady.
He moved sharply and was going to speak, and didn’t speak. I wondered how much he really did know about my circumstances. I began to think that he knew a good deal.
“And who is Mrs. Bell?”
“A British matron and my landlady.”
“Ah,” he said-“yes. But I have no time to waste on landladies. Come, Mr. Fairfax-you will not ask me to believe that your landlady is the only woman you know. I am informed that you have at any rate an acquaintance with one of your fellow lodgers. Would she not perhaps be a more suitable companion?”
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of Fay, but I hadn’t. She would certainly be-suitable.
“I could ask her,” I said. “But it’s short notice-she might be engaged.”
“Well, well,” he said again, “if she is, something must be done about it. If you arrive alone, a partner will be provided-but the other would be better.”
He turned out the light on the pocket-book and took out five one-pound Treasury notes.
“For expenses,” he said, and handed them over.
He then shut the pocket-book and put it away.
“Your engagement begins to-night. Your salary will be paid you to-day week. Your instructions will reach you from time to time either by letter, telegram, telephone, or word of mouth. Written communications will be signed ‘Z.10.’ Messages will be preceded by ‘Z.10’ as a pass-word. That is all. Good-night.”
He switched off the light, turned sharp round, and walked away down Olding Crescent. I could not see him, but I could hear his footsteps getting fainter and fainter. When I couldn’t hear them any longer I went home.
XIV
September 19th-I woke up next morning with the feeling that something had happened, or was going to happen. I wasn’t really awake, and I wasn’t really asleep. The sun was making a bright golden line all round the edge of my blind, and the room was full of that happened feeling.
Then I remembered that what had happened was fifteen pounds-two five-pound notes and five Bradburys. And what was going to happen was new boots, a suit of clothes- and dinner at Leonardo’s. It all felt pretty good, and at the moment I wasn’t bothering about what my principal, or Z, 10’s principal, might be going to ask me to do. I was going to get some new boots even if the skies fell.
I got up and made a list.
A reach-me-down suit-five guineas.
To get my dress clothes out of pawn-thirty bob (I ought to have got more on them, for they were brand new just before the crash, and I’ve hardly had them on since).
Two soft shirts-say, eight and six apiece.
Boots-fifty shillings.
That brought me up to ten pounds two. My hat’s pretty bad, but it will have to carry on for a bit.
I went out and shopped, and came home with my parcels. Then I went and asked Fay if she’d dine with me. I was rather fed up about having to ask her, because she was most awfully rude to Corinna Lee when I introduced them. Corinna is a friend of Peter’s, and I said so, and Fay gave an exhibition performance of bad manners that would be pretty hard to beat.
Well, I asked her to dine at Leonardo’s. She jumped at it, and wanted to know if I’d come in for a fortune. I said Henry Ford had just sent me a check for half a million, so she’d better wear her best dress.
We dined at eight. Leonardo’s wasn’t going three years ago, so I’d never been there. The place was crowded, and the dinner was top-hole. The whole thing felt awfully queer. I kept on finding my thoughts wandering, so that I didn’t hear what Fay was saying. One of the people, at one of the tables, was my employer, making his “observations.” I wondered if I would pass muster, and exactly what would happen if I didn’t. Anyhow I’d spent that ten pounds, and he couldn’t very well take my boots away. It was a very queer evening. I didn’t know a soul in the room. But one of these people knew me, and I naturally wanted to know which of them it was.