‘Tell me what you’re going on.’
‘I don’t think I’m wrong,’ said Morcom. ‘It’s all sordid. They’ve been spending money. They’ve invented one or two schemes and persuaded people to invest in them. On a smallish scale, I expect. Nothing very brilliant or impressive. They’ve done the usual tricks — falsified their expectations and got their capital from a few fools in the town.’
I was invaded by a strange ‘professional’ anxiety; for, although exact knowledge of a danger removes some fears, it can also sharpen others. A doctor will laugh, when another young man comes to him fearing heart disease — but the same doctor takes an excessive care over the milk his children drink. So I remembered other frauds: quickly I pressed Morcom for the facts.
What had happened? What were their schemes? What had been falsified? What was his evidence? Some of his answers were vague, vague perhaps through lack of knowledge, but I could not be sure. At times he spoke with certainty.
He told me, what I had already heard from Olive, of the purchase of Martineau’s advertising agency, and the organisation of the farm and another hostel. But he knew much more; for instance, that Miss Geary — who had taken George’s part in the committee meeting years ago — was one of the people who had advanced money.
‘You may still be wrong,’ I said, as I thought over his news. ‘Stupidity’s commoner than dishonesty. The number of ways people choose to lose their money is remarkable — when everyone’s behaving with perfect honesty.’
Morcom hesitated.
‘I can’t tell you why I’m certain. But I am certain that they have not behaved with perfect honesty.’
‘If you’re right — does anyone else know this?’
‘Not for certain. As far as I know.’ He added: ‘You may have gathered that I see very little of any of them — nowadays.’
His manner throughout had been full of insistence and conviction; but it was something else which impressed me. He was angry, scornful, and distressed; that I should have expected: but, more disquieting even than his story, was the extraordinary strain which he could not conceal. At moments — more obvious in him than anyone, because of his usual control — he had been talking with hysterical intensity. At other moments he became placid, serene, even humorous. I felt that state was equally aberrant.
‘You haven’t told me,’ I said, ‘who “they” are? Who is mixed up in this?’
‘Jack,’ he began. I smiled, not in amusement but in recognition, for about the whole story there was a flavour of Jack Cotery — ‘and George,’ Morcom went on.
I said: ‘That’s very difficult to believe. I can imagine George being drawn to a good many things — but fraud’s about the last of them.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Morcom indifferently. ‘He may have wanted the money more than usually himself—’
‘He’s a man of conscience,’ I said.
‘He’s also loose and self-indulgent,’ said Morcom.
I began to protest, that we were both using labels, that we knew George and it was useless to argue as though he could be defined in three words; but then I saw Morcom ready to speak again.
‘And there’s Olive Calvert,’ said Morcom.
I did not reply for a second. The use of her surname (for as long as I remembered, she had been ‘Olive’ to all our friends) made me want to comfort him.
‘I should have thought she was too sensible to be let in.’ I made an attempt to be casual. ‘She’s always had a sturdy business sense.’
Morcom’s answer was so quiet that I did not hear the words for certain, and, despite my anxiety, I could not ask him to repeat it.
As we walked away from the restaurant, Morcom tried to talk of indifferent things. I looked at him, when we had gone past the lamp in a narrow street. In the uneven light, faint but full of contrast as a room lit by one high window, his face was over-tired. Yet tonight, just as years before, he would take no pity on his physical state; he insisted on walking the miles back to my flat. I had to invent a pretext to stop on the way, at a nightclub; where, after we had drunk some whisky, I asked: ‘What’s to be done?’
‘You’ve got to come in — and help,’ said Morcom.
I paused. ‘That’s not too easy. I’m very much out of touch,’ I said. ‘And I don’t suppose they’d like to tell me this for themselves. I can’t say you’ve spoken to us—’
‘Naturally you can’t,’ said Morcom. ‘It mustn’t be known that I’ve said a word. I don’t want that known.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘it’s difficult for me to act.’
‘You understand that anything I’ve said is completely secret. Whatever happens. You understand that.’
I nodded.
‘You’ve got to stop them yourself. You’ve done more difficult things,’ he said. ‘Without as much necessity. You’ve never had as much necessity. It comes before anything else, you must see that.’
‘You’re sure you can’t take control yourself?’
‘I can only sit by,’ he said.
He meant, he could do nothing for her now. But I felt that he was shutting himself away from release. With a strain that was growing as acute as his own, I begged him to act.
‘It’s the natural thing,’ I said. ‘It would settle it — best. You’ve every reason to do it—’
He did not move.
‘See her when you go back. You can still make yourself do that.’
‘No.’
‘See George, then. It wouldn’t be difficult. You could finish it all in a day or two—’
‘I can’t. There’s no use talking any further. I can’t.’
He suddenly controlled his voice, and added in a tone light and half ruefuclass="underline" ‘If I did interfere, it would only make things worse. George and I have been nominally reconciled for years, of course. But he would never believe I wasn’t acting out of enmity.’ He was smiling good-naturedly and mockingly. Then his manner changed again.
‘If anything’s to be done, you’ve got to do it,’ he said. ‘They’re going to be ruined unless you come in.’
‘I can’t help thinking you’re being too pessimistic,’ I said, after a moment. ‘I don’t believe it’s as inevitable as all that.’
‘They’ve gone a long way,’ said Morcom.
‘It’s possible to go a long way in making dishonest money,’ I said, ‘without being any the worse for it. Still, if I can be any use—’
Then I made one last effort to persuade him to act himself. I looked into his face, and began to talk in a matter-of-fact, callous manner: ‘But I shall be surprised if you’re not taking it too tragically. First of all, they probably haven’t managed anything criminal. Even if they have, we can either finish it or get them off. It’s a hundred to one against anything disastrous happening. And if the hundredth chance came off, which I don’t believe for a moment, you’d be taking it too tragically, even then. I mean, it would be disastrous, but it wouldn’t be death.’
‘That’s no comfort.’
‘I don’t mean it wouldn’t be unpleasant. I was thinking of something else. I don’t believe that being convicted of swindling would be the end of the world for either of us. It’s only ruin — when people crumble up inside, when they’re punishing themselves. Don’t you agree? You ought to know through yourself just now — in a different way. If you went back and protected them — if you weren’t forcing yourself to keep away — you would be happier than you are tonight.’
There was a silence.
‘You know perfectly well,’ he said, ‘that everything you’ve said applies to George. It would be ruin for him. In his own eyes, I mean, just as you’ve been saying. And the others — she’s not a simple person—’ He paused. ‘And there’s more to it than the offence. You’ve got to realise that. It means the break-up of George’s little world. It also means that the inside of the little world isn’t going to be private any longer. You know — that isn’t all high thinking nowadays.’