Ambrose was allowed one suitcase.
“I’ll look after all this for you,” said Basil, surveying the oriental profusion of expensive underclothes which filled the many drawers and presses of the bedroom. “You’ll have to walk to the station, you know.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“Taxi might be traced. Can’t take any chances.”
The suitcase had seemed small enough when Basil first selected it as the most priestly of the rather too smart receptacles in Ambrose’s box-room; it seemed enormous as they trudged northward through the dark streets of Bloomsbury. At last they reached the classic columns of the railway terminus. It is not a cheerful place at the best of times, striking a chill in the heart of the gayest holiday-maker. Now in wartime, before dawn on a cold spring morning, it seemed the entrance to a sepulchre.
“I’ll leave you here,” said Basil. “Keep out of sight until the train is in. If anyone speaks to you, tell your beads.”
“I haven’t any beads.”
“Then contemplate. Go into an ecstasy. But don’t open your mouth or you’re done.”
“I’ll write to you when I get to Ireland.”
“Better not,” said Basil, cheerfully.
He turned away and was immediately lost in the darkness. Ambrose entered the station. A few soldiers slept on benches, surrounded by their kit and equipment. Ambrose found a corner darker, even, than the general gloom. Here, on a packing-case that seemed by its smell to contain fish of a sort, he sat waiting for dawn; black hat perched over his eyes, black overcoat wrapped close about his knees, mournful, black eyes open, staring into the blackness. From the fishy freight below him water oozed slowly onto the pavement making a little pool, as though of tears.
Mr. Rampole was not, as many of his club acquaintances supposed, a bachelor, but a widower of long standing. He lived in a small but substantial house at Hampstead and there maintained in servitude a spinster daughter. On this fateful morning his daughter saw him off from the front gate as had been her habit years without number, at precisely 8:45. Mr. Rampole paused in the flagged path to comment on the buds which were breaking everywhere in the little garden.
Look well at those buds, old Rampole; you will not see the full leaf.
“I’ll be back at six,” he said.
Presumptuous Rampole, who shall tell what the day will bring forth? Not his daughter, who returned, unmoved by the separation, to eat a second slice of toast in the dining-room; not old Rampole, who strode at a good pace towards the Hampstead Underground.
He showed his season ticket to the man at the lift.
“I shall have to get it renewed the day after-to-morrrow,” he said affably, and tied a knot in the corner of his large white handkerchief to remind him of the fact.
There is no need for that knot, old Rampole; you will never again travel in the Hampstead Underground.
He opened his morning paper as he had done, five days a week, years without number. He turned first to the Deaths, then to the correspondence, then, reluctantly, to the news of the day.
Never again, old Rampole, never again.
The police raid on the Ministry of Information, like so many similar enterprises, fell flat. First, the plain-clothes men had the utmost difficulty in getting past the gate-keeper.
“Is Mr. Silk expecting you?”
“We hope not.”
“Then you can’t see him.”
When finally they were identified and allowed to pass, there was a confused episode in the Religious Department, where they found only the nonconformist minister, whom, too zealously, they proceeded to handcuff. It was explained that Ambrose was unaccountably absent from duty that morning. Two constables were left to await his arrival. All through the day they sat there, casting a gloom over the Religious Department. The plain-clothes men proceeded to Mr. Bentley’s room, where they were received with great frankness and charm.
Mr. Bentley answered all their questions in a manner befitting an honest citizen. Yes, he knew Ambrose Silk both as a colleague at the Ministry and, formerly, as one of their authors at Rampole’s. No, he had almost nothing to do with publishing these days; he was too busy with all this (an explanatory gesture which embraced the dripping sink, the Nollekens busts and the page of arabesques beside the telephone). Mr. Rampole was in entire charge of the publishing firm. Yes, he thought he had heard of some magazine which Silk was starting. The Ivory Tower? Was that the name? Very likely. No, he had no copy. Was it already out? Mr. Bentley had formed the impression that it was not yet ready for publication. The contributors? Hucklebury Squib, Bartholomew Grass, Tom Barebones-Abraham? Mr. Bentley thought he had heard the names; he might have met them in literary circles in the old days. He had the idea that Barebones-Abraham was rather below normal height, corpulent, bald yes, Mr. Bentley was quite sure he was bald as an egg; he spoke with a stammer and dragged his left leg as he walked. Hucklebury Squib was a very tall young man easily recognizable, for he had lost the lobe of his left ear in extraordinary circumstances when sailing before the mast; he had a front tooth missing and wore gold ear-rings.
The plain-clothes men recorded these details in shorthand. This was the sort of witness they liked, circumstantial, precise, unhesitating.
When it came to Bartholomew Grass, Mr. Bentley’s invention flagged. He had never seen the man. He rather thought it might be the pseudonym for a woman.
“Thank you, Mr. Bentley,” said the chief of the plain-clothes men. “I don’t think we need trouble you any more. If we want you I suppose we can always find you here.”
“Always,” said Mr. Bentley sweetly. “I often, whimsically, refer to this little table as my grindstone. I keep my nose to it. We live in arduous times, Inspector.”
A posse of police went to Ambrose’s flat, where all they got was a piece of his housekeeper’s mind.
“Our man’s got away,” they reported when they returned to their superiors.
Colonel Plum, the Inspector of Police and Basil were summoned late that afternoon to the office of the Director of Internal Security.
“I can’t congratulate you,” he said, “on the way this case has been handled. I’m not blaming you, Inspector, or you, Seal,” and he fixed Colonel Plum with a look of detestation. “We were clearly onto a very dangerous set of men and you let four out of five slip through your fingers. I’ve no doubt that at this moment they are sitting in a German submarine, laughing at us.”
“We’ve got Rampole, sir,” said Colonel Plum. “I’m inclined to think he’s the ringleader.”
“I’m inclined to think he’s an old booby.”
“He has behaved in the most hostile and defiant manner throughout. He refuses to give any particulars about any of his accomplices.”
“He threw a telephone directory at one of our men,” said the Inspector, “and used the following expressions about them: ‘nincompoops,’ ‘jacks-in-office…’ “
“Yes, yes, I have the report. Rampole is obviously a violent and thoroughly unreasonable type. It won’t do him any harm to cool his heels for the rest of the war. But he’s not the ringleader. This fellow Barebones-Abraham is the man I want and you haven’t been able to find a trace of him.”
“We’ve got his description.”
“A fat lot of good that is when he’s halfway back to Germany. No, the whole thing has been grossly mismanaged. The Home Secretary takes a very poor view of it. Somebody talked and I mean to find out who.”
When the interview, painfully protracted, came to an end, the Director told Basil to remain behind.
“Seal,” he said, “I understand you were the first man to get onto this gang. Have you any idea how they were warned?”
“You put me in a very difficult position, sir.”