“Helped to get some of them out,” he said.
“There were a lot?”
“Of course it’s a ghastly muddle on these occasions,” he said. “Frenzied. Like Dante’s Inferno. All in the black-out too. The wardens and I carried out six or seven at least. Must have. They’d all had it. I knew some of them personally. Nasty business, I can assure you. I suppose a few got away with it — like myself. They tried to persuade me to go with them and have some treatment, but after I’d had my hand bound up, all I wanted was home, sweet home. It’s only a scratch, so I came back and tucked up. But I’m glad you’re all here. Very glad.”
There was no escape now. So far as possible, certainty had to be established. An effort must be made.
“Bijou Ardglass was there with a party.”
Pilgrim looked at me with surprise.
“You knew that?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Were you asked? If so, you were lucky to have another engagement.”
“They were —”
“Bijou’s table was just where it came through the ceiling.”
“So —”
“I’m afraid it was Bijou’s last party.”
Pilgrim glanced away, quickly passing the bandaged hand across his eyes. It was an instinctive, not in the least dramatised, gesture.
“But the rest of them?”
“No one survived from that corner. That was where the worst of the damage was done. My end of the room wasn’t so bad. That’s why I’m here now.”
“You’re sure all the Ardglass party —”
“They were the ones I helped carry out,” said Pilgrim.
He spoke quite simply.
“Chips Lovell —”
“He’d been at the table.”
Moreland looked across at me. Mrs. Maclintick took Pilgrim’s arm.
“How did you get back yourself, Max?” she asked.
“I got a lift on one of the fire-engines. Can you imagine?”
“Here,” said Moreland. “Have some beer.”
Pilgrim took the glass.
“I’d known Bijou for years,” he said. “Known her when she was a little girl with a plait trying to get a job in the chorus. Wasn’t any good for some reason. Can’t think why, because she had the Theatre in her blood both sides. Do you know, Bijou’s father played Abanazar in Aladdin when my mother was Principal Boy in the same show? Anyway, it all turned out best for Bijou in the end. Did much better as a mannequin than she’d ever have done on the boards. Met richer men, for one thing.”
There was a pause. Moreland cleared his throat uncomfortably. Mrs. Maclintick sniffed. In the far distance, unexpectedly soon, the All Clear droned. It was followed, an instant later, by a more local siren.
“That one didn’t take long,” Moreland said.
“Another tip-and-run raider,” said Pilgrim. “The fashion of the moment.”
“It was a single plane caught the Madrid?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll make some tea,” said Mrs. Maclintick. “Do us good.”
“Just what I need, Audrey, my dear,” said Pilgrim, sighing. “I couldn’t think what it was. Now I know it’s tea — not beer at all.”
He drank the beer all the same. Mrs. Maclintick went off to the kitchen. It became clear that an unpleasant duty must be performed. There was no avoiding it. Priscilla would have to be told about the Madrid as soon as possible. If I called up the Jeavonses’ house right away, the telephone, with any luck, would be answered by Molly Jeavons herself. I could tell her what had happened. She could break the news. So far as that went, even to make the announcement to Molly would be bad enough. It might be hard on her to have to tell Priscilla, but at least Molly was, by universal consent, a person adapted by nature to such harrowing tasks; warm-hearted, not over sensitive, grasping immediately the needs of the bereaved, saying just what was required, emotional yet never incapacitated by emotion. Molly, if I were lucky, would do the job. There was always the chance Priscilla herself flight be at the other end of the line. That was a risk that had to be taken into consideration. In a cowardly way, I delayed action until Mrs. Maclintick had returned with the tea. After finishing a cup, I asked if I might use the telephone.
“By the bed,” said Moreland.
Pilgrim began to muse aloud.
“Strange those young Germans up there trying to kill me,” he murmured to himself. “Ungrateful too. I’ve always had such good times in Berlin.”
The bedroom was more untidy than would ever have been allowed in Matilda’s day. I sat on the edge of the bed and dialled the Jeavons number. There was no buzz. I tried again. After several unsuccessful attempts, none of which even achieved the “number obtainable” sound, I rang the Exchange. There were further delays. Then the operator tried the Jeavons number. That, too, was unproductive. No sound of ringing came. The line was out of order. I gave it up and returned to the sitting-room.
“I can’t get through. I’ll have to go.”
“Stay the night, if you like,” said Mrs. Maclintick. “You can sleep on the sofa. Maclintick often did in our Pimlico place. Spent almost more time there than he did in bed.”
The offer was unexpected, rather touching in the circumstances. I saw she was probably able to look after Moreland better than I thought.
“No — thanks all the same. As I failed on the telephone, I’ll have to go in person.”
“Priscilla?” said Moreland.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“What a job,” he said.
Max Pilgrim gathered his dressing gown round him. He yawned and stretched.
“I wonder when the next one will arrive,” he said. “Worse than waiting for the curtain to go up.”
I said good night to them. Moreland came to the door.
“I suppose you’ve really got to do this?” he said.
“Not much avoiding it.”
“Glad it’s not me,” he said.
“You’re right to be.”
There seemed no more taxis left in London. I walked for a time, then, totally unlooked for at that hour, a bus stopped by the place I was passing. Without any very clear idea of doing more than move in a south-westerly direction, I boarded it, in this way travelled as far as a stop in the neighbourhood of Gloucester Road. Here the journey had to be resumed on foot. The pavements were endless, threading a way down them like those interminable rovings pursued in dreams. Cutting through several side turnings, I at last found myself among a conjunction of dark red brick Renaissance-type houses. In one of these the Jeavonses had lived for twenty years or more, an odd centre of miscellaneous hospitality to which Chips Lovell himself had first taken me. In the lower reaches of their street, two fire-engines were drawn up. By the light of electric torches, firemen and air-raid wardens were passing in and out of one of the front-doors. This particular house turned out to be the Jeavonses’. In the dark, little was to be seen of what was happening. Apart from these dim figures going to and fro, like the trolls in Peer Gynt, nothing seemed abnormal about the façade. There was no sign of damage to the structure. One of the wardens, in helmet and overalls, stopped by the steps and lit a cigarette.
“Did this house get it?”
“About an hour ago,” he said, “that last tip-and-run raider.”
“Anybody hurt?”
He took the cigarette from his mouth and nodded.
“I know the people — are they about?”
“You know Mr. Jeavons and Lady Molly?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve only just arrived here?”
“That’s it.”
“Mr. Jeavons and me are on the same warden-post,” he said. “They’ve taken him down there. Giving him a cup of tea.”
“Was he injured?”
“It was her.”
“Badly?”
The warden looked at me as if I should not have asked that question.