Arnold Hatch’s car was called a Fairway Executive. It was fitted with a refrigerator, a duplicating machine and a telephone.
Hatch slung into a corner of the back seat his race-going equipment: a light tweed topcoat, binoculars, shooting stick, and the cap that Councillor Crispin called his Ratcatcher’s Special. Removal of the cap displayed hair the colour of yellowing linen. It looked the kind of hair that would persist, unthinning, until death. It complemented the healthy pink skin of the face, the calm pale blue eyes, lightly fringed with almost white lashes, and the eyebrows of the same colour that seemed to have been deliberately selected as accessories of taste.
The face, one would have thought, of a man of wealth and discrimination and power; of a merchant banker, say, or a slum landlord of the older, better sort.
The voice did not match.
“Eddie? Is that you, Eddie? This is Mister Hatch talking. I’m at the racecourse as of now...aye, the racecourse... You what?... No, he didn’t. The going was wrong for him after all that rain. Anyway, what I want you to do is to ring the missus at her sister’s and tell her I’ll be back in the morning. Another thing. I’d like you to call at the house tomorrow at about ten. I’ve a special little job for you. Right, then. This is Mister Hatch over and out.”
He hesitated before replacing the phone, as if uncertain of the rightness of the farewell phrase. Then he settled himself upon the genuine calf of the specially built-up driving seat (Hatch was, in Councillor Crispin’s lamentable vocabulary, a short-arse) and started the motor.
The hotel at which he always stayed on his excursions in the role of racehorse owner was not, in general, patronised by racing men. Mr Hatch found this satisfactory for two reasons. He was not inconvenienced by seasonal crush. And he was spared the indignity of being associated by the company with an animal that had sense neither of duty nor of occasion.
After an early dinner, he saw and acknowledged in the lounge a man called Baxter. They ordered whiskies and lit cigars. Baxter smoked his with determination and obvious enjoyment. Hatch drew upon his just often enough to maintain its life; the action seemed one of charity, judicious and economical.
The previous evening, Baxter, who claimed to be the director of two companies in the field of food manufacture, had spoken enthusiastically of the benefits that his firms had derived from the advice of a business efficiency consultant. He now expanded the theme.
“These fellows can see the whole thing in a fresh way from the outside. I used to think it was just a gimmick, but it’s really marvellous what they can put a finger on profitwise and efficiencywise. They go right through the whole set-up—factories, sales department, social welfare, personnel—top management and all, they don’t spare the likes of us, old man. And they beaver on with their little sliderules and work out how much percentagewise the chocolate biscuit production drops when the mix manager’s wife has to wait an extra six months for a new coat. Oh, you can smile, old man (Hatch was not, in fact) but it all adds up viabilitywise, it really does. Well, you wouldn’t get the really big boys—IBM and Shell and Vesco and so on—doing consultancy budgetising if it didn’t pay off.”
Hatch agreed that this was a sensible deduction. Baxter seemed an eminently sensible man, even if he did have a plummy, booming voice that proclaimed, or so Hatch thought, education at a posh school.
“Funny, really, that you should have brought this up,” Hatch said, looking at his cigar to see if it needed any more oxygen just yet, “because if I recall rightly I’ve a note on my diary at the office to give instructions on this very subject to my private secretary.”
“You don’t say!” Baxter quickly sluiced down his surprise with what remained of his whisky. “Another?” He indicated Hatch’s glass. Hatch drank up. Baxter stretched and peered across the lounge as if it were the Gobi desert. Detecting a waiter, he raised his arm, made snapping noises with ringers.
The waiter stared back with mild interest for half a minute or so, then made leisurely approach. He looked at Baxter’s hand.
“I like yer castanets, mate. Wotcher do next—dance on yer soddin’ ’at?”
“This gentleman and I,” said Baxter, coldly and carefully, “would like two whiskies, please. Doubles, if you would be so good.”
When the waiter had ambled away, tractable but unimpressed, Baxter said: “Fucking peasant.”
“Aye,” said Hatch, glad that Baxter was able so quickly to sound at ease again.
They resumed their conversation. Hatch said that it was his intention to instruct his private secretary to get him the facts about these business efficiency organisations.
Management consultants, actually, Baxter amended.
Yes, well, that might be so, but what Hatch wanted was to know which was the top firm, the best.
“No argument about that,” replied Baxter. “Mackintosh-Brooke. By a mile. It’s the one. Only question is”—he puffed out shiny, blue-grey, cheeks—“whether for what you have in mind it isn’t, well, too pricey, if you don’t mind my talking frankly. MB do come expensive, sure. On the other hand, they’re American and they’re the best.”
Their fresh drinks arrived. They were brought not by the waiter, but by a girl from the bar in the next room. She was round-faced, plump, and eager to please. After setting down the two glasses, she wiped her hand down one thigh in a long, slow, preening gesture and smiled dewily at both men in turn while she waited for the money.
Baxter leaned far back in his chair, turning a little sideways as he delved into his trousers pocket with his right hand. With the left he grasped his crotch. This burrowing for coin was so laboriously done that sweat shone on Baxter’s forehead, now bright red. He stared all the time into the girl’s face.
“These what d’you call them, these consultants,” Hatch said, pretending not to notice Baxter’s overtures. “What exactly do they offer?”
“An analysis,” Baxter said. He extricated his hand at last. The coins it held were not enough. With a facility that was almost conjuror-like after the struggle with his trousers, he produced a slim black wallet and slicked from it a note.
“When I say analysis, though,” went on Baxter, looking not at Hatch but at the girl, “I think what they mean is something pretty elaborate. They talk about a study of management problems.” He waved away the girl’s offer to give change. She bobbed her thanks and turned. Both men watched the departure of a prettily undulating rump. “I’d say we’d be all right there tonight,” said Baxter. He sounded hungry.
“Management problems, you said,” Hatch prompted.
Baxter made a growling sound as the girl disappeared round a partition that separated the lounge from the bar. He gave Hatch attention again with his small, speculative eyes. “Sorry about that, old man. Where were we? Problems...” He took a gulp of whisky.
“Of management.”
“Yeah—sure. Mind you, when these people talk of management, they mean right across the board. Design of products. Profitability. Marketing. Public relations. All that. And personnel. Personnel—hellishly important.”