Beggar’s Choice

V

Carthew Fairfax’s diary:

September 14th.-I’ve had a scene with Fay. She seems to have got herself into a perfectly beastly hole. I was losing my temper, so I came away. It looks as if some money has got to be found somehow. She talked as if you could pick it up in the street. I’m writing this to-night because odd things keep happening and I want to write them down. It’s simply ages since anything happened at all and now it’s just one damn thing after another. I’m not going to write about the scene with Fay-it riles me too much, and she’s got into the sort of mess that’s better not written about. It’s bad luck on Peter. She says he’s pretty well got her passage money saved. He didn’t say anything about it in his last to me-but then, come to think of it, I can about count on my fingers the times he’s ever mentioned Fay at all. He did ask me to look after her, but he left it to her to tell me so and that they were married. I’m afraid he won’t think I’ve looked after her very well.

I hope I got away without losing my temper-I don’t know whether I did or not. I got back to my room, and the first thing I saw was that paper that was shoved into my hand in the street, and staring at me in big print at the top of the cutting that was pasted on to it: “Do you want five hundred pounds?” Do I want five hundred pounds? I thought it was a pretty odd coincidence. As far as I can make out, Fay’s got to get five hundred pounds or else- well, I won’t go into that, but she’s scared stiff. She can’t speak the truth if she tries-she don’t try of course-but she’s scared all right, and I don’t think she’s scared easily.

I read the newspaper cutting all through again: “Do you want £500? If you do, and are willing to earn it, write to Box Z.10, International Employment Exchange, 187 Falcon Street, N. W.”

Do I want-I looked at the thing, and I thought it was a bit of a coincidence. I’m still no end puzzled as to why I should have had “Do you want £500?” shoved into my hand, when everybody else was getting “Eat more Fruit.” Anyhow, I wrote to Box Z.10 and said I’d like particulars, and then I thought I’d walk out to Falcon Street and have a look at the International Employment Exchange. I should save a stamp, but I suppose I should take more than a penny-halfpennyworth out of my boots. You’re pretty near the bottom when you have to consider pennorths of shoeleather- but if your boots go, you’re done,

I was just getting up to go, when I heard Mrs. Bell come puffing up the stairs. You can’t mistake her. She sounds exactly like a steam-roller. Well, she knocked and burst in. I don’t know why she knocks-you can’t stop her anyhow. She came in, very red in the face and very short of breath, and pushed a letter at me, and then stood fairly bulging with curiosity.

“District messenger,” she said; and then, “Perhaps there’s an answer.”

I looked down and saw Isobel’s writing-Carthew Fairfax Esq, and the address. Now how in the name of all that’s wonderful did Isobel find out my address? It doesn’t matter of course, because I probably shan’t be here to-morrow unless Box Z.10 sends me that five hundred pounds by return.

“Perhaps there’s an answer,” said Mrs. Bell. She looked at me as hard as if I was something in a circus.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

And then she started fanning herself and telling me how she once got a proposal by post-“registered, if you’ll believe me, and me thinking as how me aunt in Dorset had sent me half a sovereign in a postal order, which she did once in a way when she done well with her chicken. But no such thing, and I give you my word when I see what it was you could ha’ knocked me down fair and square with a burnt match. ‘Herbert Hopkins!’ I says out loud, and never so much as turned my head to see if the other girl was listening. It was when I was in service with Mrs. Murgatroyd, and if ever I come across a nasty, jealous, spiteful, two-faced toad, it was that girl Maud Jones, and well I knew she’d been a-laying for Herbert herself-and welcome to him as far as I was concerned, for I wouldn’t have touched him with the kitchen tongs, and so I told the two of them!”

I did get rid of her in the end, and then when I’d heard her clump down off the stairs on to the landing, I opened Isobel’s letter. She said:

Oh, Car, why did you go off like that? I had such heaps and heaps to say-three years of things all bottled up-and you went off like a flash of lightning before I’d said more than about two and a half of them. Please, Car, don’t hide from me. I won’t tell any one if you don’t want me to. But I must see you-I want to tell you things you ought to know. There are things, but I can’t put them in a letter. I really must see you. If you knew what I want to tell you, you’d come at once. No, that sounds silly and Irish. But, Car, do come. Write to me at Linwood and say where we can meet. I thought we were staying with Aunt Carrie for another week, but she and Aunt Willy have just had the most terrible row, so we’re catching the four-thirty. They’ll be all right in a day or two, but for the moment they’re simply not safe, so I’m taking mine away and leaving Janet Wimpole to soothe Aunt Carrie. Aunt Willy sacked the cook, and Aunt Carrie turned. Family scenes sound amusing, but they’re not. I feel like a sparrow on a housetop, and I want to cry.

Isobel

Please, Car, don’t hide.

I made a fool of myself over Isobel’s letter. How she stands Miss Willy I never could make out. Any one else would have stopped trying to stand her years ago. I made a fool of myself because I daren’t see Isobel again-I can’t answer for myself. She must just think me a low brute who hasn’t the manners to answer her. Of course I might write and tell her-No, you don’t, you fool! If I wrote a single line to her, I should give myself away. I put her letter away. I meant to destroy it presently. I really did mean to destroy it-but not just at once-not till I’d got it by heart.

And then I took my letter for Box Z.10 and went out to look for Falcon Street.

It was a longish walk, and I had plenty to think about. Part of the time I thought about Fay, and what a knock-down blow it would be for Peter if she got run in-because he felt old Lymington’s crash a good deal more than he let on, even to me, and if he were to get another facer over Fay, it might knock him out altogether. What fools women can be! Peter doesn’t talk about things, but he feels them a lot. He doesn’t write about Fay. I don’t think he’s mentioned her more than two or three times since he went out, but to my mind that only shows what he feels about her goes too deep down to talk about. Well, I thought about Fay and Peter, and I thought about Isobel’s letter, and I wondered what she wanted to say to me. And I thought about my boots and how on earth I was going to get another pair, and I wondered whether Mrs. Bell would let me stay on for a week, and whether the advertisement about the five hundred was a take in. I thought there was bound to be a snag, but even if it only ran to five hundred pence, it would be worth having a shot at it. And then I thought a lot more about Isobel.

I hadn’t any idea how to find Falcon Street. People who hadn’t any more idea than I had told me to turn to the left and then to the right and keep straight on for half a mile and turn sharp to the left by the policeman. When you ask a man the way, he never says he doesn’t know. I went a good bit out of my way after listening for about five minutes to an old gentleman with a beard and a string bag full of lettuce.

When I found Falcon Street, I didn’t like the look of it very much. The houses were shabby, and most of them had dirty curtains in the upper windows. One end of the street had a sprinkling of brass plates, but most of the houses looked like cheap lodgings. At the other end were the sort of shops that serve that sort of street-a butcher, whose shop was pretty good propaganda for vegetarianism; a baker, with a window full of flies and wasps; and, bang on the corner, a flourishing looking public house.

The baker was 186, and the butcher 184, so I crossed over, and found the numbers on the other side all muddled up in the crazy way you sometimes find in a London street. The first I struck were 1, 2, 3; and I found that they were, properly, part of Falcon Crescent, which started round the corner. I worked back to 1, and next to it were 203 and 204-and goodness knows what they belonged to. Then I struck 186a, which was a little mixed sweet-shop, very grubby. And next to it there was a tobacconist with no number at all. Tobacconists always know everything, so I thought I’d go in and ask for 187 and the International Employment Exchange.

The shop was very dark and stiflingly hot, and thick with the smell of tobacco cum fish and chips. I should say at a guess that about six people had been eating fish and chips and drinking beer in some windowless lair opening off the shop. There were seven or eight men banked up between me and the counter, and a girl in a scarlet blouse and a lot of pearls was behind it. I got into a corner out of the way of the door and waited. As I hadn’t come to buy, I thought I had better wait until the crowd cleared off. The bother was that it didn’t seem to clear. Three of the men were young fellows, lads of the local village, and they were chaffing the girl and getting back rather better than they gave. Then there was a beery old man who said he hadn’t got his right change, and a pal of his who was trying to persuade him that he had, and a very large man with a very soft voice who was trying to get the girl to listen whilst he told her what sort of pipe he wanted. The place was like an oven.

I had got out my handkerchief, and had begun to mop my face, when another man came in. He was a fat man in City clothes. He went through the crowd and up to the counter as if the place belonged to him. Perhaps it does. Anyhow the lads rather melted away, and the girl stopped giggling and went out through a door at the back of the shop. There was an appalling influx of fish and chips-so I was right about the lair. And then she came back with a little sallow greasy man with a diamond ring on his little finger and hair oil that I could smell through all the other things.

I worked round nearer the counter so as to try and catch the girl when the large man who wanted a pipe had said his piece. And as I stood waiting, I heard the fat City man ask,

“Any news?”

The other man said, “Not yet.” And then he said, “There hasn’t been time-is there?”

I couldn’t help taking notice of what they said, because the fat man looked so out of place in that beastly hole, and besides, I thought I knew his voice. He had his back to me, so I couldn’t see his face. He turned his shoulder, leaned on the counter, and said,

“No, there hasn’t been time-to-morrow would be the earliest-but did Benno…” His voice went away into a mumble and I lost the rest.

Fortunately the girl with the red blouse had stopped giggling. The large man was choosing his pipe as slowly and carefully as if his life depended on it. She was most awfully bored, and only said “Yes” and “No” between yawns.

The little man with the hair oil spread out his hands in an eager sort of way.

“Benno give it him-oh yes, he give it him nice-he shove it right into his hand-and there he stand and read it with all his eyes. Five hundred pounds! Something to read about-isn’t it?”

He laughed, and I took out my handkerchief and began to mop my face again, and as I mopped it I edged backwards into the dark corner by the door. I didn’t think I’d got to go any farther to find No. 187 and the International Employment Exchange. It seemed to me that I’d landed right in the middle of it, and I wanted pretty badly to hear some more about Benno and what he’d been up to. I got into the darkest place I could find and kept my handkerchief handy. And all the time I was puzzling about where I’d heard the fat man’s voice, and whilst I was puzzling he took off his bowler and had a mop at his head with a silk handkerchief, and the top of his head was bald. That ought to have been a help, but for the life of me. I couldn’t place him. I listened all the harder.

“Bound to rise-he’s absolutely on his uppers. Now look here-it’s just possible he may come in here. He’s at a loose end, and he may get it into his head to come nosing around. If he does, you don’t know anything-naturally.”

The little man spread out his hands again, and the diamond on his finger twinkled.

“Not a word. How do I know? If he come, I say nothing-I know nothing-I speak nothing-isn’t it?”

The fat man put on his bowler and nodded. Then he beat with his hand on the counter.

“Now look here-that isn’t all. If he does come, I want to know what he’s looking like and how he speaks. I want you to be sharp. Get him into talk about anything you like and watch him a bit. I want to know how keen he is. You understand?”

The hands went out again.

“Yes, yes, yes-if he come, I see how he look. Hungry?” He threw an abominable cunning into his voice and looked knowingly out of screwed up eyes. “Yes, he will be hungry. Five hundred pounds is a good dinner! He will be hungry to swallow it-isn’t it? Oh, my, my, my, my, my!” He began to laugh. “And not a word to the other-no, no, no!”

The man in the bowler lifted the flap of the counter and walked through.

“I want a word with you about that,” he said, and they went out through the door at the back of the shop, and as soon as they were gone I nipped out into the street and got round the corner.

I thought I had found the International Employment Exchange, and I thought I would post my letter even if it did cost me a penny halfpenny; for I had no manner of doubt that I had heard Hair-oil told to size me up, and I thought I wouldn’t give him the chance.