Faintley Speaking

Chapter One

MANDSELL

‘I prythee, gentle mortal, speak again.’

shakespeare - A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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‘I’m sure I’m very sorry, Mr Mandsell,’ said his landlady, ‘ but I’ve come to the finish. I been kept waiting six weeks for my money, and I’d have you to realize, sir, as I can’t be kept waiting for ever. I’ve got to live, sir, and so has Deaks, same like as what you have, sir.’

‘Why should any of us worry about living, Mrs Deaks? Life’s not so hot. On the other hand, think how it enriches your character, if not exactly your pocket, to provide the indigent like me with two meals a day and a bed! Just think, too, of the good you’re doing yourself with the Recording Angel.’

‘It’s no use, sir. Sorry as I am to lose you… for I’m sure you’ve been no trouble and have always spoke gentlemanly and took your hat off to me in the street as there’s them that wouldn’t… this is my last word. Twice have I let you stop on as you have talked me into it, but never no more. Supper and bed and breakfast you’ve had these six weeks gone, and what have I got to show for it? No, sir, sorry as I am, as I can’t say more, and much as I’ve liked your company, it has got to be O.U.T. unless you can pay me by Saturday.’

‘But, look here, Mrs Deaks, you know you’ll be paid as soon as I get my advance! I’ve told you I must wait for publication. You know my novel’s been accepted. I showed you the letter. The money’s there all right!’

‘Be that as it may, sir, even if I was willing to wait, well, Deaks, he isn’t, and that’s the flat of it, if you take my meaning plain. Pay up or go… them’s his words and I can’t go again ’em and don’t intend to.’

‘All right, Mrs Deaks, that’s fair enough. I don’t intend to land you in trouble with your husband. But Deaks needn’t worry, you know. I shall pay you as soon as I’m able to, and when my ship comes home you’ll look pretty silly at the thought that you chucked me out, especially on a filthy night like this.’

‘Oh,’ exclaimed the landlady, turning her head as a torrent of summer rain hurtled spitefully at the window, ‘ I never meant you’d got to get out to-night, sir! I wouldn’t be hard like that, and nor would Deaks.’

‘Nevertheless, I’m going. I suppose I’d better get myself pinched in order to have somewhere to sleep.’ His light tone was gone. He was extremely sensitive, and spoke bitterly.

‘You wouldn’t do that, sir? Not really?’ She was distressed – a middle-aged, decent, kindly soul.

‘Wouldn’t I? Of course I shall go. You’ll have to let me leave my books and things here for a day or two until I get fixed up somewhere else.’ He wondered where the somewhere else could be. He had no one from whom to borrow.

Receiving her tearful consent, he went upstairs, put on his raincoat and hat, refilled his fountain-pen and walked out of the house. In his pockets he had a small notebook, a sixpence, fivepence-halfpenny, his pen, a pencil, a penknife, his mother’s wedding-ring, and his publisher’s contract calling for two more novels. He supposed he would have to get a job. It was a pity when he had the plot of the next novel so clearly in his head, but it could not be helped.

He walked rapidly in the direction of the Public Library with the intention of consulting the advertisement columns of the newspapers while the library doors were still open. At least he would be under cover. But he had overlooked the fact that it was Thursday. All departments of the library were shut. He stood in the rain and cursed himself. He could have stayed in his lodgings until the morning, or even until Saturday. There had been no suggestion of turning him out at a moment’s notice, and it was teeming down cats and dogs. Well, he was not going back to beg for shelter when it was his own tom-fool pride that had brought him out on such an evening.

Thoroughly angry, and already extremely wet, he put his hands in his raincoat pocket, lowered his head and walked towards the High Street. He had eaten nothing since breakfast. (The arrangement was that he always got his lunch out.) In the High Street there would be presented to him the alternatives of punching a policeman or spending one or two pence on bread. Then he remembered that it was Thursday. None of the shops would be open. It would have to be the policeman, he concluded. There was always one on point duty. No, of course there was not!… never on Thursdays or Sundays, because the shops were shut and then traffic was almost non-existent in the little provincial town and no point duty was needed.

The rain still poured down. The shop blinds, usually let down all day in summer to protect the goods from the sun, had been taken in, so that their shelter was lost. Mandsell became wet through, and was thoroughly wretched. Already he was beginning to change his mind. After all, there was nothing for it, he felt, but to go back to his lodgings for the night. Mrs Deaks would feel relieved, he knew, and even the unwelcoming Deaks could scarcely refuse to take him in. He must pocket his pride and go and ask, anyhow. It was hopeless to think of staying out all night in weather like this! His chest had always been troublesome.

He turned and began to walk back. As there was now no point in returning by way of the Public Library he took a road which ran alongside the park. Half-way up there was a public telephone box. At the sight of it he had an inspiration. His publisher’s office was on the telephone. There would be no harm in making a note of the number, if only to get out of the pelting rain for a minute or two. On the morrow he would telephone to ask whether there was any prospect of obtaining a small percentage of his advance royalties. It was not exactly asking for charity. The book was up there; it had been accepted for publication. If he could get the publisher to advance him the six weeks’ rent he owed, Mrs Deaks would look after him for another few weeks on tick again while he looked for a job. He could not imagine why this excellent idea had not occurred to him before.

Feeling suddenly elated and hopeful, he strode towards the telephone box. Just before he reached it, a man, with his collar turned up to his ears and his hat pulled down against the rain, came out of the box and walked rapidly away from Mandsell down the otherwise deserted road.

‘Must have needed to phone pretty urgently to come out in weather like this,’ thought Mandsell, pulling open the door and entering the box. Just as the door closed behind him the telephone began to buzz. Acting on instinct he picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hallo?’

‘Oh, there you are! I’m sorry to be so late, but the last one has only just gone out!’ It was a woman’s voice he heard.

‘I think there’s some mistake,’ he began.

‘No, there isn’t. This is Faintley speaking.’

‘It isn’t faint. It’s quite clear. But, you see —’

‘Miss Faintley, idiot! Don’t waste time making stupid jokes. Somebody may come in again at any minute, and you know what they are for minding other people’s business! Why, it would be all over the place in no time if one of them overheard me! Now, you do understand, don’t you?’

‘Not a thing. You see —’

‘Oh, no, do listen, please. You said you’d help me, and I’ve nobody else I can trust. The parcel is at Hagford Station, and all you’ve got to do is to ask for it in my name, and take it along to Tomson. Don’t forget to ask for a receipt. It’s awfully good of you. I don’t know what I should have done if… Oh, dear! Good-bye. I can hear them in the vestibule. It was an awfully good idea to ring you up on a public phone. Much better than settling things here, with all these busybodies about!’

‘What number are you speaking from?’ he demanded; but there was no reply.

Mandsell hung up. What a silly woman! Surely she could hear the difference between his voice and that of the man she had arranged to ring up! He opened the telephone directory, found the number he wanted, copied it into his notebook – fortunately the electric light in the little box was functioning! – and went out again into the rain. The more he thought about the telephone conversation… if conversation was the word for it… he had not been able to get a word in edgeways!… the more it intrigued him. He was inclined, in fact, to execute the commission he had been given. Hagford was the next station up the line, a five-mile walk. It would be something definite to do, and that was always fun. He found that he was grateful for the small adventure, and, in any case, all was grist that came to an author’s mill. With a bit of luck, the incident might make a short story for the evening paper, now that he came to think of it.

Tomson? Mandsell was certain he had seen the name up somewhere. A shop, of course. Oh, yes, one of a mean little terrace of shops in Fish Street. Tomson’s was the one in the middle, a small, dingy, drapery establishment. Mandsell had often wondered how such places even made enough to pay the rent, let alone feed and clothe the proprietor. It was said that such shops usually had a second string to their bow, and that, behind the giant red herring of their ostensible business, all kinds of semi-legal and sometimes downright criminal practices were carried on… thieves’ kitchens, abortions, proscribed forms of gambling, brothels, shady little night-clubs, black-market deals, and white-slave exchanges went through Mandsell’s imaginative mind… and that the police were powerless to interfere without such definite evidence as it was almost impossible to procure.

What Tomson’s particular racket might be there was no means of guessing by merely looking at the jaded collection of cheap underclothes and second-hand shoes in the window, but, armed with the parcel and with the name of Miss Faintley to conjure with, there might be a chance of obtaining a peep behind the scenes. Mandsell began to see himself as the writer of a scandalous but highly successful novel of low life, one that was banned in Spain and Eire, preached against in the Welsh chapels and smuggled out of sight of their teen-age children by people who would have been horrified to find it in a public library.

Sunk in this blissful dream of best-selling authorship, it did not take him long to reach his lodgings. He no longer felt like a wet stray dog seeking a home. For one thing, he felt certain that his publisher would advance him that small, convenient loan… after all, the book was there – it was accepted!… and for another he was now in a position to inform Deaks that a woman had given him a job. It would be unnecessary to explain that it was an unpaid one! Besides, it would not be unpaid in the long run if he got a short story and possibly a best-seller of a novel out of it.

Considerably cheered, he beat on the front door of the quiet little house and his landlord opened it. He grunted when he saw who it was, but did not hesitate to let Mandsell in. He was not a hard-hearted man; besides, he had had to listen for the past hour to his wife’s accusations of having driven that poor young fellow away in weather which was not fit for a dog, let alone a gentleman as had been to Oxford College.

He pointed with the stem of his pipe.

‘Better go straight through and take off them sopping wet clo’es in the scullery, sir, else Mother ’ull be on my tail again. There’s my overcoat behind the kitchen door. Take it in as you go. It’ll do to slip on while you haves a warm at the kitchen fire.’

Next day Mandsell spent the morning working out his short story, and in the afternoon set off to collect Miss Faintley’s parcel. He felt and looked a very different young man from the soaked and despairing adventurer who had gone into the telephone box on the previous night. Nothing more had been said about his leaving his lodgings; his trousers had been dried and nicely pressed, his shoes cleaned and his socks laundered, and Mrs Deaks had even salved her conscience by giving him lunch – cod with parsley sauce and new potatoes.

He walked jauntily. The afternoon was bright and pleasant without being hot, and, once he was clear of Kindleford, the walk was invitingly rural, the flattish country intersected by streams, the great trees shady, the fields filled with buttercups or poppies and corn, the hedges still bearing wild roses and here and there the first flowers of Traveller’s Joy.

All too soon came the dingy outskirts of Hagford, at no time a prepossessing town, and, after the open country, of unspeakable dreariness. A long stretch of council houses, not even relieved by shops, led at last to the centre of the town and to the railway station. Before he went on to collect the parcel, Mandsell saw a post office and decided to telephone his publisher from there, but he realized, before he lifted the receiver, that he had not sufficient money for the trunk call which would be necessary, and he felt he could scarcely ask for the charges to be reversed!

He came out to the counter, asked for a letter-card, wrote it (thankful that he had his own pen on him, and so had no need to use the abominable instrument provided by the Government), posted it, and reviewed his diminished assets. The sooner his publisher answered, the better, he thought grimly.

He soon found the station, went to the Left Luggage office and asked for a parcel addressed to Miss Faintley. He thought that the clerk gave him a sharp glance, but he did not ask for any evidence that Mandsell had the right to collect the parcel. He handed over a flat package neatly secured with sealing-wax and string, remarked that it was a nice day, and retired to an inside office.

Mandsell turned the parcel over once or twice and read the superscription:

Miss L. Faintley, B.Sc.

Kindleford School

Kindleford

He tried to guess what was underneath the brown paper, sealing-wax, and string. Except that it might be something made of wood he could gain no clue to the contents. He was glad to be out of Hagford and in the open country again, but he wanted his tea and hoped that Mrs Deaks would still be in her generous mood of the morning.

He found Tomson’s shop, which was exactly where he had believed it would be, walked in, and handed the parcel over the counter. He had walked some little distance down the street when he remembered that he had not asked for a receipt. He went back and rapped on the counter.

‘Sorry to trouble you,’ he remarked to the seedy little man who had taken the parcel from him, ‘but I forgot to ask for a receipt.’

‘Receipt for what, sir?’

‘Miss Faintley’s parcel, of course.’

‘Parcel, sir?’

‘Oh, come on, now, buck up! I brought in a smallish flat parcel about three minutes ago. I should have asked for a receipt, but I forgot.’

‘I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. I’ve not taken in no parcels for no one.’

‘What? Oh, but, look here —’

‘You’ve made a mistake. This is a drapery business, not Pickford’s. I don’t take in parcels for nobody, and I never took no parcels for you. And my foot is on the burglar alarm if so be you thought of coming it funny.’ His tone was both frightened and menacing.

‘Look,’ said Mandsell. ‘I’m not thinking of coming it funny. That is beyond my scope. Do you seriously stand there and deny that I handed in to you a small flat parcel in the name of Miss Faintley, and that you accepted it without any query?’

‘I seriously think you’re suffering from sunstroke, young feller. You go home and have a quiet lay down.’

This advice infuriated Mandsell.

‘This is Tomson’s, isn’t it?’ he demanded.

‘At your service, sir. And now,’ said the proprietor savagely, ‘get out, or I’ll call a policeman. I know your sort!’

At this, a berserk rage overcame Mandsell. Like most young men, the thing he detested chiefly was the thought that someone was trying to make a fool of him. He leaned over the counter and gripped the small proprietor by the tie. He drew him towards the counter until the little man’s head was half-way over a pile of fancy scarves stacked almost under Mandsell’s nose.

‘Come off it! ’ the young man said fiercely. ‘ Don’t you dare try to pull this stunt on me! I don’t know what was in the parcel, but I’m jolly sure —’

At this moment the shop-bell rang and in walked two middle-aged women. Mandsell, with a last despairing tug at the proprietor’s tie, turned and walked out. He walked fast. As he walked, three thoughts were in his mind. One was that there was something mysterious, not to say fishy, about the parcel; the second was that he was unlikely to get any reply, favourable or otherwise, from his publisher until Tuesday morning at the earliest; the third was that his publisher’s telephone number had always been on the letter of acceptance which he had received when he sent in his book.

He began to slacken his pace. Then a desperate idea came to him. He went back to the shop. It was empty. The two customers had gone, and the proprietor was not to be seen. Mandsell rapped imperatively on the counter and the man came shuffling out. He looked surprised and alarmed when he saw the young man, but, recovering quickly, said:

‘You hop it, or I’ll call the police!’

‘I’ve already done that. Parcel or receipt, please. They’ll be here directly.’

‘Nothing doing. You’re mistaken. I haven’t got no parcel of yourn. I may have a parcel for a lady named Faintley, but that ain’t nothing to do with you.’ The man’s tone had altered. Mandsell felt victorious.

‘All right. There’s the clerk at Hagford Station who handed me the parcel, you know. I’ve got a witness.’

‘What’ll you take to forget him?’

‘Take? I’ll take a receipt.’

‘Oh, come, now, mister! I’m not putting my name to nothing. What will you take? That’s what I ask you. Five quid any good?’

‘Since you ask me… yes.’ (It would satisfy Mrs Deaks for the moment.) The man opened the till. He took out four one-pound and two ten-shilling notes and thrust them across the counter.

‘Get out of here! ’ he said thickly. ‘And, remember, that’s blackmail money, that is! I’ve got you where I want you when I want you if you pick up them notes. What about it?’

Mandsell picked up the notes.

‘There’s one thing… you can hardly demand a receipt,’ he said, as he put them into an inside pocket. ‘ Thanks a lot. I’ll repay you when my ship comes home. I regard this as temporary accommodation only. Meanwhile I must admit that it comes in handy. So long. I’ll be seeing you! The police won’t – this time!’

He went straight back to his lodgings and gave Mrs Deaks four pounds, the result of a bluff which had worked.

‘Well, I must say, sir!’ she observed, immensely surprised.

‘I know it isn’t much,’ said Mandsell, ‘but if you wouldn’t mind trusting me a bit longer…’ He was immensely pleased with himself, the man of action, and went up to his room to complete and polish the short story for which his recent experiences had given him the idea. He intended to spend the whole evening on the job. Mrs Deaks was bringing him tea and supper. But between him and his work came niggling, unanswerable questions.

What was in the parcel, that the man Tomson had been prepared to pay him five pounds blackmail money? (For blackmail, surely, was what it must amount to, as the shopkeeper himself had pointed out.)

Why could not the woman who called herself Miss Faintley have accomplished her own errand?

Who was the man who should have been her correspondent and who had walked out of the telephone booth just before she rang him up, and why had this man not waited any longer? Ringing people up on a public telephone was always a chancy sort of business. Of course, they had chosen a box which was not likely to be used much during the evening, but the woman could have had no guarantee that somebody else would not have been in the box at the time she had arranged to speak.

If the parcel was required so urgently at Tomson’s it must be important. If so, why had she been in such a hurry to give her instructions that she had not even troubled to verify whether or not she was talking to the right man? Was she in desperate straits about the parcel? (That seemed likely, judging by the shopkeeper’s reactions.) Was she also unaccustomed to talking on the telephone, so that all voices (particularly men’s voices) were exactly alike to her?

Answer came there none, and Mandsell, secure in his lodgings for another week or two, shrugged, and continued with his work. Nevertheless, his mind was far from easy. The five pounds were all very well… in fact, undeniably useful… but what, he,wondered, did the acceptance of them entail? Had he become an accessory to crime? Did the parcel contain pornographic postcards or ‘curious’ literature? Did it contain atomic secrets, or even a new kind of time-bomb which could not be safely left at the station beyond a certain limit of hours?

Suppose he had helped to bring nearer the spectre of another world war! Suppose he had assisted to blow up the Prime Minister or Miss Gracie Fields!

Well, the matter was out of his hands. If any of these things happened, he hoped he would never know. He took out his remaining pound, turned it over, and then went out and bought himself a drink.