No Comebacks

MONEY WITH MENACES

If Samuel Nutkin had not dropped his glasses case between the cushions of his seat on the commuter train from Edenbridge to London that morning, none of this would ever have happened. But he did drop them, slipped his hand between the cushions to retrieve them, and the die was cast.

His fumbling fingers encountered not only his glasses case, but a slim magazine evidently stuffed there by the former occupant of the seat. Believing it to be a railway timetable, he idly withdrew it. Not that he needed a railway timetable. After twenty-five years of taking the same train at the same hour from the small and sinless commuter town of Edenbridge to Charing Cross station, and returning on the same train at the same time from Cannon Street station to Kent each evening, he had no need of railway timetables. It was just passing curiosity.

When he glanced at the front cover Mr Nutkin's face coloured up red, and he hastily stuffed it back down the cushions. He looked round the compartment to see if anyone had noticed what he had found. Opposite him two Financial Times, a Times and a Guardian nodded back at him with the rhythm of the train, their readers invisible behind the city prices section. To his left old Fogarty pored over the crossword puzzle and to his right, outside the window, Hither Green station flashed past uncaring. Samuel Nutkin breathed out in relief.

The magazine had been small with a glossy cover. Across the top were the words New Circle, evidently the title of the publication, and along the bottom of the cover page another phrase, 'Singles, Couples, Groups — the contact magazine for the sexually aware'. Between the two lines of print the centre of the cover page was occupied by a photograph of a large lady with a jutting chest, her face blocked out by a white square which announced her as 'Advertiser H331'. Mr Nutkin had never seen such a magazine before, but he thought out the implications of his find all the way to Charing Cross.

As the doors down the train swung open in unison to decant their cargoes of commuters into the maelstrom of platform 6, Samuel Nutkin delayed his departure by fussing with his briefcase, rolled umbrella and bowler hat until he was last out of the compartment. Finally, aghast at his daring, he slipped the magazine from its place between the cushions into his briefcase, and joined the sea of other bowler hats moving towards the ticket barrier, season tickets extended.

It was an uncomfortable walk from the train to the subway, down the line to the Mansion House station, up the stairs to Great Trinity Lane and along Cannon Street to the office block of the insurance company where he worked as a clerk. He had heard once of a man who was knocked over by a car and when they emptied his pockets at the hospital they found a packet of pornographic pictures. The memory haunted Samuel Nutkin. How on earth could one ever explain such a thing? The shame, the embarrassment, would be unbearable. To lie there with a leg in traction, knowing that everyone knew one's secret tastes. He was especially careful crossing the road that morning until he reached the insurance company offices.

From all of which one may gather that Mr Nutkin was not used to this sort of thing. There was a man once who reckoned that human beings tend to imitate the nicknames given them in an idle moment. Call a man 'Butch' and he will swagger; call him 'Killer' and he will walk around with narrowed eyes and try to talk like Bogart. Funny men have to go on telling jokes and clowning until they crack up from the strain. Samuel Nutkin was just ten years old when a boy at school who had read the tales of Beatrix Potter called him Squirrel, and he was doomed.

He had worked in the City of London since, as a young man of twenty-three, he came out of the army at the end of the war with the rank of corporal. In those days he had been lucky to get the job, a safe job with a pension at the end of it, clerking for a giant insurance company with worldwide ramifications, safe as the Bank of England that stood not 500 yards away. Getting that job had marked Samuel Nutkin's entry into the City, square-mile headquarters of a vast economic, commercial and banking octopus whose tentacles spread to every corner of the globe.

He had loved the City in those days of the late forties, wandering round in the lunch hour looking at the timeless streets — Bread Street, Cornhffl, Poultry and London Wall — dating back to the Middle Ages when they really did sell bread and corn and poultry and mark the walled city of London. He was impressed that it was out of these sober stone piles that merchant adventurers had secured financial backing to sail away to the lands of brown, black and yellow men, to trade and dig and mine and scavenge, sending the booty back to the City, to insure and bank and invest until decisions taken in this square mile of boardrooms and counting houses could affect whether a million lesser breeds worked or starved. That these men had really been the world's most successful looters never occurred to him. Samuel Nutkin was very loyal.

Time passed and after a quarter of a century the magic had faded; he became one of the trotting tide of clerical grey suits, rolled umbrellas, bowler hats and briefcases that flooded into the City each day to clerk for eight hours and return to the dormitory townships of the surrounding counties.

In the forest of the City he was, like his nickname, a friendly, harmless creature, grown with the passing years to fit a desk, a pleasant, round butterball of a man, just turned sixty, glasses ever on his nose for reading or looking at things closely, mild-mannered and polite to the secretaries who thought he was sweet and mothered him, and not at all accustomed to reading, let alone carrying on his person, dirty magazines. But that was what he did that morning. He crept away to the lavatories, slipped the bolt, and read every advertisement in New Circle.

It amazed him. Some of the adverts had accompanying pictures, mainly amateurish poses of what were evidently housewives in their underwear. Others had no picture, but a more explicit text, in some cases advertising services that made no sense, at least, not to Samuel Nutkin. But most he understood, and the bulk of the adverts from ladies expressed the hope of meeting generous professional gentlemen. He read it through, stuffed the magazine into the deepest folds of his briefcase and hurried back to his desk. That evening he managed to get the magazine back home to Edenbridge without being stopped and searched by the police, and hid it under the carpet by the fireplace. It would never do for Lettice to discover it.

Lettice was Mrs Nutkin. She was mainly confined to her bed, she claimed by severe arthritis and a weak heart, while Dr Bulstrode opined it was a severe dose of hypochondria. She was a frail and peaky woman, with a sharp nose and a querulous voice, and it had been many years since she had given any physical joy to Samuel Nutkin, out of bed or in it. But he was a loyal and trustworthy man, and he would have done anything, just anything, to avoid distressing her. Fortunately she never did housework because of her back, so she had no occasion to delve under the carpet by the fireplace.

Mr Nutkin spent three days absorbed in his private thoughts, which for the most part concerned a lady advertiser who, from the brief details she listed in her advert, was well above average height and possessed an ample figure.

On the third day, plucking up all his nerve, he sat down and wrote his reply to her advert. He did it on a piece of plain paper from the office and it was short and to the point. He said 'Dear Madam,' and went on to explain that he had seen her advert and would very much like to meet her.

There was a centrefold in the magazine that explained how adverts should be answered. Write your letter of reply and place it, together with a self-addressed and stamped envelope, in a plain envelope and seal. Write the number of the advert to which you are replying on the back of the envelope in pencil. Enclose this plain envelope, together with the forwarding fee, in a third envelope and mail it to the magazine's office in London. Mr Nutkin did all this, except that for the self-addressed envelope he used the name Henry Jones, c/o 27 Acacia Avenue, which was his real address.

For the next six days he was down on the hallway mat each morning the instant the mail arrived, and it was on the sixth that he spotted the envelope addressed to Henry Jones. He stuffed it into his pocket and went back upstairs to collect his wife's breakfast tray.

On the train to town that morning he slipped away to the toilet and opened the envelope with trembling fingers. The contents were his own letter, and written on the back in longhand was the reply. It said, 'Dear Henry, thank you for your reply to my ad. I'm sure we could have a lot of fun together. Why don't you ring me at —? Love, Sally.' The phone number was in Bays-water, in the West End of London.

There was nothing else in the envelope. Samuel Nutkin jotted the number on a piece of paper, stuffed it in his back pocket, and flushed the letter and envelope down the pan. When he returned to his seat there were butterflies in his stomach and he thought people would be staring, but old Fogarty had just worked out 15 across and no one looked up.

He rang the number at lunchtime from a call box in the nearest subway station. A husky woman's voice said, 'Hello?'

Mr Nutkin pushed the five-penny piece into the slot, cleared his throat and said, 'Er… hello, is that Miss Sally?'

'That's right,' said the voice, 'and who is that?'

'Oh, er, my name is Jones. Henry Jones. I received a letter from you this morning, about a reply I made to your advert…'

There was a rustling of paper at the other end, and the woman's voice cut in. 'Oh, yes, I remember, Henry. Well now, darling, would you like to come round and see me?'

Samuel Nutkin felt as if his tongue were of old leather. 'Yes, please,' he croaked.

'Lovely,' purred the woman at the other end. 'There is just one thing, Henry darling. I expect a little present from my men friends, you know, just to help out with the rent. It's twenty pounds, but there's no rush or hurry. Is that all right?'

Nutkin nodded, then said 'Yes' down the phone.

'Fine,' she said, 'well now, when would you like to come?'

'It would have to be in the lunch hour. I work in the City, and I go home in the evening.'

'All right then. Tomorrow suit you? Good. At twelve-thirty? I'll give you the address…'

He still had the butterflies in his stomach, except that they had turned into thrashing pigeons, when he turned up at the basement flat just off Westbourne Grove in Bayswater the following day at half past twelve. He tapped nervously and heard the clack of heels in the passage behind the door.

There was a pause as someone looked through the glass lens set into the centre panel of the door, and which commanded a view of the area in which he stood. Then the door opened and a voice said, 'Come in.' She was standing behind the door and closed it as he entered and turned to face her. 'You must be Henry,' she said softly. He nodded. 'Well, come into the sitting room so we can talk,' she said.

He followed her down the passage to the first room on the left, his heart beating like a tambour. She was older than he had expected, a much-used mid-thirties with heavy make-up. She was a good six inches taller than he was, but part of that could be explained by the high heels of her court shoes, and the breadth of her rear beneath the floor-length housecoat as she preceded him down the passage indicated her figure was heavy. When she turned to usher him into the sitting room the front of her housecoat swung open for a second to give a glimpse of black nylons and a red-trimmed corset. She left the door open.

The room was cheaply furnished and seemed to contain no more than a handful of personal possessions. The woman smiled at him encouragingly.

'Do you have my little present, Henry?' she asked him.

Samuel Nutkin nodded and proffered her the £20 he had been holding in his trouser pocket. She took it and stuffed it into a handbag on the dresser.

'Now sit down and make yourself comfortable,' she said. 'There's no need to be nervous. Now, what can I do for you?'

Mr Nutkin had seated himself on the edge of an easy chair. He felt as if his mouth was full of quick-drying cement. 'It's difficult to explain,' he muttered.

She smiled again. 'There's no need to be shy. What would you like to do?'

Hesitatingly he told her. She showed no surprise.

'That's all right,' she said easily. 'A lot of gentlemen like a bit of that sort of thing. Now take off your jacket, trousers and shoes, and come with me into the bedroom.'

He did as she told him and followed her down the passage again to the bedroom which was surprisingly brightly lit. Once inside she closed the door, locked it, dropped the key into the pocket of her housecoat, slipped out of the latter and hung it behind the door.

When the plain buff envelope arrived at 27 Acacia Avenue three days later Samuel Nutkin collected it off the front door mat along with the rest of the morning mail and took it back to the breakfast table. There were three letters in all, one for Lettice from her sister, a bill from the nursery for some potted plants, and the buff envelope, postmarked in London and addressed to Samuel Nutkin. He opened it without suspicion, expecting it to be a commercial circular. It was not.

The six photographs that fell out lay for a few moments face up on the table while he stared at them in incomprehension. When understanding dawned, sheer horror took its place. The photos would not have won prizes for clarity or focus, but they were good enough. In all of them the face of the woman was clearly seen, and in at least two of them his own face was easily recognizable. Scrabbling furiously he scoured the inside of the envelope for anything else, but it was quite empty. He turned all six photographs, but the backs were unmarked by any message. The message was on the front in black and white, without words.

Samuel Nutkin was in the grip of a blind panic as he stuffed the photographs under the carpet by the fireplace where he found the magazine still lying. Then on a second impulse he took the lot outside and burned them all behind the garage, stamping the ashes into the moist earth with his heel. As he re-entered the house he thought of spending the day at home, claiming illness, but then realized that must attract Lettice's suspicion since he was perfectly well. He just had time to take her letter upstairs to her, remove her breakfast tray and run to catch the train to the City.

His mind was still whirling as he gazed out of the window from his corner seat and tried to work out the implications of the morning's shock. It took him till just past New Cross to realize how it had been done.

'My jacket,' he breathed, 'jacket and wallet.'

Old Fogarty who was studying 7 down shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'too many letters.'

Samuel Nutkin gazed miserably out of the window as southeast London's suburbs trundled past the train. He was simply not used to this sort of thing. A cold horror gripped his stomach and he could no more concentrate on his work that morning than fly.

In the lunch hour he tried to ring the number Sally had given him, but it had been disconnected.

He took a taxi straight to the basement flat in Bayswater but it was locked and barred, with a For Rent notice attached to the railings at pavement level. By mid-afternoon Mr Nutkin had worked out that even going to the police would serve little purpose. Almost certainly the magazine had sent replies for that advertisement to an address which would turn out to be an accommodation, long since vacated without trace. The basement flat in Bayswater had probably been rented by the week for the week in a false name and vacated. The telephone number would probably belong to a man who would say he had been away for the past month and had found the door latch forced on his return. Since then there had been a number of calls asking for Sally, which had completely mystified him. A day later he too would be gone.

On his arrival home Lettice was in a more corn-plaining mood than usual. There had been three calls, all asking for him by name, which had disturbed her afternoon rest. It was really not good enough.

The fourth call came just after eight. Samuel Nutkin shot out of his chair, left Lettice watching the television, and went into the hallway to take it. Nervously, he let the phone ring a few times before picking up the receiver. The voice was that of a man, but fogged as if by a handkerchief held to the mouthpiece.

'Mr Nutkin?'

'Yes.'

'Mr Samuel Nutkin?'

'Yes.'

'Or should I call you Henry Jones?'

Samuel Nutkin's stomach turned over.

'Who is that?' he queried.

'Never mind the name, friend. Did you get my little present in the morning's post?'

'What do you want?'

'I asked you a question, friend. Did you get the photos?'

'Yes.'

'Have a good look at them, did you?'

Samuel Nutkin swallowed hard with the horror of the memory. 'Yes.'

'Well, then, you've been a naughty lad, haven't you? I really can't see how I can avoid sending the same set to your boss at the office. Oh yes, I know about your office, and the managing director's name. And then I might send another set to Mrs Nutkin. Or to the secretary of the tennis club. You really do carry a lot in your wallet, Mr Nutkin…'

'Look, please don't do that,' burst out Mr Nutkin, but the voice cut through his protests.

'I'm not staying on this line any longer. Don't bother to go to the police. They couldn't even begin to find me. So just play it cool, friend, and you can have the whole lot back, negatives and all. Think it over. What time do you leave for work in the morning?'

'Eight-twenty.'

'I'll ring you again at eight tomorrow morning. Have a good night.'

The phone clicked dead, and Mr Nutkin was left listening to the dialling tone.

He did not have a good night. He had a horrible night. After Lettice had gone to bed he made the excuse of banking up the fire, and item by item went through the contents of his wallet. Railway season ticket, cheque book, tennis club membership card, two letters addressed to him, two photographs of Lettice and himself, driving licence, membership card for the insurance company's social club, more than enough to identify him and his place of work.

In the half light of the street lamp shining from Acacia Avenue through the curtains he looked across the room at Lettice's disapproving face in the other twin bed — she had always insisted on twin beds — and tried to imagine her opening a buff envelope that had arrived, addressed to her, by second postal delivery while he was at the office. He tried to visualize Mr Benson up on the director's floor receiving the same set of photos. Or the membership committee of the tennis club passing them round at a special meeting convened to 'reconsider' Samuel Nutkin's membership. He couldn't. It baffled his imagination. But of one thing he was quite certain; the shock would kill poor Lettice… it would simply kill her, and that must not be allowed to happen.

Before he dropped into a fitful doze just before dawn, he told himself for the hundredth time that he was simply not used to this sort of thing.

The phone call came on the dot of eight. Samuel Nutkin was waiting in the hallway, as ever in dark grey suit, white shirt and collar, bowler hat, rolled umbrella and briefcase, before setting off on his punctual morning trot to the station.

'Thought it over, have you?' said the voice.

'Yes,' quavered Samuel Nutkin.

'Want those photo negatives back, do you?'

'Yes, please.'

'Well, I'm afraid you'll have to buy 'em, friend. Just to cover our expenses and perhaps to teach you a little lesson.'

Mr Nutkin swallowed several times. 'I'm not a rich man,' he pleaded. 'How much do you want?'

'One thousand quid,' replied the man down the phone, without hesitation.

Samuel Nutkin was appalled. 'But I haven't got one thousand pounds,' he protested.

'Well then, you'd better raise it,' sneered the voice on the phone. 'You can raise a loan against your house, your car or whatever you like. But get it, and quick. By tonight. I'll ring you at eight this evening.'

And again the man was gone, and the dialling tone buzzed in Samuel Nutkin's ear. He went upstairs, gave Lettice a peck on the cheek, and left for work. But that day he did not board the 8.31 to Charing Cross. Instead, he went and sat in the park, alone on a bench, a strange solitary figure dressed for the office and the City, but sitting gnome-like amid the trees and flowers, in a bowler hat and black suit. He felt he had to think, and that he could not think properly sitting next to old Fogarty and his endless crossword puzzles.

He supposed he could borrow £1000 if he tried, but it would raise a few eyebrows at the bank. Even that would be as nothing compared with the bank manager's reaction when he asked for it all in used notes. He could say he needed it to pay a gambling debt, but no one would believe it. They knew he didn't gamble. He didn't drink much beyond a glass of wine now and again, and did not smoke either, except a cigar at Christmas. They would think it was a woman, he surmised, then dismissed that too. They would know he would not keep a mistress. What to do, what to do, he asked himself over and over, rocking backwards and forwards in his mental turmoil.

He could go to the police. Surely they could trace these people, even through the false names and rented flats. Then there would be a court case and he would have to give evidence. They always referred to the blackmailed person as Mr X, he had read in the paper, but the man's own circle usually discovered who it wa3. One could not keep going to court day after day and no one notice, not if one had led a life of unvarying routine for thirty-five years.

At 9.30 he left the park bench and went to a telephone kiosk where he rang his office and told the chief of his department that he was indisposed but would be at his desk that afternoon. From there he walked to the bank. On the way he racked his brains for a solution, recalling all the court cases he had read about in which blackmail was concerned. What did the law call it? Demanding money with menaces, that was the phrase. A nice legal phrase, he thought bitterly, but not much use to the victim.

If he were a single man, he thought, and younger, he would tell them where to go. But he was too old to change his job, and then there was Lettice, poor fragile Lettice. The shock would kill her, he had no doubt. Above all, he must protect Lettice, of that he was determined.

At the door of the bank his nerve failed him. He could never confront his bank manager with such a strange and inexplicable request. It would be tantamount to saying, 'I am being blackmailed and I want a loan of a thousand pounds.' Besides, after the first £1000, would they not come back for more? Bleed him white, then send the pictures? It could happen. But at any rate he could not raise the money at his local bank. The answer, he decided reluctantly, for he was an honest and gentle man, lay in London. It was thither he went on the 10.31 train.

He arrived in the City too early to present himself at his office, so to fill in the time he went shopping. Being a careful man he could not conceive of carrying a sum as large as £1000 around unprotected in his pocket. It would not be natural. So he went to an emporium for office equipment and bought a small steel cashbox with key. At a variety of other shops he bought a pound of icing sugar (for his wife's birthday cake, he explained), a tin of fertilizer for his roses, a mousetrap for the kitchen, some fuse wire for the electrical box under the stairs, two torch batteries, a soldering iron to mend the kettle, and a number of other harmless items such as every law-abiding householder might be expected to have about the house.

At two in the afternoon he was at his desk, assured his department head he was feeling much better, and got on with his work on the company accounts. Fortunately the idea that Mr Samuel Nutkin might even think of making an unauthorized withdrawal on the company's account was not to be entertained.

At eight that evening he was once again in front of the television with Lettice when the phone rang in the hallway. When he answered, it was Foggy Voice again.

'You got the money, Mr Nutkin?' he said without preamble.

'Er… yes,' said Mr Nutkin, and before the other could continue he went on, 'Look, please why don't you send the negatives to me and we'll forget the whole thing?'

There was a silence as of stunned amazement from the other end.

'You out of your mind?' queried Foggy Voice at last.

'No,' said Mr Nutkin seriously. 'No, but I just wish you could understand the distress this is all going to cause if you insist on going ahead.'

'Now you listen to me, Nutcase,' said the voice, harsh with anger. 'You must do as you're bloody well told, or I might even send those photos to your wife and boss, just for the hell of it.'

Mr Nutkin sighed deeply. 'That was what I feared,' he said. 'Go on.'

'Tomorrow during the lunch hour take a taxi to Albert Bridge Road. Turn into Battersea Park and walk down West Drive heading away from the river. Halfway down turn left into Central Drive. Keep walking down there till you come to the halfway point. There are two benches. There won't be nobody about, not at this time of year. Put the stuff, wrapped in a brown paper parcel, under the first bench. Then keep walking till you come out the other side of the park. Got it?'

'Yes, I've got it,' said Mr Nutkin.

'Right,' said the voice. 'One last thing. You'll be watched from the moment you enter the park. You'll be watched as you place the parcel. Don't think the cops can help you. We know what you look like, but you don't know me. One hint of trouble, or the fuzz keeping a watch, and we'll be gone. You know what will happen then, don't you, Nutkin?'

'Yes,' said Mr Nutkin feebly.

'Right. Well, do what you've been told, and don't make mistakes.'

Then the man hung up.

A few minutes later Samuel Nutkin made an excuse to his wife and went into the garage at the side of the house. He wanted to be alone for a while.

Samuel Nutkin did exactly as he was told the following day. He was walking down West Drive on the western side of the park and had reached the left turn into Central Drive when he was hailed by a motorcyclist sitting astride his machine a few feet away, studying a road map. The man wore a crash helmet, goggles and a scarf wrapped round his face. He called through the scarf, 'Hey, mate, can you help me?'

Mr Nutkin paused in his stride but being a polite man he covered the two yards to where the motorcycle stood by the kerb and bent to peer at the map. A voice hissed in his ear, 'I'll take the parcel, Nutkin.'

He felt the parcel wrenched from his grip, heard the roar of the engine kick-started, saw the parcel drop into an open basket on the handlebars of the motorbike, and in seconds the machine was away, weaving back into the lunch-time traffic of the Albert Bridge Road. It was over in seconds, and even if the police had been watching, they could hardly have caught the man, so quickly did he move. Mr Nutkin shook his head sadly and went back to his office in the City.

The man with the theory about names and nicknames was quite wrong in the case of Detective Sergeant Smiley of the Criminal Investigation Department. When he called to see Mr Nutkin the following week, his long horse face and sad brown eyes looked very sombre. He stood on the doorstep in the winter darkness in a long black coat like an undertaker.

'Mr Nutkin?'

'Yes.'

'Mr Samuel Nutkin?'

'Yes…. er, yes, that's me.'

'Detective Sergeant Smiley, sir. 1 wonder if I might have a few moments with you.' He proffered his warrant card, but Mr Nutkin bobbed his head in acceptance, and said, 'Won't you come in?'

Detective Sergeant Smiley was ill at ease.

'Er… what I have to discuss, Mr Nutkin, is somewhat of a private nature, perhaps even somewhat embarrassing,' he began.

'Good Lord,' said Nutkin, 'there's no need to be embarrassed, Sergeant.'

Smiley stared at him. 'No need…?'

'Good gracious me, no. Some tickets for the police ball no doubt. We in the tennis club always send a few along. As secretary this year I quite expected…'

Smiley swallowed hard. 'I'm afraid it's not about the police ball, sir. I am here in the course of inquiries.'

'Well, there's still no need to be embarrassed,' said Mr Nutkin.

The muscles in the sergeant's jaw worked spasmodically. 'I was thinking, sir, of your embarrassment, not my own,' he said patiently. 'Is your wife at home, sir?'

'Well, yes, but she's in bed. She retires early, you know. Her health…'

As if on cue a petulant voice came floating from the upper floor down to the hallway. 'Who is it, Samuel?'

'It's a gentleman from the police, my dear.'

'From the police?'

'Now do not fret yourself, my dear,' Samuel Nutkin called back. 'Er… it simply has to do with the forthcoming tennis tournament with the police sports club.'

Sergeant Smiley nodded in grim approval of the subterfuge and followed Mr Nutkin into the sitting room.

'Now, perhaps you can tell me what this is all about, and why I should be embarrassed,' said the latter as the door closed.

'Some days ago,' began Sergeant Smiley, 'my colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Force had occasion to visit a flat in the West End of London. While searching the premises, they came across a series of envelopes in a locked drawer.'

Samuel Nutkin gazed at him with benign interest.

'Each of these envelopes, some thirty in all, contained a postcard on which had been written the name of a man, all different, along with home address and in some cases address of place of employment. The envelopes also contained up to a dozen photographic negatives, and in each case these proved to be pictures of men, usually mature men, in what one might only describe as an extremely compromising situation with a woman.'

Samuel Nutkin had gone pale and he moistened his lips nervously. Sergeant Smiley looked disapproving.

'In each case,' he went on, 'the woman in the photographs was the same, a person known to the police as a convicted prostitute. I'm afraid to have to tell you, sir, that one of the envelopes contained your name and address, and a series of six negatives in which you featured engaged in a certain activity in company with this woman. We have established that this woman, along with a certain man, was one of the occupants of the flat visited by the Metropolitan Police. The man in the case was the other occupant. Do you begin to follow me?'

Samuel Nutkin held his head in his hands in shame. He gazed with haggard eyes at the carpet. Finally he sighed a deep sigh.

'Oh, my God,' he said. 'Photographs. Someone must have taken photographs. Oh, the shame of it, when it all comes out. I swear to you, Sergeant, I had no idea it was illegal.'

Sergeant Smiley blinked rapidly. 'Mr Nutkin, let me make one thing quite plain. Whatever you did was not illegal. Your private life is your own affair as far as the police are concerned, providing it breaks no laws. And visiting a prostitute does not break the law.'

'But I don't understand,' quavered Nutkin. 'You said you were making inquiries…'

'But not into your private life, Mr Nutkin,' said Sergeant Smiley firmly. 'May I continue? Thank you. It is the view of the Metropolitan Police that men were lured to this woman's apartment either by personal contact or by contact through advertisements, and then secretly photographed and identified, with a view to subjecting them to blackmail at a later date.'

Samuel Nutkin stared up at the detective round-eyed. He was simply not used to this sort of thing.

'Blackmail,' he whispered. 'Oh, my God, that's even worse.'

'Precisely, Mr Nutkin. Now…' The detective produced a photograph from his coat pocket. 'Do you recognize this woman?'

Samuel Nutkin found himself staring at a good likeness of the woman he knew as Sally. He nodded dumbly.

'I see,' said the sergeant and put the photograph away. 'Now, sir, would you tell me in your own words how you came to make the acquaintance of this lady. I will not need to make any notes at this stage, and anything you say will be treated as confidential unless it now or later proves to have a bearing on the case.'

Haltingly, ashamed and mortified, Samuel Nutkin related the affair from the start, the chance finding of the magazine, the reading of it in the office toilet, the three-day tussle with himself over whether to write a letter back or not, the succumbing to temptation and the writing of his letter under the name of Henry Jones. He told of the letter that came back, of noting the telephone number and destroying the letter, of making the telephone call that same lunch hour and being given an appointment for the following day at 12.30. He narrated the meeting with the woman in the basement flat, how she had persuaded him to leave his jacket in the sitting room while taking him into the bedroom, how it was the first time in his life he had ever done such a thing, and how on returning home that evening he had burned the magazine in which he had found the original advert and vowed never to behave in that way again.

'Now, sir,' said Sergeant Smiley when he had finished, 'this is very important. At any time since that afternoon have you received any phone call, or had knowledge of a phone call being made in your absence, that might have been connected with a demand for payment in blackmail as a result of these photographs being taken?'

Samuel Nutkin shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'nothing at all like that. It seems they haven't got round to me yet.'

Sergeant Smiley smiled at last, a grim smile. 'They haven't got round to you yet, sir, and they won't. After all, the police have the photographs.'

Samuel Nutkin looked up with hope in his eyes. 'Of course,' he said. 'Your investigation. They must have been detected before they could get round to me. Tell me, Sergeant, what will happen to these.. dreadful photographs now?'

'As soon as I inform Scotland Yard that those pertaining to you personally are not connected with our inquiries, they will be burnt.'

'Oh, I'm so glad, so relieved. But tell me, of the various men against whom this couple had evidence that could substantiate blackmail, they must have tried it on someone.'

'No doubt they have,' said the sergeant, rising to leave. 'And no doubt various police officers, at the request of Scotland Yard, are interviewing the score or more of gentlemen who figure in those photographs. Doubtless these inquiries will elicit the names of all those who had already been approached for money by the time our investigation started.'

'But how would you know who had, and who hadn't?' asked Mr Nutkin. 'After all, a man might have been approached, and have paid, but might be too frightened to let on, even to the police.'

Sergeant Smiley nodded down at the insurance clerk. 'Bank statements, sir. Most men in a small way only have the one or two bank accounts. To raise a large sum, a man would have to go to his bank, or sell something of value. There's always a trace left.'

By now they had reached the front door.

'Well, I must say,' said Mr Nutkin, 'I admire the man who went to the police and exposed these scoundrels. I only hope that if they had approached me for money, as doubtless they would sooner or later, I would have had the courage to do the same. By the way, I won't have to give evidence, will I? I know it's all supposed to be anonymous, but people can find out, you know.'

'You won't have to give evidence, Mr Nutkin.'

'Then I pity the poor man who exposed them, and who will have to,' said Samuel Nutkin.

'Nobody on that list of compromised gentlemen will have to give evidence, sir.'

'But I don't understand. You have exposed them both, with the evidence. Surely you will make an arrest. Your investigations…'

'Mr Nutkin,' said Sergeant Smiley, framed in the door, 'we are not investigating blackmail either. We are investigating murder.'

Samuel Nutkin's face was a picture. 'Murder?' he squeaked. 'You mean they have killed somebody as well?'

'Who?'

'The blackmailers.'

'No, sir, they haven't killed anybody. Some joker has killed them. The question is: who? But that's the trouble with blackmailers. They may have blackmailed hundreds by now, and eventually one of their victims traced them to their hideout. All their business was probably by telephone from public booths. No records are kept except the incriminating evidence against the present victims. The problem is: where to start?'

'Where indeed?' murmured Samuel Nutkin. 'Were they… shot?'

'No, sir. Whoever did it simply delivered a parcel to their door. That's why whoever it was must have known their address. The parcel contained a cashbox with a key apparently taped to the lid. When the key was used the lid flicked open from the pressure of what the lab boys have established was a mousetrap spring, a brilliantly clever anti-handling device was activated and the bomb blew them both to bits.'

Mr Nutkin gazed at him as though he had descended from Mount Olympus. 'Incredible,' he breathed, 'but where on earth would a respectable citizen get a bomb?'

Sergeant Smiley shook his head.

'Nowadays, sir, there's far too much of it about, what with the Irish and the Arabs and all them foreigners. And there's books about it. Not like in my day. Nowadays, given the right materials, almost any sixth-form chemistry student could make a bomb. Well, good night, Mr Nutkin. I don't think I shall be troubling you again.'

The following day in the City Mr Nutkin dropped in at Gusset's the frame-makers and collected the photograph that had been in their hands for the past fortnight. He had arranged for them to keep it until he called, and to fit a new frame to replace the old. That evening it was back in its pride of place on the table beside the fire.

It was an old photograph depicting two young men in the uniform of the Royal Army Engineers bomb disposal unit. They were sitting astride the casing of a German 'Big Fritz' five-ton bomb. In front of them on a blanket lay the scores of components that had once made up the six separate anti-handling devices fitted to the bomb. In the background was a village church. One of the young men was lean and lantern-jawed, with a major's crowns on his shoulders. The other was plump and round, with spectacles on the end of his nose. Beneath the photograph was the inscription: 'To the Bomb Wizards, Major Mike Halloran and Corporal Sam Nutkin, with grateful thanks from the villagers of Steeple Norton, July 1943.'

Mr Nutkin gazed at it proudly. Then he snorted.

'Sixth-formers indeed.'