The cab driver didn’t like Tick-Tock Tamil’s address on Start Street in Paddington and he didn’t think that I should either.
“You sure you got the right address, sir?”
“I’m sure,” I said, handing over what was on the meter plus an adequate tip.
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t go in there, not if they paid me.”
“That’s because you’ve got good sense,” I said, but he was already driving off.
I suspected that the house at 13 Start Street had never been much of an address, not even when it had been built eighty or ninety years before. It had always been ugly, this cramped three-story structure that was far too narrow and built of dark and dirty brick that made it virtually indistinguishable from the rows of houses that had been thrown up on both sides of it.
What did distinguish 13 Start Street from its neighbors was that not all of its windows were broken out, or boarded up, as were the ones in the rest of the houses that lined the street. Across the way, old posters covered the vacant fronts of three shops that had once housed a dry cleaner, a butcher, and a tobacconist.
It looked like a condemned street, condemned by time and decay, or perhaps by speculators, or even by the ruling local politicians who may have decided that they should substitute another square mile of gloomy council flats for another square mile of gloomy slum dwellings. Everyone else on the street had moved, or fled, except Tick-Tock Tamil who appeared to be the lone holdout. I assumed that he was exercising squatter’s rights at 13 Start Street and that whoever owned the building was having one hell of a time getting him out. I understand that if you know the ropes, you can do that in London — squat. Tick-Tock would certainly know the ropes.
There was a bay window and to the right of it a short flight of steps. I went up the steps and knocked on the door. The bay window had curtains whose pattern of faded red and yellow roses was turned toward the street so that passersby could admire the occupant’s good taste. The curtain moved a little as someone peeked out. After a few moments a young blond girl, not much more than seventeen or eighteen, opened the door and let me look through her see-through blouse.
“Hello, love,” she said. “Like to come to our party?”
The blond hair had come out of a bottle or a tube, but she seemed to have spent a lot of time on it, and it hung down in carefully careless ringlets. Her face was pretty in a pinched sort of way, but she wore too much makeup, especially too much green eyeshadow. She took a deep breath so that I could have a better view of what lay beneath the see-through blouse. What there was, was fine.
“Tick-Tock in?” I said.
“I’m sure I don’t know who you mean.”
“Mr. Tamil,” I said.
“You a friend of his?”
“Of long standing.”
“You’re not the law.”
“No.”
“You know why I know you’re not the law?”
“No. Why?”
“Because you’re American, ain’t you?” The “ain’t you” came out more like “einchew” and the rest of her words had a strong London tang. She was, I decided, a native daughter.
“Why don’t you be a good girl and run tell Tick-Tock that I’d like to see him.”
She shrugged and turned her head. “Tick-Tock!” she screamed.
“What?” It was a man’s voice.
“There’s a Yank here who says he’s a friend of yours.”
He had changed. The last time I had seen him had been in the Ritz Bar and he had been wearing white tie and tails. It was one of his work uniforms then. On his head had been a white silk turban and in his pocket was a large, old-fashioned-looking watch, heavy enough to be made out of solid gold. Its back flipped open and there, in what appeared to be fine engraving, was inscribed, “To His Most Royal Highness from his Most Loyal Friend.” And underneath that was the single name: Curzon.
“I move nearly a dozen of them a week,” Tick-Tock had told me as we had sat there drinking our whiskies under the Ritz Bar’s swooping pink and cream ceiling. “They bring anywhere from twenty to fifty pounds each — the average is about thirty-five.”
“What do they cost you?” I had asked.
“Five pounds.”
“They look to be worth a lot more.”
“I have a chap in Hammersmith who runs them up for me. We use American insides and case. It’s called a Westclox Railroad Special. We tried using Swiss works, but they don’t tick quite loudly enough, if you follow me.”
“Sure.”
“Well, the engraving is not engraving at all. It’s stamped, of course. The face looks hand-painted, but it’s actually printed on special paper. And then we use a little lead here and there to give it weight.”
“What about the gold?” I had said. “I’d swear that it was real gold.”
“Oh, it is. But this chap in Hammersmith has his own method of electroplating. It spreads the gold so thin that if you just keep it in your pocket for a week or two, it will wear right through. I doubt that we use half an ounce on a hundred of them.”
“How do you work it?”
“You will change my name, of course, when you write it?”
“That was the agreement.”
“I really don’t know why I’m doing this.”
“Because you’re going into something else,” I had said.
“Yes. I suppose that’s it. But you wish to know how I work it?”
“That’s right.”
“I work the older, better educated types, the ones who might recall or even care that Curzon was once viceroy of India — from 1899 to about 1905, I believe. Take that one over there — to your left.”
I had looked to where an elderly type in a dinner jacket had been sitting for some time with a woman of about his own age.
“He’ll be off to drop his penny in a moment,” Tamil had said. “I suggest that you go first, sit yourself down, and then you can hear it all, even if you won’t be able to see it”
“Okay,” I had said and a few moments later I had found myself sitting on a toilet seat behind the closed door of a stall in the men’s room of the Ritz Bar.
Tick-Tock had started the conversation in his impeccable accent. “I say, aren’t you Sir John Forest?”
“No,” I had heard the elderly gentleman say. “I’m afraid I’m not.”
“Oh, I am sorry. There’s such an extraordinary resemblance, but I suppose you’re accustomed to it, being taken for him, I mean. I knew Sir John’s son at school. You do know Sir John, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t know him.”
“Extraordinary resemblance.” There had been a pause and then Tick-Tock had said, “Oh, damn. I wonder if I’m running late? Do you have the time?”
“Quarter past nine.”
Tick-Tock had chuckled. “Well, once more this old watch of mine is right and I’m wrong. But I don’t really think that it’s been more than a few seconds off since Lord Curzon gave it to Grandfather.”
“Curzon?”
“Yes. When he was viceroy, you know. There’s rather a touching inscription on the back, if you’d care to see it.”
“Well, yes, I’d rather like that.”
The elderly gentleman had read it out. “‘To his most royal highness from his most loyal friend. Curzon.’ Well. Your grandfather, you say. Then you must be—”
Tick-Tock had interrupted. “Yes, I am, although I’m trying to be incognito, for tonight, at least. But this American reporter has tracked me down and I simply can’t shake him. Perhaps you noticed him at the bar?”
“Can’t say I did.”
“Actually, the reason that I’ve gone to ground, so to speak, is not because of the American, but because of this blasted watch.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. In point of fact, a chap from the British Museum has been after me night and day. They seem to want it most desperately and this chap was even so cheeky as to offer me a thousand pounds for the thing.”
“A thousand pounds, eh?”
“I was tempted, if only to get rid of him. But I sent him packing, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Then there was this private collector who offered me five thousand for it. But he was Greek and you know what they’re like.”
“Damned rascals, most of them.”
“Well, I must be going. This American reporter wants to do a story for his paper — The New York Times, I believe — on my London. It’s, well, it’s the London that you and I know, of course. Most Americans don’t often see it.”
“No,” the old gentleman had said. “I doubt if they would. Or perhaps should.” He had chuckled at his small joke and so had Tick-Tock.
“But I’m afraid that the chap from the British Museum is going to be on my trail tonight. He simply won’t take no for an answer. He keeps telling me that the watch isn’t really priceless, but I don’t think that one can place price on sentiment, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“I say, I have an idea. I know I’m going to put this wretchedly,” Tick-Tock said, but he didn’t. He had put it as smoothly as any proposition I’ve ever heard. It was his idea that the old gentleman should keep the watch for him, but only for the night. Tick-Tock would drop round to get it the next morning.
The old gentleman had protested, of course, but Tick-Tock had already thrust the watch upon him. When the old gentleman had made his final feeble protest, Tick-Tock struck. He had said that if it would make him feel more secure, the old gentleman could put up a pledge of perhaps fifty pounds. Caught between greed and flattery, the old gentleman had agreed.
There had been an exchange of names and addresses and telephone numbers and then they had made their good-byes. I had rejoined Tick-Tock in the bar shortly thereafter. The old gentleman and his wife had just been leaving. Tick-Tock had raised his glass in salute. The old gentleman had nodded and smiled, but a little nervously, I’d thought.
Tick-Tock had tossed me a small card on which a name, an address, and a telephone number were written. “He gave me a wrong address, a phony telephone number, and a phony name.”
“How do you know?”
Tick-Tock had smiled at me and he had looked very much like Tyrone Power all made up to look like an Indian maharaja. “Because that’s my business, mate,” Tick-Tock had said. “To know.”