A Gun for Sale Read online

  'A friend's seeing me off,' Anne Crowder said. 'Can't I get in at this end and go up front when we start?'

  'They've locked the doors.'

  She looked desperately past him. They were turning out the lights in the buffet; no more trains from that platform. 'You'll have to hurry, miss.'

  The poster of an evening paper caught her eye and as she ran down the train, looking back as often as she was able, she couldn't help remembering that war might be declared before they met again. He would go to it; he always did what other people did, she told herself with irritation, although she knew it was his reliability she loved. She wouldn't have loved him if he'd been eccentric, had his own opinions about things; she lived too closely to thwarted genius, to second touring company actresses who thought they ought to be Cochran stars, to admire difference. She wanted her man to be ordinary, she wanted to be able to know what he'd say next.

  A line of lamp-struck faces went by her; the train was full, so full that in the first-class carriages you saw strange shy awkward people who were not at ease in the deep seats, who feared the ticket-collector would turn them out. She gave up the search for a third-class carriage, opened a door, dropped her Woman and Beauty on the only seat and struggled back to the window over legs and protruding suitcases. The engine was getting up steam, the smoke blew back up the platform, it was difficult to see as far as the barrier.

  A hand pulled at her sleeve. 'Excuse me,' a fat man said, 'if you've quite finished with that window. I want to buy some chocolate.'

  She said, 'Just one moment, please. Somebody's seeing me off.'

  'He's not here. It's too late. You can't monopolize the window like that. I must have some chocolate.' He swept her on one side and waved an emerald ring under the light. She tried to look over his shoulder to the barrier; he almost filled the window. He called 'Boy, Boy!' waving the emerald ring. He said, 'What chocolate have you got? No, not Motorist's, not Mexican. Something sweet.'

  Suddenly through a crack she saw Mather. He was past the barrier, he was coming down the train looking for her, looking in all the third-class carriages, running past the first-class. She implored the fat man: 'Please, please do let me come. I can see my friend.'

  'In a moment. In a moment. Have you Nestle? Give me a shilling packet.'

  'Please let me.'

  'Haven't you anything smaller,' the boy said, 'than a ten-shilling note?'

  Mather went by, running past the first-class. She hammered on the window, but he didn't hear her, among the whistles and the beat of trolley wheels, the last packing cases rolling into the van. Doors slammed, a whistle blew, the train began to move.

  'Please. Please.'

  'I must get my change,' the fat man said, and the boy ran beside the carriage counting the shillings into his palm. When she got to the window and leant out they were past the platform, she could only see a small figure on a wedge of asphalt who couldn't see her. An elderly woman said,' You oughtn't to lean out like that. It's dangerous.'

  She trod on their toes getting back to her seat, she felt unpopularity well up all around her, everyone was thinking,' She oughtn't to be in the carriage. What's the good of our paying first-class fares when...' But she wouldn't cry; she was fortified by all the conventional remarks which came automatically to her mind about spilt milk and it will be all the same in fifty years. Nevertheless she noted with deep dislike on the label dangling from the fat man's suitcase his destination, which was the same as hers, Nottwich. He sat opposite her with the Passing Show and the Evening News and the Financial Times on his lap eating sweet milk chocolate.

  Chapter 2

  1

  RAVEN walked with his handkerchief over his lip across Soho Square, Oxford Street, up Charlotte Street. It was dangerous but not so dangerous as showing his hare-lip. He turned to the left and then to the right into a narrow street where big-breasted women in aprons called across to each other and a few solemn children scouted up the gutter. He stopped by a door with a brass plate, Dr Alfred Yogel on the second floor, on the first floor the North American Dental Company. He went upstairs and rang the bell. There was a smell of greens from below and somebody had drawn a naked torso in pencil on the wall.

  A woman in nurse's uniform opened the door, a woman with a mean lined face and untidy grey hair. Her uniform needed washing; it was spotted with grease-marks and what might have been blood or iodine. She brought with her a harsh smell of chemicals and disinfectants. When she saw Raven holding his handkerchief over his mouth she said, 'The dentist's on the floor below.'

  'I want to see Dr Yogel.'

  She looked him over closely, suspiciously, running her eyes down his dark coat. 'He's busy.'

  'I can wait.'

  One naked globe swung behind her head in the dingy passage. 'He doesn't generalry see people as late as this.'

  'I'll pay for the trouble,' Raven said. She judged him with just the same appraising stare as the doorkeeper at a shady nightclub. She said, 'You can come in.' He followed her into a waiting-room: the same bare globe, a chair, a round oak table splashed with dark paint. She shut him in and he heard her voice start in the next room. It went on and on. He picked up the only magazine, Good Housekeeping of eighteen months back, and began mechanically to read: 'Bare walls are very popular today, perhaps one picture to give the necessary point of colour...'

  The nurse opened the door and jerked her hand. 'He'll see you.' Dr Yogel was washing his hands in a fixed basin behind his long yellow desk and swivel chair. There was no other furniture in the room except a kitchen chair, a cabinet and a long couch. His hair was jet-black; it looked, as if it had been dyed, and there was not much of it; it was plastered in thin strands across the scalp. When he turned he showed a plump hard bonhomous face, a thick sensual mouth. He said, 'And what can we do for you?' You felt he was more accustomed to deal with women than with men. The nurse stood harshly behind waiting.

  Raven lowered his handkerchief. He said, 'Can you do anything about this lip quickly?'

  Dr Yogel came up and prodded it with a little fat forefinger. 'I'm not a surgeon.'

  Raven said, 'I can pay.'

  Dr Yogel said, 'It's a job for a surgeon. It's not in my line at all.'

  'I know that,' Raven said, and caught the quick flicker of glances between the nurse and Dr Yogel. Dr Yogel lifted up the lip on each side; his fingernails were not quite clean. He watched Raven carefully and said, 'If you come back tomorrow at ten...' His breath smelt faintly of brandy.

  'No,' Raven said. 'I want it done now at once.'

  'Ten pounds,' Dr Yogel said quickly.

  'All right.'

  'In cash.'

  'I've got it with me.'

  Dr Yogel sat down at his desk. 'And now if you'll give me your name...'

  'You don't need to know my name.'

  Dr Yogel said gently: 'Any name...'

  'Chumley, then.'

  'CHOLMO...'

  'No. Spell it CHUMLEY.'

  Dr Yogel filled up a slip of paper and handed it to the nurse. She went outside and closed the door behind her. Dr Yogel went to the cabinet and brought out a tray of knives. Raven said, 'The light's bad.'

  'I'm used to it,' Dr Yogel said. 'I've a good eye.' But as he held up a knife to the light his hand very slightly trembled. He said softly, 'Lie down on the couch, old man.'

  Raven lay down. He said, 'I knew a girl who came to you. Name of Page. She said you did her trick fine.' Dr Yogel said, 'She oughtn't to talk about it.'

  'Oh,' Raven said, 'you are safe with me. I don't go back on a fellow who treats me right.' Dr Yogel took a case like a portable gramophone out of his cabinet and carried it over to the couch. He produced a long tube and a mask. He smiled gently and said, 'We don't run to anaesthetists here, old man.'

  'Stop,' Raven said, 'you're not going to give me gas.'

  'It would hurt without it, old man,' Dr Yogel said, approaching with the mask, 'it would hurt like hell.'

  Raven sat up and pushed the mask aside.
'I won't have it,' he said, 'not gas. I've never had gas. I've never passed out yet. I like to see what's going on.'

  Dr Yogel laughed gently and pulled at Raven's lip in a playful way. 'Better get used to it, old man. We'll all be gassed in a day or two.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, it looks like war, doesn't it?' Dr Yogel said, talking rapidly and unwinding more tube, turning screws in a soft, shaking, inexorable way. 'The Serbs can't shoot a Minister of War like that and get away with it. Italy's ready to come in. And the French are warming up. We'll be in it ourselves inside a week.'

  Raven said, 'All that because an old man...' He explained, 'I haven't read the papers.'

  'I wish I'd known beforehand,' Dr Yogel said, making conversation, fixing his cylinder. 'I'd have made a fortune in munition shares. They've gone up to the sky, old man. Now lean back. It won't take a moment.' He again approached the mask. He said, 'You've only got to breathe deep, old man.'

  Raven said, 'I told you I wouldn't have gas. Get that straight. You can cut me about as much as you like, but I won't have gas.'

  'It's very silly of you, old man,' Dr Yogel said. 'It's going to hurt.' He went back to the cabinet and again picked up a knife, but his hand shook more than ever. He was frightened of something. And then Raven heard from outside the tiny tinkle a telephone makes when the receiver is lifted. He jumped up from the couch; it was bitterly cold, but Dr Yogel was sweating; he stood by the cabinet holding his surgical knife, unable to say a word. Raven said, 'Keep quiet. Don't speak.' He flung the door suddenly open and there was the nurse in the little dim hall with the telephone at her ear. Raven stood sideways so that he could keep his eye on both of them. 'Put back that receiver,' he said. She put it back, watching him with her little mean conscienceless eyes. He said furiously, 'You double-crossing—' He said, 'I've got a mind to shoot you both.'

  'Old man,' Dr Yogel said, 'old man. You've got it all wrong,' but the nurse said nothing. She had all the guts in their partnership, she was toughened by a long career of illegalities, by not a few deaths. Raven said, 'Get away from that 'phone.' He took the knife out of Dr Yogel's hand and hacked and sawed at the telephone wire. He was touched by something he had never felt before: a sense of injustice stammered on his tongue. These people were of his own kind; they didn't belong inside the legal borders; for the second time in one day he had been betrayed by the lawless. He had always been alone, but never so alone as this. The telephone wire gave. He wouldn't speak another word for fear his temper might master him and he might shoot. This wasn't the time for shooting. He went downstairs in a dark loneliness of spirit, his handkerchief over his face, and from the little wireless shop at the street corner heard, 'We have received the following notice...' The same voice followed him down the street from the open windows of the little impoverished homes, the suave expressionless voice from every house: 'New Scotland Yard. Wanted. James Raven. Aged about twenty-eight. Easily recognizable from his hare-lip. A little above the middle height. Last seen wearing a dark overcoat and a black felt hat. Any information leading to the arrest...' Raven walked away from the voice, out into the traffic of Oxford Street, bearing south.

  There were too many things he didn't understand: this war they were talking of, why he had been double-crossed. He wanted to find Cholmondeley. Cholmondeley was of no account, he was acting under orders, but if he found Cholmondeley he could squeeze out of him... He was harassed, hunted, lonely, he bore with him a sense of great injustice and a curious pride. Going down the Charing Cross Road, past the music shops and the rubber goods shops, he swelled with it: after all it needed a man to start a war as he was doing.

  He had no idea where Cholmondeley lived; the only clue he had was an accommodation address. It occurred to him there was a faint chance that if he watched the small shop to which Cholmondeley's letters were sent he might see him: a very faint chance, but it was strengthened by the fact of his escape. Already the news was on the air, it would be in the evening papers, Cholmondeley might want to clear out of the way for a while, and there was just a possibility that before he went he would call for letters. But that depended on whether he used that address for other letters besides Raven's. Raven wouldn't have believed there was one chance in a thousand if it were not that Cholmondeley was a fool. You didn't have to eat many ices with him to learn that.

  The shop was in a side street opposite a theatre. It was a tiny one-roomed place in which was sold nothing above the level of Film Fun and Breezy Stories. There were postcards from Paris in sealed envelopes, American and French magazines, and books on flagellation in paper jackets for which the pimply youth or his sister, whoever was in the shop, charged twenty shillings, fifteen shillings back if you returned the book. It wasn't an easy shop to watch. A woman policeman kept an eye on the tarts at the corner and opposite there was just the long blank theatre wall, the gallery door. Against the wall you were as exposed as a fly against wall-paper, unless, he thought, waiting for the lights to flash green and let him pass, unless—the play was popular.

  And it was popular. Although the doors wouldn't open for another hour, there was quite a long queue for the gallery. Raven hired a camp stool with almost his last small change and sat down. The shop was only just across the way. The youth wasn't in charge, but his sister. She sat there just inside the door in an old green dress that might have been stripped from one of the billiard tables in the pub next door. She had a square face that could never have looked young, a squint that her heavy steel spectacles did nothing to disguise. She might have been any age from twenty to forty, a parody of a woman, dirty and depraved, crouched under the most lovely figures, the most beautiful vacant faces the smut photographers could hire.

  Raven watched: with a handkerchief over his mouth, one of sixty in the gallery queue, he watched. He saw a young man stop and eye Plaisirs de Paris furtively and hurry on; he saw an old man go into the shop and come out again with a brown-paper parcel. Somebody from the queue went across and bought cigarettes.

  An elderly woman in pince-nez sat beside him. She said over her shoulder, 'That's why I always liked Galsworthy. He was a gentleman. You knew where you were, if you know what I mean.'

  'It always seems to be the Balkans.'

  'I liked Loyalties.'

  'He was such a humane man.'

  A man stood between Raven and the shop holding up a little square of paper. He put it in his mouth and held up another square. A tart ambled by on the other side of the road and said something to the girl in the shop. The man put the second piece of paper in his mouth.

  'They say the fleet...'

  'He makes you think. That's what I like.'

  Raven thought: if he doesn't come before the queue begins to move I'll have to go.

  'Anything in the papers?'

  'Nothing new.'

  The man in the road took the papers out of his mouth and began to tear them and fold them and tear them. Then he opened them out and it was a paper St George's Cross, blowing flimsily in the cold wind.

  'He used to subscribe heavily to the Anti-Vivisection Society. Mrs Milbanke told me. She showed me one of his cheques with his signature.'

  'He was really humane.'

  'And a really great writer.'

  A girl and a boy who looked happy applauded the man with the paper flag and he took off his cap and began to come down the queue collecting coppers. A taxi drew up at the end of the street and a man got out. It was Cholmondeley. He went into the bookshop and the girl got up and followed him. Raven counted his money. He had two and sixpence and a hundred and ninety-five pounds in stolen notes he could do nothing with. He sank his face deeper in his handkerchief and got up hurriedly like a man taken ill. The paper-tearer reached him, held out his cap, and Raven saw with envy the odd dozen pennies, a sixpence, a threepenny bit. He would have given a hundred pounds for the contents of that cap. He pushed the man roughly and walked away.

  At the other end of the road there was a taxi rank. He stood there bowed against
the wall, a sick man, until Cholmondeley came out.

  He said, 'Follow that taxi,' and sank back with a sense of relief, moving back up Charing Cross Road, Tottenham Court Road, the Euston Road where all the bicycles had been taken in for the night and the second-hand car dealers from that end of Great Portland Street were having a quick one, before they bore their old school ties and their tired tarnished bonhomie back to their lodgings. He wasn't used to being hunted; this was better: to hunt.

  Nor did the meter fail him. He had a shilling to spare when Mr Cholmondeley led the way in by the Euston war memorial to the great smoky entrance and rashly he gave it to the driver: rashly because there was a long wait ahead of him with nothing but his hundred and ninety-five pounds to buy a sandwich with. For Mr Cholmondeley led the way with two porters behind him to the left-luggage counter, depositing there three suitcases, a portable typewriter, a bag of golf clubs, a small attache case and a hat-box. Raven heard him ask from which platform the midnight train went.

  Raven sat down in the great hall beside a model of Stephen-son's 'Rocket'. He had to think. There was only one midnight train. If Cholmondeley was going to report, his employers were somewhere in the smoky industrial north; for there wasn't a stop before Nottwich. But again he was faced with his wealthy poverty; the numbers of the notes had been circulated everywhere; the booking clerks would almost certainly have them. The trail for a moment seemed to stop at the barrier to Number 3 platform.

  But slowly a plan did form in Raven's mind as he sat under the 'Rocket' among the bundles and crumbs of sandwich-eaters. He had a chance, for it was possible that the ticket-collectors on the trains had not been given the numbers. It was the kind of loophole the authorities might forget. There remained, of course, this objection: that the note would eventually give away his presence on the north-bound tram. He would have to take a ticket to the limit of the journey and it would be easy enough to trace him to the town where he alighted. The hunt would follow him, but there might be a time lag of half a day in which his own hunt could get nearer to his prey. Raven could never realize other people; they didn't seem to him to live in the same way as he lived; and though he bore a grudge against Mr Cholmondeley, hated him enough to kill him, he couldn't imagine Mr Cholmondeley's own fears and motives. He was the greyhound and Mr Cholmondeley only the mechanical hare; but in this case the greyhound was chased in its turn by another mechanical hare.