Hide My Eyes (7 page)

“If you don’t know Greenwich you don’t, Major,” the barber was saying brightly. “It was you mentioning Westminster Bridge put me in mind of it. But then of course there’s Shooters Hill. Kent is a lovely county. See much of Kent, Major?”

“Practically nothing.” A flicker of mischief passed over the thin lips. “It’s no use, my dear chap, you’ll have to face it that I have no fixed abode.”

Mr. Vick decided to be offended.

“Now you’re trying to take the mickey out of me,” he said reprovingly, and stepped back from his handiwork. “Well now, that’s that, sir. That suit you? I mustn’t keep that gentleman waitin’ if ’e’s going to get ’is bets on before the one o’clock, must I?”

It was a dismissal, and to Richard’s regret, since he was now trapped in the other chair himself, the Major rose, paid his score, and took his trench coat from the Peg.

He then performed the second little act which the younger man found curious. On entering he had evidently stripped off his raincoat with his jacket inside it, and now he put them on in the same way, so that the outside of the jacket did not appear. The younger man, watching the performance in his own glass now, reflected that the manœuvre was the same as the lie about Westminster Bridge, not so much venal as peculiar, for despite the slovenly beginning he took some pains to dress himself, knotting his muffler carefully and arranging his collar with just the right degree of swagger. As he was drawing in his belt he appeared to relent towards the inquisitive Mr. Vick, who was still sulking.

“I’m going to see a hero of your’s this evening,” he remarked. “I hope to do a little business with him. Moggie Moorhen.”

At the name of the celebrated comedian the barber wavered and fell. A bouquet of refined noises escaped him and his sallow face warmed with pleasure.

“Are you reelly? My word, that’ll be an experience. Just the very exact same off as ’e is on, I shouldn’t wonder.”

The Major turned deliberately to Richard’s looking-glass and winked.

“I hope not,” he said dryly, “or we’ll finish the evening swinging from the Savoy lighting fixtures.”

He went out laughing and the door closed behind him.

Mr. Vick paused, towel in hand, to raise himself on his toes to see over the curtain.

“There he goes,” he remarked with feminine bitterness. “The Savoy lighting fixtures? … The Bodega more likely.
He’s
a very funny finger, the Major, and he’s in a very funny mood. I noticed it the moment ’e come in.”

“I t’ink,” murmured the assistant who was cutting Richard’s hair, “that he is of the po-lice.”

“Oh dear me no!” Mr. Vick tossed his head contemptuously. “You can relax, Perce. ’E’s got no interest in your papers. ’E’s a very funny fellow all the same. ’E’s been coming ’ere on and off for the last eight or nine years and I’ve never set eyes on ’im but in this shop, and I don’t know what ’e does from Adam. Not from Adam. That’s quite a record for me. You could call ’im one of my failures, reelly.”

“Mystery man,” said the sporting salesman and ran a hopeful eye down the list of starters.

“You’ve said it.” Mr. Vick dropped back on to his heels. “Charmin’ man, mind you. Never shabby. Beautiful shirt ’e was wearin’. Never grouses, which is fantastic, but talk to ’im and you might be livin’ in another world. After all this time there’s only one thing I know about ’im for certain, and that is that every now and again ’e gets up to something—puts a big deal through.” He paused. “This is one of the times.”

“How do you know?” Richard spoke involuntarily. It was so much his own impression.

Mr. Vick’s dull eyes acknowledged his existence.

“Because ’e’s in the mood,” he said confidently. “We ’airdressers get to know a lot about moods. Goin’ to an ’airdresser at all is a very moody thing. Some only ’ave a trim when they’re fed up. The Major usually comes in when ’e’s bored, but now and again—not often, mind, but sometimes—he steps in ’ere as part of a little programme ’e’s set ’imself. I can tell. I can feel ’im simmering, getting excited and above ’imself. I used to think ’e was an actor working up for a first night, but that’s not it. There’s no greasepaint in that ’airline.”

“I picked up a packet once on Greasepaint,” said the salesman. “Short back and sides, if you please, Mr. Vick, and I won’t have the old curry comb.”

The barber acknowledged the order but continued to talk thoughtfully about the previous customer.

“It amazes me I don’t know more about ’im after all this time,” he said, “but I tell you one extraordinary thing. This is the third or fourth time I’ve seen ’im do it, and no one would be more amazed than ’e’d be ’imself if you told ’im of it. Unconscious, it is. But when ’e’s in one of these off-the-’andle now-for-it sort of moods ’e’s always in a tizzy about the right time. ’E always mentions it, ’e always gets the whole shop arguin’ about it, and it’s a very funny thing but ’e nearly always picks up the man who ’asn’t got a watch.”

“Then he wasn’t lucky today,” said the salesman. “I wonder if I shall be. He’s a crook, that’s what you mean, is it?”

“No, sir, I certainly don’t.” Mr. Vick was shocked. “’E’s a regular customer. Sometimes ’e doesn’t come in for a month or two but if ’e’d been inside I should notice it at once. It takes nearly seven months to get rid of the prison ’aircut. Besides, whatever ’e is ’e’s something unusual, something one doesn’t meet every day.”

At this point the assistant barber removed the cape from Richard’s shoulders and gave his neck a cursory whisk.

“I ’tink he is of the po-lice,” he repeated, sighing. “Anyhow he has left his belongings.”

He nodded towards the corner where a wooden box, the coil of rope and the starting handle sprawled in an untidy heap.

“There now!” Mr. Vick’s scream was like a toy train. “’E brought them out of the street for safety and then forgot them. That proves ’e’s no p’liceman. You’ll see. ’E’ll be back. I’ve known ’im do
that
before. Ah, what did I tell you? No sooner out of my mouth then … There they are, Major.”

The door had shuddered open and the man in the trench coat appeared on the threshold. He was grinning and deeply apologetic, and his smile included Richard, who was putting on his jacket.

The wooden box seemed to be remarkably heavy and when he had hoisted it into his arms he was fully laden. Richard gathered up the rope and the handle.

“I’ll bring these.”

“Will you? Thanks a lot. My old ’bus is outside.”

When he had set the box carefully on the back seat he spoke again.

“That’s more than kind of you. I’m drifting down to the West End. Can I give you a lift?”

Richard was looking at the starting handle he was carrying. The worn label tied to his shaft had fluttered over and the pencilled inscription upon it was just readable. “Hawker. Rolf’s Dump, S.E.”

He scarcely saw it. As if it had attracted his attention for the first time the Major leaned over and pulled it off, pitching it into the gutter.

“Coming?” he enquired.

Richard looked up.

“Thank you,” he said with sudden deliberation, “I should like that.”

Chapter 6

LUNCHEON PARTY

MATTHEW PHILLIPSON, SENIOR PARTNER
of Southern, Wood and Phillipson, family solicitors of Minton Terrace, West, was a spare elderly man with the figure of a boy and the pathetic face of a marmoset. At the moment he was very happy, an unusual condition with him, and his cold eyes had softened as he watched Polly Tassie as she bent over the stove.

He had telephoned to ask if he could drop round and see her. She had invited him to lunch as he knew she would and here he was, sitting in her kitchen waiting for his steak to be done just as he liked it, hard outside, rare inside.

The room, he reflected, looking at it with appreciation, was exactly like its owner, ordinary, comfortable and obstinately itself. There was a red linoleum on the floor patterned like a Turkey carpet, out of date for forty years. Staffordshire china greyhounds stood on the mantelshelf, pots of gloxinia and musk of all things were in the window, and there was a solid kitchen table with a white cloth on it for him to sit at. He had a hassock under his feet and a waisted glass of dark ale in his hand, and under the flowered cheese-dish cover he had already discovered as nice a piece of Blue Cheshire as he had ever seen. There was, moreover, a cottage loaf, a delicacy he had thought extinct, and while she was still busy he broke the top from the bottom and was engaged in slicing off the soft sponge between the two when she turned and caught him. He laughed, his sallow cheeks flushing.

“I haven’t done that for fifty years,” he said.

“Then get on with it,” said Polly, setting a plate before him. “Be a devil. Cut the other half. You are a fathead, Matt. I
am
fond of you. Freddy used to say you really are the finest stuffed shirt in captivity. Now try this. It ought to be just right.”

“It is,” he assured her. “You’re a wonderful cook. You always were. You’re looking young too, if I may say so. I mean unusually so. Radiant. Has anything happened?”

“Has it!” From across the table she looked up at him, her bright blue eyes dancing. “Matt, old sport, it came off. They sent her. Not the eldest, but the second girl. Nearly eighteen, trying to look grown up. I soon stopped all that.”

“Did they, by jove?” He paused, his fork in mid-air. He was pleased but astonished. “Frederick’s niece. I wondered if they would. I didn’t know what to advise you to write. Well, good for them, Polly, eh? That settles a lot of problems, doesn’t it? I can see you took to her. I shall look forward to meeting her. When is she coming to London again?”

“She’s here now, only arrived this morning. I thought you might want to talk business so I gave her some lunch early and sent her out to look at the shops. She’ll be back before you go. Matt, you’re going to be startled.”

“Oh dear, am I?” He was suspicious at once. “If she’s a relative of Frederick’s, of course, she may have
any
peculiarity. What is it?” He permitted himself a little smile. “Two heads perhaps?”

“If she had I’d still love her. But no, Matt, she’s a beauty, a real true film-star knock-out. Really lovely. One of those faces which turn your heart over and a body like one of the little bits of nonsense you see on the screen. I’ve been most careful not to let on I noticed anything, because I do hate conceited kids, but there’s no getting away from it. You wait.”

He burst out laughing. “You’re clucking, Polly,” he said, “but I’m thankful to hear it. As I told both you and Frederick, blood is so much thicker than water when it comes to it.” He hesitated. “You’ll be completing that document, then?”

“Oh, I think so. I’d only got to put the name in, hadn’t I? You were right, Matt. I realised it when I saw her.”

“Oh well, I’m glad,” said Mr. Phillipson sighing. “I brought it along with me, as a matter of fact. Just slipped it in my pocket in case, don’t you know. I don’t want to hurry you, of course, but these things are better completed. We’ll see to it after lunch.”

She exchanged his plate for a clean one and uncovered the cheese. She was smiling to herself.

“You don’t really trust me, do you, Matt? You think I’m like any other silly old woman, liable to change my mind every ten minutes.”

“No no, I don’t,” he protested. “It’s not that at all. It’s simply that you and I are old-fashioned people in an old-fashioned situation, in which years of experience have proved that any young relative, however distant, is apt to turn out to be a better bet in the long run than the—er—stranger without the gates.”

Mrs. Tassie was making the coffee and did not answer immediately, but as she brought the tray to the table and re-seated herself she ventured a guarded question.

“You’re going to have a word with that boy for me this afternoon, aren’t you?”

“I saw him yesterday.”

“Gerry Hawker?” She had started and the dark fragrant liquid spilled over the saucer and into the tray. “You told me his appointment was for today.”

“So it was. The rascal came a day early, assuming no doubt that I shouldn’t be able to see him. However, I made time for him. Don’t look like that, Polly. He’s the guilty party, not you.”

She was busying herself mopping up the coffee tray.

“Did you tell him I knew?”

“No. I obeyed your instructions faithfully. If it’s any comfort to you, that appeared to be the aspect which worried him most, but I think that without perjuring myself I left him happy on that score. I conveyed that I made the discovery quite alone. He believed me.”

“He must.” She was speaking almost to herself. “He came in here this morning.”

“Really?” Mr. Phillipson was shocked. “He’s a cool customer. He was trying to find out if I’d reported to you, I suppose? What a very good thing I hadn’t. That means he still has every incentive to come back tonight with the money as arranged. I promised him complete secrecy if he pays up.”

“Are you making him pay it back?”

“Of course I am, my dear girl.” He flushed with annoyance. “That’s the very least I can do. He has altered one of your cheques from eleven pounds to seventy, robbing you of fifty-nine pounds as surely as if he’d taken it from your purse. By condoning …”

“I haven’t done that.” She spoke sharply. “I may feel towards Gerry as if he were my own, but I won’t stand for him doing anything really wrong. As soon as I noticed it, didn’t I write to you at once? I feel guilty because I know I’ve got bad handwriting and I must have made it very easy and tempted him if he was pushed for money.” She hesitated and then continued very carefully as she struggled to express herself. “Gerry has got to be pulled up good and sharp. But I want to keep out of it, not only because
I
don’t want to lose his confidence but because I don’t want him to lose
me
. Do you see what I mean?”

“Perfectly” he assured her dryly. “You realise that he depends on you. You’re behaving like a mother thinking solely of the child. You always do. I’m not blaming you, my dear girl. In fact I’m stretching far too many points to abet you. But I can’t say I like it.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s criminal.” She made the admission with awe. “It could mean prison for him if he did it to someone else. That’s why I had to do something. But he’s a dear, Matt, a kind good boy when you know him. Freddy liked him very much. We first met him as a young officer in the war and he’s been dropping in to see me on and off ever since. We’ve grown very fond of one another. He couldn’t turn out to be a real bad hat after all these years, could he?”