Letters for a Spy (7 page)

She clearly doubled as a secretary. When I went in she was trying to transcribe something from a folded-over notepad; my first glance had taken in a perceptible frown. But then she looked up and gave me a friendly smile.

“Good afternoon. I suppose you wouldn’t have a talent for reading back shorthand?
My
shorthand?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t have a talent for reading back
anybody’s
shorthand.”

“What a shame! Even so. May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to see Mr Gwatkin.”

“Mr F.A. or Mr L.G.?”

“Mr F.A.”

“Which is just as well,” she answered lightly. “Mr L.G. is away for the moment, sick. And
your
name, please?”

“Andrews. Eric Andrews.”

She consulted a diary that lay open on her desk.

I said, “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t implying that I had any appointment. Although if he
could
fit me in…? It’s extremely urgent—and it needn’t take long!”

“How long? Fifteen minutes?”

“I’d happily settle for ten. Or even five.”

“Then I’ll see what I can do. No guarantees, mind.” She was putting on her headset. “May I ask about its general nature?”

I gave her a brief outline and presently she was passing on what I’d said. But it obviously wasn’t a good connection: there were several things she needed to repeat. And it seemed that for some reason Mr Gwatkin was being obstreperous. The woman looked startled—she even flushed a little—cast me an agitated glance.

“Yes, very well,” she said. “Very well. Yes, of course, Mr Gwatkin. Yes, I will.” She nervously pulled out the jackplug.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Have I got you into trouble?”

“What? Oh, no. That was something else entirely.” But she was now finding it difficult to look at me and I felt convinced I must have laid her open to some form of reprimand.

(I could certainly see why Mr Martin would have chosen Mr Gwatkin. Plainly they were both sticklers; plainly carved from the same block of granite. Granite, I thought, because it was grey rather than hard.)

She rallied, though. “No, Mr Gwatkin says he’ll be quite willing to see you. But at present he has a client and hopes you won’t mind having to wait. Perhaps you’d care to take a seat?”

There were some armchairs, a small sofa, and a low table bearing copies of
Punch
and
Picture Post
. I took off my raincoat and settled on the sofa—beneath a large framed photograph, in colour, of the King and Queen.

“He should only be a short while.” Her manner was nearly back to what it had been. (Yes, she was indeed motherly-looking.) “In the meantime, would you like a cup of tea? I was just about to make one.”

I declined, with gratitude.

“Or perhaps you’d like some coffee? It’s only Bev, of course.”

“No thank you. Nothing.”

“Then if you’re quite sure…? I shan’t be long.”

It seemed slightly strange that, in a firm of solicitors, tea or coffee wasn’t made for everyone at once by an office boy. That’s the way it would have worked in Germany—or so at least I imagined. Possibly the war had made a difference.

Or was it perhaps Mr Gwatkin’s tetchy reaction on the phone which had meant she couldn’t wait?

Be that as it may, though, when a few minutes later she returned, she hadn’t got her cup of tea.

“My,” I said, “you must have drunk that fast!”

She looked puzzled.

“Your tea,” I reminded her.

“Oh, yes, of course! How silly of me … I forgot.”

That sounded ambiguous.

But then she started putting through an outside call and became wholly taken up by the demands which this imposed. I noticed, with a gentle smile, how relieved she appeared when she got hold of the person she was after—maybe her telephonic skills were every bit as shaky as her shorthand.

Her typing seemed more competent. After transferring the call, she rattled away at a speed I wouldn’t have expected. And apart from pausing for the brisk removal and replacement of paper, or to deal with the occasional terse requirement of the switchboard, she kept up her momentum for a good half-hour … the good half-hour that went by before Mr Gwatkins was able to see me. During that time, to my surprise, no departing client had passed through Reception. But there was probably a back staircase.

So I was into my third copy of
Punch
when she spoke to me for the first time since the commencement of her typing.

“Oh, Mr. Gwatkins says he’s ready now. If you’d like to go through the door at the end of the passageway, his is the second on the left.”

But she still seemed preoccupied; and her expression was still quite strained. What had happened to the relatively calm person I had encountered on entry? No longer especially friendly, and certainly not in the least bit motherly. Even her silence while I got up from the sofa and walked towards the passageway now struck me as being hostile.

Mr Gwatkin, as well, belied my first impression—or, rather, my preconception. I had expected somebody ill-natured and aggressive. He seemed so far from being either that you might have thought him timid. His manner appeared hesitant.

Also, he was younger than I’d anticipated. Much. Maybe thirty-five, with thinning, gingery hair and a vaguely undernourished look. I wondered if he wasn’t in good enough health to have been called up or whether law was classified as a reserved occupation—like banking amongst other things. But, whatever the case, I couldn’t seriously imagine him as being a bully to his secretary. I could imagine him as becoming excitable, yes. But not as behaving badly. Not with intent.

“Mr Andrews, is it? Sorry you’ve had to wait.”

“No, it’s good of you to see me.”

His handshake felt clammy. His forehead
looked
clammy—in fact, within the next couple of minutes, he would actually need to wipe it. Twice.

“And … er … please, won’t you take a seat? And let me know how I can help you.”

As if he hadn’t already been informed about that! Painstakingly.

“Well, I don’t think I can add a great deal to what I heard your secretary telling you. I met Mr Martin about a fortnight ago. I’d just had my pocket picked and would have found myself in a very awkward situation if he hadn’t been kind enough to lend me thirty shillings. Naturally, I wish to return this, yet now discover that I’ve lost his address. I should hate him to view me as dishonourable.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The solicitor had sat down and was now moving papers around on his desk. But if he was meaning to tidy things he was hardly making a good job of it. “Er … Mr
John
Martin, I think you said?”

“Mr J.G. At least I remember that much.”

“Yes, indeed.” He laughed nervously—as though he thought I’d made a joke. “But how…? Well, how did you know that Mr Martin was a client of McKenna & Company?”

“Just lucky, I suppose. We’d been chatting over a glass of sherry when he suddenly realized the time. He told me he had a luncheon appointment with his solicitor which he couldn’t afford to be late for.”

“Oh, that sounds
exactly
like Mr Martin! How many others do you meet who still say ‘luncheon’?” He nodded, and appeared better pleased with himself—as if merely knowing that we were speaking of the right man considerably increased his confidence. “And he does so enjoy his little glass of sherry! Was it Bristol Cream?”

This artless enquiry produced an odd effect. It brought back a memory of my childhood. Of how, after a long period of having dared myself, I had finally dived off the second highest board, and become so pleased with myself that I had straightaway graduated to the highest. I had forgotten to go home for lunch, and Gretchen, my stepmother, had been obliged to come to the baths in order to fetch me. (Had done so with her usual mien of bubbling good humour.) That evening, in celebration, my father had opened a bottle of sherry.

I replied, “Yes, I think so. Bristol Cream. And I told Mr Martin that—as it happened—I myself was in need of a solicitor. He recommended you without reservation. Said his son was also a client of the firm and was always more than satisfied with the way you managed his affairs.”

“That was kind of him. Yes. William,” he said. “Major William Martin. Of the Royal Marines.” He still spoke slowly but now I got the impression he was feeling less shy of me and that his hesitancy had more to do with his concerns over how much he could ethically divulge. “For many years we have been privileged to handle the business of the entire family.”

“Oh, really? You make it sound as though it’s a large one. I never pictured it like that.”

I thought for a moment he seemed taken aback by what I’d said but then he mumbled something about Mr Martin’s deceased father. “Which was all a bit before my time…” Again his thin and protuberantly veined hands embarked upon a mission of introducing order to the world of stationery. He straightened his blotter and placed two fountain pens in careful alignment, as well as a propelling pencil, a stick of red sealing wax and a bottle of Parker’s Navy-Blue Quink.

“Look, I’ll tell you what we can do,” he offered, at last. “If you give me the thirty shillings and a short covering note I’ll see that they’re sent off to him this afternoon. Registered.”

“But the thing is—I’m afraid I shan’t have an address until tonight and I was particularly wanting to ask him something.”

“Oh?”

“The name of a hotel which he mentioned in Mold in North Wales.”

“Ah well. As it happens,
I
can help you there.” He now spent a moment settling back in his revolving chair and swivelling slightly—perhaps he, too, would soon erect a steeple? “It’s called the Black Lion. And its address, quite simply, would be the High Street, Mold. Yes, I know he’d recommend it. He’s stayed there often and has always spoken of it in the very highest terms.”

But I somehow think that the receptionist, a woman who has worked there for eleven years and who in addition has a very sound memory, might really need to be convinced of that.

I wished I could have said it. And seen what would result.

Then something wholly unexpected happened.

The solicitor laughed.

Admittedly, he hastily suppressed the sound, as though it were something which was neither quite appropriate nor even quite natural, but the fact that it had happened at all provided me with a new angle on him. I wondered if this sudden spurt of amusement could have been occasioned by the thought of Mr Martin’s being a compulsive recommender (whereas up to now I might have thought of him as being more of a compulsive bellyacher) or whether there could indeed follow some much funnier explanation.

(Also, I wondered if Mr Gwatkin were married and had children. For an irrelevant second or two I tried to envisage him at home.)

But if there
was
some other explanation it appeared I wasn’t going to hear it. My look of enquiry was ignored.

At first, that is. After a while, the solicitor relented.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was reminded of a recent practical joke which Mr Martin had played on his son. Concerning that hotel. I’m not sure I ought to tell you.”

“A joke?”

“Completely harmless, of course, but I suppose it’s just the idea of Mr Martin playing any sort of joke on
anyone
! You see, he wanted William to believe he was putting up at the Black Lion because … Well, because if he’d told him where he was
actually
staying, it would have spoilt a little surprise he was planning for the boy’s next homecoming…”

The rush of words halted. So—for the time being—did that perceptibly easier manner. Mr Gwatkin had remembered something. When he spoke again his tone had lost its energy.

“But in fact, Mr Andrews, there isn’t going to be any next homecoming. Not now; not ever. William was on his way to North Africa when his aeroplane crash-landed in the sea.”

“Oh God!” I stared at him. “Poor man!” He would probably have supposed I was meaning William, but for once I was thinking more of the father. Of the father devising some little surprise for the son who would never return to enjoy it. Or appreciate it. I had been forced to acknowledge—
yet again
—just how judgmental I was capable of being. “I’d imagined I would be sending my thanks—not my condolences.”

He nodded.

I asked if William had had brothers or sisters. No; none. And I learned that his mother had died more than twenty years before.

For some ten seconds I hesitated.

“You say you were surprised by his being a practical joker? The father.”

“Yes, I was,” he answered.

“Me—much as I liked him—I should never in a hundred years have taken him for that.”

“He was a complex individual.”

“Was?”

“Is.”

“Complex in what way?”

The solicitor paused—evidently deliberating. He took out his handkerchief again and wiped his brow.

“Oh, I feel certain he wouldn’t mind my telling you. You see, in so many respects, Mr Martin presents the image of a typical old fogey. But I have to confess to something. In one area I’ve been guilty of misleading you. More than that—of telling you a barefaced lie. The Black Lion in Mold? I’m sure it
is
very good. But Mr Martin’s never stayed there in his life!”

“What!”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“But…?” I was suddenly experiencing a sense of disorientation which—almost literally—was rendering me a bit woozy. “Then I just don’t understand. Why did he…? Why did
you
…?”

“Do you happen to know
The Importance of Being Earnest
?”

“I’ve mostly forgotten it,” I replied—in a voice that sounded suddenly and alarmingly disembodied.

“Well, one of its protagonists, Algernon, claims he has a perennially sick friend who is constantly summoning him to his bedside. But Mr Bunbury is pure invention: just a convenient alibi to escape social entanglements with—for example—Algernon’s Aunt Augusta. The Black Lion, of course, is neither a person nor an invention but it provides Mr Martin with a very similar sort of cover.”

I still felt numbed; my voice, apparently, still originating from somewhere across the room.

“A cover for what?”