The Baghdad Railway Club (23 page)

A waitress came up, and even before we’d been seated the Chief had ordered beer.

‘Don’t you select the food first, Saul?’ said Manners. ‘I mean, you order the drink that goes with the food.’

‘I find that beer goes with any food, Peter,’ said the Chief.

This business of ‘Saul’ and ‘Peter’ – I didn’t care for it.

(I did not myself drink any beer. On my return from Baghdad, I’d told the wife all my adventures, adding that since being put on a course of quinine, which was very bitter, I had quite lost my taste for bitter beer, to which she had said simply, ‘Good. Because you drank far too much of it before.’)

The waitress gave out the menus.

‘Any war restrictions, dear?’ enquired the Chief, in a resigned sort of way.

‘No potatoes except Wednesday and Friday, and no meat on Wednesday,’ she said, speaking like an automaton.

‘But today’, said Manners, with happy realisation dawning, ‘is Thursday. We could have meat
and
potatoes. Cottage pie!’

And that’s what we did order, just because we could. The waitress said, ‘Shall I send over the sommelier?’

‘The bloody what?’ said the Chief.

‘Yes do,’ said Manners.

It was a jolly enough lunch, and over the second bottle of good claret, a few ‘Jim’s began to be floated amongst the Sauls and Peters. Manners asked whether I had heard from the Medical Board (I had not), and there was some speculation about my future. The Chief said he wanted me back in the police office; that I had more than ‘done my bit’. We then talked over the case. It appeared from what Manners said that Shepherd had always been a loose cannon, prone to getting into scrapes whether at school, university or in the army. As a young man, he had travelled in Turkey, and formed an affection for the place. ‘And an affection’, Manners added, ‘for its gold and silver.’ The court martial, he said, would be held in conditions of the utmost secrecy. It would be held ‘in camera’.

Manners paid for the meal, and I said, ‘I’m obliged to you. I was promised a royal time, and that certainly fitted the bill.’

‘Your treat is still to come, lad,’ said the Chief, and he looked at his watch and grinned at Manners.

‘Really?’ I said.

We crossed Ouse Bridge under a blue sky and a light rain. The Chief was in the lead, and he was telling Manners how, the night before, he’d attended a party at the Railway Institute, a leave-taking for the timekeeper of the carriage works who’d finally got round to joining the army – the West Yorkshire Regiment. There were speeches, and the fellow had been given a present. Manners asked what it was. ‘A clock of course,’ said the Chief, and that tickled Manners no end. Well, he had at least a pint of claret inside him.

We walked along Lendal, coming to St Helen’s Square, where we passed Pearson and Sons, Gold and Silversmiths. I looked in the window as we went by. It was a small shop, pretty like a jewellery box, only with bars on the window. (And a guard sat in it all night.) I wondered whether they’d got around to looking at the package I’d given in.

We walked along Coney Street, along Pavement, and we came to the start of Fossgate. The Blue Bell was to our right. Its smoke room was the Chief’s home-from-home, and I thought a drink-up in there might be the
real
treat. But not after all that claret, surely? That would be going it a bit even for the Chief. But instead, we crossed the road . . . and there stood the wife, looking at her watch.

She’d been doing her marketing, and carried her basket. She stood right in front of the Electric Theatre.

‘Chief Inspector Weatherill told me a cinema show was to be held in your honour,’ she said. ‘He let on about it when I bumped into him last week, but I was to say nothing to you. He didn’t
really
want me to come.’

‘Now that’s not quite right‚ Mrs Stringer,’ said the Chief.

‘. . . But I forced the details out of him, and here I am,’ said the wife.

A cinema show in my honour . . .

With its highly decorated front, the Electric Theatre might have looked quite at home in Baghdad. It was the very place the wife and I and the children had seen
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
, and I thought I might be in for another showing. I looked at the placards in front of the cinema. Under the familiar words ‘To-Night To-Night’ was advertised ‘The Gentleman Rider’ and ‘In the Hands of the London Crooks’.

‘We’re
all
in the hands of the London crooks,’ said the wife, and Manners came up to me, speaking confidentially. ‘I’ve been told your good lady wife works for the Co-Operative movement, but I had no idea she was actually a communist.’

He grinned and wheeled away to greet two fellows who’d just stepped out of the door by the pay box. The first was a fat chap called P. T. Buckley, and he was the owner of the Electric Theatre, and was forever being featured in the
Yorkshire Evening Press
as ‘the man who brought cinema to York’. Of late though, he’d been up in arms about the Council having given the go-ahead for a new cinema: the Picture House in Coney Street. The second fellow was Wilson, assistant to Wallace King. He wore a bright blue blazer and a straw boater, and I realised how wrong he’d looked in that baggy, badge-less uniform in Baghdad.

I shook his hand, and he said, ‘You look a good deal brighter than when I last saw you.’

Behind him, I glimpsed a third placard: ‘Closed this afternoon for showing of a special item.’

‘Where’s Wallace King?’ I asked Wilson.

‘Oh, Mr King’s never available at short notice . . . But I am,’ he added, offering me a cigarette. I took the cigarette; everyone smoked outside the Electric, since you couldn’t smoke inside. ‘He’s in meetings all this month with some of the production companies is Mr King,’ said Wilson.

‘
The Battle of Trafalgar
?’ I said, dazed.

Wilson shook his head. ‘He’s going all out with a new treatment he’s worked up:
The Great Fire of London
.’

‘And what’s this special item?’ I said, indicating the third placard.

‘You’ll see,’ said Wilson. ‘You’re the star.’

The wife was talking to Buckley.

‘So you’ve been to the Picture House?’ he was saying, looking worried.

‘It’s really gorgeous,’ said the wife, ‘tip-up seats, two programmes a week continuous daily, all the latest American pictures, ice-cream parlour, balcony, gallery, fancy plasterwork – a lovely scheme of decoration, it is – and an orchestra!’ And then she remembered herself, so she indicated the Electric and said, ‘But this is my favourite.’

Inside, the Electric was fairly plain. It was painted brown. As we crossed the entrance hall, the Chief was looking all around.

‘Ever been here before?’ Buckley was anxiously enquiring.

The Chief shook his head, saying, ‘You don’t have an alcoholic licence, do you?’

And there in a nutshell was the reason.

We entered the auditorium and I heard the Chief asking Buckley, ‘Where’s the lantern operated from?’ He then shot me a look that told me he was taking the rise out of Buckley.

The projection box was at the rear. It was dark. I sat next to the wife on the front row. We
all
sat on the front row. The wife said, ‘Your Chief wanted me to sign the Official Secrets Act before I came here.’

‘And did you?’

‘I told him not to be so daft. But I think Buckley may’ve had to sign it. And the fellow in there,’ she added, gesturing towards the projection box.

Buckley was turning about, signalling that way. The room then became darker still, and the whirring started. On the picture screen appeared the words ‘WALLACE KING BRINGS THE WORLD TO YOU’, and then there was the desert of Mesopotamia, and something was happening beyond the furthest extent of it.

‘The sunrise,’ Wilson was whispering to the Chief. ‘That’s why we were there, you see: to film the sunrise.’ After a few minutes he leant over to Buckley, saying, ‘Not a flicker! Not a flicker!’ at which Buckley nodded rather graciously. ‘It’s a good job we don’t have sound,’ Wilson continued after a further half minute or so of the sun rising, ‘because just now you’d be hearing Mr King saying, “Pan right, you idiot, pan right!”’

And the camera now began its travel, bringing the abandoned train into view.

‘Nice work,’ Buckley whispered to Wilson.

‘Not bad,’ said Wilson. ‘Well, I’ve been in the camera trade since I was a boy.’

The camera came to rest on three figures, all blurred. The focus was adjusted and I saw myself with gun pointing at Shepherd. I was wavering, staggering somewhat. A man came into view – Findlay. He drew his gun; I turned as he was aiming it, and fired my own revolver – in complete silence of course – whereupon Findlay’s piece went spinning from his hand.

‘Good shot‚ lad,’ said the Chief, from three seats along.

On the screen, I now had my gun aimed at both Findlay and Shepherd, and we were all speaking. The wife, next to me, was looking on, fascinated. Then Shepherd had his gun pointed at me, and she turned and stared at me in horror. Beyond Shepherd’s right shoulder, I could make out the muster of mounted Arabs. They were out of focus, but not completely so, and I saw a small figure in the middle of them gesturing to another of the tribe (if that be the word), who aimed a rifle. The small figure signalled to the marksman, and Shepherd fell down at that moment.

‘Is this real?’ gasped Buckley.

‘Better than
The Gentleman Rider
, eh?’ said Wilson.

‘But he’s not dead is he?’ said the wife, who’d had the whole story from me several times over.

‘He will be soon,’ I said, and the Chief leant towards the wife, kindly explaining, ‘The bullet went clean through his upper arm, shattered two ribs and – fortunately for him – lodged in the lung. If you’re going to be shot,’ he added, ‘be shot in the lung. It’s very seldom fatal.’

I had fallen at the same time as Shepherd.

Wilson said, ‘At this moment I was saying to Mr King, “Hadn’t we better go and help?” and he was saying, “If you leave off cranking, I’ll bloody shoot
you
!”’

On the screen, I was attempting to stagger to my feet, which I had not remembered doing. In the course of that action, I faced the camera.

‘Oh‚ Jim,’ said the wife, ‘you look like nothing on earth.’

But I wasn’t looking at me. I was watching the approaching rider – the one that had broken away from the Arabs; the one who had indicated to the marksman.

‘So
that’s
Harriet Bailey,’ said the Chief. ‘She’s quite a looker.’

‘Hold on a minute.’ I was saying, ‘Hold on a minute.’

On the screen, I’d fallen down again. I was on the desert floor alongside Shepherd – looked like I was lying in bed with him. Major Findlay had approached Harriet Bailey, who had remained mounted, and who wore a keffiyah. The focus was again adjusted, and I could clearly see Findlay in profile, speaking to Harriet Bailey. He then gave a thin smile. But Miss Bailey did not return it. She pulled at the keffiyah, so that it fell away from her face, and she glowered down at Findlay. She then spoke to him, and his smile disappeared. Other men came running into the picture – Royal Engineers – and the screen went black.

Silence in the auditorium.

The lights came up, and I turned to Manners, who said, ‘She protected you, do you see? She ordered her Arab pal to shoot when Shepherd pulled the gun on you.’

‘What was she
doing
with those Arabs?’

‘Oh you know, buttering them up, arguing the British case. I can’t quite recall what lot they were, but her dealings with them were a matter of absolute confidentiality. I believe it was pure coincidence that she was in the same region of the desert as your party, and in order to come to your aid she had to break cover so to speak. As you could tell, she wasn’t very happy about it. You see, it was above all important that the Arabs should believe her to be quite independent of the British secret service, whereas in fact of course . . .’

‘She was the other agent.’

‘Correct.’

‘She was the one you wouldn’t let me speak to.’

‘Right again. I’m sorry about it all. We ought never to have mentioned any other agent in the first place.’

‘So before my arrival,’ I said, ‘Captain Boyd was in contact with Harriet Bailey only because they were both intelligence agents?’

Manners nodded. ‘Unfortunately, Boyd was rather too overt – kept trying to telegraph to her, and when she came up from Basrah, he insisted on meeting her a couple of times.’

‘So word got out that they were lovers?’

‘I suppose so. And that gave Shepherd his cue to develop the clever tale about Major Findlay – who clearly
was
enamoured of Miss Bailey – having done for Captain Boyd.’

My thoughts raced. Had Miss Bailey known I was investigating Shepherd? She’d given me a good look over on our first meeting. That might have been because I resembled Boyd, or because he had told her I would be arriving in order to work with Shepherd and keep tabs on him. She had asked me, with some concern, the whereabouts of my revolver.

The wife stood up. She faced Buckley. ‘I want to see it again,’ she said.

Manners was looking at his watch. He said, ‘Be my guest, Mrs Stringer. I’m sure you’d all like to see it again before it goes under lock and key. But I have a train to catch.’

He shook all our hands, and I believe he had already quit the Electric Theatre by the time the lights dimmed once more, the whirring began again, and ‘WALLACE KING BRINGS THE WORLD TO YOU’ reappeared before us.

This time we watched the reel in silence, and there was no sound in the auditorium but the flickering of the projection machine – until, that is, Harriet Bailey removed her keffiyah and glared down at Major Findlay, at which point her words were suddenly and very clearly audible: ‘No. I believe
you
did it.’

It was the wife who had spoken. I turned to her. ‘What did you say?’

‘It’s what
she
said.’

‘You told me in your letter,’ I said, stunned. ‘You can see speech.’

‘Not as well as Margaret Lawson, I can’t.’

‘I knew!’ I said, ‘I
knew
!’ I turned to the Chief. ‘Did you see Findlay when he drew his gun? There was a delay. He
cocked the trigger
. It was a single-action.
He
had Boyd’s gun, not Shepherd. What time is Manners’s train?’