The Power of the Dead (35 page)

MY          MAD          SON
 

There was only one man who would announce himself like that—Bill Kidd. Phillip ran to the window. And there he was,
extravagant
moustaches and all, at the wheel of an open car, leather flying helmet on head, lifting a hand in salute. Beside him sat Archie Plugge.

“I’ll come down.”

Bill Kidd gave him the crushing hand-squeeze of the
strongman
of fiction, followed by a brushing up of his Kaiser moustache. After the greeting, Phillip had to think of what to say.

“This is an unusual type of ’bus, Bill.”

“You’re telling me, my Mad Son! Belonged to a bloke in the R.N.A.S. at Harwich during the war, who shot down a Zeppelin over the North Sea, after taking off into the wind at forty knots from one of Tyrwhitt’s destroyers.”

“What make is it?”

“I’ll give you three guesses.”

He went to the front of a Métallurgique radiator and gave the handle a jerk. At once there was a massive rumbling from four brass-bound Mercédès exhaust pipes serpentining through one side of the bonnet held down by a thick leather strap. On the off-side was painted a Union Jack; on the near-side the name in small red letters,
Otazelle
.

“French make?”

“Sneeze, old boy, your brain’s dusty. Take a look at the front springs.”

Phillip had to kneel, and peer under, because the space below the radiator was covered by a curved length of aluminium sheeting on which the registered number BK
I
was painted in white. He could see only that the front spring was transverse, and damped down on either side by André shock absorbers.

“What is it?”

“Take a squint at the body.”

The seats of red russian leather were thickly padded, giving an impression of pre-war opulence.

“I don’t know. It looks like one of those ’buses entered for the Gordon Bennett race from Madrid to Berlin in
nineteen-nought
-six.”

“Getting warmer. The body belonged to a Richard-Brasier.”

Bill Kidd opened the brass hand-throttle below the heavy mahogany steering-wheel; the exhaust thundered. He switched on a moveable lamp like a small searchlight beside the driver’s seat, moved it about, until suddenly the beam was in Phillip’s eyes.

“Sorry, old boy. But you see the idea? I had it put on for
hunting
rabbits at night. If you want yours kept down, say the word and Bill Kidd’s on.”

Avoiding the indirect invitation, Phillip pretended interest in the spot-light. “I suppose you run it off a dynamo?”

“Runs off the coil, with the headlights. Doesn’t that tell you something? Look, I’ll show you.”

He undid the strap across the bonnet and there within cavernous space was the small rough block of a T-model Ford engine.

“Fools everyone,” remarked Bill Kidd with satisfaction. “I could dine every night at the Piccadilly grill on the bets I’ve won about the horse-power of the old ’bus.”

In the back of the car were two rods, a net, and a wicker creel holding reels, lines, and a box of flies. Had they come with the intention of staying the week-end? The trouble was that Nuncle was coming, too.

“I suppose you chaps are on your way to see Piers?”

“Well——” said Archie Plugge. “As a matter of fact, I’ve seen nothing of Piers since he resigned from Savoy Hill. One hears rumours, of course——”

“Who’s this ‘Piers’?” demanded Bill Kidd, as they went into the house.

“Oh, a neighbour who lives down the valley. Do come in. I’m sorry my wife is away just now.” He went to the sideboard. Fortunately Nuncle’s decanter of malt whisky was nearly full.

“Say when, Bill.”

“Go on. What’s his father’s name?”

“Sir Roland Tofield. Piers is the heir to a baronetcy,” said Plugge.

The level rose to the second half-inch, then to the third, when Phillip stopped pouring. “I’m afraid there’s no soda.”

“I chase it with water, old boy. Separate glass.”

Bill Kidd threw half his whisky between his teeth, swilled it round his mouth before swallowing, then tossed back a splash of water.

“Old White Russian practice,” he explained. “Kills the germs of cholera.”

He seated himself in Nuncle’s chair. “Now, my Mad Son, what about those six-pounder rainbows I’ve been reading about? Oh yes, I know all about reporters spinning a yarn, but let me tell you this. No rainbow can grow to that weight even in a chalk stream, let alone in land-locked water! And I’ll tell you for why!” He admonished with a finger, “Rainbows, you may care to know, are migratory. They die if they can’t get down to the sea to spawn. And a six-pound fish would be at least four years old, more likely five.”

“Well, these rainbows
are
well over two feet long, and deep——”

“Then they’re not rainbows. They’re brownies. I was brought up on the Test. You know dam’ all about fish if you talk about six-pound rainbows in England, my lad.”

Plugge’s face had a resigned expression. Kidd had talked fish all the way from London: he had borne with his boasting, awaiting the moment of arrival at their destination, when he and Phillip
could leave him to fish alone, and then perhaps they could go to a pub, or call on some of Phillip’s friends.

“Excuse me, sir, but there be a young leddy at the door, asking for ’ee,” said Mrs. Rigg, coming in from the kitchen.

A new edition of the girl he had known in London stood in the porch. She was dressed in a tweed coat and skirt, and wore a small hat of the same material, on which was the foot of a grouse set in a silver pin. With a feeling of satisfaction that the two men should see the young and pretty girl who had come to visit him, Phillip led the way into the parlour.

“You know Archie Plugge, don’t you? This is Major Kidd—Miss Ancroft. Major Kidd comes straight out of
The
Compleat
Angler
. What do you know about rainbow trout, Miss Ancroft?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid.”

Bill Kidd, having inhaled smoke from his gasper, leaned
forward
. “Miss Ancroft, your education is about to begin. The rainbow comes from California. Got that? There are two main species of trout in the States where, incidentally, after I left the Black and Tans, I spent some time on secret government work——” His voice tailed off. He pointed at Phillip, who was laughing. In a rasping voice he continued, “Now look here, my lad! I hear that you’ve been casting some doubts on my having been with the Black and Tans? In case you don’t know, I was withdrawn after a dead body had been substituted for my own, in order to go on a mission to the United States.” His voice assumed a drawl. “All very hush-hush, old boy. As it happened, I spent quite a time on the Coast—California, you know—and my host, the Earl of Clyde—Ambassador and all that—showed me some sport. So I know my stuff.” He turned to Plugge. “As I told you on the way down,
Salvenis
is the brook trout, the red belly.
Salmo
, the second species, includes both rainbows and cutthroats. The rainbows,
Salmo
gairdneri
, are subdivided into various
genii
, such as the Kern River whoppers, the Kamloops, the Golden Trout and the
Steelhead
. The steelhead is migratory, which means it goes to sea and returns to spawn in fresh water.”

He turned to Felicity Ancroft, “Now listen to me, my maid! The steelhead and the rainbow are one and the same,
Salmo
gairdneri
. When the rainbow returns as the steelhead it has a pink line on its flanks under its silver scales, which proves that it’s really
iridens
.”

Plugge said, “Then it’s a salmon-trout?”

Bill Kidd dismissed Plugge with a wave of a yellow-fingered hand. ‘Salmon-trout’ is a cook’s word, a kitchen expression, a restaurant word. Don’t let me hear you using it again. You’re as bad as the Southerners in the United States—to hell with them. Those blokes below the Mason-Dixie line fancy themselves so much as soldiers that they are all born colonels. And what’s more, they lump catfish, croakers and weakfish together as trout.”

“May I help myself?” whispered Plugge, eyeing the decanter.

“Do, please——”

Phillip wondered what Nuncle would say when he found his special bottle empty when he arrived, tired, from Wales.

“It’s a pretty thin malt whisky, this, Archie. Let’s get a bottle of Haig——”

“You need reinforcements, my Mad Son? Then hold the line while I’m gone! No retirement to the Peckham Switch this time, old boy. You know you were wrong to go that time—however, let that go—I’ll be back.” He climbed out of the window, making a direct line to his car.

Plugge laughed deprecatingly. “I feel that we’ve rather landed ourselves on you.” He turned benevolent owl-eyes on Phillip for a moment before continuing, “You know, one never knows quite how to take Bill Kidd.” Peering round to assure himself that they were alone he went on, “On the way down he asked me if I was ‘an old Wyck’. I didn’t know what ‘an old Wyck’ was, and when I told him so he said he was at Winchester, leaving at the age of seventeen to go to Sandhurst. Then he kept referring to his uncle as ‘Tiny Tinribs’. Does such a person exist?”

“All life is based on imagination, Archie.”

Phillip was wary of saying much before the interviewer.

The hollow roar of
Otazelle
returned down the lane. Bill Kidd, climbing in by the window, announced that all the pubs were shut.

“Perhaps I can buy a bottle of this malt whisky, when they open in Colham, Bill. It really belongs to my uncle.”

“I hear he’s Sir Hilary Maddison? What’s he, a bart?”

“No, a Knight of the British Empire.”

“A profiteer, in other words. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He got up and salaam’d.

Soon the parlour was filled with tobacco smoke, and Bill Kidd holding forth on the glories of a dry-fly purist.

Eventually Plugge asked mildly, “Why exactly must a fly be dry? Is it anything to do with Prohibition?”

Bill Kidd wagged a wavering finger, “Now no funny stuff from you, my lad! A dry fly floats, if you want to know.”

“But fish are sometimes caught on a wet fly, aren’t they?” asked Phillip.

“Did Izaak Walton use a dry fly?” asked the girl.

Bill Kidd’s reaction to this enquiry was unexpected. Swallowing his whisky rapidly he said, “Don’t talk to me, my maid, about that faker! Izaak Walton didn’t know what he was writing about. He pinched all his facts, and got some of them wrong, what’s more, from an earlier book by a bloke called Franck. He dressed up his plagiarised piffle with classical tripe calling himself ‘Piscator’. ‘Piscator’ my foot. Izaak Walton was so damned ignorant a hack that he had to pinch poems from John Donne to pad out his book.” The finger waggled again. “I know what I’m talking about, mind. I was born and bred on the Test.”

“What is the difference between a dry-fly purist and a wet-fly purist?” asked Plugge.

“You ignorant Savoy Hill wallah, there’s no such thing as ‘a wet-fly purist’! Look here, I’ll begin at the beginning. A trout faces upstream in order (
a
) to breathe, (
b
) to watch for food coming down. The water stream to a trout is the same thing as the food stream. Got that? Well, in certain atmospheric conditions there occurs a hatch, or hatches, of fly from the surface of the stream. They swim up as nymphs to hatch into flies from the said surface, while the trout take position, some in echelon, others in line of companies, to await the food stream passing them. You follow me? If you see trout ‘tailing’, then they’re taking nymphs below the surface. You see perhaps the tip of their tails only, as they make a bulging rise. Now take it from me, no dry-fly fisherman would do more than look at such a rise. He bides his time, standing well back from the bank, waiting for the main hatch, when many nymphs will have space and time to split their skins before flying up. A good trout doesn’t ‘waste energy tailing when he can just suck ’em in, you know.”

“Suck what in?” asked Plugge.

“Fishermen’s stories,” suggested Phillip.

“The subimagos, you ignorant bastard, otherwise nymphs hatching into flies,” replied Kidd. “They rest on the water, floating down while struggling to get their wings out of the pellicles, and then
bok
”—he made a sucking noise with his lips—“Trutta trutta has sucked one down, and in doing so leaves a wide ring on
the surface.
That’s
the time to fish! You’ve got to find out what’s hatching, of course, Miss Ancroft—whether Olive Dun,
Blue-winged
Olive, Pale Watery, or even Fisherman’s Curse, which fish seem to prefer to all other flies. Smut, in other words. You may as well pack up when the smut is up. After the smut has coupled you get then what we call the Knotted Midge. Fishing with the Knotted Midge is fishing—pure fishing—with a hook no larger than a match-head.” He waggled a finger at Plugge. “You bring to the net a four-pounder on a Knotted Midge, on a 4-X tapered gut cast with a breaking strain of ten ounces
dead-weight
, and you’re a fisherman, my lad!”

Phillip began to imagine the life of a trout in the crystal flow of a chalk stream.

“That’s a very vivid picture you give us, Bill. How about dapping with a live mayfly, as they do in Ireland?”

“Why not shoot the poor bloody fish and have done with it?

“Have you ever used a Wickham’s Fancy?”

“That’s an old-fashioned fly.”

“In a sense, then, it’s an old Wick?”

Bill Kidd stood up. Pointing at Phillip he cried, “Now look here, my lad, you’re asking for it. One more word from you, and I’ll snout you! Now let me tell you something. Never forget for one moment, my Mad Son, that you were the bastard who ordered, without my knowledge, all my boys to show their backsides to the Boche on the Wytschaete ridge on April the twelfth, nineteen eighteen, and thereby—now listen to me!—you left Bill Kidd in the Staenyzer Kabaret to face the whole Hun attack alone, after you’d softened up my boys. You put the wind up the whole battalion with your defeatist, pacifist, pale pink talk before we went into the line!
You
may have forgotten all about it, but Bill Kidd hasn’t, not by a long chalk. You won’t always get away with your Bolshie talk, and it’s Bill Kidd who’s telling you. Take a look at this, old boy.”