The Tiger in the Smoke

I GHOSTS-4

Luke surveyed him, his head on one side, his bright eyes inquisitive.

“Why are you worrying?” he said softly. “There’s not more on your mind than there is on mine, by any chance?”

In spite of the hint, which was broad enough, there was no relaxing, no letup. The weak mouth remained tightly closed, the muscles were still flexed under the tweed sleeve.

Luke handed him over to the newcomers, who arrived breathless and unsmiling.

“No charge. Held for questioning.” He might have been delivering a parcel. “He wants taking care of. Don’t hurry him, but see he gets there. He seems bent on taking exercise. I’ll be right behind you.”

Meg and Campion walked down the shadowy stone way together and Luke walked beside them. The solid knot of men in front moved quickly. The crowd stared at them but parted for them, and they turned out of the gate at the top and round the bend, out of sight.

The girl was quite silent for some time, but the emotional conflict in her mind was as apparent as if she had explained it. Campion watched her out of the corner of his eye.

“You’ll have to put this clean out of your mind, if you can, you know,” he said at last. “If I may I’ll put you in a taxi outside the station, and then after Luke has had a chat with this fellow I’ll get him to come back with me. I don’t see the purpose of this performance at all, but I think you’ll have to face the fact that it is only a performance.”

She paused in her walk and faced him. “You mean you’re quite certain it wasn’t Martin in the photographs?”

“Oh no, it was this fellow every time. That’s practically sure.”

“Practically?” Her wide mouth twisted and her eyes looked darker. “Practically sure Martin is dead again. I’ve been remembering him. He was a very—very sweet person, you know.”

A wave of old-fashioned black anger swept over Luke’s dark face. In common with everything about him, it was vivid and more than life-size.

“That’s the thing which makes me wild,” he announced with a bitterness which startled them both. “A chap gives his life and as soon as the grass has grown a bit and there’s the chance of a spot of happiness for the woman who is the only thing left of him, a ruddy great pack of ghouls come scrapping round looking for a hap’orth of gold out of his eyeteeth. Forgive me, Mrs. Elginbrodde, but it makes me spiteful.”

“A pack?” she said dully. “Are there more of them?”

“Oh yes. I’ve seen that quivering little mug before somewhere. He’s nothing. He’s the tailor’s dummy. If he’d been on his own he’d have done a bit of talking. I’m not the one that lad is so frightened of. That’s the only thing he did tell us.”

“Then Martin might——”

“No.” He spoke with a tenderness unexpected in him. “No, lady, no. Put that clean out of your mind. That dear chap and his dog have gone, gone where the dear chaps do go, gone with a few I knew. You’ve got your own life and you go and live it and make a do of it, as no doubt he’d like you to. Now you go home. Will Mr. Levett be there?”

“No. Do you want him? He brought me here and went on to his office. He’s going to ring me at five. He has some sort of business appointment this evening.”

She saw his expression and smiled to reassure him. “Oh, I shall be all right. My father is there. In fact, there are quite a lot of people in the house. We’d be very glad to see you if you could manage it.”

“Fine.” It was obvious that Luke thought of clapping her on the shoulder and quite as obviously changed his mind. “Splendid. Wait for us. Now we’ll put you in a cab just over here. . . .”

He was still fierce when they closed the taxi door on her some minutes later and caught a last glimpse of her face as it changed after her parting valiant smile. As they pushed up the drive into Crumb Street, Campion was struck once more both by his power and the unexpected emotional depths he had revealed. Luke was as moved as if Elginbrodde had been his brother and was identifying him in his mind with some soldier he had loved. It made him an alarming enemy for someone.

Meanwhile Crumb Street, never a place of beauty, that afternoon was at its worst. The fog slopped over its low houses like a bucketful of cold soup over a row of dirty stoves. The shops had been mean when they had been built and were designed for small and occasional trade, but since the days of victory, when a million demobilised men had passed through the terminus, each one armed with a parcel of government-presented garments of varying usefulness, half the establishments had been taken over by opportunists specialising in the purchase and sale of secondhand clothes. Every other window was darkened with festoons of semi-respectable rags based by bundles of grey household linen, soiled suitcases, and an occasional collection of surplus war stores, green, khaki, and air force blue. The fine new police station on the corner was the chief ornament to the district, and the D.D.C.I. advanced upon it with the tread of a proprietor. The impatient traffic was moving a little and they were held up for a moment or so on a street island. As they waited, Mr. Campion reflected that the evil smell of fog is a smell of ashes grown cold under hoses, and he heard afresh the distinctive noise of the irritable, half-blinded city, the scream of brakes, the abuse of drivers, the fierce hiss of tyres on the wet road.

Just above it, like an appropriate theme song, sounded the thumping of the street band. There was nothing of the dispirited drone there. It triumphed in the thick air, an almighty affront of a noise, importunate and vigorous.

The knot of men who were playing were half in the gutter and half on the pavement. They were moving along steadily, as the law insists, and the rattle of their collecting boxes was as noisy as their tune. They were some little way away and it was not possible to distinguish individuals, but there was a ruthless urgency in their movements and the stream of foot passengers narrowed as it flowed past the bunch. Luke jerked his chin towards them.

“See that? Demanding with menaces. What else is it? Gimme, gimme!” He thrust a long curved hand under Campion’s nose and achieved an expression of rapacity which was startling. “We can’t touch ’em. Keep moving, that’s all we can say. If a cat made a row like that we’d kill it.”

Campion laughed. He liked Luke.

“I remember after the first World War those bands were pretty shocking,” he remarked, “but I thought the Welfare State had rather seen to that sort of thing. They are ex-Service, I suppose?”

“Who isn’t?” Luke was irritable. “I bet you every man under sixty in this street is ex-Service, and half the women too. That little band of brothers is only ex-Service among other things. Haven’t you seen them about? They tramp all over the town, West End mostly. Nothing’s known against any of ’em, as we say, but they’re not exactly pretty to look at.”

He drew a balloon shape in the air with his hands and screwed his eyes up to beady pin points.

“They all wear tickets round their necks. One says ‘No Pension.’ Nor have I, of course. Then there’s ‘Invalid’ and ‘One Arm.’ Poor bloke—but he can get a new one from the old National Health free. Where is it? ‘No Head’ would make you look quicker. Not one says ‘Unemployed,’ I notice. That would be asking for it. They’re only beggars. Every big city produces ’em. They’ve got a fine old ex-Service song there, anyway. Remember it?”

“I’ve been trying to. Was it called ‘Waiting’?”

Luke stood listening, an odd expression on his face. The band was moving very slowly.

“I’ll be WAI-tin’ for you!” he bellowed suddenly just under his breath. “AT the old oak tree-ah! I’ll be WAI-tin’ for you. Just you wait for me-ah! Turn up your lips, waggle your hips, and we’ll all be set for chapel. So softly we’ll glide, where water-weeds hide, and willows make little waves dapple. Most poetic, I don’t think, but those aren’t the words those beauties are remembering.”

“No.” Mr. Campion’s neat memory had turned up the reference card at last. “Button your purse, shout for Nurse, I’ve brought my brace and tackle.”

The D.D.C.I. laughed. It was a queer little grunt, not entirely of amusement. “That’s a respectable one of its class. But those boys down there aren’t thinking along those lines. You can tell it by the way they’re playing.” He thrust his vivid face close to Campion’s own. “I’ll be WAI-tin’ for you, AT Oflag Seventy-three-ah! I’ll be WAI-tin’ for you, don’t look out for me-ah! Lift up your froat, you’ll bleed like a goat, WHOOPS your adam’s apple!”

Mr. Campion’s eyebrows rose a fraction and he did not smile. If Luke had hoped to shock he had succeeded. The words had not been inspired, but from behind them there had flashed out for an instant the reality of the thing which had been chasing them all the afternoon. He was aware of it in the street now, stark under the blanket of the gloom. For the first time that day he recognised it and it sent a thin trickle down his spine.

“Violence,” he said aloud.

“That’s it, chum.” Luke had seen their chance and they were edging swiftly through the traffic. “That’s it,” he repeated as they reached the pavement. “It’s always there in London under the good temper. D’you remember in the Blitz, ‘I wouldn’t be dead for a pound’? That wasn’t half a joke then. It tickled us, just touched the spot. Poor old George, blood streaming down his face! Laugh! I thought we’d bust our braces.”

He paused to assist a woman to disentangle his long legs from her steel go-cart, flashed a joyous smile at her, and pressed on happily.

“I laughed myself,” he said.

Mr. Campion listened to him gravely. He had his own brand of humour, but this was not it. The band and its bellow had become hateful to him and the fog bone-chilling and menacing.

“Oh lord, yes, there’s violence about.” Luke’s wide shoulders were winnowing a path for himself through the crowd. “You can’t miss it. I shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get quite a whiff of it the moment we get inside. That shady little mouse we just caught was frightened of somebody, wasn’t he? Hullo, what’s up?”

Campion had paused and was looking over his shoulder. He was holding up the stream and half a dozen people jostled him.

“It was nothing,” he said at last as he moved on again, “at least I don’t think so. I thought I caught a glimpse of Geoffrey Levett just then. I must have been mistaken.”

Luke turned into a narrow archway set deep in the blank side of a new building.

“Everyone looks alike in the fog,” he said cheerfully. “You can follow your own Ma home in it, certain that she’s the girl next door. If Mr. Levett is about here at all he’s probably inside, asking a few important questions while we’re still getting over the road. Now, Mr. Campion, we’ll have to treat this lad very gently. We’ll just turn him quietly inside out. After all, we haven’t a thing on him, have we—yet?”