Dark Duet

Chapter 1: It Doesn't Hurt Much!-3

She shook her head.

"I'm damned if I know," she said. "You might be anything. You're one of those people that you can't put in any sort of box. You're a type and yet you're not a type."

Kane said: "I suppose what you really mean is why aren't I in the Army, or the Navy or the Air Force?"

She said: "All right. Why aren't you?"

Kane said: "I'll tell you. I was run over by an express train when I was about seven. It cut my liver entirely in half, so they won't pass me fit." He sat grinning at her.

She said: "You're a pig, Michael, aren't you? But then you once told me you didn't like being asked questions."

He said: "Oh, I don't mind from you. So you really want to know what I am and what I do. Do you know"— he leaned forward suddenly— "I think you're a marvellous woman, Valetta," he said, "to know a man, to get around with him, to sleep with him for nine months and only then to ask him what he does. I think it's too amazing."

"Never mind about that," she said. "You tell me..."

There was a knock on the door. "You're on in two minutes, Miss Fallon," said the callboy.

She got up.

Kane said: "That interruption came just at the right moment. Now I've got lots of time to think something up."

She said: "So long, Michael, I've got to go now. Am I going to see you to-night?"

He shook his head. "I've got to meet a man I know," he said. "A little business. I'm sorry, Valetta. I'd have liked to have had supper with you to-night."

"Me, too," she said. "I'll be seeing you, Michael. Take some cigarettes if you want some. Au revoir."

He heard her high heels pattering down the stone passageway. He sat in the chair looking straight in front of him at the make-up table; his long, thin hands hung straight down between his knees. He presented a picture of ironic despondency.

After a little while he got up. He put on his hat, walked slowly along the passageway, down the stairs, out of the stage entrance.

PRESENTING Mr. Guelvada— "Ernie" Guelvada— the Free Belgian. The gentleman with a mission.

Ernie was disquieting. Definitely disquieting. It was impossible to sit and talk to Ernie, or even to look at him or be in the same room with him, without experiencing a sense of vague discomfort. When you were not with him you wondered about this; concluded that you were suffering from nerves or imagination; that you were stupid. You became certain about the nerves or imagination until the next time you saw Mr. Guelvada, when you noted that the effect of discomfort became greater as you got to know him better.

Of course you did not get to know him better. No one ever did. Except Kane. Kane knew him, and about the worm that lived in Mr. Guelvada and spent its time wandering from the mind to the guts. When it was in the mind Ernie made people uncomfortable. When it descended to the stomach other— and possibly more interesting— things happened.

Guelvada sat at the corner table in the bar parlour at the Grain Tavern in Tyrrells Wood. He was watching the proprietress. He was thinking that she had an excellent figure, a well-proportioned figure, that her breasts were absolutely in proportion to her hips and waist. Guelvada spent a great deal of his time pondering on the figures of women. Not in any lustful or even mildly exciting manner but in a quiet and dispassionate way that was distinctly impersonal and almost remote.

While he was engaged in this process, he used, at the same time, to think about other things— things that were not disconnected from the object of his vision. Sometimes he would think in French or Walloon or Flemish or in Russian or Spanish or Portuguese or English. He spoke all these languages almost perfectly. Perfectly enough to get by. When he thought in English he would do all sorts of strange things to amuse himself. He would think in pedantic— or what he considered correct— English, or in English interlarded with slang and Americanisms that he had learned from the moving pictures. He was not the sort of man that you would "put" with languages. He was not the sort of man that you would consider to be at all erudite. Yet he was extremely erudite.

He seldom talked about himself, and preferred to believe that he behaved in a mediocre and uninteresting manner. He was on the short side, and seemed a little plump. He was not in fact plump. He merely gave the impression. He was strong and nimble on his feet when he wanted to be. His face was round, pleasant and good-humoured. His mouth was mobile and good-natured. Seeing all these things accompanied by the half-smile that usually played about Guelvada's lips made you wonder more than ever why you felt uncomfortable when you were with him.

He had been born at a baconry near Ellezelles. It was a profitable baconry and had belonged to his father. His mother, who had noticed that Guelvada was not particularly happy with pigs, decided that he should go into the priesthood. She saw him as a curé. The picture of Ernie in a cassock delighted her. It was for this reason that he was educated so that he should be a successful priest. His mother, if asked, would not have known what a successful priest was, but to her education was a step in that direction. The World War of 1914 put an end to these dreams. It also put an end to his father, who was shot out of hand by the Germans for cutting the throat of a Corporal of Engineers, and to his mother, who was killed by the Corporal of Engineers because she put one of his eyes out with her thumb whilst he was endeavouring to rape her. Ernie, considering all these things in the light of the peace that followed, concluded that they were— in their way— quite logical, and became a courier.

Being a courier was an interesting business, he thought. You seldom stayed in any place long enough to become bored with it. You met a lot of people who passed on quickly. You had no time to become tired of anything. Your life became a kaleidoscope of middle-aged English ladies with dogs and money, surreptitious trips to the Casino with younger English ladies who wanted to see what night-life was like, and arguments about hotel bills with women of other nationalities who seemed to want to spend their lives arguing about a franc or two.

He picked up his glass and walked across the room towards the little bar that connected the bar-parlour with the saloon bar. Across the counter, in the other bar, he saw one or two men he knew casually. They grinned at him and he smiled back. When he smiled his face became almost transfigured. There was something cherubic about it. His smile was, in any event, prepossessing.

He put the glass down on the counter and asked in a soft voice for a gin and lime-juice. He watched the proprietress whilst she reached for the bottle. Reaching for bottles showed off a woman's figure, he thought, and it was for this reason that he always asked for drinks that came out of bottles on the highest shelves. One night, in Lisbon, at a place where they kept an egg-flip mixed with rum, that nobody ever wanted, on a high shelf, Guelvada had spent the whole evening ordering the foul stuff merely so that he could watch the girl who was serving reach for the bottle. He was like that.

When the proprietress put the gin and lime on the counter in front of him she said: "I haven't seen you for a day or two, Mr. Guelvada. But then you've been busy, I expect?"

Guelvada smiled at her.

"Oh, no!" he said. "Not at all, Madame. On the contrary. I have been walking about your so beautiful golf course, thinking."

She laughed. He thought she was a very pleasant woman.

"What— in the rain?" she said. "Whatever were you thinking about?"

Guelvada became suddenly serious. Then his round face lit up with a smile. He said quietly:

"Believe it or not, but one of the things I was thinking about was your figure. I think it is superb. I only hope the Germans don't invade England."

"Why?" she asked. "Whatever has that got to do with my figure?" She bridled a little. She thought she had a good figure too.

"It might have a lot to do with it," said Guelvada. "The Boches like figures like yours."

She flushed.

"They could go on liking," she said. "I've got an axe in the tool-shed for Germans."

Guelvada nodded.

"I know..." he said thoughtfully. He smiled at her again. "I knew another woman like that," he said. "She had an axe in the tool-shed too. They cut her breasts off..."

He picked up the glass of gin and lime, carried it back to the table. As he was raising the glass to his lips, the barmaid from the public bar put her head round the door.

"Mr. Guelvada," she said, "there's somebody wants you on the telephone. When I asked him who it was, he said to tell you it was Peter."

Guelvada said: "Thank you, honey..."

He got up and went out of the bar parlour, down the little passageway. The wall-telephone was at the end of the passage. Guelvada picked up the receiver and said hello. The voice at the other end said: "Is that you, Guelvada?"

"Correct," said Guelvada. "This is 'E' for Ernie."

"Right," said the other voice. "And this is 'P' for Peter. There's a woman called Mrs. Marques..."

Guelvada interrupted. He said very quickly:

"Yes...?" He was smiling a little— an odd sort of smile. His lips were drawn back over his teeth.

"Yes!" said "P" for Peter. "Process five. Does that please you?"

"Why not?" said Guelvada. "It's logical, isn't it?"

"In this case definitely so," said the other voice. "I understand she'll be at a party at a place near Hampstead to-night. The party will start somewhere around ten-ish. It will be a late party. You and 'M' for Michael will have to get in on it somehow. Somebody wants this job done quickly."

"I see," said Guelvada. "Do I have any contacts?"

"Unfortunately they're rather vague," said the voice. "But there's a pub in Mayfair called the Yellow Bottle. There's a woman goes there called Mrs. Mallary. She's a friend of Mrs. Jeanes who's throwing the party at Hampstead. This Mrs. Mallory knows an awful lot of people. She might have met you some time. She was at Eden Roc three years ago and fell off the wooden jetty there. She broke her leg. Two nights afterwards, with one leg in plaster of paris, she went to a card party and won twenty-five thousand francs. Will that help?"

"It might," said Guelvada, "providing she goes to the Yellow Bottle to-night."

"She'll be there," said the voice. "I can arrange that. I'll try and put a man in to make it easier. But after she gets there you'll have to play it on your own."

"All right," said Guelvada. "But if you put a man in how shall I know him?"

"He'll know about your other identity card," said Peter. "He'll know the name on it is Pierre Hellard. You be Pierre Hellard and let him remember you. If he does, he's my man. But, remember, he'll get out before the business starts. He's an inexperienced one, that one. You can't rely on him for anything and he knows nothing— nothing that matters. Understand?"