The Song of the Flea (16 page)

“
Yes,
Olga
of
the
Volga,
your
time
has
come.
Breaker
of
hearts,
courtesan
and
spy
in
the
pay
of
a
foreign
Power,
will
you
make
your
exit
gallantly,
like
a
noblewoman,
or
die
like
a
common
felon
on
the
gallows?
”

“
Your
Royal
Highness,
I
have
lived
a
lady,
and
a
lady
I
shall
die.
”

“
Have you made your peace with God?
”

“
Yes.
Leave
me,
please.
Oh,
have
no
fear:
I
shall
still
be
here
when
you
return
.”

There were tears in the stern eyes of the Grand Duke. He kissed her hand. “
Before
heaven,
Countess,
you
are
a
gallant
woman
.”

“
I did what I did for love
.”

…
Mary, Queen of Scots, swept with queenly grace up to the scaffold; knelt and bowed her beautiful head to the block.

Annie turned on the gas and put her head in the oven.

She breathed deeply. After the first breath the gas did not smell at all bad—in fact it smelt good. Princes, dukes, toreadors, pirates, bandit chiefs, Sheiks of Araby, Don Cossacks,
millionaire
playboys, highwaymen and film directors—a multitude of brilliant and fantastic people danced out of their little bedrooms in the cardboard Kremlin of her head and came up to kiss her good-bye. The crowd grew dense. It made a circle, and whirled faster and faster until it became a smooth dark disc streaked with the passing of medals and diamond necklaces; and this disc was a gramophone record, playing the
Marche
Mystèrieuse
to which the exiles marched away through the artificial snow in the film about Katusha.

Hearing this, Annie started back, struck her head on the roof of the oven, and sat on the floor, coughing and retching. What a fool she was not to have remembered that she was taking things out of their proper sequence! In the film, the heroine ran away, reappeared in a house of ill fame, and did not get to Siberia until considerably later, after she had been wrongly accused of poisoning and robbing a fat man with a moustache.

She turned out the gas, went to her room, put an artificial silk dress, a skirt, a jumper, a pair of knickers, thirteen strings of beads, a sixpenny ring and seventy-two picture postcards of film stars into an exile’s bundle shaped like a pudding, and went away to play out the rest of the drama.

N
EXT
day Pym went to talk to the Features Editor of the
Sunday
Special.
“It struck me,” he said, “that there might be
possibilities
in an idea I had the other morning in Covent Garden.”

“Make it snappy,” said Mr. Steeple.

“I happened to be in Covent Garden at about six in the morning. Well, it occurred to me that there were lots of stories flying around at that hour——”

“Just found that out? Write a book about it. Call it ‘Sketches’, and I’ll give you a good
nom
de
plume
—call yourself Boz.”

“No, do listen. I had the idea of writing a series of pieces, about a thousand or fifteen hundred words long, under the title:
Before
Dawn,
All sorts of things go on. There are the
markets, to begin with—Covent Garden, Billingsgate, Smithfield. Then there are the bakers. There are the flower-sellers, the printing presses, the night clubs, the dairy people, and all that sort of thing. Do you get what I mean?”

“Human stories? Stories that are stories? None of your ‘Sketches’ by Boz. Have you got any real stories in mind with real people in them?”

“My idea was that you should make me your Midnight Correspondent, and pay me such-and-such a sum per week for a regular feature. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?” said Pym.

“It’s been thought of before,” said Steeple. “It’s not a bad idea, but far from new. It would all depend on the sort of stuff you turned in. You’d have to write two or three specimen stories. Better do that.”

“But if you liked those specimens, would you consider making something regular of it?”

“I’d consider, certainly,” said Steeple. “I’d consider. I say no more than that. I think you’ve got it in you if you only put your mind to it and stopped worrying about literature. Have a go at it. I’m not commissioning anything, mind. Turn in one or two bits and let’s have a look. You can write a fairly decent story when you want to. But, for God’s sake, find something
real
to say—tell
stones!
You’re too much of a highbrow. Cut it out. You go in for too much description. Skip it. There’s too much ‘
I
’ in your stuff. Who the hell do you think wants to read your opinions? Now, if you were lucky enough to be a divorced duchess, or an acrobat, or the heavyweight champion of the world, or something, your opinions about philosophy, morality, and all that kind of thing might be worth twopence of our readers’ money.” Mr. Steeple was in a sardonic mood this morning. “But there you are—a writer, buzzing about like a blue-arsed fly trying to pick up a few guineas here or there. And
this
geezer who couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag gets three thousand five hundred pounds for his story!”

He threw a shiny photograph on to the desk so that it slid between Pym’s eager hands. “If you want to make yourself some ready money out of writing, why don’t you go and do what Pryor did?”

Pym said: “I know that face! Isn’t that a man called Tom Paine Sherwood?”

“Don’t be silly! That’s Sedley Pryor.”

“I’d swear I knew that man,” said Pym, “under the name of Sherwood, Tom Paine Sherwood. Writes poetry.”

“That’s Sedley Pryor, and the Old Man has just bought his story for thirty-five hundred quid. Now that’s the way to do it, don’t you see? Nobody ever paid me thirty-five, let alone thirty-five hundred, for a story. Nor did they you. Go out and
do
something. Why don’t you do what that little Hungarian did—be a professional polygamist? He was a bald-headed mouse, and you’ve got curly hair. Better still, why don’t you nip off and be a Jack the Ripper, and get away with a short sentence after a sensational trial? Then we’d pay you thousands instead of lousy pounds, shillings and pence. Go on; why don’t you? I’ll lend you a razor, if you like.”

“No, seriously, who is this man Pryor, and what did he do?”

“Where did you meet him? How?”

Pym coughed and said, after a moment of hard thinking: “There you are again, you see. I met him around Covent Garden early one morning. We got into conversation. But he told me his name was Sherwood, and more or less indicated that he wrote poetry.”

“He’s called himself all kinds of things,” said the Features Editor. “But he’s known as Sedley Pryor, generally. He’s given us the lowdown on eight big swindles. He did the jobs. It’s all confirmed. Sherwood, did you say? He’s the man who hit on the idea of calling himself Cheetham. No one would ever suspect a man with a name as crooked as that. He’s been in everything, including the Watered Oil Scandal, which was a little before your time. You might remember the Furniture Case, though: he got seven years for it. ‘A Home for Fifty Pounds.’ A choice of five different styles—Queen Anne to Ultra-Modern: bedroom, sitting-room, dining-room, spare bedroom and kitchen—fifty quid the lot: ten pounds down and the rest in easy instalments. Enormous showrooms all over the country, and a couple of big names on the board of directors. Tens of thousands of mugs paid their tenners down. He was a
bright boy in his time. He was one of the best salesmen in the world in his time. Made history here, in the States, and in one of the International Exhibitions in Belgium. Used to go around selling things that did not strictly speaking belong to him. Had some sort of information service about visiting suckers. He sold that millionaire widow woman—yes, Daffodil Isaacs—Charing Cross Station. It makes remarkably good reading. Took her down, showed her everything; the oldest trick in the world, only Pryor could put it over better than anyone else. You know: you say to the ticket-collector: ‘Everything all right, my man?’ Naturally the ticket-collector says: ‘Quite all right, thank you, sir.’ … Pryor sold Charing Cross Station to Daffodil Isaacs for seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. Early in 1918 he sold Nelson’s Column to an American colonel for five thousand dollars, and by the time the Yank started to put up scaffolding to have it taken away—he was a Scandinavian-American by the name of Nelson, of course—good old Pryor was out of the country, doing a currency deal in Switzerland, buying jewellery from a Viennese with his dollars. Good God Almighty!” said the Features Editor with enthusiasm, “it was Sedley Pryor who worked that variation of the Spanish Prisoner Trick—the Russian Crown Jewel Racket. You know: an indubitable nobleman knows where the great white diamonds of his little White Father the Tsar are tucked away and can smuggle them out. It only costs you two or three hundred quid. As far as the police know, at least four hundred people (most of them clergyman) fell for that one. He must have got away with millions in his time.”

“If that’s the case, what’s he doing giving the game away now?”

“He’s supposed to be going straight. He convinced the Old Man that he was, anyway. Getting old, wants to die respectable, all that kind of stuff. Fact of the matter is, he’s scared to operate any more because he’s losing his grip, and the Yard knows him a little bit too well. Otherwise, naturally, he wouldn’t want to print his story—let alone his picture. You ought to read it when it comes out. The bit about the Crown Jewels racket is quite funny. But, look here; scram now, will you? Let me see a
sample. None of your so-called brilliant descriptive passages. And no long words. Last time you used the word ‘
valetudinarian
’. Do you think our readers know whether that’s supposed to be a vegetable or a new religious denomination? I wish somebody could write me a good vivid human story in words of one syllable. Well, knock out a specimen and shove it in, and I’ll see what the idea’s worth. Good-bye.”

*

Pym was happy, calm and confident, so full of tremendous and thrilling ideas that his head felt as he imagined an egg might feel when the bird is on the point of pecking its way out. It throbbed joyously with bright and radiant life. The time was ripe. Now, having pecked his way out of the dark he was ready to shake himself free and fly. Everything was clear and easy. He had only to write one article a week and a new book, a better book. Fleet Street was full of sunlight, and the people in the street were good-humoured and beautiful: he was ready to be a brother to all the men and a husband to all the women. He smiled and nodded at a total stranger (who shrank away, terrified) and walked, humming a song of his own composition, to the
Jack
Cade,
for some glorious bread and delicious cheese and a glass of ambrosial bitter. Waiting for the traffic to pass before he crossed the street, he said aloud: “Ah! the sun, the sun, the lovely sun!” A policeman gave him a long, hard look. “It’s all right, quite all right,” said Pym. “I just feel good, that’s all.”

The policeman said: “I thought you was ill or something. Many happy returns of the day.”

“And the same to you. If you weren’t on duty I’d ask you to come and have a drink with me.”

“Well, if I wasn’t I would.”

*

The
Jack
Cade
was one of the oldest public houses in the world. It stood in a queer dark alley between the Strand and the river: a show place, in its way, frequented by visiting Americans, for whose benefit the waiters were dressed in
knee-breeches
and green waistcoats. The landlord had made a fortune out of earthenware mugs. If you ordered a pint of beer it was served in an impressive glazed vessel, stamped with a picture of Jack Cade at London Stone. A firm in Derbyshire made these mugs for ninepence-halfpenny apiece. Tourists, rolling their eyes in the
Jack
Cade,
lusted after them, and said to the barman or the waiter: “Listen—I want to take one of these home. How about it?” The attendant would reply: “Why, you see, sir, it’s not allowed. But I tell you what, sir, I’ll do my best. I’ll get you a beer-mug all right; only don’t say anything, will you? It’d be as much as my job is worth.” The tourists always said: “You bet,” and talked loudly of other things until the waiter, or barman, with trepidation, thrust a little newspaper parcel into their hands. “How much do I owe you for this?”—“I’d rather leave that to you, sir.” Any tourist who paid less than a pound was
persona
non
grata
forever after. Even the smell of the place was worth money—the
haunting
acrid smell of stale beer and smoke; as for the ceilings, tobacco-smoked to a mellow golden-chestnut colour, bulging like the bellies of old violins and criss-crossed with
rough-hewn
, adze-scarred oak beams, they were a property in
themselves
. Only the landlord and his wife knew where the house began and where it ended. There were undreamed-of entrances and unheard-of ways out; and more bars than could be found in any other tavern in London—saloon bars, public bars, private bars, bars for ladies only, bars for gentlemen only, commercial bars, smoking-rooms, coffee-rooms, snuggeries, side bars, upstairs bars, back bars and the Dive Bar.

The Dive Bar was an excellent place to think, or talk business in. It was full of quiet corners. It was a plotters’ bar. Down there unprosperous lawyers relaxed with questionable-looking clients, and the underworld of Fleet Street, Temple Bar, and Lincoln’s Inn Fields held economic conferences in undertones. The man who built the
Jack
Cade
had been dead six hundred years; no one will ever know why he designed the stairway to the Dive Bar the way he did—you had to turn twice, sharply, to get to the tenth and last stair. When a barman in the
Jack
Cade
outlived his usefulness, or became rheumatic or
feeble-minded
,
he was not pensioned off—he was sent to the Dive Bar, as aged and decrepit waiters in the big cafés, if they be found worthy, are sent to the gentleman’s lavatories.

Pym had a whimsical affection for the place. He went down, whistling, got his bread-and-cheese and beer, and invited the barman to join him in a drink. The old man stared
incredulously
, looked Pym up and down several times, shook his head, raised pale-blue horrified eyes to heaven, and turned away, struck dumb by the temerity of the fellow. But Pym, laughing with delight, and quite unabashed, took his food and drink to one of the little old round tables in an alcove and began to make plans, nobly ambitious plans of the first magnitude. He was full of virtue and power. To-day he had the nose of a dog, the eyes of an eagle, and the ears of an elephant. He was ready to swallow the world like a pill, take it into his system and give it back out of his fingertips, bigger and better, cleaner and brighter. One day a week for the best journalism in the world; six days a week for immortal prose—it was all clean cut and dry, framed and varnished, sharp and conclusive as a Dutch painting. Now he had perspective. Now he could see things at their proper distances. The yellow and pink and blue bobs and smudges had come together to make a heaven; the brown and yellow and black dots and dashes had closed ranks to form solid earth; wriggling streaks of blue and green were co-ordinated in trees; and above all, out of the vapour, the universal Light had hammered itself into an arc of six perfect colours. There was poetry in barmen, glory in spit and sawdust, music in cheese, poetry in cigarette ends, and loveliness in chipped plates.

“Do you happen to have a bit of paper?” he said to the barman.

“There’s a stationery shop across the road.”

“Oh, is there? Thank you very much, thank you very much indeed,” said Pym, grinning from ear to ear.

Then the barman gave him a little wad of perforated bar checks.

Pym wanted to write a poem. He wrote:
White
clouds
caught
on
the
hard
horizon
like
lamb’s
wool
on
barbed
wire.

But then a voice that stirred up the sediment of an uneasy memory said: “
Proudfoot
.”

Pym listened.

*

It was the voice of Thomas Paine Sherwood, or Sedley Pryor, who was talking in the next alcove and saying: “I have been in consultation with my friend Proudfoot, and I can assure you that the time has come to go ahead.”