CHAPTER IV

      CORA LARCH IS OFFERED A GOOD SITUATION

      IT was a continual matter of pained surprise to George Larch whenever he came to think about it—and owing to the nature of his work and its occasional regrettable developments he had plenty of time for meditation—that he should have become a criminal. It was so entirely different from what he had ever intended when he set out in life. All his instincts were law-abiding and moral and the goal of his ambition from the day when he put by his first saved shilling had been a country cottage (as he conceived it), some fancy poultry and a nice square garden. Not a damp, broken-down, honeysuckle-clad, spider-infested, thatched old hovel of the sort that artists loved to depict, but a really sound, trim little new red-brick villa, standing well up and preferably in the immediate suburbs of Brighton or Worthing.

      As a baby, a child, a boy, he had given his mother no trouble whatever, and at school he had always earned unexceptional reports, with particular distinction in his two favourite subjects—Handwriting and Scripture History. Indeed, on the occasion of his last Breaking Up the schoolmaster had gone out of his way to contrive a test and as a result had been able to demonstrate to the assembled boys that, set a line of copper-plate, it was literally impossible to decide which was George’s work and which the copy. As it happened, ‘Honesty is the Best Policy. £ s. d.’ (the tag merely to fill up the line) had been the felicitous text of this experiment.

      Very often in these periods of voluntary or enforced inaction George cast his thoughts back in a distressed endeavour to put his finger on the precise point at which he could be said to have deviated from the strict path of virtue. Possibly it might be fixed at that day in 1898 when a casual but very emphatic acquaintance gave him in strict confidence the name of an unsuspected dead cert for the approaching Derby. Not without grave doubts, for it was quite contrary to his upbringing, but tempted by the odds, young Larch diffidently inquired how one made a bet and ultimately decided to risk half-a-crown on the chances of Jeddah. Still all might have been well but unfortunately the horse did win and—the bookmaker being not only honest but positively delighted—George found himself at a stroke twelve pounds ten (more than the result of a month’s conscientious work) the richer.

      Then there was Cora. That had been a wonderful thing, so unexpected, so incredible, so tumultuously sweet, and even now, at forty-three, with all that had flowed from it, he would not have a jot of that line of destiny altered if it would have involved losing that memory. Cora was as true as steel and had stuck to—and up for—him through thick and thin, but it was quite possible that her youthful gaiety, her love of pretty, costly things, and the easier views on life and conduct in which she (naïve child) had been brought up might have imperceptibly shaped the issue. It was simply impossible for him not to follow in her rather hectic round and as for refusing her anything—why, the greatest pleasure he could win had been to anticipate whatever she had set her innocent heart on. It goes without saying that no more shillings were being saved; instead there were frequent occasions when pounds had to be—on whatever terms—somehow borrowed. Meanwhile there had been other dead certs: one in particular so extremely dead that coming at a critical hour George had been hypnotised into the belief that it would be the merest form to make use of a comparatively trifling sum when it could inevitably be replaced before the accounts were looked into the following morning … So here he was, sitting in the back upper room of an ostensible rag-and-bone shop, fabricating with unmatchable skill the ‘mother plate’ of a Bank of England ‘tenner’ and at this particular moment preparing to unlock the door in response to old Ikey’s rapped-out signal that ‘safe’ visitors were below to see him.

      Mr Joolby had spoken of visiting Larch ‘at dusk’, possibly on general precautionary grounds, but it did not escape the notice of those who knew him best that most of the outdoor activity of the crippled dealer was nocturnal. Padgett Street rarely saw him out at all for the rear premises of his shop gave access to a yard from which it was possible to emerge in more distant thoroughfares by way of a network of slums and alleys. A pleasantry current in Padgett Street was to affect the conviction that he burrowed.

      It was sufficiently late when Won Chou’s peculiarly appetising meal had been despatched to answer to this requirement. Mr Joolby glanced up at the deepening sky of spilled-ink blue as seen through an uncurtained pane, produced a box of cigars curiously encased in raffia and indicated to his guest that they might as well be going.

      ‘It’s a slow affair with me,’ he apologised as he laboriously crawled about the room, preparing for the walk, ‘so you must expect a tiresome round. Now as we have some little distance to go—’

      ‘But is it quite safe—this place we go to?’ asked Bronsky who had drunk too sparingly of either wine or spirits to have his natural feebleness heartened. ‘It would not do—’

      ‘Safe as the Kremlin,’ was the half contemptuous reply, for by the measure of the visitor Joolby was a man of mettle. ‘My own chap is in charge there and so far as that goes the place is run as a proper business. Ah-Chou’—raising his voice, for that singularly versatile attendant was again at his look-out—‘we go come one two hour. You catchee make dark all time.’

      ‘Alle light-o,’ came cheerfully back and although no footsteps were to be heard Won Chou might be trusted to be carrying out his instructions.

      ‘And makee door plenty fast. No one come look-see while not is,’ was the further injunction; then piloting his guest into the lumber-strewn yard Mr Joolby very thoroughly put into practice this process as regards the rear premises before he led the way towards their destination. Leading, for most of the journey, it literally was, for much of their devious route was along mere passages, and even in the streets Mr Joolby’s mode of progression monopolised the path while Bronsky’s superficial elegance soon prejudiced him against using the gutter. He followed his host at a laboured crawl, relieving his mind from time to time by little bursts of ‘psst!’ and ‘chkk!’ at each occasion of annoyance. Joolby, unmoved, plodded stolidly ahead, his unseen features occasionally registering their stealthy broadening grin, although he seldom failed to throw a word of encouragement over his shoulder whenever a more definite phrase indicated that the comrade had come up against an obstruction or trod into something unpleasant.

      ‘Well, here we are at last,’ was the welcome assurance as they emerged into a thoroughfare that was at least a little wider and somewhat better lit than most of the others. ‘That is the place, next to the greengrocer. When we go back we can take an easier way, since you don’t seem to like this one, Bronsky, especially as it will be quite dark then.’

      ‘It will be as good that we should,’ assented Mr Bronsky, still justifiably ruffled. ‘Seldom have I been through such tamgod—’

      ‘Just a minute,’ put in Joolby coolly. ‘Better not talk until I’ve made sure that everything is clear,’ and they having now come to the rag-and-bone shop he rapped in a quite ordinary way on the closed door. With no more than the usual delay of coming from an inner room and turning a rusty key it was opened by an elderly Hebrew whose ‘atmosphere’—in its most generous sense—was wholly in keeping with his surroundings.

      ‘Good evening, Ikey,’ said Mr Joolby, still panting a little now that he had come to rest after an unusual exertion, ‘I have brought you perhaps a very good buyer. This gentleman