22
‘I have information that would interest you,’ Swingler cooed into the telephone. ‘Interest you very, very much.’
It would be in the papers. But before it got there, before Mr Nox knew anything about it, before Mr Nox knew that it was the kind of information he could read for free in time – before any of that came about, Swingler held a trump card.
‘Our association is done with, Swingler. I made that clear.’
‘Man dear, this is the goods. This is important. I’m telling you I have a first-class tip.’
‘I am in the middle of a lesson. If you have something to say, say it.’
‘I think, Mr Nox, you might find this worth something.’
‘Worth something? Worth what?’
‘Say fifty pounds?’
‘Now look here, Swingler –’
‘It doesn’t matter to me, Mr Nox. You just take it or leave it. I can offer you more than you ever asked me to discover. This is the real McCoy, as we call it.’
‘Come on then. Come on with it. Let me judge how real it is for myself.’
‘Fifty?’
‘Twenty, Swingler.’
‘Sorry, Mr Nox, this is too good for less than fifty notes.’
‘All right, all right. Come to the point, please.’
‘Fifty in cash. Have fifty ready in cash. I shall be with you within the hour.’
‘You must tell me first –’
‘Ah, Mr Nox, that is not at all the usual procedure.’
‘But I am buying a pig in a poke.’
‘Precisely, Mr Nox. A first-class pig, a first-class poke! I am on my way to you. The winged Mercury makes haste to bear the tidings!’
Swingler smiled. He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. It was something he always did in a moment of triumph.
‘It cannot affect me,’ Mr Jaraby said to himself. ‘The son was disowned. There is nothing about the sins of the children being visited on the fathers. I am innocent in all this. No one will mention it.’
‘I shall mention it,’ cried Mrs Jaraby. ‘As often as you mention that frightful cat or Australian food.’
‘Do you threaten me?’
‘No. I put the sentence badly. What I should have said was: as often as you have mentioned those things in the past so often in the future shall I be given to mentioning the other thing.’
‘I was not thinking of you, of what you shall be given to saying or doing. I was thinking of other people.’
‘Other people will notice and note. In many minds you may be confused with your son, his action taken for yours. You may find that people fight shy of you, and do not care to have you about. Shopkeepers may serve you rapidly, other shoppers stand well away from you. Ours is not a usual name. One Jaraby is easily mistaken for another. It is the superficial thing, the name, that clings in people’s minds. They learn of these things carelessly, not bothering to remember the details or the age and appearance of the wrong-doer. I saw the house being pointed out today. It was as if a murder had taken place. We have much to prepare for; you more than I. I bear the name, but I am a woman: my sex sees me through.’
‘But I am entirely innocent. I have done nothing at all.’
‘Be that as it may – and I am not saying that I confirm your plea – you shall reap a savage harvest. A little time elapses and seeing you abroad they shall cry: “Jaraby is no longer imprisoned. Jaraby has paid for his crime. There he goes, a free man: three cheers for British justice!” But they will remember to shun you, and tell their companions of the story that surrounds your name.’
‘This is just wild talk again; nonsensical rambling.’
‘No, it is true. “Wasn’t there something disgraceful about that man?” they will try to recall. “Jaraby the name was, it was in the papers”.’
‘There is no need for it to be in the papers. It will be summarily and quietly dealt with; without publicity.’
‘You would have liked Basil to have called himself Brown or Hodges, would you? When years ago you disowned him you would have wished him to hand you back your name? To go away from us and live a stranger with a nom de guerre?’
‘It might have been the decent thing,’ cried Mr Jaraby. ‘It might have been the decent thing when he knew he displeased us, to go away and worry us no more, and take a name that cut off all connexion.’
‘You must not say he displeased us. He did not ever displease me. I love my son. You never learnt to like him.’
‘I was prepared to. Since he was a child on my knee I was prepared to.’
‘Being prepared is a pretty watery thing. You had more regard for your cat. The cat would take what you gave him, and you did not know if he hated you or not.’
‘Monmouth did not hate me.’
‘Do not be too sure. You must not take the dumbness of a beast to mean whatever you wish it to mean.’
‘Monmouth and I were friends. You cannot take that away.’
‘Your relationship with your late cat is entirely your own affair. You speak of a cat, I of a son. Is there something to be learnt from that?’
‘So in all your magnanimity you condone what has happened?’
‘If you mean, do I condone the crime for which Basil has been arrested, the answer is no. I do not condone it; but he is not yet guilty of it.’
‘The police would not have come had he been innocent. They would not have picked him out of all the millions in the country. He has a bad record; we should have expected something like this.’
‘His record, as you call it, is in his favour. It suggests a certain instability and may be a cause of leniency. But he is not on trial here. The law requires us to think of him as innocent.’
‘He should not have come back to this house. I should have shown more intolerance. I would give my right hand to have been spared this.’
‘Keep your hand; its use is limited when taken from the arm. We have not a monopoly of suffering in this affair. We are bystanders, as befits people of our age. Others bear the burden of the suffering.’
‘You are at the root of it, inviting him back, enticing him and those birds to the room upstairs. We would not be concerned but for that.’
‘How could we not be concerned since we are the parents? You cannot lock yourself in the past as you seek to do. The present is the only reality.’
‘I do not lock myself in the past. I am concerned with the present, and the future too.’
‘We will not muddle through an argument on that. We have time enough awaiting us. And this other thing takes precedence today.’
‘It cannot affect me,’ Mr Jaraby repeated. ‘It is wrong and unjust that it should.’
‘You have played a confidence trick on me,’ Mr Nox said. ‘The information is good, I grant you, but it would have come my way automatically.’
‘You had it early, sir. You can act on it at once. It is valuable to be a jump ahead.’
‘In this case it is of little value.’
‘Was I to know that? Was I in possession of that fact?’
‘No, Swingler, in truth you were not.’
‘Well, I’ll be saying cheerio then, Mr Nox.’
‘There is just one thing, Swingler.’
‘Sir?’
‘When this gets into the papers it would be a help if all the personal details were correct. For instance, a mention of the school the man attended.’
‘Yes, well –’
‘It might interest the public. To say that a man has been to a certain public school sets the scene.’
‘You are making sense, Mr Nox.’
‘And you with your influence should be able to drop the facts into a couple of reporters’ ears.’
Swingler laughed. ‘Who better, Mr Nox? Who better than Thos Swingler?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Say another twenty-five?’
‘Ten, Swingler. You have had fifty by means of sharp practice.’
‘Settle for fifteen, Mr Nox. A round sixty-five and our business is concluded.’
‘Is that Mr Jaraby?’
‘Jaraby speaking.’
‘You don’t know me, but I have reason to believe that I can be of comfort and help to you. Could I trespass on five minutes of your time?’
‘Who are you, sir?’
‘Known as Swingler, Mr Jaraby. Thos Swingler, friend to the worried. I am sorry about your little domestic trouble. That recent happening in Crimea Road. Mr Jaraby will need help, I said to myself. So here I am, sir; my services at your disposal.’
‘Are you a reporter?’
‘Far from it, sir. But you ask a good question. I suggest, Mr Jaraby, that this is a matter in which our friends of the press may well go to the fair. Believe me, there’s nothing they like better than playing up the public school angle.’
‘I don’t think the press will be interested.’
‘There you are wrong, sir. The scribes of the press, Mr Jaraby, hard-faced men without soul, are at this very moment elbowing politics off the front pages. Like a swarm of wasps they are, congregating round a saucer of raspberry jam.’
‘Why are you in touch with me?’
‘Swingler, I said, hasten to that poor man’s aid. Mr Jaraby, sir, I am in a position to prevent the worst. What would you say if I agreed to reduce the publicity to a minimum? The name misspelt, the address a previous one, all mention of educational academies removed?’
‘How could you do that, Mr Swingler?’
‘With money, sir. Say five hundred pounds, in cash. Shall we meet together in some quiet place? Tomorrow morning?’