COMIC: Two girls talking – one says to the other, ‘Are you going out with your boy-friend tonight or are you going to sit in and watch television?’
‘Doesn’t make a lot of odds, really,’ says her friend. ‘Either way I get a lot of interference.’
The unfamiliar experience of being in work meant that Charles could not immediately pursue his detective investigations, but it gave him time to collect his ideas.
He had decided against confronting the post-coital couple in Chigwell until he had a clearer idea of what to confront them with. But what he had seen turned on its head everything he had hitherto thought about the case.
As he walked from Anerley Station to the RNVR Drill Hall, Wilberforce Street, where the rehearsals for The New Barber and Pole Show were being held, he tried to piece together a new version of Bill Peaky’s murder.
The important change from all the previous versions was that Miffy Turtle was now cast in the role of villain. With that alteration to the Dramatis Personae, a lot of previously indigestible details were liquidized and made palatable.
Charles started from the assumption that the affair between Miffy and Carla had been going on for some time. It was possible that the agent had just been cashing in on the widow’s loneliness the previous evening, but the logic was stronger for a relationship which had started while Peaky was alive. And Charles could now define an impression he had received at the awards ceremony, of a relaxed closeness between the couple. An affair of long-standing also gave Miffy an excellent motive for wanting Peaky out of the way.
Nor was that the only reason for him to kill his client. There was something else that Charles should have deduced in Hunstanton, but had only realized when Dickie Peck mentioned it at the awards’ lunch. The London agent’s sole purpose in going to Hunstanton was to sign up the rising comedy star and, by doing that, he was going to ace out the manager who had struggled up with his client from obscurity. Miffy’s outburst to Lennie Barber in the Leaky Bucket Club showed how sensitive he was to the dangers of losing his artistes just at the point when they began to make real money. If Bill Peaky was as unpleasant and self-centred as everyone suggested, he would have had no qualms about dumping his old friend and agent. That, together with the inconvenience of Carla’s having a husband around, might well push a wide boy like Miffy into crime.
The new theory also explained the inconsistencies in Carla’s behaviour. It had been strange that, when nobody else had a good word to say for her husband, she had painted a picture of a perfect marriage, while admitting her husband’s frequent infidelities. Charles had yet to meet the wife who, whatever her protestations, was genuinely complaisant about her husband’s affairs.
And now he understood Carla’s strange story about Janine Bentley. Having met the dancer, albeit at a time of great physical and emotional pressure, Charles had been struck by her essential level-headedness. Though this could have been one of the many smoke screens of schizophrenia, he preferred to accept his own assessment of her character than the unbalanced one presented by Carla. Anyway, that had been too quick, too glib. The widow knew he was coming full of suspicions, so she had hastily provided him with a convenient focus for them.
Such behaviour made very good sense if Carla was protecting her lover. If she knew Miffy had killed Peaky, or even came to suspect him when Charles first mentioned the idea of murder, then it was in her interests not only to provide the name of a potential murderer, but also to present the image of a desolated widow, whose life had been ruined by the premature loss of a beloved husband. Given the facts of such an idyllic marriage cruelly cut off, it would never occur to Charles that Carla had anything to gain from Bill Peaky’s death.
She had thought quickly that afternoon. Full marks to her. She had thrown him off the scent very effectively. But the strain of thinking on her feet had affected her performance of bereavement and it was that which had made Charles suspicious of her sincerity.
Yes, if Miffy had killed Peaky, everything made sense. Even as he thought it, another piece clicked into place. Miffy, on the scene at Hunstanton for much of the run of Sun ’n’ Funtime, was much better placed than any of the other suspects to check out the theatre’s electrical system and plan the crime.
New confirmatory thoughts kept sparking in Charles’ mind. At last he was really on to something. He would have to go and talk to Miffy Turtle.
The read-through in the RNVR Drill Hall was the first time that Charles had met the director of The New Barber and Pole Show, Wayland Ogilvie. Walter Proud had spoken much of the young man, commending his own original thinking in bringing an established drama director into the less gracious arena of Light Entertainment, and Lennie Barber had mentioned meeting the director over a preliminary script conference. But none of this had prepared Charles for the parrot-faced aesthete with gold wire-rimmed glasses and quilted Chinese jacket to whom Walter Proud introduced him. ‘Looking forward to a long and happy association,’ said the producer jovially.
‘Hope so.’ Charles smiled a stupid smile.
Wayland Ogilvie looked at him intensely for a moment. Then he spoke. ‘Scorpio. I’m quite compatible with Scorpios.’
Charles’ reactions were twofold. First, he thought astrology was an affectation. And second, he was impressed in spite of himself that the director had got his sign right.
Also present at the read-through were Lennie Barber, the two writers Paul Royce and Steve Clinton, a few hardened comedy support actors who had been cast in some of the sketches, Wayland Ogilvie’s PA (a dauntingly attractive girl called Theresa), a Trainee PA, a Stage Manager, an Assistant Stage Manager and a Chief Petty Officer in full uniform. This last turned out to be an official of the RNVR, who gave a short talk on things that could not be done in the Drill Hall. After his departure, the Stage Manager was berated for having allowed him to appear in the first place.
They all sat round a Formica-topped table at one end of the hall. The rest of the space was marked out with lines of different-coloured tapes and upright posts on wooden stands. These were the entrances and the whole surrealist forest represented the set (later in the day to be explained by the designer, who appeared in a beige corduroy boiler-suit).
Walter Proud welcomed everyone, saying how marvellous they all were and how very big the show was going to be and how he, as producer, would be keeping a very low profile and putting everything in the capable hands of Wayland Ogilvie and, once again, how, with a combination of the best artistes and the best writers in the profession, the show could not fail to be very big.
During this speech Charles observed Lennie Barber. The old comedian’s face bore a smile of unambiguous cynicism. How many times must he have heard similar pep-talks, before how many shows which had vanished without a trace? He no longer had any expectations of anything; he knew too much about the injustice and fickleness of the entertainment business to believe in any other power than that of luck.
He would work himself to death to make the show work, so long as no one asked him to believe in it. Even Charles, who was hardly a Little Noddy in his world-view, found something shocking in the depth of the man’s cynicism.
Walter Proud, discreetly wishing to maintain a good producer/director relationship, suggested diffidently to Wayland Ogilvie that they should have a straight read-through on the clock to get some idea of how the show ran, unless of course Wayland wanted to approach it a different way. No, Wayland said, he was happy to do it that way, though on the first day of rehearsal he tended to try to picture the overall impact of the programme than get too involved in the script.
So they started. Charles still had a blind spot about television comedy material; he couldn’t tell what was funny and what wasn’t and, having seen the miracles Lennie Barber had wrought with very indifferent lines in the barbershop sketch, he felt even less qualified to judge. However, Steve Clinton laughed raucously at every joke and there seemed to be sycophantic titters from the production crew from time to time, so maybe this was funny too.
The trouble was that Charles didn’t have Lennie Barber’s performance and reactions to help in his response. It soon became apparent that the comedian could not read. Not that he was illiterate, but that he couldn’t sight-read and give a performance at the same time. Charles hadn’t met enough comedians to know how common a failing this is. Performers used to working seasoned material or adding new jokes and ad libs in the skirmishing of night club work are very rarely dependent on scripts and can be seriously thrown by trying to give life to words on the printed page.
Charles’ first reaction was one of fear, that Barber was not going to improve and that this stumbling, ill-timed performance would be the one presented to the studio audience. He rationalized that fear away. Obviously, once he had learned the script, the comedian would start to build his performance, start to characterize and time the lines. But Barber’s inept read-through, particularly when all of the minor comedy supports were giving extravagantly self-indulgent (but funny) cameos, seemed to get the project off to a bad start.
It was also apparent as they read that the star didn’t like a lot of the script. He kept stopping on jokes, shaking his head and looking up to Walter Proud as if to start discussion, but on each occasion the producer gestured that the read-through should continue and points be raised later. Charles had got the impression that there had already been meetings between Proud, Barber and the writers when rewrites had been demanded, and the whole show (or certainly the bits that Barber appeared in – he showed no interest in the rest) looked like being rewritten a good bit more before the recording day arrived.
They reached the end of the script and Lennie Barber, in spite of his mood, sang through a verse and chorus of the closing song, the signature tune of the old Barber and Pole Show, Who Cares About Tomorrow When Tonight Is Now?
Walter Proud leaned across to look over the PA Theresa’s shoulder at her stopwatch. ‘Just about right for time too. Lovely read. Thank you all – sorry, Wayland, I should let you speak first.’
‘No. don’t worry. I’m just kind of trying to visualize the overall shape of the conception.’
‘Thank you, Wayland. No, I’d really like to say I think we’re really on to something very, very big.’
‘Not without some changes we’re not,’ stated Lennie Barber baldly.
‘What do you mean, Lennie?’ asked Walter heartily, as if he could will away the dissonant voice. But he had started to sweat. The moment when a star says he’s unhappy with the script is the one that every producer fears, breeder of many coronaries.
‘I mean, Walter, that a lot of this stuff is just wrong. There are things in here that I can’t do. For example, that sketch where I go into the chemist and ask for a take-away poltergeist –’
‘That’s a bloody good sketch,’ objected Paul Royce.
‘That I don’t know. It may be good, it may be bad; all I know is that it’s wrong for me. I can’t play that sort of material.’
‘Oh, come on, Lennie,’ Walter cajoled. ‘You don’t know until you’ve tried.’
‘I know.’
Paul Royce looked petulant. ‘I thought the idea of this show was to try out something new, to bring you up to date.’
‘Try out something new, yes. But I’m still Lennie Barber. It’s got to be new material but new Lennie Barber material. I haven’t spent a lifetime building up my own comic identity to have it thrown over like this. Listen, that sketch might go all right in Monty Python or whatever it’s called –’
‘Oh, so you don’t think Monty Python’s funny?’ asked Paul Royce, leading Barber into a pit of impossibly reactionary depths.
‘That’s not the issue. I think they do that sort of stuff very well. And I damned well know that I’d do it very badly. I’ve got to work to my strengths, not show myself up by trying to do things other people do a lot better.’
Paul Royce’s lip curled. ‘Well, if you’re never going to try anything new . . .’
Walter Proud came in quickly, placating. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have a look at that sketch.’
‘Not have a look at it – cut it.’
‘We’ll see, Lennie, we’ll see. Now if we can get on. I had a few points which –’
‘There’s a whole lot more too,’ said Lennie Barber. ‘Stuff that’s going to have to be changed.’
Everyone looked at the comedian with annoyance. He was not making himself popular. And yet Charles found his respect for the man increasing. Having seen Barber work, he knew the fine instinct that made him function as a comedian. If he said he wasn’t happy with the material, the chances were that he was right. He could only work efficiently with jokes he trusted.
Ignoring the wall of cold looks around him, Lennie continued. ‘A lot of it’s far too up-market for me, anyway.’
Paul Royce was again offended. ‘What do you mean – up-market? You should never underestimate your audience. They understand more than you give them credit for.’
‘It’s not a matter of whether they understand it; it’s whether they expect to hear it from me. I mean, for example, that joke about Oedipus doing the week’s shopping down at Mothercare.’
‘That’s a bloody good joke,’ snapped Paul Royce. ‘Just because you’ve never heard of Oedipus –’
‘Of course I’ve bloody heard of Oedipus. He killed his father, Laius, King of Thebes, and married his mother, Jocasta, but that is not the point. The audience would not expect the Lennie Barber they remember to tell a joke like that.’
‘That’s assuming any of them remember Lennie Barber at all,’ riposted Paul Royce venomously.
Walter Proud rushed in with his can of oil for troubled waters, which is standard issue equipment for all producers. To shift the mood of the conversation, he brought in the director. ‘What’s your feeling on this, Wayland?’
‘I don’t know.’ The dreamy eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses came back lazily from their reverie. ‘I was just trying to paint a picture of that final monologue. I think we should probably shoot it through something. Ferns, maybe. With the set almost burned-out behind.’
Charles got the feeling that The New Barber and Pole Show would not be a completely trouble-free production.
There was a pay-phone in the corridor outside the Drill Hall and he went to it in a rehearsal break. Through the arguments over the script, he had been formulating his next move in the case of Bill Peaky’s murder.
A girl answered. ‘Miffy Turtle Agency.’
Her voice was Cockney. They were all Cockney – Miffy, Carla, the late Bill Peaky. But the feeling they all gave Charles was not of loveable, Dickensian Cockneys, rather of potentially criminal, Kray Brothers type of Cockneys. Miffy particularly, with his solid frame and his flashy jewellery, seemed only one step from a gangster.
‘Could I speak to Mr. Turtle, please?’
‘Who wants him?’
‘My name is Charles Paris.’
“Ang on a minute.’ Silence. A click. ‘You’re through.’
‘Hello, Charles. What can I do you for?’
‘Miffy, I wondered if I could come and talk to you.’
‘What about?’
‘Well it’s about my working with Lennie Barber. I mean, you represent him, don’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, the fact is . . .’ Time for a little tactical disloyalty. ‘I’ve been with the same agent for some years and I can’t honestly say he does a lot for me.’ (That bit, at least, was true.) ‘I was thinking, if this partnership with Lennie develops into anything, there might be arguments for us being jointly represented.’
‘You might have a point.’ Miffy didn’t sound too bowled over by the idea. ‘Of course, I do specialize in the variety area. Clubs, summer season, panto, that sort of scene.’
‘Yes, well, that seems to be the way my career’s moving at the moment.’ Absolute lies, Charles thought as he said it. On the other hand, it was moving more in that direction than it was in any other. In every other area of the entertainment business its customary stasis obtained.
‘OK. Come and have a talk about it. Fill me in a bit on what you done and so on. We’ll see if an arrangement is going to be mutually beneficial. How’re you placed?’
‘As you know, we’ve just started rehearsals for the telly. But I think there’s going to be some kind of script conference this afternoon that won’t involve me. So I’ll be free later.’
‘OK. Come along about four then. You know where we are?’
‘Yes.’
‘The name’s not on the door yet, ’cause we only just moved, but when you get here, it’s second floor.’
The new address of the Miffy Turtle Agency was, Charles decided, a step up in the world. It was in Argyll Street, just next to the London Palladium, maybe in the hope that success would rub off by contiguity. Miffy Turtle obviously had hopes of expansion to afford such an address; it also explained his anxiety at the prospect of losing his most lucrative clients.
The move had been very recent. The reception area was littered with half-emptied boxes and piled-up folders. The girl behind the typewriter looked as Cockney as she had sounded on the phone. Sharp, pert little face, sharp, pert little body. The sort of girl you’d never dare make a pass at for fear she’d laugh at you.
‘Mr. Paris, innit? OK, I’ll just go in and see if Miffy’s free.’ She went through the door to an inner office and returned after a brief exchange. ‘Won’t keep you a minute. Take a seat.’
He could hear a low hum of conversation from the office. It sounded like a female voice with Miffy’s. A large framed poster leaning against the wall prompted visions of a leggy chorus girl and Charles fantasized a little as to what would come out of the office. In a rather adolescent way, he had built up an image of Variety work as sexier than legitimate theatre.
But he couldn’t indulge in such fantasies; it was more important to prepare himself for the approaching interview.
It struck him that he was in danger of becoming a joke figure for his repeated murder accusations. Like a pimply youth proposing to every woman he meets, he seemed constantly to be gearing himself up to another confrontation. Janine Bentley, Paul Royce, now Miffy Turtle. Thank God he felt confident that he was finally on the right track. If this proved to be another mare’s nest, he would look ridiculous. He decided that in future murder investigations (if any) he should try to avoid confrontations. Just build up a dossier of evidence and then hand it over to the police. Though, in this case, there would be a hell of a lot of explaining to do before he could get down to details and, from his own experience, the police welcomed amateur detectives about as avidly as elephants welcome umbrella-stand manufacturers.
Something buzzed on the girl’s desk and she ushered him into Miffy’s office. Charles did a slight take when he saw that the agent was alone. There was another door facing his desk, which must lead to another exit. The fantasy chorus girl had gone that way.
In spite of the chaos in the outer office, efforts had been made to put Miffy Turtle in a setting worthy of a West End agent, or at least the setting in which West End agents appear in West End plays. He sat in a swivel chair upholstered in dark brown leather. Across the large mahogany desk his clients were offered a matching reproduction Chesterfield. On the wall there were framed photographs of people Charles didn’t recognize, girls in sequinned dresses, men with big bow ties, all with insincere smiles and insincere messages scrawled across them. Either side of the window red velvet curtains hung, the skimpiness of their cut suggesting that they were not designed ever to be pulled.
Miffy maintained the image. He wore a pale green three-piece suit; the heavy gold cuff-links and chunky identity bracelet were very much in evidence. He looked like a footballer giving a pre-match interview.
To Charles it all seemed wrong. In his experience the really big agents worked from dusty garrets or anonymous boxes. Dickie Peck, one of the most important of the lot, had an office as musty and in need of decoration as the bar of a provincial rep.
Miffy rose expansively and gestured to the Chesterfield. As close as this, Charles was very aware of his adversary’s powerful build. A little chill spread over him at the thought of what he was about to do.
‘Glad you could come so soon, Charles. Like a cup of tea, eh?’
‘Thank you.’
Miffy pressed the switch of his intercom and gave the order. The self-conscious way he used the machine confirmed the impression given by its glossy exterior. He had kitted himself out with the complete set of props when he moved into the office.
‘Nice place.’ Charles said it to gain a little time and because he thought he might as well at least start on a friendly basis.
Miffy glowed. ‘Yes, I’m pleased with it. I’ve always had this theory that if you’re going to move into the big league, you got to look as if you’re there already.’
‘Not a bad principle. And you are moving into the big league?’
‘Sure I am. Whole scene needs a shake-up. All the top names in the agency business are old men now. Need a bit of young blood. It’s wide open.’
‘Good.’
‘Good for my clients, yes. Now, like I said on the phone, I only deal with Variety stuff. Fine while you’re with Lennie doing that sort of work, but if the calls start coming through from the Royal Bloody Shakespeare Company, I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
‘The Royal Bloody Shakespeare Company has managed to do without my services for the past eleven years and I doubt if they’re planning a major policy switch.’
‘No, I was speaking, like, generally. I mean, that’s what you are basically, an actor, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’ Charles hesitated. He was feeling uncomfortable. He could go on with this banter indefinitely, but if he didn’t make some sort of move soon, he was going to walk out in ten minutes under contract to the man he had come to accuse. He blurted out, ‘I’ve come about Bill Peaky’.
‘Bill Peaky.’ Miffy looked bewildered.
‘Yes. I know he was murdered.’
‘Murdered.’ Again the repetition sound genuinely flummoxed. But Charles did not have a chance to assess the reaction. He heard the soft click of a door behind him and saw Miffy Turtle’s eyes rise, puzzled, to the person who had just come in.
Charles turned to find himself looking up the barrel of a small black pistol at the end of which was a tight-lipped Carla.
Miffy spoke first. ‘What the hell are you doing, love?’
Her voice had entirely lost its elocuted veneer. ‘It’s all right, Miff. I should have told you before. He came sniffing round the house with this murder story, but I thought I’d thrown him off your scent. Now it looks like we’re going to have to keep him quiet.’
She waved the gun vaguely, but not vaguely enough to be reassuring. ‘Now, please, Mrs. Pratt,’ Charles remonstrated.
‘Keep still. I don’t know how he worked it out, Miff, but you must’ve made some mistake, not cleared your tracks properly. What are we going to do with him?’
‘I don’t bloody know.’ The agent sounded extremely confused. He had not started the afternoon with any plans for silencing and disposing of the bodies of men who knew too much and his mind was taking a little while to accommodate the idea.
‘How did you find it out, Mr. Paris?’ asked Carla, the gun still describing unsettling pirouettes in her hand.
‘Various things. I found out that Miffy hadn’t been in your husband’s dressing room during the interval on the day he died. That Dickie Peck was set to steal your husband as a client. And then I . . . discovered that you two were lovers. So I put two and two together.’
‘And got bloody seventeen.’ Miffy Turtle was through his confused stage and a definable mood had now emerged. That mood was extreme anger. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Murder? What is this? Are you rehearsing for a play or something? Or is it some bloody stupid practical joke? ’Cause the humour’s wearing a bit thin and I –’
Carla silenced him. ‘Miffy, don’t bother. You’re not going to persuade him off it now he’s got the idea into his head. We got to decide what to do with him. If he goes to the police –’
‘If he goes to the police, they’ll laugh their bloody heads off and tell him not to waste their time. Good God, Carla, d’you really believe I killed Bill?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Go on, do you?’
She faced her lover defiantly. ‘All right. Yes, I do. And what’s more, I don’t care. I don’t love you less for it. In fact, I love you more. To think you would do that for me, to think you were prepared to get that little creep out of my life so that we could be together . . . I’ll do whatever you say. What are we going to do about him?’ She pointed the gun at Charles.
Miffy was silent. When he spoke, his voice was cold. ‘Listen, Carla. One, I don’t believe Bill was murdered. Two, if he was, I didn’t do it.’
She broke the ensuing silence, but didn’t get far before he snapped back at her savagely. ‘And let me tell you that to hear you thought me capable of murdering him is the worst news I’ve had for some long time. Good God, I thought we knew each other, trusted each other.’
‘But you kept saying you wished he was out of the way. You said you wanted us to get married and –’
‘Yes, I said that. Whether I still mean it after this afternoon I’m not so sure. But I meant I wanted him to divorce you. I am not a killer, Carla.’
Suddenly she broke. Her lover’s anger destroyed her and she sank weeping to the floor. The gun dropped noisily beside her.
Miffy didn’t go to help. He looked coldly at Charles, who had been ignored through the preceding exchange, and said, with some dignity, ‘I think you’d better leave my office’.
‘No, I’m sorry. I came here certain that you killed Bill Peaky and you still haven’t given me any reason to change my opinion. You certainly had the motive and you had the opportunity. Unless you can provide yourself with an alibi for the whole of the interval, I’m still not going to be satisfied.’
‘All right.’ Miffy Turtle sounded dangerously grim. ‘I took Dickie bloody Peck round to Bill’s dressing room. I then went to find one of the dancers who was ill. She hadn’t appeared in the first-half closer and I wanted to know why. I had money in that show; I was concerned about the production.’
‘The girl was Janine Bentley?’ Charles knew the answer, but still asked the question.
‘Yes. I found her with the theatre St. John’s Ambulance man and stayed with her until a taxi came to take her home.’
So there it was – back to Harry, the St. John’s Ambulance man. Checkable, certainly. But fairly convincing. Unless Janine and Miffy were in league. Unless the St. John’s Ambulance man had killed Peaky. Charles suddenly felt very tired and very much like a man on the eve of his fifty-first birthday. ‘I’ll check your alibi,’ he said defiantly, but without conviction.
‘You bloody check it. And think yourself lucky I haven’t knocked your bloody block off.’
Charles rose with what dignity he could muster. He was almost at the door when Miffy spoke again. His voice had softened now and was musing, curious. ‘Do you really think Bill was murdered?’
Charles nodded.
‘Good God.’ Miffy shook his head sadly. ‘I knew he was unpopular, but I didn’t think anyone . . .’ He stopped. ‘Unless . . .’
‘Yes?’ Charles was alert for any clues to help him out of the confusion which was building up inside his head.
‘Only one person I know might have done it.’
‘Hmm?’ He tried not to sound too eager.
‘I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t say it, but I did hear him having an argument with Bill. Also he’s a junkie, so I shouldn’t think he knows what he’s doing when he’s had a fix. Hmm. I don’t know.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Boy called Chox Morton. Roadie with Mixed Bathing.’
‘And you say he’s on drugs?’
‘Sure. Silly little bugger. Heroin. He won’t be around two years from now, I bet. Killing himself.’
‘And he had an argument with Bill Peaky?’
‘Yes. Needless to say, he was very secretive about the drugs thing. I found out by accident and he was in a terrible state, making me swear never to tell anyone. He was terrified of being handed over to the police. Not afraid of going to prison or anything like that, just terrified of being taken away from his fix. It didn’t concern me, so I said I’d keep quiet about it. Unfortunately Bill also found out and he was less willing to keep his mouth shut.’
‘He did go to the police?’
‘No, no, that wasn’t Bill’s way. He was a nasty little sod. He liked having power over people. Girls, in particular, but everyone. To have a secret about someone and hold it over them, he liked that. That’s what he would have done with his knowledge of Chox’s addiction.’ Miffy was silent for a moment. ‘However he went, the world’s well rid of him.’
This remark induced a new burst of crying from Carla, still lying on the floor behind the Chesterfield. Miffy looked over in her direction, but did not move. The lovers had a lot of talking to do, if they were to salvage their relationship.
And Charles Paris was going to have to do a lot of thinking.