Johnny Under Ground Read online

  “He took off all right, and I made radio-telephone contact with him. I called him and said, ‘Snowdrop Three-two, Redwing calling’—Redwing was Dymfield—‘are you receiving me? Over.’ Back came that crackling voice over the loudspeaker, ‘Hello, Redwing. Snowdrop Three-two. Receiving you loud and clear. Out.’ Now, that was odd, because “out” is what a pilot said when he was switching off, and apparently that’s what Beau did. After that, I called and called him, but there was no answer. The aircraft crossed the coast, made a big circle over the sea, and then swept the coastline again, flying at a level height. Then, suddenly, a voice came over the loudspeaker. It just said, ‘Tally-ho.’ Sorry…” There was a suspicious break in Emmy’s voice and she blew her nose. Then she went on. “I expect you know, that was the code word meaning that the enemy was in sight, but there was no hostile aircraft that evening. Then Snowdrop Three-two headed straight out to sea and just—disappeared. Lost height rapidly and vanished. It must have nose-dived into the North Sea. Nothing was ever seen or heard of it again. Nor of Beau.”

  “Vere’s commanding officer must have thought that he’d been killed.”

  “Yes. Poor Vere. It was awful. He’d carried out Plan A, which was that if he’d had no word from Beau by five o’clock, he’d lie low in his quarters and leave the field clear for Beau, which is what happened. Beau and Vere were much the same size and height, and one man in flying outfit and helmet looks very like another. The ground staff accepted Beau as Vere. You can imagine the shambles when Vere walked into Dymfield next morning—and found he was supposed to be dead.

  “I must say, the powers-that-be were marvelous. Of course, the whole story had to be confessed, and Vere was in a lot of trouble, although he managed to convince the commanding officer that Beau had given him the slip and taken the aircraft up without his knowledge. Anyhow, there was nothing anybody could do.”

  “Poor fellow,” said Henry. “I suppose he must have had one of his fits of dizziness and…”

  Emmy shook her head. “That was the official explanation,” she said, “but it didn’t make sense, not to any of us. Why was he heading straight out to sea? Why had he switched off his radio-telephone? Why didn’t he call for help?” She paused, and then said, “We all knew what actually happened.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Beau obviously and deliberately killed himself.”

  After a long moment of silence Henry said, “Why?”

  “You mean, why was it obvious?”

  “No, why did he kill himself?”

  Emmy hesitated. “Who knows? The story went that, earlier in the day Barbara had told him she was going to leave him for Vere. Heaven knows if that’s true. The fact that Barbara did eventually marry Vere doesn’t prove anything. Personally, I think Beau killed himself for quite a different reason.”

  “What was that?” Henry asked with interest.

  “I was on duty that evening,” said Emmy. “I watched the track of that aircraft. He didn’t even attempt any sort of acrobatics, as he’d promised. Just made that rather clumsy circuit, and then flew out to sea. I think he just couldn’t cope. Maybe he was plain scared to try to bring her back and land her—remember he’d crashed in flames once before. Even if he’d gotten down safely, he’d lost an enormous amount of prestige. Sammy Smith was in the Operations Room, for instance, and he was fairly gloating over the bad show Beau was putting up. He’d been a pilot himself and he’s never liked Beau.” Emmy paused and then said, “I think Beau killed himself sooner than have to face Barbara and Vere and the others as a failure.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Me? What do you mean?”

  Henry smiled. “You don’t include yourself among the people he wouldn’t want to face.”

  “Well, of course not. He knew that I—I mean, I simply didn’t count. I hardly knew him.”

  Henry considered telling his wife that she was a very bad liar, but then decided to keep his mouth shut.

  “Anyhow,” Emmy went on, “it was all hushed up. The heroic image of Beau Guest was maintained. He was posted as ‘Missing, presumed killed’ on a training flight. Of course, the rumor of a gallant suicide leaked out and burnished the image, if anything. And unless I’m very much mistaken, Barbara has had a bad conscience over it for twenty years. She knows that he’d never have gone up unless she’d practically dared him to do it, and she knows equally well that he killed himself rather than face her when he failed. She’d have given him no sympathy.”

  “You don’t like the lady very much, do you?” Henry asked.

  Emmy raised her hands and let them fall again. “I do try not to be unfair,” she said, “but one can’t help… And now there’s this business of the book. My guess is that Lofty and I will be handsomely paid for creating an elaborate whited sepulcher for Beau. And for Barbara. It’s a revolting idea.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “I was dared,” said Emmy. She smiled, ruefully. “I’m a bit like Beau, I suppose. I hope I manage to live through it.”

  “So do I,” said Henry.

  The following day Barbara Prendergast telephoned Emmy Tibbett. She thought, she said, that they should get together as soon as possible to discuss plans. Of course, it was a little difficult for her, since she lived in the country, but she had been able to persuade Lofty to come and spend next weekend at Whitchurch Manor, and she did so hope that Emmy and her husband would be able to manage it, too.

  “I don’t know whether Henry’s keen on rough shooting,” she added. “If he is, Vere will be delighted. The two of them can amuse themselves shooting or fishing while we’re in conference.”

  Emmy replied that she was afraid that Henry wasn’t very keen on blood sports. “He has too much to do with violent death during business hours,” she explained.

  “I see,” said Barbara. She did not sound pleased. “Oh, well, he can go bird-watching or plant-collecting or something. Anyhow, do say you’ll come.” And so it was arranged.

  Vere met their train at Colchester. He looked more at home in the countryside than he had in London. He installed Henry and Emmy, with their suitcases, into his dark blue Bentley, and they purred off through the smiling countryside. After several days of heavy rain the weather had cleared. The September sunshine was bright and the air crisp, and cottage gardens had late roses blooming beside early chrysanthemums. The cloudless, deep blue sky reminded Emmy of another lovely September, twenty-five years earlier, when the only clouds in the sky had been the funeral pyres of brave men, when Beau Guest had been twenty-two, and Barbara Brent, nineteen, and Emmy Blandish still a schoolgirl, looking up from her lessons at the sound of gunfire in the sky and resolving fiercely to join the Air Force on her eighteenth birthday.

  “Barbara tells me you’re some sort of a detective type,” Vere was saying to Henry, as the car whispered up a leafy lane.

  “That’s right.” Emmy detected the amused note that always crept into Henry’s voice when he met a character who appealed to him.

  “I wouldn’t mind your job.” Vere sounded wistful behind his outsize mustache. “Chap against chap. Single combat. Like the old Battle of Britain in a way.”

  Henry laughed. “It sounds very romantic, put like that,” he said. “In fact, I’m afraid, it’s not true. The criminal may be a lone wolf, but we’re a big and reasonably efficient organization.”

  “H’m,” said Vere. He became owlishly thoughtful. “Interesting, that. You think the fighter type is apt to be on the side of the criminal, do you?”

  “Good heavens,” said Henry, “I certainly didn’t intend to imply…”

  “Many a true word, old sleuth,” said Vere. “Keen on shooting?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Henry.

  “Fishing?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Well, what are you keen on?” asked Vere with a touch of irritation.

  “Sailing,” said Henry. “Sailing and skiing.” He had the sense to realize that Vere’s quest
ion had been concerned exclusively with sporting activities.

  “H’m. I see.” Vere sounded a little dubious. It was clear that in his view both these sports, while patronized by certain acceptable people, had a darker side to them. They were becoming popular. “Don’t think we can help you much there.”

  “I also enjoy walking,” said Henry.

  “Walking?” echoed Vere, as if he had never heard the word before.

  “It used to be known as hiking,” said Henry, and winked at Emmy.

  “Good God,” said Vere, and lapsed into a gloomy silence. After a few minutes the Bentley turned into a driveway which led to Whitchurch Manor.

  Barbara and Lofty were waiting to greet them on the flagged terrace. The house was long, low, beamy, and chintzy, and outside every window stretched a vista of park and farmland. Civilities were exchanged and drinks provided, and the party settled down to a relaxed preprandial conversation.

  Barbara, haggard but elegant in dark linen trousers and a silk shirt, made much of Henry. “Darling,” she said to Vere, with exaggerated reproach, “you mean you actually didn’t realize that this is the Henry Tibbett? The great detective, wizard of the Yard…”

  “Oh, please,” said Henry. “There’s no need to exaggerate.”

  “But I’m not,” protested Barbara, opening her black-ringed eyes very wide. “Am I, Emmy? I’m continually hearing about Henry Tibbett, the detective. But nobody ever told me how fascinating he would be to meet.”

  Henry, well aware of his undistinguished appearance and of the fact that, far from shining in conversation, he had barely had the chance to open his mouth, decided that it would be more foolish to protest than to say nothing. He did, however, wonder what Barbara Prendergast was up to. Listening to Emmy, he had formed an impression of Barbara as a thoroughly silly woman. Now, he was not so sure.

  Vere, meanwhile, had started to reminisce with Emmy about the war. As a momentary silence fell on the conversation, he was saying, rather too loudly, “—and there was this Hun in his Heinkel, y’see, straight and level at angels fifteen…”

  “And there was I,” said Lofty loudly, to nobody in particular, “upside down, nothing on the clock and still climbing.”

  There was a moment of dead silence. Vere looked at Lofty as though he could cheerfully kill him. Barbara turned away, embarrassed.

  Emmy said quickly, laughing, “What a memory you have, Lofty! I’d completely forgotten that phrase. I haven’t heard it for donkey’s years.”

  “And I,” put in Henry, “haven’t heard anyone talk about ‘donkey’s years’ since I was a schoolboy, which is longer ago than anyone here can remember.”

  This started a general conversation on the subject of slang. The awkward moment was forgotten. It was only later, in the privacy of their room, that Henry asked Emmy why Vere had been so angry.

  “Well, you know,” said Emmy, “‘Lloyd George knew my father…’”

  “Did he really?”

  “Idiot. You know what I mean. Just as people used to start singing, ‘Lloyd George knew my father’ to take the starch out of name-droppers, so in the R.A.F., if anybody started to shoot a line about his heroic achievements, the others would begin chanting, in unison, ‘There was I, upside down, nothing on the clock…’”

  “And still climbing,” Henry finished for her. “An interesting situation. So one is to gather that your friend Lofty was taking the starch out of your friend Vere.”

  “Obviously,” said Emmy.

  There was a pause, and then Henry said, “Well, Emmy love, it’s up to you, but I’m beginning to wonder if you wouldn’t be wise to keep right out of this business of raking up the past. Your band of old comrades doesn’t seem to be a very united body.”

  “I said I’d do it,” said Emmy.

  “You were dared.”

  “That’s right. So you see, I must.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Henry, “it’s all a bit childish, isn’t it? If you want to back out all you have to do is say so.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” said Emmy. She kissed the top of Henry’s head as he sat on the bed. “I feel I have to go through with it.”

  “Because of Beau Guest,” said Henry.

  “Yes,” said Emmy, seriously. Then, looking hard at her husband, she added, “Oh, Henry. You can’t really be jealous, not of a man who died twenty years ago and who never—who never…” She stopped.

  Henry smiled at her. “I think it’s only natural,” he said, “that I should be jealous of the first man you ever loved.”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Emmy, and turned away.

  Henry noticed that she had made no denial.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER LUNCH BARBARA became very businesslike. First of all Vere and Henry were sent off firmly for a walk around the home farm, which comprised some eighty acres.

  “I hope,” Vere said to Henry, with overdone politeness, “that it won’t upset you if I take a gun, old man. Always the chance of a rabbit or a few pigeons. For the pot, of course,” he added.

  “It won’t upset me at all,” said Henry. He borrowed a pair of enormous black rubber boots, and the two of them set out.

  Barbara waved good-bye to them from the terrace, and then came back into the big drawing room, where Emmy and Lofty were chatting over a third cup of coffee.

  “Right,” she said, “now we can begin.”

  Lofty pulled a small blue exercise book and a ballpoint pen out of his pocket. “Have you got something to write on?” he asked Emmy.

  “You won’t need to write anything for the moment,” said Barbara. She spoke briskly. “First of all I want to propose a slight change of plan.”

  “Good God, Barbara!” Lofty, never a respecter of persons, spoke rudely and explosively. “You mean you’ve dragged us all the way down here to tell us the whole thing’s off? Of all the…”

  “Of course it’s not off,” said Barbara, sharply. “Although I should have thought that a free weekend’s board and lodging might have appealed to you, anyway.”

  Surprisingly, Barbara’s counterattack seemed to please Lofty. He laughed. “That’s my girl. God, you haven’t changed, have you? All this lady-of-the-manor stuff is a pretty thin veneer.”

  Surprisingly again, Barbara took this in good part. “You haven’t changed either, Lofty. As bloody rude as ever.” She laughed, and lit a cigarette. “No, the project is not off. But—I’ve been thinking. The history of a fighter station is pretty dry sort of material, isn’t it? Most readers want characters and personalities, people they can get to know, human interest, in fact.”

  “So what do you want me to do? Fill Dymfield with a lot of fictitious characters and weave a story of blood, lust, and glamour around them in the approved style?”

  “I hadn’t thought of fictitious characters,” said Barbara quietly. She studied her carmine fingernails.

  “Here, wait a minute,” said Lofty. He sounded really taken aback. “There’s such a thing as the law of libel, you know. I can’t sit down and write a scandalous history about a whole lot of people who are very much alive and kicking…”

  “I didn’t exactly mean that either,” said Barbara. She paused.

  Emmy said, “I know what Barbara is getting at. She doesn’t want a history of Dymfield. She wants a biography of Beau.” She turned and looked full at Barbara. “That’s what you intended from the beginning, isn’t it?”

  Barbara threw up her head nervously. “No,” she said. “No, that’s not true. I first had the idea of a book on Dymfield, and then, the more I thought about it…” She leaned forward. “This is how I see it. Lots of Battle of Britain aces had their biographies written; but my idea would be to put the emphasis on Beau’s work at Dymfield—coming out of the hospital and starting a second service career, pointing out that he was doing even more vital work after his accident than before…”

  “Not true,” said Lofty shortly.

  “Well, just as vital then. Don’t you
see? That way we could produce a history of Dymfield—at least, of its most interesting epoch—and still have our human interest. Isn’t that a good idea?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Lofty said, “Bloody clever, Barbara. I believe Emmy’s right; you’ve been after this all along. And it so happens that your reasoning is impeccable. If the book’s going to have any general interest at all, that’s the way to do it.” Barbara looked pleased, and glanced down modestly. “You realize, of course,” Lofty went on, “that we shall also have to include a full account of Beau’s death.”

  Barbara’s head came up with a jerk. “I don’t see why.”

  “If you ask any member of the public,” said Lofty, slowly and without emotion, “if he has heard of Beau Guest, he’ll probably either say No, or he’ll think you mean the fictitious hero of the Foreign Legion. But if by a remote chance he does remember Beau, he’ll say, ‘That was the fighter pilot who killed himself, wasn’t it?’”

  There was a silence which seemed to Emmy to be endless.

  Then Barbara said, “How vile people are.”

  “Human is the fashionable synonym,” said Lofty. “Look here, Barbara. You’ve just been talking about appealing to the popular market. Well, you can take it from me that the popular market isn’t interested in airfields or Operations Rooms, except in the most incidental way. But it might well be interested in the reconstruction of a twenty-year-old human drama played out against the backdrop of Britain’s finest hour, if I may coin a phrase.” Almost in spite of himself, Lofty was growing enthusiastic. He got up and began pacing the room. “For the first time,” he said, “I begin to see commercial possibilities. It could even be a best seller.”

  “But Lofty,” Barbara began.

  Lofty took no notice. He was talking to Emmy. “Your first job,” he said, “is to get the details of Beau’s early life—school, family, and so forth. Dates of joining the R.A.F., postings, marriage—everything that happened to him up to the time he ditched.” He turned to Barbara. “Let’s have a few dates and facts from you first, Barbara. We can fill in the details later.”