Johnny Under Ground Read online

  “Good idea,” said Emmy. She was thankful that she genuinely did not want to stay indoors, for she might as well have argued with Niagara Falls.

  “Come along then,” said Annie. “And you shall tell me all about yourself and Lofty and this ridiculous book…”

  Like a genial whirlwind Annie swept Emmy out into the street, where they found a taxi to take them as far as the Albert Memorial. Soon they were walking toward the Serpentine under the glowing September trees, and Emmy was telling Annie about her weekend at Whitchurch Manor and the scheme to produce a biography of Beau Guest. As they talked, the years dropped away, and Emmy was vividly reminded of other autumn afternoons when she and Annie had tramped for miles over the East Anglian marshes, and she had confided to her friend the misery of her first, hopeless love.

  “So, you see, Annie, if you’ll tell me all you can remember about…”

  Abruptly Annie said, “I wish you hadn’t started on this.”

  Emmy smiled, a little ruefully. “So do I, sometimes,” she said honestly. “Still, there it is. Lofty is determined to go ahead, and I can’t let him down.”

  “Why can’t he do it all himself, if he’s so keen on the idea?”

  “He’s too busy.”

  “Anyhow, I thought it was Barbara’s scheme in the first place.”

  “So it was. But now that Lofty has latched on to Beau’s death as the—the nub of the thing…”

  “I don’t imagine that pleased her much.”

  “No, it didn’t. And Vere got quite worked up over it.”

  “Emmy,” said Annie, “take my advice. Have nothing more to do with it.”

  “Even if I could give it up, I wouldn’t,” said Emmy doggedly.

  “Supposing Lofty abandoned the whole idea…”

  “Oh, that would be quite different. I certainly wouldn’t go on alone.”

  “I see,” said Annie. After a short silence she went on. “So Lofty thinks there was some sort of mystery about Beau’s death.”

  “He pretends he does anyhow. To make a good story.”

  “Blandish,” said Annie, “do you believe that Beau killed himself?”

  “I—well, of course he did. I mean, he must have. Everybody said…”

  “I’m not asking everybody. I’m asking you. Would he have killed himself?”

  Emmy thought for a moment, and then said, “He wasn’t handling that Typhoon at all well you know, Annie.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  For perhaps three minutes they walked on in silence. It suddenly occurred to Emmy how ludicrous it was—two middle-aged women tramping across Kensington Gardens, desperately concerned with the hypothetical state of mind of a man who had died more than twenty years before.

  She said, “I was looking at his photograph the other day—you remember, the tennis team one that you all signed for me. Seeing him again brought it all back, how well I knew him, I mean. Even better than Barbara, I think, in many ways. It’s almost impossible to believe that he would have killed himself.”

  “I quite agree with you,” said Annie. “It’s what I thought at the time. It worried me a lot, but then I was posted away and got married and forgot about it. But you see, if he didn’t commit suicide, then his death was either an accident or deliberately caused…”

  “Oh, that’s not Lofty’s idea at all,” said Emmy. “He’s trying to pretend Beau was on some secret mission—parachuting into Holland, or some such thing—and that only Vere was in on the secret.”

  Annie stopped dead in her tracks. “Emmy,” she said, “supposing Beau is still alive?”

  “Alive? After twenty years? Of course not. If there were any truth in Lofty’s idea, and Beau had survived—well—he’d have come home long ago.”

  “He was posted missing, presumed killed,” said Annie. “Shortly afterward, Barbara married Vere. You might just think about that.”

  “I won’t,” Emmy cried, appalled. “I won’t! It’s a terrible thought; it couldn’t be true…”

  “The only person who might know, and would have every reason for keeping it quiet, is Vere,” Annie went on relentlessly. “And apparently he’s putting up serious objections to this investigation…”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use that word.”

  Annie ignored the interruption. “Barbara obviously knows nothing. Vere knows something. And there may be somebody at Air Ministry who knows even more…”

  “Annie!” Emmy heard her own voice shouting against the wind. “Stop it!”

  Annie did stop. She put her arm around Emmy’s shoulders, and said, “Poor Blandish. Let’s go back to the hotel.”

  “Oh, I was going to ask you—would you fill this in and…” Emmy produced a copy of the questionnaire from her bag. She was delighted to change the subject.

  “What in heaven’s name is this?” Annie asked.

  “You just write your answers to the questions and send them to Lofty…”

  Annie glanced at the typed sheet. “Give a full account of your movements and those of your colleagues on the evening of October 11, 1943. When did you last see Beau Guest? My God!” Annie was really angry. “Lofty may be prepared to insult us with this sort of rubbish, but to think that you—you of all people—are prepared to support him…“

  “I have to…”

  “Then bloody good luck to you!”

  “I only want to find out the truth…”

  “The truth! My dear Blandish, that’s obviously the last thing you want. What you want is to lay on enough whitewash to make sure that the definitive edition of Beau’s life lives up to your romantic ideal of him. Well, perhaps if the truth does come out, you won’t like it.”

  “But Annie…”

  Annie did not even say good-bye. She strode over to the road, hailed a passing taxi, and climbed into it, slamming the door. Emmy was left alone under the September trees, dejected and not a little puzzled. It was quite unlike Annie to fly off the handle like that. As to the fantastic theory that Beau might be alive, Emmy put that resolutely out of her mind. There was enough trouble around without deliberately making more. She made her way to a telephone booth, dialed the number of Incorporated Television, Ltd., and asked to speak to Mr. Baggot.

  “I’ll put you through,” said the operator sweetly. Emmy was surprised and gratified that it was all so easy. She had imagined that the celebrated James Baggot might be difficult for an outsider to contact. She was, of course, perfectly right.

  The next fluting female voice introduced itself as the Production and Research Department, and asked Emmy her name and to whom she wished to speak.

  “Mr. Baggot? Oh. I don’t know. I’ll see if… Hold on a moment, please.”

  A third, crisper voice announced that she was Mr. Baggot’s office.

  “May I speak to Mr. Baggot, please?” Emmy asked. She was beginning to get a little fed up.

  “Who wants him?”

  “Just tell him it’s Emmy Blandish.”

  “Emmy Blandish. Can you tell me what it’s about, Miss Blandish?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s personal.”

  “Oh, I see. Just hold the line please.”

  After a long interval a fourth voice said, “Mr. Baggot’s personal secretary speaking. No, I’m afraid Mr. Baggot is in conference… If you’d tell me what it’s about? Oh, I see. Personal. Well, Miss Er—I really don’t know what to suggest… No, I’ve no idea when the conference will be over, and he has another appointment immediately afterward… Yes, I’ll certainly give him a message and ask him to call you, but he’s extremely busy, you know… If you would just give me the details of your business with him, I might be able to arrange an interview…”

  Emmy gave in. Business seemed to produce a better reaction than personal friendship. “Well, as a matter of fact,” she said, “this is a business matter, although I’m an old friend of Mr. Baggot’s. I’m collecting material for a book, you see, and I think Mr. Baggot can help me.”

  The voic
e became more cordial. “Well, now, Miss Blandish, I’ll see what can be arranged. Just a moment—it looks as though Mr. Baggot could fit you in from ten to ten-fifteen A.M. next Tuesday… No, no possibility at all before then—you’re very lucky that he has a moment free next week… No, he’ll be in our Manchester studios on Friday, on to Glasgow on Monday, and flying back late Monday night, so you see, Miss Blandish, I really have done my best for you. Now, may I just take your telephone number? Flaxman 83694? Thank you. Will you be in this afternoon? Good. I’ll telephone you to confirm the appointment… Not at all—good-bye…”

  It was late that afternoon that Emmy’s telephone rang.

  “Emmy Blandish? This is Jimmy. Yes, Jimmy Baggot. My dear, I’m frightfully sorry that my cloth-headed secretary treated you so cavalierly… Of course, she didn’t know who you were, and I’ve been frightfully tied up today—first I knew was when I saw your name on the list of appointments she produced for my approval… But of course you can see me before Tuesday… Certainly I can manage it—I can manage anything if I try… Anyway, I’m most intrigued that you’re starting on a literary career—no, no, don’t tell me about it yet; keep me in suspense; it’s more fun. Now, what about tomorrow? Yes, Friday… I know I’m going to Manchester, but not until the afternoon. Now, does your business have to be done in an office or would you consider lunching with me? You would? Splendid. One o’clock at the Orangery? Good. I’m looking forward to it. ’Bye, Emmy.”

  James Baggot was waiting in the foyer of this very expensive restaurant when Emmy arrived the next day. He looked, if anything, even smoother and more prosperous than he had at the reunion.

  “Ah, there you are, my dear,” he cried warmly, and surprised her by a swift, brushing kiss on the cheek. He smelt of costly after-shave lotion. “Marvelous to see you.”

  “It’s mutual,” said Emmy. “And it’s a great treat for me to come here. This is the first time I’ve actually crossed the threshold, but I’ve heard so much about it from Henry.”

  “Henry…?”

  “My husband. He comes here sometimes on business lunches. Or at least, he did during the Style case.”

  “Oh, of course. The great detective. I must say I’d be most alarmed to be asked to a business lunch by him.”

  “He’s not a bit frightening,” Emmy assured him. “Rather mild and mousy, really.”

  “Deceptive,” said Baggot cheerfully. “Iron hand in velvet glove. I’ve heard enough about Henry Tibbett to—ah, yes, Giulio. For two. My secretary phoned…”

  They were ushered into the tangerine-and-golden inner sanctum, escorted to a corner table, and presented with menus at least a yard square. Emmy, thoroughly enjoying herself, ordered a lavish meal. She felt sure that it would all come out of Jimmy’s expense account, and she only wished that Lofty could have been there to enjoy the scattering of crumbs from the rich man’s table.

  “What do you actually do, Jimmy?” she asked, when the gastronomic and oenological questions had been satisfactorily settled.

  Jimmy laughed. “Nothing much,” he said. “I’m just an executive.”

  “Don’t hedge. Tell me.”

  “Well, after the war I went into the technical side of television. Most of us did, as you know. It was fascinating, of course, but after a few years I realized that there was more of a future in planning, if you see what I mean, than in messing around with actual wires and valves. And, of course, my technical knowledge came in useful.”

  “Jimmy,” said Emmy, “I believe you’ve been Empire building.”

  Jimmy laughed. “Call it what you like,” he said. “I notice you’re not averse to tucking into some ill-gotten imperialist grub and booze.”

  “Of course I’m not,” said Emmy. “I think you’re tremendously clever. After all, anyone can be a mere technician.”

  “Don’t mock me. Someone has to do this job, after all, and I think I do it remarkably well. So there.”

  “I’m sure you do,” said Emmy.

  “Now, put me out of my misery, what is this mysterious literary enterprise? Wait a minute. Don’t tell me, let me guess. You have had a brilliant idea for a new TV series—‘Tibbett of the Yard.’ Mild and mousy, did you say? I see Peter Sellers in the part, with Sophia Loren as his fascinating Italian wife, Emmelina…”

  “Don’t make me laugh or I’ll disgrace you by swallowing my martini the wrong way!”

  “Well, it was an idea,” said Jimmy. “All right. Go ahead and tell me what it really is.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of the waiter bearing dishes. When the food and wine had been served, Emmy said, “I thought you’d heard.”

  “Thought I’d heard what? You talk in riddles, woman.”

  “At the Dymfield reunion. Barbara’s idea for a book…”

  “Good God. You don’t mean she was serious?” Jimmy sounded taken aback. “It never even crossed my mind that it was more than party talk.”

  “She was serious,” Emmy assured him, “although I think she may be realizing by now that she’s taken on more than she bargained for; and Vere is dead against the whole thing. However, Lofty is determined to go ahead, and I’m sort of caught in the middle.”

  “But…” Jimmy sounded both amused and exasperated. “Surely even Lofty Parker had the sense to grasp that nobody in this day and age gives a rap for the history of R.A.F. Dymfield?”

  “Oh, yes. He realizes that.”

  “Then…”

  “It’s no longer to be a history of Dymfield,” said Emmy. “It’s to be the life story of Beau Guest.”

  “The man’s mad. The market for war heroes was finished in the middle fifties.”

  “I should say,” amended Emmy, “not so much a life story as a death story.”

  Jimmy, who had just speared a morsel of tournedos Rossini, stopped with his fork in midair. “A death story? What on earth does that mean?”

  Emmy explained. “Lofty’s crazy about the idea,” she ended, “the unraveling of a twenty-year-old mystery, with a glamorous central character. ‘What really happened on that long-ago October evening?’—you know the sort of thing.”

  Jimmy was looking thoughtful. “You know,” he said slowly, “Lofty may have something there. The public is absolutely insatiable when it comes to historical whodunits. Look at the Princes in the Tower. You only have to run a series on Famous Cases Rehashed or Unsolved Murders of the Fourteenth Century and the ratings hit the ceiling. If it’s any good, we might even buy it.”

  “Honestly, Jimmy? Wait till I tell Lofty…”

  “No, no. Better not say anything to him just yet. I know him too well; he’d make my life a misery. Besides, it’s the merest of ideas. I’ve no guarantee what the thing is going to turn out like. There may be no mystery at all, when the truth is known. How are you setting about your investigations?”

  “Well,” said Emmy, “I’m going around talking to people who knew Beau—like you, for instance—and we’re asking everyone to answer a questionnaire that Lofty’s compiled. Then we’re to visit Dymfield—though heaven knows what he expects to find there, except a depressing atmosphere and a sense of growing old. That’s all I know. I’m just doing the research, you see.”

  “H’m.” Jimmy leaned back in his chair and took a sip of wine. “Interesting. A mystery on two levels.”

  “Two levels?”

  “Mystery number one: Why and how did Beau Guest die? Mystery number two—much more subtle. Why in heaven’s name has Barbara stirred it all up? And, of course, there’s a third mystery…” He was grinning at her.

  To her disgust, Emmy felt the color rising to her cheeks. “I’m helping Lofty because I promised I would…”

  “Keep your hair on,” said Jimmy easily. “Actually, my third mystery was why Vere has suddenly taken against the idea. He seemed quite amenable at the reunion.”

  “I suppose, I don’t know…” Emmy felt thoroughly rattled. Jimmy Baggot was altogether too—she couldn’t think of the right word—too perc
eptive, too professional. Too dangerous. She wished that she could abandon the rich food and wine and escape to an atmosphere in which she felt at home.

  Jimmy continued, unperturbed. “Well, now, what do you want from me, apart from this comic questionnaire? My recollections of Beau, I suppose. I disliked him cordially, but I admired him. I disliked him simply because he was a gold-plated hero and I was a despised technician. Funny, isn’t it? These days, technicians are little tin gods, and purely executive types are regarded as manual laborers. There must be a moral there somewhere. I admired Beau because he accepted his grounding and his new job with philosophy. And that must have taken some doing, with the hellcat Barbara continually rubbing his nose in the fact that he’d fallen from his pedestal. It wasn’t as though he’d been shot down in combat. Several times I heard Barbara imply that—by the way, what was the cause of his crash, do you know? The one that smashed his face up, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” said Emmy. “I was hoping Sammy Smith would be able to tell me, but he doesn’t know either.”

  “Sammy Smith. What a character. I see him occasionally. It’s so right, isn’t it? I always knew he’d end up that way—sad and seedy, saloon bars and…”

  Emmy felt a surge of anger, a fierce desire to protect Sammy. “I thought he was doing very well,” she said. “He has his own business, and a beautiful showroom, and a lot of very valuable cars…”

  Jimmy looked at her cynically and lit a large cigar. Its rich aroma was markedly different from that of Sammy’s cheap little weed. “Sorry I spoke, I’m sure,” said Jimmy. “Well, as I was saying, I disliked Beau, but I respected him. I detested Barbara, and I despised Vere for hanging around her like a puppy dog. When I heard he’d married her, my worst suspicions were confirmed. The man is obviously feebleminded. As for Beau’s death—let me think. I remember that Mess party, and Beau swearing he could fly any kite that could leave the ground, and I also remember Barbara encouraging him in a revolting manner, and you crying in the corner.”