The Little Walls by Winston Graham

  In the distance, along the path we’d followed, a man was coming our way. Among die rough stones two big dogs were rooting about waving their tails, making the most of their freedom. The man was Charles Sanbergh.

  I wondered if she’d seen him before I did. I came to the conclusion that she had.

  I knew I’d been a fool to spring this on her and then give her breathing space to recover. Before he came up she got her compact out and made some repairs, but she couldn’t hide the look in her eyes, and that, I think, warned him we hadn’t been discussing the scenery. We walked back together making heavy weather of it. The ill-feeling between him and me could hardly have been more obvious.

  Somehow we began to talk about the Blue Grotto; perhaps she’d been locking for a harmless topic; and when she asked me I said I hadn’t seen it, because I always fought shy of the accepted wonders of the world.

  She said: ‘‘Well, it’s often overrun with tourists, but it’s impressive at the right times. Charles was saying—weren’t you?—that a good time is in the very early morning just as the sun comes up.’’

  Sanbergh said: ‘‘I should have thought it would have appealed to an artist interested in colour. You should take the opportunity before you leave. It may not occur-again.’’

  ‘‘Perhaps I will, before I leave.’’

  ‘‘And that, I imagine, will be soon.’’

  ‘‘I’ve no idea.’’

  ‘‘I think we should go one morning,’’ Leonie put in.

  I said to her: ‘‘We must try it together.’’

  Sanbergh picked up a stone and threw it for Gimbel. It was a good throw but a trifle vicious, and Gimbel went ploughing in among somebody’s vines. ‘‘And how is the portrait of Mme Weber coming along? We’ve seen nothing of it yet.’’

  ‘‘Did you expect to?’’

  ‘‘No, frankly I didn’t.’’

  Leonie said: ‘‘Philip has only had a couple of hours so far.’’

  ‘‘And I shall probably need at least one more morning before I do any painting at all.’’

  ‘‘Mme Weber is an extremely busy woman,’’ said Sanbergh.

  ‘‘I can wait.’’

  ‘‘I always think,’’ he said, ‘‘that patience is an overrated virtue.’’

  ‘‘It depends how you exercise it.’’

  Sanbergh stared at his manicured right hand, making sure it wasn’t soiled, then he pushed it into the pocket or his reefer jacket. ‘‘I would rather say it depends on what we exercise it. I wouldn’t deny there’s virtue in being patient with that which is worth-while, with something which gives a high rate of return. But to waste it on the worthless, the meretricious, the bogus, the impudent … that I’m just not willing to do.’’

  I said: ‘‘Is that how you see it or is that how you’d like to see it?’’

  He turned on me softly: ‘‘I think we must talk of this some other time, Mr. Norton.’’

  There was dead silence for a bit, except for Macy who was making friendly chewing sounds at my heels.

  We went on down the hill.

  When I got back to the hotel the expected telegram was waiting. ‘‘Arriving Naples tomorrow at thirteen hours. Noli irritare leones. Martin.’’

  I thought it was typical of him to make a pun even in the cable. The following day I went over by the morning boat and was at the Capodichino airport to meet him. He came through the customs looking as sallow, as dissipated, as handsome and as distinguished as I remembered him. It was the first time I had seen him in an ordinary grey suit, and I wondered if he had not bothered to bring his battledress. We shook hands warmly and he said: ‘‘ I wonder what happens to air-hostesses when they get old and wrinkled.’’

  ‘‘They don’t,’’ I said. ‘‘They marry and bear other air-hostesses; it’s a special breed. Is the burglary cleared up?’’

  ‘‘Three-quarters of the stuff was recovered the following day where it had been dumped. Either the thieves got windy or they discovered the silver was electro-plate. But they didn’t return my El Toro cigars, blast them.’’

  I took his case and the book he had been reading. It was a privately printed edition of Novelas Exemplares, by Cervantes. When I glanced up he said gently: ‘‘So you’ve found both the girl and Buckingham?’’

  ‘‘Yes. I know I owe you an apology for carrying on on my own when it was entirely the result of your contacts that I got a lead at all. But I thought it might well be a complete fiasco—someone getting an easy two hundred guilders out of me.’’

  ‘‘You’re sure it isn’t?’’

  ‘‘Certain about the girl. Reasonably sure about Buckingham; but I need your identification.’’ I told him all that had happened, the way I had traced them to the Villa Atrani, and what I had done so far. He listened intently. He was a good confidant—not one of those men whose eyes stray over your shoulder while they listen. ‘‘I hoped to hold everything up until you came, but—it didn’t work out.’’

  ‘‘She’s given you no explanation of why she wrote the letter?’’

  ‘‘Not yet.’’

  ‘‘That’s rather trusting of you, isn’t it? Surely the first thing she’ll do is tell Buckingham.’’

  ‘‘I don’t think it matters about me. Only you can identify him, and they know nothing about you.’’

  ‘‘Is she very attractive, this girl?’’

  ‘‘Yes, but not so that I’d lose my sense of judgment.’’ I wondered if that was true.

  The dark look lifted from his face as he smiled with that unexpected yet compelling gentleness. ‘‘I only asked. Wait a minute, I must wire my mother, tell her I got here safely.’’

  When he came away from the telegraph counter he said: ‘‘ I wonder how they traced the right woman in Holland when the police failed. Lowenthal’s a queer bloke—I only approached him on the off-chance.’’

  ‘‘D’you mean the little clerk?’’

  ‘‘No, no; Lowenthal’s a big shot.’’ He rubbed his chin. ‘‘These early starts; I shall need another shave before the day’s through … Afraid I haven’t the same contacts here. What sort of course are you going to set?’’

  ‘‘I’m going to run you across Buckingham’s bows and see what happens,’’ I said, using his phraseology.

  ‘‘And if it isn’t Buckingham?’’

  ‘‘I shall be damned disappointed.’’

  We got on the air transport bus. He pushed back his lank dark hair with two fingers. ‘‘Tell me again about Holland.’’

  I told him of my second meeting with Tholen, of my dinner with Count Louis Joachim, of my failure to see the detective coming from Java, and of Tholen’s promise to write me if the man brought any news.

  ‘‘I’ve yet to meet a policeman who ever wrote letters.’’ Martin stared broodingly at the airport as it slid away.

  ‘‘I’ve a feeling you’ll have to go back there in the end, tackle them afresh.’’

  ‘‘You mean you think the real solution is there.’’

  ‘‘Yes. Yes.’’ I didn’t speak. He added: ‘‘ I’ve no good reason to say so—it’s just one of those hunches.’’

  ‘‘In that case you think neither Leonie Winter nor Buckingham is at the bottom of this.’’

  After thinking for a minute he gave his shoulder a hitch. ‘‘Explain a thing like this and it becomes nonsense. I don’t know … How am I to meet this fellow Sanbergh—Buckingham? Have you that fixed, too?’’

  ‘‘Yes. Mme Weber, is having some people in for drinks tonight—she does that every two or three days. Sanbergh is sure to be there. I asked her if I might bring a friend.’’

  I was on edge about the meeting—a lot more so than I admitted even to myself. It might have been more to the point if I’d bought a gun in Naples that morning instead of a canvas and a stretcher and some brushes and paints.

  Of course it might all yet fizzle out. It was a game of bluff. If the surprise failed, then we were back at Square One. But I didn’t see how th
e surprise could fail.

  I’d booked a room for Martin at the Hôtel Vecchio, and it was queer to see how quickly he had the dark young manageress fluttering around him, and the rest of the staff ready to help. It wasn’t anything he particularly said or did; in fact he looked rather depressed and disillusioned about things. It didn’t matter. Indulgence was extended to him before he demanded it.

  The short twilight was nearly over as we made for the Villa Atrani. Martin walked by my side, for once without anything to say. I don’t know if he was feeling some of the tension I was feeling or whether it was just that we had talked ourselves out. Anyway, there was nothing more to do at this stage but light the blue touch paper and stand well away.

  As we got to the gate I said: ‘‘Do you think Buckingham will recognise you?’’

  ‘‘He isn’t likely to have forgotten.’’

  I glanced at Martin in the half-light. ‘‘I’ve never asked you, but have you some private score to pay off against this fellow?’’

  He hesitated. ‘‘What makes you ask?’’

  ‘‘Well, as a stranger in this case, you’ve been very patient and very interested.’’

  He smiled slightly, but it didn’t lift his brooding expression this time. ‘‘It’s only as things have gone on that I’ve come to realise what I’ve had against this man. Some day I’ll tell you about it. Even now, thinking it over, I’m not sure how much I owe him—any more than you do yet. Perhaps when you find out, I shall find out too.’’

  We went up the path.

  At the door the dogs met us, fawning on me, getting Martin’s wave-length as quickly as if they had been human. Mme Weber in an odd-looking sack-like pink dress and with far too much mascara on her eyelids, waved an impaled cherry on a stick in welcome and led the way into the living-room.

  Many new people tonight; my eyes flickered past them to the known faces: Nicolo da Cossa, with Jane, Hamilton White, Mile Henriot, Signor Castiglioni, a tall, stout Italian shipowner who’d been at the luncheon yesterday.

  The buzz of voices, introductions forgotten as soon as made, remarks which meant nothing drowned by others which meant less. ‘‘ Is he here yet?’’ Martin said. ‘‘No,’’ I said; ‘‘ nor the girl.’’ Half a dozen other people came, then some more. The room would soon be crowded. This was a much more ambitious party than the last. Half the exhibitionists of the island. A man in shorts with a red beard, a woman with a hat with big tin animals stitched to the straw as ornaments. A fat middle-aged woman with incredibly tight yellow jeans.

  ‘‘Dear Philip,’’ said Mme Weber speaking suddenly in my ear, ‘‘the Master of Kyle will take nothing but Scotch; it’s his signature drink; could you be an angel?’’ Her eyes glimmered approvingly over Martin. ‘‘Good of you to come and see us, Commander Boxer. We’re dishevelled. Far more people than I ever invite. Flatterin’ but a strain on the gin.’’

  ‘‘Where’s Leonie?’’ I said to her.

  ‘‘Upstairs lying down. She hasn’t been well this afternoon. But she promised to look in later. Dear Mr. Weekley, liow good of you to come. You’ll take a Manhattan?’’ Mme Weber was swept away on an eddy, and I was left holding an extra glass.

  ‘‘Kyle?’’ said Martin. ‘‘Did she say Kyle?’’

  ‘‘Yes; that bald old chap by the window.’’

  ‘‘By God, yes, it’s the same. I used to know him well. I thought he’d been cremated long ago.’’

  ‘‘Well, come over with me and see. We’d better keep together.’’

  We went across, edging along with muttered apologies and a couple of bumps. Not only Martin but Macy, snuffling, followed me. The old man was rubbing his bald head and talking resentfully to Mile Henriot. I gave him the whisky, and he eyed me with the same expression, as if he expected a confidence trick somewhere. Then I introduced Martin Coxon.

  ‘‘Coxon?’’ Kyle peered cautiously from under his eyelids at the man beside me. ‘‘What Martin Coxon, Lord Callard’s grandson? Why didn’t ye say so? It’s a decade and a half——’’

  ‘‘More,’’ said Martin. ‘‘I didn’t suppose you could still be alive.’’

  Kyle said stiffly: ‘‘Then you supposed far from the truth. I was ten years Callard’s junior, and he would not have been beyond eighty if he’d ha’ lived. What are you doing now? I trust ye’ve settled down since the war. Didn’t I read you were up for the D.S.O.?’’

  ‘‘Yes, up before the beak. It seems half a century since I climbed on your roof and tied a pair of the cook’s drawers over the kitchen chimney-pot.’’

  ‘‘Well, ifs a quarter anyway. Aye, ye were a wild lad, and ungrateful forbye. I mind well the time when Callard came to me and said, John, that boy, there’s no training him …’’

  Over the heads of the milling people I saw Leonie come into the room. She was very pale, and her make-up couldn’t hide it. She looked sharply round. I wondered if she was looking for Sanbergh. She saw Mme Weber and moved towards her, asked her a question. Then before the reply came she saw me. Mme Weber caught her arm and said something, and Leonie nodded and half smiled in a strained way, before she began to push nervously through the crowd.

  ‘‘… what’s more,’’ said Kyle. ‘‘And although neither the island nor the queer cattle living on it please me and I sigh for the manly scenery of Scotland, the soft sickly climate here suits an old man …’’

  Leonie came up and gave me a queer cold look that I’d never seen on her face before. A complete change from yesterday.

  ‘‘I’m sorry you’re not well,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Only a touch of the sun … I don’t need your sympathy.’’ She glanced at Martin as he turned.

  ‘‘This is my friend, Commander Coxon, Mrs. Winter.’’ My voice was half lost in the din.

  I saw Martin’s dark eyes on her. ‘‘ Philip has been talking of you, Mrs. Winter.’’ He didn’t say any more because that was enough. Then after a suficient pause to give it air, he added: ‘‘I’ve been admiring your lovely island this evening. That comes up to expectations too.’’

  ‘‘It isn’t my island, Commander Coxon; we share it between us, but the title deeds go back to Augustus.’’

  ‘‘Who knew what he was about. One of the great men of the world, in spite of Voltaire. A pity Gaius didn’t live to succeed.’’

  He went on talking, and by the time he’d finished he’d taken Leonie in, deferentially but pretty thoroughly, and her own colour had come at last. Once again he was getting away with it, and I felt a queer twinge almost of resentment that it was so easy. After a while Leonie turned to Kyle and Kyle began to speak, but his words were drowned in a burst of laughter from some people near. I didn’t take my eyes off Leonie. She turned to me. ‘‘Could you get me a drink, Philip? I need one badly.’’

  ‘‘Of course.’’ There were plenty on a tray near, and when I came quickly back with one Martin and Kyle were wrangling over some reminiscence of the Scottish moors, and Leonie was half leaning against the wall behind her, staring across the room, a frown of pain between her eyebrows.

  I said: ‘‘ Where is Sanbergh this evening?’’

  ‘‘He went out in his yacht fishing.’’

  ‘‘I hoped he’d be here.’’

  ‘‘Does it matter? He hates cocktail parties.’’ She took her drink quickly, nearly spilling it.

  I said: ‘‘They’re the nadir of social life, no doubt Conversation pumped out as the gin is pumped in. Raised voices and fallen arches. What do you think of my friend?’’

  ‘‘Very charming. Have you invited him here to help you search the bedrooms?’’

  ‘‘Should I have?’’

  ‘‘No. You do that so tactfully yourself.’’

  ‘‘I’m sorry I had to.’’

  She fumbled with her glass, put it down because a drop of the liquid had run down the outside, dabbed at her hand like a child with a cut. ‘‘Why had you to? What compulsion was there? Is that why you came here under another name? What dif
ference could it have made?’’

  ‘‘It’ll make none at all if you raise your voice a bit more.’’

  ‘‘I can’t help but think you must see yourself as one of those private detectives who risk their lives and their virtue for ten dollars a day and expenses. I suppose you expected to find the dead body of a girl in black nylon pyjamas and—and …’’

  I said: ‘‘All right, have your fun.’’

  She didn’t say anything more. She was as taut as a bow-string.

  I said: ‘‘ I think you let this bit go by; but as it happens there is a dead body among our stage properties. Only this one wasn’t in black nylon pyjamas. It does make rather a difference. Anyway, if you believe that by registering contempt at what I’ve done you can head me off from anything I intend to do …’’

  The Italian boy came round and refilled our glasses. Leonie gulped at hers again. Catching a glimpse of her eyes then, I saw it was no longer just physical pain. They brimmed for a second or two, then she blinked it sharply away.

  Martin turned back and began chatting to her. Charlotte Weber bore down on us, her eyes and lips fatigued with smoke and noise but herself undefeatable. I saw her as a sort of sick bird dragging one wing, determined to flutter and be gay just as long as she could. She took Leonie away, and then I somehow got separated from Martin. Still more people were crushing in at the door, and I’d have left but for the hope of seeing Sanbergh.

  I wouldn’t take more drink but kept chewing unrecognisable bits of food that found their way into my hand. I got people’s elbows in my back and women’s buttocks shoving against me and odd scents of Schiaparelli and Gauloise and a few more earthy odours. The dark woman with the toy hat eyed me with some speculation, and then decided that I probably wasn’t worth the effort of pushing through the crowd. A tall baldish man with a thin nose stopped by and began to ask me about the literary situation in Italy. It took five minutes to convince him that I knew nothing whatever about it.

  After another half hour, while the battle was still at its heights, I beat a retreat into the loggia. There were one or two others out here who had fallen by the way. The air was cool and scented. Beside the balustrade a lemon tree grew with flowers and fruit hanging together. I fingered the lemon and then sniffed my fingers gratefully. In the distance the northern arm of me Bay of Naples was winking with lights. I rubbed my eyes which were smarting with the smoke.