Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

I thought I might agree to that, so I did, and I wondered what he was going to ask me to do. I hoped it wasn’t going to be forgery. I felt somehow as if I should like a change.

“Five hundred pounds is a large sum of money,” he began.

“There are larger sums.”

“They’re not so easily come by.”

“Is this one easily come by?”

“Very much to the point, Mr. Fairfax-very much to the point.” He took me by the arm and began to walk me down the road away from the corner. “The matter, as you most certainly will have guessed, is of a very confidential nature. Now I put it to you-does one hand over a large sum of money and a confidential mission without making sure that one’s choice is a wise one-wise and-er-safe?”

He had very hard and bony fingers, and a singularly inexpressive voice. He seemed scarcely to touch my arm, and yet his touch cramped me. He was a little man with a fidgety manner and a way of putting up his hand-to adjust his glasses, I thought. There was a flavor of formality about his way of speech. I felt quite sure that I had never talked with him before, except perhaps on the telephone yesterday morning. He went on speaking, and when we came to the end of the long brick wall, he turned and walked me back again.

“The matter being of such a very confidential nature, you will not think it unreasonable if there is some little delay about entrusting it to you. To be quite frank, my principal would like an opportunity of testing your capabilities.”

“In what way?” I asked.

He did not answer me directly.

“My principal proposes that you should be paid a retaining fee until such time as it may appear advisable to call upon you for the service which will earn the offered five hundred pounds.”

I repeated the words “a retaining fee” with a question in my voice.

“A sum of ten pounds down, and a salary of three pounds a week.”

I stood stock still in amazement and heard the crackle of a bank note not six inches from my right elbow. Ten pounds… It sounded like the sort of dream you have when you’ve gone short of water and you think you hear a running stream. That happened to me once in Africa. It was a dream, and I woke up and there wasn’t any water. The crackle of that note sounded awfully real.

Old Z.10 had let go of my arm and was doing something with a pocket-book. All of a sudden there was a click and a little round blob of light no bigger than a shilling popped out of the dark and slid across the tarnished silver edge of a leather note-case and the black and white of a half unfolded note. It came to rest on the big “Five” in one corner. If a note sounded good, it looked even better. I had sixpence in my pocket-sixpence. And if I pawned anything more, I shouldn’t have a change of clothes. Five pounds-ten pounds-ten pounds down… I heard the running stream, and I wondered when I was going to wake up.

“Well, Mr. Fairfax?”

I made myself look away from the patch of light.

“What have I got to do for this?”

“For this? Nothing. It is merely a retaining fee.”

“To what extent does it commit me?”

“It does not commit you at all-it merely enables my principal to make the observations which he considers necessary and advisable. Let me explain. He wishes to see you without being seen. To this end he wishes you to go to certain public places, which will afford him an opportunity of observing you. To do this you will have to replenish your wardrobe. Ten pounds will not, perhaps, go very far, but it should enable you to pass muster. You possess dress clothes?”

I didn’t think it necessary to tell him that they were in pawn, so I said,

“Yes.”

“Well, Mr. Fairfax,” he said again, “do you accept?”

There was something I meant to ask, but I didn’t know how to put it. I hesitated, and then got it out.

“Is your principal a woman?” Because if it was Anna, I thought I was going to prefer the workhouse after all.

He sounded most awfully surprised as he said,

“A woman? Certainly not. May I ask what suggested this idea to you?”

Naturally I wasn’t going to tell him that.

He slid the spotlight back on to the case, picked up two fivers, and held them out.

“You accept then?”

I took the notes and put them in the pocket with the sixpence.

“What am I to do?” I asked.

His hand with the torch in it had fallen to his side. The little circle of light swung to and fro on the worn edge of the road. It had been tarred, and the tar had broken away into holes that looked like the pictures of dead craters in the moon.

“Why,” he said, “nothing very arduous. This is Tuesday. To-morrow you will dine at Leonardo’s.”

“Alone?” I said.

“No-no-” He seemed to be considering the question. “No-I don’t think so. You had better invite a lady to accompany you.”

I laughed. I don’t know why, but the thing tickled me.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any lady whom I could ask.”

The little round shilling’s worth of light went swinging to and fro over the dead craters of the moon and a dry leaf or two and the dust of the road.

“Surely-surely,” he said. “Come, Mr. Fairfax-you do yourself an injustice. There is surely some one.”

“There is Mrs. Bell,” I suggested, and as soon as I’d said it I could tell that he knew Mrs. Bell was my landlady.

He moved sharply and was going to speak, and didn’t speak. I wondered how much he really did know about my circumstances. I began to think that he knew a good deal.

“And who is Mrs. Bell?”

“A British matron and my landlady.”

“Ah,” he said-“yes. But I have no time to waste on landladies. Come, Mr. Fairfax-you will not ask me to believe that your landlady is the only woman you know. I am informed that you have at any rate an acquaintance with one of your fellow lodgers. Would she not perhaps be a more suitable companion?”

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of Fay, but I hadn’t. She would certainly be-suitable.

“I could ask her,” I said. “But it’s short notice-she might be engaged.”

“Well, well,” he said again, “if she is, something must be done about it. If you arrive alone, a partner will be provided-but the other would be better.”

He turned out the light on the pocket-book and took out five one-pound Treasury notes.

“For expenses,” he said, and handed them over.

He then shut the pocket-book and put it away.

“Your engagement begins to-night. Your salary will be paid you to-day week. Your instructions will reach you from time to time either by letter, telegram, telephone, or word of mouth. Written communications will be signed ‘Z.10.’ Messages will be preceded by ‘Z.10’ as a pass-word. That is all. Good-night.”

He switched off the light, turned sharp round, and walked away down Olding Crescent. I could not see him, but I could hear his footsteps getting fainter and fainter. When I couldn’t hear them any longer I went home.

September 19th-I woke up next morning with the feeling that something had happened, or was going to happen. I wasn’t really awake, and I wasn’t really asleep. The sun was making a bright golden line all round the edge of my blind, and the room was full of that happened feeling.

Then I remembered that what had happened was fifteen pounds-two five-pound notes and five Bradburys. And what was going to happen was new boots, a suit of clothes- and dinner at Leonardo’s. It all felt pretty good, and at the moment I wasn’t bothering about what my principal, or Z, 10’s principal, might be going to ask me to do. I was going to get some new boots even if the skies fell.

I got up and made a list.