Anthony Powell - Temporary Kings

‘Do you remember a man in your sub-unit called Stringham?’

Cheesman looked surprised at the question.

‘Of course I do. How did you know Stringham?’

‘We were friends in civilian life.’

‘You were?’

Cheesman found that statement hard to credit. He thought about it for a second or two. Stringham and I — that was the impression — seemed miles apart. He wrestled with the question inwardly. When at last he answered, it was as if prepared to accept my word, even then the claim scarcely believable.

‘I see. I do recall now Stringham wasn’t just the ordinary bloke you find in the ranks. I was taken aback at first when you said you’d known him. Of course, you get all sorts in a war. He was a superior type, an educated man. You could see that. All the same I never thought about it much. He never made any difficulties. I’d forgotten altogether. Just remember him in the jobs he used to do. I could never place him myself. What was his work in civilian life?’

That was a hard question to answer. What did Stringham do? Cheesman must be told something. What about the time when (with Bill Truscott as dominant colleague) he had been a sort of personal secretary to Sir Magnus Donners? I fell back on that. To be a secretary implied at least a measure of professional identity. That would serve the purposes of the moment.

‘Stringham was private secretary to a business tycoon.’

‘Oh, was he?’

Cheesman seemed at first more surprised than ever. He did not pursue the matter. His own job could well have brought him face to face with eccentric business tycoons. Either that struck him, or he decided to leave the question vague in solution.

‘He was very fond of making jokes, but I always found him an excellent worker in my sub-unit.’

Cheesman said that without the least disapproval. He spoke as one merely registering an unusual characteristic. So far as jokes were concerned, his own features proclaimed a state of intact virginity as to any experience or sense of them, immaculately so. Cheesman had never made a joke, never seen a joke, could live — and die — without jokes, even if he knew they existed. It did him credit to have so far rationalized Stringham’s behaviour as to be capable of thus defining it Stringham might have been worse typified.

‘Stringham made jokes in the camp,’ he added.

‘He wasn’t taken from Singapore too?’

‘No.’

Again the ghastly forked lightning flashed, a flicker of Death’s vision, reflected for a dreadful instant behind the wire spectacles’ plates of glass. The flesh of Cheesman’s face, softly wrinkled, made one think of those old servants of the past, who had worked unquestioningly for a lifetime in a single household. In Cheesman’s case this unchanging interior had been, no doubt, his own austere, limited — one might reasonably say heroic — personality. There was the same self-assurance as Dan Tokenhouse, the same impression of having dispensed with sex. There was something else too.

‘Stringham died in the camp. He behaved very well there.’

Cheesman thought for a moment after saying that.

‘Very well. Yes. A good man. He wasn’t too strong, you know. Fancy your having met him. They’re odd these things. Sergeant-Major Ablett, you may remember him. He was rescued. He’s quite prosperous now.’

The matter was better pressed no further. More information could easily become too much, too much anyway for one’s peace of mind. Cheesman gave no sign that might be so. He also made no attempt to enlarge. Lintot, understandably, had not been much interested in these reminiscences. If Cheesman were his personal accountant, as well as his firm’s, he may have felt he had a better right than myself to Cheesman’s attention, even if he had brought us together again.

‘Don’t mind my talking shop for a moment, Mr Cheesman. It will save a letter. Now about Tax Reserve Certificates …’

By then Farebrother’s senior officer had managed to get away, with or without buying the shares remained unknown. Farebrother himself was making preparations to leave the party, giving a final look round the room to make sure he had missed no one worthy of a few minutes’ conversation. I went across to him. His friendliness was positively enormous. The powerful extrusion of Farebrother charm remained altogether undiminished by age. He was specially pleased about something, possibly success in whatever he had recommended his neighbour.

‘There’s an empty stretch of table over there, Nicholas. Let’s sit at it. I don’t feel like any more to drink, do you? Got to cut down on the pleasures of life nowadays. Something I want to ask you. What do you think of the latest development in the Widmerpool case?’

‘I didn’t know there was a case.’

‘You haven’t read the evening paper? The Question in the House? I think he’s for it now.’

Farebrother was amazed anyone should have missed such a pleasure as that night’s evening paper. His handsome greyhound profile, additionally distinguished with increased age, lighted up while he supplied a commentary. He made clear that, in his opinion, this news was going to offer no minor revenge. The Parliamentary Question had been on the subject of Widmerpool’s commercial activities in Eastern Europe. To outward appearance worded in terms not at all sensational, they were, to an initiate in that form of attack, ominous in the extreme. The country concerned was the one where Widmerpool had been named in connexion with the State trial. Farebrother said he understood there had also been a denunciation on the air in one of their official broadcasts.

‘The implications are of the most damaging order.’

‘What’s he really been up to?*

Farebrother, usually in the habit of cloaking his own imputations or reprisals in mild, vaguely expressed language, now made no bones about the disaster threatening his old enemy. He seemed to know more than was easily to be drawn from the mere wording of the Question, however much that were open to sophisticated interpretation. His war service (like that of Odo Stevens) had given Farebrother contacts from which such enlightenment might be derived. Someone in a position to ‘know’ could have dropped a hint. That was certainly the impression Farebrother himself, truly or not, hoped to give.

‘Some underling on their side was accepting bribes, and has now defected, so I’ve heard said. That had been done with Widmerpool’s connivance. He had been giving encouragement, too, by passing across little bits of information himself from time to time. How valuable that information was remains to be seen. In any case, I’m just putting two and two together. Most of it guesswork.’

‘Will it come to arrest, a trial?’

‘That depends what the employee reveals — if that story is true.’

‘In any case that would be in camera ?’

‘You can’t say. Some evidence probably.’

‘The Question is just a ranging shot?’

‘Not far from the target. Give him a jolt. I can tell you something else too.’

Farebrother looked about to make sure no one was sitting near us, who might overhear what he was going to say. Most of the diners were now congregated round the bar. Many had left, or were leaving. He put his arm over the back of my chair.

‘I’ve just retired from one of the smaller merchant banks. We deal with European and overseas commercial activities and investments. Fascinating work.’

I toyed with the fantasy that Trapnel’s former girl, Tessa, was going to abut on to what Farebrother had to say, then remembered Gwinnett had described her as working for the chairman of a large, rather than small, merchant bank.

‘I don’t mind telling you some of the Eastern European deals of our friend might be of interest from the taxation angle, if figures had to be produced in a court of law. Nothing to do with treasonable dealings, just bank statements. I make no accusations. Just of interest, I suggest.’