Black As He’s Painted

They didn’t answer. He glanced up and found they stared at him.

‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ they said.

‘Good!’ he cried with a phoney heartiness that horrified him. ‘Good! Good night, Chubb. Good night, Mrs Chubb.’

When they had gone into the kitchen, he felt sure they opened the refrigerator and he distinctly heard them turn on a tap. Washing the saucer, he thought guiltily.

He waited until they had retired upstairs and then himself sneaked into the kitchen with the cat. He had remembered that he had not eaten all the poached scallop Mrs Chubb gave him for dinner.

The cat woke up and ate quite a lot of scallop.

Entry into his back garden was effected by a door at the end of the passage and down a precipitous flight of steps. It was difficult, holding the cat, and he made rather a noisy descent but was aided by a glow of light from behind the blinds that masked Mr Sheridan’s basement windows. This enabled him to find a patch of unplanted earth against the brick wall at the rear of the garden. He placed the cat upon it.

He had thought she might bolt into the shadows and somehow escape, but no: after a considerable wait she became industrious. Mr Whipplestone tactfully turned his back.

He was being watched from the basement through an opening between the blind and the window frame.

The shadowy form was almost certainly that of Mr Sheridan and almost certainly he had hooked himself a peephole and had released it as Mr Whipplestone turned. The shadowy form retreated.

At the same time a slight noise above his head caused Mr Whipplestone to look up to the top storey of his house. He was just in time to see the Chubbs’ bedroom window being closed.

There was, of course, no reason to suppose they, also, had been watching him.

‘I must be getting fanciful,’ he thought.

A faint rhythmic scuffling redirected his attention to the cat. With her ears laid back and with a zealous concentration that spoke volumes for her recuperative powers, she was tidying up. This exercise was followed by a scrupulous personal toilette, which done, she blinked at Mr Whipplestone and pushed her nut-like head against his ankle.

He picked her up and returned indoors.

II

The fashionable and grossly expensive pet-shop round the corner in Baronsgate had a consulting-room, visited on Wednesday mornings by a veterinary surgeon. Mr Whipplestone had observed their notice to this effect and the next morning, being a Wednesday, he took the cat to be vetted. His manner of conveying his intention to the Chubbs was as guarded and non-committal as forty years’ experience in diplomacy could make it. Indeed, in a less rarefied atmosphere it might almost have been described as furtive.

He gave it out that he was ‘taking that animal to be attended to’. When the Chubbs jumped to the conclusion that this was a euphemism for ‘put down’ he did not correct them. Nor did he think it necessary to mention that the animal had spent the night on his bed. She had roused him at daybreak by touching his face with her paw. When he opened his eyes she had flirted with him, rolling on her side and looking at him from under her arm. And when Chubb came in with his early morning tray, Mr Whipplestone had contrived to throw his eiderdown over her and later on had treated her to a saucer of milk. He came downstairs with her under The Times, chose his moment to let her out by the back door into the garden, and presently called Mrs Chubb’s attention to her. She was demanding vigorously to be let in.

So now he sat on a padded bench in a minute waiting-room, cheek by jowl with several Baronsgate ladies, each of whom had a dog in tow. One of them, the one next to Mr Whipplestone, was the lady who trod on his foot in the Napoli, Mrs Montfort as he subsequently discovered, the Colonel’s lady. They said good morning to each other when they encountered, and did so now. By and large Mr Whipplestone thought her pretty awful, though not as awful as the pig-pottery lady of last night. Mrs Montfort carried on her overdressed lap a Pekinese, which, after a single contemptuous look, turned its back on Mr Whipplestone’s cat who stared through it.

He was acutely conscious that he presented a farcical appearance. The only container that could be found by the Chubbs was a disused birdcage, the home of their parrot, lately deceased. The little cat looked outraged sitting in it, and Mr Whipplestone looked silly nursing it and wearing his eye-glass. Several of the ladies exchanged amused glances.

‘What,’ asked the ultra-smart surgery attendant, notebook in hand, ‘is pussy’s name?’

He felt that if he said ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘It hasn’t got one,’ he would put himself at a disadvantage with these women. ‘Lucy,’ he said loudly and added as an afterthought: ‘Lockett.’

‘I see!’ she said brightly and noted it down. ‘You haven’t an appointment, have you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Lucy won’t have long to wait,’ she smiled, and passed on.

A woman with a huge, angry, short-haired tabby in her arms came through from the surgery.

The newly-named Lucy’s fur rose. She made a noise that suggested she had come to the boil. The tabby suddenly let out a yell. Dogs made ambiguous comments in their throats.

‘Oh lor!’ said the newcomer. She grinned at Mr Whipplestone. ‘Better make ourselves scarce,’ she said, and to her indignant cat: ‘Shut up, Bardolph, don’t be an ass.’

When they had gone Lucy went to sleep and Mrs Montfort said: ‘Is your cat very ill?’

‘No!’ Mr Whipplestone quite shouted and then explained that Lucy was a stray starveling.

‘Sweet of you,’ she said, ‘to care. People are so awful about animals. It makes me quite ill. I’m like that.’ She turned her gaze upon him. ‘Kitty Montfort. My husband’s the warrior with the purple face. He’s called Colonel Montfort.’

Cornered, Mr Whipplestone murmured his own name.

Mrs Montfort smelt of very heavy scent and gin.

‘I know,’ she said archly, ‘you’re our new boy, aren’t you? At No. 1, The Walk? We have a piece of your Chubb on Fridays.’

Mr Whipplestone, whose manners were impeccable, bowed as far as the birdcage would permit.

Mrs Montfort was smiling into his face. She had laid her gloved hand on the cage. The door behind him had opened. Her smile became fixed as if pinned up at the corners. She withdrew her hand, and looked straight in front of her.

From the street there had entered a totally black man in livery with a white Afghan hound on a scarlet leash. The man paused and glanced round. There was an empty place on the other side of Mrs Montfort. Still looking straight in front of her, she moved far enough along the seat to leave insufficient room on either side of her. Mr Whipplestone instantly widened the distance between them and with a gesture, invited the man to sit down. The man said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and remained where he was, not looking at Mrs Montfort. The hound advanced his nose towards the cage. Lucy did not wake.

‘I wouldn’t come too close if I were you, old boy,’ Mr Whipplestone said. The Afghan wagged his tail and Mr Whipplestone patted him. ‘I know you,’ he said, ‘you’re the Embassy dog, aren’t you? You’re Ahman.’ He gave the man a pleasant look and the man made a slight bow.

‘Lucy Lockett:?’ said the attendant, brightly emerging. ‘We’re all ready for her.’

The consultation was brief but conclusive. Lucy Lockett was about seven months old and her temperature was normal, she was innocent of mange, ringworm or parasites, she was extremely undernourished and therefore in shocking condition. Here the vet hesitated. ‘There are scars,’ he said, ‘and there’s been a fractured rib that has looked after itself. She’s been badly neglected – I think she may have been actively ill-treated.’ And catching sight of Mr Whipplestone’s horrified face he added cheerfully: ‘Nothing that pills and good food won’t put right.’ He said she had been spayed. She was half-Siamese and half God knew what, the vet said, turning back her fur and handling her this way and that. He laughed at the white end to her tail and gave her an injection.

She submitted to these indignities with utter detachment, but when at liberty, leapt into her protector’s embrace and performed her now familiar act of jamming her head under his jacket and lying next his heart.

‘Taken to you,’ said the vet. ‘They’ve got a sense of gratitude, cats have. Especially the females.’

‘I don’t know anything about them,’ said Mr Whipplestone in a hurry.

Motivated by sales-talk and embarrassment, he bought on his way out a cat bed-basket, a china dish labelled ‘Kit-bits’, a comb and brush and a collar for which he ordered a metal tab with a legend: ‘Lucy Lockett. 1 Capricorn Walk’ and his telephone number. The shop assistant showed him a little red cat-harness for walking out and told him that with patience, cats could be induced to co-operate. She put Lucy into it and the result was fetching enough for Mr Whipplestone to keep it.

He left the parrot cage behind to be called for and heavily laden, with Lucy again in retreat under his coat, walked quickly home to deploy his diplomatic resources upon the Chubbs, little knowing that he carried his destiny under his jacket.

III

‘This is perfectly delightful,’ said Mr Whipplestone, turning from his host to his hostess with the slight inclinations of his head and shoulders that had long been occupational mannerisms. ‘I am so enjoying myself.’

‘Fill up your glass,’ Alleyn said. ‘I did warn you that it was an invitation with an ulterior motive, didn’t I?’

‘I am fully prepared: charmingly so. A superb port.’

‘I’ll leave you with it,’ Troy suggested.

‘No, don’t,’ Alleyn said. ‘We’ll send you packing if anything v.s. and c crops up. Otherwise it’s nice to have you. Isn’t it, Whipplestone?’

Mr Whipplestone embarked upon a speech about his good fortune in being able to contemplate a ‘Troy’ above his fireplace every evening and now having the pleasure of contemplating the artist herself at her own fireside. He got a little bogged down but fetched up bravely.

‘And when,’ he asked, coming to his own rescue, ‘are we to embark upon the ulterior motive?’

Alleyn said, ‘Let’s make a move. This is liable to take time.’

At Troy’s suggestion they carried their port from the house into her detached studio and settled themselves in front of long windows overlooking a twilit London garden.

‘I want,’ Alleyn said, ‘to pick your brains a little. Aren’t you by way of being an expert on Ng’ombwana?’

‘Ng’ombwana? I! That’s putting it much too high, my dear man. I was there for three years in my youth.’

‘I thought that quite recently when it was getting its independence –?’

‘They sent me out there, yes. During the exploratory period: mainly because I speak the language, I suppose. Having rather made it my thing in a mild way.’

‘And you have kept it up?’

‘Again, in a mild way: oh, yes. Yes.’ He looked across the top of his glass at Alleyn. ‘You haven’t gone over to the Special Branch, surely?’

‘That’s a very crisp bit of instant deduction. No, I haven’t. But you may say they’ve unofficially roped me in for the occasion.’

‘Of the forthcoming visit?’

‘Yes, blast them. Security.’

‘I see. Difficult. By the way, you must have been the President’s contemporary at –’ Mr Whipplestone stopped short. ‘Is it hoped that you may introduce the personal note?’

‘You are quick!’ Troy said and he gave a gratified little cackle.

Alleyn said: ‘I saw him three weeks ago.’

‘In Ng’ombwana?’

‘Yes. Coming the old-boy network like nobody’s business.’

‘Get anywhere?’

‘Not so that you’d notice: no, that’s not fair. He did undertake not to cut up rough about our precautions but exactly what he meant by that is his secret. I dare say that in the upshot he’ll be a bloody nuisance.’

‘Well?’ asked Mr Whipplestone, leaning back and swinging his eyeglass in what Alleyn felt had been his cross-diplomatic-desk gesture for half a lifetime. ‘Well, my dear Roderick?’

‘Where do you come in?’

‘Quite.’

‘I’d be grateful if you’d – what’s the current jargon? – fill me in on the general Ng’ombwana background. From your own point of view. For instance, how many people would you say have cause to wish The Boomer dead?’

‘The Boomer?’

‘As he incessantly reminded me, that was His Excellency’s schoolboy nickname.’

‘An appropriate one. In general terms, I should say some two hundred thousand persons, at least.’

‘Good Lord!’ Troy exclaimed.

‘Could you,’ asked her husband, ‘do a bit of name-dropping?’

‘Not really. Not specifically. But again in general terms – well, it’s the usual pattern throughout the new African independencies. First of all there are those Ng’ombwanan political opponents whom the President succeeded in breaking, the survivors of whom are either in prison or in this country waiting for his overthrow or assassination.’

‘The Special Branch flatters itself it’s got a pretty comprehensive list in that category.’

‘I dare say,’ said Mr Whipplestone drily. ‘So did we, until one fine day in Martinique a hitherto completely unknown person with a phoney British passport fired a revolver at the President, missed, and was more successful with a second shot at himself. He had no record and his true identity was never established.’

‘I reminded The Boomer of that incident.’

Mr Whipplestone said archly to Troy: ‘Y’ou know, he’s much more fully informed than I am. What’s he up to?’

‘I can’t imagine, but do go on. I, at least, know nothing.’

‘Well. Among these African enemies, of course, are the extremists who disliked his early moderation and especially his refusal at the outset to sack all his European advisers and officials in one fell swoop. So you get pockets of anti-white terrorists who campaigned for independence but are now prepared to face about and destroy the government they helped to create. Their followers are an unknown quantity but undoubtedly numerous. But you know all this, my dear fellow.’

‘He’s sacking more and more whites now, though, isn’t he? However unwillingly?’

‘He’s been forced to do so by the extreme elements.’

‘So,’ Alleyn said, ‘the familiar, perhaps the inevitable, pattern emerges. The nationalization of all foreign enterprise and the appropriation of properties held by European and Asian colonists. Among whom we find the bitterest possible resentment.’

‘Indeed. And with some reason. Many of them have been ruined. Among the older groups the effect has been completely disastrous. Their entire way of life has disintegrated and they are totally unfitted for any other.’ Mr Whipplestone rubbed his nose. ‘I must say,’ he added, ‘however improperly, that some of them are not likeable individuals.’

Troy asked: ‘Why’s he coming here? The Boomer, I mean?’

‘Ostensibly, to discuss with Whitehall his country’s needs for development.’

‘And Whitehall,’ Alleyn said, ‘professes its high delight while the Special Branch turns green with forebodings.’

“Mr Whipplestone, you said “ostensibly”,’ Troy pointed out.

‘Did I, Mrs Rory? – Yes. Yes, well it has been rumoured through tolerably reliable sources that the President hopes to negotiate with rival groups to take over the oil and copper resources from the dispossessed who have, of course, developed them at enormous cost.’

‘Here we go again!’ said Alleyn.

‘I don’t suggest,’ Mr Whipplestone mildly added, ‘that Lord Karnley or Sir Julian Raphael or any of their associates are likely to instigate a lethal assault upon the President.’

‘Good!’

‘But of course behind those august personages is a host of embittered shareholders, executives and employees.’

‘Among whom might be found the odd cloak-and-dagger merchant. And apart from all these more or less motivated persons,’ Alleyn said, ‘there are the ones policemen like least: the fanatics. The haters of black pigmentation, the lonely woman who dreams about a black rapist, the man who builds Anti-Christ in a black image or who reads a threat to his livelihood in every black neighbour. Or for whom the commonplace phrases – “black outlook, black record, as black as it’s painted, black villainy, the black man will get you” and all the rest of them, have an absolute reference. Black is bad. Finish.’

‘And the Black Power lot,’ Troy said, ‘are doing as much for “white”, aren’t they? The war of the images.’

Mr Whipplestone made a not too uncomfortable little groaning noise and returned to his port.

‘I wonder,’ Alleyn said, ‘I do wonder, how much of that absolute antagonism the old Boomer nurses in his sooty bosom.’

‘None for you, anyway,’ Troy said, and when he didn’t answer, ‘surely?’

‘My dear Alleyn, I understood he professes the utmost camaraderie.’

‘Oh, yes! Yes, he does. He lays it on with a trowel. Do you know, I’d be awfully sorry to think the trowel-work overlaid an inimical understructure. Silly, isn’t it?’

‘It is the greatest mistake,’ Mr Whipplestone pronounced, to make assumptions about relationships that are not clearly defined.’

‘And what relationship is ever that?’

‘Well! Perhaps not. We do what we can with treaties and agreements, but perhaps not.’

‘He did try,’ Alleyn said. ‘He did in the first instance try to set up some kind of multi-racial community. He thought it would work.’

‘Did you discuss that?’ Troy asked.

‘Not a word. It wouldn’t have done. My job was too tricky. Do you know, I got the impression that at least part of his exuberant welcome was inspired by a – well, by a wish to compensate for the ongoings of the new regime.’

‘It might be so,’ Mr Whipplestone conceded. ‘Who can say?’

Alleyn took a folded paper from his breast pocket.

‘The Special Branch has given me a list of commercial and professional firms and individuals to be kicked out of Ng’ombwana, with notes on anything in their history that might look at all suspicious.’ He glanced at the paper.

‘Does the same Sanskrit mean anything at all to you?’ he asked. ‘X. and K. Sanskrit to be exact. My dear man, what is the matter?’

Mr Whipplestone had shouted inarticulately, laid down his glass, clapped his hands and slapped his forehead.

‘Eureka!’ he cried stylishly. ‘I have it! At last. At last!’

‘Jolly for you,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’m delighted to hear it. What had escaped you?’

‘“Sanskrit, Importing and Trading Company, Ng’ombwana”.’

‘That’s it. Or was it.’

‘In Edward VIIth Avenue.’

‘Certainly, I saw it there: only they call it something else now. And Sanskrit has been kicked out. Why are you so excited?’

‘Because I saw him last night.’

‘You did!’

‘Well, it must have been. They are as alike as two disgusting pins.’

‘They?’ Alleyn repeated, gazing at his wife who briefly crossed her eyes at him.

‘How could I have forgotten!’ exclaimed Mr Whipplestone rhetorically. ‘I passed those premises every day of my time in Ng’ombwana.’

‘I clearly see that I mustn’t interrupt you.’

‘My dear Mrs Roderick, my dear Roderick, do please forgive me,’ begged Mr Whipplestone, turning pink. ‘I must explain myself: too gauche and peculiar. But you see –’

And explain himself he did, pig-pottery and all, with the precision that had eluded him at the first disclosure. ‘Admit,’ he cried when he had finished, ‘it is a singular coincidence, now isn’t it?’

‘It’s all of that,’ Alleyn said. ‘Would you like to hear what the Special Branch have got to say about the man – K. Sanskrit?’

‘Indeed I would.’

‘Here goes, then. This information, by the way, is a digest one of Fred Gibson’s chaps got from the Criminal Record Office. “Sanskrit. Kenneth, for Heaven’s sake. Age – approx 58. Height 5 foot 10. Weight: 16 stone 4. Very obese. Blond. Long hair. Dress: eccentric: Ultra modern. Bracelets. Anklet. Necklace. Wears make-up. Probably homosexual. One ring through pierced lobe. Origin: uncertain. Said to be Dutch. Name possibly assumed or corruption of a foreign name. Convicted of fraudulent practices involving the occult, London 1940. Served three months’ sentence. Sus. connection with drug traffic, 1942. Since 1950 importer of ceramics, jewellery and fancy goods into Ng’ombwana. Large, profitable concern. Owned blocks of flats and offices now possessed by Ng’ombwanan interests. Strong supporter of apartheid. Known to associate with Anti-Black and African extremists. Only traceable relative: Sister, with whom he is now in partnership, pottery business ‘The piggery’, Capricorn Mews, SW3.”’

‘There you are!’ said Mr Whipplestone, spreading out his hands.

‘Yes. There we are and not very far on. There’s no specific reason to suppose Sanskrit constitutes a threat to the safety of the President. And that goes for any of the other names on the list. Have a look at it. Does it ring any more bells? Any more coincidences?’

Mr Whipplestone screwed in his eyeglass and had a look.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said drily. ‘One recognizes the disillusioned African element. And the dispossessed. I can add nothing. I’m afraid, my dear fellow, that apart from the odd circumstance of one of your remote possibilities being a neighbour of mine, I am of no use to you. And none in that respect, either, if one comes to think of it. A broken reed,’ sighed Mr Whipplestone, ‘I fear, a broken reed.’

‘Oh,’ Alleyn said lightly, ‘you never know, do you? By the way, the Ng’ombwanan Embassy is in your part of the world, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed. I run into old Karumba sometimes. Their Ambassador. We take our constitutional at the same hour. Nice old boy.’

‘Worried?’

‘Hideously, I should have thought.’

‘You’d have been right. He’s in a flat spin and treating the SB to a hell of a work-out. And what’s more he’s switched over to me. Never mind about security not being my proper pigeon. He should worry! I know The Boomer and that’s enough. He wants me to teach the SB its own business. Imagine! If he had his wish there’d be total alarm devices in every ornamental urn and a security man under The Boomer’s bed. I must say I don’t blame him. He’s giving a reception. I suppose you’ve been invited?’

‘I have, yes. And you?’

‘In my reluctant role as The Boomer’s old school chum. And Troy, of course,’ Alleyn said, putting his hand briefly on hers.

Then followed rather a long pause.

‘Of course,’ Mr Whipplestone said, at last, ‘these things don’t happen in England. At receptions and so on. Madmen at large in kitchens or wherever it was.’

‘Or at upstairs windows in warehouses?’

‘Quite.’

The telephone rang and Troy went out of the room to answer it.

‘I ought to forbear,’ Alleyn said, ‘from offering the maddening observation that there’s always a first time.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ flustered Mr Whipplestone. ‘Nonsense, my dear fellow! Really! Nonsense! Well,’ he added uneasily, ‘one says that.’

‘Let’s hope one’s right.’

Troy came back. ‘The Ng’ombwanan Ambassador,’ she said, ‘would like a word with you, darling.’

‘God bless his woolly grey head,’ Alleyn muttered and cast up his eyes. He went to the door but checked. ‘Another Sanskrit coincidence for you, Sam. I rather think I saw him, too, three weeks ago in Ng’ombwana, outside his erstwhile emporium, complete with anklet and earring. The one and only Sanskrit, or I’m a displaced Dutchman with beads and blond curls.’

IV

The Chubbs raised no particular objection to Lucy: ‘So long as it’s not unhealthy, sir,’ Mrs Chubb said, ‘I don’t mind. Keep the mice out, I dare say.’

In a week’s time Lucy improved enormously. Her coat became glossy, her eyes bright and her person plumpish. Her attachment to Mr Whipplestone grew more marked and he, as he confided in his diary, was in some danger of making an old fool of himself over her. ‘She is a beguiling little animal,’ he wrote, ‘I confess I find myself flattered by her attentions. She has nice ways.’ The nice ways consisted of keeping a close watch on him, of greeting him on his reappearance after an hour’s absence as if he had returned from the North Pole, of tearing about the house with her tail up, affecting astonishment when she encountered him and of sudden onsets of attachment when she would grip his arm in her forelegs, kick it with her hind legs, pretend to bite him and then fall into a little frenzy of purrs and licks.