William burst out laughing. “Jesus Christ, Percy,” he wheezed out. “You've got a nerve.”
Fearn was undaunted by the reaction.
“I'll put these stamps up as collateral for the loan. Then, we'll sign an agreement. I make good on all arrears immediately, leaving you to write me a cheque for $4,800. I keep up my payments from now on and, here's the interesting part, I repay the entire amount plus interest in one year or the stamps are yours. What do you say?”
“You're proposing that I write you a cheque today instead of the other way around?”
“You're new to this game, William, so I'll spell it out for you. Your chances of getting another tenant are slight, at best. That means you'll
have to start paying the mortgage yourself, and worse, face the coming election with no income. You can begin the messy business of suing and forcing me to liquidate, but it will, believe me, take much time and far too much of your energy. On the other hand, if you agree to my proposal, you'll have your arrears in hand, income instead of debts in the months ahead, and ten thousand dollars with interest repaid in one year. The worst that can happen is you'll have to put a second mortgage on the building to raise the money, and I suspect you'd have to do that anyway if you want to have a hope in hell of winning in the election.”
“What will you do if business doesn't improve?”
“I'll liquidate or draw on my estate. But I'm sure things will improve. Business goes in cycles, it always does.”
“Why not just pay me with the stamps?”
Percy smiled. “I don't think they're even close to reaching their full value. I'll never let you have them, which is why you can be sure of getting your money in the end. Do we have a deal?”
Fearn had a point. The prospect of William getting his hands on some cash was better than the alternative. Still, he didn't want to be a pushover. In keeping with his building's tradition, he decided to make a stand.
“I'll agree only to an outright sale. You sell the stamps to me for ten thousand dollars and I'll sign an agreement that you have the right to repurchase in one year.”
“It seems you do have some business sense after all. Agreed. We'll put the stamps into a vault at the Eastern Trust in your name.”
“I never thought I'd hear myself saying this today, Percy, but, dammit, we have a deal.”
Since their meeting in 1927, after Sir Robert Bond's death, William had continued to drop round to Arthur Duke's office a few times a year. They usually drank tea, chatted politely about politics and generally avoided the sensitive topic of Leona Merrigan â except at Christmas, when Arthur invited William over and took delight in showing him another of Leona's letters to the School for the Deaf with the Edward VII stamp on it.
William indulged him, even though he couldn't have cared less about the stamps. The main thing was, even after he'd lost his seat in the 1928 election, William felt sure Arthur could no longer interfere with Dulcie's schooling. Still, William liked to keep an eye on the wily civil servant and, for his part, Arthur seemed to enjoy the little cat and mouse game that had grown up between them.
Sometimes the conversation turned to arcane areas of interest with Arthur indulging himself in little lectures for William's benefit. William smiled inwardly whenever Arthur adopted a donnish, self-satisfied air and, between careful sips of fragrant tea, expounded on such subjects as stamp lore, the role of the civil servant or the history of civil service itself.
“The civil servant is essentially a messenger,” he said one day. “The letter is his craft and core responsibility. It keeps the machinery of government turning. Hence, postage stamps are a quintessential symbol of nationhood. I imagine that's why we call one that no longer produces its own stamps a dead country.”
Arthur also liked to reassure himself about his high calling.
“Civil servants, in particular, full-time functionaries like myself, are overlords of correspondence. In the world of government, no matter how great or picayune the affair, sooner or later it must pass into the hands of a civil servant and be committed to paper.”
Sometimes the lectures were more expansive. “There were no letters, as such, in ancient times. Messages were spoken. The ancient Greeks engaged the fastest runners for the task. Hemerodromes, they called
them, after Hermes, the wing-footed god. The very first civil servants! One, called Ledas, was said to run so fast he left no footprints in the sand. Isn't that a wonderful idea?” He also praised the messenger of Marathon, who, after an excruciatingly long run barely had breath to utter “We are victorious” before falling dead at his general's feet. He described how the ancient Greeks wrote messages on the shaved head of a slave to prevent their being read by the courier. He explained the Roman postal system in great detail, as well as the evolution of the British postal system. He described how Indian postmen rode bicycles, how Africans carried their letters on a cleft stick, how Venetians held them in their mouths as they swam along the city canals, how Japanese postmen worked in pairs, one leading the way with a lantern on a long stick, and how the perilous Pony Express advertised for riders with the slogan “Orphans Preferred.”
William found it all surprisingly palatable. A couple of weeks after striking his unusual deal with Percy Fearn, he happened to be sitting in Arthur's office as Arthur was reading a copy of
The Daily News
. Suddenly, Arthur handed the paper across the desk to William. “Read that,” he said, “and learn the meaning of the term ânational disgrace.'”
William glanced at the headline and a nervous pang shot through his guts.
“The Stamp Robberies?”
Arthur noted the reaction with a cynical smile. “Don't worry. Nothing to do with your friend on the Cape Shore. It's actually worse than that! These robberies are being performed by someone who works inside the government. One of our own.”
William read aloud from the article:
Government investigators are probing the mysterious disappearance of a part of the Government's huge collection of foreign stamps. The collection, gathered from all parts of the world, has been stored at the Newfoundland Museum and the St. John's Post Office for safekeeping. Whole volumes were recently discovered to have vanished from the Museum while packages of the stamps at the Post Office have been rifled systematically, authorities said. It appears the thefts have been spread over a long period extending from when the Museum was closed in 1920. The collection is valued at $120,000 and it is rumoured that at least half has disappeared.
Arthur was fuming with indignation.
“Do you realize it took nearly fifty years to put those collections together? Now people with the right set of keys are just helping themselves! What further sign do we need that the country is falling apart? Is there no sense of decency left?”
William read on and found something else that disturbed him. “It says here the investigators are dividing their time between the stamp thefts and a probe into a reputed counterfeit ring. A counterfeit ring in St. John's?”
“That's right,” said Arthur. “The stamp game has gotten very dirty in recent years, especially with the advent of the expensive airmail issues.”
The unease in William's stomach worsened. “Do you know Percy Fearn?” he asked.
“Your tenant in the Vail Building?”
“Yes. He told me the other day that he's a stamp collector.”
“Indeed he is.”
“Reputable?”
“I've never heard a bad word about him. Why?”
“Oh, I thought I might buy some stamps from him, that's all.”
“It's not a good time to be getting into the stamp game. As I say, it's gotten very dirty of late. But if you must, Percy Fearn is a good man to deal with.”
William breathed a little easier at that, although Arthur's next question didn't help matters.
“So how does it feel to be a suspect in a major theft?”
“What are you talking about, Arthur?”
“Read on, William, and you'll see what I mean.”
William saw in the final paragraph what Arthur was referring to:
It is believed access to the Museum was gained thorough the Department of Mines and Agriculture which has been housed there since the early 1920s.
“My old office,” he said, a little shaken.
“Of course, you haven't been there in the last four years, but still, who knows how long the thefts have been taking place.” Arthur looked mischievous and triumphant at the same time. “Well, what about that?” he said. “It seems you and Leona Merrigan have something in common. You're both suspected stamp robbers.” He laughed, a little too smugly for William to endure.
“Shut up, Arthur.”
“Don't worry, William,” Arthur said coyly, composing himself. “Even if I don't believe in her innocence, you know I certainly believe in yours.”
William could see the ocean was a pale, icy green, as he basked, gratefully this time, in the heat of Thomas Tobin's kitchen. Thomas was trussed up at his usual station beside the stove. Every now and again his lean frame tipped to the side and he let a brown glob of phlegm slip from his lips into the coal bucket. His eyes were even older now, their blue faded to dull grey. William still saw a lingering sadness in them, past the wrinkled traces of the old fellow's smiles. The smiles were less frequent since Maisie had died sitting up in her rocking chair last year.
Thomas took a billet from the wood box and slipped it into the stove. He looked into the flames for a moment, then shook his head and said, “Another hundred votes and you would have won in â28, William.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes, Thomas. Might as well have been a thousand.”
“You never should have run in Harbour Main. People around here didn't like it when you went to a townie district.”
“It's not quite a townie district, but I take your point, Thomas. I did it for the good of the Party. They thought I had a chance.”
“They were wrong.”
“So they were. What do you think of my chances out here this time.”
“Hard to say, William. With all the goings-on, that riot at the Colonial Building, an' Squires actin' the crook, a lot of people aren't even gonna bother to vote. The arse is out of âer, they say; one crowd is as bad as another.”
William sensed that Thomas was politely telling him that the Cape Shore was probably not the place for him to win a seat in the upcoming election.
“I'm thinking of running in the new district they're calling Placentia West. It doesn't include the Cape Shore or St. Mary's Bay.”
“Might be a good idea, William.” The sad truth in Thomas's voice was unmistakable now. “You might do better campaigning in the bigger towns.”
William felt his relationship with his old friend slipping away. Soon, there'd be no more adventuresome, high-minded trips down the Cape Shore. He was getting too old for that, anyway; even in his new Model T, the shore remained a daunting place to visit. The road was still horrendous and he simply wasn't up to doing it by water any more. If it wasn't for Leona Merrigan, he wouldn't have come down here at all in the last few years. He was on his way to pay her a visit now.
William said goodbye to Thomas and they shook hands warmly. He walked along the road toward the Merrigan place. Knock Harbour was alive with blinding sunshine, a roistering sea and hair-raising wind. He huddled happily inside his greatcoat, feeling a gladness in his heart. He used to feel like this on those early prospecting trips years ago; a young man with nothing in his pockets but dreams of silver and gold. The wind moved him deftly along the road, like a guiding hand against his back. Today he felt that no matter what happened in the next election, he'd be all right. His election hopes, his uncertain future, his unusual deal with Percy Fearn, the machinations of Arthur Duke â he'd never be defeated by any of it. He had nothing to fear anymore.
He was experiencing the full effects of this euphoria by the time he was standing in front of Leona's house. There was a path shovelled up to the door. His boots crunched on the hardpacked snow as he strolled up, removed his heavy leather gloves and knocked. Leona always received him in the parlour now, instead of the kitchen. It was as if she wanted to erase the memory of that hard difficult night when they'd first met. When she came to the door he found that she was looking remarkably well, the lines around her eyes less evident, a quiet smile playing about her mouth.
He dropped his coat on the newel post and steered himself into the parlour. “My pipe!” he said, before he sat down, and went back to root around for a second in his pockets. He noticed she had moved the Edward VII portrait from the parlour to the head of the stairs. An odd choice. He wasn't sure he'd like to be so frequently exposed to that glum, heavy-lidded gaze. He found his pipe and tobacco and walked into the parlour. The room was cheerfully bright. Sheer curtains covered the windows. There was a silvered wallpaper and a new brown-patterned canvas on the floor. The slight chill in the room only seemed to enliven it. He clamped the pipe in his jaws and rubbed his hands together vigorously before performing the little staccato ceremony of lighting it.
“The place looks fine,” he said.
Then he understood. A new portrait in a medium-sized oval frame hung where the Edward VII used to be. It was a black-and-white close-up of Dulcie from her first year at school. She had on a middy dress, her hair was short and neat, a bright smile showed two perfect rows of small white teeth, and she wore a string of fake pearls around her neck.
“She looks very pleased with herself,” he said, smiling broadly.
“I asked Mr. Norris to bring the group picture they sent me from Halifax to one of the photography shops in St. John's. They cut out Dulcie's picture and enlarged it for us.”