The Song of the Flea (20 page)

“I know you have,” said Pym.

Sherwood and Proudfoot exchanged glances and then Proudfoot said: “You do, do you?”

“You sold them a story about yourself. I saw your
photograph
on somebody’s desk the other day.”

“Well,” said Sherwood, unperturbed, “you only know what I was on the point of telling you. I have been young and now I am old. I have been foolish and now I am wise. Crime, Mr. Pym, crime does
not
pay.
Vanitas
vanitatum
et
omnes
…
What fools we mortals be! How vain—how silly to imagine that one’s weak self can stand alone against the gathered might of the Law of God and man! Observe, I am absolutely frank with you, Mr. Pym. All that is over. Part of the capital I have put into Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Co. Ltd., is the six thousand pounds I was paid by the
Sunday
Special
for my full and true confession——”

“—Thirty-five hundred pounds,” said Pym.

“Experienced as you are, Mr. Pym, you have not yet grasped the fact that editors underquote the prices they pay in order to discourage exacting contributors.”

Proudfoot looked at Pym, frowning, sucked in the corners of his mouth, and nodded slowly; and then he said: “Quite simply, Johnny, we want you to put Weissensee into good
clean-cut
English.
Geschlechtliche
Verirrungen
im
Verhaeltnis
zur
Kunst
im
Lauf der
Zeit
Einschliesslich
Spezial
Faelle
in
der
Zeit
Zwischen
1675
und
1935
mit
Einer
Bemerkung
Ueber
Auto-
Erotik
is an established scientific work, and you have nothing but credit to get from it—and money, of course.”

“What does that mean in English?” asked Pym.

Proudfoot said: “It means
Sexual
Aberration
in
Relation
to
the
Arts
through
the
Ages,
Together
with
Case
Histories
from
1675 to 1935
and
a
Note
on
Auto-Erotism.”

“What would there be in it for me?” asked Pym.

“Two hundred and fifty pounds,” said Proudfoot.

“But how long is it?”

“About a hundred thousand words.”

“I don’t know if I could do it. Could I look at some of the stuff?” asked Pym.

Sherwood looked at Proudfoot, who nodded. Then,
unlocking
the drawer, Sherwood found a manilla folder full of violet typescript on onion-skin paper. “Naturally,” he said.

“If I could let you know to-morrow …?” said Pym.

“Of course,” said Proudfoot. “We are friends, Johnny, I hope. You have been a good friend to me and I—in my way—have tried to be a good friend to you, I flatter myself.”

Pym said: “Proudfoot, you’ve been a better friend to me than any friend I ever had.”

“Twelve o’clock!” said Sherwood, looking at his gold watch. “What do you say to lunch?”

“Unfortunately I have a date,” said Pym, rising, with the folder under his arm.

Proudfoot insisted upon seeing him to the door. They parted affectionately. Pym walked to the Strand and walked back again. He said to the blushing boy: “An envelope … foolscap envelope—about this long and this wide”—he drew a diagram with a finger-nail—“did I leave it here?”

“Just a minute.”

Miss Bowman came out and said: “I don’t think there’s any envelope in my office. Perhaps you left it in Mr. Sherwood’s office.”

“Miss Bowman, I beg your pardon! I really am ever so sorry, but now I come to think of it I posted it this morning. For the moment I would have sworn I had it with me, but I’ve just remembered—I posted it this morning. That’s it—this morning; I put a stamp on it and posted it. But I put it in my pocket and, thinking of other things, I got the idea into my head it was still in my pocket. I am so sorry.”

“So glad you haven’t lost it.”

“Oh, Miss Bowman, I don’t suppose you’d like to have lunch with me?” said Pym, swallowing saliva.

“Yes, I’ll have lunch with you, if you like,” said Miss Bowman.

“What time?”

“One.”

“Where?”

“Pick me up here, if you like.”

“One o’clock, then,” said Pym, and hurried away to the
Sunday
Special.

The Features Editor was still there. He said: “Look here, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times—who the hell wants Prose Poems? Who wants Descriptive Passages? Who wants long words? Who wants catalogues? Who wants your logomania? (You see, I can use long words, too, if I want to.) This stuff has possibilities, but you’d better take it away and purge it. I can’t use this stuff as it stands. Get some life into it—get some human stuff into it. I’m sorry, but as far
as I’m concerned you can bore a little hole in this stuff and hang it up with a piece of string in a certain place. You know better than this, son. You know a hell of a lot better than this Pym. What’s the matter with you? Spring fever? Do me a favour—will you?—and take this Immortal Prose away and bung in another specimen.”

“But, damn it all——”

“—My sentiments exactly. Damn it all, and let’s have a story. You’re on the right line. Keep on it and you’ll be okay. Oh, and by the way: no doubt you were carried away by your Prose Poems but, in case you didn’t notice, you made a coster say ‘Not bloody likely’. This is a family paper.”

“Family paper!” cried Pym. “Con-men and whores and murderers and white-slavers and dope traffickers can spill their guts all over your lousy paper and get paid through the nose for it! And I use a harmless ‘bloody’—a perfectly harmless ‘Not bloody likely’ and you go Puritan on me!”

“No ‘bloodies’ in this paper.”

“What about Bernard Shaw?”

“Go and grow a long white beard. Go and write plays. This is a family paper. No ‘bloodies’! ‘Blasted’—yes. ‘Bloody’—no. Similarly, no ‘bastards’. ‘Illegitimate’, perhaps, if necessary. ‘Bastard’, definitely no. And no ‘pregnant’—‘certain condition’. First be Bernard Shaw, then say ‘Not bloody likely’ as much as you bloody well like. You go away and do it again. Scram now, like a good fellow.”

“Very well, if that’s the way you want it.”

“Oh, Pym—you might as well take these with you,” said the Features Editor, poking at Pym’s articles with a thick black pencil. “You could sell them to a magazine … Now, don’t be silly—don’t lose your temper. Would I bother to talk to you if I didn’t think you were all right? Go out and have a drink and go back to work. Oh, by the by, if you want a couple of quid I can let you have it.”

“Thanks, I’m all right.”

“On account, you know.”

Pym said: “I assure you there’s no need at all. Thanks, all the same.
Au revoir.”

“So long.”

Pym walked downstairs jingling the money in his pocket. In the vestibule he stopped as if he had walked into an invisible wire. Having felt the edges of all the coins in his right hand it occurred to Pym that he had only five shillings, two sixpences, three pennies and a halfpenny. The hands of the big electric clock pointed to twelve thirty-five. He thought of his
typewriter
but hesitated, remembered Proudfoot and went to a public telephone. Pym dialled feverishly. A woman answered. He pinched his nostrils, twisted his mouth and disguised his voice. “Tell Bister Proudfoot it’s urgent,” he said. Then, portentously, Proudfoot said: “Who is it?”

Pym whispered: “Proudfoot, don’t say anything. Listen, can you lend me a little money—just a little money?” As Proudfoot began to reply Pym said hastily: “Don’t mention my name. Don’t say anything. Simply say yes or no. I only want a pound—just for a day.”

“Yes, of course,” said Proudfoot. “Come right along now.”

“No, do you mind,” whispered Pym; “do you mind terribly much meeting me in about ten minutes in the
Buckingham?”

“Well, it isn’t altogether convenient, you know; but if I remember rightly I do owe you——”

“No, no, no! Please, please, Proudfoot! You don’t owe me anything. I just want to borrow a pound.”

“Not in trouble again, I hope?”

“No, no trouble at all. Well—yes—yes, I am in a minor way in trouble. Will you do this for me, Proudfoot?”

“One moment,” said Proudfoot; and then Pym heard him saying: “
Oh
,
Joanna,
how
much
have
we
in
the
petty
cash?”
The reply was inaudible, but Proudfoot said: “With pleasure. Where you said—in ten minutes. Don’t make it more than ten minutes, will you?”

“I won’t! I won’t, thank you very much! I don’t know how to thank you! I’m on my way now.”

When Pym reached the
Buckingham
Proudfoot was waiting for him.

“Here you are, Johnny,” he said, pressing a square of folded paper money into Pym’s coat pocket.

“You’re the best friend any man ever had,” said Pym, pretending to fumble for a cigarette; “—but, I say, Proudfoot, there’s more than a pound here.”

“There’s a fiver there,” said Proudfoot.

“A pound would have been enough.”

“Oh come, come, come, my dear fellow, what is a pound or two between friends?”

“But——”

“—You owe me nothing—it’s on the firm. We’ll take it off the book. You haven’t had a chance, of course, to cast your eye over the material yet?”

“Good God!” said Pym, “I must have left it up at the office.”

Proudfoot clasped his hands behind him and stared,
speechless
. “You had better get on the telephone at once,” he said.

Pym did so. The Features Editor’s secretary said “Yes, that’s right, a manilla folder; you did leave it on Mr. Steeple’s desk. I’ve got it here.”

“It’s perfectly safe, Proudfoot,” said Pym. “I’ll go along and get it this afternoon. No need to worry: it’s perfectly safe.”

In his harshest voice Proudfoot said: “You must be
completely
out of your mind, Pym! Are you aware that you might have lost one of the most valuable contributions to modern science? You had better keep your wits about you, my friend.”

“I really am awfully sorry, but I seem to be what you might call
distrait
this morning.”

“Sorry, Pym, sorry again, always sorry! Well, well, have a drink.”

“Do you mind awfully, Proudfoot, if I don’t? I have a lunch date.”

“Not at all, my dear fellow. We look forward to seeing you to-morrow.”

“Yes, to-morrow,” said Pym, on his way out.

He reached Adam Street at five minutes to one and waited on the other side of the road.

“What on earth were you hiding in that doorway for?” asked Joanna Bowman when they met.

“I don’t know,” said Pym, feeling foolish.

“I bet you do know,” she said. “You were saying to yourself:
‘I don’t want anyone in the office to see me waiting for the secretary in case they think I’m interested in her,’ isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. Very likely,” said Pym. “Where shall we eat?”

“Just anywhere. What about the
George
and
Dragon?
You can get a perfectly good lunch there for one-and-six.”

“I was thinking of Vidocq’s,” said Pym.

“Well, then, stop thinking of Vidocq’s and let’s go to the
George
and
Dragon.”

As they walked down Adam Street Pym, looking sideways at her, said with some astonishment: “Why, you’re nearly as tall as I am!”

“Why not?”

“It’s rare.”

She laughed and said: “Tall men don’t like tall women, do they? They’re bad for that dark male dignity, or whatever they call it, that we used to hear so much about. Nothing to look down at, even physically. Don’t let it bother you. With our shoes off I should probably measure about four inches less than you, if that’s any comfort.”

“What an extraordinary woman you are!” said Pym, not without asperity.

“Don’t tell me why: just let me guess. What an
extraordinary
woman I am! You ask me to lunch and I say Yes—without
chi-chi,
just like
that
—without even pretending to look at a little diary to see whether I’m previously engaged. That’s extraordinary. It would have been ordinary and
comfortable
if I’d giggled and blushed and twisted my toes and looked at my fingernails and put on one of those coy expressions, and hummed and hawed and said ‘Well’ and ‘Let me see’; and rolled my eyes when I met you and suggested the Savoy or something. As it is, you ask me to lunch. I say Yes, and so we go to the
George
and
Dragon
—which is as good as I’m used to—for some Irish stew or Lancashire hot-pot. Extraordinary. Well, God save me from your
ordinary.”

“Incidentally, apart from being extraordinary, you sound like an angry sort of woman,” said Pym.

“I’m a tired sort of woman.”

“Tired of what?”

“I’m tired of nonsense. I’m tired of lies, fakes and false pretences. I’m tired of fools, cowards, and weaklings. I’m tired of cheats and swindlers. I’m tired of people who put on acts. I’m tired of people who hide in doorways on the other side of the street. I’m tired of people in general.”

Pym said: “For a woman who’s tired of the things you’re tired of, you’ve chosen a funny sort of place to work in.”

“Have I?” she asked, with real interest. “How’s that?”

“Sherwood is the confidence man—swindler, trickster, cardsharper, anything crooked you like—the twister who last went to jail under the name of Sedley Pryor. Some of the capital behind Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Co. Ltd., comes out of what he got for his story. I rather fancy he informed on one or two friends, too. You know—the crook, reformed because he’s lost his touch, doing a bit of the old Judas Iscariot on the side.” Pym was angry: he did not like what she had said about “people who hide in doorways”. “And Proudfoot, speaking of fakers, has perverted more truth in his time than any other man in England. He was Proudfoot the Mouthpiece. I don’t know anything about the rest, but I can’t say I like the look or the sound of them.”