The Tiger in the Well (4 page)

"I first heard of him in Riga," Liebermann began. "I was with a comrade who was showing me the office of something called the Aliens' Registry Bureau of the British consulate."

"No such thing," said Goldberg. "It's a fake." Out came the bottle of ink from his overcoat pocket; out came the pen. He put the papers he'd brought up under a fist-sized stone on the floor, uncapped the ink, and began to write as Liebermann spoke.

"So I found out. I pretended to be a Russian Jew, wanting to come to England. The man there—British—asked me a number of questions, looked at my papers, then made me

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The Journalist ZJ

pay a fee and wrote my name in a book. It would guarantee me residence in London for three months, he said. There were dozens of people there; some of them couldn't pay, they had no money left. They'd had to face this kind of thing all the way from Kiev. A transit fee in Moscow, a registration pass somewhere else, a particular stamp in their passport at the frontier—it went on and on; every time they moved, they had to pay someone a fee."

"The Tzaddik," prompted Goldberg.

"Ah, yes. The comrade I was with told me about him. It seems that the people—rthe Jews—are all afraid of some mysterious figure they call the Tzaddik; as if their misfortunes—all these obstructions in their way, all the fraud and the persecution—^were all the work of this one man. But, you see, they're superstitious, they think he's . . . not human. From the villages out in the shtetl to the slums of Warsaw and Bucharest and Vienna, they all talk of the Tzaddik as if he were a demon, something supernatural. They say he has a dybbuk for a servant: a little imp from hell that waits on him. They call him Tzaddik—righteous one, saint, holy man—^as a way of keeping the evil at bay, like a kind of desperate joke. When I first heard that sort of talk I threw up my hands: what can you do with rank superstition.? But now . . . well, I've seen him, Goldberg. I think they're right.

"It happened like this: My comrade in Riga took me to a warehouse in the docks that overlooked the gangplank of a steamship. This was late at night; the docks had been closed earlier in the evening, and if we'd been caught, we'd have gone to prison. We were going to see the Tzaddik boarding the steamer. It was very secret; no one usually sees him, because he always travels at night. We waited there till past midnight, and then a carriage rolled up beside the gangplank.

"It was a big, luxurious carriage, strongly made, heavily built. We couldn't see them unloading him from where we were, but—"

"Unloading him.'"' said Goldberg.

"You'll see. When the carriage moved away, there he was on the gangplank, being hauled up by two sailors and pushed up by two footmen. He's in a wheelchair. Immensely fat. A servant close-by, holding a rug or something. And—I don't care if you don't believe this—I saw the dybbuk.''

Goldberg looked up. Liebermann's face was tense, and he'd nearly finished the brandy. Goldberg poured some more, and Liebermann went on. "A little shadow like a cat—the size of a cat—but human. A homunculus, like the medieval magicians used to make in those old stories. Skipping and running up the gangplank after him. ..."

He closed his eyes and sighed, trembling.

"Anyway, they took the man on board and then lifted up the carriage, too, with a crane. And I left, with my comrade, and came on overland to Rotterdam. That was where I next heard of the Tzaddik. It was on board the ship, the night we sailed. I was on the deck—the air below was filthy and full of smoke—and I was trying to get warm behind some kind of lifeboat. And I heard two men talking. The ship's engine was turning over; I could feel the throbbing in the bulkhead behind me—is that the word.'* It was near the chimney— funnel—and I could see the lights of the city behind the customs shed. I was huddled down there under my raincoat, and I saw the men's outline against the sky, leaning on the rail. They were speaking in English.

"One of them said, 'Fifty-six passengers at five guilders each. Two hundred and eighty guilders. You owe me ten percent—twenty-eight.' I recognized his voice: he was the official who'd stamped the papers for the passengers to come on board.

"The other man said, 'You never said ten percent. We agreed on five.'

"The official said, 'The price has gone up. This is the last run we can do from Rotterdam like this; the authorities are beginning to want their cut. I must have my profit. Ten percent, or I go to the Tzaddik.'

"The other man grumbled, but paid over some coins. Then

he said, *The Tzaddik's in Russia, the last I heard. Are you going back there, then?'

** *He's coming this way,' said the official. 'He's on his way to London. The network's almost all in place.'

"The second man said, 'If we can't use this dodge again, what are we going to do next time.'*'

"The first man said, 'Go and see a man in Blackmoor Street when you get to London. A Mr. Parrish. He'll tell you.'

"I didn't hear what the second man said, because the ship's whistle blew. I saw them shake hands, and then the official left. The other man stayed there until the boat had drawn away from the dockside and we were passing out of the harbor, and then he went below. As for me, that was when I began to feel seasick."

He stopped and sank back in the chair. Goldberg was tapping the pen against his teeth, his eyes intense with speculation.

"Did you say Parrish.?" he said. "Of Blackmoor StreeL?"

"That's what I heard. But no more than that. I'm sorry, Goldberg, but I couldn't follow him when we left the boat. I was nearly finished. So I don't know any more about this Parrish. Does it mean anything to you.^"'

"Oh, yes," said Goldberg. "I've heard of Mr. Parrish. But I didn't know he was mixed up in this. . . . Liebermann, this is extraordinarily interesting. I'm very much obliged to you."

Liebermann's eyes were closed. There was no fire in the room, and it was chilly. Goldberg pulled the blankets off the bed and wrapped them around the other man. He looked longingly at his cigars, but contented himself with putting one between his teeth unlit; and then he turned his overcoat collar up, wrapped the muffler around his neck, and began to write.

The Marriage Register

Next morning, having told Sarah-Jane not to let Harriet out of her sight and Ellie not to admit any strangers, Sally set off for her office in the City.

It stood up three narrow flights of stairs at the top of an old building in Bengal Court, not far from St. Paul's. She shared the building with an insurance agent, a spectacle maker, a tobacco importer, an agent for an American typewriter manufacturer, and the office of the Tricycling Gazette. It was a busy place, and the other occupants were friendly, though Sally was struck by the thought that any of them might have been spying on her. How could Parrish know so much if he didn't have spies.^*

Margaret Haddow was already in when Sally arrived. She was a year or two younger than Sally, but because of her dark, rather austere looks and her dry manner she seemed older. Sally trusted her implicitly. Their clerk. Cicely Corrigan, came in from Bromley, having had to settle her crippled mother for the day, so she usually arrived a little later.

"Are we busy today.^" said Sally, hanging up her cloak and hat.

"Not very," Margaret told her. "We've got to look at those South American mining shares before tomorrow, and I'd like to go over Mr. Thompson's file with you. Then I was going to see a Mrs. Wilson, but not till three o'clock. I thought we might look at the Australian gold fields—I've got an idea they're going to move up."

"Can you leave that for now and do something for me.'*"

"Yes, I expect so. What is it?"

Sally told her everything. The story sounded no more credible now that it was so familiar. Margaret knew about Harriet and had visited Orchard House a number of times, and her reaction was a good deal more sympathetic than that of the lawyer and the clerk.

"This is monstrous!" she said. "What can I do.^* Would you like me to testify in court or something.'^ Just tell me."

"I hope it won't come to court," said Sally. "I hope I can find out why he's doing it before that. If I know what it's all about, then I'll know how to fight it. I'm going to go and look at the register in this church today—there's a train in forty minutes—but I must find out about Parrish. Could you go to his office for me.?"

"Of course! What d'you want me to do there.? Shoot him.?"

Sally smiled. "Not yet. But if you could make up some plausible story—^some commission for him—^and see what you can find out about his business. . . . Anything at all. I don't know what to look for, because I don't know anything about him. Whatever you find out will help."

Sally*s train took her to Portsmouth by midday, and a hansom cab took her to the rectory of St. Thomas's in the parish of Southam. The area was an undistinguished suburb of Portsmouth: dull terraces of small brick houses, a row of dingy shops, an area of scrubland by the railway line awaiting development. The church was no more than fifty years old: old enough to be dirty, not old enough to be interesting. The rectory looked the same.

The rector, a Mr. Murray, was having luncheon, so the maidservant told her. Would she care to come back in half an hour.? Sally agreed and wandered into the church to pass the time. It was a conventional Gothic revival building of no beauty at all, and the only point of interest was the list of incumbents on the wall. There had been five previous rectors of Southam. The current one, the Reverend Mr. Murray, had only been in office since the year before; he hadn't been

here when the supposed marriage took place. The rector then had been called Beech.

When she judged that Mr. Murray had finished his luncheon, she went back to the rectory. The maid showed her into a study, and Mr. Murray rose to shake her hand. He was tall, thin, middle-aged, and severe.

"I wonder if I might look at your parish records.'"' she said.

"You're aware we only go back to eighteen thirty-two?" said Mr. Murray. "If you're hunting ancestors, there will not be many here."

"The register of marriages is all I want," said Sally. "For eighteen seventy-nine. Mr. Murray, what sort of parish is this.^ Is it a settled kind of place.'"'

"Very mixed. There is a small congregation—too small. There's a lot of movement in and out. People are restless these days; they don't stay in the place where they were bom. In my last parish—in the country—I could walk through the village and name everyone I saw, and all their family, and tell you everything there was to know about them. I can walk the streets of this parish all day and hardly see a face I know."

"Your predecessor, Mr. Beech—did he retire.'*"

There was a silence. "Why do you ask.?" he said.

"I wanted to ask about a marriage that took place here in eighteen seventy-nine. If it's in the register, I wanted to ask him if he remembered it."

"I see. Well, yes, he is retired now. I'm afraid I can't give you his address."

"Can't.?"

"I don't know it," he said shortly. "If you wish to see the register, you'd better come into the church."

He stood up and opened the door. She followed him out of the rectory and through a rank, dusty garden to the side door of the church.

In the gray afternoon light of the vestry, he took a pile of books out of a musty-smelling cupboard and put them on a table for her.

J

"Here is the book you want," he said, showing her a wide green volume. "This has been in use here since eighteen thirty-two. Every marriage solemnized in this parish is recorded in here. What was the date you wanted.'"'

"Eighteen seventy-nine," she said. "January. Are there many marriages taking place here, Mr. Murray.''"

"Two or three a quarter. Not many, I suppose. Here we are."

He handed her the open book. There were two printed forms on a page, with space to fill in the details of each marriage. For the first one on that page, she saw, the groom had not been able to write, and had signed with a shaky X. His wife's penmanship was not much firmer.

She looked at the second: and there was her name.

On 3 January 1879, Arthur James Parrish had married Veronica Beatrice Lockhart. She caught her breath involuntarily and then controlled herself and read on. The ages of Parrish and herself were simply recorded as/«//, but that was standard practice, she saw from the other entries. His rank or profession was given as commission agent, and they both apparently resided in the parish of Southam. Under the column for father's name and surname, hers was blank apart from a line drawn across it, as was the entry for her father's rank or profession. His father, apparently, was called James John Parrish, and he was a clerk.

"Is there no record of anyone's address.?" she asked. "Not even the witnesses.'*"

"None at all. That isn't recorded."

"So these witnesses could come from anywhere.? Do you recognize their names.?"

The witnesses' names were given as Edward William Sims and Emily Franklin. Mr. Murray looked briefly and shook his head.

But there was no doubt of her handwriting. That was her signature, or an extraordinarily good imitation. They must have gotten hold of a legal document from somewhere, since she normally signed herself Sally; but it was her V, her B,

her swift untidy Lockhart. The rest of the writing, apart from Parrish's, was in the hand of the Reverend Mr. Beech.

"Is there any way in which an entry like this could be tampered with?" she said.

"Tampered with?"

"Well, forged. I mean, could someone put in a fake entry for some period in the past?"

"Impossible, I should say. They're consecutive, after all. Entries have to be made at the time of marriage—and you'll see they're all numbered. This one is marriage number two hundred and three, for instance. Number two hundred and four took place in—let me see—the following March. No, they couldn't be put in out of sequence, if that's what you mean. If you wanted to put in a fake record for eighteen seventy-nine, say, it would have to be done at that time."

"Are there any other records?"

"I have to inform the local registrar every quarter about the marriages which have taken place. I send off a form like this"—he showed her a slip of paper—"with all the details from the register. From there—^well, I don't know what happens, to be frank. Occasionally they query one if there's been a mistake, a word left out or an inconsistent spelling, so someone must be checking them. Presumably they send them on to Somerset House."