A Summer Serial—V

Samuel Deronda

BY JOHN WAIN

, Samuel Deronda, having had his poem accepted by Randolph Seed, the editor of a 'little magazine,' feels himself on the edge of a literary career. But Seed (like his associates) is an experienced racketeer and it is his practice to accept all poems so as to give his magazine a nucleus of readers. Samuel realises that if he is to win the favours of Minnie (who is already receiving the attentions of Seed) he must take steps. He hides in Seed's office.

ALTHOUGH the office had been empty and silent for ten minutes, Samuel still froze, breathing quietly, behind the filing cabinet. Nothing must go wrong. He would not begin to move, much less switch on the light, until it was certain that no stray guest would come back to redeem hat, gloves or handbag.

A neighbouring clock struck eleven. The party had ended rather early, owing, no doubt, to Randolph Seed's designs on Minnie. At last Samuel moved. Going over to the office desk, he took the reading-lamp and put it on the floor. He switched it on, getting a subdued light which would not attract attention from the street. Moving methodically, he began rifling the desk, taking out papers and holding them at knee-level so as to read them by the lamp on the floor.

Samuel's plan was simple. Randolph Seed had accepted his poem and he was going to print it. This feeble chicanery about accepting everything and printing virtually nothing might work with callow youths from the universities, but Samuel was really in business, really on the way up. He was bent on playing the racket as it should be played. In his pocket was a typewritten copy of his poem. He had overheard Norm saying that the next issue of the magazine was already compiled and ready to go to the printer. It would be the work of a moment to substitute his own poem for someone else's—remembering, of course, to amend the table of contents.

What was this? A bulky envelope not sealed. Working fast, Samuel shook out the contents: different-sized sheets of paper, covered with handwriting in different styles, all recognisably feminine. He turned them over. Letters from girls, evidently— Randolph Seed's equivalent of a Leporello album. He put them back into the envelope, folded it carefully and put it into his pocket. Samuel knew, without needing to be told, that many a literary career has jumped a rung or two by blackmail.

Another bulky envelope. At last! Here it was! The top sheet was the table of contents—Volulne 8, No. 3—all in order. The second sheet was the editorial. 'Only by poetry can the individual soul be saved from the blight of our age,' it began. He thought of Randolph Seed disguising his voice over the telephone, of ferret-eyed Norm in his plastic raincoat, Samuel laid the stack of typewritten sheets down on the floor and quickly leafed through them. Hello, here was a poem by Norm. It was called 'Ode to Incest.' He had not caught Norm's surname, but he had heard him say to Randolph Seed, 'What about my ode?' and Seed had answered, It's in this number.' Samuel grinned to himself, looking diabolic in the light striking upwards on his face. Norm had been offensively patronising only half an hour ago, calling him, Samuel, a 'cheesemite.' He looked at the poem, which began :

0 thundering blubber-encompassed ultimate singing lingam. Good stuff. Norm had hit off the group style very well. All the better to disappoint him with! Samuel grinned again as he crumpled Norm's ode, slipped it into his pocket and substituted his own poem, 'Poem.'

What was this in the same envelope? The draft of a handbill, evidently advertising a poetry reading to come off in a week's time. 'Among the poets who have consented to read their work are . . .' Without hesitation, Samuel crossed out the first name on the list and substituted his own. He would turn up ready to read his poems, and they could hardly refuse to let him when his

name was on the handbill. At this rate, fame would be his in a few weeks. And then Minnie could hardly . . . what was that?

Footsteps were coming loudly and quickly up the stairs—a bulky man, nervously hurrying. Samuel clicked off the lamp. There was no time to put it back on the desk or to shut the drawer—or to do anything but dive for his hiding-place.

He dived. The door opened on an apparently empty office.

The summer moon shone brightly on Rayner's Lane. In that law-abiding district, stronghold of the British virtues, most people were asleep; downstairs, in their impeccably furnished living- rooms, which they called lounges, the chromium-plated clocks showed eleven-thirty. But one solitary figure was not asleep. Standing outside a trim semi-detached, it shifted irritably from one foot to the other, casting frequent glances along the road in either direction. An onlooker, had there been one, would have found the moonlight bright enough to reveal that this figure was stockily built and had a Tony Curtis haircut.

, Dennis was tired of being given the qualified run-around by Minnie Stroney. A direct-minded young man, scorning nuances, he had evolved a simple plan : to wait until Samuel brought Minnie home, no matter bow long it took, and then pounce on him, beat the daylights out of him, and tax Minnie directly to say which of them she preferred. Dennis reasoned that she could hardly say she preferred Samuel when Samuel was in ignominious flight or stretched prostrate on the pavement. Parties and cele- brities or no parties and celebrities, muscle was bound to prevail. He waited, flexing his muscles. Now and then he jerked his knee-caps backwards and forwards to make sure his legs would be flexible when it came to the battle. He did this from force of habit, not because he was in any doubt of the outcome.

Traffic had almost died out, so that the sound of a taxi droning towards him caused Dennis to back into the shadows. Taxi, ehl Trying to impress the girl, was he? Because if so . . .

The taxi really did contain Minnie. It stopped and she got out. With her was a man Dennis had not seen before, but whom he was nevertheless prepared to dislike. Dennis promptly focused on this newcomer the accumulated annoyance he had been feeling for Samuel Deronda, plus a top-dressing of annoyance which he had earned for himself by a number of means—upsetting Dennis's plans; bringing Minnie home; bringing Minnie home in a taxi; bringing Minnie home in a taxi late at night; kissing Minnie! That settled it.

Stepping forward, Dennis gripped Randolph Seed by the shoulder. 'That's the wrong lipstick you're using, Bud,' he said. Like all Dennis's epigrams, this came from the cinema; but all present felt that it was strikingly fresh and appropriate to the situation, perhaps because the bright moonlight imparted a toucb of the cinematic to the Whole scene.

Randolph Seed tried to think of a rejoinder, but before be could say anything, Dennis had given him a very smart one-two the wrong way round, i.e., a right to the chin followed instantlY by a left to the solar plexus. Minnie squealed. This evening had altogether been too much for her.

'Dennis! Dennis! Stop it!' she shrieked.

'Try that for size, Jack,' Dennis gasped as his fist thudded int° Randolph Seed's midriff.

'Police! Teddy boys!' shouted Minnie's father, Mr. Stroneyf from his bedroom window.

Only Randolph Seed was silent. He was thinking that the office party had not, after all, been a success.

Samuel had cramp. For several minutes he had squeezed himself back in his cranny behind the filing cabinet and he had not moved a muscle. He was also puzzled. The person who had come in,

whoever it was, did not seem to be there with any definite purpose in mind. A tramp coming in out of the cold? No, obviously; the tread had been too assured. It was someone who knew there would be no one to challenge him, and could probably give a plausible reason for being there in any case. One of Seed's creditors, search- ing the place for money? But the man wasn't searching; he was simply sitting there. Samuel heard the rasp of a match and smelt its phosphorescent tang and then the less acrid drift of tobacco smoke. What was the fellow sitting there for? He longed to peer mit, but did not dare. For all he knew he would come face to face with the man. It was better to hang on. His shoulders hurt and one of his legs was trembling. This was terrible : what if the man simply stayed all night? He did not seem to—Samuel jumped, his tense muscles out of control, as the telephone shrilled.

Before it had had time to complete the first ring, the unseen man had it to his ear. `Seed,' he said quietly. But not in Seed's voice.

'Yes,' he said, and hearing the voice for the second time Samuel was able to identify it. He shivered with pure surprise. Henry Gibson! Hadn't the geezer got a telephone at home?

'I've already explained that,' Henry Gibson was saying. 'This is the safest time for me to use my office phone. And I don't want any more argument. We've gone into it already. I estimate that there'll be six hundred quid in that safe. I want a hundred of it before I part with the combination.'

'No, no, damn it,' he said irritably. 'I've told you, the money's only there for one night. They fetch it from the bank on Thursday night and use it to pay the wages on Friday. There never has been anyone in the building and there won't be this time. Unless I have your agreement immediately I shall ring off. It's far too dangerous for me to be here—at any moment Seed might come back for something. I said I might be seen conling back or something. What's the matter, can't you hear?' He was breathing heavily.

'Right, that's the idea,' he said after another pause. 'I'll be in the refreshment room on Platform I of Paddington Station on Tues- day night, nine-thirty. Whoever you send is going to slip me an envelope—and see that it's there. Then I shall hand him my envelope. It will contain the combination number and the dope about how to get in and so forth. Right?'

'No, I blasted well won't. What do you expect me to do, wear a chrysanthemum? Or shall I carry a yachting cap in my band? The sort of thing that'll get me stared at by everybody in the place, and my face remembered? Not' on your life. I'll be carrying a copy of the paper. It's a Sunday paper so there won't be anyone else carrying one on a week-night. Now l'm ringing off. And you can think yourself lucky I've worked it all out so neatly. If you make a mess of your end of it, don't go bringing me in. I shall have an alibi anyway. I shan't come and visit you in prison: I shan't even Write to you. I'll be in Cannes, spending my hundred pounds.'

Samuel heard the receiver laid down. Excited to recklessness, he thrust his head out. That thick-set figure, disappearing out of the door, was recognisable even from behind. It was Len all right, alias Henry Gibson.

Just for good measure, Samuel stayed in his cranny for another two minutes. In the meantime he thought patronisingly about Henry Gibson. What a mistake the man had made. Didn't he find his novel-reviewing profitable enough?

Perhaps, he reflected, it was the cost of paying someone to read the books for him. That sort of thing would be bound to send up a man's overheads. Now if he were a novel-reviewer, he wouldn't bother about reading them at all, by proxy or otherwise. It ought to be easy enough to get by without even seeing the books, for that 'natter. It would just be a question of . . .

Forgetting his cramp, be came out of his hiding-place and was halfway down the stairs before he even remembered that his joints hurt. If he were a novel-revicwer ! But why the if? One plain- clothes policeman in the refreshment room at Paddington Station —Platform 1—and there was going to be a vacancy on a good- class Sunday paper.

He hurried, exulting, along the moonlit pavement. The future looked good.

(To be concluded)