A Perfect Spy

The Fall occurred in darkness. We had been moving house a great deal recently, in what must have been a giddy ascent through the local real-estate market, and our palace of the day was a mansion on a hill and the day was a black winter afternoon near Christmas. Pym had been making paper decorations with Lippsie, and I have a notion that if I could ever find the place, if it is not a council estate or a bypass by now, they would still be hanging there exactly as we left them, stars of David and stars of Bethlehem — she taught me the difference precisely — twinkling in enormous empty rooms. First the lights went out in Pym’s vast nursery, then the electric fire faded, then his brand-new ten-track Hornby O electric train set wouldn’t work, then Lippsie gave a kind of shriek and vanished. Pym went downstairs and pulled open the walnut lid of Rick’s brand-new de-luxe cocktail cabinet. The mirrored interior refused to light up and it wouldn’t play “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.”

Suddenly, in the whole house, the brass balls of the barometric perpetual clock were the only thing that had retained their energy. Pym ran to the kitchen. No Cookie and no Mr. Roley the gardener, whose children stole his toys but couldn’t be blamed because they hadn’t his advantages. He ran upstairs again and feeling very cold made an urgent reconnaissance of the long corridors, calling “Lippsie, Lippsie,” but no one answered. From the arched landing window of stained glass, he glared into the garden and made out black cars in the drive. Not Bentleys but two police Wolseleys. And police drivers with peaked caps sitting at the wheel. And men in brown mackintoshes standing round them talking to Mr. Roley while Cookie twisted her handkerchief and wrung her hands like the dame in the Crazy Gang pantomime that Rick had taken the court to see only a week before. People under siege go upwards, I now know, which may explain why Pym’s reaction was to race up the narrow staircase to the attic. There he found Rick in a great flurry, with files and papers on the floor all round him, and he was loading them by the armful into an old chipped green filing cabinet that Pym in all his explorations had never seen before.

“The electricity’s broken and Lippsie’s scared and the police have come and they’re in the garden arresting Mr. Roley,” Pym told Rick in one breath.

He said this several times, louder each time, because of the great moment of his message. But Rick wouldn’t hear him. He was rushing between the papers and the cabinet, loading up the drawers. So Pym went to him and punched him hard on the upper arm, as hard as he could on the soft bit just above the steel spring he wore to keep his silk shirt sleeve straight, and Rick flung round on him and his hand went back to strike him, and his face looked like Mr. Roley’s when he was about to make a huge last heave at a log to split it: red and strained and damp. Then he dropped into a crouch and seized Pym by each shoulder with his thick cupped hands. And his face worried Pym much more than the axe-heave, because his eyes were scared and crying without the rest of his face knowing it and his voice was smooth and holy.

“Don’t ever hit me again, son. When I’m judged, as judged we shall all be, God will judge me on how I treated you, make no bones about it.”

“Why are the police here?” said Pym.

“Your old man’s got a temporary problem of liquidity. Now clear a way to that cupboard and open the door for us like a good chap. Quick.”

The cupboard was in a corner behind a pile of old clothes and attic junk. Somehow Pym fought his way to the door and hauled it open. With a series of crashes Rick was slamming shut the drawers of the filing cabinet. He turned the lock, grabbed Pym by the arm and poked the key deep into his trouser pocket, which was small and woolly and only big enough for a key and a small bag of sweets.

“You give that to Mr. Muspole, do you hear, son? Nobody but Muspole. Then you show him where this cabinet is. You bring him here and you show him. No one else. Do you love your old man?”

“Yes.”

“Well then.”

Proud as a sentry, Pym held back the door while Rick swivelled and rolled the cabinet past him on its castors into the cupboard, then into the dark wainscotting beyond. Then he threw in a lot of junk after it, which hid it completely.

“See where it went, son?”

“Yes.”

“Close the door.”

Pym did so, then stomped downstairs with his chest out because he wanted to take another look at the police cars. Dorothy was in the kitchen dressed in her new fur coat and her new fluffy bedroom slippers, stirring a tin of tomato soup. She had one of those bubbles over her mouth that people get when they are too choked to speak. Pym loathed tomato soup, so did Rick.