Paint Gold and Blood Read online

  He said, “We had a Christmas party last year, which was very successful. And one or two raffles. And a local fund-raising drive. We collected just over £2,000 altogether.”

  “Then I see there’s a grant – that’s from our general school funds – two thousand pounds. And a grant from your own diocese of one thousand, eight hundred. And last, and a good deal least, boys’ subscriptions – one thousand and seventy-five.”

  “That’s the one I’m anxious about. When you look at the earlier accounts you’ll see that it used to be much higher. For many years it was around one thousand, eight hundred pounds. Actually that was what fixed the diocesan contribution. I’m afraid that if they see the boys are falling off, they may take the view that if the school is losing interest in the mission it’s not their function to support it. I had a hint to that effect when the Archdeacon visited us last autumn.”

  Stewart seemed to have been doing some sums. He said, “I don’t know exactly what our numbers are, but they’re near enough six hundred. If each boy gave a pound a term which used to be the understood thing – that would bring you back to one thousand eight hundred a year.”

  “That would be excellent. But I don’t see how you’d set about it.”

  “The spirit of competition,” said Stewart. From the way in which he said it Peter knew that some devious ploy was in the offing. “When our Chaplain sends you the term’s contribution, which he collects, does he give you the house totals, or does he send it as a lump sum?”

  “As a lump sum.”

  “What I had in mind was that we ought to publish the figures for each house separately.”

  “I’ve no doubt he’d let you have the breakdown if he knew what you were planning to do. An excellent idea, if I may say so . . .”

  “Why on earth,” said Peter as they were walking away, “did you rouse the old boy’s hopes? You know perfectly well that Brindy won’t tell us anything. Or let us help. He loathes us both. He’d be very happy to get rid of me.”

  “Of both of us,” said Stewart. “I’ve long been a thorn in his flesh. Or if I haven’t been, it’s not for want of trying.”

  “He can’t get rid of you, unless you do something pretty stupid.”

  “It isn’t easy to get expelled these days,” agreed Stewart. “Too much ghastly tolerance. Not like the good old days when you could get hoofed out for almost anything.”

  “Whereas he can get me out by giving me bad reports. If they’re bad enough, my scholarship gets taken away and my uncle would have to remove me. He wouldn’t have a hope of finding the fees.”

  “Yes. You told me about that. And didn’t I advise you not to worry? To have a bit of confidence in the Stewart Ives Service.”

  “I don’t see what you can do.”

  “You and Father Elphinstone! Doubting Thomases the pair of you.”

  “You can’t make Brindy give me good reports if he doesn’t want to.”

  “We shall see,” said Stewart. “There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in cream. I have begun by making a few enquiries. To start with, I have discovered why Alvin is so anxious to displace you.”

  “I thought it was just because he didn’t like me.”

  “Not so. There are wheels within wheels. Do you know a spotty drip called Dakin?”

  “I think I’ve seen him slouching round the corridors. What about him?”

  “Didn’t you realise that his mother is sister to our Bishop?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “That special scholarship you’ve got. It lasts for four years and only three boys can hold them at a time. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But if one of the holders happened to leave before the four years was up, his place is taken by the next boy on the waiting list.”

  “And that’s Dakin?”

  “Correct. And if he gets his scholarship a year early and if the Bishop finds out, as no doubt he will, that it’s all due to Alvin’s disinterested efforts, that puts him in good with his ecclesiastical boss.”

  “I suppose all clergymen suck up to the Bishop.”

  “It’s more than sucking up. Alvin has got aspirations. He’s looking for promotion.”

  “How on earth do you know that?”

  “One of my many accomplishments,” said Stewart modestly, “is the ability to read writing upside down. It needs a bit of practice, that’s all. The last time I was hauled up and given a dressing down I was able to absorb some of the carbon copy of a letter to the Bishop’s Chaplain which Alvin had carelessly left lying on his desk. It wasn’t conclusive evidence, because I could only see the address and the opening paragraph. But it pointed in that direction.”

  “I must admit that if I am going to be sacrificed I’d rather it wasn’t for the advancement of our housemaster.”

  “My best efforts,” said Stewart, “shall be devoted to saving you from immolation.”

  Number fourteen Barnabas Street looked no different from number twelve and number sixteen. A stamped earth forecourt, a flight of holy-stoned doorsteps and a brass knocker, in the form of a mermaid, on which Stewart beat a hearty tattoo. This produced no response until a first-floor window in number twelve opened and a lady with her hair in curlers poked her head out and said, “Lay off, carncher. I’m tryin’ to watch the telly.”

  “Sorry, madam,” said Stewart. “I was looking for Len Terry.”

  “If ‘e’s attome, which I’m not sure ‘e is, you’ll find him rahnd the back.”

  Stewart said, “I’m much obliged to you, madam.” The old lady slammed down the window and returned to her television set. The boys penetrated a passage which held a motor scooter, a dismembered bicycle, a rabbit hutch and a birdcage. Emerging into the back yard they heard the sound of an electric drill from a lean-to shed at the end.

  Here they found Len Terry. He stopped work when they came in. The missioner had said that he had recently left school, but with his white face and deepset eyes he might have been any age, thought Peter, from fifteen to thirty. He greeted Stewart by punching him on the chest and said, “Oo’s the mucker?”

  “This is Peter.”

  “Pleesetermeetyer,” said Len. Peter grinned, which seemed to be the only possible answer.

  “Come along to join the class ‘ave we?”

  “A watching brief only,” said Stewart.

  He had been carrying an army knapsack. From it he took two cartons of cigarettes and laid them on the work bench.

  “Thass right,” said Len. “Good boy. Pays his school fees in advance. What’s on the menu for today?”

  “I’d like to go on with the motor car. Last time we’d got to starting it without the key.”

  “Right. Lessee if you remember what I told you, or we shall ‘ave to go through it again.”

  Stewart screwed up his eyes as though he was trying to remember a piece of repetition and said, “Join the live terminal of the battery to the coil and put a spanner or a screwdriver across the solenoid.”

  “Not a spanner,” said Len reproachfully. “Want to electrocute yourself? A screwdriver, with a wooden handle.”

  “Sorry. Of course. A screwdriver.”

  “But before you start any larks like that, you’ve gotter get the bonnet open.”

  “That was where we left off last time.”

  “Right. And to get the bonnet open you’ve gotter get the car open, in most models, that is. In the good old days, it was apple pie. Why? Because cars had door handles that stuck out. Slip a piece of pipe over the handle and exert pressure. Not so now. Nowadays you’ve gotter use your intelligence. Think it out. First thing is, try the boot. You’d be surprised how many people lock all four doors and leave the boot undone. Well, let’s suppose it is locked. Whatyer do next?”

  Stewart turned the matter over in his mind. Exactly, thought Peter, as though he had been faced by a problem in geometry to which he was certain he knew the answer, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  Finally,
he said, “From what you’ve taught me, Len, I’m certain I couldn’t deal with the lock of a modern car. So the answer must be to get, say, a loop of wire through one of the windows and jerk up the retaining catch.”

  Len shook his head reproachfully. “You’ve got brains,” he said, “try usin’ ‘em. Wass the first question you’ve gotter ask yourself? ‘’Ow much noise can I make? ‘”

  “Of course. If noise doesn’t matter, no need to fiddle. Smash the window and put your hand through.”

  “Right. But suppose you can’t take a chance on making a lot of noise?”

  During the next ten minutes Len, by explanation and demonstration showed how many ways there were into a car which was apparently securely locked. He was a born teacher. Better, Peter considered, than most of the masters at Chelborough.

  At the end of this time he said, “Thass all for today. Gotter get on with some real stuff.”

  The real stuff was on the bench at the end of the shed. It was a model of a 1905 De Dion Bouton car. The undercarriage had been completed and Len was now putting in some delicate work on the chassis.

  “Is that your hobby?” said Peter, opening his mouth for the first time. It was clear that he had said the wrong thing.

  “’Obbies,” said Len scornfully, “are for characters like you ‘oo can, no doubt, afford them. I’ll get two ‘undred smackers for this baby.”

  “And the man you sell it to will sell it on for four hundred,” said Stewart.

  “Thass the way it goes,” said Len. “See you soon.”

  “Not very soon, I’m afraid. We go back to school next week.”

  “Keep you boys at it, don’t they?”

  Peter managed to bottle up his curiosity until they were in the train on the way home. Then, as they had the carriage to themselves, he uncorked it.

  “What on earth,” he said, “are you up to? Are you practising to be an amateur cracksman? An up-to-date Raffles, something like that?”

  “Nothing like that at all. What I’m doing is, I’m broadening my mind.”

  “You mean you’re going to write crime books?”

  “I might. The field’s a bit overcrowded at the moment. A lot of women have taken it up. Elbowed the men out.”

  “If you’re not going to commit crimes or write about them, then what’s the point of it?”

  “Let me ask you a question. What do you propose to do when you leave school?”

  “My uncle wants me to go into the Church.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t. Many a young man has had his life ruined by being shanghaied into a job he doesn’t really like. What’s your own choice?”

  “That’s the trouble,” said Peter. “There aren’t all that many jobs I could do.”

  “In fact, you haven’t made your mind up.”

  “Not really. Have you?”

  “Certainly not. It would be premature.” Stewart leaned back in the corner, extracted and lit a cigarette, ignoring the no smoking notices and offered one to Peter who shook his head. He had tried smoking before, but had never seemed to get the knack of it.

  “I am,” said Stewart, “a flower, with my petals wide open awaiting the arrival of a butterfly or a bee to pollinate me and make me productive.”

  “You talk a lot of balls.”

  “Not so. I am quite serious. Ask yourself this question. Is anything that you are being taught at school going to fit you in any way to survive in the battle of life? A battle in which, let me tell you, there are an increasing number of losers nowadays.”

  “Well – I suppose – if I was going to be an accountant it might be a good thing to learn some simple arithmetic.”

  “Adding and subtracting?”

  “That sort of thing.”

  “All done by machines now. Think again. What about all that Latin they’re stuffing into you?”

  “I did wonder about that,” said Peter. “Learning Latin is supposed to make you write better English.”

  “A bit second hand, isn’t it? Now consider the things that I am learning from Len. For instance, he taught me how to use a public telephone without putting any money in. Useful, you must admit. You might have an urgent telephone call to make, matter of life and death, and no money with you. Then we had a session on locks. He didn’t try to teach me to pick them. That takes time and is a lot more difficult than books make out. What you have to do is collect keys of different sorts and file off most of the wards, or bevel the edges down. I’ve already got more than fifty and I’m adding to them every day.” ‘

  “I suppose that could be useful,” Peter admitted.

  “And I’ll tell you one of the first things he taught me. If you’ve worked out in advance what you’re going to do in any circumstance, you do it automatically, without having to stop and think. Now suppose some evening you’re up to something and a man looms up in the dusk and challenges you. What do you do?”

  “I run away.”

  “Absolutely wrong. You do that, he’ll run after you and as like as not he’ll catch you. No. You run straight at him, with your head down, aiming for his stomach. Three advantages. Your head’s the hardest part of your body and his stomach’s the softest part of his. It’ll hurt him much more than it hurts you. Then, if you do the job properly, he’ll be in no state to chase you. Last but not least, if you’ve kept your head down he won’t be able to recognise you.”

  Peter thought about this. He said, “I must admit there was one moment outside that French church when that idea would have been very useful.”

  “Exactly. Then you agree that the course I’m adopting is sound and sensible.”

  “No, I don’t. I think you’re a nut case. And you’ll probably end in jail. That looks like our station coming up.”

  “I trust,” said the Reverend Dolamore, at breakfast, two mornings later, “that you enjoyed your trip to France.”

  “It was very interesting,” said Peter truthfully.

  “You left before your school report arrived. I have it here, with a covering letter from your housemaster.”

  “If Brindy’s sent a letter as well, I imagine it’s because he couldn’t get enough nasty comments into the report.”

  “It’s not an encouraging document,” agreed his uncle. “And, as he points out, it may have serious repercussions on your future.”

  “You realise he’s doing it on purpose.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I mean that he wants me to do badly so that he can get the scholarship switched to a protégé of his own.”

  “I’m sure you must be wrong. No schoolmaster wants a boy to do badly.”

  “If he didn’t want it, why didn’t he let me take the ‘A’ Level subjects I asked for? French and Maths – and you can take the History of Art as an extra. I could do all right in all three of those.”

  “He explained when he made the choice. It would do no good for you to take French. You could get a high mark, but no effort would be called for. What you needed, he felt, was the toughest subjects possible. As the hymn says, ‘Not for ever by green pastures must you idly rest and stay. But must smite the living waters from the rocks about your way’.”

  “No shortage of rocks,” said Peter. “If I do have to leave at the end of the summer term, aged just seventeen, with no ‘A’ Levels, or very poor grades, how do you think I’m going to earn my living?”

  “You’re quite sure you don’t wish to take orders? I could arrange with my own Theological College to take you on very easy terms—”

  “It’s a kind thought, but absolutely not. I should make a hopeless parson.”

  “It’s not financially rewarding,” agreed his uncle, looking sadly round his shabby living-room. He was a kindly man of limited intelligence and was fond of his nephew. “Had you any ideas of your own?”

  “If I could manage to stay on for another year and leave at the end with a respectable lot of ‘A’ Levels in sensible subjects like Fr
ench and Maths, I expect I could get a teaching job whilst I was looking round for something better.”

  “If you did lose your scholarship grant I might manage, perhaps, to find the fees—”

  “You might,” said Peter, with unexpected firmness. “But I shouldn’t let you do it. I’d run away if you tried. No, we shall just have to hope for the best.”

  His uncle sighed and said, “By the way, didn’t you tell me you finished your French trip at a place called Sassencourt? There’s something in the Telegraph might interest you.”

  The Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph had passed on a report in France Nord-Ouest. It was headed; ‘A Heartless Crime’.

  It recorded the theft from the parish church of Sassencourt-with-Pont d’Ancrette of its chief treasure, a Niccolò Frumenti triptych. The curé had discovered the loss when he came into the church for mass. It appeared that the thieves had forced the church door on the previous evening and had taken down and broken up the triptych, feeding the beautiful woodwork into the stove. They had then left with the three canvasses. Unhappily for him one of the local farmers, André Renouf, had been returning home. He had evidently seen the men emerging and had challenged them. They had struck him repeatedly with some heavy weapon, forcing him to his knees and had finished by kicking him on the head and leaving him in the ditch beside the road. Fortunately his family, alarmed at his non-return, had come to look for him. If he had spent the night in the ditch he would almost certainly have died. As it was, he was too shocked to give any detailed description of his assailants. He said that there were two of them and he had the impression that they were foreigners. The Commissaire of Police from Etretat had announced that every effort would be made to apprehend the men concerned. He suspected that they were members of a gang who had committed more than one theft of pictures and other artistic objects in different parts of France. He had invited the assistance of the Département des Trésors Nationaux in Paris. The details of the paintings had been circulated to every museum and gallery in France and to a number of foreign institutions. Any attempt by the thieves to profit by the fruits of their sacrilege and violence would almost certainly lead to their apprehension.