Six Against the Yard. Margery Allingham
how badly their country was governed before the Liberation, what peace and what blessings it has enjoyed ever since, and how little reliance can be put in the tendentious despatches sent from San Taddeo by correspondents of foreign newspapers—by what they mean, principally, the Daily Shout.
The Magnolians, however, are a simple people; they are really rather glad to have a government of any kind, and a relentless propaganda has hypnotised them into an attitude of ferocious nationalism, which deceives nobody except themselves into admiration of their rulers. On the present occasion they applauded the usual rhetoric with the usual vociferousness, whooped, and sang patriotic hymns, when the sheet was let down and the bronze effigy stood unveiled before them—the Inspirer, standing at the salute in answer to all the thousands of salutes that would greet him from all the thousands of patriotic folk who would pass by. Then they gave three more cheers for General Almeda as he drove off in his car to join Gamba in his house, and streamed away to let off fireworks and drink healths, while the regiment of soldiers that had been in attendance marched back, along the main street, to their barracks.
What gave an extra fillip to these patriotic sentiments was a rumour which had lately gone round; a dastardly attempt was being made by the enemies of the State to burn down Enrique Gamba’s house, and Enrique Gamba with it. Did I say ‘enemies’? So cowed were the spirits of all who disagreed with the Government that only one enemy survived worth the name; and he was no more than a name, scribbled up on walls and subscribed under threatening letters, ‘The Avenger.’ Nobody knew who he was, or what party he had belonged to; but his activities were a useful stick to beat all the old political parties with—not to mention the clergy. ‘Gamba to be burnt out on Thursday evening’ had been scrawled up in chalk on an empty hoarding, and promptly rubbed out by the police: then the Government’s semiofficial paper had reported the threat, and next day—that was only yesterday—the Government’s official paper had semiofficially semi-denied it. That sort of thing was useful: it gave the people something to shout about, instead of wondering why bread was still dear.
General Almeda’s car drew up outside the Inspirer’s house. It had, till the other day, been the Archbishop’s house, but Gamba had thoughtfully confiscated it at the exact moment when the Concordat was going to be signed. The Archbishop, not liking to make his own grievance an obstacle to peace, submitted under protest; the only stipulation he made was that the body of St. Thaddaeus the Magnificent, with the altar-tomb which enclosed it, should be removed from the private chapel and lodged in the Cathedral. Gamba did not take much interest in anybody as long as he was dead. He let the Archbishop have his altar, and commissioned Señora Almeda to carve him a new altar in its place, on the model of the old one. It was necessary for him, you see, to be a patron of the arts, and the chapel of the Archbishop’s was full of valuable, sometimes interesting stuff. He left it as it was, although Mass was never said there, and it served no useful purpose. The rest of the house suited him admirably, when he had sent a gang of masons through it to make sure there were no secret passages. (With archbishops, you never knew.) He himself lived on the top floor, in a suite of rooms which was cut off from the rest of the building, except for a single staircase with a stout oak door at the bottom of it. Outside this door sentries were posted, day and night; not soldiers, but gunmen of his own following, who had been raised to a kind of brevet military rank.
The commander of these, Captain Vareos, saluted the General and shook hands with Dr. Lunaro, who had accompanied him in his car. ‘The Inspirer, as you know, has given orders that he was not to be disturbed,’ he said. ‘You, General, were to be shown up, because you also, I think, are taking the salute from the balcony. There was nothing said about Dr. Lunaro, but––––’
‘That is all right,’ said the doctor, ‘I will wait down here and smoke a cheroot with you, Captain. I do not wear uniforms and take salutes; I am growing stout already, and these things do not become my appearance. You will not be long, General?’
‘Just while the troops march past; that will only be a quarter of an hour or less. And then the Inspirer will be broadcasting, but only for one or two minutes, I expect. I will be down as soon as that is over. You heard the unveiling speech, Captain?’
‘All of us. But it is a bad instrument, this; I wish we had a set like the one the Inspirer has upstairs. Then we should miss nothing. Au revoir, General.’
However this age compares with its predecessors, it is certain that we have developed a higher standard of theatrical effect. Those who admire the beastly habit of floodlighting ancient buildings will do well to pay a visit to Magnolia; a country, in earlier times, of superb architectural achievement; a country, today, of quite execrable taste. As the regiment advanced down the main street of San Taddeo, nothing was visible of the old archiépiscopal residence except the ground floor, where the shaded street lamps caught it. But, as the ‘Eyes right’ was given, a sudden glare of flashlights played over the whole towering façade; threw into relief the intricate mouldings, the deep embrasures; concentrated its effect on an upper balcony, where the familiar figures of Gamba and the General stood at the salute. This balcony opened out of the old chapel; and the archbishops used it formerly when, on state occasions, they gave Benediction to the crowd beneath. Now it was a framework for political puppet-shows, of the kind that is needed to keep the Gambas of the world in power. For ten minutes or so, while the troops were passing, this familiar tableau was presented to the public view; then, abruptly, the flares were extinguished, and the Street of April the First (named, of course, after the date of the Liberation) resumed its normal appearance.
It is our modern habit to gratify the senses one at a time. San Taddeo, after being allowed for ten minutes to contemplate the Inspirer’s features in perfect silence, was allowed for ten minutes to listen to the Inspirer’s voice without seeing him. The speech came through well enough; the utterance, always a trifle raucous, was not much altered by traces of catarrh. Dr. Lunaro, smoking his cheroot with Captain Varcos on the top floor but one of Gamba’s won residence, vetoed the idea of tuning-in. He was a privileged person; and it is likely that Varcos and his sentries welcomed the rare opportunity of not listening when the Inspirer was at the microphone. Lunaro was just grinding out the stub of his cheroot when the oak door opened from within and Almeda appeared, calling out as he did so, ‘Good night, my Inspirer!’
‘Good night, my friends!’ The oak door shut, and the idol of a nation’s worship was left to isolated glory.
Captain Varcos is not the sort of man I should care to meet on a dark night, supposing him to have any reason for dissatisfaction with my conduct. But there is no doubt that he waited on Gamba as a dog waits on its master; and those who knew the routine of that household were sometimes heard to speculate whether he ever got any sleep. He had been on duty that day since eight in the morning; but that exchange of good nights was not, to him, a signal for bed. He threw a cloak over his shoulders and went down into the street, to make sure that the sentries at the main door were duly at their posts. Then, passing up a little side alley, he made his way to the back of the house, where it abutted on a side street, faced by ugly office buildings. There was no entrance to the house from this direction; the back door had been bricked up, and the ground floor windows were separated from the street by a deep area, behind railings. As if such precautions had been insufficient, three sentries were on guard here too; their only business was to keep a watch on the windows of the upper storey—assassins, before now, have climbed up drainpipes. A light showed in the two windows of the room which Gamba used as his study.
‘The Inspirer works early and late,’ said Varcos. ‘Keep your eyes on that light, my friends; it is the star of Magnolia’s fortunes.’ And he went back to his post on the upstairs landing.
It must have been about ten minutes later that his meditations were interrupted by confused cries from the street; then a policeman came rushing upstairs, with a little mob of citizens following, irrepressible, at his heels. ‘Fire!’ he cried. ‘Up there, in the Inspirer’s suite! The keys!’ ‘Keys!’ replied Varcos, with a string of oaths, ‘there is no key. We must rush the door—or rather, you, Felipe, run for an axe; we will try rushing the door in the meanwhile. Now, citizens, your shoulders, all together! Here, boy, you are not strong enough for this; run downstairs and telephone for the fire brigade. It has been summoned already? Then telephone