I Overhear a Conversation

We decided that there were two things we really had to do. Neither of them would help with my main problem, but there it was. I could think of nothing that would do any good, and neither could Carrie or Jim.

No, the first thing was to do something about our friend Elias Cholmondley. We talked about him, when Carrie had made a pot of tea and found some more only-a-little-bit-stale cakes in the larder and we'd moved into the back garden and I was feeling better, as you do after some hot sweet India tea and a fairly fresh piece of raspberry sponge.

'It's got to be him who's messing about with your things, hasn't it?' said Jim.

'It's obvious,' said Carrie.

'You're right,' said I.

'Did you get a padlock, like I said?'

'No, Jim, I told you. I couldn't do that. Not in Master's house.'

'What do you think he's looking for? Assuming it's him, of course.'

'The twonkies, I suppose. Or maybe the alethiometer. That's more likely, actually, unless he's simply after the money.'

'Do you think that's what he's after?' asked Carrie.

'Well, he won't get the money or the alethiometer,' I replied. 'Hurst's has got it and the cash is in the office safe, unless Mistress put it in the bank.'

'Has he got the key to the safe?'

'It's on a combination lock and Mistress is the only one who knows the right numbers.'

'You sure? She could have written them down somewhere. Like in the accounts book?'

'What?'

'Yes – I read it somewhere. People write a fake transaction in the book, and the amount is the combination, or it's hidden inside it.'

'What happens when the auditors come to look at the books? The plusses and minuses won't balance.'

'Oh, you put another fake transaction in that fixes it.'

'What's that got to do with Elias Cholmondley raiding my drawers and cupboards?'

'Nothing at all. It's an interesting idea, though.'

'Jim!' said Carrie. 'You're not helping!'

'Yes, I am.'

'No, you're not.' She poked him hard in the ribs. 'What you've got to do, Peter, is bring your things here. We'll hide them for you.'

'All of them?'

'Except for that silly little green man, yes. I'm not having him in my house!'

'Hmm…'

I took a lot of persuading, but in the end I agreed with Carrie, even though I suspected the real reason was that she wanted to play with the Sony. All right, then. That was the first thing we really had to do. The second…

'You and me are going to track down that nasty little man. We're going to find out what he's getting up to when he's not in the shop. Do you still not know where he lives?'

'No.'

'There's no record? Wouldn't Mistress James know?'

'If she did, she wouldn't tell me.'

'Has stuff gone missing before?'

'It's not gone missing this time.'

'You know what I mean.'

'No. I mean, yes, I know what you mean, and no, stuff hasn't gone astray. He may be a funny cove, but up until now I'd have said he was an honest funny cove.'

'All right. Here's what we're going to do…'

I decided later that Jim must have seen too many gangster films, or read too many penny-dreadfuls of the True Crime variety but, just the same, his idea was a good one – or so it seemed at the time – and it sounded like fun.

In those days there was something called Early Closing. What that meant was that all the shops in a town would shut for the afternoon one day in the middle of the week, usually Wednesday or Thursday. The logic behind it was that these were quiet times anyway, so not much trade would be lost and the counter staff and floorwalkers wouldn't have to be paid for that half-day if the shop wasn't open. As they were expected to work all day Saturday, when the office-workers had the day off, it sort of evened up. Of course, this arrangement only made any sense if all the shops in a town closed at the same time. If one of them broke ranks, as it were, and carried on trading while the others were shut, it would steal their business. I suppose that's what happened in the end – there was too much to gain by breaking the unwritten rules that bound the trades federations together and so eventually Early Closing died out, as did the federations. It was all to meet customer demand, they said.

Anyway, if you read the other story I wrote you'll remember that James and James closed at lunchtime on Wednesdays. Elias Cholmondley went… wherever it was he went, and I carried on in the workshop with Master James. Then, on Saturday, I had a half-day and went over to Jordan College to see the Professor in her rooms and Mister Cholmondley kept on behind the counter. I don't think Master James had any half-days.

That following Wednesday was dull and cloudy with a hint of rain in the air. Just past midday, I heard Elias lock up the front of the shop, followed by the bang of the counter flap falling as he passed through it and the softer sound of the rear door closing against its baize pads. 'I'm off now,' he called up to Mistress James in the office. I heard him brushing past the tallboy at the foot of the stairs, the kitchen door opening and closing and then, less distinctly, the outside door.

Right.

I put down my tools, and removed my leather apron. Underneath it I was dressed in ordinary street clothes, rather than the shirt, neckerchief and trews I usually wore in the workshop. I was glad the weather wasn't too hot, else I'd have roasted to death in there. Opening and closing the workshop door as quietly as I could I slipped out into the corridor and followed Elias out of the back of the house, pausing at the kitchen window to make sure that he'd left the yard. I counted thirty seconds under my breath, then opened the back door, crossed the yard on tiptoe and through the gate which led into the alleyway beyond. This was the first hard part. Which way would Elias have gone – left or right? I looked to the left. Nothing. Then to the right, and saw the signal I was hoping for. Hugging the wall, I ran softly to the end of the alleyway. 'Where's he gone?' I asked Jim.

'Back towards Cornmarket Street,' he replied. 'You go first!' I set off while Jim stayed on the corner behind me.

That had been Jim's idea; that we should both follow Elias, taking it in turns. That way, if he should look around, he wouldn't keep on seeing the same people behind him. 'We can be the Shoe Lane Irregulars,' Jim had said.

I reached the Cornmarket and looked quickly left and right. It was busy with people and traffic. I couldn't see Elias anywhere. I swore to myself. I looked again. Yes, there he was, outside Clarke's. No… yes, it was him. Jim appeared behind me and touched my right shoulder. 'There, ' I said, pointing, and Jim sauntered out across the road, threading his way between the carts and autobusses as if he had every right to be there, as I suppose he had. 'Do what Jim's doing,' whispered Viola in my ear. 'Don't behave suspiciously, else Elias'll see you or the constables will pick you up for loitering.'

The back of Jim's head disappeared in the direction of St Giles. I caught up with Jim by St Michael's church in time to see Elias head off down Broad Street on the right hand side. I kept to the left and followed him at a distance of fifty yards. Although the clouds were getting steadily thicker and blacker, and the light was failing it was easy to keep him in sight on such a wide thoroughfare. I only hoped he wouldn't be able to see me quite so readily.

Jim and I swapped positions again as Elias reached the end of the Broad. Where would he go now? If he lived in lodgings would he go straight to them, or would he perhaps turn left up Parks Road and spend some time in the museums? Some landladies didn't allow their gentlemen into their rooms before six, I had heard, so he might have some time to kill. Elias stood still on the corner of Broad Street and Parks Road for five minutes, looking around – anxiously, I thought – as if he were waiting for somebody. Every time he did this, Jim or I had to step back quickly behind a lamppost and hope that our sudden movement hadn't caught Elias' eye. This was unlikely, though. People were scurrying to and fro, as if they were trying to do their shopping, or whatever their business was, before the heavens opened and we were deluged with rain. Another scurry or two wouldn't be so very noticeable.

At last the first few spots of rain began to fall. As if that were the signal he'd been waiting for, Elias strode across the road and walked straight into the pub on the opposite side of the road from me – the Kings Arms. Without looking, I stepped out after him, only to collide with a brown-coated Norland nanny, who was piloting the largest perambulator I had ever seen. 'Out of my way, young man!' she said, giving me a disdainful glance. I noticed the crest on the side of the pram, and suppressed a strong inclination to laugh. The Duke of Rutland, indeed! Perhaps Norland's had a fleet of giant baby-carriages specially constructed to permit the sons and daughters of the aristocracy to be taken out for their airings without having to come into too close contact with the likes of Jim and me.

We reached the east side of Parks Road without any further mishap and entered the Kings Arms as inconspicuously as we could. Just in time – for a loud crack of thunder outside and the steadily increasing hiss of rain on the pavement told us that the threatened storm had broken. We were in the vanguard of a sizeable crowd coming in from the wet, so Jim grabbed a two-seater bench and I got us a couple of pints of Director's at the bar and joined him.

The Kings Arms was laid out inside with high-backed oaken benches, separated by deal tables. The benches limited the view and I had no idea where Elias had got to. Ws he in the same bar as us? Or another one? Was he living in the pub; perhaps in a small room upstairs? That might explain why nobody had ever succeeded in finding out where he lived – they would not been surprised at his drinking in a pub, but as for staying there, that was different. Whatever the truth of it, it looked as if we had lost Elias now. A third possibility existed – that he had entered the bar at the front and gone out again at the back. I said as much to Jim.

'We'll have to look in all the bars. But be careful.'

'You go. He'd recognise me straight away, but he's not seen you for years.'

'Right you are.' Jim got up and pushed his way through the impatient would-be drinkers waiting to be served at the bar. I sat back and sipped at my pint and considered our options. We could do nothing; sit tight, drink up and go home. That was if Elias had slipped past us. Or we could try to follow him out of the pub, though that would be tricky, given the number of doors that there were. In that case the chase would be on, just as before. That was it, or so it seemed to me.

Jim returned to the bench. 'Can't see him,' he said, sitting down and picking up his glass. 'We've had it for today. Cheers!' He took a long pull at his pint, not looking as upset about it as he might have done. I knew that Jim didn't have many chances to visit the pub (neither did I) and so we decided to make the best of it.

I had only drunk one pint, I know, but I had been working hard all morning without a break making more of the Bijou Vienna clocks that were, for now, our best opportunity of making enough money to save the shop. I was building a batch of three, to save time, as well as seeing to a couple of repair jobs that had come our way. So, although I'd only had just the one pint, I found that I needed to make a call of nature. The sound of the rain outside probably didn't help. I shoved through the bar and into the passageway behind which led to the lounge and the taproom. The gentlemen's privy was on the left and I walked in, only to find that all the stalls were in use. No matter, there was a cubicle free, so I went in there and, not bothering to shut the door behind me, unbuttoned my trousers. As I stood I heard, though a ventilation grille above the cistern, two men's voices, echoing hollowly past the pipes beyond. One voice was new to me, although also oddly familiar. The other, I knew well. It belonged to Elias Cholmondley.

I've often wondered since about the apparent coincidences that shape our lives, like the one I've just told you about. I've heard it said that there are so many things happening all the time that it's no surprise that so many unlikely events take place every day. It's all down to numbers and probability. Or, to put it another way, if I hadn't taken a mantel clock to Professor Lyra Belacqua's rooms one winter's afternoon and seen her alethiometer, another clockmaker's apprentice would have done so, and maybe her story would not have been so very different in the end. But, a voice in my head says, perhaps it would. Perhaps Lyra would not have clashed so disastrously with her sister. Perhaps neither Lyra nor Elizabeth would have died and, for example, the Boreal Foundation would still be a flourishing concern. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It's like Doctor Malone said in Bristol; new universes are popping into existence all the time. Some of them are stable, and live. Some are unstable, and die. Some, I suppose, converge back upon each other and join up again and the people who live in the reunited universe never know that they were once divided in two, as I felt myself to be.

Be all that as it may, the gents' privy of the Kings Arms was no place for theological speculations. I did up my trouser buttons, turned round, and shut the cubicle door. Then I took my shoes off and put them down on the tiled floor with their toes facing the door, so that they could be seen from outside if anyone was checking. I stood next to the commode, with my back to the wall and strained my ears to hear what Elias and the other man were saying.

'I'll get it tomorrow night.' That was Elias.

'Make sure you do.' The other voice. Where had I heard it, or something like it, before?

'No, honest, I will.'

'Is it likely he suspects you?'

'He'd be even stupider than I think he is if he didn't. He nearly caught me last week.'

'I told you to be careful!'

'I was. It's a good thing he didn't look in the wardrobe, though.' Elias chuckled.

'What would you have done if he had?'

'What I'm going to do to him anyway!'

'Which is?'

'You know. Don't tell me you don't want him out of the way too, 'cos I know you do.'

'You do?'

'Yes. And I know why.'

'Then you'd better keep that knowledge to yourself, else what happens to him might happen to you too.'

'All right! Keep your hair on, mister. And – ugh! – can't you stop her doing that?'

'I've told you before. It's perfectly natural.'

'It bloody well ain't!'

'Well, Mister bloody Cholmondley, you'll just have to bloody well put up with it, won't you?'

'Not for much longer.'

'For a considerable while longer, if you want to carry on working with me.'

There was a silence.

'Right. That rain's dying down. I'll see you tomorrow night.'

'Here?'

'No. The other place.'

'All right.'

There was the sound of chairs being pushed back over a wooden floor. The conversation had finished. I sat down on the commode, only to be disturbed a few seconds later by a desperate hammering on the cubicle door.

''Ere, mate, 'aven't you finished yet? I'm bursting out 'ere!'