Lucky Jim

'Why, I thought you must know,' Dixon said with feigned surprise. "This was really her idea. She knows one of our staff here, and I gather she put the notion of this little paragraph, like, to him, you see, sir.'

'Really? Well, it's the first I've heard of any of it. Are you quite sure?'

Dixon gave a quite professional laugh. 'Oh, we don't make mistakes about things like that, sir; more than our position's worth, if you take my meaning, Mr Welch.'

'Yes, I suppose it is, but it all sounds most…'

'Well, I should check with her then, sir, if you're in any doubt. As a matter of fact, when your Miss Calkghan was on the blower to Atkinson 'Who's this Atkinson character? I've never heard of him.'

'Our Mr Atkinson in the London office, sir. She was on to him just now, sir, and asked us to ask you to ring her, if we could get hold of you.

Seems she couldn't get through to your house, or something. Something pretty urgent seems to have come up, and she'd like you to ring her up this afternoon, before five-thirty, if you would.'

'All right, I'll do that, then. What's your name, by the way, in case I …?'

'Beesley, sir,' Dixon said without hesitation. 'Alfred R. Beesley.'

'Right, thank you, Mr Beesley.' (That's the tone, Dixon thought to himself.) 'Oh, by the way, when will the paragraph be appearing?'

'Ah, there you have me, sir. One just can't tell, I'm afraid. But it'll certainly be within the next four weeks. We like to have the material by us in plenty of time, just on the off-chance, you see, Mr Welch.'

'Quite so, quite so. Well, have you got everything you want?'

'Yes, thank you very much indeed, sir.'

'No no, thanks to you, old boy,' Bertrand said, with a welcome return to his earlier comradeliness. 'Very fine body of men, the gentlemen of the Press.'

' Nice of you to say so, sir,' Dixon said, making his Edith Sitwell face into the phone. 'Well, good-bye and thanks, Mr Welch. Much obliged to you.'

' So long, Beesley, old boy.'

Dixon sat back, mopped his face, though he'd have liked to mop his entire frame, and lit a cigarette. Panic had made him fearfully rash, but not, he thought, irretrievably so. The key to the situation lay in dismantling the hoax at once, before Bertrand could get round to blowing it up himself. The Cal-laghan girl must be carefully coached in the following story: Some unknown calling himself Atkinson had rung her up that morning and, posing as a journalist, discussed Bertrand. He'd talked vaguely about the /Evening Post, /obtained the Welches' phone number, and rung off. When Bertrand came through on the phone, she must greet him at once with the Atkinson story, saying it had all sounded very fishy to her and that the voice of 'Atkinson* had reminded her strongly of whichever of their London acquaintances was most likely, or least unlikely, to pky a meaningless practical joke on the pair of them.

Without being suspiciously emphatic, she must make it dear that 'Atkinson' had phoned her from a London number, that is, not by a trunk line. Provided she held to her story, both she and Dixon were completely safe, even if Bertrand was already ringing the /Post /in quest of 'Beesley'. The danger obviously was that she wouldn't come in with the conspiracy. There were solid grounds, however, for thinking that she would: her gratitude at his offer of help, his success in his mission against heavy odds, her demeanour over the sheet and table affair, finally, if necessary, his extreme vulnerability if the truth got out.

If Bertrand were still suspicious, he might worm the story out of her by emotional pressure, but why should he be suspicious? He could hardly think that she'd go to the lengths of suborning some unknown provincial in order to get hold of some information about the Summer Ball, which in fact was almost exactly what she had done.

The thing now was, obviously, to get hold of her and coach her in her story. He must hurry, because he had to get lunch and be back to invigilate at an examination by two o'clock. Before making any move, however, he threw back bis head and gave a long trombone-blast of anarchistic laughter. It was all so wonderful, even if it did go wrong, and it wouldn't. The campaign against Bertrand he'd fantasied about at the Welches' had begun, and with a dazzling tactical success. A warning voice told him that this campaign, even so far, was too dangerous for a man in his precarious position, that the joy of battle was submerging his prudence, but he drowned it in more laughter of the same sort.

Yet again he picked up the phone, got Trunks and then Christine Callaghan's number. Better not tell her anything like the full story of his conversation with Bertrand, he thought. After a moment he leaned forward and said: 'Miss CaUaghan?

Good. It's Dixon here. Now listen carefully.'

'HONESTLY, James, she couldn't have been more livid,' Margaret said.'