Текст книги "Rogue Male "

Автор книги: Geoffrey Household

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

He even had the effrontery to invite me to join the winning side. He said that they needed in all countries natural leaders like myself; I had only to sign, and bygones would be bygones, and I should be given every chance to satisfy my will to power. I didn’t tell him that natural leaders don’t have any will to power. He wouldn’t have understood what I meant.

I dare say he was sincere. I should have been a very useful tool, completely in their power. When you find an agitator who hasn’t suffered poverty, it’s sound to ask whether he has ever been in my position and what he has done that our police don’t know and a foreign police do.

‘I’ll sign in the morning,’ I said.

‘Why not now?’ he answered. ‘Why suffer another night?’ I asked him where on earth I could go. I told him that before I could be let loose on the public, he would have to bring me clothes, and, when I was decently dressed, take me to his farm to wash. All that couldn’t be done at a moment’s notice without arousing a lot of curiosity.

‘I see your point,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’ll bring you clothes in the morning.’

‘And get that Swiss of yours away before we talk! That’s what worries me most. I don’t trust him a yard.’

‘My dear fellow,’ he protested, ‘I wish you would give me credit for some discretion.’

When the Second Murderer had come on duty and settled down for the night, I started to practise with the ballista, stuffing a coat into my end of the ventilator so that the thud of the pegs could not be heard. The strips of hide had shrunk into even tighter coils. It was a more powerful weapon than I needed, and the devil to pull; I had to use both hands, my left on the shaft of the spit, my right gripping the ring, held horizontally so that it did not catch as it flew through the aperture. At a range of four feet the spit drilled clean through two tins of tomatoes and buried itself six inches in the earth. I shot it off less than a dozen times, for the construction was none too strong.

I unstopped the ventilator and fanned for an hour to change the air. Heaven knows whether it really made any difference, but it was worth trying since my next task was to persuade the Swiss to shut up his end of the ventilator, and keep it shut while I straightened the tunnel.

I began moaning and mumbling to shake his nerves a bit. When he ordered me to stop it, I said I would if he told me the time.

‘Half-past two,’ he answered sulkily.

I stayed quiet for another hour, and then went off my head again—sobs and maniac laughter and appeals to him to let me out. He endured my noises with annoying patience (hoping perhaps for that hypothetical reward) and compelled me to such a show of hysteria before he plugged the hole that I managed to get on my own nerves into the bargain. My acting was good enough to be a genuine release for my feelings.

The straightening of the tunnel was easy and quite silent. I dug with my knife and gathered the earth handful by handful. At intervals I let off some moans to discourage him from removing the plug. The curve vanished, and in its place was an empty hollow, like a rabbit’s nest, with two mouths. His plug was a piece of sacking. I opened out its folds on my side without disturbing its position. I could breathe without difficulty and hear every sound in the lane.

I arranged my rolled sleeping-bag under my shoulder-blades, and lay on my back in the mud with the engine presented and the spit fitted to the throng. I had to be ready to fire the moment that a man’s head appeared at the hole. The removal of the sacking would give me time to draw, and if anyone looked into the hole and noticed that its shape had been altered, that would be the last thing he ever noticed.

I hoped that the Swiss would leave the sacking alone. I felt no compunction in killing him, but if he removed the plug immediately before Quive-Smith’s arrival I might not be able to cut my way out in time to surprise the major. I kept up enough muttering to prove that I was a nuisance and alive, but not so much that he would be tempted to pull out the sacking and curse me.

The light of morning gleamed through the folds. I waited. I waited, it seemed to me, till long after midday before Quive-Smith arrived. As a matter of fact, he was early—if, that is, he usually came at ten a.m.

For the first time I could hear all their conversation. At that hour in the morning they spoke in low voices and as little as possible.

‘He has gone mad, sir,’ reported the Swiss stolidly.

‘Oh, I don’t expect so,’ answered Quive-Smith. ‘He’s just avoiding the crisis. He’ll soon be calm.’

‘Usual time tonight, sir?’

‘If not, I will let you know. Your woman has been warned that you may be leaving?’

‘Yes, sir.’

I heard his heavy steps sploshing off through the mud. All this time I was lying on my back and staring at the hole.

I cannot remember the slightest effort in drawing the ballista. There was a flash of light as he withdrew the plug. I started, and that slight jerk of my muscles seemed to pull the thong. Immediately afterwards his head appeared. I noticed the surprise in his eyes, but by that time I think he was dead. The spit took him square above the nose. He looked, when he vanished, as if someone had screwed a ring into his forehead.

I hacked at my end of the ventilator until it was large enough to receive my body, then crawled inside and burst through into the lane with a drive of head and shoulders. Quive-Smith was lying on his back watching me. I had my thumbs on his wind-pipe before I realized what had happened. The foot of spit that projected behind his skull was holding up his head in a most life-like manner. He hadn’t brought any spare clothes. Perhaps he didn’t intend me to live after he had my signature; perhaps he didn’t believe that I would sign. The latter is the more charitable thought. He had a loaded revolver in his pocket, but that is no proof one way or the other.

I burned that scandalous document, then stretched myself and peered through the hedge over the once familiar fields. Pat was nowhere in sight, and his cows were grazing peacefully. Patachon was talking to his shepherd on the down. It was a damp November day, windless, sunless, of so soft a neutrality that, coming to it straight from disinterment, I couldn’t tell whether the temperature was ten or thirty degrees above freezing-point. By Quive-Smith’s watch it was only eleven. I ate his lunch. Behold, Sisera lay dead and the nail was in his temples.

I destroyed his screen of bushes and his camera (thorough though I knew him to be, I was surprised that he had really set the scene for his badger watching) and folded up the heavy motor-rug which kept him warm. Then I shifted the log that was jammed between both banks of the lane, and opened the door of the burrow. The stench was appalling. I had been out only half an hour, but that was enough for me to notice, as if it had been created by another person, the atmosphere in which I had been living.

Boiling some muddy water on the Primus, I sponged my body—a gesture rather than a wash. It was heaven to feel dry and warm when I had changed into his clothes. He had heavy whipcord riding-breeches, a short fur-lined shooting coat—Central European rather than English, but the ideal garment for his job—over his tweeds and a fleece-lined trench-coat over the lot.

When I was dressed I went through his papers. He had the party and identity documents of his own nation, with his real name on them. He also had a British passport. It was not in the name of Quive-Smith. He had put on that name and character for this particular job. His occupation was given as Company Director, almost as non-committal as Author. Anybody can qualify for either description, as every police-court magistrate knows; but they look impressive.

In a belt round his waist I found £200 in gold and a second passport. It had twice been extended by obscure consulates, but had neither stamps nor visas on it, showing that it had never yet been used for travel. That this passport was his own private affair was a fair assumption. The photograph showed his face and hair darkened with stain, and without a moustache. If I were in Quive-Smith’s game, I should take care to have a similar passport; should he have a difference of opinion with his employers, he could disappear completely and find a home in a very pleasant little Latin country.

I held up any definite plans until after I should have interviewed the Swiss, but when I cut my hair and shaved I left myself a moustache exactly like the major’s and brushed my hair, as his, straight back from the forehead. The name and identity of the Company Director might suit me very well.

I removed what was left of Asmodeus and buried him in the lane where he had lived and hunted, with a tin of beef to carry him through till he learned the movements of game over his new ground. I plugged the ragged hole made by my escape with my old clothes, my bedding and earth, and took from the den my money and the exercise book that contained the two first parts of this journal. Then I replaced the original door, and laid the iron plate against the bank of the lane, covering it with earth and debris. When the nettles and bracken grow up in the spring—and thick they will grow on that turned earth—there will be no trace of any of us.

I propped up Quive-Smith’s body against a bush, where it was out of the way. Not a pretty act, but his siege had destroyed my sensibility. I had room for no feeling but immense relief. After dusk I walked round Pat’s pasture to accustom my legs to exercise. I was very weak, and probably a bit light-headed. It didn’t matter. Since all that remained was to take crazy risks, to be a little crazy was no disadvantage.

The tracks in the mud told me that the Swiss always entered and left by the top of the lane. There was no mistaking the prints left by Quive-Smith’s abnormally small feet. I had been compelled to keep my own shoes, and the heels of his stockings were lumps under my soles.

I squatted against the bank in the darkest section of the lane and waited. I heard the fellow a quarter of a mile away. He was moving reasonably quietly where the lanes were dry, but had no patience with mud.

When he was a few paces from me I flashed Quive-Smith’s torch on his face and ordered him to put his hands up. I have never seen such a badly frightened man. From his point of view he had been held up in the middle of nowhere by a maniac with a considerable grudge against him.

I made him keep his face to the hedge while I removed his documents, his pistol, and his trouser-buttons. I had read of that trick, but never seen it done. It’s effective. A man with his trousers round his ankles is not only hindered; his morale is destroyed.

He carried a passport on him. I suppose those chaps always do. A glance at the first page showed me that his name was Muller, that he was naturalized English and that he was a hotel porter. He was a big man, fair-haired, with a fair moustache waxed to points. He looked as if he had modelled himself upon some ex-NCO of the Corps of Commissionaires.

‘Is he dead?’ the man stammered.

I told him to turn round and look, keeping him covered while I flashed the light on Quive-Smith’s naked body. Then I put him back with his face to the hedge. He was shaking with fear and cold. His legs pulsated. He exhibited all the other involuntary reactions of panic. I had thrown his imagination out of control.

He kept on saying: ‘What … what … what …’

He meant, I think, to ask what I was going to do to him.

‘Who am I?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Think again, Muller!’

I placed the cold flat of my knife against his naked thighs. God knows what he thought it was, or what he imagined I meant to do! He collapsed on the ground, whimpering. I wanted him to keep his clothes reasonably clean, so I picked him up by one ear, and propped him against the hawthorn alongside Quive-Smith.

‘Who am I?’ I asked again.

‘The Aldwych … the … the police wanted you.’

‘Who is the man whose clothes I am wearing?’

‘Number 43. I never met him before this job. I know him as Major Quive-Smith.’

‘Why didn’t Major Quive-Smith hand me over to the police?’

‘He said you were one of his agents and you knew too much.’

That sounded a true piece of Quive-Smith ingenuity; it explained to a simple intelligence why it was necessary to put me out of the way, and why they were working independently of the police; it also ensured the Second Murderer’s zealous co-operation.

‘What were you going to do with my body that night?’

‘I don’t know,’ he sobbed, ‘I swear I don’t know. I had orders to stay in the car every night until I heard a shot and then to join him.’

‘Where did you get the iron plate?’

‘I had it cut at Bridport on the morning when he first discovered you were here. I used to meet him outside the farm for orders.’

‘How many years have you worked in hotels?’

‘Ten years. Two as night porter.’

‘Any dependants?’

‘A wife and two tiny tots, sir,’ he said piteously.

I suspected he was lying; there was a whine in his voice. And I felt that, considering the varied human material at their disposal, his employers wouldn’t have chosen a family man for a job of indefinite duration.

‘Where does your wife think you are?’ I asked.

‘Relieving at—at Torquay.’

‘Does she believe that?’

‘Yes.’

‘She doesn’t mind getting no letters from you?’

‘No.’

‘Doesn’t it ever occur to her that you might be with another woman?’

‘No.’

‘Careful, Muller!’ I said.

I merely raised the revolver to the level of his eyes. He shrieked that he had been lying. He pawed the air with his right hand as if he could catch the bullet in its flight. The wretched fellow feared death as he would a ghost. I admit that death is a horrid visitor, but surely distinguished? Even a man going to the gallows feels that he should receive the guest with some attempt at dignity.

‘From whom do you take your orders?’ I asked.

‘The hotel manager.’

‘No one else?’

‘Nobody else, I swear!’

‘What hotel?’

He gave me the name of the hotel and its manager. I won’t repeat it here. It ought to be above suspicion, but for that reason, if no other, I have little doubt that our people suspect it. If they don’t, they have only to check which of them in the last week of October lost a night porter who never returned.

‘What crime did you commit?’ I asked.

It was obvious that they had some hold on him in order to make of him so obedient and unquestioning a tool. Night porters, in my experience, are remarkable for their brusque independence.

‘Assault,’ he muttered, evidently ashamed of himself.

‘How?’

‘She invited me to her room—at least I thought she did. I shouldn’t have done it. I know that. But I was going off duty. And then—then I went for her a bit rough-like. I thought she’d been leading me on, you see. And she screamed and the manager and her father came in. She looked a child. I thought I’d taken leave of my senses. She had just been laughing at me friendly, sir, when she came in of an evening, and I’d thought … I could have sworn that …’

‘I know what you thought,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t they charge you?’

‘For the sake of the hotel, sir. The manager hushed it up.’

‘And they didn’t sack you?’

‘No. The manager made me sign a confession and they all witnessed it.’

‘So you have done what you were told ever since?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you get another job?’

‘They wouldn’t give me any references, sir, and I don’t blame them.’

He was genuinely ashamed. He had come out of the realms of a panic-stricken imagination as soon as he was reminded of the real trouble of his everyday life. They had a double grip on the poor devil. They had not only ensured his obedience, but shattered his self-respect.

‘Don’t you see that they framed you?’ I asked.

I was sure of it. Any really competent little bitch of seventeen could have managed those enigmatic smiles and performed that disconcerting change from temptress to horrified child.

‘I’d like to believe it, sir,’ he said, shaking his head.

No wonder Quive-Smith was exasperated by him!

I myself became a human being again. Muller might, for all I knew, have been a gangster of the most savage, and therefore cowardly type. I had to break him down. It wasn’t only acting; I should have killed him without hesitation if he hadn’t proved useful. But I was almost as relieved as he when I could lay brutality aside. I told him to pull up his pants, and gave him a bit of string to hold them and a cigarette. I kept the revolver in sight, of course, just to remind him that all in the garden was not yet roses.

‘They know you at the farm?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I drove the major over there.’

‘In what capacity? His servant?’

‘Yes. He told them I was taking my own holiday on the coast.’

‘Have you been at the farm since?’

‘Once. I had lunch there the day that … that …’

‘That you buried me alive.’

‘Oh, sir! If only I had known!’ he cried. ‘I thought you were one of them—honest, I did! I didn’t care if they murdered each other. It was a case of the more the merrier, if you see what I mean.’

‘You seem to be pretty sure now that I’m not one of them,’ I said.

‘I know you’re not. A gentleman like you wouldn’t be against his own country.’

Wouldn’t he? I don’t know. I distrust patriotism; the reasonable man can find little in these days that is worth dying for. But dying against—there’s enough iniquity in Europe to carry the most urbane or decadent into battle.

However, I saw what use Muller had been to his employers. A night porter must be able to sum up his customers on mighty little evidence, especially when they arrive without any baggage. He must, for example, know the difference between a duke and stock-pusher though they speak with the same accent and the latter be much better dressed than the former.

I explained to him that he might consider himself out of danger so long as his nerve did not fail; he was going down to the farm to tell Patachon that Quive-Smith had been called back to London, to pack his things, and to take them away in the car.

Quive-Smith had almost certainly warned his hosts that he might be off any day, so the plan was not outrageously daring. Muller had the right air of authority; with the rug over his arm, he looked trained and respectable in spite of being somewhat muddy. He was dressed in such a way that he could pass for a night watchman in Chideock or a man-servant on a holiday: a stout tweed suit, an old pullover of suede, and a stiff white collar.

The chief risk was that Muller, when he found himself in the farm, would decide that his late employers were more to be feared than I. That point I put to him with the utmost frankness. I told him that if he wasn’t out of the house in a quarter of an hour I should come and fetch him and claim to be the major’s brother. I also told him that he was useful to me just so long as nobody knew the major was dead, and that the moment when his usefulness ceased, whether in ten minutes or two weeks, would be his last.

‘But if you are loyal to me for the next few days,’ I added, ‘you can forget that matter of criminal assault. I’ll give you money to go abroad and never see your late employers again. They’ll leave you in peace. You’re no further use to them, and you don’t know enough to be worth following. So there you are! Give me away, and I’ll kill you! Play straight with me, and there’s a new life open to you wherever you want to lead it!’

There were a good many holes in the argument, but he was in no state for analytical thinking. He was deeply impressed and became maudlin with relief. Quive-Smith was quite right about him; he was the perfect Second Murderer. He attached himself with dog-like simplicity and asked only to be allowed to obey.

He took the major’s head while I took his heels, and we moved cautiously down into the road that ran along the foot of the hill. There, thankfully and immediately, we dropped our white burden in the ditch. I saw the sweat burst out on the back of Muller’s thick neck as soon as he was convinced that we had not been seen.

At the five-bar gate where Patachon’s private track swung across the home paddock to the farm we stopped. I told Muller that I should wait for him there, and should enter the car when he got out to open the gate. I gave him Quive-Smith’s keys and I gave him a story to tell. The major was dining with friends in Bridport. He had learned that he had to go abroad at once. His address for forwarding letters was Barclays Bank, Cairo. I knew from a letter in his pocket that he kept an account with a branch of Barclays—and Cairo is a complicated town through which to trace a man’s passage.

‘But what will I do if they don’t believe me?’ he asked.

‘Of course they’ll believe you,’ I answered. ‘Why the devil shouldn’t they?’

I was none too sure of that, but his best chance of success was to show the utmost confidence.

I gave him a pound to tip the girl who had made the major’s bed—if there were such a girl—and another which he was to hand to Mrs Patachon for her daughter’s savings bank.

‘You know the little daughter?’ I asked.

‘Yes—Marjorie.’

‘Give Marjorie a message from Major Quive-Smith: that she must remember not to bring her queen out too soon.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘All the better. Explain to her that you don’t understand what it means. But she will, and she’ll laugh. Tell her not to bring her queen out too soon.’

It was perfectly safe advice to give a beginner at chess, and it would establish Muller’s bona fides.

I let him cross the paddock and go round the corner of the barns into the yard; then I followed to watch, so far as possible, over my fate. This time there was no need to take extreme pains to hide myself—the dogs had an excuse to bark. I squatted behind a tree whence I could see the front door.

Mrs Patachon received the caller with surprise but no hesitation. She shut the door and there was no movement for five minutes—which I spent wishing I had cut the telephone wires. Then an oil-lamp was lit in an upper room, and I saw Muller pass back and forth across the window. He came out with a suit-case in his hand, followed by Patachon with a gun-case. Marjorie with the rug, and Mrs Patachon with a packet of sandwiches. The whole party were chattering gaily—except Muller, who was far too glum—and sending messages to the major. They entered the stable to watch Muller load and start the car, and I ran back to the gate.

‘Where to, sir?’ asked Muller.

In spite of his grip on the wheel his elbows were quivering like the gills of a fish—partly from reaction and partly from fear that his usefulness had come to an end. I was sorry to appear again as a ruthless killer, but there was a risk that he might try to rush the gate.

I told him to drive to Liverpool and to go easy with the traffic laws. Southampton was too close, and London too full of eyes. We picked up Quive-Smith and put him in the back of the car, under a rug.

My plans were straightening out, I was sure that nobody would call at the farm until letters and telegrams had remained a week or more without reply; anxiety would have to be very strong before any of the major’s subordinates or superiors—if he had any superiors—ventured to intrude upon his discreet movements. When they did, and visited the lane, they could take their choice of three theories: that I had got away with Quive-Smith and Muller hard on my heels; that I had bribed the pair of them to let me go; or that they had killed me and in some way aroused the curiosity of the police.

We stopped for petrol at Bristol and Shrewsbury. On the way I wired an assortment of ironmongery to Quive-Smith, and dropped him into the Severn. I have no regrets. Reluctantly, belatedly, but finally I have taken on the mentality of war; and I risk for myself a death as violent and unpleasant as any he could wish for me.

We reached Liverpool in time for an early breakfast. The town was in its vilest mood, and I was glad that the major had dressed himself for exposure to the elements. A north-east wind gathered the soot, dust, and paper from the empty streets, iced them and flung them into the Mersey. The sullen yellow water gave a more bitter impression of cold than the blue of the Arctic. I felt greater confidence in the wretched Muller. On such a morning it was inconceivable that anyone would betray a person who intended to have him out of England before nightfall.

Putting up at a hotel, we breakfasted in our room. While Muller dropped off to sleep in front of the fire, I spent a couple of hours practising the signature on Quive-Smith’s passport. For convenience I still write of him and think of him as Quive-Smith, though there is possibly no one but myself, Saul, Muller, and a handful of people in a corner of Dorset who ever knew him by that name. The signature I practised and the identity I had taken were those of his normal British self—the nondescript company director.

This English name of his was signed in a spidery, flowing script which, with a fine nib, was not at all difficult to imitate. My forgery wouldn’t have taken in a bank manager, but it was good enough for an embarkation form or a customs declaration—especially since it would be written on cheap paper with an office pen.

The passport photograph was not very like me, but near enough. No shipping clerk would question it. The common type of Quive-Smith and myself is manifestly respectable and responsible.

I woke up Muller and offered him a drink. He turned out to be a teetotaller—another advantage, I suppose, to his employers. I took him with me to the bathroom, and while I washed off the accumulated filth of weeks (keeping the revolver handy on the soap-dish) I made him sit on the lavatory seat and read me the shipping news.

We had ships sailing that afternoon for New York; for the West Indies; for Gibraltar and Mediterranean ports; for Madeira and South America; for Tangier and the East. All countries for which I needed a visa were excluded, and all voyages longer than a week. Gibraltar, Madeira, and Tangier remained—and Madeira was a dead-end, to be avoided if possible.

How to lose Muller was a difficult problem. I had promised him his life and freedom, but it was going to be a hard promise to keep. He had only one set of documents; he was too stupid to ship himself as a stowaway without being caught; he hadn’t the sense or presence to bluff. Whatever port he entered and left would be sure to have full particulars of him. I didn’t much care whether he were traced or not—I was sure that his employers would take no further interest in him after he had answered their questions—but I wanted to put off that questioning as long as possible.

I wondered what Quive-Smith would have done had he found himself saddled with Muller as the only witness to murder or bribery. The answer was not far to seek. He would have pushed Muller overboard on the night before reaching port, and concealed his absence. That seemed an admirable solution. It would convince them that I really was Quive-Smith—in case they doubted it—and would put an end to all search for the hotel porter.

This, then, was my plan; but instead of pushing him overboard wherever was convenient, I had to push him overboard within reach of land and with the means of landing. There were two places where that could be done—the point near the mouth of the Tagus where the Cintra hills come down to the sea, and Cape St Vincent.

I sent for a barber to give me a decent haircut, and, as soon as we left the hotel, bought a monocle which disguised, or rather emphasized and accounted for the glassy stare of my left eye. Then I led Muller round the shipping offices—an eccentric holiday-maker and his secretary-valet. I asked as many silly questions as a Cook’s tourist; I hoped, I said, to be able to wave to an old friend who lived in Portugal. The shipping clerks explained to me patiently that it depended where my friend lived, that Portugal had a long seaboard, and that in any case the largest of handkerchiefs could not be seen at a couple of miles. They were surprisingly polite; they must, after all, spend much more time instructing prospective customers in elementary geography than in selling them tickets.

I found out what I wanted to know. The Gibraltar ship wouldn’t do; it passed the Tagus in the morning, and Cape St Vincent shortly after sunset. The Tangier ship, a slow old tub with one class only, was more suitable. It passed the Tagus between 9 p.m. and midnight.

I had a look at the plans. The steering gear was aft on the main deck, and between its housing and the stern was the usual small and private space where lovers park their chairs, provided they can endure the exaggerated motion of the ship. There would be no room for lovers on this trip. The company director and his companion were going to spread themselves and their deck-chairs over that space, and be rude to anyone who disturbed their privacy.

We booked two adjoining state-rooms with a bath between, and then did our shopping. I provided Muller and myself with bags and necessaries for the voyage. I bought a collapsible rubber boat with a bicycle pump to inflate it, a pair of strong paddles in two pieces and a hundred feet of light rope, all packed in a large suit-case. Muller, naturally, thought the boat was for my own escape; I didn’t disillusion him. Then I put the car into storage for a year, and we went on board.

Down St George’s Channel and across the Bay I had no need to trouble myself about Muller’s whereabouts. He had never made an ocean voyage. The ship was a mere 8,000 tons. The sea was very rough. I occupied the vile heaving rail at the stern, just to establish a squatter’s rights over it, and after a painful morning acquired my sea-legs. It was a blessing to have none of my usual biliousness. I was free to spend my time eating, drinking, and washing; I needed as much of the three pleasures as the ship provided.

On the third night out from Liverpool we passed Finistierra, and awoke to a pale blue world with a rapidly falling swell; the grey-green hills of Portugal lay along the eastern horizon. I routed my secretary-valet out of bed, and fed him breakfast. Then we occupied the two deck-chairs at the stern. I spread out my rugs and legs as awkwardly as possible, and through my monocle stared offensively at anyone who dared to pick his way over them. None of the passengers showed the slightest desire to join us.