The Journeying Boy by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online

were working. They would walk up and look at the engine. They would buy large numbers of banal illustrated journals. They would look for chocolate-coated ice-creams. Distraction was the proper technique.
    The taxi-door was flung open and Mr Thewless, emerging, gave directions for the disposal of his luggage. Unlike many of those who excavate Roman villas, he never found small matters of this sort harassing and he seldom muddled them. It was already a couple of minutes after half past four as he made his way to the appointed rendezvous. There was nobody there.
    Misgiving returned. If Sir Bernard was indeed not bringing the boy to the station, what reason was there to suppose that the boy would actually come? It was true that his father believed him anxious to go to Ireland – but what more likely than that when it came to the point panic might seize a nervous child? Mr Thewless paced up and down. He bought some tobacco and paced up and down once more. It was after twenty-five to five. Suddenly a fantastic thought – or rather a fantastic mental experience – came to him. Sir Bernard Paxton was one of the most important men in England – and not important in any insulated world of science merely. There no longer existed such an insulated world. He must be important – vastly important – to those who played for power. For ultimate power. For the very dominion of the earth. Was it not conceivable that his own child…?
    Mr Thewless halted, amazed at himself. He never read gangster stories. He never even read that milder sensational fiction, nicely top-dressed with a compost of literature and the arts, which is produced by idle persons living in colleges and rectories. Whence, then, did this sudden vivid fantasy come? He found himself staring unseeingly at some unintelligible piece of machinery displayed in a glass case. He turned and hurried out into the main courtyard of the station.
    A taxi was just drawing up. The door burst open and he saw untidy black hair and black eyes glancing slantwise from a pale face – with crowning these the sort of flattened bowler hat which some public schools still consider essential for young travellers. The boy jumped from the taxi, and as he did so hauled from an inner pocket a large watch on a leather strap. Mr Thewless went up to him. ‘Are you Humphrey Paxton?’
    Startled eyes regarded him. ‘Yes.’
    ‘I thought’ – and Mr Thewless nodded at the watch – ‘that I recognized Master Humphrey’s Clock.’
    The boy gave a yelp of laughter, instantly taking and joyously appreciating the unremarkable joke. Then his eyes narrowed and Mr Thewless saw them suddenly flood with anxiety, suspicion, distrust. ‘Are you Mr Thewless, my tutor?’ he asked abruptly.
    ‘I am. And you have arrived just in comfortable time.’
    ‘Let me see your passport, please.’
    Mr Thewless opened his mouth – and checked himself. From an inner pocket he produced the document and handed it over.
    And the boy scanned it with extraordinary intensity. Then he handed it back. ‘Excuse me.’ He turned away and tumbled some coins into the hands of the taxi-driver – and his own hands, Mr Thewless noticed, were trembling. Another taxi had drawn up behind. The boy spun round upon it. An elderly lady got out. The boy gave an odd gasp; it might have been of either relief or dismay. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘here I am. And I’m most terribly sorry to be late. I’ve got the tickets and my gear is in the Left Luggage. Daddy couldn’t come. It’s not too late?’
    ‘Not a bit. Did the dentist keep you?’
    ‘The dentist?’ The boy looked blank. ‘Oh, well – it was all horrid. And then I had to go home for something. I just had to go. I’m frightfully sorry. It was terrible cheek, keeping you waiting.’ He paused, and his eyes flashed again at Mr Thewless. ‘What’s the first line of the Aeneid ?’
    ‘Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris .’ And Mr Thewless smiled. ‘Perhaps you can tell