Moggerhanger tried it from all angles, but the more he did so the more did Lantorn dig his heels into the soil of his heart. It wasn’t that he couldn’t let Claud off the hook tomorrow. He could, and he knew he could, and do it with safety. And Moggerhanger knew as well. But for no reason at all Lantorn chose not to, and nobody could do anything about it. In this black mood we travelled back to London, and it was more like being in a boat than a car because the rain poured down all the way. Being so late, there was no thick traffic, though I was driving with my nerve-ends on the final run, which came just about midnight. There was no cardsharping, or brandy swigging, and the silence almost sent me to sleep. At one point I went straight across a red traffic light, but nobody was the worse for it. The only break was an occasional whine from Long Tom who by now was beginning to miss his mate, and perhaps still felt the boot marks that Moggerhanger had planted on it. Lantorn must have felt the most hated man in the world by the time we got home, and I sensed that his only aim left in life, if he had anything to do with the prosecution (and I knew that he had), was to get Moggerhanger the longest possible sentence for whatever he’d done wrong in the eyes of the law. Moggerhanger knew this as well, and I hoped there was something he could do about it, because out of the two rogues I was driving home I knew whose side I was on, without even having to make the choice. I suppose this was one of the reasons why Moggerhanger had taken me on and, having weighed me up, had not found me wanting in this respect. Still, I could not bask in such a man’s approval, even though I was young, because the fact that he might approve of me had nothing to do with me approving of myself — though maybe it was fast becoming so.
The next day Moggerhanger handed me a bundle of notes, and I thanked him as I stuffed them into my pocket. ‘Count them,’ he said.
‘I trust you, Mr Moggerhanger.’
‘You’re a bigger fool than I thought you were. Never trust anybody. If you do you’ll make the fatal mistake of one day trusting yourself. And any man who trusts himself is asking for trouble.’ He was in the dining-room having breakfast. ‘Pour yourself some coffee,’ he laughed, ‘and sit down when you’re talking to me.’ The Spanish servant had let me lie in till ten, so I felt refreshed after my eighteen-hour day of yesterday. I drew a large cup of coffee, with a dash of milk. ‘And while you’re drinking it,’ he insisted, ‘count that money. I shan’t be offended.’
‘It’s all correct,’ I said, flattening it into my wallet.
‘Got a bank account?’ If I hadn’t, he said I ought to open one, and offered to recommend me to his bank, which I accepted. ‘Put that two hundred on deposit,’ he said, ‘and forget about it — until you can add to it.’
‘I was thinking of buying a car, to take my girlfriend out in.’
‘Who is she?’ he asked, sharply.
‘A coloured girl from West Ken, student at London University. We clicked on a bus to Hampstead. Very platonic, though.’
He smiled. ‘Good luck to you. But don’t buy a car,’ he said, ‘till you’ve got the price of one ten times over. Then find a good one, and have the best out of it. I’ll tell you something else. Don’t get a second-hand car. Only a rich man finds a bargain, because he can get it under his own time and conditions. I didn’t have a car till there was fifty thousand quid in the bank. Then I bought a new one, for cash. I walked or used taxis till then, and it didn’t interfere with my work, or my self-esteem. It’d need a lot to do that. I run my life on ten of my own commandments. I worked them out month by month in prison as a young man, though they were a bit different to what they turned out to be later. Life smooths all edges. Pour some more coffee and I’ll run through them for you. Number one was: don’t do anything against a friend who can still help you, or an enemy who might soon be talked into doing you a good turn. Not bad, eh?’
‘Very sharp,’ I had to admit.
‘Two: don’t kill for money, spite, or love, but only to get what somebody else has got but what you consider to be your own.’
‘That’s rough.’
‘Ain’t it? Number three: when you put money into the bank don’t do it like a happy saver, but feel on top of the world, as if you’re throwing it away. But hoard your gains, because money is power over others — though never over yourself.’
I was struck by his sense, not to say flabbergasted, and hoped I’d remember all he said. There was no stopping him.
‘Four: treat the police as well as you would like to be treated if you were one of them. They are put there by society to help you keep what you have got no matter how you got it. They’re only human. Five: when you don’t know whether to say yes or no, always say yes. Six: train yourself never to love, and never to hate. Seven: if you want to make money, sell people what they need, not what they’ve been told to want. Then you’ll have earned it. Eight: people are always stupider than you think. If you don’t know this, you’ll hardly ever act. Nine times out of ten you’ll be right. But polish your powers of intuition, and plot every step intelligently. Note where there’s a chance of your being found out, and prepare to turn it to your advantage if this should happen. Nine: never be afraid, neither of God, man, nor beast. The others are always more afraid than you are. Ten: be law-abiding in every possible way, except when it stops you getting what you want. Eleven, and the last: honour thy father and thy mother. If it weren’t for them you wouldn’t be here, and if you live by these rules they’ll certainly do well by you.’
‘Sounds all right,’ I said, ‘but they’re not so easy to follow.’
‘Takes time,’ he admitted. ‘If you try hard you can do it by the time you’re thirty. But even if you only try, you’re a thousand times better off than those who don’t know about them.’
‘Do you want me to go out to Stonehenge today and look for Abel Cain? He might still be somewhere in the neighbourhood.’
He stood up and fastened his jacket. ‘I know when something’s good and lost. He’s stashed away in somebody’s barn or kennel by now. We’ll never see him again, at least not under the name he’s been known by. Thanks all the same. I’ll be off to see my lawyers in half an hour, so get the car ready. I’m going to wrap this case up so neatly in its warp and weft that that bastard Lantorn can wear it around his neck as a scarf for the rest of his life.’
In the next few days I worked day and night at the beck and call of Moggerhanger’s eleven deadly rules. One journey was to take a box of groceries to the house of his eighty-year-old mother in Hendon. I didn’t get a glance of her because the maid took them from me. Moggerhanger spent much time talking to lawyers, and during these weeks he must have dropped a couple of stone in weight, though he was loud and cheerful through it all.
Bridgitte accused me of going cold on her, and once when I went to see her Smog cried as I was about to leave. It seemed that Dr Anderson’s wife had come back, and so he had started licking his way towards Bridgitte again. This didn’t worry me, because I wasn’t the jealous sort. But Bridgitte said I ought to do something about it and that if I wasn’t jealous it proved I didn’t love her. Smog snuggled up to her and said: ‘I still love you, though,’ and she clutched him as the tears ran down her apple cheeks, her beautiful button nose an island in between. I told her that the day after tomorrow Moggerhanger’s case would be over. Then I’d make sure to spend more time with her. If he went to prison, I’d be out of a job. If he was free he’d go for a holiday, and so would I. ‘In the meantime,’ I added, when Smog had gone to his innocent dreams, ‘if that dirty bastard Dr Anderson tries to slip his hands up your clothes again you should go out and buy a lipstick that neither you nor his wife uses, and put it under her pillow so that she can find it and cause a rumpus. Then she’ll leave again, and he’ll brood so much on her going that he won’t be able to paw you.’ I threw off this idea more or less in an idle moment, never thinking she’d act on it. At least I left her calm that night, which settled my mind for all the Moggerhanger work still to be done.