He laughed aloud. I’m an old fool, he thought, and in more ways than one. Sir Jeremy indeed! Killing people! He didn’t, when he came to think, believe a word of it. But when he wasn’t thinking . . . well, he was doing over eighty, wasn’t he?
It was William Nichol’s habit to sleep for an hour after lunch, and he was not proposing that the presence of Sir Jeremy should deter him. He was conscious that Sir Jeremy would disapprove: the habit would strike him as self-indulgent and in some way not too clearly defined even as immoral. Nichol did not care. He knew that the habit was in fact the reverse of wasteful—an hour after lunch, he found, added at least another two to the other end of the day, and even if it had not Sir Jeremy’s opinion would not have weighed. Besides, Nichol had another and conclusive reason for his afternoon nap. He enjoyed it.
He excused himself and went to his bedroom. He changed into pyjamas; drank a ritual pint of water; and lay down. He had been conscious for an hour of a considerable headache, even of a rising nausea, and headaches and nausea were not afflictions which normally dogged him. Sleep came finally but not as quickly as usual.
He woke conscious that Gretl and Doctor Bigge were beside his bed. It took him some moments to realize just how ill he felt. His body was a continuous, an aching angry weal. His heart was pounding, and it was an effort to continue conscious. Gretl was looking alarmed. Her careful English had gone with her normal calm. ‘He was breathing,’ she was saying, ‘like, like . . She waved her hands, simile escaping her. ‘He was groaning,’ she said finally. ‘I could not him rouse, so I call you.’
‘You did well.’ Doctor Bigge’s manner was pompous, for he was a self-important little man, a little too conscious of his position as a locum in an unexpected vacancy. ‘You did well,’ he repeated. He turned to Nichol. ‘You are very sick,’ he announced, ‘but you are in no danger. I was called in time.’
‘What’s the matter with me?’
‘You’re an anaphylactic.’
‘I’ve forgotten my Greek.’
Doctor Bigge tut-tutted irritably. Levity in the sick he considered a personal affront. He began to explain very carefully. ‘You had an accident the day before yesterday?’ he inquired.
‘Yes. But it wasn’t anything, really. A cut or two. And in any case a doctor looked at me.’
‘Precisely. So I had deduced. And he gave you an injection, I believe?’
‘He did. But . . .’
‘One moment, please. He said that you had a cut or two and had fallen on the public pavement. He said he didn’t want you getting tetanus, so he gave you an injection.’
William Nichol would have welcomed a compression of this recital. He wanted, more than anything in the world, to slip away again into unconsciousness, but to do so seemed a little discourteous. He collected himself again and nodded.
‘It might have killed you. You are extremely allergic to that particular culture. Give it to anyone allergic and one of two things happens—either it knocks them insensible on the spot or there is a delayed reaction. Your case is the latter.’
Nichol nodded again.
‘But you have nothing to worry about. With proper care you will be about again in a week or ten days.’
‘But this afternoon—I was going to Oxford.’
‘They have gone.’
‘And who went in my place?’
‘Mr Parton.’
‘Mr Parton? He has left Colton?’
‘Yes,’ said Doctor Bigge.
With an effort William Nichol raised himself upon his elbow. With his other hand he felt for the telephone by his bedside. He found that he could not reach it. He fell back again, but speech he still contrived. ‘Get me,’ he said, ‘the Security Executive. At once. Colonel Russell. Immediately.’
‘There is no need. Colonel Russell and some subordinate of his called Mortimer are on their way here by road.’ Doctor Bigge’s carefully precise manner fell from him. For a moment he became puzzled, a little offended and entirely human. ‘I don’t understand this at all,’ he said complainingly. ‘Mr Parton is almost fit again—at worst an out-patient. He’s your second-in-command, and it seemed entirely natural that he should go instead of you. I couldn’t have stopped him if I had known a reason to want to. Yet a minute after he has gone an extraordinary creature comes raving up to the Surgery, blaming me if you please, with some story about being connected with the Security Executive. I couldn’t help hearing him, for he took my telephone without a by your leave. I don’t understand it at all.’
William Nichol considered this, though thought wasn’t easy. ‘And my guest,’ he asked at length, ‘Sir Jeremy Bates?’
‘Sir Jeremy has gone back to London.’
‘Not with Parton to Oxford?’
‘No. He said that since you were not able to go yourself the object of his journey no longer existed.’ Doctor Bigge became again the rather pompous locum tenens. ‘I must say,’ he went on, ‘that his manner puzzled me. He seemed relieved—yes, positively relieved. Speaking professionally I should have said that he had been under some sort of strain, some pressure or other.’ Doctor Bigge shrugged again. ‘I don’t understand it at all,’ he repeated. ‘The place is a madhouse.’
Ellis Parton approached Sir Jeremy’s Humber quickly. He carried in his pocket no ticket and no passport, for he had need of neither. He had a little money and an electric razor. What else he needed, what else was valuable to him, he carried in his head. He had a careful and a complete plan: every assistance had been given him. He was perfectly confident that once away from Colton he could go where he wished to go. He would be taken care of.
Nevertheless he had been on edge, for Russell had been right in thinking that he was uncertain whether the gate would pass him. He was contemptuously aware that he was being watched, and if they had done that, he had thought . . . No, he would wait until the hospital discharged him finally. If they did, he reflected grimly—in time. For he was conscious that time was against him. Molly Tarbat, he had realized, couldn’t reasonably be expected to hold her tongue for ever; she might talk at any moment, and then . . .
Nichol’s sudden collapse had been an opportunity quite uncovenanted. Ellis Parton had seen at once that with Nichol sick it was entirely natural that he should go in his place. It was a chance to bluff the gate, to bluster it down . . . Why, in Nichol’s own car he might even be able to crash it. If it came to that. There was that ridiculous sleuth, of course—that preposterous hanger-about; he might insist on coming too. And if he did . . . Ellis Parton shrugged. He had in his pocket a revolver; he hadn’t been obliged to pay for it—it had simply been provided. He had never used a firearm in his fife, but he was perfectly prepared to.
But he had been confident that once out of hospital he could slip his shadow for the essential five minutes. And he had done so. Just the same the timing had been close and he was walking rather quickly as he came to Sir Jeremy’s car. He hesitated for a moment as he saw who was the driver. He made up his mind again and opened the back of the car. ‘Everything is ready, I believe?’ he asked. He had one foot on the running board.
His wife passed him a sheet of paper. Ellis Parton examined it quickly. He signed it and passed it back. ‘It is in order,’ he said curtly. ‘Drive to Oxford. And fast.’
He climbed into the car and shut the door behind him. There was a sliding partition between the driver’s compartment and the passengers’. Ellis Parton did not wind it down.
Mary Parton let in the clutch, and the car stopped for a moment at the gate. The gatekeeper examined the paper which her husband had signed; he looked into the car; he saluted.
Ellis Parton began to breathe again.
They drove for perhaps two miles along the by-road joining Colton and the highway. Mary was driving as she had been told to drive, fast—safely enough in any ordinary circumstances, but a little too fast to give herself much chance against the family box which shot without warning from the yard of a farmhouse. Family box was a phrase of Ellis’s
: it meant a square-ish, high-ish car of indeterminate age and horse-power and usually with suspect steering. Mostly they were rather full of people and covered with luggage in improbable places. This one contained a farmer’s wife and, in the back, a sow and her litter. Parton, who drove a slightly pretentious sports car, hated these vehicles with an arrogant hatred. They got in his way. Now he swore as his wife braked and swerved; cursed as the big Humber slid helplessly into the ditch. He shook his fist at the farmer’s wife. She was very short-sighted and she bowed politely, bowed with the massive dignity of a woman hailed by what she felt sure was a perfect stranger. She hadn’t an idea that anything was untoward. She did not look back.
The family box ploughed steadily, unperturbed, upon its way. The sow, mildly interested, had shaken her litter from her. Ellis Parton could see her staring at him through the broken back window. He shook his fist again. The sow disappeared. She had returned to the more important business of her litter.
Mary put the big Humber into reverse. The wheels spun uselessly. Ellis Parton climbed down and inspected the soft mud. The offside of the Humber was down in it to the axles.
‘You’ll never get it out without a tow,’ he said furiously.
‘Perhaps if we cut some brushwood . . .’
‘To the devil with the brushwood. You’ll never get it out, I say. Anyway we haven’t time for fooling. Go back and get another car.’
His wife stared at him.
Ellis Parton’s anger was mounting. To be so near, he was thinking, and . . . it simply wasn’t fair. He began to feel very sorry for himself. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ he repeated loudly. ‘Get another car. Quickly.’
Mary discovered that she was without emotion. She was staring at her husband, red in the face, furious, unmannerly, as though she had never seen him. ‘Very well,’ she said calmly, ‘I will do what I can. I am sorry to have delayed you.’ She turned on her heel towards Colton. She turned again and for a moment hesitated. ‘You were never exactly a gallant,’ she said. ‘I’ll send you another car.’
Mary Parton began the walk back to Colton. She waved at the first two cars which passed her. They were large and comfortable cars and they ignored her. The third was what Ellis would have called a family box again. It picked her up and put her down at the Centre’s gate. She walked to the Transport Office and found the Superintendent. He gave her a cup of tea and she began to tell her story.
Outside on the tarmac square two cars, one large, one small, drew to a standstill neck and neck. Colonel Russell had caught Major Mortimer. Two men sprang out of them. They ran together into the main building.
Ellis Parton climbed back into the stranded Humber. With an effort he controlled his rage. He took from his brief-case the Weekly of the extreme Left; he began to read the leading article, but he never finished it. He was aware of an explosion behind him and of thinking that the report was a little metallic for a blown tyre.
He never thought again.
In the Crash Room the officer watching the instruments was, as he had need to be, very conscientious. He was watching three dials and a map. The first two gave him bearings upon Sir Jeremy’s big Humber, one from Colton itself, the other, relayed by landline, a cross-bearing from a second Centre in the Midlands. There were verniers on the dials set to show fractions of a degree. The map was of the country between Colton and Oxford, the scale two inches to the mile. From time to time the Duty Officer put a protractor upon the map, moving, perhaps a quarter of a mile, the blue-headed pin which marked Sir Jeremy’s car. The third dial measured the intensity of the filtered but still recordable epsilon which the moving Slow Burner radiated. At one hundred and ten upon its face was written ‘Warning’: at one hundred and twenty and in scarlet, ‘Danger’.
The Duty Officer made his calculation and moved his pin. He saw that the car had travelled a little under two miles—almost no change since his last plot. He was a little puzzled. He glanced at his third dial.
The needle was at two hundred and was rising.
He swallowed his heart as he pressed the button below the dial. At once, from the roof of the building, an electric siren began its appalling climb. The Crash Party sprang from its chairs, the leader to the Duty Officer’s map. He was putting on his helmet as he moved. He looked at the map and nodded. ‘About two miles,’ the Duty Officer said. The other did not hear him. He had his helmet on by now and the Duty Officer wasn’t on circuit. But he had seen what he needed to see. He jumped at the brass pole and disappeared. The Duty Officer heard the waiting truck accelerate away. The note of its engine rose against the siren; caught it for a moment; was lost again.
It had taken perhaps ten seconds.
Chapter 10
Charles Russell spent his Sunday at Colton. He had hoped to see William Nichol, but Doctor Bigge had been adamant: nothing, he had said, no visits, before Monday afternoon at the earliest. But Russell hadn’t found that the day passed slowly. He had listened with interest to the explosives expert who had arrived from London. The expert had examined Sir Jeremy’s Humber and was evidently puzzled. The explosion, he was satisfied, had been caused by a proprietary propellant—in ordinary language by a powder from some cartridge or other. It must have been handled quite skilfully. Naturally there was no trace of the detonator, but, in the back of the Humber, was what remained of the movement of a watch. And, the expert told Russell, the movement must be nearly a hundred years old. He was intrigued; he had a considerable theory to account for the fact and he recited it at length.
Colonel Russell listened without comment.
Mortimer, reinforced by the police, had been busy taking statements. Russell kept in the background; he had a total confidence in Major Mortimer. Mortimer would know exactly when to step back, to slip from the picture in favour of the police—the police, Russell reflected grimly, who had now to contrive the somewhat delicate matter of hanging a Permanent Secretary. But Mortimer would know precisely where he could be of assistance, precisely at what point he might be treading on toes notoriously tender. Major Mortimer would handle the matter perfectly.
Charles Russell, thinking of Major Mortimer, smiled affectionately. But there was something in his smile besides affection, for it was a little wry. He wasn’t a conceited man, but he was aware that he had an excellent brain. Whereas Mortimer—Mortimer was thorough, conscientious and a little stolid. You wouldn’t, Russell reflected, have called him a man of imagination. Yet here was the mind of Charles Russell, lucid, even a little elegant. But, quite, quite wrong. And Mortimer had been entirely right; Mortimer hadn’t shrunk from what on the face of it was incredible; he had stuck to his original guns. But it had been more than that, Russell decided, more than the negative: Mortimer had understanding, and that was something more than a logical, even a fastidious brain.
Russell laughed aloud. Malice or resentment were emotions unknown to him. In his mental ledger he entered the matter as Lesson Learned; he entered it to the already formidable credit of Experience.
Meanwhile there was work for himself. Sir Jeremy Bates was a murderer, which was going to be very awkward for somebody, and Parton was dead, which could hardly have been more convenient for the Executive. But there was still Dipley to be considered. Russell had decided that his real business lay in London, and Sunday wasn’t a day for what could as conveniently be done on a weekday. Nevertheless he had made his arrangements; he had asked Mrs Tarbat to call on him on Monday. He would have confessed that the interview was something he had been looking forward to for some time: everybody in the Executive seemed to have met Mrs Tarbat but himself. She sounded charming.
Charles Russell had sent her a note by hand. It was a courteous little note, deliberately a trifle formal. Colonel Russell, it had said, would be greatly obliged if Mrs Tarbat could make it convenient to call upon him at twelve-fifteen on Monday. There was a matter in which Colonel Russell would be grateful for any information which Mrs Tarbat might be able to give him; and it was possible that he might himself be able t
o give Mrs Tarbat news which she would find interesting. It hadn’t been a policeman’s letter or even a Security officer’s; it had been the note of one equal to another. It had concluded by saying that of course a car would call for her. Charles Russell had considered that too: the car would be an official car and the driver would be in uniform. But it wouldn’t be police uniform, and the driver would be alone. Colonel Russell, who was putting Mrs Tarbat to some inconvenience, would be trying to minimize it. And that was all.
Now, on Monday morning, he was driving sedately back to London. He glanced at his watch, for he had a call to pay on the way; he wished to make a visit of courtesy upon the County Police . . . No, they told him, there had been no accident: the patrol car had simply given him best. They had taken his number, naturally, and had traced it. They had been wondering . . . but of course! A most urgent matter . . . Quite. Of course. Entirely . . .
Charles Russell drove quietly on to London. He arrived at the Executive a quarter of an hour before his appointment and went at once to his room. Careful of detail he opened his sideboard. There were a couple of decanters of excellent sherry and another of Madeira. Russell considered them and shook his head: none, he decided, was precisely Mrs Tarbat. He sent for another bottle of sherry from a public house in Whitehall. He decanted it carefully.
At twelve-fifteen exactly Mrs Tarbat was announced. Russell shook hands. He was impressed. Mrs Tarbat, he decided, wouldn’t be pleased to be called smart, but he would unhesitatingly have awarded her Excellent Turn Out. Her tailor-made had evidently cost money, her gloves and bag were quietly good, and her shoes she had spent time on. It hadn’t, Russell thought, been wasted. Round her neck was a single string of pearls. He wouldn’t have been surprised to be told they were real.
He put her into an armchair and poured her a glass of sherry. He watched her expression as she sipped it. Without a word he took it from her, crossing to the sideboard again, pouring her another glassful. ‘You will much prefer this,’ he said.
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