Professor Byam Alexander Bentink was as welcoming as his staff.
He came forwards to shake their hands as Matron performed the introductions. “Sandilands … Gosling … and-oh, no! Keep her off!” His hands went up in mock protest as he made a heavily playful show of catching sight of Dorcas, who had been hanging back.
“Miss Joliffe I know already-to my cost. Back to haunt us, Joliffe? I thought they’d given you the sack!”
Joe could not take offence at the rudeness on her behalf since the stranger making the comments appeared disarmingly amused by them. His appearance was reassuringly familiar. Joe had been taking orders from men who looked like this all his fighting life: men in their element astride cavalry chargers, atop war elephants, teeth to the wind on the bridge of a battle cruiser. Here was a tall, spare man of middle years with wide shoulders from which hung a starched white laboratory coat. Carelessness or a statement? Joe would have taken it off before greeting guests. The broad features looked like nothing so much as a relief map of the Trossachs, Joe thought, admiring. Nothing understated here. Ridges and valleys wound their way through a weather-beaten landscape occasionally enlivened by an outcrop of bristling mustache and matching eyebrow. The eyes were as deep and as grey as Loch Katrine. A thick hedge of dark hair streaked with grey framed the whole impressive countenance. Forceful and confident.
“If this man decides to tell me I’m barking mad, I shall have to believe him,” Joe concluded. He would have guessed a Scot like himself but for the very English name and the very St. James’s accent.
“Not at all, professor,” Dorcas said demurely.
Only Joe would have known from her first words that she disliked Professor Bentink.
“A sense of humour prevailed, I’m glad to say, and I was forgiven,” she said lightly. “ ‘Student prankster’ I believe my record shows for the world to see. But not sacked at all.”
“Mmm. Do I detect the influence of my tender-hearted brother-in-law? I think I do! Pulling strings again! James was ever susceptible to a pretty face!”
A second insult. Joe’s fists clenched, and he opened his mouth to go on the attack but, intercepting a warning shake of the head from Dorcas, closed it again.
Gosling, however, was off the leash and running free. “Well! Lucky old St. Raphael to have enjoyed the services of an attractive researcher, eh?” he said cheerily. “I’ve been trying to recruit Miss Joliffe myself-tempt her into taking on a permanent post with my own firm. Intelligence, diligence and a university education will always get you our attention. Add beauty and spirit to the mix, and she’s a dead cert.”
Bentink turned his gaze on the earnest young face. He couldn’t have been more surprised if the doorknob had spoken. “Your firm? And what is this business of yours, young man, may I ask?”
“It’s The Firm, professor. And our business is the Defence of the Realm.”
The capital letters were audible.
Joe stifled his astonishment.
Bentink broke into a broad smile. “Indeed? Well, well! I’m delighted to hear that our aims coincide.” He dropped his voice a little. “Though I would advise caution, young man. Reticence. I’m sure we ought neither of us to be talking of the projects nearest to our heart. This little pitcher,” he pointed at Dorcas with joking reproof, “has big ears. And a lively tongue. There’d be a fluttering and a tutting in the bureaux at Oliver House, Cromwell Road, if they could hear you declaring yourself so openly in her presence. Your Director Kell would appreciate it, I’m sure, if I were to send her to wait in the next room.”
“It’s all right, sir. Miss Joliffe has been processed, sworn, and signed and all that,” Gosling lied with confidence. “You could say she’s one of us. Though she’s still in training and has yet to commit herself to a permanent position. It’s rather like becoming a nun, sir. There’s always an escape clause.”
Bentink listened to this nonsense, not in the least taken in by it.
“If you say so. Tell me: Brigadier Glancy-settled in at the Irish desk, has he?”
“No, sir,” Gosling said, patiently playing the game, “I’ve never heard of him. There is a new man in the post you mention, but I’m not at liberty to mention his name.”
“Can we get down to business” Joe said sternly, “after that shower of shibboleths? We all know who we are.”
Bentink appeared to capitulate. He smiled and spread his hands to indicate the chairs set out in front of his desk. “Sit down, all of you, and we’ll continue with the entertainment, though quite what form this should take I’m not certain. Do I get out the cards? Propose you for membership of my club? Suggest a dram or two of my excellent Islay whisky?”
When he had them settled in a row in front of him, too like an audience for Joe’s comfort, he went on more crisply: “I’m assuming from Mr. Gosling’s reticence-shattering admission that we’re all in each other’s confidence and may speak freely. An enterprise like mine is investigative, experimental, controversial, and-quite rightly-comes in for the usual government supervision. And I expect that’s what you are imposing on me now. Checking I’m not swapping secrets of mind-control with the Russkies, eh? Tedious, time-wasting nonsense, but one learns to accommodate it. But, Scotland Yard involvement? This is a new departure. I’d like to know why Sandilands is here.”
“A courtesy call, professor,” said Joe amiably. “You will have observed no squad cars, no secretary.… I don’t even bring a notebook. I feel I ought to apologise for our lack of political clout or motivation. I’ll come straight to our problem. A child went missing in the wilds of Sussex yesterday morning. A sick child. An epileptic child. In transit from his school on the south coast to his home in London, he was conveyed to a hospital whose identity we do not know, and he’s not been seen since. Much turbulence and anxiety at both the school and the family home. Inevitably, ‘Who do we know at the Yard?’ is the question on everyone’s lips. And the answer, predictably: Commissioner Trenchard. My boss asked me to investigate.”
“Ah. And sleuth that you are, you pounce on the word ‘epilepsy’ and pop round to see me?”
“In a nutshell, sir.”
“True, the condition was, at one time, a special study of mine, though I am involved with larger subjects these days. His name?… Spielman? No. I’m almost certain-not on our books. But wait.”
He opened the door to an adjoining room and called into it: “Miss Stevens! Check a patient name for me, will you? Spielman.” He spelled it out with an eye on Joe, who nodded confirmation.
A moment later his secretary appeared in the doorway holding a file. “Sorry, sir, no one of that name. This is the nearest I could get.”
She held out a file discreetly, the name hidden from view. Bentink, with a gesture that said he had nothing to hide, took it and read out loud: “Speerman. Ah. A miss is as good as a mile. Sorry, gentlemen.”
The secretary reclaimed the file and withdrew.
“I have a photograph,” Joe said. He reached into his breast pocket and took out the ten cut-outs, selecting the picture of Spielman.
Bentink took it from him and looked at it without much interest. “No. I have never encountered this child.” He looked with slightly more curiosity at the remaining photographs in Joe’s hand.
Joe began to lay them out in front of Bentink. He was suddenly stricken with embarrassment to see the crudely cut shapes, which were beginning to curl up on themselves like brandy snaps sitting incongruously on the sleek ebony surface of the desk. An automatic gesture from Bentink revealed that he was having the same reaction-he put out a pad of three manicured fingers and flattened the one nearest to him. Joe flinched to see the small face obliterated.
Bentink caught Joe’s hesitation. “Odd things the Yard has in its pockets! What are you showing me? A new parlour game? Spot the Criminal of the Future? That’s easy! He is. Number six.”
Bentink poked a finger at one of the faces, pushing Pettigrew, the grocer’s son, out of line. “Hard to judge at this
age, of course, before the features are sufficiently developed but-speaking purely as a participant in a parlour game-I’d keep an eye on this little thug, Sandilands! A client in the making, if ever I saw one.
“Number three-a tragedy-is a mongoloid type,” he rattled on, enjoying himself. “They don’t have much of a hold on life, you know. A goner by now? This snap wasn’t taken yesterday.
“Number five is ill. Possibly tubercular? I’d have him seen to.
“Number eight-troubled face. Haunted. He’s not seeing what we see. Has he-what’s your phrase? — got form, commissioner?”
“Arsonist,” Joe said, and the response seemed to please the professor.
“Quite a rogues’ gallery. Wouldn’t breed from any of ’em-apart from number seven, who looks perfectly normal.”
“Lucky you’re taking this as a game,” Joe said with asperity, “or I’d have to think that, in your eyes, the last-century views of Cesare Lambroso still held good. The bony forehead, the large jaw, the prominent eye ridges: sure signs of a born-in-the-bone criminality.” He allowed his gaze for the briefest moment to skate across Bentink’s uncompromising features.
The professor almost smiled. “I think Charles Goring refuted all that,” he replied easily. “But you would know more than I on that subject. Never forget, Sandilands, you and I both have this in common with Socrates: We’re neither of us oil paintings. Could both scare the horses if the light was right. But you, I’d judge, were at least born attractive. Fate clearly took a scalpel to those handsome features, but by then you’d learned that appearance is related to self-worth and behaviour. Handsome is as handsome does. I often note that.”
“In fairy tales, perhaps,” Joe mused. “Not necessarily in the street or the laboratory.”
“Certainly not in Parliament. And that’s a pity. We must be forwards-looking, Sandilands, if we’re to maintain our position in the world. To be the best, we must breed the best.”
He cut himself short, sat back, and fixed Joe with a suddenly weary look. He waved a hand over the photographs. “Interesting, but-in answer to your question-I haven’t bumped off any of these boys.”
“I don’t believe I asked that question.”
“Oh, come on! Met Officers don’t carry around photographs of boys who are alive and well and toasting crumpets for tea this Saturday afternoon. They’re missing, presumed dead, and you’re investigating. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
He slid the pictures roughly into a pile like cards with Spielman on top. “This boy. The most recent? Epileptic? Sad. Had the child been brought to us here, we would have been able to treat him, I’m sure. But-‘lost,’ you say? An ‘unknown’ hospital? I find this difficult to understand. An odd set of circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, and imposed by the vagaries of the English weather. February. Telephone lines down, roads blocked. The boy’s family is about to return to Germany, and they’re finding their plans disrupted. Various people have involved themselves in lending a hand. You see before you a selection of those Good Samaritans.”
“A German family, you say … Spielman.…”
“Diplomatic service.”
“Not just any child, then. Embassy involved? Guaranteed to whip up a froth. I begin to see why they’ve got you chasing about the countryside, Sandilands. Our German cousins are exercising an ever stronger influence over our top brass. Hah! Gosling! I know you’re understaffed in the Cromwell Road, but you’re also blinkered. Focused on the Red Menace and the Green, Russia and Ireland. Have I at last got through to your superiors with the suggestion that they give more attention to the old enemy? Germany! I was over there last year with a delegation, on a professional visit. Cozying up, breathing admiration, swearing eternal friendship, meeting their top scientists. Not being classed as a top scientist myself, I was paired with a policeman. A certain Rudolph Diels. Heard of him? No? You’d better do some homework, then. Because you will hear of him. Impressive fellow! Young and vigorous, gallantly scarred face of a duellist, and head of the Prussian Political Police. We had a long conversation about the work he is commissioning from men like me-from my German confrères, that is.”
“Work for which the National Socialist government sees a need?” Joe asked.
“Ah, yes. All spies cozily together as we are, I suppose I may divulge these things. Just a few days into his new office-the thirtieth of January, wasn’t it, the election victory? Mere days! Chancellor Hitler is sweeping through government. Heads are rolling. Resignations being tendered, appointments being made. That’s probably what your Spielman is up to. Been recalled to do his patriotic duty at the side of his new master. And we see changes already in the university psychology departments. Jews-or those who merely have a Jewish wife-who have been at the forefront of research are packing up and coming to England or crossing the Atlantic. Before any lecture can begin in the universities-you’ll find this hard to believe-the academic giving it is now required, on pain of instant dismissal, to salute and say the words ‘Heil Hitler!’ ”
He gave a low rumbling laugh. “Just imagine! If I were to stand before a hundred students in a London lecture theatre, raise my right hand, and proclaim ‘All hail MacDonald!’ ”
“The outcome would be much the same, professor,” Joe said easily. “You’d lose your post. But the charge in England would be one of imbecility.”
“And well deserved!” Bentink agreed. “But over there-you know how it is. You’ve fought these fellows. Highly efficient, but soldier ants. No sense of the ridiculous.”
“Not all, sir,” Joe murmured. “Not all.”
“Oh, yes. If it’s exceptions you look for, look no further than the director (for the present moment!) of the Berlin Psychological Institute. Wolfgang Köhler is finding all this saluting rubbish a bit hard to comply with. He performs the action but with all the eager anticipation of a vegetarian who’s just been served with a juicy steak. But most have accepted the situation-politics and leanings in a country that has never been democratic are less compelling when large grants are on offer to any prepared to stick their arms in the air and make a Roman salute.”
He sighed and shook his shaggy head. “It seems what we have now is a Ganzheitpsychologie. The larger unity, the nation-the Volk, if you like-overrides the interests and rights of the individual. The plan is to put German applied psychology to the service of the National Socialist government, which values it.”
“A science-backed Nazi ideology,” Joe murmured. “Interesting. You are well informed, professor.”
“And shall be even better informed when I return from the Dresden conference in April.” He gave Gosling a knowing look. “Confidential exchanges over the port with your top brass on the cards, young Gosling? I think so. As Miss Joliffe will confirm, the Prussians are more generously funded, less heavily supervised by government, and more adventurous in their approach. Imaginative, ruthless and productive-they are most impressive. And they are not our friends. No matter what the Times leader writers tell us.”
Puzzled as to where he was going with this, Joe picked up an odd point that had intrigued him. “You are not regarded as a topranking scientist, you say?”
“Not quite yet. And certainly not in our own country. Psychology? What’s that? Ask a selection of people in Piccadilly, and one third will say it’s to do with the spirit world, one third will say it’s to do with sex, and the remaining third will say it’s a load of bollocks. Ask the same question on the Kurfürstendamm, and they’ll tell you it’s a practical science that will solve the nation’s problems.”
He was wasting their time deliberately with the useless generalities of a man propping up the bar at his local pub. In five minutes he’d look at his watch and claim he had to bustle off to his next appointment, so sorry not to have been of more help. Joe decided to push things along.
“The headmaster at the school-St. Magnus-from which the boy Spielman disappeared sends his regards, by the way. And he hopes you found some benefit in
the use of the twins he sent you for research last term.”
Bentink bowed his head briefly in automatic acknowledgement but seemed not to remember the name.
“Mr. Farman is the headmaster. I believe you know him from your mutual membership of the Eugenic Society?”
Bentink’s brow furrowed. “Ah-the Brighton chapter? Yes, now you come to mention it. Farman. Got him! He takes the stage occasionally. Corpulent old windbag. But a true and tenacious spirit, I have to say.”
“One of a strong series. The two previous headmasters were equally supportive of the eugenic cause, I understand.”
“It passes down the generations. The young absorb knowledge and resolve at their father’s knee. Nature and nurture in harmony. Supporting each other. Fatuous to argue about which is the more influential. Miss Joliffe will tell you. Good genes, good family are the lifeblood of this country, Sandilands, but we must never disregard the effect of a good upbringing working with them. My father was a guiding light in the Eugenic Education Society, as it was called originally. My brother-in-law James’s father also. He was a contemporary of Galton, you know, and one of the founder members. You could say we were a eugenic family. Tribe, even, since we make a point of making strong bonds with each other’s family.”
He paused to allow this to sink in, his face stiff with pride.
“Good wombs have borne bad sons, Shakespeare tells us,” Gosling remarked annoyingly. “Really, he’s said it all, hasn’t he? Who needs psychology when we have the wisdom of the Bard to guide and inform?”
Bentink waited with a pained expression for the interruption to be over, then he bent a keen look on Joe. “Many of your own profession, Sandilands, are eugenists, if not in practice, at least in spirit. But then you, a policeman, would consider yourself to be in the front rank of the struggle against degeneracy. And so you are! Hats off to you! Your profession has our support and our sympathy. London-the Great Wen! — with its pullulating under-classes, is consuming ever more of the country’s resources. Most unfairly. The willing, the able and the well-bred of our country are struggling to fund the feckless and the incapable. A sparrow feeding a cuckoo! The crime rate rises at the very time when the London bobby himself is challenged to riposte. I hear it is ever more difficult to recruit men of a certain stature-physical and moral-to combat this fast-breeding, self-propagating slime. No consolation, but they find they have much the same problems to confront in Germany.
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