The Shivering Mountain

by Paul Somers

  —Would it endanger our security?

  —I certainly wouldn’t say that—but I’d prefer to say nothing more on that at all.

  —Are physicists at Crede always accompanied by security officers?

  —Not always.

  —So Landon was something special?

  —As I say, his loss would be a great one.

  —Do the Ministry think that whoever kidnapped him wanted to

  make use of his knowledge—or just to put him out of action, so to speak?

  —There’s no evidence on that, either way.

  —Is it thought he may still be alive? (Brutal—Barr puts hand on

  Clara’s arm.)

  —All I can say is, we hope so.

  —Is it possible he’s been taken out of the country?

  —It seems unlikely. Certainly not by any normal route.

  —Did Landon actually live at the Crede Establishment?

  —Yes—he had a prefab there. There’s quite a little community.

  —Is he married?

  —No, he’s a widower.

  To Clara

  (Who’s fiddling nervously with her engagement ring)

  —Can you tell us anything, Mrs. Waugh, about the voice of the person who made the bogus telephone call to you?

  —It was a man with a very deep, gruff voice.

  —Did it sound like a natural voice?

  —Well, it didn’t strike me at the time that it wasn’t, but I think now that it might have been put on. It’s difficult to say.

  —Did it sound foreign?

  —Oh, no, not a bit.

  —Was it the voice of an educated man, would you say?

  —Yes.

  —It didn’t remind you of anyone you knew?

  —No.

  —What exactly did the man say?

  —As far as I can remember, he said, ‘Mrs. Waugh?—it’s the police here. I’m sorry to tell you your father has had a car accident. There’s no need for undue alarm—he’s not in immediate danger. But he’s asking for you. Could you come at once, please, to Uxford Cross Hospital?’ I can’t swear to the exact words, but that’s more or less what he said.

  To P.R. O.

  —Who knew that Landon was going to visit Mrs. Waugh yesterday evening?

  —That’s an extremely important point, of course, and we’re going into it very thoroughly. As far as we know at the moment—Mrs. Waugh herself; Mr. Barr; a friend of Mrs. Waugh’s named Mrs. Elsie Morton, who rang up in the afternoon to see if Mrs. Waugh could look in for a drink in the evening and was told, no, because her father was coming; a next-door neighbour, named Miss Bright, at number 41, whom Mrs. Waugh had a talk with in the morning when she was getting the milk in; and a salesman at a local grocer’s, where Mrs. Waugh bought a bottle of wine on Saturday. You can have the various addresses if you want them, but I may say that all these people have been carefully checked, without any helpful result. Landon himself told his Chief at the Establishment, Sir Maurice Proude, that he was going to see his daughter that evening, and he also mentioned it to two of his colleagues there, whose names at the moment we prefer not to give you for security reasons. Those are the people we know about. What we don’t know, of course, is whether Landon mentioned the visit to anyone else.

  —Could he have mentioned it to anyone outside the Establishment—without the security people knowing about it?

  —Oh, certainly—he wasn’t a prisoner, you know! And it wasn’t their job to eavesdrop on his conversations—they were protecting him, that’s all.

  —They knew he was going to pay the visit, of course?

  —The police …? (Surprise) Well, yes … Just before Landon left, I believe.… Anyhow, the whole question of who knew about the visit is still being looked into.

  To Clara—Did your father visit you at regular intervals, Mrs. Waugh?

  —No, just any time.

  —There was no routine that a kidnapper could have relied on?

  —No routine at all. He’d been up several times lately—three week-ends running, in fact—tout before that I hadn’t seen him for—oh, a month or two, I suppose.

  —Was there any special reason for his coming three weeks running—anything that a kidnapper could have known about?

  —Well, there were special things I wanted to discuss with him, but no one else could have known. I was a bit upset about the murder that happened next door to Mr. Barr—I expect you know about that—and I wanted to talk to him about it. Also, I’d just decided to become officially engaged to Ronald and Father hadn’t met him, so of course that was another thing.

  —When was this last visit actually decided on?

  —The previous week-end. Father had seen Ronald, and they’d got on well, but of course I wanted to find out privately what he really thought, so I asked him up for a tête-à-tête. (Barr slightly sheepish.)

  To P.R.O.

  —Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to take the Press into your confidence last night and circulate this description straight away, instead of sitting on the story and losing twelve hours? (Uncomfortably) “You’ll appreciate that the disappearance of Landon raised matters of high policy, and by the time the necessary consultations had taken place it was too late to get anything in

  the morning papers, or even on TV. We’ve moved as quickly as was practicable.

  To Inspector Darwin

  —Are you satisfied with the security job your men did? (Also uncomfortably) “They could hardly have done more. We don’t sit in people’s pockets. We knew Landon was visiting his daughter, we saw him right into the house where we had every reason to believe she was. The same thing had happened on the two preceding week-ends, and all had been well. Besides, there was no reason at all to expect anything to happen. Landon was what is usually known as a ‘back-room boy’—very few people could have realised his importance.

  —All the same, Inspector, isn’t it customary when you’re watching premises to take a look round the back?

  —One of my men did take a look round the back while he was waiting—he walked right down the path. But by then, of course, it was all over and the place was quiet.

  To P.R. O.

  —This is just a thought, and I don’t suppose it has any bearing on the case at all—but I suppose Landon was considered a good security risk?

  —The best possible. He had a first-class record in every way. He wasn’t concerned with politics, and as far as we know he had no worries, no difficulties of any sort.

  —No relatives behind the Iron Curtain? No possibility of any pressure on him?

  —Nothing like that at all.

  —What about his health?

  —(Pause.) Well, I’ll be absolutely frank with you—he had complained to his chief recently about excessive tiredness. He’s been working at very high pressure and it showed a little. But

  it was nothing at all serious—nothing that a short holiday wouldn’t put right.

  To Clara

  —Just one or two points of detail, Mrs. Waugh. I assume you locked the back door before you went out?

  —I must have done, or the intruder wouldn’t have had to break in—but I don’t actually remember. I usually do, so I expect I did it from force of habit.

  —Did you switch off the electric fire?

  —Yes, I do remember doing that.

  —Did the intruder turn the light on in the sitting-room, or did you leave it on?

  —Apparently I left it on. I didn’t know I had, but the people across the way say it was on all the time. I was so upset when I got that phone call I hardly knew what I was doing.

  —We all understand that—and if I may say so we all sympathise.… There’s just one other point, I couldn’t quite understand how your father came to have a key to your house, as he wasn’t a very frequent visitor.

  —Oh, ages ago he used to stay at the house for a night occasionally when I was away, so he had to have a key. And as I’d got another one, he kept his.

  To
Supt. Bailey

  —Wiping the door handles and key suggests that the intruder, whoever he was, thought he might be traced fairly easily through his fingerprints. Do you agree?

  —It’s certainly a point.

  —We talk of the intruder, but there could, I suppose, have been more than one of them?

  —There could well have been.

  That was about all, and soon afterwards the conference broke up. Robson looked thankful it was over—I had the feeling it should really have been a Ministerial occasion, and that he’d been asked to handle it with the idea of playing down the disappearance and not causing too much alarm and despondency. It certainly had been a most unusual conference—I’d never known the security people expose themselves to reporters’ fire before. It was just as though everyone was hurrying to be as frank as possible, getting in their explanations and trying to win over the Press before the public storm broke over them. I wondered exactly what work Landon had been doing.

  For a few moments Clara continued to talk to a group of reporters, while Barr stood protectively by. She looked as though she’d be glad to get away, but the Press hadn’t finished with her yet—she and Barr still had to pose for the photographers outside. I followed them into the street. Mollie’s elegant cream-and-sage Sunbeam Talbot was parked at the kerb and she was standing beside it. I strolled up to her.

  “What do you make of it all?” I said.

  “It seems fairly straightforward.”

  “Except that we don’t know where Landon is or who kidnapped him or why!”

  “Well, I expect we shall in time.…” Her mind didn’t seem to be properly on the subject. I followed the direction of her gaze, and she was looking at Ronald Barr. “Don’t you think Clara’s fiancé is extraordinarily good looking?”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Those shoulders!—now there’s something a girl could really lean her head on.”

  “Come and have a drink,” I said. “I’d like to lean on a dry Martini.”

  “Sorry—I’ve got a lunch date … I must fly.”

  “Dinner to-night, then.”

  “Not to-night, Hugh—some other time. I’ll ring you.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Yes.…”

  There was a bit of flurry behind me and I looked round. It was a messenger from the Ministry, sent to ask Clara if she’d mind going back for a moment to see Superintendent Bailey. Clara said, “Yes—all right.” Barr was holding the door of his car. He said, “Well, darling, if I’m going to see Forbes I’d better be getting along. Try not to worry too much. I’ll expect you around six.” He bent to kiss her.

  I turned again to Mollie, still hoping to make a firm date with her. She was staring at the couple as though she’d suddenly seen a ghost. I looked too, but I couldn’t see any ghost.

  I said, “What’s the matter? Something struck you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Something interesting?”

  She gave me a slightly preoccupied smile. “Perhaps you’d like a carbon copy of my story?” she said.

  I phoned the News Desk, and had lunch, and then went back to the office to write up my notes. On the way in I passed Lawson coming out. He called “Hi!” but didn’t stop. I took the lift up to the Reporters’ Room, which was empty. Martin was holding the fort in the News Room. I stuck my head in.

  “What’s happened to the staff?” I asked.

  “Blair’s sent them all off to interview the people who knew about Landon visiting his daughter.”

  “Ah, yes.… Have the agencies sent much out?”

  “Reams! You’d better have it.”

  I took the pile of copy from him. “What’s Lawson doing around at this hour? He’s not supposed to be on till five.”

  “I don’t think he could keep away,” Martin said, with a grin. “He says Landon’s disappearance is a Crime and that he’s the Crime Reporter. He was being very snooty about what he called Ministry ‘hand-outs.’ ”

  “What’s he planning to do about it—start a one-man search?”

  “I’m not sure. He read all the copy very carefully, and went into a huddle with Blair, and then he pushed off, looking mysterious.… I’ve an idea he’s gone to see Superintendent Bailey.”

  “Really? I doubt if he’ll get anything fresh out of him—Bailey didn’t seem to know anything this morning.”

  “Well, we’ll need a follow-up of some sort,” Martin said. “This conference stuff’s going to look pretty stale by the time the evenings have finished with it.”

  I nodded, and drifted back into the Reporters’ Room, and settled down to write my piece.

  The afternoon passed quietly. The only bit of fresh news was the Minister’s statement in the House, and that didn’t carry things much further. The gist of it was that Landon had been working on a special project of great importance to the defence programme and that his kidnapping could cause a setback, but that it would be an exaggeration to say the country’s safety had been imperilled. After the statement there’d been some probing questions about the nature of the project, and the adequacy of the security precautions, and the steps that were being taken to trace Landon, but the Minister had sidestepped most of them on the usual ground that further information would be against the public interest. The police, he’d said, were “prosecuting their inquiries with the utmost vigour,” and the House would be kept informed of any developments. There, for the moment, the matter rested.

  Around four, the day staff began to trickle back from their respective missions. None of them had anything significant to report. The checks on Clara’s neighbours and friends and tradesmen had produced nothing. Parker, who had been sent to Crede, hadn’t been allowed inside the Establishment, which was hardly surprising. In the absence of hard news, we sat around and speculated. The general view seemed to be that Landon had been nabbed by foreign agents and quietly bumped off and that before long we’d hear that his body had been found in a ditch. But the view wasn’t unanimous. Hunt thought that if agents had been going to kill him they’d have stuck a knife in his ribs in the back garden and not marched him off along a public path—always supposing that that was what had happened. “If you ask me,” he said unexpectedly, “it’s more likely that Landon’s just done a bunk—gone over to the Russians, like the rest of them.”

  On the evidence, that seemed impossible. I said, “But it just doesn’t stand up, Fred. What about the phone message calling Clara Waugh away?”

  “That could have been fixed. If Landon had wanted to go over, he’d have had to fix up something pretty tricky, because he had the security chaps on his tail the whole time. He could have got an accomplice to make the phone call—some Russian with a good English accent—and then walked in through the front door and straight out through the back to a waiting car.”

  “What about the broken pane of glass? You’re not suggesting he took a lump of treacled paper with him from Crede and broke the pane himself!”

  “No, but his accomplice could have done that while Clara Waugh was out of the house. Easily.”

  “Well, it’s possible,” I agreed, “but it’s not very likely. The security people seemed quite sure he was reliable.”

  “They admitted his health hadn’t been good. Probably things had been preying on his mind.… Anyway, how often are the security people right?”

  Parker said, “What would the Russians want Landon for, Fred—to teach them how to launch a sputnik? That’s a laugh.”

  “I dare say we still know a few things they don’t,” Hunt said. “You’ll see—there’ll probably be pictures of him at the Bolshoi before the end of the week!”

  Chapter Three

  We didn’t get a follow-up after all—but neither did anyone else. The nearest thing to a scoop next morning was a profile of Landon in the Gazette, contributed by an anonymous friend. It presented him as a patient, determined and self-absorbed scientist; a man of naturally warm feelings who had more and more withdrawn into
his laboratory shell after the death of his wife; a man of great physical courage and endurance (a point illustrated by a mountaineering incident of his youth); and a man who—like most great scientists—could sometimes seem both eccentric and naïve to his friends. It was an interesting article and it threw quite a bit of light on Landon—but none, of course, on what had happened to him.

  Apart from that, all the papers carried the same rather stale facts, written up in different ways. I read through Mollie’s piece with particular care—I always did, when we were working on the same story—but like everyone else she’d only re-hashed the conference. Whatever it was she’d noticed outside the Ministry, it hadn’t been significant enough to give her a new angle.

  The case seemed to be completely in the doldrums when I reported to Blair just before eleven. I gathered that fifteen people had rung up the office from widely-scattered parts of the country to say they thought they’d seen a man answering to Landon’s description, but according to Martin they’d all sounded vague or crazy and we were leaving it to the police to investigate them. Otherwise there was nothing.

  The only man in the Reporters’ Room was Lawson, who, according to the Duty List, should have been having another day off. He was typing away with an air of tremendous concentration. I’d never known him start work so early. I strolled over to his desk.

  “Expenses?” I said.

  “A memo, old boy.” He took a cigarette from a packet and lit it with a quick flick of his lighter as though he hadn’t a moment to lose. “For the Editor.”

  “Big stuff, eh?”

  “Well, between you and me and the gatepost, old boy, I think I’m on the way to breaking this case wide open.”

  “You mean the Landon case?”