by John Brunner
“Get out,” Hines said between his teeth. “You insolent, mannerless—”
“Interfering ungentlemanly nuisance?” Laird offered with a mocking bow. “Why, yes. And I think I shall be much more of a nuisance before I’ve finished. That’s a promise. Come on, Polly.”
He took her arm and led her unresisting away.
They passed Medea before they had taken four steps. Today she was wearing a linen suit as expensively simple as yesterday’s frock, but elegant and suitable for calling on lawyers instead of smart and with-it.
“Why, Mr Walker!” she exclaimed. “And Polly! Fancy running into you! Though it’s hardly a surprise really, I suppose. You must have been talking to Mr Hines?”
“Yes,” Polly said. Her voice was as small as before, but a little colour had returned to her cheeks.
“Do excuse me if I rush, won’t you? I really haven’t much time. And remember to get in touch with me!”
Outside, Polly turned to Laird with eyes so bright he suspected they held tears.
“Mr Walker, I’m so glad you turned up! That man is awful. I simply can’t get him to pay attention. I tried to tell him all the things you mentioned yesterday, but—but he just didn’t seem to be listening!”
She gripped her purse tightly in both hands and stared at the dusty trees in the middle of the square.
“It’s an awful thing to say,” she half-whispered. “But the more I learn about these people Sammy knew, the more I feel they aren’t sorry he’s dead. And—”
“Yes?” Laird prompted.
“Well, if there are so many people who don’t care that he’s dead, maybe…”
“Maybe he didn’t die of a heart-attack?”
She gave a little timorous nod.
“All the experts say you’re wrong,” Laird sighed. “And rationally I have to agree with them. But something around here stinks, no doubt about it, and I shan’t be happy until I’ve dug it out. Come on, let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
TWELVE
He found them a glass-and-ebony coffee-bar and ordered two cappucini with all the trimmings. Stirring grated chocolate through the layer of foam, he said, “These people who knew Sammy—who else apart from Hines? I thought you didn’t know your brother’s friends.”
“Not his friends. But this morning when I rang the solicitors they said Mr Hines couldn’t see me until after lunch—and then he kept me waiting nearly half an hour! So from the letters and bills I had I made a list of the people Sammy used to deal with, and I went to see some of them. The nice mechanic from Carriage Trade came to say the car was ready, so I decided to start on the spot and went to the showroom. And the man I saw was just as awful as Mr Hines.”
“A dead customer is no damned good?”
“I—well, yes, that was about his attitude. Then there was the place where he bought his pictures, and the estate agent who sold him the house… And of course there’s Medea—his wife. And they all seem to have known a different person from the one I knew!”
“Of course they did,” Laird said. “From the one I knew, as well. You saw him as the scapegrace brother who’d been kind to you. I saw him as the guy who treated me generously in a strange country without making me feel like a parasite. But his jet-set pals probably saw him as Sammy the fun person, good to have at a party and a devil with the women but never mind so long as it’s somebody else’s women. And the police—how did they see him? The famous playboy with influential acquaintances and a high publicity rating! And these business contacts—they didn’t see a man so much as an open chequebook! I’ve met exactly one person so far who really cared about Sammy. I mean, apart from you.”
“Who?” Polly’s eagerness was distressing.
“Not somebody you’d approve of, I’m afraid.” Laird’s face darkened briefly.
There was a pause. At length he resumed, “Well, I’ve been out and about too. I went to Scotland Yard this morning, and I talked to an inspector there. According to him the police aren’t satisfied that your brother’s death was natural. They just couldn’t figure out a way to make it not natural.”
“I don’t quite understand.” She stared at him.
“That makes three of us—you and me and the inspector. After I saw him I went to this mental hospital he left money to, and—”
“Mental hospital?” The words were almost a cry of terror.
Laird said soothingly, consciously quoting Shannon, “Apparently he had a few screws loose because of his upbringing, and went there to have himself fixed up. The doctor I spoke to said he was completely cured.”
“But what—?”
“He was depressed over the failure of his marriage. Apparently he was afraid he might commit suicide.”
“Oh. I see.”
For a moment Polly stared into space. Laird diagnosed that she had not previously thought of someone going into a mental hospital to try and escape a mortal sin. When she next spoke her voice was back to its normal briskness.
“Well, Mr Walker—I mean Laird—do you think there’s anything else we can do?”
“A great deal,” Laird grunted. “I met your brother’s last girlfriend yesterday evening, and I mean to have a long talk with her, and any more of his friends I can track down. Next on the list, though, I think ought to be this other organisation he left money to, this Society for Counteracting Christianity. The chances are they knew a different Sammy Logan there as well, and before we go any further we ought at least to know how many versions of your brother there are. Correct?”
It cost her a considerable effort, but she said, “I’d like to come with you. If you don’t mind.”
Laird drained his coffee-cup and rose.
“By all means. I think it’s a great idea.”
In the corner house of a row of dowdy eighteenth-century buildings in an unpopular area of Kensington, they were received by an articulate young man named Glyn Corcoran, who let fall after five minutes that he had read theology at a famous Anglican foundation and was currently lecturing in comparative religion to a night-school course. He was not in the least what either Laird or Polly had expected.
Leaning back in a swivel-chair behind a broad antique desk, the wall at his back covered with a bright mosaic of book jackets and pamphlets with such titles as War and Peace, The Crisis of a Christian Conscience and Breathing by Numbers?—Population Explosion and Catholic Dogma, he answered his visitors’ questions with tremendous fluency and much airy waving of his hands.
“I can’t say I knew Logan well, though someone I was up at Oxford with was a great pal of his. I’ve only been here eighteen months myself—pretty futile occupation, some people think, since we are after all shifting out of the age of superstition and natural processes are far more thorough than the sort of propaganda campaign we can mount, but of course when you run up against someone like Logan you begin to see that your tilting at the windmills of dogma can have very direct results in terms of personal happiness. Our former secretary Wycherley—I came here as his assistant at first, and then when he retired, wonderful old boy but nearly eighty now, I inherited this chair”—with a pat on its arm, almost affectionate—“Wycherley told me about the first time he called here, sat down in the same place where you’re sitting now, Miss Logan, and wrote a cheque for a thousand quid. Said he’d never dreamed there were organisations like ours but if he’d found out sooner he’d have come all the way from Scotland just to shake old Wycherley’s hand. That sort of attitude.”
“Did he contribute regularly?” Laird asked, with a sidelong glance at Polly. She was pale and tense as though the idea of sitting in the same chair as her brother had upset her.
Corcoran blinked rapidly several times. “Not exactly. When we do tap someone like that we find it more profitable to appeal only on special occasions. He financed the publication of several of the books and pamphlets you see behind me, for instance. I’m not sure how much he let us have altogether. Five or six thousand, possibly. And the bequest, of course.”
He hesitated. “Matter of fact… This was originally confidential, but now he’s gone I don’t suppose it can do any harm. Here!”
From a drawer in his desk he produced a copy of a thin book in a glossily laminated cover and handed it to Polly.
“The Millstone About Our Neck,” she read out slowly. “What’s it about?”
“It’s one of our more sensational productions—and incidentally the only one which made us a thumping big profit. We sold the serial rights to one of the Sunday papers and they ran a crusade about it. It’s a collection of accounts of—well, of cruelty inflicted on children in the name of religion. A little boy tied to the back gate on a freezing night because he was caught playing with himself, a kid with a stutter who was half-starved because her parents wouldn’t feed her unless she said grace properly… Ugh! We got most of them from the NSPCC, of course, but the one which we didn’t is the last in the book. Take a look at it.”
Polly complied. She had barely glanced at the pages when she gave a stifled cry.
“Why—it’s us!”
Corcoran nodded sympathetically. “Yes, Miss Logan. I hope it’s not too much of a shock. Your brother made it a condition of financing the book that we should include his own childhood story.”
There was an eternal silence broken only by the rustling of paper. At long, long last two tears crept out of Polly’s eyes and down her cheeks.
But her voice was perfectly steady when she said, “May I keep this?”
“Please. I’m sorry it upsets you so much. But believe me when I first read it it upset me nearly as badly. And—here I am.”
In the taxi they took through the slow snarl of the evening rush-hour back to Paymaster Mews, Polly clutched the book and said nothing. Not until they were almost at their destination did she speak again.
“But he oughtn’t to have hated them so much! They were only doing what they believed to be right!”
Laird glanced at her sidelong. He said, “Josef Goebbels poisoned his children because they were going to grow up in a world where ‘Nazi’ was a dirty word. He was doing what he believed to be right, too.”
“That’s a nasty comparison, and it’s not fair!”
“Sorry. It’s the first one that came to mind.” Laird sighed, and leaned forward to tell the driver he could drop them at the entrance to the mews to save backing out again.
It hardly seemed like a good time to raise the question of renting Sammy’s old home.
Outside the workshops where it had been serviced, the Jensen was standing, and Laird exclaimed on spotting it.
“Hullo! Didn’t they put that thing in the garage for you?”
“The car?” Polly returned to the present with an effort. “Oh—no. The man spoke to me as I was going out this morning, and said he’d deliver it later.”
“I’ll run it inside for you, then. It takes up a lot of room and someone might dent it in the dark.”
“Thank you. And then I think I’m going to ask you to leave me on my own. I—I have a lot of things to think about.”
“It can’t be good for you to sit and brood,” Laird began, but she cut him short.
“It’s what I want, I’m afraid!”
THIRTEEN
Polly marched into the house with such determination Laird half-expected she’d forget to leave the street door ajar so he could get into the garage. But she remembered. Shrugging, he turned towards the workshops, where Harry Pentecost and his colleague were considering the engine of a Rover. They glanced up on Laird’s entrance.
“Be with you in a moment, sir!” Pentecost called.
“I only want the keys to the Jensen so I can put it away. Just tell me where they are. I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Not interrupting anything, sir.” Pentecost stepped back with a sigh. “This one’s got to go down to our main works at Ealing—right, Roy?”
The other mechanic gave a sour nod. “Wouldn’t do that to a car I owned,” he grumbled. “Not that I know what he did do. But he shouldn’t have done it, that’s definite.”
From a pegboard at the back of the shop Pentecost unhooked a ring of keys and brought them to Laird. Under his breath he said, “By the way, sir, there’s something I think I ought to tell you.”
“Something wrong with the car?”
“Nothing wrong with that, no! Gave her a bit of a road test at lunch-time—took her out on a stretch of road where the busies don’t keep too close a watch and put up the ton. Didn’t dare risk any more! But—well, sir, there’s someone been around asking for Mrs Logan.”
“Mrs? Or Miss?”
“Mrs. Quite definite on that. Saw the car here and came in to ask if we knew where she was. Fat man, fiftyish, with a real smasher of a bird in tow. Said he wanted to find out if Mrs Logan could sell him the Jensen. I didn’t believe him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s got the Park Ward Continental drophead on the Bentley chassis and the girl drives it for him. Saw ‘em when they went out of the mews, back end foremost and making a mess of it! Jensens aren’t for people who let their secretaries drive them in a Bentley.”
That was logic Laird couldn’t follow, but he was prepared to take Pentecost’s word. “Think they’ll be back?” he asked.
“I’d put money on it, sir.”
“Thanks very much,” Laird said thoughtfully. “I’m interested in anyone who comes asking for Sammy or Medea… By the way, what do I owe you for servicing the car?”
“You don’t,” the mechanic said shortly. “I didn’t do it for you, sir—with respect. I did it for Mr Logan.”
Earlier, Laird had been telling Polly that of all the people he’d met since coming back to London only one really cared for Sammy. He’d meant Bitchy Legree.
I was wrong, wasn’t I?
Gingerly reversing into the garage, Laird found his mind filling with vague visions—this mile-devouring car, a girl like Courcy but more sensible, the winding lanes of the English countryside shimmering in August heat…
Well, time enough for that. He owed his dead friend more than two days of his time; at the rate he was progressing, a week ought to convince him he was on a fool’s errand.
He was closing the door again when there was a shrill whistle from the direction of the workshops. Automatically he glanced up.
Advancing down the mews with ponderous strides was a fat fiftyish man with a smasher of a bird in tow.
But Pentecost’s description was a bad fit. This man wasn’t so much fat as gross. He stood perhaps one inch less than six feet, and had lost the odd inch to the drag of his body. His shoulders were still as broad as the great buttocks that rounded towards his bulging waist, but there was a hint of effort in each pace he took on those legs thick as tree-limbs. His dark hair was dense and tidy, but his dark eyes were almost lost between wrinkled rolls of eyelid. His cheeks were pendulous either side of an extraordinarily wide mouth, so that they seemed to form curtains for a stage on which the tongue performed. The neck encircled by his gleaming white collar was a succession of dewlaps in front, a sequence of fat-rolls behind. There was a vast gold signet-ring on his left little finger which looked as though it would not be removed again unless a saw were taken to it.
The contrast with his companion was formidable. She was fair and slim, her hair of an ash-tinged honey-gold which Laird had always found so attractive it could outweigh a score of flaws. Here it didn’t have to. The girl’s face was fractionally too square but her eyes were large and bright and her mouth generous. She had a dancer’s legs tapering from firm narrow hips, tanned thin-fingered hands with unpainted nails. She was wearing a white blouse and pale grey skirt that hinted at a uniform without being one. She carried a capacious bag at arm’s length.
But her stance and gait were wrong. With a body and face like hers she should have walked as confidently as a queen. Instead she went with hesitant steps, her shoulders a little forward in a way that suggested she might cringe.
It was clear
that the gross man intended to come and speak to him. Laird halted with his hand on the up-and-over door.
“Good afternoon! I wonder if you can help me. This is where Sammy Logan used to live, is it not?”
Wonder emerged as close to vunder, this fell near to zis. German by origin, Laird decided. He gave a cautious nod.
“Ah! I had business with Mr Logan before he so unfortunately died. I have been abroad for a little, but now I return I hear there is a Mrs Logan which I did not know. It is important I should get in touch with her. Can you perhaps tell me where she is staying?”
Laird had taken an instant dislike to the gross man purely on the evidence of the girl’s whipped-dog manner. On the other hand, he bore no special affection for Medea Logan. Why not let them get together? They might click.
He said, “She’s at the Rapallo Hotel.”
“Oh, thank you so much! You are a friend of hers?”
“No. I’m a friend of Sammy’s.”
The half-buried eyes scanned him. “You’re an American, I gather from your accent!”
“And you’re a German, I gather from yours,” Laird returned with insulting politeness.
The gross body forced out a chuckle. “Not for many years now—but formerly, yes. Well, thank you, sir. I will try to reach her at her hotel. But in case you see her before I manage to, perhaps you’d give her my card?”
He did what would have been snapping his fingers but that his hands were so plump and soft the noise was like slapping pillows together. The girl jumped nonetheless, and from the big bag she extracted a white card which she gave wordlessly to Laird. On it was the name Dr Emmerich Tileman.
Once, presumably, Teilmann—“part of a man”. Not any more. You could make three average-sized people out of his present bulk.