The nature-cure place was highly respectable and under distinguished patronage. Its clients were mostly wealthy business men who had been over-indulgent, and middle-aged women who wanted to slim, who would go for courses of treatment which included dieting, brine and sauna baths and massage. This provided the basic income but, at the same time, the place seemed to have some genuine patients who were treated, under orthodox medical supervision, on strict diets, mostly for stomach troubles. The matron, said Morrison, was a Mrs Wrythe, who was chairman of an international health food organization, organizing honorary secretary of a pure water campaign, and had a number of reliable social connections, being the daughter of the late Bishop of Pensford.
‘Extraordinary!’ chuckled Morrison, seeing the expression on Holmes’ face. ‘But there’s no doubt she has a reputation as a dietician and a masseuse. She’s a crank, of course, but she was trained originally at St Thomas’s so she has a professional background. She’s apparently looked on by the health food magazines as the leading light of the new food movement.’
‘What’s the name of this place?’
‘Uplands, near Pirbright.’
‘I seem to have heard the name.’
‘You may have. She has a scrapbook full of newspaper cuttings,’ Morrison said. ‘It’s a genuine place all right.’ He reeled off the names of the patrons; a list of men and women with titles, orders and decorations, but — as Morrison pointed out — no scientists and few doctors. ‘They’ve got a thing against science,’ said Morrison. ‘Science is bogus. It poisons the atmosphere.’
Holmes looked interested. ‘Did you go into this?’
‘The science bit? Once she got on to that it was difficult to stop her talking. But she gave me a number of leaflets and things.’
‘May I see?’
Morrison grinned. He rummaged in his briefcase and produced a neatly printed pamphlet with a photograph of a large country house on the cover. The text inside was discreet and reasonable, not in any way strident or on the defensive, as Holmes had expected from what he had known of other nature-cure establishments.
‘This Mrs Wrythe must be rather an exceptional woman?’
‘She is that.’ Morrison finished his whisky and began to search for his pipe. ‘Formidable, I thought. Bit batty but highly efficient.’
‘And is there a Mr Wrythe?’
‘Not now. I gather he was a doctor and died years ago. She is convinced that if they’d had the right diet at the time he could have been cured. She started Uplands with the money he left her.’
Holmes murmured something that might have been an expression of sympathy, or of interest, and studied the pamphlet with a frown. He flicked over the pages and then put the pamphlet on his desk, after asking Morrison whether he might keep it. Morrison said he might do so. Morrison was curious. ‘Are you,’ he asked, ‘going down to see her?’
‘I might,’ murmured Holmes. ‘But tell me more.’
There was not a great deal more. Shepherd had arrived at Uplands on the Friday night. Just before lunch on Saturday morning he had left in his car, ostensibly to go home to collect some clothes and a dressing-gown, but he had never got there. That afternoon he had the meeting with Nina Lydoevna on the banks of the Thames at Runnymede, which had been witnessed by the Foreign Office man tailing the Russian’s movements, and after that he had vanished. His car had been left at Runnymede. His body was recovered from the river at Staines three days later.
‘What about the widow?’ asked Holmes.
Morrison had had two visits to the bungalow at Bray where Mrs Shepherd and her small boy lived but he had found very little and she had been uncooperative. Morrison had put a man on to watch the bungalow but he did not think she knew anything.
‘I got the impression,’ Morrison said, ‘that she was not only uncooperative but definitely hostile. I had to dig all the information out of her. She volunteered practically nothing.’
Holmes asked what sort of woman she was.
‘Good-looking; young,’ said Morrison, promptly. ‘Probably,’ he added, ‘impulsive.’
‘Where did Shepherd meet her?’
‘At a nightclub in Brussels. She was what they call a hostess. Nothing wrong though. The department vetted her pretty thoroughly when Shepherd married. Lamb says she was a remarkably nice girl from a rather dull home who wanted the bright lights. She was attractive but was apparently pretty cagey about men. Not the usual kind of hostess,’ said Morrison, with a meaningful emphasis on the word hostess. ‘But then,’ he added, ‘you get all sorts.’
Holmes felt that that was indeed true; and wondered whether Morrison would even go so far as to say that it took all sorts to make a world but Morrison didn’t, because he was engaged in the difficult operation of getting his pipe to draw. There seemed to be a blockage.
‘I think,’ said Holmes, ‘I’ll go and have a look at Uplands.’
*
Uplands was more or less what he expected; but Mrs Wrythe was not. He had thought of her, when he wrote on his private notepaper for an appointment, as a rather well-meaning, idealistic, and perhaps slightly fluffy person. The letter he had had back was crisp and business-like. If Mr Holmes would call at such-and-such a time she would see him. Holmes had written back to confirm the appointment and had hired a chauffeur-driven Rolls to drive him down in state and bring him back again. The chauffeur had been well primed about his employer. Holmes was a rich and neurotic young man who had had a nervous breakdown and was seeking a way back to health.
Holmes had gone to some lengths to establish a background that would justify a visit; but he need not have troubled. Mrs Wrythe was apparently used to visits from people whom doctors had failed to cure and she hardly bothered to ask him who he was. Holmes was shown into a large and well-furnished entrance hall by a maid and, at her request, signed a visitors’ book. He noted the names of other visitors with interest. The signature above his was that of a retired general and above the general’s name was a fairly notorious woman novelist’s.
‘I am sorry to keep you waiting.’
Mrs Wrythe stood before him. His first impression was of a woman doctor. She wore a white coat. Her fair hair, streaked with grey, was cut neat and close to her head. This first impression was one she had deliberately set out to create. The second impression was of a natural and unaffected charm. She was not much over forty.
Holmes played his part to perfection. He stumbled a little, hesitated, put questions obliquely without doing more than to suggest what he had really wanted to say. Mrs Wrythe was understanding.
‘Here at Uplands,’ she said, ‘we believe in a completely natural way of treating bodily and mental ills. To begin with, Mr Holmes, most of the food that you are now eating is contaminated.’
‘Is it really?’ Holmes was alarmed. ‘Not — you don’t mean — actually contaminated?’
‘Take vegetables,’ said Mrs Wrythe. ‘To have frozen vegetables or have them treated with preservatives and encased in metal is bad enough. That destroys the natural vitamins. But, what is far worse, there is now hardly a vegetable garden in the country which is not poisoned.’
‘Weed killers?’ suggested Holmes.
‘More than weed killers,’ said Mrs Wrythe.
‘No!’
‘Oh, yes, indeed. Far more. The old-fashioned weed killers were not active poisons. But the new ones are. The new potent insecticides contain chemicals which are positively harmful. You may have heard of aldrin, dieldrin or hepta-chlor, Mr Holmes?'
Mr Holmes said he had not.
‘They are the components of some of the latest insecticides. Some of the worst have been banned but governments can do little against the cupidity and foolishness of man. These chemicals, sprayed on the fields, destroy all insects. If the birds eat the insects the birds themselves die. But the spray remains on the vegetables. It is absorbed into the vegetables through the roots. It is harmless in small doses. But it builds up, gradually and cumulatively. Not only this. Even the
very water that farmers use to irrigate their fields contains dangerous compounds like chlorine and sodium fluoride added to natural water in the interests of so-called hygiene. Take bread — '
‘Ah, yes, bread,' said Holmes, nodding wisely, impressed.
The bleach added to flour, the residual deposits of atomic explosions, floating down from the outer atmosphere, the pesticides and insecticides, the colouring and preservatives in our meat, the sprays in the field, the chemicals in the water — all these things, Mr Holmes — the conscious and unconscious use of chemicals in our food at a rate which increases every year adds up to a dreadful overall picture. We are,' she declared, ‘gradually and persistently poisoning the whole human environment.’
‘There is much in what you say,' murmured Holmes.
‘And you — ' she said, throwing out an accusing forefinger ‘ — are also poisoned!'
Holmes shrank a little. ‘I suppose so,’ he murmured. ‘Putting it that way.'
‘We all are! None of us live healthy lives. Our civilization is not only artificial but it is now contaminating itself.’
‘It's terribly serious,' said Holmes. ‘Terribly.’
‘Of course it is,' said Mrs Wrythe, easily. ‘But, more and more, throughout the world, people are coming to realize what is happening.'
Mrs Wrythe spoke with hope and enthusiasm. The small movement which she had founded eighteen years ago had spread to a number of countries. Fruit and vegetables were grown on specially treated compost, in trays, under glass, protected from contamination. A diet of fresh fruit and vegetables together with brine and sauna baths and daily massage had brought miracle cures of cases given up as hopeless, authenticated by doctors.
‘We have people here studying my methods,’ continued Mrs Wrythe, ‘from all over the world; Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand; from France and Germany and Holland — ’
‘Africa?’
‘We have had students from Africa and India and Ceylon and Burma. Indeed we have two African students here at this moment studying diet.’
‘Have you now?’
‘The students,’ she said, tactfully, ‘do not mix with the patients. They have their own quarters, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘If you come to us, Mr Holmes, one thing you will need is absolute peace and quiet; absolute rest.’
Holmes smiled wanly. When he left Mrs Wrythe after a fascinating quarter of an hour he was puzzled and slightly excited. He felt that he was on to something; if only he knew what it was. He began to make his own highly individual enquiries about Uplands. They were not exactly the same methods Morrison used but they provided the information. Uplands was genuine and many highly distinguished people swore by Mrs Wrythe and her methods. A stockbroker friend of Holmes who had been there for a week had lost nearly a stone and had come away feeling like a two-year-old. He had swum naked in the lake in the grounds, been massaged, taken hot and cold showers, sunbathed, climbed trees in the woods, and eaten nothing but oranges and vegetables and drunk nothing but rather flat and tasteless water, which he thought must have been distilled water, but all the same it cured his indigestion and gave him something of a waistline again. ‘Marvellous place,' he said, nostalgically. ‘Marvellous.’ Mrs Wrythe was a martinet, a tyrant, but she got results.
‘Is she a qualified chemist?' asked Holmes. The stockbroker, somewhat naturally, had not the faintest idea. It took two days before Inspector Post could come up with the answer. She was not. Holmes took the growing accumulation of papers about Mrs Wrythe and Uplands to bed with him and spent a sleepless night brooding over them.
The case took another turn with the deportation of Nina Lydoevna.
Like other Foreign Office decisions, no one knew anything about it in advance. It was a diplomatic matter, and diplomatic affairs were the province of the Foreign Office alone. It was true that the second secretary at the Soviet Embassy had been under suspicion for some time and that the Shepherd affair was not the only thing the Foreign Office had against Nina Lydoevna but at least — declared the indignant Morrison — Scott Elliot could have asked Scotland Yard about it first. The answer to that was that Scott Elliot probably would have told Morrison if he had not known that Lamb would have got to hear of it as well. So Scott Elliot observed protocol and told nobody. The first that Lamb or Morrison knew about it was the arrival of the copy of the Foreign Office note to his Excellency the Ambassador of the United Soviet Socialist Republics that his second secretary, Nina Lydoevna, was no longer persona grata to Her Majesty's Government.
‘And that is that,' said Morrison. ‘They've done it on purpose.'
They had probably done it to avoid trouble, thought Holmes. There were many reasons why it would be advantageous to the Foreign Office to have sent Nina Lydoevna out of the country if she had been concerned in a security case. The impression would be created that MI5 had done nothing and the Foreign Office had. They had got rid of her.
‘I know she had diplomatic immunity,' said Morrison, ‘but given a chance we might have got something on her. Do you know one reason why the Foreign Office wanted to get rid of her? — she was carrying on Russian propaganda among foreign students in London.’
‘Was she?’ murmured Holmes. ‘Carrying on propaganda, eh? How very serious.’
‘There were complaints about her,’ said Morrison.
‘Were there?’
‘From the students themselves.’
‘Were there now?’ said Holmes. His eyes were suddenly bright. ‘These students who complained,’ said Holmes, — were they, by any chance, African?’
There was a slow silence. Morrison took the pipe out of his mouth. ‘As a matter of fact, they were,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing surprising about that. Nina Lydoevna is supposed to be one of the Soviet Union’s greatest experts on Africa.’
‘Is she now?’ murmured Holmes. His eyes were still bright and he was smiling. His next remark was almost inaudible, as though not intended for Morrison at all:
‘Complaints about the greatest expert on Africa? Isn’t that odd.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Monique
She felt she could sleep quite easily during the day but if she lay down and tried to do so she merely remained wide awake. Sometimes at night she could sleep if she took capsules but sometimes even that did not work. It had been like that ever since her husband died. All the time she thought of him. She thought how it must have been horrible to drown and how he must have called out to her. It hurt more now than at first because she was no longer numb but sensitive to pain and quivered when the pain hit her; she had had no idea that mental pain could hurt as much as physical.
She walked round the house to relieve some of the tension and watched the small boy playing in the sandpit and remembered who had made the sandpit and walked away because she could not bear to remember any longer. She lay heavy with anguish on the couch under the sun umbrella on the terrace. Each moment dragged on and each moment became more and more unbearable. There was a scent of pine. The sun shone. The garden looked beautiful.
There was a bell.
She got up to go to the front door. She expected a neighbour. The neighbours had been kind but their kindness was behind a screen and did not touch her. She did not get any comfort from kindness. It was a distraction, like dope, cigarettes, brandy. She had not known she could drink so much brandy.
She opened the door and there was a stranger, a man standing there. He was youngish, pleasant-looking, well dressed. The face was long, clear-skinned, with intelligent eyes. It gave her, for a brief moment, a feeling of pleasure to look at him; and immediately she hated and resented the feeling. She knew that her emotions were abnormal; she was in a mood to find abnormality a relief and an escape. ‘What do you want?’
He said that his name was Holmes and he had known her husband. She looked at him for some time, at the grave face and intelligent eyes, the full lips, the brown hair shining in the sun. Her main feeling was one of fear and disl
ike, but she was curious. There was another feeling she did not recognize. Neither seemed to be in any hurry. They stood almost without movement. At length it was Holmes who broke the silence.
‘Can we talk?'
She was on the point of saying that she did not want to talk to anybody; but the other feeling took over.
‘You can come in if you want to.’
She took it as an excuse for another cigarette and another drink and another method of distracting her attention from the pain and the emptiness. He took a drink also, rather to her surprise. It was not, he said, an official visit. He had known Shepherd. He wanted to talk. He had liked Shepherd. He had admired him.
‘I am sorry — ’ she said, and stopped. She had wanted to say that she was sorry that she had been rude at the door but she was not sure now what had happened or whether she had been rude or whether he had noticed. ‘You are — ’ she asked ‘ — from the department?’
He was, but it was not an official visit. ‘Lamb,’ he said, with a grin, ‘doesn’t know.’
The sullen smile was disarming.
‘Why have you come?’
‘Why does one come?’ he said as though he was asking himself the question and had been asking it for some time, before he came, on his way, repeatedly. ‘I knew Shepherd,’ he repeated. ‘I liked him. I suppose I wanted to see if there was anything I could do. Not,’ he said, ‘that I believe I can do anything. No one can. I take it,’ he added, ‘you’re all right for money?’
‘At the moment.’
The department will look after you.’
She tightened her lips. ‘Will it?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘You think so?’
‘It always does.’
He began to ask about her family. Her mother and father lived at Liège. They were too old to travel. She had sisters and a brother. Perhaps they might come over. She had not asked them for the funeral. He got the impression she liked to be independent and was not close to her family.
The Shepherd File Page 4