Operation Pax

by Michael Innes

  It was an unexpected epitaph on Albert Routh.

  11

  A mile short of Milton Manor, Appleby overtook and cautiously passed a small horde of children on bicycles. Almost immediately afterwards, and as he turned into the side road on which the entrance to the estate must lie, he just saved himself from head-on collision with a powerful car swinging out at a dangerous pace. The two vehicles came to a stop, bonnet to bonnet, with a scream of brakes. Appleby was preparing to speak in his frostiest official manner when he became aware that the driver of the other car was known to him. It was the fat Bede’s don, Mark Bultitude.

  Without attempting to back, Appleby climbed out. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘We nearly did each other a good deal of damage.’

  For a second Bultitude, who had not stirred from his wheel, stared at him blankly. Then his face broke into a smile. ‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘Sir John Appleby, is it not? I was sorry not to have some conversation with you last night. We are undoubtedly here on the same errand.’

  ‘Except that I am coming and you are going.’

  ‘Precisely. You remember Cumming who was always going, and Gowing who was always coming? Too few people now read that immortal diary… You are looking for news of the young man Ourglass?’

  ‘At the moment, I am looking for my sister. It is she who is looking for him – with some rashness, possibly.’

  Bultitude raised his eyebrows. ‘I was being introduced to your sister a few hours ago in Oxford. If I may say so, I thought her a delightful girl, who never says anything silly, and who looks particularly charming when she thinks she has.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It was meeting her that put this expedition into my head… Good gracious – what a mob of brats!”

  The children on the bicycles had swept past. They were shouting and arguing hotly as they disappeared in a cloud of dust. Appleby watched them absently. ‘It was through meeting my sister that you came out here?’

  ‘Actually, I had suggested to the young man’s uncle – I think you met him when he was my guest last night – that we should come and do a little exploring together. But he finally excused himself. Not that he isn’t genuinely anxious about his nephew. But I believe that I offended him deeply – although almost, perhaps, without his conscious awareness – by making one or two unfortunate facetious suggestions when he first told of the matter. Anyway, I came straight out myself.’

  ‘I see.’ Appleby, who a few minutes before had been in a tearing hurry, produced a pipe and filled it slowly. ‘You’ve become interested in this young man?’

  Bultitude considered. ‘It appears,’ he said gravely, ‘that this Geoffrey Ourglass is an Ourglass. I had no idea. One is naturally interested in a well-connected youth.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Appleby looked hard at the fat man. Bultitude, he thought, must have had a motor-car body more or less built round him.

  ‘And if in addition to that he has brains – as this Geoffrey apparently has – then he is a rara avis indeed. No exertion should be too great if he can be brought back to Bede’s.’

  ‘A very proper collegiate feeling.’ Appleby lit his pipe. ‘And you came out this way simply because you had heard the story of young Ourglass having been seen driving – or being driven – hereabouts?’

  Bultitude’s arms began to flip about his person with something of the helplessness of the wings of a penguin. It presently appeared that he was in search of a cigarette case. Appleby produced matches. When this exigency had been adequately met Bultitude picked out the conversation as if it had not been interrupted. ‘No, Sir John. I had a further reason – an acquaintanceship in these parts.’

  ‘At Milton Manor?’

  ‘My dear Appleby – if I may so address you – how thoroughly on the spot you are. At Milton Manor, as you say. A certain Dr Cline, who runs the place. Or who runs one side of it.’

  ‘That is most interesting to me, Bultitude. A close acquaintance?’

  ‘Dear me, no. My intimates, such as they are, move in other classes of society. A former professional contact – no more. But it struck me that it might be worthwhile consulting him.’

  ‘How very odd.’

  Bultitude pondered, as if resolved to accord this response fair consideration. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I agree. It was odd. It was a queer idea. Less an idea, indeed, than an intuition.’

  ‘A successful intuition?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. At first Cline was engaged, and then they couldn’t find him. Moreover there was a fire. By now the whole place may be burnt down.’

  ‘Burnt down?’

  ‘Would it be so regrettable?’

  This time Appleby looked at Mark Bultitude very hard indeed. ‘Am I to understand that you have formed an unfavourable opinion of this clinic?’

  Bultitude smiled his most brilliant smile. ‘I should conceive it – upon reflection, but quite recent reflection – to be highly dangerous and probably highly criminal… Dear me – how late it is! I really must be pushing on.’

  Appleby seemed not altogether disposed to take this hint at its first offering. ‘It seems likely,’ he said grimly, ‘that my sister is in this highly dangerous and probably highly criminal place now. I shall be there myself in five minutes–’

  ‘I am delighted to hear it. The matter – if I may be allowed to say so – will be in most competent hands.’

  ‘And unless certain coded instructions are given to the contrary, there will be a very considerable force of police there – well, a little later on.’

  ‘How much I wish I could stop. Unfortunately, most important business calls me back to Oxford…most important business, my dear Appleby. And now, if perhaps I were to back a few yards–’

  ‘That is most obliging of you, Bultitude. It is really my car that ought to be moved.’

  ‘Not at all, my dear fellow – not at all.’ By what was in him a remarkable acrobatic feat, Bultitude contrived to raise an arm in a condescending and dismissive gesture. ‘By the way – was it just the old story of Ourglass’ being seen hereabouts that has brought Miss Appleby out this way?’

  ‘Far from it. Last night – although she knows nothing of this – a thoroughly desperate gang of criminals were hunting a small man with a scratched face about Oxford. They captured him. They captured me too.’

  ‘That was indeed an achievement.’

  Appleby smiled. ‘If I were confronted with them, I would be the first to offer my congratulations.’

  ‘It would be handsome of you. But proceed.’

  ‘We both escaped – or rather were rescued. Then this little man faded out. My sister saw him this morning in the upper reading-room in Bodley.’

  Bultitude raised his eyebrows. ‘How very interesting. It is true that highly criminal proceedings are frequently conducted there – but on what must be termed, conventionally, the intellectual plane.’

  ‘Then she saw him being kidnapped from Radcliffe Square, and somehow learnt that the destination of the kidnappers was Milton.’

  Bultitude’s engine started into life, and his car shot alarmingly backwards. It then advanced, clear of Appleby’s mudguards, and stopped again, with the engine ticking over. The bulk of Bultitude deflected itself by some inches from the perpendicular. In a common man the attitude would have been that of leaning affably out to bid a friend farewell. ‘This has been a most enlightening conversation, Appleby. I have missed a luncheon party, but I am really very glad that I came out, all the same. There are times when one must cut one’s losses – in the interest, of course, of greater ultimate gains.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. It is a generalization one must bear in mind.’ Appleby stepped clear. ‘I hope your important business in Oxford will go well.’

  ‘And I, in my turn, am most anxious about the issue of yours, here in Milton. And who knows’ – Bultitude let in his clutch and his car glided smoothly forward – ‘that we may not meet and compare notes later?’

  ‘In your common room tonight?’
/>
  Bultitude smiled. ‘I wonder,’ he said – and drove on.

  12

  The cyclists had not got far. Appleby passed them again round the next bend, scattered over a grassy knoll in a sort of irregular bivouac. Some were eating sandwiches or apples; some were disputing hotly; the greater number were listening to an impassioned harangue by a small, red-haired boy. Perhaps they were unable to agree on whether their expedition had taken them far enough. Appleby was not inclined to give the matter much thought. He had other things to think about.

  At the lodge of Milton Manor he was nearly involved in a second collision. The gates were open, and a couple of heavy covered lorries were just swinging out. Drawn into the side of the road with his engine running, Appleby eyed them grimly. Then before the gates could be shut again he drove through them and stopped. A respectable-looking man at once hurried up. ‘I’m very sorry, sir. But no visitors today.’

  Appleby shook his head ‘I’m not a visitor. I’m a fireman.’

  The man looked startled. ‘Sorry, sir. My orders are–’

  ‘Don’t you know the place is on fire?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve had it on the house telephone. But my–’

  ‘Then don’t be a fool, my man.’ Appleby was suddenly brusque. ‘I always come out ahead of my brigade, as you very well know. The engines will be here within a minute. Leave these gates open, and see that nothing gets in the way.’

  ‘But you won’t get through the fence.’ The man was puzzled and worried. ‘And I’ve orders–’

  So there was another barrier. It was something, Appleby thought, that one might have guessed. ‘But surely,’ he said, ‘you keep a key here?’

  ‘No, sir. I telephone up to the house.’ The man was apologetic. ‘It’s the animals, you see. Very valuable, they are.’

  ‘No doubt. And I suppose the house itself is of some value too. And it’s burning. See that you telephone at once.’ Appleby let in his clutch again and shot forward. As he did so he fancied he heard, far off and faintly from behind him, the chiming of a great many bicycle bells.

  Driving fast, he rounded a bend and saw a tall wire fence in front of him, running away on either side of equally tall gates of the same material. If he waited, perhaps somebody would come and unlock them. Or perhaps somebody would not. No buildings were as yet visible, but from beyond a belt of trees a thin column of smoke was rising. It did not look as if the fire reported by Bultitude was in fact very serious. He took his foot from the accelerator, meaning to slow down and consider his best course of action. As the roar of the engine died, he thought for a moment that he heard the crackle of flames. Then he realized that the sound was of rifle or revolver fire. He compressed his lips and peered ahead, trying to estimate from a distance the strength of the barrier before him. There really was no help for it. He pressed down on the accelerator hard. The car had still been travelling at a good pace. He felt in his back the sudden thrust of its eight roaring cylinders. One did this in the circus. Only there the barrier was of paper, and the vehicle a discreetly cantering horse…

  The gates went down with a crash – and with a flash of brilliant blue flame. Appleby’s body tingled all over; there was a queer sensation in his scalp; for a moment an unaccountable smell of singeing filled the car. By the time he had taken a guess at what had happened he had rounded another bend and glimpsed Milton Manor straight before him.

  There was a crowd of people out on a lawn – patients, he supposed, because several nurses appeared to be attending on them. At a little distance from these a man in a white coat was lying back in a deck chair, with the appearance of being assisted or revived by two more nurses. Farther on, he could see a red fire tender and a tangle of hoses. He cut off his engine and heard another shot. It came from somewhere beyond the house. The drive forked and he swung left. It curved towards the house again, and in front of him he now found a tall archway that appeared to lead into a courtyard. He drove straight through.

  13

  ‘And now for our experiment.’

  Remnant was coolly stripping a strip of cloth from the white linen coat of the corpse with the red beard. Some yards back from the door that pointed towards the tip of the island he had already built a formidable double breast work out of the stainless-steel equipment with which the place was lavishly provided. Now he advanced to the door with his improvised rope – the second he had constructed that day – in his hand. He tied it to the handle, unlocked the door, and retreated, gun in hand.

  ‘You’d better be inside this too. And bring the boy. It will be the safest place if there really is shooting and things begin to ricochet.’

  Jane Appleby did as she was told. ‘You think they’re still there?’

  He grinned. ‘I’ll be pretty surprised if they are. But we’ll take no chances… Ready?’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘If anything does happen, take your time. I got the lie of the land pretty well from the roof. They’ve no chance of rushing us, even if they’ve been reinforced from the house. And – by that same token – we have no chance of advancing against them… Now!’

  Remnant pulled firmly at his rope and the door swung open. In an instant a bullet rang past above their heads.

  Jane’s heart leapt. They were still there – which meant that Geoffrey was still there too. ‘Roger Remnant,’ she murmured in her companion’s ear. ‘His first bad guess.’

  Remnant’s reply was lost in a second rattle of fire. The bullets ripped harmlessly overhead. She heard a click of metal beside her. Remnant was fiddling with a long forceps and a couple of mirror-like stainless-steel plates. ‘First-rate periscope,’ he said. ‘Keep down, whatever you do. I’ll give you a full report in a tick.’ He shoved up the forceps with one plate gripped in it, and manoeuvred it to an angle. ‘OK. Perfectly clear. Temple has pillars all round. And a couple of fellows are lurking there to keep us back. I’ll just touch them up a bit. Show them we’re quite lively.’ He suddenly thrust out an arm and fired.

  ‘Perhaps they can’t get away?’

  ‘Unless we already have friends on the spot, I don’t see that that’s possible, worse luck. They must have a punt beyond the temple – or something of that kind. I’d say they’re holding what’s a strong position until they get a car round from the house. Then they’ll be off all right.’

  ‘I wish John would come.’

  ‘That your brother? So do I. We could do with every Appleby – male and female – your family can raise.’ Remnant’s voice was not, Jane considered, altogether convincing. He’s a vain creature, she thought ungratefully, and just loves it being all his show. He’d like to beat them off his own bat. And I wouldn’t put it beyond him…

  Her thought was scattered by the sudden roar of an engine starting into life somewhere beyond the square temple in front of them. Remnant scowled. ‘There they go,’ he said. ‘But keep down still. I’m going to have a proper squint… Hullo – what’s that?’

  From somewhere out in the park a new sound came to them: that of racing cars, a low, almost continuous penetrating horn, and behind that a single urgently chiming bell.

  Jane gasped. ‘It’s John…it’s the police – and an ambulance…’

  Remnant had got on his knees. He fired a couple of shots at the farther temple, waited a second, and stood up. ‘Gone,’ he said.

  The engine beyond the temple was still roaring. Suddenly above they heard a single shrill call – a call for help. The sound brought Jane to her feet in an instant. ‘Geoffrey!’

  For a second she saw nothing except a row of Doric pillars and a dark doorway beyond. Then a single figure emerged flying – the figure of a young man in ragged trousers and a torn shirt. His hair was matted and his face was a dead white streaked with grey. Two men – one in a white coat – pounded after him.

  ‘Jane – Jane!’ It was a cry like a child’s – and as he uttered it the young man thrust out blindly, gropingly, an appealing arm that seemed bruised and blackened in its torn sleeve
. ‘Help!’

  She took the breast work at a bound and ran. She heard Remnant curse and leap after her. There was a hail of bullets, and she heard Remnant give a cry, spin round and fall. But she herself was untouched. Geoffrey was no more than five yards away. She was nearly there. She was nearly touching him – Suddenly from the lake on her left a dark, dripping figure rose up, took her in a flying rugby tackle and then, with almost no loss of impetus, went rolling with her across the narrow tongue of land and into the lake on the other side. The water closed over her head just as she heard another fusillade of shots.

  For a moment she thought that she would never come up again – that she was down at some great depth in the grasp of a drowning man. Then – ludicrously, tragically – she found that she was struggling upright in some four feet of muddy water. Her head was out; she shook it; her eyes cleared – but in her ears there was still a great roaring. The square temple was straight in front of her. And above it hung something monstrous, out of nature: a vast and hovering insect. She shook her head once more, and knew that the roaring noise was not inside her own brain. The noise came from the insect. The insect was a helicopter… Even as the realization came to her the machine climbed, hovered again, and moved off on a lateral course.

  ‘They certainly seem to keep a trick or two up their sleeve.’

  She swung round. The man who had carried her headlong into the lake was standing breast-high in the water beside her. It was her brother John.

  14

  She was sitting on the bank. The skirt and jersey that had been her only garments lay heavy on her in sopping folds. Her hair was soaking. The shoes still slung absurdly round her neck were two small buckets of water. Only her eyes were dry – dry and bitterly angry.

  ‘John, why did you do it – why? It was Geoffrey – he’s alive!’

  ‘Which is more than you would have been in another five seconds.’ Her brother, who was binding up Remnant’s right arm, spoke grimly and without turning round. It dawned on her that he was quite as angry as she was. ‘Do you think, sir’ – he was addressing Remnant – ‘that this was a proper affair in which to involve my sister?’