The Empty House

by Michael Gilbert

  The others agreed with this.

  “It’s an innovation since your time,” said Mr. French-Bisset. “Being a bachelor, I don’t use nearly as much of the private side of the house as my predecessor did. We’ve reorganised a whole wing into small single rooms for the ten senior boys.”

  “Bliss,” said Key.

  “It makes all the difference,” agreed the fair boy. “Pigging it with thirty others in the day-room when you first came was bad enough. But being forced to share a room the size of a large cupboard with someone you didn’t really like—”

  Everyone laughed. There was some joke here that Peter didn’t understand.

  “It’s not that we’re soft,” said Key. “We’re just more grown-up. Old Garland used to rattle on about the days when he was here. It must have been about sixty years ago, but it sounded like Tom Brown’s Schooldays. New boys being made to sing solos in the prep room on Sunday evening and have boots thrown at them. What good was it supposed to do them?”

  “Useful if you were planning to be an actor,” said the dark boy. “First-night nerves would never seem so bad again.”

  Peter said, “Surely old Garland can’t still be here?”

  “He retired last year. He lives at Ilfracombe and spends his time composing crossword puzzles and double-dummy bridge problems.”

  “He’d remember Alex Wolfe, I expect.”

  At the mention of the name, all the boys looked up together. Peter realised that they must know all about it, and must have heard—how, through Key Senior via Key Three?—that he was connected with it.

  The dark boy said, “Can you tell us what really did happen?”

  “If you want me to protect you,” said Mr. French-Bisset, “you’ve only to say the word.”

  “No, that’s all right,” said Peter. “I don’t know what happened. Not yet. But I am trying to find out. I expect you read about it in the papers.”

  Key said, “My brother used to talk about Mr. Wolfe a lot. And that’s odd, when you come to think about it, because none of us Keys have ever had any brains—”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” said the dark boy.

  “Pipe down,” said Mr. French-Bisset. “Go on, Key.”

  “It wasn’t even as if they were here together. Mr. Wolfe left a year or more before my brother arrived. But boys were still talking about him. I think they realised he was something special even then.”

  “I expect it was because he was normal,” said the fair boy. “Most science masters are freaks.”

  The thin, serious boy, opening his mouth almost for the first time, said to Peter, “You don’t really think Mr. Wolfe’s dead, do you?”

  “I rule,” said Mr. French-Bisset, slowly looking at Peter, “that that question is out of order. I wonder if I dare offer you all a glass of port.”

  “That depends what port it is,” said Key reasonably. “If it’s the 1963, it ought to go quite well with the claret.”

  As Peter lay in bed that night listening to the wind whispering among the tops of the tall trees outside his window, he was not thinking about the problem of Dr. Wolfe. He was thinking that he liked Mr. French-Bisset a lot; more than he had done when French-Bisset was simply his housemaster, because then he had not understood him so well. He wondered if people realised what lasting effects, for better or worse, schoolmasters had on the boys they taught. Particularly in boarding schools. For ten of the most impressionable years of their lives, schoolmasters were much more important to boys than their parents. Sometimes you were lucky, sometimes quite definitely not. Peter remembered one housemaster, when he had been there, who had been a clergyman—

  He drifted off to sleep.

  It was at almost exactly this moment that Mr. Birnie’s nightmare began.

  A click, which half woke him, as the lock of his bedroom door was forced back. Then soft hands, which lifted the bedclothes. Others, less soft, which held him down. A hand which clamped a cloth over his mouth to stop him whimpering. The sharp prick of a needle in his arm. Then merciful nothingness.

  11

  The rain clouds rolled up again during the night and it was through a grey world that Peter trudged down to the town next morning.

  He found the Stanhope Arms in an uproar, and old Mr. Knight as nearly worried as he had ever seen that stolid Devonian.

  “Lucky you’ve turned up,” Mr. Knight said. “We’d have had to send and fetch you.”

  “Who? Why? What’s up?”

  “It’s the police. They’ll tell you.” He indicated the door of the private bar. “You go along in.”

  The private bar still smelled of the beer which had been drunk there and the cigarettes which had been smoked there the night before. Seated behind one of the tables was a small, stout man whom Peter had never seen before. On each side of him sat a uniformed policeman.

  Mr. Knight said, “This is Mr. Manciple. You were asking about him.”

  The larger of the two policemen, who had the stripes of a sergeant on his arm, said, “Sit down, Mr. Manciple. Perhaps you can help us.”

  “Perhaps I can,” said Peter, “if you’ll tell me what it’s about.”

  “I ought to be in hospital,” said the stout man.

  “Mr. Birnie here had an unfortunate experience last night.”

  “Yes?” said Peter. He examined the stout man, who looked as if he had dressed in a hurry and had then crawled through a hedge. His cheeks and all three of his chins were unshaven, his eyes were red-rimmed, and there was a white crust around his mouth. Peter thought that Mr. Birnie had had a severe shock, or was suffering from a record hangover.

  “It would appear,” said the Sergeant, consulting his notebook, “that Mr. Birnie was abducted forcibly from his bedroom last night, drugged, taken away by car, subjected to intimidation and questioning, and then abandoned by the roadside at an early hour this morning. Fortunately, a passing motorist saw him and brought him back here and we were informed.”

  “I’m very sorry for Mr. Birnie,” said Peter. “A most unpleasant experience. But why—”

  “What’s it got to do with you, you were going to say? The fact of the matter is that he was occupying your room.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” said Mr. Birnie.

  “Even so—”

  “And Mr. Knight hadn’t altered the register, you see.”

  “There wasn’t much time last night. I’d have altered it this morning.”

  “No one’s blaming you, Mr. Knight. I’m just stating the facts. Anyone coming in during the evening and looking at the register – it’s kept open on the ledge of the reception office, I understand – they’d have read your name and assumed it was you occupying room thirty-four, you see.”

  “I suppose they would.”

  “So it looks as if it was you they were after.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “As soon as they found out it wasn’t you, they didn’t have no more interest in Mr. Birnie. They didn’t even rob him.”

  “They turned out my pockets.”

  “Yes, sir. But that was just to make sure you were telling them the truth – about who you were.”

  At this point a doctor arrived. He examined Mr. Bimie and said, “There’s nothing that six hour’s sleep won’t put right. I’d recommend a hot bath, too.””I shall protest to my M.P.”

  “That’s right. You do that,” said Mr. Knight. “You can have the same room and I won’t charge you for the extra night, as long as you’re out by four o’clock.”

  When Mr. Birnie had been led away, the Sergeant said, “I don’t know what your plans are, Mr. Manciple, but I’d be obliged if you’d stay on until the Inspector gets here. He’s in Exeter at the moment, but he’s coming right over. He’d like to have a word with you, I do know that.”

  “All right. I’ve got to wait here for two telephone calls anyway.”

  “Well, that’s quite convenient, then, isn’t it?”

  “You make yourself comfortable in the c
offee room,” said Mr. Knight. “There won’t be anyone else in there. Not during the morning.”

  The first call came at eleven o’clock. It was Theo. He said, “I’ve been having a look at our catalogues of terracottas. I located both your chaps in Walters’ Ancient Pottery. Marcus Perrenius crops up a lot. He seems to have been the owner of a factory at Arezzo which turned out Arretine ware. It’s very similar to the stuff we call Samian, or Terra Sigillata, which was manufactured in central Gaul. Tigranis was one of the craftsmen, probably a slave, employed at Perrenius’ factory. His name and the name of another slave, Xanthus, are two you find quite commonly on pottery from that particular workshop.”

  “Then they are genuine finds?”

  “From your description, they certainly sound like genuine Arretine ware. Which makes it all the more curious.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Arretine ware is never found in Britain. At least, it’s never been found yet. Samian, yes. Arretine, no.”

  “Then that means that Professor – that the man who showed them to me – is a fraud?”

  “It doesn’t mean he’s not an archaeologist, although no one at the B.M. remembers his name. It simply means he’s been salting the mine.”

  “Come again?”

  “If he gets a lot of people looking over the site, he might want to have a few impressive pieces to show them. Unethical, but understandable.”

  “Wouldn’t he risk discovery?”

  “Only if he was stupid enough to show them to someone with X-ray eyes like you. Do you want me to do anything about this? I could come down myself next week and have a look, if you like.”

  “I think we’d better leave it alone, for the moment. Thank you very much, Theo. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.”

  Detective Inspector Home of the Devon Constabulary arrived as Peter was ringing off. He was an un-alarming man with a brick-red face and white hair and a fatherly manner.

  He said, “When I got a report from Sergeant Rix, I thought I ought to have a word with you. It seemed to me that the circumstances wanted looking into. They seemed odd.”

  “Very odd,” said Peter. “And if they really were after me, very alarming.”

  “Somewhat alarming,” agreed the Inspector. “So what we have to ask ourselves is why these men should have wished to attack you.”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same thing ever since I heard about it.”

  “And did you come to any conclusion?”

  “I suppose it must be something to do with the job I’m down here on.”

  “Which is what? That’s to say, if it’s not confidential.”

  “There’s no secret about it. I’ve been sent down by the insurers to look into the accident that happened to Dr. Wolfe.”

  The Inspector said, “Yes?” he said it in a neutral voice which might have meant that he knew about it already, or might have meant that he was digesting the information. “Bridgetown? You’ll be staying at Dave Brewer’s place, no doubt.”

  “That’s right. You know him?”

  “Everyone knows Dave Brewer. He’s what you might call a character. However, it doesn’t get us much forrader, does it? Why should the fact that you’re looking into Dr. Wolfe’s death provoke these people to attack you?”

  “It’s much odder than you think,” said Peter. He explained, with the omission of certain details, his movements on the previous day. “So, you see, no one can possibly have known that I was planning to spend the night here.”

  “Could you have been followed?”

  Peter thought of the long, empty moorland roads. “No,” he said. “Quite impossible.”

  “And you’re sure you didn’t mention to anyone that you were coming here?”

  “I couldn’t have mentioned it. I didn’t make my own mind up until the last moment.”

  “Then that makes it odder still, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s quite mad.”

  “The men who did this weren’t mad, sir. They were professionals. Three of them, we think. They picked the lock of the annexe door and the lock of the bedroom, and they didn’t make enough sound, getting in or getting out again, to disturb an old lady in the next room who suffers from insomnia.”

  While Peter was thinking about this, the Inspector added, “You said just now that you supposed it must have been something to do with the job you’re on down here. You might be right. I just wondered why you assumed it.”

  “Well,” said Peter, “I lead a peaceful sort of life, as a rule. Most of my work is done with books and calculators, sitting behind a desk. I seem to have barged into something rather unusual down here. Colonel Hollingum – he’s the man at the Research Station—”

  “Yes, sir. I know Colonel Hollingum.”

  “He gave it to me straight from the shoulder. Leave it alone. Go home. That may have been sound advice, from his point of view. But we couldn’t just drop it. It would have meant that the insurers would have to pay up, without any real investigation being made.”

  “I understand that Dr. Wolfe’s sister was to get quite a substantial amount.”

  It occurred to Peter that Inspector Home was curiously well informed. He said, “Are you involved in this yourself?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Inspector said. “I am involved in what’s been going on at Bridgetown. It was a bit beyond the local talent, so we were called in from Exeter. That was convenient, because Western Command Headquarters is at Exeter and we were able to cooperate with them.”

  Peter had a sudden picture of machines beginning, very slowly, to move into action; of gears engaging and wheels turning; ponderous machinery which, once started, would not be easy to stop.

  He said, “You realise that I am not concerned with anything more than to make absolutely sure that Dr. Wolfe is dead.”

  The Inspector said, “I could wish that our job was as simple as that. We’ve another problem on our hands now. We’d like to know what has happened to Dr. Bishwas.”

  “Good God,” said Peter, “has something happened to him, too?”

  As soon as he had spoken, he realised that the Inspector had led him to the edge of the swimming pool and pushed him in at the deep end. It had been very neatly done.

  “Then you did know Dr. Bishwas, sir?”

  Policemen always added “sir” when they thought they had got you in a corner.

  “Yes,” said Peter, “I’d met him.”

  “And when was that, sir?”

  “He spoke to me in the reception hut when I was waiting to talk to Colonel Hollingum.”

  “And was that the only occasion, sir?”

  “No,” said Peter. “It wasn’t.”

  It seemed pointless to lie about it. It would have to come out sooner or later. He told the Inspector all that he could remember of their meeting, leaving out only the technical details of their conversation. The Inspector was more interested in things that had happened than in things that had been said. Where exactly had Dr. Bishwas been waiting for him? How long after they had started talking had he heard the car stop? What direction had Dr. Bishwas moved off in?

  “When did they first miss him?”

  “At breakfast next morning. He didn’t come back to the camp at all. They made inquiries down in the village. It seems there was a girl.”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “He told me about her. She was his recreation period.”

  “Whatever she was, she’s in the clear. There are plenty of witnesses that he never went near her house that night.”

  “So where did he go?”

  The Inspector didn’t answer that. He was looking out of the window, at the cars jostling each other in the street and the pedestrians hurrying out of the way to avoid being splashed. In the end, he said, “Could you tell me what you were planning to do? Give me some rough idea of your movements?”

  “I’m waiting here for a telephone call.”

  “And then?”

  “A lot will depend on what I learn from that phone
call – if I learn anything at all.”

  “You couldn’t be a little more precise than that, I suppose?”

  “I can’t tell you what I’m going to do until I know myself.”

  “I suppose that’s reasonable,” said the Inspector. “But when you do make your mind up, I think you ought to let us know.”

  “Oh,” said Peter. “Why?”

  The Inspector took his time over that one. Then he said, “Those men last night who snatched poor Mr. Birnie. He must have seen them quite clearly, but, do you know, he wouldn’t give us any sort of description of them. I would guess they’d told him what was going to happen to him if he did. The state he was in this morning, it wasn’t so much a hangover from the drug they put into him. It was a hangover from being more frightened than he’d ever been frightened in his life before. A sort of delayed shock, you might call it.”

  “So?”

  “If it was the same people, or friends of theirs, who picked up Dr. Bishwas, and they had the whole night to work on him, I expect they’d have got out of him what he’d been doing and what he’d been talking to you about. And if they did, it seems to me you ought to be a bit careful. If you follow me.”

  “I follow you perfectly.”

  “Of course, I may be putting two and two together and getting quite the wrong answer – it happens sometimes.” The Inspector heaved himself to his feet and made for the door. “But you will bear it in mind, won’t you?”

  “I’ll bear it in mind,” said Peter.

  The call he was expecting had not come by lunchtime, and after lunch he sat in the coffee room for a long time, watching the raindrops form on the windows, join up into tiny rivulets, amalgamate with bigger streams, run down and disappear.

  At four o’clock Mr. Knight brought in two cups of tea and settled down for a chat.

  He said, “I wouldn’t have mentioned your father, not if I’d known he’d gone. Tactless of me.”

  “That’s all right,” said Peter.

  “He was an interesting man. I enjoyed talking with him. I always meant to ask what he did.”

  “He was an actuary.”

  “If he’d told me that, I wouldn’t have been any wiser.”