"And Evans can get it out of the room to you and get it back in again without being spotted?"
"Look," said Deering, shutting his eyes for a moment. "To start with he doesn't have to search high and low because Ayscue always puts his keys with his loose change and the rest of it on his dressing-table when he hangs up his pants at night. Now then. In comes Evans with the tea tomorrow morning, puts it down by the bed, picks up Ayscue's shoes and buggers off out again, whipping the keys as he goes. I'm standing by with my bit of wax and in ten seconds I've done my stuff and I'm on my way. Evans goes back with the shoes and dumps the keys before Ayscue's got his eyes open. Okay? If you can't trust me to take the impression properly you can go down to the huts and do it yourself."
"I'd be noticed. Nobody pays much attention to a batman wherever he is."
"Oh, thanks very much, I'm sure. Any other worries?"
"That's all, Deering, thank you."
The batman came to something not unlike attention. "Thank you, sir. Good night."
Left alone, Leonard paced the uneven floor of his room. He was feeling mildly uncomfortable, tense, short of confidence, a state he was growing familiar with. His walk brought him face to face with the major in his picture. A slight further decrease in confidence made him avoid that blue-eyed stare. It seemed to him to hold disappointment, perhaps reproach.
He was as far as ever from unmasking his spy; further, actually. Regular and searching inquiry among the S1 group showed that no officer still under suspicion had asked any of them anything whatever about Operation Apollo. Nor had anybody else, for that matter. A resolute incuriosity pervaded the camp. And the Ayscue thing, he felt sure, was a false trail, merely something he must factually and officially satisfy himself about. Meanwhile there was no news from the London end. The spy's new contact there, replacing the man recently arrested, was still untraced.
Then there was this new lead. He ought, he supposed, to be grateful for the least ray of light. But what it seemed to illuminate was as repugnant to his theories as if it had been specially contrived as such. And, with a prescience unusual in him, he could guess already that following it up would take a lot out of him, personally rather than professionally. He knew he ought to think that the last bit made it better, not worse, but could not manage to.
A knock came at his door. It proved to be from the hand of Ross-Donaldson.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Let's go."
They left the building and got into Leonard's car. This was fitted with a two-way radio set tuned to the frequency of the Command Post and the emergency station. Leonard switched it on and picked up the microphone. Conscious of Ross-Donaldson looking uninterestedly at him, he said,
"Hullo, Control. Padlock here. Over."
After some delay a north-country voice answered from the loudspeaker.
"Hullo, Padlock. Control receiving you. Over."
"Am leaving area for short period. Test personal alarm."
A puny buzz sounded from an instrument strapped to Leonard's right wrist.
"Hullo, Control. Okay. Out."
"What's that thing for?" asked Ross-Donaldson as they rolled down towards the gate.
"It tells me when there's something for me on the radio link. I always carry it when I move out of telephonic communication."
"There's a telephone where we're going."
"It may be insecure."
"Oh yes, of course it may. How silly of me to forget that."
"Security Officer and Adjutant," said Leonard to the guard corporal. "Operational."
"You must suffer a certain amount from training-action disparity," said Ross-Donaldson a moment later. "Especially in the absence of the usual action-surrogates."
"What are you talking about?"
"Things like parades, exercises, guards. Organized games don't help much because they aren't derived from training."
"I still can't understand a word you're saying."
"You see the phenomenon most clearly, of course, in troops brought to a high pitch of training for some specialized operation which is then unexpectedly canceled. Immediate plummeting of morale, indiscipline, drunkenness, petty crime, even medium-scale desertion. Not that I'm suggesting you'd go to those lengths. Tonight's expedition should help you a little to reduce tension."
"I think I see what you mean now," said Leonard. "Roughly."
After they had driven for some time he said,
"Don't introduce me as a Security man whatever you do."
"That might ruin everything, I do see."
"Just Captain Leonard of the Sailors."
"Right."
"If you could manage to mention casually that I'm on very secret work at the camp it might be very valuable."
"I'll see what I can do. Go left here."
"Wasn't that the Colonel's car that went by?" asked Leonard suddenly a little later still.
Ross-Donaldson rolled his window down and looked back the way they had come. "I believe it was, yes."
"Indicative. It would naturally be assumed that he knew more than his juniors."
"Logic plus inaccuracy in the pre-informed phase."
"That's right." Leonard, who recognized the expression from one of his manuals, was delighted. "I had no idea you were practiced in phylactological thought."
"I try to keep up with most things," said Ross-Donaldson modestly. "You can park next to these three."
"Isn't that your jeep there?"
"Indeed it is. Churchill asked if he might borrow it."
"Ah, there's no danger to be feared in that quarter. I wish everybody was like him."
"So do I."
Within another two minutes they were standing in a dimly lit room where a bald-headed man in his forties was reading a journal with the aid of a pencil-torch.
"Where's that man who let us in?" asked Leonard.
"Somewhere. It's often like that here."
The bald man looked up at them from ten yards away. With a deliberate movement of his wrist alone he brought the light of his torch round so that it illuminated in turn each of the soldiers from head to foot and back again. Then abruptly he returned to his reading.
Leonard was rather disconcerted. "Has that fellow been round the place before?" He spoke more quietly than usual, but just as thickly and urgently.
"I've never seen him. What about a drink?"
"I'd like some sherry if there is any."
"There won't be. Gin and tonic or nothing."
"Gin and tonic, then. Easy on the gin."
"Right." Ross-Donaldson raised his voice. "Can I get you something?"
The bald man continued to read.
While Ross-Donaldson was preparing the drinks, Leonard strolled across the room. His training had stressed the importance of attending to hunch and instinct, especially in what he had learned to call under-facted situations, and there was no doubt that hunch and instinct were telling him something now, though he could not have said quite what.
"Good evening," he said.
The bald man looked up again, but otherwise stayed as he was. Ten seconds later he said, "Good evening."
"Do you come here often?" asked Leonard helplessly.
"No. In fact this is my first visit."
"Mine too. How did you come to hear about it?"
"Hear about it? The fact of its existence is well known. As is that of its owner."
"Oh yes, of course, but I mean about what happens here."
"I think it possible that the two of us may have come here for different purposes."
"I think we probably have. What have you come for?"
The man raised the light of his torch briefly to Leonard's face, switched it off and put it in his pocket. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm an Army officer. I'm stationed at the camp not far from here. I expect you know the place."
"I know where it is."
"I'm engaged on some extremely important and very secret work there."
> "Indeed?" said the man, becoming more friendly. "It seems as if it may not go on being secret very much longer."
"Oh? What makes you think that?"
"Logic. If those engaged on it go round telling total strangers they're on secret work, the secret itself is halfway towards being found out. Effective concealment conceals the fact of concealment."
This was so like something out of his manuals that Leonard needed all his conditioning not to start or exclaim. He took his drink from Ross-Donaldson without looking at him and sipped it with careful slowness.
"That's interesting," he said. "What suggested that idea to you?"
"My work."
"And what's your work, if you don't mind my-?"
"Let's just say that it consists very largely of uncovering what people would rather keep hidden."
"You make yourself sound like some kind of spy."
"A spy?" said the bald man gently. "Now what on earth can have put such a notion into your head?"
"Just the way you were talking. I hope I haven't offended you."
What with his vocal predispositions and his present mental state, the lightness with which Leonard spoke was very creditable. The man had reacted to his suggestion abnormally, no doubt of that. And-the thought came in an instant-if this Lady Hazell was getting information out of people there would have to be somebody to pick it up from her. In the pause that now followed, Leonard turned his face away and slightly up, as if glancing idly round the room. Then he looked out of the corner of his eye at the bald man, who proved to be looking at him in the same fashion. He shifted his gaze abruptly and found it held, also askance, by that of a parrot that was clinging uncomfortably to the bars of its cage.
There was a longer pause, broken by the sound of voices. Leonard turned and recognized Hunter and Ayscue coming into the room with Ross-Donaldson. A car had presumably driven up and the front door been knocked at and opened, but Leonard had been too absorbed to notice.
Hunter approached and nodded to Leonard, then caught sight of the bald man.
"Well, this is a surprise," he said, on a higher note than usual. "Fancy running into you here. I see that you and Brian have got together already."
"We haven't been introduced. I was sitting here reading when-"
"Well, I must remedy that right away, though neither of you is the type to stand on ceremony, I know. This is Dr. Best, who runs the mental hospital down the road where I spent those few days recently-Captain Leonard."
"You and I have spoken together on the telephone," said Dr. Best to Leonard. "I thought I recognized your voice."
"You two have got a lot in common," began Hunter.
Leonard said quickly, "Something important has come up which I must tell you about at once. Will you excuse us, Dr. Best?"
"Certainly," said the doctor amiably, watching him.
"Would you like a gin and tonic, Hunter?" called Ross-Donaldson.
"Just a tonic, if I may. Well, Brian, why all the mystery?"
"I stopped you because you were about to reveal that I'm a Security man. You are not to do that under any circumstances. That's an order, Max."
"But you don't usually… You don't mean you think there are spies about or something, do you?"
"Just a routine precaution. Now I want to ask you something. That man, Dr. Best, I suppose he must have questioned you pretty exhaustively when he was treating you, about your life and your job and so on. Think carefully before you answer. Did he show any interest in what's going on at the camp?"
Hunter seemed to think carefully. Then he said, "Yes. Yes, he did. It struck me at the time, but so much else was happening that I haven't remembered until now. He must have asked me what the chaps were up to half a dozen times in different ways. Was it the sort of thing that could cause me anxiety, was I worried the program wouldn't be finished in time, it would help him if he knew more about it. He really kept on at me. I just said I didn't know, which you'll agree is true. And now I come to think of it, I'm jolly glad it is true."
"Why?" Leonard's habitual urgency was redoubled.
"I'll tell you in a moment… Thank you very much, Alastair. Do forgive Brian and me for being unsociable, but we have a certain rather urgent problem to solve."
"Right," said Ross-Donaldson. "Don't hesitate to call on me if you think I can be of the slightest assistance."
He went over to Ayscue. Leonard closed in on Hunter.
"Why? Why are you glad you don't know about Operation Apollo?"
Hunter looked about and lowered his voice. "Because Dr. Best questioned me under hypnosis," he hissed.
"And you can't remember what questions he asked you?"
"No. But I have a sort of feeling that they were put very… persistently. On and on and on at the same point without getting anywhere. Of course, I suppose I could be wrong about that."
"Mm. You've been most helpful, Max. Thank you."
"It's a pleasure, believe me, Brian. Anything else I can do?"
"As a matter of fact there is. I'll have this man investigated and watched, naturally, but there's often something to be gained from a frontal approach. I wonder, if we go back to him now, could you suggest to me and him that I go over to the hospital and he show me round?"
"Yes, okay, but why do you want to see the place, from his point of view?"
"Oh, I'm interested in techniques of questioning prisoners under drugs and so on. Leave that to me."
But in the event this stratagem was not needed. Hunter had barely finished making his suggestion before Dr. Best was leafing through his pocket diary.
"Would eleven-thirty next Tuesday be convenient?" he asked. "And afterwards I hope you'll allow me to give you lunch in my quarters."
Leonard thanked him and moved over to the other group. He was later to explain to Hunter that this withdrawal was aimed at allowing the doctor to comment freely and perhaps significantly on his prospective guest (and that pretending to welcome inquisitiveness or inquiry was a device as old as espionage).
For the time being, Dr. Best said nothing about Leonard. Instead, he asked Hunter how he had been and was feeling.
"Pretty fair, thank you."
"I see that at the moment, at any rate, you're keeping off the drink."
"As you observantly observe, at the moment, at any rate, I am."
"But on the other hand… Would you object if we resumed, just temporarily, the doctor-patient relationship we recently conducted?"
"Say whatever you like, doctor."
"Thank you, Captain Hunter. I was about to venture to suggest that, while it's heartening to find you refraining from alcohol, you're still evidently engaged in denying your true nature by the pursuit of women."
"Old Lucy? Yes, I thought I might look in and make use of the facilities. Is that bad?"
"Let's call it unhelpful. It'll only produce further tension and anxiety."
"I'll just have to learn to live with it. You're next, are you?"
"Next?"
"To make use of the facilities. Or did Brian and my other friend get here before you?"
"You should not assume that everybody is engaged in the same frantic and deeply disturbed and ultimately totally stultifying pursuit of mere physical release as yourself, Captain Hunter. I'm here for a quite different reason. It so happens that one of my patients is living in this house. She came out of hospital on probation the very same day as yourself. A case of cumulative psychic dystrophy which I think I've been fortunate enough to check and may even have partly reversed. I hope in due course to speak to Lady Hazell and find out something of how this woman's been getting on."
"Wouldn't it be simpler to talk to her rather than Lucy?"
"It's desirable that I avoid direct contact with her. She must learn to manage her life on her own resources. I don't want her to count on being able to see friends she can tell her troubles to and generally lean on."
"Friends like who?"
"Like myself."
"I see. I hadn't looked
at it like that. Aren't you drinking, doctor?"
"It doesn't greatly interest me in this form. I'm not an abstainer, however."
"I suppose only suppressed alcoholics are that."
"That's oversimplifying matters a good deal, but there is such a tendency, yes, speaking broadly. I enjoy a glass of wine with a meal, a good brandy after. In fact I've a small but not ill-chosen cellar in my quarters. Which reminds me. This young man I'm entertaining to lunch next week. Is he a friend of yours?"
"Well, none of us have known one another very long, but I've seen a good deal of him over the last month or so. Why?"
"He seems to me a little… anxious. Does he strike you as a well-balanced, well-integrated personality? A lay opinion based on direct contact can be useful."
Hunter said nothing for some seconds. Dr. Best looked at him with a smile.
"Why are you hesitating, Captain Hunter?"
"I'm not hesitating, I'm trying to make sure I answer your question accurately."
"As you may have heard, students of the human mind set most store by a spontaneous, top-of-the-head reaction, but now that the opportunity for this has been lost, you may as well take your time."
"I've taken it now. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Brian Leonard is a completely stable sort of chap. He likes his work and as far as I know he's good at it. Socially he's a little shy, perhaps, but gregarious enough. Not a drinker, not a solitary, not a depressive. If you're looking for a lunatic, Dr. Best, you're wasting your time with Brian."
"You speak with a good deal of warmth, Captain Hunter, more perhaps than the occasion would seem to warrant."
"I don't know about that. I'm getting pretty tired of all this not being able to take anything at its face value and seeing everyone as a case of something or other."
"Or could it be that your partisanship for Captain Leonard springs from some part of your mind that sees him as potentially… more than a friend?"
The Anti-Death League Page 10