The following morning, expecting that the police would arrive at about half-past nine to continue their investigations into Ankaret’s death, I went up to make another attempt to get into touch with her while the house was still quiet.
I was pleased to see that although they had turned her room topsy-turvy the previous day they had afterwards put everything back in good order. But when I concentrated my gaze on the still form beneath the bed-clothes I had a sudden unhappy feeling that I was again to suffer disappointment.
She had been dead for only a little over twenty-four hours; so to the normal eye her appearance had probably not yet altered, but to my super-sensitive sight it had. As I looked down on her still lovely face it seemed to me that the hollows below her high cheek-bones were more pronounced and that the shadows beneath her eyes had become darker.
I had now come to the conclusion that the truth must lie somewhere between the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians and the modern occultists: namely that while the former had been right in believing that the Ka lingered on after death of the body, the latter were also right in maintaining that it had no separate existence from it. In short, that the Ka disintegrated in direct relation to the decomposition of the physical form.
If I was right in that, and also right in thinking that Ankaret’s body now showed signs of decomposition, then it meant that her Ka, unlike mine, had already begun to lose something of its potency. In consequence every hour that passed would decrease my chances of communicating with it.
Nevertheless I hovered by the bed and spent a good hour willing her to come to me. At the end of it I gave up. All along I had felt convinced that her body was now no more than an empty shell, and, pray as I might, not so much as a ripple in the ether indicated that any presence other than my own had entered the room.
It was now about a quarter past nine. Passing into Johnny’s room I found that he had slept late and was only just getting up; so I went downstairs. The noble Earl was in the dining-room, making a hearty breakfast. For a while I hung about disconsolately. Then the police arrived; but only Sergeant Haines.
After asking Silvers a few questions—which presumably they had not thought of the day before—and writing the answers down in his note-book, he asked to see Bill. My father-in-law came out to him and was then informed that the inquest would be held next morning at ten-thirty; so, if he wished, he could make arrangements for the funeral to take place on the following day. The Sergeant added that the police were now satisfied as to the cause of death, so only formal evidence would be given at the inquest. He then took his departure.
As he walked out of the front door, Johnny came downstairs and, when they had exchanged ‘good mornings’, Bill said to him: ‘Sergeant Haines has just been to let us know that the inquest is tomorrow, and that we can have the funeral on Saturday. I see no point in putting it off over the week-end, do you?’
Johnny shrugged. ‘It’s for you to say if that will be giving long enough notice to her relatives who may wish to attend it.’
‘Oh I think so.’ Bill was obviously anxious to get such an unpleasant business over. ‘Most of ’em live in the Home Counties. It will be if you’d be kind enough to send those telegrams off as soon as you’ve had your breakfast.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Johnny agreed; but as he was about to enter the dining-room a taxi drew up at the front door and Harold emerged from it.
The London evening papers of the night before would, of course, have carried the story of Ankaret’s death, and with quite indecent haste he had arrived to claim his inheritance. To reach Longshot so early he must have got up at crack of dawn and caught the six thirty-three from Waterloo.
With a brevity which showed complete lack of feeling, he condoled with Bill on Ankaret’s death, and at once began to look about him, evidently assessing the value of the pictures and furniture which were now his property.
Bill’s mouth tightened slightly, but with his unfailing courtesy enquired if Harold had yet had breakfast and, as he had not, asked Johnny to take him into the dining-room and give him some.
They were hardly seated before he began to bombard Johnny with questions. How much was his income likely to be? Did all the contents of the house now belong to him or were some of them Ankaret’s? What was the present value of his holding in Hillary-Comptons? How many acres of land went with the house? He even asked if I had had a long-playing gramophone and a television set.
Johnny, I thought, showed remarkable patience in bearing with him and answering his questions to the best of his ability. But as I witnessed Harold’s shameless exhibition of greed and eagerness to get his hands on my ex-assets my indignation grew until I could have slapped him. This gawky long-haired youth might be flesh of my flesh but, all the same, had I had the power to make another will I would have been greatly tempted to cut him out of it.
Such a possibility would have hardened into a certainty as he went on: ‘Of course, I shall sell this place. No one but a fool would squander half his income keeping it up. And as the land runs down to the foreshore it must be pretty valuable. We ought to raise quite a packet by selling the whole estate as a building site.’
At this display of vandalism I was delighted to see Johnny’s patience give out. ‘That,’ he said sharply, ‘is a matter for myself and my co-trustee, Mr. Compton. All your affairs are in our hands until you are twenty-one.’
Harold stared at him, then replied truculently: ‘It’s your job, and his, to get for me the biggest income that you can. That’s a trustee’s duty. It’s what they are for.’
‘On the contrary,’ retorted Johnny. ‘Short of robbing a trust they can do with it what they like; and they are under no obligation other than to protect its capital from depreciation to the best of their ability. As far as I am concerned I shall do my best to carry out what I believe would have been your father’s wishes. To sell Longshot would not have been one of them, and I am pretty confident that Mr. Compton will agree with me about that.’
How right he was! To have sold this gracious old family home, which had been built, furnished and cared for by several generations of our forebears, while there were still ample funds to support it would have been the act of a barbarian. The idea of its being turned over to demolition squads in order that rows of jerry-built bungalows might be erected on its site made me see red. I could take only small comfort in the thought that Johnny and James would protect it for the next three years, and hope that during them Harold might come under the influence of someone with a better appreciation than himself of real values. But that anyone so boorish and self-centred was likely to be loved or changed by a sensitive young woman seemed highly improbable.
Reduced to surly silence by Johnny’s having poured cold water on his immediate hopes of turning Longshot into money, Harold concentrated on his food until, just as they were finishing their meal, Johnny said:
‘May I ask what has brought you down here?’
‘Why, to take possession, of course,’ came the surprised answer. ‘Ankaret was no friend of mine, and I’m hanged if I’ll let her relatives have the run of the place for a moment longer than is necessary. What is more, I mean to tell old Wiltshire so.’
I squirmed at this further breach of good taste; but Johnny was more than a match for Harold. With a frosty smile, he said:
‘Do you, now? I wouldn’t if I were you, or you may regret it. You seem to have overlooked the fact that it is James Compton and myself who will decide what is to be done here. Lord Wiltshire is naturally greatly distressed by his daughter’s death. He will leave here in his own good time and not before. Should you be so rude as to suggest his departure to him I’ll get Longshot listed as an Ancient Monument. Then you will never be allowed to do anything with the property which might be detrimental to the house.’
Harold jumped to his feet, his face working with rage. ‘You can’t do that! Houses for the workers are more important than preserving old houses like this just because they were built a hundred and fifty years ago.’
‘Stop talking claptrap,’ Johnny admonished him, standing up and throwing his napkin on the table. ‘You know very well that you don’t give a damn for the workers. Most people would feel overwhelmed by their good fortune at coming into a lovely old place like this. All you are thinking of is to cash it in for as much money as you can get to spend on yourself.’
‘Well, I’ve a right to if I wish, haven’t I? I think you’re being beastly. I bet you’ve got some private axe of your own to grind. But I won’t stand for that. I’ll consult a solicitor.’
Johnny gave a mirthless laugh. ‘The best thing you can do is to ring up for a taxi and go home. Consult who you like. I don’t give a damn. But get out of here. I’ve enough worries without having to put up with impudent young cubs like you.’
I don’t think he would have shown his dislike and contempt for Harold quite so openly if worry had not already frayed his nerves to near breaking point. But he had never spoken a truer word, and within another minute he was given still further cause for anxiety about his own affairs. Silvers came in with a slip of paper on a silver salver and, presenting it to him, said:
‘A telegram for you, Sir. I have just taken it down over the telephone from the Post Office.’
Johnny took the paper and, looking over his shoulder, I read:
Your leave cancelled. Stop. Report to me personally immediately on your return. Benthorpe.
There could be little doubt what that meant. On the previous afternoon the Admiral had done his worst, and the unfortunate Johnny was being recalled to answer his allegation.
Thrusting the paper into his pocket, Johnny glanced at Harold and said: ‘I have urgent private affairs to attend to; so I shall be leaving shortly. If you wish to stay here to attend Lady Ankaret’s funeral on Saturday, and in the meantime have a look round, ask Lord Wiltshire if he will be good enough to give you a bed for a couple of nights. You had then best go home and wait till you hear from Mr. Compton or myself. You are clearly to understand that you are to remove nothing from the house. If you can manage to behave yourself like a gentleman, we may decide to increase your allowance; but if I hear that you have been in any way rude to Lady Ankaret’s relatives or the servants, we certainly shall not.’
Silvers, of course, had already left the room and Johnny now followed him. He found Bill in the library. Although it was only half-past ten, His Lordship was measuring out with scrupulous care his first brew of very dry Martini. After all, he had nothing else to do and a head like a rock; so why shouldn’t he. Johnny said to him:
‘I’ve had a telegram recalling me to duty; so I’ve got to leave at once, but I’ll try to get back for the funeral. Sorry not to be able to help you about the arrangements after all; but there it is. I’m sorry to tell you that that young bounder, Harold, may inflict himself on you for a couple of nights. But the place belongs to him now so one can hardly chuck him out. You might keep an eye on him though, and see that he doesn’t make off with anything of value when he does leave. He’s quite capable of it.’
Bill nodded. ‘Poor old Giff. Fancy him producing a son who is such an outsider. Still, my own boy gives me no cause for parental pride. Sorry you’ve got to leave, Johnny, but it can’t be helped. Care to join me in a snifter before you go?’
‘No thanks. It’s a bit early for me.’ Johnny declined the offer with a smile.
Ten minutes later I was once more with him on the road to London. In all the years I had lived at Longshot I had never made the trip so frequently in so few days, and I was getting a little tired of it. But I was now greatly concerned for him and all my thoughts were centred on what sort of reception he would meet with when we arrived.
As the morning was fine we made the run in good time. Instead of going to his office he drove straight to the Air Ministry and at a quarter to two parked his car outside it. Going into the building he followed the same route as he had when I had accompanied him there on the previous Sunday. On pushing open the door labelled ‘Air Commodore Benthorpe, Director of Plans’ he came face to face with the same young woman seated behind her typewriter. Giving him a surprised look, she said:
‘I thought you were on leave, Wing Commander.’
‘So I was,’ he replied. ‘But I’ve been recalled.’
‘Really!’ she raised her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t see the telegram; and there is no particular flap on.’
Johnny smiled at her. ‘There is always some sort of a flap going on in these parts. No doubt the P.A. sent it.’
‘I suppose so.’ She smiled back, showing two rows of excellent teeth. ‘Did the Air Commodore ask you to report to him personally?’
‘Yes. But at this hour I take it he’s at lunch.’
‘That’s it,’ she nodded. ‘You might just as well have had your own before coming in. But perhaps you have?’
‘No,’ Johnny told her, with a light-heartedness that he could scarcely have been feeling. ‘My reporting while still hungry is just a demonstration of my zeal for the Service.’
She showed her pretty teeth again in a laugh. ‘Well, he won’t be back till half-past two or a quarter to three; so you had better get some.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I’ll go down to the canteen. Perhaps you would be good enough to give me a buzz there when Master has returned and is ready to see me.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that, Wing Commander,’ she agreed decorously.
Downstairs in the canteen Johnny did not make much of a lunch, and afterwards he remained at his table nervously chain smoking. It was past three before the summons came and he went up again to his Chief’s office.
In the inner room, the short square-shouldered little Air Commodore was sitting behind his desk. On a chair nearby sat a tall heavy-featured Group Captain with a fluffy grey moustache. As Johnny entered his master came to the point at once.
‘Good afternoon, Norton. I’m sorry that I had to recall you from leave in the middle of family troubles; but a very serious charge has been made against you.’ He waved a hand towards his tall companion. ‘I don’t know if you know Group Captain Kenworthy; but he is the Assistant Provost Marshal, and he has been instructed to go into the matter.’
The Group Captain and Johnny exchanged polite nods, and the Air Commodore went on: The information was laid against you at the Admiralty, and passed to us first thing this morning. It is to the effect that you disclosed official secrets to your late uncle and to other persons. What have you to say about it?’
Johnny shrugged. ‘That it’s a mixture of moonshine and malice, Sir. From the start to finish it is utterly untrue. The whole thing emanates from the over-heated imagination of a retired Admiral who refuses to face facts, and will go to any lengths rather than see his own Service take second place to the Royal Air Force. I hope you will treat it as it deserves and throw it in the waste-paper basket.’
‘No.’ The Air Commodore tapped a finger on some sheets of foolscap that lay in front of him on his desk. ‘We can’t do that. These are not the ravings of a lunatic. The report is far too circumstantial. Perhaps I had better read it to you.’
He did as he proposed and it took a good ten minutes. The report was a perfectly fair one; but it contained full details of all that had occurred at the Hillary-Compton board meetings since I had launched my bomb-shell, and a very well-remembered account of my impromptu second speech to my co-directors, which made things look so bad for Johnny. When the Air Commodore had done he laid it down and said: ‘Now! What have you to say?’
‘All that about my uncle’s proposal to refuse the contract for the E-boats is perfectly true, Sir. But I didn’t brief him for the arguments he produced. I give you my word that I had never discussed such matters with him at any time.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I haven’t an idea. I’ve been worrying myself to death about it. I’ve been through his papers to try to find out; but I’ve had no luck. I haven’t a clue.’
‘It’s all very well to say that, Norton; but reading between the lines of this report you can see for yourself the sort of information to which your uncle had obtained access. There is an obvious reference to “Project Frying Pan”, another to the results of “Exercise Drastic”, and several to Future Operational Plans which are of the highest secrecy. There are less than fifty people in the whole country from which your uncle could have learned about things of that kind; and you are one of them.’
‘I can’t help that, Sir. I can only repeat that he did not get his information from me.’
‘You had knowledge nearly a week ago that this extraordinary breach of security had taken place; why did you not report it immediately?’
For the first time Johnny appeared shaken. After hesitating a moment he faltered. ‘I … I don’t quite know, Sir. I suppose I ought to have. But it was my uncle. I had complete trust in him and …’
‘That is a pretty damning imputation you’ve just made,’ cut in the Air Commodore.
‘I didn’t mean it that way, Sir,’ Johnny protested. ‘And anyway, within a few hours of the board meeting he was dead.’
‘That is no excuse for failing to report what he had said.’
There was a moment’s silence, then the Air Commodore turned towards the Group Captain and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I have no alternative but to do as your department requests.’
The Group Captain stood up and addressed Johnny in formal tones: ‘Wing Commander. It is my duty to place you under close arrest pending a full enquiry. Be good enough to come with me.’
* * * *
Matters had gone even worse than I had feared—much worse. The fact that Johnny was under a liability to report any leakage of secret information that came to his knowledge had not occurred to me. That he had failed to do so meant his being found guilty on that charge, anyhow; and it might seriously prejudice a court against him when considering the more serious one. It was certain they would argue that, as the Admiral had accused him from the beginning of being the source of my information, had he been innocent he would have cleared himself of complicity by reporting the leakage at once. That he had not now made the case against him very black.
Most unfortunately, too, he had not kept his head in front of his seniors as well as he had when surprised by Constable Cowper. He had been flurried into saying that he ‘trusted me,’ and the Air Commodore had pounced upon the admission as an indication of his guilt.
Poor Johnny. Even if, as no direct evidence could be brought against him, they gave him the benefit of the doubt, his career would be irretrievably ruined. And all because, in my eagerness to win over my co-directors, for a quarter of an hour I had let my tongue run away with me.
I could not help but feel that Sir Charles had been much to blame. Having taken me into his confidence he should have specified precisely what I could or could not divulge as an aid to getting my board to agree to his project. I suppose the fact of the matter was that he was used to attending conferences at which other officials, who were not privy to vital secrets, had to be persuaded to agree to measures by the disclosure of only limited knowledge of what lay behind them. No doubt, when he had given me powers of discretion, he had credited me with the same facility, not realising that I had had no experience of that sort of thing.
All the same, I could not exonerate myself from blame. My fatal pride in my powers of advocacy had carried me away. It was not the first time that had happened, and occasionally it had later caused me to look slightly foolish, but never before had it had such heart-rending results.
My grief and distress were made infinitely more acute by the knowledge that I was powerless to do anything about it. If only I could have come to life again in that room for two minutes I could have cleared Johnny completely. Even if I could somehow have got a message to Sir Charles, that this miscarriage of justice was about to take place, it is certain that he would at once have taken steps to exonerate Johnny from all blame. But in my state as a Ka I could do neither.
Yet, as I wrestled with this seemingly insoluble problem of how to get through to Johnny’s superiors, it suddenly occurred to me that there was still one possibility. I had twice made contact with Daisy. If I could do so again I might get her to give Sir Charles a message from me. The fact that it came from the so-called ‘spirit world’ might amaze him; but it would make no difference, because he knew the truth.
Without a moment’s delay, I passed through the Air Ministry window and descended to the street. Drifting quickly along to Parliament Square I turned the corner, entered Westminster Station and rode free of charge in the Underground to Hammersmith. Unjostled by pedestrians, I made my way to Daisy’s flat, arriving there soon after half-past four.
To my annoyance she was not in, so I waited in her sitting-room with such patience as I could muster. After about a quarter of an hour I heard the key turn in the lock and in she came. To my relief she was alone; but she looked very different from when I had last seen her.
There was nothing of the glamour girl about her now except her pretty face and good figure. Her hair was scraped back and she had no make-up on; she was wearing an old soiled raincoat and shabby shoes, and was carrying a string bag filled with eatables.
It took me a moment to realise that her present sluttish appearance was due to her living a very different life from most other women. The Club at which she worked did not close till four in the morning, so it would be five before she got home and to sleep; and still later on the occasions when she brought a boy-friend back with her. Most days it would probably be two o’clock before she got up and cooked herself some breakfast. Then she had to tidy up her flat, so she would not get round to her morning’s shopping until the late afternoon. Obviously she had just returned from shopping and she would soon set about preparing her lunch before dolling herself up for the evening.
I lost no time in concentrating on her but she walked right through me into the kitchen. Having hung up her old coat behind the door she set to work on her purchases. Among them were a chop, two tomatoes and some runner beans, and sitting down to the small table she began to slice the latter. I took up a position opposite her and started to call her by name over and over again.
She was humming cheerfully to herself and for a while she remained completely unaware of my presence. Then she appeared to become uneasy, stopped humming and glanced up at me several times. In spite of that the vague look in her blue eyes told me that she still had not seen me; but I felt that if I kept on willing her to do so she soon would.
Unfortunately, by then she had come to the end of her bean slicing and had also trimmed the chop; so she broke the beginnings of the rapport I was establishing between us by standing up, going to the stove, and putting her meal on to cook. Next she went into the bathroom, took down some lingerie that had been hanging up to dry over the bath and, carrying it back into the kitchen, began to iron it. Again I tried to compel her to see me but now she did not even glance up; so I came to the conclusion that I would have to wait until her mind was no longer fully engaged by some definite task.
As soon as her meal was cooked she sat down to it; so, feeling that the circumstances were now more propitious, I made another attempt. Almost at once she showed herself more receptive by again casting uneasy glances in my direction. Then her eyes widened, her hand holding the fork began to tremble, and she exclaimed:
‘Go back! Go back from where you came!’
Instantly I threw out the thought: ‘Don’t be frightened, Daisy, I only want to talk to you.’
‘I won’t let you!’ she cried, dropping her fork with a clatter on to her plate. ‘I won’t let you!’
‘I must,’ I insisted. ‘It’s terribly important.’
‘No! No! Get out! I won’t have you here!’
‘Please!’ I begged. ‘For God’s sake don’t shut your mind to me as you did before. Johnny is in serious trouble and …’
Cutting across my thought, she broke into a shrill tirade: ‘I don’t believe you! You’re evil! You’re not Sir Gifford. You’re someone from the Left. You thought to trick me last time; but you didn’t succeed. I’ll have nothing to do with you. Go from here! Go!’
Losing my temper I did the equivalent of shout at her. ‘You little fool! You’re deceiving yourself. I’ve done no harm to anyone, and I’ll do none to you. But you must listen to me. Johnny’s whole career is at stake. You have got to take a message from me to …’
‘I won’t!’ she broke in. ‘I won’t! By appearing to me at all you’ve caused Johnny to worry himself silly, as it is. Go back where you belong.’
‘The message is …’ I began, in an attempt to force it on her. But she sprang to her feet, her eyes wide and glaring. As she raised her hand I willed her to lower it, but in vain. She swiftly made the sign of the Cross and cried loudly:
‘Avaunt thee, Satan.’
As had happened before I felt no effect whatever; but her expression at once became relaxed, and dropping back into her chair she sat there panting slightly. The mysteries of the human mind are unfathomable, but there are many well-proven cases of faith working miracles. I could only suppose that her faith in that age-old conjuration was so strong that it enabled her to believe that she had driven me away.
After a few minutes she recovered sufficiently to go on with her meal and by the end of it, although I was still facing her, she had clearly dismissed me altogether from her mind; for as she began to wash up her dinner things she broke into a cheerful little song.
From my experience to date it looked as if her utterance of the conjuration was only a temporary defence; so that she could not prevent me from appearing to her again after, perhaps, an interval of a few hours. That idea led me to contemplate haunting her, in the hope of wearing her down to a state in which she would agree to take a message from me to Sir Charles as the price of freeing herself from me. But I soon saw two snags to entering on such a campaign. In the first place to break her will might take several days, and time was precious. In the second, there was nothing to prevent her taking the line of pronouncing her conjuration immediately every time I appeared; in which case I would get no further and tire of such a pointless conflict before she did.
For a while I remained miserably in her sitting-room, then another idea came to me. Daisy was by no means the only person with psychic powers among the vast population of London. Perhaps I could find someone else who would get a message to Sir Charles for me. The trouble about that was that, never having dabbled in psychic matters, I had no idea how to set about finding a medium.
Mr. Tibitts I dismissed at once as, from the long conversation he had held with Johnny, it had become clear to me that he was not psychic himself; he was simply an investigator and a debunker of hoaxes. From what he had said that also applied to the other members of the Society for Physical Research; so it would be a poor bet to go and hang about at their headquarters.
Then another idea came to me. It was a long shot, but there was just a chance that Sir Charles might be psychic. Or if he himself was not, one of his household might be. I admitted to myself that the odds against that were very long, but there was one point which carried considerable weight as I contemplated the matter. If, by spending the night bobbing about in scores of bedrooms at random, I succeeded in getting through to a back-street medium or some comparatively humble person, the likelihood that either would have the courage to beard a Cabinet Minister in his office, and tell him that a ghost had appeared to them with a message for him, was decidedly remote. Whereas if I could show myself and convey my thoughts to one of Sir Charles’s relations, servants or staff, it was certain they would tell him of it.
Slender as the hope might be of succeeding in this design, so desperately concerned was I to save Johnny that I clutched at it as a drowning man would a straw. Leaving Daisy’s flat I made my way back to Westminster and hurried through King Charles’ Street to Clive Steps. I was just about to turn left and enter the Ministry of Defence when I caught sight of Sir Charles. He must have just left it and, brief-case in hand, was on the edge of the broad pavement about to get into a car.
Checking my momentum I swerved in his direction and came up beside him. That neither he nor his chauffeur became aware of me was not in the least surprising; and, for the moment, I did not even attempt to make either of them realise my presence. Sir Charles got into the back of the car but did not drive off; so I concluded that he was waiting for someone to join him.
While I hovered nearby I was facing towards St. James’s Park. It was a pleasant evening and considerable numbers of people were scattered about its grass and walks; for at this hour its usual contingent of idlers had been augmented by many business people crossing it on their way home from their offices. At the sight of them I felt a sudden pang of envy but my thoughts were soon otherwise engaged—and very busily. The sound of quick footsteps on the pavement behind me made me turn. Approaching from the direction of the private-garden entrance to No. 10 Downing Street was a tall slim man who appeared to be in his late fifties, and whom I would have recognised anywhere.
Having greeted Sir Charles with a cheerful good evening, he got in beside him, I joined them, and without further orders the chauffeur set the car in motion.
‘It is very good of you to spare me an evening,’ Sir Charles opened up.
‘On the contrary,’ replied his companion, ‘it is a most welcome change. I only wish I could come down to your cottage more frequently as I used to. It must be delightful there at this time of year. You have no idea how lucky you are to have such a retreat. I have to spend most of my nights these days in houses that are so full of people coming and going that they are more like railway stations.’
The car was a big one and had a plate-glass partition between the chauffeur and his passengers. Stretching out a long arm, Sir Charles closed the sliding panel in it, so that he and his companion could talk freely.
Never before have I been driven so swiftly out of London. That was not due to the pace of the car, which kept to quite a moderate speed, but to the extraordinary efficiency of the police. Every officer on point duty seemed to catch sight of the special number plate immediately, and without any fuss open the way when the lights were against it, or smooth its passage through congested traffic. Within twenty minutes it had passed out of the inner suburbs and with increased speed was heading down into Surrey.
Meanwhile, the talk of its passengers ranged over a score of subjects: the riots in Cyprus, the latest F.O. telegrams from our Ambassador in Moscow, the financial conference in Istanbul, the effect that the raising of United States tariffs might have on British trade, the take-over by Sir Gerald Templar as C.I.G.S., the dangerous situation which now faced the French in Morocco and Algiers, and a dozen other matters.
Many of the names they mentioned were unknown to me and the interchange of ideas between these two first-class brains was so swift that I had difficulty in following the drift of their conversation. Nevertheless it was, for me, a fascinating journey.
I was so occupied in trying to set a value on every word they uttered that I took scant notice of the direction in which we were going. But about half-past seven we passed through Farnham, and ten or twelve minutes later entered a woodland drive to pull up in front of a small country house, rather than a cottage, which from its long sloping roof looked as if it might have been designed by Sir Edward Lutyens a little before the First World War.
When the two passengers had got out, the chauffeur drove the car away towards another, smaller building about a hundred yards off, in which no doubt he had his own quarters above the garage.
At the door of the house the arrivals were met by a plump woman of about forty-five. She was wearing an apron and had wispy reddish grey hair. Throwing up her hands in protest she said, with a strong foreign accent, to Sir Charles:
‘Why did you not let me know you come tonight! That is bad of you, Sir. How do you expect me to make the good meals for your guest if you no notice of your coming have given?’
He favoured her with his boyish grin. ‘Don’t worry, Maria. My friend gets plenty of rich food, so he will enjoy a simple meal for a change. Make us one of your beautiful omelettes and some cheese straws. There is certain to be plenty of fruit from the garden to follow; on that we’ll do very well.’
The woman turned towards the guest, whom she evidently knew. Bobbing to him like an old-fashioned continental servant she said with a mixture of respect and familiarity: ‘Küss die hand, Excellenz. Nice to see you again. I hope you are well. You forgive please this small meal.’
He smiled at her. ‘Nothing could be nicer than one of your omelettes, Maria. I am already looking forward to it.’
‘There is no hurry,’ added Sir Charles. ‘We shall take our drinks out in the garden; so in about an hour will do.’
The two men left their things in the hall and went through into a long, low sitting-room. From it, french windows led to a paved garden in the centre of which there was a large oblong lily pool. At its far end stood a small summer-house furnished with a swing hammock and a teak table and chairs. Maria brought in some ice, Sir Charles fixed the drinks and they carried them out there.
After two months of wonderful weather there had been some rain during the past few days, but now another fine spell seemed to have set in. The warmth of summer still lingered in the evening air, and the silence was broken only by the chirruping of birds in the surrounding woods. It certainly was a perfect spot for two public men burdened with great responsibilities, and perpetually harassed for decisions on one thing or another during every hour of their long working days, quietly to talk over their affairs.
As soon as they had settled down they got on to the subject of Egypt and the threat to the security of the vast British-built installations on the Suez Canal, owing to Colonel Nasser’s having entered into friendly relations with the Iron Curtain countries in order to secure armaments from them. This was very much Sir Charles’s province, and I would greatly have liked to listen to his views. But I felt that I ought to lose no further time in attempting to get through to him, so I had to give my thoughts entirely to willing him to see me.
For ten minutes or more I remained stationary in front of him, but he talked on without showing the slightest reaction. Moving round the table I spent a further ten minutes opposite his companion, but with equally barren results. So I had to conclude that if either of them were psychic, his mind was much too fully occupied at the moment for me to break in on it.
I knew that Sir Charles was a widower; but he had two daughters in their teens, and on the way down to the car I had hoped that one of them might, perhaps, prove a sensitive. As Maria had made no preparations for serving a dinner it was clear that they were either out for the evening or living elsewhere; so Maria herself became the next object of my attentions.
Leaving the garden for the house, I soon found her kitchen and set about tackling her. But I had been concentrating on her only for a few minutes when she left it and went into the sitting-room. After a quick glance out of the window at the two men on the far side of the lily pool, she picked up the telephone and dialled a number.
When she was answered she asked if Mr. Klinsky was in. There was a pause, presumably while Mr. Klinsky was being fetched, then she said: ‘Is that you, Jan? It is Maria. He is here. And at last you have luck. He has brought his big friend with him. I give dinner to them in twenty minutes.’
Replacing the receiver she went through to a small dining-room and laid the table for two; then she returned to the kitchen and began to make the omelette. Recalling my recent experience with Daisy during her culinary operations I decided that to make a further attempt on Maria for the moment would be to tire myself to no purpose; so I took the opportunity to have a look round upstairs.
Apart from Maria’s room there were only three bedrooms, and none of them had the appearance of being regularly lived in, so that settled the question of Sir Charles’s daughters. They were not out but living elsewhere, and Maria was evidently the only permanent resident at the cottage.
Hearing her call to her master that the omelette was ready, I went down to the dining-room hoping that during the meal I might have better luck. But unlike Daisy, who had eaten alone, the thoughts of Sir Charles and his friend did not drift. They continued an animated conversation which blocked any chance of my impinging on the consciousness of either, even had both been sensitive to psychic phenomena. By the time Maria put the cheese straws on the table I had resigned myself to awaiting again a more favourable opportunity and, having ceased to concentrate, I was free to listen to what they were saying.
I had taken in the full import of only a few sentences when I realised that they were now deep in the controversy of the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Looks; and that it was to tackle his visitor on the matter without fear of interruption that Sir Charles had brought him down to the cottage.
To them the arguments on both sides were too well known for either to need to go into any details, and I gathered that the visitor had already made it clear that he was not prepared to give an opinion on the present strategic value of the Royal Navy; so the discussion revolved mainly round the possibility of amalgamating the three Services into a Royal Defence Force. Sir Charles not only pressed for it, but argued that the Government might be called to account later if it delayed too long in taking this first step towards a general readjustment of forces rendered necessary by the introduction of thermonuclear weapons. The other pointed out that many adjustments were already taking place, that others had been agreed on, and that if any such sweeping reform was proposed without preparing the country for it the results might prove disastrous to the Government.
Having agreed about that, Sir Charles said with a smile that he had had a private plan for pushing public opinion in the right direction, but that unfortunately it had broken down; so, in view of the urgency of the matter, he had felt that without further loss of time he must make an attempt to bring matters to a head through orthodox channels.
Seeing the wretched situation in which his ‘private plan’ bad landed Johnny, I would have liked to curse him roundly for ever having departed from ‘orthodox channels’; but it was no good crying over spilt milk, and I waited with deep interest to learn how the conversation would develop.
In that I was fated to be disappointed. At that very moment my glance was caught by a queer outline low down on the door which gave on to a short passage leading to the kitchen. To my sight it was like the shadow of a kneeling man whose head was on a level with the door knob. Marshalling my powers of concentration, I stared at the door and, sure enough, on the far side of it a man was kneeling down peering through the keyhole.
‘Spy’ was the word which instantly flashed through my brain. Here was the sort of situation which one read of in thrillers—the secluded cottage in the depths of a wood, the Minister of Defence entertaining privately the man who could aid or counter his efforts to revolutionise our entire defence policy, their free discussion of the most vital secrets over a bottle of wine and a good meal together, and the agent of a foreign power, who had somehow gained access to the house, eavesdropping in order to report their decisions to his paymasters.
I had often enjoyed reading of such scenes, but always afterwards had the slightly cynical feeling that they never took place in real life. Yet here, incontestably, I was faced with one. The man beyond the door was listening at its keyhole. What possible reason could he have for doing so other than to obtain illicit possession of official secrets? Swiftly I passed through the door and stared down at him.
He had red hair and looked to be in his middle thirties. There was no suggestion about him of the suave ex-officer secret agent of fiction, who moves freely in the highest society, traps the wicked mistress of the enemy Chief-of-Staff into giving away the plans that have been confided to her and ends up with the soft arms of his own Ambassador’s daughter round his neck. On the contrary, this fellow looked like a working man. His hands were rough, his suit ready-made and his heavy shoes unpolished. Yet his apparently lowly status made him no less of a menace; and it seemed much more likely that for active operations the Russians employed men of this sort rather than untrustworthy crooks who were capable of passing themselves off as ex-public-school men.
Once again the fact that I was both invisible and inaudible made it impossible for me to do anything. I could only hover there, an intensely worried spectator, while the spy alternately peered through the keyhole and listened to a discussion which might ultimately result in a complete change in the system of defence of the whole of the Western Powers.
Through the door I heard Sir Charles urging the importance of reaching a decision before the meeting of the Foreign Ministers at Geneva in October, and stressing how greatly the adoption of his proposals would strengthen our hand at the Conference. Then a sound behind me made me turn. The door at the other end of the short passage had opened and Maria stood framed in it.
‘Hist!’ she made the sharp warning noise from between her teeth and, frowning, beckoned to the kneeling man to come away. He turned to glance at her, but shook his head and once more applied his eye to the keyhole.
I was so agitated that I could no longer put such snatches of the conversation as I caught into their right context. But a few minutes later I gathered that something had been settled, as I heard Sir Charles say:
‘Well, I’m glad we agree to that extent. I have brought down in my brief-case a copy of the report by the Committee of Inquiry and when you have read that I feel pretty confident that you will give me your full backing. Anyhow, that is as far as we can go for the moment. Now; how about some coffee?’
As the bell rang in the kitchen, the spy swiftly tiptoed back into it. Maria had already retreated, and a minute or two later re-emerged carrying the coffee tray. Having delivered it she rejoined her red-headed friend, who had perched himself on the kitchen table with his short legs dangling from it.
They exchanged several swift sentences in a foreign tongue. She was obviously upbraiding him and he was laughing at her. At the language they were speaking I could only guess. From her greeting to Sir Charles’s friend I had naturally supposed her to be an Austrian; but now it seemed certain that she was a Czech, an Hungarian or, perhaps, even a Russian.
Now that I had a chance to study the man more closely I could see that he came of peasant stock, but had probably improved himself by education; and his quick dark eyes, on either side of a long thin nose, showed him to have plenty of shrewd intelligence. It occurred to me that he had a faint resemblance to Maria; so it was possible that they were members of the same family, and had been working together for a long time, or that he might have some hold over here.
When they had finished their argument, he produced a small glass bottle of colourless liquid from his waistcoat pocket. After holding it up to the light, he wagged his finger at her several times while evidently impressing upon her how it should be used, then thrust it into her hand.
She seemed loath to take it, and again they entered on an argument which was to me unintelligible gibberish. But several times he pointed to a big ginger cat that was sleeping on a rug in front of the fire-place.
At last she left him, went into the larder and returned with a saucer of milk. Into it she put a couple of drops of the liquid, then set the saucer down in front of the cat. It was a big, heavy animal, and even when she woke it by stroking its back it seemed too somnolent to be interested. Lifting the saucer a little so that it was within a few inches of the cat’s face, she splashed the milk about gently with her finger. The cat’s pink tongue came out. It gave two laps, was shaken with a violent convulsion, went rigid for a moment, then rolled over dead.
The man sitting on the table smiled and spread out his hands as if to say: ‘You see how quick and simple it is.’
The woman shrugged resignedly, picked up the saucer and washed the remains of its contents carefully away in the kitchen sink.
With growing horror the meaning of the scene I had just witnessed dawned upon me. The Soviet Secret Service was said to be extremely efficient. They must have found out that Sir Charles was the key man in the battle to bring about the New Look, which would so enormously strengthen our power to defend ourselves in the event of Russian aggression. The killing of the cat had been a try-out. Maria was a pawn in the hands of Britain’s enemies and had been ordered to murder her master.
* * * *
Appalled by the conclusion, I asked myself if I could possibly be right. From time to time Presidents and Ministers are assassinated on the Continent; but not in law-abiding England. One moment though. In 1923 Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson had been shot dead in Eaton Square, and attempts had been made on the life of both Lloyd George and King Edward VIII. Moreover, during the past few years the Western Powers had lost several of their strongest supporters among the national leaders of the Near East through Communist-inspired assassinations. Why, if the dividend were deemed high enough, should the long arm of Moscow strike its secret blows repeatedly in the Moslem countries and refrain from doing so in Surrey?
The excellence of our Immigration and Police systems no doubt explained the general immunity enjoyed by our leading statesmen; and in London or while travelling each had the protection of a private detective specially trained to act as his bodyguard. But here there was not even a policeman within a mile, and as the murder was to be committed by poison no shots would alarm any neighbours. If the deed were done when Sir Charles was alone in the house with Maria many hours might pass before his death was discovered. The extremely capable organisation for which she was acting would have ample time to whisk her away to an airport, provide her with a forged passport, and on a pre-arranged passage get her out of the country.
The more I thought of it the more convinced I became that I was right. She had surreptitiously summoned the man Klinsky, before dinner; so he was living somewhere in the neighbourhood and evidently visited her frequently. Sir Charles had brought his brief-case with him and left it in the hall, so that was doubtless his custom. He would of, course, keep it locked, but Maria would have had many opportunities of taking an impression of its key when he was in his bath. The odds were that when he had finished looking through the papers in it he left it down in the sitting-room for the night. What could have been simpler than for Maria to telephone Klinsky and for him to pay the house a nocturnal visit for the purpose of photographing its contents? In that way his masters would have learnt all about the New Look and his resolve to press the Cabinet to agree to its adoption. Should Sir Charles be eliminated the interests opposed to it might secure a postponement of the issue for many months. For our enemies no man’s life could pay a higher dividend. I could no longer doubt that I had stumbled on a plot to murder him.
What could I do? How could I save him? How get a warning to him? My only hope lay in finding someone like Daisy. There must be quite a number of people who possessed psychic powers equal to hers; but how was I to find one? Urged to it by my anxiety for Johnny, I had sought out Sir Charles in the hope that he, or someone close to him, might prove a medium; but I had known that to be an outside chance, and so far my efforts had got me nowhere.
As I racked my brain for a means of preventing Maria from accomplishing her nefarious design, I saw that Klinsky had picked up the dead cat and was preparing to depart. It flashed upon me that I ought to find out where he lived; so that if I could get a message through the police would be able to lay him by the heels or, perhaps, through him get a line on the whole of his section in the Soviet espionage network.
He and Maria exchanged a few more sentences in their own language, then, still carrying the cat, he slipped out through the back door. It was now dark outside; but I had no difficulty at all in following him, and he naturally had not the slightest suspicion that he was being shadowed.
Taking a path through the wood he followed it for about two hundred yards, then threw the dead cat into the bushes. A little further on the wood ended, and crossing a stile he stepped down into a lane. For another ten or fifteen minutes he walked on at a smart pace until he came to a cart-track and turned up it. At its end there was a house with a few outbuildings which I at first took to be a farm, but on closer inspection it proved to be only a fair-sized cottage of the sort inhabited by small-holders who keep pigs and poultry and cultivate a few acres.
Crossing the barnyard Klinsky pushed open the front door and entered a narrow, lighted hall. At the sound of his arrival a door on the right was opened by a young woman of about nineteen. She was not bad-looking but had a heavy body, her hands were calloused with rough work, and her ill-dyed fair hair was none too tidy.
Giving him a reproachful look, she said: ‘So there you are! I do think it was mean of you to insist on going down to the pub for a drink on the night I persuaded Mum and Dad to go to the pictures.’
He grinned at her and replied in heavily-accented English: ‘We have plenty of time yet, little naughty one.’
‘Not much,’ she objected. ‘They’ll be back in half an hour.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he repeated, following her into a small untidy sitting-room. ‘I soon show you.’ Upon which he threw his arm round her, buried his mouth in her neck for a moment, then pushed her backwards on to the couch.
The situation needed little adding up. As I had judged, Klinsky came of peasant stock. With labour so short he would have had small difficulty in getting himself taken on as a helper for his board and keep and a bit over, and he had made the robust daughter of the place his mistress. What cover could have been better for a spy allocated the task of keeping Maria up to scratch and reporting all that could be learned about Sir Charles.
Leaving the unsavoury couple to indulge in their animal propensities, I hastened back to Sir Charles’s; but, to my fury, I took a wrong path in the wood and lost my way for some minutes, so something over an hour elapsed between my leaving the house and re-entering it.
Maria was in the kitchen and had just finished washing up the dinner things. Sir Charles and his companion had not moved from the dining-room and were still engrossed in talking, now about Mr. Butler’s latest proposals for checking the drain on our gold and dollar reserves. Feeling that, at the moment, it would prove a waste of time to attempt a further effort to make either of them see me, I cast about for some less direct means of conveying a warning.
I then remembered Sir Charles’s chauffeur; so I passed out of the window and round the bend of the drive to the building I had seen through the trees. As I expected, it was a garage with a flat over it. Upstairs in the living-room the chauffeur—a dark, curly-haired young man—was sitting in his shirtsleeves with one arm carelessly thrown round the shoulders of a skinny peevish-looking girl wearing an apron over her cotton dress, presumably his wife.
To my annoyance they were both watching television; and their idiotically-blank but absorbed expressions told me that I stood little chance of impinging on either of them. Nevertheless, I placed myself in front of the screen and did my best. It was no good; neither of their faces altered by as much as the flicker of an eyelid.
I was just about to leave them when a whining cry of ‘Mum … ee!’ penetrated through the voice of the comedian which was being thrown out by the television set.
‘There’s the child again,’ said the man.
‘Oh shut up,’ replied the woman testily. ‘I want to watch this bit. Isn’t he a scream? She’ll go off to sleep in a minute.’
As they settled down again I passed into the room from which the cry had come. The darkness there being no bar to my sight, I saw that in a cot beside a double bed a small girl of about four was sitting up. She had kicked off all her bedclothes, was shivering with cold, and large tears were running down her cheeks. Unquestionably she saw me at once.
She stopped crying, her eyes grew round, for a moment she stared at me in silence; then she let out a piercing yell.
The door was flung open and her mother flounced into the room. ‘Stop it, you wicked girl! Stop it,’ she shrilled, ‘or I’ll give you something to shout about.’
‘The man, Mummy; the man!’ howled the child.
‘What man? There’s no man here ‘cept your father.’
‘I seed him come through the door.’
I was then beating a retreat through it, but I heard the mother exclaim: ‘So it’s lies you’ve started to tell now, is it? I’ll teach you to tell wicked fibs to me, Miss!’
There came the sound of two sharp pats, rather than slaps, but they were followed by another outburst of yelling, and coming to the door the man protested:
‘Oh let her be, Gloria. You’ll only make her worse.’
At that moment the telephone shrilled, cutting through the combined noise made by the child and the loopy-looking man on the T.V. screen. The chauffeur answered it, reached for his tunic, and called to his wife:
‘I’ve got to take the Big Shot back to town, dear.’
The child’s yells had subsided into muffled sobs. Gloria came out of the bedroom, pulled its door to behind her, and complained: ‘Oh, that’s too bad! Their sort have no consideration for other people.’
The man shrugged. ‘What’s the use of belly-aching. Most chaps have to work harder than I do for less pay. Anyway I told you the odds were against me being able to stay the night.’
‘Yes but I was hopin’ you would. Why couldn’t he have his own car sent down to fetch him?’
‘Ask me another. Got something else to think about perhaps. There’s places called Cyprus an’ Egypt, you know; and how many votes it’s going to cost him if ‘is pal Butler slaps a bigger tax on cars.’
‘Still, it’s early yet, Bert. They might have let us see the telly programme out.’
‘He’s not going to his dowdy bed, don’t you fret yourself. When he gets home there’ll be a stack of red and green boxes like I sometimes see in the boss’s office, with all sorts of conundrums in them for him. I wouldn’t have his job for a packet. Where the hell are my driving gloves?’
Gloria picked them up from behind the television set, handed them to him and enquired: ‘And what about Sir C. Will he be going up with you?’
‘Don’t expect so. He likes a night in the country, whenever he can get it.’
‘Then you may be down first thing to fetch him, and wanting breakfast?’
‘I doubt it. Most like he’ll do as he done when he brought Monty down here for the evening and sent me up with him. He’ll drive himself up in the little Morris.’
They kissed perfunctorily and Bert ran downstairs. I accompanied him round to the house in the car, then got out. Almost as soon as he had rung the bell the front door opened, Sir Charles gave the chauffeur his instructions, then stood aside for his friend, who turned to him before entering the car and said:
‘Thank you for this evening, Charles. It made a delightful break for me. I’ll study that paper carefully and arrange for a Cabinet to be called to discuss it next week. Thursday would be the best day, I think. We’ll get Dickie to come along to it, and hear what he has to say.’
I knew that Earl Mountbatten’s intimates always called him ‘Dickie’, so the reference was obviously to him. Although the part I had been designed to play in Sir Charles’s battle for the co-ordination of our defences had broken down, it looked as if he was making very satisfactory progress without me.
When the car had driven off I followed him back into the house. Collecting his brief-case he took it into the sitting-room, unlocked a secretaire there and settled down to work. Not very hopefully I gave a little time to trying to attract his attention, but it was no good; so I went again to the flat over the garage.
It had occurred to me that psychic powers are said to run in families, and that the seventh child of a seventh child is always fey. There was no reason to suppose that Gloria was a seventh child and even less to suppose that she had herself had six children before her little daughter; but as the child had supernatural vision there was anyhow a chance that she had inherited it from her mother.
When I arrived the lights of the living room were out, and in the bedroom the extraordinarily ill-named Gloria was undressing. The child, I noted with relief, had sobbed herself to sleep. As Gloria took off her underclothes. As soon as she was in bed I presented myself with all my consciousness and willed her to see me. She picked up a film magazine and began to flick through its pages. For ten minutes I kept it up, then she yawned, threw the paper aside and switched out the light. I remained at the foot of her bed, my gaze unwaveringly fixed upon her eyes, but after a moment she turned on to her side and drew the bed-clothes up. Five minutes later she was giving vent to a gentle snore.
Angrily as I was at my waste of effort I tried to consider my next step as calmly as I could. To seek for a medium in the nearest village was the obvious course; but every attempt on each individual would cost time and loss of energy. I must pick my subjects carefully. Not that there was likely to be any outward clue indicating that one was more probably psychic than another; but it would more than double my chances of getting a warning to Sir Charles if I could contact some upper class neighbour of his, rather than a cottager who would be scared of going to see him.
One thing was certain; Maria had the poison, and had been given a practical demonstration of how quick and effective it could be. She might not use it until next time Sir Charles came down to his cottage, as that would give her a whole night in which to make her get-away. But if Klinsky realised that a delay of a week might now render the crime almost useless he would have pressed her to seize the present opportunity. It was, therefore, quite on the cards that she might give Sir Charles the poison with his breakfast in the morning. If I failed to find a means of warning him that night, within nine hours he might be dead.