Verney was quick to realise that unless he intervened at once, Otto might say something that would start all sorts of undesirable rumours running round the Station, so he glanced at his watch and said:
‘I really think we ought to postpone our visit to your laboratory, Mr. Khune, until after we have been along to the airstrip. Perhaps we’ll have time to see it later.’
Khune gave him a blank stare for a moment, then took the hint, muttered something to the doorkeeper about ‘change of plans’ and turned back to the car. They all got in it and, as soon as the engine was running, he exclaimed:
‘It must have been Lothar! How utterly damnable! Yet there’s no other explanation.’
‘None, I’m afraid,’ C.B. agreed grimly. ‘I didn’t want you to start cross-questioning that chap, because the fewer people to get wind of it that something’s wrong, the better. He was quite definite though, and he can hardly have been dreaming. We’ll know for certain as soon as we get to the airstrip. Is it usual to send the stuff up to Scotland in an aircraft?’
‘Yes. It’s not only quicker, but safer, than rail, and if some of it went astray….’ Khune broke off short, and ended with a groan.
‘It looks as if twenty drums of it has! Is that the normal quantity in a consignment?’
‘No. Usually we send eighty to a hundred drums at a time.’
‘Lothar was clever then, in not opening his mouth too wide. The doorkeeper must assume that you know your own stock, and he might have thought it fishy if Lothar, whom he took to be you, had asked for a greater number than there happened to be available. I take it, too, that quite a small part of what he’s got would be sufficient for him to have the stuff analysed, and after that there would be no limit to the quantity that could be made up?’
‘The analysis would take time, and they might not get the formula exactly; but near enough. And the Russians have many clever chemists, so that might even improve on it.’
‘How often do you send consignments up to Scotland?’
‘As required; but, on average, about once every three weeks. We send larger consignments now to Australia for the I.C.B.M. range there, but less frequently.’
By this time they were approaching the air strip. The aircraft that had taken the American up to Farnborough that morning, and since returned to collect C.B. and Barney, stood at one end of it; but evidently Forsby had not yet succeeded in getting hold of the pilot, as there was no sign of life. Neither was there any sign of life near the two hangars, in the control tower or at the building that housed the small ground staff. Barney drove up to the latter and they got out.
The building contained only an office and off-duty room on the ground floor and a dormitory for half-a-dozen men above. Verney hurried into the office, found it deserted, then crossed the passage and strode into the room opposite. An R.A.F. Corporal was lounging there with his feet up, reading a Sunday paper. Verney addressed him sharply.
‘I am a colleague of Squadron-Leader Forsby’s. Are you the duty N.C.O.?’
‘Yes, Sir.’ The corporal replied, coming quickly to his feet and switching off the radio.
‘I understand that about half past two an aircraft came in and took off about half an hour later.’
‘That’s right, Sir,’ the man confirmed their worst fears. ‘Quite unexpected it was. Usually we are warned in advance and given the E.T.A. in ample time for whichever of us is on duty to get hold of the others and man the control tower. But with good weather, like it is today, and the strip clear that isn’t really necessary. All the same, it’s against regulations, and I was a bit took a back.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I walked over, Sir, and had a word with the pilot. He said that he had come down from our I.C.B.M. Station in the Hebrides to pick up some stuff that was wanted urgent, and he couldn’t understand why they had failed to send us a signal about him.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I told him he’d better watch out for the aircraft from Farnborough that was due in about half past four, but the said he’d have taken off long before that; so I came back here.’
‘Didn’t you report this unscheduled landing?’
‘I did, Sir, to Flying Officer Leathers, when he and others came along to see the Farnborough arrival in.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He entered it in the log, and said he’d send the Hebrides Station a rocket for having failed to warn us that they were sending this aircraft down.’
‘Then you let two hours elapse before you reported it?’ The corporal’s face became a little sullen. ‘Well, it isn’t the first time that someone’s forgot to send a routine signal, Sir. Anyhow, I didn’t think it was anything to get excited about, and neither did my officer when I told him.’
‘All right! All right! Describe the pilot to me.’
‘He was a tallish chap, age about thirty. Clean shaven, and I think his eyes were brown. He was wearing pilot’s kit, not uniform.’
‘How many people had he with him?’
‘Only one man, Sir. He’d left the aircraft by the time I reached her and, being Sunday, with no one about, he’d walked over to the hangars to get the runabout out for himself. He drove it off towards the laboratory block, to fetch the stuff they’d come for, I suppose.’ The corporal turned towards Khune, and added, ‘I didn’t see him close to, but he was about your build, Sir; dressed like you too, in a mack and a beret.’
‘What make was the aircraft,’ Verney asked.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t notice, Sir. She was a two-engined job and I’d say she’d carry up to a ton of cargo,’
‘Did you take her number?’
‘No, Sir.’ The corporal bridled again. ‘This isn’t like a civil airport, you know, with aircraft coming in from all sorts of places all the time.’
‘Hell!’ muttered C.B. and, turning, he strode across the passage to the office. He was just about to pick up the telephone when it rang. The corporal, who had followed, murmured, ‘Excuse me, Sir,’ reached a hand past him, and answered it. After a minute he said:
‘It’s Squadron-Leader Forsby, saying to have the tower manned to clear the Farnborough plane in three-quarters of an hour.’
C.B. took the receiver from him. ‘Dick. This is Verney. There’s been a spot of trouble. Instead of going to the Club, drop everything and come here. Yes, at once, please.’ Hanging up, he said to the corporal:
‘There’s no need to get your team together yet. The Farnborough plane won’t be leaving till later. I expect the pilot is on his way here though. Go outside and, when he turns up, tell him there has been a postponement.’ Then, to Khune, he added, ‘Would you be good enough to wait for us across the passage.’
Directly the two men had left the room, he rang the exchange and asked for a priority call to the Air Ministry. While it was being put through he remarked with a frown to Barney: ‘As it’s Sunday the place will be practically empty and none of our people available. We can only hope that the Duty Group Captain is a live wire.’
The Group Captain proved willing but far from hopeful about tracing Lothar’s plane. He too remarked upon its being Sunday, which meant that, in addition to normal traffic, hundreds of trainers and aircraft from Flying Clubs all over the country would be up, so that with such an inadequate description to go on, the chances of the plane being identified were extremely slender. But he said he would send out an emergency signal to all airports to hold any twin-engined transport aircraft that came down to refuel, pending special clearance.
C.B. then got on to Special Branch and asked for a warrant to be taken out for Lothar’s arrest, and for a check up that a night and day watch was being kept on the house at Cremorne, in case he returned to it.
While he was still on the telephone, Forsby joined them and Barney told him in a low voice what had happened. When he realised how completely they had been fooled, he shut his eyes and began to curse under his breath. Verney hung up and turned to him.
‘This is a bad business, Dick, and I’m afraid I can’t congratulate you on your security arrangements for your airstrip.’
‘Yes, it’s I who am to blame, Sir.’ Forsby’s tone had at once become formal. ‘Normally one of my men is present at every aircraft arrival and departure, to check the passes of the crew as they come off or reboard the plane. The thought that an unauthorised aircraft might come in without warning, land, and get away with it, never occurred to me.’
‘In a place of this importance, I think it should have.’
‘I’ll resign, of course, Sir.’
Verney gave him a gentle pat on the arm. ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind, old friend. This afternoon we’ve all been taken for a ride. If anyone is responsible, it is myself, as I came down here to take charge. Now, as an airman, tell me – what is the chance of our bird getting out of the country with his loot?’
The Squadron-Leader glanced at his watch. ‘It’s now twenty minutes to six, so he must have been gone the best part of three hours. From the description of the aircraft it doesn’t sound as though he has anyway near a full load, so he should have had plenty of petrol. Anyway, by now he could have refuelled at some small landing-ground near the East coast and be well out over the North Sea.’
‘I feared as much. Still, we might get a break even in Belgium or Holland through the Air Ministry tie-up with N.A.T.O. Anyway, there is no more we can do for the moment, so I’m in favour of accepting that late tea you offered us.’
Having collected Khune, they drove round to the Club and, owing to the hour, settled for drinks instead of tea. Taking their drinks into a corner, they held a gloomy inquest. As a result of it they reached the conclusion that Lothar had probably taken Otto’s excuse for not coming up to London – that an American boffin was coming down – to be a lie; so, from Friday night, he had given up hope of persuading him to co-operate and switched to threatening him with a death curse unless he left the Station for a few hours to keep a rendezvous, thus leaving the field free for his double to move about the Station during that time, without fear of coming face to face with him, and to make off with a quantity of the fuel instead of its formula.
It was Barney who produced the idea that, owing to Otto’s psychic link with Lothar, the former might be able to secure some clue to the latter’s whereabouts. Otto who, since the discovery of the way they had been tricked, had hardly spoken, brightened at once, and said:
‘That certainly is a possibility. Anyhow, I will do my utmost; but, for such an attempt, I must have solitude and silence, so I had better go back to my quarters.’
Forsby looked across at C.B. ‘I ought to be moving, too. I’ve the unpleasant task in front of me of reporting this business to the Chief, and I don’t want to leave it much longer, as he usually asks a few people along to drinks on Sunday evenings. Do you still wish to set off to London as soon as possible, or would you prefer to dine here first?’
‘Dine and sleep, I think,’ Verney replied. ‘I told the Air Ministry to report back here if they manage to trace Lothar’s plane; and now Mr. Khune is going to have a cut at that too from the psychic angle. If either succeeded while Sullivan and I were on our way back to London, we’d lose hours of precious time in getting after him; so we will stay put for the night. We’ll all go along to Sir Charles now, and I’ll break the news to him for you.’
‘That’s damned decent of you, C.B. The old boy is bound to take it pretty badly – the actual theft, I mean – and what he’ll say when told about the psychic angle, I can’t imagine. If I tried to explain that part of it to him without support, he would probably think that I ought to be certified.’
They finished their drinks, returned to the car, dropped Khune at his bungalow, then drove to the Headquarters block, in which the Director of the Station had a flat overlooking the quadrangle. Forsby sent up his name and a few minutes later a man-servant showed them into a pleasant sitting-room.
Sir Charles Remmington-Rudd was a portly man in the middle fifties. He was nearly bald and had heavy sagging jowls, but an alert manner and a friendly smile. When Forsby had introduced his companions, C.B. reported the bare facts.
The eminent scientist said nothing for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘This is a very serious matter. Sit down please, gentlemen, and give me full particulars.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’ Verney took a chair. ‘It is an extraordinary story and, I’m afraid, a long one. May I ask to begin with whether you believe in psychic phenomena?’
Sir Charles raised his eyebrows. ‘I can answer that only if you give me a precise definition of the meaning to yourself of the term you have used. However, it may help you if I say that science now admits the existence of certain faculties in the human mind which cannot be accounted for by normal processes. Before you go further, though, you say the story is a long one, and I am expecting a few friends in for drinks quite shortly. I take it everything possible is being done to trace these stolen drums of our special fuel?’
‘Everything, Sir.’
‘Very well, then.’ Sir Charles stood up. ‘It is now too late to put my friends off, but I can put off a couple who were to dine with me. If I can be of no immediate help this long story of yours will keep for an hour or two, so I suggest that the three of you should return at eight o’clock and tell it to me over dinner.’
They thanked him and took their leave, then repaired to Forsby’s bungalow, where they again mulled over the shattering event of the day without getting any further. After a wash and brush up, they dined with Sir Charles, who at first found it difficult to believe what they were saying; but Forsby had brought along a copy of Otto’s statement and, after the scientist had read it, he had to agree that the psychic bond between the twins must be accepted.
At half past ten they looked in on Otto. He had tried for an hour before dinner to get into touch with Lothar, then dined in the Mess and, since, tried again, but on both occasions without success. Forsby set the tape recorder in the hope that it might pick up a conversation between the twins during the night, then they all turned in.
On Monday morning the tape proved blank, but Otto reported that he had woken at about half past six after a vivid dream. In it he had seen Lothar getting into an aircraft, standing near which were a number of men in uniform, and he felt sure that these were Americans. He also had a feeling that the place was one of the air bases occupied by United States Forces in Eastern England.
Verney at once rang through to the Air Ministry and asked the senior officer in the Security Department there to take the matter up with his American opposite number and ask for exhaustive enquiries to be made.
This first earnest that Otto might succeed in helping them to trace his brother decided C.B. to take him to London, so that if he had further visions he could give full particulars of them with a minimum of delay. While the aircraft was being got ready to fly them back to Farnborough, Otto arranged with his number two to carry on with the experiments on which he was engaged, then Forsby ran the three of them along to the airstrip.
At Farnborough, Verney’s car was waiting to meet them. On the way into central London they stopped at the little hotel in Chelsea and arrangements were made for Otto to stay there, then C.B. dropped Barney in Warwick Square and went on to his office.
In spite of his preoccupations over the week-end, Barney had several times thought of Mary, and he feared that she might have taken rather badly his having had to let her down on Saturday night. So the first thing he did on getting into his flat, was to ring her number. As it was just on lunch-time he hoped to catch her in but there was no reply, so he assumed that she was probably out for the day on one of her modelling jobs.
In the evening he considered buying more roses to take to her, but decided that might give the impression that he had been enjoying himself over the week-end and now had a guilty conscience; so he arrived in the Cromwell Road at half past seven empty handed but armed with an elaborate story of a millionaire who had suddenly become interested in his Kenya travel project and had insisted on carrying him off to the country on Saturday to discuss putting money into it.
To his disappointment and annoyance, his ring at the front door of Mary’s flat brought no response, so evidently she was still out. Hoping that something had detained her, he hung about for nearly an hour, but she did not put in an appearance; so he was forced to the conclusion that she was so annoyed with him that she had decided to ignore the invitation he had posted to her before setting off for Wales, and had already gone out for the evening either alone, or with someone else.
Consoling himself as best he could with the thought that having been up early that morning an ‘early bed’ would be welcome, he ate a solitary dinner at a little restaurant in Gloucester Road and returned to Warwick Square. But it was quite a time before he got off to sleep as thinking of Mary made him realise how much he had been looking forward to seeing her again and how much, in the past fortnight, she had, almost imperceptibly, come to mean to him.
Next morning he rang her number at eight o’clock and, as there was no reply, repeated the call at half past, but still without result. It might be, he thought, that she had had to go out early to catch a train for a model show that she had been booked for somewhere outside London. On the other hand, he knew that she had very few acquaintances, so probably guessed that it was him ringing up and, still suffering from the sulks, had deliberately refrained from answering the telephone. Taking this last to be the most likely assumption, he decided to leave her for thirty-six hours to stew in her own juice.
Before he set about the routine jobs that he had in mind to do that day, he looked in at the office. There he learnt from C.B. that all attempts to trace Lothar had so far failed. The enquiry set on foot by United States Air Force H.Q. had drawn a blank, and Otto’s efforts to locate his brother via the astral plane had, so far, produced only a strong impression that he had crossed a sea and was now somewhere on the Continent. Interpol had been asked to help, but with the thousands of aircraft that criss-crossed Europe daily, there was small hope that they would be able to identify the airfield on which a plane, of which they had only a very sketchy description, had come down some twenty-four hours earlier.
That evening another, meeting was due to be held by the Communist-dominated branch, down at Hammersmith, of a Union to which Barney belonged; so just before seven he clocked in at the rather dreary little hall that was used on such occasions. There ensued a long wrangle, carried over from the previous meeting, during which the leaders urged the men to refuse to work overtime until a new claim for higher wages was settled. A few older men stood up to say that it seemed wrong to them to put a brake on production before the employers had actually refused to grant the new rates of pay, but they were accused by the Reds of being mouthpieces of the bosses, and shouted down. The go-slow motion was passed and about nine o’clock the meeting broke up. The little fraternity of Communists who had control of the branch made for the pub they frequented, and Barney with them.
After they had had a few rounds of drinks, the leery little man who had tipped Barney off to lay wagers that Tom Ruddy would not be elected as the new Secretary-General of the C.G.T. drew him aside and asked him if he had made good use of the tip.
‘I stand to win about ten quid,’ Barney told him with a grin.
‘You bloody fool!’ the little man snorted, and spat in the cuspidor. ‘You ought to have made yerself fifty. But you’ve missed the blinking boat now. That is for taking on any more suckers. News’ll be out tomorrow morning. Mr. bloody Ruddy’s standing down.’
‘Are you certain?’ Barney asked, concealing his dismay under an expression of surprised cheerfulness.
‘Course I am,’ came the prompt reply. ‘He’s thrown his hand in. I can’t tell you why. Don’t know meself. But I had it straight from the horse’s mouth that the Comrades meant to put a fast one over him.’
At closing time the groups broke up and, as was his custom on such occasions, Barney set out by a circuitous route back to the Tube Station. On his way he thought of Mary again and his resolution of the morning – to make no further attempt to get into touch with her for the next thirty-six hours. Reconsidered, it seemed to him that he was probably cutting off his nose to spite his face and that, as he was so anxious to make it up with her, the more evidence he gave of his eagerness to do so, the more likely she was to relent. In consequence, instead of taking the Underground to Victoria, he got out at Gloucester Road and walked along to the tall old house in which Mary had her little flat.
On his way there, as it was nearly half past ten, he was expecting to find her in; but she was not. Since it was a Tuesday, it occurred to him that, although she had promised him not to, she might have gone to the weekly meeting at Mrs. Wardeel’s. If so, she should soon be back; if not, the odds seemed to be that she had gone to a cinema, in which case also she would soon be home. He decided to wait for her, but feeling that in his ‘worker’s’ clothes he might be taken for a suspicious character if found lurking on her landing by one of the other tenants, he went out into the street and took up a position on the other side of the road.
There had been many occasions when Barney’s work had necessitated his waiting outside a block of flats or offices for hours at a stretch; so the undertaking was not new to him and he thought himself lucky that the night was fine. Now and then he changed his position, taking a short stroll but never going beyond clear sight of the house, for to do so would have been to risk her arriving just at the moment when he had ceased to watch; then he might wait on till dawn, accuse her next day of having stayed out all night, and later find that she could show proof that he was entirely mistaken.
Eleven o’clock came, half past, and a quarter to twelve, without Mary appearing. By then he had decided that she must have gone out to dinner with a man and the thought annoyed him considerably. Although she had given him to understand that she had no family, the fact that she appeared to have no friends at all had often puzzled him. Even if she had not been living for a long time in London, it seemed strange that any young widow with her attractions should not have acquired at least one man friend. That she had not, thus leaving him a free field, he had come to accept; so, now he believed that someone had entered it against him, he felt a quite unjustified resentment.
Animated by more than a suspicion of jealousy, he decided to continue his watch, so that when his rival brought Mary home he might have a sight of him. Between midnight and one the volume of passing traffic down London’s long main western artery fell steeply, the buses ceased, while private cars and taxis, from having been a steady stream, were reduced to a trickle. By half past one Barney began to think of throwing his hand in. It was an hour since he had run out of cigarettes, and Mary’s failure to return suggested that she had not only gone out to dinner or a show, but also gone on to supper somewhere.
He had been telling himself that if she was out with a man it was probably some middle-aged director or important customer of one of the fashion houses for which she modelled, and that she had accepted an invitation to dine rather than give offence; but, if so, she should have been home by this time. The idea that she was more probably dancing with some young, attractive man now became insistent in his mind, and the memory of her firm young body against his own when they had danced together added fuel to his jealous imaginings.
Two o’clock came, and with it the conviction that Mary and her new beau must have gone on to a night club, which meant that she might not now be home for another couple of hours. More put out than he had been for a long time, Barney hailed a taxi that was crawling westward and had himself driven to Warwick Square.
While he undressed, he had a whisky and soda and some biscuits; then, as he got into bed, he tried to put Mary out of his mind. It was no good, but his thoughts did take another direction. Perhaps that evening she had gone out with a chap, yet it seemed strange that she had also been out the night before and out, apparently, on the several occasions when he had tried to ring her up. The explanation might be that she had suddenly decided to take a holiday.
Yet if that were so, why, before leaving London, had she not let him know? The note he had written on Saturday morning must have reached her by first post on Monday. Surely, even if she was furious with him, she would have let him know it by writing a few angry lines in reply, which he should have received that morning? Could she possibly have met with an accident over the week-end and be in hospital? Or, unlikely as it seemed after the way she had broken down at their last meeting, and sworn to have no more to do with the Satanists, had Ratnadatta, after all, again got hold of her?
At that disturbing thought Barney switched on the light again and set his alarm-clock for six o’clock, determined now to go really fully into the question first thing in the morning.
Soon after seven he was back in Cromwell Road. As there were a dozen tenants in the old house, its front door was always left on the latch from first thing in the morning up till eleven at night; so he walked straight in and upstairs. His ring at Mary’s door remained unanswered. Hoping that she was still in bed, and perhaps sleeping very soundly after her late night out, he waited for a few minutes then rang again, this time insistently. Taking his finger from the bell he listened but no sound of movement came from within the flat, so he then felt certain that she could not be there.
In anticipation of such a possibility, he had brought with him a small implement, the efficient use of which he had been taught when training for his job. With it, in less than a minute he had the door open without damaging the lock. The first thing his eye lit on, face upwards on the mat, was the letter he had posted to Mary on Saturday morning. Evidently the caretaker, or somebody, brought up the tenants’ mail and pushed it through their letter-boxes. Anyhow, the fact that it was still there showed that Mary had not been in her flat during the past two days.
Closing the door behind him, he took a quick look into each of the four rooms of the flat. The bathroom and tiny kitchen were clean and in good order; the bed had been made up and on the sitting-room table stood a vase holding a dozen long-stemmed roses. In the wastepaper basket he found the four pieces of a card, confirming that they were the roses he had ordered from Constance Spry’s for Mary and, from the way in which the card had been ripped across, an indication of her anger on realising the reason for his sending them to her.
Taken together, the roses, the letter on the mat, and the unslept-in bed added up to Mary’s having gone out sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening and not returned. With the hope of coming upon some clue to where she had gone, he began a systematic search of the premises. In the circumstances he felt no scruples about doing so and, his duties made it necessary for him to carry out such searches fairly frequently, he did the job swiftly and thoroughly but with an automatic care which resulted in everything he disturbed being left exactly as he had found it.
The only room to yield any information of interest was the bedroom. The cupboards and drawers were full of Mary’s clothes. On checking through the major items he found everything there in which he had seen her, with the exception of a grey coat and skirt. It could be assumed that she had been wearing those when she went out, so had last left the flat in daytime. Up on a high shelf there were a hat box and a beauty box, and under the bed he came upon three suitcases. Two of them bore the initials M.M. and the third E.T.M. The latter Barney guessed to have belonged to the deceased Monsieur Mauriac and he wondered for a moment what E. stood for in the name of Mary’s ex-French-customs-officer husband – Emile, perhaps, or Edouard.
Anyway, the presence of the clothes and luggage made it clear that Mary had not gone off for a holiday; or even, as was confirmed by the finding of her sponge-bag and washing kit in the bathroom, deliberately for a night. Now really worried about what had become of her, Barney relocked the front door of the flat and hurried down to the basement.
Down there in the gloomy depths, as Mary had told him, lived a not particularly likeable couple named Coggins. The landlord had put them in charge of the building and, theoretically, they were supposed to perform any reasonable small services that the tenants required but actually they would not lift a finger without being tipped. The man went out to work but could be bribed to carry up heavy luggage on his return. The wife took in parcels, cleaned for some of the tenants and did small commissions in the way of shopping for those whose jobs prevented them from doing their own regularly.
Barney found Mrs. Coggins sorting out some washing, which had been drying in the backyard on the previous day. Her thick brows lifted at the sight of a stranger, and she enquired: ‘What do you want, walking into my scullery like this, young man?’
With his most disarming smile, he replied, ‘I’m a friend of Mrs. Mauriac’s and I’m worried about her. She is not in her flat, and I have reason to suppose that she has not been home for the past three nights. Can you give me any idea what has happened to her?’
‘Tenants’ business is none of my business,’ said the blowsy woman, with a suggestion of malicious pleasure. ‘And if she’d wanted you to know where she was goin’ off to, she would have told you, wouldn’t she?’
Barney had had plenty of experience of dealing with Mrs. Coggins’ type. He spoke again, with an edge on his voice. ‘Mrs. Mauriac’s disappearance may turn out to be a very serious matter. Either you will answer my questions truthfully, promptly and politely, or I shall bring the police in to question you for me.’
‘Lor!’ exclaimed Mrs. Coggins, immediately both overawed and stimulated by a new interest. ‘She hasn’t been murdered, has she?’
‘I sincerely trust not. Tell me; when did you see her last?’
‘Saturday, around one o’clock. Some flowers came in a big box from a florist, and I took ‘em up to ‘er. All them stairs. I tell you them stairs’ll be the death of me. But she gave me a bob for me trouble, as I knew she would.’
‘And you’ve no idea what happened to her after that?’
‘No. Leastwise, not for certain. But there was the coloured gentleman what came enquiring for her about six o’clock.’
‘What’s that?’ Barney snapped.
Mrs. Coggins shrugged and, sensing the possibility of getting under Barney’s skin, replied with a superior smile. ‘I wouldn’t have thought one like her would have taken up with a coloured man; but there’s never any telling, is there? Some people say as how they are more manly in a manner of speakin’ than white fellers, and a lot of girls prefer their fellers to be that way. Of course…’
‘I am not interested in your speculations,’ Barney cut her short. ‘What was this coloured man like, and did she see him?’
‘Well, he weren’t a coloured man in the proper sense. Not a real Negro, with curly hair an’ all; just coffee. Some sort of Indian I suppose, and very well spoken. It’s expected that tenants’ visitors shall go up and ring the bells of those they want. But this man rang again and again for me. I went up prepared to give whoever it was a piece of my mind, but he told me he’d rung Mrs. Mauriac’s bell again and again and couldn’t get no reply, and could I tell him when she would be coming in. Of course I told him I’d no idea; then he asked my permission to wait there in the front hall till she came in. To that I said, “You can please yerself, there’s no law against it”. Then when I come up about an hour later with a bottle of whisky for the gentleman in the second floor back that we call “the Colonel”, the coloured gent was no longer there. So maybe she’d come in and gone straight out again with him.’
‘Thank you.’ Barney turned on his heel, ran quickly up the basement stairs and went out into the street. He had no doubt whatever that the ‘coloured gentleman’ was Ratnadatta; but what could possibly have induced Margot – as he thought of her – to go out with him? Surely just pique at his, Barney’s, having let her down could not account for her reversing her decision to have nothing more to do with the Indian? And if, from annoyance and boredom, she had allowed herself to be persuaded, why had she not returned to her flat since? Perhaps he had hypnotised her and was now detaining her against her will in the mansion at Cremorne? In any case, it seemed certain that Ratnadatta having come to Cromwell Road on Saturday evening, it was he who was responsible for her disappearance; and its implications were now extremely alarming.
Barney’s immediate impulse was to go to Cremorne, but a moment’s thought was enough to check it. Bulldog Drummond tactics were all very well in fiction, but for him to break in and attempt to tackle on his own the permanent staff that must live in the house could result only in disaster. He must restrain his impatience, make a report, secure a search warrant and have Special Branch raid the place officially. But it had taken him barely half an hour to search Mary’s flat, so it was still not yet eight o’clock and C.B. would not be in his office until half past nine.
Now a prey to acute anxiety, Barney strode along to the Earls Court Road, went into a Lyons and killed time as best he could by having breakfast there. Well before half past nine he arrived at the office and posted himself in the hall ready to waylay C.B.
Verney arrived punctually, nodded ‘good morning’ to him and made for the lift. Barney returned his greeting and said hurriedly, ‘Can I come up with you, Sir? There is a matter I want to see you about urgently.’
‘Sorry,’ C.B. shook his head. ‘I think I know what it is, but I can’t see you yet. I must go through my mail, and Thompson of Special Branch is coming over at a quarter to ten. When I’ve seen him I hope we’ll know more about it. Go to your room and I’ll ring through for you as soon as I am free.’
Wondering how the Colonel could possibly have got to know of Margot’s disappearance, Barney went up to the room which, when he was working in the office, he shared with two other young men. At five past ten Verney’s P.A. summoned him, and he went up to the big office on the top floor.
On his entering the room the Colonel waved him to a chair, and said: ‘This is a perfectly damnable business, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Thompson got the truth out of Tom Ruddy last night, but he flatly refuses to prosecute.’
‘Tom Ruddy?’ Barney echoed, momentarily taken aback.
‘No, Father Christmas!’ retorted C.B., with an irritable impatience quite unusual in him. ‘Or am I wrong in supposing that you came here this morning to report to me that he has withdrawn his name as a candidate for Secretary-General of the C.G.T.?’
‘Yes; no, I mean,’ faltered Barney, suddenly recalled to the duty entailed by his major mission. ‘I picked up a pretty definite rumour to that effect in Hammersmith last night, and of course intended to report it.’
‘Very well then. This ties up with your second string; so sit down and I’ll tell you about it. I heard that Ruddy had thrown his hand in yesterday afternoon, so I asked Inspector Thompson to go to see him and try to find out why. Of course, it’s none of our business officially, but I felt certain there must be something fishy about it, and that if Ruddy could be persuaded to accept police help we might be able to restore the situation. At first he was very reluctant to talk but, after Thompson had given him his word that, no action of any kind which might involve him should be taken, he got the story.’
C.B. stuffed some tobacco down into his pipe, and went on. ‘One wouldn’t have thought that a man like Ruddy would be a superstitious fool; but he is. Apparently his old mum used to tell fortunes pretty accurately, so he has been a believer in that sort of thing all his life. About a year ago someone introduced him to a crystal-gazer named Emily Purbess, a middle-aged and apparently respectable body. He has consulted Mrs. P. several times in the past six months and she’s given him guidance that he says has paid off well on various problems connected with his election campaign. About ten days ago she warned him that there was trouble ahead; someone he relied on was going to double-cross him, and if he didn’t watch out that would wreck his chances. But she couldn’t tell him who or what to watch out for.
‘Naturally that got him worried, so she suggested that he should consult someone who had greater occult powers than herself and gave him the address of a man named Biernbaum, who is in practice in the West End as a psycho-analyst. Biernbaum gave Ruddy a lot of gypp about seeing into the future really being a science which was understood by the ancients and is only now being rediscovered, and how it had recently been proved that they were right to use pure young girls as priestesses in the temples because nubile virgins were the best vehicles for conveying the voices of unseen powers; then he said that, for a fee, he could take Ruddy to a house in which a young woman who had been trained to prophesy invariably produced the goods. Ruddy agreed to cough up five pounds and was told to report at Biernbaum’s consulting room again on Saturday evening.’
‘Saturday evening,’ Barney repeated. ‘That’s the night the Satanists meet. Did this chap Biernbaum take him along to the house in Cremorne?’
C.B. nodded. ‘You’ve hit it, partner. At least I’m pretty certain that is where they went. Biernbaum must have put Ruddy under a light hypnosis because after they got into a taxi he doesn’t remember the streets through which they passed, or those by which they returned about an hour later; but his description of the approach to the place, and of its outside, tallies. He says the inside was like that of a nobleman’s mansion, as seen on the films, but he was received by an elderly bald-headed doctor, who runs the place, and a fine looking woman who was dressed as a nurse. They told him that their most gifted girl had been taken ill but, as the appointment had been made, she had agreed all the same to prophesy for him. Then they took him up to a luxurious bedroom where a lovely girl was lying in bed with her eyes shut and the sheets up to her chin.’
Barney grinned suddenly. ‘This sounds more fun than getting a blowsy old woman to peer into a crystal. Did the lovely prove a good oracle?’
‘Yes, she prophesied all right. In fact, so plausibly that she shook poor Ruddy to his buttoned boots. She described the chap who was supposed to be going to do him dirt, and unmistakably she was seeing young Sir Hamish McFadden.’
‘The chap whose father left him about ten million pounds worth of shipping, and is now regarded as quite a big shot among the Socialist intelligentsia?’
‘That’s right. But even if he is ass enough to believe in their old-fashioned theories, he at least has the sense to realise the Communist danger, and he has been spending quite a lot of money lately to finance the campaigns of honest Trade Unionists like Ruddy, who want to oust the Reds. Ruddy was going down to lunch with him at his place in Kent last Sunday, to fix the final details about I.T.V. appearances, leaflets, and other anti-Communist propaganda for which Sir Hamish is footing the bill. But the prophecy decided Ruddy to call his visit off.’
‘So that’s how they worked it.’ Barney made a grimace. ‘I suppose by Monday Ruddy and Sir Hamish had quarrelled violently and, after the break, Ruddy felt that, without the financial support he had been promised, he no longer stood a chance?’
‘Good Lord, no! With, or without Sir Hamish, Ruddy could still romp home. He has thrown his hand in on personal grounds: on account of his family. The lovely oracle predicted for him, despite everything, a smashing victory. She even got so enthusiastic about it that, although she was as naked as when her mother bore her, she suddenly sat up in bed and threw an arm round his neck. It was at that moment that from some camouflaged point of vantage some-one took a photograph of them.’
‘Blackmail!’ exclaimed Barney.
‘That’s it. On Monday a man who was a complete stranger to Ruddy brought him a copy, gave it to him and said: “We thought you might like to have this as a souvenir. We have plenty more and either you lay off standing for Secretary-General, or your wife gets one tomorrow.”’
‘What swine these people are!’
‘Of course. Communists are of two kinds only. Gadarene Swine whose wits have been taken from them so that they rush headlong down the slope to their own destruction, and ordinary voracious swine who, if you were standing in their sty, had a heart-attack and fell among them, would instantly set upon and devour you – just as did the pigs in T. F. Powys’ novel, Mr. Tasker’s Gods.’
‘I know, Sir. But this sort of thing really is frightful. Did poor old Ruddy cave in right away?’
‘I gather so. He told Thompson that he had been happily married for twenty-four years and counted his wife his greatest blessing; but she was not the sort of woman who would even tolerate his dancing twice in an evening with the good-looking wife of another chap at a Trade Union social and that once she had made his life a misery for a couple of months because she had found out that, while she was on holiday at the seaside with the children, he had taken a pretty typist to a movie. He said that the sight of the photograph would be a terrible shock to her. He felt sure that her principles would prove stronger than her affections: that, filled with righteous indignation, she would leave him, taking their two unmarried daughters with her, and that no political success he might achieve could compensate a man of his age for the loss of his family.’
‘Couldn’t he explain?’ Barney asked. ‘Surely if his wife loves him, and he told the truth, she would believe him?’
‘Put yourself in his shoes, or hers,’ C.B. gave a short hard laugh and tossed across the desk a photograph. ‘Take a look at that. Thompson asked Ruddy to let him have the loan of it so that Scotland Yard could try to identify the woman, and Ruddy said he was glad to get it out of the house, provided it was destroyed afterwards. Can you see yourself endeavouring to persuade a middle-aged, narrow-minded and distrustful wife that you had gone to the bedroom of this naked lady for no other reason than the hope that she would predict for you the winner of the Derby?’
Barney had picked up the photograph and was staring at it as though his eyes might pop out of their sockets. It showed the stalwart grey-haired Tom Ruddy leaning forward on the far side of a richly furnished bed. Sitting up in the bed, nude to the thighs, an inviting smile on her lips, an encouraging hand on Ruddy’s shoulder, was the beautiful prophetess. Almost choking with mixed emotions, he stammered:
‘But … damn it… this is Margot Mauriac! How … how could she have lent herself to this sort of thing? How could she?’
Verney raised his prawn-like eyebrows. ‘Really! Is she, now? Perhaps I ought to have guessed, but somehow I didn’t. Her real name isn’t Mauriac, though; it’s Mary Morden.’