‘MR MADDEN, IS IT?’ The man stepped out from under the shelter of the station awning. ‘Morgan’s the name.’
‘Inspector!’ Madden grasped the other’s outthrust hand. ‘It’s good of you to meet me, but you shouldn’t have. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.’
‘Nothing that can’t wait.’ Morgan chuckled. Lean and sinewy, his fox-like features were split by a wide grin. ‘I wasn’t going to pass up the chance of meeting you, not when Billy mentioned your name.’ He spoke with a lilting Welsh accent. ‘That Melling Lodge case is still talked about, you know. And of course you and Mr Sinclair were on it together.’
‘Good lord!’ Madden laughed. He allowed himself to be guided off the platform through the waiting-room. ‘That’s ancient history.’
‘Maybe so. But if we get a moment together while you’re here you might just find yourself having to answer a question or two about it. And also what Mr Sinclair’s up to now. It sounds like something we should know about.’
Although the sky had cleared temporarily, the snow that had already fallen was almost knee-deep in some places, as Madden saw when they came outside onto the forecourt.
‘According to this morning’s forecast, it’s not over yet.’ Morgan had read his thoughts. ‘We’re expecting more tomorrow. But to business . . .’
Madden had waited most of the preceding day hoping the chief inspector would get in touch with them. But when the telephone finally rang late in the afternoon it proved to be Billy, who had found what he needed to know unexpectedly quickly.
‘I’ve got the name of that firm in Oxford you want,’ he told his old chief. ‘It’s Hutton. What’s more, they had a visit from Mr Sinclair two days ago. He was asking about that bloke with the flat tyre and he got a name out of them and also an address apparently. The fellow you want to talk to in Oxford is an inspector called Morgan. He’s by way of being a pal of mine. We worked together on the Ballard case a few years ago. If you’re going over there yourself you should get in touch with him. He’s expecting to hear from you.’
‘Billy, I can’t thank you enough. This is more than I asked for.’
Helen had come into the study while Madden was speaking and he’d given her a thumbs-up sign.
‘Has Morgan any idea where he is now?’
‘If he has, he didn’t say so. I didn’t want to push him.’ Billy had chuckled.
‘I know. This is hardly police business. I’ll be going over to Oxford at once. I’ll talk to you again when I know more.’
‘I know you only asked us for a list of car-hire firms.’ Morgan was scanning the road outside for a taxi. ‘But I’ve got a couple of new recruits sitting around at headquarters doing nothing useful, so I got one of them to make the calls for you. He hit on Hutton’s eventually and I talked to the chap in charge there myself. He gave Mr Sinclair the name of the bloke who hired the car and an address as well. Here—I’ve written them down for you.’
He handed Madden a slip of paper.
‘Chipping Norton . . . that’s not far, is it?’
‘You can get there in half an hour by car, a bit more by bus. The road was blocked for a day by an accident earlier this week. It happened during the worst of the snow. I don’t know if Mr Sinclair planned to go up there. He may still be in Oxford.’
‘I’d feel guilty asking you to do anything more,’ Madden said. ‘This isn’t a job for the police.’
‘Oh, never mind that.’ Morgan flashed his foxy grin. ‘I don’t mind doing a favour for a couple of old coppers. Who’s to know? I’d like to come with you now, but there’s stuff back at the station I have to attend to. My office is at St Aldates, by the way. But I expect you want to go over to Cowley and talk to the car-hire chap yourself. He’s called Alf Hutton.’
‘I was planning to do that,’ Madden said.
‘Here’s a cab now.’ Morgan whistled and held up a hand. ‘Come round to the station when you’re done. I may know by then where the chief inspector’s staying here in Oxford. I’ve got my two greenhorns on the job now. They’re calling round the hotels. Here we go . . .’
He pulled open the door of the taxi and ushered Madden inside.
‘Thank you again, Inspector.’
‘Tom’s the name.’ Morgan grinned. ‘Good hunting.’
Madden looked at the slip of paper in his hand.
‘Beck,’ he said. ‘J. H. Beck. Is that the name you gave Mr Sinclair?’
Alf Hutton nodded. ‘The bloke left an address too, in Chipping Norton. Have you got it? Mr Sinclair said he was going up there. But what with the snow and all I wonder if he made it.’ He looked out of the plate-glass window fronting his office. ‘It’s stopped now, but I heard on the wireless this morning there’s more to come. You say you’re worried about him, sir? He seemed quite well to me.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Mr Hutton. As it happens my wife is his doctor and she’s concerned about his health.’
‘And is it true he used to be a detective at Scotland Yard?’
‘Quite true—a distinguished one, in fact.’
‘That’s a relief.’ Alf Hutton beamed. ‘It gave me quite a turn, I can tell you, getting a call from the police this morning. I thought for a moment he might have been up to no good, your Mr Sinclair.’ He hesitated. ‘But isn’t he a bit . . . well . . . past it to be working as a private investigator?’
‘Is that what he told you?’ Madden managed to mask his surprise. ‘Well, my wife would certainly agree with you. But what he’s doing is quite unofficial. In fact, he’s making these inquiries on behalf of a friend.’ Caught himself now in the web of lies the chief inspector had spun, Madden was forced to do some inventing himself.
‘The one who’s owed money by this chap Beck?’ Hutton frowned.
‘Yes, exactly,’ Madden said, after a pause. It occurred to him that Angus Sinclair might have missed his true métier as a creator of fictions in the manner of, say, Edgar Wallace, and privately resolved to proffer just such a suggestion to him when they next met. ‘Did he tell you anything else?’ He hardly dared to ask.
Hutton shook his head. ‘Only that he was planning to go up to Chipping Norton to look for this fellow.’
‘You’re sure of that.’
‘It’s what he said.’
Madden took a moment to reflect.
‘In that case, have you got a car available?’ he asked.
‘A car?’ Alf Hutton’s face brightened.
‘I’d like to hire one.’
The desk sergeant looked up from his ledger.
‘Mr Morgan, you say? I think he’s busy at the moment, sir. Could you tell me what it’s about?’
‘Just give him my name, Sergeant.’
Madden went to the door. Two schoolboys, satchels strapped to their backs, were sliding along the packed snow on the pavement in front of him. But the sky above was still clear, apart from scattered cloud. There was no sign yet of the fresh snowfall that the weather forecasters were promising.
At the sound of quick footsteps behind him, he turned and saw Morgan’s wiry figure descending the uncarpeted stairs.
‘Ah, there you are!’ The inspector hailed him. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any lunch, sir. Would you care to join me for a sandwich in the pub down the road? I’ve got some more news for you.’
‘I was going to suggest it myself.’ Madden smiled. He matched his long stride to the inspector’s quicker steps as they set off down the road. ‘News, you say? Don’t tell me you’ve managed to locate Mr Sinclair.’
‘Not quite. But we know where he was staying. It’s the Randolph Hotel.’ Morgan chuckled. ‘There’s a chief inspector’s pension for you. Mind you, he’s Scottish, isn’t he? I expect he’s been thrifty, got a nice nest egg tucked away. But the thing is he never checked out and they’ve been wondering what happened to him. He told the clerk at the reception desk yesterday that he was taking the bus up to Chipping Norton, but would be back by lunchtime. It seems he was planning to go back to Highfield that afternoon.’
‘Just in time to welcome us home, I dare say. My wife and I returned from holiday that day. Mr Sinclair knew he would have some explaining to do. Helen wouldn’t have been best pleased to hear he’d been gadding about.’
They had reached the pub, but Madden stopped outside the door.
‘If he never came back to Oxford, he must have got stuck in Chipping Norton. You said there was an accident on the road. Was that the same day?’
Morgan nodded. ‘The bus service was suspended. The road wasn’t cleared until early evening. He must have stayed up there, got himself a hotel room. But the odd thing is he never rang the Randolph to tell them he wouldn’t be back that day. What’s more, he hasn’t been in touch with them since.’ He blew on his fingers. ‘Let’s get out of the cold, shall we?’
Settled in a corner of the tap room a few minutes later, with pints of beer and a plate of sandwiches in front of them, they continued to puzzle over the mystery.
‘There’s one answer I can think of,’ Morgan said. ‘Phone lines have been down all over the Cotswolds. It happens when there’s heavy snow.’
‘Does that include the line between Oxford and Chipping Norton?’ Madden bit into a cheese sandwich.
‘Not that I heard.’ Morgan shrugged. ‘But the same goes for the road. It’s open now—the main road, I mean—but a lot of those side roads are still blocked. Some of the houses are cut off. He could be stuck in a village somewhere; perhaps he’s still looking for that fellow—what’s his name?’
‘Beck.’ Madden scowled. ‘I suppose that’s possible, though the address Hutton gave us is in Chipping Norton. To tell the truth I’m baffled for the present. I can’t think where he’s got to.’
Morgan took a deep swallow of his beer.
‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ll give the police in Chipping Norton a call when we get back to the station and ask them to check local hotels and boardinghouses to see if Mr Sinclair is or was staying in one of them. That’ll tell us something.’
Madden muttered his thanks. ‘One way or another, I think I’m going to have to go up there myself this afternoon. I’ve got a car now, by the way. I hired one from Hutton.’
‘That was a stroke of luck for him.’ Morgan grinned. ‘And now since we’ve got a moment, could you tell me a little more what this is about? Billy said the chief inspector thought there might have been foul play involved in this woman’s death. But that was all.’
‘I’ll do my best, though only Mr Sinclair knows the full story.’ Madden sampled his beer. ‘But it seems to revolve around this woman—Greta Hartmann. Who she was, I mean, her past.’
‘What about it?’ The inspector cocked an eye at him.
‘She was German . . . a refugee? She came to England before the war. Her husband died in a concentration camp. Mr Sinclair thinks that may have something to do with her death: that this man she saw might have a Nazi background . . . something of that sort. He’s written to an old friend of his, a senior inspector in the Berlin police, asking him to check their records and see if they can find any mention of Mrs Hartmann’s name.’
‘He was thinking this man might be a war criminal, you mean?’ Morgan whistled. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of him going after a bloke like that, not at his age.’
‘Nor do I,’ Madden said bleakly. ‘That’s one reason I want to find him. The other is his health. My wife’s concerned about him. He shouldn’t be exerting himself in this way.’ He caught Morgan’s eye.
The inspector set his glass down. ‘In that case it might be as well to check the hospitals—here and in Chipping Norton.’
‘I was thinking the same thing.’ Madden felt relieved. He’d been reluctant to ask for yet more help.
‘I’ll see to it when we get back to the station.’ Morgan swallowed the last of his beer. ‘You say you’re going up to Chipping Norton this afternoon? Keep an eye on the weather. They say the next lot of snow won’t be coming in until tonight, but you never know; it might arrive earlier than that.’
It was after two when Madden pulled into the small market town. The drive from Oxford had taken longer than the half hour Morgan predicted. With the snow banked up on either side of the road and a lot of it still covering the tarmac surface, mostly in the form of slush, drivers were taking more care than usual and Madden had resigned himself to the slow pace forced on him.
The car he was driving—it was the same one Hutton had rented to Beck—was equipped with a radio and he had kept it turned on so as to pick up any fresh forecasts about the weather. Apart from the war in Korea, a regular topic for more than a year now, there was little to interest him. But listening to the newsreader’s solemn tones, he was reminded of a decision by the BBC earlier that year that had left Helen seething: in future, news bulletins were to be read only by men, the corporation had decreed. Studies had shown that a large number of people did not like to hear news of a serious nature read by a female voice, it was asserted, though who these particular people were was never spelled out. The weather report given at the end of the news had confirmed what Morgan had already told him: it seemed they were due for more heavy snow in the coming hours and the fall would be followed by freezing weather, which would make the roads even more dangerous.
Having parked his car in the centre of town, Madden asked in a chemist’s shop for directions to the address he’d been given—Meadow Close—and on learning that it wasn’t far off walked the short distance along snow-covered pavements. One look at the short, dead-end street was enough to tell him he was unlikely to find a house bearing the number 15, and so it proved. Aware now that he was in all likelihood treading in Sinclair’s footsteps, he returned to the main square, where earlier he had seen a bus stop with a vehicle drawn up showing Oxford as its destination ready to depart.
‘Only they weren’t running that afternoon, were they, Angus?’ He murmured the words to himself. ‘You found the service had been suspended. So what did you do next?’
Madden looked about him. He saw there was a tea shop nearby, and reasoning that the snow must have been falling heavily and his friend most likely was in search of shelter, he went into it and sat down at an empty table.
Having discovered that his quarry had left a false address with the car-hire firm, what would Sinclair’s next move have been? Madden wondered. Aware that in all probability he wouldn’t get back to Oxford that evening, he must have thought of finding some place to spend the night: a hotel or boardinghouse. Once installed there, too, he could have telephoned the Randolph Hotel to report his predicament, and later in the afternoon or evening, when he was sure they had returned from their holiday, his friends in Highfield. Yes, he would have called us, Madden thought.
But since he hadn’t done either, it meant he almost certainly hadn’t spent the night in Chipping Norton. He had found some other refuge, albeit one without a working telephone.
‘Excuse me, sir? Can I take your order?’ A middle-aged woman wearing a black dress with a white frilled apron stood by the table, pad in hand.
‘A pot of tea, please, and a slice of Madeira cake.’ Madden had spotted a heavily laden trolley being wheeled by. Just then he had an idea. ‘Look, this is an odd question: but do you happen to remember serving an elderly gentleman with a marked Scottish accent yesterday?’
‘Goodness me!’ She blinked. ‘I’m afraid not. We get so many customers. But if you wait a moment, I’ll ask Betty. She might remember.’
Two minutes later a second, much younger waitress approached his table. She was carrying a tray.
‘Here you are, sir, your tea and cake.’ Dark-haired, with bright eyes and a beauty spot in the middle of her cheek, she busied herself for a moment arranging things on the table. Then her brown eyes locked on his. ‘Mrs Denham says you were asking about a Scottish gentleman?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘There was one came in yesterday, I recall.’
‘Did you serve him?’ Madden asked.
She nodded. ‘All he wanted was a pot of tea, and I remember he put his hands on it to get them warm, so I suppose he must have been outside for a while. I thought he seemed a bit upset. The snow was really coming down. Was he a friend of yours, sir?’
‘An old friend. He hasn’t been too well lately and I’m trying to find him, but he seems to have disappeared.’
‘Oh, dear . . .’ She bit her lip.
‘You say he was upset?’
‘Bothered more like it.’ She frowned. ‘And since I’d never seen him before, I thought he wasn’t from around here and may have been hoping to get back to Oxford that day, only the buses had stopped. It was the snow, you see.’
‘He didn’t happen to ask you about hotels or boardinghouses, did he? I was thinking he might have wanted to find somewhere to spend the night.’
‘No, sir, nothing like that.’ She shook her head. ‘But I did notice him talking to a man who came into the shop for a moment.’
‘Was it someone he knew?’ Madden frowned. ‘Could you tell?’
‘No, I couldn’t, sir. I wasn’t watching. We were really busy that day, what with the snow. This other man wasn’t here long, and after he went out your friend paid his bill at once. He was in a hurry to go, and the funny thing was he hadn’t even drunk his tea. I saw his cup was dry. He hadn’t touched it.’
‘How extraordinary!’
Madden racked his brains for an explanation. The girl waited patiently for him to speak.
‘And you didn’t see what he did when he went outside, I suppose?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir.’ She sounded genuinely regretful. Then her face brightened. ‘But there was one thing I noticed . . .’
‘Yes?’ Madden prompted her.
‘This other man who came in, the one who was talking to him, I remember now he had a cap under his arm.’
‘What sort of cap?’
‘Well, military like, if you know what I mean?’ The effort of trying to explain what she meant made her pull a face.
Madden stared at her for a long moment. Then enlightenment came to him.
‘Could it have been a chauffeur’s cap?’ he asked.
Her face cleared at once.
‘That’s right, sir. That’s it. Just like a chauffeur’s cap.’
‘I’m making a wild guess,’ he told Morgan. ‘I think someone picked him up at the tea shop, someone passing by in a car driven by a chauffeur, someone who knew him. But who? I can’t imagine. To the best of my knowledge Angus had never set foot in Chipping Norton before and I can’t believe he knows anyone who lives here. It’s a mystery.’
Madden’s last question to his informant in the tea shop had been to inquire where the nearest public telephone was located. She had directed him to the post office on the other side of the small market square. He had caught Morgan at his desk.
‘Still, you’ve learned one useful thing, haven’t you? It sounds like this bloke the chief inspector’s after is a wrong ’un all right. People who leave false addresses behind them generally have a good reason for doing so. Mind you, that doesn’t mean he’s a war criminal,’ he added after a moment’s thought. ‘What now?’
‘I can’t do anything more from here. Since Angus failed to call anyone we have to suppose he was taken somewhere where the phones aren’t working, and that could be in any of the villages roundabout if what you told me is true.’
Morgan grunted an acknowledgement. ‘The lines are down all over the place. Are you coming back to Oxford, then?’
‘Right away. I’ll stop off at the Randolph. I want to know if they’ve heard from Angus. I can also explain what’s happened. I don’t want them charging him for his room if he’s snowbound somewhere. And I want to find out if they can tell me about his movements.’
‘Here in Oxford, you mean?’
‘He was at the hotel for two nights. I wonder, did he meet anyone there? I’m looking for some connection to Chipping Norton, Tom. How did he come to bump into someone who knew him up there? Maybe the hotel can shed some light on that. I’ll ring you again when I get back.’
The inspector was sitting at a table in the lounge with a drink on the table in front of him when Madden came down from his room.
‘So you’ve booked in here too? I don’t know where you fellows find the money.’
‘Don’t you start,’ Madden said. ‘I’ve just had my wife on the phone. She wanted to know what I was doing staying at a hotel like the Randolph. It seems she was here with her parents years ago. I tried to explain about it being the best place to wait for Angus in case he showed up. But the main thing is she had some information for me that may have solved our problem. I think I know where Mr Sinclair is.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘I’ll explain in a moment. First, I need a drink.’ Madden signalled to a waiter.
Since his return from Chipping Norton an hour or so earlier he had been trying to sort out Sinclair’s situation with the hotel, and fortunately his explanation for the chief inspector’s absence had been well received.
‘We’ve been worried about him, sir,’ the clerk at the reception desk had told him. ‘We held his room for him, of course, and I’ll have to check with management, but I’m sure we won’t be charging him for last night. Actually, he’s not the only one of our guests caught out by the weather. There’s an American couple snowbound at a village near Bicester, though they managed to get in touch with us.’
Madden had proposed a further solution to them.
‘I need a room for a night or two,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to locate Mr Sinclair and this seems to me to be the best place to wait for him to get in touch. Why not let me have his? If he turns up suddenly we’ll make other arrangements.’
His suggestion had met with approval once ‘management’—which apparently resided in an office behind the reception desk—had been consulted, and shortly afterwards he’d had been shown upstairs.
‘Don’t worry about Mr Sinclair’s things,’ he had told the porter who carried his overnight bag up. ‘I’ll pack them into his suitcase and put it in the cupboard.’
He had done as he said, but not before he’d gone through the chief inspector’s belongings and satisfied himself that his heart tablets were not among them. The fact that he had his pills with him was something Helen would want to know and Madden had put in a call to Highfield at once. She hadn’t been at home when he rang, but he had left a message for her with Mary Morris, their maid of many years.
In the course of going through Sinclair’s things he had noticed a leather-bound notebook and after a brief struggle with his conscience—it was too close to prying for comfort—he had glanced at it and seen that the chief inspector had jotted down a brief account of the inquiries he was making. It contained no surprises other than some cryptic notes at the end about a cuff link, of all things.
Costume jewellery? Religious rites? Mexico??
The question marks seemed to suggest puzzlement on the chief inspector’s part, or at least curiosity, and the double query after ‘Mexico’ was particularly intriguing.
On the last page he had listed some names—Waites, Lesage, Fielding—but without indicating what significance, if any, they had for him.
Unable to solve the riddle, Madden had been on the point of going downstairs to continue his investigations with the desk clerk—he’d been hoping he might learn something about Sinclair’s movements during his brief stay at the hotel—when the phone in his room had rung. It was Helen returning his call, and once she’d done teasing him about his choice of accommodation she had produced a piece of news which, as he told Morgan now, had proved to be crucial.
‘You remember me saying I thought Mr Sinclair had encountered someone at Chipping Norton who knew him, or at least recognized him, and probably took him off in a car.’
Morgan nodded.
‘Well, my wife had had a call earlier today from the people Angus was staying with in Hampshire before he came here.’
‘You mean Bennett, the old A.C. at the Yard?’ Morgan grunted. ‘Billy told me about them.’
‘It was Sir Wilfred’s wife who rang. She was worried after we called to ask if they knew where Angus went after he left them. Helen told her we thought now he’d probably gone to Oxford and Lady Bennett wondered whether he might have had contact with another guest they had staying with them that weekend: someone called Ann Waites. She’s a former psychiatrist and a professor now at Somerville. Angus made a note of her name. Apparently they had a long conversation in Hampshire and almost the last thing she did before she left to return here was to make him promise to get in touch with her if he ever came to Oxford.’
‘Which he did only a couple of days later?’ Morgan snapped his fingers. ‘I can easily get her numbers for you, home and college.’
‘That won’t be necessary. Lady Bennett gave them to Helen. I’ve just been speaking to her—Professor Waites, that is. It turns out she bumped into Angus here, in this very hotel, on Tuesday and invited him to dinner at her house that same evening. One of the other guests present was a lady named Julia Lesage, who was staying with Professor Waites. I gather she’s a wealthy woman. But more to the point, she travels around in a chauffeur-driven Bentley . . .’
‘And you reckon it was her who picked up Mr Sinclair in Chipping Norton?’
‘It seems to have been someone with a chauffeur, and all things considered I think Mrs Lesage is our most likely suspect. She probably spotted Angus sitting in that tea shop when they drove by and realized he was stranded.’
‘Does she live near there?’
‘She has a house in the Cotswolds near a place called Great Tew. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘I’ve been there a couple of times. It’s near another village called Little Tew.’ Morgan grinned. ‘They’re a few miles off the main road between Oxford and Chipping Norton. Ten to one they’re snowed in right now, and very likely with the phone lines down.’ He tugged at an earlobe. ‘Lesage . . . Lesage . . . would that be the lady who’s stuck in a wheelchair? If so I’ve heard of her.’
‘She was a skiing champion before the war,’ Madden told him. ‘She broke her back in an accident and has never walked again. I got all that from Professor Waites. She and Angus seemed to have hit it off, which makes it all the more likely she was the one who came to his aid.’
He took a swallow of his whisky.
‘The only trouble is if he’s stuck there with her, as I think, I won’t be able to speak to him until the phones are working again.’
‘And meanwhile your wife wants him back in Highfield?’
‘She insists on it. She wants him to stop playing detective, as she puts it. I had to tell her there was nothing I could do for the moment. I’m not sure I could even drive up there in the old heap Hutton gave me, especially with this fresh snowfall we’re expecting, and even if I could I wouldn’t want to risk coming back with Angus as a passenger. What if we got stuck on the road somewhere?’
Madden stood at the window of his room looking out. His faint hope that the snow might relent, at least for a while, had been dashed by the sight that met his eyes now. The dense curtain of white had reduced the buildings on the other side of the street to little more than a blur, while the Ashmolean Museum, only a few steps away, had disappeared altogether.
He was still taking in the scene when the bedside phone rang.
‘Hullo, sir!’ Billy Styles’s familiar voice sounded in his ear. ‘I’m glad to have caught you. I’ve just had a word with Tom Morgan and he told me where you were staying. He also said you had a good idea where the chief inspector might be, but you could explain it better than he could.’
‘I’m guessing he’s stuck in a house in the Cotswolds,’ Madden said. ‘He went up to Chipping Norton and was caught out by the snow. But the phones are out up there so I haven’t had a chance to discover if I’m right. Why do you ask?’
‘I’ve just been speaking to a bloke who’s particularly keen to know. He’s that German copper Mr Sinclair wrote to: Kriminalcommissar Probst.’ Billy chuckled. ‘I think I got that right.’
‘Did he call you from Berlin?’ Madden was astonished.
‘No, Ramsgate, as it happens. He’d just got off the Channel ferry and wanted a word with me before he caught his train. He’s coming up to London tonight.’
Madden needed a moment to digest this news. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘Is Probst worried about Mr Sinclair’s health? You told me Angus had written to him from Hampshire.’
‘He didn’t mention it, sir. It’s Greta Hartmann’s name that got them all excited.’
‘Them?’
‘The Berlin CID—we had one of their senior blokes on the phone yesterday. He spoke to Mr Chubb and Mr Chubb had a word with the assistant commissioner and as a result it was agreed Probst should come over right away. I’ve been detailed to hold his hand, and since it’s known that Mr Sinclair went to Oxford on the trail of this chap he’s after, that’s where we’ll start. Tom Morgan will handle things at the Oxford end—it’s been okayed by his chief constable. We’re meeting him in his office tomorrow morning. Tom said you’d be welcome to join us if you want to.’
‘Oh, I’ll be there. You can count on it.’ Madden hesitated. ‘You say it was Greta Hartmann’s name . . . ?’
‘That’s right. It seems she was mixed up in some case over there a long time ago, just like the chief inspector thought. It was before the war. That’s all I know. Probst didn’t have time to say more. He had to catch his train. He just wanted to know if Mr Sinclair was all right. Is he safe and sound? That’s what he said. Well, at least I can put his mind at rest on that score.’
Madden was silent.
‘What is it, sir?’ Billy had sensed something.
‘If it’s not Angus’s health he’s worried about, why is he so concerned about him?’
‘Oh, well, that’s because of the man Mr Sinclair’s been chasing,’ Billy said. ‘Probst was afraid he might have caught up with him.’
‘And why should that have worried him so much?’ Madden felt the first faint prick of alarm.
‘Because they know who he is, or think they do. And if they’re right, he’s killed before—and more than once.’