It was Hilda who kept me from getting neurotic about the screwy messages. She had a distinctly one-track mind. And she kept on at me about getting Una away from the Institute. She was so earnest about it indeed that I didn’t like to tell her that I still hadn’t quite made up my mind.
And then on the evening of the third day, I did manage to touch lightly on the subject. I happened to be in the bar alone when Gillett himself came in. And it couldn’t have been easier or more natural. He was wearing a slightly drawn expression that I think he must have known suited him rather, or I am sure that he wouldn’t have worn it at all. And I had taken just enough drink not to mind what I said. So I went right in at my very heartiest.
“Have a drink, old chap,” I said. “You look as though you could do with one.”
We weren’t really on old chap terms, or anything like it. And telling Gillett that he looked as though he needed a drink was about as risky as telling him that his profile had slipped.
“Just a small one,” he said. “I’ve still got some work to do.”
That gave me just the kind of lead I’d been playing for.
“Pack it up, chum,” I advised him. “It isn’t worth it. And it isn’t fair to Una either.”
I saw his eyebrows go up a shade when I called the demure one “Una.” As a matter of fact, I was a bit surprised myself.
“And there’s another thing,” I said. “Why don’t you get her away from here? She ought to go right off somewhere just to get over it. She must have swallowed an awful lot of glass when that jar went off.”
Gillett passed his hand across his forehead. It was perfect the way he did it. He knew all the right gestures, and could easily have got himself a gold medal at the R.A.D.A. any time. There was even the surprise pay-off. It certainly caught me unprepared.
“I wish to God she would,” he answered. “Perhaps you’d speak to her. She won’t listen to me.”
“Two more pink gins,” I told the barman hurriedly. “And make them large ones.”
I was getting really interested by now. The only trouble was that the pattern seemed about as subtle as an expanse of black-and-white squared tiling. Hilda wanted me to get Una out of the way so that she could have Gillett to herself again. And Gillett was evidently hankering after pretty much the same arrangement. I wanted to see what else I could learn, so I began shifting my ground a bit.
“Well, after all, she probably knows best,” I said. “I just thought that it would be good for her.”
“So it would,” Gillett answered. “Damn good.” He dropped his voice a little even though Charley, our barman, was the only other person in the bar. “I don’t like some of the things that have been going on here. Have you ever known an anaerobic jar explode like that?”
“No,” I answered truthfully.
He paused.
“Nor have I. And I still have a feeling that there’s something pretty queer still going on around here. As a matter of fact, it’s rather more than a feeling. I think I’ve stumbled on to something.”
“That goes for me, too,” I said, again truthfully,
“And that’s why I’d like to get Una quite out of it,” he went on. “This Institute isn’t the place for a woman. At least not just at present, it isn’t.”
If he had said that it wasn’t the place for two women I should have been perfectly ready to agree with him. But, as it was, I didn’t want to give the impression of being one of the nervous kind. I was calm and casual in the way that six gins can make anyone calm and casual.
“Aren’t you dramatising things a bit, old man?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Then he brought out the same gesture again. Hand drawn slowly across the forehead and eyes half-closed while he was doing it.
The only trouble was that he had become so good at it that he was in danger of convincing even himself.
All that took place on a Wednesday. And by the following Friday, the Inspector had something more than size five plimsolls to worry about. He very nearly had a murder— Gillett’s murder—to investigate. Someone up on the moor had been practising with a firearm and had apparently happened to let it off when Gillett had been passing right in front of the sights.
It was only bad marksmanship, or possibly the blinding effect of Gillett’s profile when viewed through the little aperture that had saved him. But it certainly left him shaken. For once he forgot to look his best when he told us about it. “Too damn near for my liking,” was what he said. And having said it, he kept repeating it.
What he didn’t know was that it had been too damn near for my liking, too. The report had seemed to come from just over the other side of a small hillock where I happened to be resting. I was assistant-on-duty in the lab. at the time, and had just slipped out for a breather. But I couldn’t very well say anything. It would only have worried the Director if he had thought that the discipline on the routine side of the Institute was getting shaky.
There were, however, two other witnesses to the shot. Dr. Mann was one of them. But he, poor fellow, hardly counted because he was always hearing Vi’s and distant explosions and things that didn’t reach anybody else’s ears, and he wouldn’t have been credited even if he’d been the one who was fired at. The other witness, however, was Bansted, our Bisley man. And he insisted that it was a Luger or something of the kind that he had heard. The report, he said, had come from somewhere not more than half a mile from where he had been himself, and must have been a close-range job. That sounded reasonable enough because the afternoon had been distinctly misty, with visibility of not much more than about a hundred yards. But that in turn showed that the shot couldn’t have been all that casual. Someone must have been just sitting there waiting for it.
That was Gillett’s view of the situation. And it was Hilda’s view too. But what didn’t make sense was that it was still apparently Una that she was most worried about. Or was she? I couldn’t get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that she didn’t care two hoots for Una, whereas she would have died cheerfully for Gillett whenever he asked her. But if that was so, she was certainly a pretty convincing kind of actress. And she would insist that somehow or other the shooting had increased the danger that Una was already in.
“Increased the danger?” I asked quite innocently. “You didn’t say anything about danger before.”
“Oh, but it’s so obvious. It’s so obvious,” Hilda went on. “If you can’t see it, there’s nothing I can do about it. I only want you to get her away from here. That’s all that you’ve got to do. And you’ve got to do it quickly.”
She was becoming about as near to hysterical as she was ever likely to be. Her colour was higher by now. And she was indulging in the short, sharp kind of breathing which is one of the first really tell-tale signs in a woman. Then very abruptly she came right up to me.
“You can kiss me now if you like,” she said. “Only you’ve got to do what I ask you.”
That kiss gave me back just nothing at all. It was her cheek that she offered me, and not her lips. And, in any case, I don’t like being offered a kiss as a reward for good conduct. This particular one reminded me of a jujube handed out by an exasperated mother as a last desperate attempt to get poppet to do something.
In any case, there was far too much going on for there to be any possibility of my having a tête-à-tête with the demure one. Gillett was guarding her like a mother-lynx with kittens. And it was suddenly Bansted who had become the centre of everything.
I must say that it certainly did look a bit fishy. Because it had suddenly come to light that when he had left the Institute on the afternoon of the shooting he had taken his rifle with him.
As soon as he heard, the Inspector was ready to whip out his book of blank arrest-warrants, or whatever the exact procedure is. The only trouble was that it was Dr. Mann who was the sole source of the information. And, on principle, the Inspector didn’t believe a single word that Dr. Mann said. Also, Bansted wasn’t exactly the staring, glassy-eyed kind of assassin. And the other sort don’t normally march off to the chopping-up with the axe slung over their shoulder.
What, on the other hand, was rather bad was that Bansted should have forgotten to mention that he had ever had a little thing like a rifle in his raincoat pocket. An umbrella is the sort of thing that anyone could overlook. But to forget about a rifle spells carelessness. And Bansted wasn’t in the least naturally careless.