Chapter Thirty-five

‘He’s coming round,’ a voice said. It was a voice he knew, one with disagreeable connotations. He opened his eyes to see, close to his own face, the fresh, eager features of Inspector Crambo. He closed his eyes again, and groaned.

‘You’re a bit of a hero,’ Crambo said. Hunter opened his eyes again in astonishment. ‘Do you feel up to telling me what happened?’

‘Brannigan was going to shoot me. Pine got in the way. I shot Brannigan.’ He struggled up to a sitting position, saw that he was in the bedroom leading off Pine’s sitting room, winced with pain.

‘He put a bullet through your shoulder. It’s not serious. Brannigan and Pine are both dead. You killed Brannigan. Pine died ten minutes after we got here. He told us Brannigan killed Miss Moorhouse. She’s down in the cellar.’

‘Yes. They told me. That girl I talked to you about, Tanya Broderick. The one who gave evidence about Bond.’

‘Yes?’

‘She didn’t want to be mixed up with murder. She was here just before the shooting. Brannigan hit her. She’ll talk.’

‘Good. Let me tell you now how the business about Anthea Moorhouse works out. Brannigan and Pine kidnapped her, killed her, planned to get the money. Actually got fifteen thousand pounds which Moorhouse paid over on our instructions. Notes had been impregnated with a chemical so that they couldn’t use them. We’ve got them back. In a cupboard downstairs.’ Crambo’s face was solemn as a poker player’s. ‘We don’t usually like people playing Sherlock Holmes, but as I say you’re a bit of a hero. That’s the way I look at it, the way it works out.’ Was there a peculiar emphasis on those last words?

‘But –’

Through the open door he could see into the next room. Men were taking flashlight photographs, measuring distances. Flashlight bulbs popped.

‘Listen to me and don’t interrupt.’ Crambo’s voice was hard. ‘I said, that’s the way it works out. Brannigan was an agent for a drug distributing organisation. Pine was working with him. Anthea Moorhouse was one of the distributors. She’d become awkward, was threatening to give the show away. Brannigan and Pine decided she was dangerous, had to be disposed of. They arranged the kidnapping to squeeze money out of Moorhouse as well. When you found out about it, doing your Sherlock Holmes act, they were going to kill you too. Do you agree with that? Have you got any objections?’

A sergeant appeared in the doorway. ‘The boys have finished now, Inspector. Anything else?’

‘No. I’ll be along in five minutes.’ Crambo was staring at Hunter. He repeated, ‘Any objections?’

‘I suppose not,’ Hunter said slowly.

‘If you have any objections,’ Crambo said, looking at his high-polished shoes, ‘it might be awkward for everybody. There are questions we should have to ask. About Westmark, for instance. You know Westmark?’

‘I’ve met him.’

‘He said at first that you’d been to see him. Later, when he heard that Brannigan was dead, he changed his mind and saw things the way I expected. Then one of my men thought he saw you this evening. Thought he had a bit of a brush with you in fact, outside a pub. You don’t remember that, do you?’

‘No, I don’t remember.’

‘Just as well.’ Crambo laughed briskly. ‘My chap thought the man he saw was carrying a suitcase. The money was found in a suitcase, I think I told you that.’

‘You did.’

‘But there you are, just a coincidence. That’s the way it works out, and it leaves you a bit of a hero. Don’t you agree?’

‘What?’ Hunter said. ‘Yes. Oh, yes, I agree.’

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Brannigan was only an agent. Behind him –’

‘I know who was behind Brannigan. I can’t prove it, but I know. He was only a medium-sized fish. We’ll land the big one some day. Quite a flair for metaphor I’ve got, don’t you think? Would you call it a metaphor?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You’re wondering why I’m doing this – adopting this attitude, I suppose an intellectual like yourself might call it.’

‘I’m not an intellectual. But, yes, I was wondering.’

‘It’s the easy way out, that’s what you’re thinking, old Crambo’s chosen the easy way out. But that’s not all it is, Hunter. There’s a lot I could make stick to you, enough to send you up for years, you know that, don’t you?’

‘I…’

‘All right, don’t answer, I don’t want you to answer. I don’t love you, Hunter, any more than you love me. But why should Moorhouse suffer more than he has done? Who’s it going to help if he does? There’s a lot that I know and can’t easily prove. And if I could prove it, what would be the use? Miss Moorhouse is dead. It won’t help anybody to drag her name through the mud. Is that what you want?’

‘No.’

‘Let lying dogs sleep is what I say. Do you agree with that too?’

‘It’s not the usual way of putting it.’

‘Or you might say, a fool and his paradise are soon parted.’ If such a thing had not been impossible, Hunter might have thought that Crambo’s bright salesman’s gaze held a trace of something like pity. ‘You’ll have the reporters on your tail tomorrow, but for tonight I’ve kept them off. There’s a car laid on to take you wherever you want to go, and a chap on duty who’ll give you a hand. Your wound’s strapped up, but tomorrow you ought to see your own doctor, or go to the hospital for treatment.’

‘I will. And thank you.’

‘I’ll leave you with an old Chinese proverb. At the Yard they call this my proverbial mood. Those whose hands are twice as dirty as other people’s need to wash twice as often.’

It was not until Crambo had gone that Hunter looked down and saw again the faint yellow stains on his fingers.