Алистер Маклин - Circus

‘I haven’t gone around examining–’

‘Bruno!’

‘No.’

‘Certainly not me. I have a place like a horizontal telephone box. Ah, well, I suppose there’s a vast gap in status between a trainee secretary and you.’

‘That’s so.’

‘Men! Modesty! I just don’t know!’

‘Come with me on the high trapeze. Blindfolded. Then you’ll know.’

She shuddered, not altogether affectedly. ‘I can’t even stand on a chair without getting vertigo. Truly. You’re welcome to your palace. Well, I suppose I can always come along and visit the palace.’

He handed her a drink. ‘I’ll have a special welcome mat made out for you.’

‘Thank you.’ She lifted her glass. ‘To our first time alone. We’re supposed to be falling in love. Any idea how the others think we are doing?’

‘I can’t speak for the others. I think I’m doing very well.’ He glanced at the compressing lips and said hastily: ‘I think we’re doing very well. I suppose, as of this moment, that must be the general idea. By this time at least a hundred people must know that you’re here with me. Aren’t you supposed to blush or something?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a lost art. Well, I don’t suppose you came along just for my dark eyes. You have something to tell me?’

‘Not really. You asked me, remember?’ She smiled. ‘Why?’

‘Just polishing up our act.’ She stopped smiling and put down her glass. He reached forward quickly and touched the back of her hand. ‘Don’t be a silly goose, Maria.’ She looked at him uncertainly, smiled a token smile, and picked up her glass again. ‘Tell me. What am I supposed to do when we get to Crau – and how am I supposed to do it?’

‘Only Dr Harper knows, and he’s not ready to talk yet. I should imagine that he’ll tell you – us – either on the way across or when we get to Europe. But two things he did tell me this morning–’

‘I knew you had something to tell me.’

‘Yes. I was just trying to be a tease. It didn’t work, did it? Remember those two so-called electrical engineers that the police escorted to the train? They were our people, electronic experts searching for listening devices – bugs. They concentrated on your apartment.’

‘Bugs? In my apartment? Come on, Maria, that is a bit melodramatic.’

‘Is it? The second item of news is that a few days ago they found two bugs in Mr Wrinfield’s office – one for the room, one for the telephone. I suppose that’s melodramatic, too?’ When Bruno made no reply she went on: ‘They haven’t removed the bugs. Mr Wrinfield, on Dr Harper’s suggestion, is on the phone to Charles several times a day, dropping vague hints and making veiled suggestions about certain members of the circus who might be of interest to him. Nothing about us, of course. In fact he’s made so many suggestions that if they – whoever “they” may be – are keeping tabs on the suggested suspects they won’t have time to look at far less think about anyone else. Which, of course, includes us.’

‘I think they’re nuts,’ Bruno said candidly. ‘And by “they”, this time, I don’t mean “they”, I mean Wrinfield and Harper. Playing little kiddies’ games.’

‘The murders of Pilgrim and Fawcett. That was a game?’

‘Preserve me from feminine logic. I wasn’t talking about them.’

‘Dr Harper has twenty years’ experience behind him.’

‘Or one year’s twenty times over. OK, so I leave myself in the safe arms of the experts. Meantime, I suppose there’s nothing for the sacrificial calf to do?’

‘No. Well, yes. You can tell me how to get in touch with you.’

‘Knock twice and ask for Bruno.’

‘You have a sealed-off suite here. I won’t be able to see you when the train is in motion.’

‘Well, well.’ Bruno smiled widely, a rare thing for him: it was the first time she had seen his smile touch his eyes. ‘I make progress. You think you’ll be wanting to see me?’

‘Don’t be silly. I may have to see you.’

Bruno nodded forwards. ‘It’s illegal to seal off any part of a coach in motion. There’s a door in the corner of my bedroom that leads to the passage beyond. But it’s only got one handle and that’s on my side.’

‘If I knock tat-tat, tat-tat, you’ll know it’s me.’

‘Tat-tat, tat-tat,’ he said solemnly. ‘I love those kiddies’ games.’

He escorted her back to her compartment. At the foot of the steps he said: ‘Well, goodnight. Thanks for the visit.’ He bent forward and kissed her lightly.

She didn’t object, just said mildly: ‘Isn’t that carrying realism a bit too far?’

‘Not at all. Orders are orders. We are supposed to be creating a certain impression, and the chance was too good to pass up. There are at least a dozen people watching us.’

She made a face, turned and went up the steps.

Most of the following day was given up to dismantling the bewildering variety and daunting amount of equipment inside the arena, the backstage and the fairground and loading up the half-mile-long train. To transfer this, the animal cages, the prefabricated offices, the fairground booths and Bruno’s ramshackle mentalist theatre, not to mention the animals and circus members to the coaches and flat-cars, was a massive undertaking that to the layman would have appeared well-nigh impossible: the circus, with its generations of experience behind it, performed the task with an almost ludicrous ease, a smooth efficiency that reduced a seemingly hopeless confusion to a near-miracle of precision and order. Even the loading up of provisions for the hundreds of animals and humans would have seemed a most formidable task: in the event the last of the provision trucks departed less than an hour after the first had arrived. The whole operation could have been likened to an exercise in military logistics with the sole proviso that any unbiased and expert observer would have conceded that the circus had unquestionably the edge in efficiency.

The circus train was due to pull out at ten o’clock that night. At nine o’clock, Dr Harper was still closeted with the admiral, studying two very complicated diagrams.

The admiral had a pipe in one hand, a brandy in the other. He looked relaxed, calm and unconcerned. It was possible that he might just have been relaxed and calm but, as the sole instigator of the forthcoming operation, the man who had conceived and planned it all down to the last and most intimate details possible, it was impossible that he should not be concerned. He said: ‘You have it all? Guards, entry, interior layout, exit and escape route to the Baltic?’

‘I have it all. I just hope that damned ship is there for rendezvous.’ Harper folded the diagrams and pushed them deeply into the inside pocket of his coat.

‘You break in on a Tuesday night. They’ll be cruising off-shore from the Friday to the following Friday. A whole week’s grace.’

‘Won’t the East Germans or the Poles or the Russians be suspicious, sir?’

‘Inevitably. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Won’t they object?’

‘How can they? Since when has the Baltic been anyone’s private pond? Of course they’re going to tie up the presence of the ship – or ships – with the presence of the circus in Crau. Inevitable, and nothing we can do about it. The circus, the circus.’ The admiral sighed. ‘You’d better deliver the goods, Harper, or I’m going to be on welfare before the year is out.’

Harper smiled. ‘I wouldn’t like that, sir. And you know better than anyone that the ultimate responsibility for the delivery of the goods doesn’t lie in my hands.’

‘I know. Have you formed any personal impression of our latest recruit yet?’