Алистер Маклин - The Satan Bug

“You want to be careful how you smile at your boyfriends,” I said severely. “Want me to spend the rest of my life working to pay off claims for damages against you? That oppressor of the working class that just passed by – he’d have me wearing the same suit for the rest of my life.”

“He was a very nice man indeed.” She looked up at me, suddenly not smiling. “Pierre Cavell, you’re tired, worried stiff and your leg is hurting.”

“Cavell’s face is a mask,” I said. “Impossible to tell his feelings and thoughts – inscrutable, they call it. Ask anyone.”

“ And you’ve been drinking whisky.”

“It was the long separation that drove me to it.” I led the way to the car. “We’re staying at the Waggoner’s Rest.”

“It sounds wonderful. Thatched roofs, oak beams, the inglenooks by the blazing fire.” She shivered. “It is cold. I can’t get there fast enough.”

We got there in three minutes. I parked the car outside a modernistic confection in gleaming glass and chrome. Mary looked at it, then at me and said, “This is the Waggoner’s Rest?”

“You can see what the neon sign says. Outdoor sanitation and boll-weevils in the bed-posts have gone out of fashion. And they’ll have central heating.”

The manager, at the moment doubling as receptionist, would have felt more at home in an eighteenth-century “Waggoner’s Rest.” Red-faced, shirt-sleeved and smelling powerfully of the breweries. He scowled at me, smiled at Mary and summoned a ten-year-old boy, presumably his son, who showed us to our room. It was clean enough and spacious enough and overlooked a back courtyard decked out in a poor imitation of a continental beer garden. More important, one of the windows overlooked the porchway leading into the court.

The door closed behind the boy and Mary came up to me. “How is that stupid leg of yours, Pierre? Honestly?”

“It’s not so good.” I’d given up trying to tell lies about myself to Mary, as far as I was concerned she was a human lie-detector. “It’ll ease up. It always does.”

“That arm-chair,” she ordered. “And the stool, so. You’re not using that leg again tonight.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to. Quite a bit. Damn’ nuisance, but it can’t be helped.”

“It can be helped,” she insisted. “You don’t have to do everything yourself. There are plenty of men–”

“Not this time, I’m afraid. I have to go out. Twice. I want you to come with me the first time, that’s why I wanted you here.”

She didn’t ask any questions. She picked up the phone, ordered whisky for me, sherry for herself. Old shirt-sleeves brought it up, huffing a bit after climbing the stairs. Mary smiled at him and said, “Could we have dinner in our room please?”

“Dinner?” Shirt-sleeves stiffened in outrage, his face going an impossible shade redder. “In your room? Dinner! That’s a good ’un! Where do you think you’ve landed – Claridges?” He brought his gaze down from the ceiling, where he’d been imploring heaven, and looked at Mary again.

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, kept looking at her and I knew he was a lost man. “Claridges,” he repeated mechanically. “I well, I’ll see what can be done. Against the house rules, mind – you – but – it’ll be a pleasure, ma’am.”

He left. I said, “There should be a law against you. Pour me some whisky. And pass that phone.”

I made three calls. The first was to London, the second to Inspector Wylie and the third to Hardanger. He was still at Mordon. He sounded tired and irritated and I didn’t wonder. He’d had a long and probably frustrating day.

“Cavell?” His voice was almost a bark. “How did you get on with those two men you saw? At the farm, I mean.”

“Bryson and Chipperfield? Nothing there. There are two hundred witnesses who will swear that neither of them were within five miles of Mordon between eleven and midnight last night.”

“What are you talking about? Two hundred–”

“They were at a dance. Anything turned up in the statements made by our other suspects in number one lab?”

“Did you expect anything to turn up?” he said sourly. “Do you think the killer would have been so dumb as to leave himself without an alibi. They’ve all got alibis – and damn’ good ones. I’m still not convinced there wasn’t an outsider at work.”

“Chessingham and Dr. Hartnell. How strong are their stories?”

“Why those two?” His voice was a suspicious crackle.

“I’m interested in them. I’m going to see them tonight and I wondered what their stories were.”

“You’re not going to see anyone without my say-so, Cavell.” His voice was pretty close to a shout. “I don’t want people blundering in–”

“I won’t blunder. I’m going, Hardanger. The General said I was to have a free hand, didn’t he? Blocking my way – which you can do – is not my idea of giving a free hand. The General wouldn’t like it, Hardanger.”

A silence. Hardanger was bringing himself under control. At last he said, in a quieter tone, “You gave me to believe that you didn’t suspect Chessingham.”

“I want to see him. He’s not only acute and observant, he’s more than usually friendly with Dr. Hartnell. It’s Hartnell I’m really interested in. He’s an outstanding research man, young and financially irresponsible. He thinks because he’s clever with bugs he can be the same on the stock market. Three months ago Hartnell put all his cash into a fly-by-night company who’d splurged their adverts in all the national dailies. He lost the lot. Then he mortgaged his house a few weeks before I left Mordon. I believe he lost most of that too, trying to recoup.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?” Hardanger demanded.

“It just suddenly came to me this evening.”

“It just suddenly came–” Hardanger’s voice cut off as if he had been strangled. Then he said, thoughtfully, “Isn’t that too easy? Jumping on Hartnell? Because he’s heading for the bankruptcy court?”

“I don’t know. As I say, he’s not clever at everything. I’ve got to find out. Both have alibis, of course?”

“Both were at home. Their families vouch for them. I want to see you later.” He’d given up. “I’ll be at the County in Alfringham.”

“I’m at the Waggoner’s Rest. A couple of minutes away. Could you come round to see us? About ten?”

“Us?”

“Mary came down this afternoon.”

“Mary?” There was surprise in his voice, suspicion that he didn’t get round to elaborating but, above all, pleasure. One good reason Hardanger had for not liking me too much was that I’d made off with the best secretary he’d ever had: she’d been with him three years and if any person could ever be said to be the apple of an eye like a basilisk it was Mary.

He said he would be around at ten.

I drove out to Hailem Woods with Mary sitting strangely silent by my side. Over dinner I’d told her the whole story – the whole story. I’d never seen her scared before, but she was that now. Badly. Two frightened people in a car.

We reached Chessingham’s house about a quarter to eight. It was an old-fashioned, flat-roofed, stone-built affair with long narrow windows and a flight of stone steps leading up to the front door over a moat-like trench that ran right round the house and gave light to the basement. High trees, sighing in the cold night wind, surrounded the house on four sides and it was beginning to rain heavily. It was a place and a night in keeping with our mood.

Chessingham had heard the car and met us at the top of the steps. He looked pale and strained but there was nothing in that, everyone who was in anyway connected with “E” block had every reason for looking pale and strained that day.