Алистер Маклин - The Satan Bug

Mrs. Hartnell said softly, “He means it, Tom.”

“I mean it. Somebody is trying to divert suspicion to you, Hartnell. I want you to remain at home for the next two days – I’ll fix it at Mordon. You’re to talk to no one – no one – during that time. Take to your bed if you have to, but talk to no one. Your absence from work, your indisposition will be thought peculiar in the circumstances and will make somebody think our suspicions are directed towards you. You understand?”

“Completely. I’m sorry I was such a fool, Cavell, but–”

“I wasn’t very nice myself. Good night.”

In my car Mary said wonderingly, “What on earth is happening to the legendary Cavell toughness?”

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

“You didn’t have to tell him that he wasn’t under suspicion. After he’d told his story you could just have said nothing and let him carry on to his work as usual. A man like that would be incapable of hiding the fact that he was worried to death and that would have suited your purpose of making the real murderer think we’re on to Hartnell just as well. But you couldn’t do it, could you?”

“I wasn’t like this before I got married. I’m a ruined man. Besides, if Hartnell really knew the evidence against him he’d go off his rocker.”

She was silent for some time. She was sitting on my left hand side and I can’t see people who are sitting to my left but I knew she was staring at me. Finally, she said, “I don’t understand.”

“I have three polythene bags in the rear seat. In one of them is a sample of dried red mud. Hartnell invariably takes the bus to work – but I found that mud, a peculiar reddish loam, under the front mudguard of his scooter: and the only place for miles around with that type of soil is a couple of fields near the main gates of Mordon. In the second bag is a hammer I found in his toolshed – it looks clean, but I’m betting that a couple of grey hairs sticking to the haft came from our canine pal Rollo, who was so grievously clouted last night. The third bag contains a pair of heavy insulated pliers. They’ve been perfectly cleaned, but a comparison, by electronic microscope, of some scratches on it and the broken ends of the barbed wire in Mordon should give some very interesting results.”

“You found all that?” she whispered.

“I found all that. Near-genius, I would say.”

“You’re worried to death, aren’t you?” Mary asked. I made no reply and she went on, “Even with all that you still don’t think he’s guilty? I mean, that anyone should go to such lengths–”

“Hartnell’s innocent. Of the killing, anyway. Someone picked the lock of his tool-shed last night. Unmistakable scratches, if you know what to look for.”

“Then why did you remove–”

“Two reasons. Because there are some policemen in this island who have been so rigidly indoctrinated with the belief that two and two must inevitably make four that they wouldn’t think twice of by-passing the Old Bailey and dragging Hartnell to the nearest old oak tree. The red mud, hammer and pliers together with Paul Revere’s moonlight ride – it’s pretty damning.”

“But – but you said yourself that if he had been out last night there would have been witnesses–”

“Eyewash. I called Dr. Hartnell a fluent liar but he isn’t in my class. At night all cats are grey. During the dark any motor-cyclist with heavy coat, crash helmet and goggles looks pretty much like any other motor-cyclist with heavy coat, crash helmet and goggles. But I didn’t see that there was anything to be gained by worrying Hartnell and his wife to death: if there was I wouldn’t have hesitated. Not with this madman running around with the Satan Bug. Besides, I want Hartnell not to be worried.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I don’t rightly know,” I confessed. “Hartnell wouldn’t kill a fly. But Hartnell is mixed up in something very fishy indeed.”

“What makes you say that? You said he’s clear. Why–”

“I told you I don’t know,” I said irritably. “Call it a hunch, call it something the subconscious mind cottoned on to and hasn’t yet got around to transferring to some place where I’ll recognise it. Anyway, my second reason for filching exhibits A, B and C is that whoever planted the goods on Hartnell and started him on his wild-goose chase is going to be more than a little worried himself now. If the police either cleared Hartnell or clapped him in the hoosegow, our friend would know where he stood. But with Hartnell mysteriously and suspiciously remaining at home and the police at the same time making no mention of having found exhibits A, B and C, the killer’s going to be kept wondering just what the cops are up to. Indecision. Indecision hampers action and hampering action buys time. We need all the time we can get.”

“You have a low and devious mind, Pierre Cavell,” Mary said at length, “but I think that if I were innocent of a crime and the evidence proved beyond any doubt that I was guilty, I’d rather have you investigating my case than anyone alive. By the same token, if I were guilty of a crime and there was no possibility of any evidence pointing to me, I’d rather have anyone else in the world except you investigating it. Or so my father says and he should know. I know you’ll find this man, Pierre.”

I wished I could even begin to share her conviction. But I couldn’t even begin. I was sure of nothing, nothing at all, except that Hartnell wasn’t the blue-eyed innocent he appeared, nor his good wife, and that my leg was aching pretty fiercely. I wasn’t looking forward very much to the remainder of that night.

We were back in the Waggoner’s Rest just before ten o’clock. Hardanger was waiting for us in a deserted corner of the lounge along with a dark-suited unknown man who turned out to be a police stenographer. The superintendent was studying some papers and scowling away into the middle distance from time to time, but the craggy face broke into a beam of pleasure when he looked up and saw us. Mary, rather. He was genuinely fond of her and found it difficult to understand why she had thrown herself away on me.

I let them talk for a minute or two, looking at Mary’s face and listening to her voice and wishing vaguely for the hundredth time that I had tape and film to record the soft lilting cadences of the voice and the facinating shift and play of expression in case the day should ever come when that would be all I would have left of her. Then I cleared my throat to remind them that I was still here. Hardanger looked at me, touched an internal switch and the smile vanished.

“Turn up anything startling?” he asked.

“In a way. The hammer that laid out the alsatian guard dog, the pliers that cut the wire and apparent proof that Dr. Hartnell’s moped was in the vicinty of Mordon last night.”

He didn’t bat an eyelid. He said, “Let’s go up to your room.” We went, and once there Hardanger said to a man accompanying him, “Johnson, your notebook,” and to me, “From the beginning, Cavell.”

I told him everything that had happened that night exactly as it had been, omitting only what Mary had learned from Chessingham’s mother and sister. At the end, Hardanger said, “You are convinced that it’s a frame-up on Hartnell?”

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?”

“Hadn’t it occurred to you that there might be a double twist to this? That Hartnell planted it on himself?”

“Yes. But it’s hardly possible. I know Hartnell. Outside his work he’s blundering, nervous, unstable and an ass – hardly the basic material for the ruthless calculating criminal. And he’d hardly go the length of picking his own padlock. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ve told him to stay at home meantime. Whoever stole the botulinus and the Satan Bug did so for a purpose. Inspector Wylie’s pretty keen to get into the act. Let him have his men keep a round-the-clock watch on the house to see that Hartnell stays put. Hartnell, even if guilty, wouldn’t be so mad as to keep the viruses in the house. If they’re elsewhere and he can’t get at them, that’s one worry less. I also want a check made on his supposed moped trip of last night.”