Алистер Маклин - The Satan Bug

“There’ll be a watch kept and check made,” Hardanger promised. “Chessingham tip you off in any way about Hartnell?”

“Nothing useful. Just my own hunch. Hartnell was the only person I knew of in number one lab in a position to be blackmailed or coerced. The point is that someone else knows it too. He also knew that Tuffnell was from home. That other man is the man we want. How did he find out?”

“How did you find out?” Hardanger demanded.

“Tuffnell himself told me. I was here for a fortnight some months ago helping Derry check on a bunch of newly arrived scientists. I asked him to give me the names of all Mordon employees who were coming to him for financial assistance. Hartnell is only one of a dozen.”

“Did you ask or demand?”

“Demanded.”

“You know that’s illegal,” Hardanger said heavily. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that if he didn’t I’d enough information to put him behind bars for years to come.”

“Had you that information?”

“No. But a shady character like Tuffnell has always a great deal to hide. He co-operated. Tuffnell may have talked about Hartnell. Or his partner, Hanbury.”

“How about other members of his staff?”

“There are none. Not even a typist. In a business like that you can’t trust your own mother. Apart from them, Cliveden, Weybridge – possibly – Clandon and myself knew. And Easton Derry of course. No one else had access to the security files in Mordon. Derry and Clandon are gone. How about Cliveden?”

“That’s ridiculous. He was at a War Office meeting till after midnight last night. In London.”

“What’s ridiculous about Cliveden having this information and passing it on to someone else?” Hardanger was silent and I went on, “And Weybridge. What was he doing at zero hour last night?”

“Asleep.”

“Who told you? Himself?” Hardanger nodded and I went on, “Corroboration?”

Hardanger looked uncomfortable. “He lives alone in the officers’ block. He’s a widower with an orderly to look after him.”

“That helps. How about the other check?”

“Seven others,” Hardanger said. “One, as you said it would be, was a night guard. Been there only two days – and his transfer was a complete surprise to him. Sent from his regiment to take the place of a sick guard. Dr. Gregori was at home all last night – he lives in a kind of high-class boardinghouse outside Alfringham and half a dozen people will swear he was there until at least midnight. That lets him out. Dr. MacDonald was at home with friends. Very respectable friends. Playing cards. Two of the technicians. Verity and Heath, were at the dance in Alfringham last night. They seem in the clear. The other two, Robinson and Marsh, were out on a double date with their girl friends. Cinema, café, then back to their homes.”

“So you’ve turned up nothing at all?”

“Not a damn’ thing.”

“But how about the two technicians and their girl friends?” Mary asked. “Robinson and Marsh – they provide each other’s alibis. And there was a girl used as a decoy.”

“Nothing there,” I said. “Whoever is responsible for this lot is far too smart to fall into the elementary error of self-supporting alibis. If either of the two girls was a stranger to those parts there might just be possibly something in it. But if Robinson and Marsh haven’t changed their girl friends since the last time we checked on them then they’re just a couple of harmless local girls. The superintendent here would have had the truth out of them in five minutes flat. Probably two.”

“Two it was,” Hardanger agreed. “Nothing there. We’ve sent all their footwear to the lab for a check – that fine red loam soil gets into the tiniest cracks and would be a dead giveaway – but it’s purely routine. Nothing will come of it. You want a copy of all those statements and witnesses’ reports?”

“Please. What’s your next move?”

“What would yours be?” Hartnell countered.

“I’d have Tuffnell, Hanbury, Cliveden and Weybridge questioned to see if they’ve ever spoken to anyone about Hartnell’s financial difficulties. Then I’d have Gregori, MacDonald, Hartnell, Chessingham, Cliveden, Weybridge and the four technicians questioned – separately of course – about the extent of their social life with the others. Whether they had ever been in each others’ homes is a question that might be tossed in casually. And I’d have fingerprint squads move into all their houses at the same time to print as much of every house as possible. You’d have no trouble getting warrants for that little lot. If X maintains he’s never been in Y’s home and you find prints proving him a liar – well, someone is going to have some interesting explaining to do.”

“Including General Cliveden’s and Colonel Weybridge’s homes?” Hardanger asked grimly.

“I don’t care whose feelings are wounded. This is no time to consider anyone’s hurt pride.”

“It’s a long long shot,” Hardanger said. “Criminals with something to hide, particularly the connection between them, would never meet in each other’s homes anyway.”

“Can you afford to ignore even such a long shot?”

“Probably not,” Hardanger said. “Probably not.”

Twenty minutes after their departure with the polythene bags I climbed out of the window, clambered to the ground via the porch, picked up my car where I’d left it parked in a side street and set off for London.

It was exactly half past two in the morning when I was shown into the library of the General’s West End flat. The General welcomed me in a red quilted dressing-gown and waved me to a seat. He hadn’t been to bed – I could see that – the dressing-gown meant nothing, he invariably wore it inside the house.

Six foot three and built to match, the General would never see seventy again, but his back was as straight, his complexion as fresh and his eyes as clear as a man thirty years his junior. He had thick iron-grey hair, iron-grey trimmed moustache, grey eyes and the cleverest brain of any man I’d ever met. I could see he had been doing some thinking with this brain and wasn’t any too pleased with the conclusions he’d arrived at.

“Well, Cavell.” His voice was clipped, incisive, vaguely military. “You’ve made a pretty mess of things.”

“Yes, sir.” He was the only man in the world who rated a “sir” from me.

“One of my best operatives, Neil Clandon, is dead. Another as good, Easton Derry, is probably also dead, though only listed missing. Dr. Baxter, a great scientist and a great patriot – and how badly we need both – is dead. Whose fault, Cavell?”

“Mine.” I looked at a convenient decanter. “I could do with a drink, sir.”

“There rarely has been a time when you couldn’t,” he said acidly, and then, just one degree less acidic, “Leg acting up?”

“A little. Sorry about this hour of night, sir. It was essential. How do you want it – the story?”

“Straight, quick and from the beginning.”

“Hardanger turned up at 9 a.m. Sent in an Inspector Martin, heavily disguised as God knows what, to test my loyalty first. I suppose you thought that one up too. You might have warned me.”

“I tried to,” he said impatiently. “I was too late. The news of Clandon’s death reached General Cliveden and Hardanger before it did me: I rang you up but your home and office phones were out of order.”

“Hardanger did that,” I nodded. “Anyway I passed the test. Hardanger was satisfied and asked me to come to Mordon. Said he’d suggested it to you and you’d been reluctant. It must have taken quite a bit of doing to suggest something to Hardanger and leave him with the impression that he’d thought it up himself.”