Алистер Маклин - The Satan Bug

“The fiends,” the General murmured. “The ruthless fiends.”

“All done to give the impression that the killer was known to both Baxter and Clandon. And it certainly worked. The third major red herring and it put us completely on the wrong track. Buying time, always buying time. Gregori has a genius for deception. He fooled me, too, about the first phone call that was made to London at ten o’clock last night. He made it himself. Red herring number heaven knows what.”

“Gregori phoned?” Hardanger looked at me, hard. “He had an alibi for the time the call was made. You checked personally. Typing a book, or something.”

“You can’t beat Cavell when it comes to hindsight,” I said sourly. “The sound of a man typing undoubtedly came from his room. He’d prerecorded it on tape and switched on the recorder before he left via his ground-floor window. There was a peculiar smell in his room and a pile of white ashes in the fireplace when I visited him in his rooms in the early hours of this morning. The remains of the tape.”

“But why all the red herring–” Hardanger began, when the voice of the sergeant in the front seat cut in.

“Here’s a garage now.”

“Pull in,” Hardanger ordered. “Make inquiries.”

We pulled off the highway, the driver switching on his police siren. A noise to waken the dead but it didn’t waken up the filling-station attendant on duty. The sergeant up front didn’t hesitate. He was outside and into the brightly lit office within five seconds of our skidding to a halt. He came out almost immediately afterwards and disappeared round the back of the filling-station, and that was enough for me. I piled out of the back seat, Hardanger at my heels.

We found the attendant in a garage at the back of the station. He had been expertly bound and gagged by someone who had not stopped to consider the price of Scotch tape. The same someone, for good measure, had also cracked him over the back of the head with something heavy, but the attendant had recovered from that – more accurately, he had regained consciousness – by the time we got to him. He was a burly middle-aged character, and what was probably a normally red face anyway was crimson from rage and his struggles to free himself.

We cut the tape round wrists and ankles, pulled it none too gently off his face and helped him to a sitting position. He had some highly homicidal observations to make and even in our desperate urgency we had to allow him that, but after a few seconds Hardanger cut in sharply.

“Right. That’ll be enough. The man who did this is a murderer on the run and we’re police officers. Every second you sit and curse increases his chances of escaping. Tell us about it, quick and sharp.”

The attendant shook his head. I didn’t have to be a doctor to tell that he was still pretty groggy. He said, “A man, middle-aged, swarthy-looking character, came in here for petrol. Half past six, it was. He asked–”

“Half past six,” I interrupted. “Only twenty minutes ago. Are you sure?”

“I’m certain,” he said flatly. “He’d run out of petrol for his car, a mile, maybe two back, and he must have been hurrying some for he was pretty much out of breath. He asked me for a gallon in a can and when I turned to find one he let me have it over the head. When I came to I was in the garage in the back and tied as you saw me. I didn’t let on I was conscious. The first thing I saw was another man with a gun pointing at a girl – a blonde. The other guy, the bloke who had crowned me, was just backing the boss’s car out of the door and–”

“Make, colour and licence number of the car?” Hardanger snapped. He got them, and went on, “Stay here. Don’t move around. That’s a nasty crack. I’ll radio the Alfringham police and there’ll be a car out here pretty soon.” Ten seconds later we were on our way, leaving the attendant holding his head and staring after us.

“Twenty minutes,” I said, half listening to the sergeant speak rapidly and urgently into the telephone. “They’d have lost time pushing the car off the road to fox us, then they had a long walk to the garage. Twenty minutes.”

“They’ve had it,” Hardanger said confidently. “There’s a half-dozen police cars patrolling in the next thirty miles or so and they know those roads as only local county policemen do. And once one of those cars gets on Gregori’s tail – well, he’ll never shake them off.”

“Tell them to set up road-blocks,” I said. “Tell them to stop him at all costs.”

“Are you mad?” Hardanger said shortly. “Are you out of your mind, Cavell? Do you want your wife killed? Damn you, you know he’ll use her as a living shield. As it is, she’s safe. Gregori hasn’t seen a policeman – except that fellow on traffic duty – since he left MacDonald’s house. He’ll be half-believing now that we have called off the search. Can’t you see that, man?”

“Road-blocks,” I repeated. “Set up road-blocks. Where are the cars going to tail him to – the heart of London? Where he’s going to release his damn’ botulinus. Once in London they’ll lose him, they’re bound to lose him. Don’t you see, he has to be stopped somewhere? If he’s not, if he’s let loose in London–”

“But you yourself agreed–”

“That was before I knew for sure that he was headed for London.”

“General,” Hardanger appealed. “Can’t you make Cavell–”

“She’s my only child, Hardanger, and an old man shouldn’t be asked to decide life or death for his only child,” the General said tonelessly. “You know as well as any man what I think of Mary.” He paused, then went on in the same level voice. “I agree with Cavell. Please do as he suggests.”

Hardanger swore bitterly under his breath and leaned forward to speak to the sergeant. When he had finished, the General said calmly, “While we’re waiting, my boy, you might fill in a few remaining pieces in the jig-saw. I’m in no condition to fill them in for myself. The question the superintendent is always coming up with. The red herrings. All those red herrings. Why?”

“To buy time.” I was in no condition to fill in jig-saws myself, but what was left of my mind was still working just well enough to appreciate the reason behind the request – to try to take our minds off the car in front, the trapped and terrified girl at the mercy of ruthless and sadistic killers, to reduce the tearing anxiety, to ease the destructive tension that was slowly pulling tired minds and bodies to pieces. I went on, fumbling along mentally, “Our friend in the car up front had to buy time. The more false leads we followed and the more blind alleys we blundered into – and there were plenty – the more time it would take us to get around to inquiring in the really dangerous places. He overestimated us, but for all that we moved faster than he had expected – don’t forget that it’s only forty hours since the crime was discovered. But he knew that sooner or later we would get around to making inquiries in the one place he feared – MacDonald’s. He knew he might have to dispose of MacDonald sooner or later. And the later the better for within a few hours of MacDonald’s death a sealed envelope in a bank or police-station would be opened and then we’d be on to him like an express train. Whatever Gregori’s ultimate intentions are he would obviously have preferred to carry those out while still a respectable member of the Alfringham community instead of a wanted murderer on the run from half the police in Britain.”

“It’s difficult to threaten the Government – and the nation – with the law breathing down the back of your neck,” the General conceded. The old man’s detachment, his iron control, was almost more than human. “But why did MacDonald have to die?”