Алистер Маклин - Fear Is the Key

He didn’t remain sleeping long, not with that concentrated beam on him. He woke as at the touch of a switch and half sat up in bed, propped on an elbow while a free hand tried to shade his dazzled eyes. I noticed that even when woken in the middle of the night he looked as if he’d just brushed that gleaming black hair ten seconds previously: I always woke up with mine looking like a half-dried mop, a replica of the current feminine urchin cut, the one achieved by a short-sighted lunatic armed with garden shears.

He didn’t try anything. He looked a tough, capable, sensible fellow who knew when and when not to try anything, and he knew that now was not the time. Not when he was almost blind.

‘There’s a .32 behind this flash, Kennedy,’ I said. ‘Where’s your gun?’

‘What gun?’ He didn’t sound scared because he wasn’t.

‘Get up,’ I ordered. The pyjamas, I was glad to see, weren’t maroon. I might have picked them myself. ‘Move over to the door.’

He moved. I reached under his pillow.

‘This gun,’ I said. A small grey automatic. I didn’t know the make. ‘Back to your bed and sit on it.’

Torch transferred to my left hand and the gun in the right, I made a quick sweep of the room. Only one window, with deep velvet wine curtains closed right across. I went to the door, switched on the overhead light, glanced down at the gun and slipped off the safety catch. The click was loud, precise and sounded as if it meant business. Kennedy said: ‘So you hadn’t a gun.’

‘I’ve got one now.’

‘It’s not loaded, friend.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ I said wearily. ‘You keep it under your pillow just so you can get oil stains all over the sheets? If this gun was empty you’d be at me like the Chatanooga Express. Whatever that is.’

I looked over the room. A friendly, masculine place, bare but comfortable, with a good carpet, not in the corn-belt class of the one in the general’s library, a couple of armchairs, a damask-covered table, small settee and glassed-in wall cupboard. I crossed over to the cupboard, opened it and took out a bottle of whisky and a couple of glasses. I looked at Kennedy. ‘With your permission, of course.’

‘Funny man,’ he said coldly.

I went ahead and poured myself a drink anyway. A big one. I needed it. It tasted just the way it ought to taste and all too seldom does. I watched Kennedy and he watched me.

‘Who are you, friend?’ he asked.

I’d forgotten that only about two inches of my face was visible. I turned down the collar of my oilskin and overcoat and took off my hat. My hat had become no better than a sponge, my hair was wet and plastered all over my head but for all that I don’t suppose it was any less red than normal. The tightening of Kennedy’s mouth, the suddenly still expressionless eyes told their own story.

‘Talbot,’ he said slowly. ‘John Talbot. The killer.’

‘That’s me,’ I agreed. ‘The killer.’

He sat very still, watching me. I suppose a dozen different thoughts must have been running through his mind, but none of them showed, he had as much expression in his face as a wooden Indian. But the brown intelligent eyes gave him away: he could not quite mask the hostility, the cold anger that showed in their depths.

‘What do you want, Talbot? What are you doing here?’

‘You mean, why am I not high-tailing it for the tall timber?’

‘Why have you come back? They’ve had you locked up in the house, God knows why, since Tuesday evening. You’ve escaped, but you didn’t have to mow anyone down to escape or I would have heard of it. They probably don’t even know you’ve been away or I’d have heard of that too. But you’ve been away. You’ve been out in a boat, I can smell the sea off you and that’s a seaman’s oilskin you’ve got on. You’ve been out for a long time, you couldn’t be any wetter if you’d stood under a waterfall for half an hour. And then you came back. A killer, a wanted man. The whole set-up is screwy as hell.’

‘Screwy as hell,’ I agreed. The whisky was good, I was beginning to feel half-human for the first time in hours. A smart boy, this chauffeur, a boy who thought on his feet and thought fast. I went on: ‘Almost as screwy a set-up as this weird bunch you’re working for in this place.’

He said nothing, and I didn’t see why he should. In his place I don’t think I would have passed the time of day by discussing my employers with a passing murderer. I tried again.

‘The general’s daughter,’ Miss Mary. She’s pretty much of a tramp, isn’t she?’

That got him. He was off the bed, eyes mad, fists balled into hard knots and was halfway towards me before he remembered the gun pointing straight at his chest. He said softly: ‘I’d love you to say that again, Talbot – without that gun in your hand.’

‘That’s better,’ I said approvingly. ‘Signs of life at last. Committing yourself to a definite opinion, you know the old saw about actions speaking louder than words. If I’d just asked you what Mary Ruthven was like you’d just have clammed up or told me go jump in the lake. I don’t think she’s a tramp either. I know she’s not. I think she’s a nice kid, a very fine girl indeed.’

‘Sure you do.’ His voice was bitter, but I could see the first shadows of puzzlement touching his eyes. ‘That’s why you scared the life out of her that afternoon.’

‘I’m sorry about that, sincerely sorry. But I had to do it, Kennedy, although not for the reasons that you or any of that murderous bunch up at the big house think.’ I downed what was left of my whisky, looked at him for a long speculative moment, then tossed the gun across to him. ‘Suppose we talk?’

It took him by surprise but he was quick, very quick. He fielded the gun neatly, looked at it, looked at me, hesitated, shrugged then smiled faintly. ‘I don’t suppose another couple of oil stains will do those sheets any harm.’ He thrust the gun under the pillow, crossed to the table, poured himself a drink, filled up my glass and stood there waiting.

‘I’m not taking the chance you might think I am,’ I began. ‘I heard Vyland trying to persuade the general and Mary to get rid of you. I gathered you were a potential danger to Vyland and the general and others I may not know of. From that I gathered you’re not on the inside of what’s going on. And you’re bound to know there’s something very strange indeed going on.’

He nodded. ‘I’m only the chauffeur. And what did they say to Vyland?’ From the way he spoke the name I gathered he regarded Vyland with something less than affection.

‘They stuck in their heels and refused point-blank.’

He was pleased at that. He tried not to show it, but he was.

‘It seems you did the Ruthven family a great service not so long ago,’ I went on. ‘Shot up a couple of thugs who tried to kidnap Mary.’

‘I was lucky.’ Where speed and violence were concerned, I guess, he’d always be lucky. ‘I’m primarily a bodyguard, not a chauffeur. Miss Mary’s a tempting bait for every hoodlum in the country who fancies a quick million. But I’m not the bodyguard any longer,’ he ended abruptly.

‘I’ve met your successor,’ I nodded. ‘Valentino. He couldn’t guard an empty nursery.’

‘Valentino?’ He grinned. ‘Al Grunther. But Valentino suits him better. You damaged his arm, so I heard.’

‘He damaged my leg. It’s black and blue and purple all over.’ I eyed him speculatively. ‘Forgotten that you’re talking to a murderer, Kennedy?’

‘You’re no murderer,’ he said flatly. There was a long pause, then he broke his gaze from me and stared down at the floor.

‘Patrolman Donnelly, eh?’ I asked.

He nodded without speaking.