Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

`I would say that sums it up, yes,' Tweed agreed, searching for a trap, finding none.

`Position is this. Correct me if I get it wrong. Fergusson went to Hamburg. I was taking a well-earned leave in France.' He smiled in a deprecating manner. 'Only five people knew Fergusson was going. Grey, Masterson, Lindemann, Dalby – and yourself. Fergusson gets the chop soon after arriving. One of our most experienced and cautious men. So they had to know he was coming. Which brings us back to the Frightful Four, one of them at any rate. Isn't that it?'

`That's it.'

`Of course, someone could have read the minute you recorded of the meeting…'

`Except that I deliberately made no mention of Fergusson's mission in it…'

`Highly irregular.' Howard smiled thinly. 'But the fact that you didn't proves someone's guilt up to the hilt. Pity is we've no idea who that someone is. And by the way, if you don't mind talking about it…' Howard sounded utterly weary and he paused, obviously expecting an objection from Tweed. He raised his thick eyebrows when none came and went on. 'I gather you've seen Masterson, Lindemann and Grey so far on home ground, so to speak. Any luck?'

`Too early to say.' Tweed noticed Howard's look of resignation, so he explained. 'When you visit three men in little more than twenty-four hours – in their homes, as you said – the mind takes in a vast number of impressions. It's only after thinking about it later, sorting wheat from chaff, that you know whether you heard – spotted – anything significant. I need longer,' he ended firmly.

`Fair do's.' Howard stood up, brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, straightened his tie. He paused at the door before he opened it. 'And Butler and Nield will be in attendance?'

`Agreed.'

Monica waited until they were alone, then threw down her pencil with such force the point broke. She sat very erect, tucking in her blouse.

`All the years I've been here, I've never seen him like that.'

`He's worried.'

`Of course he's worried! He knows the PM wants to get shot of him. You refused to take over his job after the Procane business. When this thing breaks – when you find who it is – she'll boot him out..

She stopped talking when the door reopened, Howard came in again, closed the door. His manner was apologetic.

`When you find the weevil in the granary I suppose there's no way we can keep it from the press?'

`Let's see what happens,' Tweed replied in his most soothing manner.

`Leave it all to you. Let me know if I can help.'

`There!' Monica burst out when they were alone again. 'What did I tell you? He's sweating out his own position. And why did you agree to Butler and Nield joining you when you return to the continent?'

`Because I may genuinely need them. This thing is getting bigger all the time. And poor Bob Newman may be lost forever.' `If he's behind the Iron Curtain…'

`He's there, all right,' Tweed said grimly. 'I must go now and collect Diana. Time to beard the Dalby in his den. Down in deepest suburbia.'

`You think it's wise to take this Diana Chadwick everywhere?'

`I'm taking her on trust…'

`Do that with a woman and you could be in dead trouble. I know my own sex.'

`The thought had already crossed my mind,' Tweed replied and left the office.

Diana walked into the sitting-room of Newman's flat from the bedroom. Tweed was looking at her shorthand notebooks spread out on the elegant dining table.

'I see you're studying English as well as German shorthand. Pitman's,' he remarked.

`I'm getting on very well. I take it down from radio talks. It's not all that difficult. Learning typing is the bore – I've got a portable I hired in the smaller bedroom. I'm thirty words to the minute – typing. With shorthand I'm up to ninety.'

`That's very good. Now, we'd better go. After interviewing Dalby we have to drive back here, then get dinner.'

`How do I look?'

He studied her. She wore a powder-blue dress nipped in round her slim waist and with a mandarin collar. Pale blue stockings and gold shoes. He blinked. She twirled round to give him the full treatment.

`Out of this world,' he pronounced.

She came very close. He caught a whiff of perfume. 'Can we go to the same place for dinner? The one with cubicles just off Walton Street? I'd love the pheasant again.'

`We'll see. If we get moving now we'll just miss rush hour and get down into Surrey before the armadillo cavalcades block the highways.'

`A lot of people living round here,' Diana remarked, waving her ivory cigarette holder.

`Swarms. Commuter country,' Tweed said. 'They all troop to Woking station for their daily ordeal. Best commuter service up to town round London.'

The main road from West Byfleet was tree-lined. Side roads led off. Battalions of newish houses marched into the distance. All to the same pattern. Neo-Georgian. They had open fronts, gardens leading to the sidewalk edge, American-style. They drove on.

`There he is. Dalby.' Tweed pointed with one finger as he turned a corner into a side road. It was the first house. A large porch supported a brace of twin pillars. 'King's Cross Station,' he commented as he pulled into the kerb.

In the middle of a sweep of neat green lawn Dalby was pushing a petrol-driven mower. The lawn was decorated with islands of tidy shrubs, rhododendrons and evergreens. Several of them were specimen shrubs, standing at attention like exclamation marks. Dalby switched off his machine briefly to shout.

`Welcome to Cornerways.' He made a quick gesture towards the open front door. 'Go inside, sitting-room is at the end of the hall. Be with you in a minute. Downstairs loo if you want it. Must finish this bit…'

The catlick dropped over his forehead from well-brushed hair. His garden clothes were a pair of grey flannels, the creases razor-edged, striped shirt and fire-red tie. The machine burst into a roar as he switched on again, his nimble figure pushing the mower again at speed.

There was a smell of fresh-mown grass in the balmy evening air as Tweed and Diana walked up the crazy-paved path. It was like Hampton Court, Tweed was thinking. On either side of the front door stood two expensive-looking pots. Inside each a hydrangea was in bloom. They'd been freshly watered.

`I don't know how he keeps the place like this – with his wife gone,' Diana whispered, standing in the hall.

The floor was woodblocks, highly polished, scattered with rugs placed exactly parallel to the walls. Tweed led the way into a large sitting-room running the full width of the house. Through the French windows at the rear more Hampton Court spread away, a candidate for an illustration out of Better Homes and Gardens.

Diana sat down in a blue-upholstered arm chair to one side of an Adam-style fireplace, crossing her legs. Tweed walked to the front windows and watched Dalby switching off the mower. He was wearing a pair of dark glasses. He came bustling in, legs moving like a marathon walker.

Tweed made the introductions. Dalby shook hands with Diana. Unlike Masterson and Grey he never gave her displayed legs a glance. He offered drinks and they both chose a glass of white wine.

`Splendid! I have a bottle of '83 Chablis in the fridge. You smoke?' he asked Diana. 'Light up then. No inhibitions here. Back in a minute…'

He returned with a silver tray supporting three elegant glasses. Sitting down opposite Tweed, he stared at him through his dark spectacles. Tweed had the oddest feeling he'd lived through this scene before.

`Cheers!' Dalby sipped, put down his glass, removed the spectacles. 'The light out there is incredibly strong. Where do you come from, Miss Chadwick?'

`Diana…'

`She's the sister of a friend of mine,' Tweed intervened, keeping to the story he'd used at Hawkswood Farm. 'On holiday from a job abroad. How are you getting on, Guy, on your own – if I may ask?'