John Bingham - A Fragment of Fear

I stared at him and said:

“You’re not suggesting that Mrs. Dawson, of the Bower Hotel, Burlington, was a spy, are you?”

“Rather the contrary.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I believe your theory about Mrs. Dawson.”

“You do?”

I was watching him closely, waiting for the qualification. After a few seconds it came:

“Up to a point,” he said.

“What point?” I asked, almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“Up to the point where attempts were made to bribe, cajole, or threaten her into handing over the complete details of her blackmail victims-according to my theory, that is.”

“Go on,” I said.

“She had a warped mind, all right. Obsessed with the idea of hitting back at the criminal world. But when it came to hitting at her own country, the answer was, no. They made the wrong approach, I expect.”

“Wrong approach?”

“‘Help us destroy the class system which produced criminals and killed your husband’-that sort of thing. But it didn’t work, did it?”

“No, it didn’t work, assuming that was the line. That and money, I suppose?”

“They would have offered her compensation for loss of income, so to speak,” said Ricketts grimly. “They’re realistic, you know. Then came the final offer.”

“In Pompeii,” I muttered, and looked around at the luxurious decoration and thought of the dusty earth of Pompeii.

“In Pompeii,” Ricketts said, and signalled for another drink for us. I said:

“Why kill her?”

“My department thinks,” he began, and stopped.

“What is your department?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

I shook my head, regretting my tactless question.

“My department thinks she was killed because somebody else came forward, offering the required information-for the same money.”

“Who?” I asked, as if I hadn’t guessed.

“Some intimate, personal assistant, who had access to her records, and who has probably now disappeared abroad.”

I gazed into my whisky and soda. Then I said:

“Is Mrs. Gray still at the Bower Hotel?”

“Mrs. Gray is not still at that hotel. She has left the country.”

“The muffin-faced old traitor,” I said.

“We have no proof,” said Ricketts primly.

“And me?”

“It’s anybody’s guess.”

“Well, go on-guess,” I pressed him.

“I guess your intervention came at a delicate, inconvenient juncture. A year, perhaps six months later, they might not have minded. I guess that all these threats had a purpose.”

“I’m glad of that. That makes my day,” I said bitterly, but he didn’t smile. He said:

“These incidents were laid on so that if you discovered anything awkward neither the police nor anybody else would take you seriously. Your reputation would be that of a mentally unstable person. Understand?”

I nodded. But I said:

“Why not crooks? Why not commercial blackmail, a going concern, profitable, ready-made?”

“No mere criminal organisation would go to this trouble or expense. They’d have killed you.”

“Why didn’t this lot?”

“This lot, as you call them, they don’t kill much, not if they can avoid it.” He hesitated. Then he added: “But they will if they must. That’s the view of my department.”

“Meaning?” I asked, unnecessarily.

“Meaning they’ve been patient with you. Meaning it’s as well we met.”

I took a deep slug of whisky.

“It’s as well we met,” I said.

“You have been, and are, up against a hostile Intelligence Service, you realise that?”

I nodded, but said that I couldn’t see either Miss Brett, or poor Bunface, or even chunky Bardoni gathering valuable secrets.

“Small fry,” said Ricketts. “Afraid of your investigations for their own personal reasons. Afraid of their past catching up.”

“Afraid of a desolate future,” I murmured, and he nodded.

“But here and there among Mrs. Dawson’s victims there must be others, equally afraid, but more importantly situated. She’d been at it a long time, Mr. Compton.”

“Why me?” I asked after a pause. “Why did they think I’d find out things the Italian and British police wouldn’t find out?”

Ricketts smiled.

“Divided police forces, divided responsibilities, divided access to information, I think that’s the answer, don’t you? The Italian police were in charge of investigations. They had no reason to know the cause and motive lay buried in her past, in England. Doubtless they sent a routine request for background information to Scotland Yard-and that’s probably just what they got, general background information and no more. The British police probably thought the motive and clues were to be found in Italy. Why shouldn’t they think so? Anyway, it wasn’t their case. Then you, bumbling along obstinately, began to creep up on things, and that wouldn’t do, would it?”

I watched him call for the bill.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Ricketts gravely. “I think it’s a bit out of your league table. You don’t want the whole thing to start up again.”

Once again, and for the last time in this affair, I felt the old, old bloody-mindedness boiling up inside me.

“Oh, I’m not going to drop it now, not now that I’ve got some idea of what it’s all about. I’ll go on sniffing around a bit,” I muttered.

“I can’t stop you,” said Ricketts, and smiled again. “But if there’s any trouble let me know.”

“Too damn true, I will,” I said.

When we parted I had agreed to write down on paper every smallest detail of what I could remember of the affair, and deliver the document to his personal address the following morning. He thought it safer not to call at my house.

I took a taxi home, rejoicing that I had not succumbed to the temptation to put the red geranium in the front window.

Juliet was delighted, too, and we worked on the document until two o’clock in the morning.

At ten o’clock I drove round to Hurley Mews, of Belgrave Square, and found his number, 25, and saw it painted on the door.

At first I thought I had gone to the wrong house. The window panes were broken or missing. The interior looked gutted, the paper hanging in shreds on the walls.

When I had checked the number with the address he had written for me I thought I might as well ring the bell, but it didn’t work, of course, so I knocked. It was quiet in the mews, and very deserted, considering the time of day.

When there was no reply, I tried the door, and found it unlocked. I went in, not knowing quite what to do.

In the event, I didn’t have to do anything much, except gaze for a moment at the dusty, uncarpeted stairs, because inside, on the floor, was a buff-coloured envelope addressed to me.

It was typed on my own machine, of course, like the other notes, prepared in advance for just such a contingency. The message was quite short:

I told you the truth. We have been very patient with you. It is as well we met.

Ricketts.

I stared at it, feeling suddenly sick. And then dizzy; and then neither sick nor dizzy but just numb, my brain refusing to function clearly.

Then my heart started beating very fast indeed. I did not tremble, but I heard my heart beats growing louder and louder in my ears.

After a while I tried to think.

I saw now the three lines of defence.

First, the self-generated attempts by the little fish to save themselves; then the partial truth, revealed by Col. Pearson; finally the full truth, told me to my face, blatantly, by the man calling himself Ricketts.

I stared down at the note again, re-reading it, while the fear pain, which is not exactly a pain, but more of a muscular contraction, caught me in the stomach.