Game Without Rules, page 12
By this time Mr. Caversham was back in the shop. Mr. Belton was talking to a girl with a ponytail about day trips to Boulogne, and a sour old man was waiting in front of Mr. Caversham’s desk with a complaint about British Railways. Mr. Caversham dealt with him dexterously enough, but his mind was not entirely on his work.
Most of it was on the clock.
The police, he knew, worked to a fairly rigid pattern. Fingerprinting and photography came first, then the pathologist. Then the immediate inquiries. These would be at Lucilla’s lodgings. How long would all that take? A couple of hours perhaps. Then they would come to the place where she worked. Then things would really start to happen. No doubt about that.
“Where’s that Roger?” said Belton.
“He was here earlier this morning,” said Mr. Caversham. “I expect he’s somewhere about.”
“He’s not meant to be gadding about. He’s meant to be helping me,” said Mr. Belton. “I don’t know what’s come over this place lately. No organisation.”
It was nearly twelve o’clock before Roger reappeared. He was apologetic, but he did not explain where he had been.
Mr. Caversham said, “Now that you are here, I’ll go out and get lunch, if no one has any objections.”
No one had any objections. Mr. Caversham hurried into the public house down the street and ordered sandwiches. He was back within twenty-five minutes, and found a worried Mr. Belton alone.
“I’m glad you’ve got back so quickly,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“I wish I knew. Mr. Trembling isn’t answering his telephone. And Roger seems to have disappeared.”
A prickle of apprehension touched the back of Mr. Caversham’s neck.
“Which way?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I asked you,” said Mr. Caversham in a new and very urgent voice, “which way Roger went. Did he go out of the front door into the street?”
“No. He went out down the passage. Into the back yard, I should guess. What’s happening? What is it all about, Mr. Caversham? What’s going on, for God’s sake?”
People had sometimes accused Mr. Caversham of being hard to the point of insensitivity. He did, however, appreciate that he was dealing with a badly frightened man, and at that moment, when there was so much to be done, he paused to comfort him.
“There’s nothing here which need bother you,” he said. “I promise you that. Indeed, I should say that right now you were the only person in this whole outfit who had nothing to worry about. Just keep the customers happy.”
He disappeared through the door behind the counter, leaving Mr. Belton staring after him.
The door of the Founder’s Room was closed, but not locked. Mr. Caversham opened it without knocking and looked inside. Arthur Trembling was seated in his tall chair behind his desk. He looked quite natural until you went close and saw the small neat hole which the bullet had made under the left ear, and the rather larger, jagged hole which it had made coming out of the right-hand side of the head.
Mr. Caversham sat on the corner of the desk and dialed a number. A gruff voice answered at once.
“Southampton Police,” said Mr. Caversham calmly. “I’m speaking from the offices of Trembling’s Tours. Yes, Trembling’s. In Fawcet Street. Mr. Trembling has been shot. About ten minutes ago.”
The voice at the other end tried to say something, but Mr. Caversham overrode it.
“The man responsible for the killing is using the name of Roger Roche. He’s thirty, looks much younger, has untidy, light hair, and is lodging at forty-five Alma Crescent. Have you got that?”
“Who’s that speaking?”
“Never mind me. Have you got that information? Because you’ll have to act on it at once. Send someone to his lodgings, have the trains watched and the roads blocked.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” said Mr. Caversham, “but I told you what to do to catch this murderer, and if you don’t do it quickly you’re going to be sorry.”
He rang off and cast an eye round the office. There was no sign of any disturbance. A neat, cold, professional killing. If Mr. Belton had heard nothing, the gun must have been a silenced automatic.
The key was in the safe. Using a pencil, Mr. Caversham turned it, then carefully swung the safe door open. On the bottom shelf was a quarto-sized volume, in a plain grey binding, with no title.
He carried it to the desk and opened it. There was a blatant Teutonic crudity about the photographs inside which made even such an unimpressionable man as Mr. Caversham wrinkle his nose. He was still examining the book when a police car drew up in the yard, and Sergeant Lowther burst into the room.
“Ah,” he said. “I might have known you’d be in on this one too. What’s that you’ve got there? Yes, I see. Very pretty. Now, Mr. Caversham, perhaps you’ll do some explaining.”
“Not to you,” said Mr. Caversham. He had heard another car draw up in the yard. A few seconds later, Inspector Hamish came through the door. He looked coldly at Mr. Caversham.
“Have you picked him up yet?” asked Mr. Caversham.
“I got some garbled message,” said the inspector, “about a man called Roger Roche. I thought I’d come and find out what it was all about before sounding a general alarm.”
Mr. Caversham got to his feet.
“Do you mean to say,” he said, and there was a cold ferocity in his voice which made even the inspector stare, “that you have wasted ten whole minutes? If that’s right, you’re going to have something to answer for.”
“Look here—”
“Would you ask the sergeant to leave the room, please.”
Inspector Hamish hesitated, then said, “One minute, Sergeant—”
By the time he turned back, Mr. Caversham had taken something from his pocket. The inspector looked at it and said in quite a different tone of voice, “Well, Mr. Calder, if I’d only known—”
“That’ll be the epitaph of the British Empire,” said Mr. Calder. “Will you please, please, get the wheels turning.”
“Yes, of course. I’d better use the telephone.”
An hour later, Mr. Calder and Inspector Hamish were sitting in the Founder’s Room. The photographers and fingerprint men had come and gone. The pathologist had taken charge of the body, and a police cordon, thrown round Southampton a good deal too late, had failed to catch Roger Roche.
“We’ll pick him up,” said the inspector.
“I doubt it,” said Mr. Calder. “People like that aren’t picked up easily. He’ll be in France by this evening and God knows where by tomorrow.”
“If someone had only told me—”
“There were faults on both sides,” Mr. Calder admitted. “I expect I should have told you last night. There didn’t seem any hurry at the time and I didn’t know about Roger then.”
“If you wouldn’t mind explaining,” said the inspector, “in words of one syllable. I am only a simple policeman, you know.”
“Let’s begin at the beginning then,” said Mr. Calder. “You knew that Trembling was smuggling in pornographic books for his brother to sell?”
“Yes. We’re on to that now. There’s a side entrance into his shop, from the ground-floor office next door. The cash customers used to go in that way after the shop was shut, and out by a back entrance into the mews. You’d be surprised if I told you the names of some of his customers.”
“I doubt it,” said Mr. Calder. “However, it wasn’t an easy secret to keep. Too many couriers were involved. Soviet Intelligence got on to it. They put in an agent – Lucilla Davies – to nurse it along. She blackmailed Trembling. He could go on bringing in his dirty books, as long as he agreed to take out letters – and other things as well – for them. Trembling’s became the main South Coast post office for the Russians.”
“Neat,” said the inspector.
“Then our side got to hear about it, too. And sent me down. What happened was that Trembling got tired of being blackmailed into treason, and decided to remove Lucilla. I don’t blame him for that, but I do blame him for leaving her in my front drive. I thought that was unnecessary. And very cramping for me. So I shifted her. However, I did ring up and tell you where to find her next morning.”
“That was you, too, was it?”
“That was me. I thought if we played it properly, we’d be bound to provoke a countermove from the other side. They don’t like their agents being bumped off. I guessed they’d send one of their best men down here – what I didn’t realise was that he was already here. Roger fooled me completely.”
“There’s a moral to it somewhere, no doubt,” said the inspector.
“The moral,” said Mr. Calder, “is that if the various Intelligence departments and MI5 and the Special Branch and ninety-six different police forces didn’t all try to work independently of each other, but cooperated for a change, we might get better results.”
“You’d better put that in your report,” said Inspector Hamish.
“I’ll put it in,” said Mr. Calder. “But it won’t do a blind bit of good.”
THE HEADMASTER
The master spies at work in this country numbered, last year, four. They were known to Intelligence as the Language Master, the Science Master, the Games Master, and, in some undefined position of authority of all of them, the Headmaster.
Since the Portsmouth affair there have been but two. The Language Master was behind bars, and the Games Master had retired to Switzerland. The Science Master was still at his shadowy work in the Midlands, and the Headmaster was in the London area.
When it is said that Intelligence knew about these men, it must be understood that it was a matter of analysis and deduction rather than knowledge. A lot of confidential information was reaching the other side, much of it unimportant, but some of it highly important. Most of such items could be traced to their sources. And the lines drawn from these sources pointed inward and came together somewhere in the center of the metropolis.
“If I had to create the Headmaster,” said Mr. Fortescue, “in the way that a scientist creates a megalosaurus from small fragments of tooth and bone, I should have to construct someone with the combined knowledge of a cabinet minister, a senior civil servant, and a don.”
“An all-round man,” said Mr. Calder. “Have we any hopeful line at all?”
“We have a line,” said Mr. Fortescue. “I’m not sure if it’s hopeful or not. Craven has disappeared.”
“John Craven? I’ve seen nothing in the papers—”
“It will be there. Somewhat prominently, I’m afraid.”
Since John Craven was a Queen’s Counsel and recorder of a Kentish borough, this seemed only too probable.
“He went down from his chambers by car on Saturday morning to his house at Charing. He was planning to return to town on Sunday night. The first time we knew anything was wrong was when he failed to turn up for a conference on Monday morning.”
“Yesterday.”
“Yes. We got busy at once, of course.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Calder. John Craven was one of his oldest friends. He was perfectly aware that he had another occupation besides his legal one.
“His car was still in the garage of his Charing house. The daily woman, who cooks for him and cleans the house, saw him start out for a walk after lunch on Sunday.”
“He was a great walker,” said Mr. Calder. He thought of his old friend, striding along a woodland path, red-cheeked, white-topped, head bent forward, stick swinging. “Have you any reason to connect it with the Headmaster?”
“Two reasons,” said Mr. Fortescue. “First, Craven was one of three men who had been specially assigned to locating him. He had had, so far, absolutely no apparent success. Had he found out anything, he would of course have reported it at once.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Calder.
“However, the path that he was treading must have taken him unknowingly very close to the man. Too close for his comfort.”
“You mentioned two reasons.”
“It has the feel of a professional job,” said Mr. Fortescue. “Carefully arranged, perfectly executed.”
“I expect you’re right,” said Mr. Calder. He had never known Fortescue wrong in any important matter. “Just what would you like me to do?”
“The first thing must be to find Craven. I’d like it done, if possible, before the news is made public. I have informed our friends in the Special Branch. They can control ordinary police inquiry for a reasonable period. But I don’t think we can keep the papers off it for more than forty-eight hours.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Mr. Calder. “There was a sister, wasn’t there? A widow. What was her name?”
“Mrs. Gordon. I have written down her address and telephone number, A very sensible woman. You should find her a great help.”
So Mr. Calder and Mrs. Gordon travelled down to Charing together, and on Charing platform they found reinforcements.
“This is my friend, Mr. Behrens. He is a keen naturalist. I felt that four pairs of eyes would be better than two.”
“It’s very good of you to take so much trouble,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Did you say four—?”
She turned and found a great dog had moved up silently behind her. Its head came nearly up to her waist.
“Oh,” she said. “He’s beautiful.”
Rasselas eyed her coldly. For Mr. Calder, who talked to him in his own tongue, he would do anything, He had become accustomed to Mr. Behrens, and even allowed himself to be taken by him in his car when he understood from Mr. Behrens’ manner that the matter was urgent. But this was the limit of his tolerance.
“I spent a little time on the way down,” said Mr. Calder, “working out, with Mrs. Gordon’s help, the sort of walks her brother might have taken in the time available. Ah, you’ve got the maps – good.”
Mrs. Gordon said, “Truscott, his head clerk, told me that he planned to be back in London well before dinner. He had some papers to read, and he hated reading after dinner. That would have meant leaving Charing at five at the latest – and he liked to get his own tea before starting back.”
“Two hours, almost exactly,” said Mr. Calder. “Less, if he wanted, but not more.”
“He’d go as far as he could in the time. There were two walks I’ve been with him which would have fitted in almost exactly. There’s not much to choose between them.”
They spent a long morning, without result. What had taken the quick-striding barrister two hours to cover cost them nearly four. There were parts of it – along used roads and past houses – which they could ignore. But the rest had to be studied carefully.
After a quick lunch at a pub, they started on the second round. The path rose almost at once on a long slant, climbing the downs toward a wood.
“They could have watched him from up there – Mrs. Gordon, by the way, knows what we fear may have happened.”
“I knew John did secret work. He didn’t talk about it, of course.”
“Of course not,” said Mr. Calder.
The path plunged into the wood – it turned out to be a mere screen of trees – then out again on to the downland.
Rasselas ran free ahead of them, his tail feathering in the breeze. Occasionally his nose dipped to the ground and rose again as he ran. He was like a great golden galleon answering to the first chops of the open sea.
“We won’t waste much time here,” said Mr. Calder. “It’s lonely enough, but it’s a lot too open. John had his wits about him. And he carried a gun.”
The path turned now, and ran along the ridgeway. There were small coppices which were promising, and which they searched carefully but without success. Rasselas watched them, and from time to time Mr. Calder talked to him.
“He’s not a bloodhound,” he explained. “And there’s no question of him acting as a tracker. What he’s been trained to do is to notice when things are wrong – when they’ve been moved or altered, Anyone hiding in the bushes there, for instance, would have upset the pattern of the branches when he came out. If something which had been standing in the same place for some time had been shifted, it would leave a mark. That’s the sort of thing he notices.”
Rasselas sat on his haunches, grinning quietly as he watched Mr. Calder talking.
“He hasn’t shown much interest yet,” said Mr. Behrens.
“He’ll tell us as soon as he sees anything.”
They had already covered nearly fifteen miles that day, and were getting tired by the time they came to the deserted farm. The path skirted the farmyard. Under the collapsed Dutch barn, there still lay a few trusses of grey and mouldy hay. The tiles were off the roof; daylight showed through the walls. The nettle was in command of the garden and yard.
Rasselas padded quietly round the back of the house, and when he did not reappear Mr. Calder went to look for him. He was sitting on his haunches, still as stone, looking at a rusty rain-water tank propped on its side against the broken brick wall.
In the tank, his knees to his chin, was John Craven.
“There were three men involved,” said Mr. Calder to Mr. Fortescue. “And you were right. The planning was meticulous. As John reached the corner of the farm, one man directly ahead of him attracted his attention and made him stop. There were two other men, one on each side behind him and hidden. One hit him to stun him, the other caught his arms as he fell and held him while the first one hit him again, this time hard enough to break his neck.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Rasselas worked it out for me,” said Mr. Calder. And, after a pause, “What next?”
“The finding of the body will be given to the press. In the public version the body will be found by hikers, behind the tank, not in it. Craven’s walking habits will be mentioned. It will be strongly suggested that Craven felt faint, sat down to rest and died of heart failure. There will be an inquest, of course. But the only evidence will be of identity. And an adjournment for – how long will you require?”
