Game Without Rules, page 24
“Oh, no, thank you,” said Mr. Calder. “I took all the necessary precautions.”
“Fine,” said Mr. Macleod.
He held open the heavy door, panelled in sham walnut in the style affected by pre-war bank designers, ushered Mr. Calder into the anteroom and left him there for a few moments, in contemplation of its only ornament, a reproduction in a massive gilt frame of Landseer’s allegory “The Tug of War.”
Then the head cashier reappeared and held open the door for Mr. Calder, and Mr. Fortescue came forward to greet him.
“Nice to see you,” he said. “Grab a chair. Any trouble on the way up?”
“No trouble,” said Mr. Calder. “I don’t think anything can start for another two or three weeks.”
“They might have post-dated the item to put you off your guard.” He picked up his own copy of the Times and reread the four and a half lines of print which recorded that Colonel Josef Weinleben, the international expert on bacterial antibodies, had died in Klagenfurt as the result of an abdominal operation.
“No,” said Calder. “He wanted me to read it, and sweat.”
“It would be the established procedure to organise his own ‘death’ before setting out on a serious mission,” Mr. Fortescue agreed. He picked up a heavy paper knife and tapped thoughtfully with it on the desk. “But it could be true, this time. Weinleben must be nearly sixty.”
“He’s coming,” said Mr. Calder. “I can feel it in my bones. It may even be true that he’s ill. If he was dying, he’d like to take me along with him.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I tortured him,” said Mr. Calder. “And broke him. He’d never forget.”
“No,” said Mr. Fortescue. He held the point of the paper knife toward the window, sighting down it as if it had been a pistol. “No. I think very likely you’re right. We’ll try to pick him up at the port, and tag him. But we can’t guarantee to stop him getting in. If he tries to operate, of course, he’ll have to show his hand. You’ve got your permanent cover. Do you want anything extra?”
He might, thought Mr. Calder, have been speaking to a customer. You’ve got your normal overdraft. Do you want any extra accommodation, Mr. Calder? The bank is here to serve you. There was something at the same time ridiculous and comforting in treating life and death as though they were entries in the same balance sheet.
“I’m not at all sure that I want you to stop him,” he said. “We aren’t at war. You could only deport him. It might be more satisfactory to let him through.”
“Do you know,” said Mr. Fortescue, “the same thought had occurred to me.”
Mrs. Farmer, who kept the Seven Gables Guest House, between Aylesford and Bearsted, considered Mr. Wendon a perfect guest. His passport and the card which he had duly filled in on arrival showed him to be a Dutchman; but his English, though accented in odd places, was colloquial and fluent. An upright, red-faced, grey-haired man, he was particularly nice with Mrs. Farmer’s two young children. Moreover, he gave no trouble. He was – and this was a sovereign virtue in Mrs. Farmer’s eyes – methodical and predictable.
Every morning, in the endless succession of the fine days which heralded that summer, he would go out walking, clad in aged but respectable tweed, field glass over one shoulder, a small knapsack on the other for camera, sandwiches and thermos flask. And in the evenings he would sit in the lounge, drinking a single glass of schnapps as an aperitif before dinner, and entertaining Tom and Rebecca with accounts of the birds he had observed that day. It was difficult to imagine, seeing him sitting there, gentle, placid, and upright, that he had killed men and women – and children, too – with his own well-kept hands. But then Mr. Wendon, or Weinleben, or Weber, was a remarkable man.
On the tenth day of his stay, he received a letter from Holland. Its contents seemed to cause him some satisfaction, and he read it twice before putting it away in his wallet. The stamps he tore off, giving them to Mrs. Farmer for Tom.
“I may be a little late this evening,” he said. “I am meeting a friend at Maidstone. Don’t keep dinner for me.”
That morning he packed his knapsack with particular care and caught the Maidstone bus at Aylesford crossroads. He had said that he was going to Maidstone and he never told unnecessary lies.
After that his movements became somewhat complicated, but by four o’clock he was safely ensconced in a dry ditch to the north of the Old Rectory at Lamperdown. Here he consumed a biscuit, and observed the front drive of the house.
At a quarter past four, Jack arrived with his taxi and Mr. Behren’s aunt came out, wearing, despite the heat of the day, coat and gloves and a rather saucy scarf, and was installed in the back seat. Mr. Behrens handed in her shopping basket, waved good-bye and retired into the house.
Five minutes later, Mr. Wendon was knocking at the front door. Mr. Behrens opened it, and blinked when he saw the gun in his visitor’s hand.
“I must ask you to turn around and walk in front of me,” said Mr. Wendon.
“Why should I?” said Mr. Behrens. He sounded more irritated than alarmed.
“If you don’t, I shall shoot you,” said Mr. Wendon, He said it exactly as if he meant it and pushed Mr. Behrens toward a door.
After a moment, Mr. Behrens wheeled about and asked, “Where now?”
“That looks the sort of place I had in mind,” said Mr. Wendon. “Open the door and walk in. But quite slowly.”
It was a small dark room, devoted to hats, coats, sticks, old tennis rackets, croquet mallets, bee veils and such.
“Excellent,” said Mr. Wendon. He helped himself to the old-fashioned tweed hat and the iron-tipped walking stick which Mr. Behrens carried abroad with him on all his perambulations of the countryside. “A small window and a stout old door. What could be better?”
Still watching Mr. Behrens closely, he laid the hat and stick on the hall table, dipped his left hand into his own coat pocket and brought out a curious-looking metal object.
“You have not, perhaps, seen one of these before? It works on the same principle as a Mills grenade, but is six times as powerful and is incendiary as well as explosive. When I shut this door, I shall bolt it and hang the grenade from the up-turned bolt. The least disturbance will dislodge it. It is powerful enough to blow the door down.”
“All right,” said Mr. Behrens. “But get on with it. My sister will be back soon.”
“Not until eight o’clock, if she adheres to last week’s arrangements,” said Mr. Wendon, quite knowingly.
He closed the door, shot the bolts, top and bottom, and suspended the grenade with artistic care from the top one.
Mr. Calder had finished his tea by five o’clock, and then shortly afterward strolled down to the end of the paddock, where he was repairing the fence. Rasselas lay quietly in the lee of the woodpile. The golden afternoon turned imperceptibly toward evening.
Rasselas wrinkled his velvet muzzle to dislodge a fly. On one side he could hear Mr. Calder digging with his mattock into the hilltop chalk and grunting as he dug. Behind, some four fields away, a horse, fly-plagued, was kicking its heels and bucking. Then, away to his left, he located a familiar sound. The clink of an iron-tipped walking stick on stone.
Rasselas liked to greet the arrival of this particular friend of his master, but he waited with dignity until the familiar tweed had come into view. Then he unfolded himself and trotted gently out into the road.
So strong was the force of custom, so disarming were the familiar and expected sight and sound, that even Rasselas’ five senses were lulled. But his instinct was awake. The figure was still a dozen paces off and advancing confidently, when Rasselas stopped. His eyes searched the figure. Right appearance, right hat, right noises. But wrong gait. Quicker, and more purposeful than their old friend. And, above all, wrong smell.
The dog hackled, then crouched as if to jump. But it was the man who jumped. He leaped straight at the dog; his hand came out from under his coat and the loaded stick hissed through the air with brutal force. Rasselas was still moving, and the blow missed his head but struck him full on the back of the neck. He went down without a sound.
Mr. Calder finished digging the socket for the corner post he was planting, straightened his back and decided that he would fetch the brush and creosote from the house. As he came out of the paddock, he saw the great dog lying in the road.
He ran forward and knelt in the dust. There was no need to look twice.
He hardly troubled to raise his eyes when a voice which he recognised spoke from behind him.
“Keep your hands in sight,” said Colonel Weinleben, “and try not to make any sudden or unexpected move.”
Mr. Calder got up.
“I suggest we move back into the house,” said the colonel. “We shall be more private there. I should like to devote at least as much attention to you as you did to me on the last occasion we met.”
Mr. Calder seemed hardly to be listening. He was looking down at the crumpled, empty, tawny skin, incredibly changed by the triviality of life’s departure. His eyes were full of tears.
“You killed him,” he said.
“As I shall shortly kill you,” said the colonel. And, as he spoke, he spun round like a startled marionette, took a stiff pace forward and fell, face downward.
Mr. Calder looked at him incuriously. From the shattered hole in the side of his head, dark blood ran out and mixed with the white dust. Rasselas had not bled at all. He was glad of that tiny distinction between the two deaths.
It was Mr. Behrens who had killed Colonel Weinleben, with a single shot from a .312 rifle fired from the edge of the wood. The rifle was fitted with a telescopic sight, but the shot was a fine one, even for an excellent marksman such as Mr. Behrens.
He’d run for nearly a quarter of a mile before firing it; he had to get into position very quickly, and he had only just been able to see the colonel’s head over the top of an intervening hedge.
He burst through this hedge now, saw Rasselas and started to curse.
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Mr. Calder. He was sitting in the road, the dog’s head in his lap.
“If I’m meant to look after you, I ought to look after you properly,” said Mr. Behrens. “Not let myself be jumped by an amateur like that. I hadn’t reckoned on him blocking the door with a grenade. I had to break out of the window, and it took me nearly half an hour.”
“We’ve a lot to do,” said Mr. Calder. He got stiffly to his feet and went to fetch a spade.
Between them they dug a deep grave behind the woodpile, and laid the dog in it and filled it in, and patted the earth into a mound. It was a fine resting place, looking out southward over the feathery tops of the trees, across the Weald of Kent. A resting place for a prince.
Colonel Weinleben they buried later, with a good deal more haste and less ceremony, in the wood. He was the illegitimate son of a cobbler from Mainz and greatly inferior to the dog, both in birth and breeding.
Michael Gilbert Titles in order of first publication
All Series titles can be read in order, or randomly as standalone novels
Inspector Hazlerigg
Close Quarters (1947)
They Never Looked Inside (alt: He Didn’t Mind Danger) (1948)
The Doors Open (1949)
Smallbone Deceased (1950)
Death has Deep Roots (1951)
Fear To Tread (in part) (1953)
The Young Petrella (included) (short stories) (1988)
The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Mysteries (included) (short stories) (1997)
Patrick Petrella
Blood and Judgement (1959)
Amateur in Violence (included) (short stories) (1973)
Petrella at Q (short stories) (1977)
The Young Petrella (short stories) (1988)
Roller Coaster (1993)
The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Mysteries (included) (short stories) (1997)
Luke Pagan
Ring of Terror (1995)
Into Battle (1997)
Over and Out (1998)
Calder & Behrens
Game Without Rules (short stories) (1967)
Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens (short stories) (1982)
Non-Series
Death in Captivity (alt: The Danger Within) (1952)
Sky High (alt: The Country House Burglar) (1955)
Be Shot for Sixpence (1956)
After the Fine Weather (1963)
The Crack in the Teacup (1966)
The Dust and the Heat (alt: Overdrive) (1967)
The Etruscan Net (alt: The Family Tomb) (1969)
Stay of Execution and Other Stories (short stories) (1971)
The Body of a Girl (1972)
The Ninety-Second Tiger (1973)
Flash Point (1974)
The Night of the Twelfth (1976)
The Empty House (1979)
The Killing of Katie Steelstock (alt: Death of a Favourite Girl) (1980)
The Final Throw (alt: End Game) (1982)
The Black Seraphim (1984)
The Long Journey Home (1985)
Trouble (1987)
Paint, Gold, and Blood (1989)
Anything for a Quiet Life (short stories) (1990)
The Queen against Karl Mullen (1992)
Synopses (Both Series & ‘Stand-alone’ Titles)
Published by House of Stratus
After The Fine Weather
When Laura Hart travels to Austria to visit her brother, vice-consul of Lienz in the Tyrol, she briefly meets an American who warns her of the mounting political tension. Neo-Nazis are stirring trouble in the province, and xenophobia is rife between the Austrians who control the area and the Italian locals. Then Laura experiences the troubles first-hand, a shocking incident that suggests Hofrat Humbold, leader of the Lienz government is using some heavy-handed tactics. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he is unwilling to let one little English girl destroy his plans for the largest Nazi move since the war, and Laura makes a dangerous enemy.
Anything For A Quiet Life
Jonas Pickett, lawyer and commissioner of oaths is nearing retirement, but still has lots of energy. However, he leaves the pressure of a London practice behind to set up a new modest office in a quiet seaside resort. He soon finds that he is overwhelmed with clients and some of them involve him in very odd and sometimes dangerous cases. This collection of inter-linked stories tells how these are brought to a conclusion; ranging from an incredible courtroom drama involving a gipsy queen to terrorist thugs who make their demands at gunpoint.
Be Shot For Sixpence
A gripping spy thriller with a deserved reputation. Philip sees an announcement in The Times from an old school friend who has instructed the newspaper to publish only if they don’t hear from him. This sets a trail running through Europe, with much of the action taking place on the Austro-Hungarian border. The Kremlin, defectors, agitators and the People’s Court set the background to a very realistic story that could well have happened …
The Black Seraphim
James Scotland, a young pathologist, decides on a quiet holiday in Melchester, but amid the cathedral town’s quiet medieval atmosphere, he finds a hornet’s nest of church politics, town and country rivalries, and murder. He is called upon to investigate and finds that some very curious alliances between the church, state and business exist. With modern forensic pathology he unravels the unvarnished truth about Melchester, but not before a spot of unexpected romance intervenes.
Blood & Judgement
When the wife of a recently escaped prisoner is found murdered and partially buried near a reservoir, Patrick Petrella, a Metropolitan Police Inspector, is called in. Suspicion falls on the escaped convict, but what could have been his motive? Petrella meets resistance from top detectives at the Yard who would prefer to keep the inspector out of the limelight, but he is determined to solve the mystery with or without their approval.
The Body Of A Girl
Detective Chief Inspector Mercer is called to the scene when a skeleton of a girl is found on Westlaugh Island in the upper reaches of the River Thames. What appears to be a straightforward and routine investigation, however, leads to unexpected events and a string of unlikely characters, including a lawyer and a one armed garage proprietor. Nothing seems to fit together and it seems the sleepy town holds many secrets. The finale involves two nights of dramatic violence and it isn’t until this stage is reached that the twisted truth finally emerges.
Close Quarters
It has been more than a year since Cannon Whyte fell 103 feet from the cathedral gallery, yet unease still casts a shadow over the peaceful lives of the Close’s inhabitants. In an apparently separate incident, head verger Appledown is being persecuted: a spate of anonymous letters and random acts of vandalism imply that he is inefficient and immoral. But then the notes turn threatening, and when Appledown is found dead, Inspector Hazlerigg is called in. Investigations suggest that someone directly connected to the cathedral is responsible, and it is up to Hazlerigg to get to the heart of the corruption.
The Crack In The Teacup
Barhaven is on the south coast within commuting distance from London. It is, however, a fairly sleepy place and it seems incredulous that it could be the kind of town where the local councillors could manage to line their own pockets. However, there is something odd about the borough engineers behaviour, and it seems strange that the owner of the local amusement park is unknown, and the Town Clerk himself is acting peculiarly. Enter a young lawyer, who finds himself at the centre of a major campaign against racketeering. The public and the press become involved and it ends with a twist that is totally unexpected.
