An Awkward Lie (17 page)

‘Quite true, sir. But where there’s been violence and possibly murder, one doesn’t like to have uninterrogated witnesses at risk.’

‘They’re not at risk – unless in point of mere accident. They took care to keep well out of sight on Tuesday morning, and you and I are at present the only people in the world who know their story. Nobody can possibly be after them.’

‘Yes, Sir John. But that doesn’t apply to your son.’

Howard had at least reduced Appleby to a moment’s silence. When he did speak, it was soberly enough.

‘You think Bobby may be running into mischief?’

‘Well, sir, I don’t imagine he’s simply taken himself off on a holiday. And this doesn’t look like being an affair for amateurs.’

‘Bobby is certainly that. And it looks as if he may have a dangerously erroneous notion of this girl. But I don’t think he can have got anywhere very far as yet. His only line, you see, has been the possibility that the dead man was a master at his first school – a place called Overcombe. That’s where Bobby has gone off to, I believe. It’s rather a wide cast, if you ask me. And does give us a little time.’

‘I don’t agree.’ Howard had stood up again – and Appleby saw that he was the same angry man who had presented himself half-an-hour before. ‘This is no sort of affair to mark time on, if you ask me. And it’s something that, in your position, you don’t need to do. The Chief Constable is an important man, no doubt. He has to be listened to, and given a civil reply. But no more than that. He doesn’t know people, Sir John, any more than I do. But can’t you get what information you want? You must have top connections far outside the Metropolitan Police. Wouldn’t it be a good idea – just for your own satisfaction, and without relaying anything to me – to get into the picture, and know just what’s going on?’

‘If anything
is
going on – in the sense we have in mind. It’s still not quite certain, Howard, that the whole affair isn’t a perfectly ordinary sort of crime.’

‘It would be very satisfactory to know that, sir. Very satisfactory, indeed.’

‘I take your point, Sergeant.’ Appleby was silent for a moment, and then got to his feet. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

And at that, as was only proper, Sergeant Howard took his departure at once. He paused on his way down the drive – Appleby noted with amusement – to give Solo Hoobin a casual greeting and an appraising glance. Left to himself, Appleby experienced two or three minutes of something like irresolution. And then, very unusually, he spoke to himself aloud.

‘The fellow’s quite right,’ he said. He went into the library, picked up the telephone, and glanced at the clock. Half-past-ten. The morning was still young.

Slipping out of the Leather Bottle, Bobby Appleby looked at his watch. Ten to seven. Prep would be almost over, and in the next quarter of an hour he must make his rendezvous with Beadon and Walcot. But here, meanwhile, was the girl – miraculously proposing, it seemed, to eat out of his hand. He glanced back through the door before closing it. Jakin and Lew were finishing their brandies at leisure; they had rather lost interest in their casual entertainer as soon as he had paid for this quite costly form of refreshment. But they would be following him out in a minute or two. He signed rapidly to the girl, and dodged round to the back of the pub.

She followed him, and they were face to face.

‘Off duty?’ he asked.

‘In one sense, yes. We’re talking. Where’s your car?’

‘Still in the school drive. Walk down to the lodge and I’ll overtake you. We’re dining.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘No perhaps about it, Susan Danbury. You’ve got a lot of awkward lies to explain. The Three Feathers is quite good, and only four miles away. I’m putting up there.’

‘Not proper to dine with a gentleman where he’s putting up.’

‘Stop talking nonsense, and listen. I’ve got to see two of the boys first. Beadon and Walcot. I’ve taken them on as my assistants. Like the boy Tinker in Sexton Blake. And I’ve a date with them in ten minutes’ time. Your turn after that.’

‘Thank you very much. But, just for the moment, please follow me. Our association is to be quite an innocent one, Bobby Appleby. But we’re not advertising it, all the same.’ As she said this, Susan walked rapidly off. It didn’t occur to Bobby not to follow. His heart was pounding just as if the whistle was about to blow at the end of a gruelling first half. He doubted whether he was going to be good at a game of wits with Susan – if it was adversaries, that was to say, they were going to be. There were nice girls with whom he’d tumbled around a bit. But none of his Away Matches had been anything like this at all.

Susan had vanished – and then he realized that she had simply slipped into a disused stable. She seemed to know the surroundings of the Leather Bottle pretty well.

‘What have you told them?’ she asked, as he followed her in.

‘Beadon and Walcot? I’ve told them I belong in a spy-story.’ Bobby heard Susan catch her breath. ‘Odd, don’t you think? It just came into my head as a means of interesting them. I don’t even know if they believed me. And the funny thing is, it’s true.’

‘Where are you going to meet them?’

‘A sunken place just off the drive. I found them smoking there.’

‘Well, go and meet them. And promise me something.’

‘Anything in the world.
Anything
. You see, Susan, I’m going to marry you as soon as they let you out of gaol. The ceremony will be performed by the prison chaplain, with the Archbishop of Canterbury lending a hand. He’s my godfather, you see.’

‘Will you please be serious?’ For a moment, it was almost as if Miss Danbury was a little at a loss. ‘You must promise to dismiss these boys. Tell them it was all nonsense, and that they’re to put it out of their heads.’

‘I expect you’re right.’ This time, Bobby
was
serious. ‘The spy-story isn’t developing like kids’ stuff.’

‘It didn’t begin that way either, so far as you were concerned. You saw what you saw – you saw what
we
saw – in the bunker.’

‘Yes,’ Bobby said, and looked Susan very straight in the eye. At last she seemed to be coming clean. ‘That was far from being kids’ stuff, I agree. And I oughtn’t to have pitched Beadon and Walcot a yarn. But, you see, it’s something that sometimes happens with me, quite suddenly. It’s because I write things, I suppose. Did I tell you I’m a writer? It’s something you’ll have to put up with, I’m afraid. All sorts of other things too, I suppose. But I’ll have one virtue. I’m going to be faithful to you. Until I die.’

‘Which may be quite soon.’ Susan Danbury got this out so crisply that it almost covered up the way her lips had parted a fraction of a second before. ‘But not those children, please.’

‘All right.’

‘Bobby, I’m
deadly
serious. There’s a grim battle on, and we’ve begun with a shattering defeat. I’m not going to have two small boys–’

‘I promise. And I’ll go now. But – Susan – one thing. You said
we’ve
begun with–’

‘Are you an idiot?’ It seemed to Bobby that Susan was really staring at him round-eyed. ‘Am I a beautiful Russian? Are you making all those amorous remarks–’

‘Not amorous remarks. It’s what they call being in love. At least I suppose it is.’

‘Whatever it is, do you think you’re really offering it to a bloody Mata Hari? Don’t you credit yourself with any sense?’ Miss Danbury paused in this brilliant counter-offensive – but not long enough to permit Bobby to do more than begin mumbling something. ‘You find your kids,’ she said, ‘and I’ll find your car. I’ll like our dinner, honest Bobby Appleby. But don’t expect it to be a lingering one.’ Again she paused for only a moment. ‘You leave this shed first, please. If anybody’s around, they’ll think you’ve been answering what’s termed a natural call. And give a whistle when all’s clear.’

Half an hour later, they drove in complete silence to the Three Feathers. The trip took over six minutes, so this was perhaps a little odd. They had a drink at the bar, and failed to get beyond discussing the menu perched on it. Bobby was far from regarding this topic as trivial – for weren’t they going to recall this meal, Susan and he, in minute detail forty years on? The Three Feathers was said to be reliable – but ought they to begin by playing safe, and simply have smoked salmon for a start? Nothing much could go wrong with
that
. But Susan voted this down, and they ordered, in a spirit of experiment, an obscure concoction described as a speciality of the house. Bobby was enchanted by this intimation of divergent temperaments. It would be much more fun, he told himself, that way.

‘We can’t go on being civilized,’ Susan said suddenly when they had sat down at table. ‘Defer talking turkey, I mean, until after the soufflé. How did you manage with Beadon and Walcot?’

‘I did my best. It wasn’t awfully easy. You see, they’ve been noticing things. I forgot to tell you that.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Oh, Nauze himself – although they don’t know his name. And a nocturnal helicopter.’

‘I see.’ Susan didn’t seem terribly impressed. ‘Anything else?’

‘Two bearded Russians.’

‘Nonsense!’ This time, Susan spoke sharply. ‘Such people aren’t
seen.
The boys were having you on.’

‘So I might have supposed. But, as it happens, I’ve seen them myself. This afternoon, as I was coming down from a walk near the Great Smithy.’

‘Did you tell Beadon and Walcot that?’

‘Yes, I thought it best to. I explained that these two chaps were certainly foreigners, but that they were perfectly ordinary walkers, all the same.’ Bobby paused. ‘Susan, why have you changed your mind about me?’

‘I haven’t. I’ve merely had orders to change it.’ She looked at him with perfect gravity. ‘I’ve never been other than of one mind about you.’

‘I’d like to know what that is.’ Bobby’s heart had bounded. ‘If I may,’ he added humbly.

‘It’s not what’s really relevant now.’ Susan dug her fork into the conglomeration of chilled sea-foods before her. ‘I was right about this. It’s fab.’ She took a quick glance round the dining-room of the Three Feathers, and then continued without a pause. ‘I hope I
shan’t
go to gaol. It did no good to Nauze.’

‘He’d been in gaol?’ Bobby stared at Susan in astonishment. ‘Was that why he left Overcombe rather abruptly donkeys’ years ago?’

‘No, it wasn’t. You know nothing whatever about all this – do you, Bobby?’

‘Why should I? Didn’t I just blunder into it? But I’ve been picking things up.’ Bobby smiled cheerfully. ‘I’ve picked you up, for example.’ He paused while the waiter uncorked a bottle of wine. ‘Susan, how did you come by your extraordinary profession?’

‘That’s not quite relevant either. But the answer’s quite simple.’ She broke off. ‘Do you know that we were undergraduates together?’

‘It’s impossible. I couldn’t have missed you. Not among a mere thousand girls. Not even among a hundred thousand citizens.’

‘I didn’t miss
you
. I used to be taken to see Rugger matches and things.’

‘Did you like them?’

‘Not terribly. Rugger struck me as rather a brutal sort of game.’

‘I see.’ Bobby thought fleetingly of Nauze, sprawled in the bunker with half his head blown off. ‘I’ve given it up,’ he said reassuringly.

‘Yes – I suppose you must be getting on.’

‘I’m not getting on.’ Bobby was indignant. ‘It’s just that I’ve taken up some other things.’

‘Intellectual pursuits. And now a spot of – well, this. Which, as I say, you know nothing whatever about. Just why did you come plunging over here?’

‘I thought it might give me a line on Nauze. And that that might give me a line on you. You’d vanished, and I was determined to find you. It looked as if you might be in a bit of a fix, you know, and that I might lend a hand. But you still haven’t told me how you came to take up this sort of thing.’

‘Influence. Wire-pulling.’ Susan gazed at Bobby with a great appearance of ingenuousness. ‘I didn’t terribly like a women’s college at Oxford. For one thing, there were too many young men.’

‘I’m sure there were.’

‘But I had this uncle–’

‘M,’ Bobby suggested. ‘I take my orders from him, as a matter of fact. I’m 008.’

‘You’re a perfect menace, it seems to me. But I had this uncle, as I say, and one thing has led to another.’

‘Your uncle behaved most irresponsibly in signing on his own niece for such a career.’

‘Such an unwomanly career. I suppose so. Probably he wouldn’t, as a matter of fact, if he’d known it would take me into – well, rather active work. But shall we get back to Nauze, Bobby? You’d better know at least the one salient fact about him.’

‘I think I better had.’ Bobby found that when Susan called him Bobby his head swam. ‘What is it – or was it?’

‘Nauze was the most brilliant cryptographer on the face of this earth. More brilliant than Rashidov, even.’

‘Who would be the Russians’ top man on ciphers?’

‘Yes.’

‘That shattering defeat you spoke of – it was Nauze’s death?’ There was a pause, while Susan Danbury took her first sip of wine.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just that.’

The dining-room of the Three Feathers was filling up. This was to be expected. The pub had its entry in the various guides to good eating and the like, and it was even an entry that seemed pretty well deserved. They wouldn’t look back with affection on that absolutely awful first meal together; they would look back on that modestly excellent one. But they had a table in a deep window-embrasure, and it wasn’t possible that they could be overheard.

‘He was caught seven years ago,’ Susan said quietly. ‘It sounds rather a stupid business; he had just gone on holiday somewhere he had no business to. And he was recognized. Perhaps that finger. Of course, he was a bit of a drunk, which didn’t help. Not all that. And it had already been a complication.’

‘He took a gym-shoe to us when he was a bit tight.’

‘It wouldn’t have done
you
much harm.’ Susan was quite unimpressed. ‘But I know about that. It’s all in his file.’