By Stealth (9 page)

`I hear stories about boats vanishing into thin air after they've sailed from Lymington,' Tweed remarked.

`Sailors' stories.' The barman shook his head. 'I've heard vague rumours.'

`Five boats are supposed to have disappeared for ever this year,' Paula observed.

`All rumours.' The barman shook his head. 'Livens up the place, I suppose..

He moved further away, polishing the counter. The man with the peaked cap put down his glass of beer, leaned close to Tweed.

`You a reporter?'

`No, just intrigued.' Tweed swivelled in his chair to give the man his attention. 'And it might make material for a book I'm writing.'

`Then your best bet is down on the waterfront. Try Ned, barman at the Ship Inn. He's closer to what's going on down there.'

`Thank you. We were strolling in that direction anyway.'

He left his glass half drunk, nodded to the barman as they left. Crossing the High Street, they were soon walking down a steep hill, perched on a high railed pavement. Paula glanced in the shops, at the locals.

`Seems a peaceful enough place.'

`Which could be deceptive.'

At the bottom they crossed a road and continued down a very short and steep cobbled street closed to traffic. Quay Hill. A brief distance later it turned sharply right into another cobbled lane. Quay Street. Mostly tourist shops of high quality but Tweed noticed doors which appeared to lead to private residences. They turned a corner and saw a forest of masts and the Ship Inn.

Paula paused, swallowed, resumed walking.

`Would you sooner wait somewhere while I go there — in view of what happened last night?' Tweed asked her.

`No. It was where I had the last drink with Harvey but I'm not letting that affect me.'

A wave of warmth met them as they stepped in out of the raw cold. Again Tweed made straight for the bar and ordered two glasses of wine. He was paying for them when he asked the barman the same question.

`I bumped into the Harbour Master yesterday. He was telling me about some rather strange accidents round here. I gather no less than five boats which went out at different times this year never came back. Oh, are you Ned?'

`That's me.' There were no other customers and the barman leaned forward, dropping his voice as he addressed Paula and Tweed. 'They're trying to keep quiet about it. Idiotic. One boat vanishes. OK. Two. Maybe. But not five. Ought to be investigated.'

`They all disappeared just off Lymington, I gather?'

`No, sir. That's not accurate. Three of them, including a Mr Benton - the first casualty - were seen sailing up the Solent during breaks in the fog. I reckon they went down close to the mouth of the Beaulieu River.'

`Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that river run roughly parallel to the Lymington River but further east?'

`You've got it, sir. It's a wild lonely part with few people living in the area. There's another big boating anchorage upriver, Buckler's Hard. Some prefer to berth there rather than here. Funny lot, these boaty types.'

`In what way?'

`Well, I suppose you'd call it snobbery. Because we've got the Royal Lymington Yacht Club here one group thinks this is the top sailing port. A much smaller group has other ideas. Think the real elite base themselves up at Buckler's Hard. There's a Brigadier Burgoyne has his motor yacht there. Wouldn't be seen dead here. Can't see the difference, myself.'

`You said a moment ago it's very lonely on the Beaulieu River. You mean no one lives there below Buckler's Hard?'

`Well, yes and no, sir. There's a funny lot lives at Moor's Landing. The west bank of the Beaulieu belongs to Lord Montagu. But the east bank - or most of it - is owned by Lord Rothschild. Moor's Landing is land he leased out, as far as I know. There was a small village just back from the river - that's Moor's Landing.'

`You said "was". Doesn't it exist any more?'

`Didn't explain myself very well. Some developer bought up all the old cottages, renovated the insides, made them real posh. He then sold the lot in a matter of days.'

`You said they were a funny lot,' Tweed encouraged him. 'That sounds intriguing.'

`Well, they keep very much to themselves. Professional types, I gather. Snooty. Never seen any of them here. They like to keep the place to themselves. Snobbery again, I suppose.'

`Has this Moor's Landing access to the Beaulieu River?'

`It certainly does. A big landing stage which they recently had poshed up. Carefully repaired and freshly painted. Which I thought was odd — so far as I hear not one of the folk who live there has a boat. Status symbol, I suppose. All this is going back a year or more.'

`I'm writing a book on out-of-the-way places,' Tweed remarked, sticking to the same story — it would avoid Ned wondering afterwards about his questions. 'Is there any way I could sail down the Beaulieu River from Buckler's Hard?'

`Last month you could have cruised on the small catamaran which takes tourists downriver. Too late for that now — end of the season come the last day of October. But I'd have thought you might hire a powerboat with crew. Cost you a lot more than the catamaran.'

`I'll think about it.' Tweed finished his drink, looked at Paula. 'Actually now my stomach is thinking about lunch. That restaurant through there looks tempting.'

`They serve a reasonable meal, sir...'

After lunch they wandered out on to the front. They were there just in time to see a four-coach red, white, and blue train crossing a bridge on its way to the ferry terminal. At the same time a large car ferry appeared, heading for the terminal on its return journey from the Isle of Wight.

`I wonder who Harvey's friend was going to see when he set out on his last trip to the Isle of Wight,' Tweed said half to himself.

`We'll probably never know,' Paula replied. 'Why are you so interested in Buckler's Hard and this Moor's Landing?'

`I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary. We'd better get back to Passford House.'

Paula realized she wasn't going to be told any more so she said nothing more as they made their way back to the car. She never dreamt of what would be waiting for them.

Pete Nield, summoned by Tweed to watch Sir Gerald Andover's home with Harry Butler, stood by his Ford Sierra outside the hotel. Tall and slim, he was a snappy dresser and had a small dark neat moustache which he was fingering. He rushed forward before Tweed or Paula could leave the Escort.

`Harry's back at
Prevent
. I came to tell you. The house has been broken in to. Andover has disappeared...'

6

`Have you by any chance seen a Land-Rover, Pete?' Tweed asked as he drove the Escort close to
Prevent.
`Really I should have warned you.'

`No need,' replied Nield, sitting in the back of the car. `Harry spotted it parked back in the undergrowth as we arrived. It left almost as soon as we'd driven past it. Sorry we couldn't get here earlier. Monica had trouble contacting us.'

`When did you get here?' Paula asked as she sat next to Tweed.

`Ten o'clock this morning. We did a recce of the house and immediately discovered the break-in. We didn't go inside,' he continued in his laconic way. 'Waited outside in case the intruders appeared. No such luck. I then drove to tell you at Passford House. Called you from a phone box. You were all out.'

Tweed nodded, slowed down. He turned off the road and parked his car where Newman had waited by the copse the previous evening. Leaving the car, he hurried and the other two had trouble keeping up with him as he went up the drive. Harry Butler stepped out from behind a bank of straggled shrubbery.

`No one around,' he reported.

A man of few words, Butler was more heavily built than Nield. Clean shaven, he was dressed in denims and a windcheater, which contrasted with Nield's business suit.

`How do you know Andover has gone?' Tweed asked, his voice quiet.

`No car in the garage — an outbuilding, but there's oil traces on the concrete floor, shelves of equipment for maintaining a car.'

`He could be still inside, couldn't he?'

`Not unless he'd dead. I stood by the smashed front door and called out for him at the top of my voice. No reply. Let me show you.'

`First I think we should check the grounds at the back of the house. They're pretty extensive — Andover was out there last night, walking like a zombie.'

`Already checked,' Butler replied tersely. 'No one.' `Have you informed the police, Harry?'

`No. I thought you ought to be told first.'

`You were right, let's explore...'

The break-in had been conducted without finesse. Once again the front door was open. Butler pointed out where it had been jemmied open, breaking off a large section of the door-frame.

`That's a taste of what you'll see,' he warned.

With Paula by his side, Tweed followed Butler inside and across the spacious hall. Pete Nield had stayed outside as lookout. Tweed made for the study. The door was open and inside was a scene of carnage. The glass fronts of the bookcases had been smashed, the doors wrenched open. All the books had been hauled out and scattered over the floor.

`It's like this upstairs,' Butler commented. 'In the bedrooms mattresses slashed open, carpets ripped up, eiderdowns torn.'

`Which makes me wonder if they found what they were looking for despite their ravages,' Tweed mused.

He stood in the middle of the room. Drawers had been pulled out of Andover's desk, lay on the floor with their contents tipped out. Even the curtains had been pulled down, lay in heaps on the floor.

`We'll never know what they were searching for,' Paula remarked, picking her way among the wreckage. 'What is it?' she asked.

Tweed stood quite still, hands inside his trench coat, thinking of Andover. His eyes fell on an old bound book lying with its spine broken. He stooped, picked it up. Edgar Allan Poe's
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
. He flipped through the pages, stopped at a page where the corner had been turned down. He showed it to Paula.

`I wonder?'

`Sorry, am I being thick? I've never read him.'

`You should. He was a genius. See the title of the story where the page has been folded in at the top?'

—The Purloined Letter". It doesn't mean a thing to me.'

`It wouldn't – since you haven't read it. Andover is a clever man. Maybe he's left me a signal.'

`What signal..'

But Tweed was walking over to the large old-fashioned mantelpiece above a pile of logs laid in the fireplace. The only items on the ledge were a Victorian clock which had stopped at five to twelve and two candlesticks. Perched alongside the clock against the wall was a brown envelope familiar to all —
On Her Majesty's Service
. A communication from the tax authorities.

He picked up the envelope, and concealed behind it, propped against the peeling plaster, was another envelope. It was made of good-quality paper, was addressed to Sir Gerald Andover, and carried a Belgian stamp.

`Surely they couldn't have wrecked the house looking for that?' Paula. protested.

`Depends on what's inside...'

Tweed pulled out two folded sheets and again the paper was high quality and thick. He read both pages rapidly. When he turned to Paula his expression was troubled.

`This is a very revealing letter from Gaston Delvaux of Liège.'

`I've heard that name before. Can't quite place it.'

Delvaux is an armaments manufacturer and one of the world's greatest experts on advanced developments in his field. Not just tanks and guns, but aircraft and ships. Note the last item.'

`You mean he might know something about that ghost ship I swear I saw just before Harvey died?'

`I didn't say that. Delvaux was also a member of INCOMSIN, the International Committee of Strategic Insight I told you about.'

`The think-tank of brain-boxes on likely global developments.'

`And Delvaux, like Andover, is another brain-box. I've met him several times when invited to sit in on one of their secret meetings.'