Hire Me a Hearse (20 page)

‘Not after the treatment he had to be given,' said the professor. ‘I can only continue the process started. Make sure his memory is emptied, or, to put it another way, that the spool of his memory is wiped clean.'

‘And then he'll be normal?'

‘I don't see why not. He may need a good holiday, but he is young and his is the kind of work that is ameliorative. I mean in this connection.'

‘Well,' said Drury, ‘that's it, gentlemen. Thank you for seeing me.' He looked at Bayliss, whose expression was now rather sheepish. ‘Like hell you came to me the second time just to let me know that sealed letter had been stolen,' he grinned. ‘You just wanted to steal a march on the crook who had made your boss yield up his keys, and maybe save the boss's skin.'

Peregrine Porter leaned over and patted his chief clerk's shoulder.

‘Never mind, old friend,' he said gently.

Bayliss seemed to lean against the patting hand of friendship, as though for comfort. He forced himself to look at the Yard man, but there was a twitch galvanising one side of his face.

‘What can I say?' he said tritely but humbly.

Drury looked at him with wolfish keenness.

‘You can say, for one thing, you've got yourself a good firm of lawyers, like Abbott, Abbott, Truncard, and Porter. On the other hand, if you're smart, you can say nothing, just fill up my glass with some of that excellent dry sherry.'

Peregrine Porter recovered his hand from the shoulder where it lay apparently forgotten for the moment.

‘Heavens,' he exclaimed, ‘he's really human, this man from Scotland Yard!'

But there was no laughter. It was an observation made in a vacuum.

Drury said, ‘I hope I am, Mr Porter. In which case, why don't I feel human? Instead, I feel like a wrung-out dish-rag.'

Bayliss took the stopper from the bottle of amontillado.

‘This should help,' he said.

It did. Drury left that dark house in Bexley feeling like a wrung-out dish-rag that had been steeped in sherry. In which case the wringing out was a waste, he thought as he nodded.

Fortunately Bill Hazard was driving.

Drury let himself into his home at a quarter to six. The house was quiet and his family were asleep. He tiptoed along the hall after leaving the car locked on the drive, to avoid waking people by opening and shutting the garage up-and-over door which had a tendency to rattle on its pulleys.

He saw the two pieces of paper propped against the phone.

One was from the Commander, telling him to do nothing, but be at the Yard for a conference at six p.m. Drury didn't like the sound of it. He was left with a feeling that something he knew nothing about had come up unexpectedly.

He eyed the second note askance. His wife had the useful habit of timing the messages she took. The second had been made half an hour after the first, and it requested him to ring as soon as possible a Bexley number.

He knew without checking that it was the phone number of Pinelands, the house he had left some two hours before. Apparently he hadn't been joking when he said a good many people would be having an interrupted weekend.

His own, he reflected wryly, hadn't started.

He dialled the Bexley number, and almost as soon as he heard the ringing tone at the other end it stopped, and Peregrine Porter's distinctive slow voice said, ‘Good of you to ring, Superintendent. I got to thinking when you had gone, and decided it was only fair to warn you that you are in for a surprise.'

‘When?' Drury asked.

‘At six o'clock.'

Drury breathed hard. So Porter knew of the conference set up by the Commander.

‘Why a warning?' he said.

‘Well, I didn't want you to think later that I could have told you more than I did. This also applies to Professor Warrender. We have done what we had to do, and we were not the only ones,
Mr Drury. I thought it only fair that you should know as much now, but I didn't want to tell you in front of the others.'

The cautious lawyer!

‘You thought I might ask more questions?'

‘That was possible, of course. But even more I thought you might be better equipped to help yourself at that conference to be genuinely ignorant about a few things.'

Drury didn't know whether to laugh or explode in anger. Either the man was so damned mealy-mouthed that —

‘I hope you sleep well, Superintendent. My apologies for disturbing you in this manner, and my thanks for your ringing back. I feel more comfortable now I have spoken to you. Good night — or, rather, good morning.'

There was a soft click against Drury's ear and the line was dead. Peregrine Porter felt better! Drury put down the phone, screwed up the two pieces of paper and crept upstairs to undress with the dawn a grey blur beyond the windows and climb between the sheets wondering
if he ought to put the alarm on. He was asleep two minutes later.

The spool ran to the end of its ribbon and a series of clicks started. Drury turned off the machine. The Commander took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. The two men in the leather chairs across the room, for whose benefit the tape had been run, sat very still, staring at nothing.

One was a high-ranking official from the Foreign Office, who was a K.B.E. and appearing there on behalf of his Minister. He motioned to the other man, whose name had not been mentioned when introductions were made. The Minister himself had walked out with the Commissioner of Police. The former, a shrewd-eyed politician representing a Yorkshire constituency, wanted no part of inter-departmental explanations. He felt the Commissioner would agree and had been right.

So Drury was there with his boss,
the Commander, and the unnamed man whose work was done in secret was there with his own boss, the successful career diplomatist, who would ensure that the conference was shaped the way he and the Government wished. A quick five-minute brief by the Commander had left Drury feeling like Alice staring into a cracked looking-glass.

The high-ranking senior Civil Servant waited while his henchman consulted a notebook. To fill in he said to the Commander, ‘We'll take the tapes, of course.'

‘Of course, Sir Benedict.' It was a revelation to Drury. The Commander was positively purring.

Sir Benedict spared a look for Drury. ‘Very astute of you, Superintendent, to have kept this copy.' His smile was such a fleeting thing Drury wondered if he had imagined it.

The henchman coughed, and got another wave. Drury found himself facing the Intelligence chief with a feeling of respect for what he saw in that sharply featured face.

‘Tell me why you suspected their story after hearing what we've just heard, Superintendent.' The man stroked his chin. ‘Perhaps I can dispose of points as you raise them. That will save time.'

‘No C.D. plate,' Drury began, ‘and I was told they hadn't been reporting recently.'

A hand lifted, Drury paused, and he was told, ‘Vicki Seeburg had only partial diplomatic immunity in this country when working to trace dope smugglers. Janssi Singh at no time had such a privilege. They had not reported recently because about five kilos of pure heroin were missing that should have been accounted for. Vicki Seeburg was working with a Home Office security man seconded to my department, Daniel Paget. He was our direct link. There is no doubt that the intention was to try to unlock knowledge from Truncard's memory. But it didn't work out. We knew every step taken when it was taken. For instance, Sir Thomas Albirt personally facilitated Truncard coming to London. Truncard was briefed by myself and given special
formulae and process details to memorize and repeat, which he did, under actually a mild stimulus given him by Professor Warrender, and I may say Mr Porter of Lincoln's Inn Fields drew up the contract by which Truncard was safeguarded, and there was a clause covering others. If any attempt is made to use the information Truncard passed on there should be a dangerous explosion — somewhere. At no time did Professor Warrender supply Truncard with LSD-25.'

The Intelligence man paused, nodded. ‘Go on, please.'

Drury felt the looking-glass had been smashed to splintery fragments. He shot a look at the Commander, who was trying to appear as though it was all very easy to understand.

Drury continued. ‘She talked of LSD in tipped cigarettes, which was quite false. It is not like marijuana. I realized that mentioning this and producing that cutting about LSD was an elaborate act to convince me that they were telling the truth.'

‘Good,' said the Intelligence man.

‘The sneer about Jeremy Truncard's late-arrived puberty and Freudian id suggested words picked up possibly from the professor,' Drury went on, ‘while the piece about never making a good double act was a wrong note to strike. That's just what they were, and they were denying it as they were denying other points raised. For instance, she tried to tell me it wasn't logical for there to be three intended victims at Broomwood. She also went out of her way to tell me Wilma Haven had got her caught up in it, as she put it. She said Wilma Haven found she could do nothing apart from — '

‘Yes, yes,' said the man across from Drury, interrupting hurriedly. ‘We are satisfied that the pair thought they were procuring data of high statistical value for sale to representatives of another Power. We are equally satisfied that Wilma Haven wanted to stop what she had stumbled on and thought of as despicable industrial espionage. It is a fact that we were anxious to establish how far this process would go, who else might be involved, what extra ramifications
there were. All that we don't have to bother with now. Superintendent. It's high policy.'

‘Yes, indeed,' said Sir Benedict. ‘This has all got to be treated most carefully. We particularly have no wish to ruffle feelings in the offices of the two High Commissioners concerned. That could be very tricky, which is why we gave the appearance of passing back information supplied by Paget.'

Another hand wave passed Drury back to the Intelligence spokesman.

‘Any other points you noted specially, Superintendent?' he asked.

‘That reference to a quick turn-over in staff,' the Yard man continued. ‘I realized at Twin Trees that was because, after Singh's murder, the ‘Golden Pagoda' manager was doubling in both parts. He only appeared as Singh with Vicki Seeburg because that helped the deception very considerably.'

‘Of course, of course.'

Drury, feeling like a boy labouring in front of a testy schoolmaster, ploughed on. ‘When he told her I was a man
of frightening experience with liars, that was a warning, I felt. Just as I felt that demand to have the tapes scrambled before she agreed to come in and talk was unreasonable.'

‘But you couldn't do anything about it because of diplomatic immunity which couldn't be checked on a Saturday. Oh, it was timed very well, Superintendent.'

‘I did what I could. You've just heard.'

Drury couldn't hold back from hitting a loose verbal ball. He wasn't enamoured of this high-policy treatment. It made him feel his work as a detective was going down the drain, sluiced away for sheer bloody convenience.

He was surprised when Sir Benedict laughed. ‘A nice point, Superintendent. I think if Scotland Yard finds a decreasing use for your services you could come to us.'

The Commander played along. ‘Oh, we've got plenty for him to do, Sir Benedict.'

Drury, looking at the Intelligence man, saw one of his eyes close ponderously. He winked back, and felt better. So this was
how they played the game. Well.

‘There was something else I was told, about they could say too much, which would be unforgivable,' he said. ‘I didn't wear that. I also asked why Paget couldn't have just stopped it all by getting you people to act. I was told that would have left things to be repeated elsewhere — which meant just about nothing. Then Vicki Seeburg lied about Mrs Marshall, and at the very end of the interview she came up with a fresh and lengthy excuse for not having managed to get Jeremy Truncard to talk. But I was surprised when I got to Twin Trees.'

‘You expected to find the body of Professor Warrender?'

‘Yes.'

‘You were quick off the mark, Superintendent. You know, I suppose,' said the Intelligence spokesman, ‘that they haven't been picked up in Bournemouth? He had got rid of the false beard and turban, of course, and his hair under it was trimmed and pomaded for his role as Lakhi Sharal. But we'll get them both, and her last piece of diplomatic immunity
has been cancelled. But when we get them both none of this comes out. The Singh murder will be sufficient, now the Mulley character is dead. Forget the other lies about Peregrine Porter wanting to buy an Indian supper club. All eyewash, Superintendent, but I'm sure you don't need telling, do you?'

It was Drury's chance to retreat and let things take their high-policy course, but he thought of the late hours he and Bill Hazard had put in, of the worry lines on his wife's face, and of Wilma Haven lying by the broken hearse, looking like a discarded doll, and his natural pugnacity asserted itself. He was damned if he'd show them that all this counted for sweet Fanny Adams. The Commander might throw a fit. Well, he should have been in church anyway at this hour on a Sunday.