The Bat that Flits (11 page)

“I want you to do something for me,” she said.

“Agreed,” I told her.

“I want you to help me to get Una away from here.”

That stumped me. If she had asked me to persuade Bansted to shave off his moustache I felt that I should have had about the same chances of success.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because I can't,” Hilda replied, with the astonishing substitute for logic that women have been using for years, and usually get away with.

“But, still, why me?” I asked her. “I've hardly spoken to the girl.”

“Because you're about the only person here that I trust,” she told me.

That really meant something, coming from her.

“Could be,” I answered. “But I still don't see how to set about it. I'm not the kidnapping kind.”

“Don't be silly.” she said.

I wished that Hilda hadn't got quite that governess sort of note in her voice. It didn't go with her eyelashes. But it went with everything else apparently.

“Listen to me,” she went on. “I want you to talk to Gillett and say that after what Una has been through you feel that she should go away somewhere. And I want you to be tactful about it. If he thinks that you're trying to get her away from here for good of course he'll oppose it. Make it sound only like a few days. That's all I want you to do.”

“And then?”

“I'll do everything else there is to do.”

“Meaning what?”

Hilda's mouth tightened.

“Meaning that when she's gone she's never coming back again,” she said. “Never.”

“So,” I answered non-committally.

Perhaps too non-committally. Because it didn't seem to satisfy her. She suddenly thrust her hand out and laid it on my arm. I was surprised to find how strong her grip was.

“It's your job to get Una away from here,” she said fiercely. “Just that. Afterwards, it's my business.”

When I got back to the Institute it was already after six o'clock. I went straight along to the bar to drink things over. If Hilda had been the first girl to tell me that I was the only living male whom she could trust, I might have been bowled right out by it. But members of the other sex had been telling me that kind of thing for as long as I could remember. I think that it must be something to do with my appearance —the hacked-out ruggedness and the crowning disfigurement of the scar. There is an ineradicable Puritan belief
among the English that the ugly must necessarily be good.

And I was still suspicious. Gillett was so easily the Institute's best-looker that I could understand any girl, even Hilda, wanting to get him back again all for her own. The only thing was that I didn't see why I should help.

I still had other plans for Hilda.

I think that it must have been the presence of M.I.5 that led our local Inspector to redouble his own efforts. Perhaps he was hoping for a transfer from the rick-fire and cattle-maiming side. Whatever it was, he certainly dashed about a bit. And he was just on the point of arresting a tubercular tramp somewhere over in Wadebridge and charging him with the post office burglary, when he suddenly found the shop that had sold a pair of the right-sized plimsolls.

That changed everything. The two young captains started behaving as though the trial were to-morrow, and went stamping about the Institute with bundles of papers under their arms and an aloof, mysterious expression on their faces like children playing Red Indians. And I can tell you that it caused a bit of a sensation inside the Institute when we heard that poor little Dr. Mann had been asked by the Inspector to attend an identity parade.

The only person to remain calm and apparently disinterested was Colonel Wilton. He ordered—and, what was more remarkable, actually got—another half-case of Scotch and six of gin, and invited me across to help him get through it.

I didn't enjoy it quite so much as I should have done.
And there were two quite different reasons for this. The first was that Wilton would keep harking back to Party members and ex-members, which gave me a distinctly coolish feeling in the pit of my stomach every time he mentioned them. And the second was that I couldn't help feeling pretty badly about Dr. Mann. He was taking things worse even than I would have expected. It didn't even seem to comfort him any when I told him that I had agreed to stand in as an extra in the identity line just to keep the numbers up and see fair play. And I still had a sort of haunting feeling that he might feel like borrowing somebody else's razor rather than go through the ordeal of looking a lot of policemen in the eye.

The identity parade took place at 9.30 a.m. sharp. I drove myself down just to show off the new licence on the windscreen. And when I got there I found myself let in for a bit of a surprise. Two surprises, in fact. The first was that the whole ruddy Institute was assembled. Apparently at the last moment, the Inspector had gone round explaining that the more people who turned up, the better Dr. Mann's chances were likely to be. Wilton explained to me afterwards that the only thing that the girl in the shoe-shop could remember about the person to whom she had sold the plimsolls was, that he was foreign-looking and somehow didn't seem to belong. And it was simply to avoid standing Dr. Mann up amid a lot of sheepish and bewildered cowhands, that the police had roped in the most convenient colony of obvious misfits that they could lay their hands on.

The shoe-shop assistant was a tired, drooping sort of girl, rather like a limp black plimsoll herself. And she spoiled the whole effect by pointing out Dr. Mann as she came in through the doorway. And that made the rest of us feel
rather foolish. We were left standing there like a lot of nightmare Ziegfeld girls playing to a stone-cold house.

But the Inspector asked us if we would mind not breaking off for a moment. And that was where surprise Number Two came in. Because the next instant he came back again with my little fair-haired friend from Plymouth. She looked pretty ghastly in the hard morning light of the courtyard—that dredged-up appearance came out more strongly than ever. But I must say that she behaved magnificently. True to the finest traditions of her profession, she went down the whole line without batting an eyelid. And then, balancing herself on her five-inch heels, she said that she had never set eyes on any one of us before.

I was still admiring her poise and integrity, when something considerably less pleasant passed through my mind. For, with none but the noblest of intentions, she had destroyed a perfectly good alibi. And I might find myself needing one almost any moment now.

It called for imagination, lying, perjury and a supreme display of honest, manly indignation before I was able to get Dr. Mann out of the nasty jam that he had got himself into.

And it wasn't easy. The Inspector was still in the first flush of his triumph. I learnt afterwards that Dr. Mann's was the first decent footprint that the Inspector hadn't accidentally tramped on while he was still looking for it. There had, too, been some rather cunning undercover business going on at the Institute. Apparently he had bribed the Phœnician to procure one of Dr. Mann's ordinary walking shoes for purposes of comparison. And he was all ready, when the moment came, to produce it in court as a proof of size. That decided me. I told him that Dr. Mann
had spent the key-hours, midnight until 2 a.m., sitting in my bedroom telling me all about life in the Third Reich. Even when I swore to it he still disbelieved me. He had something there. But I was so sure that the little German was too jumpy to steal anything that it still seemed worth trying.

So I turned to Wilton instead. He was much more reasonable. And when I added by way of a brilliant afterthought that I remembered all about that evening because Dr. Mann had cut his hand opening the metal cap on a soda-water bottle, that seemed to clinch matters. The clue of the cut hand had been our ace card that the Inspector had been keeping up his sleeve ready to slam down at the last moment.

I don't know how M.I.5 works in relation to a County Police Force. It may be that if there is trouble at a board meeting, M.I.5 has the casting vote. At any rate, we heard no more about the arrest of Dr. Mann. And his gratitude in consequence became downright embarrassing. It was like having a pet poodle jumping all over me.

“Can I ever thank you enough, no?” he asked me, his pale round eyes protruding so far that they seemed to be pushing against the back of his spectacle lenses.

“Not another word. You've done it,” I told him.

“But somehow I must repay,” he went on. “I am considering ways.” He paused and seemed to be trying to make up his mind between a year's subscription to
Punch
or introducing me to his sister. Then he rounded on me suddenly. “And why did you do it, plees?” he asked. “It was too wonderful. Saying that I was with you that night.”

“Why, good gracious,” I answered. “It's the truth, isn't it? My memory's getting simply terrible these days.”

Dr. Mann understood that one.

“You are right,” he said. “It is important to be discreet. “Not even to you should I speak of it. I am discreet again. No one shall ever know about me.”

I was still thinking about Dr. Mann's last remark when I came on the third of those typed messages. By now, I had grown so thoroughly familiar with this means of communication that I used to make a kind of regular scraping movement along the pillow before getting into bed. And this time my fingers encountered one of the familiar little slips.

But this time the wording was easily the most disturbing of the lot. There in capitals I read the words: THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, COMRADE.

I didn't like the look of that at all. Someone—and I still had no idea who—was rather too intimately familiar with the facts. Also, he seemed to have an uncanny reading of my character.

At least, he knew enough to figure out that if he had merely referred to the Commandment by the code number, I probably wouldn't even have known what he was talking about.

It was Hilda who kept me from getting neurotic about the screwy messages. She had a distinctly one-track mind. And she kept on at me about getting Una away from the Institute. She was so earnest about it indeed that I didn't like to tell her that I still hadn't quite made up my mind.

And then on the evening of the third day, I did manage
to touch lightly on the subject. I happened to be in the bar alone when Gillett himself came in. And it couldn't have been easier or more natural. He was wearing a slightly drawn expression that I think he must have known suited him rather, or I am sure that he wouldn't have worn it at all. And I had taken just enough drink not to mind what I said. So I went right in at my very heartiest.

“Have a drink, old chap,” I said. “You look as though you could do with one.”

We weren't really on old chap terms, or anything like it. And telling Gillett that he looked as though he needed a drink was about as risky as telling him that his profile had slipped.

“Just a small one,” he said. “I've still got some work to do.”

That gave me just the kind of lead I'd been playing for.

“Pack it up, chum,” I advised him. “It isn't worth it. And it isn't fair to Una either.”

I saw his eyebrows go up a shade when I called the demure one “Una.” As a matter of fact, I was a bit surprised myself.

“And there's another thing,” I said. “Why don't you get her away from here? She ought to go right off somewhere just to get over it. She must have swallowed an awful lot of glass when that jar went off.”

Gillett passed his hand across his forehead. It was perfect the way he did it. He knew all the right gestures, and could easily have got himself a gold medal at the R.A.D.A. any time. There was even the surprise pay-off. It certainly caught me unprepared.

“I wish to God she would,” he answered. “Perhaps you'd speak to her. She won't listen to me.”

“Two more pink gins,” I told the barman hurriedly. “And make them large ones.”

I was getting really interested by now. The only trouble was that the pattern seemed about as subtle as an expanse of black-and-white squared tiling. Hilda wanted me to get Una out of the way so that she could have Gillett to herself again. And Gillett was evidently hankering after pretty much the same arrangement. I wanted to see what else I could learn, so I began shifting my ground a bit.

“Well, after all, she probably knows best,” I said. “I just thought that it would be good for her.”

“So it would,” Gillett answered. “Damn good.” He dropped his voice a little even though Charley, our barman, was the only other person in the bar. “I don't like some of the things that have been going on here. Have you ever known an anaerobic jar explode like that?”

“No,” I answered truthfully.

He paused.

“Nor have I. And I still have a feeling that there's something pretty queer still going on around here. As a matter of fact, it's rather more than a feeling. I think I've stumbled on to something.”

“That goes for me, too,” I said, again truthfully,

“And that's why I'd like to get Una quite out of it,” he went on. “This Institute isn't the place for a woman. At least not just at present, it isn't.”

If he had said that it wasn't the place for two women I should have been perfectly ready to agree with him. But, as it was, I didn't want to give the impression of being one of the nervous kind. I was calm and casual in the way that six gins can make anyone calm and casual.

“Aren't you dramatising things a bit, old man?” I asked.

“I don't think so,” he said.

Then he brought out the same gesture again. Hand drawn
slowly across the forehead and eyes half-closed while he was doing it.

The only trouble was that he had become so good at it that he was in danger of convincing even himself.