The Bat that Flits Page 18

  “How did I?” I asked.

  “In a match-box. You gave it to a sailor.”

  I shook my head.

  “They were just matches,” I said. “Just ordinary Bryant and May’s.”

  “So you admit the incident?”

  It didn’t seem worth while denying it.

  “Where were you sitting, chum?” I asked.

  “We’d just come in,” Bansted told me. “Rogers and I. We didn’t speak to you at the time because we thought you were drunk.”

  “So did I.”

  There was a pause.

  “What do you propose to do about it?” I asked.

  “It’s out of our hands,” Bansted replied. “Wilton knows all about it.”

  “Including the automatic?”

  “No,” said Bansted, and I could detect the note of contempt in his voice as he said it. “Rogers and I decided that there was the need for action. That’s why we took matters into our own hands.”

  “May I have it back, please?” I asked.

  Bansted seemed surprised. Even a bit shocked, I thought.

  “After the trial,” he replied severely.

  With that he picked it up and lowered it gently into his pocket. His own revolver was lying on the dressing-table close by his right hand.

  “But it’s mine,” I reminded him.

  He paused.

  “Safer where it is,” he said.

  “Not necessarily,” I told him. “I can’t aim with it. You can.”

  Because it was obviously no use arguing, I got up and went over to the door. Bansted kept me covered all the time. But he had finished his little bit of detective work. And I was only just beginning. For a start, I jerked the door wide open all in one go. It was just as I had expected. Or almost. There was someone there—Swanton. He wasn’t actually down on one knee, peering through the keyhole. But he was pressed up so close against the panel that he nearly fell inside on top of me.

  “I thought I heard voices,” he said lamely.

  He was staring hard at Bansted, who was trying hard to conceal his revolver.

  “No one here,” I said. “Must have been owls.”

  But while Swanton was still staring at Bansted I was having a good look at Swanton. And he was certainly worth looking at. He was wearing an oilskin and a sou’wester that made him look like a Boy Scout collecting for the local lifeboat. Below the bottom of the oilskin appeared a pair of Wellingtons. But what particularly interested me was that the clothes were entirely dry. And that showed that he hadn’t yet been wherever it was that he was going.

  “Can I lend you an umbrella?” I asked.

  Chapter XXXIII

  1

  What was disturbing me was simply the fact that Bansted and Rogers had been talking to Wilton. That meant that I would have to work quickly. So, just to get things sorted out in my own mind, I began making a list. There is always satisfaction in making lists. It helps you to conceal from yourself the fact that you aren’t getting anywhere. Civil servants call it establishing first and second priorities, and they simply love it. So, in best Whitehall fashion, I got down to work and drew up an agenda. I kept the notes pretty full and set down everything I knew.

  Item 1. Hilda Sargent. Why had she suddenly walked out of the old country vicarage, and why had she decided to give religion the go-by? Any connection with the batch of Communist literature from abroad? And any connection with the foreign gentleman in the small house in Padstow? Also, going back a bit, why had she been so anxious to get rid of Una? Jealousy? Or something else? N.B. Knowledge of the moor first class and conceivably very useful to her.

  Item 2. Una Marchant. How had she come by the Luger? And had she really been looking for me when she handed it over? Also, why had she asked for protection? From what? And why me? Could it have been a blind? If so, what did she want to distract me from? If the latter, who was she working with?

  Item 3. Michael Gillett. By natural laws, should have been accomplice of Item 2. Or Item 1? Were Item 1 and Item 3 still working together, and had Item 2 discovered something? Was alarm for Item 2’s safety false or genuine? If so suspicious of Dr. Mann, why stand bail on theft charge? Was Mann original accomplice and had he ratted? Finally, why accomplice at all? Why not lone-wolf? But if lone-wolf, why unchecked mating instinct?

  Item 4. Dr. Mann self-eliminated. But innocent or guilty? If latter, why worry? If former, who had organised the suicide? Item 3 on own admission, but trifle too obvious? Third possibility: guilty, but unwilling, i.e. started the job, got scared, backed out, blackmailed, driven to felo de se. By whom? Consider possibility of Item 8.

  Item 5. Alfred Kimbell. Nice point here. Even if not the thief, at least openly in favour of the theft. Double bluff, or sheer bloody-mindedness? Known regular correspondent with Communist in the Russian Zone. Was sudden cessation due to nerves, or was business completed? Second nice point. Why no open support of Mann after penicillin incident? Distinct possibility of being missing element in Item 4. Hence order in my list, but remember remarks re Dr. Smith.

  Item 6. Edgar Swanton. Known, published and publicised association with Item 5. Views identical. Friendship accidental or deliberate? Why abrupt bust up of relationship as beautiful as David/Jonathan, Wilde/Alfred Douglas, etc.? Inexplicable night-walking habits.

  Item 7. Dr. Smith (the Great). Cagey as hell. Entirely non-committal on all subjects, except the U.S. Most completely isolated man in whole Institute. Genius for alienating people, natural or acquired? Why use poste restante facilities when resident Phœnician ready to drop all letters into breakfast porridge as part of daily Institute service?

  Item 8. Young Mellon. Blonde-hunting genuine or phoney? Fastest car in North Cornwall, and unique knowledge of surrounding district. Top-grade U.S. connections. Remembering Dr. Mann’s eagerness for U.S. visa, any connection with Item 4? Extreme innocence illusory?

  Item 9. Charles Bansted. Too knowledgeable about guns. High Toryism, real or assumed? Air of quiet always-mind-my-own-business gentlemanliness well maintained through-out, but bedroom burglary bad break. Story about meeting old friend of the family in Newquay on night of theft, fishy but far-fetched. In any case, why mention?

  Item 10. Harold Rogers. Declared associate of Item 9. Very interesting. Same proclaimed views. But what about wife’s views? Same point as in (9). If suspicious, why refer? Double bluff as in (5) and in (6), or useful defence in case of exposure, or alibi?

  That was the list as I drew it up. It looked pretty formidable and businesslike, and I wished that I could have asked the Director’s secretary to type it out for me. It might have given her something other than me to think about. Also, it would have been easier to read. But that list was for reference, not preservation. And after I had been through it for the third time I took out my cigarette lighter and held it to one corner. There is something dramatic in such a gesture. And also something extremely satisfying. I felt like the British Minister in some minor Iron Curtain country when the postman has just called.

  2

  I spent the greater part of the day in avoiding Wilton and tidying things up so that I could be sure of making a punctual getaway at five-thirty. The same sense of extreme urgency had oppressed me ever since breakfast. Even at table I had found myself looking round at the subject matter of my list and wondering on which wrist the handcuffs were going to be fastened first. It added a certain poignancy to the whole scene every time I caught Bansted’s eye to think that anyone already so suspect as myself should still be free among them.

  So finally, it was with the sense of freedom of an escaping prisoner that I climbed into the open driving seat and got away. But it wasn’t only myself that I was worrying about. What I was afraid of was that someone was going to do something silly like arresting Item 1 or Item 2 while I needed only another twenty-four hours or so to present a cast-iron case for looking lower down on the agenda.

  “Speed, Hudson! Speed,” I kept telling myself as I roared along.

  Tha
t didn’t mean, of course, that there wasn’t time for a drink when I got to Padstow to begin spying on Hilda. Interfering with normal habits merely upsets the metabolism and spells panic, not efficiency.

  The pub I chose was a small one. There was no particular reason for picking on it beyond the fact that the lay-back in the road was convenient, and I could leave my car there without being arrested before I had even got my legs properly over the side. Inside, everything was of the simplest—just plain wood benches with high backs like church pews. And for a moment my heart stopped dead: I was afraid that I had blundered into a Beer Only Licence. But it was all right. The invention of gin had already come to their notice, and they had nothing against dishing the new-fangled stuff out in doubles.

  It was while I was sipping it that I heard a voice I knew. Mellon’s voice. He was just behind the pew back I had my head against. And even if I couldn’t hear every word, I could hear enough to make any Cornish father or husband feel distinctly uneasy.

  “Say, d’you know what it was about you?” he was asking.

  A long gurgling silence from his companion indicated that either she didn’t know or wouldn’t have cared to put it into words.

  “It was ya eyes,” Mellon went on. “As soon as I saw the colour of them, I knew. This is the end of the rainbow, I said. Those eyes are what I’ve been looking for.”

  Either the lady to whom the remarks were arrested was unusually bashful, or she was just plain dumb. Probably the latter. All that Mellon got for his pains was another of those drawn-out liquid silences.

  “Mind you, sister, it was ya hair I saw first,” he went on.

  “Not just the colour either. The way it curls, I mean. Reminded me of ma mother’s just as soon as I saw it. . . . ”

  If it hadn’t been for my house-watching appointment I’d have been ready to sit there all night, simply learning. And even as it was I couldn’t resist turning round for a moment. And what I saw staggered me. It showed that Mellon must have exhausted everything else and was scraping round pretty near the bottom of the bucket by now. The woman who was with him wasn’t even young. Or smart. Or pretty. She had a comfortable settled-in look, and it occurred to me that the offer of a nice cup of tea might have won her even quicker than all those compliments. Altogether it was a terrible revelation of young Mellon’s hunger, and it showed that North Cornwall was a strong sellers’ market.

  There is probably nothing in the world quite so boring as standing looking at the outside of a house. By the end of the first ten minutes your whole heart goes out to private investigation agents and King’s Proctors. You feel that you could draw the damn thing with your left hand, or reconstruct it in your sleep brick by brick. And after half an hour has passed you would be ready to faint from sheer excitement if the milkman called. I stood forty-five minutes of uninterrupted elevation-gazing and then decided to walk about a bit. I knew that Hilda must be there because she had parked her car outside.

  There was some sort of a chapel next door to the little villa. And what’s more, there was a service going on inside it. I could see that because the lights were shining through the very inferior stained glass of the windows. In a superior anthropological way I’m a bit of a connoisseur of chapels. I collect them. There is something about a plain stucco front with “Prepare to Meet Thy God” over the front porch that irresistibly draws me inside to see precisely what preparations they have been making. Anglican churches interest me less because I was brought up in them. Roman Catholic churches on the other hand have a fascination all their own. They contain everything that my father disapproved of, and always preached against. But I’ve out-grown that. There is nothing of the Cromwellian or the Kensitite about me. I wouldn’t have a thing changed. I go round, awed and silent like a tourist.

  The chapel opposite turned out to be one of the Roman sort. Our Lady of Something, it was called. As I opened the creaky little baize-covered door, and smelt the incense, and saw the business-like little bookstall of propaganda leaflets, I began gaping.

  There was a small side chapel with a spike-frame for the candles. In front of just the glossy kind of altar that shows what has happened to religious taste since the Middle Ages a woman was kneeling. I didn’t take much notice of her. Because, by then, I’d become interested in the priest. I’d never seen a priest extracting himself from a confessional-box before. It seemed a tight fit, and I felt sorry for him.

  Then, as the priest passed me, I saw his face. It was the dago. And, as I recognised him, I knew who the woman was who was kneeling in front of the candle in that lady chapel.

  3

  I waited for Hilda outside. In her car to be exact. She hadn’t locked it, and it was warmer than just lounging about on the pavement. I think that the chief feeling I had was one of utter loneliness. If you took a tone deaf man into the Albert Hall he wouldn’t feel any more a part of it simply because other people were hearing something. And I suppose that there can be religious-deaf people, too. There was a mystery going on behind that door, and I knew that for me it would remain a mystery.

  When she came out, I tried to pass things off lightly and casually.

  “Thought I’d give you a bit of a surprise,” I said.

  But I couldn’t get the right note into my voice. And Hilda didn’t seem to be in a very light or casual sort of mood herself.

  “I was praying I’d see you,” she said.

  “Praying?” I repeated. “Do you mean hands together —that sort of praying?”

  “That sort,” she replied.

  This was a bit of a stumper. I’d imagined up to that moment that I’d been an entirely free agent. Playing instrument of heaven was a new one to me, and it gave me the creeps. But I didn’t want to show that I was put out in any way.

  “I came as soon as I got the message,” I said politely.

  She was beside me in the car by now, and I could see how tired she was. There were two deep lines beside her mouth that hadn’t been there before. Evidently this conversion business had taken quite a lot out of her.

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

  “Not Una,” I began. “She won’t budge. She told me last time——”

  “No. It’s not Una,” she said slowly. “It’s worse than that. It’s . . . ”

  The pause was so long that I turned round to see what was happening. She was crying. Not the sort of noisy boo-hoo stuff that never hurt anybody. But the silent, tear-you-to-pieces kind.

  “Like my handkerchief?” I asked.

  She took it without saying anything, and I just waited. When it seemed reasonable to reopen the conversation I tried again.

  “You got as far as ‘It’s,’” I reminded her.

  But she only shook her head.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you,” she said. “It was silly.”

  This was the other Hilda speaking. She was now being unapproachable again.

  “But I thought you said you prayed . . . ” I began.

  “I did,” she replied.

  Then she put her hand on my arm in that strange disturbing way she had.

  “I’ve got to go through with this myself,” she went on.

  “I’m going to see Colonel Wilton as soon as I get back.”

  “What about?”

  “If I told you that I’d have told you everything.”

  “You might at least give me a hint.” Hilda paused.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “If I did I mightn’t go through with it.”

  We drove home with Hilda leading, and that faulty rear lamp of hers blinking in my eyes all the way. She had apparently meant what she said, too. I discovered that as soon as we reached the Institute. The Phoenician was still slopping about in the kitchen, and I heard Hilda ask her to see if the Colonel could spare a few minutes.

  I was still wondering if I oughtn’t to have gone along and stopped her, when I reached my room and switched the light on. Then I paused. The room looked as though something pretty hearty in
the way of an end of term rag had been taking place. The contents of all the drawers were on the floor. My clothes lay in a heap in front of the wardrobe, with my Jermyn Street cap with the lining torn open on top. Even the mattress had been turned upside down.

  Evidently Bansted and Rogers had been having a real thorough look round this time. Either that or the original owner had been hunting about for his missing revolver.

  Chapter XXXIV

  1

  It was only one week off Christmas by now. And every day the Institute was remorselessly assuming the festive look. Paper chains, ingeniously woven by Ma Clewes during the long winter evenings, now hung criss-crossed in the awful little common room. Someone had put up a big fluted lantern affair in the hall. And while Hilda and I had been talking quietly together in the parked Singer, the same someone had gone to work on the dining-room. This morning we now had pink and green and orange streamers radiating from the centre light bracket. The melancholia ward in a big county asylum as decorated by the night sister would have had just the same air of simple cottage gaiety.

  I had just finished my breakfast when the door opened and Hilda came in. Her new digs were the bed without board kind, I remembered.

  She must have noticed the look on my face when I saw her. And I suppose that a twelve-stone man transfixed with the marmalade spoon held aloft in full drip is a bit conspicuous. It was obvious, too, that she didn’t want to attract any attention.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Did you get back all right last night?”

  It was the extreme coolness of the question that staggered me. But I was recovering my poise by now.

  “In the end I didn’t go out,” I said. “Too cold.” That brought young Mellon in.

  “Then someone else had your car out,” he said. “Saw it in Padstow last night.”

  I wasn’t going to let that get me started.

  “Gipsies,” I said briefly. “They’re terrible in these parts.”