The Bat that Flits Read online

  I was nearly at the end of my breakfast. The Phœnician had brewed the coffee in a fish-kettle this morning from the taste of it, and I decided that I would do without my fourth cup.

  “Duty calls,” I said vaguely as I slid my chair back.

  I’d got about two paces down the corridor when Hilda came after me. That was silly. Because so far she hadn’t even had her Danish egg. But it showed that her calm wasn’t real, only assumed.

  “I want you to forget everything I said to you last night,” she told me.

  I looked her straight in the eyes.

  “You’re making a mistake, lady,” I said. “You just heard me say I stayed in all the evening.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. But it didn’t satisfy me.

  “Wilton say anything?” I asked.

  She didn’t tell me. Which in the circumstances, was rude. But I forgave her for it. She had her part to play like the rest of us. And from what she had said last night I guessed that it was a hard part. I only wished that I knew the cue-line.

  I didn’t get very much work done that morning for thinking about it. Also, there were too many interruptions. The first of them was waiting in the front hall as I went through. He had managed somehow to get past the draw-bridge and the portcullis, and he now had the air of impatience that suggested that if there had been a gong in the hall he would have sounded it.

  “You Mr. Mellon?” he asked.

  He was a large man with a florid complexion. Up in Norfolk in the turkey world he would have been regarded as a very handsome stag. As it was, he looked as though he would be very well advised to stick to beer and avoid spirits. He was wearing flannels and a rather noisy ready-made sports coat. And in his hand he carried a riding-crop. This struck me as odd. Because even in a country district I would have expected to find him on a bicycle rather than on a horse. But that may have been only because I had the advantage of prior knowledge. Even without his helmet he was still undisguisable. He was the policeman who had tried to arrest me for obstruction up in Padstow.

  “Be along in just one minute,” I said. “You’ll recognise him—the tall, dark, handsome one.”

  “Thank you,” the man said, and touched his forehead with his hunting-crop.

  I promptly forgot all about him, and was thinking of Hilda again when I reached the laboratory. But straight away the telephone rang, and I went across to answer it. It was a bit early for calls. I suspected a wrong number. And when I lifted the receiver I was sure.

  “Professor Sonnenbaum?” a voice asked.

  It was a foreign-sounding voice, and very faint. A longdistance call obviously.

  “No Professor Sonnenbaum here,” I said. “Try the little café at the corner.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. They probably won’t be open yet.”

  There was a pause.

  “Is that Bodmin Moor 21?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Professor Sonnenbaum, please.”

  At this rate we could go on like that all the morning.

  “There is no Professor Sonnenbaum here,” I said very slowly and distinctly. “He died way back in the eighties. Family went out to Canada, I think it was. No forwarding address. Sorry.”

  I was just hanging up when the voice spoke again.

  “But that is Bodmin Moor 21?”

  “There hasn’t been time to change it yet,” I admitted.

  “Then can I speak to Professor Sonnen? . . . ” The voice broke off and seemed to be consulting someone. I could hear the mutter of conversation above the muzz of the longdistance line. “Dr. Smith, I mean,” the voice corrected itself. “Dr. Sebastian Smith.”

  I paused. “If I go off and fetch him, will you promise not to change your mind again?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  And then a really clever idea came to me.

  “This is Dr. Smith’s batman speaking,” I said in a hard, clipped sort of voice that was new to both of us. “The doctor is out beagling. He’s not expected back until dinnertime. May I have your number, please. He’ll call you.”

  But I don’t think that the person at the other end can have understood. Perhaps the line wasn’t good enough. Or he was new at spying, and hadn’t yet got as far as field-sports in his vocabulary.

  “Thank you, it does not matter,” the voice said.

  With that there was a click, and it was all over. I saw then how much cleverer it would have been to call Dr. Smith, and remain at my bench quietly eavesdropping. But I couldn’t do that. I hate underhandedness.

  And at that moment the door opened and Dr. Smith himself came in. It was still only about nine-five, and he seemed taken aback to see anyone there. But he recovered himself admirably.

  “Was that the phone?” he asked.

  I looked him full in the eyes.

  “Telephone Maintenance,” I said. “Just checking up on the lines. Didn’t leave any message.”

  The second interruption occurred at about nine thirty-five. This time it was Mellon’s turn. When I had last seen him he was still looking like a displaced person on the Claridge quota—perfectly laundered soft white shirt, a dove-grey suit without a ripple in it and one of those extraordinary bow-ties with points instead of square corners. But there was now a bruise over his right eye and the front buttons of his shirt were all missing. The feathers of his dove-grey suit had a rather ruffled look and he kept holding one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs to his nose. But he can’t have been doing too badly. At least he had the hunting-crop.

  “Fallen over something?” I asked.

  He didn’t, however, seem to want to talk about it.

  “Jeez Christ,” he said. “Don’t they have no family feelings in these parts?”

  I paused.

  “You’ve caught the spirit of the place,” I said. He paused.

  “Do you reckon there’s a decent libel attorney anywhere in these parts?” he asked at last.

  I thought for a moment. Then I answered him.

  “There’s a firm in Okehampton,” I said. “On the right just before you come to the dairy. It’s over a corn-chandler’s. Looks all right to me. They’ve got the whole of the second floor.”

  Mellon was not impressed. He began flicking about with the hunting-crop.

  “I’m going up to London,” he said. “I want to get this thing fixed properly. I can’t have some crazy guy going round here telling people I’m a traitor.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “You heard,” Mellon answered.

  2

  From ten o’clock until ten-five I worked uninterrupted. Flat out. Giving the job all I had. Obsessionally. Then there came a message from Wilton. Really he was behaving in a most peculiar manner just lately. Like a kept woman. Cold at one moment. And all tingly and oncoming at the next. If the message had said that he had decided to sell the pearls or publish the correspondence I could not have been more astonished. It asked if I would play golf with him.

  The cub-Captain didn’t seem to know why I had been invited. Merely that golf was the latest whim of his strange master. Wilton had been practising putting all yesterday evening on the study carpet, the cub-Captain told me. And in consequence he was, I gathered, about as near the top of his form by now as he was ever likely to be.

  “Of course, I’d simply love to come,” I said. “Anywhere with Wilton. At any time. He knows that. It’s just my work that’s stopping me.”

  The cub-Captain had all the manners of a good bell-hop. From the way he was standing, he might have been waiting for me to slip sixpence into his little paw.

  “The Colonel mentioned he felt sure that the Director would excuse you, if you asked him,” he said.

  That looked rather as though things had been pretty much arranged already.

  The cub-Captain was shifting from one foot to the other, and looked embarrassed.

  “What shall I say, sir?” he asked.

  “Leave it al
l to me,” I said. “I’m just boiling some water. And I don’t trust anybody to do my job for me. When I’ve drunk it, I’ll come.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  He went off so pleased at having found me reasonable that I don’t think that he even remembered about the tip. There was a distinct lilting movement in his walk as he moved away from me.

  I thought all the same that I might as well mention things to the Old Man. And again I had the impression that he had been conditioned for something of the kind. He was walking up and down his room when I found him, and he looked hairier and more prawnlike than ever.

  “Ah, Hudson,” he said, somewhat jumpily as I came in.

  “Good morning, sir,” I began, in a bland, easy manner to put him thoroughly at his ease before hurling my odd little brickbat full at him. “It’s a beautiful morning and Colonel Wilton has very kindly suggested . . . ”

  The method of my approach seemed to have relieved Dr. Clewes considerably.

  “Oh, capital,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you played.”

  That was all he said. But behind it there was just a hint that it hadn’t come as an entire surprise to him. And I still didn’t want him to write me off as the sports absentee type.

  “Wilton and I often chat things over together,” I explained. “I expect there’s some aspect of his work that he wants to discuss with me.”

  “Possibly,” said Dr. Clewes, and began fumbling with his desk papers.

  Chapter XXXV

  It was the first really decent morning since I’d been to Cornwall. The air was clear, like gin. And the colours of the hills were at their loveliest. I felt on the top of the world suddenly, getting away from the Institute and all its troubles. If Wilton had been a woman I would probably have proposed to him.

  The only flaw in the whole arrangement was that he had brought the pair of cub-Captains along with him. And when I suggested that it might be friendlier, just the two of us, he shook his head.

  “They won’t bother you,” he said. “Simply trail along behind.”

  I wanted to do everything I could to make the outing a success. So I raised no further objections.

  “Oh, very well,” I said. “I’ll have the dark one. If I’d known, I’d have made the bag a bit lighter for him.”

  In his youth Wilton may have been quite a good golfer. He had the right movement. But the limbs seemed in danger of falling off. With the first drive I expected to see arm, wrist-watch and shoulder go sailing away after the ball. It wasn’t a bad shot, however. About eighty yards overall and bang down the middle of the fairway. Not bad, merely feeble. And I decided to show him what clean-living and sound basic instruction could do. But I had my wrong shoes on. No studs. And I must have been a bit sharp with my right shoulder. In the result I sliced my first shot. The ball went off practically at right angles and nearly killed the smaller of the two captains. Long after the follow-through he was still crouching there as though he were back in a battle school.

  And, as it turned out, I was a bit too strong with the niblick this morning. Otherwise, perfectly hit, the ball skied over Wilton’s head and came to rest in some heather over in the Lizard direction. It took three to get out of the heart of the Highlands. And then came another of my really strong ones. It was the wind as much as the hook that time. I followed the ball with my eye as it described a wide half-circle. And then with a wave of the hand to Wilton I followed it on foot. It was difficult country where it had landed and it was pioneer axe and machete work all the way getting back. When I finally reached the green I realised that I hadn’t seen Wilton for the best part of quarter of an hour.

  The same thought must have occurred to Wilton. He waved the cub-Captains away and turned towards me.

  “Let’s walk the next one,” he said.

  “Suits me,” I told him. “It’s the view as much as anything else I always play for.”

  Both the cub-Captains had dropped about half a dozen paces behind by now. And Wilton casually linked arms with me. It is a habit that I dislike. But I couldn’t very well say so. For a colonel to get his hand slapped before subordinates is terrible for discipline.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  “What about?” I asked.

  “You,” he said.

  It was so short and curt that I didn’t like the sound of it. I hated the whole thought of talking about me in that tone of voice.

  “Soon get tired of that,” I said, with a shrug that I thought might dislodge Wilton’s arm.

  But it didn’t.

  “Depends on how long it takes,” was all he said, giving my arm a squeeze as he said it.

  “Just as you say,” I replied. “Shall I begin, or will you?”

  “I will.”

  The pause was so long that I began to think that Wilton had forgotten. I was just ready to start telling him about my night-fears as a child when Wilton spoke again. Then I wished that he had forgotten.

  “I’m going to arrest you,” he confided with his ear close up against mine.

  “Sorry,” I answered. “You’ve got my deaf side.”

  Wilton said it again. And I didn’t like the sound of it. The tone of voice was still all wrong. I removed his arm quite forcibly.

  “Serious?” I asked.

  “Perfectly.”

  “And you’re really going through with this?”

  “Um.”

  It was merely the Wilton grunt and nod of the head this time. That made me furious.

  “Well, you’ll make a bloody fool of yourself if you do,” I told him.

  “There’s always that risk,” he agreed.

  He was a difficult man to have a row with. One of his strongest suits was that he was quite uninsultable. We were still walking along side by side as though nothing had happened. And any moment I feared that he might try to take my arm again.

  “Can I have a perfectly frank talk with you?” I asked.

  “No holds barred.”

  “It’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

  “I can probably tell you quite a bit you don’t know,” I began.

  “That’s why I asked you.”

  “Then you’ll see what a mistake you’re making.”

  “If I see, perhaps I shan’t make it.”

  I really was thinking hard by now, because it was perfectly obvious that if I was run in like this, somebody else was going to get away with something. And I didn’t see why that should happen. But the emotions were a bit complicated. Either I was putting country before self, or self before others. I wasn’t quite sure which.

  “For a start,” I asked, “are you satisfied about all the rest of us?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “Dr. Smith, for instance.”

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t believe it’s even his right name,” I blurted out.

  “It isn’t,” Wilton replied. “He changed it. It’s Sonnenbaum, really. Sonnenbaum’s Bacteriology for Advanced Students. Got a new edition coming out. That’s why he had all the proofs sent poste restante to Plymouth to avoid confusion. Very sensible.”

  This stumped me for a moment, and I thought of somebody else I didn’t like.

  “And Swanton?” I asked.

  I put the question very deliberately because I thought it might be more effective that way. I didn’t care for the offhand manner Wilton had when it came to dismissing things.

  “Nothing wrong with him, is there?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Nothing actually wrong. Just a bit fond of late hours. Seems to prefer the moor at midnight for some reason.”

  “That all?”

  “Well,” I said. “You must admit it’s queer.”

  “Not very,” Wilton answered. “Not when you think of beetles.”

  “There is something in common,” I admitted.

  As a reply it struck me as rather ingenious. But this hardly seemed the moment for talking in innuendoes.

  “There’s a lot,” Wilton said. “T
hat is if you’re a Coleopterist. Swanton is. Doing a census of some kind. Showed me his paper.”

  “And you allowed yourself to get taken in by it?”

  “In my job you get taken in all the time.”

  I paused.

  “I suppose you know all about his Let’s-Make-Friends-with-Russia Society?” I asked.

  The first answer was a grin. When the grin couldn’t widen any farther, Wilton spoke through the middle of it.

  “The Old Man’s a member too,” he said. “It was called something different when he joined.”

  “And you regard it as harmless?”

  The grin faded.

  “Not a bit,” Wilton answered. “Just irrelevant.”

  I’d had enough of that.

  “Then what about Kimbell?” I demanded. Here Wilton shook his head.

  “Bad lot,” he said. “Never tells the truth. You noticed that?”

  “I’ve noticed that he resigned from that chess game when he was clearly winning,” I replied. “That seemed a bit strange.”

  It was a shot in the dark really. Because I didn’t know enough about Emperor Chess to be able to tell whether he was winning or just arranging the pieces. But the shot failed to rattle Wilton.

  “Silly, wasn’t it?” he said.

  I paused.

  “Didn’t know you played chess,” I said.

  “Didn’t know you played golf,” Wilton answered.

  “Why did you tell him he was losing?”

  “Wanted to know what he’d say. Very tricky these chess players.”

  “And did he say it?” Wilton nodded.

  “In the end,” he replied. “It’s rather a sad case. Just nerves. That’s why he had to give up tournament play. It was a perfectly straightforward game.”

  “Then perhaps you know everything about Bansted, too?” I asked.

  Wilton shook his head.

  “Not very much,” he said. “They’re all the same, those Bisley characters. Too fond of firearms. But he shouldn’t carry that revolver of his about with him. Gives quite the wrong impression.”

  “It does rather,” I agreed. “So do his dinner companions.”

  Wilton raised his eyebrows. “I know,” he said. “He’s for it.”