All that took place on a Wednesday. And by the following Friday, the Inspector had something more than size five plimsolls to worry about. He very nearly had a murderâ Gillett's murderâto investigate. Someone up on the moor had been practising with a firearm and had apparently happened to let it off when Gillett had been passing right in front of the sights.
It was only bad marksmanship, or possibly the blinding effect of Gillett's profile when viewed through the little aperture that had saved him. But it certainly left him shaken. For once he forgot to look his best when he told us about it. “Too damn near for my liking,” was what he said. And having said it, he kept repeating it.
What he didn't know was that it had been too damn near for my liking, too. The report had seemed to come from just over the other side of a small hillock where I happened to be resting. I was assistant-on-duty in the lab. at the time, and had just slipped out for a breather. But I couldn't very well say anything. It would only have worried the Director if he had thought that the discipline on the routine side of the Institute was getting shaky.
There were, however, two other witnesses to the shot. Dr. Mann was one of them. But he, poor fellow, hardly counted
because he was always hearing Vi's and distant explosions and things that didn't reach anybody else's ears, and he wouldn't have been credited even if he'd been the one who was fired at. The other witness, however, was Bansted, our Bisley man. And he insisted that it was a Luger or something of the kind that he had heard. The report, he said, had come from somewhere not more than half a mile from where he had been himself, and must have been a close-range job. That sounded reasonable enough because the afternoon had been distinctly misty, with visibility of not much more than about a hundred yards. But that in turn showed that the shot couldn't have been all that casual. Someone must have been just sitting there waiting for it.
That was Gillett's view of the situation. And it was Hilda's view too. But what didn't make sense was that it was still apparently Una that she was most worried about. Or was she? I couldn't get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that she didn't care two hoots for Una, whereas she would have died cheerfully for Gillett whenever he asked her. But if that was so, she was certainly a pretty convincing kind of actress. And she would insist that somehow or other the shooting had increased the danger that Una was already in.
“Increased the danger?” I asked quite innocently. “You didn't say anything about danger before.”
“Oh, but it's so obvious. It's so obvious,” Hilda went on. “If you can't see it, there's nothing I can do about it. I only want you to get her away from here. That's all that you've got to do. And you've got to do it quickly.”
She was becoming about as near to hysterical as she was ever likely to be. Her colour was higher by now. And she was indulging in the short, sharp kind of breathing which is
one of the first really tell-tale signs in a woman. Then very abruptly she came right up to me.
“You can kiss me now if you like,” she said. “Only you've got to do what I ask you.”
That kiss gave me back just nothing at all. It was her cheek that she offered me, and not her lips. And, in any case, I don't like being offered a kiss as a reward for good conduct. This particular one reminded me of a jujube handed out by an exasperated mother as a last desperate attempt to get poppet to do something.
In any case, there was far too much going on for there to be any possibility of my having a
tête-à -tête
with the demure one. Gillett was guarding her like a mother-lynx with kittens. And it was suddenly Bansted who had become the centre of everything.
I must say that it certainly did look a bit fishy. Because it had suddenly come to light that when he had left the Institute on the afternoon of the shooting he had taken his rifle with him.
As soon as he heard, the Inspector was ready to whip out his book of blank arrest-warrants, or whatever the exact procedure is. The only trouble was that it was Dr. Mann who was the sole source of the information. And, on principle, the Inspector didn't believe a single word that Dr. Mann said. Also, Bansted wasn't exactly the staring, glassy-eyed kind of assassin. And the other sort don't normally march off to the chopping-up with the axe slung over their shoulder.
What, on the other hand, was rather bad was that Bansted should have forgotten to mention that he had ever had a little thing like a rifle in his raincoat pocket. An umbrella is the sort of thing that anyone could overlook. But to forget
about a rifle spells carelessness. And Bansted wasn't in the least naturally careless.
I had already arrived at some preliminary conclusions about Wilton. But for the sake of our friendship, I was careful to keep all conclusions of that kind entirely private. For the plain fact was that Wilton was past it. No doubt in his youth he had been a wizard at unravelling things. The mere name of Wilton Pasha may once have hung like a three-generation curse over every dope-peddler in the Nile delta. But in this, his Bodmin period, the wizardry had all too obviously departed. What deductions he did make were mostly pretty fumble-fingered and unsubtle.
Like the one about Hilda and me, for instance. Simply because he knew that I had once given her a lift in my car, Wilton seemed to assume that I would be buying a ring as soon as my first pool combination came out right.
“She's the religious type, isn't she?” he asked.
“That certainly is what first brought us together,” I replied.
“Ever say much about it?”
I shook my head.
“There are some things you can't put into words,” I explained. “Perhaps music comes nearest to it.”
Wilton filled up my glass for me.
“More tonic?”
I shook my head.
“Gets on well with the Vicar, doesn't she?” Wilton asked. I locked my two forefingers together.
“Like that,” I told him. “Been a second father to her.”
“Know why she left the Vicarage?”
This was where it was beginning to get difficult. Because I didn't know that she had left. I'd only had one real conversation with Hilda so far. And neither of us had thought to bring either the Vicar or the Vicarage into ft. But if Wilton wanted to talk about parish politics it was all right with me.
“It was the sermons,” I said. “Always used to go through them out loud in the room next to hers. Took all the freshness out of it on Sundays.”
“Keen churchgoer, isn't she?” he asked.
“Morning, afternoon
and
evening,” I replied. “That's more than you can say for some people.”
I'd got him on the raw there. And he knew it. But he tried to pass it off.
“Must be a good sort the Vicar,” he said vaguely.
“Fine type,” I agreed. “Grand men, these old country parsons. Son of the manse myself, you know.”
“I thought you'd get on well together,” Wilton replied. “That's why I asked him over.”
“You haven't,” I exclaimed. “How delightful.” I paused long enough to light a cigarette. “I wonder if he'll recognise me, though,” I added. “I always make a point of sitting right at the back. Less conspicuous, you know.”
“Much,” said Wilton, and left it at that.
It was the tinkle of a bicycle bell that announced that the village padre had at last toiled up here. And as I sat back waiting for him to come in, I could picture the machineâ green, probably, with a wicker basket in front and a great felt cushion strapped on to the top of the saddle.
Then the door opened and the breathless old thing tottered in. He must have been somewhere in the early thirties. At first glance he was all flashing teeth and horn-rim spectacles. Teeth particularly. His two front ones came down on to his lower lip as though a small white butterfly were resting there. And it was obvious that he was the keyed-up sort. He spoke in short, staccato sentences like a telegram, and added a little laugh in place of the full stops.
“Evening,” he began. “Got your message, ha-ha. Came straight away. Something absolutely red-hot, ha-ha. . . . ”
He saw me standing there. Then, realising that he had just been indiscreet in the presence of a total stranger, he blushed deep red like a schoolgirl. If he'd had long plaits he would probably have begun chewing at them in sheer embarrassment.
“Sorry,” he started up again. “No idea anybody here, ha-ha.”
Wilton sat him down, and made him take his goloshes off. Apparently he'd seen quite a bit of him before. Because he knew all about his habits.
“Cider?” he asked.
“Oh, rather.”
“Smoke?”
“Never use them.”
Except for indicating the gin bottle with his thumb, Wilton seemed to have forgotten all about me. His back was turned full in my direction by now, and he was concentrating on the parson.
“What's the position?” he asked.
There was a little wriggle of excitement as though the parson had been saving himself up for this bit, then the reply came.
“Worse,” he said. “Much worse, ha-ha. Last three
Sundays not a sign. Not even Communion. Resigned from Sunday School, too. Said the work was too much. All very mysterious, ha-ha.”
“Spoken to her?” Wilton asked.
I could tell from the tone of his voice that his eyes were probably closed. Wilton always did most of his questioning in a state that was only just this side of sleep.
“Tried to yesterday,” the Vicar answered. “Not satisfactory. Both on bicycles. Wouldn't wait for me.”
Wilton stretched himself. It was the creaking sound that made me look at him. And those creaks were always telltale. Whenever Wilton stretched himself it meant that he was getting bored and wanted to change the subject.
“Oh, well,” he said, “thanks for telling me. They all get a bit run down, you know. She'll probably be all right again when she's had a holiday.”
But the Vicar wasn't going to be brushed off like that.
“More to it than that, ha-ha,” he replied, going faster than ever now, as though he were delivering the telegram as well as sending it. “Real evidence this time. Only came this morning. On my way up here when you rang. Look at this.”
Out of the inside pocket of his jacket he produced a thick roll of something done up in a newspaper wrapper. The stamps, I saw, were foreign ones.
“Postman tried to push it through the letter-box,” he went on. “Too big. Got stuck, ha-ha. Wrapper torn all down one side, ha-ha. Look what it says.”
That was really too tempting. I couldn't resist the Vicar's exhibit. So I came over. And I must admit that it was interesting. Through the long slit in the wrapper the name of the journal showed plainly enough.
L' Action Communiste
was what it was.
“Ever had any like these before?” Wilton asked through a yawn.
“Rather,” the Vicar answered. “Every week. Ever since October. No idea what they were. Burned them if I'd known, ha-ha.”
“Better leave 'em with me,” Wilton told him.
But that brought out another side of the Vicar's nature.
“That all right?” he asked anxiously. “Her property, you know. Rights of the individual. Interception of letters criminal offence. Don't like being a party to it. . . . ”
“More cider?” Wilton asked.
I was still thinking about that batch of Communist literature and wishing that the Vicar hadn't gone in for counter-espionage himself, when suddenly the whole emphasis shifted. And this time it was Kimbell who came up from nowhere right into the centre of the picture.
It was the postal censorship that was behind it all. Wilton had opened quite an efficient slitting-and-steaming department in a back room in Bodmin just opposite the Co-op., and Swanton claimed indignantly that there were now big subhuman thumb-prints all over his weekly copy of the
New Statesman
.
Then the vigilance team really did turn something up. One of the chaps, who happened to be able to read, discovered that someone from the Bodmin Institute was in daily, or rather every-other daily, correspondence with an address in Vienna's Russian zone. The missing days, he found out from his colleague at the other end of the counter, were filled in by the replies that came through in the other direction as
regularly as clockwork. And when they saw that the two-way exchange was in code, they wanted to have Kimbell arrested on the spot.
Wilton invited me over the same evening. He had one of the dwarf captains still with him. He was a nice boy with a fine fresh complexion, as though he used wire-wool instead of a safety-razor. And he must have had a rather pleasant sense of humour because he called me “sir” right from the start.
There was a chessboard set out on the table and the Captain was standing over it, looking as pleased with himself as though he had just invented the game.
“It's the same as draughts, sir,” he was saying to Wilton as I came in. “There are sixty-four squares altogether. Thirty-two white ones, and thirty-two black. I've just counted.”
But I couldn't let that one pass.
“Better count 'em again,” I told him. “I think you've left one out.”
Then, before the Captain could answer Wilton beckoned me over. That is to say that he stood where he was with his back turned towards me and made a sort of scooping movement in the air with his left arm.
“You play chess?” he asked.
“I did once,” I said. “Man who taught me took up bridge almost immediately afterwards.”
“Ever heard of an 'E'?”
“Name again, please,” I said.
“An 'E.'”
I shook my head.
“Game must have changed since my time,” I told him. “I'm not surprised. It seemed to me pretty much exhausted twenty years ago.”
Wilton did his usual straightening act. Shoulders and arms and knees and things kept appearing in the most unexpected places.