The Mind Readers (31 page)

Some of this feeling was contributed directly by Drasil Vaughan-Jenner, who had taken Martin's seat between Luke and Campion and was muttering to the Superintendent as though he believed himself in church. His appearance was still jaunty but there was anxiety in his bright Welsh eyes and his voice was hard put to it to keep its natural laughter.

‘My Great Man has thrown Lord Ludor out of his house, locked the front door, pulled down all the blinds and sent me to be eaten instead,' he was saying. ‘The position seems to be that either the devices which your people have collected are not the ones which Paggen Mayo took from the children, or else they have been so damaged in the interim as to be almost past reconstruction.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that, sir.' Luke's cageyness had turned his voice into a growl. ‘I called in at headquarters on my way down from Saltbridge and I saw them and identified them. They looked in no worse condition than when I first saw them. They were very dirty but they always were.'

‘That's what we heard.' The young man was eyeing him anxiously. ‘But when they were cleaned and freed from dust and adhesive they appeared . . . Superintendent, the experts wondered if you could have been mistaken. You were absolutely sure, were you?'

‘As sure as anybody can be without having marked them. I didn't try one on again.'

‘Ah.' Drasil hesitated and decided on complete confidence. ‘What has happened is this; first of all Lord Ludor seems to have had difficulty in getting the authorities to realise that the things were not merely pieces of evidence against some foreign agent they happened to have picked up. In fact I believe the police wouldn't part with them at all, at first. To get round that difficulty Lord Ludor had them examined by experts in London, and it's the preliminary report from these people which has just come through by telephone. They say, quite frankly, that they think somebody has been pulling somebody else's leg.' He laughed uncomfortably. ‘Our information is that you tried one and so did Mayo and got, or thought you got, some reaction, but that the only others to use them were the children who, of course, are not reliable.'

Luke's black eyes were fierce under their triangular brows. ‘Canon Avril tried one.'

‘Ah yes, but he's very old and he was asleep or dreaming, wasn't he? We got that from the original report made, I suppose, by you?'

Mr Campion was listening to him chattering and was thinking that he was not being offensive so much as pleading for a break. Down in the theatre he could see the great tweed-covered back and thought he detected an element of relaxation in it.

‘Is it Lord Ludor's idea that the whole thing is a hoax?' Luke demanded, and despite the one-way-round arrangement Drasil peered through his peephole anxiously.

‘I'm not doubting you, Superintendent,' he said wearily. ‘And Professor Tabard is absolutely certain that you experienced just exactly the sensations you describe. They're entirely what he would expect, he says. But the idea of a swindle or a leg-pull has gone through Lord Ludor's mind. If that proved to be the answer he would be disappointed but he'd overlook the inconvenience.'

‘I see, sir.'

‘You don't, Super!' Drasil spoke from the heart. ‘To speak utterly off the record, at this moment the poor nits in Town are trying to repair one of the things and to analyse the other, with the police interfering at every stage. And all they've got hold of, as far as they can see, are a pair of ordinary inexpensive amplifiers out of a small foreign transistor set.'

‘There was no mistake about the thing I tried.'

‘I know. I know.' Drasil's muttering was a soothing dapple of sound. ‘Mayo was taken in, certainly, and lost his life because of it, poor chap. We are only wondering if, as you're not experienced in these things, something else, say a small battery, could have been incorporated without. . . .'

Mr Campion ceased to listen and turned up the sound from the auditorium below.

The Spark was still keeping his voice down to the passionate murmuring which Lord Ludor appeared to invoke.

‘On my affidavit,' he was repeating, using the old-fashioned term as if it were sacred. ‘There's no adult in that flat except the English girl. Mrs Rubari left before we got there and the first thing we picked up yesterday morning was the kid, Henri they call him, talking about her. She's due back on Wednesday. I know we haven't got every word that's passed, sir, but we've got a very great deal. We've kept continuous coverage and transcripts have been kept of everything that could be thought at all relevant. . . .'

‘By whom?' Mr Campion almost jumped. He had forgotten Lord Ludor's voice in that mood.

‘By me, sir.' The solid west country tone was as uncompromising as his own.

Lord Ludor laughed. He seemed pleased. ‘There are no adults there except the English teacher, governess or whatever she is, and only the two boys? But that second boy is the son of Gregoire of Daumier's. Every word uttered in that apartment may be going straight to them, you know that?'

‘I know it isn't, sir.'

‘How?'

‘I've put a Groten-Forbes Two-way on it. If there was anything at all going out from there I should know.'

‘They could be doing it openly. With direct lines.'

‘Not without me detecting something.'

‘You seem very sure of yourself.'

‘I ruddy . . . I am, sir.'

‘Huh.' Ludor stirred himself and nudged the girl at his side.

‘How much of the recordings he brought back have you checked?'

‘I've glanced through these I've got here.' Her voice was soothing like Merle's. ‘There doesn't seem to be much of interest except this test at five o'clock. They keep mentioning that.'

‘Have both boys got one of these damn things?' He was still suspicious, prowling round the idea and loathe to leave it.

‘It seems so. They don't talk about them in front of the English girl, and they may be purely imaginary; you know how children play at make-believe. She seems to be an employee of Gregoire's. She is merely visiting with the younger boy and minding the flat and young Rubari while his mother and her maid are away.'

‘How old is this Gregoire child?'

‘A little over ten, I think. Henri Rubari is twelve.'

Lord Ludor's laugh was secretive and snorting in the quiet. ‘You think it's all a damn silly goose-chase, don't you? So do I! Silly little beggars!'

The girl hesitated and then, leaning towards him, murmured something. He bent an ear to her and glanced towards Sam. The older Ferrises did not notice. They were talking and it was evident to Mr Campion, looking down on them, that listeners up in the projection room, served as they were by many microphones, could hear much more than individual groups in the auditorium.

‘No,' muttered Ludor, watching to see if they heard him. ‘The mother is playing up a bit. I want him here in case he can help us locate the elder boy from any evidence that comes in.'

‘He's too young,' she said.

‘No one is too young if he's useful, but he's gone a bit potty or so the mother says. Pretty girl, don't you think?'

The blonde glanced at Helena and shrugged her shoulders and coloured but it was a reaction which escaped Mr Campion, for at that moment he noticed something much more significant.

For some time Sam, who was sitting on a stool, had been staring in front of him with the curiously blank expression of one who is not thinking at all. Now, exactly as if someone had commanded it, he woke up, smiled serenely and intelligently and then put a finger through his hair and made his eyes cross into an expression of idiocy as naughty little children sometimes do. Finally, he turned his back ostentatiously on Ludor and began exploring the canvas roll which ran round the angle where the floor met the wall, kicking it idly until his mother stopped him.

‘It's just on five, sir.' The Spark returned to Lord Ludor from a conference with Thos, who was still in the doorway.
‘It's coming through very clear just now. We've got it spot-on; would you like it in here, live?'

‘I think so.' Lord Ludor was at his most affable. Having spent his rage at the American cable on Professor Tabard himself, the bad news from the London experts appeared to have soothed him. There was still a strong aura of uncertainty about him and no one else in the room had relaxed, but he himself was at ease, disporting himself with his minions. ‘The Father Ape Figure', thought Mr Campion and was rather pleased with himself.

‘What are they doing now?' Ludor enquired of the room at large.

‘It's that woman again,' Thos so far forgot himself as to speak direct. ‘Keeps nagging them.'

‘Young Rubari has hurt his hand; he shut it in a drawer.' The Spark intervened hastily. ‘The governess says he can't manage a horse with it all tied up and she's trying to get the name of the livery stable out of him so that she can telephone and cancel his riding lesson for tomorrow morning. He's an obstinate little devil. There's been a lot of argy-bargy all day.'

‘I thought you said she wasn't his governess?'

‘She's not. She's come with the Daumier kid as a sort of minder. She's not much like any governess I ever saw.'

‘Have you much experience?'

The Spark hesitated and Mr Campion, who was looking down directly at him, caught a glimpse of the flicker between the thick bald folds of his lids. However, he avoided temptation and spoke evenly. ‘I think she's “au pair”, really,' he said. ‘One of our boys saw her nip out to post a letter. He says she's very young and got spectacles. Her job is keeping the boys talking English and answering the 'phone.'

‘Also bossing young Rubari who wants to ride. What business is it of hers?' Ludor sounded as if he might resent it personally. ‘Well, come on. Let's hear something.'

The Spark nodded to Thos who nodded to someone in the inner room, and immediately a very definite London suburban voice spoke from a bronze grill in the wall:

‘Ay think you should, actually Henri. It's getting late. The place may shut, and if you can't ride tomorrow you'll have wasted your money. Believe me I do know about riding. All my people . . .'

‘It's five o'clock,' a crisp, polite young voice interrupted. ‘Pliz mademoiselle, you promised. . . .'

‘All right, Gregoire, but why can't I stay?'

‘Because your glasses will get in the way.' A third voice, laughing and slightly cruel, burst into the room and turned into wheezes and chuckles and the chimes of the hour from a drawing room clock. Sam tugged Helena's arm.

‘That's old Rubari. . . .'

‘Quiet, dear.'

‘Ay shall go and ring all the livery stables in Paris. . . .'

‘You can't because the telephone is in here. . . .'

‘Then you'll have to play in the other room. . . .'

‘I shall take your glasses; then you can't read the telephone book. . . .'

‘Henri! Go away! Henri! . . . .'

‘Oh pliz, mademoiselle. You gave your word. . . .' The younger voice was frantic.

‘Do go away yourself, dear.' Rubari sounded smothered. ‘And keep your glasses
off
, you look much better without them.'

‘Henri! You'll break them. Henri!'

‘Oh pliz! Longfox will be waiting. Oh pliz.'

‘Henri, don't kiss me. It's not nice, you're too young. . . . Very well, since you're so beastly I'll give you ten minutes here, by yourselves.'

A burst of interference, several ominous clicks and screeches and the sound of a slamming door held up the sound and Ludor began to laugh.

‘What is all this costing your firm, Knapp?'

Thos shot a baleful glance at his partner who waved him silent, and presently the loudspeaker became dominant once more.

‘. . . hurry.' Gregoire's clear tones were tense with anxiety. ‘We are late. Henri, have you the message? You have it written down, have you not?'

‘I hate that filthy girl. I want to ride tomorrow.'

‘Why?'

‘Oh hell! Because I want to.'

‘All right. Don't be so passionate. Let us do this first. It is nearly seven minutes past the hour. Now. We will both think suddenly together:
“A clown bursting through a paper hoop holding a bottle”
. Can you see it in your mind? In colour, pliz.'

‘Yes, of course I can. I can see it with my eyes, out there on the hoarding.'

‘That is not the same. It must be in our minds, I think. Shut your eyes. Now then. We will both think quickly together;
“a clown jumping through a hoop holding a bottle and the word is
. . .”'

‘That's not fair. One never gets words. Longfox says . . .'

‘Never mind. We will try. Now: We are trying to tell you, Longfox:
A clown jumping through a hoop holding a bottle and the word is “Prosit”!'

In its own limited way the performance was impressive. The experimenters were absorbed and Lord Ludor sat with his big head slightly on one side and his deep round eyes turned darkly upon the grille.

‘Now.' Gregoire was still in command. ‘We must write down the time by my watch. Put it there. Oh come, Henri! You are only thinking of that ride. It is not even your horse. Stop it! What is the use of hitting . . .'

‘Very well.' Rubari was attempting to be civil. ‘Five-thirteen. Get it right. Now what do we do?'

‘Now we put on our own iggies and we wait for Edward Longfox. . . .'

‘I don't want to, very much. I hate the iggies; they hurt like the birdhouse in the zoo.'

‘That is only because you are getting so old so quickly. But you must try, because although I am so good at it, don't forget I do not know this Longfox yet, and I have to pick him out. Have you got that stuck? Is it warm?'

There was a pause followed by an explosive giggle. ‘If she sees all this muck on me she'll want to wash me, I bet you!'