The Mind Readers (9 page)

He realised that he must make a clean breast of it, if only in the interest of science.

‘I was trying to remind you of the pub where they served peacock,' he said unhappily. ‘Then it came into my mind that I was a clot for choosing it. I didn't send embarrassment. I felt it.'

Luke sat blinking. ‘If emotions come through from outside as well as the thought, it would account for a lot,' he said presently. ‘I thought they were all mine and it scared me stiff.'

‘Sam said that Mr Pellett's “sucks to you!” was what he called a “feel”,' Avril remarked. ‘Emotion is a force. It could be the propelling one.'

Luke was still trying himself out, moving his head about and stretching his fingers.

‘It's a horror,' he said. ‘I couldn't have isolated anything. It was total chaos, confusion.'

‘So is an untuned radio set,' murmured Mr Campion.

‘This was much worse than that. I wouldn't try it again and I wouldn't let you, not without a doctor. One could be driven stark staring bonkers by this. It's
awful
.'

‘Yet you weren't aware of anything at all until you relaxed.'

‘That's right!' He was surprised. ‘While I was trying to receive I didn't get a thing. As soon as I gave up, it all leapt on me like a pack of wolves. If those children can sort out one person and one thought from that lot they're geniuses . . . or perhaps they've got another gadget. What about that?'

‘That is it!' said the Canon suddenly. ‘That explains why it suits the children and no one else. Their gadget will be built in. The younger you are the fewer people you know, the fewer emotions you arouse and the fewer facts of which you are aware. Children don't receive as much as you do. One can't recognise what one doesn't know.'

Luke was watching him curiously.

‘The kids only receive what they know? Getaway! What about all the rest of it? That's enough to frighten anyone out of his wits if he recognises it or not! Toller alone . . .'

‘I don't think so.' Avril was gently adamant. ‘The less you know the less you are afraid of the unknown. An infant can listen for his mother's voice in a babel and never miss it; it's the only one which makes any sense, the only one he hears.'

Luke digested the announcement. Then he laughed.

‘I'm too old for it,' he said. ‘Thank God!' And added after a pause. ‘What are we going to do about it?'

Mr Campion met his eyes. ‘I was thinking. How do you feel?'

‘It'll have to
be
reported.' Luke said at last. ‘“Can be worn by young children for long stretches but terrified Detective Superintendent into a coma in less than one half minute.” That'll look well in triplicate!'

The matter was still unresolved when Helena came in to tell them that the children were in bed and there was cold food in the parlour. But later still, when the meal was over and was being cleared away, Mr Campion went after Luke who had gone to take a call on the main house telephone from which each floor had an extension. It was housed unexpectedly in the cloakroom, a need overlooked by the original builders and constructed at a later date partly from a cupboard under the hall stairs and partly from a butler's pantry half a floor below. Its design, though practical, was unusual and Campion sat on the short flight of stairs which was one of its features and listened to Luke, who was washing in an alcove under the window.

‘That was from my office,' the Superintendent said. He was a little aggrieved. ‘Your pals at Security have asked if we'll drop the whole matter of the attempted kidnapping this afternoon. Drop it flat. Just like that. Exactly as they must have called off the school libel suit. No explanation. Hardly a “please”.'

‘I'm not surprised.'

‘Aren't you? Then they know who the woman was?'

‘My dear chap, I had to wait until you were officially informed but a report did come in when I was in their office.'

‘Did it! And who was she?

‘A not very beautiful spy, or so I was given to understand.'

‘So Sam was right?'

‘It seems so. She is very small-time but is classed as an agent. A car belonging to an Embassy was waiting at the top of the ramp. When she appeared without the children but with someone after her it drove off.'

‘Security must have had someone tailing her. He chased her up into the street and lost her.'

‘He wasn't tailing
her
. He'd been called off his assignment, which was watching the school. He'd been on the train and had seen the whole incident. He recognised the woman. She's British-with-a-chip and works at one of the bookshops.'

‘Why was there a security watch on the school? Or mustn't I ask? Upon my soul, you chaps get my goat. You must spend pounds.'

Mr Campion shrugged his shoulders. ‘It was a routine business. Back in the summer a young man whose name was on the American list of doubtfuls applied for and got a job as junior science master at St Josephus. It seemed quite pointless until someone noticed that among the new boys there was a child from a Research Station, Sam. It still seemed rather ridiculous but the Head was tipped off and the young man left.'

‘Why was the watch kept on?'

Mr Campion scratched his ear. ‘I don't know. The boy was still there, I suppose.'

Luke laughed. ‘Money to burn, your lot!' he said. ‘You knew all about these things the kids have got, then?'

‘I didn't.' Mr Campion spoke fervently. ‘What is more I don't, and I shall be amazed if anybody else in our line of country has any ideas.'

‘It seems as if the other side has had an inkling.' Luke was peering through a towel, his crisp black curls bristling. ‘It's a Godley baby, of course?'

‘It must be, I suppose.' Mr Campion sounded very uncertain. ‘I know Paggen Mayo is thought to have some sort of electronic device up his sleeve to take the place of something else they had which seems to have petered out—I don't know what it was. But the latest reports are that it's a long way from completion. If this is it, he's succeeded far beyond anyone's wildest hopes and to keep so quiet about it is out of character both in him and Lord Ludor. That's why I'm against you reporting it.'

‘I don't see how I can help it.'

‘You can, you know. The kidnapping enquiry has been called off. This has nothing to do with you. Look, Charles, if you turn those things in, what will happen to them? They'll go to the Special Branch who will contact us and we shall then have to send them straight to Godley's through open—or at least orthodox—channels. That's so, isn't it?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Well, is it wise? I think you may be right about the possibility of inter-team rivalry down there. We may have stumbled on Catherine Wheels within Catherine Wheels and that can so easily lead to rockets all round, if I make myself plain. Let me try and handle it.'

Luke did not reply immediately. Finally he shook his head.

‘Someone other than Godley's knows something,' he said, ‘or the attempt to get hold of the kids couldn't have been made. What makes you so certain they're safe now?'

‘My information is that this particular Interested Party never sticks its neck out through the same bullet hole twice.'

Luke grunted. ‘You do know each other, don't you! You all sit and play Happy Families together, no doubt.' He was peering through the curtain out at the square and spoke over his shoulder. ‘No one very obvious about out here. There's a white cat. Oh yes, and an enthusiastic courting couple. If they're in your employ you're paying them too much. They're enjoying themselves!'

Mr Campion yawned. ‘More likely the Enemy . . . one watching the other.'

‘That's right.' Luke had cheered. ‘Now I see them more clearly, he's got a pig-tail and she's stamping snow off her boots. Hello!' He craned forward with great interest but a moment later dropped back into the room and let the curtains close. ‘It was only the old End of the World man going home. I couldn't think what the hell he
was,
for a moment. He's taking a short cut. He lives somewhere round the back here.'

‘Is that the sinister figure in the insanitary cowl who slips up the stairs beside the Church at dusk?' Mr Campion was interested. ‘I often see him. He carries his banner face downward; is the work done elsewhere?'

‘In the shopping centre as a rule. Oxford Street, Wigmore Street. Round there. Sometimes the real West End.' Luke spoke almost fondly. London characters fascinated him. ‘
“Death to You All and Good Luck—You'll Need It
!” That's his message or something very like it. His name is Deeds, always called “Good” Deeds of course. We're forever pulling him in to give him a cupper and see how his poor chest is and if he's been to the Assistance Board lately. He doesn't beg, he's got a tiny war wound pension and one of the Nut Societies employs him from time to time to give away pamphlets. . . .'

‘Albert?' Helena was calling from the hall. ‘Uncle Hubert has tried one of those things and . . .'

‘Oh
no
!' Luke sprang to the doorway. ‘It could kill him. The
silly
old boy!'

Mr Campion followed with less anxiety. He had no illusions about Uncle Hubert's nervous stamina and was not surprised to see him sitting behind his desk with Amanda at his side, his face only slightly flushed and that, apparently, with guilt.

‘I agree. I should have told someone first,' he was saying. ‘It was very stupid of me but you were quite right, a most remarkable experience. It was five past ten when I awoke. I slept in the end.'

The mild answer had had its effect and Luke sat down deflated. ‘I think you'll find you passed out,' he said.

‘No, Charles. It was sleep. I dreamed. Besides, I was being most careful. Don't forget I'd seen your reaction which was most alarming, but I noticed that it was only when you ceased to concentrate that the impressions began to bombard you.'

‘Bombard is right!'

‘I know. I saw. So I concentrated in the only way I am able, keeping my mind on words I know well, and I edged my mind out, so to speak, to meet the impact. It was like sharpening a chisel. Did you feel that? The mind touched the grating wheel and the sparks flew for a second or so and then, as I concentrated on the words again, I escaped. This went on, backwards and forwards, until I slept. Concentration is very exhausting and when one is old one drops off to sleep at any provocation, I find. I woke with a tremendous start—you know how one does sometimes? And I found I was thinking of Martin and feeling dismay at something long expected. Some dreadful thing he feared seemed to have happened at last. Then the cacophony—I can't call it anything else—flooded over me again and I just had the sense to pull the thing away. The impression has remained, though. Martin and a sort of surprised dismay that something dreaded had really occurred.'

‘Uncle Hubert wants us to telephone the island,' Helena explained nervously. ‘But I don't know. It might make a lot of trouble. All calls are monitored and I haven't even spoken to Martin yet about the children's adventure. . . .'

This rather extraordinary fact which had escaped the Superintendent made him turn to look at her. Now that her first terror was allayed, and she no longer saw Sam and Edward as some fearful potential version of the Drummond twins, her natural intelligence had reasserted itself. She looked magnificent, a splendid blonde animal with plenty of courage and commonsense.

‘There is a flap on down there at the moment. It began to show at a VIP luncheon they had this morning. I've just been telling Uncle Hubert. I think I must have been deliberately prevented from meeting the children and that does look as if there's someone there in league with the woman who tried to get hold of them.'

‘Or the people who sent her,' Luke agreed. ‘When you say “a flap on” do you mean that some sort of directive was sent round?'

Helena hesitated. ‘It's not quite that sort of place,' she said awkwardly. ‘It's more like a fashion house behind the scenes or a theatrical company. All very small and whispery and knives in the back.'

‘Jealousy,' Avril observed without censoriousness. ‘It's the occupational disease of creation, I'm afraid. Even Jehovah you know.'

‘People at the luncheon seemed jumpy, did they?' Luke ignored the interruption. Avril often shocked him a little.

‘They did. Paggen had been sent for by Lord Ludor before it began. He was expecting to be asked if he hadn't something to show and he was prepared to stick his toes in, but when we saw him again it was obvious that it hadn't been anything so simple as that.

‘All the VIPs were rattled. Lord Ludor was making faces. The American admiral was looking down his nose, the English general seemed explosive and everybody else was fidgety. Martin didn't tell me much because he thinks we ought to obey the rules, and so he never does. But the way he spoke, when he sent me off to the station at last, made it pretty clear that there was going to be trouble and he was glad that Sam and I would be out of it. That's why I don't want to telephone. I don't want to call attention to us.'

‘Helena. Do you think Sam is something to do with the excitement down there?' Amanda, who had been unnaturally withdrawn throughout the proceedings, now put the question directly. ‘Do you think he has somehow got hold of something he shouldn't, and has given it—or lost it—to someone outside?'

The younger woman regarded her squarely.

‘Sam said something odd when I was putting him to bed. He was pretending that he didn't care if his “iggy-tube” was taken away, because he said one of them had been confiscated before but its use hadn't been understood and it had been returned——'

‘Did he say that was done by a young science master who didn't stay long?' Luke enquired without looking at Campion.