The Tide Can't Wait (15 page)

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Tommy. I need to protect myself before I do anything.”

He rubbed his knuckles lightly against the side of her head. “All solved. We go to London and make a night of it.”

“Tommy!” She could not keep the disappointment from her voice.

“No arguments.” He looked down at her with a mock-frown. “If you do as you originally planned, as Leon wants you to—then you're with Barr, where he can get at you. What kind of guy is he really? What would Leon do if the situation were reversed and he wanted vital information you had?”

She began to see what he was driving at. She said, “Leon is a fanatic, Tommy. He'd do—anything.”

“And Barr? Isn't Barr a fanatic for his side?”

She recalled Barr's words, his flat statements, his expression. Not a fanatic in the same sense, perhaps, but a man dedicated. A man to whom the job and the results came first. Portia had said that; Portia should know.

“In his own way,” she admitted.

“Then,” Tommy said, “don't be where Barr can get at you easily. Make him come to you. Right?”

She began to see. “I wanted to go to London,” she admitted, “but I didn't know what to do after I got there. You're right, Tommy.”

“And you'll have old T. Price in the background to protect you.”

She shook her head firmly. “No, Tommy. You're my escort and that's all. Please, nothing more than that.”

“Sure,” he said amiably. “I'll amble about with you and when things get tough, I'll crawl under the nearest table and bark.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Maybe there won't be any trouble. Let's leave it there for now, shall we?”

“All right, Tommy. Thanks.”

They rose and started down the path toward the inn. When they reached it, he said, “We'll collect your luggage and take off. But have you figured out how to let Barr know where you are? He can't just hunt all over London for you.”

Lenny said, “I'll scribble a note to Portia. She can tell him.”

“Make it good and cryptic,” he said. “Let Barr stew over it.”

“I will not,” she retorted. “I want him to know how urgent the whole matter is.”

She took a sheet of paper and sat at the writing desk provided by Doddsby. She wrote:

Portia, I changed my mind and am going to London with Tommy Price to do the night clubs. Please tell Rob for me. Also tell him that Leon was waiting at his cottage. He talked a good deal to me about his plans, which are maturing rapidly.

That was enough, she decided. She let Tommy read it, and he grinned in satisfaction.

“That should bring him on the run. Now for the big city.”

From the Bentley, Lenny watched the village recede and for a moment she felt an emptiness and then fear. It had promised so much peace, so much quiet. And there was the little church which she really hadn't had a chance to study.

She said, “Tommy, promise I can come back again.”

He took a hand from the wheel and dropped it casually over hers. “Guaranteed.”

• • •

At eleven o'clock that morning, Barr was crossing Westminister Bridge. He had stopped on the south side of the Thames to call Johnny Griggs, and when he left the telephone booth, he was both pleased and puzzled.

He was pleased because Griggs told him that Tommy Price was getting ready to leave his flat and go somewhere; he was puzzled because, according to Griggs, Price had not reached the ocean last night until after two in the morning. And yet Barr had been willing to swear that the man on the bluff with the silenced rifle had been Price.

Last night, Griggs had trailed Price into London and had followed him to Soho, Golder's Green, and to Hammersmith, Price in a state of obvious excitement. That made no more sense to Barr than did the fact that at two o'clock, Price had returned to the ocean and had gone to Portia's cottage, peered through the windows and then returned to his car and his flat in London.

Barr drove slowly to give Price a chance to leave his flat. When he arrived at the address—parking a block away—he found the garage empty. The street was quiet, with two small children playing with a dog some distance down and a lone woman walking in the other direction. There were no other signs of life. Barr stepped to the door and rang the bell underneath the neatly lettered card:
t
.
price.

There was no answer to his ring, nor any other sound but the faint echo of door chimes from above. Barr took a ring of keys from his pocket. The third one appeared to have possibilities and he gave a sharp twist. He swore softly. The lock had given way with a snap. He had broken Price's lock.

He went on up a flight of stairs to a landing where he met a second locked door. This yielded and he got inside without damage. Satisfied that it was empty, he shut the door behind him and looked around.

Even with draperies drawn against the daylight, Barr had no trouble seeing that he was in an expensively and somewhat ornately furnished flat. The furniture was heavy, showing a good deal of polished wood. With the exception of the painting over the fireplace mantel, the entire motif was plainly Spanish Colonial. Barr spent some time before the painting, lips pursed in a whistle of surprise.

He made a quick survey of the flat—bedroom, kitchen, bath, and study. He stopped in the latter and studied the books which filled the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that covered one wall. The books were mostly reference works, fine editions, and rare items. The large desk in the center of the room was inundated by papers which seemed to contain reference notes. The contents of the papers did not amaze Barr, but the amount of them did. Price had not struck him as either old enough or diligent enough to have gathered together so much research material.

Sitting down, he began a systematic search of the material on the desk. After scanning a pair of treatises, he found something and began to read carefully. The more he read, the wider grew his grin. Finally he laid down the paper.

“I'll be damned,” he murmured. It was good to know where you stood when you faced an adversary with the brains and imagination obviously possessed by Tommy Price.

He spent more time going through the desk drawers and the lone filing cabinet. All that Barr could conclude was that T. Price was genuinely a student of English Literature and that he specialized in W. H. Hudson and other fictionalized biography. Hudson, as Barr recalled, had been an Englishman raised in South America and his writings had been almost wholly about that continent.

Barr returned to his car and drove the few blocks to his own flat. Here he used the telephone. He rustled up a quick lunch and was washing it down with a bottle of beer when there was a skipping knock on his door.

He opened up to find Stark there, a broad grin beneath his drooping yellow mustache. “I got your message and brought you a present.” He stepped aside to reveal a short, nervous-looking man with a face almost blank behind a pair of thick-lensed glasses.

“Snyder!”

“I smell beer,” Snyder said by way of greeting.

They went in, Stark heading for the refrigerator where he located a half-dozen bottles of beer. He returned to the living room. “This one walked in last night as calm as you please.”

“And where did he go?” Barr asked curiously. “On vacation?”

“You might say,” Snyder agreed. He took a bottle of beer as Stark snapped off the cap. “I've been on the Continent. You won't believe this, but you told me to go there.”

“I told you
what?”

“That's what he keeps telling me,” Stark said sourly. “That the night you ran Helgos across the Irish Sea, you called him up and sent him to the Italian Riviera.”

“You did,” Snyder said stubbornly. “Just before I was going to the plane, you rang me up. You gave me the signal, name, number, code—and it was your voice.” He answered Barr's look with a glare. “Damn it, how long have we worked together?”

“Okay,” Barr said. “And what did I tell you to do?”

“Contact Sandra Croyer—you remember that little redhead Leon used when he was in France. You said to contact her and wait for instructions. So I did. But no instructions. Things smelled like they were getting warm and I hopped it back to see what was going on.”

Barr drank some beer. “Sounds like more of Price's work,” he said to Stark. “He puts Helgos on me and gets Snyder out of the way. Then when we release Helgos, Price kills him. If he wanted Snyder out of the way so badly, why not kill him, too?”

“Sounds like a cute fellow,” Stark commented. “Who is he?”

“From the same tribe as Roget.” Barr told them what Griggs had reported to him and what he had learned just that morning. “Along with writing articles and taking notes, he's compiled a wonderful file of information on their precious country.” He had to laugh, remembering. “He even does fictionalized biography in the style of W. H. Hudson in which he incorporates all of this information. That way he has access to it and at the same time protects it from prying eyes.”

“Unless they happen to be prying ones like yours,” Stark remarked.

Barr grinned in mock-modesty. “Just luck that I studied the same field. Anyway, I get the feeling that Price has probably been out of the country since he was a small child. Although,” he added thoughtfully, “it could be family-engendered patriotism. He's just about the age to have been born when the big exile took place. At any rate, he's got enough information in the one article I read to blow that part of Latin America to the moon and back.”

Stark and Snyder had stopped grinning. Barr went on: “I piece it out this way—Price's family went to the United States, as Roget's went to France—and took American names just as Roget's took French names. When Roget needed help in the States he went to where Price was teaching school. Lenny Corey shows up and they see a real plum ripe for the picking. Price steers her onto Roget and lets nature take its course, and they get an unwitting ally.

“When we step in, Roget realizes she can't be trusted. But by then she's over here, thanks to us. So Price steps in as the old Stateside friend and squires her around. Apparently she's just as simple as she was back in San Francisco—she's busy telling Price everything she knows.”

“For God's sake,” Stark said. “Can't you stop her?”

“If I could trust her, yes,” Barr said. “She practically saved my neck last night but I still can't be sure.” He told them about it.

“If I warn her and she trots to Price, then he'll know we're tipped off about him. As it stands, I think he figures he's in the clear with us. Get it—Roget is expendable because here's Price all ready to move in. Hell, Roget may even be a blind when the contact comes. We chase him and Price moves in and makes the exchange. We lose the contact again—and we're no better off than before and one hell of a lot closer to having hell break loose down south.”

Stark said hopefully, “I know we can't up and shoot this Price just on Johnny Griggs' evidence, but I know someone who can.”

“And scare Roget away?”

“I suppose so. Then it looks as if we'll have to split ourselves in halves to make enough of us to do all the work.”

“Nope,” Snyder said. He sucked on his beer, eyes twinkling behind his thick glasses. “Now where I was, I had beautiful weather and lots of interesting information.”

“Sandra Croyer!” Barr said, remembering. “Well?”

“We spent some time together,” Snyder said in a reminiscent tone. “You know how close-mouthed the girl is—still carrying a hot place in her heart for Roget. Money couldn't buy me anything, but some expensive and illegal absinthe did. That and my charm, of course.”

“Of course,” Barr agreed. He was thinking that if Snyder didn't have anything concrete, he didn't know where they were going to go. He couldn't think of a way to handle all the alternate possibilities Price's coming into the affair presented.

“The contact is to be made tomorrow night,” Snyder said in soft triumph. “Here in London.”

“Tomorrow! Where? Who?”

“She didn't know.” He burped beer. “And what you were telling me about the characters in the launch has rung a bell. From something Sandra said, I gather that those three were sent by the contact. That launch came over here from the Continent with orders to get you. I heard that last night, and that's one of the reasons I'm here.”

“They missed,” Barr said sourly. He was turning this over in his mind. Neat, he thought, so neat. If they had got him, then one of their opposition was eliminated. Since they hadn't, he was supposed to figure that someone else besides Roget was in the deal because he knew—as everyone did—that Roget couldn't hire any men.

Barr put it into words. “And while I yap around after this someone else, the contact is made and Roget goes off.”

“Could be,” Snyder agreed. “All I know is that the boys on the launch have made more than one trip. I even had a look at them between times—courtesy of Sandra.”

“Well?”

“Three French citizens,” Snyder said. “Boys who've been running things across the Mediterranean since the war. One of them is a famous modern pirate, I gathered—a big blond, originally Dutch. The other two are probably just crew.”

“One could be the contact,” Barr said hopefully.

“Could be,” Snyder agreed, “except that it's a risky way for him to travel. Or maybe he's here under our noses, waiting for the right moment.”

“Which is tomorrow night,” Stark reminded them.

Barr rubbed his knuckles reflectively. “A big blond. No wonder I thought I was fighting with Price.”

Stark mulled this over. “Just how do you know it was Price who got Snyder out of the way and put Helgos in Roget's place? Maybe it was this other blond.”

“No,” Barr said. “Griggs told me about Helgos—he went straight to Price's place when we turned him loose. As for the other—I found our serial numbers, code numbers, and signal all in Price's notes.”