“A little, not much. I gather they made out most of what was written on the form, but they couldn’t understand it, I think it must have been in code.” She broke off, wet her lips then went on gravely: “But the address was in plain language, of course.”
“Of course.” I crossed the room and stared down at her. I knew the answer to my next question, but I had to ask her. “And the address?”
“A Mr. J. C. Curtin, Federal Bureau of Investigation. That — that was really why I came. I knew I had to warn Mr. Jablonsky. I didn’t hear any more, somebody came along the passage and I slipped out a side door, but I think he’s in danger. I think he’s in great danger, Mr. Talbot.”
For the past fifteen minutes I’d been looking for a way to break the news to her, but now I gave up.
“You’re too late.” I hadn’t meant my voice to sound harsh and cold but that’s the way it sounded. “Jablonsky’s dead. Murdered.”
They came for me at eight o’clock next morning, Royale and Valentino.
I was fully dressed except for my coat and I was fastened to the bed-head by a single set of handcuffs — I’d thrown the key away together with Jablonsky’s three duplicate keys after I’d locked all the doors.
There was no reason why they should search me and I hoped as I never hoped before that they wouldn’t. After Mary had left, tear-stained, forlorn and having unwillingly promised me that no word of what had passed should be repeated to anyone, not even her father, I’d sat down and thought. All my thinking so far had been in a never-ending circle and I’d got so deep in the rut that I could hardly see daylight any more and just when my mental processes had been about to vanish completely into the darkness I’d had the first illuminating flash, in the dark gloom of my thinking a blindingly bright Sash of intuition or common sense, that I’d had since I’d come to that house. I’d thought about it for another half-hour, then I’d got a sheet of thin paper and written a long message on one side, folded it twice until it was only a couple of inches wide, sealed it with tape and addressed it to Judge Mollison at his home address. Then I’d folded it in half lengthwise, slid it over the neck-band of my tie and turned my collar down over it until it was completely hidden. When they came for me I’d had less than an hour in bed and I hadn’t slept at all.
But I pretended to be sound asleep when they came in. Somebody shook me roughly by the shoulder. I ignored it. He shook me again. I stirred. He gave up the shaking as unprofitable and used ‘the back of ‘his hand across my face, not lightly. Enough was enough. I groaned, blinked my eyes painfully and propped myself up in bed, rubbing my forehead with my free hand.
“On your feet, Talbot” Apart from the upper left-hand side of his face, a miniature sunset viewed through an indigo haze, Royale looked calm and smooth as ever, and fully rested: another dead man on his conscience wasn’t going to rob him of much sleep. Valentino’s arm, I was glad to see, was still in a sling: that was going to make my task of turning him into an ex-bodyguard all the easier.
“On your feet,” Royale repeated. “How come only one handcuff?”
“Eh?” I shook my head from side to side and made a great play of being dazed and half-doped. “What in hell’s name did I have for dinner last night?”
“Dinner?” Royale smiled his pale quiet smile. “You and your gaoler emptied that bottle between you. That’s what you had for dinner.”
I nodded slowly. He was on safe ground as far as he knew his ground; if I’d been doped I’d have only the haziest recollection of what had happened immediately before I’d passed out. I scowled at him and nodded at the handcuffs: “Unlock this damn’ thing, will you?”
“Why only one cuff?” Royale repeated gently.
“What does it matter if it’s one cuff or twenty,” I said irritably. “I can’t remember. I seem to think Jablonsky shoved me in here in a great hurry and could only find one. I think perhaps he didn’t feel too good either.” I buried my face in my hands and drew them down hard as if to clear my head and eyes. Between my fingers I glimpsed Royale’s slow nod of understanding and I knew I had it made: it was exactly what Jablonsky would have done; he’d have felt something coming over him and rushed in to secure me before he collapsed.
The cuff was unlocked and on the way through Jablonsky’s room I glanced casually at the table. The whisky bottle was still there. Empty. Royale — or Vyland — didn’t miss much.
We went out into the passage with Royale leading and Valentino bringing up the rear. I shortened my step abruptly and Valentino dug his gun into the small of my back. Nothing Valentino would do would ever be gently, but, for him, it was a comparatively gentle prod and my sharp exclamation of pain might have been justified if it had been about ten times as hard. I stopped in my tracks, Valentino bumped into me and Royale swung round. He’d done his conjuring act again and his deadly little toy gun was sitting snugly in the palm of his hand.
“What gives?” he asked coldly. No inflection, not the slightest raising of the pitch of voice. I hoped I lived to see the day when Royale was good and worried.
“This gives,” I said tightly. “Keep your trained ape out of my hair, Royale, or I’ll take him apart. Gun or no guns.”
“Lay off him, Gunther,” Royale said quietly.
“Jeez, boss, I didn’t hardly touch him.” Discounting the anthropoid brow, broken nose, pock-marks and scars, there wasn’t much room left on Valentino’s face for the shift and play of expression, but what little area remained appeared to indicate astonishment and a sharp sense of injustice. “I just gave him a little tap——”
“Sure, I know.” Royale had already turned and was on his way. “Just lay off him.”
Royale reached the head of the stairs first and was half a dozen steps down by the time I got there. Again I slowed abruptly, again Valentino bumped into me. I swung round, chopped the side of my hand against his gun-wrist and knocked the automatic to the ground. Valentino dived to pick it up with his left hand then roared in anguish as the heel of my right shoe stamped down and crushed his fingers between leather and metal. I didn’t hear any bones break, but nothing so drastic was necessary — with both his hands out of commission Mary Ruthven was going to need a new bodyguard.
I made no attempt to stoop and pick up the gun. I made no attempt to move. I could hear Royale coming slowly up the stairs.
“Move well back from that gun,” he ordered. “Both of you.”
We moved. Royale picked up the gun, stood to one side and waved me down the stairs in front of him. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking; for all the expression on his face he might just as well have been watching a leaf falling. He said nothing more, he didn’t even bother to glance at Valentino’s hand.
They were waiting for us in the library, the general, Vyland and Larry the junky. The general’s expression, as usual, was hidden behind moustache and beard but there was a tinge of blood to his eyes and he seemed greyer than thirty-six hours ago: maybe it was just my imagination, everything looked bad to me that morning. Vyland was urbane and polished and smiling and tough as ever, freshly shaven, eyes clear, dressed in a beautifully cut charcoal-grey suit, white soft shirt and red tie. He was a dream. Larry was just Larry, white-faced, with the junky’s staring eyes, pacing up and down behind the desk. But he didn’t look quite so jerky as usual; he, too, was smiling, so I concluded that he’d had a good breakfast, chiefly of heroin.
“Morning, Talbot.” It was Vyland speaking; the big-time crooks today find it just as easy to be civil to you as to snarl and beat you over the head and it pays off better. “What was the noise, Royale?”
“Gunther.” Royale nodded indifferently at Valentino, who had just come in, left hand tucked tightly under his disabled right arm and moaning with pain. “He rode Talbot too hard and Talbot didn’t like it.”
“Go off and make a noise somewhere else,” Vyland said coldly. The Good Samaritan touch. “Feeling tough and tetchy this morning, hey, Talbot?” There was no longer even an attempt at keeping up the pretence that the general was the boss, or even had an equal say in what went on in his own house: he just stood quietly in the background, remote and dignified and in some way tragic. But maybe the tragedy was only in my own mind; I could be guessing wrongly about the general. I could be terribly wrong about him. Fatally wrong.