“Secondly, I know that it is normally impossible for any man, Council for World Peace sympathiser or not, to take top secret viruses out of Mordon, no matter how clever or surreptitious he is. When the last man has left the laboratories fourteen hour time clocks come into operation and the opening combination over-riding those is known to only two men. If anything has been taken it has been taken by force and violence. That demands an immediate investigation.
“Thirdly, you said the Foreign Office was solidly on your side. If that’s the case, why all this cloak-and-dagger approach to me to smuggle vaccine through? The diplomatic bag to Warsaw is the obvious answer.
“Finally, and your biggest blunder, my friend, you forgot the fact that I have been engaged in one form or other of counter-espionage for quite some time. Every new body or organisation that’s set up in Britain automatically comes under the microscope. As did the Council for World Peace when it set up its headquarters here. I know one of the members, an elderly, stout, bald and short-sighted character who is the complete antithesis to you in every way. His name is Henry Martin and he’s the secretary of the London branch of the council. The real one.”
He looked at me steadily for a few moments, not scared, his forearms still resting on the table, then said quietly, “There doesn’t seem to be much more left to say, does there?”
“Not much.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Turn you over to the Special Branch. With you goes a tape of our conversation. Just as a routine precaution I switched on a recorder before you came into this room. Not evidence, I know, but the address, flask and your thumb-print on fifty fivers will be all the evidence they require.”
“It does look as if I made a mistake about you,” he admitted. “We can do a deal.”
“I can’t be bought. Not, at least, for fifty miserable fivers.”
A pause, then softly, “Five hundred?”
“No.”
“A thousand? A thousand pounds, Cavell, inside the hour.”
“Keep quiet.” I reached over the phone, laid the receiver on the table and began to dial with my left forefinger. I’d reached the third number when a sharp knock came to my office door.
I let the receiver lie and got to my feet, making no noise. The corridor door had been shut when Martin had come into my room. No one could open that corridor door without the bell chiming. I’d heard no chime, there had been no chime. But somebody was in the outer office now, just outside my door.
Martin was smiling. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was there. I didn’t like it. I moved my gun and said softly, “Face into that corner, Martin, hands clasped behind your neck.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said calmly. “That man outside the door is a mutual friend.”
“Do it now,” I said. He did. I crossed to the door, standing well to one side, and called out, “Who’s there?”
“Police, Cavell. Open up, please.”
“Police?” The word carried familiar overtones, but then there were a great number of people around who were able to imitate a great number of voices. I glanced at Martin, but he hadn’t moved. I called out, “Your credentials. Under the door with them.”
There was a movement on the other side of the door, then an oblong cardboard slid into view on the floor. No badge, no credentials, nothing like that, just a calling card bearing the words “D. R. Hardanger “and a Whitehall telephone number. The number of people who knew that this was the only form of identification that Superintendent Hardanger used would be very few. And the card matched the voice. I unlocked and opened the door.
Superintendent Hardanger it was, big, burly, red-faced, with the jowls of a bull-dog, dressed in the same faded grey raglan and black bowler that he’d worn in all the years I’d worked with him. I caught a glimpse of a smaller man behind him, a khaki-clad arm and leg, no more. I’d no time to see more for Hardanger had moved his sixteen stone of solid authority four feet into my office forcing me to take a couple of backward steps.
“All right, Cavell.” A flicker of a smile touched the abnormally light blue eyes. “You can put that gun away. You’re quite safe now. The police are here.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Hardanger, but I’m no longer working for you. I have a licence for this gun and you’re in my office without permission.” I nodded towards the comer. “Search this character and then 111 put my gun away. Not till then.”
Henry Martin, hands still behind his neck, turned slowly round. He grinned at Hardanger, who smiled back and said, “Shall I search you, John?”
“Rather not, sir,” Martin said briskly. “You know how ticklish I am.”
I stared at them, from Hardanger to Martin, then back again. I lowered my gun and said wearily, “All right, what gives?”
“I’m genuinely sorry about this, Cavell,” Hardanger said in his rough gravelly voice. “But necessary. How necessary, 111 explain. This man’s name really is Martin –John Martin. Of the Special Branch. .Inspector. Recently returned from Toronto. Want to see his credentials or will my word do?”
I crossed to my desk, put the gun away and brought out the flask, money and slip of paper with the Warsaw address. I could feel the tightness in my face but I kept my voice quiet.
“Take your damned props, Martin, and get out. You, too, Hardanger. I don’t know what this stupid charade, this farrago of rubbish, was for and I’ll be damned if you can make me care. Out! I don’t like smart alecs making a fool of me and I won’t play mouse to any man’s cat, not even the Special Branch’s.”
“Easy up now, Cavell,” Hardanger protested. “I told you it was necessary and——”
“Let me talk to him,” the man in khaki interrupted. He came round Hardanger and I could see him clearly for the first time. Army Officer, and no subaltern either, slight, spare, authoritative, the type I’m allergic to. “My name is Cliveden, Cavell. Major-General Cliveden. I must — –”
“I was cashiered from the Army for taking a swing at a major-general,” I interrupted. “Think I’d hesitate to do it again now I’m a civilian? You, too. Out. Now.”
“I told you what he was like,” Hardanger muttered to no one in particular. He shrugged his shoulders heavily, thrust his hand into the pocket of his raglan coat and brought out a wrist-watch. “We’ll go. But first I thought you might like to have this. A keepsake. He had it in London for repair and it was delivered to the General’s office yesterday.”
“What are you talking about?” I said harshly.
“I’m talking about Neil Clandon. Your successor as security chief in Mordon. I believe he was one of your best friends.”
I made no move to take the watch from the outstretched hand.
“‘Was’, you said? Clandon?”
“Clandon. Dead. Murdered, if you like. When someone broke into the central laboratories in Mordon late last night-early this morning.”
I looked at the three of them and then turned away to stare out through the grimy window at the grey fog swirling along Gloucester Place. After a time I said, “You’d better come in.”
Neil Clandon had been found by a patrolling security guard shortly after two o’clock that morning, in the corridor beside the heavy steel door leading to number one lab in “E” block. That he was dead was beyond dispute. What he had died of was not yet known, for in an establishment staffed almost entirely by doctors no one had been allowed to approach the dead man. The strictness of the rule was absolute. When the alarm bells rang it was a job for the Special Branch and the Special Branch alone.
The senior guard had been summoned and had approached within six feet of the body. He had reported that Clandon had been violently ill before dying, and that he had obviously died in convulsions and great agony. The symptoms had all the hallmarks of prussic acid poisoning. Had the guard been able to get the typical bitter almond smell, this, of course, would have put the tentative diagnosis beyond reasonable doubt. But that, of course, had been impossible. All guards on internal patrol had to make their rounds in gas-tight suits with a closed circuit breathing apparatus.
The senior guard had noticed something else. The time clock setting on the steel door had been altered. Normally it was set to run from 6 p.m. till 8 a.m. Now it was set to run from midnight. Which meant that access to number one lab would be impossible before 2 p.m., except to those who knew the combination that overrode the time lock.