I moved back into the sitting-room and saw Carlisle coming towards me with a couple of large files in his hands.
“We’re giving Dr. MacDonald’s study a thorough going-over now, sir. Listing everything, of course, but I thought these might interest you. Seems to be some sort of official correspondence.”
It did interest me, but not in the way I expected. The more I turned up about MacDonald, the more innocuous he seemed. The file contained carbon copies of his letters to and replies from fellow-scientists and various scientific organisations throughout Europe, mainly the World Health Organisation. There was no doubt from these letters that MacDonald was a highly gifted and highly respected chemist and microbiologist, one of the top men in his own field. Almost half of his letters were addressed to certain affiliations of the , W.H.O., particularly in Paris, Stockholm, Bonn and Rome. Nothing sinister or unpatriotic about that, this would be unclassified stuff and the frequent co-signature of Dr. Baxter on the carbon was guarantee enough of that. Besides, although it was supposed to be a secret, all the scientists in Mordon knew that then- mail was under constant censorship. I glanced through the file again and put it aside as the phone rang.
It was Hardanger and he sounded fairly grim. What he had to say made me feel grim, too. A phone call to Alfringham had stated that if police investigations weren’t suspended for twenty-four hours something very unpleasant was going to happen to Pierre Cavell, who, as they would be aware, had disappeared. Proof that the caller knew where Cavell was would be forthcoming if police investigations were not halted by six o’clock that evening.
It wasn’t the first part of it that made me feel grim. I said, “Well, we were expecting something like it. With all the threats I was dropping at the crack of dawn to-day they must have thought that I was making too much progress for their comfort.”
“You flatter yourself, my friend,” Hardanger said in his gravelly voice. “You’re only a pawn, the call wasn’t made to the police but to your wife at the Waggoner’s Rest, telling her that if the General — he gave his full name, rank and address — didn’t pull in his horns then she, Mary, would receive a pair of ears in the mail to-morrow. The caller said that he was sure that though she had been married only a couple of months she would still be able to recognise her husband’s ears when she saw them.”
I felt the hairs prickle on the back of my neck and that had nothing to do with any imagined sensation of ear-cropping. I said carefully, “There are three things, Hardanger. The number of people in those parts who know we have been married only two months must be pretty few. The number of people who know that Mary is the General’s daughter must be even fewer. But the number of people who know the General’s true identity, apart from yourself and myself, can be counted on one hand. How in God’s name could any criminal in the land know the General’s true identity?”
“You tell me,” Hardanger said heavily. “This is the nastiest development of the lot. This man not only knows who the General is but knows that Mary is his only child and the apple of his eye, the one person in the world who might be able to bring pressure to bear on him. And she’d bring the pressure, all right: the abstract ideals of justice don’t matter a damn to women when their men’s lives are in danger. The whole thing stinks, Cavell.”
“To high heaven,” I agreed slowly. “Of treason — and treason in high places.”
“I don’t think we’d better talk about it over the phone,” Hardanger said quickly.
“No, Tried tracing the call?”
“Not yet. But I might as well waste time that way as any other.”
He hung up and I stood there staring at the silent telephone. The General was a personal appointee of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. His identity was also known to the chiefs of espionage and counter-espionage — it had to be. An Assistant Commissioner, Hardanger himself, the Commandant and security chief at Mordon — and that ended the list of those to whom the General’s identity was known. It was an ugly thought. I wondered vaguely how General Cliveden was going to enjoy the next couple of hours — I didn’t require any powers of telepathy to know where Hardanger would be heading as soon as he had put down that phone. Of all our suspects, only Cliveden knew the General’s identity. Maybe i! should have been paying more attention to General Cliveden.
A shadow darkened the hall doorway. I glanced up to see three khaki-clad figures standing at the head of the outside steps. The man in the centre, a sergeant, had his hand raised to the bell-push but lowered it when he caught sight of me.
“I’m looking for an Inspector Gibson,” he said. “Is he here?”
“Gibson?” I suddenly remembered that was me. “I’m Inspector Gibson, Sergeant.”
“I’ve something here for you, sir.” He indicated the file under his arm. “I’ve been ordered to ask for your credentials first of all.”
I showed them and he handed over the file. He said, apologetically, “I’m under orders not to let that out of my sight, sir. Superintendent Hardanger said it came from Mr. Clandon’s records offices and I understand it’s highly confidential.”
“Of course.” Followed by the sergeant who was flanked by a couple of hefty privates, I walked into the living-room, ignoring the outraged glare of Mrs. Turpin who had belatedly appeared on the scene. I asked her to leave and she did, glowering savagely.
I broke the seal and opened the file. It contained a spare seal for re-sealing the cover and a copy of Dr. MacDonald’s security report. I’d seen the report before, of course, when I’d taken over as head of security from the vanished Easton Derry, but had paid no particular attention to it. I’d had no special reason to. But I had now.
There were seven pages of foolscap. I went through it three times. I didn’t miss a thing the first time and if possible even less the next two. I was looking for even the tiniest offbeat jarring note that might give me even the most insubstantial lead, Senator McCarthy sniffing out a Communist had nothing on me, but I found not the slightest trace of anything that might have been helpful. The only odd thing, as Hardanger had pointed out, was the extremely scanty information about MacDonald’s Army career, and to information Easton Derry — who had indeed compiled the report — must have had access. But nothing, except for a remark at the foot of a page that MacDonald, entering the Army as a private in the Territorials in 1938, had finished his Army career in Italy as a lieutenant-colonel in a tank division in 1945. The top of the following page held a reference to his appointment as a government chemist in north-east England early in 1946. This could have been just the way Easton Derry had compiled the report: or not.
With the blade of my penknife, and ignoring the sergeant’s scandalised look, I pried open the buckram corner holding the top left hand corners of the pages together. Under this was a thin wire staple, the kind of staple that comes with practically every kind of commercial stapler. I bent the ends back at right angles, slid the sheets off and examined them separately. No sheet had more than one pair — the original pair — of holes made by the stapler. If anyone had opened that staple to remove a sheet, he’d replaced it with exceptional care. On the face of it, it looked as if that file hadn’t been tampered with.
I became aware that Carlisle, the plain-clothes detective-sergeant, was standing beside me, holding a bundle of papers and folders. He said, “This might interest you, sir. I don’t know.”
“•Just a moment.” I clipped the sheets together again, pushed them into the file-holder, resealed it and handed it back to the army sergeant who took himself oft along with his two companions. I said to Carlisle, “What are those?”
“Photographs, sir.”
“Photographs? What makes you think 111 be interested in photographs, Sergeant?”
“The fact that they were inside a locked steel box, sir. And the box was in the bottom drawer — also locked — of a knee-hole desk. And here’s a bundle found in the same place — personal correspondence, I would say.”
“Much trouble in opening the steel box?”
“Not with the size of hacksaw I use, sir. We’ve just about tied it all up now, Inspector. Everything listed. If I might venture an opinion, you’ll find little of interest in the list.”
“Searched the whole house? Any basement?”