The Trojan Horse

CHAPTER THREE

I knew where I was then. Schmidt’s story, fantastic as it seemed, was true. There was no longer any doubt of that. ‘How did they get in?’ I asked. My voice sounded flat. I was thinking of the four other pages.

‘From the roof, I expect,’ said David. ‘If you’re prepared to take a few risks you can get the whole length of the block.’ I followed him out into the passage. He opened the door at the end and climbed rough wooden stairs to another door. He turned the key in the lock and we went out on to the roof. Then he bent down and examined the lock on the outside, and I looked across the rooftops to the dome of the Globe Theatre. The roofs were all joined and an agile man could have come from any one of the buildings in the block.

‘I thought so,’ said David. ‘Look!’ I bent down. ‘See that mark where the metal is bright, on the inside edge of the keyhole? That’s where our friend’s pincers scraped as he grasped the end of the key and turned it.’ He straightened up. ‘I expect he came by way of that house with the tall chimneys. It’s a brothel. They had a burglary next door a few months back and the police sergeant told me that the burglars probably got on to the roof that way. They couldn’t prove anything, of course. The girls aren’t going to split. An extra quid or two comes in handy with nothing to do for it but let a fellow on to the roof. Come on, let’s go down, and then perhaps you’ll tell me something about this business.’

When we reached the corridor I said, ‘Do you mind if we go into your room?’ I had decided to tell him the whole story. I had to have someone to argue it out with. For answer he pushed open the door. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he said. ‘I’ll just tell Miriam to hold the fort.’ He was back in a moment with two tankards of beer. ‘Now,’ he said, as he subsided into an easy-chair and began to fill a big curved briar, ‘I hope you’re going to play ball. Can I see the results of your midnight labours, or is that a deadly secret?’

I said, ‘I think we’d better take things in their proper order.’ Then I told him how Schmidt had come to see me on Monday of the previous week and how he had pushed his way into my office just as I was refreshing my memory about the facts of the case. As I sat there, drinking beer and looking out across the chimney pots of Soho, I saw once again that elderly, tired-faced Jew, sitting opposite me across my desk, with the firelight flickering on his lined face. And I heard once again his quiet voice telling me his story.

I told it to David just as he had told it to me. ‘My father’s name was Frederick Smith,’ he had begun. ‘Both he and my mother were English — he was a Jew, you understand. Shortly after their marriage, my father went to Austria as an agent for the Western Aluminium and Metal Alloy Company. I was born in Vienna in the winter of 1882. Soon afterwards my father, having bought an interest in a local metal concern, decided to establish himself in Vienna and was naturalised. He became Frederick Schmidt and I, who had been given the name Frank at birth, became, as I am now, Franz Schmidt. My father grew to be quite a big man in the metal business and this influenced me to make engineering my career. After my apprenticeship, I entered my father’s business. In the eight years before 1914, I was responsible for the discovery of several durable alloys and travelled all over the world for the group. I spent nearly a year in England, where I met a Welsh girl, and though she was not of my race I married her. I remember my father was furious when he heard, but she was lovely and gay and irresistible. She died four years ago. We had one child, a girl. She was born in 1913. Then came the war. My father sold the business and went to live in Italy in the days when Italy was still neutral. The war was a great blow to him. He died two years later.

‘When the war was over Olwyn and I went back to Vienna. Metal companies were in a terrible state. I bought a good sound business dirt cheap and for four weary years tried to build it up. But it was no good. I had not my father’s business acumen and conditions were against me. After losing practically all the money he had left me, I sold the business for what the buildings and plant would fetch. There followed a very difficult period. You know what Vienna was like after the war, and I hadn’t the means to move. But in 1924 I obtained a post at the Metallurgical Institute. The use of a laboratory enabled me to resume my experiments in durable alloys. Within a year I had discovered a hard steel alloy. I sold it to the Fritz Thessen group. They became interested in my experiments and made me free of their laboratories at the M. V. Industriegesellschaft works on the outskirts of Vienna. Then followed the happiest years of my life. I had the work I loved. And I had my family — little Freya was growing up. Vienna, too, was becoming gay again. We never lacked for money. I discovered new alloys and developed them for use in the production, first of car engines, and then of aircraft engines. I spent much time on the diesel engine. That is important for what follows. I was engrossed in my work and left all my business arrangements to an old friend of mine on the Bourse. Politics did not interest me. I lived in a world of my own into which few outside events penetrated. The outside world was of little importance beside my experiments.’

He had been staring into the fire and he suddenly turned to me, his face haggard with memories. ‘Have you ever lived in a world of your own?’ he asked. Then he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Of course you haven’t. You’re a practical man. A world of your own is all right until that outside world breaks in upon it. Then-’ He spread his hands with a lift of the shoulders. ‘I had had ample warning, but I was too engrossed. There was the Dolfuss murder. And shortly after that, my broker friend called me down to his office and persuaded me to let him place some of my money in England. I knew, of course, that my countrymen were having a difficult time in Germany, but I shrugged my shoulders and said I thought it was unnecessary. And I went back to my work, and the gathering stormclouds passed me by as I pressed forward with experiments on the diesel engine, in which I had become absorbed.

‘Freya was my one interest outside my work. She had passed through the university, a brilliant mathematician with a bent for scientific research. I sent her on to Berlin to continue her studies. Three months later she wrote to me from London, saying she had become the disciple of Professor Greenbaum at the London University. I thought nothing of it at the time. I have never questioned her as to the real reason why she left Berlin. But two months later, in December, 1936, I went home to find my wife had not returned from a shopping expedition. I rang my friends, the hospitals, and finally the police. I walked the streets, frantic. I can remember that night so well. How I reviled myself for my neglect of her! She had reached a difficult age, yet she never reproached me because my work came first, always.’

He became silent for a moment. The room had been getting dark and the firelight flickered on his face, accentuating the deep lines of his forehead and the stubble on his chin. ‘I hurried from street to street, streets that had been familiar from my boyhood’s days, streets that I had shown proudly to her when I had brought her back to the little house in Grinzingerallee. I questioned countless strangers and every policeman I met, and I resolved to devote less time to my work and more to making her happy, to recapturing the lost spirit of our youth. But my resolutions were useless.’ He sighed. ‘I returned home in the early hours of the morning, and a little after six the Bürgerspital phoned me to say that she had been brought in by the police suffering from exposure. When I reached her she was delirious, and in the babble of her delirium I learned that she had been assaulted by a band of Nazis. They had taunted her with being the wife of a Jew. She — she had compared my work with theirs, and one of them had struck her down for daring to uphold science as a greater art than Jew-baiting. Apparently they had feared to leave her there in the street, for the police had found her lying in the backyard of a big apartment house. I stayed by her bedside and learned how this taunting had become an almost daily occurrence. She had never mentioned it to me. She died that night. Double pneumonia was the cause.’

Again he became silent for a moment. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I’m sorry — you must be wondering when I am coming to the point. But I want you to understand, so that you will believe what I am telling you.’

I said, ‘Please go on,’ It had eased him to tell me the story, and the insight it gave me into the development of the man’s character fascinated me. I pushed my cigarette-case across the desk. He took one automatically. I lit it for him, and he sat there for a moment puffing at it nervously.

‘At that time, it seemed that nothing more could touch me,’ he went on. ‘Yet it was but the beginning.’ He tossed the cigarette into the fire. His voice was quite toneless as he said, ‘I went back to my work with the zest of one who wants to forget. But I was sensitive now to the atmosphere that surrounded me. I was conscious of the growing contempt for my race. I persuaded Freya to stay on in England. She broke the news of Olwyn’s death to her family in Swansea and stayed with them for several weeks, writing enthusiastically of their kindness. Then suddenly the M. V. Industriegesellschaft informed me that I could no longer have the use of their laboratories. I was not altogether sorry. Sneers were no longer veiled. From that moment I received no more royalties from the group.

‘However, it did not matter. I had plenty of money. I bought a little workshop on the outskirts of Vienna and equipped it with all I needed. And there I settled down to continue my experiments. I lived on the premises and saw scarcely anyone. My diesel engine experiments were reaching the point at which I could see the possibility of a tremendous success. Freya came back for a time and worked with me in the shop. She was enthusiastic. But, though she threw herself wholeheartedly into the work, I could tell she was not happy. She was young and not content, like me, to live the life of a recluse. Vienna was no place for a Jew’s daughter and I feared lest she should share her mother’s fate. In January, 1938, I persuaded her to return to London, ostensibly to arouse the interest of one of the big British firms in our experiments. Two months later I stood by the roadside and watched the armoured columns of Nazi Germany roll into Vienna. I knew it was time for me to leave.

‘But I had left it too late. The frontier was closed. It was impossible to get money out. I waited for ten hours in a queue at the British Embassy. It was no good. They could do nothing. The Nazis were combing Vienna for Jews. In the papers I read of the death of those few of my old friends who had not already fled the country. I went back to my workshop and destroyed the engines I had built. Two days later I was in a newly-constructed concentration camp. I was more fortunate than most. Freya got in touch with Fritz Thessen himself. She gave him some idea of the stage reached in our experiments. In those days he was still a power behind the Nazi Party. He was sufficiently interested to obtain my release. I was sent under escort with three others to Germany. But I was very weak with the beginnings of pneumonia. The effort of marching to the station finished me. In the heat of the carriage I collapsed. And because my release papers had Fritz Thessen’s name on them, I was taken to a hospital in Linz, which was the next stop. There my guards left me, as they had to deliver the other prisoners.

‘They came back three days later to find that I had died. Two weeks afterwards, still very weak, I crossed the frontier into Switzerland and went to England.’

‘I don’t quite follow,’ I said.

A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. ‘I was lucky, that was all. One of the doctors at the Linz hospital was a friend of mine. I had helped him when he and his wife were in a bad way. A Roumanian happened to die that same night. He was about my build and cultivated a beard. The doctor switched us round and bound my head whilst I grew that.’ And he pointed to the dark little tuft of beard that showed in the photograph. ‘I hope they never discovered how I escaped. But for that man I should be working for Germany, and Germany would hold the supremacy in the air.’ He made this pronouncement quite calmly. It came from his lips as indisputable fact. ‘The Nazis are more receptive to a new idea than the English. Fritz Thessen would have recognised the value of my work. In this country, the land of my forefathers, I am not recognised. I am hunted down like a criminal for a crime I did not commit. But I should not have been happy in Germany. There would have been no Freya, and life would not have been easy.’

I stubbed out my cigarette in the ash-tray at my side and looked across at David, who was reclining full length on his bed, his unlit briar clamped between his teeth. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that is the story he told me. It’s strange enough, but I think it was its strangeness that convinced me more than anything else. It’s hardly the sort of story a man would make up — too much detail.’

‘What about the diesel engine business?’ David asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘that’s where I wasn’t so sure. I thought his brain might have become unbalanced. His claim was extravagant. Yet his daughter, Freya, believed it and on the strength of it Thessen obtained his release from the concentration camp. And when he arrived in England, Schmidt went straight down to Llewellin’s place in Swansea, The invitation was due to Freya’s conversations with her uncle. Llewellin was apparently enthusiastic. He placed one of his shops at Schmidt’s disposal and did everything possible to help him. Schmidt had retained the Roumanian’s name, by the way, which was Paul Severin. Freya had also interested Calboyds in his work. But Schmidt would not allow either the metal or the plans to be seen by anyone, and for a time the company lost interest.

‘This interest was suddenly revived, however, shortly after inquiries had been made about him by two men, who described themselves as representing the immigration authorities. They approached the elder Mrs Llewellin, and as she disliked Schmidt and had distrusted him ever since her daughter’s death, she told them all she knew. This was in July of last year. By that time Schmidt, working with the money that his broker friend in Vienna had invested in England several years before, had practically completed a new engine. Calboyds approached him and offered to purchase the diesel design and the secret of the new alloy for a very substantial figure. They also offered him a princely salary for his services. This Schmidt refused, having a very shrewd idea, as he put it, of the value of his discoveries and not wishing to be tied to any one firm. Shortly afterwards his rooms were searched. He carried the secret in his head, however, and the searchers got nothing. But by this time he had begun to realise that the secret of his identity had leaked out, and it was then that he discovered about the visit of the immigration people to old Mrs Llewellin. He removed the nearly completed engine to a place of safety. In its place he put an old type engine. Two weeks later this engine disappeared overnight. By this time he had approached the Air Ministry, informing them of the probable performance of the engine. But he got the bird. Llewellin was furious and, knowing someone in the Ministry, he learnt the reason. Calboyds had been approached for an opinion and had described Schmidt as a crank. Llewellin then began a long correspondence with the Air Ministry in an effort to obtain a test of the engine. In the meantime, Schmidt’s finances were exhausted and Llewellin had taken the pair into his own house, and was financing the work.’

I lit another cigarette. ‘Well, David,’ I said, ‘that’s his story. He says that he found Llewellin dead, and after going into the office and seeing the safe open he knew he had been framed and got out while the going was good.’

‘Why should they go to all that trouble to frame him? Why didn’t they just kill him?’

‘That’s what I couldn’t understand,’ I replied. ‘It was that and the melodramatic manner in which he concluded the interview that made me wonder whether he wasn’t a little unbalanced.’ And I told him word for word what Schmidt had said as he stood up with the firelight blazing in his eyes.

‘Cones of runnel,’ David murmured, and sucked noisily at his pipe. ‘Those are funny key-words for a code. Perhaps it has a further significance.’ He heaved himself off the bed and stood up facing me. ‘The whole thing is damned funny,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t believe a word of it, I’d say he was definitely nuts, if I didn’t know that I’d been burgled last night and the book had been replaced by another and the negatives destroyed. Can I have a look at the page we have got decoded?’

I put my hand in the pocket of my jacket. I think I knew what to expect a fraction of a second before my fingers encountered the smooth leather of my wallet. There was nothing else in the pocket. I looked up at David. ‘We’ve both been burgled,’ I said.

‘Sure you put it in that pocket? It’s not in your rooms anywhere?’

I shook my head. It was no good. I remembered slipping it into the pocket the night before and I had not looked at it since.

‘Well, what do we do now — call in the police?’ he asked.

His tone held a note of sarcasm, and I pictured myself telling the whole thing to Crisham. ‘I don’t think we can very well do that,’ I said. ‘Not yet at any rate.’ And I gave him a brief résumé of the page I had decoded. When I had finished, I said, ‘Schmidt was right. Just before he went he said he thought I wouldn’t find it a case for the police — at first.’

David filled his pipe and lit it. He was frowning slightly. ‘What’s this girl Freya like?’ He put the question in an abstracted manner. He was thinking of something else.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Why do you want to know?’

He swung round on me. ‘Well, isn’t she the clue to the whole thing? Where do you suppose she is?’ he asked.

The thought had already occurred to me.

‘I’ve got a hunch that the cones of runnel is not only the clue to the code, but the clue to the hide-out where that diesel engine is. Somebody’s got to get to Freya Schmidt before these lads, whoever they are, discover those key-words.’ He went over to the phone, which stood on the table by his bedside. ‘Get me Central 0012, will you, Miriam?’ He turned to me. ‘If we fail here, we’ll have to go round to that professor laddie you mentioned.’

‘Greenbaum?’

‘Yes.’ The phone rang, and he picked up the receiver again. ‘Is that you Micky? David Shiel here. Can you let me have a picture of Freya Schmidt? Yes, that’s right — the daughter. Oh! They haven’t traced her? You think so? Well, maybe you’re right. No, a pal of mine on the Record just rang me up to see if I could get one for him. Cheerio, old boy.’ He put the receiver back. ‘No luck,’ he said. ‘The agencies haven’t been able to get hold of any photo of her and the police don’t seem able to trace her. They think Schmidt may have killed her too. Nice minds these boys have! I suppose Schmidt really is dead? I mean, supposing you wanted someone to take some notice of an invention of yours, wouldn’t this be a good way to do it?’

‘And what about Llewellin?’ I said. ‘It’s no good, David. I’ve been over the whole business from beginning to end and there’s only one conclusion, and that’s the one that Schmidt hinted at. Schmidt may or may not be dead. At the moment it’s immaterial. Somehow we’ve got to find that girl.’

‘You may be right. But I still don’t understand that murder. It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps you’re leaping to conclusions?’

‘This sort of game is my job,’ I said a trifle stiffly.

‘What — lucid deduction?’ He looked at me quizzically. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Lucid deduction, my foot! Your job is to make any twelve of your fellow citizens believe anything you want them to believe.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but this business is serious. From the start there were only two ways of looking at it. Either Schmidt was speaking the truth or else he was mad. After what has happened during the night, I am quite certain he isn’t mad. Do you type?’ He nodded. ‘Good! Then perhaps we could have the typewriter in here. The first thing is to get out a statement, which I can leave at my bank.’

‘You’re going to take it up yourself, are you?’ He hesitated. Then he added, ‘If all Schmidt says is true, this is something pretty big.’

‘That’s why the first essential is to make a statement of what we know.’

‘Yes, but wouldn’t it be better to call in the police?’

I shook my head. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Police investigations can yield nothing in the case of a firm like Calboyds. If we knew what Schmidt had set down in those other four pages, there might be enough evidence to prove something. As it is, I shall have to go ahead on my own.’

‘But, good God!’ he said, ‘you’ll be a marked man from the word Go.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But don’t forget that, if I disappear, the police will have to take notice of my statement.’

David nodded and fetched the typewriter from the studio. ‘We’ll have a carbon copy,’ I said, as he settled down in front of it.

It took me over an hour to complete that statement. When it was finished, I signed the carbon and placed it in a foolscap envelope, addressing it to Inspector Crisham. In a covering letter to my bank manager, I told him that it was to be handed to Inspector Crisham in person if at any time more than a week passed without his hearing from me. I emphasised that Crisham was to read it through in his office, and I gave him a detailed description of the Yard man. I was taking no chances. When I had signed this letter and placed it, with the statement, in a larger envelope, I asked David whether he had a back entrance.

‘Not that I know of,’ he replied.

‘A fire-escape, then?’

‘No, the roof was considered sufficient.’

‘Of course, the roof. You know the people next door, don’t you — the people that were burgled? Will their roof door be unlocked?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. But they’re on the top floor. If I knock on their skylight, I expect they’ll come and open it.’

‘Do you know them well enough to ask them to take this to my bank and keep quiet about it?’

‘Well, I don’t know them very well, but Harrison seems quite a good sort. I expect he’d do it. You think we’re being watched?’

‘I’m working on that assumption. And whilst you’re doing that, I’m going to make certain, and at the same time ring Crisham.’ I handed him the envelope. ‘And don’t use this phone again to make any inquiries,’ I said as he went to the door. ‘There’s just a chance it may have been tapped.’

He laughed. ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘You don’t underrate them.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve played this game before. Crooks are one thing, but foreign agents are another, particularly if they’re German. Don’t forget, I was in the Intelligence in the last war.’

‘You are old, Father William.’

I nodded. I was well aware of the fact. I was not as fast as I used to be at squash. But I was fit enough and I still held down a golf handicap of two. ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But age has the compensation of experience. Keep off that phone.’

‘Very good, sir.’ He grinned and went out through the door.

I took up the typescript of the statement and placed it in another envelope addressed to Crisham. This I put in my pocket. Then I got my hat and coat and went to the lift. There was no doubt that we were being watched. As I came out into Shaftesbury Avenue I noticed the quickened pace of a sandwich-board man.

I paused for the traffic at Piccadilly Circus and I saw that the man was still on my trail. But after crossing the Circus I lost him. Nevertheless, as I went down Lower Regent Street, I was conscious of being followed. By cutting down Jermyn Street and pausing to look in the window of Simpson’s, I was able to identify my follower as a ragged-looking individual wandering along the gutter in search of cigarette ends. I should have taken no notice of him, but as he passed me he looked up and met my eyes. A feeling of awareness passed between us. it was almost embarrassing. He seemed to feel it too, for he mumbled, ‘Spare a copper, sir.’ I fished in my pocket and went over to him with two pennies. I put them clumsily into his outstretched hand so that one of them fell on to the pavement. He stooped to pick it up, and I noticed that, though his face was dark with dirt, the back of his neck below the collar was quite clean. I noticed, too, a slight scar on the back of his right hand. It was very small, just a thin line of drawn flesh across the knuckles. But I remembered a hand thrust out into the torchlight as it grabbed at a book.

I crossed the road and cut down Duke of York Street to Pall Mall. In the sanctuary of my club I made my way to the secretary’s office. I handed him the envelope and asked him to put it in his safe. ‘I’ll drop you a line or wire you every few days,’ I said. ‘If you don’t hear from me for a whole week, get Inspector Crisham of the Yard to come round and give him the envelope. He’s to read it in your office.’ Except for a slight lift of the eyebrows, the secretary betrayed no surprise, and I left him to ponder over the peculiarities of members.

I then went to one of the phone-boxes and rang Crisham. I was kept waiting some time, but in the end I got through to him. I told him of the arrangement I had made, but cut short his questions. ‘One other thing,’ I said. ‘You still want Schmidt, I suppose? Well, you can pick up the scent at 209 Greek Street. It’s a little stale, perhaps, but he was living there as Frank Smith until about the middle of last week. The owner of the place, one Isaac Leinster, might repay attention.’ Again I had to curb his curiosity. ‘And don’t try to get in touch with me unless you’ve found Schmidt,’ I warned him, and put down the receiver.

Next, I rang up my bank manager. The statement had reached him and had already been placed in the strong-room. My next call was to a big issuing house in the City. Bernard Mallard was an old friend of mine. ‘Do you know anything about Calboyds?’ I asked.

‘A certain amount — why?’ was the cautious reply.

‘I want to know who controls the company,’ I said.

‘No one in particular, as far as I know,’ he replied.

‘My information is to the contrary,’ I replied.

‘Well, I think your information is inaccurate. As a matter of fact, we went into the company’s position very closely about three years ago. We were hoping to be able to handle that big issue of theirs. There are a number of nominee holdings, but they’re not large. All the big holdings are in the shareholders’ own names, and none of them are big enough, singly, to constitute a controlling interest.’

‘Can you tell me their names?’

‘There you’ve got me, old boy. Calboyd was one, of course. But I can’t remember the others and I don’t think we kept the details. Better go along to Bush House, if you’re really interested.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘Who handled the issue in the end?’

‘Ronald Dorman — and damned badly, too. He put the price too high and got stuck with about seventy per cent of the Ordinary and practically the whole of the Preference.’

‘He underwrote the issue himself, did he?’

‘Yes. There may have been some sub-underwriting, but I fancy the firm were left with the bulk of the issue.’

‘Where did Dorman get the capital?’

‘There you’ve got me. He was pretty successful in 1935 and ’36, don’t forget, and he probably had a tidy packet put by. Dorman is supposed to be pretty wealthy.’ He gave a soft chuckle. ‘Those who have money can usually find money.’

‘You mean he may have had backing?’

‘Well, anyway, he covered what he’d underwritten somehow. He must have needed the better part of four millions, so I don’t imagine he would have been able to find it all himself.’

‘Where would he be likely to get it?’

‘Now look, Andrew, there’s a limit to the questions I can answer. What’s the matter with the fellow? If you’re suspecting him of being a racketeer, I warn you, the whole issuing business is a racket. And the whole City for that matter,’ he added frankly. ‘Or has he got mixed up in a murder case?’

‘He can probably answer that better than I can,’ I said. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’

‘Well, old boy, if you take my advice, you’ll pick Home Rails. Try “Berwick” Second Prefs. And have a game of golf with me some time.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘But just now I’m busy. Many thanks for what you’ve told me.’ And I rang off, wondering whether or not Bernard Mallard knew who Dorman’s backer was.

As I left the club, I saw my friend searching for cigarette ends in the gutter by the R.A.C. I walked leisurely along Pall Mall and jumped a bus as it slowed down to take the corner from the Haymarket. And so to Bush House, where I looked up the shareholders’ list of the Calboyd Diesel Company. Of a total issued share capital of £6,500,000, no less than £4,000,000 odd was being held by three private persons and Ronald Dorman and Company. I put down their names and their holdings. Ronald Dorman and Company had the biggest holding. Then came a Mr John Burston of Woodlands, the Butts, Alfriston. Next, Mr Alfred Cappock, Wendover Hotel, Piccadilly, London, W. And last, Sir James Calboyd, Calboyd House, Stockport, Lancs. Sir James Calboyd was the only big holder who was also a member of the board. Possibly Dorman had nominated a director. That remained to be seen.

I put the paper in my pocket and took a taxi back to David’s studio. ‘Now what the devil have you been up to?’ he demanded, as I entered the room. ‘I was just on the point of sending out a search party.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and told him what I had been doing.

‘You’re certain you were followed?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely,’ I said.

‘Good! Now we know quite definitely where we are. But what’s the point of taking the original typescript of your statement down to your club whilst, at the same time, you send the carbon to your bank?’

‘They followed me to the club,’ I explained. ‘I think they’ll guess that the first thing I should do would be either to get in touch with the police or to leave a statement for them in case of accidents. My belief is that they’ll burgle the club and, when they find they’ve got hold of the typescript, they’ll not worry so much about the possibility of a duplicate.’

He nodded. ‘My respect for my elderly relative grows hourly,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I haven’t been idle. Whilst waiting for friend Harrison to return from the bank, I made free of his phone and tried to find out something about the cones of Runnel. I tried the A.A. first, but drew a blank. Then I tried the Ordnance Survey Office. They refused to make an attempt to trace it. So then I went the round of the map-makers. I was convinced that Runnel was either the name of a place or a man.’

‘Well, did you find out anything or didn’t you?’ I demanded.

‘Not from them,’ he replied. ‘But as a last resort, I rang up the Trinity House people. I thought it might be on the coast. Well, it appears there’s a Runnel Stone lying about a mile off a point called Polostoc Zawn, near Land’s End. It’s a submerged rock and Trinity House keep a buoy on it which gives out a mooing sound.’

‘It’s cones of Runnel,’ I said, ‘not cow of Runnel.’

‘Wait a minute,’ he said, and there was a gleam of excitement in his eyes. ‘Apparently there’s a Board of Trade hut on the point and near this hut are two conical-shaped signs. When they are in line, they give the direction of the Runnel Stone.’

I jumped to my feet in my excitement. Cones of Runnel! It sounded right. Or had Schmidt just chosen those two words at random? I couldn’t believe that. He was bound to give some clues as to the whereabouts of his daughter and the diesel engine he had designed. ‘I think you’ve got it, David,’ I said. ‘Where exactly is this Runnel Stone?’

For an answer he took me over to the desk in the corner where a Ward Lock of West Cornwall lay open, the map of the Land’s End district spread out. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Polostoc Zawn, just west of Porthgwarra.’ He flicked over the pages. ‘Here’s what Ward Lock says. “Continuing our walk,” ’ he read, ‘ “we notice on the higher ground on our left two iron cones, one red and the other black and white. They are beacons, which, when in line, give the direction of a submerged rock, known as the Runnel Stone, on which many good ships have met their fate. It is about a mile off the point. On it is a buoy producing a dismal sound like the mooing of a cow.” ’

‘Where’s the nearest station?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think there’s anything nearer than Penzance.’

I nodded. ‘Well, many thanks for your assistance, David. I don’t think I have to remind you of the need for silence.’

‘Here, wait a minute,’ he said. ‘You’re going to Penzance?’ I nodded. ‘You’re not broke by any chance, are you? I mean I don’t expect business is flourishing, but you’re still quite well off, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think I am.’

‘Then you can afford to give me a little holiday.’

‘Listen, David,’ I said, ‘this isn’t going to be any holiday. Don’t forget we’re at war. It’s difficult to realise it as yet. But we are, and the chances of coming out of this alive may not be great.’

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. ‘You’re serious, are you?’ he said suddenly. Then he laughed. ‘What do you take me for? I want to see this business through just as much as you do.’

I was torn between a desire for his company and a reluctance to endanger anyone else’s life. The excitement aroused in me by the initial process of investigation had given place to a mood of depression. As I saw it, this wasn’t just a single spy or a single criminal I was up against. It was organised espionage. The organised espionage of a power notorious for its efficiency and ruthlessness. That’s the way I looked at it as I stood there in David Shiel’s room on the threshold of what now seems like a nightmare. ‘What is it that attracts you about this business?’ I asked. ‘Is it adventure or Freya Schmidt?’

‘A bit of both, I expect,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I never could resist the idea of beauty in distress.’

‘Well, listen to me,’ I said sharply. ‘There’s no such thing as adventure, except in retrospect. You read stories or hear people talk of adventures. They sound exciting. But the reality is not exciting. There’s pain to the body and torture to mind and nerves, and a wretched death for most adventurers. Few come back to tell their stories to excited audiences. Do you really want to pit your brains and your body, with mine, against something that is probably much too big for either of us? As for Freya Schmidt — well, I must say I thought you’d grown out of the adolescent stage. You’re romancing about a woman you’ve never seen just because she’s in a tough spot.’ My shot got home and I saw him flush. ‘If you ever see her, you’ll probably get a shock. Women with men’s brains usually dress like men and are altogether terrifying.’

‘Have it your own way, old boy,’ he said. ‘But as long as you’ve got my fare, I’m coming with you.’

I saw that his mind was made up, and I must say that I was glad. I sat down and wrote him out a cheque for fifty pounds. ‘There,’ I said, handing it to him, ‘that’s a loan to carry you on. I want you to leave that Calboyd account over till we get back. It’ll be a good excuse for us to go up and see them. Now, I suggest we meet in the lounge at Victoria Station at two o’clock. There’s a Cornish express that leaves Waterloo at three. Try and shake off any followers, but not too obviously. If by any chance one of us is followed to Victoria we’ll still have an hour in which to shake them off between there and Waterloo.’

‘Good! I’ll be there at two, and no followers.’