Send Superintendent West

• • •

The child was pale, about Ricky Shawn’s size, with the same thin features. Was it Ricky Shawn? Who else would it be? The child was thinner than Roger remembered him from the photograph, but his eyes were enormous — rounded, terrified as he lay on the pillows. His arms were over the sheets; there was a steel bracelet round each wrist, and the bracelets were fastened by slender steel chains to the bed, so that the boy couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak, either. Adhesive plaster smothered his lips, a pink smear where the mouth ought to be. His nostrils were moving spasmodically as he breathed, his chest was heaving. The terror in his eyes was an ugly thing.

Roger moistened his lips, and tried to speak. He only croaked. He smiled, and knew that he must look grotesque, was frightening the boy still more. How could he offer reassurance? He took a step forward, and the child cringed back. He stopped and touched the chair, then slowly turned it to face the boy, and sat down. He swallowed the lump in his throat, waited until his mouth was moist, and then spoke.

“I — won’t — hurt — you.”

The terror didn’t fade, and there was no change in the boy’s expression. Roger tried again, with the same words. It was no good. He doubted if the child heard him. He stood up, slowly, and repeated:

“I won’t hurt you.”

He went towards the small bed, and again the boy cringed back, but this time Roger went on until he was at the side of the bed. He smiled down, and this time his lips didn’t curl into grotesque lines; this time it was a more natural smile. He had to reassure the child; it wasn’t a question of trying, he had to do it. He put his right hand out and touched the boy’s forehead, smoothed it gently and smiled again. He didn’t think it did any good. The small forehead was cold as marble. Cold — and the room was warm.

I’ll try to help you,” Roger said. He couldn’t make a promise, one never made a promise to a child unless it could be kept I’ll try. Do you feel all right?”

The rounded eyes peered into his, still with no easing of the terror, no relaxing. The little arms, bare nearly to the elbow, were pale but taut Roger moved away, pulled the chair up and sat near the bed. There was no indication that the boy heard him, nothing had yet penetrated that cruel shell of terror.

“Listen to me,” Roger said slowly. “Nod if you can hear me. Nod your head if you can hear me.” He paused. “Can you hear me?”

He waited, feeling a surge of helplessness, and then won a slight reward. The boy nodded slowly, twice. Was it imagination, or was there at last a slight easing of the intensity of his fear?

“That’s good,” said Roger. “Nod if you understand me. I am going to try to get you away from here. Do you understand?”

A pause; then another nod.

“And a lot of people are trying to find you. Your mother and father — a lot of other people, too. Do you understand?”

A nod.

Roger said: Have they hurt you, Ricky?” He wanted to pull off the plaster, but before he started, he had to win the boy’s confidence. Even if he started, would he be allowed to finish? “Have they hurt you, Ricky?”

The door opened, the boy’s gaze switched and the terror flared up again. Roger turned as a man said:

“We haven’t hurt him, yet. We haven’t hurt you, yet. Get up and come with me.”

16

QUESTIONS

HE was a short man with broad shoulders, stocky, alert.

His dark hair was brushed off a forehead which hadn’t a wrinkle. His features were small in a big face — his mouth a puppet’s mouth. He wore only trousers and a shirt, and a tie that was pulled away from his neck, and looked fresh and cool. He didn’t show a gun, and the bigger man behind him in the doorway had empty hands.

The stocky man gripped Roger’s arm, waking the bruises to protest, but he didn’t resist — resistance wouldn’t get him anywhere. Not yet He didn’t look round at the child again. He was pushed to the right at the passage, and still in that powerful grip, hustled to the end of it and then through an open door. The passage wasn’t long, and there was ample room for two men to walk side by side.

Beyond the door a flight of wooden steps led downwards. He went down between the two men, turned right into a kitchen which glistened with white tiles and steel fittings, crossed a small room which had an arched doorway but no door, and then found himself in a long, narrow room, subdued lights, easy chairs, and all the furniture of a pleasant lounge, making it look homely and comfortable.

Sitting in an armchair at the far end of the room, legs stretched out, head resting against the back of the chair, was Gissing. And Gissing smiled at him.

There wasn’t any possibility of a mistake.

Here were the dark eyes, with almost hairless brows, and short, stunted lashes, the long, pale face and narrow, pointed chin, the small hooked nose and the thin gash of a mouth. Gissing was relaxed, smiling as if amused. This time he wore cotton gloves, and not adhesive plaster; he wasn’t going to leave fingerprints anywhere.

“Come and sit down, West,” he said.

The big man pushed Roger forward. He steadied himself against the side of a table, watching Gissing. An easy chair with its back to a draped window stood across the room, and he went across to it and sat down. He didn’t look round, but was sure that the men who had brought him from the boy’s room were still in the doorway. Then he forgot them. Gissing’s voice, so much more pleasant than his looks, was calm and amiable — he seemed genial, as if he were a world removed from the blinding lights and the captive child.

“Bring Mr West a drink, Mac.”

Mac for McMahon, who had taken a boy aboard an aircraft?

The stocky man with the big face and small features came forward; Roger hadn’t visualized him at a cocktail cabinet.

“Whisky and soda,” Gissing said. “You haven’t been here long enough to acquire new tastes, have you?”

“I’ve exactly the same likes and dislikes as always,” Roger said. He hoped his smile wasn’t too sickly.

Gissing chuckled.

“And you don’t like me! There’s no need to get hot about it, but you’re not a man to blow your top, are you? The drink is all right this time, although the one at the Milton Hotel wasn’t.”

So he hadn’t been brought here to be offered the poisoned cup. Gissing wanted to talk, to question him. Roger took the whisky and soda, and sipped. He could have emptied the glass in a gulp, and called for more, but resisted the impulse. He put it on a small table by his side, where a box of cigarettes and a lighter stood. He took a cigarette, lit it, and looked at Gissing.

“Where do you think this is going to get you?”

“Just where I want to go,” said Gissing, and laughed comfortably. The contrast between his manner and his looks was still startling. Had Roger been blindfolded, he would have got the impression of a mild-mannered, friendly man who amused himself with nothing more deadly than playing hit songs from popular and rather dated musicals. “The boy hasn’t been hurt, West He was chained to the bed and plastered just to impress you. Not with what we’ve done, but with what we can do. I don’t want to hurt the kid. He’s done nothing.”

“So you’re a humanitarian, too,” Roger said. “It’ll take years to repair the damage you’ve done to his mind.”

“Quite the psychiatrist,” Gissing said sarcastically. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about him, though. Why did you come to New York, West?”

“On an assignment.”

“To identify me?”

“I can’t stop you guessing.”

“No,” Gissing said softly. “You can’t stop me from guessing. You can’t prevent yourself from talking, either.” He shifted his position a little, but still relaxed, legs stretched out and hands resting on the arms of his chair. He wasn’t drinking or smoking. “You can have it the easy way, or you can have it the hard way. You’re on special assignment, to find me. You’re working with Marino, which makes you a man of importance. You’re going to tell me how much Marino knows. Nothing will help you, if you don’t. I want to know how long Marino has been watching me, who else he knows in my setup, everything. Take it the easy way, West. If you talk, you won’t get hurt I’m leaving soon, you won’t know where to look for me — no one will. You won’t be able to do me any harm, and I’ve nothing against you. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I want to hurt the boy. Don’t be difficult, just tell me everything you know about the Shawn case — just how much Marino has told you.”

Roger didn’t answer.

Gissing said without raising his voice: “I’m not a patient man, and it won’t trouble me if they hurt you. It wouldn’t worry me to hear you screaming, and if I saw your fingers bent and broken and your mouth a mash of blood where they’d pulled your teeth with pinchers, it wouldn’t lose me any sleep. It would be a waste of a good policeman, and I don’t like waste if it can be avoided Just talk.” He smiled, sat up, and raised a hand.

The stocky man in the doorway moved forward. Roger felt tension rising, the stealthy movement did more to work upon his fears than loud-voiced threats. He didn’t move or look round, but expected a blow; instead, Mac came in front of him with another whisky and soda. He put it down next to Roger’s half-empty glass and went away.

“You can have as much as you like of whatever you like,” Gissing said. “You’ll be comfortable and well fed. We’ll have to hold you for a few weeks, but that’s all. McMahon and Jaybird will take care of you.”

But these two men had been in London.

“Just tell me what you know,” Gissing added.

Roger took the first glass, sipped, looked over the top of it into the face which seemed as if it were naked, and said:

“Shawn is doing valuable work which he can only do in England, but I know no details. Marino believes that someone is very anxious to get him back here. Kidnapping the boy and bringing him over here would do that. Marino didn’t know that you were involved. The Yard got on to you by tracing the car, then getting the Paris police to see Mrs Norwood. The Paris police connected her with you, because of the recent suspected smuggling.”

“Goon.”

“We found out that Scammel worked for you, so did a man named Jaybird. We found Scammel’s body less than twelve hours after the kidnapping. That’s the job you’ll pay for.”

Gissing waved his hand, as if it wasn’t worth a thought.

“You don’t have to tell me how good you are at the Yard, I’ll take it as read. Marino went to the Yard, and you were assigned to help him. And Marino told you the story.”

Roger was glad of the whisky; his mouth kept going dry.

“Marino told me that we had to get the boy back, and try to keep Shawn in England.”

Gissing didn’t speak, just looked; and his eyes narrowed, the faint lines of the smile faded.

“He wanted the whole business kept secret, and I said we hadn’t a chance of getting results if it were. He lost too much time before releasing the story.”

“Or I was too quick,” Gissing said, mildly. “If the story had been released twelve hours earlier, it wouldn’t have made any difference. We had the boy here, and we’ve got Shawn back in the country. He’s going to stay. Get on with it, West. I’m not interested in the mechanics of the investigation. I want to know what Marino told you about — whoever is anxious to get Shawn back. How much does he know?”

“If he knows anything, he didn’t tell me.”

“So he didn’t,” Gissing said softly. His face lost every hint of amiability, became vicious. “You’ve got a bad memory.”

“If he knows anything, he didn’t tell me.”

“He just sent you here for a pleasant little vacation?”

“You know the answer to that one,” Roger said. “He hoped that they’d trace you over here, and I could identify you.”

Gissing laughed, and this time his laugh did nothing to give Roger an easy mind. It was hot, so hot that Gissing took off his gloves. He leaned further back in his chair.

“I know about that. You’re the only man here who could point a finger and say “That is the man who talked to David Shawn.” Now he can’t find you, and so he can’t identify me. You didn’t find a fingerprint or anything that would help at “Rest” — I hadn’t been there for weeks. Clarice won’t talk, and no one else can — no one would rat on me. That puts you on a hook, but you can climb off it. You can have a long vacation, up in these hills, and when it’s all over and I’ve gone, you can go back to your wife and family. You’re like Shawn, quite the family man. But first, you have to tell me what Marino told you.”

“I’ve told you all he told me.”

Gissing’s right hand strayed to the table by his side. Absently — or was it absently? — he picked up a paper-knife; all that betrayed his tension beneath the cloak of calm. He had put prints on that knife and it became a vital thing. He nursed the knife. His dark eyes held no expression. His lips were set tightly. Slowly he began to smile.

“You do understand, don’t you, West? I’m going to get that story. If you have to be smashed up before you’ll talk, it is not going to worry me. But sooner or later you are going to talk.”

“There isn’t a thing more I can tell you,” Roger declared flatly.

Insisting on that was a waste of time. Everything was a waste of time. They would set to work on him and they would know their job, it was going to be hell. He hadn’t even reached the stage of thinking about escape. He simply felt fear creeping into him, driving away the warm glow from the whisky. Then he had a wild idea — “escape” came to him as a word; escape and the desire to hurt Gissing. The man wouldn’t expect —

Gissing had hurtled Shawn away from him, without effort Gissing would never be unprepared, and two silent, powerful men were a few feet away. The only hope he had was to use persuasion, trying to make Gissing believe what he didn’t want to believe. He wouldn’t succeed by raising his voice, if there were a chance it would come by holding himself steady, behaving as Gissing behaved.

He shrugged.

“Now let’s have the story, West.”

“There isn’t a story,” Roger said. “You’ll only waste your time. I can’t get away so I can’t identify you, you’ve drawn my teeth already.” He actually managed a smile. “You’re good at kidnapping, you might be luckier next time.”

Gissing’s eyes narrowed, he weighed the paper-knife in his hands; pale hands, well shaped, well tended; the nails were filmed with colourless varnish.

“I’m lucky this time,” he said.

“You just think you’re lucky.”

Gissing put the knife down and stood up, slowly. He drew nearer. He was close enough for Roger to reach with his foot One kick, and he would stagger away, but — two pairs of eyes were watching.

Gissing looked down; from this angle his expression was vicious.

“West, I am the man who kidnapped the boy, and had Scammel killed. Jaybird, just behind you, followed Shawn to Barnes to make sure he wasn’t leading the police there. He saw those detectives who took too much notice of Shawn, and he ran them down. The other man behind you brought the boy here. That is how tough we are.”

“I still can’t tell you anything more.”

“If you don’t know, who does?” Gissing asked, and kept his voice casual

Roger shrugged.

“Who does?” repeated Gissing, and he spoke as if Roger wasn’t in the room, seemed to have lost interest. “I have to find out what Marino knows, now. Who can tell me? Lissa Meredith?”

The name came questioningly and was an obvious guess. Roger, half prepared for it, showed no reaction, but his heart leapt; could she be in the kind of danger he was in now?

“I don’t think so,” he answered. “She said Marino kept her in the dark. She just has to try to calm Shawn down.”

“Would she tell you what she knew?” Gissing asked flatly. It was almost as if he were convinced that Roger had told the truth. Could he be? No, it was too easy, he was fooling, he would switch back to threat and menace in a moment. “Maybe not. What about Carl Fischer?”

“Who?”

“Doctor Fischer.”

“Oh,” said Roger. “I don’t know much about him. He’s a friend of Shawn’s as well as a doctor attached to the Embassy.”

“Attached nothing, he’s over here with Shawn now. Carl Fischer and the Meredith girl are trying to smooth him down, hoping to get him back to England. They haven’t a chance. Do you think they have a chance?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Roger wished the man would move, wished the stare from those dark eyes wasn’t so intense. He wanted to get up. Gissing crowded him, now. He was inviting an assault. It would be easy. A toecap cracking against his knee, a spring, a savage blow over the head, but — two men standing in the doorway.

Then a bell rang, blasting the quiet. It was no ordinary bell, but a harsh, strident warning. It made Gissing back away and swing round, it made the two men exclaim, it gave Roger a chance he wasn’t likely to get again. The bell wrenched their thoughts away from him, put alarm into them.

McMahon and Jaybird leapt out of sight.

17

DARK NIGHT

IT was only a lightning flash of time. Gissing stared at the doorway, the bell clanging, the men scrambling towards another door — then he moved back, his right hand dropped to his pocket, he actually started to say:

“Don’t mo —”

Roger slid forward in his chair, hooked the man’s feet from under him, sent him crashing. Gissing’s hand came from his pocket, the side that lay uppermost. Farther away, footsteps sounded like a stampede. Gissing lashed out with his foot, his hand went back to his pocket. Roger snatched at the ankle as the foot swung past him, caught hold, heaved Gissing’s leg backwards. The man gasped with pain. Roger let him go, bent down and knocked the hand away from his pocket. Gissing hadn’t any fight left.

Roger’s fingers touched cold steel. He drew out the gun. He saw Gissing’s face twisted, heard only the man’s harsh breathing, but knew the other threat might return. He turned the gun in his hand, struck Gissing on the base of the skull, heard the soughing breath as unconsciousness came. He turned the gun again, looked towards the doorway, and saw the drapes move.

He fired.

The bullet tore through the drapes, a man grunted and pitched forward into sight.

Throughout all this the bell was still clanging.

The falling man had a gun in his right hand but no control over it. Roger went forward. The gun fell at his feet, and he kicked it away. The man hit the floor with a heavy thud, and didn’t move. He wouldn’t move again by himself, Roger knew. He must have been crouching, and the bullet had hit him in the temple. It was a small, clean hole, and the blood hadn’t started to ooze out

Gissing unconscious, a dead man, and the helpless boy downstairs.

Suddenly the bell stopped. It was as if agonizing pressure had been eased from Roger’s ears.

If he could get that boy —

He heard a shot, and thought it came from outside. Footsteps thudded, their sound dulled by the closed windows; then more footsteps, nearer now and coming from the rooms through which Roger had been brought. Two men at least were approaching, and luck couldn’t last. He opened a door at the far end of the room. Another, just a gauze-filled wooden frame, was immediately beyond it The footsteps drew nearer inside the house, farther away outside. Roger unhooked the catch of the outer door, and found himself on a wide verandah lit only by the light from the room.

He heard a shout: “Get him!” A shot barked from behind him, and he heard the bullet bite into the door-frame. He swung right, jumped down the verandah steps and rushed towards the beckoning darkness. More shots barked as he raced blindly over the grass, but he wasn’t hit Against the grey sky he could see the dark outline of the spiked tops of trees. Some way off these trees offered shelter. His footsteps seemed to thump out a call. “Here I am, here I am: He could hear the others running, and looked up at the tops of the trees and wondered how far away they were, and whether he could reach them. He was breathing hard, but didn’t feel panic, just unnatural calm. Then he heard two more shots, farther away, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the flashes. He was running at right angles to that spot.

Brushing against a bush, he felt a branch hard against his shoulder, and ducked; another branch plucked at his hair. So he had reached the trees. He sensed rather than saw the straight trunks and the low branches. The men behind him were blundering through the undergrowth. They hadn’t gathered their wits yet, but soon they would use flashlights. He stopped running and walked on swiftly. A murmur of voices came from behind him, and then there was a shout from a long way off — where the last shooting had been. A shout of triumph?

He could see a little now, stopped and turned round. The light from the house, two hundred yards away at least, showed up the trees in silhouettes, and he saw he was in a small thicket. Between him and the house there were rows of young firs, then trees with taller, thicker trunks. Against the glow he saw a man appear from the house, running towards the thicket, light coming from his flashlight. With a powerful light they had a chance of finding him; and they knew where they were, what the ground was like. Roger moved cautiously, wondering whether caution would help him. He walked parallel with the edge of the turf and the first line of young trees, until the man with the flashlight was within a hundred yards. Then he turned towards the grass — the old gambit, doubling back; nothing else could help him.

Other flashlights were shining, on the far side of the turf. He stared towards them, fancying that one man was being dragged along by two others; a third and a fourth, lighting the way, were in the party. Then he heard the man coming towards the thicket call out:

“See him?”

“This way.”

They were heading for the spot where Roger had first disappeared into the trees. He reached the grass, then turned again and walked along the edge of the thicket away from the house, the light of which was now too far away to show him up. The shadowy darkness of the trees hid him.

One party with their prisoner was going towards the house, the other was looking for Roger in the wrong place. Grant him just a little luck, and he would get away. A little more still, and he would find a telephone and get help, bring a rescue party to the house in time to save the boy, perhaps catch Gissing.

How had that alarm been raised?

The grounds might be ringed with a trip-wire; or a gate protected with an alarm. Did it matter? Someone had blundered into the alarm system, and been caught; it didn’t seem to matter who. Roger quickened his step, sure that there was no immediate danger. He could no longer hear the men who were seeking him.

He could see much better now. Another row of trees was facing him; the trees seemed to grow completely round the grounds with the house built in a clearing. It was downhill, here — the big disadvantage was that he didn’t know what the ground would be like a few steps ahead. There was a danger of running round in circles, too. He mustn’t hurry, he must keep his bearings.

There were no stars.

He looked for a light, other than the lights at the house and those from the flashlights, but saw nothing. He had his back to the house, and the glow from that would shine for a long way, if he kept his back to it he could at least be sure that he was getting farther away.

The trees were thinning.

The ground was even but slippery with pine-needles; he couldn’t go too fast. The immediate danger was past, but any mistakes now could damn him. If he were taken back, he wouldn’t find a smooth-voiced Gissing, he would find a devil.

He kicked against something that struck his ankle, and then heard a sound — a long way off, like the ringing of a bell. It went on and on. He glanced over his shoulder. The flashlights had stopped moving towards the house. He felt sweat breaking out. This was the trip-wire, the alarm had gone off again. He hadn’t a knife, couldn’t break it. He didn’t try, but began to run along it, then realized that if the wire ran round the clearing, they wouldn’t know whereabouts it had been touched again. He climbed over, and ran on.

Were there guards?

He had taken it for granted that everyone in the grounds had gone towards the man who was now a prisoner, but he must not take that or anything else for granted.

He stopped running, and now and again looked over his shoulder. The light from the house fell away to a dim glow, well above him, and the hillside was much steeper. Twice, he nearly pitched forward. The trees were all about him. He looked round again, and the light had vanished, but by going downhill he could be sure that he was getting farther away. His legs felt stiff and heavy, his back ached and his head throbbed. He hadn’t been aware of any of that at first, now he had time to think of it; and it became an obsession — that, and the need for keeping out of the way of the men who would be searching. If he had any idea where to go, it would have given him hope, but this was an unknown wilderness. There was no light anywhere, only the greyness of the sky and the darkness of the trees.

He stumbled on.

He didn’t know how long the transition took, but after a while he stopped thinking clearly, stopped being afraid of pursuit, somehow dragged one foot in front of the other and made himself go forward. He had no watch. He had no sense of time. Now his whole body ached, every muscle seemed to groan in protest. There was a sharp pain at the back of his right foot, another where he had kicked against the wire, but he knew that he must go on, and clung to that, forcing his feet to carry him farther. After a while, he knew that he would soon have to stop, that it would soon be impossible to keep moving. Each leg seemed like a leaden weight. The sharper pains were worse. His head now throbbed as badly as it had done after the blow at “Rest”. His mouth was wide open and he was gasping uncontrollably.

The hillside was behind him, he was on level ground now. Gradually he became aware of something different, as if his feet were being clawed back into the earth. He had taken a dozen floundering steps before he realized that he was walking through marshland That set a new conscious fear flaring into his mind. Marshes — bog. God! Where was he? Why didn’t he come to a road?

He didn’t come to a road.

He came to a clearing in the trees. A long way off there was light — light of all colours, tiny bars of green and blue and red and yellow. So far off that they were as far away as the stars. He stopped and swayed, putting one hand against a tree for support, then leaned against the tree. Water was up to his ankles. He studied the lights, and slowly the truth dawned. This was a lake. The patch of treeless darkness ahead was the smooth surface of the water. On the other side, miles away, was a village.

He was still breathing through his mouth.

He made himself think. The lights seemed to be directly opposite him, but he couldn’t judge which was the quicker way round. Right or left? He could turn in the wrong direction and never get there. This might be one lake or a string of lakes. There was no means of telling, he had to take a chance. So, woodenly, he turned right.

Sand and water were underfoot. He could hear the soft rippling of the water, which was cold at first, and slowly became icy. Trees grew right to the water’s edge nearly everywhere, now and again they receded and he could walk on dry ground, but the stretches were never long. The lights seemed to be just as far away, and he was haunted by the fear that this lake would run into another, and that he couldn’t reach that village. There was no light in front of him, no gleam that offered hope.

He came to a clearing.

He took Gissing’s gun from his pocket, went a few feet away from the water and plodded on, but tremors ran through his legs, they wouldn’t support him much longer.

A pain stabbed so sharply that he called out, and paused.

It would be easy to stop, to sit down, to stretch out, to rest. He longed to make the sand of the water’s edge a couch. He stared downwards all the time, and yet he didn’t see the boat. .He kicked against it, barked his shin, and fell. The gun dropped from his hand and plopped into water; was lost for good. A tree-stump? A rock? A fallen branch? He looked, and saw the dark outline of the small boat — long, canoe-like. The handle of a paddle stuck up.

He thought dully: “A boat. A boat: He turned his head to stare at the inviting lights. Were they nearer or further away?

He had a boat.

He saw something that seemed to grow out of the calm water; a small landing-stage. A boat and a landing-stage meant that someone often came here, might live here. He turned his head slowly, and made out the shape of a building, not big, but standing dark and solid against the trees. A building, but no light.

He turned towards it, less acutely conscious of the burden of his body. He did not expect to find anyone here. The door would be locked and the windows securely fastened — unless whoever lived here was asleep. He called out, but his voice was only a croak. He called again, and knew that it would be difficult to hear the sound more than a few yards away. He reached the side of the building, and banged, but had no strength to thump. The walls seemed to echo.

No one spoke, nothing happened.

He moved towards the left, where the hut faced the lake, and kicked against steps which led — where else could they lead? — to a front door. There was no rail. He mounted the steps unsteadily. The door faced him, he pushed, and the door opened.

That was so unlikely, that he stopped swaying drunkenly, hand stretched out, door creaking as it swung away from him. An age passed before he stepped up, and into the hut. It was darker here than it had been outside. That ordeal had ended in an empty hut and a canoe he hadn’t the strength to use, but he could rest. He must rest. There would be a chair, surely there would be a chair.

He started the cautious circling round the room; it seemed like second nature to walk with his hands outstretched. He felt rough wood walls, kicked nothing, began to think that it was empty of everything, and then his hand touched a shelf. He groped along it Something moved. He explored it slowly, and knew that it was something cold, smooth and round. He gripped it as tightly as he could and took it off the shelf, and then he realized what it was — a flashlight.

Would it work?

18

“EMPTY” HOUSE

ROGER pressed the switch. There was no strength in his fingers, and it would not budge. He screwed himself up for the effort, and light came on. It shone into his eyes, and he jerked his head away. The beam wove a yellow pattern on walls and floor, before he held it still He raised it towards the shelf. There was no sound but the creaking of boards beneath his feet, the light shone on some tins, rope, a hurricane lantern — then a rustle of movement made him swing round. Before he saw what it was, a heavy weight struck his hand, knocking the torch from his grasp. It clattered to the floor and went out Blackness — always blackness. His heart thumped and he felt suffocated.

They’d caught him.

“You looking for anything?” a man said laconically.

Roger opened his mouth, muttered a sound that must have seemed like gibberish. The man said:

“You heard me. What are you doing around here?”

Roger said slowly and carefully: “I — am — lost.”

“That so?” The voice was still laconic. “Just come to the door, friend. I’d like to take a look at you.”

The voice came from the door, but Roger could see nothing. He moved forward, a step at a time. A light shone into his eyes, not powerful enough to dazzle him. Then it dropped and a woman said:

“Mike, he’s just another bum.”

“Looks like,” said Mike. The light travelled again to Roger’s face. “Looks like he’s had a long walk, I guess. You a stranger to these parts?”

“I have just come —” the words seemed to hesitate before they came out — “from England.” As if that would mean anything to them — except to suggest that he was lying.

“From England,” the woman echoed.

“That so?” Mike’s voice had calmness in it and could have been friendly. “Then you’re a mighty long way from home.” He kept the light steady. “Honey, you just step behind him and make sure he doesn’t carry a gun.”

She moved without hesitating. After a moment, Roger felt her hands at his sides, patting his coat and trousers; she was thorough.

“No,” she said.

“Okay, stranger,” Mike said. “You can come this way.” He began to move, just visible in the reflected light of the torch. The woman took Roger’s arm, as if she realized his weakness.

He almost blacked out. He knew they were both helping to keep him on his feet. There was some trouble at a flight of steps before he stumbled inside a dimly lighted room and was lowered into a chair. He heard odd words. “Coffee.”

“Looks mighty sick to me.”

“Don’t wake them kids.” Kids. The boy!

He opened his eyes wide and started to speak, but Mike wouldn’t let him. Mike was a big, hardy-looking man with a grey-streaked beard, wearing a lumber jacket of coloured squares, trousers held up by a silver-buckled belt and a pair of old boots. The room was small and two other rooms led off it. The woman had disappeared, but Roger could just distinguish the clink of china and it wasn’t long before she came back with a percolator and cups on a tray. There were sandwiches as well as coffee. She poured out.

“Mike, you want to take his shoes off?”

“For why?”

“You want to use your eyes,” she said tartly. “He’s been wading in the lake.” She stirred sugar into the coffee and pushed cup and saucer into Roger’s hands. “Just you drink that, and then eat some, and then —”

“Thanks,” Roger said. “I — thanks. But don’t touch my shoes.” Mike was on one knee obediently. “I’ve got to — go on. I must get to the police.”

Mike stopped moving, just stared up at him. His wife went still.

“I must telephone the police,” Roger said, as if he were repeating a lesson learned parrot-wise. “There is a kidnapped boy.” He waved his left hand, nearly knocked the cup out of the saucer. “Up there.”

Husband and wife looked at each other, looked back at Roger.

“There is,” he persisted. “I must tell the police. How far away — are they?”

“State troopers in Wycoma,” Mike said, as if he were talking to himself. His wife was staring intently at Roger, but once looked towards the door she hadn’t been through. “The nearest telephone is six-seven miles, I guess. You sure about this boy?”

“Yes. We must hurry.”

“Where is he, you say?”

“Drink your coffee,” the woman ordered.

“Up there. A big house — in a clearing. Trees all round it. Firs — or pines.” The warm coffee was thawing Roger out, he felt more able to cope, and he was beginning to feel that these people might help. “I don’t know how far. Miles. It’s at the top of a hill.”

Mike said: “Webster’s old place. Webster doesn’t live there any more, since his boy died. Heard some funny stories about the guy who took over. So there’s a kid. What’s the name of the kid?”

“Shawn,” said Roger. Tricky Shawn. He was kidnapped in England —”

Mike moved quickly for the first time. On his way to the door, he said:

“You want to look after him while I’m gone, honey? Won’t be that long. Could be the kid’s up there, or could be this guy’s crazy, but it won’t do any harm to look and see. I’ll telephone Wycoma, stranger, and be right back with the police.” He stopped in the doorway. “I’m Mike Hill,” he said, and obviously expected a comment.

“You’ve been very —” Roger began, and stopped, forcing a smile. “I’m Roger West I’m not crazy. Hurry, Mike, please.”

Two minutes later, the quiet of the lakeside was broken by the stutter of a car engine. Soon it moved off, missing on one cylinder but chugging steadily. Mike Hill’s wife was pouring more coffee and urging Roger to eat the sandwich: a chicken sandwich. The sound of the engine died away.

• • •

There were three New York State troopers in uniform, two other men, Mike Hill and Roger. Hill’s old car was left by the lake, his wife stood in the doorway of the cabin, watching a big Pontiac and an Oldsmobile moving along the track towards a dirt road, head-lights carving a light through the trees. By road, Webster’s place was fifteen miles away, Roger was told; he had walked nine. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning.

They had asked few questions, all seemed sleepy and taciturn. Now he matched their silence. His eyes were so heavy that sleep was always threatening him, and his limbs would not stop aching. He knew that they were in the Adirondacks about two hundred miles from New York City, that was all.

The narrow road twisted all the way, ran uphill, and on the hairpin bends there was hardly room for two cars to pass. The journey took them forty minutes.

It didn’t surprise Roger that Webster’s house was empty. Gissing, the boy, the new prisoner — all of them were gone. He forced himself to keep up with the others as they searched. Evidence of hurried departure, bullet marks in the floor and the door-frame, blood on the carpet where the man had died, told them he hadn’t been lying. Of them all, the most morose was a lean, leathery man with a puckered dent in the side of his neck, from an old injury. The others called him Al, and he had a sergeant’s stripes. They had finished the search and were back in the room where Roger had seen Gissing. Sergeant Al went towards the chair where Gissing had sat, looked at Roger with small shiny brown eyes, and said thinly:

“Now tell us just what happened, will you.”

“Al,” protested Mike Hill, “the guy’s dead on his feet.”

“I can use my eyes,” said Al. “You keep out of this.” His hand strayed towards the table by Gissing’s chair, near the paper-knife. “Tell us what happened, going right back to —”

Roger snapped: “Don’t touch that! Don’t touch that knife.”

Al snatched his hands away, as if the knife were red-hot. “He handled it,” Roger said, and weariness and pain were wiped out in a flash of exhilaration. “The kidnapper handled it, his prints are on it. Don’t touch it. Don’t let anyone else know you’ve got it.”

“Okay,” said Al, and smiled for the first time. “You don’t have to get excited. You want to get me an envelope,” he said to one of the others. “Now, Mr West —”

He didn’t finish. Someone by the front door called out that a man was approaching, Sergeant Al left Roger, three men went into the night — a night beginning with a false dawn to bring another day. There were voices in the distance. They drew nearer, and men came on to the verandah. Then another man was brought in, dishevelled, face scratched, clothes torn, exhausted — but recognizable through all that.

“Pullinger!” Roger exclaimed.

Pullinger looked as if he would have fallen but for the support of strong arms. He grinned weakly.

“Hi, Roger,” he said. “You’re a lucky guy. Let me sit down, and give me a drink. A big drink.” He grinned as the men led him to a chair, then slumped into it.

• • •

A bath, a shave and bacon and eggs, turned Roger from a wreck into a man again. He would be stiff for several days, but stiffness didn’t matter. Pullinger had called him lucky, and he didn’t argue. Pullinger couldn’t complain, either.

He told his story to Sergeant Al and Roger, and refused to have anyone else present; a card he showed to Al won him all the necessary respect. After leaving Roger at the New York hotel, Pullinger had felt tired, without reason, and suspected dope, called a colleague and been picked up before he lost consciousness. His colleague had seen Roger half-carried out of the Milton Hotel, like a drunk. With an unconscious Pullinger beside him, the other FBI man followed the car through the night, but without a chance to stop to ask for help. On the Cross Country Parkway, he had been side-swiped by another car, which had gone on, allowing the first car to get well away. But Pullinger’s man had kept going, and had caught up with and seen their quarry.

“It was a raid by ourselves, or lose you for good,” said Pullinger. Pullinger had come round in the early hours. They had stayed near the place where they had lost the car, and spotted it again the next evening, with Roger still in it Roger had been unconscious for over twenty-four hours. The two men had then followed the car to Webster’s old house and fallen foul of the trip wire.

“They caught Buddy,” Pullinger went on bleakly. “I got away. I fell down a gully and into a creek, it seemed hours before I climbed out. I was just in time to see them streaking out of the house as if they had dynamite behind them. So I waited — but I didn’t come too close. Then you arrived, but how was I to know that you were on my side?”

“That’s okay, Mr Pullinger,” Sergeant Al said. “Now you can take it easy. I called State Headquarters, and they called the New York Police Department, and if we have the luck, they won’t get far away with that boy.”

Pullinger said: “I could tear them apart with my own hands.” He looked down at his hands, but he didn’t look at Roger.

They were in a hotel in Wycoma, with the remains of breakfast on a table between them, cigarette-stubs messy in a saucer, a vacuum cleaner humming not far away. Outside, the morning sun shone on the lake and the trees which lined its banks. Pullinger stood up.

“Now I’m going to get some sleep,” he declared. “You too, Roger.”

“I’ve had all the sleep I want.”

“I told you you were a lucky guy! Right, then. The Sergeant will take you around. You and I will drive back to New York later in the day, unless we get other orders.” He stifled a yawn. “You’re still the only man here who can put a finger on Gissing.”

“I won’t forget him in a hurry,” Roger said.

“Sergeant,” said Pullinger, “take good care of Mr West, he’s precious.” He yawned again and went out of the room.

The door closed with a snap. Sergeant Al said he must be getting along, and looked into Roger’s eyes, giving the impression that he was asking a question.

“Maybe you’ll come with me, Mr West, because I need to put in a full report.”

“Why not,” agreed Roger.

The office wasn’t far away. The wide main street of Wycoma was hard-topped, but the sidewalks were dusty. Few people were about. Big gleaming cars stood by parking meters or in garages. Two drug stores and a supermarket were half empty and Roger’s gaze was drawn to the crowded shelves. Sergeant Al talked, economically. The season was nearly over, the weather would break any time, and then there wouldn’t be much doing until spring. He led the way, nodding without speaking to several clerks and to one of the troopers who had been with him during the night. Reaching his office he ushered Roger inside, then closed the door. He opened a drawer in his desk and drew out the envelope containing the paper-knife.

“I did what you said, Mr West. But I can’t give you this, I must hand it over to my boss. I ain’t said a word to anyone about it, the other guys will keep quiet too.”

“The fewer people who know we have that man’s prints the better,” said Roger.

He didn’t know who he would see yet, and wasn’t prepared to voice any doubts about Pullinger’s story. He hadn’t a lead, except through Pullinger, and he wanted one.

He could telephone Marino.

He would telephone Marino.

Al listened.

“Well,” Al said, and smiled again, “I guess this may be the first call ever put through to England from Wycoma, Mr West, but that don’t make any difference. But you could wait until you get to New York or Washington. Or else —”

He didn’t finish.

That was because Roger heard a voice in the outer office, and was out of his chair and moving across the room quicker than he had thought he would be able to move for days. There was only one voice like that in the world. He reached the door in two strides, and pulled it open.

Lissa was saying to a trooper:

Will I find Mr Roger West here? I was told —”

“Right here,” Roger said.

Lissa swung round, her eyes glowing. There was no sense in it, but it was like coming to the end of a journey.

19

SHAWN HOUSEHOLD

THEY didn’t move or speak, their hands did not touch.

They stood two yards from each other, Roger in the doorway with Sergeant Al behind him, Lissa oblivious of the trooper to whom she had just spoken and of the others now watching her. A girl stopped clattering on the typewriter, and silence fell. It could only have been for a few seconds, but it seemed age-long.

Sergeant Al, his little eyes bright, made a sound which might have meant anything, and broke the spell. As Roger relaxed, pictures of Janet and the boys flashed into his mind. But he felt no sense of guilt or even disquiet; it was as if emotion had been drawn out of him, leaving a strange emptiness that was both buoyant and satisfying.

“Hi, Roger,” Lissa said, and they gripped hands. “You had me worried.”

“I was worried myself,” Roger said, and turned, still holding her hand. “This is Sergeant Al.”

“Just Al?” Lissa’s radiance brought a reluctant curve to the Sergeant’s lips.

“Sergeant Al Ginney, ma’am.”

“I’m Lissa Meredith,” said Lissa.

All three went into the smaller office, and the Sergeant motioned to chairs and sat down himself, but Lissa continued to stand.

“I can’t wait to hear everything. Roger, is it true that you’ve seen Ricky?”

He nodded.

“How — how was he?” She seemed almost afraid to ask.

“Frightened,” Roger told her, “but not hurt.”

“You’ll just have to see the Shawns. They’re — they’re worse even than you would expect. David thought that Ricky would be sent back once he came over here. Belle raves at him like a crazy woman. I don’t want to get any nearer hell than that household.” She paused. “Did you see him again?”

“Yes.”

What’s happening up there?” Lissa asked. “Washington called me and said Ed Pullinger had arrived, too. I don’t know the whole story yet.” She glanced at Al Ginney. “Have you had instructions from Washington, Al?”

“No, ma’am. I would get them through Albany, anyway,” the Sergeant told her. “But I guess I don’t need instructions to do what Mr Pullinger says, and he says to let Mr West do anything he pleases.”

“Where is Mr Pullinger?”

“In bed. I guess he had a pretty hard time.”

“Do you know what happened to him in New York — and to you?” Lissa asked Roger.

He told me about it.”

Then we needn’t disturb him,” Lissa decided. We’ll drive to the Shawns’ place at once. There isn’t a thing more you can do here. Are you ready?”

“There’s one little thing,” Roger said. “That paper-knife, Sergeant.”

When he told her of the significance of the knife, she opened her handbag and took out a folded card; Roger saw that this had her photograph on it.

We’ll take that knife, Al,” she said.

Ginney studied the card, then studied her.

“Sure can, ma’am. I’ve taken the prints off it, they’re on the record, and I’ve sent copies to New York by special messenger and to Washington by air. Mr West thinks they might be that important. There’s a funny thing, Mr West. We’ve men up at Webster’s old house, but haven’t found another set of those same prints. We don’t know for sure, but we think the man who left them on the knife arrived only an hour or so before Mr West got away.

“He wore gloves,” Roger said. “He always wore gloves or had his fingers taped. He forgot himself for ten minutes, and that was enough.” Having the prints, knowing there were no others, heightened his sense of buoyancy. “I’m ready when you are, Lissa.”

What’s holding us back?”

He shook hands with Al Ginney, who stepped with them to the street. A Cadillac convertible, wine-red cellulose and chromium glistening, stood in the shade of a spreading beech tree. By now more people were in the main street and in the shops. Most of the weather-board houses were freshly painted, looking bright and new. Only a duster of shops had two storeys or more, while all the houses were the English bungalow type, but looked much larger.

Lissa took the wheel, and Ginney waved them off. Soon they passed the open doors of the little hotel where Roger had feasted on ham and eggs. Looking between the houses on the left, Roger caught glimpses of the lake; of trees on the lake shore, a brighter green than those farther from the water; of small craft moving slowly, an outboard motor-boat flashed past them with a stuttering roar. The far bank of the lake, where Roger had stood and looked at the lights of Wycoma during the night, now seemed much nearer. Beyond, hills rose in wooded slopes, and beyond the hills, peaks which looked like mountains.

Now he and Lissa were passing the end of a dirt road, and as they did so, a big car which had been standing there slid after them.

“See that?” Roger asked quietly.

We’re well guarded,” Lissa said. “Someone thinks you’re worth taking care of.”

Roger didn’t speak.

“How do you feel?” asked Lissa.

“Stiff in places, otherwise I’m all right.”

“If you were half dead, you’d call yourself all right.”

She didn’t look at him. The hood was down, wind sang past the windscreen and whipped round it, playing with her hair where it escaped the peaked pull-on cap she was wearing. He hadn’t given much thought to her clothes before. The cap, wine red like the Cadillac, a beige shirt with large breast pockets, and a wine red skirt; simple, perfect for her. As she drove, she looked as if she held the secret of life.

“How far is it?” Roger asked.

“Say a hundred and sixty miles; we’ll arrive late this afternoon.”

“How did you get here so soon?”

“I flew,” she said simply. “The car was sent from Albany.”

They look after you well.”

They know how important this is, Roger,” Lissa said. “Anyway they don’t want anything else to happen to an English policeman over here! The fingerprints will help, but you’re still the man who matters. The man who matters,” she repeated softly, and glanced at him. Then she laughed. “It’s too bad. You don’t have two hours in New York before you get carried off, and even when you see the Adirondacks, you’re being hunted or hustled. We’re on the eastern slopes,” she went on. “In a month or six weeks, you ought to come back to see the autumn leaves. I don’t think there is anything like their colours in the world.” She laughed again, as if she were excited, and talked swiftly, as if anxious to stop herself from thinking too much. “You’ll have heard that too often already, Ed Pullinger couldn’t help himself talking about New York. Do we talk too much about America? I often wish I knew just what the English think about us. Is it too bad?”

Roger said easily: “I’d rather work with Marino than with most men I know.”

“Thank you.” She took her right hand off the wheel and rested it for a moment on Roger’s knee. “If there’s one thing I want, it’s that you should think well of us.”

He didn’t have to tell her that he knew she meant it.

She drove fast without being reckless, and the other car was always in sight behind them. The first hour was through winding tree-clad slopes, hiding large lakes, allowing only occasional glimpses of them through the folds in the hills and the valleys. There was little traffic. The surface of the road was good, the edges roughly finished to eyes used to the neatness of English roads. Roger didn’t consciously compare them, but sat back and let reflections drift in and out of his mind in a strange contentment. The aching in his limbs had eased, and now only the abrasions at his ankle and the back of his right heel stung, but not severely.

Soon they reached open land, pasture with long, wide vistas, and here it would have been easy to imagine that he was in an unfamiliar part of England. Only the big cars and the huge trucks were different; and the small towns, with their frame houses, each house surrounded by sweeping lawns and shaded from the hot sun by tall trees.

It was in one of those towns that they stopped for lunch, choosing a large, single-storey restaurant, where green blinds were down to keep out the sun, and a huge sign proclaimed:

Steaks

Chicken in the Basket

Boston Baked Beans

Roger hadn’t eaten a bigger steak for years.

The big room was cool, the service friendly, music came from juke boxes fed with nickels by a family with three children who were sprawling over the chairs and examining the colourful candy-stand with eager eyes.

Afterwards, Lissa drove on tirelessly. They said little. Roger thought less, his mind a vacuum which he knew would soon have to be filled; but there was no need to fill it yet. Just after four o’clock they turned off a wide main road on to a narrow one with a good tar surface, and Lissa said:

“In another two miles, we’ll be there. Roger, please try to help David. I know you don’t like him, but try to help. I don’t think — I don’t think anyone could do anything to help Belle, unless it’s David. That’s why he needs all the help anyone can give him.”

“I’ll try,” Roger promised. “Has there been any ransom demand yet?”

“I forgot you didn’t know. He paid some as soon as he got here. One hundred thousand dollars. When we found out he had cashed such a big cheque we made him talk, we got tough for once.” She didn’t smile. “He put it in an old chest in the house, and doesn’t know who took it, although it must have been someone with access to the household.”

Roger nodded; looked at her; and wondered.

• • •

The house was in the old Colonial style, built of weatherboard, with tall round pillars at the front, on either side of the large verandah and the dozen steps leading up to it. It stood in parkland. Gardeners were working on the lawns and in the flower gardens, which were massed with colour. Hissing sprays of water filmed the air in a dozen places. On one side was a swimming-pool, with diving-board and two small brick-built sheds, one at each end. The water looked limpid in the sunshine, and shone pale blue because of the tiles.

Lissa pulled up at the front steps. The other car drove past them towards garages which were just visible. As they walked towards the open front door, Dr Carl Fischer appeared, a hand raised, face twisted in a smile. It might have been the direct rays of the sun, but it looked to Roger as if Fischer were showing signs of great strain.

He shook hands with Roger.

“They tell me you’ve been getting around.”

Roger smiled. “A little,” he conceded.

“I’m glad you don’t look like another patient,” said Fischer dryly.

“How are they?” Lissa asked as they entered the shady hall.

“Much worse, since they heard that Ricky had been traced and lost again. The news came over the radio, someone must have picked it up in Wycoma.” Fischer glanced at Roger almost accusingly, as if to blame him for the news leaking out. “Belle gave David another look at hell after that. He looks as if he’s turning into stone, I don’t think he’s slept since he got back. He won’t have a shot. I can’t give Belle any more, she’s built up a resistance.”

“I’d better go and see her,” Lissa said almost wearily. “Where is she?”

“In her room. I shouldn’t go yet, she’s quiet. When she sees Roger, she’ll blow up again.” Fischer had as much time for Belle Shawn as he would have for a dog with rabies, if his manner were any guide. “David’s in the library.” He stopped by an open door. “I won’t come with you, if you don’t mind. I could use some sleep myself.”

“You go and rest,” Lissa said.

Fischer was obviously so tired that he could have gone to sleep on his feet.

As he went upstairs with Lissa, Roger glanced at her, wondering how much of the brightness of her eyes was due to over-exhaustion. It was hard to believe that she, too, hadn’t slept, but if this household were as she had said, and Fischer had confirmed this, how could she have done so? Yet she had shown no sign of fatigue on the journey, had been bright-eyed when she had come to Sergeant Al’s office. Perpetual youth? Roger found himself scowling at his own strange fancy and stranger mood.

Now they were on a spacious landing, oil paintings, mostly portraits, on the walls, the floors highly polished, skin rugs showing up darkly against the fight brown of the wood. Lissa went straight to a door on the left, the farthest from the staircase, opened it and went straight in. As she glanced back, her look said:

“Wait, Roger.”

He waited.

She walked across a carpeted room, and he could see the books which rose from floor to ceiling along one wall. The late afternoon sun came in at a window where the blind wasn’t drawn properly; apart from that, it was shadowy.

“Hallo, David,” she said.

Shawn didn’t speak.

“How are you?”

Shawn still didn’t speak, and the dislike Roger had felt for him came back, but he fought against it. Shawn was living in two different kinds of hell, he had never seen him except under dreadful pressure.

“I’ve brought Roger West,” Lissa announced. He’s outside.”

“Should I care?” Shawn asked. His voice was still husky, but very tired, as if finding any words was a physical effort.

“He saw Ricky last night,” said Lissa.

Even without seeing Shawn’s face, Roger sensed the tension which had clutched the man. A chair creaked. Roger moved forward, knowing that Shawn was coming towards the door. As he reached the doorway, Shawn was halfway from the window. Lissa stood against the window, and the shaft of sunlight caught her right hand and the side of her face. Shawn’s face, against the light, looked dark and full of shadows, but his eyes burned. His hands were clenched by his side. He stopped moving, just stared.

Then, from across the landing, there came a scream.

20

SCREAMING BELLE

SHAWN moved convulsively, as if someone had stabbed a knife into his back. The scream came again, as a door burst open and a woman ran across the landing into the room. Now she was screaming all the time. Roger spun round. Belle Shawn was beating her hands against her breasts, her mouth was open as if it were locked that way. She wore a simple white dress buttoned down the front, the top button unfastened, and her fair hair was braided and drawn back from her forehead. In spite of the way her mouth, stretched back, she still appeared beautiful — tall, full-breasted, with the figure of a Juno and the wildness of the demons in her eyes.

“Why don’t you stay with me?” she screamed at Shawn. “I can’t bear to be alone, you ought to stay with me. You don’t care, that’s the truth, you don’t care about me. You don’t care about Ricky. You’re a devil, that’s the truth of it, a cold, heartless devil. Why don’t you stay with me?”

“But, Belle, you said —”

“I asked you not to leave me alone, I can’t stand it! And all you care about is running after her. Why don’t you go away with her? Why don’t you? That would be better than tormenting me, torturing me!”

“Belle,” Shawn said, “you asked me to leave you alone for an hour.”

“Answer my question! Why don’t you go away with her? Do you think I don’t know what’s going on? In my own house, under my own nose. Think I don’t know where you’ve been all the afternoon. In her bed, that’s where you’ve been. You left me alone, just when I need you most. You went to her.”

“That’s not true,” Shawn said in a dead voice. “You know that’s not true.”

“You can’t fool me. I know. I’ve known for months. I could stay behind, but she had to come to England with you. You pretended it was work, all you wanted was to have that wanton with you. I won’t have her in the house any longer. I won’t have her!”

“You’re not yourself,” Shawn said. “Lissa’s a good friend to us both. She—”

“Friend!” Belle screeched. “She’s your mistress, the whore, I won’t have her in the house another minute.” She turned, looked as if she would fly at Lissa, beat at her, drive her out of the house by force. “Get out, get out, get out!”

Lissa stood without moving.

Shawn stretched out his long arm, and his fingers closed round his wife’s wrist. She stopped, as if she knew that she had no hope of getting free.

“Be quiet,” Shawn said, and his voice became stronger. “It’s not true and you know it. Don’t go on like this Belle. I won’t have it any more.”

“Send that whore away!”

“Belle, will you listen —”

She struck at him savagely, and he backed away and freed her wrist. She pushed again and he lost his footing and went staggering back.

Belle flung herself at Lissa.

Roger would rather have been a thousand miles away, but he couldn’t just look on. The first time he had seen Belle Shawn, she had tried to push past him, and he had felled and stunned her. Now he thrust her to one side and stepped in front of Lissa, whose face was cold and set as an alabaster statue. Belle steadied, turned to fly at the new adversary, might have done so if Roger had not said:

“I saw your son last night, Mrs Shawn.”

Belle stopped absolutely still. Her arms fell by her side and at once the passion drained out of her cheeks and eyes. He had never seen anyone emptied of everything as she was then; he could not have stopped her more effectively if he had struck her. She stood quite still, legs a little apart, hands limp by her side. After a moment, the blankness of surprise faded from her eyes, but she didn’t speak.

“Ricky’s all right,” Roger went on quietly. “I saw him and talked to him.” Nothing would make him tell the Shawns about the plaster over the boy’s mouth. “He told me they hadn’t hurt him, and I could see that for myself.”

His back was turned on Shawn, his only concern then was Belle. Then a hand crashed on to his shoulder, fingers gripped him like claws. Shawn spun him round, and glared into his eyes.

His lips hardly moved.

“Don’t lie!”

Roger said: To hell with you.” He doubled his right fist and drove it into Shawn’s stomach, with all his weight behind it. The sudden surge of fury blinded him to what Shawn might do. Damn Shawn, damn this hysteria which made mockery of distress. Shawn staggered back, his eyes losing their fire as astonishment caught him, stumbling against a chair.

“I saw the boy, and he’s all right,” Roger said harshly. “If you had only behaved like a father instead of a mad bull, you might have had him back by now. Tell us what messages you get, help us find the kidnappers, instead of getting in our way.” Shawn, still dazed, gave no answer, and Roger turned on Belle. “You’re just as bad — in fact you’re worse, you stop your husband from doing what he should. You’re flagellating yourself with unnecessary horror. Lissa was driving with me all the afternoon. She’s tried to help you both, and you’ve made it an ordeal for her. If she had any sense, she would leave you to manage for yourself.”

Lissa was watching him, and the corners of her lips were curved slightly. He didn’t notice that

“You — saw — Ricky,” Shawn said with slow disbelief.

They took me, too. We were held at the same house. I got away. By the time I reached the police, Ricky had been moved, but the police are closer now than they’ve ever been. They’ll find him, if you do what you ought to.”

Shawn said very simply: “I would do anything in the world to find him. Anything in the world.”

Belle cried: “You saw Ricky!” It was as if she had only now realized the truth. Roger half turned as she rushed at him and flung her arms round his shoulders, thrusting her face very close to his. “You saw him, and — and he was all right. You swear he wasn’t hurt. Swear it!”

“He wasn’t hurt.”

“Swear it!”

“God help me, your son was not hurt, Mrs Shawn,” Roger said quietly. “I spoke to him. I spoke to his kidnapper. I was told they didn’t intend to hurt Ricky. They know that nothing is his fault, they’ve nothing against him.”

Belle dropped her arms; and the soft warmth of her moved away. She looked past him, at Shawn.

“David, did you — did you hear that?”

Shawn’s voice was choky with emotion.

“I knew he was all right, Belle, I was sure they wouldn’t hurt him.”

“Ricky’s not hurt,” she said in a distant voice. He’s all right, and — and this man’s seen him. Oh, David.”

She didn’t move towards him, her arms fluttered, then her hands went to her face, she buried her face in them and began to cry. Her shoulders heaved, but she stood still. Shawn went to her; he looked gigantic by her side. His arm went round her shoulders gently, and it was easy to think that he had for-gotten Roger and Lissa.

Lissa took Roger’s arm, and they moved away. On the landing they stopped, turned and looked back at the tableau; the strength of Shawn’s arm seemed to have stilled the heaving shoulders.

Lissa took her hand away from Roger’s, and they went downstairs together, out into the bright sunlight and then beneath the shade of trees between the house and the swim-ming-pooL Mosquitoes and flies hummed lazily. There were hammocks and a swing garden-seat. They sat down, Roger cautiously as pain twitched the muscles of his leg. He took out cigarettes which Sergeant Al had pressed on him.

“I wonder how long this new mood will last,” he said dryly.

“They need a shot of Roger West once every hour or so.” Lissa was still pale, as if the scene upstairs had really hurt her. “Belle can be so very sweet. It’s hard to believe, but she can. I wonder if this would have happened if David hadn’t been forced to leave her so much.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Oh, for years. I’ve worked with David for ten. She’s never turned on me quite like that before,” Lissa added, and looked rueful “She sounded so convincing.”

“She chose the wrong afternoon.” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “When did she first show signs of strain?”

Lissa considered. “A year ago, I suppose. She was always very temperamental, you would never have called her even-tempered. Nor David, for that matter.”

“And David has been a year on this special work that has to be done in England,” Roger said.

“Yes. Belle didn’t want him to go. I remember the scene when he told her that he was leaving. She had tried hard to make him refuse the assignment. I think I was astonished when he decided he had to take it on. God knows he didn’t want to. But he knew he was the most likely man to do the work. He hasn’t had it easy, Roger, and he put first things first. You have to know David and what has happened before you blame him for anything.”

Roger waved away mosquitoes.

“Gissing could have started working on Belle a year ago, if it is an espionage job.”

Lissa said slowly: “We always assumed that the trouble was because Belle missed David so much. Or at least didn’t want him away from her. Nothing’s ever suggested that Gissing started as soon as that.”

“Have you ever tried to talk to her about it?”

“No. These emotional outbursts didn’t really begin until Ricky was taken away. That is, they didn’t come into the open. We watched David closely, and there were accidents which might have been attempts on his life. Immediately we knew about the kidnapping, we saw the possibility that they were really planning to break David up, to bring him back here. And they have.”

The seat swung gently to and fro, and a soft breeze blew from the hills. It was very quiet and deceptively peaceful

They,” echoed Roger flatly. “Gissing and who?”

Lissa didn’t answer.

Roger stood up slowly, moved to a tree and leaned against the trunk, watching the wind play with Lissa’s hair, watching the repose of her face, the grace of her body. He had no other picture in his mind.

“All right,” he said. “When we find Gissing we might find who else is working with him. Or for whom he’s working. It’s time I got to work. Tony Marino said there might be a line on Gissing over here. Is there?”

“We thought so, but it didn’t get us anywhere. We will find Gissing, and we will need you when we do, but not before. It might be hours, days or weeks. Take it easy for a spell, Roger. It’s possible that things will be quieter here now, it’s a pleasant place to stay. But if you prefer, you could go back to New York. It doesn’t matter where you are, provided we can reach you quickly. I shall stay here unless Belle returns to that attack; if she does, then I shall tell Tony that I think I ought to leave. It will only make things worse for David.” She stopped, watching him closely, telling him that she was thinking of him as a man, not as a cypher in the search for Gissing; telling him everything he already knew, although no words had passed between them. “Roger.”

“Yes?”

“What’s in your mind?”

He stood away from the tree, and smiled. He considered, and then said deliberately:

“I hope I’m not away from home too long. My wife will find the time drags.” He watched her, and she made it clear that she knew exactly what he was saying, and would never try to make him wish that the words and the implications had not been made.

“Of course,” she said. “I understand.”

She smiled.

Roger lit a cigarette and looked across the swimming-pool to the hills beyond, the ranks of trees and the undulating parkland. A long way off a car was moving along a dirt road, and a cloud of dust rose up behind it.

“And I am also a detective,” he said huskily. “That is how I earn my living. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“Someone drugged David and Belle before the boy was kidnapped. Remember that, too? Who did it was never discovered. The drug might have been in cigarettes, in coffee, in anything they ate or drank. The last report I saw showed no traces of any drug in anything at the house in Wavertree Road, yet the cups and saucers were dirty, it looked as if everything had been left as the Shawns left it. It was a smart job. The dope was a barbiturate, almost certainly. It takes quick effect. They didn’t have it in the middle of the day, but quite late in the evening — say an hour or less, before they folded up. Ricky had been doped, earlier, probably with a smaller dose. Bill Sloan’s very good. His report said that as far as he could find out — he talked to you about it, I think — the only thing that the child and the parents all ate or drank was the milk. It might not have been in the milk, but that’s as likely as anything else.”

“Yes,” said Lissa. She was still relaxed; but her expression had changed, she looked at him intently, almost warily.

“Who could have doped the milk?” asked Roger. “We haven’t found that they had any visitors after you went. None of the neighbours noticed anyone. That’s not conclusive, but it is a reasonable indication. There was no talk of visitors coming after you’d left. Was there?”

She shook her head.

“Remember I’m a detective,” Roger said quietly.

“Yes,” she said, without smiling. “And the detective thinks I could have put the drug into the milk.”

“He knows you could,” said Roger, very slowly. “He doesn’t know whether you did. If he believed you did, he wouldn’t know your motive. His chief trouble is that he can’t be sure who else had the opportunity. Can you give him any help?”

21

URGENT CALL

LISSA put her foot against the grass and pushed gently; the seat swung to and fro. The quiet lingered about them, and there was no sound from the house. The hiss of water spraying from a jet merged with the sound of mosquitoes and flies. For a few moments Roger’s mind was at peace, too. This fear had tormented him for hours, it was a relief that it was in the open. He had told her that there could be nothing between them more than the swift, unchallenged oneness which could never become a bond. She had accepted that. He thought that she knew what else was in his mind: a desperate desire to warn, to protect her.

“No,” she said quietly. “I can’t help, Roger.”

“Finding out could become a must.”

“Do you think Marino also wonders?”

“I don’t see how he could fail to.” Roger moved, and sat beside her, and the swing moved suddenly and she was flung against him. He said fiercely:

Don’t make any mistake, Lissa. You’re a natural suspect. There’s overwhelming evidence that there is a leakage at the Embassy, too — the other side doped me within an hour or two of reaching New York, so there must have been a leak. Marino’s not blind. Did you know when I was coming, and where I was to stay?”

She nodded, mutely.

Roger said abruptly: “Were you here when Ricky was given his gold identity tag, to hang round his neck?”

She nodded, but looked puzzled.

He dropped it by the side of the swimming-pool,” she said. “It was dented at one corner — not much, but he was so upset he burst out crying. Belle cheered him up, I remember — she said there could never be another one just like it, no one would ever have a tag with a corner with that particular dent.”

“Who else was here?”

She was looking at him, head turned uncomfortably; their shoulders still touched.

“David had come home for a month’s vacation. We were leaving next day for London — David and I. Carl Fischer was here, too. We’d all been in the pool, Ricky was learning to swim. The servants were about, of course.” Her eyes smiled for the first time since he had started these questions. “Don’t forget the servants, Roger.”

“Was any servant near the pool?”

“Ricky could have told his Nanny that he’d dropped the tag.”

“But none was near.”

“No.”

“David and Belle, you and Carl Fischer. Lissa, it’s going to be important This case is too big to take any chances. Was anyone else present that day?”

She turned her head and looked towards the swimming-pool, where the sun, now low in the sky, turned the blue water to gold. The lift of her head made a picture that was going to live in Roger’s mind. She frowned a little, then looked round sharply.

“Yes. Ed Pullinger.”

“Are you sure?”

“Ed came late,” she asserted. “He brought some letters for Tony and others of the Embassy. He didn’t swim, but he was here when Ricky dropped the gold tag.”

“I certainly think our Ed wants watching,” Roger said, grimly. “Ed Pullinger, Fischer and you, the three main suspects. Lissa, don’t get any silly ideas into your head that you’ve got to protect anyone, or that you’re safe from suspicion. If there is anything you remember that might point a finger at Ed or Carl, point it Stab it. This thing can hurt you. It could ruin you.”

“You’re a poor detective,” Lissa said. “You should have kept all this to yourself.” She gripped his hand suddenly, and sprang up. “Let’s get to the house.” They walked slowly, side by side, and at the foot of the steps, she said: “Thank you, Roger. But I didn’t dope the milk.”

Her eyes were suddenly gay, and she ran up the steps ahead of him.

• • •

At dinner there was a brittle brightness. Belle and David Shawn both came down, Fischer was there, and Lissa and Roger. Now and again Belle would talk of Ricky as if she were now sure that it was only a matter of time before she had him back.

“It’s wonderful to know he’s not hurt,” she said a dozen times, always with the same forced brightness and with the flashing smile at Roger.

Shawn said little. The fire had dimmed in his eyes, and he looked as if he couldn’t keep awake right through the meal. Fischer, after a sleep, was much fresher. All felt the strain of a wait which might end suddenly and might drag on for days. Would Belle last out in this mood, if it did? Roger watched her more closely than any of the others, but gave Fischer more attention than he seemed to. In England, he would have had plenty to dig into — Ed Pullinger especially. Lissa told him she had reported the reasons for wondering about both Ed and Fischer, but hadn’t talked about it apart from that.

They were in the big lounge, after dinner, when Fischer said easily:

“I’m only the doctor around here, but I’d advise early bed for everyone, the doctor included. David, you ought to get some sleep right away.”

“Could do with it,” Shawn conceded.

“Honey, let’s have an early night,” Belle said, and squeezed his hand. “I’ve kept you awake so much lately, if you get sick I’ll just have to blame myself. You won’t mind, will you?” she asked the others vaguely, and stood up.

It was a little after nine o’clock.

At ten, Roger looked out of his bedroom window over a starlit countryside, with the murmurs of the night for company. He was restless and uneasy, and knew that he wouldn’t get to sleep if he went to bed. The peacefulness was unreal, even uncanny. Last night he had been on the way to Webster’s house, beginning the ordeal that ended at the lakeside, now it seemed as if danger were a million miles away; and yet it might be lurking at every corner, every window. He had another gun which Fischer had given to him. He slipped it into his pocket, already accustomed to carrying one, and not finding it strange. He went out of the room, and walked through the silent house to the front door. The servants had gone to bed early; they slept in another wing. He opened the door, which was locked but not chained or bolted, and stepped on to the verandah.

He walked down the steps, slowly. He couldn’t go far, if there were watchers the open door was an invitation; he must keep it in sight. It was cool; not cold, not even chilly, almost an English summer evening. The grass was firm underfoot. The hiss of the spraying water was silenced. He walked to and fro, seeing the shadowy darkness of the trees, much more clearly defined than on the previous night

He saw no one, and heard nothing.

He stayed out for half an hour, then returned to the house, redropped the catch of the front door, and went upstairs. A sliding door on the landing led into his bedroom, which was large, airy and modern; inside the room, another door led to a small bathroom. He had as hot a bath as possible, to ease the tightened muscles in his legs and back, then put on borrowed pyjamas and went to bed. He was pleasantly tired now; the disquiet had been steamed out of him. It had been at least as much due to uncertainty about Lissa as to the thought of lurking danger.

He went to sleep.

Sound pierced his sleep vaguely — sound which might have been part of a dream. It woke him. He lay between sleeping and waking, and then heard the sound again. He turned his head slowly, and looked at the window, which was outlined against a greying sky; dawn. No one was there. He turned his head again, cautiously, and looked towards the door.

It was opening.

He loosened the bedclothes, and shifted his legs; a twinge of pain shot through his calf. He eased himself to one side, so that he could spring out of bed quickly, and watched the door through his lashes. For a moment he thought that the half-light had deceived him, that the opening of the door had been in his imagination.

It creaked.

Roger waited. Lying still and tense beneath the bedclothes, he flexed his muscles in readiness for the bound which was to bring him face to face with this unknown visitor.

Gradually, the door opened; and in the greyness of the morning a woman appeared. He could see her hair, the silhouette of her robe against a light beyond.

It was Lissa.

She stood for a moment looking at him, and he breathed evenly; she was listening for that. Then she came forward, without closing the door. Her right hand was stretched out, and he tried to see whether she had anything in it, but could not. She drew nearer, and her robe rustled, but otherwise she made no sound. Now she was only a foot or two from the bed, and he could see that her hand was empty. The light was good enough to show the softness of her beauty; and the robe seemed like a silken Sheath. His heart was thumping with a fierce longing which he wouldn’t face. She leaned forward, as if to make sure that he was asleep, and then, quickly, she bent towards him. He moved convulsively. Her lips touched his, pressed hard against them, and he became still.

She drew back, breathing heavily, more agitated than he had ever known her. Then she said softly:

“Roger.”

He grunted, as if he had been asleep and the movement had been unconscious.

“Roger,” she said more loudly. Wake up.” Her hand moved to the bedside lamp, and she switched it on. The brightness lit against his eyes, and he screwed them up. “I’m sorry, Roger, but you must wake up.”

“Who’s that?” he muttered.

“It’s Lissa.”

“Lissa? What —” He didn’t try to finish, but struggled up on his pillows. “What is it?”

“There’s been a message,” she said quietly. “Marino thinks he knows where Gissing and Ricky are. You’re to fly down to Trenton, New Jersey. I hated waking you.” She had easily won the brief fight against her emotional agitation. “You sleep like a child.”

He said gruffly: “But I’m not a child. Give me ten minutes.”

“I’ll have some coffee ready,” Lissa promised.

“Fine.” He smiled, rasped a hand over his stubble, waited until she had closed the door, and then pressed his fingers against his lips.

“You bloody fool,” he said savagely. “You damned fool.” He made himself picture Janet, at the house, as she had been when Lissa’s cable arrived. “You bloody fool!” he muttered, and began to fling on his clothes. He pushed borrowed shaving-gear and oddments into a borrowed bag, and was ready when Lissa tapped at the door. “Come in.”

She carried a tray. She hadn’t dressed, looked as bright and fresh as he had always known her, but was crisp and businesslike. There were rolls and butter, jelly and marmalade, as well as coffee.

“No one else is awake,” she said. “I’ll be back in five minutes, and I’ll drive you to the airfield. The plane’s waiting.” She went out without looking at him.

In six or seven minutes she was back, wearing the same beige shirt and wine red skirt as yesterday, with a short-waisted lumber-jacket type coat slung over her shoulders. She drank the cup of coffee he poured for her, and they hurried downstairs. They were at the front door, when a man called out sharply:

“Who’s that?”

Lissa cried: “Be quiet!”

It was Fischer, still in his dressing-gown, hair tousled, eyes bleary in the landing light. He was already halfway down the stairs.

“What the hell’s all this?”

“Roger’s been recalled,” Lissa said.

“Recalled.”

“It’s the very devil,” Roger said. His cue was ready made, because Lissa was determined Fischer shouldn’t be sure of the truth. And couldn’t Fischer have doped that milk, as easily as Lissa? “See you one day.” He waved, and opened the door.

Fischer was muttering something, and still coming down. He was at the open door when they drove out from the garage. He waved.

“Can our man be Carl?” Lissa asked.

“It can be anyone, male or female.”

She laughed, but did not sound carefree. She drove much faster than she had the previous day, and the waking country-side slipped by. They passed through a township with the needle at sixty. The airfield was on the far side, and he heard the engines of a “plane warming up. It was a twin-engined machine with sleek lines. The pilot and one other member of the crew were waiting.

Roger turned to Lissa. “Be careful,” he said. “You —”

“I’m coming with you,” she interrupted. “I’ve a grip with some clothes in the boot I had to fool Carl.”

• • •

Greeting the pilot and his second-in-command, climbing into the aircraft behind Lissa, looking out of the window at the green fields, the stretch of tarmac and the small aerodrome buildings all seemed to crowd in on Roger. He had hardly sat down before they started to move. There were twenty-two seats, but they were the only passengers.

He sensed the smoothness of the “plane as it was airborne. It circled once, and he saw the building again. Lissa was by his side, leaning back relaxed.

But as the machine climbed, and Roger also relaxed back in his seat, a darting thought drove relaxation away.

He knew that Lissa could have doped the Shawns; knew too that she could have betrayed him, Roger, before, although he didn’t think so, hated to think so. Could she have hired this plane and hired the pilot?

22

THE WHEELCHAIR

“WE’RE nearly there,” Lissa said. “There’s Trenton.” She pointed to a huddle of houses thousands of feet below, a township set amid green countryside, rolling and pleasant. Even up here, they could see the winding ribbons of roads and, not far away, a road wider and straighter than the others. “I wonder if they’re right, and they’ve found Gissing.”

“We’ll see,” said Roger, and forced out the question which he had locked in for the past hour and a half. “Why did you come the way you did?”

“I knew Carl was up, there was a light under his door when I left your room. I thought if he saw me about in a robe, he would assume that I wasn’t leaving. But naturally he had to see me fully dressed. If he’s involved, he will have found a way of warning Gissing. I suppose I could, too.”

Roger shrugged. “Everyone but Ed Pullinger. It might have been better to stay behind. Carl wouldn’t have been suspicious of me leaving on my own.”

“I had to come,” Lissa said.

“Orders?”

Her eyes laughed at him. “Yes, and not mine.”

They were circling to land, and Roger could pick out the small airfield and the little ant-like figures of men waiting for them. He still didn’t feel sure of anything, but was less uneasy than he had been. The landing came, as always, before he expected it They taxied towards the airport buildings, past them slowly once, and then turned back again. He felt Lissa become tense. They turned again and taxied back, and Lissa said softy:

“There he is.”

“Who?”

Roger peered out of the little window, and needed no answer. A man sat in a wheelchair outside the doors of the building. He wasn’t smiling. He had a big face, and even from here his chin and jowl seemed dark. He was hatless, and his hair looked black as soot.

Marino had come home.

Marino’s hand-clasp had the warmth of old, tried friendship. He smiled at Roger, then put both hands out to Lissa, who bent down and kissed him on the forehead. He chuckled as he began to turn the wheels of his chair. Roger and Lissa walked, one on either side of him, across the grass towards the cars which were waiting on the road leading to the town.

“I need more of that treatment,” Marino said. “Have you two made it up?”

“Who’s quarrelled?” asked Roger.

Marino’s manner had a touch of boyishness which was good to see, which hid excitement and expectation; he seemed more than ever sure of himself.

“Didn’t she quarrel with you, Detective?”

Roger looked over his head at a demure Lissa.

“Lissa reported it to Washington, I picked up a message,” went on Marino. “It wasn’t a laugh, either, Lissa had been pointed out as a suspect by others, but we always come down on her side. Carl Fischer — it would surprise me if he were anti-American, but I’ve been surprised before. Ed Pullinger? He was at the swimming-pool when Ricky dropped that identity tag. We can work on that later. Sure you’ll recognize Gissing again, Roger?”

Roger said: “If I had to forget you or Gissing, I would forget you. Where is he?”

“We think he’s at a farm fifteen miles from here,” replied Marino. “He answers your description. He was seen in a car early last night. There were two cars, the same make as two of the cars which left Webster’s old house, and in the first there was a boy passenger, who seemed to be asleep. A traffic cop noticed them. He was directing traffic past an accident, they had to slow down, and he had a good look. So we checked. Several other people noticed the two cars, and three described Gissing well enough to make us hope. So we got into the garage during the night and scraped some of the dirt from under the guards. It’s Adirondacks dirt, of a kind you don’t find in New Jersey. There was a copy of the Wycoma Standard in the glove compartment, too, so the cars came from that neck of the wood. A man who could be Gissing, a sleeping boy and this evidence, isn’t conclusive, but why shouldn’t we hope?”

“Don’t ask me,” Lissa said. “Why did you come yourself, Tony?”

“I was recalled. I have to talk David into going back to England.”

No one spoke.

Marino was helped into a big pre-war Lincoln, next to the driver, with Roger and Lissa at the back.

“We’re going to a restaurant two miles away from the farm,” Marino said, “and from there we’re going to raid the house. It will catch them with their pants down. The farm’s surrounded, and anyone who leaves is picked up when he’s too far away to be noticed by anybody still at the farmhouse. It can’t go wrong.”

He meant: “It mustn’t go wrong.”

“And when you’ve caught Gissing and found the boy, I just put a finger on Gissing,” Roger said.

“That’s right.”

“Don’t you like the plan?” Lissa picked out the doubt in his voice.

“I don’t like it at all,” Roger said bluntly.

How would you do it?” Marino asked, turning his head with difficulty.

“I could identify him first, you could catch him afterwards.”

“You would go up to the house on your own?”

“And have a better opportunity to get in. If he has time, he might kill that boy.” Roger’s tone was light, but neither of the others needed telling what he was thinking. “Let’s give the boy a chance.”

“How would he think you’d found him on your own?” Marino asked dryly. “We’ll do it our way.”

“It’s the wrong way.”

Marino sighed. “These stubborn Britishers.”

“Oh, I know, I’ve been wrong all along,” Roger said heavily. “If Fischer’s the spy, Gissing will know that I’m on the way somewhere. Lissa tried hard, but Fischer wouldn’t so easily be convinced that I was recalled to London. Even if Fischer didn’t, someone else might have warned Gissing, and the chances are he will be ready for you when you arrive. You know all this as well as I do.”

“If Gissing’s had a warning, he would be ready for us and ready for you. And if you went alone, he would know we weren’t far behind,” Marino argued.

“Are we getting any place?” asked Lissa.

“We will do it my way,” said Marino. “Sorry, Roger, but that’s how it is.”

They drove on, the chauffeur apparently oblivious. Roger sat at the back, staring at Marino’s head, knowing nothing would move the man yet feeling sure that to raid the house as Marino planned offered risks that could be avoided. The truth was simple: Marino was sure that he had Gissing surrounded, thought that when Gissing knew the game was up, he would submit without a fight. He didn’t know Gissing.

Roger wished constraint had not fallen on all of them — a form of reaction because the end seemed to be near. Lissa didn’t look at him. He studied her lips, and remembered . . .

He turned his head, and then heard a car horn blare out It blared again, loud and shrill with warning. The driver swerved to one side, and a car flashed by, pulled in front of them and began to slow down. A man in the front passenger seat waved wildly. The driver put on his brakes, and looked at Marino.

“What’ll I do?”

“It’s Pullinger!” Lissa said. “Pullinger’s waving.”

“Okay,” Marino said to the driver.

“How much does he know?” Roger asked. The uneasiness he had felt at Webster’s house when Pullinger had been brought in, and which he had felt again at Wycoma, had never been stronger. “About the farmhouse, I mean.”

“Nothing,” said Marino. He was frowning at Pullinger, who had climbed out of the car ahead and was running towards them. “We didn’t tell him. He didn’t do a very good job with you in New York, Roger, but we haven’t checked his story yet. I thought he was in Wycoma, he was told to stay there and go through the Webster house, pulling it apart.” He wound down his window as Pullinger came up, breathing heavily. His eyes glittered, as if he couldn’t fight down excitement. “Hi, Ed,” said Marino smoothly. “How come?”

“Tony, have I got news for you!” Pullinger paused, as if for breath. “I found plenty at Webster’s house. The address of the farm.” He jerked his head backwards, and paused again. “I called the office, and they told me you had an address already.”

“So what’s news, Ed?”

“This is news,” said Pullinger. He pulled a gun from his pocket, and his grin was from ear to ear. “Big news. Ready for more. I told the office you’d got the wrong farm. I had the cordon moved, no one is round Gissing’s place now. How do you like the news, Tony?” He was still grinning.

The driver of Pullinger’s car was standing at the other side of the Lincoln. His back was to passing traffic, but Roger could see his gun.

“You want to drive on, and have a talk with Gissing?” Pullinger invited.

• • •

Tony Marino didn’t answer. Lissa leaned back, with her eyes closed; Roger had never seen her look tired before. In the bright morning two cars passed, drivers and passengers looking curiously at the old Lincoln and the Chevrolet in front of it. A big truck and trailer ground its way towards them, and Pullinger’s man pressed closer to the car, to make sure there was room.

This answered many questions, but Pullinger had not doped the milk, had never been in England.

“You don’t have to drive on,” Pullinger said. He looked absurdly young. “But if you’re not at the farmhouse in twenty minutes, the Shawns won’t have a son named Ricky. Just imagine what that will do to David Shawn. Guess how much use he would be to you after that, Tony. Gissing might make a visit worth your while. Why not come along? Lissa and my old pal Roger can get into the Chevy, I’ll keep you company. You want to get out, Lissa?”

He opened the rear door with his free hand. He didn’t look evil, as Gissing could look, but just a fresh-faced, eager boy. He was taking a desperate chance. Traffic wasn’t thick here, but there was traffic.

“I’ve grown to like Ricky,” he said. “No one can blame the kid, can they? And you can’t do anything to help now, Tony, unless you talk to Gissing. Why not try it?” Behind his airy brightness the strain was beginning to show. T said twenty minutes, and Gissing gets impatient.”

Roger couldn’t see the expression in Marino’s eyes, but he could imagine it. Lissa had opened her eyes, and her hands were clenched in her lap. Roger moved slightly, his side pressing against her leg; she must feel the gun which he had in the pocket, which she could get more easily than he. If there was a chance, it was now. Marino was holding Pullinger’s gaze, Pullinger showing greater signs of strain.

Lissa noticed nothing, or preferred to pretend that she didn’t.

“So you’re on the other side, Ed,” Marino said softly. “You’re a traitor. I didn’t think it could happen to you.”

Pullinger laughed, and the sound wasn’t free.

“You can guess,” he said. “You can guess wrong, too. It’s time Lissa and my old pal from Scotland Yard got moving. And you’re an important guy, Tony, I don’t want anything to happen to you either.” He gave the laugh again. “Get moving.”

“Do what he says,” Marino said slowly.

Pullinger exclaimed: “That’s my boy! Take it easy, Lissa. Don’t try to pull anything, West.”

“Don’t try to pull anything,” Marino confirmed. “We’ll see what Gissing has to say.”

“That’s one thing about Tony Marino, he’s full of good sound sense.” Pullinger was exultant as yet another car was waved past by his companion, who was still standing on the Lincoln’s off side. He held the rear door wide open, and Lissa got out, Roger followed, his gun knocking against his side, twice. It didn’t have a chance to do that a third time, for Pullinger slipped his hand into Roger’s pocket and took it; he dropped it into his own pocket, and laughed again; his laugh was shrill. “Get going, old pal,” he said.

Roger walked stiffly towards the Chevrolet, his arm brushing against Lissa’s. She stared straight ahead of her, and seemed to be moving like clockwork. The man from the other side of the Lincoln walked behind them, a hand in his pocket, his gun hidden. Pullinger was already in the Lincoln, covering Marino and the driver.

Lissa said softly: “Roger.”

He glanced at her. She didn’t raise her voice.

“Roger, I don’t think we’ll see Gissing. We might talk to him, but we won’t see him. You’re the one on the spot. We might get away, but you won’t.”

“Quit talking,” said the man behind them.

“Tell me a thing I can do,” Roger said.

She didn’t answer. He didn’t need an answer. He could try to tackle the man behind him, and might manage to get away. The road was empty but for the two cars, now; another might come into sight at any moment, but would it do more than bring others into the tragedy? This was complete and utter failure.

They were almost alongside the Chevrolet.

“I’m going to run,” Lissa said in that faint whisper. “And you’re going to run, when I’ve drawn fire. One of us will have a chance. Be ready.”

“Don’t do it! “ The man behind might hear his voice or at least the urgency of Roger’s manner. He gripped Lissa’s arm. “Don’t do it.”

“I’m going to run,” Lissa said. “You’ll have a chance that way.”

On the last word, she pushed him aside, then raced alongside the Chevrolet. Roger staggered against the side of the car. There was a wire fence along the road here, and beyond it an orchard of young fruit trees, but Lissa hadn’t a chance to reach cover. Roger was still off his balance when he heard the shot and saw her fall.

23

THE FACE OF MARINO

LISSA fell headlong as the echo of the shot died away. She was still moving with convulsive jerks of arms, legs and head when Roger turned on the man behind him, who had shot her. If the gun had been pointing at his own chest and murder been in that man’s eyes, it would have made no difference. Roger saw that the man was still watching Lissa; he could see nothing in the car behind. Swiftly he flung himself forward and downwards, arms outstretched to grab the gunman’s legs. The roar of a shot blasted his ears as his arms folded behind the man’s knees and he heaved.

The man pitched backwards, his hat flew off, his head crashed against the road.

There might be danger left, but not from the fallen man. He lay as still as death, the gun a few inches from a limp hand; as Roger stood up, blood started to flow sluggishly, collecting the pale dust of the road. Now the danger came from Pullinger and the Lincoln. Roger snatched the gun, his finger on the trigger as he looked up, prepared for the winged bullet of death. Pullinger, Marino and the driver were puppets leaping and prancing between him and Lissa; the burning image on his mind was of Lissa, falling.

It faded.

Marino had turned in his seat, and it was almost impossible for Marino to turn. His face was just a cheek, an ear and the tip of a nose. He had twisted himself round so that his left arm was over the back of his seat, fingers buried deep in Pullinger’s neck. His right fist, clenched, smashed and kept smashing into Pullinger’s face, and already that youthful face was a scarlet running wound. There were other sounds, of car engines and car horns, but all that Roger really heard was the sickening thudding of fist against face.

The driver was plucking helplessly at Marino’s wrists.

Roger made himself look round. A car had stopped, and two men were running towards Lissa, another car was drawing up alongside him, the driver shouting questions which he didn’t hear. He could leave Lissa to others; he must. He ran to the door of the Lincoln, pulled it open, and struck Marino on the side of the head, a blow that would have knocked most men sideways. Marino kept smashing into the red mess. Roger struck him again, savagely, and Marino’s grip on Pullinger’s neck relaxed. The driver put both hands against Pullinger’s shoulders and pushed; Pullinger fell back on the seat. Roger saw the driver lean over to take Pullinger’s gun from the floor.

Marino moved round clumsily. Roger looked into a face so suffused with hatred that he himself could neither move nor speak. He didn’t know how long he stood there. He was vaguely aware that motorists were approaching, warily because of the guns in his hand and in the driver’s; and he saw, as if it were happening a long way off and had nothing to do with him, that the motorists stopped dead when they saw Marino.

At last Marino’s gaze shifted, and he looked past Roger towards the orchard and the men who bent over Lissa. Roger didn’t know that they were lifting her. He saw the transformation; it was like watching a devil turn into a saint. All hatred died. Yearning showed in Marino’s eyes, and his face was touched with a softness that matched a mother’s for a child; a lover’s for his love.

He didn’t speak or need to speak. Roger knew why he had succumbed to the red surge of rage, why he had changed now.

• • •

A man said: “Put that gun down, will you?”

“Don’t get too near, Hank,” another warned.

“You heard me — put that gun down.”

Roger forced himself to look away from Marino and saw the motorists, two of them, Hank probably the nearer, a stripling wearing a peaked skull cap and a red lumber-jacket, whose long jaw was thrust forward and who was edging closer.

Roger swallowed.

“Has anyone called the police?” he asked. His voice was husky, but the words seemed to carry reassurance. He dropped the gun into his pocket, put a hand on Marino’s shoulder and said: “I’ll look after her.” He hurried away, ignoring protests from Hank and his cautious friend.

Lissa was lying on her back, with a folded coat beneath her head, hair bared to the bright sun, body limp but eyes wide open. One of the men with her straightened up and hurried towards the road, glancing at Roger without stopping. But he called:

“Must get a doctor, quick.”

The other man was speaking to Lissa.

“Just stay where you are, you’ll be okay. But don’t move, honey, don’t move.”

Lissa didn’t move.

She was looking towards Roger, recognized him, smiled as he drew near. She looked pale, but didn’t seem to be in pain. Blood stained her beige shirt-blouse, near the waist, and seemed to be spreading, and the men by her side stared down helplessly. If the blood came from one side it didn’t matter, if it sprang from a wound in the middle of her body, it might be deadly.

“I’m all right, Roger,” she said. “See, I’m learning the correct thing to say.”

“Now you keep quiet.” He smiled at her as he might at Janet, brusquely affectionate. “Tony nearly pushed Pullinger’s nose to the back of his head.” He stripped off his coat, knelt down and laid it on the ground, then gently tucked one side beneath her. The back of his hand came away red from the patch of blood. “Does it hurt much?”

“It hardly hurts at all. It’s beginning to ache a little.”

He unzipped her skirt at the side near the wound, his movements quick yet gentle. She wore a pair of white nylon panties and a narrow suspender belt; skin and belt were soaked with blood, and he still couldn’t tell where the wound was.

“It fastens on the other side,” Lissa said.

“You’ll have to buy yourself a new belt.” Roger felt for his knife; of course, Gissing’s men must have taken it. “Have you a knife?” He held out his hand, and the man fumbled in his pockets and produced a big one, opened the blade and thrust the handle towards Roger. “Thanks.” Roger cut the belt carefully, and it sagged away. Blood pumped out of the wound and ran over his hand. The man gasped in horror. Roger glanced up at Lissa’s eyes, seeing the anxiety which lurked in their honey-coloured depths.

“It won’t kill you,” he said, steadily, “it’s too far to one side.” But it could. He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and swabbed the wound, until he could see the actual hole in the flesh. “Handkerchief,” he snapped to the other man, who began to fumble helplessly in his pocket. Slipping off his jacket, Roger unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, flung it at the man and said: “Tear it, fold it into a wad.” He pressed his fingers against Lissa’s flesh, found the bone nearest the artery, pressed tightly. He had to staunch the flow, or she would bleed to death.

“A doctor, too,” Lissa mocked.

“You don’t need a doctor,” he said. “You need a keeper. Lissa, one day I will — we all will tell you what we think about you. Just now, relax.”

The man gave him a wadded piece of shirt, but he didn’t use it at once. The bleeding had stopped, but would start again as soon as he released the pressure.

The wail of a siren came clearly through the air.

“Police or an ambulance,” Roger said to Lissa. “The ambulance will be here any minute, anyhow. You’re going to have a long rest, but you’ll be fine. There won’t be a scar where it matters.” The sun was warm on his arms and back, his fingers began to ache. “If you’d seen Tony,” he went on, “you would have thought his world had come to an end. When he thought you —”

The wailing was much nearer now, a mournful herald of rescue or of doom.

Lissa said: “I know just how Tony feels. Is he hurt?”

“If anyone’s hurt him,” said Roger, “you have. Not that I blame you.”

She didn’t answer.

The wailing pierced his ears and stopped, and more wailing sounded from farther away. The first was a police siren, the second the ambulance. A young doctor took over quickly, and there was nothing more for Roger to do. The doctor grunted as if satisfied with what had been done so far.

Roger smiled down, and said easily:

“I’ll see you soon, we’ll get the other job finished now. Don’t worry, Lissa.”

He turned away and walked quickly back to the Lincoln and the crowd around it A traffic cop was talking to Marino, aggressively at first, then with a swift somersault into deference. Marino had conquered emotion, there was a pale copy of his smile for Roger — and a question shouting from his eyes.

“A month in hospital, I should think,” said Roger.

Marino drew in his breath, and relief glowed in his eyes.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “Wonderful. Do you know how to get these folk away from here?” He waved to the pressing crowd, and cops started bellowing. Pullinger had already been taken out of the car and was lying, unconscious, by the roadside. He would probably never recognize his face again. “Get in behind me,” Marino said. Roger obeyed, and the driver started the engine, one of the traffic cops clearing a path. They drove slowly through the crowd. Marino looked out of the window at Lissa and the doctor bending over her, the ambulance men waiting for instructions. He waved. Lissa’s head was turned towards him, and she smiled. Marino dropped his hand, stared straight ahead for a minute, then drew a great breath and spoke in a clear voice. “Listen, Roger. Pullinger wasn’t as good as he thought, our men were suspicious. No one was drawn away from the farmhouse, but the house Pullinger named was cordoned off as well. Now we’ll raid —”

“Not your way nor my way,” Roger said sharply. “Stop, driver.” The man braked, and Marino half-turned his head, ready to lay down the law. “I’m going up to that farmhouse with as many men as you like,” said Roger. “We’ll take Pullinger’s car. Gissing will recognize it, and it will fool him. I can wear Pullinger’s coat and hat, too.”

Marino ran thumb and fingers over his chin.

“Go and get that Chevy,” he said. “My God, you British are stubborn! I’ll go on. We’ll meet at the restaurant, a mile along the road.

• • •

Pullinger had said that Gissing would wait twenty minutes, but that could have been bluff. It could have been in earnest, too. The tumult of the hold-up was stilled, but a new storm blew, and Roger’s mind’s-eye picture of Ricky Shawn’s face hid everything else. The bright, frightened eyes and the plastered lips, the frail arms with the cruel steel bracelets round them, were all vivid. There was nothing Gissing would not do. It had been a mistake to say that he would take Marino’s men in the car, he ought to go alone. Alone, he might be able to bargain; with others, Gissing would know that the end was inevitable and might kill for the sake of killing. These thoughts pressed sharp against Roger’s mind as he stood outside the restaurant by the side of the Lincoln, with several clean-limbed men standing nearby, waiting for Marino’s orders. Marino was talking to the man in charge.

Roger went to him.

“You all ready, Roger?”

Roger said: “Whenever you like.” He hesitated, looking straight into Marino’s eyes. Then he said very carefully: “Tony, I know I’ve a wife and two sons waiting for me in England. I know the risks. I still want to go alone. Give me the chance. In half an hour you can come and get me.”

Did Marino know exactly what he meant? Did Marino know that he was saying that whatever Lissa felt about him, there was a call from England that he would never be able to resist? He wished he could guess what was passing through the maimed man’s mind. Whatever it was took a long time.

Then Marino said abruptly: “Half an hour. All right. But listen, Roger. In half an hour, a light bomber will fly over that farmhouse and drop a bomb in the garden. It will shake them so badly they won’t have any fight left, and my men will be in the house before the echoes have died away. Do you understand?”

“Nice work,” Roger said.

Tell him how to get there, Stan,” Marino said to his driver.

The directions were easy — he must continue along this road from Trenton for a mile and a quarter, then take the first turning to the left on to a dirt road which dropped down towards a creek, swinging left again before the creek, uphill, with bush on either side, then down again to the farm-house and the outbuildings. Roger followed the route carefully, and soon the Chevrolet was swaying along the rough road towards the rippling stream. At the brow of a hill he looked down over the farm, a big white weatherboard building, emerging from fruit trees and bushes.

Nothing, no one moved.

Approaching the house, he passed a cow-byre. Beyond it, pigs were rooting and Roger wrinkled his nose at the stench. A few hens scratched, one of them close to the front door, which had once been painted white but was now dirty, the paint peeling. Mud had splashed up in the rain, more than two feet from the ground. Roger sat in the car for a few seconds, to give anyone inside time to know that he was there and to make sure that he was alone. Then he got out and stood upright, looking round. He knew that eyes were turned towards him, that each window threatened, but nothing happened. He walked stiffly down two cement steps to the door, and banged on it

Still nothing happened.

He clenched his fist and banged again, and when no one answered, he turned the handle and pushed the door. It opened. Would Gissing leave it unfastened? Would he let him walk in, like this? Were the watching eyes and the menacing demons all in his imagination? Was the house empty, and the Shawn child gone?

He stepped straight into a low-ceilinged room. The windows were small, and the light poor. The room was crowded with old furniture, and a spinning-wheel stood in one window with a chair drawn up beside it, as if some old woman had been working there only a few minutes ago.

Doors led to the right and left. He went towards that on the left, with his hands in sight, and his face clear of expression, all his fears held on a tight leash. He was prepared for anything — even for the voice which came from behind him.

“Don’t move,” a man said.

24

TERMS

He heard footsteps behind him, and he steeled himself for whatever would come next. For a moment he heard heavy breathing, as hands touched his sides and ran over his body, feeling for guns in pockets or in a shoulder-holster. He carried none. The breathing was hot on the back of his neck, and then coolness followed as the man backed away.

“Okay, just move forward, up them two steps.”

These steps led into a dining-room, a room almost as crowded with furniture as the first He had been here for five minutes, and Marino wouldn’t give him a second beyond his half hour.

“Turn right, and up the stairs,” the unseen man ordered. It sounded like McMahon.

The stairs led off a small hall, a flight of narrow, steep steps covered with carpet. He steadied himself by the handrail. The stairs creaked, and one tread sagged badly.

“Room on the right.”

He turned right

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Ricky lay on a bed in a corner of a narrow room, exactly as he had been at Webster’s house — only more frightened, much more frightened. But at least he was alive.

Roger paused, steadied, then went into the room. He forced himself to smile without strain, raised a hand to the boy, and spoke in a voice that surprised him by its calmness.

“Hallo, Ricky. Glad to see you again.”

The child lay staring, without moving a muscle, but his eyes, his father’s eyes, seemed to burn as savagely as his father’s, with an animal fear.

“We’ll soon have you free,” Roger said.

“That’s right,” Gissing said. “You will.”

He was behind Roger, but the voice was unmistakable, he was here in person.

“You will soon have him free,” Gissing said. “It will cost you something, that’s all. It will cost Uncle Sam half a million dollars. It’s cheap at the price. They’ll have the kid’s father back as well as the kid. Half a million dollars, West, I’ll settle for that. Turn round.”

• • •

Roger turned slowly.

Half a million dollars. It was only a set of figures, and it meant just one thing: that Gissing was prepared to come to terms. There was a chance to fight for Ricky’s life.

Gissing stood in the doorway. Jaybird leaned against the wall, his mouth working as he chewed, a gun held casually in his big right hand. He seemed to look at Roger through his lashes.

Gissing wore exactly the same clothes and the same cotton gloves. A bruise on his right cheek showed red and swollen, even in the poor light. He held his head up, the narrow, pointed chin thrust forward, and he looked as full of confidence as he had been at Webster’s house.

“You heard me,” he said.

“Only half a million,” Roger said dryly. “You’ve had a hundred thousand from Shawn. Isn’t that enough?”

“Half a million,” Gissing repeated, “or I kill the kid and hang his body out of the window. I know Marino’s got his men round the house, Pullinger didn’t fool him. I know what happened on the road, I’ve had a telephone message. I know Marino has given you a chance to save the kid, and you think you’re so smart that you can do it, but only one thing can do it, West. Half a million dollars.” He opened his thin mouth and laughed in the back of his throat. “I’m holding up Uncle Sam now, Shawn hasn’t got enough for me. Can’t you see the joke?”

Roger didn’t speak.

Gissing changed his tone. “We won’t waste time.” He looked past Roger to the child, could see the terrified eyes, and seemed to wring sadistic satisfaction out of repeating: “If Marino doesn’t persuade Uncle Sam to pay, I’ll hang the kid out of the window, by the neck. Once that happens Marino can say goodbye to Shawn. It depends how badly he needs the man. Go and tell him, West. You can be useful that way. You ought to be dead!”

“Why did you leave me alive?”

“Jaybird thought I’d finished you off. I thought he had. But it was too late at Webster’s place.” How clearly that betrayed the panic they had been in. Even now, Roger sweated at the hair’s breadth between life and death. “Tell Marino something else,” Gissing went on. “If he moves his men in, he can write the kid and Shawn off. The only chance he’s got is to withdraw the guard and come to terms. There isn’t any other way.”

Roger said: “And I’m to tell him that?”

“You can go back as free as you came, and tell him just that.” Gissing laughed at the back of his throat again. “You came to find out the terms, didn’t you, West? Now you know. Marino will play because he can’t afford to lose Shawn. We needn’t waste any more time.”

After a pause, Roger said slowly: “I’ll tell him, but he’ll want more than Ricky. He’ll want to know if you’re working for anyone, he’ll want to know how you got your information — how you learned I was coming here, how you knew about the gold identity tag. Was it Fischer?”

“After I’ve got the money I’ll tell him everything he wants to know,” said Gissing. The full story of how one decadent Englishman held up the great Uncle Sam.” He laughed, and raised his hands. “Don’t waste any more time.”

Roger moved back, sat on the foot of the boy’s bed and smiled up into Gissing’s face. There was no window near the bed, and little danger, so Roger hoped, of broken glass hurting the child. As Roger had guessed, this move wasn’t at all what Gissing expected, and his show of confidence began to wear thin. At heart, Roger knew, Gissing must realize that the odds were all against him, that his best hope was to get away alive.

“Decadent’s right for you,” Roger said. “And dumb. You haven’t got even any commonsense left. You want Marino to play, but you ought to know that Marino’s big worry is whether there’s a power behind this kidnapping, a power which wants Shawn put out of action. Who’s the money for? If it’s for yourself, then he might play. I don’t say he will, but he might If you can convince him that it’s just a ransom racket, it will take a big load off his mind, but if he thinks that there’s a hostile power in the offing, he’ll worry about breaking up this spy-ring first and worry about Shawn afterwards. Who are you working for, Gissing? Don’t waste any time, because Marino gave me an hour.”

Would Gissing believe that?

Fifteen minutes had passed; at least fifteen.

Gissing said roughly: “So he gave you a time limit.” He tried to laugh, but it didn’t come off. He looked at his wrist-watch swiftly, then moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll tell you the size of it,” he went on. “No one’s behind it except me. Just me. The kid was easy. We doped him, and when he came round on the way to the airport, he was helpless with tiredness. McMahon doped him again on the aircraft, he was half asleep when they got off at Ganda. I knew Shawn would pay for him. Then I found out what Washington thought of Shawn. They can pay, too. I was over here on business when I discovered it. I had a spy in Shawn’s household.”

“Who?”

Gissing moistened his lips again, then shrugged the question away. There was no reason why that should jolt Roger’s mind into an idea which grew big, crowding a lot of other things out, but it did. It was an idea he’d had before but not so clearly.

“Who paid you that hundred thousand, Gissing?”

“You’d like to know. I’ll tell you this: Ed Pullinger located me and sold me the idea of holding up Uncle Sam. I did the deal because a spy in the FBI would always be useful, but for this job I raised the ante.

“I had used Americans to work for me because I wanted Marino to believe that he was dealing with renegade Americans. In London, you caught on to the car and on to me quicker than I thought you would. Things took a bad turn. Ed cracked and had to go. But I had the boy, so I could make Shawn do what I wanted. That way I held all the aces, and I’ve still got them in my hand. There isn’t any spy-ring. Ed Pullinger simply needed money, and I’m going to get plenty. I’m still sitting pretty.” He flashed his watch again. “Go and tell Marino what will happen to that kid, West.”

There couldn’t be more than five minutes to go, but even when believing there was thirty-five, Gissing was nervous.

“So you were that clever,” Roger said heavily. “You snatched the son of a man whom Washington would fight like hell for, which would bring out the FBI in force. Brilliant reasoning. Why bring Ricky here? Why take that chance in getting him out of England? Why did you want him in the United States so badly?”

Gissing said harshly: “Haven’t you got a mind? I wanted dollars. Shawn couldn’t pay in dollars in England. I wanted to come over here, things were hotting up for me in Europe. There was a chance to get myself a dollar fortune. I didn’t know how important Shawn was when I started, only that he was rich.”

The story could answer most things, but it left something out; the spy in the Shawn household — one who would help Gissing but hadn’t told him how important Shawn was.

An aeroplane droned, not far away, and was drawing nearer.

Gissing snapped: “That’s all! Go and tell Marino about that half-million.”

He didn’t expect to get it, of course, now he was just fighting for a chance to escape. He should have been satisfied with the money he’d got from Shawn, but greed had trapped him. He must have known he was finished but would not admit it.

The aeroplane seemed directly overhead.

There was another sound, of something coming down, a screeching, threatening whine which spanned the years, took Roger back to moments when he’d crouched or dived for cover. Gissing also knew the sound, and glanced upwards, mouth open. Jaybird looked puzzled. Roger braced himself.

The screech ended in a thunderous roar, the house shook, glass splintered and stabbed across the room, two pieces stuck into Gissing’s face, a piece cut the tip of Jaybird’s nose. That was the moment when Roger sprang. Getting the gun was like taking a toy from a child. He put a bullet through the gunman’s knee and one into Gissing’s chest, too high to kill. Then all he had to do was shield Ricky’s body and watch the door, gun in hand. He kept talking to the boy, trying desperately to calm the tormented mind, and was still trying when Marino’s men came racing up the stairs.

• • •

Marino did not miss a thing.

Immediately after the raiding party came an ambulance with two nurses, and the child was taken by the nurses and whisked away, to the balm of sedation. Afterwards there could be peace for him and freedom from torment and reunion. Or there could be more distress.

The news about Lissa was good; she was no longer in danger.

Marino sat in the Lincoln, watching his men come out with their prisoners; three, as well as Gissing, Jaybird and McMahon. The bomb had landed twenty yards away from the house. One corner had been shattered by blast, and there wasn’t a whole window left. A small fire had started from an oil-stove in the kitchen, but it was out already. The boy had gone, and Gissing was being carried on a stretcher towards a second ambulance. Marino looked away from the house towards the man, then up at Roger.

He’d heard the story; he didn’t know about Roger’s idea — his guess, his theory.

“And you believed Gissing,” he said, thoughtfully.

“It could be true,” Roger said. “If Pullinger has a voice left, you can check with him. It would answer most things, wouldn’t it? You don’t want a spy angle, do you? You know where the leakage was in your department, and the only worry you have is about the leakage in the household, because that will matter to Shawn.”

Marino fingered his chin; his knuckles were bruised. Gissing was in the ambulance and the engine started.

“Meaning Carl Fischer? I’ve known Carl a long time.”

“You’d known Pullinger a long time,” argued Roger. “Don’t forget your big worry will be convincing David Shawn that it won’t happen again.”

“We could convince David,” Marino said, “but it won’t be so easy with Belle.”

Roger looked at him levelly, and knew that they hadn’t been thinking along parallel lines; if his guess were right, it would take Marino completely by surprise. Was it a guess? It was all circumstantial evidence, but he’d begun many a successful murder hunt on less. He could think more clearly now, but he hadn’t much time.

“Do we have to stay here?” he asked.

“No, I’ll come back and have a look later,” said Marino. “We’ll go into Trenton. I’ve had a man call David, he and Belle will be at Trenton as fast as an aeroplane can bring them. Get in, Roger.”

Roger got into the back of the car, and the driver, who seemed never to say a word, started off. Several men waved. A crowd had gathered near the creek, thirty or forty people whose ranks were swelling every minute. Marino seemed hardly to notice them, and did not speak until they were on the road and driving past the restaurant. Then he turned his head as far as he could turn it with comfort

“You don’t talk enough,” he said. “I know how you feel about Lissa. I also know you for a man who won’t make a fool of himself. You suspected Lissa once, in spite of the way you felt, but you can’t suspect her now. We know there was someone besides Pullinger, we know it wasn’t Lissa, so we shall have to have a talk with Carl Fischer, and I’m not going to like it You agree?” He was almost aggressive.

“You could talk with someone else.” mo?”

“Someone who knew about that damaged corner of the gold identity tag. Someone who once had a fortune and lost it Someone who could torment a man she was supposed to love, who stayed married to him because of his money, and whom money would have set free. Someone who did her devilish best to make her husband turn against her, because if he gave her freedom he’d give her money to make it real But he wanted her too much. Someone who could fly into a rage and shout and scream and claw at her husband’s face — and then calm down as if a tap had been turned off. Someone who could pick up that money and pass part of it on, keeping the rest for herself — to live on when she left her husband.”

Marino strained his neck to look round, opened his mouth as if to cry: “No!” but didn’t speak.

“The one woman who could influence Shawn enough to make him turn his back on working for you and all it meant,” Roger went on. “Who was already making life hell for him, and would listen to anyone else who would help her get free. Someone she didn’t love, but hated.”

Marino said hoarsely: “No. Not the boy’s mother.”

“Grant her that Gissing convinced her that Ricky would never be hurt, and what makes it impossible?” Roger asked.

25

REUNION

BELLE looked younger. She had freed her hair, and it hung down in waves to her shoulders. She wore a pale-green linen dress trimmed with yellow, carried a green handbag, and wore attractive green shoes. In spite of the dress and the air of simplicity, she seemed to offer a particular kind of sensual ripeness. She greeted Roger as if he were a friend who made her heart beat faster, yet she clung to Shawn’s arm. He dwarfed her.

He looked like a man at rest.

They had come from the private room in the hospital, where Ricky lay sleeping. Marino and Roger were waiting at the hospital gates, Marino in and Roger by the side of the Lincoln. As Belle had walked towards them, Marino had said:

“If you’re wrong, he’ll kill you.”

“If I’m right, he’ll always be on bail from hell,” Roger had answered.

“It’s so wonderful,” Belle greeted them brightly. “He looks so peaceful. And he hasn’t been hurt, you were right, they didn’t hurt him. His lips are red where that plaster was stuck on, but that will soon go, and the doctor says he’ll be fine. Roger, how can David and I ever thank you?”

Shawn gulped. “I wish I could even try.”

“We’re staying until we can take him away, of course, it’ll be two or three days. Do come and stay with us, Roger.” Belle put a hand on his, squeezed and wouldn’t let go. “He must, David, mustn’t he?”

“He couldn’t say no,” said Shawn.

Every minute that Shawn lived in this fool’s paradise would make the revelation hurt more. They could wait in the hope that Gissing or Pullinger would talk, but Pullinger wouldn’t be able to do so for twenty-four hours or more. In twenty-four hours Roger hoped to be flying home, to the good things there. If it would have helped he would have stayed here for weeks, but this had to be done with the swift incision of a surgeon’s knife.

“One thing stops me staying here,” Roger said. The enormity of the accusation and the likely fury of Shawn’s reaction swept over him, and he paused. Marino’s eyes were on him He put his hand into his pocket as if for cigarettes, and wished he had a gun. Shawn might be cataclysmic. “Only one thing, Mrs Shawn. I’ve two sons of my own. They mean a great deal to me.” Her great eyes were fixed on his, and he thought that she had some inkling of what he was going to say; if he were right in that, then he was right about the rest. “That makes it hard for me to sit at the same table, even to breathe the same air as you.”

She didn’t speak.

Shawn seemed too stunned to resent the insult, if he understood it.

“Gissing didn’t think I would ever get away alive,” Roger said. “So he told me. How you hated your husband’s job, worked on your husband’s nerves — that was nothing new — and agreed to help with the kidnapping. Gissing gave you the drug, and you used it You told him how the dent in the identity tag had been caused, and he pointed it out so as to prove he had Ricky. You knew him for a devil, and you made it easy for him to kidnap the child. You believed him when he said Ricky wouldn’t be hurt. My God, how any woman could take a chance like that, any mother —”

“But he wasn’t hurt, was he?” she cried. “Gissing kept —”

She didn’t add “his word”. She spun round, and her gaze was on Shawn, who was staring at her while the truth seeped awfully into his mind. Roger had thought that Shawn would want to kill, but all he did was to keep looking at her, his features gradually stiffening, until he groaned as if in agony, and buried his face in his hands.

• • •

Hours afterwards, Gissing answered all their questions, soon there was nothing left that they did not know. Belle was under a form of house arrest at the hotel, Shawn was waiting in another room. He was not the caged tiger Roger had expected but a stony-faced man who spoke and acted mech-anically, and whose eyes were like the embers of a dying fire.

Roger was glad that he would have no part in clearing things up, that the case was finished for him. Marino had not suggested that he should stay longer; it was as if the other man knew of his compelling reasons for wanting to get home.

Roger was alone in his room at the hotel when the telephone bell rang. It was early evening.

“Hallo.”

“Come down and see me, Roger, will you?” It was Marino, who had a room on the ground floor.

“Yes, right away.”

Marino, in the wheeled chair which couldn’t be disguised, sat alone, smoking, a drink by his side. He waved to whisky and a soda siphon. He looked more settled in his mind, no longer as if he were trying to work out an insoluble problem. Almost casually, he said:

“I’ve just seen Lissa, she’s come round. The bullet was lodged just beneath her ribs, but they’ve got it out.” He smiled almost drolly. “There was talk about prompt action saving her from bleeding to death.”

“I couldn’t be more glad,” Roger said warmly.

“I knew you would want to know. I’ve seen Shawn, as well. It’s too early to be sure what will happen. I don’t know what we’ll do with Belle, or whether there will be a charge. I should think, no. She didn’t know about the murder, simply made a deal with Gissing, whom she knew slightly. She raged about being tied to Shawn in Gissing’s presence, and he told her how to get free. Fake a kidnapping, he said, and make Shawn pay up, then share the ransom. She probably passed on half of what Shawn paid, through Pullinger; we found it in her room. We could make a charge, you could make one in England, but I should still think no. Agree?”

“Provided she can’t harm Ricky again.”

There’s no question of that. She and Shawn will part, of course — will part? They’ve parted. I think she had almost stifled his love for her, during the past few months he was clinging to it only because he thought it was the one way to keep Ricky. His folk will go to the Connecticut house and make it ready for the boy. He talks of making Belle an allowance, enough to live on. You never liked Shawn, did you?” Marino’s lips puckered.

“We could use more Shawns,” said Roger.

“I won’t even guess at die way it will work beyond that, Roger. Except that Shawn is going back to Europe. He’ll have a month or so here, and then start work again. He might take Ricky with him.

“I’ve seen Gissing again,” Marino went on. “I’ve talked to Pullinger, Jaybird and the others. It all adds up to the same thing — that Gissing didn’t lie to you. It began in a small way, but when Gissing realized how high we rated Shawn, he thought he could make it much bigger. Pullinger located him and asked what silence would be worth — that’s how they got together. Pullinger was always very clever. He had himself drugged at the same time as you, called another of our men, but didn’t expect to get on to the car you were taken off in. When the other man came upon it, Pullinger played it out, leading the way as if by chance to Webster’s old house. His colleague was kidnapped, he “escaped”. It sounded fine.”

Marino paused.

“No Red scare case, after all. You’ve guessed, I suppose, that we were as nervous of a Red scare in the Press as we were of anything, there’s trouble enough without that. If the Press had got hold of a Red angle — I needn’t tell you.”

Roger laughed. “I’ve been looking through some of your newspapers. I see what you mean.”

“It wouldn’t do to have the whole of the world’s Press as cold-blooded and austerity-ridden as yours,” said Marino slyly. “Well, Roger, I guess that’s about all, except just one thing. As soon as you can fix it, I want you and your wife, and the boys as well if you’ll bring them, to come here for a vaca-tion. A month, two months, as long as you like. You’ll be our guests. Will you do that?”

“Even you wouldn’t dare try to stop Janet if she hears of it,” Roger said softly.

“I’ll write to her tonight,” promised Marino. He sipped his drink. “Well, I guess that really is all.”

Roger finished his drink and poured himself another, sat back and stretched his legs out. “How long will Lissa be in hospital?”

“Two or three weeks, they say, and then twice as long convalescing at home. Then she’ll come back to work with me. Would you like to see her before you leave?”

“I don’t think so,” said Roger. “Just give her my love, and tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her in London. If she’s interested, I’ll take her round the Yard one day.”

• • •

He arrived at London Airport in the small hours, and as soon as he had passed through the Customs, there was Janet to meet him. There were fifty or more other people waiting with her, but he saw only Janet; and he saw her as if he were really looking at her clearly for the first time. She gasped when he hugged her, but the light in her eyes did him good. They didn’t say much.

The Yard had sent a car and a driver, and they sat in the back and were driven through the dark streets of the suburbs and of London. The glare of the lights of New York seemed like a dream; and it wasn’t the only thing that had been a dream.

There was nothing in it that he wanted to forget, now; just a little he didn’t want to share with Janet; he could share everything else. The swift onslaught of unwanted passion had caught but never conquered him, and he had no regrets.

• • •

Marino’s letter arrived and brought its sensation to Bell Street. They wouldn’t be able to go for several months, but that didn’t stop Janet from planning or the boys from talking. It was still the chief topic of discussion at the turn of the year, when Roger left Bell Street one morning, knowing that it would not be long before he would have to set a date so that they could start counting the days. He had a curious reluctance to telephone Marino. He knew that Lissa was back in England, and had twice had dinner with Shawn, who had brought Ricky with him in the charge of a middle-aged woman who had thawed most of the ice of fear out of the boy’s mind.

At his office, the telephone rang.

“West speaking.”

“It’s a Mr Marino, Mr West, from the United States Embassy.”

“Oh! Put him through.”

“Is that you, Roger?” Marino asked, and his voice was filled with warmth.

“Hi, Tony!”

“Hi yourself. When are you taking your family to see God’s own country?”

“You’re going to have a shock soon,” Roger said. “I can’t hold ‘em back much longer.”

“Make it as soon as you can. Spring is a wonderful time in the Adirondacks! Don’t keep putting it off, Roger. That invitation comes from Lissa, too.”

“Just give me time to soften my chief up.” He paused for Marino’s chuckle. “How is Lissa?”

“She’s just fine,” said Marino, “and she’d like to talk to you.” Marino paused, as if he knew that Roger might want a moment to get used to that; but he needn’t have paused. “Before she does, I’ve some news for you. About Lissa. She can’t be sane, Roger, she surely can’t be sane. She’s going to marry me. How do you like that?”

Lissa’s voice sounded in the background.

“He’d better like it. Let me talk to him.” A moment passed. “Hi, Roger,” Lissa said. “Tell Tony it’s the sanest thing I’ve ever done, will you?”

“Sanest?” He stopped himself from saying “bravest”.

“Luckiest!”

It was good to hear her laughter.

THE END