Tender to Danger

Six

Inspector Jordaens was a very painstaking man. It was after three o’clock in the morning before he left.

Kusitch had been shot through the head but other, less pleasant, things had happened to him first. Jordaens had a theory but it only made things more mystifying. The kidnappers, he thought, had not taken Kusitch from the hotel bedroom merely to murder him. If that had been their aim, they could have accomplished it without going to all the trouble of smuggling the man out of the Risler-Moircy. And with less risk, the Inspector insisted.

No. It was obvious that Kusitch had been abducted because he possessed some information that the assassins wanted.

“What was that information, Dr. Maclaren?”

Something in the tone, or it may have been in the impassive air of Jordaens, irritated Andrew.

“How should I know? I was not one of the assassins.”

“According to our knowledge, you were the last person to talk to this man; the last to see him alive.”

“Except for the assassins.”

“Assuredly, except for the assassins. The peculiarity, Dr. Maclaren, is that you came to me with the fear that Kusitch was in grave danger.”

“If there is any peculiarity, Inspector, it is that you would not listen to me.”

“Ah, please, Doctor!” Jordaens rustled his notes of the interview at the Commissariat. “But you wouldn’t,” Andrew insisted. “You rejected the idea completely.”

“What convinced you that there was danger?”

“I wasn’t convinced. I told you my reasons: the man’s behaviour, his fear of enemies.”

“Did you tell me everything?”

“Of course I told you everything. Why shouldn’t I have told you?”

“Exactly, Dr. Maclaren. Why?”

The Inspector was watching him with narrowed eyes. The Scotland Yard man was staring gloomily at the carpet.

Andrew experienced a momentary guilty panic. Then he lost his temper. He stood up quickly.

“If you think I had anything to do with it, why don’t you say so?”

The challenge had a startling effect. The Scotland Yard man’s head jerked up. The Inspector looked deeply shocked. It was as if some unacceptable obscenity had been uttered. There was a moment’s embarrassing silence, and then Andrew turned away and poured himself another drink. He heard a faint sigh of exasperation from the Belgian.

“My dear Doctor,” said Jordaens primly, “you misunderstand. Naturally, your own movements have been closely checked. I am quite satisfied that you were here in England at least twenty-four hours before Kusitch died.”

Andrew sat down again. Inspector Jordaens regarded him coldly.

“I merely asked a question, Dr. Maclaren.”

“I beg your pardon,” Andrew said, “I thought you were cross-examining.”

“Please concentrate, Dr. Maclaren. It is a very important point. Are you sure there is nothing you missed in your statement to me? Some little detail, for instance, that may be enlarged by the knowledge you now possess?”

Andrew wanted time to consider. Except for the detail of the Coach Guide, he was sure there was nothing he had withheld, but the Coach Guide had become the all-important factor. He sipped his drink. The man from Scotland Yard was staring at him with expressionless eyes. Jordaens cleared his throat.

“I want you to think hard, Dr. Maclaren. You collected the articles left in the bathroom. Did it not occur to you to look in the bedroom for other things that Kusitch might have neglected?”

“I glanced round when I entered from the corridor. I saw nothing.

“That was the first time you entered the bedroom.”

“I made that quite clear in my Brussels statement.”

The Inspector made the pages of the statement rustle again. “Yes, I see you did,” he agreed. “Yes, yes.” Reading, he turned the pages. Then he looked up sharply.

“I have it that you went back to the hotel from the air terminal after cancelling your seat on the morning plane.”

“Yes.”

The Inspector went on reading. An itch ran over Andrew’s body in the intolerable pause.

“Exactly.” Jordaens cleared his throat again. “You went back to see if any word had come in from Kusitch. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“We have since had talks with the hotel staff. You revisited the bedroom, saying you had forgotten something. You entered by way of the bathroom and bolted the door against the chambermaid. Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t want the maid to follow me. I had an idea that Kusitch might have been murdered in his room. I wanted to look in the clothes cupboard.”

“So!” Jordaens forced a small measure of geniality into his voice. “I was sure you would have a perfectly reasonable explanation. But why not say?”

Andrew had a deep mistrust of that affability. He answered sharply, “I didn’t see what there was to say. It was absurd, the idea of expecting to find a body in the cupboard.”

“Possibly.” The Inspector shrugged away this lay opinion. “Am I then to understand that you had no other reason for revisiting the bedroom?”

“No. There was another reason.”

It had to come out now. He must hand over the Coach Guide. The circumstance of murder made that imperative. For better or worse, Inspector Jordaens was the man in charge of the investigation.

“Yes, Dr. Maclaren?”

“I had remembered something,” Andrew confessed. “I saw Kusitch push an envelope under the carpet in his room. I wanted to see if it was still there. I thought it might contain money. I believed that if it were no longer there it would be proof that Kusitch had left of his own free will.”

There was a silence and, for Andrew, an accusation in every moment of it.

“It was there,” he said. “But it wasn’t what I expected. It was an English timetable, for the Green Line coaches.”

The Scotland Yard man made a movement. A gleam of interest showed in his eyes.

Jordaens was severe. “Why did you not tell me of this in Brussels?”

“Because you treated me as if I had been imagining things.”

“An entirely false impression. I cannot accept it, Dr. Maclaren.”

“I don’t care a damn whether you accept it or not,” Andrew said calmly, “I’m telling you the facts. I thought myself that this business of the Coach Guide was fantastic. I was afraid you would dismiss the whole story if I told you about it.”

“What has become of the Coach Guide? I hope you are not about to tell me that you threw it away?”

Andrew took it from his pocket and handed it over. “You’ll find some marks on page one-three-eight,” he said. “And this was inside it.” He produced the art criticism from his wallet. “I wasn’t aware of it till I was on the plane for London,” he added.

Jordaens studied the page, then read the cutting. Detective-Sergeant Stock was interested enough to rise and look over the Belgian’s shoulder.

“Ruth Meriden!” the Inspector exclaimed. “That is the name of the woman who was on the plane from Athens. She proceeded by the morning flight to London.” He referred to his notebook. “Also, she stayed at the Hotel Risler-Moircy. You knew that, Dr. Maclaren?”

“Yes.” Andrew felt uncomfortable under the probing gaze. “It’s curious,” he added.

“We learn, my gifted colleague and I, that things so reasonable and logical are not to be characterised as curious.”

The gifted colleague, back in his chair, nodded glumly.

“The Risler-Moircy,” Jordaens announced, “was one of the few hotels that could offer accommodation to the air line. Therefore, you will be wrong, Dr. Maclaren, to conjure on the theme of a contrived coincidence.”

“I’m not conjuring on anything,” Andrew said irritably. “I just think it’s curious that Kusitch should have had in his possession that cutting about a fellow passenger.”

“But what is more likely? Kusitch is interested in art. This lady is an artist. He is on his way to England. Perhaps he hopes to see her work, to become acquainted. He has noticed her name on the list of passengers, and”-the Inspector produced a rather astonishing leer-”I understand the lady is quite personable. You observed that yourself, Dr. Maclaren?”

“Yes, I did. All right then, the cutting’s unimportant.”

“It may be so. You knew this lady?”

“I don’t know anything about her.”

“No? You did not even speak to her?”

Andrew felt a tightening sensation in his stomach.

“I spoke to her at the airport, if that’s what you mean. She seemed to be in some difficulty with a porter. I offered my help.”

“As you might have done to any lady in distress, young or old.” Jordaens achieved a dry chuckle. “By coincidence, your little encounter was observed. We have always a detective on duty at the airport. By another coincidence, the same man was given the task of guarding you when you left my office. He remembered you.”

There were enough coincidences to bring a prickle of sweat to Andrew’s scalp.

Jordaens nodded comfortably.

“On an air journey one finds opportunities,” he commented. “It would seem that Mr. Kusitch was diligent enough to acquire Miss Meriden’s address.” He read the scrawl on the timetable. “Walden House, Cheriton Shawe, Hertfordshire. We shall see. We are investigating Miss Meriden in due course. Just as a matter of routine. We wish to question all the passengers who may have observed Kusitch or had contact with him.”

“He had no contact with the girl on the flight from Athens,” Andrew said.

“No doubt he was biding his time.” Jordaens brought the leer into play again for a moment. Then it vanished and he turned to Stock. “This inscription at the top, SS seven-two-nine-it could be a telephone number, no?”

“No.” The man from Scotland Yard was emphatic.

“Perhaps Dr. Maclaren has an explanation?”

“No. But, as a matter of fact, I did take it to an expert.”

“An expert? You have been doing some detective work yourself?” He turned to exchange glances with Scotland Yard. “England!” His hands flowed eloquently in the air. “The land of the roman policier, where every citizen is a policeman. And what did your expert conclude, Dr. Maclaren?”

“He didn’t conclude anything. He thinks the symbols may be the catalogue number of some sculpture.”

“Exactly my own thought. A catalogue number of an item by the personable Miss Meriden.” He put the clipping and the Coach Guide down on a coffee table at his side, rejecting, if not entirely spurning them. “Now let us be serious, Dr. Maclaren. I want you to make every effort to remember. Was there not something, a gesture, a sign, a little word from Kusitch, that would give us a clue to the purpose of his journey to England?” “I have told you, Inspector. His job was to track down war loot for his country.”

“We have been in touch with the Yugoslav authorities.” Jordaens managed to convey that those who gave information could expect to receive some in return. “What you say about his job is true. We learned that he had been quite successful at it. He was known favourably to important officers of the occupation in Germany and Austria, and, indeed, had had some acquaintance with my own superiors. There can be no question of his commission in general. It was authentic. He came and went for his government. But there seems to be considerable doubt, some mystery, about his final movements. He told you, Dr. Maclaren, that he had work to do in England. Are you sure he didn’t mention the nature of the work?”

“Positive. He was evasive about his trip. When I pressed him he said he had told me enough.”

“I thought so. It is all in accord.”

This satisfaction over negative evidence was puzzling.

“In accord with what?” Andrew asked.

Jordaens hesitated briefly, then made up his mind. “I think I may confide in you, Dr. Maclaren. The Yugoslav authorities were quite frank with us. Last week Kusitch applied to his superiors for a permit to go to Greece. He had, he said, information about some missing icons of great value. There was no reason to doubt his claim; he had proved his good faith many times. He was sent to Athens to investigate, and there, so far as Yugoslavia is concerned, he disappeared. What he did, from the time he reached Athens, was on his own responsibility and for himself. When he failed to report to an agent in Athens, he was set down as a deserter. The authorities are now satisfied that the icons never were in Greece. Kusitch ended his life as an absconder, a fugitive, misappropriating his expense money.”

Andrew remembered his own reservations about Kusitch’s good faith; but there were other factors.

“What about his wife and child in Dubrovnik?” he asked.

“The child does not exist. The wife he deserted years ago. She has now put forward the belief that Kusitch always wanted to establish himself again as an art dealer; that he made this opportunity to leave Yugoslavia for good.”

“With enough money for his purpose?” Andrew was incredulous.

“You are right to be sceptical,” Jordaens conceded. “He had little more than enough to take him to England. It is very mystifying. My own theory is that he had found some art treasure on a previous excursion; that he had sent it to England instead of restoring it to his country; that he deserted with the hope of selling his treasure. We do not know why he was murdered, but it is not impossible to imagine that he was involved with some dangerous types.”

Andrew remembered Kusitch’s own words. “It is inevitable in my trade that I make enemies.” But how could these enemies have known that he would spend that one night in Brussels? They-or one of them at least-must have been on the plane from Athens, keeping Kusitch in sight.

He put the question to Jordaens, who was ready with an answer. The assassins had been advised from Athens that Kusitch was a passenger to England. They had intended to pick him up on the Brussels-to-London flight that night, but the fog had revised their plans.

“This is the hypothesis,” Jordaens said. “It is supported circumstantially. Two men secured passage on the London plane in the afternoon. When the flight was cancelled, they demanded their money back; they said they would go by sea. They gave the names of Kretchmann and Haller. They were at the airport when your plane arrived from Athens. They did, in fact, leave by sea, but only yesterday. Had they delayed a few more hours, it might have been very difficult for them. We thought at first that one of them might have been the man following you in Brussels, but your description did not tally.”

“I was followed tonight, from the Holland Park tube station,” Andrew asserted. “You might have seen the fellow if you were observant. When you and Sergeant Stock came down the steps outside, he walked on past the house.”

The Inspector raised his eyebrows. “The cheerful-looking man who was whistling Strauss with a most imperfect ear?”

“Yes.” Andrew was surprised at this evidence of the Inspector’s acumen. His voice must have revealed the fact. The Inspector smiled.

“I have no wish to cast doubts, Dr. Maclaren. You are, I have remarked, a very intelligent man. As an intelligent man you would, of course, be careful to see that you did not allow yourself to be too much influenced by your imagination. Do you understand?”

Dr. Maclaren understood perfectly. He was being told not to be a timid fool; that no one had followed him from the Holland Park tube.

“In any case,” the Inspector added, “your Mr. Eulenspiegel was neither Kretchmann nor Haller. The one is very tall, with a spare frame; the other, Haller, is of medium height, heavily built. And I may tell you that they are very dangerous men. We know something of them in my department. They were in the German Army, and when the break up came they gave us trouble. There was a gang of them, with Kretchmann as their leader. We had Kretchmann and Haller in the box for a while. Later we pushed them across the frontier, but they returned to give us more trouble. Yes, Dr. Maclaren, I must impress on you that they are very dangerous men, and it would be exceedingly foolish for you to become involved with them.”

“Involved?”

“We believe these men have come to England and we are now trying to trace them through our good friends at Scotland Yard. They may have other names and false passports, but they will be just as dangerous. Be warned.” He wagged a finger roguishly and smiled. Then the smile went out. “And now, Doctor, I think we should go over your Brussels statement line by line. You may recall something fresh; an omission, perhaps, or a valuable thought.” “I’ve told you of all that happened,” Andrew protested. “I’ve given you the Coach Guide. There’s a clue for you.”

“What makes you think it is a clue?”

“Why should Kusitch have hidden it under the carpet if it were not important to him?”

Sergeant Stock reached across the coffee table for the Coach Guide, studied it as if he were intent on getting somewhere, then put it back on the table.

“It has come within my observation,” said the Inspector pompously, “that the mind of the secret agent acts in peculiar ways. Possibly Kusitch was used to hiding things under carpets. He did not wish to carry the Guide with him, so…” He shrugged. “A timetable with an address, the catalogue number of a work of art, a pretty young girl, a secretive Yugoslav!” The Inspector was tolerant of human frailty. “Kusitch may have been jealous of you, Dr. Maclaren. He wished to retain the lady’s address for his own use.”

“I tell you the thing is important,” Andrew retorted. “It means something.”

“My dear Dr. Maclaren!” He was jocular now. “I yield place to no man in my admiration of your great Sherlock Holmes. I enjoy the exploits of your many justly famous private investigators, but you, as a man of science, should realise the weakness of intuitive reasoning.” He looked to Detective-Sergeant Stock for approval, and received a nod. “No, Dr. Maclaren. In police work we need facts, not fancies. A man has been murdered. I have in my possession the bullet with which he was slain. Find me the pistol from which that bullet came, and then we may be near to the hand that pulled the trigger. Meanwhile let us consider again your deposition.”

It was after three before it was over. Jordaens said: “I am afraid Detective-Sergeant Stock is growing tired. You look rather weary yourself, Dr. Maclaren. If there is anything else, we will communicate. Meanwhile, you had better get some sleep.”

The advice was not difficult to follow. As soon as they had gone he got into bed and was asleep before he could stretch out. Then, in a few minutes it seemed, the sun was streaming in and the doorbell was ringing. He cursed and turned over, but the doorbell was persistent. He got into his dressing gown, expecting a telegram or registered letter. It was neither. It was Charley Botten.

“Sleeping late?” Charley asked. “Or am I so early? Sorry if I’ve disturbed you, but I thought I’d look in on my way to the office. I had a brain wave about your riddle when I got home to the flat.”

Interest was slow to revive. “Come in,” Andrew said. “I’ll put on some coffee.”

“I should have recognised from the start that those symbols were the registration number of a fishing craft,” Charley said. “Perhaps it was just too simple.”

Andrew came fully awake. His jerking hand spilled ground coffee on the gas stove.

“Fishing craft!” he exclaimed.

“I had to do with them during the war,” Charley said. “I remembered that SS stood for St. Ives, so I telephoned to a man in Cornwall. I got quite a lot of information, and it ties up with Dubrovnik.”

Andrew forgot the coffee. Mr. Botten produced a page from a telephone pad on which he had made some notes.

“This friend in Cornwall called me back first thing this morning,” he explained. “The registration number tallies with a local craft, thirty foot long with a nine-foot beam. Her first owner was a man named Gurley and he bought her in the early twenties. Apparently she was quite well known round St. Ives as the Mary Isabella, a nice little job with a handy yawl rig and an auxiliary engine. Gurley did very well out of her for some years. Then things went wrong and finally he had to sell up everything he had. The yawl was in pretty bad shape by that time, and a couple of Falmouth youngsters-Jim and Dan Pascoe-bought her for a very small figure.”

“What’s the link with Dubrovnik?” Andrew demanded.

“I’m coming to that. It happened that my friend remembered the craft. He got Dan Pascoe on the phone and heard the rest of it. The boys bought the tub in 1938. They spent all the winter repairing her and fitting her out for a cruise, and next spring and summer they took her round Spain, through the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and along the Dalmatian Coast.”

“Yugoslavia!” Andrew was conscious of the coffee percolator spouting behind him, but ignored it.

“Getting hot, isn’t it?” Charley Botten grinned. “The Pascoes ended their cruise at a place called Zavrana. That’s a few miles up the coast from Dubrovnik, if I know my geography. They had storm damage. They were afraid to tackle the return voyage without proper repairs. They gave the job to a small yard at Zavrana. Then it looked as if the war was going to break at any minute, and they wanted to get home as they were on the reserve. There was a motor yacht in the port, owned by a crazy Englishman with money to burn. The Pascoes got acquainted with him and sold him the yawl. It seems he had some cockeyed idea of using it as a tender for his yacht. Mad as a bandicoot. Wouldn’t hear of war. Had just bought a palace up in the hills behind Zavrana. The Pascoes came home by air. That’s the end of the story. They don’t know what happened to the yawl.”

Andrew was pacing the floor.

“Did your friend get the name of the Englishman, the fellow who bought the yawl?” he asked.

“Meriden,” Charley answered. “John Quayle Meriden. What’s the matter now?”

Andrew had the sensation of something bumping inside him. He didn’t like it. It was all very unprofessional, and the worst of it was he couldn’t control himself.

“There’s nothing the matter,” he answered. “I was just wondering why Kusitch had the number of this yawl.”

“Do you know Meriden? You jumped at the mention of him.”

“Just a coincidence.” Andrew struggled to give an appearance of nonchalance. “Someone of the same name. Couldn’t possibly be related. After all, it’s quite a common name.”

“Sure,” Charley agreed. “There’s this fellow with the yacht, and then there’s a place called Meriden in Connecticut. I went to all the trouble and expense of calling Dan Pascoe myself to find out if this John Quayle had given him any address. He had. I’ll let you have two guesses.”

“Cheriton Shawe.”

“You don’t need the second one. Your coffee’s boiling over.”

“I’ll get you a cup.”

“Thanks, I’ve had some. I have to be on my way.”

“Do you mind letting me have your notes on the yawl?”

“Not at all, if you can forgive the doodling.” He handed over the page from the pad. “Now that your puzzle is solved, Maclaren, you’d better forget all about it. Kusitch obviously had some business to transact over the yawl. He’ll turn up all right.”

“Kusitch is dead, murdered.”

Botten stared and asked questions. Andrew supplied the facts. Botten looked grave. “Keep your nose out of it,” he said. “Murder is a job for the police. They don’t take kindly to amateur interference. Neither do ex-SS men. You drink your coffee and forget about it.”

When he was alone Andrew examined the sheet from the telephone pad. It read:

SS 729-Mary Isabella-yawl 30 x 9 Gurley early twenties Gurley early Gurley auxiliary yes yes yes. NO!!! Sold Fal Pascoes Jimdan sailed Dubrovnik Zavrana. Bought for tender Englishman Jno. Quail Meriden-Quayle-to motor yacht. Repairs, war, last heard. Pascoes air-flighted home. War, war, war-God knows.

It was all there if you knew how to translate it. Andrew read it a second time as he prepared to shave. Then he thrust the scrap of paper into a pocket of his dressing gown.

The advice to keep his nose out of it was undoubtedly sound, and Jordaens would agree that the job was exclusively for the police, but leave it to Jordaens and it would never be done. The man was an ass. Imagine his reaction if he were now told about the yawl-rigged fishing craft that had been sailed down to Zavrana and there sold to John Quayle Meriden! Another ponderous homily on private investigators, no doubt.

“What, more of your expert, Dr. Maclaren? Ah, England, England! Where would we be without your detective stories? This is very clever, Dr. Maclaren, but it is not police work. Pyotr Grigorievitch Kusitch was not killed with a yawl-rigged fishing craft. The main issue is unaffected by the suggestion that he was making inquiries for Mr. Meriden about his lost tender. Find me Kretchmann and Haller, Dr. Maclaren! Find me Kretchmann and Haller…”

Perhaps he would. He vowed, as he finished dressing, that he was certainly going to find out some more about the mysterious yawl before he volunteered any further information to Inspector Jordaens and Stock. He’d make them take notice of him before he was done with the case.

The annoying thing was that, in spite of his obvious contempt for the Coach Guide as a clue, Inspector Jordaens had insisted on taking it away with him. He had taken the cutting about Ruth Meriden, too.

As soon as he had bathed and dressed, Andrew went out and bought another copy of the Coach Guide. Then he looked up Cheriton Shawe on the map.