The Trojan Horse

CHAPTER FIVE

Five minutes later we were in the Bentley and moving up the valley out of Porthgwarra. Surprisingly enough David had insisted on Freya sitting in the back, whilst I went in front with him. He took the long hill slowly, and every now and then he half-leaned out of the window and stared up towards the roadway above the hairpin bend. ‘Didn’t I notice a track running off across the moor at the bend up here when we came down?’ he asked.

I didn’t remember it, but Freya leaned forward and said, ‘Yes, it doubles back along the other side of the valley to the coastguards’ houses.’

‘Doesn’t it go anywhere else?’ he asked.

‘Yes, there’s a track running away to the right to a farm and back inland to Roskestal. It’s terribly bad going.’

‘Any gates?’

‘Several, I think. Why?’

‘Oh, nothing. I just like to be sure of the lay of the land.’ He accelerated slightly as we neared the bend, and as we rounded it I saw the track running steeply down to the head of the valley. As soon as we were round the bend, David slowed up again and we climbed slowly with a fine view down the valley to Porthgwarra. The rain had stopped now and the clouds were thinning as though the sun might break through at any minute.

As we neared the top of the hill, I asked David what the trouble was. The car was barely moving and beginning to pink. ‘I’m a careful driver, that’s all,’ he said. We crept round the bend which led inland at almost a walking pace. But, even so, I was pitched forward by the suddenness with which David jammed on the brakes. The next second the gears crashed as he put the car into reverse and, with his offside door open, the car shot backwards.

I had a fleeting picture of a big American car drawn up across the road with two men standing on the grass verge. Then my whole attention was riveted to my side of the narrow road, for David, leaning out of his door, was roaring backwards round the bend and down the hill. How he managed it, I don’t know. The noise of the engine, grinding away in reverse, was terrific. We must have been doing over thirty. ‘Hold tight,’ he said, as we came to the hairpin. The car’s wheels suddenly locked over and we took the bend at its steepest point, just as the American car came into sight round the bend at the top of the hill.

Suddenly we were thrown hard back against our seats and there was a horrible screeching sound as the wheels skidded, fully locked, on the wet tarmac. Our bumpers hit the bank on the outer edge of the bend and immediately the car leapt forward, the engine roaring full out. We slithered round on to the track and took the hill at a fantastic speed. As we neared the bottom, I glanced back just in time to see the American car come on to the track, lurching and swaying like a tank going into action.

‘I hope to God the gates are all open,’ David said between set teeth, as we took the water-course at the bottom with a bump that brought the wheels hard up against the mudguards and caused us to pitch violently.

I said nothing, but I kept my hand on the handle of my door ready to jump out if necessary. The track rose steeply from the water-course until we could see the Board of Trade hut and the cones away to our left. On either side of us the sodden heathland stretched away flat to stone walls. The line of cliffs could be seen quite clearly with huge irregularly-shaped stones standing like druidical temples against the leaden sky.

Ahead of us a stone wall suddenly showed, grey against the darker heath. It cut right across the track, but the gate was open and we swept through it at near on fifty. How David held the car to the track I don’t know, for there was barely a foot to spare on either side and we were bucking madly in the potholes with yellow muddy water spurting up from our wheels and blowing across the windshield.

We were hardly through the gateway when Freya reported that the car behind was also through and gaining on us. David swore softly and I felt the speed of the Bentley increase. His face was set and he leaned slightly forward as though he would thrust his face through the windscreen to see better. The wheel was like a live thing in his hand and we pitched from side to side of the track in a most terrifying manner. ‘We’ll never beat them on this side-track,’ he said. ‘American cars are made for this sort of thing. We’re too tightly sprung. What we need is a nice windy road.’ Then he called out over his shoulder, ‘Are they still gaining on us?’

‘I think we’re just about holding the distance,’ Freya called back.

It was crazy. We were doing something between fifty and sixty. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in a car in my life. Every minute I expected the car to leap from the track and turn over, and all I could do was sit and grip my seat.

David suddenly cried out, ‘By God, I believe we’ve got them now.’ I glanced at him and, intent though he was on driving, I could see he was excited. ‘See that bend ahead? Isn’t that a gateway into a farmyard?’

I peered through the arc of clear windscreen, across which the wiper flicked rhythmically, and saw the track curving away to the left and then back again to the right in a long sweep. And at the end of that sweep was a farm. The track appeared to bend sharply round the farm between stone walls, and on the bend was an entrance to the farm. A moment later it was lost to sight and there was no possibility of our seeing it again until we were right on top of it, taking the bend.

Freya reported that the American car was drawing up on us again. I saw David steal one quick glance in the driving mirror and the car swayed violently. I gripped my seat in my excitement. We were running between stone walls now on the long bend leading to the farm. I saw the out-houses across the field to our left. I looked round. The car was less than a hundred yards behind us now. The light springing caused the body to sway and bounce far more than our own car, but the wheels were holding the track much better. There was no doubt that it was gaining.

I turned back to find that we were practically on top of the farm buildings. The track straightened up and the bend round the farm showed about fifty yards ahead. ‘Hold tight,’ David said. And at the same time I felt the brakes begin to bind. As we took the bend the back wheels began to skid. There was a horrible screeching noise as the rubber cut across the rough metal of the track. The car seemed for a moment completely out of control. The back jarred violently and there was the sound of metal against stone. Then David ground his gears, swung the wheel over the opposite way and we shot into the farmyard. Fortunately it was empty of stock and largely cobbled. David brought the Bentley to a standstill with its nose half-buried in a pile of manure. Then we shot back and came forward with our nose in the gate just in time to see the American car come round the bend, its tyres screeching and the body swaying and dipping.

Whether they saw us or not we didn’t have time to tell. David swung the Bentley out of the farmyard as their tail disappeared round the bend, and we went hell-for-leather back down the track. ‘Nice work!’ I said. David grinned. There was the exultation of speed and fine driving in his eyes. ‘It’ll take them quite a time to stop,’ he said. ‘And by the time they’ve backed to the farmyard to turn, we’ll be well on our way.’

This was true, for it wasn’t until we were actually on the Porthgwarra road again and climbing the hill to Roskestal that Freya reported the car coming through the gate in the stone wall. The rest was easy. We made terrific pace to Penzance and ran up through Redruth and Bodmin to Launceston. There we turned sharp to the north and made for Bideford. At Holsworthy we paused for a late lunch and I phoned Crisham.

My object was to tell him just enough to whet his appetite. Desmond Crisham is one of the bulldog breed. He won’t be driven. But he’ll follow a clue with all the obstinacy of his type. If I had told him the whole story, I knew well enough he wouldn’t have believed me. He’s not the sort to believe in fairy stories, unless he’s worked them out for himself and then they aren’t fairy stories to his way of thinking. I thought that if I could tell him just enough to make him curious he’d make an awful nuisance of himself at the Calboyd Power Boat Yard. But when after nearly half an hour’s wait, for I had made it a personal call, I got through to him, he cut me short and said, ‘I’ve been trying to get you everywhere. Listen, you were perfectly right about that address you gave me. Franz Schmidt lived there for nearly three weeks. Did you know he was supposed to have had an accident? Oh, you did? Well, why the hell couldn’t you have told me? And I suppose you know that his rooms had been searched?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I searched them myself. But there was someone before me. He came to get some clothes for Schmidt, who was supposed to be in some hospital.’

He took me up on that. ‘Supposed to be?’ he cried, and his voice rose almost into a shout. ‘Then I suppose you know that he’s not in hospital, that he’s just vanished?’

‘I expected it,’ I said.

‘Look here, Andrew, you and me have got to have a little talk. Can I come round to your rooms?’

‘No. I’m speaking from a little place in Devon.’

‘What the hell are you doing down there? All right, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get down to business.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I rang you up to tell you something, and this call is costing about two bob a minute.’

‘Well, damn it, you can afford it, can’t you? What were you going to tell me?’

‘Just this. Did you know Evan Llewellin kept a motor-cruiser at Swansea?’

‘Yes, and it’s missing. I’ve been searching all over the place for it.’

‘Well, it has just been requisitioned by the naval authorities. It’s now on its way to the Calboyd Diesel Power Boat Yards at Tilbury. I think it’ll repay investigation. Perhaps I should tell you that Schmidt was a specialist in diesel engines.’

‘I know that.’

‘Did you also know that Calboyds had been after it?’

‘How do you know?’

‘Never mind that now. And look here, Desmond,’ I added, ‘this is entirely between ourselves — about Calboyds, I mean. I’ve no proof yet. But keep your eyes open and for God’s sake don’t let them hold that boat of Llewellin’s for a moment, or your evidence will be gone.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Crisham’s voice sounded exasperated. ‘Listen, Andrew. Where the devil do you stand in this business? What’s your game? Has Schmidt become a client of yours, because, if so, you can set your mind at rest.’

‘You mean you’ve discovered that he didn’t murder Llewellin?’

‘Yes. But it’s no thanks to him. Running off like that, the fool nearly ran his head into a noose. It’s just a stroke of luck that we’ve been able to fix him up with an alibi. Just as I thought the case was as clear as daylight, along comes an old scallywag who has been thieving scraps of metal from Llewellin’s works. He looked in through the open door of the stamping-shop that night just as two men were coming out of Llewellin’s office, and he could see Llewellin’s body bent over the drill. He slipped away and nearly ran into Schmidt crossing from his own shed to the stamping-shop.’

‘Well, that’s fine,’ I said. ‘And who did murder Llewellin?’

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be wrangling over the phone with you,’ he said angrily. ‘What I want to know is where you come in? What do you know about this business? Where’s Schmidt? Where’s his confounded daughter? And who murdered Llewellin? This case is giving me a pain in the neck and the Commissioner has been leading me a dog’s life because — well, I suppose I oughtn’t to tell you this — because Evan Llewellin was a secret agent. He covered the Swansea area, and since the beginning of the war he had been particularly helpful to the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Now, for God’s sake, tell me what you know.’

‘All I know is in that statement at my bank, and you’ll be able to read it at your leisure when I am no longer of this world. In the meantime, all I can tell you is that Schmidt’s daughter is with me now and that Schmidt was framed. Find Schmidt and I think he’ll be able to clear up the whole business. But understand this, Desmond,’ I added, ‘don’t run away with the idea that this business is as simple as murder. It’s big. Work in with the Intelligence, and remember particularly what I said about getting hold of that boat and keeping an eye on Calboyds.’ I cut short his sudden burst of questions by putting down the receiver.

When, over coffee, I told the others what I had said, David’s comment was, ‘Having gone so far, I should have thought it would have been best to tell him the whole thing.’

‘Listen, David,’ I said. ‘If you were an obstinate bulldog of a policeman, what would you say to that yarn? I’ve told him enough to make him curious. So long as he’s curious, he’ll go ferreting around Calboyds, however much of a howl they kick up. He’s like that. A little knowledge makes him a dangerous man. Give him the whole thing worked out for him and he won’t stir. Don’t forget what we’re up against. Calboyds isn’t some tuppenny-ha’penny little concern. It’s a big and powerful organisation and there’s maybe something even bigger still behind it. If he thought he was on the point of trying to expose Calboyds as a Nazi-controlled company operating in favour of the enemy, he’d fight shy of it. He’d be out of his depth completely. But let him think that he’s just investigating a murder that is linked up in some way with a little industrial swindling, and he knows his duty and will do it.’

Freya, I could see, was not interested in our conversation. She was sitting with clasped hands and a smile on her lovely face. ‘Well, that’s one of your father’s difficulties over,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it’s an omen.’

‘Oh, I hope so,’ she said. Then suddenly she leaned forward and took my hands. ‘You’ve been so kind,’ she said. It was an impulsive gesture, but something within me seemed to shrink from the touch of her smooth fingers. Her big dark eyes were swimming. The boyishness was gone suddenly from her and she was a woman on the verge of tears because she had found friends. She turned to David. The movement was less impulsive and she did not take his hands. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you both. You have given me new heart.’

‘You’ve put new heart into me, too,’ David said with a laugh. But I fancy his eyes were serious. He had come to Cornwall like a romantic schoolboy prepared to fall for the damsel in distress, and the damsel’s beauty had exceeded his wildest dreams. Well, I must admit, they made a grand pair. And I wished suddenly that I was younger.

After our coffee we sat and smoked cigarettes and held a council of war. David was all for some desperate attempt to get the boat back. But I said, ‘No, there’s a better way than that — the legal method, which they used. I know Rear-Admiral Sir John Forbes-Pallister. I can get him at the Admiralty and I think he’ll be able to get that order rescinded. Another thing, we don’t want to make straight for the Calboyd yards by car. We’ve thrown these boys off our track by swinging north like this out of the direct road route to London. Crisham will look after the boat for a day or two at any rate. And remember this, if we remain on the defensive, we’re lost. We’ve got to attack. And the only place to open an offensive is in the City. The whole thing hinges on this control. I’m certain of that. If we can find out who is really at the back of Calboyds, then we’d be getting somewhere.’

‘Or if we could find my father,’ said Freya.

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘But I think the two go together. Crisham will do his best in the routine manner.’

They both agreed with me, so we pushed on to Barnstaple, where we arranged for the car to be driven back to Penzance, and boarded an Ilfracombe-London express. We had dinner on the train and got into Paddington shortly after ten. I took them to a boarding-house in Guildford Street kept by a Mrs Lawrence. Both my rooms and David’s studio were bound to be under observation. Mrs Lawrence was a Scotswoman married to a Chinaman — a wonderful combination for running a London boarding-house. I had had rooms there in my student days and she was glad to see me again. She looked tired and old, and when I discovered that she could let us have three rooms, I guessed the war had hit her business pretty badly. She took a fancy to Freya at once and fussed round her like an old hen, whilst her husband came and went with hot-water bottles and tea and his barely intelligible chatter of English.

I had just got into my pyjamas and was sitting in front of the hissing gas-fire in my dressing-gown smoking a pipe and thinking over the situation, when there was a knock at the door and David came in. He also had reached the dressing-gown stage and in his hand he held the evening paper that he had bought at Paddington. ‘I thought this might interest you.’ He handed me the paper and pointed to a paragraph on one of the inside pages. It ran:

Sir James Calboyd has been appointed Director of Aero Engine Production. This appointment was announced by the Prime Minister in answer to a question in the House this afternoon.

Sir James Calboyd is the chairman and founder of the Calboyd Diesel Company and the Prime Minister emphasised that the appointment had been made in conformity with the Government’s policy of appointing industrial specialists to control industry wherever control has been found necessary.

Sir James is well known as a philanthropist. And it will be remembered that for many years he has been an advocate of the greater use of diesel engines for aircraft. He has a wide knowledge of the aircraft industry and of aero engine design. It is common knowledge that the Calboyd factories are undergoing rapid expansion and that the output of diesel engines for our bomber aircraft is being rapidly increased.

I looked across at David, who had pulled up a chair to the fire. ‘The old boy has a big pull somewhere,’ I said. ‘It looks as though friend Schmidt was right about that order.’

David nodded. He was smoking a cigarette. ‘But is he our man?’

‘No,’ I said. I had made up my mind on that point from the start. ‘Have you ever met him? Well, if you had, I think you would realise where he fits in. He’s the unwitting tool behind which the Nazi control can operate without fear of discovery. You have some knowledge of the history of the man — how he built up Calboyds by mating a small engineering business to a little marine yard on the Mersey. He was probably quite a clever engineer, but not brilliant. He succeeded enough to be able to afford to buy other people’s brains. Very likely he used German brains. Calboyds has been built up since the last war and German brains were cheaply had in those post-war years. Don’t forget, Germany is the home of the diesel engine. With success, Calboyd emerged as a philanthropist and was seen in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. Mayfair is not a far cry from the skirts of Government, especially if you have money to spread about. He’s a successful but not a brilliant man. And he’s solid British — cultivates a military figure and can trace his family back to the Middle Ages. No, he’s not our man, David.’

‘Well, how are we going to find out who is?’

‘That is just what I was considering when you came in. We haven’t much time. That paragraph about Calboyds proves it — quite apart from the danger of their getting at the boat. And we’ve got to take the offensive.’ I took my pouch from the corner of the washhand-stand and began to refill my pipe. ‘My line of attack is the City. I ought to be able to find someone in that rabbit-warren who can tell me who is at the back of Calboyds. But it may take time. It may be a question of delving into the background of the big share-holders. There’s Ronald Dorman and the two others, besides Calboyd — John Burston and Alfred Cappock.’ I lit my pipe and looked across the flame at David, his big powerful body hunched over the fire. ‘Somehow,’ I said, ‘we’ve got to trace Schmidt. Alive or dead, I believe he’ll prove to be the key to the whole thing.’

‘I don’t follow that at all,’ David replied. ‘If he’s alive and at liberty, he would have come to see you that Monday.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ I replied. It was a point that I had been turning over in my mind for some time. ‘I think he knew he’d got me interested. Perhaps that’s all he wanted to do. Remember, he was on his own, wanted for murder by the police and foreign agents for the knowledge he possessed. If I had been in his shoes, I should have looked around for an ally. As a suspected murderer there were not many people open to him. But there was a chance with a man who was accustomed to defending criminals and murderers in the courts. Anyway, that’s one way of looking at it, and if I remember rightly it was you who suggested it.’

‘That’s true,’ David replied. ‘But don’t forget he was expecting the worst. I think it might be safer to work on the assumption that he is either dead or a prisoner. And in either case, I don’t see that he’s of much use to us.’

‘Take it at the worst and he’s dead,’ I said. ‘If we knew where he had been killed and could trace what he had been up to during his stay in London, we should know something. I have an idea he has friends among the refugees in this country. Somewhere he will have left a clue.’

David rose to his feet and stretched himself. ‘Somewhere,’ he said. ‘You can’t go looking through London for a clue dropped by an elderly Jewish refugee. I’m for bed, and in the morning I’m going to Manchester to see Calboyds about that money they owe me.’

So in the morning we each went our ways, he to Euston and I to the City. I left Freya instructions to stay indoors, and I told Mrs Lawrence to go out and get her a book and some chocolates.

But by the end of the morning I was tired of pumping friends about Calboyds and was feeling a little light-headed because my curiosity had involved me in a good deal of drinking. About lunch-time I found myself wandering into the City Office of the Record. Henderson, the City Editor, I knew through Jim Fisher, Editor of the Record. He greeted me like a long-lost friend and hauled me off to lunch with him. He ordered an enormous meal for us both at Pimms and then demanded that I tell him about the Margesson murder case, which I had completed just before the outbreak of war. ‘The City is dead, old boy. I’m bored stiff.’ So I explained to him how I had got the woman off. And in exchange I got nothing out of him except the lunch. ‘Calboyds, old boy,’ he said, when I broached the subject. He was already a little drunk. ‘Been out with Slater and a few of the boys,’ he explained, ‘trying to get the low-down on this bullet-proof glass racket like a good little City Editor.’ He made a wide encircling gesture with his hands. ‘Calboyds. Now there you’ve got something. You go in, old boy — make a packet if only this war lasts.’ He leaned close to me and whispered confidentially in my ear. ‘There’s a big deal on there right now. I have it straight from the jolly old horse himself — you know, old Jimmy Calboyd, monocle and all. He’s landing himself a contract for 10,000 of those new Calboyd Dragon engines. He tells me there’s nothing to beat ’em — nothing at all. They’re the goods, old boy. Absolutely. Knock the bloody Boche as flat as — as-’ He looked round for something to illustrate flatness and then spread his hands in a vague but expressive gesture. ‘And do you know who gives him the order, Andie, my lad?’

‘I’ll buy it,’ I said.

He suddenly laughed. ‘Why, he does, you old fool — he does. Haven’t you read the papers? They’ve made him Director of Aero Engine Production. Neat — eh? You go and buy as many Calboyds as you can get hold of, old boy. They’re offered at around 42s. 6d. this morning. Take my word for it, they’re going to a fiver at least.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is, who controls the outfit?’

‘Why worry about that, old boy? You can’t lose on it. I’ve put my shirt on ’em already.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not buying till I know who controls the group.’

‘What’s it matter? Calboyd owns a big interest and Ronald Dorman — you know, the issuing house — got stuck with a lot. God! He must be coining money on them now. Think of it, man! He took up damn’ near the whole lot of that Ordinary share issue in 1937 at par — quite apart from the Preferences, that would be a matter of two million shares.’

‘I know about Dorman,’ I said, ‘But do you know anything about a John Burston and an Alfred Cappock?’

‘Never heard of them, old boy. They sound like brewers. But look here, why don’t you go down and see Sedel? Nice boy, Sedel. Tell you everything.’

‘Who is Sedel?’ I asked.

‘Max Sedel? He knows all about Calboyds. Fact is he knows a lot about the aircraft industry. Great lad. Tremendous worker. Come to think of it, it’s incredible. The fellow came to this country just after the Reichstag fire business. He was an anti-Nazi. Escaped from Germany. Hadn’t a bean. Didn’t know the language. Came to us. Began up at the City Office under me. Then gravitated to the Fleet Street end as foreign editor. Now he’s free-lancing and making a big income. First-class contacts. Industry is his subject — industry and foreign affairs. Tremendous output even in these times. Why I mention him is he wrote a couple of first-rate feature articles on Calboyds for one of the financial papers. Appeared only the other day. If you like to come back to the office with me, I’ll show you the cuttings. But the thing to do is to go down and see Max.’

The lunch seemed to sober him up a bit, for by the time we got back to his office he was beginning to think of a lead for the last edition. His secretary brought me the file on Calboyds and I waded through it. There were several articles on the company, mainly from the financial weeklies. But the two by Max Sedel stood out. They gave me a very clear insight into the financial structure and industrial position of the company. It was unmistakably a puff, but it was cleverly done and a wealth of information about the company was included. There was nothing, however, on the subject of control. I decided to go and see Max Sedel.

Following Henderson’s instructions, I went down Copthall Avenue and turned into a rather dingy building. His office was on the first floor — ‘Max Sedel’ was painted on the door and underneath, ‘Journalist and Publicist.’ The interior might easily have been mistaken for a stockbroker’s office. The walls were surrounded by filing cabinets. There were newspapers and papers everywhere. The room was occupied by two girls — one, I presumed, a plain typist and filing clerk, and the other, who came to find out what I wanted, his secretary.

I sent in my card and was shown into the inner office. Here was some attempt at order, and a cheerful fire burned in the grate. The central feature of the room was a heavy mahogany desk, and behind it was a plump little man with fair hair, little steel-grey eyes and an absurd sort of cavalry moustache. He rose to greet me. The hand he offered me was white and limp, and there was a gold signet ring on the little finger. My first impression of him was not favourable, but when he spoke I realised he had charm. His smile was pleasant and friendly, and there was an air of courtliness in the way he offered me a cigarette — it was almost old-fashioned. But as I lit it, I was conscious of his eyes. He was young, but he was astute. I knew I should have to tread warily.

‘I am afraid I am about to waste some of your valuable time,’ I said. ‘But I read your two articles on Calboyds. My impression was that you knew your subject. Now, a very old friend of mine has had a lot of money left her and she wants to invest it in the best interests of the nation, without of course losing sight of the object for which one does invest money. My inclination was towards Calboyds. But in this connection a point has arisen which I thought you, with your intimate knowledge of the company, might be able to clear up. I am always very careful about giving advice over investments. Frankly, I don’t fancy it much — the responsibility is too great. A thing I always go for in these matters is the management and the control. Are they sound is the question I always ask myself. Now I find that in the case of Calboyds there are four big shareholders — Calboyd himself, two gentlemen who, as far as I know, are completely unknown in the world of finance, and Ronald Dorman, who may be backed by anyone. Who really controls Calboyds?’ I don’t know why I put the question so bluntly. My intuition told me, regardless of the cautious approach I had originally decided upon, that this was the way to obtain results. As I put the question, I raised my eyes and looked at him.

His cigarette was burning unheeded in his hand and those little steel-grey eyes were fixed on me as though he would seek to know what was going on inside my head. In an instant the tenseness of his body relaxed. But it was an artificial relaxation. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled pleasantly. ‘I’m afraid you have caught me out, Mr Kilmartin,’ he said. ‘I cannot tell you who controls the company. My concern at the time I was going into its affairs was simply to write it up from the point of view of both the general public and the investor. The question of control does not come within the scope of articles of that sort. Indeed, it would have been impertinent of me to make inquiries.’

Was it my imagination, or did I stand thus rebuked? But Sedel rose, smiling and holding out his hand to me, apologising for not having been more helpful.

As I walked down Copthall Avenue to Throgmorton Street, I could not rid myself of the memory of that moment of tension when I had put the question so bluntly. I hesitated in Throgmorton Street and, looking up at the doorway outside which I had stopped, realised that it led to the City Office of the Record. On a sudden impulse, I hurried up the stairs and into the office, where I inquired for Mr Henderson. ‘Sorry to bother you again,’ I said, as I was shown into his office, ‘but I was rather interested in Sedel.’

‘Yes, he’s an interesting person,’ Henderson replied. His voice was brisk and he seemed to be his old dapper self again. The effect of the drink had apparently been dispersed by work.

‘Could you tell me a little more about him?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know that there’s really much to tell.’ He tapped his teeth with a silver pencil, at the same time waving me to a big leather-padded arm-chair. ‘He came to us in ’33 as I told you. He had an introduction from Marburgs to our old man, you know, J. K. The fellow was pushed up here to make himself useful on the foreign side. He learnt quickly. He made good contacts. Believe it or not, within six months he could talk almost faultless English and was writing really good City stuff for us. His vocabulary was not large, but then that soon comes. I think it was in ’35 he became foreign editor. He worked that job up to £1,250 a year and then in ’37 he chucked it and set up on his own in the City. It seems incredible, doesn’t it. He was in the country only four years before he had got so much highly-paid outside work that he could afford to give up a safe four-figure salary. Since then he’s written three or four books, mostly on Germany. It’s funny. He’s terribly fond of Germany. But he hates the régime, curses the people for their folly in submitting to it. As I say, he hates the régime and thinks that it will ruin the country. Yet he thinks Germany will be the centre of the world within the next decade. Anyway, that’s what I know of Max Sedel. He’s a brilliant man and as a foreigner — he’s naturalised of course — but as a foreigner born he’s very much at home in the cosmopolitan world of the City. That’s where he has the advantage of us English journalists. Here I am, the City Editor of a big evening paper. I know all the heads of British industry, I know the bankers and the stockbrokers, but I don’t know the City. It takes a man with a gift for tongues and a queer twist in him somewhere to be able to say he knows the City. But if you know the City, you know the secret of international politics. Everything that happens in Europe is hatched in this Square Mile. But I’ve drifted away from the point. I merely say that Sedel sees a side of the City that neither I nor any other British journalist ever sees — the side of the underground movement of Big Business through international affairs.’

‘But I suppose he has English contacts as well?’ I asked.

‘You mean firms like Calboyds? Oh, rather. I tell you he’s a first-rate journalist and a very clever business man. He’s got a lovely place just outside Eastbourne. He’s realised something that so few journalists ever realise, and that is that journalism can be the gateway to money. I think you’ll find that he’ll have bought Calboyds quite heavily. You see, if you know the right people at the right time, you can’t help making money.’

I thanked him for what he had told me and took my leave. As I passed through the main office I heard a man who was running the tape through his hand exclaim, ‘Calboyds up another bob.’ Outside I turned left and walked to the taxi rank in Lothbury. And as I drove down Queen Victoria Street and along the Embankment to Whitehall, I began to consider where to cast about next. The time factor was the trouble. Given time, I might get somewhere. But already I had spent the better part of a day hunting round the City and had achieved nothing. Max Sedel had provided the only real interest of the day. I couldn’t help feeling what a useful man he would be to Germany. But though he intrigued me, he had not been able to help me. By the time I arrived at the Admiralty, I had decided that the morning had been wasted and that the only thing to do was to try and get some sort of line on Dorman or the other two big holders. Somewhere there must be a clue to the link-up between Calboyds and Germany.

After a wait of nearly half an hour I was able to have a few words with Forbes-Pallister. I explained to him half the truth — that a friend of mine was working on a new type of diesel engine and that it was fitted to the boat. He promised to see that the order was rescinded. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as he saw me to the door of his office. ‘I’ll fix it for you and I’ll give you a ring when it has gone through. What’s your number?’

‘Terminus 6795,’ I told him. ‘If I’m not in, have your people leave a message, would you.’

As I walked up Whitehall, considering what line to follow up next, I remembered a fat smiling little man of the name of Evelyn Ward. He was a half-commission man, who was not above a little business blackmail and whom I got out of a tight corner once. I went to the nearest call-box and looked up his address. Then I crossed the Strand to Duncannon Street and took a bus, for I wanted to think out the position before I reached Ward’s office.

Ward specialised in gossip. In good years he made a bit on half-commission. But gossip was his speciality. And he made money out of it. It was not blackmail in the ordinary sense. In the first place, it was never personal gossip that interested him. In the second place, he never demanded money. His knowledge of the shady side of the City was encyclopaedic. It had to be. His consumption of liquor must have been colossal, but then so was his girth. His danger lay in the fact that he was popular. He was generally known as The Slug, or Slugsy to those who knew him well. He was a fat genial fellow, with a great moon of a face in which two little eyes twinkled, half-buried in flesh. His chins were a really noble sight, and his head, being to his disgust practically bald, was almost invariably covered by a broad black hat.

His usual line was options. Lounging round the bars, he would pick up a piece of gossip, overhear a scrap of conversation or buy the confidence of a junior clerk with a few drinks. He would then learn all there was to learn about the deal, and in due course he would approach the interested party, suggest that the information he had might be of use to the other side and evince a desire for an option on some of the shares of the company involved. He had explained to me rather ruefully at the time when I was defending him that it never failed to work. On that one occasion, he had failed to check up on his information as thoroughly as he might have done and his proposition had fallen on honest and outraged ears. Nevertheless, he had known enough for me to convince the prosecution that it would be better to settle the matter out of court.

I arrived at the dingy little office at the top of a block in Drapers Gardens to find him out, and was directed to a well-known City club. He came out to meet me, a glass of whisky in his hand and his huge face glistening with sweat. His great podgy hand wrung mine and he took me into the club and bought me a drink. ‘Now, Mr Kilmartin,’ he said, as we sat down at a little table to ourselves, ‘do you want to know what to put your savings into?’ And his face screwed itself up into a great smile.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think I know the answer to that. Calboyds is the thing to buy. Am I right?’

‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘But don’t hold for too long.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

He shrugged his wide padded shoulders. ‘Tell you the truth, I dunno. Just a hunch I got.’

‘What I want to know,’ I said, leaning forward and speaking softly, ‘is who controls Calboyds?’

His eyes seemed to narrow slightly and he pushed his hat farther on to the back of his head. ‘There you’ve got me. If I knew, I might make a lot or I might — well, I might not. There’s Ronald Dorman, of course. And then there’s two other boys by the name of Burston and Cappock. Apart from old Calboyd, they’re the big holders.’

‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But who is behind them? Dorman, for instance — did he have enough capital to take up all those shares his firm got stuck with?’

‘No, but he had the credit.’

‘Well, who financed him, then?’

‘I dunno. It’s the same with the other two. They’re just dummies. But who they’re playing dummy for I don’t know, and between you and me, old man, I’m not at all sure that I want to know.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Why? Because if I knew, I might be tempted to do something rash. The sort of game I play is all right so long as the people are running a racket. But when it comes to big game like Calboyds — well, I don’t interest myself. That time you got me out of that mess scared me plenty and I’m much more cautious now, even though it is getting very difficult to make a living.’

‘But you must know what the gossip is? I’m not asking for a statement of facts. Who is thought to be behind Dorman?’

‘Quite honestly, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But I do know this: Burston didn’t make a pile in Mexican oil and Cappock didn’t strike lucky in Rhodesia. They were both of them down and out before they returned to England.’

‘You mean they were both broke? Yet they returned to England and immediately plunged up to the hilt in Calboyds?’

He nodded. ‘That’s about it. Considering what big holdings they have, they don’t live over well. Burston has a little place down at Alfriston and Cappock lives quite quietly at a London hotel.’

‘How do you know all this?’ I asked.

His face creased into a smile. ‘You needn’t worry about my source of information. It’s all true enough.’

‘Why don’t you use your knowledge? I should have thought it would have been in your line.’

‘So did I — at first. But I know which side my bread is buttered.’

‘How do you mean?’

But he did not answer my question and I saw that his eyes were fixed on the doorway. I turned in my chair and saw the neat rather podgy figure of Max Sedel entering the room. Instinctively I turned to conceal my face. But I was not quick enough. For a second his small steely eyes met mine and I saw him half-check in his stride. Then, with a brief nod of recognition, he passed on to the bar.

‘My bête noire,’ said Evelyn Ward in a low tone. ‘What do you know of him?’ I asked.

‘He’s an adept at my own game. He’s in here or one of the other clubs practically every day, pumping people.’ Then he outlined for me Sedel’s story, much as Henderson had told it to me. But he added one point which I thought significant. ‘He hates Jews,’ he said. ‘That’s his weak point, for he finds it difficult to hide his hatred of them, and you know how lousy the City is with Jews.’

I laughed. ‘Well, anyway, that’s a good sign,’ I said. ‘If the City is full of Jews even when there’s a war on, things can’t be so bad.’ An American once told me that he followed the migration of the Jew from capital to capital on the principle that the place the Jews were flocking to was the place where there was money. The American had been in London in 1933 and England was the first country to recover from the Great Slump. I began pumping Ward for more information about the Calboyd control, but either he knew nothing more, or else he did not want to talk. ‘Why don’t you go and see Dorman or one of the other two dummies?’ he suggested.

‘Not a bad idea,’ I said, rising to my feet. A frontal attack might at any rate rattle them.

When I got outside the club, I found it raining. It was prematurely dark, and the lights blazed in rows in the windows of the offices on the other side of Threadneedle Street. It was like the old days before the black-out. Behind me loomed the bulk of the Royal Exchange, and as I came out into Threadneedle Street I saw the long façade of the Bank. Opposite me, dominating the junction of Old Broad Street and Threadneedle Street, stood the imposing granite bulk of Marburgs, the big merchant banking house, with its somewhat indecently blatant sign of an eagle sweeping down upon its prey blazoned in gold above the massive bronze doors. I cut down Old Broad Street, past the Stock Exchange and into Austin Friars.

Needless to say, I got nothing out of Ronald Dorman. And yet I did not feel that the visit had been wasted. The extraordinary thing was that I felt as though I had been expected. An exquisite young man took my coat and hat, and with the minimum of delay I was ushered into Ronald Dorman’s luxurious office. The whole place was ostentatiously sumptuous. From its thick-piled carpets to its heavy gilt-framed pictures, it was designed to impress. ‘Cigar, Mr Kilmartin?’ A deferential air and a glimpse of white teeth behind the little black moustache was symbolic of the whole atmosphere of debonair success that the man affected. Ronald Dorman spared no pains in the dressing of his window. But it was not only dressing. He was astute. I lit my cigar and then, as I blew out the flame of my match, I said, ‘Who is behind Calboyds, Mr Dorman?’ I put it quietly, hoping to catch him on the hop.

But he didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘What has that to do with you?’ he countered.

In the end I had to be satisfied with the assurance that he was the owner of his own holding. But not before my persistence had rattled him a bit. It wasn’t noticeable in his manner. He was charming and very patient with my thirst for knowledge, but I noticed that his long, rather artistic fingers were never still.

Ronald Dorman was my last call of the day, and in the gathering black-out I joined the rush-hour crowd that surged towards the Bank. I found an empty taxi, and within ten minutes was back at my digs. There had been no phone-calls for me, but would I join Miss Smith in her room for tea. I went upstairs to find Freya lounging on her bed, eating crumpets and reading. She seemed glad to see me and thanked me for the chocolates. She jumped up and settled me down in a chair by the gas-fire with tea and a crumpet. ‘Look,’ she said, and thrust the morning paper into my hand. ‘It’s down in black and white now for all the world to see.’

She was excited, and well she might be, for there in print was what Crisham had told me on the phone the previous day. Franz Schmidt was no longer wanted for murder. But the story explained that the police wanted to discover his whereabouts as they were afraid that he, too, might have suffered harm. ‘If he’s at liberty, I hope he sees it,’ I said. I carefully refrained from saying ‘if he is alive’.

‘Oh, I hope so, too,’ she said, with a mouth full of crumpet. ‘Mustn’t it feel marvellous, when you’ve been hunted for three weeks for a murder you didn’t commit, suddenly to find that you’ve been given an alibi.’

I was just putting the paper down, when my eye caught sight of a small paragraph farther down in the next column headed: CAR OVER BEACHY HEAD. My eye had caught the name Burston. It was my Burston all right. John S. Burston of Woodlands, the Butts, Alfriston. His car had apparently gone over the cliff near Birling Gap. The paragraph explained that it had been a foggy night and that Burston had been to a party. Coming down the road from Beachy Head to Birling Gap, he had apparently mistaken the road under the Belle Toute and driven straight over the cliff.

Freya sensed my change of mood and asked me what was wrong. There was no point in bringing sudden death into the conversation, so I handed her back the paper and gave an account of my activities during the day. After all, people did get drunk and miss the road. But Beachy Head is associated in my mind with suicides, not accidents. I saw the sheer white cliff under the Belle Toute lighthouse and pictured the wreckage at the foot washed by the chalky sea. Death was so certain that way. And why had Burston been driving along that road at all? He lived at Alfriston. The road to Birling Gap was all right. But to get home, he had to take the track to East Dean. I knew it well. It was a terribly bad surface and not the road one would choose in thick mist.

I suppose my preoccupation was obvious as I ran quickly through the various interviews I had had, for Freya picked up the paper and began searching for the page at which it was folded. And when I had finished she said, ‘Won’t you tell me what is on your mind, Mr Kilmartin? It was something you saw in the paper, wasn’t it?’

I said that it was nothing, just a thought that had crossed my mind. But she was insistent, and in the end I told her.

She read the paragraph through, a frown wrinkling her usually smooth brow. Then she looked across at me. ‘My father once mentioned the name Burston to me,’ she said. ‘He was talking to Evan Llewellin, but I happened to be present. They were discussing Calboyds and I remember him saying that he thought Burston the weak link.’

‘Anything else?’ I asked.

But she shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘are you certain you have told us everything you know? Didn’t your father discuss the position with you?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think he knew much at the time. You see, the engine was transferred to the yacht in July. Two weeks later the old engine in his workshop was stolen. A month later he decided it was no longer safe to keep the Sea Spray in Swansea and Evan Llewellin and I ran her round to Porthgwarra. The lease of the studio there had already been taken. I took up residence and have not seen my father since. I am afraid that at the time I went to Porthgwarra he knew very little about the business. The night he mentioned Burston was just before I left. He knew that Calboyds were after his engine, but I don’t think he knew anything about the control of Calboyds. In fact, his remarks about Burston being the weak link suggest that he and Evan were just becoming interested in the control.’

We were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Mrs Lawrence to tell me I was wanted on the phone. When I got downstairs, it was to find that it was Forbes-Pallister himself ringing me. He was very apologetic. ‘I would like to have helped you in the matter, Kilmartin,’ he said. ‘But it’s out of my reach. The order emanated from the First Lord and I can, of course, do nothing.’

I thanked him and rang off. That was that. Calboyd himself had probably arranged for the order. As I climbed the dark stairs from the basement, a feeling of depression crept over me. I was out of my depth, and I knew it. I could make no headway against an organisation that could call, not only upon the forces of law, but also upon political heads of the country.

‘Bide a moment, Mr Kilmartin.’ It was Mrs Lawrence, speaking from the front door, and I paused on the stairs leading up from the hall. ‘There’s a telegram for you.’ She brought it to me and I opened it. It was from David to say that he was having an interesting time and had decided to stay the night. ‘There’s no reply,’ I said, and thanked her and went back to Freya’s room. She received my information about the boat with dark, troubled eyes. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked. ‘I’m tired of sitting cooped up in this room.’

‘Then we’ll go and have dinner somewhere and then go to a show,’ I said. I felt rather guilty at the suggestion, but as far as I could see there was nothing more to be done, and she agreed. ‘Tomorrow we will go to Eastbourne,’ I added.