The Satan Bug Part 12

"Unless you yield to an irresistible compulsion to indulge in violent gymnastics," the doctor said dryly, "we need not concern ourselves with the possibility of you stabbing yourself to death. What does concern me is the likelihood of pneumonia-broken bones plus the exhausting, unpleasant and very wet time you've been through provide an ideal breeding ground. Pneumonia together with broken ribs make for a very nasty condition. Cemeteries are full of people who could once have testified to that fact."

"Make me laugh some more," I said sourly.

"Mrs. Cavell." He ignored me and looked at Mary, sitting still and pale on the other side of the bed. "Check respiration, pulse, temperature every hour. Any upward change in those- or difficulty in respiration-and please contact me at once. You have my number. Finally I must warn you and those gentlemen here "-he nodded to Hardanger and Wylie-"that if Mr. Cavell stirs from his bed inside the next seventy-two hours I refuse to regard myself as in any way medically responsible for his well-being."

He picked up his tool-bag and took off. As the door closed behind him I swung my legs off the bed and started to pull on a clean s.h.i.+rt. It hurt, but not as much as I expected it would. Neither Mary nor Hardanger said anything and Wylie, seeing that they had no intention of speaking, said, "You want to kill yourself, Cavell? You heard what Dr. Whitelaw said. Why don't you stop him, Superintendent?"

"He's off his rocker," Hardanger explained. "You'll observe, Inspector, that not even his wife tries to stop him? Some things in this life are a complete and utter waste of time and making Cavell see sense is one of them." He glared at me. "So you've been coming all over clever and lone-wolfish again, haven't you? And you see what happens? Look at the b.l.o.o.d.y mess you're in now. Literally. Look at it. And nothing to show. When in G.o.d's name are you going to realise that our only hope lies in working together? The h.e.l.l with your d'Artagnan methods, Cavell. System, method, routine, co-operation-that's the only way you ever get anywhere against big crime. And d.a.m.n well you know it."

"I know it," I agreed. "Patient skilled men working hard under patient skilled supervision. Sure, I'm with you. But not here. No room for patience now. Patient men take time and we have no time. You've made arrangements for an armed watch to be kept on this house I was in and to have your sleuths examine the footprints?"

He nodded. "Your story. Let's waste no more time."

"You'll have it. Just as soon as you tell me why you haven't bawled me out for wasting valuable police time in searching for me and why you haven't tried to use your authority to make me stay in bed. Are we worried, Superintendent?"

"The newspapers have the story," he said flatly. "About the break-in, the murders, the theft of the Satan Bug. We didn't expect that last thing. They're hysterical already. Screaming banner headlines in every national daily." He pointed to a pile of newspapers on the floor beside him. "Want to see them?"

"And waste more time? I can guess. That's not all that's worrying you."

"It isn't. The General was on the phone-he was looking for you-half an hour ago. Six Gestetner duplicated letters delivered by special messengers this morning to the biggest concerns in Fleet Street. Character saying that his previous warning had been ignored: no acknowledgement of it on the 9 a . .m. B.B.C. news. The walls of Mordon still stood, some rubbish like that. Said that within the next few hours he would give a demonstration proving (a) he had those viruses and (b) he was willing to use them."

"Will the papers print it?"

"They'll print it. First of all they-the editors-got together and contacted the Special Branch at Scotland Yard. The a.s.sistant Commissioner got in touch with the Home Secretary and I gather there was some kind of emergency meeting. Anyway a Cabinet order not to print. Fleet Street, I gather, told the Government to take a running jump to itself and told the Government that it is the servant of the people and not vice versa, and that if the nation stood in deadly peril-and that on the face of it they certainly seemed to-the people had the right to know. They also reminded the Government that if they put one little foot wrong in this matter they would be out on their ears overnight. The London evening papers will be on the streets about now. I'll bet the headlines are the biggest since VE day."

"The ball's up on the slates," I nodded. I watched Mary, her face expressionless and carefully not looking at me, b.u.t.ton my s.h.i.+rt-cuffs-with both wrists bandaged and my fingers heavily scratched it was a bit much for me-and went on, "Well, it'll certainly provide the British public with a conversational change from the football pools, what so-and-so said on TV last night and the latest rock and roll sensation." I went on to tell him of what happened during the night, omitting my trip to London to see the General.

At the end Hardanger said heavily, "Very, very interesting. Are you trying to tell me that you woke up in the middle of the night and-without telling Mary-started chasing and phoning around Wilts.h.i.+re?"

"I'm telling you. The old secret police technique-and you can't beat it: get them at their sleepiest and most apprehensive and you're already half-way there. And I didn't go to sleep in the first place. I went without telling because I knew d.a.m.ned well it would go so much against all your training and instincts that you wouldn't hesitate to use force to stop me."

"If I had," he said coldly, "you might have a full set of ribs right now."

" If you had, we wouldn't have narrowed this list so much. Five of them. I let drop to all of them that we were getting pretty close to an answer and one of them was scared enough to panic and try to stop me."

"You a.s.sume."

"It's a d.a.m.ned good a.s.sumption. Got a better? For a starter I suggest we haul in Chessingham straight away. There's plenty on him and--"

"I forgot," Hardanger interrupted. "You phoned the General last night--"

"Yes." I didn't even bother to look shame-faced. "Wanted authority to hash about in my own way-knew you wouldn't grant it."

"Clever devil, aren't you?" If he guessed I was lying there were no signs of it in his face. "You asked him to check on this fellow Chessingham, his service career. Seems he was a driver in the R.A.S.C."

"That's it then. Going to pull him in?"

"Yes. His sister?"

"She wouldn't be guilty of anything other than covering up for her own flesh and blood. And the mother is in the clear. That's for sure."

"So. That leaves the four others you contacted this morning. You'd put them all in the clear?"

"I would not. Take Colonel Weybridge. The only certain facts we know about him are these: he has access to the security files and so would be in a position to blackmail Dr. Hartnell into co-operating--"

"You mentioned last night you thought Hartnell was in the clear."

"I said I'd reservations about him. Secondly, why didn't our gallant Colonel, like his gallant commanding officer, volunteer to go into the lab instead of me? Was it because he knew knew the botulinus virus was loose in there? Thirdly, he is the only one without an alibi for the time of the murder." the botulinus virus was loose in there? Thirdly, he is the only one without an alibi for the time of the murder."

"Good lord, Cavell, you're not suggesting we pull in Colonel Weybridge? I can tell you we had a pretty nasty time from both Cliveden and Weybridge when we insisted on fingerprinting their quarters this morning. Cliveden actually phoned the a.s.sistant Commissioner."

"And got his head in his hands?"

"In a gentlemanly sort of way. He hates our guts now."

"That helps. This fingerprinting of the suspects' houses. Anything turned up yet?"

"Give them a chance," Hardanger protested. "It's not one o'clock yet. Be a couple of hours before they finish tabulating their results. And I can't can't pull in Weybridge. The War Office would have my scalp in twenty-four hours." pull in Weybridge. The War Office would have my scalp in twenty-four hours."

"If this lad with the Satan Bug starts chucking it around," I said, "there won't be any War Office in twenty-four hours. People's feelings have ceased to be of any concern. Besides, you don't have to throw him in the cooler. Confine him to his quarters, open arrest, house arrest, whatever you call it. Anything turned up in the past few hours?"

"A thousand stones and nothing under any of them," Hardanger said grimly. "The hammer and pliers were definitely the ones used in the break-in. But we'd been sure of that anyway. Not a single useful print in the Bedford decoy van. The same for the telephone box which was used to make the call to Reuter's last night. We've put your money-lending friend Tuffnell and his partner through the mill and had the Fraud Squad examine their books until we know as much about their business as they do themselves: we could have them both behind bars in a week but I just can't be bothered. Anyway, Dr. Hartnell is definitely their only customer from number one lab. The London police are trying to trace the man who sent the letters to Fleet Street, if we're wasting our time down here they might as well waste their time up there. Inspector Martin has spent the entire morning questioning everyone in number one lab about their social relations with each other and the only thing he has turned up so far is that Dr. Hartnell and Chessingham were on visiting terms. We already knew that. We're having a check made on every known movement of every suspect in the past year and we have teams of men checking with the occupants of every house within three miles of Mordon to see if they noticed anything strange or out of the way on the night of the murders. Something is bound to turn up sometime. If you spread the net wide enough and the meshes are small enough. It always does."

"Sure. In a couple of weeks. Or a couple of months. Our friend with the Satan Bug has promised to do his stuff in a few hours. d.a.m.n it, Superintendent, we can't just wait for something to turn up. Organisation, no matter on how ma.s.sive a scale, won't do it. Method number two, lighting a meerschaum and making like Sherlock, isn't going to get us far either. We have to provoke a reaction."

"You already provoked a reaction," Hardanger said sourly. "See where it got you? You want more reactions. How?"

"As a starter, investigate every financial transaction and every bank book entry of everyone working in number one, every entry in the past year-and don't forget Weybridge and Cliveden. Let the suspects know. Then squads of policemen to every house. Search each house from top to bottom and have the searchers list every tiniest thing they find. This will not only worry the man we're after-it might actually turn up something."

"If we're going to go that far," Inspector Wylie put in, "we might as well throw the lot of them in the cooler. It's one sure way of taking our man out of circulation."

"Hopeless, Inspector. We may be dealing with a maniac but he's a brilliant maniac. He'd have thought of that possibility months ago. He's got an organisation-n.o.body in Mordon could possibly have delivered those letters in London this morning-and you can bet your pension that the first thing he'd have done after getting the viruses would be to get rid of them."

"We'll try stirring things up," Hardanger said reluctantly. "Though where I'm going to find all the men to--"

"Pull them off the house-to-house questioning. It's a waste of time."

He nodded, again reluctantly, and spoke at length on the phone while I finished dressing. When he put the phone down he said to me, "I'm not going to waste my breath arguing. Go ahead and kill yourself. But you might think of Mary."

"I'm thinking of her all right. I'm thinking that if our unknown friend gets careless with the Satan Bug there'll soon be no Mary. There'll be nothing."

This seemed to be a pretty effective conversation stopper but after some time Wylie said thoughtfully, "If this unknown friend does give a demonstration I wonder if the Government really would close down Mordon."

"Close it? Our pal wants it flattened to the ground. It's impossible to guess what they will do. Things are only at the badly-scaring stage so far-no one's out and out terrified."

"Speak for yourself," Hardanger said sourly. "And just what are you thinking of doing now, Cavell? If you'll be kind enough to tell me," he added with heavy irony.

"I'll tell you. Don't laugh, but I'm going to disguise myself." I fingered the scars on my left cheek. "A little a.s.sistance from Mary and her war-paint and these will be gone. Horn-rim spectacles, a pencil moustache, grey suit, credentials identifying me as Inspector Gibson of the Metropolitan Police and I'm a changed man."

"Who's going to supply the credentials?" Hardanger asked suspiciously. "Me?"

"Not necessary. I always carry them around with me, anyway, just in case." I ignored his stare and went on, "And then I'll call again on our friend Dr. MacDonald. In his absence, if you understand. The good doctor, on a modest salary, manages to live like a minor Eastern potentate, everything except the harem, and maybe he discreetly keeps that somewhere else. Also drinking heavily because he's worried stiff, about the Satan Bug and his own personal safety. I don't believe him. So I'm calling on him."

"You're wasting your time," Hardanger said heavily. "MacDonald is above suspicion. Long, distinguished and spotless record. Spent twenty minutes this morning going over it."

"I've read it," I said. "Some of the star turns in the Old Bailey over the past few years have had immaculate records-until the law caught up with them."

"He's a highly respected character locally," Wylie put in. "Bit of a sn.o.b, a.s.sociates only with the very best people, but everyone speaks very well of him."

"And there's more to his record than you've read, Cavell," Hardanger went on. "In the report there's only a brief mention of his wartime service in the Army but it so happens I'm a personal friend of the colonel who commanded MacDonald's regiment in the last two years of the war. I rang him up. Dr. MacDonald, it seems, has been strangely reticent about himself. Did you know that as a second lieutenant in Belgium in 1940 he won the D.S.O. and the bar, that he finished up as a lieut-colonel in a tank regiment with a string of medals as long as your arm?"

"I didn't and I don't get it," I admitted. "He struck me as a phoney-tough type, who, if ever he'd done any valorous deeds, wouldn't have been backward about admitting them. He wanted wanted me to think he was afraid: he didn't want me to think he was brave. Why? Because he knew he had to justify his heavy drinking so he put it down to personal fear. But, in view of his record, it almost certainly wasn't that. Queer item number one. Queer item number two-why wasn't all this listed in his security report. Easton Derry compiled most of those dossiers-and Derry would be unlikely to overlook so large a gap in a man's history." me to think he was afraid: he didn't want me to think he was brave. Why? Because he knew he had to justify his heavy drinking so he put it down to personal fear. But, in view of his record, it almost certainly wasn't that. Queer item number one. Queer item number two-why wasn't all this listed in his security report. Easton Derry compiled most of those dossiers-and Derry would be unlikely to overlook so large a gap in a man's history."

"I don't know about that," Hardanger admitted. "But this much is certain-if the report I had on MacDonald is correct then on the face of it it seems highly unlikely that a man so brave, selfless and patriotic could possibly be mixed up in anything like that."

"This colonel of MacDonald's regiment who told you about him-could you get him down here immediately?"

Hardanger let me have his cool speculative look. "Thinking he's a phoney in every every sense? That this man's been subst.i.tuted for the real MacDonald?" sense? That this man's been subst.i.tuted for the real MacDonald?"

"I don't know what to think. We must have another squint at his record card and check that Derry really did compile it."

"We can soon fix that," Hardanger nodded. This time he was on the phone for almost ten minutes and when he'd finished with that so had Mary with my face and I was all ready to go. Hardanger said, "You look b.l.o.o.d.y awful but I wouldn't recognise you if I saw you in the street. The file's in the safe in my hotel. Shall we go there?"

I turned to leave the room. Hardanger took a look at the palms and fingers of my hands, still slowly welling blood from the hack-saw scratches. He said irritably, "Why didn't you have the doctor bandage your fingers as well? Want to get blood poisoning?"

"Have you ever tried to use a gun with your fingers bandaged together?" I asked sourly.

"Well, man, a pair of gloves then. That's ridiculous."

"Just as bad. Couldn't get a finger through the trigger guard."

"Rubber gloves," he said impatiently. "Plastic."

"It's a point," I agreed. "Certainly it would hide those d.a.m.n scratches." I stared at him without seeing him then sat down heavily on the bed. "h.e.l.l's bells!" I said softly.

I sat very still for a few seconds. n.o.body spoke. I went on, speaking more to myself than anyone else, "Rubber gloves. To cover the scratches. Then why not elastic stockings? Why not?" I looked up vaguely and saw Hardanger glancing at Wylie, maybe thinking that they had let the doctor go too soon, but Mary came to my rescue.

She touched my arm and I turned to look at her. Her face was set and the big green eyes wide with apprehension and the birth of an unpleasant certainty.

"Mordon," she whispered. "The fields round it. Gorse, they're covered with gorse. And she was was wearing elastic stockings, Pierre." wearing elastic stockings, Pierre."

"What in heaven's name--" Hardanger began harshly.

"Inspector Wylie," I interrupted. "How long would it take you to get an arrest warrant? Murder. Accessory."

"No time at all," he said grimly. He patted his breast pocket. "I have three of them here already signed. Like you said yourself, there are times when we can't wait for the law. We fill 'em in. Murder, eh?"

"Accessory."

"And the name?" Hardanger demanded. He still wasn't sure that he shouldn't be calling the doctor.

"Dr. Roger Hartnell," I said.

CHAPTER NINE.

"What in the name of G.o.d are you talking about?" Dr. Roger Hartnell, a young man with a face suddenly old and tired and strained, stared at us, then at his wife who was standing rigidly beside them, then back at us again. "Accessory after murder. What are are you talking about, man?" you talking about, man?"

"It's our belief that you know well enough what we are talking about," Wylie said calmly. It was the Inspector's bailiwick and it was he who had just read out the charge and was making the formal arrest. He went on, "I have to warn you that what you say now may be used against you at your trial. It would help us if you made a full confession now, I admit: but arrested men have their rights. You may wish to take legal advice before you speak." Like h.e.l.l he was going to take legal advice: he was going to talk before he left that house and Hardanger, Wylie and I all knew it.

"Will someone please explain what this-this nonsense is about?" Mrs. Hartnell said coldly. The slightly supercilious incomprehension, the well-bred distaste were done to a turn, but the hostile rigidity of the figure overdone, the gripping hands so tightly clasped that the tremor showed. And she was still wearing the elastic stockings.

"Gladly," Wylie said. "Yesterday, Dr. Hartnell, you made a statement to Mr. Cavell here to---"

"Cavell?" Hartnell did some more staring. "That's not Cavell."

"I didn't like my old face," I said. "Do you blame me? Inspector Wylie is talking, Hartnell."

"-to the effect," Wylie went on, "that you made a late trip night before last to see Mr. Tuffnell. Intensive investigation has turned up several people who were in a position to have seen you had you travelled in the direction you said you did at the time you said you did. Not one of those people saw you. That's point number one." And quite a good point it was, too, even if the purest fiction: the check had been made all right, but not a single witness found to confirm or deny Hartnells story, which had been just as expected.

"Point number two," Wylie went on. "Mud was found last night under the front mudguard of your motor-scooter, a mud which seems to be identical with the red loam found locally only outside Mordon. We suspect you went there early in the evening to reconnoitre. Your machine is at present being moved to police laboratories for tests. Point number---"

"My scooter!" Hartnell looked as if a bridge had fallen on him. "Mordon. I swear to---"

"Number three. Later that night you took your scooter- and wife-to a spot near Chessingham's house. You almost gave yourself away to Mr. Cavell-you said that the policeman alleged to have seen you on your scooter could back up your story about the trip to Alfringham and then you remembered, almost too late, that if he had seen you he would also have seen your wife on the pillion seat. We found the imprint of your scooter's wheels among bushes not twenty yards from where the Bedford had been abandoned. Careless, Doctor, very careless. I note you're not protesting that one." He couldn't. We'd found the imprints less than twenty minutes previously.

"Points four and five. Hammer used to stun the guard dog. Pliers used to cut the Mordon fence. Both found last night in your tool-shed. Again by Mr. Cavell."

"Why, you filthy, sneaking, thieving--" His face twisted, the hair-trigger control suddenly snapped and he flung himself at me, clawed hands outstretched. He didn't get three feet, Hardanger and Wylie just moved in ma.s.sively from either side and pinned him helplessly between their bulks. Hartnell struggled madly, uselessly, his insane fury increasing. "I took you in here, you-you swine I entertained your wife. I did--" His voice weakened and faded and when it came again it was another man talking. "The hammer used to stun the dog? The pliers? Here? In my house? They were found here? How could they have been found here?" He couldn't have been more bewildered if he'd heard the late Senator McCarthy declaring himself to be a lifelong Communist. "They couldn't couldn't have been found here. What are they talking about, Jane?" He'd turned to his wife and his face was desperate. have been found here. What are they talking about, Jane?" He'd turned to his wife and his face was desperate.

"We're talking of murder," Wylie said flatly. "I didn't expect your co-operation, Hartnell. Please come along, both of you."

"There's some terrible mistake. I-I don't understand. A terrible mistake." Hartnell stared as us, his face hunted. "I can clear it up, I'm sure I can clear it up. If you have to take anyone with you, take me. But don't drag my wife along. Please."

"Why not?" I said. "You didn't hesitate to drag her along a couple of nights ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said wearily.

"Would you say the same thing, Mrs. Hartnell?" I asked. "In view of the statement made by your doctor, who saw you less than three weeks ago, that you are in perfect health?"

"What do you mean?" she demanded. She was under better control than her husband. "What are you getting at?"

"The fact that you went to a chemist's in Alfringham yesterday and bought a pair of elastic stockings. The gorse outside Mordon is pretty vicious stuff, Mrs. Hartnell, and it was very dark when you ran off after decoying the soldiers from their truck. You were pretty badly scratched, weren't you? And you had to cover those scratches, didn't you. Policemen are just naturally suspicious-especially in a murder case."