"Yes, Baxter. Sorry about that, too-but I told told you, plain as I could, not to waste time on him. He said to Deny that although it wasn"t the top secret stuff that was going-that was impossible to get out of "A" laboratory-it was nevertheless pretty important stuff. Very important stuff, indeed. Britain leads the world in the production of microbiological diseases for wartime use against men, animals and plants. You"ll never hear of this when the Parliamentary Estimates for Mordon Health Centre are being pa.s.sed, but our scientists in Mordon have either discovered or refined to the purest and most deadly forms the germs for causing plague, typhus, smallpox, rabbit and undulant fever in man: hog cholera, fowl pest, Newcastle disease, rinderpest, foot-and-mouth, glanders and anthrax in livestock: and blights like the j.a.panese beetle, European corn borer, Mediterranean fruit fly, boll-weevil, citrus cancer, wheat rust and heaven knows what else in plants. All very useful in either limited or all-out warfare." you, plain as I could, not to waste time on him. He said to Deny that although it wasn"t the top secret stuff that was going-that was impossible to get out of "A" laboratory-it was nevertheless pretty important stuff. Very important stuff, indeed. Britain leads the world in the production of microbiological diseases for wartime use against men, animals and plants. You"ll never hear of this when the Parliamentary Estimates for Mordon Health Centre are being pa.s.sed, but our scientists in Mordon have either discovered or refined to the purest and most deadly forms the germs for causing plague, typhus, smallpox, rabbit and undulant fever in man: hog cholera, fowl pest, Newcastle disease, rinderpest, foot-and-mouth, glanders and anthrax in livestock: and blights like the j.a.panese beetle, European corn borer, Mediterranean fruit fly, boll-weevil, citrus cancer, wheat rust and heaven knows what else in plants. All very useful in either limited or all-out warfare."
"What"s all this got to do with Dr. MacDonald?" Hardanger demanded.
"I"m coming to it. Over two years ago our agents in Poland began taking an interest in the newly-built Lenin Museum on the outskirts of Warsaw. So far, this museum has never been opened to the public. It never will be-it"s the equivalent of Mordon, a purely microbiological research station. One of our agents-he"s a card-carrying member of the party- managed to get himself employed there and made the interesting discovery that the Poles were discovering and refining the various bugs I just mentioned a few weeks, or at most months, after they had been perfected in Mordon. The inference was too obvious to miss."
"Easton Derry started investigating. He made two mistakes: he played it too close to the cuff, without letting us know what was going on, and he unwittingly gave himself away. How, we"ve no idea. He may even have taken into his confidence, quite unknowingly, the man who was responsible for smuggling the stuff out of Mordon. MacDonald, for a certainty-it would be too much to expect two espionage agents operating at the same time. Anyway, someone became aware that Easton Derry was in danger of finding out too much. So Derry disappeared."
"The General here then made arrangements to have me removed from the Special Branch and introduced into Mordon as security officer. The first thing I did was to stake out a decoy duck. I had a steel flask of botulinus toxin, strength one-it was so labelled, introduced into a cupboard in number one lab annexe. The same day the flask disappeared. We had a VMF receiver installed at the gates, for the flask contained not toxin but a micro-wave battery-powered transistor sender. Anyone carrying that and coming within two hundred yards of the gate would have been picked up at once. You will understand," I said dryly, "that anyone picking up a flask of botulinus toxin is unlikely to open it up to see if it really does contain toxin.."
"We picked up no one. It wasn"t hard to guess what happened. After dark someone had strolled across to a deserted part of the boundary fence and chucked the flask into an adjacent field-it"s only a ten-yard throw to clear all the fences. Not because they had any suspicions of the contents but because this was the way it would usually be done-you know how often spot checks and searches are made of people leaving Mordon. By eight o"clock that evening we had micro-wave receivers installed at London Airport, Southend and Lydd airfields, the Channel ports and--"
"Wouldn"t the shock of having been flung over the fence have smashed the transmitter?" Hardanger objected.
"The American watch company that makes these transmitters would be most displeased if one did break," I said. "They can be fired from a high velocity naval gun without being affected in the slightest. Anyway, late that night we picked up a signal in London Airport. Almost inevitably it was from a man boarding a B.E.A. flight to Warsaw. We took him and he told us he was a courier, picking up stuff about once a fortnight from an address in South London. He"d never actually seen his contact."
"He told you that?" Hardanger said sourly. "I can imagine how you made him volunteer that information."
"You"d be wrong. We told him-he was a naturalised British subject-ex-Czech-that espionage was a capital offence and he thought he was turning Queen"s evidence. He turned it pretty fast, too. It was his supplier from Mordon we wanted to nail, so I was duly thrown out of there and have been haunting this d.a.m.n address and neighbourhood for the past three weeks. We couldn"t get anyone else to do the job because I was the only one who knew and who could identify all the scientists and technicians in Mordon. But no luck- except that Dr. Baxter reported that the disappearances had stopped. So we seemed to have stopped that leak-temporarily, anyway."
"But according to Baxter and our Polish informant, that wasn"t the only leak. We had learnt that the Lenin Museum had developed viruses that had not not been stolen from Mordon-but which had been been stolen from Mordon-but which had been produced produced in Mordon. Someone, obviously, was sending them information on the breeding and development of those strains. And now we"ve found that out, too." I tapped the papers, MacDonald"s correspondence with his W.H.O. contact in Vienna. "Not a new system, but almost impossible to detect. Micro-photography." in Mordon. Someone, obviously, was sending them information on the breeding and development of those strains. And now we"ve found that out, too." I tapped the papers, MacDonald"s correspondence with his W.H.O. contact in Vienna. "Not a new system, but almost impossible to detect. Micro-photography."
"All that expensive photographic equipment upstairs?" the General murmured.
"Exactly. There"s a camera expert due from London to look at his stuff, but his journey"s hardly necessary now. Look at those letters from Dr. Weissmann. In every one you will note that the dot from an "i" or a full stop is missing in the first paragraph. Weissmann typed a message, reduced it to the size of a dot by micro-miniature photography and stuck it on the letter in place of some other dot. All MacDonald had to do was to pry it loose and enlarge it. And he, of course, did the same in his correspondence with Weissmann. And he didn"t do it for pennies, either." I glanced around the richly furnished room. "He"s earned a fortune over the years-and not a penny tax, either."
There was a minute"s silence, then the General nodded. "That must be the right of it. At least MacDonald won"t be troubling us any more." He looked up at me and smiled without humour. "When it comes to locking stable doors after the horse has taken off, we have few equals. There"s also another door I can lock for you, supposing it"s any use to you. The caption that"s been scratched out in this alb.u.m."
"Toulon? Tournai?"
"Neither." He turned to the back board of the alb.u.m. "This had been prepared for certain members of the W.H.O. by a firm called Gucci Zanolette, Via XX Settembre, Genoa. The word that has been scratched out is Torino-the Italian, of course, for Turin."
Turin. Only a word, but he might as well have hit me with a sledge-hammer. It had about the same effect. Turin. I sat in a chair because all of a sudden I felt I had to sit, and after the first dazed shock started to wear off I managed to whip a few of the less lethargic brain cells out of their coma and started thinking again. It wasn"t much in the way of thinking, not as thinking went, for with the beating and the soaking I had received, the lack of sleep and food, I was a fair way below my best insofar as anything resembling active cerebration was concerned. Slowly, laboriously, I a.s.sembled a few facts in the befogged recesses of my mind, and no matter how I rea.s.sembled them those facts formed the same mosaic every time. Two and two always came out to four.
I rose heavily to my feet and said to the General, "It"s like the man says, sir. You speak more truly than you know."
"Are you all right, Cavell?" There was sharp anxiety in the voice.
"I"m falling to pieces. My mind, such as it is, is still on its hinges. Or I think so. We"ll soon find out."
Torch in hand, I turned and left the room. The General and Hardanger hesitated, then followed. I suppose they were exchanging all sorts of apprehensive glances, but I was past caring.
I"d already been in the garage and shed, so those weren"t the places to look. Somewhere in the shrubbery, I thought drearily-and it was still raining. In the hall I turned off into the kitchen and was about to make for the back door when I saw a flight of steps leading down to the cellar. I remembered vaguely that Sergeant Carlisle had made mention of this when he and his men had been searching the house that afternoon. I went down the flight of steps, opened the cellar door and switched on the overhead light. I stood aside to let the General and Hardanger into the cellar.
"It"s as you said, sir," I murmured to the General. "MacDonald won"t be troubling us any more."
Which was not quite accurate. MacDonald was going to give some trouble yet. To the police doctor, the undertaker and the man who would have to cut the rope by which he was suspended by the neck from the heavy iron ring in the overhead loading hatch. As he dangled there, feet just clear of the floor and brushing the legs of an overturned chair, he was the stuff that screaming nightmares are made of: eyes staring wide in the frenzied agony of death, bluish-purple face, swollen tongue protruding between blackened lips drawn far back in the snarling rictus of dissolution. No, not the stuff that dreams are made of.
"My good G.o.d!" The General"s voice was a hushed whisper. "MacDonald." He gazed at the dangling figure then said slowly, "He must have known his time was running out."
I shook my head. "Someone else decided for him that his time had run out."
"Someone else--" Hardanger examined the dead man closely, his face giving nothing away. "His hands are free. His feet are free. He was conscious when he started to strangle. That chair was brought down from the kitchen. And yet you say--"
"He was murdered. Look at the streaks and marks in that coal dust a few feet from the chair, and that disturbed pile of coal with lumps kicked all over the cellar floor. Look at the weals and the blood on the inside of the thumbs."
"He could have changed his mind at the last minute," Hardanger rumbled. "Lots of them do. As soon as he started choking he probably grabbed the rope above his head and took the weight until he couldn"t hang on any more. That would account for the marks on his thumbs."
"The marks on his thumbs were caused by twine or wire binding them together," I said. "He was marched down here, almost certainly at gun-point, and made to lie-down on the floor. He may have been blindfolded, I don"t know. Probably. Whoever killed him pa.s.sed a rope through the ring and had the loop round MacDonald"s neck and had started hauling before MacDonald could do anything about it. That"s what caused all that mess in the coal dust-MacDonald trying to scrabble madly to his feet as the pressure tightened round his neck. With his thumbs bound behind his back he made it with the a.s.sistance of his executioner, but it wouldn"t have been easy. It only postponed death by seconds, the man on the end of the rope just kept on hauling. Can"t you see MacDonald almost tearing his thumbs off in an effort to free them? By and by he would be on tiptoe-but a man can"t stand on tiptoe for ever. When he was dead our pal on the heaving end got a chair and used it to help him lift MacDonald clear off the floor-MacDonald was a big heavy man. When he"d secured him there, he cut the twine on MacDonald"s thumbs and kicked over the chair-to make it look like suicide. It"s our old buy-time-at-any-price friend. If he could make us think that MacDonald did himself in because he thought the net was closing round him, then he hoped that we would believe that MacDonald was the king-pin in this business. But he wasn"t sure."
"You"re guessing," Hardanger said.
"No. Can you see a never-say-die character like MacDonald, not only a highly decorated officer who fought in a tank regiment for six years but also a nerveless espionage agent for many years after that, committing suicide when things started closing in on him? MacDonald thinking of giving up or giving in? He wouldn"t have known how to go about it, most probably. MacDonald was well and truly murdered-which he no doubt richly deserved to be anyway. But the real point is that he wasn"t murdered only only so that our friend could cast more red herrings around and so buy more time: he so that our friend could cast more red herrings around and so buy more time: he had had to die and our friend thought he might as well make it look like suicide while he was about it in the hope of stalling us further. I to die and our friend thought he might as well make it look like suicide while he was about it in the hope of stalling us further. I was was. guessing, Hardanger, but not any more."
"MacDonald had to die?" Hardanger studied me through a long considering silence then said abruptly, "You seem fairly sure about all this."
"I"m certain. I know." I picked up the coal shovel and started heaving away some of the coal that was piled up against the back wall of the cellar. There must have been close on a couple of tons of the stuff reaching almost as high as the ceiling and I was in no condition for anything much more strenuous than brushing my teeth but I had to shift only a fraction of it: for every shovelful I scooped away from the base almost a hundred-weight of lumps came clattering down on to the floor.
"What do you expect to find under that lot?" Hardanger said with heavy sarcasm. "Another body?"
"Another body is exactly what I do expect to find. I expect to find the late Mrs. Turpin. The fact that she tipped off MacDonald about me and didn"t bother preparing dinner because she knew MacDonald wouldn"t be staying for dinner owing to the fact that he would be taking off for the high timber shows beyond all doubt that she was in cahoots with our pal here. What MacDonald knew, she knew. It would have been pointless to silence MacDonald if Mrs. Turpin had been left alive to squawk. So she was attended to."
But wherever she had been attended to, it hadn"t been in the cellar. We went upstairs and while the General went to talk for quite a long time on the scrambler radio-phone in the police van that had followed us from Alfringham, Hardanger and I, with the a.s.sistance of two police drivers and a couple of torches, started to scour the grounds. It was no easy job, for the good doctor, who had done so well for himself in the way of furnishing his house, had also done himself pretty well in the way of buying himself privacy, for his policies, half garden, half parkland, extended to over four acres, the whole of it surrounded by an enormous beech hedge that would have stopped a tank.
It was dark and very cold with no wind, the heavy rain falling vertically through the thinning leaves of the dripping trees to the sodden earth beneath. The appropriate setting, I thought grimly, for a search for a murdered body: and there"s an awful lot of searching in four acres on a black and miserable night.
The beech hedge had been trimmed some time during the past month and the clipping piled up in a distant corner of the garden. We found Mrs. Turpin under this pile, not very deep down, just enough branches and twigs over her to hide her from sight. Lying beside her was the hammer I had failed to find in the tool-shed and it required only a glance at the back of her head to know the reason why the hammer was there. At a guess I would have said that the person who had tried to stove in my ribs had also wielded the hammer on Mrs. Turpin: my ribs, like the dead woman"s head, bore witness to the insensate and unreasoning ferocity of a broken and vicious mind.
Back in the house I broached MacDonald"s whisky supplies. He wouldn"t be wanting it any more and as he"d carefully pointed out to me that he had no relations and therefore no one to leave it to, it seemed a pity to waste it. We needed it, badly. I poured out hefty tots, one apiece for Hardanger and myself, the other two for the police drivers and if Hardanger took a dim view of this theft of property and contravention of standing orders by offering intoxicating liquor to policemen on duty he kept it to himself. He finished his whisky before any of us. The two policemen left just as the General returned from the radio van. He seemed to have aged a year for every minute since last I"d seen him, the lines about the nose and mouth more deeply trenched than ever.
"You found her?" He took the offered gla.s.s.
"We found her," Hardanger acknowledged. "Dead, as Cavell said she would be. Murdered."
"It hardly matters." The General shivered suddenly and took a deep gulp of his whisky. "She"s only one. This time to-morrow-how many thousands? G.o.d knows how many thousands. This madman has sent another message. Usual Biblical language, walls of Mordon still standing, no signs of demolition, so has advanced his timetable. If demolition doesn"t start on Mordon by midnight he"s going to break a botulinus toxin ampoule in the heart of London, at four o"clock this morning, within a quarter of a mile of New Oxford Street."
This seemed to call for some more whisky. Hardanger said, "He"s no madman, sir."
"No." The General rubbed his forehead wearily. "I told them what Cavell found out, what we think. They"re in a complete panic now. Do you know that some national dailies are already on the streets-just before six o"clock? Unprecedented, but so is the situation. The papers seem to be very accurately reflecting the terror of the people and are begging-or demanding-that the Government yield to this madman-for at the time of printing everyone thought it was just a crazed crackpot. Word of the wiping out of this segment of East Anglia is just beginning to come through on constant radio and TV news broadcasts and everyone is terrified out of their wits. Whoever is behind all this is a brilliant devil: a few hours and he has the nation on its knees. It"s the man"s frightening speed of operation, the lack of time-lag between threat and carrying out of threat that"s so terrifying. Especially with every paper and news broadcast plugging the theme that this madman doesn"t know the difference between the botulinus toxin and the Satan Bug and that it may very well be the Satan Bug he uses next time."
"In fact," I said, "all those who have been moaning and complaining so bitterly that life is hardly worth the living in the shadow of a nuclear holocaust have suddenly discovered that it might very well be worth living after all. You think the Government will give in?"
"I can"t say," the General admitted. "I"m afraid I rather misjudged the Premier. I thought he was as windy as they come. I don"t know now. He"s toughened his att.i.tude amazingly. Maybe he"s ashamed of his earlier panic-stricken reaction. Maybe he sees the chance to make his imperishable mark on history."
"Maybe he"s like us," I said. "Maybe he"s been drinking whisky, too."
"Maybe. He"s at present consulting with the Cabinet. He says that if this is a Communist scheme he"ll be d.a.m.ned if he gives in. If the Communists are are behind it, he says the last thing in the world we can afford to do is to give in for though not yielding to their demands that Mordon be demolished may bring death to many, yielding to their demands will bring eventual death to all. Myself, I think that att.i.tude is the only one, and I agree with him when he says he"s ready to evacuate the city of London before he gives in." behind it, he says the last thing in the world we can afford to do is to give in for though not yielding to their demands that Mordon be demolished may bring death to many, yielding to their demands will bring eventual death to all. Myself, I think that att.i.tude is the only one, and I agree with him when he says he"s ready to evacuate the city of London before he gives in."
"Evacuate London?" Hardanger said in disbelief. "Ten million people in ten hours. Fantastic. The man"s mad. Impossible."
"It"s not quite as drastic as all that, thank heaven. It"s a windless evening, the met. office forecasts a windless night and it"s raining heavily. It seems that an airborne virus is carried down to earth by heavy rain, having a much greater affinity for water than for air. The experts doubt whether in windless rainy conditions the virus will get more than a few hundred yards from its point of release. If the need arises they propose to evacuate the area between Euston Road and the Thames, from Portland Street and Regent Street in the west, to Gray"s Inn Road in the east."
"That"s feasible enough," Hardanger admitted. "Place is practically deserted by night anyway-mainly a business, office and shop area. But this virus. It"ll be carried away by the rain. It"ll pollute the Thames. It may get into the drinking water. What"s to happen-are people to be told to refrain from washing or drinking until the twelve hour oxidisation period is up?"
"That"s what they say. Unless the water has been stored and covered beforehand, that is. My G.o.d, what"s going to come of it all? I"ve never felt so d.a.m.ned helpless in my life. We don"t seem to have a single solitary lead into this business. If only we had a suspicion, the slightest pointing finger as to whom was behind all this-well, by heaven, if we could get to him I"d turn my back and let Cavell here get to work on him."
I drained my gla.s.s and put it down. "You mean that, sir?"
"What do you think?" He glanced up from his gla.s.s then stared at me with his tired grey eyes. "What do you mean? Cavell? Can you you point a finger?" point a finger?"
"I can do better than that, sir. I know. I know who it is."
The General was a great disappointment as far as reaction went. He always was. No gasps, no wide-eyed stares, no emotional pyrotechnics. He murmured: "Half of my kingdom, Pierre. Who?"
"The last proof," I said. "The last proof and then I can say. We missed it and it was staring us in the face. At least, it was staring me in the face. And Hardanger. To think the country depends on people like us to safeguard them. Policemen, detectives. We couldn"t detect the holes in Gruyere cheese." I turned to Hardanger. "We"ve just made a pretty thorough search of the garden. Agreed?" it was staring me in the face. And Hardanger. To think the country depends on people like us to safeguard them. Policemen, detectives. We couldn"t detect the holes in Gruyere cheese." I turned to Hardanger. "We"ve just made a pretty thorough search of the garden. Agreed?"
"Agreed. So?"
"Hardly missed a square foot?" I persisted, "Go on," he rumbled impatiently.
"Did you see any signs of freshly-built masonary? Huts? Sheds? Walls? Fishponds? Decorative stonework? Anything?"
He shook his head, his eyes wary. I was going off my rocker. "Nothing. There was nothing of the kind."
"Then what happened to all the cement in the empty cement bags in the tool-shed? The ones we saw when we found the tarpaulin there? It didn"t vanish. And the few breeze-blocks we saw? Probably only the remainder of a fair stack of them. If outdoor masonry work wasn"t a hobby of MacDonald"s, then what would be the most likely place to find such masonry work? In a dining-room? In a bedroom?"
"Suppose you tell me, Cavell?"
"I"ll do better than that. I"ll show you." I left them, went out to the tool-shed and hunted around for a crowbar or pick. I could find neither. The nearest was a small sledge. It would have to do. I picked it up along with a bucket, went into the kitchen where the General and Hardanger were waiting for me, filled the bucket at the kitchen sink and led the way down the stairs to the cellar. Hardanger, apparently oblivious of the presence of the dead man dangling from the ceiling, said heavily, "What do you propose to demonstrate, Cavell? How to make coal briquettes?"
The telephone rang in the hallway upstairs. Automatically, we all looked at each other. Dr. MacDonald"s incoming calls might be very interesting. Hardanger said, "I"ll answer it," and left.
We heard his voice on the phone, and then my name being called. I started up the stairs, conscious of the General following me.
Hardanger handed me the phone. "For you. Won"t give his name. Want"s to speak to you personally."
I took the receiver. "Cavell speaking."
"So you are on the loose and the little lady wasn"t lying." The words came over the wire like a deep, dark and throaty whisper. "Lay off, Cavell. Tell the General to lay off, Cavell. If you want to see the little lady alive again."
These new synthetic resins are pretty tough so the receiver didn"t crush in my palm. It must have been pretty close, though. My heart did a long slow summersault and landed on its back with a thud. I kept my voice steady and said, "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"
"The beautiful Mrs. Cavell. I have her. She would like to speak to you."
A moment"s silence, then her voice came. "Pierre? Oh, my dear, I"m so sorry--" Her voice broke off abruptly in a gasp followed by a scream of agony. Silence. Again the dark whisper, "Lay off, Cavell," and then the click of a replaced receiver. I replaced mine, the receiver making a sharp staccato rattle against the rest. My hand was the hand of a man with the ague.
Shock or fear or both may have frozen my face into an expression of normalcy or maybe the make-up on my face didn"t transmit expression too well. Whichever it was, they didn"t notice anything amiss for the General said, "Who was it?" in a normal curious tone.
"I don"t know." I paused and went on mechanically, "They"ve got Mary."
The General had had his hand on the door. Now he dropped it to his side in a ridiculously slow-motion gesture that took almost ten seconds while something in his face died. Hardanger whispered something, something unprintable: his face was like a stone. Neither of them asked me to repeat what I had said, neither was in the slightest doubt as to what I had meant.
"They told us to lay off," I went on in the same wooden voice. "Or they"d kill her. They have her, all right. She spoke a few words and then screamed. They must have hurt her, badly."
Hardanger said, almost desperately, "How could he have known that you had escaped? Or even suspected? How--"
"Dr. MacDonald is how," I said. "He knew-Mrs. Turpin told him-and the killer learnt from MacDonald." I stared almost unseeingly at the General"s face, a face still impa.s.sive, but with all the life and animation gone from it. I went on, "I"m sorry. If anything happens to Mary it will be my fault My own criminal folly and negligence."
The General said, "What are we going to do, my boy?" The voice was tired and listless to match the dullness that had replaced the soldierly fire in his eye. "You know they are going to kill your wife. People like that always kill."
"We"re wasting time," I said harshly. "Two minutes, that"s all I need. To make sure."
I ran down to the cellar, picked up the bucket and tossed half its contents against the opposite wall. The water spread and ran down quickly to the floor. As a cleaning agent it was a dead failure, making hardly any impression whatsoever on the ingrained coal dust of a score or more of years. With the General and Hardanger still watching uncomprehendingly I threw the remainder of the bucket"s contents against the rear wall, where the coal had been piled so high before my recent excavation. The water splashed off and ran down into the coal, leaving the wall almost as clear and clean and fresh as if it had been built only a few weeks previously. Hardanger glared at it, then at me then back at the wall again.
"My apologies, Cavell," he said. "That would be why the coal was piled so high against the wall-to conceal the traces of recent work."
I didn"t waste time speaking, time was now the one commodity we"d run clear out of: instead I picked up the sledgehammer and swung at the upper line of breeze work-the lower portion was solid concrete. One swing only. I felt as if someone had slid a six-inch stiletto between my right ribs. Maybe the doctor had been right, maybe my ribs weren"t as securely anch.o.r.ed as nature had intended. Without a word I handed the sledge to Hardanger and sat down wearily on the upturned bucket.
Hardanger weighed sixteen stone and in spite of the calm impa.s.sivity of his features he was just clear mad all the way through. With all the power and vicious determination that was in him he attacked that wall of breeze as if it were the archetype of all things evil on earth. The wall hadn"t a chance. On the third stroke the first block of breeze was splintered and dislodged and within thirty seconds he had hammered in a hole about two feet square. He stopped, looked at me and I rose to my feet like the old, old man I felt I was and switched on my torch. Together, we peered into the peephole.
Between the false wall and the real cellar wall behind there was a gap of under two feet and jammed at the bottom of this narrow s.p.a.ce and half-covered with broken masonry, chips and dust from the fractured breeze-blocks lay the remains of what had once been a man. Broken, twisted, savagely mutilated, but still undoubtedly the remains of a man.
Hardanger said in a voice ominously calm and steady, "Do you know who this is, Cavell?"
"I know him. Easton Derry. My predecessor as security chief in Mordon."
"Easton Derry." The General was as unnaturally controlled as Hardanger. "How can you tell? His face is unrecognisable."
"Yes. That ring on his left hand has a blue Cairngorm stone. Easton Derry always wore a ring with a blue Cairngorm. That"s Easton Derry."
"What-what did this to him?" The General stared down at the half-naked body. "A road crash? Some-some wild animal?" For a long minute he stared down in silence at the dead man, then straightened and turned to me, the age and weariness in his face more accentuated than ever, but the old eyes bleak and icy and still. "A man did this to him. He was tortured to death."
"He was tortured to death," I said.
"And you know who did it?" Hardanger reminded me.
"I know who did it."
Hardanger pulled a warrant form and pen from an inside pocket and stood waiting. I said, "You won"t need that, Superintendent. Not if I get to him first. In case I don"t make it out in the name of Dr. Giovanni Gregori. The real Dr. Gregori is dead."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.