He greeted Alleyn with all his usual buoyancy, and then after a quick look at him said: “Something is wrong, I think.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “We must speak together, sir.”
“Very well, Rory. Where?”
“In here, if you will.”
They went into the study. When the Boomer saw Fox, who had been joined by Gibson, he fetched up short.
“We speak together,” he said, “but not, it seems, in private?”
“It’s a police matter and my colleagues are involved.”
“Indeed? Good morning, gentlemen.”
He said something to the mlinzi, who handed him the roses, went out with the dog, and shut the door.
“Will you sit down, sir?” Alleyn said.
This time the Boomer made no protest at the formalities. He said: “By all means,” and sat in a white hide armchair. He wore the ceremonial dress of the portrait and looked superb. The red roses lent an extraordinarily surrealist touch.
“Perhaps you will put them down somewhere?” he said, and Alleyn laid them on his desk. “Are they for Troy?” he asked. “She’ll be delighted.”
“What are we to speak about?”
“About Sanskrit. Will you tell me what was in the envelope he delivered at the Embassy soon after midnight this morning? It was addressed to the First Secretary. With a note to the effect that it was for your attention.”
“Your men are zealous in their performance of their tasks, Mr. Gibson,” said the Boomer without looking at him.
Gibson cleared his throat.
“The special pass issued under my personal cachet evidently carried no weight with these policemen,” the Boomer added. ”
“Without it,” Alleyn said, “the envelope would probably have been opened. I hope you will tell us what it contained. Believe me, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was of great importance.”
The Boomer, who from the time he had sat down had not removed his gaze from Alleyn, said, “It was opened by my secretary.”
“But he told you what it was?”
“It was a request. For a favour.”
“And the favour?”
“It was in connection with this person’s return to Ng’ombwana. I think I told you that he has been reinstated.”
“Was it, perhaps, that he wants to return at once and asked for an immediate clearance — visas, permits, whatever is necessary? Procedures that normally, I think, take several days to complete?”
“Yes,” said the Boomer. “That was it.”
“Why do you suppose he told the police officers that the envelope contained a photograph, one that you had ordered urgently, for yourself?”
For a second or two he looked very angry indeed. Then he said: “I have no idea. It was a ridiculous statement. I have ordered no photographs.”
Alleyn said: “Mr. Gibson, I wonder if you and Mr. Fox will excuse us?”
They went out with a solemn preoccupied air and shut the door after them.
“Well, Rory?” said the Boomer.
“He was an informer,” Alleyn said, “wasn’t he? He was what Mr. Gibson would call, so unprettily but so appropriately, a snout.”
The Boomer had always, in spite of all his natural exuberance, commanded a talent for unexpected silences. He now displayed it. He neither moved nor spoke during a long enough pause for the clock in the study to clear its throat and strike ten. He then clasped his white gloved hands, rested his chin on them and spoke.
“In the old days,” he said, and his inordinately resonant voice, taking on a timbre of a recitative, lent the phrase huge overtones of nostalgia, “at Davidson’s, I remember one wet evening when we talked together, as youths of that age will, of everything under the sun. We talked, finally, of government and the exercise of power and suddenly, without warning, we found ourselves on opposite sides of a great gap — a ravine. There was no bridge. We were completely cut off from each other. Do you remember?”
“I remember, yes.”
“I think we were both surprised and disturbed to find ourselves in this situation. And I remember I said something like this: that we had stumbled against a natural barrier that was as old as our separate evolutionary processes — we used big words in those days. And you said there were plenty of territories we could explore without meeting such barriers and we’d better stick to them. And so, from that rainy evening onwards, we did. Until now. Until this moment.”
Alleyn said: “I mustn’t follow you along these reminiscent byways. If you think for a moment, you’ll understand why. I’m a policeman on duty. One of the first things we are taught is the necessity for non-involvement. I’d have asked to be relieved of this job if I had known what shape it would take.”
“What shape has it taken? What have you — uncovered?”
“I’ll tell you. I think that the night before last a group of people, some fanatical, each in his or her own degree a bit demented and each with a festering motive of sorts, planned to have you assassinated in such a way that it would appear to have been done by your spear-carrier — your mlinzi: it’s about these people that I’d like to talk to you. First of all, Sanskrit. Am I right or wrong in my conjecture about Sanskrit? Is he an informer?”
“There, my dear Rory, I must plead privilege.”
“I thought you might. All right. The Cockburn-Montforts. His hopes of military glory under the new regime came unstuck. He is said to have been infuriated. Has he to thank you, personally, for his compulsory retirement?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Boomer coolly. “I got rid of him. He had become an alcoholic and quite unreliable. Besides, my policy was to appoint Ng’ombwanans to the senior ranks. We have been through all this.”
“Has he threatened you?”
“Not to my face. He was abusive at a personal interview I granted. I have been told that in his cups he uttered threats. It was all very silly and long forgotten.”
“Not on his part, perhaps. You knew he had been invited to the reception?”
“At my suggestion. He did good service in the past. We gave him a medal for it.”
“I see. Do you remember the Gomez case?”
For a moment, he looked surprised. “Of course I remember it,” he said. “He was a very bad man. A savage. A murderer. I had the pleasure of procuring him a fifteen-year stretch. It should have been a capital charge. He—” The Boomer pulled up short. “What of him?” he asked.
“A bit of information your sources didn’t pass on to you, it seems. Perhaps they didn’t know. Gomez has changed his name to Sheridan and lives five minutes away from your Embassy. He was not at your party but he is a member of this group, and from what I have heard of him he’s not going to let one setback defeat him. He’ll try again.”
“That I can believe,” said the Boomer. For the first time he looked disconcerted.
Alleyn said: “He watched this house from over the way while you sat to Troy yesterday morning. It’s odds on he’s out there again, now. He’s being very closely observed. Would you say he’s capable of going it alone and lobbing a bomb into your car or through my windows?”
“If he’s maintained the head of steam he worked up against me at his trial—” the Boomer began and checked himself. He appeared to take thought and then, most unconvincingly, let out one of his great laughs. “Whatever he does,” he said, “if he does anything, it will be a fiasco. Bombs! No, really, it’s too absurd!”