The voice was triumphant now, and full of hate. It said, “And now, Commander Shaw, you will walk where I tell you to walk. My methods are effective, are they not? And they leave no trace of wounds on the body.”
“So what?”
The man laughed again. “You will see.”
Shaw was given a hard push in the back. He staggered into the wall, then dropped to the stone floor. Canasset, his face working, moved forward and kicked him viciously in the ribs — once, twice, three times. He gasped with pain, felt himself seized again and dragged upright. Wiley said something to Canasset and then Shaw heard the managing director walking away. One of his arms was twisted up behind him again and he was forced forward. A sweat of sheer pain stood out coldly on his forehead and his eyes seemed to be on fire and he was remembering that this man was called Sam, and that he’d had those ideas about Esamba, and that Esamba was the God Who Blows Out The Light Behind Men’s Eyes…
Thompson hadn’t been able to concentrate for long on his newspaper. He sat there in the driving-seat of the fish van, biting his nails and looking worried. He kept on glancing at his watch. The hands dragged… fifteen minutes, twenty, the half-hour. Three quarters.
Commander Shaw wasn’t coming out. Unreasonably, perhaps, Thompson had that strong feeling of alarm again.
But he must obey orders and wait.
Ten minutes to go. Four, three, two…one.
He stared ahead through the windscreen, his leathery face twitching slightly, big hands tapping on the wheel.
Precisely on the hour the ex-P.O. climbed out of the van and banged the door shut. Strolling casually across the head of Calcutta Street and forcing himself not to hurry, he looked down towards the warehouse. Men and lorries moved in the yard but there was no sign of the Commander or Jim Pelly. Sucking his teeth Thompson went into the call-box and dialled the Admiralty, was put through at once to Room 12.
Shaw and Pelly were marched stumbling through the cellar to Wiley’s guiding directions, the tears streaming down their faces still.
Shaw said to Wiley, who still had a tight grip on his arm, “You realize, of course, I didn’t come here without letting some one know. It won’t be long before there are more people here — looking for us.”
Wiley laughed indulgently. “I don’t doubt that, Commander. Of course they’ll come — but what will they find? A respectable firm of importers, that’s all, with workmen going about their ordinary, lawful, daily business. There will be nothing they can charge anybody with. They will certainly not find you or I or Mr Canasset or MacNamara — or the girl either. She is coming with Canasset and me.”
Shaw stumbled on, feet slipping now on slimy, broken flagstones, his thoughts going round and round. He’d made such a mess of everything, had let that girl in for something that she might never get out of now. He would be morally responsible for what happened — and he could only guess at what their purpose might be in taking her with them. He was filled with remorse, with self-reproach and bitterness, and the thoughts crowded in on him and left his mind reeling.
Suddenly Wiley snapped, “Stop. Turn to your right.”
Shaw did so, heard Pelly’s heavy breathing close beside him. There was the snap of a torch. Shaw tried to force his eyelids open, had to shut them again quickly. He felt rotten boards under his feet now.
Wiley said, “Bend down. You will feel a ring-bolt in the flooring. Pull on it.”
Shaw remained where he was, upright, swaying a little. “Bend down and pull.”
Still Shaw didn’t obey; he asked, “What’s all this for?”
“Your disposal, Commander. I can’t risk leaving you and the other man, and I certainly can’t take you with me, much as I should like to… an extra man at this stage might block the pipeline, you see?”
“Why don’t you just shoot us, then? Or is that what you mean to do?”
“No, no. I am very sorry. I can’t make it so quick and easy, the point being that I must make your death natural-seeming as well as effective, so as to obscure the trail as far as possible. Hence the powder in your eyes just now, rather than the Liiger. Your death must seem to be accidental, a mere carelessness on your part while searching the cellars in a mistaken belief that you might find something. You must have no bullet-wounds in your bodies. Your men, when they come here, may never find this particular spot where you are standing — you did not find it yourself — for it is very well hidden. But they may, and if they do, Commander, they will find your two bodies, dead — from natural causes. Drowning — nothing else.”
Wiley paused, then went on, “By the way, talking of accidental death and so on, you may be interested to know that MacNamara didn’t kill Handley Mason at all. I attended to that myself. Mason was killed just before the train got into Gloucester Road, which is where I left the compartment. After he was dead, had anyone got in, he would have looked like a drunk sleeping it off, and then as soon as the compartment was empty again, the guard would have pushed him out on to the track. As it happened, no one got in — as you know — so MacNamara was able to do his part as soon as the train was in motion again. It was rather neat, I think!” Wiley chuckled. “MacNamara’s presence had been arranged so that he could testify to Mason’s suicide. What we did not expect was that he would disappear before he had been questioned by the police and told the story he had been ordered to tell. When that happened we wondered how deep his loyalty to us really went, and when we found him again, we questioned him very closely… yes, very closely. You understand, of course, what I mean by that. We learnt some interesting facts, after much time had been wasted. Such, for instance, as that he had talked too freely in the past to the girl Gillian Ross.”
Shaw felt a thrill of horror at the African’s tone. He tried again to open his eyes. They were red and puffy and burning, but for a fraction of time he was able to see through the slits, and he saw the man who called himself Sam Wiley.
As he had half expected, he was the Negro of last night, the big, greying man who had been with Canasset behind the ‘altar.’ Not that this information was likely to be much use to him now; but for what it was worth he had come straight to the heart of this business. Perhaps, with luck, Latymer’s boys would bowl these men out after he himself was dead, and then what he had done wouldn’t have been quite wasted… but they would have to get here fast, before Wiley and Canasset and any others involved had slipped away into the unknown. It must be well over an hour now since he’d left the fishmonger’s van; Thompson would have contacted the Admiralty.
There was still a hope.
He had only opened his eyes for that fraction of a second but it had hurt them badly. They were streaming with tears again now, and the searing pain was back. He heard Wiley speaking again. Wiley said, “Below this section of floor there’s a broken sewer. It is sealed off, of course, but the sealing has deteriorated over the years and the river tides cause the water-level to rise. The floor is very bad just here, as perhaps you can feel with your feet. After you have gone down through the trap-door we shall smash in the flooring and it will appear that you have simply slipped through the rotten woodwork. Now, Commander — for the last time. Bend down, and lift the trap up.”
Shaw said, “Oh, no. You’ll have to shoot me after all, Wiley.”