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A Daimler ambulance pulled into the nursing home, and went through the elaborate charade of carrying out a blonde-haired dummy on a stretcher. Two men got inside with the dummy, another rode with the driver. All four were armed. The ambulance drove off, blue light flashing, and Craig waited. Half an hour later the driver's mate rang in to say that he was in the traffic on the London road, and there was nothing to report. Craig took out a Colt Woodsman and a soft leather harness, strapped it on, put on his coat. At the tradesmen's entrance a van waited: "Phee, Groceries and Provisions. The Best Things in Life Are Phee's." Inside the van was Swyven.
He wore a pink suit, a white blouse, pink high-heeled shoes and nylons. A white scarf was tied over his blond wig. In his lap was a handbag with the initials P.N. picked out in diamonds. Craig sat on a carton of evaporated milk, and said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Whoever had made Swyven up had done a wonderful job; soft long-lashed eyes, a luscious, troubled mouth; even his fingers had been manicured, the nails painted. The van started.
"That's right, look at me," Swyven snapped. "I suppose this is that ghastly fat man's idea of a joke? And I thought he was going to be reasonable with me." Craig said nothing. He could think of nothing that could be said.
"I told him everything," said Swyven, "and he promised I could see mommy. And now he's sending me to her— like this."
And the voice went on in shrill, feminine complaint, and Craig said nothing, because to talk would mean involving Philippa, and Swyven was infinitely more expendable.
The van pulled up, and Craig waited until the driver rapped on the cab's back panel, then got out at once. They were in a deserted country lane, and behind the van was a Mark 10 Jaguar. Craig helped Swyven down— in spite of his protestations, he couldn't cope with high heels—and into the car. He produced the keys, switched on, and the engine roared at once. He drove past the van on to a secondary road, and kept on going. He reached the roundabout for the London road, cut in front of a lorry so that Swyven gasped and shut up for once, then into the overtaking lane with his foot hard down. The car had the new 4.2-liter engine and it had been tuned by a master. The needle moved up and over, and still Craig kept his foot down, then flicked in the overdrive and the car seemed to leap, the traffic behind receded. Craig kept on going for five more miles, then eased back to ninety, eighty, seventy-five. Swyven squirmed in his seat.
"More punishment I suppose," he said. "What could it possibly matter if someone saw you?"
Craig eased down a little further.
"Stop picking on me," he said. "Remember you're a lady."
Swyven spoke no more for seven miles.
Craig stopped at an ancient garage for petrol, and spoke to the man in charge, who promptly put up a "Closed" sign and disappeared. Craig waited a moment then motioned Swyven out, took him into the decrepit living quarters and found a bathroom. In it were a shirt, a suit, socks, tie, and shoes, all belonging to Swyven.
"Go ahead and change," said Craig. "AH the stuff should be here. You've got five minutes."
He settled down with a back number of Autocar. It
had been a very good year for Lagondas, he learned. He must buy some.
Swyven came out in four minutes, reeking of nail-polish remover and aftershave. Craig got up at once, and looked in the bathroom. The woman's clothes were all over the place; the blouse viciously torn. Swyven, it seemed, was not happy. He sulked all the way to Kensington, said nothing at all while Craig parked, got out and locked the car. It was only when Craig walked along beside him to his mother's house that he spoke.
"You're coming in with me?" he asked. Craig nodded.
"But you can't—you mustn't," said Swyven.
"I have no choice," said Craig. "Neither have you. Come on."
Swyven looked at him, despairingly, then rang the
bell.
Amparo, the Spanish housekeeper, opened it at once, and they went through the hall and into the little drawing room that his mother made so gay and attractive, and Amparo said nothing at all. No doubt because the other beast was there. She usually found enough to nag him about. And then he realized. Of course, they would be expecting him. That awful fat man would have rung up and said things. Then they were at the drawing-room door, and Amparo knocked, then stood aside as they went in, and the first thing he saw was his father, and my God his father looked old, so old, and then there was his mother, coming to him, her arms out, saying: "Mark, darling," and Swyven was happy in her embrace.
Craig said to the old man, letting him see his mouth as Loomis had told him: "I think we'd better talk in private, sir," and Swyven said: "Yes, of course," and led the way into a study crammed with the treasured junk of a lifetime. Charts and sextants, commemorative silver ashtrays, samurai swords, Chinese idols, Indian brasswork, photographs of Fiji, Sydney Harbor, Capetown, New York, Bombay, and of the Aegean. Temples, churches, bays, and M.T.B.'s and caiques at anchor, and a convoy under attack, and suddenly Craig remembered Lord Swyven, and wished that of all the rotten jobs he'd been handed, he might have been spared this one.
"Hope you'll excuse the clutter," Swyven said. "I used to be in the Navy. Started bringing things back for
Jane—my wife, you know. It all seemed to end up in here." He floundered in an agony of embarrassment. "Like a drink?"
"Yes, sir," said Craig and hoped the old man would have one too, and relax just a little. Swyven poured two whiskeys and pushed over the soda siphon. The two men nodded at each other and drank. Swyven made an enormous effort at self-control and said at last: "Now then, what's my son been up to this time?"
Craig said: "It's bad."
"I didn't think you'd make my wife a thief just to arrest my son for a misdemeanor."
'The charges have been withdrawn, sir."
"So I should bloody well hope. But my wife hasn't. She still has to go out and let people see her."
"We had to have him, sir. There wasn't any other
way."
"What has he done?"
"He's working for Zaarb," said Craig, "and Zaarb's working for Red China. He's going to send cobalt to Peking."
"You're sure?"
"Quite sure, sir. We found some of the stuff on a Greek island—Dyton-Blease's place." The old man nodded. "It's like no other cobalt in the world, sir. Tremendously— rich, the physicists call it. That means high-yield explosions in very small warheads. And you won't need a very sophisticated atomic pile to get it. In fact the Chinese have already exploded one."
"But why on earth—?"
"He hopes we may be involved in Zaarb in a couple of years. And if we are, the Chinese might lend the Zaarbists the odd bomb. If we did have to go in, it would be a naval strike action. Like Suez. One bomb could finish a whole fleet. He doesn't like us, sir, and he hates the Navy. He thinks one bomb like that is the lesson the imperialists need."
"He's right, of course. It would drive the American Fifth Fleet straight out of the Med." He paused. "You really think they'd use it?"
They'd have to, sir—if Zaarb gets Chinese backing, and if we're forced into attacking first."
"Have you—stopped him, then?"
"We think so, sir."
"Will he stand trial?"
"No," said Craig. "He's done nothing that we can prove—in law."
"What about his cousin? Dyton-Blease?"
Craig said carefully: "He met with an accident. I understand he's a very sick man."
"An accident," said Swyven. "Of course. It would be." He drank.
"So," he said, "your troubles are over." Craig shrugged. "What happens to my son?"