Professor Byam Alexander Bentink was as welcoming as his staff.
He came forwards to shake their hands as Matron performed the introductions. “Sandilands … Gosling … and-oh, no! Keep her off!” His hands went up in mock protest as he made a heavily playful show of catching sight of Dorcas, who had been hanging back.
“Miss Joliffe I know already-to my cost. Back to haunt us, Joliffe? I thought they’d given you the sack!”
Joe could not take offence at the rudeness on her behalf since the stranger making the comments appeared disarmingly amused by them. His appearance was reassuringly familiar. Joe had been taking orders from men who looked like this all his fighting life: men in their element astride cavalry chargers, atop war elephants, teeth to the wind on the bridge of a battle cruiser. Here was a tall, spare man of middle years with wide shoulders from which hung a starched white laboratory coat. Carelessness or a statement? Joe would have taken it off before greeting guests. The broad features looked like nothing so much as a relief map of the Trossachs, Joe thought, admiring. Nothing understated here. Ridges and valleys wound their way through a weather-beaten landscape occasionally enlivened by an outcrop of bristling mustache and matching eyebrow. The eyes were as deep and as grey as Loch Katrine. A thick hedge of dark hair streaked with grey framed the whole impressive countenance. Forceful and confident.
“If this man decides to tell me I’m barking mad, I shall have to believe him,” Joe concluded. He would have guessed a Scot like himself but for the very English name and the very St. James’s accent.
“Not at all, professor,” Dorcas said demurely.
Only Joe would have known from her first words that she disliked Professor Bentink.
“A sense of humour prevailed, I’m glad to say, and I was forgiven,” she said lightly. “ ‘Student prankster’ I believe my record shows for the world to see. But not sacked at all.”
“Mmm. Do I detect the influence of my tender-hearted brother-in-law? I think I do! Pulling strings again! James was ever susceptible to a pretty face!”
A second insult. Joe’s fists clenched, and he opened his mouth to go on the attack but, intercepting a warning shake of the head from Dorcas, closed it again.
Gosling, however, was off the leash and running free. “Well! Lucky old St. Raphael to have enjoyed the services of an attractive researcher, eh?” he said cheerily. “I’ve been trying to recruit Miss Joliffe myself-tempt her into taking on a permanent post with my own firm. Intelligence, diligence and a university education will always get you our attention. Add beauty and spirit to the mix, and she’s a dead cert.”
Bentink turned his gaze on the earnest young face. He couldn’t have been more surprised if the doorknob had spoken. “Your firm? And what is this business of yours, young man, may I ask?”
“It’s The Firm, professor. And our business is the Defence of the Realm.”
The capital letters were audible.
Joe stifled his astonishment.
Bentink broke into a broad smile. “Indeed? Well, well! I’m delighted to hear that our aims coincide.” He dropped his voice a little. “Though I would advise caution, young man. Reticence. I’m sure we ought neither of us to be talking of the projects nearest to our heart. This little pitcher,” he pointed at Dorcas with joking reproof, “has big ears. And a lively tongue. There’d be a fluttering and a tutting in the bureaux at Oliver House, Cromwell Road, if they could hear you declaring yourself so openly in her presence. Your Director Kell would appreciate it, I’m sure, if I were to send her to wait in the next room.”
“It’s all right, sir. Miss Joliffe has been processed, sworn, and signed and all that,” Gosling lied with confidence. “You could say she’s one of us. Though she’s still in training and has yet to commit herself to a permanent position. It’s rather like becoming a nun, sir. There’s always an escape clause.”
Bentink listened to this nonsense, not in the least taken in by it.
“If you say so. Tell me: Brigadier Glancy-settled in at the Irish desk, has he?”
“No, sir,” Gosling said, patiently playing the game, “I’ve never heard of him. There is a new man in the post you mention, but I’m not at liberty to mention his name.”
“Can we get down to business” Joe said sternly, “after that shower of shibboleths? We all know who we are.”
Bentink appeared to capitulate. He smiled and spread his hands to indicate the chairs set out in front of his desk. “Sit down, all of you, and we’ll continue with the entertainment, though quite what form this should take I’m not certain. Do I get out the cards? Propose you for membership of my club? Suggest a dram or two of my excellent Islay whisky?”
When he had them settled in a row in front of him, too like an audience for Joe’s comfort, he went on more crisply: “I’m assuming from Mr. Gosling’s reticence-shattering admission that we’re all in each other’s confidence and may speak freely. An enterprise like mine is investigative, experimental, controversial, and-quite rightly-comes in for the usual government supervision. And I expect that’s what you are imposing on me now. Checking I’m not swapping secrets of mind-control with the Russkies, eh? Tedious, time-wasting nonsense, but one learns to accommodate it. But, Scotland Yard involvement? This is a new departure. I’d like to know why Sandilands is here.”
“A courtesy call, professor,” said Joe amiably. “You will have observed no squad cars, no secretary.… I don’t even bring a notebook. I feel I ought to apologise for our lack of political clout or motivation. I’ll come straight to our problem. A child went missing in the wilds of Sussex yesterday morning. A sick child. An epileptic child. In transit from his school on the south coast to his home in London, he was conveyed to a hospital whose identity we do not know, and he’s not been seen since. Much turbulence and anxiety at both the school and the family home. Inevitably, ‘Who do we know at the Yard?’ is the question on everyone’s lips. And the answer, predictably: Commissioner Trenchard. My boss asked me to investigate.”
“Ah. And sleuth that you are, you pounce on the word ‘epilepsy’ and pop round to see me?”
“In a nutshell, sir.”
“True, the condition was, at one time, a special study of mine, though I am involved with larger subjects these days. His name?… Spielman? No. I’m almost certain-not on our books. But wait.”
He opened the door to an adjoining room and called into it: “Miss Stevens! Check a patient name for me, will you? Spielman.” He spelled it out with an eye on Joe, who nodded confirmation.
A moment later his secretary appeared in the doorway holding a file. “Sorry, sir, no one of that name. This is the nearest I could get.”
She held out a file discreetly, the name hidden from view. Bentink, with a gesture that said he had nothing to hide, took it and read out loud: “Speerman. Ah. A miss is as good as a mile. Sorry, gentlemen.”
The secretary reclaimed the file and withdrew.
“I have a photograph,” Joe said. He reached into his breast pocket and took out the ten cut-outs, selecting the picture of Spielman.
Bentink took it from him and looked at it without much interest. “No. I have never encountered this child.” He looked with slightly more curiosity at the remaining photographs in Joe’s hand.
Joe began to lay them out in front of Bentink. He was suddenly stricken with embarrassment to see the crudely cut shapes, which were beginning to curl up on themselves like brandy snaps sitting incongruously on the sleek ebony surface of the desk. An automatic gesture from Bentink revealed that he was having the same reaction-he put out a pad of three manicured fingers and flattened the one nearest to him. Joe flinched to see the small face obliterated.
Bentink caught Joe’s hesitation. “Odd things the Yard has in its pockets! What are you showing me? A new parlour game? Spot the Criminal of the Future? That’s easy! He is. Number six.”