“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.”
Bentink poked a finger at one of the faces, pushing Pettigrew, the grocer’s son, out of line. “Hard to judge at this age, of course, before the features are sufficiently developed but—speaking purely as a participant in a parlour game—I’d keep an eye on this little thug, Sandilands! A client in the making, if ever I saw one.
“Number three—a tragedy—is a mongoloid type,” he rattled on, enjoying himself. “They don’t have much of a hold on life, you know. A goner by now? This snap wasn’t taken yesterday.
“Number five is ill. Possibly tubercular? I’d have him seen to.
“Number eight—troubled face. Haunted. He’s not seeing what we see. Has he—what’s your phrase?—got form, commissioner?”
“Arsonist,” Joe said, and the response seemed to please the professor.
“Quite a rogues’ gallery. Wouldn’t breed from any of ’em—apart from number seven, who looks perfectly normal.”
“Lucky you’re taking this as a game,” Joe said with asperity, “or I’d have to think that, in your eyes, the last-century views of Cesare Lambroso still held good. The bony forehead, the large jaw, the prominent eye ridges: sure signs of a born-in-the-bone criminality.” He allowed his gaze for the briefest moment to skate across Bentink’s uncompromising features.
The professor almost smiled. “I think Charles Goring refuted all that,” he replied easily. “But you would know more than I on that subject. Never forget, Sandilands, you and I both have this in common with Socrates: We’re neither of us oil paintings. Could both scare the horses if the light was right. But you, I’d judge, were at least born attractive. Fate clearly took a scalpel to those handsome features, but by then you’d learned that appearance is related to self-worth and behaviour. Handsome is as handsome does. I often note that.”
“In fairy tales, perhaps,” Joe mused. “Not necessarily in the street or the laboratory.”
“Certainly not in Parliament. And that’s a pity. We must be forwards-looking, Sandilands, if we’re to maintain our position in the world. To be the best, we must breed the best.”
He cut himself short, sat back, and fixed Joe with a suddenly weary look. He waved a hand over the photographs. “Interesting, but—in answer to your question—I haven’t bumped off any of these boys.”
“I don’t believe I asked that question.”
“Oh, come on! Met Officers don’t carry around photographs of boys who are alive and well and toasting crumpets for tea this Saturday afternoon. They’re missing, presumed dead, and you’re investigating. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
He slid the pictures roughly into a pile like cards with Spielman on top. “This boy. The most recent? Epileptic? Sad. Had the child been brought to us here, we would have been able to treat him, I’m sure. But—‘lost,’ you say? An ‘unknown’ hospital? I find this difficult to understand. An odd set of circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”