“At least, I hope there are no bones broken.” To Pelton the Saint said: “But why the conference?”
Colonel Pelton put his neat fingertips together and tilted his head over, pigeon- like.
“The answer’s in a name,” he said. “James Anthony Instrood. Head of the European Desk, Chinese espionage. In other words, the man in charge of their whole network in Western Europe. The man the Resident Directors take their orders from.”
The Saint raised a lazy eyebrow and looked politely impressed.
“What about him?”
“Normally he stays in Peking. But a couple of days ago he slipped over to Hong Kong — there’s a girl, it seems. And we managed to grab him. We’ve been waiting for this chance for years.”
“Sounds like quite a prize,” Simon agreed. “What are you doing with him?”
“Bringing him to the UK for interrogation.” Pelton smiled faintly. “Which Mr Nobbins here will begin.”
Nobbins went a little pinker.
“He’s got more useful information in his little finger than a whole sackful of Chinese agents,” he said. “Of course, he’ll take time to break. But when he does...”
“When he does, we could knock out half the Chinese Network,” Pelton said drily. “If he does. So you can see how important he is to us — and to the Chinese.”
“They’ll want him back pretty badly...” The Saint tugged reflectively at his moustache. The connection was obvious enough, but the words had to be said, so he said them. “You’re working on the assumption that the Chinese may be Rockham’s current employers — bearing in mind his recent visitors?”
“I believe that to be an hypothesis to which we should give consideration,” Pelton said pedantically.
Simon Templar gave consideration to the hypothesis for a moment.
“Rockham’s certainly hatching something big,” he said feeling under no obligation at that moment to mention the down payment he had seen.
“And it’s a man-snatch all right — of some kind. But that’s about all I know. Except that I’m going to be in on it myself, and I’m due for a briefing in the morning, and the job’s scheduled for the next day — Friday.”
Pelton’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“That would fit the hypothesis very well,” he said. “Instrood’s plane arrives late tomorrow night. We’re landing him at Blackbushe and he’ll be driven under convoy guard straight to Braizedown Hall, which is just a few miles away. The debriefing will begin at once. Any operation to abduct him would need to be mounted very fast.”
“Instrood won’t be worth a red cent to the Chinks once he’s spilled the beans,” Nobbins put in superfluously.
“And Friday,” Pelton continued, undeflected by his subordinate’s contribution, “is about as soon as Rockham could sensibly plan to make some kind of rescue bid. I’m assuming that if he is aiming to snatch Instrood back for the Chinese, then he has access to inside information, as usual. Which means he knows when and how we’re bringing Instrood into the country, and he may even know where we’re taking him.”
“All this is more or less speculative for the present,” Simon pointed out. “But if your analysis is correct, what’s to stop you changing the venue for putting the matches under Comrade Instrood’s toes, preferably at the last minute?”
David Pelton’s glittering dark eyes darted over the faces of the other three.
“We’ve given it careful thought.” He looked at Nobbins, who nodded. “And our conclusion is that if Rockham has got this commission from the Chinese, then the time has come when we can’t afford to leave his activities unchecked any longer. The Squad will have to be wiped out. If that’s the league they’ve got into, they’re too dangerous to be left alone any longer.”
“I see,” said the Saint slowly; and he meant more by that than either Pelton or Nobbins or Ruth Barnaby realised. “So if Rockham’s a big enough fish to be dangerous, he’ll swim straight into the net. Or you hope he will.”
“Exactly.” Pelton smiled faintly again, the merest quiver of the lips. “If Rockham makes a bid to get James Anthony Instrood away from us, he’s going to run into much more than he bargained for. His forces will be divided — one party on the raid, and the rest back at base. And we’ll have the advantage of surprise — as well as a man in the enemy camp.”
“You mean in the firing line,” said the Saint.
Pelton shrugged.
“If you’re in charge of the raiding party, so much the better — so long as you remember to dodge the bullets when the crucial moment comes. But we’ll be relying on your help beforehand — we’ll need to know what sort of attack he intends to mount, so that we can prepare to meet it at minimum risk to our own forces.”
“The probabilities look right,” Simon said as he stood up. “But it’s still guesswork at this stage. I’ll pass on whatever I find out tomorrow.” He paused, looking speculatively at Pelton. “By the way, just so that I can settle a bet with myself — are you a chess player, by any chance?”
Pelton looked mildly surprised and said: “As a matter of fact, yes. I enjoy a game occasionally. Why do you ask?”
“Just tell me what your favourite opening is,” Simon said: “the one you like to use yourself, when you’re playing as White, let’s say.”
“King’s Gambit,” Pelton said. “Or one of the other pawn gambits.”
“Thanks,” said the Saint with the ghost of a smile. “I just won a bet with myself.”
On the short drive back, Ruth asked him about that parting remark.
“I don’t know the game,” she said. “What did you mean — about openings, and gambits?”
“It would take too long to explain now,” he told her. “Let’s just say I discovered something your boss has in common with Rockham.”
His occasional excursions to the wall and over had become almost routine by now, and in a few minutes he was back in his room, his denims, shirt, and pullover were neatly folded over the chair, and the black plimsolls neatly aligned under it, with absolutely no sign of any hurry in the manner of their arrangement. And in a few minutes more he really was peacefully asleep again, as if he had done nothing else since going to bed the night before.
In those few minutes, however, he had administered himself a sober warning: not to push his luck with these nocturnal excursions too far. Until then, Lembick and Cawber had had no reason to be suspicious of him and hence to subject him to special surveillance. Now, even without suspicion, they had motives to look for or even to manufacture some evidence that would discredit him. And it could hardly be long before even their slower wits visualized his room as a tempting site for some nefarious operation.
He was roused in the morning by a weird sound that droned mystifyingly over the blurred threshold of his consciousness. At first it seemed like the despairing death-cry of a stricken poltergeist... or was it a wailing banshee come to mourn in anticipation of an imminent human demise... or was there some still more unearthly explanation that would occur to him once he was properly awake? It was a plaintive penetrating sound that rose and fell in ear-torturing cadences, a plangent ululation such as never came from the mouth of man nor beast.
The Saint rolled out of bed and looked out of the window.
It was Lembick, playing the bagpipes.
Nor was this torture inflicted on his fellows for his own private pleasure; a fact that became clear when Rockham briefed him that morning for the next day’s mission.
Rockham gave away no more than he had to. What he did give away included the name Instrood, and the location: Braizedown Hall.