Andrew maintained the lyrical mood for a couple of hundred yards along Holland Park Avenue. Then, as he waited to cross the road, he had a twinge of uneasiness. There was a man on the curb a few yards away from him, and Andrew could have sworn that he had seen the same fellow in the lift. One of the friendly ones; a jolly-faced man of forty-five or so with smiling eyes; a small man, getting portly. When the traffic lights changed, he crossed the road behind Andrew, but surely there was nothing in that to worry about? It was a free road. Anyone could choose which side he walked on.
The friendly one loitered at a bus stop for a moment or two, but merely to light a cigarette. When Andrew looked back, he was about fifty yards behind. Andrew turned off the main road. Instead of going on along the avenue, Jolly-Face turned, too, and, by the time he rounded the next corner, he had closed the gap a little.
It was absurd to think there was anything in it. Plenty of people lived in Holland Park; quite a lot in Pemberley Crescent, and Jolly-Face could be one of them.
This was London. Unworthy suspicion must be banished. It arose, of course, as a result of the Brussels incident and the melodramatic nonsense of Charley Botten.
Andrew tried to clear his mind of the nonsense, but every time he looked back the man was still there, and there was no one else in sight. Not another soul in all the long street.
A few more yards and Andrew could no longer frame arguments to counter his uneasiness. A few more and the situation was no longer merely odd; it was a little frightening. There was a stretch now where a street lamp had failed. There were shadows under overhanging trees. There were lightless houses and dark, ominous gardens behind closed gates. Andrew fought against a desire to accelerate his pace. He heard the footsteps coming along behind him, keeping an even distance. One shoe rasped slightly with each step as if a metal protector had been driven into the sole. Except for their footsteps, the two progressed in a pocket of silence. The noise of traffic along Holland Park Avenue was a distant murmur, and the two moved on into deeper silence. Not a single car came round the curve of Pemberley Crescent. The next time Andrew looked back he saw the man throw away his cigarette. It tossed up a little spray of sparks when it hit the roadway.
Then Jolly-Face began to whistle a tune, and he repeated it over and over. At first Andrew could not identify it; after a few repetitions he recognised it as a phrase from Till Eulenspiegel. The whistler was trying to work it up into something, but he was not very musical.
The tension in Andrew eased. That human trick of whistling seemed to make the fellow less formidable. And Andrew was also comforted by the thought that there were only a few more yards to go. Then, with an accession of confidence, he wondered if he should go on, past the house. If the whistler were really following him, it must be to mark where he lived, for the man had made no attempt to catch up with him.
For a moment Andrew thought of going back to Holland Park Avenue and leading the fellow a chase by bus and tube and taxi with the object of throwing him off. He was in front of the house now. He hesitated. Light from the hall came dimly through the ribbed glass panels of the heavy door. Shadows moved in front of the panels and two men came down the steps. There was no longer any choice for Andrew. He knew the taller of the two men at once, and the recognition left him rigid, momentarily incapable of movement. He stood with one foot advanced, waiting, staring. Inspector Jordaens wore a sparely cut raincoat that had the effect of emphasising his leanness, and his hat-a black felt with a high crown and a very narrow brim-conveyed an immediate suggestion of something alien. He raised it courteously.
“Good evening, Dr. Maclaren. We have been waiting for you for some time.”
As Andrew moved forward Jolly-Face passed. He stopped whistling and glanced at the three figures on the steps. Then he was gone. A few yards beyond the house he resumed his musical experiment. The rhythmic theme from Till Eulenspiegel died away in the distance.
Inspector Jordaens introduced the shorter man. “This is my friend Detective-Sergeant Stock of Scotland Yard. We have been trying to make contact with you all the evening, Dr. Maclaren.”
It did not take any special gift to know what was coming. Andrew could have shaped the answer for himself as he asked the obvious question.
“What do you want with me?”
“Perhaps you will be good enough to invite us inside. It is about your friend Kusitch. His body was found in the Bois de la Cambre early this morning. I have been studying very closely the statement you gave me in Brussels. I wish to ask you some more questions.”
Six
Inspector Jordaens was a very painstaking man. It was after three o’clock in the morning before he left.
Kusitch had been shot through the head but other, less pleasant, things had happened to him first. Jordaens had a theory but it only made things more mystifying. The kidnappers, he thought, had not taken Kusitch from the hotel bedroom merely to murder him. If that had been their aim, they could have accomplished it without going to all the trouble of smuggling the man out of the Risler-Moircy. And with less risk, the Inspector insisted.
No. It was obvious that Kusitch had been abducted because he possessed some information that the assassins wanted.
“What was that information, Dr. Maclaren?”
Something in the tone, or it may have been in the impassive air of Jordaens, irritated Andrew.
“How should I know? I was not one of the assassins.”
“According to our knowledge, you were the last person to talk to this man; the last to see him alive.”
“Except for the assassins.”
“Assuredly, except for the assassins. The peculiarity, Dr. Maclaren, is that you came to me with the fear that Kusitch was in grave danger.”
“If there is any peculiarity, Inspector, it is that you would not listen to me.”
“Ah, please, Doctor!” Jordaens rustled his notes of the interview at the Commissariat. “But you wouldn’t,” Andrew insisted. “You rejected the idea completely.”
“What convinced you that there was danger?”
“I wasn’t convinced. I told you my reasons: the man’s behaviour, his fear of enemies.”
“Did you tell me everything?”
“Of course I told you everything. Why shouldn’t I have told you?”
“Exactly, Dr. Maclaren. Why?”
The Inspector was watching him with narrowed eyes. The Scotland Yard man was staring gloomily at the carpet.
Andrew experienced a momentary guilty panic. Then he lost his temper. He stood up quickly.
“If you think I had anything to do with it, why don’t you say so?”
The challenge had a startling effect. The Scotland Yard man’s head jerked up. The Inspector looked deeply shocked. It was as if some unacceptable obscenity had been uttered. There was a moment’s embarrassing silence, and then Andrew turned away and poured himself another drink. He heard a faint sigh of exasperation from the Belgian.
“My dear Doctor,” said Jordaens primly, “you misunderstand. Naturally, your own movements have been closely checked. I am quite satisfied that you were here in England at least twenty-four hours before Kusitch died.”
Andrew sat down again. Inspector Jordaens regarded him coldly.
“I merely asked a question, Dr. Maclaren.”
“I beg your pardon,” Andrew said, “I thought you were cross-examining.”