‘But that wouldn’t be much to get excited about, would it?’ Tad Cullen was saying.
‘What wouldn’t?’
‘This ancient city you’re talking about. Would anyone get all that excited about it? I mean, about a few ruins. Ruins are two a nickel in the world nowadays.’
‘Not these, they aren’t,’ Grant said, forgetting Zoë. ‘The man who found Wabar would make history.’
‘I thought when you said he had found something important you were going to say munition works in the desert or something like that.’
‘Now that really is something that is two for a nickel!’
‘What?’
‘Secret munition plants. No one who found one of those would be a celebrity.’
Tad’s ears pricked. ‘A celebrity? You mean the man who found this place would be a celebrity?’
‘I’ve already said so.’
‘No. You just said he would make history.’
‘True. Too true,’ Grant said. ‘The terms are not synonymous any more. Yes, he would be a celebrity. Tutankhamen’s tomb would be nothing to it.’
‘And you think Bill will have gone to see this fellow, this Lloyd guy?’
‘If not to him, then to someone else in that line. He wanted to talk to someone who would take what he had to tell as a serious matter; I mean, who would not just tease him about seeing things. And he wanted to meet someone who would be personally interested and excited by his news. Well, he would do just what I did. He would go to a museum, or a library, or perhaps even to one of the Information departments at the big stores, and find out who the best-known English explorer of Arabia happened to be. He would probably be given a choice, since librarians and curators are pedantic people and Information departments subject to the law of libel, but Lloyd is head-and-shoulders above the others because he writes almost as well as he explores. He is the household word of the bunch, so to speak. So the chances are twenty to one that Bill would choose Lloyd.’
‘So we find out when and where he saw Lloyd and pick up his trail from there.’
‘Yes. We also find out whether he went to see Lloyd as Charles Martin or under his own name.’
‘Why would he go as Charles Martin?’
‘Who knows? You said that he was a little cagey. He may have wanted to keep back his connection with OCAL. Are OCAL strict about their routes and schedules? It may be as simple as that.’
Cullen sat in silence for a little, making a pattern in the turf with the butt of the fishing-rod. Then he said:
‘Mr Grant, don’t think I’m being dramatic or—or sensational or silly, but you don’t think, do you, that Bill could have been bumped off?’
‘He could have been, of course. Murder does happen. Even clever murders. But the chances against it are very long.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, for one thing it has passed a police investigation. In spite of all the detective stories to the contrary the Criminal Investigation Department really is a highly efficient organisation. By far the most efficient organisation, if you’ll accept a slightly prejudiced opinion, that exists in this country today—or in any other country, in any period.’
‘But the police have already been wrong about one thing.’
‘About his identity, you mean. Yes, but they can hardly be blamed for that.’
‘You mean because the set-up was perfect. Well, what’s to hinder the other set-up being as perfect as the Charles Martin one?’
‘Nothing, of course. Clever murders, as I say, do happen. But it is much easier to forge an identity than to get away with murder. How do you think it was done? Someone came in and slugged him after the train left Euston, and arranged it to look like a fall?’
‘Yes.’
‘But no one visited B Seven after the train left Euston. B Eight heard him come back shortly after the attendant had done his round, and close his door. After that there was no conversation.’
‘It doesn’t need conversation to slug a man on the back of the head.’
‘No, but it does need opportunity. The chances against opening that door and finding the occupant in the right position for slugging him are astronomical. It’s not an easy place to take a swing at anyone, even choosing your own time: a sleeping compartment. Anyone with lethal intentions would have to come into the compartment: it couldn’t be done from the corridor. It couldn’t be done when the victim was in bed. And it couldn’t be done with the victim facing you; and he would face round as soon as he was aware that there was someone in the compartment. Therefore it could only be done after preliminary conversation. And B Eight says there was no conversation or visiting. B Eight is the kind of woman who “can’t sleep on a train”. She makes up her mind about that beforehand, and every little sound and squeak and rattle is welcomed as a sign of her suffering. She is usually dead asleep and snoring by about half-past two; but long before that time Bill Kenrick was dead.’
‘Did she hear him fall?’
‘She heard a “thump”, it seems, and thought that he was taking down a suitcase. He had no suitcase, of course, that would make a thump in being handled. Did Bill speak French, by the way?’
‘Well enough to get by.’
‘Avec moi.’
‘Yes. About that. Why?’
‘I just wondered. It looks as if he planned to spend a night somewhere.’
‘In Scotland, you mean?’
‘Yes. The Testament and the French novel. And yet he didn’t speak French.’
‘Perhaps the Scotch party didn’t either.’
‘No. Scotch parties usually don’t. But if he planned to spend a night somewhere he couldn’t meet you that day in Paris.’
‘Oh, being a day late wouldn’t worry Bill. He could have sent me a wire on the 4th.’
‘Yes…I wish I could think of his reason for blacking himself all over.’
‘Blacking himself?’
‘Yes. Dressing the part so completely. Why did he want someone to think that he was French?’
‘I can’t think why anyone would want anyone to think they were French,’ Mr Cullen said. ‘What are you hoping from this Lloyd guy?’
‘I’m hoping that it was Lloyd who saw him away at Euston. They were talking about the Rub’al-Khali, remember. What sounded to Old Yughourt’s ear—quite typically—as “rob the Caley”.’
‘Does this Lloyd live in London?’
‘Yes. In Chelsea.’
‘I hope he is at home.’
‘I hope so indeed. Now I am going to have a last hour with the Turlie, and if you can bear just to sit and think the problem over for a little, then perhaps you would come back to supper at Clune and meet the Rankin family?’
‘That would be fine,’ Tad said. ‘I haven’t said goodbye to the Countess. I’m a convert to Countesses. Would you say that the Countess is typical of your aristocracy, Mr Grant?’
‘In the sense of having all the qualities of the type, she is indeed typical,’ Grant said, picking his way down the bank to the water.
He fished until the level light warned him that it was evening, but he caught nothing. This was a result that neither surprised nor disappointed him. His thoughts were elsewhere. He no longer saw Bill Kenrick’s dead face in the swirling water, but Bill Kenrick’s personality was all round him. Bill Kenrick possessed his mind.
He reeled in for the last time with a sigh, not for his empty bag or his farewell to the Turlie, but because he was no nearer to finding a reason why Bill Kenrick should have blacked himself all over.
‘I’m glad I had this chance of seeing this island,’ Tad said as they walked up to Clune. ‘It’s not a bit the way I imagined it.’
From his tone Grant deduced that he had imagined it as a sort of Wabar; inhabited by monkeys and jinns.
‘I wish it had been a happier way of seeing it,’ he said. ‘You must come back some day and fish in peace.’
Tad grinned a little shamefacedly and rubbed his tumbled hair. ‘Oh, I guess it will always be Paris for me. Or Vienna, maybe. When you spend your days in godforsaken little towns you look forward to the bright lights.’