‘That lies very close to the Kenrick boy’s route across the desert, as described by himself, and I think that that is what he saw.’
‘Did he pin-point the place, do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. But I should think he would. He struck me as being a very efficient and intelligent young man.’
‘You didn’t ask him for details?’
‘If someone told you, Mr Grant, that he had discovered a holly tree growing in the middle of Piccadilly immediately opposite the In and Out, would you be interested? Or would you just think that you must be patient with him? I know the Empty Quarter as well as you know Piccadilly.’
‘Yes, of course. Then it was not you who saw him off at the station?’
‘Mr Grant, I never see anyone off. A combination of masochism and sadism that I have always deplored. Off where, by the way?’
‘To Scoone.’
‘To the Highlands? I understood that he was longing for some gaiety. Why was he going to the Highlands?’
‘We don’t know. That is one of the things we are most anxious to find out. He said nothing to you that might provide a clue?’
‘No. He did suggest finding other backing. I mean, when I had proved a broken reed. Perhaps he had found a backer, or hoped to find a backer, who lives up there. I can’t think of any obvious one off-hand. There is Kinsey-Hewitt, of course. He has Scottish connections. But I think he is in Arabia at the moment.’
Well, at least Lloyd had provided the first reasonable explanation of the flying visit north with an overnight case. To talk to a possible backer. He had found a backer at the last moment, when he was almost due to meet Tad Cullen in Paris, and had dashed north to see him. That fitted beautifully. They were getting on. But why as Charles Martin?
As if the thought had been transferred, Lloyd said: ‘By the way, if the Kenrick boy was travelling as Charles Martin, how has he been identified as Kenrick?’
‘I travelled on that train to Scoone. I saw him when he was dead, and grew interested in some verse he had been scribbling.’
‘Scribbling? On what?’
‘On a blank bit of an evening paper,’ Grant said, wondering why it should matter what Kenrick had been writing on.
‘Oh.’
‘I was on holiday, with nothing else to do, so I amused myself with the clues provided.’
‘You played detective.’
‘Yes.’
‘What is your profession, Mr Grant?’
‘I’m a Civil Servant.’
‘Ah. I was going to suggest the Army.’ He smiled a little and picked up Grant’s glass to refill it. ‘The more rarefied ranks, of course.’
‘G.S.O. 1?’
‘No. An attaché, I think. Or Intelligence.’
‘I have done a spot of Intelligence during my Army career.’
‘So that is where you developed your taste for it. May I say, your flair.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It was no ordinary talent that identified Charles Martin as Bill Kenrick. Or had he Kenrick belongings that made the identification easy?’
‘No. He was buried as Charles Martin.’
Lloyd paused as he was setting the filled glass down and said: ‘That is so typical of that careless Scottish way of dealing with sudden death. They are always very smug about their lack of inquests. Myself, I think Scotland must be an ideal place in which to get away with murder. If ever I plan one, I shall lure my victim north of the Border.’
‘There was an inquest, as it happens. The accident took place shortly after the train left Euston.’
‘Oh.’ Lloyd thought this over and then said: ‘Don’t you think that this should be reported to the police? I mean the fact that they have buried someone under a wrong name.’
Grant was about to say: ‘The only proof we have that the dead Charles Martin was Kenrick is my identification of a not very good snapshot.’ But something stopped him. Instead he said: ‘We should like first to know why he had Charles Martin’s papers.’
‘Ah, yes. I see. That of course is a sufficiently questionable matter. One doesn’t acquire a man’s papers without some—preliminaries. Does anyone know who Charles Martin is—or was?’
‘Yes. The police were satisfied on that score. There was no mystery.’
‘The only mystery is how Kenrick came by his papers. I see why you are reluctant to go to official sources. What about this man who saw him off? At Euston. Could he have been Charles Martin?’
‘He could, I suppose.’
‘The papers may merely have been lent. Kenrick somehow did not strike me as a—shall we say, nefarious type.’
‘No. On all the evidence, he wasn’t.’
‘It’s a very curious business altogether. This accident that you say he had: I suppose there is no doubt that it was an accident? No suggestion of a quarrel?’
‘No, it was just one of those things. A fall that might happen to anyone.’
‘Distressing. As I say, there are too few young men nowadays who have the combination of courage and intelligence. A great many come to me, indeed they travel great distances to see me—’
He went on talking, and Grant sat watching and listening.
Were there, in fact, so many who came? Lloyd seemed very pleased to sit and talk to a stranger. There was no suggestion that he had an engagement for the evening or guests coming to dinner. None of the convenient pauses that a host leaves in the conversation so that a casual guest may take his leave. Lloyd sat talking in that thin, fanatic’s voice and admiring the hands that lay in his lap. He continually changed the position of the hands, not as a gesture to emphasise a phrase, but as one making a new arrangement of some decoration. Grant found this Narcissus-like preoccupation fascinating. He listened to the silence of the little house, shut away from the town and its traffic. In that biography in Who’s Who there had been no mention of wife or children; possessions that the owners of both are habitually proud to mention; so the household no doubt consisted of Lloyd and his servants. Had he sufficient interests to compensate for that lack of human companionship?
He, Alan Grant, had a household just as bare of human warmth; but his life was so full of people that to come back to his empty flat was a luxury, a spiritual delight. Was Heron Lloyd’s life full and satisfying?
Or did your true Narcissus ever need any company other than his own image?
He wondered how old the man was. Older than he seemed, certainly; he was the doyen of Arabian exploration. Fifty-five or more. Probably nearer sixty. He had not given his date of birth in that biography, so the chances were that he was nearly sixty. There could not be many years of hard-living left to him, even given his good physique and condition. What would he do with the remaining years? Spend them admiring his hands?
‘The only true democracy in the world today,’ Lloyd was saying, ‘and it is being destroyed by the thing that we call civilisation.’
And again Grant had that sense of familiarity, of recognition. Was it that he had met Lloyd before? Or was it that Lloyd reminded him of someone?
If so, of whom?
He must get away and think about this. It was time that he took his leave anyhow.
‘Did Kenrick tell you where he was staying?’ he asked as he began to take his leave.
‘No. We made no definite appointment to meet again, you understand. I asked him to come to see me again before he left London. When he did not come I believed that he was resentful, perhaps angry, at my lack of—sympathy, shall we say?’
‘Yes, it must have been a blow to him. Well, I have taken up a great deal of your time, and you have been very forbearing. I am most grateful.’
‘I am very glad to have been of help. I am afraid it has not been very valuable help. If there is anything else that I can do in the matter I hope very much that you will not hesitate to call on me.’