Game Without Rules (16 page)

“I spent a little time on the way down,” said Mr. Calder, “working out, with Mrs. Gordon’s help, the sort of walks her brother might have taken in the time available. Ah, you’ve got the maps – good.”

Mrs. Gordon said, “Truscott, his head clerk, told me that he planned to be back in London well before dinner. He had some papers to read, and he hated reading after dinner. That would have meant leaving Charing at five at the latest – and he liked to get his own tea before starting back.”

“Two hours, almost exactly,” said Mr. Calder. “Less, if he wanted, but not more.”

“He’d go as far as he could in the time. There were two walks I’ve been with him which would have fitted in almost exactly. There’s not much to choose between them.”

They spent a long morning, without result. What had taken the quick-striding barrister two hours to cover cost them nearly four. There were parts of it – along used roads and past houses – which they could ignore. But the rest had to be studied carefully.

After a quick lunch at a pub, they started on the second round. The path rose almost at once on a long slant, climbing the downs toward a wood.

“They could have watched him from up there – Mrs. Gordon, by the way, knows what we fear may have happened.”

“I knew John did secret work. He didn’t talk about it, of course.”

“Of course not,” said Mr. Calder.

The path plunged into the wood – it turned out to be a mere screen of trees – then out again on to the downland.

Rasselas ran free ahead of them, his tail feathering in the breeze. Occasionally his nose dipped to the ground and rose again as he ran. He was like a great golden galleon answering to the first chops of the open sea.

“We won’t waste much time here,” said Mr. Calder. “It’s lonely enough, but it’s a lot too open. John had his wits about him. And he carried a gun.”

The path turned now, and ran along the ridgeway. There were small coppices which were promising, and which they searched carefully but without success. Rasselas watched them, and from time to time Mr. Calder talked to him.

“He’s not a bloodhound,” he explained. “And there’s no question of him acting as a tracker. What he’s been trained to do is to notice when things are wrong – when they’ve been moved or altered, Anyone hiding in the bushes there, for instance, would have upset the pattern of the branches when he came out. If something which had been standing in the same place for some time had been shifted, it would leave a mark. That’s the sort of thing he notices.”

Rasselas sat on his haunches, grinning quietly as he watched Mr. Calder talking.

“He hasn’t shown much interest yet,” said Mr. Behrens.

“He’ll tell us as soon as he sees anything.”

They had already covered nearly fifteen miles that day, and were getting tired by the time they came to the deserted farm. The path skirted the farmyard. Under the collapsed Dutch barn, there still lay a few trusses of grey and mouldy hay. The tiles were off the roof; daylight showed through the walls. The nettle was in command of the garden and yard.

Rasselas padded quietly round the back of the house, and when he did not reappear Mr. Calder went to look for him. He was sitting on his haunches, still as stone, looking at a rusty rain-water tank propped on its side against the broken brick wall.

In the tank, his knees to his chin, was John Craven.

“There were three men involved,” said Mr. Calder to Mr. Fortescue. “And you were right. The planning was meticulous. As John reached the corner of the farm, one man directly ahead of him attracted his attention and made him stop. There were two other men, one on each side behind him and hidden. One hit him to stun him, the other caught his arms as he fell and held him while the first one hit him again, this time hard enough to break his neck.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Rasselas worked it out for me,” said Mr. Calder. And, after a pause, “What next?”

“The finding of the body will be given to the press. In the public version the body will be found by hikers,
behind
the tank, not in it. Craven’s walking habits will be mentioned. It will be strongly suggested that Craven felt faint, sat down to rest and died of heart failure. There will be an inquest, of course. But the only evidence will be of identity. And an adjournment for – how long will you require?”

“It depends what I have to do,” said Mr. Calder cautiously.

“The Headmaster took a grave risk in acting as he did. He must have felt that Craven represented a very real danger. And yet, curiously, Craven didn’t know it. If he had suspected anything, he would have reported at once.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Calder.

“What you will have to do is to trace Craven’s movements, his professional and social contacts, and try to discover why he should have become so dangerous without realising it. Would a month be enough?”

Mr. Calder said, “I ought to know by the end of a month, if there is any chance of success. . .”

The first person he called on was Truscott. Craven’s head clerk Truscott, and his sister Mrs. Gordon, were the only two people who knew that John Craven was more than a very successful barrister; and of the two, Truscott had been deeper in his confidence.

Mr. Calder sat in the barrister’s neat room in Crown Office Row, overlooking the lawn of Middle Temple Gardens. It was a room walled with books. There were other books, marked with slips of paper, on a side table; a pile of briefs which would now have to be returned; a book diary with professional appointments; a flat desk diary with private engagements; and a locked cabinet of personal papers.

“He was a very methodical man,” said Truscott.

“I hope it will make our job a bit easier,” said Mr. Calder. He had explained to Truscott what he planned to do. “We’ll start by listing everyone he saw privately in the last six months. The names will be in his private engagement book.”

“I think this will help us, too,” said Truscott. He produced, from the cabinet, a folder marked personal. “He kept all private letters here, and carbons of his replies. If he answered them by hand, he often made a spare copy.”

“We’ll use one as a check on the other. As a further cross-check, would you get your telephonist to give us a note of any numbers he called. If she doesn’t keep a record, the post office could at least give us the toll calls.”

“She keeps a record,” said Truscott. “I’m not sure if it goes back six months, but I’ll find out.”

There followed a fortnight of work as hard and demanding as any that Mr. Calder could remember. He sat at John Craven’s desk from nine o’clock in the morning until seven o’clock at night. He was introduced to the other members of the chambers as Craven’s literary executor; Craven had been a considerable contributor to all sorts of journals, on legal and non-legal topics, and had published two books of essay and reminiscence. Many of the friends whom Mr. Calder so patiently checked came from Fleet Street and New Fetter Lane.

The professional contacts caused little trouble. With Truscott’s assistance he was able, in the first two days, to identify and put on one side the various solicitors who consulted Craven professionally.

This left a clutter of personal friends, relations, literary contacts, people he had met in the course of his political work, tradesmen, club acquaintances, and odd members of the public who will write to anyone whose name is known and who is foolish enough to have his address in the telephone book. A Christmas card list, with notes on some of the recipients, proved invaluable.

After a week of such work Mr. Calder felt so limp that he thought that he might be in for a bout of flu. But he was not dissatisfied with his results.

“There are three people,” he said, “that I’d like to concentrate on. Any one of them could have access to secret information. And all three are new acquaintances.”

Truscott looked over his shoulder at the names he had jotted down.

“Sir George Gould,” he said. “He’s something in the Treasury, I believe. Mr. Craven met him over his work with the Inns of Court Conservative Association. They were both concerned in the drafting of a new Rating Bill. General Hamish Fairside. He works in the War Office.”

“Military Intelligence,” said Mr. Calder.

“Freddie Lake. The name is familiar, but I don’t think I ever met him.”

“You’re lucky,” said Mr. Calder. “I have.”

In the course of a long career, Sir Frederick Lake had held every conceivable post in the Foreign Service, had visited every known country in the world and had developed into the most compulsive bore of his generation.

“I’d better start with General Fairside,” said Mr. Calder. “I have a nodding acquaintance with him. Let’s have a look at
Who’s Who.
”

“Clubs. United Services, Naval and Military, and the Hambone.”

He turned the pages until he came to
Gould. George Anstruther, educated Winchester and New College, Oxford.
His clubs were the United University Club – and the Hambone.

“This is too true to be good,” said Mr. Calder. With fumbling fingers he turned to the letter L.

Sir Frederick Lake belonged to no fewer than six clubs. The Hambone was fourth on the list.

Mr. Calder sat turning this odd coincidence over in his mind. A further thought struck him.

“Did Mr. Craven belong to any clubs?”

“He was a member of the Travellers, sir.”

“No other ones?”

“Fairly recently, I remember, he was talking about joining the Hambone. But you know what these clubs are like, sir. There was some opposition, somewhere, so of course he withdrew his candidature.”

“I wonder,” said Mr. Calder. “I wonder.”

The Hambone Club in Carver Street is the offspring of that eccentric aristocrat, Sir Rawnsley Clayton. Having been turned out of the Athenaeum for giving dinner there to a troupe of clowns, he had founded it as a place where he could meet his more bohemian acquaintances. It was still much used by actors and writers, but had acquired a solid addition of politicians who found the Carlton too stuffy and of soldiers who found the Senior too exclusive.

It was to the Hambone Club that Mr. Calder was now making his way. Three weeks had passed since the death of John Craven. Mr. Calder had not hurried. The quarry he was hunting, if it existed at all, would await his coming.

He was conscious, as he walked through the misty lamp-lit streets, of a feeling close to guilt. He was breaking one of the oldest rules of the game. For so slight, so intangible, so elusive had been the clue upon which he had stumbled that he had not yet dared to record his suspicions. Possibly “suspicions” was too concrete a word altogether. It was a breath, a whisper, the first faint stirring of apprehension.

Yet when General Fairside, their acquaintanceship skilfully renewed, had invited him to dinner at the Hambone, and had mentioned casually that George Gould might be joining them for a drink afterward, he had paused to consider matters very carefully. In the end, he had slipped into the special pocket of his coat an automatic pistol. It had – like its owner – a
short stout body; and it was equipped with a most efficient silencer. The moment he had put it into his pocket, he had felt the extravagance of the action. But he had allowed it to remain.

Mr. Calder found his host warming himself in front of a hospitable fire of logs.

“Nice of you to come out on a night like this,” he boomed. “What are you drinking? Nonsense. Must have something before we start eating. Take away the taste of the food.”

Over an excellent dinner they talked about the Service charity in which Mr. Calder was interested, and which was the ostensible reason for their meeting; and about old friends, in the Army and out of it. The general had been a subaltern in a rifle regiment, which had shared a particularly unpleasant section of the line with Mr. Calder’s regiment in 1918.

“Sensible of you not to stay on in the Army,” said the general. “No future in it.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Mr. Calder.

“Oh, it suited someone like me. I meant for a brainy chap like you. By the way, what
did
you go in for?”

“Import and export,” said Mr. Calder promptly. “What excellent Burgundy this is.”

“I’m glad you like it. They know how to buy wine in this club.
And
how to look after it. Barlow! My guest likes the Corton.”

Barlow, who was the doyen of the Hambone staff, smiled politely.

“I am glad you enjoyed it, sir,” he said. “I had half a bottle with my own dinner.”

He sailed off down the room to attend to a black-haired man who had just come in.

“That’s Sir George Gould, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Calder.

“That’s him. Doesn’t look like a senior treasury official, does he?”

“To be absolutely candid, I think he looks like a retired boxer.”

“Not bad. Not bad at all. I fought him myself, in the first interregimental tournament after the war. He was in the Sixtieth. A dirty fighter. We’ll lure him along with a glass of brandy after dinner.”

No lure was needed. Sir George came over as if drawn by a magnet, was introduced to Mr. Calder and was given a large brandy. Mr. Calder settled himself in one of the large leather armchairs which make the coffee room of the Hambone one of the best sitting-out places in London. Sir George, he reflected, would be a very difficult man to fool. His had been a lifetime of committees and desk work; a lifetime of watching the wheels go round; and occasionally of making them turn.

He was in an unbuttoned mood now, telling stories of undersecretaries and their ways; of experiences at the bar of the House of Commons; of the foibles of his own master. Another brandy, thought Mr. Calder, and he might become thunderingly indiscreet. Or would he? There was an inner wall of cold reserve in those grey eyes which were turned upon Mr. Calder from time to time.

It was quite late, when the general said, “Hullo, Freddie, come and join us,” and Mr. Calder looked up and saw the tall, spare figure of Sir Frederick Lake bearing down on them.

A sense of completion seized Mr. Calder. It was the feeling which assails a scientist when, at the end of a long and difficult series of calculations full of imponderables and unknown quantities, he feels the shifting ground hardening under his feet at last. It was a sense of satisfaction, but mingled with alarm.