VIII
How Kane Luker called a conference,
and Simon Templar answered him
1
Obeying an urgent and peremptory summons, Mr Algernon Sidney Fairweather, Brigadier-General Sir Robert Sangore and Lady Sangore, arrived at Luker's house a little before seven o'clock that evening. They were perturbed and nervous, and their emotions expressed themselves in various individual ways during the ten minutes that Luker kept them waiting in his study.
Nervousness made General Sangore, if possible, a little more military. He tugged at his moustache and frowned out fiercely from under bristling white eyebrows; his speech had a throaty brusqueness that made his every utterance sound like a severe official reprimand.
"Infernal nerve the feller has," he rumbled. "Ordering us about as if we hadn't anything else to do but wait on him. Harrumph! I had a good mind to tell him I was too busy to come."
Lady Sangore was very cold and superior. Her face, which had always borne a close resemblance to that of a horse, became even more superciliously equine. She sat in an even more primly upright attitude than her corsets normally obliged her to maintain, bulging her noble bosom like a pouter pigeon and tilting her nose back as if there were an unpleasant odour under it.
"Yes, you were busy," she said. "You were going to the club, weren't you? Much too busy to attend to business. Ha!" The word "ha" does not do justice to the snort of an irate dragon, but the limited phonetics of the English alphabet will produce nothing better. "You'd better stop being so busy and get your wits about you. Something must be seriously wrong or Mr Luker wouldn't have sent for you like this."
Fairweather twittered. He fidgeted with his hands and shuffled his feet and wriggled; there seemed to be an itch in his muscles that would not let him settle down.
"I don't like it," he moaned. "I don't like it at all. Luker is… Really, I can't understand him at all these days. His behaviour was most peculiar when I told him about the wire I had from Lady Valerie this afternoon. He didn't even sympathize at all with what I went through with that man Templar and that boorish detective. He asked me a few questions and took the wire and rushed off and left me alone in his drawing room, and I just sat there until he sent the butler to tell me to go away and wait till I heard from him."
"I can't think why men get so excited about that girl," said Lady Sangore disparagingly, stabbing her husband, with a basilisk eye.
The general cleared his throat.
"Really, Gwendolyn! You surely don't suspect—"
"I suspect nothing," said Lady Sangore freezingly. "I merely keep my eyes open. I know what men are."
She seemed to have made a unique anthropological discovery.
Fairweather leaned forward, glancing around him furtively as if he feared being overheard.
"There's something I–I must tell you before he comes," he said in a stage whisper. "We… I mean, there's good reason to suspect that Lady Valerie is working with that man Templar against our interests, and unless something is done at once the position may become serious."
"So that's what it is," said Lady Sangore magisterially. "And what's Mr Luker going to do about it? The girl ought to be whipped, that's what I've always said."
Fairweather dropped his voice even lower.
"Last night he — he practically told me he meant to have both of them murdered."
"Good God!" exclaimed General Sangore in a scandalized voice. "But that's ridiculous — absurd! Why, she belongs to one of the best families in England!" He glared about him indignantly. "It's that bounder Templar who's led her astray. He ought to be severely dealt with. Dammit, if I'd ever had him in my regiment…"
He broke off as Luker appeared in the doorway.
Luker stood there for a moment and looked at them one by one. He did not seem in the least disturbed. Perhaps a faint flicker of surprise crossed his face when he saw that Lady Sangore was present, but he made no comment. His dark, well-tailored suit fitted him like a cloth covering squeezed over a marble figure; he looked harder and stonier than ever, as though he would wear it out from the inside. His square rugged features had the insensitive strength of the same stone.
He moved deliberately across the room to his enormous desk, sat down in the swivel chair behind it and faced them with almost taunting expectancy. They looked at each other and avoided his eyes, subdued in spite of themselves into hoping that somebody else would give them a lead.
General Sangore was the first to let himself go.
"What's this story of Fairweather's that you're planning to murder Lady Valerie Woodchester?" he blurted out.
Luker inclined his head unimpressionably.
"So you have heard? That will save some explanations. Yes, it has become very necessary that she and Templar should be eliminated. That is why I sent for you this evening."
"Well, if you think we're going to take part in any damned murder plots, you're damned well mistaken," stated General Sangore hotly. "I never heard of such — such infernal impudence in my life!"
He glanced at his wife as if for approval. Lady Sangore's lips were tightly compressed; her eyes were glittering.
"That girl ought to be well whipped," she repeated.
Luker stroked his chin thoughtfully. His manner was mild and patient. He spoke in the calm and reasonable tone of a man who states facts that cannot be disputed.
"I fear that whipping would scarcely be sufficient," he remarked. "We are not playing schoolroom games. Let me remind you of the circumstances. All of you are aware, I believe, that the French patriots have planned a coup d'etat for tomorrow which if it is resisted may lead to a Fascist revolution."
His gaze passed questioningly over them and arrived last at Fairweather. Fairweather dithered.
"Yes… That is, I may have heard rumours of it. I know nothing about it officially."
"During this change of governments a number of people will quite definitely be killed," said Luker cold-bloodedly. "Would you call that a murder plot?"
"Of course not," boomed the general authoritatively. "That's quite a different matter. That's political. It's the same as war. Anyhow, as Fairweather says, we don't know anything about it — not officially."
"If the plot should fail, and if all the details should be discovered, I'm afraid we could not plead our official ignorance," Luker replied smoothly. "You see, before he was killed young Kennet gave certain papers to Lady Valerie. You know what was among them. She placed these documents, unread, in a cloakroom — from what has happened since it seems likely that they were at Paddington. If we could have recovered them it would have been all right; even if she had seen the one vital thing, I don't think she would have understood. I tried to make arrangements to deal with her and Templar last night, but those arrangements miscarried. Templar then appears to have kidnapped her. She escaped, returned to London and presumably recovered the papers from where she had left them. From the telegram Fairweather showed me I suspected she might have gone to Anford. I sent two men down in a fast car. They reported to me by telephone that she was at the Golden Fleece and that Templar had arrived soon after her."
"Probably they arranged to meet there," put in Lady Sangore. "I always knew she was a hussy. Whatever happens to her, she's brought it on herself."
"That thought will doubtless console her greatly," Luker observed. "However, Fairweather had meanwhile been stupid enough to show Lady Valerie's telegram to a detective who was with him when it arrived. Much later Scotland Yard apparently also guessed, or discovered, that she had taken a train to Anford. They must have telephoned the Anford police, because two officers arrived at the Golden Fleece and went upstairs. I don't know what Templar told them, and I don't think he can have said anything about the documents which by that time he must have read, because not long afterwards the officers came out with Templar and Lady Valerie, all apparently on the most friendly terms, and allowed them to get into a car and drive away. My men overtook them on the road, carrying out my orders to recover the papers, to capture Templar and Lady Valerie alive if possible and to hold them until I gave instructions how they were to be disposed of."
There was a stricken silence while Luker's point forced itself home. This time Fairweather was the first to regain his voice.
"But — but — for goodness sake, Luker, really, you can't murder a girl!"
"Why not?" Luker inquired blandly.
Sangore appeared to grope in darkness for an answer.
"It… Well, dammit, man — it simply isn't done," he said feebly.
Luker laughed. There was nothing hearty about his laughter. It was a silent, terrifying performance, as if a stone image had quaked with unholy mockery.
"You gentlemen of England, with your pettifogging conventions and your arrogant righteousness and your old school ties; you whitewashed dummies," he sneered. "You don't care what dirty work is done so long as you don't have to know about it 'officially'; you don't care how many people are murdered so long as you can call it warfare, or dignify it with the adjective 'political.' You don't mind helping to start a civil war in France, in which it's quite certain that numbers of girls will be killed, do you?"
"I tell you that's different," stormed the general. "Why — why, we've had civil wars in England!"
He said it as if that fact proved that civil wars must be all right.
"Very well," Luker went on. "And you didn't object to murdering Kennet and Windlay, did you?"
Fairweather said hoarsely: "We had nothing to do with that. In fact, I told you—"
Lady Sangore's face looked flabby. The powder cracked on her cheeks as her mouth worked. She stammered: "You — you — I never knew—"
"No doubt, like the others, you attributed those deaths to divine intervention," said Luker sarcastically. "I'm sorry to disillusion you. I gave orders for Windlay to be killed. I strangled Kennet myself and started the fire under his room. Your husband and Fairweather knew I was going to do it; you yourself guessed. Therefore at this moment you are all of you already accessories to the crime of murder unless you at once communicate your knowledge to the police. Of course if you do that you may find it hard to explain your silence at the inquest, but the telephone is here on my desk if any of you would care to use it."
Nobody moved. None of them spoke. A paralysis of futility seemed to have taken hold of them, and Luker seemed to gloat over their strangulation. He gave them plenty of time to absorb the consciousness of their own moral impotence while his own rocklike impassivity seemed to deepen with his contempt.
"In that case, I take it that you wish me to continue," he proceeded at length. "My instructions were carried out in part. Templar and Lady Valerie have been captured. Their car was wrecked, and they were both stunned in the crash but otherwise not much harmed."
"Where are they now?" asked Fairweather limply. "Are they in London?"
Luker shook his head.
"No. My men rang up from Amesbury, asking for further orders. You see, while they recovered all Kennet's documents, the most important thing of all — the negative of a certain photograph — was not to be found, either in the car or on either of the captives. I therefore thought it advisable to question both of them about what had happened to it. You will understand that this may present some difficulties, since they may require — persuading. Meanwhile, they had to be kept in some safe place. Luckily I remembered that Bledford Manor was not far from Andover, which is not far from Amesbury. Knowing that the Manor was closed and the servants on holiday, I told my men to take them there."
Lady Sangore started to her feet as though she had been jabbed in the behind with a long needle.
"What?" she protested shrilly. "You sent them to my house? How dare you! How dare you!"
The general fought against suffocation. He made noises like an ancient car trying to start on a cold morning. His face was the colour of old bricks.
"Tchah!" he backfired. "Harrumph! By Gad, Luker, that's going a bit too far. It's monstrous. Tchah! I forbid it. I forbid it absolutely!"
"You can't forbid it," Luker said coolly. "It's done."
Fairweather pawed the air.
"This is nothing to do with us," he whined reproachfully. "You're the only one in that photograph. Really, Luker, I—"
"I quite understand," Luker said, with imperturbably measured venom. "This was an attractive business proposition for you so long as somebody else took all the risk, but' now that it isn't going so smoothly you'd like to wash your hands of it, the same as Sangore — of course from the highest motives and with the greatest regard for the honour of the regiment and the old school. I'm sorry that I can't make it so easy for you. In the past I have helped you to make your fortunes in return for nothing much more than the use of your honest British stupidity, which is so comforting to the public. Doubtless you thought that you were earning the just rewards of your own brilliance, but I assure you that I could have taken my pick from hundreds of distinguished imbeciles of your class. Now for the first time, in a small way, I really need your assistance. You should feel flattered. But in any event I intend to have it. And I can assure you that even if this particular photograph only refers to me, if I should be caught the subsequent investigation would certainly implicate yourselves."
He made the statement in a way that left them no doubt of how they might be implicated if the worst came to the worst. But they were too battered to fight back. His words moved like barbs among the balloons of their self-esteem. They stared at him, curiously deflated, trying to persuade themselves that they were not afraid…
Luker's square, powerful hands lay flat on the blotter in front of him, palm downwards, in a pattern that symbolically and physically and quite unconsciously expressed an instinct of command that held down all opposition. He went on speaking with relentless precision, and with a subtle but incombatable change of manner.
"You, my dear Algy, have certain connections which will enable you to approach the chief commissioner at Scotland Yard. You will use those connections to find out exactly what Templar told the police in Anford, and report to my secretary here as soon as you have the information. I don't think he can have told them anything important, but it will be safer to find out. You," — he turned to General and Lady Sangore — "will go down to Bledford Manor. Since the house is supposed to be shut up, some local policeman may notice that there are people there and become inquisitive. You must be there to reassure him. You need not see the prisoners if it will embarrass you. I myself am going to Paris tonight, and I have arranged for Templar and Lady Valerie to be taken there — it will be easier to question them and dispose of them later on the other side. But there may be a slight delay before they can be moved, and I want you at Bledford as soon as possible as a precaution. You had better leave at once."
He did not consider any further argument. As far as he I was concerned, there was no more arguing to be done. He simply issued his commands. As he finished he stood up, and before any of them could raise any more objections he had walked out of the room.
They sat still for some moments after he had gone, each knowing what was in the minds of the others, each trying to pretend that he alone was still dominant and unshaken.
Fairweather got up first. He pulled out a big old-fashioned gold watch and consulted it with a brave imitation of his old portly pomposity.
"Well," he said croakily, "I must be getting along. Got things to attend to,"
He bustled out, very quickly and busily.
The Sangores looked at each other. Then Lady Sangore spoke.
"It's all that little tart's fault," she said bitterly. "If she'd had any sense or decency at all we shouldn't be in all this trouble now. As for Luker, he ought to be kicked out of every club in London."
"I don't suppose he belongs to every club in London," said General Sangore dully.
His figure, usually so ramrod erect, was bowed and sagging; his shoulders drooped. Suddenly he looked very old and tired and pasty. He seemed bewildered, like a man lost in a chamber of unimaginable horrors; he seemed to be groping through the rusty machinery of his mind for one wheel that would turn to a task for which it had never been designed.