The intruder was looking for something big because he wasn’t opening drawers and cabinets. Maybe he had been keeping surveillance on the house, had seen Spode and was now searching for him. But Spode had been trained to spot that kind of thing and there hadn’t been any sign of watchers on the street or in the shrubbery. A neighbor from another house? But he’d arrived in a car.
Shoes came down the hall and stopped. Spode tensed, knowing the man was just beyond the door and listening with the same taut apprehension.
He heard the doorknob turn. A crack of light appeared—a pencil torch like his own, masked and reddened by fingers. The door came open a little wider and Spode saw the hard black oily gleam of an automatic pistol with a perforated silencer screwed to the barrel.
He brought the wadded jar down on the gun wrist hard enough to paralyze the tensor muscles which otherwise would have pulled the trigger involuntarily.
The gun dropped and clattered but the man had presence of mind to yank the door shut. The gun got caught on the floor between the door and jamb and the door bounced open again. One certainty: it wasn’t a chance burglar. Sneak thieves seldom carried guns and never stayed to fight. But this one did: came in and slammed the door back hard enough to shatter the mottled glass of the shower stall. A shard cut the back of Spode’s hand but Spode was in motion. The penlight made an arc and there was enought light: he smashed the blade of his hand into the man’s larynx.
The intruder had only one good hand now. It brought the penlight up to the injured throat and Spode went for the solar plexus with board-stiff fingertips. He folded the man but the wild-swinging right hand smashed against the side of Spode’s jaw. It was going to hurt to chew for a day or two. Spode cracked him across the back of the neck and the man went down.
The first thing Spode went for was the automatic pistol. He checked the safety as he turned. The penlight was on the floor under the sink, still burning, rolling slowly. The man was blinking. Spode switched on the ceiling light and had a look at him.
Now Spode recognized him—the man he’d seen drive past the house slowly a little while ago. An ordinary round face, brown hair, unexceptional eyes. Middle-aged and on the burly side. He looked like a civil servant, a faceless assistant to an assistant. But the side-vented brown suit had been tailored to accommodate the belt holster.
“Who are you?”
“I guess it’s my turn to ask that question. Got a wallet? Let’s see it.”
“Stop waving that gun at me. You’re not going to use it until you’ve found out what you want to know from me.”
Spode said, “Let’s have your ID.”
“May I get up?”
“Stay put a while.”
The man moved with the kind of care a professional used when he knew he was dealing with another professional. There was no chance of misinterpreting any of his moves. He produced a flat wallet; Spode stepped back out of reach before he opened it. His heels crunched broken glass.
There was a blue-gray identification card with official seals that said the man was Meldon R. Kemp, Grade G7, assistant research director for the World War II Division of the National Archives in Alexandria, Virginia. The driver’s license and other cards had been issued in California and there were two blank checks on the First National Bank of Fresno. A California concealed-weapon permit and a Federal Government handgun license. The man was well papered with documentation.
Spode showed his teeth and his disbelief. He tossed the wallet back and Kemp put it in his pocket. When Spode made gestures Kemp got up and sat on the closed toilet lid. “And who are you?”
“Call me Sitting Bull. The ID card says NARS but it’s the wrong color. The FBI uses those colors; you’re not FBI.”
“Are you?”
Spode grinned. “I’m just a tourist.” He threw it out casually to see what reaction he’d get; the word could have a particular meaning.
He got the reaction. Kemp smiled a little. “That’s all right then, we’ve just got our wires crossed. Look, Area Code 703, 306-8585. Ask for Extension 520 and describe me to the man who answers.”
Now that was interesting. It was one of the Agency’s numbers. It made Spode doubly suspicious because Kemp had given him a little too much in answer to a simple question. Agency people weren’t supposed to go around giving out their phone numbers at the drop of a hat. Kemp had to be working on two alternate assumptions: that Spode was a colleague or that he wasn’t. If Spode was in fact an agent and called the number, the Agency would deny Kemp’s existence irrespective of the truth and Spode would be expected to believe Kemp was on a top-secret assignment. On the other hand if Spode was not a colleague then Spode wouldn’t take the risk of calling himself to the attention of a government agency because Kemp had surprised him burglarizing a house and if Spode wasn’t an agent himself he’d be questioned about it. Conclusion: in giving Spode an answer Kemp had actually posed a question, and it would be answered for him by Spode’s response. If Spode called the number, Spode was an agent. If not, he wasn’t.
It was rather neat but Spode punctured it. “It’s easy to sling out vague hints that you’re a G-man. It’s a handy cover and it would take me a long time to prove you’re not what you pretend to be. If I call that number they’ll just tell me they never heard of you.”
Spode got out his camera. It was a pocket Minox loaded with Tri-X film for document work under poor light; it would be a bit grainy for a portrait blowup.
Kemp didn’t like it but Spode had the gun and Kemp couldn’t play games. “Keep still a minute,” Spode drawled, and took five or six snaps of his face. He pocketed the camera and let the gun droop in his fist. “Now we’re going to talk. I haven’t got the patience to wait you out while you bring out a few yards of standard evasions and cut them to fit. Either I take you somewhere and work on you or we can get it done here—but if we do it here let’s forget about the S.O.P. preambles.”
He could see Kemp was mildly amused. The idea of interrogation didn’t intimidate him a bit. It was only to be expected; whoever Kemp was working for, he was a pro.
Kemp was a curious one. Opaque eyes, neutral American accent, elusive, characterless, neither large nor smalclass="underline" an unobtrusive shadow.
Kemp said, “Let’s not take it anywhere else. I’d only keep looking for a chance to jump you and violence attracts too much attention, don’t you think?”
“Suit yourself. You can start talking, then.”
“I guess not. If the tables were turned how much would you tell me?”
“That’d depend on how much I had to lose.”
“You’re in an awkward bind, you know. You could break a few of the bones I need the most but there’s no guarantee that would make me open up. You don’t know what kind of repercussions would come back at you, because you’re not sure who’s back of me.”
“You’re just not going to budge, are you?”
“Not an inch,” Kemp agreed amiably. “We might as well call it a draw and part company.”
Spode had to smile. The guy was good. Too smug, maybe, but nonetheless very good. Spode was pretty sure he could break him down, but if he did and Kemp turned out to be an Agency man it would put Spode between a rock and a hard place, and nothing about this incident seemed important enough to justify that sort of risk. Of course that was exactly the reaction Kemp was counting on, but you didn’t make trouble solely because the other fellow expected you not to.
So Kemp was right; it was a standoff. Spode circled him cautiously and got down on one knee to get a light grip on the edges of a glass shard Kemp had pushed out of his way on the floor. It would have fingerprints on it. Spode wrapped it in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket with the Minox. Kemp watched drowsily and massaged the back of his neck; his control of his emotions was superb.
Spode took his time wiping his own prints off the cold-cream jar and the surfaces he might have touched in the scuffle. Kemp said, “It’s a shame about that busted shower stall. Maybe your people can arrange to have it replaced and get the mess cleaned up before the owner of the house comes back.”