«She didn't see nothing like that, did you, luv?» The orderly slipped a protective arm around her waist.
«Yes, I did!» she insisted.
«She's excited, that's all,» the orderly said. «She ain't crazy. When she calms down… «
«We do have one other witness,» Ferguson said thoughtfully. «Your friend Blade, J old boy. Blade saw it all. If there's anyone can confirm or deny her story, it's him.»
J stepped forward. «Richard? Can you hear me? If you can, give me some sign.»
Blade did not reply, but did appear to be aware that J was speaking to him. At least, his eyes focused on J's face.
J tried again. «You must have seen what happened here just now. Tell me, Richard. Tell me.»
Blade's blank eyes remained on J's face, but his features were expressionless.
«Tell me,» J repeated.
J stared into Richard's eyes for a long time, waiting for an answer, or at least for some flicker of recognition.
At last, with an angry shrug, J turned away and strode from the room.
In the lounge he found a wall phone, and after securing an outside line, phoned his secretary at Copra House.
«Could you send the Rolls over to the Tower to pick me up?»
«Right away, sir.» Her voice was cold, businesslike.
«Then call our man at Heathrow Airport and have him make ready the Lear jet. Tell him to file a flight plan for Inverness.»
As he hung up, J silently admitted that he should be sending an agent on this mission, rather than going himself. But, he mused, half-smiling, everything's so nebulous. I need to get a feel for it personally, first-hand, if I've any hope of understanding it.
He went to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited, listening to the rush as it came down. Abruptly, though he had heard no one approach, he thought he saw, from the corner of his eye, someone standing at his right.
He turned to speak, but there was nobody there.
The elevator door slid open. Glancing uneasily around, he stepped inside. As the elevator ascended with a sickening acceleration, he thought bleakly, Are the loony germs rubbing off on me? I could have sworn someone was there!
At fourteen hundred hours, in a light rain, the Lear jet touched down at Inverness Airport. Opening his umbrella, J disembarked and hurried for the hangar, leaving the pilot to tie down and make arrangements. The sanitarium had sent a car-a Rover-and a chauffeur, a big fellow with a pot belly and no hair. J guessed he was an old MI6 man in semi-retirement; former SIS men often had a wary look about the eyes and a body that had once been trained like an athlete's, but had been let go to seed, and this sanitarium functioned largely as a place where used-up agents were put out to pasture.
As they drove inland, cruising swiftly along the glistening wet macadam roadway, J leaned forward and spoke to the back of the man's head.
«Have you been working for the sanitarium long?»
«Long enough, sir.»
«Do you like the job?»
«I've no opinion about it, sir.»
«No opinion?»
«No, sir. I mind my own business. «Left unspoken but strongly implied was: Why don't you mind yours?
J settled back smiling, confident he was with his own kind.
The rain continued. The countryside became wilder and more mountainous and the farms fewer and farther between. Leaving the main highway, the Rover wound its way upward over roads that were no longer in good repair, that lapsed at times into little more than mud and bare bedrock. There was no sign of human habitation now, except for the road itself, not even the herds of black-faced sheep J had glimpsed earlier, let alone the dour bearded shepherds with their barking collies.
Gray day shaded into night with no perceptible break before the lighted windows of the sanitarium finally hove into view. The Rover bounced and jounced through the wide front gateway and braked to a stop. Through the rain J could with difficulty make out the looming bulk of an ancient manor, irregular in outline and half-timbered in the Tudor style.
Again J was forced to sprint for shelter, the big chauffeur puffing along protectively by his elbow. A thick oak door swung wide to admit him, then closed behind him with a hefty thump that echoed disturbingly in the high-ceilinged vestibule. As the chauffeur went out again into the storm, a white-suited orderly obligingly closed J's umbrella and helped him out of his wet raincoat.
A tall white-haired man in a dark tweed suit came forward, hand extended in greeting. «Ah, so you're the one they call J, the chap everyone whispers about but no one is allowed to speak of. I'm delighted to see you're an ordinary human being after all.»
They shook hands vigorously. J said, «Yes, my ordinariness is England's most closely guarded secret.»
«My name is Dr. Hugh MacMurdo. I'm in charge here, as you no doubt know. You probably know more about me than I do myself!» He had a trace of a Scotch accent peeping out from behind his carefully correct BBC standard English. «Copra House phoned to tell me to expect you. I've had supper kept warm for you. You must be starved!»
«I could do with a bite,» J agreed, sniffing the air. «Is that mutton I smell?»
«Indeed it is, old boy. If you've no taste for mutton you've a hungry time ahead of you here. We eat like regular crofters. Turnips. Oatcakes. Barley scones. And we've a most amazing pudding the Highlanders call Sowans.»
Chattering of trivia, he ushered his guest down a long dim corridor and into a spacious dining hall where a fire blazed cheerily in a huge stone fireplace. Additional lighting was supplied by candles in heavy bronze candleholders at intervals along a stout lengthy central table. Gesturing toward the candles and fire, MacMurdo explained, «We make a virtue of necessity, so far as lighting goes. The electricity here is none too reliable, particularly during a storm.» He seated himself at the head of the table. «There's just you and I here. The rest of the staff dined hours ago, but I gather that's all to the good. Copra House gave me the impression you have some rather confidential questions to ask me.»
J sat down at his right. «Quite so, doctor.»
«If some rascal claims we are mistreating the patients, I deny it categorically.»
«Nothing like that. It's Dr. Saxton Colby I'm interested in.» J picked up knife and fork.
«Ah, my scandalous predecessor!»
«Yes. Were you working here when he was in charge?»
«I was his administrative assistant. In military terms, I suppose you'd call me his second-in-command.»
«Then you knew him well.»
MacMurdo chuckled. «I had no part in his off-duty peccadillos, if that's what you mean.» He began eating.
«Still, you might be able to tell me if he was involved in any way with witchcraft.»
MacMurdo looked up sharply, then sat back with a sigh, chewing his food with the air of a wistful cow. At last he said softly, «So you guessed it, eh? You're a clever bunch up at Copra House. I should have known you'd keep rutting about until you came up with the whole truth. But how did you know?»
«One of my associates, a certain Dr. Ferguson, noticed something odd.»
«Ferguson. Of course. A good mind, though one cannot call him a gentleman. Those shirts…» MacMurdo shuddered. «You see, we all know each other in the psychiatric fraternity. You've heard the term 'global village'?»
«Please, doctor,» J said gently. «Don't try to change the subject.»
MacMurdo ran nervous fingers through his disheveled white hair. «Was old Colby involved in witchcraft? Up to his neck, I should say.» He took a hasty swallow of his dinner wine, as if to bolster his courage.