“He doesn’t seem crazy, except for the look in his eyes. His left eye seems as frozen as an icicle.”
“That’s a glass eye. Pryzic lost his as a young man, wiring bombs for terrorists. A small charge went off too soon.”
“He’s had quite a life.”
“We’d like to send him back to Germany and tell them to keep him, but even now we can’t prove he’s done anything wrong.”
“Pin the Sillabus killing on him and he’s out of your hair forever.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he out of your sight at all?”
“He ran next door to make a phone call, trying to reach Sillabus. But the man was probably already dead by that time.”
“The body was in that office all night. Scotland Yard can’t be too precise about the time of death.”
“Tell me something else. I’d like to contact Garson Wolfe, the author of that disk novel I brought you yesterday. Can you get me his address?”
“Scotland Yard has it. They’ll be questioning him as a possible suspect.”
“Suspect?”
“It may be that he heard about Sillabus’s plan to publish the computer program he used to encipher his novel. It would have been a blow to his pride, if not his pocketbook. Men have killed for less.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I’d like to see him.”
“He works at home, lives in Slough. I can get the address and drive you over right now.”
It was obvious Parkinson was trying to involve him in the case and he wondered why. The death of a man like Sillabus could hardly be a matter of concern to British Intelligence. As for Pryzic’s involvement, he was living in the past, wasn’t he?
“Do you know who killed Sillabus? Was it our side?”
Parkinson smiled. “There are no sides anymore, Rand. You said so yourself.”
Garson Wolfe lived on a quiet residential street in Slough. The house was neat but modest, and a woman Rand took to be his wife answered the door. He’d persuaded Parkinson to wait in the car down the street so he could speak to the man alone. Now, to this woman, he said, “It’s very important that I see Garson Wolfe, if he’s at home.”
“He’s writing. I don’t know if I can disturb him.”
“Tell him it’s about Harold Sillabus.”
She returned in a moment with a tall, slender man behind her. “I’m Garson Wolfe,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“My name is Rand. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance — Harold Sillabus.”
“What about him?” Wolfe asked cautiously.
“He’s dead. He was murdered in his London office yesterday afternoon. Did you know about that?”
The writer frowned and shook his head. “I hardly knew the man, and I was never in his office. Look here, are you the police or something?”
“No. I was helping him solve the cipher you’re using on your computer disk — The Wizard of Zo.”
He gave Rand a fresh look. “I’d heard about his plan. He tried to obtain information from me, claiming it would help sales of my disk, but I wouldn’t cooperate. I suppose there’s no law against his solving it himself and publishing the results, but I wasn’t very happy about it.”
“Have the police questioned you yet?”
“Of course not! Why should they?”
“I think you’ll be hearing from them soon,” Rand said.
He left Wolfe and returned to the car where Parkinson waited. “What did you learn?”
“The police haven’t questioned him yet,” Rand said as Parkinson pulled away from the curb. “He only knew Sillabus slightly. The man approached him for help with the cipher, apparently, but Wolfe turned him down.”
“I’m driving into London to look at the murder scene next,” Parkinson said. “Want to come along and take the train back?”
“Why not? I seem to be involved in this whether I like it or not.”
The police technicians and investigators had already departed from the scene by the time Parkinson’s limousine pulled up in front of the familiar building. Parkinson had phoned ahead and established that Janice Casey, the dead man’s assistant, would still be there to let them in.
When they entered she seemed surprised to see Rand. “He said you were retired from this business,” she told him.
“Who said that? Sillabus?”
She nodded. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. “That’s why he hired you for the deciphering.”
Rand had barely noticed her on his previous visit to the office. Now this pretty, dark-haired woman in her thirties seemed almost like Sillabus’s successor. She wasn’t straightening up the office but seemed instead to be getting out letters and handling incoming mail, using her index finger to slit open the flap of a manila envelope.
“You seem to be trying to carry on the business,” Rand commented.
“Why shouldn’t I? My own money is in it. One-third of this is mine! I can’t afford to lose that, whatever happens to his share.”
“Does he have a wife?”
“Separated for years. I don’t know if they ever got officially divorced or not. She lives somewhere in France.”
Parkinson sifted through the papers on the desk, ignoring her annoyed expression. “What was his connection with the man named Pryzic?”
“Heaven knows! The man was haunting him lately. He’d wait on the corner and try to intercept us as we left. Harold had an old pair of binoculars in his desk and he took to looking out the window at the corners and the doorways to see if he was lurking there. I think the man is mad.”
Rand carefully opened one of the desk drawers and then another. He saw the battered, worn binoculars and took them to the window. The left lens was out of position and he had to straighten it as best he could before he could use them. But this day there was no sign of Pryzic, or his icy stare. If he knew about the murder, of course, there was no reason for him to come looking for Sillabus anymore. Rand returned the binoculars to the drawer.
“What time did you leave last night?” Parkinson asked her.
“I already answered all these questions for the police. Must I go through it again? Harold sent me home at four-thirty because the snow was getting worse. I usually work from eight to five with an hour for lunch, although both of us were quite flexible.”
“You intend to keep up the business?”
“I said so, didn’t I? The Sillabus Softwear Series has a large following. If his estate is willing to sell, perhaps I can own the entire company someday.”
As they were leaving, a bit later, Rand remarked, “She doesn’t seem to be mourning his death too much.”
“Maybe she killed him for his share of the business.”
But Rand doubted it. “This is the age of instant gratification, Parkinson. People don’t commit murder for a possible profit ten years down the road.”
“What about Garson Wolfe?”
Rand shrugged. “Your real interest isn’t this murder. It’s Pryzic. What do you suspect him of doing?”
“The same thing he was doing for the Soviet Union. Carrying plans, microfilm, computer chips. Some of them can be worth a fortune to unscrupulous European firms.”
“Is this what the former spies like Pryzic are doing these days?”
Parkinson nodded. “What else is there, between wars?”
Rand took the train back home to Reading. The death of Harold Sillabus didn’t really concern him, nor did Parkinson’s interest in the ex-spy Pryzic. For all any of them knew, Sillabus might have been stabbed through the eye by a thief trying to steal a typewriter.
But that night Rand’s dreams were bothered by the figure of the mysterious Pryzic, moving silently through the blinding snow — though there’d been only a few flurries flying when they met. Flurries that had stuck to the German’s tunic when he ran outside.