The motorcyclist shoved off his helmet, exposing a tough, hard-jawed face with eyes too close together. Butler said nothing as the cyclist shouted at him through his open window. His head was practically inside Butler's car.
'You following that limo?' the rider demanded.
'I'm going home. It's a free road.'
'That's an important personage.'
'What's the difference between a person and a personage?' Butler asked innocently.
'Police business. Turn round, drive back to the ferry.'
'Why should I?'
'Because I say so. Get that machine turned round now.'
Butler lit a cigarette. He leant his arm on the edge of his open window.
'Can I see some identification, please? That you really are police?'
The rider took off his right glove, he shoved his hand inside his jacket. As Butler saw the hand coming out gripping the butt of a large gun he leaned over, pressed his cigarette on the back of the man's bare hand.
There was a yelp of pain as Butler reached out, grabbed the gun. It was a 7.65mm Luger. Not a handgun the British police ever carried. He opened his car door and shoved with great force. It hit the motorcyclist. Everything toppled over sideways. Man and machine.
The rider was trying to get out from under his machine when Butler tapped him over the skull with the butt of the Luger. Unconscious, he sprawled back in the road.
Butler, checking there was no other traffic, went through every pocket swiftly. No sign of a warrant card or anything else confirming he was a policeman. Butler heaved him up by the shoulders, dragged him across the road, hurled him into a thick patch of gorse bushes. His cargo disappeared. It took Butler no time to find him, to unbutton the jacket and haul it off the inert body by sheer brute force. As Butler had estimated, they were about the same build. Ripping off his windcheater, he slipped on the black jacket. Not a bad fit, he said to himself, and zipped up the front. Then he pushed the thug's body further into the gorse.
For a well-built man Butler could move with great speed. He had already switched off the engine of the Fireblade and he folded his windcheater, opened the pannier at the rear of the machine. Under a spare black jacket he found an assortment of handguns, five in all with spare ammo.
'We have a different type of policeman these days.' he muttered under his breath.
Putting on his gloves again, he carried the handguns, using the spare jacket as a makeshift tray. A few feet along the grass verge he found a gap in the hedge with a lake of muddy ooze beyond. He hurled each gun and saw them sink. The jacket followed the guns.
Hurrying back to the prone motorcycle, he lifted it upright, kicked out the prongs which held it in that position. He had already detached the black helmet from the thug's head and he pulled it over his own head.
En route from the ferry he had noticed several sandy tracks leading off towards the sea on his right and he saw another one a few yards away. No wheel tracks. Who would want to drive down to sit on the beach in this weather, at this time of the year?
It took him barely a minute to back his Fiesta down the track out of sight, to park it behind some bushes. Locking it, he ran back to the Fireblade, pulling the visor of his helmet over his face. He slipped the Luger into the pannier. You never knew when it might come in handy.
Astride the Fireblade, he checked his watch. Three minutes since he had knocked the outrider unconscious. He fired the engine, took off at high speed along the deserted road. He was anxious to catch up the limo before it reached the turn-off to Swanage. He rode through the sleepy hamlet of Studland like the wind, saw the limo in the distance.
Butler breathed a sigh of relief. The limo was still proceeding at a civilized glide, showing no sign of speeding up.
'Must be a big egg inside that,' Butler said to himself. 'Doesn't like being shaken up into an omelette.'
He slowed down as the limo with its distant outriders drove straight on, passing the turn-off to the small seaside resort of Swanage. Soon, to his left, Butler saw the steep slopes of a range of the Purbeck Hills sweeping up just behind the country road, shaped like great barrows.
'Corfe next,' Butler said to himself. 'Next point is where do you turn there? On to Wareham or up into the hills?'
His question was answered as the limo turned left at the base of the mound on which the great stones of the ancient castle reared up, then through the old village of Corfe itself. Just at the end of Corfe the limo swung off to the right past a signpost that pointed to Kingston.
'Looks like Grenville Grange.' Butler commented under his breath as the wind hammered down a steep hill against his visor. 'I wonder where everybody else is? Tweed would be interested in this development …'
'You do realize we've been followed all the way from Park Crescent?' said Paula.
Behind the wheel of his car Tweed nodded as he came close to Wareham.
'A blue Vauxhall.' he said. 'One man, the driver. Now he's disappeared and we have a grey Jaguar keeping us company. Maybe they do it in turns, hoping to fool us. The Jag is probably a coincidence. It appeared only a few miles back.'
'You don't normally believe in coincidences.' she reminded him.
'Because behind the Jag is a blue Renault which, I think, is using the Jag to mask himself. All this is very promising.'
'Promising?' Paula queried in surprise.
'Yes, it means my wide enquiries into the activities of Leopold Brazil have triggered off anxiety.'
'It sounds as though you've provoked suspicion deliberately.'
'Well, I did ask a few contacts to spread the news that I was asking leading questions about His Lordship.'
'I might have guessed. Heavens, look at those fields. They are just lakes.'
They were crossing a bridge over a river into the main street of Wareham, which looked dead. Paula gazed at the ancient Georgian terraces, each house with its door painted a different colour.
'In good weather this looks like a nice sleepy place, I expect.'
'Very sleepy.' Tweed commented. 'Three murders within twenty-four hours. Which reminds me, I think it's vital we track down the real Marchat. I have a hunch he was heading for Heathrow on his way out of the country.'
'So we've lost him.'
'Not necessarily. While you were out of my office for a few minutes freshening up I called Jim Corcoran, Security Chief at Heathrow, gave him Newman's description of Partridge – apparently looks very like our will-o'-the-wisp, Marchat. I asked him to check all the early morning flights out of Heathrow. Especially to Europe.'
'Why Europe?'
'Because so many things are happening in Europe. That's where The Motorman has been most active. Don't mention him to anybody. And Brazil has at least two houses in Europe we know about. One in Paris at the Avenue Foch, another on the lakeside in Zurich.'
'Why are you worried about Leopold Brazil?'
'Because of rumours from sources I trust that he is planning some huge operation. Because he has such power – with his contacts at the highest levels. Because I have been warned off investigating him – and so have Lasalle in Paris and Arthur Beck in Berne. Here we are…'
Tweed turned left off South Street at a point where, beyond a bridge, Paula could see the grim-looking sweep of the Purbecks in the distance, their summits lost in a blanket of black clouds. He arrived outside the Priory, parked the car in a slot up against a stone wall near the entrance. As he did so the grey Jaguar pulled up alongside. The driver waved to Tweed.
'We have pleasant company.' Tweed remarked. 'You do know Bill Franklin, ex-member of Military Intelligence?'