"This is a put-up job," he said hoarsely. "Hardanger and Wylie — they knew you were going to do this."
"Hardanger and Wylie are hampered," I said coldly. "They're hampered by regulations concerning interrogation of suspects. They're hampered by the thoughts of careers and pensions. I have no such thoughts. I'm a private individual."
"And you think you'll get away with this?" he said incredulously. "Do you seriously think I won't talk about it?"
"By the time I have finished," I said impersonally, "I doubt whether you will be able to talk. I'll have the truth in fifteen minutes — and I won't leave a mark. I'm an expert on torture, Hartnell — a group of Belgian quislings gave me a course of instruction over a period of three weeks. I was the subject. Try hard to believe I don't care much if you are badly hurt."
He looked at me. He was trying hard not to believe me but he wasn't sure. There was nothing tough about Hartnell.
"Let's try it the easy way first, though," I said. "Let's try it by reminding you that there's a madman on the loose with the Satan Bug threatening to wipe out God knows how much of England if his conditions aren't met — and his first demonstration is due any hour."
"What are you talking about?" he demanded hoarsely.
I told him what Hardanger had told me and then went on, "If this madman wipes out any part of the country the nation will demand revenge. They'll demand a scapegoat and public pressure will be so terrific that they'll get their scapegoat. Surely you're not so stupid as not to see that? Surely you're not so stupid that you can't visualise your wife Jane with the hangman's knot under her chin as the executioner opens the trap-door. The fall, the jolt, the snapping of the vertebrae, the momentry reflex kicking of the feet — can you see your wife, Hartnell? Can you see what you are going to do to her? She is young to die. And death by hanging is a terrible death — and it's still the prescribed penalty for a guilty accessory to murder for gain."
He looked up at me, dull hate and misery in the sick eyes. In the half-light of the cellar his face was grey and there was the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
I went on, "You realise that you can retract any statement you make to me here. Without witnesses, a statement is valueless." I paused and dropped my voice. "You're deep in this, aren't you?"
He nodded. He was staring at the floor.
"Who's the killer? Who's behind all this?"
"I don't know. As God is my judge, I don't know. A man rang me up and offered me money if I'd cause this diversion. Jane and myself. I thought he was crazy and if he wasn't something stank about it… I refused. Next morning £200 arrived by post with a note to say there would be £300 more if I did what I was told. A — a fortnight went by and then he came on the phone again."
"His voice. Did you recognise his voice?"
"It was deep and muffled. I've no idea who it was. I think he was talking with something over the mouthpiece."
"What did he say?"
"The same as his note. There would be this other £300 if I did as he asked."
"And?"
"I said I would." He was still looking downwards. "I–I had already spent part of the money."
"Received the extra £300?"
"Not yet."
"How much have you spent of the £200 you received?"
"About forty."
"Show me the rest of it."
"It's not here. Not in the house. I went out last night after you had been here and buried the remainder in the woods."
"What was the money in? Denominations, I mean."
"Fivers. Bank of England fivers."
"I see. All very interesting, Doctor." I crossed to the bench where he was sitting, screwed my hand into his hair, jerked his head savagely Upwards, jammed the barrel of the Hanyatti into his solar plexus and, as he gasped in pain, brought up the barrel and thrust it between his teeth. For ten seconds I stood like that, motionless, while he stared up at me with eyes crazy with fear. I felt slightly sick.
"One chance is all you get from me, Hartnell," I said in a low voice. "You've had that chance. Now the treatment. You rotten contemptible liar. Expect me to believe a crazy story like that? Do you think the brilliant mind behind this would have phoned asking you to make a diversion knowing very well that the chances were high that you would at once go to the police, put them and the Army at Mordon on their guard and so ruin all his plans? Do you think this man, in an area where automatic exchanges are not yet installed, would have spoken to you when any operator with time on her hands could have listened in to every word he said? Are you so naive as to imagine that I would be so naive as to believe that? Do you believe this man, with a genius for organisation, would leave everything, the success of all his plans, dependent on the last-minute factor of the strength of your greed? Do you believe he would pay in fivers, which can as often as not be traced and which could also have, if not his prints, then those of the cashier issuing them? Do you expect me to believe that he would offer £500 for the job when he could get a couple of experts from London to do it for a tenth of that. And, finally, do you think I'd believe your yarn about burying the money in the woods at night — so that come the dawn if you were told to dig them up by the police you would be unable to find them again?" I stood back, taking the gun from his face. "Or shall we go and look for that money now?"
"Oh, God, it's useless." He was completely crushed, his voice a moan. "I'm finished, Cavell, I'm finished. I've been borrowing all over the place and now I'm over two thousand in debt."
"Cut the sob-story," I said harshly. "It doesn't interest me."
"Tuffnell — the money-lender — was pressing me hard," he went on dully. He wasn't looking anywhere near me. "I'm mess secretary at Mordon. I've embezzled over six hundred pounds. Someone — God knows who or how — found out and sent me a note saying that if I didn't co-operate he'd lay the facts before the police. I co-operated."
I put the gun away. The ring of truth is far from having the bell-like clarity some innocents would believe, but I knew Hartnell was too beaten to prevaricate further. I said, "You have no clue at all as to the identity of the man sending the note?"
"No. And I swear I don't know anything about the hammer or the pliers or the red mud on the scooter."
My leg was now hurting so badly that they'd given me a police car and police driver but even so I didn't enjoy the trip across to Dr. MacDonald's house. Time was running out and all I could see was a brick wall. That evening there would appear in all the evening papers a carefully worded account of how two Mordon scientists had been arrested and charged with murder and that the final solution of the theft of the Satan Bug was only hours away, and while it might, we hoped, lull the suspicions of the real killers, it wasn't advancing our cause very much. Blind men in a fog at midnight. And no leads, just no leads at all. Hardanger was going to open an intensive investigation in Mordon to find out who might have had access to the mess accounts: probably, I thought bitterly, only a couple of hundred people or so.
I was met at the door of Dr. MacDonald's house by his housekeeper. She was in her middle thirties, more than passably good looking and gave her name as Mrs. Turpin. Her face was like thunder, the face of the faithful retainer powerless to defend her master's property against ravage and assault. When I showed my false credentials and asked to be allowed in she said bitterly that another prying nosy-parker more or less couldn't do any harm now.