“Oh, I see.” Denning seemed to think it over. Then he said: “Well, there’s no point in standing here. Let’s go inside and you can tell me all about it.”
They went inside. Fletcher closed the door. Denning crossed to the door of the big drawing-room, pushed it open and stood aside for them to go in. They went in and came to a sudden halt, staring.
“Allow me to introduce you,” Denning said. “Though you, John, I believe, have met these gentlemen before.”
“Yes,” Fletcher said; “I have.”
Sitting on a sofa were the Americans, Frank Hutchins and Dale Brogan. In an armchair, placidly smoking a cigar and seemingly walled in by the arms and the back, was the small dried-up figure of Colonel Arthur W. Vincent of the Jamestown police.
Hutchins’s eyes gleamed behind the steel-rimmed glasses and he gave a little flip of the hand. “Hi there, John! Nice to see you again. Still all in one piece, too.”
Fletcher’s brain was going at the double, trying to work out all the implications while Denning went urbanely through the introduction of King and Lawrence to the other men. Denning seemed perfectly at ease; he did not give the impression of a man who was in any kind of trouble. Yet what else could the presence of Vincent and Hutchins and Brogan indicate but trouble?
Lawrence and King were obviously bewildered and uneasy; trying, like Fletcher, to get the hang of the situation and probably making no better job of it.
Vincent took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at Lawrence, and said: “You appear to have sustained an injury. I trust it is nothing serious.”
“No,” Lawrence muttered; “nothing serious.”
“He was unfortunate enough, so I understand,” Denning said, “to stand in the way of a bullet. The circumstances of the incident have not yet been made clear to me, but no doubt we shall all be given an account of it now, since I am sure we are all very much interested. Are you going to tell us, Lawrence? Or is it to be you, Matthew? Or perhaps you, John?”
Fletcher wondered what kind of game Denning was playing. Did he really expect them to tell what had happened to the C.I.A. men and Colonel Vincent? Or was he inviting them to make up some plausible story on the spur of the moment? If so, he was not getting much response; no one was saying anything.
“Perhaps,” Vincent said, puffing out cigar smoke in fragrant clouds, “I might suggest a possible explanation. I have a feeling, Mr. Fletcher, that you have been trying to take some more photographs of a certain boat. I think that, in spite of the friendly warning I gave you a day or two ago, you have again been meddling in matters that are no concern of yours. Is that not so?”
Fletcher said nothing.
“Well,” Vincent said, “I’m glad to see you’re not going to deny it. You know you really are a most obstinate and troublesome young man. You are aware, I suppose, that there is a warrant out for your arrest on a charge of murder?”
“I’ve murdered no one,” Fletcher said.
“Ah, so you do deny that?”
“Yes.”
Vincent shrugged, and seemed to shrug himself deeper into the embrace of the armchair. “It doesn’t matter. The men were no great loss. Scum.” He gave a snap of the fingers, dismissing them; and Fletcher got the impression that the Colonel had no time for private armies and bodyguards; perhaps believing that they usurped his own position and undermined the authority of the police. “And besides, there are now far more important matters to attend to. The President has been assassinated and the culprits must be brought to justice. That will be done, never fear. Meanwhile, government must go on; affairs of state must be attended to; things cannot be allowed to drift.”
Fletcher wondered what all this was leading up to. Colonel Vincent sucked at his cigar and blew more smoke into the air; then said:
“We have to have another president.”
“You are going to have an election?” Fletcher asked.
Vincent smiled faintly. Hutchins and Brogan also gave fleeting smiles, as though pitying such naivety.
Vincent said: “There will be no need to hold an election. We have already chosen the man.” He looked at Denning.
Fletcher also looked at Denning. Lawrence and King did the same, staring in disbelief.
“You!” Fletcher said.
Denning nodded. “I have accepted the office.”
“But you … It’s impossible.”
“Why impossible?” Denning inquired blandly. “Are you suggesting I am incapable of carrying out the duties of president?”
“You know that’s not what I am suggesting.”
“What, then?”
“Do you want me to spell it out?”
“If that would be any satisfaction to you, do so by all
means.”
“Then what about your other activities?”
“Ah,” Denning said, “you are talking, of course, about my connections with the revolutionary movement. Now you mustn’t run away with the idea that that is any obstacle to the proposed appointment.”
“No obstacle!”
“Far from it. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Fletcher glanced at Vincent and the Americans to see what their reactions were. To his amazement they appeared entirely unmoved by this revelation that Denning had been mixed up with revolutionaries. Only King and Lawrence seemed at all affected, and they looked as bewildered as he was himself. He turned again to Denning.
“I don’t understand.”
“No? Think a little. Why do you suppose this house has always been immune from the attentions of the security forces? Why have I always been free to move about at will? Ah, now I see you are beginning to understand.”
He was right. Suddenly the whole thing had become clear to Fletcher. It was Denning who had been the double-dealer; he who had been the source of all the inside information regarding the activities of the guerrilla groups. All the time, while posing as a friend to the revolutionaries, he had in fact been working hand-in-glove with the authorities, with his cousin, Clayton Rodgers. Perhaps he, too, had been on the C.I.A. pay-roll. And perhaps his scheming had been even more Machiavellian still; perhaps he had from the first had his eye on the Presidency and had made full use of his connections on both sides of the political scene to further his ambitions. Perhaps it was he who, when the time seemed ripe, had arranged the killing of President Rodgers, knowing that he would be the one to step into his cousin’s shoes. Yes, that was how it had been. That was how it must have been.
And Leonora? Where did she fit into the pattern? As a collaborator with Denning? As a link between him and the C.I.A. rather than as a C.I.A. spy on his activities? It seemed only too probable.
Denning was smiling. “You do understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Fletcher said, “I understand now. I understand how the Halcón Español came to be sunk, how five men came to be killed, how the Freedom press came to be raided, how it came about that we were anticipated at the wreck today, how Lawrence came to be shot in the arm. I believe I even understand how the President came to be assassinated.”
“My cousin Clayton was the wrong man to be Head of State. You must admit that.”
Fletcher glanced again at the Americans. “Was that also your opinion?”
Hutchins shrugged. “We have to take the long view.”
It was as much as to say that they preferred Conrad Denning to Clayton Rodgers. Perhaps Rodgers had been getting a shade too independent, a little too big for his boots. So he had had to be replaced by a more reliable man. And Colonel Vincent, of course, was only too ready to leap on to any bandwagon that happened to be around. An agile man, the Colonel.
King took a step towards Denning. “You damned traitor!” His right hand made a move for the pistol.
“Hold it there,” Brogan said.