‘You’ve put new heart into me, too,’ David said with a laugh. But I fancy his eyes were serious. He had come to Cornwall like a romantic schoolboy prepared to fall for the damsel in distress, and the damsel’s beauty had exceeded his wildest dreams. Well, I must admit, they made a grand pair. And I wished suddenly that I was younger.
After our coffee we sat and smoked cigarettes and held a council of war. David was all for some desperate attempt to get the boat back. But I said, ‘No, there’s a better way than that — the legal method, which they used. I know Rear-Admiral Sir John Forbes-Pallister. I can get him at the Admiralty and I think he’ll be able to get that order rescinded. Another thing, we don’t want to make straight for the Calboyd yards by car. We’ve thrown these boys off our track by swinging north like this out of the direct road route to London. Crisham will look after the boat for a day or two at any rate. And remember this, if we remain on the defensive, we’re lost. We’ve got to attack. And the only place to open an offensive is in the City. The whole thing hinges on this control. I’m certain of that. If we can find out who is really at the back of Calboyds, then we’d be getting somewhere.’
‘Or if we could find my father,’ said Freya.
‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘But I think the two go together. Crisham will do his best in the routine manner.’
They both agreed with me, so we pushed on to Barnstaple, where we arranged for the car to be driven back to Penzance, and boarded an Ilfracombe-London express. We had dinner on the train and got into Paddington shortly after ten. I took them to a boarding-house in Guildford Street kept by a Mrs Lawrence. Both my rooms and David’s studio were bound to be under observation. Mrs Lawrence was a Scotswoman married to a Chinaman — a wonderful combination for running a London boarding-house. I had had rooms there in my student days and she was glad to see me again. She looked tired and old, and when I discovered that she could let us have three rooms, I guessed the war had hit her business pretty badly. She took a fancy to Freya at once and fussed round her like an old hen, whilst her husband came and went with hot-water bottles and tea and his barely intelligible chatter of English.
I had just got into my pyjamas and was sitting in front of the hissing gas-fire in my dressing-gown smoking a pipe and thinking over the situation, when there was a knock at the door and David came in. He also had reached the dressing-gown stage and in his hand he held the evening paper that he had bought at Paddington. ‘I thought this might interest you.’ He handed me the paper and pointed to a paragraph on one of the inside pages. It ran:
Sir James Calboyd has been appointed Director of Aero Engine Production. This appointment was announced by the Prime Minister in answer to a question in the House this afternoon.
Sir James Calboyd is the chairman and founder of the Calboyd Diesel Company and the Prime Minister emphasised that the appointment had been made in conformity with the Government’s policy of appointing industrial specialists to control industry wherever control has been found necessary.
Sir James is well known as a philanthropist. And it will be remembered that for many years he has been an advocate of the greater use of diesel engines for aircraft. He has a wide knowledge of the aircraft industry and of aero engine design. It is common knowledge that the Calboyd factories are undergoing rapid expansion and that the output of diesel engines for our bomber aircraft is being rapidly increased.
I looked across at David, who had pulled up a chair to the fire. ‘The old boy has a big pull somewhere,’ I said. ‘It looks as though friend Schmidt was right about that order.’
David nodded. He was smoking a cigarette. ‘But is he our man?’
‘No,’ I said. I had made up my mind on that point from the start. ‘Have you ever met him? Well, if you had, I think you would realise where he fits in. He’s the unwitting tool behind which the Nazi control can operate without fear of discovery. You have some knowledge of the history of the man — how he built up Calboyds by mating a small engineering business to a little marine yard on the Mersey. He was probably quite a clever engineer, but not brilliant. He succeeded enough to be able to afford to buy other people’s brains. Very likely he used German brains. Calboyds has been built up since the last war and German brains were cheaply had in those post-war years. Don’t forget, Germany is the home of the diesel engine. With success, Calboyd emerged as a philanthropist and was seen in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. Mayfair is not a far cry from the skirts of Government, especially if you have money to spread about. He’s a successful but not a brilliant man. And he’s solid British — cultivates a military figure and can trace his family back to the Middle Ages. No, he’s not our man, David.’
‘Well, how are we going to find out who is?’
‘That is just what I was considering when you came in. We haven’t much time. That paragraph about Calboyds proves it — quite apart from the danger of their getting at the boat. And we’ve got to take the offensive.’ I took my pouch from the corner of the washhand-stand and began to refill my pipe. ‘My line of attack is the City. I ought to be able to find someone in that rabbit-warren who can tell me who is at the back of Calboyds. But it may take time. It may be a question of delving into the background of the big share-holders. There’s Ronald Dorman and the two others, besides Calboyd — John Burston and Alfred Cappock.’ I lit my pipe and looked across the flame at David, his big powerful body hunched over the fire. ‘Somehow,’ I said, ‘we’ve got to trace Schmidt. Alive or dead, I believe he’ll prove to be the key to the whole thing.’
‘I don’t follow that at all,’ David replied. ‘If he’s alive and at liberty, he would have come to see you that Monday.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ I replied. It was a point that I had been turning over in my mind for some time. ‘I think he knew he’d got me interested. Perhaps that’s all he wanted to do. Remember, he was on his own, wanted for murder by the police and foreign agents for the knowledge he possessed. If I had been in his shoes, I should have looked around for an ally. As a suspected murderer there were not many people open to him. But there was a chance with a man who was accustomed to defending criminals and murderers in the courts. Anyway, that’s one way of looking at it, and if I remember rightly it was you who suggested it.’
‘That’s true,’ David replied. ‘But don’t forget he was expecting the worst. I think it might be safer to work on the assumption that he is either dead or a prisoner. And in either case, I don’t see that he’s of much use to us.’
‘Take it at the worst and he’s dead,’ I said. ‘If we knew where he had been killed and could trace what he had been up to during his stay in London, we should know something. I have an idea he has friends among the refugees in this country. Somewhere he will have left a clue.’
David rose to his feet and stretched himself. ‘Somewhere,’ he said. ‘You can’t go looking through London for a clue dropped by an elderly Jewish refugee. I’m for bed, and in the morning I’m going to Manchester to see Calboyds about that money they owe me.’
So in the morning we each went our ways, he to Euston and I to the City. I left Freya instructions to stay indoors, and I told Mrs Lawrence to go out and get her a book and some chocolates.
But by the end of the morning I was tired of pumping friends about Calboyds and was feeling a little light-headed because my curiosity had involved me in a good deal of drinking. About lunch-time I found myself wandering into the City Office of the Record. Henderson, the City Editor, I knew through Jim Fisher, Editor of the Record. He greeted me like a long-lost friend and hauled me off to lunch with him. He ordered an enormous meal for us both at Pimms and then demanded that I tell him about the Margesson murder case, which I had completed just before the outbreak of war. ‘The City is dead, old boy. I’m bored stiff.’ So I explained to him how I had got the woman off. And in exchange I got nothing out of him except the lunch. ‘Calboyds, old boy,’ he said, when I broached the subject. He was already a little drunk. ‘Been out with Slater and a few of the boys,’ he explained, ‘trying to get the low-down on this bullet-proof glass racket like a good little City Editor.’ He made a wide encircling gesture with his hands. ‘Calboyds. Now there you’ve got something. You go in, old boy — make a packet if only this war lasts.’ He leaned close to me and whispered confidentially in my ear. ‘There’s a big deal on there right now. I have it straight from the jolly old horse himself — you know, old Jimmy Calboyd, monocle and all. He’s landing himself a contract for 10,000 of those new Calboyd Dragon engines. He tells me there’s nothing to beat ’em — nothing at all. They’re the goods, old boy. Absolutely. Knock the bloody Boche as flat as — as-’ He looked round for something to illustrate flatness and then spread his hands in a vague but expressive gesture. ‘And do you know who gives him the order, Andie, my lad?’