‘Gone?’ I exclaimed. ‘My God, Crisham!’ I realised the futility of blaming him. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I suppose there’s no trace of it?’
‘None whatever,’ he replied. ‘The other thing I want to mention is that your club has been burgled. Amongst other things taken from the safe in the secretary’s room is that statement of yours. Look, Andrew,’ he said, and there was a tone of pleading in his voice, ‘don’t you think you’d better come out into the open. What is all this?’
‘There’s still the statement at my bank,’ I said.
‘I know. But I think it’s time you talked. Look, I shall be in this afternoon. If you care to pop round and tell me what you know, I think it’ll be good for us both.’
I hesitated. The boat was gone. Something had to be done. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’ And I rang off. My mind was made up. I had got to frighten someone into an admission. I looked up Sedel’s number in the directory. I felt tensed up with excitement. But Sedel was out. Well, then, it would have to be Cappock. I jumped into a taxi. ‘Wendover Hotel,’ I said.
In a few minutes I was running up the steps of the hotel. ‘Is Mr Alfred Cappock in?’ I asked. He was and he would see me. I was taken up to a small but pleasantly furnished suite on the third floor overlooking the Green Park. A tall thin man with a slight stoop unfolded himself from an easy-chair drawn up close to the electric fire. He had an almost boyish-looking face, yet the skin was parchment-like and sallow. His eyes were pale and lack-lustre. On a table by his side was a decanter, a soda siphon and two glasses, both of which had been used. He waved me to the chair opposite him and as I sat down I had that peculiar sensation of having been expected that I experienced in Ronald Dorman’s office.
I had no time to waste and came straight to the point. ‘You are one of four big shareholders in Calboyds,’ I said.
He inclined his head in assent.
‘But of those four,’ I went on, ‘Sir James Calboyd is the only one who really owns his holding.’ I was watching him closely. My tone had been matter-of-fact, as though I were merely repeating what was common knowledge. I saw his dull eyes narrow. ‘Ronald Dorman got his big holding by purposely pitching the price of an issue too high,’ I told him. ‘But you and Burston were given yours. Did you know Burston?’ I asked.
‘Slightly,’ he said. His voice was soft, and he made no attempt to deny what I had said.
‘Of course,’ I went on, ‘you are members of the same club. You have read of Burston’s death, I suppose?’
He nodded. ‘He had taken to drinking rather too much.’
‘You’ve been primed with that.’ I spoke sharply and leaned slightly forward. It was a technique I had often used when cross-examining doubtful witnesses, and I had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch. ‘He was on the point of blabbing. He drank because he was scared.’ I paused, and then said quietly. ‘He was murdered.’
‘Oh, but-’
I cut him short. ‘He was murdered,’ I repeated. ‘Yes, murdered — just as you’ll be murdered when the time comes.’
His pale eyes were a little wider now. But I had no chance to press home my advantage. Out of the tail of my eye I caught a slight movement. And as I turned a soft suave voice said, ‘I am sorry to break in upon this melodramatic scene, Mr Kilmartin.’
The bedroom door was open and framed in it was the podgy little figure of Max Sedel. A revolver dangled carelessly from his right hand — an ugly little weapon fitted with a silencer — and in the light from the window I saw the gold of his signet ring glitter. ‘I have been expecting you,’ he said quite calmly. I met his eyes, and a shiver ran down my spine. They were narrow, steely slits in the puffy flesh of his face, and suddenly I knew what he reminded me of — a stoat. Sitting in his office, he had seemed to me essentially a sedentary man. I had thought him dangerous, but passively so. I had thought of him as a man who might prove useful to Germany, a man who could obtain valuable information. Now I saw him for what he really was. It showed in his eyes, in the poise of his small plump, almost feminine figure and in the careless way he held the gun. He was a gangster. Not just a common gangster, but that most dangerous of all gangsters, a fanatic with boundless ambition — a little Napoleon.
He picked up the phone and asked for a number. Cappock had risen to his feet. His sallow features seemed a shade paler, and the boyishness had gone from them so that they now looked sharpened and hard. I remained in my chair, my eyes fixed on Sedel. He was swinging the revolver rhythmically to and fro by the trigger-guard, and with the other hand he moved the mouthpiece of the receiver against his fair moustache with a soft caressing movement. Little silky golden hairs marked the line of the razor across his soft white cheeks. At last he got his connection. ‘We are waiting,’ was all he said, and replaced the receiver. Then he turned to me. ‘For a criminal barrister,’ he said, ‘you’re an incredible fool. Did you imagine that you could go around, openly asking awkward questions, with complete impunity? Mein Gott! It is always the same with you stupid English. You never plan ahead. You think you’ll always muddle through somehow. Well, this is the end of your muddling. You’re through. The whole lot of you are through. In a few months we shall be running everything for you.’
‘And massacring the people, as you have massacred them in Poland,’ I said, my tone bitter with contempt.
He laughed. It was a high-pitched sound, something like a giggle. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘We don’t do things by halves. That’s where you people always fall down. You don’t plan and you’re never thorough. You’re too squeamish. If you intend to conquer a race, you must conquer them. And that means that you must ruthlessly subdue them. If you only half do the job, they’ll rise against you as soon as your back is turned. But England will not rise again once we have conquered her — never.’
‘And all this just because you’ve stolen a diesel engine from a defenceless old Jew?’ I asked.
‘Defenceless old Jew!’ he exclaimed, and for a moment I thought he would spit on the carpet. ‘A damned traitorous swine. That engine belongs to the Reich, and back to the Reich it will go.’
‘And how do you propose to get it there?’ I asked scornfully.
He looked at me. ‘You want to know too much, my friend.’
At that I forced a laugh. ‘You talk of organisation,’ I said with fine scorn. ‘You have me at your mercy, yet you’re so afraid that I shall escape that you daren’t give me even the most obvious information. There’s only one way you can get it out of the country, and that is in a neutral ship bound for a neutral port. And that’s where you lose. You’ve no conception of the meaning of contraband control, though you would have if you lived in Germany and faced the pinch with the rest of your country. Germany never had a navy that had the freedom of the seas, so you don’t understand the meaning of naval efficiency. You’ve as much chance of getting that engine through to a neutral country as of flying it there.’
I saw the flush spread from his neck to his white cheeks, and I knew I had succeeded. He strode up to me and struck me across the face. I did not move, but sat watching his eyes. ‘Your navy!’ he sneered. ‘Where does your precious navy look — why, in the hold of a ship. You smug, foolish little lawyer! In three days that engine leaves the country. A day later it will be in Germany. Everything is ready — the materials, the skilled workers, everything. In six months from now our planes will be bombing your towns with impunity.’