`Well, if he has gone, I have another idea.' `Let's hear it.'
John's dark eyes narrowed slightly. `The Canon can't do his final job on the homunculus without Christina; and Christina is no good to him without the homunculus. That's so, isn't it?'
`Yes. Unless he can bring her back here to morrow night he is sunk.'
`Even if he does, it won't do him any good if his prize homunculus is no longer in a state to lap up Christina's blood. If we find that he has already left for France, I mean to go down into that crypt and destroy it.'
`Good for you, John.' C. B. laughed for the first time in many hours. `I really am beginning to feel a bit more hopeful now. One way or the other I think we'll manage to spike his guns. As soon as we are dressed we'll go round and do our stuff with the police.'
At the station, after the usual formalities, they were shown into the office of an elderly inspector named Fuller. To him C. B. produced his card and a small trinket that he carried, after which the inspector listened to all he had to say with considerable respect. Although C. B, refrained from giving more than a general indication of what lay behind the excuse on which he desired a search warrant to be obtained, that was quite enough to have caused most people to show incredulity; but police officers of long experience have usually come up against so many extraordinary happenings that they are prepared to consider with an open mind every conceivable aberration possible to a diseased or criminal brain. In consequence Inspector Fuller took down C.B.’s formal deposition about the maimed animals without comment and quietly agreed to put the matter in hand at once.
However, at the magistrates' court some delay was unavoidable, as no special priority attached to an application regarding cruelty to animals, and the lists had already been made out. So it was half past ten before the application was granted, and after a quarter to eleven by the time the formalities of drawing the search warrant were completed.
There was no hurrying the law, and John fumed with impatience in vain; but at last Inspector Fuller and a constable came out to join C. B. and himself in the car, and they set off.
Anxious as C. B. was to learn the results of his move, he felt that any attempt on his part to accompany the police into the house might be met by the Canon, if he was still there, with legal objections, or possibly even a false accusation of having broken in the previous night, which might have seriously complicated matters. So it was decided that he and John should wait in the car just down the lane until the Inspector had carried out his search of the premises.
It was twenty past eleven when they pulled up under the trees that fringed the road some fifty yards east of The Priory, and the two police officers got out. Both C. B. and John thought it almost certain that by this time the Canon would be on his way to France; so they had lost much of the optimism that had buoyed them up earlier that morning, and they found the wait before they would know extremely trying. In anxious silence for the most part, they sat side by side smoking cigarette after cigarette while they watched the clock on the dashboard of the car tick away the minutes.
It was close on twelve before the inspector and the constable reappeared. Without a word C. B. and John got out of the car and walked with anxious faces to meet them.
The inspector smiled rather ruefully as he addressed C. B. `Canon Copely Syle is there all right, sir, and he couldn't have been more helpful. But there is no one in the house answering your description of the airman. There are no animals either, or human looking fish in big glass jars like you described. We visited the crypt and it has the appearance of being used as an ordinary laboratory; no curtains embroidered with pictures of the Devil, or anything of that sort. We went over the whole house from basement to attic, and there is nothing whatever in it on which we could ask for a summons.'
John looked at C. B. in amazement and dismay. The Canon had completely outwitted them. He was still there, but free to leave at any time he chose; for he had anticipated the raid, and there was now no legal pretext on which he could be detained. Moreover, he had removed his homunculi; so it was no longer possible to go in and destroy them.
20
The Secret Base
The police constable's face remained wooden, but C. B. felt sure that he was deriving a secret satisfaction from being in on a case where a plain clothes high hat from London had made a fool of himself. The inspector, on the other hand, knew that men like Colonel Verney did not apply for search warrants without good reason, and he said
`I'm sorry, sir. It looks as if they were tipped off that you were after them.'
C. B. rubbed the side of his big nose. `That's about it, Inspector. We won't go into the source of my information, but you can take it from me that it was red hot last night. They have destroyed most of the goods and unloaded the prize exhibit that I was after.'
`Is there any other way in which we can help, sir?'
`Only by telephoning for a car to take you back to Colchester. I shan't be going back yet. Let's go along to the pub and have one while you are waiting for transport.'
Getting into the car, they drove along to the Weavers Arms and went into the private bar. When C. B. had ordered a round of drinks and the constable had gone to telephone, he drew the inspector aside and said, `There is one thing you can do for me. Some time this morning a big crate or package, about four feet six high and three feet square, must have been removed from The Priory, either in a lorry or on a trailer. In such a quiet place as this it is a good bet that someone will have seen it being loaded up or passing along the road. Have a word with the landlord. The public bar is sure to be pretty full at this hour. Ask him to enquire of everyone there, and tell him there's a quid for himself and a quid for anyone who can give us any useful information.'
The enquiry being made by a police inspector naturally secured the immediate co operation of the landlord with no questions asked. A few minutes later a lean, elderly man with a weather beaten face was brought into the private bar. His name was Sims and he proved to be the gardener at The Vicarage. He had seen a crate of the size described and a number of smaller packages loaded on to a lorry outside The Priory about ten o'clock. The loading had been done by the coloured servant and a tall man with a fair, fluffy moustache, under the Canon's supervision. The lorry was owned by one Joe Cotton, a local character who was no better than he should be, and he had driven off in the direction of Weeley.
Having obtained as detailed a description of Cotton and his lorry as Sims could give, C. B. paid for the information and the drinks took leave of Inspector Fuller and, accompanied by John, left the pub.
As John turned the car in the direction of Weeley he said, `Well done, C. B. If we can catch the fellow with the lorry we'll do in that filthy homunculus yet.'
'Yes if!' C. B. replied dubiously. `But he's got two and a half hours' start of us, and remember Copely Syle runs a coven in these parts. The odds are that it has been stowed away in the cellars of a house belonging to one of his brother warlocks an hour or more ago.'
At the village of Weeley they got out and made enquiries; but no one they asked had seen such a lorry, so they decided to go back to the last crossroads. On reaching them they took the road east to Thorpe le Soken, and there they had what they thought might turn out to be better luck. Soon after mid day a woman had seen a lorry pass through and take the road north towards Great Oakley. It sounded like the one they were after, but as she was certain that there had been two men in its cabin there was a possibility that it was another. No one else they asked had noticed a lorry at all; so they drove on, now heading north.