The Mind Readers (28 page)

‘You really don't care who gets the invention?'

‘Care? What are you? The Boy's Book of Heroes? I don't care any more than the poor old pearl-diver cares which tart is going to wear the necklace. Why should I?'

‘Who is behind the invention?'

‘Some Japanese.'

‘What?'

‘What I say. Some Japanese. A little while ago I was looking through a bag of young Sam's, acting on instructions. It seemed to me that was the way the wind blew. I sent it all in except his toy bird. There was no point in taking that, the kid hasn't got much of his own. I noticed it when I got outside and shoved it in a ventilator. Everybody knew it too well for me to take it up to the club. There was nothing very interesting there, nothing definite, but the flavour was Japanese.' A sour smile passed over his thin mouth. ‘There's one thing you can bet on and that's that the job won't turn out to be the riot they seem to expect. For each swan produced in a place like this there's enough geese to start a Michaelmas fair. Do you know anything about the invention?'

‘Yes,' said Mr Campion unexpectedly. ‘When it becomes universal it will be the death of you.'

‘Me in particular?' He was interested.

‘You in general. They ought to call it the “Saint Patrick”.'

He had spoken lightly. He was growing desperately tired of the concentration but was yet very much aware of the disadvantage of making the first move. He did not dream that his reference might be recognised, let alone taken up. To his amazement an expression of intense resentment appeared on Arnold's shining face. It made him look more human but, if anything, more mean.

‘Saying I'm a snake?' he demanded belligerently. ‘That's what you mean, isn't it? “One of the snakes cast out by St Patrick from every holy hill and plain of blessed Oirland!”'

The quotation and the faint lilt in it brought Mr Campion's earlier recollection to the front of his mind once more.

‘Tubby Hogan, the V.C.,' he said suddenly. ‘You left him helpless, without warning, for Lord Ludor and a little more money. Not a lot of money. You simply went where money was. I suppose the blind man cursed you. Was that it? From his bed?'

Campion was actually getting the door open. He had turned completely round in the car and with his left elbow he could feel the lever as he strained his right side forward over the back of the seat.

‘He used the old curse, I suppose?' he persisted.
“On your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat”
.'

The dull colour returned to Arnold's face. ‘Old Tub said “mud”,' he murmured and turned his head away as Mr Campion threw his weight backwards, the door burst open and the thin man pitched out on to the track.

WITH DULL CONVICTION
Mr Campion realised that there was no escape. Aware that he was scarcely more visible than a reed in the wide expanse of marsh and sky, he limped to his feet and backed towards the green van.

The barman got out of the Hawk without bothering to hurry, his hand in his coat pocket. He was in perfect condition and his movements were wonderfully smooth. Meanwhile, his quarry remained standing with his back against the van, his hands resting on the bonnet. He looked a civilised and essentially harmless person, his pale horn spectacles, larger in the lens than is usual, making him appear owlish and rather helpless. On both sides lay the treacherous mud, and the narrow track was deserted. Mr Campion regretted that it was out of the question to make a dash for it. The van's position—half over the edge and hemmed in by the Hawk—made escape that way impossible and, in falling, he had wrenched the tendon of his right foot which had given trouble ever since he had broken it some years before. The wind on his face was cold, and the forlorn emptiness all round him overwhelming.

‘Up the well known creek'. A favourite comment of Magersfontein Lugg's, his oldest and least presentable friend, slid into his mind and made him laugh. It was one of those irrepressible snorts of pure amusement which are unmistakable and Arnold paused.

‘Hysterical? Or something entertain you?'

‘Both,' murmured Mr Campion, absently. ‘Honesty being the best policy.'

The barman smiled faintly.

‘You really are crackers, aren't you?' He came on steadily and the other man delayed as long as he dared before he remarked quietly:

‘I've signed your van,' and stepped sideways.

It was successful. The unexpected information was just sufficiently outrageous to break through Arnold's immediate concentration. His right hand remained in his coat pocket but he altered his weight. The scrawled letters A.C. on the paintwork were remarkably legible considering that they had been made with a nail file by a man whose hand had been behind him. The cuts were deep and it would take professional attention to get them out.

There was one instant just then when Mr Campion might have struck but his single step had warned him that his foot was not to be trusted.

Arnold kept at arm's length but glanced briefly at the damage to the paintwork.

‘You stupid clot! Why the hell did you do that?' He was quite as scandalised as if the occasion had been normal. ‘You think you're clever, don't you?'

‘It's the one way of leaving a message.'

‘I know. I understand. I'm not so dumb as you think and you're not so damn clever either!'

Mr Campion found him terrifying because he was not pretending and the precise frame of mind in which he approached the act he was preparing so obviously was limpidly clear. He was proceeding exactly like a professional killer of any other kind; like an executioner, a butcher, a mercenary, or a vermin exterminator. He took the operation with enormous seriousness aware of all it's difficulties but with no superstitution whatsoever. The annoyance of the scratched paint had got under his skin and he was giving himself time to settle again to avoid being clumsy.

He stood by the nose of the van, facing his victim, and rubbed the marks with an aggrieved thumb but without taking his eyes from Campion.

‘How could the busies make anything of that?' he demanded. ‘So they do find it and try to cook up some sort of tale, what do you think
I'm
going to be saying? I can explain a scratch or so on my own van, can't I? You haven't
signed
it. It's not a cheque for handwriting experts to examine!' He glanced at it briefly. ‘Wanton destruction!' he said without noticing the absurdity.

Mr Campion said nothing, and after a while the barman turned back to the business in hand.

‘I can see I've got to pass up the old U.C. “oncer” if they're on to it, but that's not the only way of doing the job,' he remarked and slid his hand into his pocket again.

Mr Campion did not know what to expect. A gun was impractical if murder was not to be suspected and he thought that objection probably covered a knife as well. His own bet was a short cosh, one of the thin rubber, professional jobs, expertly leaded, to be aimed at some vulnerable point; behind the ear, under the jaw, or high up on the occiput. When it came, therefore, he was surprised. Arnold withdrew his hand gently and the weapon appeared, a short fine spike in a stubby holder. It was almost as thin as a knitting needle and a little longer than a dart and Campion realised that any puncture made with it by an expert would take a lot of finding on a P.M. table. In a body in bad condition, say one that had been retrieved from a car wreck in the mud, such a wound must be almost untraceable—always supposing there was only one. That was the important proviso, he realised, and he began to weave like a shadow-boxer. If there could be but one strike only, its position must be absolutely exact to ensure death. This would be difficult with a moving target but possible in time if Arnold kept his head, and it looked as though he would.

In the beginning, the exchange was very slow. They moved like wrestlers, looking for a hold. The barman's concentration was worthy of his animal counterpart and his shining skin and unwinking eyes quite as ugly. He feinted twice at the throat and Campion, who was being forced back to the edge of the wall, began to suspect that the real objective was some other point. He was finding himself horribly ill-informed. A pierce-wound in the kidney or the lungs could either of them kill him, he thought, but not immediately.

Meanwhile, the temptation to rush the man and risk it was becoming unbearable and that, he guessed, was one of the mistakes which this preliminary fencing was aimed to provoke. The discovery that he was utterly out of his depth amazed as well as frightened him. He felt like a hunter confronted by a new creature whose methods had not been studied and whose courage and intelligence were at least as great as his own.

He was almost exhausted when he realised that the feinting was part of the attack. The intention, he saw abruptly, was to tire him until he became slow enough for that thrust into the vital spot to be delivered without danger of failure. Despite the chill morning, both men were sweating and the contest was resolving into a battle without blows, a cold war in which, as usual, all the advantage lay with the attacker.

Mr Campion hung on grimly; every sense strained, every muscle tensed, struggling to match the superior strength of his opponent. Disaster overtook him suddenly and completely. His treacherous right foot turned on a tussock of slippery grey grass and pained him savagely. His eyes flickered and the barman struck, not with the spike but with his unwatched left hand.

The thin man was only just fast enough to turn, so that the infamous Japanese flip which can put a man out for minutes missed the nerve centre beside his ear. All the same he fell flat on his back, his head lolling over the wall, spreadeagled and wide open to the slender shaft.

The blood was boiling in his head and his heart was beating so loudly that he did not hear the distant shout from down the track.

All he knew was that his life appeared to be about to end in a useless and ignoble fashion in conditions of acute discomfort, while the chances of the murderer getting clean away with it were odds-on. His wits had not saved him; he had found a wilier enemy at last.

In his anger he kicked out blindly and caught Arnold, who had turned towards the shouting, on the kneecap and sent him crashing down on his face, his right hand under him.

‘Say you fellows, what are you up to?' Martin came tearing up the track on one of those extraordinary old bicycles which appear to exist in communally owned pools wherever academic brains foregather. It made no sound on the smooth track and accounted for him being able to get so close without disturbing them. He threw it aside and went to help Campion, who was getting up. It was obvious that he had been roused from bed, for his slacks and sweater had been pulled over pyjamas and his hair was still rumpled. He was excited and highly curious and also breathless from a hard ride.

‘When I first caught sight of you I thought you were arguing.' he panted. ‘Then I saw him slam you and I shouted. You went down and kicked out. What happened?' He turned and looked at the motionless figure lying in the track. ‘Is he all right?'

‘Don't touch him.' Mr Campion spoke warningly as Arnold suddenly raised himself and scrambled to his feet. He stood for a moment and then, without glancing at either of them, he scuttled into his van and slammed the door. It was a retreat. He appeared to take very small quick steps, his head held rigid and his eyes fixed in front of him.

‘He threw something down.' Martin glanced at Campion. ‘Did you see? It went into the grass. What was it? A gun?'

He was about to walk forward to look for it when the other man caught his shoulder. Arnold had started the van's engine. It looked as if he must go back to avoid going over the wall, but, if he did make a dash for it, they were between him and the car.

They were looking at him when he bent forward, apparently to put the van into reverse. The light was less dazzling and they could both see him quite clearly through the windscreen. His eyes were downcast and his face looked shinier than ever. He was completely expressionless, engrossed in the manoeuvre. And then while they were actually staring at him, ready to leap if they had to, his mouth fell wide open.

It was an astonishing sight. Awful in its absolute wrongness. Presently his head toppled forward as if it had lost its balance and he lay across the steering wheel. The engine stalled abruptly and was silent.

‘I don't think we'll disturb that, you know.' Mr Campion spoke very softly.

‘But I think he's dead. Did you see him?' Martin was appalled. ‘I think he suddenly died, right there in front of us. Don't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Hell! But I mean we must find out. We can't just leave him.'

‘I rather think we must.' Mr Campion pulled him back. He sounded apologetic. ‘It's a very delicate situation. Where did you see him throw something?'

‘Over here somewhere. Are you . . . ? Oh I see, you've hurt your foot. Wait a minute. I'll find it. You hang on to the Humber.'

‘Don't pick it up.' Mr Campion spoke just in time. Martin straightened his back.

‘It's here,' he said, pointing with his foot. ‘It was his corkscrew; the safety cap is off.'

Mr Campion's chin jerked upwards. ‘One of those compressed air contraptions?'

‘Yes, a special one. He was crazy about it. It's a pirated Czech model; Lord Ludor gave it to him. It's the same principle as the normal Sparklet but heavier. You push the hollow spike through the cork, pinch the lever in the handle and send a charge of air into the bottle's neck. When the pressure is sufficient, out blows the bung. My God! Could he have fallen on it?'

Mr Campion remained silent for some moments before he said slowly: ‘I don't suppose even
he
knew that. He wouldn't have felt anything at all. As he got up he may have suspected it, and torn the thing out and flung it away—in the hope it wasn't true, poor beast.'