The Secret Vanguard Read online

  ‘Yes, Sir George. But I don’t think the facts here quite fit in with the trailer’s being simply the agent of a third power. You’ve seen the hollow coins spies sometimes use for passing information? That’s a trick to employ when a man is very hard pressed indeed – when he knows that a telegram will be scrutinized and a pillar box searched if he passes within a yard of it. And this poetry business belongs to the same department of the game. It is designed to cheat an opponent who has the whole power of the state behind him.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right.’ The tall man’s hand again hesitated on the telephone. ‘Hartley, did you say? These people are damned touchy about the telephone sometimes. I’ll go round. You’ll come?’

  ‘No, sir. I must see the assistant-commissioner and arrange to leave for Scotland at once if necessary. May I see you again here in an hour’s time?’

  The tall man looked at his watch. ‘Make it Gatti’s,’ he said, ‘and lunch.’

  An hour later Appleby bumped a suitcase through swing doors, waved away a page, edged himself between a table and a plush bench. Dover sole bonne femme, he thought – and looked up to see the tall man and Colonel Hartley bearing down on him from the other end of the long restaurant. Hartley was the first to speak. ‘Appleby,’ he said, ‘this is capital. One day you will come across to us for good.’ He sat down. ‘We’ve got just less than nothing,’ he continued abruptly. ‘I’ve been telling Sir George.’ He studied the menu with amiable concentration: he was a man who had learnt to act. ‘On the Ploss incident nothing at all. None of our people could have been concerned; the poetry trick must have been used because of a false alarm. They felt Orchard was a big thing, and that made them edgy. They felt he was a very big thing or they wouldn’t have been quite so drastic with Ploss.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Or with this girl in the highlands.’

  The tall man stirred uncomfortably. ‘You don’t think they’d–’ He stopped as a waiter hovered.

  ‘I do,’ said Hartley presently. ‘Unless they had a use for her. There’s hope in the fact that clever folk have a use for most things. In case you don’t know Appleby, by the way, I may say he’s well up in all that. And now the train from Edinburgh. That’s different. Richards was on that.’

  ‘Richards?’ said Appleby. ‘The sandy-haired fellow?’

  ‘Yes. He was trailing a worthy called Wright – or Richter if you prefer it. Wright looked like making a break out of the country with we didn’t know quite what. We thought nothing much.’ Hartley gave the ghost of a smile.

  ‘In fact,’ said Appleby, ‘with something you’d put in his way.’

  Hartley turned beaming to the tall man. ‘There – you can’t say he hasn’t got the elements. But at least what Wright had was nothing whatever to do with Orchard according to any reckoning of ours. He showed signs of heading out of the country, though, and Richards had instructions to follow if necessary to Riga or Chungking: we wanted to improve our acquaintance with his friends abroad. Well now, Wright travelled from London to Edinburgh, and it was a fair guess that he was going to embark at Leith. But from Edinburgh he went on to Perth – by train, it seems, which connected with the one from which this girl has vanished. That was quite in the picture too: an elementary dodge to break the trail. And sure enough back went Wright to Edinburgh and there gave Richards the slip.’

  The tall man made a disapproving noise with his tongue.

  ‘By which I mean that Wright’s last glimpse of Richards from a taxi in Waverley station was of Richards vainly trying to bestir a sleepy taxi driver to follow him. But of course somebody else had taken up the trail and when Wright, nicely disguised as a Swedish pastor, got on a tramp steamer for Larvik that evening Richards was already tucked away on board.’

  ‘Good work.’ The tall man fished for Worcester sauce.

  ‘Oh, yes: we’re smart. As smart as they are.’ Hartley smiled his grim smile. ‘And a shade smarter when the gods are feeling that way.’

  ‘This time,’ said Appleby quietly, ‘a shade less smart.’

  ‘It looks like it. Just why Wright should have to pass news about Orchard while on the run I don’t see. But such things happen. And it looks as if he succeeded. I think Richards ought to have marked anything so odd as Wright talking poetry – which one may guess is what happened. But he didn’t and now he’s out of reach: we mayn’t contact him for days.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said the tall man, ‘what sort of information about Orchard it would be? Just what could one really work into Swinburne’s poem?’

  Silently Appleby once more produced Poems and Ballads and placed it open between his two companions: he let them read some way in A Forsaken Garden before he spoke. ‘The most concrete thing in the poem is a certain precise topographical element at the beginning. I think what Wright could work in is some exact pointer to Orchard’s whereabouts. In that railway compartment, and before Richards and this wide-awake girl, he told an accomplice just where Rodney Orchard was to be found.’

  There was silence. Unconsciously, Hartley pushed away from him a plate of bread and cheese; the tall man began to drum on the tablecloth; Appleby started to reread the poem. And then a voice beside them said: ‘Something just came in, sir. For your little machine.’ It was a debonair young man, carrying a portable typewriter; he slipped into a seat beside Hartley and planted an envelope by his plate. ‘Old Stein is over there, sir, just by the pillar. Do give him a treat. Morning, Uncle George.’ He nodded casually to the tall man, gave Appleby a charming smile, and fell to consulting the menu.

  The tall man frowned. But Hartley nodded briskly. ‘Poor old Stein – it’s something to brighten his day.’ He took the typewriter on his knees and opened it with a key from his pocket; he slit the envelope and produced a slip of paper on which was a jumble of meaningless letters; and these he proceeded to follow on the keyboard of the machine. Halfway through he said ‘Richards’ in an expressionless voice; when he had finished he slipped out the typescript he had made and laid it on the table:

  OSLO JUST BOUGHT COPY SWINBURNES POEMS AND BALLADS FIND WRIGHT MISQUOTED FORSAKEN GARDEN CONVERSATION ON POETRY PERTH TRAIN FLORID MAN AGE FORTY PLUS HEIGHT SIX ONE EYES BLUE TYPE OF NOSE NOSE ALSO PRESENT GIRL AGE TWENTY FOUR TWENTY SIX HEIGHT FIVE SEVEN EYES BLUE GREY TYPE OF NOSE ADMIRABLE STRAIGHT NOT QUITE GREEK MEDIUM GOLDEN HAIR PERFECT TEETH MOUTH AND FIGURE WOULD DEVELOP FAIR COMPLEXION SOME FRECKLES BLUE COAT AND SKIRT TO KNEE CAPITAL LEGS GENTLEWOMAN READING ANTIQUARY NO ENGAGEMENT RING FINGERS LONG BUT SQUARE SOMETIMES SUCKS LOWER LIP CROSSES LEGS RIGHT OVER LEFT ROTATES RIGHT TOE MISQUOTATION CONCERNED LOCATION GARDEN RECALL ONLY LINE GIVEN BY WESTERLY SPUR OF MOUNTAIN OVER CENTRE OF A BAY SUGGEST CONSULT ALASTER MACKINTOSH X7555

  ‘Well,’ said Hartley when they had digested this, ‘Richards did get something.’ His voice had the conscientiously guarded tone of a schoolmaster who admits that a pupil has landed some sort of scholarship after all. ‘He might have noticed a little more about the florid man and a little less about the girl. Forty-plus, six-one, blue eyes and no sort of nose. It might be anyone. It might be Spurzheim himself. Shall we send over and ask old Stein if Spurzheim’s holidaying in Scotland? I can just see him gobble. But perhaps better not.’ His voice grew grave again. ‘It’s remarkable in the circumstances that Richards should recall anything of the hocussed poem. But it’s a desperately slender pointer.’

  ‘Alaster Mackintosh,’ said Appleby. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Me,’ said the debonair young man happily.

  13: Sheila Travels without a Ticket

  With any luck, thought Sheila, she had allies by this time; somewhere able and practised people were setting about hunting for the girl who had disappeared more than thirty-six hours before. But here meanwhile, and at little more than thirty-six paces, was the enemy – the enemy turning from their bogus railway engine and advancing upon her. Two men, walking forward with the simple deliberation of pol
ice about to make some prosaic arrest, confident that her retreat was cut off by their fellows behind her. She had against her perhaps six men all told.

  Sheila looked again at the fire which had been used to lure her from cover. She looked at it because – unaccountably – it was suddenly completely quenched. It had been quenched by a downpour of rain. She was standing – these men were advancing – in sheeting torrents of water. This, though she had not noticed it, must have been the situation for some seconds. The storm had broken. Perhaps it would help her to escape.

  To the right the railway line ran in a glistening curve downhill. One can go fastest downhill; Sheila turned and moved that way. One of the men before her immediately swung to his left, and further on a hitherto invisible pursuer was actually leaping a ditch to the line. So this was not a good idea. Sheila turned round and ran the other way. Before her now were the two trucks in their siding; on her left was the long wall of the barn-like structure which served as station buildings. This long wall cut off the possibility of manoeuvre; she had made another bad move. But manoeuvring was a matter of the merest dodging now. The second of these two men was within five yards of her. And impossible in this long raincoat even to dodge. She would have to fight him – which was absurd. She ran on. Only the line separated them and he was jumping it. He jumped, landed; and overbalanced, swayed, and fell. She had a second of hope, but he was on his feet again and within a couple of yards. And then – fantastically and as if at the touch of a wand – he stayed put.

  He’s staying put, thought Sheila – and brushed past almost within reach of his hands. He’s staying idiotically put, having slipped in the wet and jammed the heel of a shoe in the line. A miracle, she thought: and violently slipped herself.

  She lay in mud, winded and with a tingling pain where her shoulder had struck something sharp and hard. Voices were about her; several of them must be almost upon her now. Her glance caught something moving as she lay: a short shaft of metal moving slowly out of the extreme corner of her vision. As it moved out another entered. She was looking at a very slowly rotating wheel.

  It was the nearest of the trucks and it was crawling past her as she sprawled breathless by the track. That was what her shoulder had done – knocked out the primitive braking mechanism with which such rolling-stock is equipped. With a sudden intuition of salvation Sheila got to her feet and scrambled in.

  Sober calculation and accurate vision came to her again. It was a covered truck, empty, and the only open door was a large one through which she had climbed. Beyond this the wall of the shed was moving slowly – but very slowly – past. Perhaps the resource wouldn’t at all work; perhaps some arrangement of points would stop the truck before it gained the long, gentle incline of the main line. The merest crawl: she tried to remember in what sort of ratio or progression bodies gain momentum on an inclined plane. An academic speculation – for now a man was climbing in.

  A man was climbing in; he looked at her impassively, without wariness or anxious calculation; he might have been a tradesman who would presently sell her cheese or soap. She saw wrinkles round his eyes; she saw that he was soaking wet; she realized that she had instinctively seized the only object – the only possible weapon – in the truck. It was a bicycle. And now he had both elbows and one foot in. She swung the absurdly clumsy missile behind her hip and flung it. The bicycle vanished from the truck. The impassive and businesslike man was lying in a heap by the door.

  A good shot, thought Sheila – but surely he could be only momentarily laid out. She was wondering how to deal with him further when she saw another man.

  The truck was moving at the equivalent of a smart trot; this man was in the act of springing for it as it passed. Again an unexcited person: the nightmarish quality of the thing was chiefly in that. He sprang and was in the doorway – and she had no weapon this time. There was nothing left in the truck to use as a weapon against this man – except the other man. And the other man was up on his hands and knees, dazed and in unstable equilibrium. With one great effort of the will Sheila kept her eyes open. She kept her eyes open and kicked hard at his chin. She heard two cries. She was alone in the truck.

  And very sick. But that was not a permissible relaxation yet. She leant out of the door and looked down the line. The truck was moving steadily but scarcely gaining speed. Strung out along the line were several more men: the nearest of them she thought she recognized as her first acquaintance Dousterswivel himself; the others were merely menacing forms descried through the sheeting rain. More men. And that she had much fight left in her she doubted. For women, she said to herself, this sort of thing can only be a tour de force. An idiotic phrase; she tried to grin at it; the attempt produced a spasm of nausea. Sheila clutched at the side of the truck to steady herself – and the side of the truck moved. A door. It was as simple as that. A stout sliding door: she heaved it to and in darkness broken only by narrow ventilating slits felt suddenly secure. She heard a shout or two; sensed presently a quickening pulse in the wheels beneath her. Her life depended on what happened to the gradient which these wheels were now traversing. Nevertheless she felt comparatively safe: comparatively safe but again very sick. She pressed her hands on her belly and felt something hard. It was in her pocket; it was the little pistol. In all these hectic minutes its existence had been completely forgotten. She had used a bicycle and a human body instead. Sheila sat down on the jolting floor of the truck and laughed. She felt much better this time.

  In Great Britain the standard rail is now sixty feet long. Sheila considered this upwelling of information from the Wonder Book of Trains and decided that it was trustworthy. So every time the wheels gave a quick double clank beneath her she had covered twenty yards – something less than the length of a tennis court. She listened. Clank-clank…clank-clank. She imagined herself driving past a tennis court in a car at that speed. The truck, she concluded, was now moving at a comfortable twenty miles an hour.

  The truck was moving; she had contrived to bolt the door and it was as good as an armoured car. But there were various possibilities of being defeated yet. That efficient-looking six-wheeled vehicle might contrive to hug the line until the gradient ceased. Or one or more of the enemy might be clinging like limpets to the outside of the truck now. In which case, thought Sheila – and became aware that something was slowing down in her head.

  Clank-clank…clank-clank. The truck was losing speed; it had travelled perhaps a mile and now it was coming to a stop – but gradually, as if it was on a perfectly level track. She decided that she must risk the limpets and open the door to investigate. So she took the pistol in her right hand and with her left drew the bolt and tugged. Nothing happened; it was jammed fast; she had a panic thought that it had been secured from without and that she was a prisoner once more. Then she saw that it was less alarming than that; a long iron crowbar which she had failed to notice had fallen and was causing the obstruction. She pushed it away and tugged again. The door slid back easily. She found herself looking at a mountain torrent a hundred feet below.

  A bridge. She crossed to the other side of the truck and opened the corresponding door. The same prospect presented itself: a dizzying plunge to rock and tumbling water. The line ran single and here was carried on some invisible span across a gorge which ran precipitously away on either hand. She looked backwards: the line she had travelled ran level for some hundreds of yards and disappeared round a bend. She looked ahead: immediately beyond the bridge the gradient began again and the track appeared to run gently downwards in a straight line.

  For a person armed it was a position of uncommon strength. But the situation would have been better still if the truck had traversed the further dozen or so yards that would take it down the succeeding incline: the gorge was something that neither car nor tractor could negotiate, and a few miles more of rapid movement would give her a commanding lead. Sheila looked at the crowbar, at the narrow strip of projecting brid
ge at her feet, at the remote and foam-flecked water below. Nothing suicidal was involved; she had a sound head for heights. It was still possible that an enemy was lurking, say, on the roof, but that must be risked. Sheila took the crowbar and climbed cautiously out.

  Without the long heavy piece of steel to manipulate it would have been simple enough: a resolute crabwise movement facing the side of the truck. This even though it was raining still. But with the crowbar to carry it was horrid; only the memory of the impassive men on the trail behind got her the interminable length of the truck. But she had made it. And she put the crowbar between rail and wheel and levered as she had seen railwaymen do.

  The truck was immovable. Concentrating her powers to overcome its inertia, she took a deep breath – too deep a breath. Her head swam and the skeletal affair that was the bridge jerked in crazy reticulations beneath her, wobbled like an ancient movie. It passed; she levered and the wheel gave; she levered again and no more effort was needed than for jacking up a car. She had levered the truck almost to the end of the bridge when the crowbar, catching in a join of the rails, wrenched itself from her hand and went over. She saw it twist and plunge, drawing the eye down with its own sickening speed like a bomb falling from a plane; she heard it ring on rock. And then she put her shoulder to the truck and pushed and the bridge was behind her. She ran forward just in time to scramble in. A voice – her own, Dick Evans’, someone’s from the remote past – said aloud: ‘Another free trip.’ She lay down gasping.

  And it was a marvellous gradient; it went on and on – gently. Sheila remembered winding papier mâché tunnels, through the darkness of which one glided in a little boat past brightly lit tableaux: part of her childhood like the switch back on which she had formed her ideas of the Forth Bridge. She remembered sinister versions of the same thing in Shelley: psychotic wanderings through the entrails of lord knows what. She lay in a semi-darkness on the floor of her truck, aware in snatches of forming and dissolving pictures without. Sunlight – there was sunlight again, shafts and pools of it, washes of sunlight moving among moving cloud-shadows on the braes. And, magnificently, the truck went on and on, never slackening speed, never gathering speed to any point of alarm. Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness: she would not have been surprised to roll quietly into the station of any of these… Sheila heard an engine whistle.