Six

COLIN LAMB’S NARRATIVE

IWhen we had put ourselves outside two good underdone steaks, washeddown with draught beer, Dick Hardcastle gave a sigh of comfortable reple-tion, announced that he felt better and said:

“To hell with dead insurance agents, fancy clocks and screaming girls!

Let’s hear about you, Colin. I thought you’d finished with this part of theworld. And here you are wandering about the back streets of Crowdean.

No scope for a marine biologist at Crowdean, I can assure you.”

“Don’t you sneer at marine biology, Dick. It’s a very useful subject. Themere mention of it so bores people and they’re so afraid you’re going totalk about it, that you never have to explain yourself further.”

“No chance of giving yourself away, eh?”

“You forget,” I said coldly, “that I am a marine biologist. I took a degreein it at Cambridge. Not a very good degree, but a degree. It’s a very inter-esting subject, and one day I’m going back to it.”

“I know what you’ve been working on, of course,” said Hardcastle. “Andcongratulations to you. Larkin’s trial comes on next month, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing the way he managed to carry on passing stuff out for so long.

You’d think somebody would have suspected.”

“They didn’t, you know. When you’ve got it into your head that a fellowis a thoroughly good chap, it doesn’t occur to you that he mightn’t be.”

“He must have been clever,” Dick commented.

I shook my head.

“No, I don’t think he was, really. I think he just did as he was told. Hehad access to very important documents. He walked out with them, theywere photographed and returned to him, and they were back again wherethey belonged the same day. Good organization there. He made a habit oflunching at different places every day. We think that he hung up his over-coat where there was always an overcoat exactly like it—though the manwho wore the other overcoat wasn’t always the same man. The overcoatswere switched, but the man who switched them never spoke to Larkin,and Larkin never spoke to him. We’d like to know a good deal more aboutthe mechanics of it. It was all very well- planned with perfect timing.

Somebody had brains.”

“And that’s why you’re still hanging round the Naval Station at Portle-bury?”

“Yes, we know the Naval end of it and we know the London end. Weknow just when and where Larkin got his pay and how. But there’s a gap.

In between the two there’s a very pretty little bit of organization. That’sthe part we’d like to know more about, because that’s the part where thebrains are. Somewhere there’s a very good headquarters, with excellentplanning, which leaves a trail that is confused not once but probablyseven or eight times.”

“What did Larkin do it for?” asked Hardcastle, curiously. “Political ideal-ist? Boosting his ego? Or plain money?”

“He was no idealist,” I said. “Just money, I’d say.”

“Couldn’t you have got on to him sooner that way? He spent the money,didn’t he? He didn’t salt it away.”

“Oh, no, he splashed it about all right. Actually, we got on to him a littlesooner than we’re admitting.”

Hardcastle nodded his head understandingly.

“I see. You tumbled and then you used him for a bit. Is that it?”

“More or less. He had passed out some quite valuable information be-fore we got on to him, so we let him pass out more information, also ap-parently valuable. In the Service I belong to, we have to resign ourselvesto looking fools now and again.”

“I don’t think I’d care for your job, Colin,” said Hardcastle thoughtfully.

“It’s not the exciting job that people think it is,” I said. “As a matter offact, it’s usually remarkably tedious. But there’s something beyond that.

Nowadays one gets to feeling that nothing really is secret. We know Theirsecrets and They know our secrets. Our agents are often Their agents, too,and Their agents are very often our agents. And in the end who is double-crossing who becomes a kind of nightmare! Sometimes I think that every-body knows everybody else’s secrets and that they enter into a kind ofconspiracy to pretend that they don’t.”

“I see what you mean,” Dick said thoughtfully.

Then he looked at me curiously.

“I can see why you should still be hanging around Portlebury. ButCrowdean’s a good ten miles from Portlebury.”

“What I’m really after,” I said, “are Crescents.”

“Crescents?” Hardcastle looked puzzled.

“Yes. Or alternatively, moons. New moons, rising moons and so on. Istarted my quest in Portlebury itself. There’s a pub there called The Cres-cent Moon. I wasted a long time over that. It sounded ideal. Then there’sThe Moon and Stars. The Rising Moon, The Jolly Sickle, The Cross and theCrescent—that was in a little place called Seamede. Nothing doing. Then Iabandoned moons and started on Crescents. Several Crescents in Portle-bury. Lansbury Crescent, Aldridge Crescent, Livermead Crescent, VictoriaCrescent.”

I caught sight of Dick’s bewildered face and began to laugh.

“Don’t look so much at sea, Dick. I had something tangible to start meoff.”

I took out my wallet, extracted a sheet of paper and passed it over tohim. It was a single sheet of hotel writing paper on which a rough sketchhad been drawn.

“A chap called Hanbury had this in his wallet. Hanbury did a lot of workin the Larkin case. He was good—very good. He was run over by a hit andrun car in London. Nobody got its number. I don’t know what this means,but it’s something that Hanbury jotted down, or copied, because hethought it was important. Some idea that he had? Or something that he’dseen or heard? Something to do with a moon or crescent, the number 61and the initial M. I took over after his death. I don’t know what I’m look-ing for yet, but I’m pretty sure there’s something to find. I don’t knowwhat 61 means. I don’t know what M means. I’ve been working in a radiusfrom Portlebury outwards. Three weeks of unremitting and unrewardingtoil. Crowdean is on my route. That’s all there is to it. Frankly, Dick, Ididn’t expect very much of Crowdean. There’s only one Crescent here.

That’s Wilbraham Crescent. I was going to have a walk along WilbrahamCrescent and see what I thought of Number 61 before asking you if you’dgot any dope that could help me. That’s what I was doing this afternoon—but I couldn’t find Number 61.”

“As I told you, 61 is occupied by a local builder.”

“And that’s not what I’m after. Have they got a foreign help of anykind?”

“Could be. A good many people do nowadays. If so, she’ll be registered.

I’ll look it up for you by tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Dick.”

“I’ll be making routine inquiries tomorrow at the two houses on eitherside of 19. Whether they saw anyone come to the house, etcetera. I mightinclude the houses directly behind 19, the ones whose gardens adjoin it. Irather think that 61 is almost directly behind 19. I could take you alongwith me if you liked.”

I closed with the offer greedily.

“I’ll be your Sergeant Lamb and take shorthand notes.”

We agreed that I should come to the police station at nine thirty the fol-lowing morning.