while he drew a line with a metal ruler. Then, after a moment of appraisal, he turned to them with a smile.
‘A block of flats for the L.C.C., or so I hope in my innocence. School of Gibberd, I fear me. But I know better than to be original.’
He shook hands with a warm grasp and pulled out chairs for them to sit on; a dark-haired, dark-eyed man of medium height, his build powerful, his complexion sallow. He had a boldly retrousse nose, a rounded chin, and a wide mouth. His voice was pleasant and his manner ingratiating. He had given his age as forty-six.
‘It’s too much to hope that you’ve come here with a commission?’
‘Not today, I’m afraid.’ Gently returned his smile.
‘That’s a pity. I’ve some pet ideas about a contemporary police station. A courtyard model with glass doors and a measure of liberty for detainees. Do you think it would catch on?’
‘You could circularize the Watch committees.’
‘No, thank you. That’s a polite way of telling me to go to hell. But it will come, one fine day. After they’ve done it in Stockholm. That’s the only official channel for getting architecture into England.’
He offered them cigarettes from a packet, then tapped and lit one himself. He didn’t seem overly curious about the object of their visit. He had a completely social attitude as though content with their bare company, and it was easy to see how he would gravitate naturally to the post of a club official.
Gently said: ‘You’ll have had time to think about this Kincaid question now. Can you give me a straight answer — is the fellow genuine or not?’
Overton laughed. ‘You don’t catch me. But I can give you a straight contingency. And nothing will ever make me go further than that.’
‘What’s your contingency.?’
‘It’s this.’ Overton’s lids sank, narrowing his eyes. ‘I’m half convinced — three-quarters convinced — that Kincaid is who he claims to be. But I’ve yet to be convinced that a man can descend Everest unaided, and any identification I make is contingent on that being proved possible. If I’m asked in court I shall answer just that.’
Gently nodded acknowledgement. ‘You’ve considered his story about the Tibetans?’
‘I certainly have. And furthermore, I’ve done some research on it. It’s quite true that there’s a tribe who make the Yeti a totem, they’re called the Yashmaks and they live in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas. They’re secretive and superstitious, they live in valleys at a high altitude, and they are believed by their neighbours to hold communication with the Yeti. Which is all very encouraging and supports Kincaid’s story wonderfully: except that he, like myself, could have read about it in London; and except for the fact that on his oxygen supply he could scarcely have reached the South Summit, let alone any point where he might have met the Yashmaks. They couldn’t have got on the South Col without the assistance of oxygen.’
‘That can be ruled out as impossible?’
‘Pretty well, I should say. Though some amazing feats have been performed on Everest without oxygen. But nobody has climbed the South Col except from the Western Cwm, so it’s barely possible for an easy route to it to exist to the east. Then the Yashmaks might have got up there. But not as far as the South Summit.’
‘Suppose Kincaid had got a little lower and the Yashmaks a little higher…?’
Overton shook his head, laughing. ‘Now you’re entering the realm of miracles. I’m allowing Kincaid to be superhuman to descend as far as the South Summit, but after that, with no oxygen, he couldn’t have lasted for very long. It wasn’t a scramble in Wales, you know. The conditions were at the limit of human endurance.’
‘Yes… I see.’ Gently pondered. ‘But suppose I let you into a secret. Suppose I told you that Kincaid’s story checks back to India — to Kathmandu?’
Overton stared. ‘Is that a fact?’
‘Yes. We’ve vetted it back to there.’
Overton whistled very softly. ‘Then it’s a bit of a poser,’ he said.
He got up. He took one or two steps about the room, his hands in his pockets, his head slanted forward. He stopped in front of a wall map and appeared to study it for a moment. Then he said, not turning:
‘I told you I was three-quarters convinced.’
‘He’d be changed, of course.’
‘He has. He’s changed enormously. More than one would have thought possible, though you have to allow for what he’s been through. And then his eyes haven’t changed… his voice… his head: even back there at the Asterbury he gave me an uncomfortable feeling. And he knew a lot about Tibet, more than any of us did. Though there were gaps in his knowledge when it came to the expedition. But that’s explainable too: he’d have no reason to remember it much; while we, on the other hand, have never let the subject rest…’
‘But you still think it impossible for him to have got down off Everest?’
Overton made a gliding step, then turned in their direction again.
‘You’re making it difficult,’ he said. ‘You’re making it damnably difficult. I’ve given you my reasons for thinking so and they’re one hundred per cent sound, sitting here, in Bloomsbury, half the world away from Everest. But I’m shaken, I have to admit it. Kincaid was always a curiosity. If a miracle had to happen to someone, he’d be the man I’d put my money on.’
‘Are you sure that a miracle was necessary?’
‘Confound it, yes. Let me save my face! It would have needed all of a miracle, and from that position I won’t be shifted.’
‘So you agree that Kincaid is Kincaid?’
‘You’ve got me practically taking an oath on it.’
Gently smiled on him benevolently. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘We’ll dispense with that now.’
To the visible impatience of Evans, who had ceased to think in terms of Kincaid, Gently now switched from the identity angle to the beginnings of that tiresome expedition. He went leisurely about it, sparing no pains, drawing out detail after detail; leading Overton to talk freely, circumstantially, revealingly. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten about Heslington.
‘Who first suggested the expedition?’
Overton was seated again now. Both he and Gently had reversed their chairs and were conversing across the backs of them.
‘I couldn’t tell you. It was one of those things. You know how it is when you’re young and foolish? A lot of you with similar tastes get together, then out of the blue an idea is born. It doesn’t signify how impossible it is, in fact that’s the essence of the phenomenon: you dream up something wildly improbable, and then it grows, and then you find yourself doing it. Well, that was the way of our expedition. Some cotton-headed youngsters dreamed up a stunt. And at the drop of a hat it had stopped being a stunt, and suddenly we were committed to it in deadly earnest.’
‘But didn’t you need money for a thing like that?’
‘How right you are. An astronomical sum of money. And I was the innocent they picked on to raise it, so I can give you the details of our sordid transactions. First I went to the Royal Geographical Society, who are usual Maecenases of Everest Expeditions. I dated their secretary and I talked to him for an hour. It makes me blush when I look back on that.’
‘Did it do any good?’
‘No. It didn’t raise a ha’penny. They said we were too inexperienced, and they were absolutely right. But it was no good telling us, it only roused our determination, and being an unscrupulous little cad I gave the story to the Echo. Then we did get some offers. I had whole sackfuls of correspondence. People wanted us to test everything from army battledress to malted milk tablets. In the end we got the best part of our stores and equipment for nothing, but so far no money. And that was the thing we needed most.’
‘But you got that too, eventually.’
Overton gave his little laugh. ‘Yes, we did. And when you learn how you’ll think I should be the last person to sneer at miracles. It simply came through the post — a banker’s order for ten thousand pounds; there was no warning, no fanfares, no conditions, and no name. It had a note enclosed with it to say what it was for and praising our spirit of adventure, but expressing a wish to remain anonymous. We don’t know to this day who patronized our expedition. We could only thank him through the Press, and carry a flag to represent him.’
‘That was a very large sum to be made over so lightly.’
‘Yes, wasn’t it? The man would need to be a Docker or somebody.’
‘Who signed the banker’s order?’
