When Eight Bells Toll

'If s only your word against his.'

'No. I had a witness. He's down at the old pier, now, if you want to see him. Admiral Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason. A very senior civil servant.'

'You had a Mr. Hunslett with you last time I was aboard your boat.'

'He's down there, too.' I nodded at the prisoner. 'Why don't you ask a few questions of our friend here?'

'I've sent for the doctor. He'll have to fix his face first. I can't understand a word he says.'

'The state of his face doesn't help,' I admitted. 'But the main trouble is that he speaks Italian.'

'Italian, is it? I'll soon fix that. The owner of the Western Isles cafe is an Italian.'

'That helps. There are four little questions he might put to our pal here. Where is his passport, how he arrived in this country, who is his employer and where does he live,'

The sergeant looked at me for a long moment then said slowly: 'It's a mighty queer marine biologist that you are, Mr. Petersen.'

'And it's a mighty queer police sergeant that you are, Mr. MacDonald. Good night.'

I crossed the dimly-lit street to the sea-wall and waited in the shadow of a phone booth. After two minutes a man with a small bag came hurrying up the street and turned into the police station. He was out again in five minutes, which wasn't surprising: there was little a G.P. could do for what was plainly a hospital job.

The station door opened again and Sergeant MacDonald came hurrying out, long black mackintosh buttoned to the neck. He walked quickly along the sea wall, looking neither to left nor right, which made it very easy for me to follow him, and turned down the old stone pier. At the end of thepier he flashed a torch, went down a flight of steps and began to haul in a small boat. I leaned over the pier wall and switched on my own torch,

'Why don't they provide you with a telephone or radio for conveying urgent messages?' I asked. 'You could catch your death of cold rowing out to the Shangri-la on a night like this.'

He straightened slowly and let the rope fall from his hands. The boat drifted out into the darkness. He came up the steps with the slow heavy tread of an old man and said quietly: 'What did you say about the Shangri-la?'

'Don't let me keep you, Sergeant,' I said affably. 'Duty before the idle social chit-chat. Your first duty is to your masters. Off you go, now, tell them that one of their hirelings has been severely clobbered and that Petersen has very grave suspicions about Sergeant MacDonald.'

'I don't know what you are talking about)'he said emptily. 'The Shangri-la - I'm not going anywhere near the Shangri-la.'

'Where are you going, then? Do tell. Fishing? Kind of forgotten your tackle, haven't you?'

'And how would you like to mind your own damn business?' MacDonald said heavily.

'That's what I'm doing. Come off it, Sergeant. Think I give a damn about our Italian pal? You can charge him with playing tiddley-winks in the High Street for all I care. I just threw him at you, together with a hint that you yourself were up to no good, to see what the reaction would be, to remove the last doubts in my mind. You reacted beautifully.'

'I'm maybe not the cleverest, Mr, Petersen,' he said with dignity. 'Neither am I a complete idiot. I thought you were one of them or after the same thing as them.' He paused. 'You're not. You're a Government agent.'

'I'm a civil servant.' I nodded to where the Firecrest lay not twenty yards away. 'You'd better come to meet my boss.'

'I don't take orders from Civil Servants.'

'Suit yourself,' I said indifferently, turned away and looked out over the sea-wall. 'About your two sons, Sergeant MacDonald. The sixteen-year-old twins who, I'm told, died in the Cairngorms some time back.'

'What about my sons?' he said tondessly.

'Just that I'm not looking forward to telling them that their own father wouldn't lift a finger to bring them back to life again.'

He just stood there in the darkness, quite still, saying nothing. He offered no resistance when I took his arm and led him towards the Firecrest.

 

Uncle Arthur was at his most intimidating and Uncle Arthur in full intimidating cry was a sight to behold. He'd made no move to rise when I'd brought MacDonald into the saloon and he hadn't ask him to sit. The blue basilisk stare, channelled and magnified by the glittering monocle_s transfixed the unfortunate sergeant like a laser beam.

'So your foot slipped, Sergeant,' Uncle Arthur said without preamble. He was using his cold, Sat, quite urunflected voice, the one that curled your hair. 'The fact that you stand here now indicates that. Mr. Calvert went ashore with a prisoner and enough rope for you to hang yourself and you seized it with both hands. Not very clever of you, Sergeant. You should not have tried to contact your friends.'

'They are no friends of mine, sir,' MacDonald said bitterly.

'I'm going to tell you as much as you need to know about Calvert - Petersen was a pseudonym - and myself and what we are doing.' Uncle Arthur hadn't heard him. 'If you ever repeat any part of what I say to anyone, it will cost you your job, your pension, any hope that you will ever again, in whatever capacity, get another job in Britain and several years in prison for contravention of .the Official Secrets Act. I myself will personally formulate the charges.' He paused then added in a masterpiece of superfluity: 'Do I make myself clear?'

'You make yourself very clear,' MacDonald said grimly.

So Uncle Arthur told him all he thought MacDonald needed to know, which wasn't much, and finished by saying: 'I am sure we can now count on your hundred per cent cooperation, Sergeant.'