He had to hunt out a road atlas and gazetteer to find out where this Auchterarne place was. Stirlingshire. He’d never yet had any communication with the Stirling police, but they’d be the quickest way to what he wanted to know. Probably the school had been evacuated to one of those Gothic mansions that decorate the Scottish countryside, to remind one that while England is for ever England, Scotland is in many ways Europe. With upland wastes around it on all sides, and every kind of embattled refugee group deployed there, from Scandinavian timber-men to Polish pioneers. Maybe army, he thought, as he lifted the telephone and asked for a line to the police at Stirling; there were a lot of wild and mixed army units waiting their time up there. But more likely air force. That was where the young, the cultivated, the engaging, were, in those strange and wonderful days when life had an enormous simplicity and purpose, and everybody knew where he was going, even if the way there proved uncommonly short.
“I’m sorry,” said the operator, after a few minutes of waiting, “there’ll be a slight delay, but I’ll get you through as soon as I can. Can I call you back?”
“Please do. I’ll be right on hand.”
He heard the students emerge from their session, and the gong pealed for lunch. Marshall had taken to sending him in a tray as soon as the party were all accounted for and busy. Not long to go now; this evening they would disperse, he hoped with only pleasant memories of this extraordinary week-end at Follymead, and then the survivors could look round without secrecy, and see what could be salvaged.
George propped up before him the photograph of Audrey in her party-dress, and sat waiting, eye to eye with all that youth and innocence and happiness. He wondered if she’d ever looked like that for Edward Arundale.
Ten minutes later the telephone shrilled, and he reached for it eagerly, expecting his Scottish connection. But the voice that grated amiably in his ears was that of Superintendent Duckett, in high feather.
“George? We made it in time, after all. You can relax. They picked up Lucien Galt at London Airport half an hour ago.”
“Nothing to it,” Duckett was elaborating happily a minute later. “Came in by taxi and checked in as if nothing had happened. Best thing he could do, of course, only he didn’t do it quickly enough. Yesterday morning he could have flown out like a V. I. P. and no questions asked.”
“Why in the world didn’t he?” George wondered. “Inexperience?”
“Money. It takes a little time to knock together about three thousand pounds in notes.”
“That’s what he had on him?”
“In his case. As much as he could turn into cash in the time, obviously. He had a ticket for Buenos Aires. They’re holding him at the airport for us, and I’ve started Price and Rapier off to fetch him back. On the car charge, of course – taking away without owner’s permission. And even for a holding charge that must be the understatement of the year.”
“How did he react when they invited him to step aside and talk things over?” asked George. He’d seen that moment walk up behind so many men and tap them on the shoulder, and he had a pretty clear picture of this young man he’d never yet seen, proud to arrogance, impetuous, used to respect and adulation, even if he thought he despised it.
“Quietly. From what I hear, he looked round smartly for a way out, and might have tried to make a break for it if he could, but he sized things up at once, and went along without any fuss. He hadn’t a chance, and I fancy he’d hate to make an unsuccessful scene. Now the question is, how do we handle him. It’s your case, George, you know the people and the set-up there, you’re up with all the new developments, if there are any since you fished up that queer affair the boys are working on. You suggest, I’ll consider.”
So now it was up to George, and he had to make up his mind a shade too early, before he really had anything but a hunch to go on. It was a gamble, and he was no gambler, and yet all his instincts told him to trust the conviction in his blood.
“All right, I’ll tell you what I’d like done. Have him brought straight back here to me, to Follymead. I’ll be waiting for him, and I’ll be responsible for him.”
Duckett digested that in hard silence for a moment, and then said: “Right, I’ll do that.” Duckett was an admirable chief even in his acts, George found himself thinking, but better still in his abstentions. Not everybody could leave a subordinate alone to do a thing his own way. “How do you want the boys to handle him meantime? Press him, let him alone, what?”
“Don’t discourage him, don’t press him. Just let him stew, and if he wants to talk, caution him, but then let him talk. It might be very interesting.”
“You think he
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Just a minute, George… hang on, here’s Phillips in from the lab…”
“Yes?”
“There’s a positive reaction on the blade of that sword-stick affair. It seems to be A, the same as your specimens from the ground.”
“Good, thanks! No prints, of course?”
“Not a ghost of one. What did you expect, after being in the water all that time? In any case that knob’s so finely chased it breaks up all the lines,” said Duckett philosophically, “and nobody’s going to hold a sword by the blade… not while he’s using it.”
The second time the telephone rang George pounced on it like a hunting leopard, assured that it must be Stirling this time. But it was Scott, reporting from London at last.
“Well, about time,” said George, round a mouthful of chicken sandwich. “What’s been keeping you?”
“Mobile people, mostly,” said Scott crisply, the light tenor voice buoyant and detached. “I struck unlucky at that children’s home of yours. The old house-parents – Stewart and his wife – they retired just about a month ago. There’s a couple named Smith in possession now, brand new. Naturally they know some of the past kids as names, but no other way. The only people about the place who know young Galt know him only from his visits since he left. Nobody there knows a thing about this medal of his.”
