'Fellow who wrote that perishing notice. Barmy. Off his rocker. Round the bend on a one-way ticket. By the way, nobody was talking about the business round the place. It took me all my time finding anyone who'd even heard about it.'
'I see. That's all, Deering, thank you.'
'Good night, sir.'
Hunter had been examining Leonard's picture of the five antique Sailors. When the door was closing behind Deering he turned round and smiled.
'I rather like the look of these chaps. Where did you get hold of it?'
'They are quite fun, aren't they? Oh, I got to know a few of the Sailors at their Mess and they more or less insisted I borrow it.'
'Nice of them to be so free with their regimental relics. I say, Brian, what a horrid little man that batman of yours is.'
'I don't care for him much either, but he's very useful for letting me know about camp rumors and so on.'
'How disagreeable. I hope there aren't any rumors about me.'
'If I ever heard anything to your discredit it would go no further, and I should tell Deering that there was no truth in it.'
'You do what you can, don't you, Brian?'
Hunter sat down in a chintz-covered armchair and Leonard on a leather hard chair.
'I was a bit puzzled,' said Hunter, 'at what you said about the typewriter business being a blind alley. Aren't you going to search the camp?'
'I shall have to eventually, but it won't do any good. X isn't the kind of man to leave evidence like that under his bed. The likeliest place, I would say, would be in a plastic bag under a bush somewhere. No fingerprints. There are lots of other things I shan't be able to avoid doing if the worst comes to the worst, like getting hold of every typewriter salesman within a hundred miles and putting the whole unit on an identity parade. That's a desperate measure, though.'
'It sounds like it, certainly. Have you anything else to go on?'
'I'm still trying to sort it out in my mind. As I see it, the most disturbing thing is that X must be one of the S1 officers. Nobody in the mental condition we've been talking about is going to be fit to carry out his part in Operation Apollo.'
'How damaging would that be?'
'I can't answer that, but it would be damaging. I'll have to start going over each of their files again to see if I can turn up some hint of instability. It's hardly possible I'll find anything after the screening they all went through in the first place. I'll have to watch them all, too, and hope to spot something that way. Do you think it could be Churchill?'
Hunter made a wincing sound. 'Why him?'
'He was looking very odd when I ran into him this morning. Sort of jittery. I've always thought he was a sensitive sort of lad.'
'I haven't seen him all day. Look, I know him pretty well. Would you like me to talk to him? I won't give anything away, I promise.'
'I'd be glad if you would, Max. And if you notice anything that might be relevant to this X business do let me know. I need help, and I know I can rely on you. I'm very grateful to you for putting me on to Dr. Best.'
'Think nothing of it. How's that going, by the way?'
'Slow but sure. I hope. I still need a piece of solid evidence, but I'm convinced he's my man. He's… I just know he is. He must have a contact in the camp somewhere, but for the time being I'm concentrating on him, Best. I'm expecting results in the next day or two.'
'Good. Brian, going back a bit, why are you so sure that X wasn't in the reading room this evening?'
'Because the only S1 officer present was Venables, and he's lived with Operation Apollo longer than anybody. In a sense it was his idea. I can't see him changing his mind about it now.'
'Or about anything. No, I see. There's one other point occurs to me, if you don't mind my…'
'Go ahead. This is good for me. I don't get enough constructive criticism.'
'I only wondered. If Best has got a contact in the camp, as you say, wouldn't it have been possible for him to have written those notices and had them smuggled in and posted round the place?'
'No. That's to say he couldn't have written the notices.'
'Why not?'
'He's not against death, you see. Shall we go down to dinner now?'
Lucy tapped quietly at the door of Catharine's bedroom.
Churchill's voice called, 'Come in.'
He was sitting up in bed reading a paperback novel. Catharine was asleep.
