`Who said anything about criminal activities?'

`Why is the Swiss Army guarding the Clinic?' Newman threw at him.

`That's a peculiar business I don't want to know about, I do my job and don't ask questions. This is Switzerland. The whole place is an armed camp. Did you know there is a military training base at Lerchenfeld? That's at the other side of the town. In Thun-Sud…'

`But you have seen men in Swiss Army uniform inside the Berne Clinic?' Newman persisted. 'Don't forget what Foley said.'

`I've been here a year. In all that time I've only seen men in some kind of uniform. Once inside the main gatehouse, once patrolling the grounds near the laboratory…'

`Ah, the laboratory. What goes on inside that place?'

`I have no idea. I've never been allowed there. But I have heard that's where the experiments with cellular rejuvenation are carried out. I gather the Swiss are very advanced with the technique of halting the onset of age.' Novak warmed to his theme, relaxing for the first time. 'The technique goes back before the war. In nineteen- thirty-eight Somerset Maugham, the writer, first underwent treatment. He was attended by the famous Dr Niehans who injected him with cells scraped from the foetus of unborn lambs. Timing was all-important. No more than an hour had to elapse between the slaughter of the pregnant ewe and the injection of the cells into the human patient. Niehans first ground up the cells obtained from the foetus and made them soluble in a saline solution. The solution was then injected into the patient's buttocks…'

`It all sounds a bit macabre,' Newman remarked. `Somerset Maugham lived to be ninety-one…'

`And Grange has a similar successful track record?'

`That is Grange's secret. His technique, apparently, is a great advance on Niehans'. I do know he keeps a variety of animals in that laboratory – but what I don't know. There's also another clinic which goes in for the same sort of treatment near Montreux. They call it Cellvital'

Newman quietly refilled his glass with Perrier from the bottle Foley had left. He found the information Novak had just given him interesting. It could explain Jesse Kennedy's reference to 'experiments' – an activity no more sinister than the fact that it was not yet accepted by the medical profession everywhere.

`You've told me the nationality of the patients,' he said after a short pause. 'You're American. What about the other doctors?'

`They're Swiss. Grange asked me to come during one of his American tours…'

`And you came for a very normal reason – the money?' `Like I told you, two hundred thousand dollars a year. I make a fortune – at my age..

So, Novak hadn't been clutching a figure out of the air to impress him, Newman reflected. He felt he still wasn't asking the right questions. He flicked Novak on the raw to get a reaction, posing the query casually.

`What do you do for that? Sign a few dummy death certificates?'

`You go to hell!'

I get the impression there may be some kind of hell up at that Clinic – and that you suspect more than you're telling. You live on the premises?'

`Yes.' Novak had gone sullen. 'That was part of my contract.'

`And the Swiss doctors?'

`They go -home. Look, Newman, I work very long hours for my money. I'm on call most of the year..

`Calm down. Have another drink. What about the staff – the guards, cleaners, receptionists. Where do they come from?'

`That's a bit odd,' Novak admitted. 'Grange won't employ anyone local – who lives in Thun. They also live on the premises. Most of them are from other parts of Switzerland. All except Willy Schaub. He goes to his home in Matte – that's a district of Berne near the Nydeggbrucke. Goes home every night.'

`What job has he got?' Newman asked, taking out his notebook.

`Head porter. He's been there forever, I gather. The odd job man. Turns his hand to anything. Very reliable…'

'I'll take his address…'

Novak hesitated until Newman simply said, 'Foley,' then he changed his mind. 'I do happen to know where he lives. Once I needed some drugs urgently and since I wa-sin Berne I picked them up from his house. Funny old shanty. Gberngasse 498. It's practically under the bridge. There's a covered staircase runs down from the end of the bridge into the Gerberngasse. He probably knows as much about the Clinic as anyone – except for Grange and Kobler…'

`Thank you, Novak, you've been very accommodating. One more thing before I go. I'll need to see you again. Will you be attending the medical reception at the Bellevue Palace?'

`The Professor has asked me to be there. Most unusual… `Why unusual?'

`It will be the first public function I've been to since I came out here.'

`So you'll be able to slip away for a short time. Then we can talk in my bedroom. I may have thought of some other questions. Why are you looking so dubious? Does Grange keep you on a collar and chain?'

`Of course not. I don't think we ought to be seen together much longer…'

`You could have been followed?' Newman asked quickly.

He looked round the restaurant which was filling up. They appeared, from snatches of conversation, to be farmers and local businessmen. The farmers were complaining about the bad weather, as though this was unique in history.

`No,' Novak replied. 'I took precautions. Drove around a bit before I parked my car. Then 1 walked the rest of the way here. Is that all?'

`That laboratory you've never been inside. It has a covered passage leading to it from the Clinic. You must have heard some gossip about the place.'

`Only about the atombunker. You probably know that the Swiss now have a regulation that any new building erected, including private houses, has to incorporate an atombunker. Well, the one under the laboratory is enormous, I gather. A huge door made of solid steel and six inches thick – the way it was described to me made it sound like the entrance to a bank vault in Zurich. It has to accommodate all the patients and the staff in case of emergency..

So that could explain something else innocently which Newman -had thought sinister – the covered passage to the laboratory also led to the atombunker. Despite all his questions, there was still nothing positively wrong on the surface about the Berne Clinic. It was an afterthought: he asked the question as he was slipping on his coat.

`You thought then that you might have been followed?'

`Not really. Kobler said he had been going to suggest I took the evening off. He urged me to spend the night out if I felt like it…' Novak paused and Newman waited, guessing that the American had made a mental connection. 'Funny thing,' Novak said slowly, tut the last time he did that was the night when Hannah Stuart died…'

Twenty-One

Newman walked into a silent, freezing cold night. Deserted streets. He waited until his eyes became accustomed to the dark. He was about to light a cigarette when he changed his mind. Nothing pinpoints a target more clearly than the flare of a lighter. And he had not forgotten that one of the weapons Beck had reported stolen was a sniper-scope Army rifle – from the Thun district.

Checking for watchers, he strolled to the Sinnebrucke. He was still not convinced that Novak had told him everything. The American could have been sent by Kobler – to lure Newman to Thun. Later, after too much drinking, Novak might have decided to take out insurance by talking to him. Newman was convinced of one fact – he could trust no one.

Water coming in from the lake lapped against the wall below the bridge. Then he heard the sound of an approaching outboard motor chugging slowly. The small craft was flat-bottomed. As it passed under a street lamp he saw it was powered by a Yamaha outboard. One man crouched by the stern.

Newman stepped back into the shadows, unsure whether he had been seen. The man lifted a slim, box-like

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