`By all means…'
Tweed checked his notebook, dialled police headquarters, asked to talk to Chief Inspector Benoit, speaking in French. Benoit came on the line very quickly.
`Lucie Delvaux,' Tweed said. 'Have you any opinion on how her hand was taken off?'
`Pathologist's report just came through to me over the phone. They have a nice way of putting things, these chaps. He said the amputation of the hand was a really beautiful job. Must have been executed by a top surgeon. Plus a lot of technical data you won't want.'
`Thank you, Benoit. How is everything in Brussels?'
`A close but very discreet watch being kept on Delvaux. Even he isn't aware of it. No developments so far. I will keep in touch…'
Tweed put down the phone, offered to pay for the call, but Rabin waved the idea aside. He listened as Tweed repeated the gist of his conversation with Benoit.
`I see,' he said slowly. 'This is all rather disturbing.'
`The point is,' Tweed said quietly, 'do you know of a surgeon who could have done this? Someone brilliant but possibly struck off the Register for conduct unbecoming, etc.?'
Rabin's ruddy complexion seemed to grow a little redder. Tweed saw him glance at a framed photograph on the wall. The photograph showed a group of men gathered together in apparently exotic surroundings. Rabin's tone became a little sharper.
Then you had the body of Harvey Boyd sent to me. I've also completed that examination. Quite a different kettle of fish from Irene Andover – but again strange.'
`Strange in what way?' Tweed queried for the second time.
Rabin's mind seemed now to be only half on what he was saying.
`Well, first there can be no question at all that this was a professional amputation. Nothing of the sort. But I am puzzled. The side of the head, as you know, was fairly cleanly sliced away. Note I used the word fairly.'
`Sliced away by what?' Tweed pressed.
`Ah! that is the point. According to what you told me on the phone Boyd was in a small powerboat when he died. A boat in motion on the River Lymington when there was a dense fog. So the obvious assumption is another far larger and more powerful vessel sank him. But the portion of the head removed was taken off so cleanly. I am further puzzled when I tell you I found in the skull minute fragments of what I imagine was the wreckage of his powerboat at the time of the collision.'
`So why are you puzzled?'
`Because the normal hull of a larger vessel would have smashed up his skull far more brutally. That's all I can say.'
`You could tell hie about the surgeon capable of amputating Irene Andover's arm with such skill.'
Rabin cleared his throat. 'Now we are in the realm of professional ethics. My lips are sealed.'
Tweed put down his cup carefully. He stood up, reached for his Burberry placed over the arm of a chair, put it on slowly, then stood erect, hands shoved inside his coat pockets. Rabin, thinking he was leaving, looking uncomfortable, also stood up. Tweed braced himself, stared hard at his host.
`Then you'll have to unseal your lips, won't you? Throw so-called medical ethics to the winds.' His voice was cold and grim. 'Now you listen to me. There have been two cases so far of eminent men having close relatives kidnapped. No ransom demanded. Just an order that they must retire prematurely from all professional activity. And, to encourage them, at a certain stage one receives the severed arm of his daughter. The other, the severed hand of his wife. Later, the father of the first victim, Andover, has to be told his daughter's dead body has been washed up in the Solent. You've just examined her body. Murdered by the cold-blooded injection of cyanide. Rabin, this is a matter of national security. I know now I have stumbled on a conspiracy of global proportions. My only lead is the fiend who carried out the amputations. I need a name.'
`You make out a very strong case,' Rabin commented.
`And, if necessary, I can make out a much stronger one,' Tweed continued in the same controlled voice. 'I think you know who the surgeon might be. Who?'
`This conversation has to remain strictly between the two of us…'
`Did you have to say that, knowing me?' Tweed demanded.
Rabin gave him a quick glance, walked over to the wall. He took down the framed photograph he had looked at earlier, laid it on the top of a sideboard.
`This was taken at an international medical convention in Mexico City just a few years ago. Look at this man.'
He pointed to a figure seated next to Rabin. Tweed examined it. The print was very clear. A large, heavily built man with a paunch. Clean shaven, he wore rimless glasses, had a high forehead and thinning hair. He was smiling, exposing a perfect set of large teeth. Tweed had the impression of a clever man with a high opinion of his own cleverness.
`Dr Carberry-Hyde,' Rabin said. 'Knew him for years – we trained at medical school together. He always made a point of keeping in touch even when he'd become one of the country's top surgeons.'
'So why might it be him?' Tweed probed.
`He has an insatiable appetite for women. There was a case when he tampered with a woman who was drowsy during a preliminary examination. A nurse he'd sent into the next room witnessed the incident through a half-open door. The woman's husband complained. The nurse kept quiet. Then, blow me, he does the same thing with his next woman patient. This time two nurses – including the one who witnessed the previous incident – watched him. When there was an inquiry both nurses gave evidence. Flagrant cases. He was struck off. The case never made the press – too full of a political scandal.'
`That cut him off from a lucrative income,' Tweed pointed out. 'So what happened to Dr Carberry- Hyde?'
`He went to live in the New Forest. Dropped me a line just once. I think I've got the letter still. And now I come to think of it, there was a brief mention in the press.'
Rabin opened a lower drawer in the sideboard, sorted quickly through a pile of papers. He stood up with an envelope in his hand.
`Got it. Says he's managing to earn a pittance as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company.'
`And this Carberry-Hyde could have carried out these amputations?'
`Standing on his head. A great loss. Brilliant chap.' `Any address on that letter?'
`Yes. April Lodge, Brockenhurst.'
Nothing of Tweed's reaction showed in his expression. His encyclopaedic memory was flashing back to the house supposed to be for sale in Brockenhurst, the house Paula had visited with Newman. What was the woman's name? Yes, he recalled it. Mrs Goshawk. Of April Lodge, Brockenhurst.
`You can rest assured,' he told Rabin, 'that no one will know – outside my organization – how I obtained this information. And may I borrow this framed photo? Thank you. I'll let you have it back, of course…'
Tweed had no regret that he had fooled Rabin in saying he had had to tell Andover about his daughter's death. Any pressure was justified to trace the hideous doctor who had carried out the amputations.
On their way back to Park Crescent – with George driving and Butler hugging the executive case – Tweed had the car stopped near a public phone box. He called Commander Noble of Naval Intelligence.
`I have something technically unique to hand over to you,' he told the Commander. 'The sooner you reach my office the better…'
Tweed was surprised by the speed with which Noble reacted. He had hardly taken off his Burberry and settled himself behind his desk when Monica answered the phone.
`It's Commander Noble again. Waiting downstairs.'
`Wheel him up…'
Noble sat down in the armchair, gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from Monica, and listened without interruption. Tweed told him quite frankly about the dramatic interview with Gaston Delvaux, about the small Stealth plane he had constructed inside his plant. Then Butler handed over the executive case.
`I wonder?' said Noble.
He opened the case, examined the new device, handling it with great sensitivity. Then he replaced it inside the case. `I wonder,' he said again, 'whether this device really does work in the way Delvaux claims?'
