Inspector Jordaens was a very painstaking man. It was after three o’clock in the morning before he left.
Kusitch had been shot through the head but other, less pleasant, things had happened to him first. Jordaens had a theory but it only made things more mystifying. The kidnappers, he thought, had not taken Kusitch from the hotel bedroom merely to murder him. If that had been their aim, they could have accomplished it without going to all the trouble of smuggling the man out of the Risler-Moircy. And with less risk, the Inspector insisted.
No. It was obvious that Kusitch had been abducted because he possessed some information that the assassins wanted.
“What was that information, Dr. Maclaren?”
Something in the tone, or it may have been in the impassive air of Jordaens, irritated Andrew.
“How should I know? I was not one of the assassins.”
“According to our knowledge, you were the last person to talk to this man; the last to see him alive.”
“Except for the assassins.”
“Assuredly, except for the assassins. The peculiarity, Dr. Maclaren, is that you came to me with the fear that Kusitch was in grave danger.”
“If there is any peculiarity, Inspector, it is that you would not listen to me.”
“Ah, please, Doctor!” Jordaens rustled his notes of the interview at the Commissariat. “But you wouldn’t,” Andrew insisted. “You rejected the idea completely.”
“What convinced you that there was danger?”
“I wasn’t convinced. I told you my reasons: the man’s behaviour, his fear of enemies.”
“Did you tell me everything?”
“Of course I told you everything. Why shouldn’t I have told you?”
“Exactly, Dr. Maclaren. Why?”
The Inspector was watching him with narrowed eyes. The Scotland Yard man was staring gloomily at the carpet.
Andrew experienced a momentary guilty panic. Then he lost his temper. He stood up quickly.
“If you think I had anything to do with it, why don’t you say so?”
The challenge had a startling effect. The Scotland Yard man’s head jerked up. The Inspector looked deeply shocked. It was as if some unacceptable obscenity had been uttered. There was a moment’s embarrassing silence, and then Andrew turned away and poured himself another drink. He heard a faint sigh of exasperation from the Belgian.
“My dear Doctor,” said Jordaens primly, “you misunderstand. Naturally, your own movements have been closely checked. I am quite satisfied that you were here in England at least twenty-four hours before Kusitch died.”
Andrew sat down again. Inspector Jordaens regarded him coldly.
“I merely asked a question, Dr. Maclaren.”
“I beg your pardon,” Andrew said, “I thought you were cross-examining.”
“Please concentrate, Dr. Maclaren. It is a very important point. Are you sure there is nothing you missed in your statement to me? Some little detail, for instance, that may be enlarged by the knowledge you now possess?”
Andrew wanted time to consider. Except for the detail of the Coach Guide, he was sure there was nothing he had withheld, but the Coach Guide had become the all-important factor. He sipped his drink. The man from Scotland Yard was staring at him with expressionless eyes. Jordaens cleared his throat.
“I want you to think hard, Dr. Maclaren. You collected the articles left in the bathroom. Did it not occur to you to look in the bedroom for other things that Kusitch might have neglected?”
“I glanced round when I entered from the corridor. I saw nothing.
“That was the first time you entered the bedroom.”
“I made that quite clear in my Brussels statement.”
The Inspector made the pages of the statement rustle again. “Yes, I see you did,” he agreed. “Yes, yes.” Reading, he turned the pages. Then he looked up sharply.
“I have it that you went back to the hotel from the air terminal after cancelling your seat on the morning plane.”
“Yes.”
The Inspector went on reading. An itch ran over Andrew’s body in the intolerable pause.
“Exactly.” Jordaens cleared his throat again. “You went back to see if any word had come in from Kusitch. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“We have since had talks with the hotel staff. You revisited the bedroom, saying you had forgotten something. You entered by way of the bathroom and bolted the door against the chambermaid. Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t want the maid to follow me. I had an idea that Kusitch might have been murdered in his room. I wanted to look in the clothes cupboard.”
“So!” Jordaens forced a small measure of geniality into his voice. “I was sure you would have a perfectly reasonable explanation. But why not say?”
Andrew had a deep mistrust of that affability. He answered sharply, “I didn’t see what there was to say. It was absurd, the idea of expecting to find a body in the cupboard.”
“Possibly.” The Inspector shrugged away this lay opinion. “Am I then to understand that you had no other reason for revisiting the bedroom?”
“No. There was another reason.”
It had to come out now. He must hand over the Coach Guide. The circumstance of murder made that imperative. For better or worse, Inspector Jordaens was the man in charge of the investigation.
“Yes, Dr. Maclaren?”
“I had remembered something,” Andrew confessed. “I saw Kusitch push an envelope under the carpet in his room. I wanted to see if it was still there. I thought it might contain money. I believed that if it were no longer there it would be proof that Kusitch had left of his own free will.”
There was a silence and, for Andrew, an accusation in every moment of it.
“It was there,” he said. “But it wasn’t what I expected. It was an English timetable, for the Green Line coaches.”
The Scotland Yard man made a movement. A gleam of interest showed in his eyes.
Jordaens was severe. “Why did you not tell me of this in Brussels?”
“Because you treated me as if I had been imagining things.”
“An entirely false impression. I cannot accept it, Dr. Maclaren.”
“I don’t care a damn whether you accept it or not,” Andrew said calmly, “I’m telling you the facts. I thought myself that this business of the Coach Guide was fantastic. I was afraid you would dismiss the whole story if I told you about it.”
“What has become of the Coach Guide? I hope you are not about to tell me that you threw it away?”
Andrew took it from his pocket and handed it over. “You’ll find some marks on page one-three-eight,” he said. “And this was inside it.” He produced the art criticism from his wallet. “I wasn’t aware of it till I was on the plane for London,” he added.
Jordaens studied the page, then read the cutting. Detective-Sergeant Stock was interested enough to rise and look over the Belgian’s shoulder.
“Ruth Meriden!” the Inspector exclaimed. “That is the name of the woman who was on the plane from Athens. She proceeded by the morning flight to London.” He referred to his notebook. “Also, she stayed at the Hotel Risler-Moircy. You knew that, Dr. Maclaren?”
“Yes.” Andrew felt uncomfortable under the probing gaze. “It’s curious,” he added.
“We learn, my gifted colleague and I, that things so reasonable and logical are not to be characterised as curious.”
The gifted colleague, back in his chair, nodded glumly.
“The Risler-Moircy,” Jordaens announced, “was one of the few hotels that could offer accommodation to the
