stood together neatly and in chronological order. They went back to 1912, and reached forward to the current year.
It was a formidable collection, but Andrew could console himself with the thought that he would not have to go back beyond the start of the war in 1939 for possible references to the yawl.
“I haven’t much spare time just now, but I’ll help you as much as I can,” Ruth Meriden said. “It’s going to be quite a job, isn’t it? You’d better take some of the books back to town with you.”
This trustfulness, this confidence in him, was an agreeable development, but he had to admit it was offset by the hint that, now that the joke was over, he had better hurry about his business and leave her to her work. He made a pile of diaries, and she found a piece of string for him.
“If the police call on you,” he said, “there’ll be no need to tell them about the yawl. Unless they ask you specifically about the registration number.”
“Why should we hold anything back?” she demanded.
He had no wish to discuss his motive, his disgust with Jordaens and his determination to teach the fellow a lesson.
“We ought to find out the meaning of the yawl,” he asserted; “try to discover why Kusitch was so interested.”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “We might get some information from Captain Braithwaite. He used to be skipper of Moonlight. He lives at Thames Ditton these days.”
He rose to it eagerly. “Is he on the phone?”
“Yes, but I’m not. I had it cut off.” She smiled enchantingly. “So you see I couldn’t really have called the police. I’ll come down to the village with you on your way home. We’ll call him from the post office.”
Here was another hint that she was bustling him off, but he had no cause for complaint. She was being helpful. She also jotted down his address and telephone number, in case she needed it. She looked at her watch. She knew the coach times by heart. He would be able to catch the three-sixteen. That would allow ample time for everything, if they started fairly soon. She walked him rapidly to the post office, got Captain Braithwaite on the telephone, then handed over the instrument. “You talk to him,” she said.
The Skipper remembered the yawl quite clearly, and what he had to say confirmed the final details of Charley Botten’s story. John Meriden had wanted the craft for use as a tender, but it had never been brought into commission. It had been drawn up on a slip at Zavrana and was undergoing repairs when John Meriden bought it. The repairs were still under way when the war broke out, and John Meriden had sailed away hastily in the Moonlight, abandoning the newly bought tender.
“Most likely the Italians grabbed it when they overran the coast,” Captain Braithwaite said. “If so, they probably beat the insides out of it. In any case, it would cost more than it’s worth to recover it. You tell Miss Meriden she’d better write it off. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t at the bottom of the Adriatic.”
“You don’t think Mr. Meriden brought it back to England?”
“I’d be amazed if he did. Anyway, I wouldn’t know. We had a quarrel on that voyage home, and I left him to do a job of work for the Navy. I never spoke to him again. I never wanted to. What are you, a lawyer of his?”
“No. A friend of Miss Meriden’s. If her uncle had recovered the yawl, have you any idea where he would have moored it?”
“Son, you take a map and stick a pin in it. Left to that fellow, it might be among the houseboats of Srinagar or in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Tell Miss Meriden not to bother about it. It wouldn’t be worth a Chinese dollar today. Ask her to speak to me.”
Her contribution to the conversation seemed to be mainly laughter. He watched her face through the glass side of the booth. Most people looked quite ugly when they laughed. Oddly enough, she didn’t.
“Not much help from the old boy,” she commented when she emerged. “Perhaps we should take his advice and forget about the yawl.”
Andrew shook his head. “We’ll forget about it when we know it’s at the bottom of the sea.”
“You must be a good doctor,” she said. “You never give up.”
She walked a little way with him. She asked about his work, and they talked of Greece. The trip to Yugoslavia, she said, had offered her the opportunity to see Greece, otherwise she would have stayed at home.
They parted at the turn into Wyminden Lane, and now she impressed on him that he must hurry. He hurried. He looked back and saw her going down the road to Cheriton Shawe. When he looked back a second time she had disappeared. A sudden discontent seized him; but it was a sweet discontent. He hurried.
On the coach to London, he opened one of the diaries and began to read:
Resigned from board of P.H. amp; D.B.- Gave C.H. a piece of my mind.- Not satisfied with Ruth’s school report; money not justified. Fear she is complete blockhead.
He did not go on with the reading. His mind was full of the blockhead. He saw her as he had seen her going back to Cheriton Shawe with the sun in her hair. The image was still with him when he reached home and opened the door of his borrowed flat. It was several seconds before he realised the change in the place. Then his heart gave a bump and he stubbed the toe of one shoe against the rug as he moved forward into the room.
Papers were strewn on the floor, desk drawers turned out, cupboards ransacked. There was the same state of disorder in the bedroom.
As the first sense of shock subsided, he began to think. There had been nothing here, nothing that any sane burglar would want, nothing of any conceivable consequence except the notes Charley Botten had made about the yawl.
He felt hastily in his pockets. Then he remembered that he had tucked the slip of paper away in a pocket. Jacket? No. He had been wearing his dressing gown.
The garment had been cast down on the floor by the intruder. Andrew picked it up and searched in the pockets. The slip of paper had gone.
Eight
For a moment or two the loss seemed a calamity, then Andrew came to his senses. The page from the telephone pad merely recorded certain facts about the fishing craft. For the whereabouts of the craft, if that was what the thieves wanted, they might just as well have followed Captain Braithwaite’s advice and stuck a pin in a map.
The first shock having given way to a feeling of murderous annoyance, Andrew made a careful examination. It was easy to see how the flat had been entered. Anyone who watched for an opportunity could walk into the building unobserved, as the front door was invariably left open during the day. Once the upper landing was gained, the problem presented little difficulty to the intruder. He had merely to split off a section of the doorjamb by the lock and force back the latch with a pliable blade.
As Andrew proceeded, methodically replacing scattered papers and restoring drawers to furniture, he was confirmed in his immediate impression that this was no mere sneak-thief affair. Lang’s property included a few pieces of silver that would have been worth something to the ordinary burglar, but these had been ignored. Again and again Andrew went over the contents of the flat, checking his own things, checking Lang’s as far as he could, and he was confident in the end that the scrap of paper from the pocket of his dressing gown was the only thing missing.
So much for the fatuous self-confidence of Inspector Jordaens, to say nothing of the imbecile Stock. He had thrown the clue of the SS 729 in their faces, and they had tossed it back at him. It was true he had not at that time known about its relation to the yawl, but he had insisted on its importance. Now he was vindicated, and by the enemy! Possibly by Kretchmann and Haller, the Inspector’s own pet suspects.
The sense of vindication had no soothing effect on Andrew. He picked up the telephone and dialled Scotland Yard. Now he would really talk to that nitwit Stock. He would demand action, protection, compensation, everything.
