name was Parnell-Greene.'
'The fresh grave I saw yesterday evening?'
'I'm afraid so. But before they got onto him, he was able to pass on some valuable fragments of information. We know, for instance, the identity of the man in charge of The Cloisters. He is best known to us as Maximilian Strange. German, by birth. Born as Max Werde in October of 1922 in Munich. The Werde family had been in the business of flesh-selling for three generations. Posh dens of vice catering to the upper classes—well, to the rich, at least. Young Max seems to have taken to the family line with rare energy, for we find him in 1943 at the tender age of twenty-one catering to the rather vigorous sexual appetites of ranking German officers. In Berlin and in at least two provincial cities, he managed sumptuous pleasure establishments stocked with girls and boys he had hand- picked from the concentration camps. The activity was... ah... irregular. Indeed, there was one small house on the outskirts of Berlin that was called the Vivisectory because...'
'I get the picture.'
'Good. Recounting it is painful.'
'You're a man of delicate sensibilities,' Jonathan said.
'Irony, if it is to be effective, should lightly etch a phrase. Not drip from each word. But rhetoric is not our study here. When next our researchers catch sight of Werde—or Strange, as he calls himself now—the war is over and he is purveying rather Roman entertainments in such places as Morocco, the Antibes, Samos—all the haunts of what you call the jet set. These amusements involve young people painted with gilt, participants from the audience daubed with grease, and activities between animals and humans—the favored beast being, for some obscure reason, the camel.' He winked.
'It is at this time that we get our first description of the man. There are no photographs in existence. He is described as a handsome man in his early twenties. This is odd, because you realize that, by then, he was just over forty years old. We also discover that he has an inordinate interest in health, diet, exercise, and the general maintenance of his uncommonly youthful appearance. His linguistic attainments include a faultless command of English and French, along with Arabic, of course, as any man trafficking in his line of goods must have. Not much to go on by way of description, I fear.'
'Not much.'
'Again Mr. Strange disappears from sight. And two years ago, The Cloisters is launched in London, with Maximilian Strange at the helm of this fire ship. There you have him, Dr. Hemlock. Your adversary. Certainly a worthy opponent.'
'His worthiness doesn't interest me. I'd much rather he was a fool. I'm neither a sportsman nor a hunter.'
'Yes, I suppose there is a subtle difference between being a hunter and being a killer.'
Jonathan let it pass. 'Knowing what you do about Strange, you could certainly put a stop to his operation. I assume he is in the country illegally.'
'I have tried to impress upon you the scope of the disaster that would derive from the slightest leakage of these films, or the activities they record. Neither the police nor any other agency of law enforcement must be brought in on this. Our police—like your own—are not distinguished by competence and discretion. And you may wonder why we don't just buy these films back, ransom them, so to speak. Well, Loo frankly doesn't have that kind of money in its war chest, and we must get the film back without alerting persons in the government who must not become involved in this delicate matter—that's part of why MI-5 commissioned us to act for them. We could, of course, dispatch some of our Loo actives to visit The Cloisters and leave no living beings behind them. But what if they failed to locate the films? What if Maximilian Strange has protected himself by leaving the films with someone who would publish them the moment something happened to him? No. No. This must be done delicately. And finally. And that is where you come in.'
'Why me?'
'The late Parnell-Greene was able to pass on one further bit of information before his cover fell and he made his unfortunate visit to St. Martin's-In-The-Fields. He heard your name mentioned by Mr. Strange.'
'My name?' Jonathan leapt over a ditch and scrambled up a muddy bank. 'You certainly don't think I'm implicated in The Cloisters.'
'Certainly not.' The Vicar braced himself against the wind and pressed on, shouting over his shoulder, 'If we thought that for an instant, we would be entertaining you at another of our facilities.'
'The Feeding Station?' The wind tore the words from Jonathan's mouth and flung them at the Vicar, who stopped in his tracks, astonished at Jonathan's knowledge of their operation. But again he was pleased with this ability to secure information quickly.
He nodded to himself and strode on. 'We ran a thorough check on you, including communication with our colleagues in Moscow, Paris, and Washington. After assuring ourselves that The Cloisters was not a front from your Mr. Dragon and CII mucking about in our affairs, as that aggressive organization is wont to do, we counted it a stroke of rare good luck that a trained professional such as yourself was somehow involved in all this. Oh goodness! I
'No!'
'Oh my, oh my. What a pity.'
'Forget it. I'm not particularly fond of this jacket anyway.'
'It does seem odd, if I may say so, that a man who was once a ranking mountain climber should find a little walk in the country so fraught with difficulty.'
'Eagles don't become members of the Audubon Society.'
'I beg your pardon?'
Jonathan was becoming angry with himself for allowing the droning civility of this vicar to erode his cool. 'Listen. Exactly how did I get implicated in all this?'
'I haven't the foggiest. We only know what Parnell-Greene was able to pass on before his death. There are two threads connecting you to The Cloisters. We know that Maximilian Strange is very interested in you indeed.'
'But—'
'We don't know why. Indeed, I had rather hoped you would be able to tell us. You have not, by chance, dealt with him at one time or another?'
'No idea.'
'Pity. It might have been a starting point. The other thread linking you to The Cloisters is more direct. What you might call a friend-of-a-friend relationship. On two occasions Parnell-Greene met Miss Vanessa Dyke on the premises.'
That stopped Jonathan.
'This might have been totally coincidental,' the Vicar continued, 'but it does constitute an intertangency between you and Mr. Strange. At all events, it is clear that your best path into The Cloisters is through Miss Dyke. Permit me to hold this barbed wire up for you. Oh, well. You said you were not particularly fond of that jacket. Let's take the shortcut back through the fields. Yes, Dr. Hemlock, I cannot adequately express my regret at having to ring you in on this business. We had no original intention to, you know, even after Parnell-Greene first reported that The Cloisters people were interested in you. He was doing an admirable job of penetrating their organization, and we had no immediate use for you, although we took the precaution of planting our Miss Coyne with your rather seedy friend, MacTaint. Just in case.'
'And when they hit this Parnell-Greene, you decided to bring me in as his replacement.'
'Precisely. Their manner of disposing of poor Parnell-Greene will give you some idea of the kind of men you are up against. He was found impaled on a wooden stake in the belfry of St. Martins's-In-The-Fields.'
'Baroque.'
'Baroque, yes. But very modern at the same time. A bit of advertising that any public-relations man would approve. When one considers the extra danger involved in setting up so spectacular an assassination, one must come to the view that they were doing more than simply removing a potential danger. They were giving public notice to any who might attempt to interfere with their affairs, notice that was both efficient and darkly creative.'
'Creative?'
