He fixed the drink for me and brought it over.
‘How was it down there?’ he asked.
‘They all sent messages. Freeman’s father runs a tobacco ring. He’s disappointed in his son, but looks forward to seeing him soon and expressing his displeasure in person.’
I drank. It was a real corpse-reviver. I shivered with the shock, looked down at my naked, bruised torso, and said, ‘Why naked?’
‘Because,’ said Manston, ‘all your clothes were put on another cadaver, now going up and down with the tide somewhere between Richmond and Westminster Bridge.’
I said, ‘You did wink, didn’t you?’
‘I did. It was the one moment when I could risk spoiling authenticity. I felt you merited it.’
‘Big of you.’
I took another drink. It was good, but I had it tamed this time. ‘You did well,’ said Manston. ‘I was afraid you might ask the one question which would have spoiled it all.’
‘How did Duchêne and Paulet, in the first place, ever get on to the fact that Freeman was mixed up in the kidnapping? How, in fact, did they ever know there was a kidnapping?’
‘Yes. They knew long before you did.’
‘How did they know?’
‘From someone in our department—we think. Not sure, though. Freeman sent a letter to the P.M. It was opened by his personal secretary. The letter, of course, was not signed by Freeman. It just stated the facts and gave instructions for a code advertisement to be inserted in The Times. The letter was handed to Sutcliffe by the P.M. Five people only knew the facts right up to the time that one of our agents was murdered in Freeman’s cottage. Five. The P.M., his secretary, Sutcliffe, myself and Perkins.’
‘But there was a leak.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Perkins?’
‘Who can tell?’
‘It could have come through Captain Asab or one of his men in Tripoli.’
‘No. Duchêne was operating before Captain Asab knew.’
‘How did you know it was Freeman?’
‘Through a letter that Bill Dawson sent his father—unknown to Freeman, obviously. He said that Freeman was coming out to spend some time with him. He’d got leave from his oil company and they were going to do a tour of the Roman antiquities in Libya . . . Leptis Magna, Sabratha and so on. Freeman has a record. We checked him and it seemed likely that he was the man. Perkins, in fact, did the checking.’
‘You were a bit late getting on to his country cottage, weren’t you?’
‘That’s the way Perkins—if he’s the one—would have worked it, giving it to us late, and having Paulet there to put the clamp on our man.’
I looked at Olaf, big, moon-faced, standing unhappily by the window. ‘Why don’t you say something?’
‘My heart is choked. I think only of Hilda.’
I looked at Manston. ‘I’ve an idea that we’re going to do something about that, aren’t we?’
Manston stood up and smiled. ‘You’ll find a complete change of clothes in the bathroom. We’ll talk it over before lunch.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You’re due at Lympne at three to catch a plane to Paris. You can’t stay in this country—since you’re supposed to be dead.’
*
Showered, shaved, dressed, resuscitated, I sat on the loggia of Manston’s country’ house and watched the year’s first swallows dipping over the swimming pool while Manston laid it on the line for me. His analysis of the situation was clear, but bleak, and very direct.
First, Perkins. He was only a few months back from a Far East tour. He might or might not be a double agent. Lacking proof yet, it was assumed that he was. Even so, it had been decided to let him run for a while. If he were a traitor, then through him they could be sure that the Saraband Two crowd would have written me off for dead. He, himself, had administered the injection of poison to me—only it had been, unknown to him, a nicely judged dose of pentothal, and Hackett and his friend had whisked me away before Perkins could become suspicious. The rest had been easy; another body in the river with my clothes on, and it might be some time before the body was found.
Secondly, Saraband Two had been contacted through a Times advertisement and Perkins was acting as the link man. Saraband Two had been told that the exchange deal was on, and that I had been eliminated, as requested, because it was vital that no outsider should be allowed to wander around with such high State secrets as I knew.
‘In fact,’ said Manston coolly, ‘Sutcliffe was actually rather in favour of killing you.’
‘He always was fond of me.’
‘But I persuaded him that you might have a use.’
‘Well, he can always kill me if it turns out you’re wrong.’ Thirdly, they had picked up Olaf—unknown to Perkins—just after I had gone to them, and he had stubbornly insisted that all he knew was that Wilkins had been kidnapped and that I had asked him to trace a certain ship.
‘Just as you never let on that you had told him about the kidnapping of Dawson, so he never admitted that he knew. In fact—’ Manston glanced across at Olaf—‘his mind has room for only one thought at the moment, Wilkins.’
‘What about her?’
Manston considered this. ‘At the moment there are thirty days in which to arrange the exchanges. I don’t think they will start wiping out Freeman, Pelegrina or Wilkins until they are absolutely certain that it is going through. They don’t present any security risk at the moment because they are being held.’
‘Which brings us to the real reason why you didn’t kill me. No?’ He nodded, and explained, ‘The Prime Minister has agreed to the exchange. He wants his son back. Nothing must go wrong and there mustn’t be even a rumour about the affair. You can imagine Sutcliffe’s private reaction to that one. His hands are tied officially. You know how big a part pride plays in an organization like ours. We don’t like to be outmanoeuvred by another organization. It
