Alibi

conspiring to get control of all the security companies of consequence in the country.

They used me as a pawn to win shareholders’ votes. All of these facts can be established from a tape- recording made while I was in Artemeus’s office. I have ordered police control of the Allsafe administrative offices and our men are in possession.”

Roger paused, as much for breath as anything else. Neither of the others spoke or moved, and at last he went on, “I believe the editorial and administrative offices of the Globe should be searched forthwith, although it is conceivable that some papers have already been destroyed. I also believe that all the directors and executives of the security companies concerned should be interrogated and their homes searched for incriminating docu-ments. Further, I believe that the law firm of Warrender, Clansel and Warrender is involved, and I think its offices and the homes of its partners should be searched, at once.”

He paused again, and this time Coppell gasped, “Good God!”

“I did not feel that I could give orders for these raids on my own account,” Roger said. “We need all available men from the C.I.D.: all officers off duty should, in my opinion, be called in so that a clean sweep can be made tonight. I doubt if any of the suspects will expect such immediate action, but if we wait until tomorrow then any incriminating documents could be burned or otherwise destroyed, while any individuals engaged in the conspiracy could get together to offer false explanations and in some cases might flee the country during the night.” He moistened his lips, but paused only for a moment. “I hope you will authorise the raids, gentlemen. I believe them to be essential.”

“And Phillipson is dead!” said the commissioner, in-credulously. “I know—I knew him well.”

Was he going to be as slow as that in catching up with the situation? Roger wondered desperately.

“We’d better hear that tape-recorder,” Coppell said. “Is your car outside, Handsome?”

“At the door.”

“Shall we go in that?” Coppell suggested to the commissioner. It was almost a direction and they moved towards the door. “We can hear the rest of West’s story on the way.”

Ashe, talking to a doorman, was suddenly at attention as the three men appeared, and at the car door in giant strides. There was no room for three big men in the back seat, so Roger got into the seat next to Ashe, switched off the two-way radio, and twisted round so that he could face his two seniors. His head was bent because of the low roof, and his side hurt where he had been kicked, but his heart was light because he now knew that he was being taken with utter seriousness. But he still hadn’t reached the crux of his belief—his fear.

“Now, proceed,” said the commissioner.

“The tape will establish what I’ve already said”—Roger went on as if there had been no interruption—” and at least three of our men saw Phillipson throw himself out of the window. I was nearer him than anyone else, but still six or seven feet away. The rest is based largely on conjecture.”

“You mean, the justification for these wholesale raids you want?” asked Coppell.

“On some of the most distinguished men in the country,” Trevillion put in sonorously.

“Yes,” answered Roger, crisply. “It really turns on the fact that Rachel Warrender came to see me and pleaded with me to find out the truth. She told me that she had been in love with Rapelli, that she had believed in him, but that she now found he had bribed his witnesses. She also told me that her father—Sir Roland Warrender— had begged her not to take the case, and she seemed extremely worried about this—almost as if she suspected his motives. She was in very great distress, both for Rapelli’s sake and for reasons which might well concern her father.”

He paused, moistening his lips again; his mouth was very dry.

“Warrender,” murmured Coppell, “Phillipson . . .”

Roger’s heart and hopes leapt in unison.

“But what has the error of judgment of a young woman solicitor to do with this?” demanded Trevillion.

“I think she feared her father was involved but couldn’t bring herself to spy on him or even give direct information,” Roger said slowly. “I believe she came to give me the vital clue: that her father, one of the most extreme right-wing politicians in Britain, could be involved.”

“With the most extreme right-wing newspaper,” breathed Coppell.

“That’s right,” said Roger. Thank God Coppell was police-trained, he thought, and saw the significance of all this way ahead of Trevillion. “It all began to fit. I was the pawn, as I’ve said—I had to be the figurehead behind whom the shareholders of Allsafe would rally. And once I had joined them, I was to be built-up by the Globe as a victim of the intolerable rigidity of the Yard’s policy. I was to be a victim of your tyrannical attitude, sir. I was to be the golden boy who could no longer work at the Yard, being blocked at every turn by red tape, officialdom and—no doubt—by governmental control through the Home Office.” He was looking at Trevillion, who frowned slightly at the accusations but made no comment. “And once I was trapped, once I was the figurehead, once the reputation of the Yard had been effectively smeared and the reputation of the police trampled in the dust, once all the major security forces were merged under one control—”

“They would be in competition with us !” cried Coppell.

In the silence which followed, Ashe took his eyes off the road for a moment and gaped at Roger. A car horn hooted, and he swung the wheel in a moment of alarm, but none of the passengers noticed.

“They might even be in a position to take over now,” Roger said, grimly. “Most of their staff are ex-Yard and ex-policemen, many of them in their early fifties, even in their late forties. They would have all the makings of an alternative police force.”

“West,” said Trevillion, in a curiously flat voice, “do you know what you’re saying?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Roger, quietly. “I couldn’t understand why they should go to such lengths to discredit me at the Yard and at the same time discredit the Yard itself. But I can see a very likely reason now. And I can also see beyond this to a political crisis, sir. We are in a constant succession of political emergencies. The