law. She's never been near the people who died, we've checked on that, she hasn't sent them poisoned chocolates through the post or anything of that kind. According to her own account, she just sits in a room and employs telepathy! Why, the whole thing would be laughed out of court!'
I murmured:
'But Lu and Aengus laugh not. Nor any in the high celestial House.'
'What's that?'
'Sorry. A quotation from the 'Immortal Hour.''
'Well, it's true enough. The devils in Hell are laughing but not the Host of Heaven. It's an – an evil business, Mr Easterbrook.'
'Yes,' I said. 'It's a word that we don't use very much nowadays. But it's the only word applicable here. That's why -'
'Yes?'
Lejeune looked at me inquiringly.
I spoke in a rush. 'I think there's a chance – a possible chance – of getting to know a bit more about all this. I, and a friend of mine have worked out a plan. You may think it very silly -'
'I'll be the judge of that.'
'First of all, I take it from what you've said, that you are sure in your mind that there is such an organization as the one we've been discussing, and that it works?'
'It certainly works.'
'But you don't know how it works? The first steps are already formulated. The individual I call the client hears vaguely about this organization, gets to know more about it, is sent to Mr Bradley in Birmingham, and decides that he will go ahead. He enters into some agreement with Bradley, and then is, or so I presume, sent to the Pale Horse. But what happens after that, we don't know! What, exactly, happens at the Pale Horse? Somebody's got to go and find out.'
'Go on.'
'Because until we do know, exactly, what Thyrza Grey actually does, we can't get any further. Your police doctor, Jim Corrigan, says the whole idea is poppycock – but is it, Inspector Lejeune, is it?'
Lejeune sighed.
'You know what I'd answer – what any sane person would answer – the answer would be 'Yes, of course it is!' – but I'm speaking now unofficially. Very odd things have happened during the last hundred years. Would anyone have believed seventy years ago that a person could hear Big Ben strike twelve on a little box and after it had finished striking, hear it again with his own ears through the window, from the actual clock itself – and no jiggery pokery? But Big Ben struck once – not twice – the sound was brought to the ears of the person by two different kinds of waves! Would you believe you could hear a man speaking in New York in your own drawing room, without so much as a connecting wire? Would you have believed – Oh! a dozen other things – things that are now everyday knowledge that a child gabbles off?'
'In other words, anything's possible?'
'That's what I mean. If you ask me if Thyrza Grey can kill someone by rolling her eyes or going into a trance, or projecting her will, I still say 'No.' But I'm not sure. How can I be? If she's stumbled on something -'
'Yes,' I said. 'The supernatural seems supernatural. But the science of tomorrow is the supernatural of today.'
'I'm not talking officially, mind,' Lejeune warned me.
'Man, you're talking sense. And the answer is, someone has got to go and see what actually happens. That's what I propose to do – go and see.'
Lejeune stared at me.
'The way's already paved,' I said.
I settled down then, and told him about it. I told him exactly what I and a friend of mine planned to do.
He listened frowning and pulling at his lower lip.
'Mr Easterbrook, I see your point. Circumstances have, so to speak, given you the entree. But I don't know whether you fully realize that what you are proposing to do may be dangerous – these are dangerous people. It may be dangerous for you – but it will certainly be dangerous for your friend.'
'I know,' I said, 'I know… we've been over it a hundred times. I don't like her playing the part she's going to play. But she's determined – absolutely determined. Damn it all, she wants to!'
Lejeune said unexpectedly:
'She's a redhead, didn't you say?'
'Yes,' I said, startled.
'You can never argue with a redhead,' said Lejeune. 'Don't I know it!'
I wondered if his wife was one.
Chapter 16
I felt absolutely no nervousness on my second visit to Bradley. In fact, I enjoyed it.
'Think yourself into the part,' Ginger urged me, before I set off, and that was exactly what I tried to do.
Mr Bradley greeted me with a welcoming smile.
'Very pleased to see you,' he said, advancing a podgy hand. 'So you've been thinking your little problem over, have you? Well, as I said, no hurry. Take your time.'
I said, 'That's just what I can't do. It's – well – it's rather urgent…'
Bradley looked me over. He noted my nervous manner, the way I avoided his eyes, the clumsiness of my hands as I dropped my hat.
'Well, well,' he said. 'Let's see what we can do about things. You want to have a little bet on something, is that it? Nothing like a sporting flutter to take one's mind off one's – er – troubles.'
'It's like this -' I said, and came to a dead stop.
I left it to Bradley to do his stuff. He did it.
'I see you're a bit nervous,' he said. 'Cautious. I approve of caution. Never say anything your mother shouldn't hear about! Now, perhaps you have some idea that this office of mine might have a bug in it?'
I didn't understand and my face showed it.
'Slang term for a microphone,' he explained. 'Tape recorders. All that sort of thing. No, I give you my personal word of honour that there's nothing of that sort here. Our conversation will not be recorded in any way. And if you don't believe me,' his candour was quite engaging, 'and why should you? – you've a perfect right to name a place of your own, a restaurant, the waiting room in one of our dear English railway stations; and we'll discuss the matter there instead.'
I said that I was sure it was quite all right here.
'Sensible! That sort of thing wouldn't pay us, I assure you. Neither you nor I is going to say a word that, in legal parlance, could be 'used against us.' Now let's start this way. There's something worrying you. You find me sympathetic and you feel you'd like to tell me about it. I'm a man of experience and I might be able to advise you. A trouble shared is a trouble halved, as they say. Suppose we put it like that?'
We put it like that, and I stumbled into my story.
Mr Bradley was very adroit. He prompted, eased over difficult words and phrases. So good was he, that I felt no difficulty at all in telling him about my youthful infatuation for Doreen and our secretive marriage.
'Happens so often,' he said, shaking his head. 'So often. Understandable! Young man with ideals. Genuinely pretty girl. And there you are. Man and wife before you can say Jack Robinson. And what comes of it?'
I went on to tell him what came of it.
Here I was purposefully vague over details. The man I was trying to present would not have gone into sordid details. I presented only a picture of disillusionment – a young fool realizing that he had been a young fool.
I let it be assumed that there had been a final quarrel. If Bradley took it that my young wife had gone off with another man, or that there had been another man in the offing all along – that was good enough.
'But you know,' I said anxiously, 'although she wasn't – well, wasn't quite what I thought her, she was really
