My Heart Has Wings (2 page)

But Daker, ignoring the sop, answered stiffly that Miss Ferraby wasn’t the slimy kind that crawls from under stones.

Sir Mark bridled. He looked, Daker thought, like a Roman emperor with his
hooded eyes and beaked proud nose. A massive, fleshy, arrogant man. But the
hooded eyes were brilliant with intelligence—and could often be very kind. “I am
willing to be persuaded,” he said coldly, “that your secretary, Daker, is the soul of
integrity. But I should like to know a little more about her. This leak of
information bears all the marks of the amateur with a smattering of aerodynamics.
It is obviously the work of an underling.” He glanced significantly around the
table, as though inwardly assessing each executive present; designers, technicians,
administrators. Dalwith
,
the works manager, Parker the press officer, Sims who handled all matters concerning staff. “I needn’t
,
” Sir Mark said, “waste breath in assuring you that senior personnel are above suspicion.”

There was no reaction to this concession. It was, as Sir Mark had remarked, wholly unnecessary. The tension in the atmosphere had nothing to do with the self-consciousness of guilt. It was a purely objective uneasiness over an unpleasant problem it was all in their interests to solve.

“That chap Rosswith we sacked last month,” Sims began tentatively. They went over the story of Rosswith, a junior apprentice on the maintenance side who had been dismissed for incompetence. He had made a foolish scene on the day of his departure, vowing vengeance on the firm of Scott-Manly, hinting darkly at contacts with subversive forces.

“A Communist?” Sir Mark exclaimed.

“No, sir,” Dalwith answered quickly. “Not even a fellow traveller. Just a mess. A sic
kly,
h
y
sterical only son, spoiled by a widowed mother. Security checked up on his background and raked up nothing worse in his school and employment records than a dislike of hard work. He was far too stupid to have concocted that
Ariel
paragraph and he wouldn’t have had access to those figures.”

Sir Mark frowned. “We don’t want stupid apprentices at the Scott-Manly works. He ought never to have been taken on. Tighten up on this kind of thing in future. Sims.”

“Yes, sir,” Sims murmured, smarting.

“Where did you get Miss Ferraby? What was
her
background?” Sir Mark shot at him before he had time to recover. Sims looked blank. Hundreds of applications for employment at the works passed through his hands in the course of a year.

“Miss Ferraby
...
” he murmured wildly. “Been with us about two years, I believe
...”

“I introduced her,” Parker the press officer supplied coming to Sims’ rescue. “Daughter of a chap I used to know on Fleet Street. Hart Ferraby. Air correspondent to the
Morning News.
At least he was when Miss Ferraby joined us.”

“But he isn’t any longer;” Sir Mark interposed sharply. “Why not? What is he doing now?”

Parker began to look uneasy. “I don’t exactly know. He wrote a successful play about eighteen months ago and threw up his Morning News job on the strength of it. But there haven’t been any further theatrical windfalls. You know how it is
...”
he twiddled a gold pencil nervously. “The theatre is a tricky business. A chap hits the jackpot once and then finds himself stuck ... writing rejects. Pity he left the News before he was more firmly established in his fresh milieu, but his wife died suddenly of unsuspected heart trouble three years ago, and I imagine that unsettled him. They were very devoted.”

“Humph;” Sir Mark growled. “Any other children besides our Miss Ferraby?”

“A boy and a girl.”

“School age, or earning?”

Parker thought for a moment. “Still school age, I’d say. The girl was starting out as an art student when Hart left the News, and the boy had just won a scholarship to St. Paul’s.”

“Hum. An expensive family.” Sir Mark rubbed his beaked nose with a though
t
ful forefinger. “What are Ferraby’s resources?”

“Whatever he can pick up free-lancing.”

“Aviation free-lancing?”

Parker coughed uncomfortably. Well, yes, mostly, I should say. After all it’s
his specialty. He writes articles for technical publications now and then, and turns
an odd paragraph of general interest for the evening papers. I believe he tries,
too, to write magazine stories, but without much success.”

Sir Mark digested all this in silence, while Daker dragged himself out of one of his customary trances. He had, in fact, while busy with a knotty problem concerning wing loading, heard every word Parker had been saying, and he didn’t like what it all added up to. It wasn’t hard to guess what Sir Mark would make of it. An out-of-work journalist, an aviation specialist at that, and a daughter going home evening after evening with a head full of the facts and figures she picked up in the Scott-Manly chief designer’s office. Not so good! She might be as honest as the day, and Daker was prepared to swear that she was, but it wasn’t going to be easy to convince Sir Mark that a few clever questions in the unguarded atmosphere of her own home wouldn’t betray her into revealing information she hardly realized she was revealing.

“It all seems to fit,” Sir Mark murmured darkly. A deep gloom settled on the faces round the table as the great man summed it all up. Just in the way Daker had known he would. By the time he had finished there wasn’t much left of Jan Ferraby’s integrity potential. At Daker’s suggestion that she might have been guilty of indiscretion rather than treachery, Sir Mark said, “Fiddlesticks. Unless she is a perfect fool she would know that a prototype on the secret list isn’t something you discuss over the family supper table. And obviously she isn’t a fool. I don’t imagine, my dear Hugh, that you’d have kept her in your office all this time if she had been.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Daker said crossly. “She isn’t a fool. She’s unusually bright
...
and unusually straight. We haven’t shred of real evidence that she was, in fact, the source of this unfortunate paragraph in
Ariel
.”

“She had opportunity, and motive,” Sir Mark
said
sternly. “And she is the only junior member
of the staff who had access to these particular details. Everything points to her.”

There was an interval of unhappy silence. Daker took bits of paper out of his pockets and put them back again. He looked white and angry. “She wouldn’t have given that idiotic figure for the maximum speed,” he said. “The maximum speed anyhow is still problematical.”

Sir Mark said, “That could have been a scrap of guesswork on the father’s part; after all he had to dress up the story, make it saleable. Oh, I know we’ve no actual proof
...
” he waved a silencing hand at Daker to forestall interruption. “That’s why I’m going to suggest we do nothing about it for the moment. I don’t want the Ferraby girl dismissed ... or warned in any way. I want her watched. This dribble of information is more annoying than catastrophic
.
But any leakage is serious. And I’d like to find out exactly what is behind it. The Ferrabys may be pawns on a pretty complex chessboard. I’d give a lot to discover who runs
Ariel
...
which, in itself, may be no more than another pawn. But even if it is nothing more than the small-time rag it seems to be, it will probably have a stab at following up this E.106a scoop in some way. I don’t mind betting you there’ll be another paragraph or two in the next issue. They’ll cook up something, even if it’s mostly surmise like that faulty speed forecast
... and that’s where we ought to catch them!” He lifted his hooded lids and beamed round the table—suddenly beginning to enjoy himself.

“The old man’s been reading too many detective stories,” Parker whispered to Daker out of the
corner
of his mouth. “What we ought to do is turn the whole thing over to Security and be done with it.”

Daker ignored him. It was all very well for Parker to be humorous; it wasn’t his department that was involved. Turning to Sir Mark he said, “Meanwhile you wish me to treat Miss Ferraby as if nothing had happened?”

“No,” said Sir Mark, “not quite. Keep the more confidential stuff out of her hands. But don’t let her notice you are doing so. String her along for
a while
. Watch out for any oddities in her manner or behaviour—and keep me posted. Warn Carliss about her, of course. Show him this
Ariel
article.” He pondered in silence for a moment. “It might,” he said, “be a good idea to set some kind of trap for Ferraby. You could, for instance, fake up something hush-hush and give it to her to take home to type.”

“She’d think I was out of my mind,” Daker muttered.

Sir Mark ignored him. “If our sham release appeared in the next issue or so of
Ariel
,”
he concluded triumphantly, “well that would settle the whole thing. We’d have something to act on.” “I still think,” Daker said stubbornly, “we’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Then find me another tree,” Sir Mark challenged. They went over it all again, investigating every possible loophole in their security system. But in the end they came back to Miss Ferraby ... and her father. Daker listened with his head in his hands. He was remembering a Ministry memo he had dictated to Jan some weeks ago. It had included those wing-span, armament and power plan figures in the exact order in which Ariel had given them. In fact, the last part of the Ariel paragraph had been taken word for word out of his very mouth. He had a phenomenal memory for storing detail and he knew, with a sickening of heart, as he forced himself to recollection, that there was no more doubt as to the source of the
Ariel
leakage. It had come straight from his own office. But for the moment he would keep that knowledge to himself.

Hunched and dejected he waited, while the endless discussion dragged on.
In the office across the perimeter road, Mike Carliss draped a long negligent leg over the end of Jan’s desk and regarded her abstractedly. He was still wearing most of his bulky flying equipment and his lean weather-beaten face showed lines of strain.

“How did it go?” Jan asked.

On
e
mobile dark eyebrow shot up, like a sensitive antenna signalling alarm; he hated questions of this kind.

He had extraordinarily expressive eyebrows, Jan thought. In the fascination of watching them you were apt to miss the things that were happening in the deep-set, blue-grey eyes beneath them.

“According to plan,” he said. “It’s all in the box.” He indicated the wire recorder he had placed on the desk. It wasn’t easy to make him talk about his flights
...
unless he was with Daker; then he poured out technicalities in an enthusiastic spate. But he hadn’t any chit-chat to offer in the ordinary way. “What couldn’t I do to a cup of tea!” he sighed. “Come on over to the canteen, young Jan, and I’ll buy you a cream bun.”

Jan’
s
heart turned a somersault Mike had never before unbent to this extent. Though he had treated her with the good-natured informality which was the fashion in the office he had shown no sign of being aware that she was anything more than a useful adjunct for taking messages, typing data and answering the phone. And now he was asking her to tea! Why hadn’t he asked Helen, as he so often did? Helen was his friend. For Jock’s sake, as well as her own. They had known one another long before Helen came to the office—and since then Mike had gone out of his way to make things easy for her in her
unfamiliar
role as a very junior clerk. Helen, Jan guessed, needed all the moral support she could get to help her through these first strange afternoons. It wasn’t as if she had ever done anything like this
before. Until her marriage she had lived with her parents, studying music, Jan knew vaguely, but whether singing or instrumental, she had never had the heart to ask. Whatever it was, she was apparently finished with it. All music had hushed for her the day Jock died.

Nervously, questioningly, Jan glanced at her across the room. Would she mind not having been asked to tea today.

“Go on,” Helen smiled encouragingly. “I’ll hold the fort. And if Daker wants you when he comes in, I’ll nip across and fetch you.”

“It’s a bit early for me to take my tea-break,
”
Jan said, still doubtful. “Maybe Daker won’t like it.”

“Daker won’t care,” Mike threw in impatiently. “Anyhow he never knows whether it’s tea-time or next Wednesday. Don’t make a fuss about nothing. I’ll just park my clobber and meet you in the canteen in a tick.” He went out of the office unzipping his flying suit.

Jan opened her handbag and began powdering her nose. Stop looking so eager, you clot! she silently admonished the reflection in her compact mirror. A cup of tea in a works canteen. It wasn’t the Ritz and a spray of orchids. “Don’t make a fuss about nothing,” Mike had said. She laughed ruefull
y
at herself and her foolishness.

“What’s the joke,” Helen inquired mildly.

“There isn’t one. I’m just screwing up my courage. Mike is what you might call a rather formidable person in certain moods, and I’m not on tea-drinking terms with him.”

“He’s not really formidable,’ Helen said. “But he hasn’t exactly had the kind of life that makes people soft.”

“Shooting down hostile aircraft before he was nineteen.” Jan suggested.

“That, and a lot more.” Helen peered into a filing cabinet and withdrew a folder. “He was
born
in Malaya,” she said. “His father still lives
out there. Rubber planting. Mike’s mother died when he was five, but they’d already had to send him back to England because
of the climate. His entire childhood was spent in boarding schools—even at holiday times, unless relatives took pity on him. The Scott-Manlys are distantly connected, I believe, and Lady Scott-Manly had him to stay at Sheldrake Manor. It was about the only glimpse of home life he ever had.”