Ossian's Ride (25 page)

“Do you suppose the thought hadn’t occurred to me?”

“A while back you mentioned a dossier. Have you any idea where the information in it came from?”

“If I wanted to be unkind, to baffle you, to keep you quiet for a few minutes while I concentrate on driving this car, I’d tell you that Seamus Colquhoun happens to be one of our best agents—we have some, you know. Does the name mean anything to you? I think I’ve got it right.”

Here was a minor mystery cleared up. Now I knew how Mr. John Chance had got hold of Parsonage’s passwords, and with this knowledge I remembered exactly where I’d seen Mr. Chance for the first time. And now I even understood the motive for his visit to my cottage.

It boiled up inside me: not anger, but helpless laughter.

“So you have a sense of humor after all!”

“Then it was pretty well a miracle that I got anywhere at all.”

“It was utterly astonishing. We never reckoned that anybody would have the hardihood—or should I say the foolhardihood—to bring in a boat on a night like the one on which you came to Inishvickillane. You see why I said it was ridiculous to think that you could be finished off with that cliff trick. When someone shows himself to have the luck of the devil, a sensible person draws the obvious conclusion.”

“How did you come to get hold of the dossier?”

“I suppose I’d better explain a few things. I never intended to leave you kicking your heels around Caragh for so long. But for some months I was terribly busy, and by the time I got round to it our people had made a silly sort of game out of teasing you.”

“Would you call making me lose my memory a piece of teasing?”

“When you come to hear the full story of the memory business, you’ll see there were two sides to it. I think you’ll agree that you’ve really made a pretty good bargain.”

“And Mr. John Chance?”

“Yes, that was rather well done, wasn’t it? But trying to isolate you, to keep you odd man out, wasn’t at all sensible. After what had happened already, it was perfectly clear that you’d manage to fit everything together sooner or later. The interest of the game was to see how you’d do it, just where you’d pop up. I could have died of laughter when I saw you in the computer room today. But I’ll say no more or you’ll be getting conceited, if you’re not that already.”

There was no danger of adding to my conceit, for this was one of the most deflating remarks I’d ever heard. If this incredible girl had been laughing at me, how had she been able to correct such a huge difficult program on the computer?

We took the road through Milltown and turned off for Dingle at Castlemaine. There were three security controls at various points, but the girl and the car were apparently well known, for we passed through them almost without stopping.

The clouds flared red in front of us as we left Dingle behind. I think both of us were conscious of chasing the declining sun as we drove up the incline to Ballyferriter. In spite of the matters that were insistently running through my head, it was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the blazing western sky. We stopped the car along the road between Ballyferriter and Dunquin, and climbed away onto the rough moorland. The sea below us was alive with a liquid fire.

Suddenly the girl was shaking with violent, uncontrolled sobs. By now I was inured to most occasions of surprise, but this was utterly beyond expectation. I slipped my arm around her. She tried to shy violently away, but I held fast and soon she stopped protesting.

We returned to the car and I took it the last part of the journey to Dunquin Harbor. Because of the ideas that danced in my head I found the driving horribly difficult, for the incredible solution to the main mystery had suddenly leaped into the glaring light of consciousness.
17. Inishvickillane Again

The light was fading quickly as we moved out from Dunquin, headed south of Blasket. There was much on my mind, above all there was much that I wanted to ask this strange girl. But this wasn’t the right time or place, what with the noise of the engine and the sound of the sea slapping hard on the boatside.

Besides, I was still half unnerved by the deception of Seamus Colquhoun. Not that this was a matter of much importance any longer. But what a fool I had been to be taken in by the wretched man! True, I had always felt somewhat uneasy in my talks with him, but this very agitation had somehow contrived to mislead me. The amazing thing was that he had never tried to find out who had sent me, or anything about my mission—he didn’t even seem to know my name. If he had ever shown the least curiosity my suspicions would probably have been roused—at least I hoped so.

Then in a further flash I saw the reason. Because anything I could have told Colquhoun was already known to I.C.E. How, and from where, I still couldn’t say. Percy Parsonage? I doubted it—I simply had to doubt it, otherwise my reason must have given way. Mr. Rafferty? I doubted this too. Rafferty wasn’t in the right class. But then, if I’d misjudged Colquhoun, why not George Rafferty too? No, no, this was beyond possibility.

Then I saw the whole business as it must have seemed to I.C.E. First, the fantastic business on the train to Fishguard. Papa Percy’s blood had got me into Ireland all right, but not at all for the reason he expected. Who would have had the heart to keep me out after that affair? How they must have laughed! But I suspect the homeric aspects of the matter probably wore a bit thin during my first week in Dublin. My small-minded antics, in museums, at 18, St. Stephen’s Green, with Sam Lover and Buck Whaley, were not at all to be favorably compared with the robuster concepts of the ticket collector, Karl, Inspector Harwood and the imaginary body.

As I say, I think I.C.E. lost patience after that tame first week. I think they decided to pull me in as soon as I appeared at Marrowbone Lane. And not to be outdone by Parsonage’s affray in the train, I think they put on a similar ribald show, with Liam and the Irish stage character, and with the posse of police. But for the first time I won a few points in the game; I wriggled out of the net, in a way that could hardly have been guessed beforehand.

After that, I was manifestly given a fair amount of rope. And why not, since Colquhoun must have known about Houseman and P.S.D.? He must have known that in sending me to Longford he was playing a master stroke.

Yet from the moment I stepped off the bus at Tang the game swung more and more in my favor. I think they lost my track as I walked my quiet gentle way through the lanes and fields of Ireland. I think the appallingly unlucky coincidence at Slievenamuck with its ghastly outcome was more than they bargained for. I think they only picked up the trail again at Shannon Airport, almost certainly because of my booking of the flight to London. No wonder Seamus Colquhoun was waiting there on the road to Kilkee!

This raised another of my failures. The voltage regulator on Colquhoun’s car had definitely been wrong—a delightful subtlety on his part, not a chance coincidence as I had supposed. In fact I ought to have deduced Colquhoun’s duplicity from this one incident alone. Obviously the true canon had been questioned, and had given the purchase of a voltage regulator as my reason for visiting Limerick.

Yet the lucky shipwreck on Inishvickillane won a major victory for me—I knew it even at the time, But my one moment of supreme triumph was quite missed, the moment in which I had blandly announced my name. This must have come on them like a bolt from heaven. I remembered now the silence of that moment, and I knew that if I had hit hard in exactly the right direction, all could have been settled within the space of a single hour. Instead, I had told a pettifogging, feeble story. After the brilliance of my topological intervention, this must have been an appalling anticlimax. It explained Fanny’s sarcastic laughter, and it allowed Mr. John Chance to regain the initiative.

The mere thought of Mr. Chance filled me with a deep shame. Oh, it was so easy to make excuses in plenty: that I had seen him only once before for an odd hour in a poorish light, that I was suffering from a loss of memory, that the bandage on his head made an excellent disguise, that his voice was brilliantly changed. But back in Parsonage’s office I had read a dossier on Arthur Mitchell. I knew perfectly well that he was born in Devon, at Barnstaple in 1925. I knew that he won a scholarship to Winchester, which meant that he would have an accented and an unaccented voice both readily at his command.

The boat was approaching the little harbor on the island. In a few minutes I should probably be seeing Arthur Mitchell again. I resolved that on this third occasion the honors of the encounter should be divided a little more equally between us. I would have been quite aghast to learn the margin by which I was to lose this third exchange, for I had still to learn that there is no better way to suppress serious argument than by the popping of champagne corks.

Now we had reached the anchorage. We made fast, climbed the little cliff and started along the path to the stone house.

“And have you got everything sorted out, Mr. Fisherman?”

“Not quite, but I’m making some progress.”

“You’re an odd fellow.”

“Are you thinking of any particular one of my oddities?”

“There aren’t many people who know anything about us, but those that do, when they first find out ...” She paused in mid-sentence.

“Recoil?”

“Not so much physically as mentally.”

“And I didn’t?”

“No.”

“Was it because you thought I might that you never tried to seek me out?”

She took me by the arm. “Look, my fisherman friend, it’s nice that you’re very intelligent, but there is no need to be quite so clear-headed.”

“They” were waiting for us: Mitchell and his wife Harriet, Hertzbrun and the other half-blonde girl—her partner apparently was away. It was interesting that our coming must have been advertised, either by the restaurant or by one of the security controls.

The girl Fanny had evidently entirely recovered herself. She introduced me with obvious relish.

“Arthur, meet Mr. Sherwood. Two old Cambridge men together. You’ll be able to have quite a talk.”

“I hope the knee is better,” I said.

“Very much better, thank you. Did Fanny tell you?”

“No, he guessed all by himself. And here is Harriet, Arthur’s wife. But of course you’re old friends, aren’t you?” The two girls stood side by side, of about the same height with hair of nearly the same color, one with light skin and the other with dark, one with blue-violet eyes and the other with green—a couple of cats watching each other.

“Homer Hertzbrun—Mr. Sherwood. Homer, you should hear what Mr. Sherwood has to say about the geometry of electric charge.”

Then she turned to the other half-blonde, “And now meet my twin—Mr. Sherwood—Mary Ann.”

“Well, Fanny, so you decided to get him after all.”

“Do you have to sound so predatory?”

“I’m not predatory, I’m just delighted that we shall be able to have some peace now.”

It would have been easy to be misled by this innocent conversation. I’d again been astonished by Mitchell’s youthful appearance. He certainly looks no more than thirty, I thought; yet the man must be approaching forty-five. There was just one possible explanation. These people must have solved the very difficult biochemical problem of arresting the aging process.

Strange that the old legend should describe the Land of Youth as an island off the Kerry coast. Suddenly I realized what Fanny had meant by the other half of the bargain, and I knew at last just what it was that I felt to be different.

Hertzbrun quickly produced a tray with drinks and glasses.

“That’s exactly what I need, Homer,” exclaimed Mitchell. “I’m going to drink to the end of my responsibilities.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Of course you get it. I’m going to put my feet up, I’m going to get rid of my ulcers, I’m going to have one long glorious holiday. Homer, my boy, pour me a large tot, a very large one.”

“But ...”

“No buts. It’s perfectly obvious. Here’s young Sherwood, twenty years younger than me in actual years, and as strong as a horse. Why shouldn’t I let him do the worrying? He knows almost as much about science as I do, and he’s much more ruthless; in fact he’s quite an ugly customer.”

“If I might offer an opinion ...” I started.

“You may not. Yes, much more ruthless. Besides, he’s got Fanny’s ear, and I haven’t. The next phase of development depends on Fanny, and the two of us have too many rows.”

Mary Ann laughed, and another small mystery was cleared away. This was the laugh I had heard over the telephone, on the morning after the visit of Mr. Chance.

“Poor Arthur, if you think they’re not going to have plenty of rows you’re very much mistaken. Either there will be some splendid rows or Fanny will simply gobble him up.”

“Now look here, you’re all taking too much for granted, especially Mitchell,” I objected.

“It may seem very precipitate to you, Sherwood, but it isn’t really. I wonder if you’ve any idea what it means to start an organization like this absolutely from scratch, to build everything step by step. It’s like bringing up a child. At first you think all your worries’ll be over in a year or two, but they’re not. Then you think everything will be plain sailing after ten years, but it isn’t. Then you realize you’ll never be out of trouble, however long you go on.”

“Stop wailing,” said Mary Ann. “Some women bring up six children.”

“I’m not wailing. I’m showing Sherwood why it’s been on my mind for some time to find someone who could take over the responsibilities. I’ve had my eye on Sherwood right from the start, or at any rate from the time he finished off those absurd P.S.D. people.”

“Right from the start? So you have agents in London?”

“Why be so naive? Of course we have agents in London. Is that very surprising?”

“It would relieve my mind a great deal to know who it was in particular that forwarded the information about me.”