The Bat that Flits (25 page)

The only flaw in the whole arrangement was that he had brought the pair of cub-Captains along with him. And when I suggested that it might be friendlier, just the two of us, he shook his head.

“They won't bother you,” he said. “Simply trail along behind.”

I wanted to do everything I could to make the outing a success. So I raised no further objections.

“Oh, very well,” I said. “I'll have the dark one. If I'd known, I'd have made the bag a bit lighter for him.”

In his youth Wilton may have been quite a good golfer. He had the right movement. But the limbs seemed in danger of falling off. With the first drive I expected to see arm, wrist-watch and shoulder go sailing away after the ball. It wasn't a bad shot, however. About eighty yards overall and bang down the middle of the fairway. Not bad, merely feeble. And I decided to show him what clean-living and sound basic instruction could do. But I had my wrong shoes on. No studs. And I must have been a bit sharp with my right shoulder. In the result I sliced my first shot. The
ball went off practically at right angles and nearly killed the smaller of the two captains. Long after the follow-through he was still crouching there as though he were back in a battle school.

And, as it turned out, I was a bit too strong with the niblick this morning. Otherwise, perfectly hit, the ball skied over Wilton's head and came to rest in some heather over in the Lizard direction. It took three to get out of the heart of the Highlands. And then came another of my really strong ones. It was the wind as much as the hook that time. I followed the ball with my eye as it described a wide half-circle. And then with a wave of the hand to Wilton I followed it on foot. It was difficult country where it had landed and it was pioneer axe and machete work all the way getting back. When I finally reached the green I realised that I hadn't seen Wilton for the best part of quarter of an hour.

The same thought must have occurred to Wilton. He waved the cub-Captains away and turned towards me.

“Let's walk the next one,” he said.

“Suits me,” I told him. “It's the view as much as anything else I always play for.”

Both the cub-Captains had dropped about half a dozen paces behind by now. And Wilton casually linked arms with me. It is a habit that I dislike. But I couldn't very well say so. For a colonel to get his hand slapped before subordinates is terrible for discipline.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“What about?” I asked.

“You,” he said.

It was so short and curt that I didn't like the sound of it. I hated the whole thought of talking about me in that tone of voice.

“Soon get tired of that,” I said, with a shrug that I thought might dislodge Wilton's arm.

But it didn't.

“Depends on how long it takes,” was all he said, giving my arm a squeeze as he said it.

“Just as you say,” I replied. “Shall I begin, or will you?”

“I will.”

The pause was so long that I began to think that Wilton had forgotten. I was just ready to start telling him about my night-fears as a child when Wilton spoke again. Then I wished that he had forgotten.

“I'm going to arrest you,” he confided with his ear close up against mine.

“Sorry,” I answered. “You've got my deaf side.”

Wilton said it again. And I didn't like the sound of it. The tone of voice was still all wrong. I removed his arm quite forcibly.

“Serious?” I asked.

“Perfectly.”

“And you're really going through with this?”

“Um.”

It was merely the Wilton grunt and nod of the head this time. That made me furious.

“Well, you'll make a bloody fool of yourself if you do,” I told him.

“There's always that risk,” he agreed.

He was a difficult man to have a row with. One of his strongest suits was that he was quite uninsultable. We were still walking along side by side as though nothing had happened. And any moment I feared that he might try to take my arm again.

“Can I have a perfectly frank talk with you?” I asked.

“No holds barred.”

“It's what I've been waiting for.”

“I can probably tell you quite a bit you don't know,” I began.

“That's why I asked you.”

“Then you'll see what a mistake you're making.”

“If I see, perhaps I shan't make it.”

I really was thinking hard by now, because it was perfectly obvious that if I was run in like this, somebody else was going to get away with something. And I didn't see why that should happen. But the emotions were a bit complicated. Either I was putting country before self, or self before others. I wasn't quite sure which.

“For a start,” I asked, “are you satisfied about all the rest of us?”

“Not a bit.”

“Dr. Smith, for instance.”

“What about him?”

“I don't believe it's even his right name,” I blurted out.

“It isn't,” Wilton replied. “He changed it. It's Sonnenbaum, really. Sonnenbaum's
Bacteriology for Advanced Students
. Got a new edition coming out. That's why he had all the proofs sent poste restante to Plymouth to avoid confusion. Very sensible.”

This stumped me for a moment, and I thought of somebody else I didn't like.

“And Swanton?” I asked.

I put the question very deliberately because I thought it might be more effective that way. I didn't care for the offhand manner Wilton had when it came to dismissing things.

“Nothing wrong with him, is there?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Nothing actually wrong. Just a bit
fond of late hours. Seems to prefer the moor at midnight for some reason.”

“That all?”

“Well,” I said. “You must admit it's queer.”

“Not very,” Wilton answered. “Not when you think of beetles.”

“There is something in common,” I admitted.

As a reply it struck me as rather ingenious. But this hardly seemed the moment for talking in innuendoes.

“There's a lot,” Wilton said. “That is if you're a Coleopterist. Swanton is. Doing a census of some kind. Showed me his paper.”

“And you allowed yourself to get taken in by it?”

“In my job you get taken in all the time.”

I paused.

“I suppose you know all about his Let's-Make-Friends-with-Russia Society?” I asked.

The first answer was a grin. When the grin couldn't widen any farther, Wilton spoke through the middle of it.

“The Old Man's a member too,” he said. “It was called something different when he joined.”

“And you regard it as harmless?”

The grin faded.

“Not a bit,” Wilton answered. “Just irrelevant.”

I'd had enough of that.

“Then what about Kimbell?” I demanded. Here Wilton shook his head.

“Bad lot,” he said. “Never tells the truth. You noticed that?”

“I've noticed that he resigned from that chess game when he was clearly winning,” I replied. “That seemed a bit strange.”

It was a shot in the dark really. Because I didn't know
enough about Emperor Chess to be able to tell whether he was winning or just arranging the pieces. But the shot failed to rattle Wilton.

“Silly, wasn't it?” he said.

I paused.

“Didn't know you played chess,” I said.

“Didn't know you played golf,” Wilton answered.

“Why did you tell him he was losing?”

“Wanted to know what he'd say. Very tricky these chess players.”

“And did he say it?” Wilton nodded.

“In the end,” he replied. “It's rather a sad case. Just nerves. That's why he had to give up tournament play. It was a perfectly straightforward game.”

“Then perhaps you know everything about Bansted, too?” I asked.

Wilton shook his head.

“Not very much,” he said. “They're all the same, those Bisley characters. Too fond of firearms. But he shouldn't carry that revolver of his about with him. Gives quite the wrong impression.”

“It does rather,” I agreed. “So do his dinner companions.”

Wilton raised his eyebrows. “I know,” he said. “He's for it.”

“Arresting him, too?” I asked.

Wilton's eyebrows returned to normal. The expression was pure Neanderthal again by now.

“Not my affair,” he said. “Pity she's a married woman. He'll hate being cited. Tried to pretend the encounter was accidental. That won't help him any.”

“Checked up on her character?” I asked.

“Horrible” Wilton answered.

“Like Rogers's wife,” I suggested.

It was the grin's turn again.

“He mentioned her to you, too?”

“And to the rest of us,” I told him.

“Poor old Rogers,” Wilton said, and touched his forehead with his forefinger.

“Comment?”

“Hasn't got a wife,” Wilton explained. “Doesn't want one either. It's a Ph.D. that he wants. Felt a bit out of it among all you clever chaps. Invented the whole thing just to make himself at home.”

He paused.

“But you go on,” he said. “I'm just listening.”

Here I paused at full Wilton length.

“The rest,” I said slowly, “is largely guesswork.”

“Don't apologise,” Wilton answered. “that's what I'm arresting you on.”

I pretended that I hadn't heard.

“For a start, I'm dubious about Mellon,” I told him.

“Why?”

“Spends too much time in that car of his.”

“So would you if you were looking for a forebear.”

My face went vague. I could feel it happening.

“Forebear?” I repeated. “Don't get you.”

“Searching for cousins,” Wilton explained. “Old West Country family, the Mellons. Told him to be careful. People round here don't understand.”

This was my chance.

“It's a blind. Won't wash,” I said. “Told the last one she had hair like his mother's. I heard him. Should have said ‘father.'”

“Not necessarily,” Wilton answered. “Pa and Ma were cousins too. All Mellons marry their cousins.

There was a pause.

“Know anything about the girls?” Wilton asked at last.

Here I strayed off half a pace. I'd overcome most of my inhibitions already. But there are limits to the impression which even a really deep heel can afford to make.

“No success there,” I said. “Not their type.”

Wilton was looking at the clouds, and seemed to have forgotten all about me again.

“Una get rid of her gun all right?” he asked.

This needed steady handling.

“No trouble at all, thank you,” I said.

“You're wrong there,” Wilton answered. “Plenty of trouble. Everybody's been hunting for it.”

“Whose was it?” I asked, still in the same carefully casual kind of voice.

“Search me,” Wilton said. “Didn't even know she had one until Ma Clewes found it.”

“Snooping?”

“Not her fault,” Wilton replied. “I asked her to.”

“Then why didn't you arrest Una?”

“Wanted to see what she'd do with it.”

“And did you find out?”

Wilton looked down at the ground as though inspecting the worm-casts.

“Not properly,” he said. “Recovered it from Bansted's room in the end. But with your fingerprints all over it. Gave it up finally.”

“So did I,” I told him.

We'd passed the sixth hole by now and were sauntering down the middle of the fairway. There was a road that crossed the links just beyond the seventh, and then there
came the long climb back up towards the club-house. At this rate I should still be a free man by lunch-time. Or longer, if I had my way.

“You haven't said anything about Gillett,” Wilton reminded me.

“If I did, you'd only knock it down.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, to start with, he killed Dr. Mann.”

“Only figuratively.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Didn't like him perhaps,” Wilton suggested.

“Or he wanted to make it look as though Mann was guilty.”

“Could be,” Wilton replied.

What I really wanted was to keep the conversation going until I got to the road. It's no good trying to run on a grass surface.

“And there's another thing . . . ” I began.

But Wilton laid his hand on my arm again.

“Don't mind telling you at one time I thought it
was
Gillett,” he confided.

“Then what made you change your mind?”

“His answers all came out straight,” Wilton said. I paused.

“And mine didn't?”

“Yours didn't.”

Wilton waited long enough to scrape away a worm-cast with his toe.

“Any views on Hilda?” he asked.

“Nothing there,” I told him. “She's just gone R.C.”

But it wasn't quite the bombshell that I had expected.

“Apart from that I mean,” he said.

“Well, you kept the Communist papers,” I reminded him.

“Only overnight,” he said. “In any case, they're cancelled now. Doesn't need them any more. She knows they're true.”

It was only another twenty-five yards to the roadway. But I needed every single one of them.

“How did her confession go?” I asked.

As I asked it I had a sudden chilly feeling. Perhaps he had been playing with her, too. For all I knew he was proposing to go back and arrest her as soon as he had finished with me. But he seemed open enough.

“Fine,” he answered. “Very intelligent girl, Hilda. Said she'd given you the opportunity of coming clean. But didn't think you meant to take it.”

I paused, remembering the coldness of our only kiss.

“So it was that, was it?”

“Did she actually ask you to arrest me?” I inquired. Wilton shook his head.