The Trojan Horse (7 page)

‘I don't know,' I replied. ‘Why do you want to know?'

He swung round on me. ‘Well, isn't she the clue to the whole thing? Where do you suppose she is?' he asked.

The thought had already occurred to me.

‘I've got a hunch that the cones of runnel is not only the clue to the code, but the clue to the hide-out where that diesel engine is. Somebody's got to get to Freya Schmidt before these lads, whoever they are, discover those key-words.' He went over to the phone, which stood on the table by his bedside. ‘Get me Central 0012, will you, Miriam?' He turned to me. ‘If we fail here, we'll have to go round to that professor laddie you mentioned.'

‘Greenbaum?'

‘Yes.' The phone rang, and he picked up the receiver again. ‘Is that you Micky? David Shiel here. Can you let me have a picture of Freya Schmidt? Yes, that's right – the daughter. Oh! They haven't traced her? You think so? Well, maybe you're right. No, a
pal of mine on the
Record
just rang me up to see if I could get one for him. Cheerio, old boy.' He put the receiver back. ‘No luck,' he said. ‘The agencies haven't been able to get hold of any photo of her and the police don't seem able to trace her. They think Schmidt may have killed her too. Nice minds these boys have! I suppose Schmidt really is dead? I mean, supposing you wanted someone to take some notice of an invention of yours, wouldn't this be a good way to do it?'

‘And what about Llewellin?' I said. ‘It's no good, David. I've been over the whole business from beginning to end and there's only one conclusion, and that's the one that Schmidt hinted at. Schmidt may or may not be dead. At the moment it's immaterial. Somehow we've got to find that girl.'

‘You may be right. But I still don't understand that murder. It doesn't make sense. Perhaps you're leaping to conclusions?'

‘This sort of game is my job,' I said a trifle stiffly.

‘What – lucid deduction?' He looked at me quizzically. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Lucid deduction, my foot! Your job is to make any twelve of your fellow citizens believe anything you want them to believe.'

‘Maybe,' I said, ‘but this business is serious. From the start there were only two ways of looking at it. Either Schmidt was speaking the truth or else he was mad. After what has happened during the night, I am quite certain he isn't mad. Do you type?' He nodded. ‘Good! Then perhaps we could have the typewriter in
here. The first thing is to get out a statement, which I can leave at my bank.'

‘You're going to take it up yourself, are you?' He hesitated. Then he added, ‘If all Schmidt says is true, this is something pretty big.'

‘That's why the first essential is to make a statement of what we know.'

‘Yes, but wouldn't it be better to call in the police?'

I shook my head. ‘Not yet,' I said. ‘Police investigations can yield nothing in the case of a firm like Calboyds. If we knew what Schmidt had set down in those other four pages, there might be enough evidence to prove something. As it is, I shall have to go ahead on my own.'

‘But, good God!' he said, ‘you'll be a marked man from the word Go.'

‘Perhaps,' I said. ‘But don't forget that, if I disappear, the police will have to take notice of my statement.'

David nodded and fetched the typewriter from the studio. ‘We'll have a carbon copy,' I said, as he settled down in front of it.

It took me over an hour to complete that statement. When it was finished, I signed the carbon and placed it in a foolscap envelope, addressing it to Inspector Crisham. In a covering letter to my bank manager, I told him that it was to be handed to Inspector Crisham in person if at any time more than a week passed without his hearing from me. I emphasised that Crisham was to read it through in his office, and I gave him a detailed description of the Yard man. I was
taking no chances. When I had signed this letter and placed it, with the statement, in a larger envelope, I asked David whether he had a back entrance.

‘Not that I know of,' he replied.

‘A fire-escape, then?'

‘No, the roof was considered sufficient.'

‘Of course, the roof. You know the people next door, don't you – the people that were burgled? Will their roof door be unlocked?'

‘I shouldn't think so. But they're on the top floor. If I knock on their skylight, I expect they'll come and open it.'

‘Do you know them well enough to ask them to take this to my bank and keep quiet about it?'

‘Well, I don't know them very well, but Harrison seems quite a good sort. I expect he'd do it. You think we're being watched?'

‘I'm working on that assumption. And whilst you're doing that, I'm going to make certain, and at the same time ring Crisham.' I handed him the envelope. ‘And don't use this phone again to make any inquiries,' I said as he went to the door. ‘There's just a chance it may have been tapped.'

He laughed. ‘Good God!' he said. ‘You don't underrate them.'

‘No,' I said. ‘I've played this game before. Crooks are one thing, but foreign agents are another, particularly if they're German. Don't forget, I was in the Intelligence in the last war.'

‘You are old, Father William.'

I nodded. I was well aware of the fact. I was not
as fast as I used to be at squash. But I was fit enough and I still held down a golf handicap of two. ‘Maybe,' I said. ‘But age has the compensation of experience. Keep off that phone.'

‘Very good, sir.' He grinned and went out through the door.

I took up the typescript of the statement and placed it in another envelope addressed to Crisham. This I put in my pocket. Then I got my hat and coat and went to the lift. There was no doubt that we were being watched. As I came out into Shaftesbury Avenue I noticed the quickened pace of a sandwich-board man.

I paused for the traffic at Piccadilly Circus and I saw that the man was still on my trail. But after crossing the Circus I lost him. Nevertheless, as I went down Lower Regent Street, I was conscious of being followed. By cutting down Jermyn Street and pausing to look in the window of Simpson's, I was able to identify my follower as a ragged-looking individual wandering along the gutter in search of cigarette ends. I should have taken no notice of him, but as he passed me he looked up and met my eyes. A feeling of awareness passed between us. it was almost embarrassing. He seemed to feel it too, for he mumbled, ‘Spare a copper, sir.' I fished in my pocket and went over to him with two pennies. I put them clumsily into his outstretched hand so that one of them fell on to the pavement. He stooped to pick it up, and I noticed that, though his face was dark with dirt, the back of his neck below the collar was quite clean. I noticed,
too, a slight scar on the back of his right hand. It was very small, just a thin line of drawn flesh across the knuckles. But I remembered a hand thrust out into the torchlight as it grabbed at a book.

I crossed the road and cut down Duke of York Street to Pall Mall. In the sanctuary of my club I made my way to the secretary's office. I handed him the envelope and asked him to put it in his safe. ‘I'll drop you a line or wire you every few days,' I said. ‘If you don't hear from me for a whole week, get Inspector Crisham of the Yard to come round and give him the envelope. He's to read it in your office.' Except for a slight lift of the eyebrows, the secretary betrayed no surprise, and I left him to ponder over the peculiarities of members.

I then went to one of the phone-boxes and rang Crisham. I was kept waiting some time, but in the end I got through to him. I told him of the arrangement I had made, but cut short his questions. ‘One other thing,' I said. ‘You still want Schmidt, I suppose? Well, you can pick up the scent at 209 Greek Street. It's a little stale, perhaps, but he was living there as Frank Smith until about the middle of last week. The owner of the place, one Isaac Leinster, might repay attention.' Again I had to curb his curiosity. ‘And don't try to get in touch with me unless you've found Schmidt,' I warned him, and put down the receiver.

Next, I rang up my bank manager. The statement had reached him and had already been placed in the strong-room. My next call was to a big issuing house in the City. Bernard Mallard was an old friend of
mine. ‘Do you know anything about Calboyds?' I asked.

‘A certain amount – why?' was the cautious reply.

‘I want to know who controls the company,' I said.

‘No one in particular, as far as I know,' he replied.

‘My information is to the contrary,' I replied.

‘Well, I think your information is inaccurate. As a matter of fact, we went into the company's position very closely about three years ago. We were hoping to be able to handle that big issue of theirs. There are a number of nominee holdings, but they're not large. All the big holdings are in the shareholders' own names, and none of them are big enough, singly, to constitute a controlling interest.'

‘Can you tell me their names?'

‘There you've got me, old boy. Calboyd was one, of course. But I can't remember the others and I don't think we kept the details. Better go along to Bush House, if you're really interested.'

‘I will,' I said. ‘Who handled the issue in the end?'

‘Ronald Dorman – and damned badly, too. He put the price too high and got stuck with about seventy per cent of the Ordinary and practically the whole of the Preference.'

‘He underwrote the issue himself, did he?'

‘Yes. There may have been some sub-underwriting, but I fancy the firm were left with the bulk of the issue.'

‘Where did Dorman get the capital?'

‘There you've got me. He was pretty successful in
1935 and '36, don't forget, and he probably had a tidy packet put by. Dorman is supposed to be pretty wealthy.' He gave a soft chuckle. ‘Those who have money can usually find money.'

‘You mean he may have had backing?'

‘Well, anyway, he covered what he'd underwritten somehow. He must have needed the better part of four millions, so I don't imagine he would have been able to find it all himself.'

‘Where would he be likely to get it?'

‘Now look, Andrew, there's a limit to the questions I can answer. What's the matter with the fellow? If you're suspecting him of being a racketeer, I warn you, the whole issuing business is a racket. And the whole City for that matter,' he added frankly. ‘Or has he got mixed up in a murder case?'

‘He can probably answer that better than I can,' I said. ‘I'm just curious, that's all.'

‘Well, old boy, if you take my advice, you'll pick Home Rails. Try “Berwick” Second Prefs. And have a game of golf with me some time.'

‘I will,' I said. ‘But just now I'm busy. Many thanks for what you've told me.' And I rang off, wondering whether or not Bernard Mallard knew who Dorman's backer was.

As I left the club, I saw my friend searching for cigarette ends in the gutter by the R.A.C. I walked leisurely along Pall Mall and jumped a bus as it slowed down to take the corner from the Haymarket. And so to Bush House, where I looked up the shareholders' list of the Calboyd Diesel Company. Of a
total issued share capital of £6,500,000, no less than £4,000,000 odd was being held by three private persons and Ronald Dorman and Company. I put down their names and their holdings. Ronald Dorman and Company had the biggest holding. Then came a Mr John Burston of Woodlands, the Butts, Alfriston. Next, Mr Alfred Cappock, Wendover Hotel, Piccadilly, London, W. And last, Sir James Calboyd, Calboyd House, Stockport, Lancs. Sir James Calboyd was the only big holder who was also a member of the board. Possibly Dorman had nominated a director. That remained to be seen.

I put the paper in my pocket and took a taxi back to David's studio. ‘Now what the devil have you been up to?' he demanded, as I entered the room. ‘I was just on the point of sending out a search party.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, and told him what I had been doing.

‘You're certain you were followed?' he asked.

‘Absolutely,' I said.

‘Good! Now we know quite definitely where we are. But what's the point of taking the original typescript of your statement down to your club whilst, at the same time, you send the carbon to your bank?'

‘They followed me to the club,' I explained. ‘I think they'll guess that the first thing I should do would be either to get in touch with the police or to leave a statement for them in case of accidents. My belief is that they'll burgle the club and, when they find they've got hold of the typescript, they'll not worry so much about the possibility of a duplicate.'

He nodded. ‘My respect for my elderly relative grows hourly,' he said. ‘In the meantime, I haven't been idle. Whilst waiting for friend Harrison to return from the bank, I made free of his phone and tried to find out something about the cones of Runnel. I tried the A.A. first, but drew a blank. Then I tried the Ordnance Survey Office. They refused to make an attempt to trace it. So then I went the round of the map-makers. I was convinced that Runnel was either the name of a place or a man.'

‘Well, did you find out anything or didn't you?' I demanded.

‘Not from them,' he replied. ‘But as a last resort, I rang up the Trinity House people. I thought it might be on the coast. Well, it appears there's a Runnel Stone lying about a mile off a point called Polostoc Zawn, near Land's End. It's a submerged rock and Trinity House keep a buoy on it which gives out a mooing sound.'

‘It's cones of Runnel,' I said, ‘not cow of Runnel.'

‘Wait a minute,' he said, and there was a gleam of excitement in his eyes. ‘Apparently there's a Board of Trade hut on the point and near this hut are two conical-shaped signs. When they are in line, they give the direction of the Runnel Stone.'