Vorpal Blade (22 page)

When they reached the ground floor after the bomb-like
drop, Broden was waiting to escort them to the door. He
had fixed it so it revolved continuously. Newman emerged
from the cafe and stood on their side of the pavement
waiting for his car.

A strange figure was seated halfway down the steps,
crouching over a board supporting a sheet of cartridge
paper partly covered with a complex diagram. Dr Abraham
Scale looked up. He was still dressed in his Dickensian
attire.

'Good morning, Mr Tweed. I was originally going inside to ask Mr Arbogast something. Then I decided it would be unwise. I am preparing a family tree of the Arbogasts. I study genealogy in my spare time. The Arbogasts originally were the Arbogastinis. Most intriguing.'

'From Italy?'

'Exactly.' He rolled up the chart, tucked it with the
supporting board under his arm. 'Perhaps a dangerous
place to indulge in such activity. I will leave. Goodbye, Paula

'The Arbogasts are a strange family,' Paula commented.

'I wonder why he thought it dangerous to be here,'
Tweed mused.

13

'I'm feeling jittery,' Paula said. 'That's not like me.'

They had arrived back in Tweed's office at Park Crescent after a quick lunch. With Monica at her word pro
cessor, Paula and Tweed were the only ones in the room.
Newman had gone off with Marler 'to frighten some informants', as Marler had put it, hoping to pick up
information about Holgate's murder.

'Jittery?' Tweed repeated. 'I'm not surprised. You always have been hypersensitive where people are concerned. And
we've just witnessed one tense drama in that gym, another
when Roman Arbogast detonated.'

'I don't think it's either of those things. Doesn't matter.'
She waved a dismissive hand, wishing she'd kept quiet.

Like Paula, Tweed's desk was littered with piles of files,
many from Howard and which needed decisions taken. Between them, they had enough paperwork to last them
two days. Tweed sighed, got down to the work. He found
he was absorbed by returning to his old role as detective.

'Half these agents abroad are sending in data to justify their existence,' he grumbled. 'Which is why Howard has
dumped this lot on us. He prefers chatting with Whitehall
mandarins over drinks at his club.'

'If we had to go away suddenly,' Paula reminded him, 'then Howard would take over and really apply himself.
You do know that.'

'Stop nagging...'

Tweed paused in mid-sentence as Monica answered the phone. He waved a warning finger at her.

'I'm out. Don't care if it's the Palace.'

'Are you sure?' Monica pressed him. 'It's Mrs Elena
Brucan downstairs. She is apparently worried.'

'You must see her,' Paula prodded. 'She's such a pleas
ant lady.'

Tweed, who was a speed-reader, shifted six files he had
dealt with, initialled, into a tidy pile. He glared at Paula without any anger.

'Sometimes I wonder who is running this unit. All right,
I'll see her. But no one else afterwards . . .'

Paula opened the door for their visitor. Elena Brucan
was again wearing the pale green overcoat, the green fur
hat. She took Paula's hand, squeezed it warmly, entered
as Tweed stood up, smiled, ushered her towards an arm
chair. The Romanian lady looked back at Paula.

'It's really you I've come about.'

Monica rushed out to make her coffee. And that, grumbled Tweed to himself, will prolong the interview. He sat
down and again smiled at his guest.

'Now what can we do for you?'

'I was outside the ACTIL building again when you left
late this morning. I caught a cab to follow you but you stopped to have lunch, so I waited, then caught another
cab. I
do
hope you don't mind my behaving like this.'

'Of course not. I'm sure you have your reasons. The
ACTIL building seems to fascinate you.'

'They're all in there - whoever is connected with
Holgate's murder - and probably that other man who
was murdered in Maine. Which is why you flew there,
I expect.'

Tweed was taken aback, completely baffled. He glanced
over at Paula, now seated at her desk. She was grinning.
He could have waved his fist at her. He switched his gaze
to Elena's glowing eyes. Again he found them hypnotic.

He waited while Monica served coffee, decided he needed some himself.

'The remarkable thing, Mrs Brucan,' he began, 'is
none of us, including myself, saw you either this morning
outside ACTIL or earlier at Heathrow. Yet you have a
distinctive, distinguished appearance.'

'Thank you for the compliment.' Paula felt sure she
had blushed. She drank more coffee. 'I told you a bit
of my earlier adventures. How the Romanian dictator,
Ceau§escu disliked me, so he sent the secret police -
brutal people - to arrest me. That experience made me
skilled at remaining invisible. It does when it is a matter of
life of death. At Heathrow I was in a crowd when I heard you asking the check-in lady about the flight to Boston. Then I'm an avid reader of the newspapers, including the
American ones. They reported the murder in Maine in
detail. So similar to the murder of poor Adam Holgate.
It was very simple, really.'

Simple? Tweed thought. If I'd met this woman years ago
when I was at the Yard I'd have hired her. She's uncanny.
Paula was studying a file, still smiling to herself.

'When you came in you said something about Paula,'
Tweed reminded his guest.

'Miss Grey, I sense, is in danger. Great danger. I would
suggest she is guarded everywhere she goes.'

Tweed again glanced at Paula. The smile had disap
peared. The idea that she should be guarded certainly did
not appeal to her.

'Could you be a bit more specific?' Tweed suggested.
'Who is menacing her?'

'I'm sorry. I have no idea of where the danger comes
from. But danger there is.'

'I'll bear it in mind and thank you.' He paused. 'We
have studied the photos you kindly gave us. Why, in one
case only, that of Sam Snyder, did you take his picture no less than five times?'

'My camera.' She gave him a wide glowing smile. 'I
was convinced it wasn't working properly, so I kept taking
photos of the same man.'

The first fib. Tweed didn't believe her. She was con
cealing something. Maybe because she was not yet sure
of her grounds. Taking hold of her embroidered bag, she
stood up.

'I can see how much work you have on your desk. I hope
that I haven't wasted too much of your time.'

'As I said before, you have not wasted a moment.'

'And you will come and see me sometime? You have
my address, my phone number.'

'We shall meet again,' responded Tweed warmly. He
meant it.

Their guest thanked Monica for the coffee, told her it
was the best she had ever tasted. Paula escorted her down
to the front door.

'She's done it again,' commented Monica. 'She's gone but her presence is still here.'

'It's very strange. She really is the most extraordinary
lady.'

Paula returned with Newman and Marler in tow. Marler
took up his stance by the wall, near Paula. He lit a long
cigarette as Newman flopped into an armchair.

'How did it go?' Tweed asked. 'You both look flaked
out.'

'We've interrogated a lot of snitches,' Marler reported.
'I kept out of the way while Bob was talking to one of his
and he followed the same procedure.'

'And the result?' Tweed demanded impatiently.

'Zilch. Zero. Nothing,' Marler said grimly. 'We walked
into a wall of silence. Several took to the hills. I have never
known anything like it. I did get a hint from one man that
Special Branch have been hyper-active - spreading the
word in the underworld that anyone who talks will find
himself up on a drugs charge, for possession of heroin.'

'The damned fools are giving themselves away all along
the line,' commented Tweed.
'It
has to be a very big secret
the government is worried about to issue such orders. It
will take me two more days to get through Howard's junk. Then I will decide what to do to blast the thing wide open.
I just hope I get no more visitors while I get on with it.'

Tweed, with Paula's help, worked steadily. They had
cleared up everything at the end of
two days. But there
was one more visitor.

In addition to Newman, Paula and Marler, Tweed had
summoned two more key members of his staff for a
meeting on the evening of the second day. Harry Butler
walked in, followed by Pete Nield. The contrast between
the two men was striking but they had often worked
together as partners, each trusting the other totally in situations which turned hairy.

Harry Butler was five feet five tall, his body bulky, his
approach to a problem aggressive. In his thirties, he had a round head like a cannonball, which was a deadly weapon if he butted an opponent with it. He wore shabby jeans, a
windcheater which had seen better days. In the East End
he had often passed as a local.

Pete Nield, of a similar age, was a complete contrast. Good-looking, he had a neat moustache and wore a smart
blue suit, a new blue shirt and a powder-blue tie. Popular
with the ladies, and always smartly dressed, he nevertheless had not quite the flair for clothes possessed by Marler. Five
feet eight tall, his slim build had several times encouraged
a thug to think he was easy meat. The thug had always
ended up painfully sprawled on the ground.

'Now strategy in this strange case,' Tweed began. 'We
are peering into a fog . . .'

It was the signal for the phone to ring. Tweed swore
under his breath. Monica was asking George, the guard
downstairs, several questions before she looked at Tweed.

'An American, Ed Danvers, is wanting to see you. Won't
say why. Says it's top secret.'

'Tell him to go away.'

'He also said he's FBI. Showed George his badge.'

Tweed sat very still. Paula could almost hear the wheels
of his brain moving at top speed as he considered this highly
unexpected development. He looked round at everyone,
standing, seated in the room.