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  “Just a moment, please,” the girl said.

  Almost at once a man with a clipped North American accent said: “Is that Superintendent West?”

  “Yes, sir. Good morning.”

  “Good morning. Mr West, we need your help here, and we need it very badly and very fast. I am Tony Marino, and I’ll wait in my office until you arrive. You’ll find an impatient and worried man, Mr West.”

  Roger could have asked questions, and could have been formal. Instead, he said simply:

  “I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes, Mr Marino.”

  “I’m very grateful.” The American’s voice died in the click of the telephone.

  Roger stood up, took his trilby from a wall-peg and hurried to the door. If he saw the Commander, CID or Hardy, the new Assistant Commissioner, he would have to report this, and he didn’t want to miss it He saw no one of superior rank, but as he reached the ground floor in the lift, Chief Inspector Bill Sloan, big, fresh-faced, boyish-looking, was waiting to step in.

  “Just the man,” said Roger. “I’ve had a call from the American Embassy, they want someone in a hurry. It fell in my lap, and I’m keeping it Tell the Commander or the AC.”

  Sloan grinned. “I’ll forget it long enough for you to get there.”

  It took eighteen minutes to reach Grosvenor Square. In the bright morning sunshine, a dozen American tourists were busy with their cameras near the Roosevelt statue, big American cars, dwarfing the English ones, were parked nearby. He expected some formality, not the youthful-looking man waiting just inside the hall of the big new Embassy building which some people hated, and some thought was magnificent, who said:

  “Superintendent West, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Roger looked his surprise.

  “I saw you in court one day, sir. I wasn’t the prisoner!”

  Roger smiled, liking the clean-cut look of his guide. They went in a lift to the third floor, and walked along two passages before the man tapped on a wooden door which had no name on the outside. A voice said “come in”, but it wasn’t Marino’s; this was a small office, with another door leading off, standing ajar.

  “Superintendent West,” said Roger’s guide.

  “You certainly haven’t lost much time, sir.” The secretary, who might have been his guide’s twin brother, took over. We’ll go right in.”

  The room beyond was large, carpeted, warmer than Roger liked. There were some portraits on the wall, including one in oils of George Washington, and a coloured photograph of Lyndon Johnson. Sitting directly beneath this was a heavily built man who seemed huge, his shoulders broad and powerful-looking, in a pale grey, light-weight jacket. He had a wide face and big but pleasant features, with dark hair cut short and standing upright; there was no pomade on it, and it gave him a kind of unfinished look. His square chin was cleanshaven, and he was obviously a man who needed to shave twice a day. His eyes were velvety brown in colour, and very clear. He smiled and put out a hand, but didn’t get up.

  “Good of you to come in such a hurry, Superintendent. All right, Herb, I’ll ring if I want you.” Herb, the secretary, was pushing a chair up for Roger, and went out as Roger sat down. Marino slid a lacquered box of cigarettes across the desk. “American or English,” he said.

  Roger felt that he was being photographed by those brown eyes; felt, too, as if he were being weighed on a mental balance. In a sudden flash, he realized how so many minor criminals felt when he sat weighing them up. He chose an English cigarette, and Marino flicked a lighter.

  “Thanks. How can I help?”

  “Well,” said Marino, “you could help several ways, I guess, but the best way would be to go out and find the boy. I’ve good reason to think that the ten-year-old son of David Shawn, who is on a special mission in the United Kingdom, was kidnapped last night, from a house on the Chiswick and Ealing borders. I don’t know why it happened, but we want the boy back because of what it means to his parents, and we also want him back because of what this might do to David Shawn, whose work is high on the Secrets List.”

  Roger pondered, and asked: “Who knows about the kidnapping?”

  “You and I, Lissa Meredith, who was acting as Shawn’s secretary, and Herb. In half an hour the Ambassador will also know. Lissa discovered what had happened. She had a key to the house, and was due at work at eight o’clock, but she arrived ten minutes late. She found everyone asleep, and couldn’t wake David or Belle Shawn, his wife. The child’s bed was empty, his clothes and a suitcase had been taken away. Lissa closed up the house, went to see the day maid, and told her not to go in. Then she telephoned me. I sent a man out to watch the house so that she could come here.”

  “Why didn’t she send for a doctor?” Roger asked.

  “She’s had some nursing experience, and decided the Shawns weren’t in danger.” Marino smiled; he had fine, very white teeth. “I’d like you to go to the house and see what you can make of the situation, Mr West. Can you do that without consulting anyone else?”

  “I can but it would be wiser to have a word with the Commander or the Assistant Commissioner.”

  Marino picked up a telephone, told Herb to get one or the other on the line, then put the instrument back.

  “I know Ricky Shawn,” he said. “I would hate to have anything really bad happen to him. Have you any family?”

  “Two boys,” Roger said.

  Marino nodded, and they waited in silence while Roger tried to pierce the shroud of mystery which Marino had deliberately created. There were always difficulties about an investigation which had to be kept secret, especially in a kidnapping case.

  “Are the Shawns wealthy?” he asked suddenly.

  “Very.”

  “Why a suburban house and just a daily maid?”

  “They’ve only been there since Ricky arrived, and I imagine Belle Shawn is having fun playing at housework. Lissa doesn’t think she will for long.”

  Lissa, Roger pondered; how soon would he learn more about Lissa?

  The telephone bell rang, one of three on the desk.

  “The middle one,” Marino said.

  “The Assistant Commissioner is on the line,” said a girl, and after a moment a man with a rather hard voice asked:

  “Is that you, West? What are you doing there?”

  “They want us to look into a job which was pulled during the night,” Roger said. “They’re in a hurry, but they don’t want to talk over the telephone.”

  “All right, see what you can make of it,” Hardy said. “Don’t let them high-pressure you, though.”

  Roger pushed the telephone away, and asked:

  “Who will take me to the house ?”

  “Lissa Meredith will,” Marino answered. He lifted the telephone, and went on: “Ask Lissa to come right away, Herb.” Replacing the receiver, he continued: “You’ll get along with Lissa, but then I guess you get along with most people.”

  “I try to,” Roger said. “As this is hush-hush to begin with, why not start the right way? I won’t leave the Embassy with Miss Meredith —”

  “Mrs Meredith.”

  “Oh! I’ll have a word with her here, and pick her up somewhere on the way — on the Bayswater Road just beyond the park gates, say. I may be recognized, and if I’m seen leaving with David Shawn’s secretary, a lot of people will put two and two together.” He waited.

  “We are certainly going to get along,” Marino said, and looked up as the door opened and Lissa Meredith came in.

  3

  LISSA

  LISSA Meredith had beautiful red hair and a smile of the kind that, a few hundred years ago, would have set armies marching and empires tumbling. It wasn’t so much that she was a beauty, but that she seemed aflame with vitality. It glowed in the rich tints of her hair and the light in her honey-brown eyes and the rippling quicksilver of her movements. She wore a plain greeny-grey linen suit, with dark green piping, and a white blouse with a bow of the same piping at the neck. “Hi, Tony,” she said, and s
miled at Roger. He had to remind himself that a child had been kidnapped and the case needed all his attention.

  “Hi. Lissa, this is Superintendent Roger West of Scotland Yard. He’s going out with you to Shawn’s place. You’re to wait for him at the Hyde Park Gate in Bayswater Road. Do you know it?”

  “Who doesn’t?” she asked. “How soon?”

  “As soon as you can get there.”

  “Not quite so soon as that,” Roger said. “I’d like to know more about the affair before we leave. The address of the house, what you found there, everything that isn’t on the Secret List.”

  “I could tell you on the way,” Lissa said.

  “You can fill in the details on the way.”

  Lissa glanced at Marino, obviously for approval, and he waved her to a chair. She didn’t take it, but leaned against his desk, ankles crossed, nylon-sheathed legs slim, exciting.

  “I want to find Ricky as soon as we can,” she said. “I want to find him before Belle comes round, because any danger to him will drive her mad. She’s crazy about that boy. So is David, but David’s tougher. A broken Belle might break David, and we can’t risk that. You just have to find the child, Superintendent.” Her voice had the warmth of fire. Roger wasn’t particularly familiar with American accents, but he placed this as faintly Southern. “The house is thirty-one Wavertree Road, Ealing, one of a thousand houses that all look the same. I left there last evening at twenty after five, and everything was normal. Ricky walked to the end of the street with me. I arrived there this morning at ten minutes after eight, and the first thing that seemed wrong was the silence. Belle often sleeps late but David is usually up early, and so is Ricky. I went upstairs, and found David and Belle so deep asleep that they wouldn’t wake up.”

  Roger said: “Asleep?”

  “Breathing,” she corrected. “Under drugs, you can be sure of that. I couldn’t get across to Ricky’s room quickly enough. His bed had been slept in, but it was empty. His clothes were gone, and so was a suitcase — one I unpacked for him when he arrived, three weeks ago. Belle just couldn’t live without him.”

  Roger sensed criticism of Belle Shawn. Disapproval or just impatience? he wondered.

  “Toothbrush and things gone?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Lissa stood upright. “That was a relief, they wouldn’t take his toothbrush if they didn’t mean to look after him.” She probably meant “If they meant to kill him.”

  “I suppose not,” Roger said.

  She said sharply: “Don’t you agree?”

  “Supposing we don’t take anything for granted? They would take his toothbrush if they wanted us to think that they were going to take good care of him, wouldn’t they?”

  She stared down at him; and now her honey-coloured eyes weren’t smiling, they were nearly threatening.

  “If you say that to Belle or to David,” she said, “I won’t forgive you.”

  She was a new experience for Roger; working with her would be as invigorating as a walk in the teeth of a high wind.

  “Did you look round the rest of the house?” he asked.

  “Surely. The back door was open.”

  She had been thorough, she had a mind for detail, and she had kept her head. Added to everything he had seen about her was an underlying factor which might be a truer indication of her nature; coolness in emergency.

  Marino put an elbow on the polished desk, and said with a hint of impatience:

  “Lissa knows the Shawns better than anyone in England. She can tell you about them on the way.”

  “All right, I’m nearly ready to go,” Roger said. “You’ll have to send a doctor, quickly. The Shawns may need one. Shall I fix it with Division, or —”

  “I’ll fix the doctor.”

  “And I’d like to call the Yard again.”

  Marino gave instructions to Herb, and the others watched him as he picked up the telephone, were intent on every word he said.

  He spoke to Bill Sloan, who already knew a little, and would be as discreet as anyone.

  “Bill, contact the Ealing Station,” he said. “Have them find out who was patrolling Wavertree Road last night, the late day-duty man and the night-duty man. I want to see both officers at the Divisional station at” — he glanced at a small clock on the desk; it was a little after ten o’clock — “noon on the dot.”

  “I’ll see to it,” promised Sloan.

  Thanks.” Roger put down the receiver and stood up. “You go ahead, Mrs Meredith, in a taxi. I’ll pick you up at the gate two or three minutes later. Is that all right?”

  “Surely.”

  Her eyes glowed approval before she turned away, waved from the door, and went out. Roger supposed that he would get used to her; that if he tried hard enough, he could become proof against her disturbing vitality.

  Marino was smiling as if guessing that his thoughts were on the woman at least as much as on the case.

  “One other thing, Mr West. Before you report to your superiors, you will come and see me, won’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once again Marino didn’t get up, simply put out a hand.

  Going towards the lift, with Herb as guide, Roger realized how little Marino had said and how much he had implied; and he warned himself that he must not worry about the reasons for secrecy, this was a single problem, the finding of a kidnapped child. But the emotional factor couldn’t be disregarded for long; if the boy was not back by the time his mother came round, there would probably be a lot of complications.

  Lissa Meredith was standing near the gate, beautiful against the heavy summer foliage of the trees and the grass still brilliant green from summer rain. She was beside the car before he could get out, slid into the seat next to him and closed the door.

  “You were on time,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything you saw, all the details you can remember, and everything you think I ought to know about the Shawns,” Roger answered. He offered her his cigarette case. “Down to the most minute detail.”

  “Such as toothbrushes,” she said. “I’d rather smoke my own.” She took a red packet of Pall Malls from her handbag, and flicked a lighter as Roger slid the car into the stream of traffic. “They had gone to bed in a hurry, that’s for sure. Belle’s clothes were just dropped on the floor, some of David’s were in a pile by the side of the bed. I don’t believe that means what you probably think it means. Belle is a tidy creature by habit. Fastidious.” Again the implication of criticism, of “too fastidious”. “They hadn’t cleared away after dinner, which was most unusual. Belle is having fun being a real housewife. Sometimes she will just put the dirty things in the washing-up machine, but she won’t leave the dining-room untidy. They must have been desperately tired. Do you want me to guess?”

  “Just facts, please.”

  “I might guess better than you.”

  “We’ll guess together when we have to,” Roger said. “Don’t lets start arguing.”

  She looked intently at his profile, which was very good. If there was anything wrong, it was with his chin, which was rather heavy and thrusting. He had a shortish nose and finely chiselled lips, his hat was pushed to the back of his head, showing wavy, corn-coloured hair, the colour of which almost disguised the grey. He knew that she was studying him closely.

  “Who wants to argue?” There was laughter as well as submission in the words. “The back door wasn’t locked, but the front door was. None of the catches had been fastened at the windows. Belle is a nervous woman, the windows were always fastened and doors bolted.”

  “Why was — why is she nervous?”

  “I don’t know of any reasons, except —” Lissa paused. “Except that being nervous is a kind of obsession with her.”

  “You don’t sound as if you approve of Belle Shawn,” Roger said drily, and when that won no response, he went on: “What do you think gives her this obsession?”

  “No one’s ever put her
across his knee, face downwards,” said Lissa, very deliberately. “You really want to know about her?”

  “I have to know,” Roger said. “I have to be able to judge how much notice to pay to what she says. Do you mean she is spoiled?”

  “Fussed, pampered, protected against the evil world, indulged since she was able to walk. And in spite of all that,” Lissa Meredith went on, “the better Belle often shows through, the good and adorable Belle. You’re right to want to know about Belle before you talk to her.”

  “You imply that she’s neurotic and hard to live with?” Roger asked.

  “Part of the time, that’s true.”

  “Is she happy?”

  “Can a bundle of nerves be happy?”

  “Part of the time.”

  “Oh, she is. Little parts. David’s been away from her a great deal. First the Korean war, then some special assignments. That is why they came to England. David’s likely to be here for twelve months, perhaps longer. Then she found she couldn’t bear to be without Ricky, and they sent for him. Did you really mean to ask if she’s happy with David?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “I can tell you he’s in love with her — passionately. But it’s one thing for a man to come back to a beautiful wife, to know she’s waiting, another to be the patient, faithful wife. Oh, I don’t think there is anything wrong.” He knew that she was glancing at him, and that her eyes were laughing. “But don’t really know each other very well Are you looking for a motive?”

  “Just for facts.” He turned into a main road near Hammersmith Broadway, where five roads met and the lumbering red giants of the buses loomed over the black Humber Hawk.

  “Shawn’s inclined to give her her head, is he? He’s too easy with her?”

  “Isn’t that a guess?” taunted Lissa.

  “A deduction. His wife usually sleeps late, the maid arrives at nine, and Shawn and his son get up early, so someone gets the breakfast.”

  Lissa laughed.

  “They don’t have a cooked breakfast. But you’re right, David takes the easy way with Belle.”

  “Has there ever been any threat to the boy?”

  “I’ve not heard of one.”