The Black Spiders Read online

  ‘Is Jane Wyatt one of—you?’ Murray asked.

  ‘Good half-question. She’s nearly two of us. God bless Jane. I would have you know,’ went on the pilot, ‘that I have been instructed to acquaint you with as much background knowledge as I can, once you evinced curiosity. You took a long time about it. Jane Wyatt was married to Gerald Wyatt; one of our better bigger boys. He was killed two years ago; nasty job in a burning house. And Jane—well, Jane’s part of the fabric of the place now, so to speak.’

  Murray said: ‘I see.’

  She had kept so calm, in face of the fire.

  They were circling over St. James’s Park now, and he saw St. James’s Palace, the grey-white buildings of Whitehall and, as the helicopter swung round, Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, Trafalgar Square, the great sprawling mass of London all about it, and the Parks which looked as if they had been painted on the smoky greyness. In the great courtyard of St. James’s Palace, where so many ceremonials added to London’s history, was a little group of men. The courtyard was cordoned off, with at least a hundred soldiers at attention.

  The pilot made for this.

  ‘Going down,’ he said, as they began to hover. ‘Just gulp if you have funny sensations in your ears. The crowd probably think the Duke of E.’s having a joy ride. Er—before we land, one other thing. Craigie’s a great believer in props, you know.’

  ‘Props?’

  ‘Gadgets. Secret doors, hidden bells, simple or obscure codes, passwords—he believes in the whole box of tricks. I used to disagree with him, thought it was all juvenile hocus pocus, but when you’ve seen it work, you rather get to like it. Don’t be put off.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said the pilot. ‘Mind the step.’

  A closed car, with a driver and one passenger, was waiting inside the cordon. Before Murray could really be observed by two or three hundred people surrounding the soldiers, he was inside the car. The passenger was burly Superintendent Miller, who grunted a greeting, and looked out of the window as if he wondered whether they were being followed, after all; or being watched as a line of police forced a path for his car. When he appeared to be satisfied that there was nothing to worry about, he relaxed and turned to Murray.

  ‘Only just round the corner,’ he declared; ‘we won’t be long. Mind playing a silly game?’ He sounded as if he meant exactly that—there was none of the flippancy of the pilot in his expression or his words. ‘Craigie insists on it, these days —thought it up about six months ago.’

  Murray said: ‘I’m beginning to wonder if this is a new kind of lunacy.’

  ‘Lunacy,’ echoed Miller, and smoothed his dusty-looking moustache. ‘Gaw, of course it is. Life is, isn’t it? Ever read a newspaper and think? Gives you the creeps. Take this morning. Just had the year’s figures for road accidents; nearly six thousand people on the roads last year, over one in five of them kids. Slaughter’s another word for murder—and it goes on and on. Ain’t that lunacy? And look at the things that happen abroad. And look—anyway, Craigie’s the boss, so you have to. Put it on, will you, and don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘What . . . ?’ began Murray, and he saw ‘it’—a small black mask, with no holes for the eyes.

  He put it on; the elastic kept it close to his head.

  He did not know in what part of the district they stopped, but the journey took about ten minutes. He was helped out of the car, helpless as a blind man would be, and then he walked across a pavement, heard a lot of traffic including buses moving very fast, and then heard a door open, with a slight creak. Next moment there was the echo of his own and Miller’s footsteps which proved that they were somewhere inside a building probably with bare walls.

  ‘Step up,’ Miller said.

  Murray obeyed, and climbed a flight of steps cautiously, and then another. Here Miller stopped, and after a moment’s pause, he said:

  ‘Okay, take it off.’

  Murray took the mask and handed it back. He blinked in a poor light which seemed bright after the darkness. About him were blank walls, painted a drab green, and there was a hand-rail which ran all the way round the little square landing where they stood. There was no door, nothing to suggest that this led to anywhere but the next flight of stairs.

  ‘Do you hand me over to Craigie here?’ he asked, and in spite of what he had been told by the pilot and what he knew, he began to feel a sharp sense of exasperation; this was simply play acting. They were grown men, and . . .

  The wall in front of him began to slide open. Miller didn’t seem even slightly surprised, and as the section stopped moving, he led the way forward. They seemed to be inside a thick wall, for there was another facing them— and the sliding panel behind them slid to, enclosing them, as if they were being walled up. But then a section of the wall in front began to move, and Miller said:

  ‘Here we are.’

  He stepped into a long, spacious room. At first sight there was little remarkable about it, for at the far end there were desks, filing cabinets, cupboards and chairs, all of drab green steel. There were at least a dozen telephones, a dictaphone on its stand, and several other oddments.

  There were no windows, yet the light seemed like that of a bright but rather cloudy day.

  As they stepped into the room, Miller looked round towards the right; and there was a different scene. A fireplace, with a bright fire blazing, several armchairs pulled up in a semi-circle, a corner cupboard the door of which was ajar, and from which there poked the end of a navy-blue tie. The huge mantelpiece was of beautifully carved, light brown oak. On the wall was a rack with several meerschaums in it, there were small tables—everything one might expect to find in a bachelor’s flat.

  In one armchair was an elderly, grey-haired man with a hatchet face—a face which immediately made Murray think of a North American Indian; the lips curved and the face was so deeply lined that one could picture him sitting cross-legged in front of his wickiac, smoking as he was smoking a meerschaum now—and occasionally removing the pipe and saying:

  ‘How.’

  He had very clear grey eyes.

  Standing up and moving rather awkwardly as he did so, was another, much larger man, ungainly, and with a mop of untidy hair which had once been dark brown, and was now streaked with grey. His brown suit wanted pressing, and the buttons of the waistcoat were undone, as if he was getting fatter and it would no longer fasten with comfort.

  ‘Hallo, there,’ this man said, and smiled faintly; that made him even more homely, and rather better-looking. ‘Sorry we’ve had to wish this on you, Murray. I’m Loftus, and this is Gordon Craigie.’

  Now Craigie stood up, a neat man and almost dapper in grey—a figure whom Murray knew was almost legendary and who, in some indefinable way, created an impression of greatness as he held out his right hand.

  9. Craigie and Loftus

  Murray felt the firm grip of Craigie’s hand; then the power in Loftus’s grip. He had nearly forgotten Miller, who shook hands with each man, then sat down in one of the easy chairs and pulled out a pipe, large by ordinary standards but dwarfed by Craigie’s. Loftus pushed a chair a little closer to the fire and said: ‘Take a pew,’ as casually as if this was a little social occasion, and then he asked: ‘What would you like? Beer, any of the hard stuff, or . . .’

  ‘Beer. Thanks.’ Play-acting?

  ‘Pale or dark?’

  ‘Bitter.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Loftus, and went to the cupboard. He took out three bottles of beer, one of gin and an Italian vermouth, and then brought out a glass, two pewter and one silver tankards. Expertly, and certainly as well as any barman, he took the screw tops off the bottles and filled the tankards; the silver one for Murray, the others for himself and Miller. Then he put the gin and Italian close to Craigie’s side, and dropped into a huge armchair. It creaked. He picked up his tankard, raised it high, blew at imaginary froth, and said:

  ‘May you never be blindfolded again. Here’s health.’

/>   ‘Ah,’ said Miller, and they both quaffed.

  Murray found himself smiling faintly, but that wasn’t the important thing. Craigie was. Craigie sat there pouring himself a drink, and Murray found it hard to think of either of the others. There was that aura of greatness, almost a kind of mesmerism. Murray had met men with it before, and knew that it manifested itself on the first moment of meeting. There were few men alive today who had it, but some of the great dictators undoubtedly had the quality. Peron, at one stage in his life. Gandhi had, too. Oh, there were dozens, and he had learned to recognise it quickly; he had no doubt that he was in the presence of a kind of greatness.

  ‘We owe you a little explanation first,’ Craigie said quietly. ‘We were told that Miss Lang was on her way to England, but not until it was too late to meet her at the airport. We sent men to her aunt’s house in Hampstead—but she didn’t arrive. One of our men on the way to the house saw her being forced to get into a taxi. He followed her, but couldn’t get word to us. We now know that he was at Cliff House, and his body was found near the cottage. He . . .’

  ‘That would be the man at the corner,’ Murray said heavily. ‘Well, I think he saved Juanita’s life.’

  ‘That’s a good thing to hear,’ Cragie said quietly, and went on: ‘I wonder if you’ll tell us exactly what happened, and what Miss Lang’s told you,’ he said. ‘Go through it from the beginning, will you?’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘By everything,’ put in Loftus, ‘we mean your reactions as well as Miss Lang’s.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Craigie. ‘We know exactly how you reacted when the policeman came back to the cottage with the postman this morning, and we know what you did when the bomb dropped. But we’d like everything in your own words.’ He sipped his drink again, and then went on: ‘You can be quite sure that Miss Lang isn’t in danger at the moment; at least we’ve gained some time. Or you could say that you’ve gained it.’

  Murray hesitated for a few moments. Then he said:

  ‘Perhaps I’d better start a little before the shooting last night. For instance, why I was at the cottage . . .’

  He began to talk very quietly; as if he had been commanded and there was no option but to obey.

  Loftus and Craigie, in their respective chairs, and Miller who sat on the other side of Murray, listened to the newspaper correspondent as he talked so easily and without any kind of histrionics or, as far as they could judge, without any kind of exaggeration. He was a professional reporter, and he was reporting; and as he talked it was easy to understand the reputation which he had won for himself with his dispatches to the Post-Dispatch.

  Loftus particularly liked his opening sentences.

  ‘For instance, why was I at the cottage at all?’ Murray said, and his lips curved slightly, giving him a droll look. ‘I’d been fired from the Post-Dispatch. The editorial policy is the Empire Right or Wrong, as you know, and for a long time they’ve been cutting odd sentences and sometimes whole paragraphs out of my dispatches—bits which I thought were essential to give a true picture of the whole story. Patriotism’s an absolute, in its way, but sometimes it’s truer patriotism to admit a fault than to pretend one doesn’t exist. Do you want any examples?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Craigie said dryly; ‘we know what you mean.’

  ‘Thanks. Well, I came home from the West Indies last week. Two or three more recent dispatches had been cut about badly, and I told the Editor I didn’t like it. He said I would have to lump it. I said that I would report what I saw and not what he or anyone else wanted to see and I sent in two more. As a result, he fired me.’

  Murray was still smiling faintly.

  ‘Reports on what?’ asked Craigie.

  ‘Living conditions in parts of the West Indies.’

  ‘Hmm, yes; go on,’ said Craigie.

  ‘Well, contrary to a lot of people’s ideas, foreign correspondents do not make a fortune, and I’m no exception,’ Murray said. ‘What’s more, I’d had a bad time, financially. I—er—was divorced two years ago, and one way and the other—want details?’

  ‘No,’ said Craigie. He didn’t add that he had them. Murray’s wife had gone to live with another man, and he had given her a divorce.

  ‘Thanks,’ Murray said, with his droll smile.

  He went on to tell them that the far-famed Abbotts— husband and wife collaborators in light-hearted farces for the West End stage—had let him the cottage for the winter, as he had expected to be in England for some time. He had known the Abbotts slightly even before that. They had just put on a wild farce, at the Glory Theatre in the West End, called Penny Coloured—a semi-musical with a huge cast of Jamaican and other coloured actors and actresses, and they expected the show to have a long run.

  Murray had wanted a few weeks, perhaps a few months, of quiet and general reflection, particularly after he had been fired. He had sufficient money, and he had been abroad for over six years, with only occasional breaks in England Much of the time he had been in danger areas, such as Korea, Kenya, Indo-China, Morocco, and Cyprus—where he had first met the Abbotts, when they had been touring military camps in the Middle East. In casual-sounding sentences he explained that the divorce had come about because he had been away so much.

  ‘So I went down to the cottage four days ago,’ Murray said. ‘It’s a long way from anywhere—that’s why the Abbotts bought it, together with Cliff House, a couple of years ago. They can bury themselves if they want to. In the winter they usually let the big house furnished when they can, and leave the cottage if they can. I think I’m the first tenant. Anyhow, until about half-past two this morning it was as normal as it could be. Then . . .’

  Craigie watched him closely, and studied the alert, intelligent face, the fine honey-coloured eyes, the sensitive lips. It was easy to believe that Murray was a man of great understanding, of great compassion and of tolerance. Certainly, he was a humanitarian. If at times that made him sound cynical, it did not mean that he was truly cynical; but a lot of things hurt.

  He had a deep, pleasant voice, and formed his words very carefully. Only now and again did a hint of the Scottish burr creep in, and that usually when he used the double-r.

  Craigie and Loftus had been studying reports on him for some hours. They were reports which had been obtained from the Post-Dispatch and from the Army, Naval and Air Force intelligence departments which had all screened Murray before he had been allowed to go to certain fields of military operations. Few men’s lives could have been more thoroughly investigated, and few came out with a cleaner sheet. There was even more. On three occasions he had been screened by United States intelligence officers, once when he had been on an atomic research reporting mission in Nevada. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had passed him without question.

  Murray, then, was a safe risk.

  The way he told his story made that seem even more obvious. The courage of what he had done was glossed over, and he was almost apologetic whenever he talked of himself. He should have got down that well quicker, for instance. By the time he had finished, Miller was looking at him obviously with a new respect. Miller had the profile view—Murray’s nose was rather long, almost Roman, and he had a good, bony chin.

  At last, he finished.

  Loftus rubbed his upper lip, then drained his tankard and looked round towards the cupboard as if he wished that another bottle of beer was handy; but it was out of reach and he didn’t get up. Murray drank a little more of his beer; he still had half a tankard.

  ‘What conclusions have you reached?’ Craigie asked, as if curiously.

  ‘I know what I think this is all about, but I’d need a lot more information before I attempted to reach any conclusion,’ Murray said. ‘There’s an attempt to disrupt the situation in Canna, of course. I’ve heard the rumours. Meya Kamil is absolutely pro-British, and the island is in a key position—both strategically and politically,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘While it remains absol
utely loyal to us, we’ve a strong hand in the Middle East and in Africa. If it turned into another Cyprus, and if rebels could work up popular agitation against us—well, it wouldn’t be good. In Cyprus we had a strong military reason for wanting absolute control, but here it’s not such a strong case outwardly, anyhow.’

  ‘That’s right, soft pedal,’ Loftus said. ‘The strategic importance of Canna is pretty big, though. It’s really the bung in the hole, Murray. If Canna was pulled out of the Commonwealth, a lot of very good liquor would spill out.’

  Murray said: ‘Yes, I know.’

  Undoubtedly Craigie was assessing him, and undoubtedly he affected Murray more than Loftus. Murray had his own storehouse of knowledge, too, and his own beliefs. It was one thing to say that Britain needed the colonies for political and economic reasons; but it was another, and one seldom voiced, to say that the colonies needed Britain.

  Many colonies did.

  Murray had no illusions about these things. Take away the guiding, the restraining, and the governing hand of Britain, and in some cases disaster would follow in a frighteningly short time.

  And many peoples were being fed far too early with fodder for nationalism.

  Craigie knew this better than he did.

  Now, Craigie asked:

  ‘What else did Juanita Lang tell you?’

  ‘Nothing. The important things, as far as I could judge, were that she’d been living in Canna with Meya Kamil, that he disappeared, that she was kidnapped and was then asked to tell her kidnappers where Meya Kamil was. They gave her a taste of torture, I think. Her wrists are badly bruised.’