The Depths Page 8

  6. Patrick Mullahy, the Irish scientist who specialised in high tensile steel, and in metallurgical work including that on submarines. He was responsible for heat resisting alloys which enabled submarines to stay under water for exceptionally long periods. He had been lost while fishing off Dublin.

  7. Corvell.

  When he had finished this, Palfrey studied the list and began to see more in common among them. All had been fairly near the coast, near coastal areas which had been affected by the freak waves, which he now realised might have been underwater disturbances caused by the silver midget submarines, or whatever Julia had seen. There was a pattern, too. Each man had been a specialist in his own particular sphere; each had been probably the greatest expert in his field.

  The first disappearance had happened over eighteen months ago, and the others had followed at fairly regular three monthly intervals, attracting less attention than they would had they all happened within a few weeks. The fact that the first disappearance was so long ago alarmed Palfrey now, for it meant that ‘they’ had been operating for a long time. None of Z5’s agents in any part of the world had reported any indication of ‘them’; had he not taken such extreme care with Corvell, Palfrey might have known nothing even now.

  The telephone bell rang.

  He turned towards it, glancing at his watch. It was now half past ten, and Julia had been gone for nearly an hour. Every minute of the last half hour he had been expecting a report. Was this it?

  He stretched out his hand for the receiver, and looked into the bedroom as he did so. There was no movement there; as far as he knew the girl-woman had been in that coma all the time. The windows were bolted and the shutters closed, it was impossible for anyone to get in or out of the bedroom except through this outer room.

  “Palfrey.”

  “Dr Palfrey,” Duval said. “You were right.”

  Palfrey swallowed a lump in his throat.

  “Just what happened?”

  “The ambulance was held up halfway between the hotel and the hospital. The attendants were taken in a small car and stranded on the mountains – they have just telephoned me. The ambulance was taken into a cul-de-sac on the mountain road. When discovered, it was empty.”

  “Empty,” echoed Palfrey.

  “She was not there,” Duval told him. “Already we have searched the area around, and there is no sign of her. Undoubtedly she was taken away.”

  “I see,” said Palfrey. His mouth felt dry. “The first part’s gone according to plan, anyhow. Thanks, Duval.”

  “All the police, all my agents and the coastal authorities have been alerted,” Duval assured him. “If there should be any sign of SKJ you will be told at once.”

  “Thanks,” Palfrey said.

  “Do you need anything more?”

  “Not now.” Palfrey forced some warmth into his voice. “Not yet, anyhow. But when I do want it, I know you’ll give it to me.”

  “You are very kind.” There was a note of gratification in Duval’s voice, and Palfrey rang off wondering whether he should have given Duval a meed of praise earlier; it was so easy to take first-class work for granted. It was easy, too, to take the organisation of Z5 for granted – at one time, when it had started, there had been an agent here, an agent there, but vast areas of the civilised world had not been covered. Now it was like a world police force; a world secret police force.

  At least he hadn’t taken Julia Shawn for granted.

  He spent another five minutes studying the reports and the charts, and then went into the other room. The girl-woman lay there, just as she had after Dr Gaston had examined her; she had not stirred. Her breathing was very soft, shallow and hardly perceptible, her pulse rate low but not dangerously so. He placed his thumb on her right eyelid, and raised it; she stared up at him, unseeing. He did the same with the other, and the result was repeated. He moved further back from the bed and stared at her.

  A hypnotic coma – self-imposed?

  It was possible for some forms of hypnosis to be effective at a distance; with the hypnotists in the next room, perhaps, or in the next street. Victims, often called patients, had been known to ‘sleep’ for days on end. But there was nothing to suggest that anyone else had worked on her mind. If it was self-imposed, when would she come out of it?

  Was there any way to bring her out?

  A hypnotic trance could be highly dangerous, and he did not want her dead; in fact the very last thing he wanted was to lose her. He put his hands on the foot panel of the bed and stared at her, remembering how she had made it easy for him to laugh, how pleasant it had been when she had been awake.

  The odd thing was that he had not been greatly affected by the seduction scene – looking back, it amused him. But there was nothing to be amused about. In this woman’s mind, so comatose at this moment, were all the secrets he wanted to know. He must not risk damaging it.

  He moved again, wrapped her up in a sheet, lifted her off the bed, and carried her to the big wicker laundry basket which Duval’s men had brought in. There was a pillow at the bottom. He placed her in it, carefully. Laying her on her side, with her knees bent a little, there was good room for her; she was almost tiny; almost. He had not seen her profile so clearly before, and now he looked at it intently; flawless, of course – the contours of the cheeks, the outline of the eyebrows, the shape of the nose; that was what Julia had first noticed.

  He put two pillows on top of her, leaving her head clear, then closed the box. The lid just pressed the pillows down. He went to the door, and called one of the ‘electricians’, who came at once. His companion followed. They took the laundry basket out of the room, and began to follow their precise instructions, already given.

  When they had gone, Palfrey went back into the suite. From this moment until he knew that the girl-woman was safe in Julia’s cabin, he would be on edge. The impersonation might have been discovered by now, of course, the hotel might be closely watched; he would probably be closely watched. The great impulse was to go after the men and accompany the laundry basket, but that would be folly; he must not show any particular interest in it.

  He put the papers away in a brief-case, and was ready to go. He hesitated, stripped, had a cool shower, and dressed, picked up the brief-case, and went out.

  No one appeared to take any interest in him.

  A quartet – piano, two violins and a ‘cello – was playing on the hotel terrace, where twenty or thirty people sat drinking coffee, having a late petit dejeuner, or sipping the first aperitif of the day. He waited for a stream of traffic to pass, then stepped across the boulevard, pausing for a moment between the huge palm trees. The deck chairs were filling up, the fat old women in their drab grey uniforms were collecting the money for them, the bells on the ticket machines kept going ting-ting-ting. The beaches were crowded at every bathing station. The sun-bathers were stretched out, near-naked, sun-tan lotion glistening on pink bodies, pale bodies, golden-brown bodies, near-black bodies. No one took any notice. Children were screaming and jumping about at the water’s edge. Palfrey walked towards the market and the harbour. He was hatless, and the sun was hot on his head. Now and again he toyed with a few tendrils of hair, then patted them down. Occasionally, he paused, leaned against the railings, and appeared to gaze idly at the beach and the reclining bodies; actually he was looking ahead and behind him. There was still nothing to indicate that he had been followed.

  He walked on.

  No one among these crowds could even begin to guess the anxieties on his mind – and no one, looking at him, would have suspected that any existed. He was smiling faintly. He walked with deceptive leisureliness, actually covering the ground quite quickly. His shoulders sloped, and his beige-coloured suit, beautifully cut, nevertheless contrived to conceal the muscular strength of his tall body.

  No one approached him.

 
At the end of the promenade, he hailed a taxi. He sat back in it, watching through the rear window, still sure that he was not followed. They were held up for a few minutes while a horse drawing a fiacre clip-clopped along, ignoring the traffic. Horns began to blare. Palfrey kept seeing Julia Shawn’s face in his mind’s eye, and then the unknown woman’s face. She had not even told him her name, remember – he knew absolutely nothing about her.

  Was she at the ship, yet?

  Or could she have been rescued, on the way to it? Had he been a fool to leave her to Duval’s men? Had he been right to assume that ‘they’ would never dream that he had sent her to the ship?

  Chapter Ten

  VIGIL

  Palfrey stepped into Julia Shawn’s cabin. The laundry basket was on the bed; as far as he could see, it had not been opened. The canvas straps were in position, and it was standing the right way up. He closed and locked the door behind him, then pulled the straps out of the buckles and raised the lid. Not until then was he fully satisfied; the strange woman was there. She had not stirred, and did not appear to be breathing. In a moment of alarm, Palfrey tossed the pillows on one side, drew her to a sitting position, and lifted her out.

  She was breathing.

  And – she was so very lovely!

  He rested her on the bed, took the laundry basket away, and sat down. On the way here, while he had been on the look out for men following him, while he had been fighting back fears for this girl and for Julia, his subconscious mind must have been working hard; he had learned to trust it. Now he knew that he must do nothing to shock his captive into consciousness because it might do irreparable harm, and if that were done there would be nothing to learn from her. But sooner or later she would come out of the coma.

  Need he have even a moment’s doubt?

  He got up, checked that the porthole was closed and secured, and went out. He closed and locked the bedroom door. The broad-faced sergeant-at-arms was on duty.

  “Is the lady coming back, sir?”

  Palfrey grinned.

  “She’s back.”

  “Back?” Scepticism made the man’s voice shrill. “But I’ve been here all the time. All they took in was a laundry basket —strewth!”

  “That’s right,” Palfrey said. “We didn’t want anyone to know she was back on board – we thought she would be safer that way. So we smuggled her in. You need to take just as many precautions, though.”

  “Trust me,” the sergeant-at-arms said. His grin seemed to split his broad face in two. “That’s a smart trick, that is – fooled me all right.”

  The implication was that if it could fool him, it could fool anybody. The important thing was that he thought Julia was back. Soon everyone who mattered on board would think the same, so the precautions would not be relaxed. Palfrey began to consider the most effective way of making sure that ‘they’ could not find out for certain where the girl-woman was. The Seafarer seemed as safe a place as any, and could be protected more easily, in some ways, than a hotel, or anywhere on land. On the other hand, ‘they’ operated from the sea, so a ship might be more vulnerable. Moreover, there were anti-radiation shelters pitted all over the Alpes Maritimes, and any one of these was at disposal.

  “But if I hide her there, I’ve little freedom of action,” he mused. “Sooner or later I’ll need her as a bait.”

  He would soon be able to discuss the situation with Stefan, whose detachment and good sense never failed.

  One thing was certain: the girl-woman mustn’t stay in Julia’s cabin for long. It would be much better to have a suite, where he could keep watch part of the time, and where someone would always be at her side, to send for him the moment she showed any signs of coming round.

  He went along to the Chief Purser’s office. The Purser, a tall, thoughtful-looking man, had known that Simon Alting worked for one of the intelligence departments, and knew enough about Palfrey to spring to attention when he entered. He exerted himself to be helpful.

  “Very glad to say that young Alting is going to pull through,” he said. “He’ll be convalescent for some time, I’m afraid, not much use to you, but there’s no need to worry about him … what can I do for you?” … He listened, half frowning, made heavy weather of it, and finally said: “Well, Mr and Mrs Owen and their son – I mean the Owens are going back home. They lost their only son, you know – swept overboard; awful business. She’s almost prostrate. He’s flying her home – I believe they’ve left.” He checked his passenger lists. “Yes, they have – caught a morning plane. Now if you would like that suite it’s a very good one, main deck, amidships, very little movement there even in the roughest weather …

  “Only a few doors away from Miss Shawn, too.… Oh, yes, I could make sure that no one’s in the passage while she moves from one to the other. No trouble at all.”

  Palfrey carried his prisoner. She was very light, and not by any means a dead weight, although she was still in the coma and showed no sign of coming out of it.

  Palfrey locked the bedroom door on her, after making sure that the portholes in it were secured – he must leave as little as possible to chance. He stepped across the drawing-room, which was almost as plush as the one at the hotel, and as he did so the telephone bell rang. He went across and picked it up. It was now nearly one o’clock, and he was feeling hungry; hunger was always a good sign, it suggested that he was coping with the situation, and was less worried than he had been.

  “This is Dr Palfrey.”

  “Dr Palfrey,” a man said in an unfamiliar voice, “you could not have committed a greater act of folly.”

  Palfrey said, softly: “Than what?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. You will bring her to the yacht basin at Cannes. You will be there in two hours – at three o’clock precisely. You will bring her in a closed car, sitting behind you, and no one else will be in the car. When you have reached the basin, you will get out of the car and walk away. You will not turn back. I trust you understand.”

  “I—ah—I understand what you mean,” Palfrey said.

  There were times when he could sound and appear foolish, almost inane; and often he chose that as a kind of defence at moments when he was not quite sure what to do. “Whether I’ll obey is a different matter.”

  “You will do what I say, or I shall send this woman agent of yours back. Dead.”

  “Oh,” said Palfrey. “That would be a pity.” There was nothing foolish or inane about his expression, although there was a vacillating note in his voice. “I shouldn’t really, you know. The dead aren’t any use to us. Unless of course you’ve really discovered the secret of re-incarnation, and everlasting life. I mean in the physical sense, not the spiritual.”

  The man said: “How much did she tell you of such things? She cannot have said much, or you would never have refused her what she wanted.”

  After a split second, Palfrey went on in the same kind of dithering voice:

  “Oh, I don’t know. The trouble with people like you is that you assume that you’re the only ones with methods of persuasion and – but never mind. No dice. You’d be silly to kill Julia Shawn. She’s much too nice a girl, and I’m sure your envoy is, too. Very charming, if a little sleepy. I thought that we might try electric shock treatment. I’m told that—”

  “You must not!”

  “Oh, dear,” said Palfrey. “Do I detect a note of alarm? How obliging of you. Electric shock treatment wouldn’t do her any good, then. Well, I’ll suspend operations for a short while, if you’ll do the same with Julia Shawn. Why don’t we meet?”

  “Palfrey, if Leah is harmed—”

  “You feel about Leah as I feel about Julia, obviously,” Palfrey interrupted. “I think you’ve had it all your own way for too long. Or thought you had. You’d be surprised if you knew how much we’ve been thinking about you, and why we had Corv
ell so closely watched. I repeat – why don’t we meet?”

  “I have told you what to do. Do it.”

  “Oh, dear,” repeated Palfrey, as if forlorn. “I can’t, you know. I simply can’t.”

  Then he forced himself to ring off.

  He stood close to the telephone, with a hand at his forehead; he could feel the sweat. He was covered in sweat as if he were in an oven. He swallowed the lump in his throat, then moved to the bathroom, poured ice-cold water out of the Thermos jug, and sipped it. He had hung up on the unknown man when he wanted more than anything else to talk to him. It had been delivering an ultimatum without really knowing the odds.

  The water was good.

  Soon, he felt cooler.

  “Leah,” he said to himself. “Her name is Leah. And she matters to him.”

  The question was – did this Leah matter enough to the man who was obviously a key figure among ‘they’? There was no way of telling; the answer would come if Julia Shawn were delivered to him, dead.

  He told himself that it would not happen; that the man would not have spoken with such feeling unless his Leah had mattered almost beyond price, but – he must wait. Waiting was always an ordeal. He went into the bedroom and glanced at the girl-woman, said “Leah”, in a husky voice, checked that the portholes were secured, and left her alone again. He ordered a steak with French fried potatoes and baked endive, with Camembert cheese to follow. Then he lit a cigarette and crossed to the porthole. He could see a great number of small boats, riding in the harbour. A white cabin cruiser sailed by, slow, majestic; two fishing boats passed. The harbour was always busy, never still.

  Palfrey tried to concentrate on what the man had said, and one thing seemed significant: Palfrey sheered away from it, because it was so improbable, yet it might prove to be all important. He had said: “The dead aren’t any use to us, unless of course you’ve really discovered the secret of re-incarnation and everlasting life.” Instead of rejecting that impatiently, the man had said: “How much did she tell you of such things? She cannot have said much.” He seemed to have assumed that Leah had put the idea of re-incarnation and everlasting life into Palfrey’s mind, whereas he had made an obvious retort.