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“Miss Harme says she wanted to stay in England and do a job of work.”

“Yes? Is that so? But she’d have had to be the boss or nothing, I’ll be bound. My point is this, Mr. Alleyn. Suppose she was offered something pretty big in the way of a position, a Reich-something-or-other ship, when the enemy had beaten us, would she have fallen for the notion? That’s what I asked myself.”

“And how did you answer yourself?”

“Doubtful. Not impossible. You see with her as the only member of the house who had a chance of getting into this workroom I thought quite a lot about Madam. She might have got a key for herself when she had the Yale lock put on the door for the young gentlemen. It wasn’t impossible. She had to be considered. And the more she talked about getting rid of enemy agents in this country the more I wondered if she might be one herself. She used to say that we oughtn’t to be afraid to use what was good in Nazi methods, their youth-training schemes and fostering of nationalistic ideas, and she used to come down very hard on anything like independent critical thinking. It was all right, of course. Lots of people think that way, all the die-hards, you might say. She read a lot of their pre-war books, too. And she didn’t like Jews. She used to say they were parasites. I’d get to thinking about her this way and then I’d kind of come down with a bump and call myself crazy.”

Alleyn asked him if he had anything more tangible to go on and he shook his head mournfully. Nothing. Beyond her curiosity about the young men’s work, and she was by nature curious, there had been nothing. There was, he said, another view to take, and in many ways a more reasonable one. Mrs. Rubrick had been appointed to a counter-espionage committee and, in that capacity, may have threatened the success of an agent. She may even have formed suspicions of a member of her household and have given herself away. She was not a discreet woman. This, pushed a little further, might produce a motive for her murder.

“Yes,” said Alleyn dryly. “That’s why Captain Grace thinks you killed her, you know.”

Markins said with venom that Captain Grace was not immune from suspicion himself. “He’s silly enough to do anything,” he whispered angrily. “And what about his background, anyway? Heidelberg. He doesn’t look so hot. And what about him being a Nazi sympathizer? I may be dumb but I haven’t overlooked that little point.”

“You don’t really believe it, though, do you?” Alleyn asked with a smile.

Markins muttered disconsolately: “No brains.”

“There’s one other point,” Alleyn said. “We’ve got to consider whether this attempt to forward documentary information was the be-all and end-all of the agent’s mission. If, having achieved this object, no more was expected of him, or if he was to forward other information as regards, for instance, Mrs. Rubrick’s counter-espionage activities, which is the sort of stuff that needs no documentary evidence. That perennial nuisance, the hidden radio transmitter, would meet the case.”

“Don’t I know it,” Markins grumbled. “And there’s a sizable range of mountains where it could be cached.”

“It’d have to be accessible, though. He would be under instruction to transmit his stuff every so often when an enemy craft would edge far enough into these waters to pick it up. The files say that under cover of the hunt for Mrs. Rubrick, an extensive search was made. They even brought up a radiolocator in a car and bumped up the river-bed with it. But of course you were in that party.”

“Yes,” said Markins, “I was in with the boys. They expected me to show them the works and what could I do? Tag on and look silly. Me, supposed to be the expert! It’s a hard world.”

“It’s a weary world,” said Alleyn, swallowing a yawn. “We’re both supposed to appear in less than four hours, with shining morning faces. I’m out of training, Markins, and you’re a working man. I think we’ll call it a night.”

Markins at once got up and, by standing attentively, his head inclined forward, seemed to reassume the character of a man-servant. “Shall I open the window, sir?” he asked.

“Do, there’s a good chap, and pull back the curtains. You’ve got a torch, haven’t you? I’ll put out the candle.”

“We’re not as fussy as that about the blackout, Mr. Alleyn. Not in these parts.”

The curtain rings jingled. A square, faintly luminous, appeared in the wall. Now the air of the plateau gained entry. Alleyn felt it cold on his face and in his eyes. He pinched out the candle and heard Markins tiptoe to the door.

“Markins,” said Alleyn’s voice, quiet in the dark.

“Sir?”

“There’s another solution. You’ve thought of it, of course?”

Quite a long silence followed this.

“He may talk highbrow,” Markins whispered, “but when you get to know him, he’s a nice young gentleman.”

The door creaked and Alleyn was alone. He composed himself for sleep.

CHAPTER VII

ACCORDING TO BEN WILSON

Having left instructions with himself to wake at five, Alleyn did so and was aware of distant stirrings in the house. Outside in the dark a cock crew and the clamour of his voice echoed into nothingness. Beneath Alleyn’s window someone walked firmly along the terrace path and round the corner of the house. He carried a tin bucket that clanked with his stride and he whistled shrilly. From over in the direction of the men’s quarters all the Mount Moon sheep-dogs broke into a chorus, their voices sounding hollow and cold in the dawn air. There followed the ring of an axe, an abrupt burst of conversation and, presently, the smell of wood smoke, aromatic and pleasing. Beyond the still nighted windows there was only a faint promise of light, a vague thinning, but, as he watched, there appeared in the darkness a rosy horn, unearthly clear. It was the Cloud Piercer, far beyond the plateau, receiving the dawn.

Alleyn bathed and shaved by candlelight and, when he returned to his room, found visible outside his window the vague shapes of trees, patches of blanket mist above the swamp, and the road, lonely and bleached, reaching out across the plateau. Beneath his window the garden waited, straw-coloured, frosty and rigid. As he dressed, the sky grew clear behind the mountains and though the plateau was still dusky, they became articulate in remote sunlight.

Breakfast began in artificial light, but before it was over the lamp had grown wan and ineffectual. It was now full morning. The character of the house had changed. There was an air of preparation for the working day. Douglas and Fabian wore farm clothes — shapeless flannel trousers, faded sweaters pulled over dark shirts, old tweed jackets and heavy boots. Ursula was briskly smocked. Terence Lynne appeared, composed as ever, in a drill coat, woollen stockings and breeches — an English touch, this, Alleyn felt: alone of the four she seemed to be dressed deliberately for a high-country role. Mrs. Aceworthy, alternately dubious and arch, presided.

Douglas finished before the rest and, with a word to Fabian, went out, passing in front of the dining-room windows. Presently he appeared, far beyond the lawn in the ram paddock, a dog at his heels. Five merino rams at the far end of the paddock jerked up their heads and stared at him. Alleyn watched Douglas walk to a gate, open it, and wait. After a minute or two the rams began to cross the paddock towards him, heavily, not hurrying. He let them through the gate and they disappeared together, a portentous company.

“When you’re ready,” said Fabian, “shall we go over to the wool-shed?”

“If there’s anything you would like—” Mrs. Aceworthy said. “I mean, I’m sure we all want to be helpful — so dreadful — so many inquiries. One might almost feel — but of course this is quite different, I’m sure.” She drifted unhappily away.