Читать книгу Circus - Alistair MacLean, Alistair MacLean, John Denis - Страница 6
ОглавлениеWrinfield hardly slept that night, which, considering the recent events and the worries they had brought in their wake, was hardly a matter for surprise. He finally rose about five o’clock, showered, shaved and dressed, left his luxurious quarters aboard the train and headed for the animal quarters, an instinctive practice of his whenever he was deeply troubled, for Wrinfield was in love with his circus and felt more at home there than anywhere in the world: the degree of rapport that existed between him and his animals certainly exceeded that which had existed between him and the reluctant economics students whom – as he now regarded it – he had wasted the best years of his life teaching. Besides, he could always pass the time with Johnny the night watchman who, despite the vast gulf in status that lay between them, was an old crony and confidant of his. Not that Wrinfield had any intention of confiding in anyone that night.
But Johnny wasn’t there and Johnny wasn’t the man ever to fall asleep on the job, undemanding though it was – his job was to report to the trainer concerned or the veterinary surgeon any animal that might appear off-colour. No more than slightly puzzled at first, then with increasing anxiety, Wrinfield carried out a systematic search and finally located him in a dark corner. Johnny, elderly, wizened and crippled – he’d taken one fall too many from the low wire – was securely bound and gagged but otherwise alive, apparently unharmed and furiously angry. Wrinfield loosened the gag, undid the bonds and helped the old man to his shaking legs. A lifetime in the circus had left Johnny with an extraordinary command of the unprintable and he didn’t miss out a single epithet as he freely unburdened his feelings to Wrinfield.
Wrinfield said: ‘Who did this to you?’
‘I don’t know, boss. Mystery to me. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear nothing.’ Tenderly, Johnny rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Sandbagged, it feels like.’
Wrinfield examined the back of his scrawny neck. It was badly bruised and discoloured but the skin unbroken. Wrinfield put an arm round the frail shoulders. ‘Sandbagged you were. Come on. A seat in the office. I’ve got a little something there that’ll set you up. Then we get the police.’
They were halfway towards the office when Johnny’s shoulders stiffened under the supporting arm and he said in an oddly harsh and strained voice: ‘I reckon we’ve got something a bit more important than a sandbagging to report to the cops, boss.’
Wrinfield looked at him questioningly, then followed the direction of his staring eyes. In the cage of the Bengal tigers lay the savagely mauled remains of what had once been a man. Only by the few shreds of clothing left him and the pathetically heroic row of medal ribbons did Wrinfield recognize that he was looking at all that remained of Colonel Fawcett.
Wrinfield gazed in horrified fascination at the still pre-dawn scene – circus workers, artistes, policemen in uniform and plainclothes detectives all milling around the animal quarters, all of them busily engaged in eradicating forever any putative clues there may have been. Ambulance men were wrapping up the unidentifiable remains of Fawcett and placing it on a stretcher. In a small group remote from the others were Malthius, the tiger trainer, Neubauer the lion tamer and Bruno, the three men who had gone into the cage and taken Fawcett out. Wrinfield turned to the admiral, whom he had first called and who, since his arrival, hadn’t bothered to explain his presence or identity to anyone and it was markedly noticeable that no policeman had approached him to ask him to justify his presence there; clearly, some senior police officer had said: ‘Do not approach that man!’
Wrinfield said: ‘Who in God’s name could have done this terrible thing, sir?’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Wrinfield.’ It was completely out of character for the admiral to say that he was sorry about anything. ‘Sorry all round. Sorry for Fawcett, one of my ablest and most trusted deputies and a damned fine human being at that. And sorry for you, that I should have been responsible for involving you in this ghastly mess. This is the kind of publicity that any circus could do without.’
‘The hell with publicity. Who, sir, who?’
‘And I suppose I feel a bit sorry for myself, too.’ The admiral shrugged his shoulders heavily. ‘Who? Obviously the same person or persons who killed Pilgrim. Your guess as to who they are is as good as mine. The one thing for sure is that they – whoever they are – knew he was coming down here or they wouldn’t have silenced the guard in advance – he can count himself lucky that he wasn’t found inside that cage with Fawcett. There was almost certainly a false phone call. We’ll soon know. I have them checking on it.’
‘Checking on what?’
‘Every call to our office, incoming or outgoing, except, of course, on the scrambler phones, is recorded. With luck, we’ll have that recording within minutes. Meantime, I’d like to talk to those three men who took Fawcett out of the cage. Individually. I understand that one of those men is your tiger trainer. What’s his name?’
‘Malthius. But – but he’s above suspicion.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ The admiral was trying to be patient. ‘Do you think any murder mystery would ever be solved if we questioned only the suspects? Please have him brought.’
Malthius, a dark-eyed Bulgarian with an open face, was plainly deeply upset. The admiral said, kindly for him: ‘You’ve no need to be so distressed.’
‘My tigers did this, sir.’
‘They would probably do it to anyone in the country except you. Or would they?’
‘I don’t know, sir. If a person were lying quietly, I really don’t think so.’ He hesitated. ‘But, well, under certain circumstances they might.’ The admiral waited patiently and Malthius went on: ‘If they were provoked. Or – ’
‘Yes?’
‘If they smelled blood.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Of course he’s sure.’ The admiral, who was quite unaware of Wrinfield’s intense loyalty to his men, was surprised at the asperity in his voice. ‘What do you think, sir? We feed them on horse meat or beef and those are raw and smell of blood. The tigers can’t wait to get at the meat and tear it to pieces with teeth and claws. Have you ever seen tigers at feeding-time?’
The admiral had a mental vision of how Fawcett must have died and shuddered involuntarily. ‘No, and I don’t think I’ll ever want to either.’ He turned back to Malthius. ‘So he could have been alive, conscious or not – blood doesn’t flow when you’re dead – stabbed and thrown into the cage?’
‘That is possible, sir. But you won’t find a trace of a stab wound now.’
‘I realize that. You found the door locked on the outside. Is it possible to do that from the inside?’
‘No. You can bolt it from the inside. It wasn’t bolted.’
‘Isn’t that a rather curious arrangement?’
Malthius smiled for the first time, albeit faintly. ‘Not for a tiger trainer, sir. When I go into the cage I turn the key on the outside and leave it in position. Once I get inside I bolt the door – can’t risk having the door swing open or being pulled open by one of the tigers and letting them loose among the crowd.’ He smiled a second time, again without mirth. ‘It could come in useful for me, too. If things get unpleasant for me, I just slide the bolt, get away from there and turn the key on the outside.’
‘Thank you. Would you ask that friend of yours – ’
‘Heinrich Neubauer, sir. The lion trainer.’
‘I’d like to see him.’ Malthius walked dejectedly away and the admiral said: ‘He seems very unhappy to me.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’ Again the unexpected asperity in Wrinfield’s voice. ‘He not only feels personally responsible but his tigers have for the first time acquired a taste for human flesh. Malthius is human flesh, too, you know.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
The admiral asked Neubauer a few desultory and inconsequential questions then asked for Bruno. When he arrived the admiral said: ‘You’re the only one I really wanted to talk to. The other two were only a cover – we’re being watched both by circus people and the police. Some of the police, by the way, think I’m a very senior police officer, others that I’m from the FBI, although why they should imagine that I can’t imagine. A dreadful thing, Bruno, a quite dreadful thing. Well, it looks as if poor Fawcett was correct, we’re being pushed to the limit to find out how really desperate we are to go to Crau. Well, I’ve been pushed far enough. Who knows who’s going to be next? I have no right, no one has any right, to ask you to be involved in this ghastly business any more. There’s a limit to patriotism – being patriotic did Pilgrim and Fawcett a great deal of good, didn’t it? You are now released from any obligations, real or imagined, that you may have had.’
‘Speak for yourself.’ Wrinfield’s tone had remained unchanged. Whatever touched Wrinfield’s beloved circus touched his rawest nerve: this had become a personal matter. ‘Two good men have died. You want them to have died in vain? I’m going to Europe.’
The admiral blinked and turned to Bruno. ‘And you?’
Bruno looked at him in a silence that verged on the contemptuous.
‘Well.’ The admiral was momentarily nonplussed. ‘Off again, on again. If you’re prepared to accept the risks, I’m prepared to accept your sacrifices. Utterly selfish, I know, but we desperately want those papers. I won’t try to thank you, I honestly wouldn’t know how to, but the least I can do is to arrange protection. I’ll assign five of my best men to you – as a Press corps, shall we say? – then once you are aboard the boat – ’
Bruno spoke in a very quiet voice. ‘If you assign any of your men to us, then nobody’s going anywhere, and that includes me. And from what I’m told, although I don’t understand it yet, if I don’t go then there’s no point in anyone else going anyway. The exception, of course, is Dr Harper, a dead man vouched for him and you can’t get any better recommendation than that. As for the rest of your men – who do you think killed Pilgrim and Fawcett? Without their protection, we might have a chance.’ Bruno turned abruptly and walked away. The admiral looked after him, with a slightly pained expression on his face, at a momentarily but highly unusual loss for words, but was saved the necessity of making comment by the arrival of a police sergeant carrying a small black box. That the uniform was not the property of the man inside it Wrinfield was quite certain. When it came to local colour Charles – it was the only way Wrinfield could think of him – was not a man who missed much.
The admiral said: ‘The recording –’ and when the sergeant nodded: ‘May we use your office, please, Mr Wrinfield?’
‘Of course.’ Wrinfield looked around him. ‘Not here. In the train. Too many people.’
The office door closed behind them, the sergeant took the recorder from its casing and Wrinfield said: ‘What do you expect to hear?’
‘You.’ Wrinfield looked his astonishment. ‘Or a very close approximation of your voice. Or Bruno’s. Yours were the only two voices in the circus that Fawcett knew: he wouldn’t have come for anyone else.’
They heard the recording through. At the end Wrinfield said calmly: ‘That’s meant to be me. Shall we hear it again?’
They heard it through a second time then Wrinfield said positively: ‘That’s not my voice. You know it isn’t.’
‘My dear Wrinfield, I never dreamed it would be. I know it isn’t. Now I know it isn’t. But I had to hear it a second time to make sure. When a man speaks in that hurried and distressed fashion, his voice takes on abnormal overtones. A piece of silk stretched across the mouthpiece is a great help. I don’t blame poor Fawcett for being fooled, especially when he had only the one thing on his mind at the time. But it’s a damned good imitation all the same.’ The admiral paused, ruminated, then looked at Wrinfield consideringly. ‘To the best of my knowledge and belief, and to yours, you don’t know and never have talked to any of my men. Right?’ Wrinfield nodded. ‘So I put it to you that this call was made by someone who knew your voice intimately and had studied it.’
‘That’s preposterous. If you’re suggesting – ’
‘Precisely what I am suggesting, I’m afraid. Look, man, if our organization can be infiltrated don’t you think your damned circus can be too? After all, you’ve got twenty-five nationalities working for you: I’ve got only one.’
‘You’re the CIA. Everyone would want to infiltrate the CIA. Who’d want to infiltrate a harmless circus?’
‘Nobody. But in the eyes of the ungodly you’re not a harmless circus, you’re an affiliate of the CIA and therefore ripe for infiltration. Don’t let blind loyalty blind your intelligence. Let’s hear that recording again. Only this time don’t listen for your own voice, listen for someone else’s. I should imagine you know the voice of every man in your employment. And to narrow the field, remember that most of your men speak with fairly heavy foreign accents. This is an Anglo-Saxon voice, probably American, although I can’t be sure.’
They played the recording through four more times and at the end Wrinfield shook his head. ‘It’s no good. The distortion is far too heavy.’
‘Thank you, officer, you may leave.’ The sergeant snapped the case shut and left. Briefly the admiral paced up and down the full length of the office – three steps in either direction – then shook his head in the reluctant acceptance of the inevitable. ‘What a charming thought. A link up between my lot and yours.’
‘You’re terribly certain.’
‘I’m terribly certain of one thing and that’s this. There isn’t one man in my lot who wouldn’t give up his pension rather than open the door of a tiger’s cage.’
Wrinfield nodded with an equally reluctant acceptance. ‘I suppose it’s my turn to say that I should have thought of that.’
‘That’s unimportant. Point is, what are we going to do? You’re under hostile surveillance, my career’s on that.’ He paused in momentary gloom. ‘Whatever my career’s going to be worth when all this is over.’
‘I thought we’d settled all that.’ The now accustomed touch of asperity was back in Wrinfield’s voice. ‘You heard what I said back in the circus. You heard what Bruno said. We go.’ The admiral regarded him thoughtfully. ‘A marked change of attitude since last night. Or, more properly, a marked hardening in attitude.’
‘I don’t think you quite understand, sir.’ Wrinfield was being patient. ‘This is my life, my whole life. Touch me, touch my circus. Or vice versa. We have one major card in the hole.’
‘I’ve missed it.’
‘Bruno’s still in the clear.’
‘I hadn’t missed it and it’s because I want him to stay that way that I’d like you to take this girl of ours into your employ. Her name is Maria Hopkins and although I don’t know her all that well Dr Harper assures me she is a very bright operative and that her loyalty is beyond question. She’s to fall in love with Bruno and he with her. Nothing more natural.’ The admiral put on his sad smile. ‘If I were twenty years younger I’d say there was nothing easier. She’s really rather beautiful. That way she can liaise with Bruno, yourself, Dr Harper – and, up to the time of your departure, with myself – without raising any eyebrows. As an equestrienne, perhaps? That was Fawcett’s idea.’
‘No perhaps. She may think she’s good, she may actually be good, but there’s no place for amateurs in the circus. Besides, there’s not a man or woman on my performing staff who wouldn’t spot immediately that she’s not a trained circus equestrienne: you couldn’t devise a surer way of calling attention to her.’
‘Suggestions?’
‘Yes. Fawcett mentioned this possibility in this dreadful bordello place he took us to and I’ve given the matter some thought. Didn’t require much, really. My secretary is getting married in a few weeks to a very strange fellow who doesn’t like circuses: so she’s leaving. This is common knowledge. Let Maria be my new secretary. Every reason for her to be in constant contact with me, and through me your doctor and Bruno without any questions being asked.’
‘Couldn’t be better. Now, I’d like you to put a large box advert in the papers tomorrow for a doctor to accompany the circus to Europe. I know this isn’t the way one normally recruits a medical man but we’ve no time to wait to use the more professional channels. This must be made clear in the advert. Besides it will make it perfectly clear that you are seeking a doctor with no one in mind and that your choice will essentially be a random one. You may have quite a few replies – it would make a nice holiday for someone who has just, say, finished his internship – but you will, of course, choose Dr Harper.
‘He hasn’t practised medicine for years, although I dare say he’d find an aspirin if you twisted his arm. That’s irrelevant. What matters is that he is an outstanding intelligence agent.’
‘So, I was led to believe, was Pilgrim. And Fawcett.’
The admiral made a quick gesture of irritation. ‘Things don’t always happen in threes. Fortunes turn. Those two men knew the risks. So does Harper. Anyway, no suspicion attaches to him. There’s no connection between him and the circus.’
‘Has it occurred to you that “they” may check on his background?’
‘Has it occurred to you that I might make a better owner and managing director of a circus than you are?’
‘Touché. I asked for that.’
‘Yes, you did. Two things. There’s no more reason why they should check on him than any of your hundreds of employees. His background is impeccable: he’s a consultant at the Belvedere and this is his way of spending part of his sabbatical at someone else’s expense. Much higher qualifications and much more experienced than any of the other applicants you’ll have. A natural choice. You’re lucky to have him.’
‘But he hasn’t practised – ’
‘He has consulting rooms in the hospital. One of our branch offices.’
‘Is nothing sacred to you people?’
‘Not much. How soon are you prepared to leave?’
‘Leave?’
‘For Europe.’
‘I have a number of alternative dates and places pencilled in for there. That’s not the problem. Three more days here then we have three more engagements on the east coast.’
‘Cancel them.’
‘Cancel them? We never cancel – I mean, we have all arrangements made, theatres booked, saturation advertising, thousands of tickets sold in advance – ’
‘Compensation, Mr Wrinfield, will be on a princely scale. Think of a suitable figure and it will be lodged in your bank tomorrow.’
Wrinfield was not much given to wringing his hands but he looked as if he would have liked to indulge in just a little right then. ‘We are an annual institution in those places. We have a tremendous amount of goodwill – ’
‘Double the figure you first thought of. Cancel. Your sea transport will be ready in New York in one week. When you sign up Dr Harper, he’ll organize vaccinations and inoculations. If you have any visa problems, we’ll do a little leaning. Not that I expect any trouble from the east European embassies or consulates – their countries are just dying to have you. I will be around tonight for the evening performance. So will the ravishing Miss Hopkins – but not with me. Have someone show her around, but not you.’
‘I have a very bright nephew – ’
‘Fine. Tell him nothing. Have him give her a thorough guided tour, the new secretary getting acquainted with the physical background of her new job. Have her introduced to some of your top performers. Especially, of course, to Bruno. Let Bruno know the score in advance.’
Henry Wrinfield looked a great deal more like Tesco Wrinfield’s son than a nephew had any right to look, although he undoubtedly was his nephew. He had the same dark eyes, the same lean studious face, the same quick intelligence; and if he wasn’t quite in the same cerebral league as his uncle, he was, as his uncle had said, a very bright young fellow indeed, or at least bright enough to find no hardship in the chore of escorting Maria Hopkins round the back-stage of the circus. For an hour or so he completely forgot the blue-stockinged Ivy Leaguer to whom he was engaged and was slightly surprised that, when he remembered her about an hour later – he rarely spent ten minutes without thinking about her – he experienced no twinges of conscience.
Few men would have found cause for complaint in the performance of such a task as had been entrusted to Henry, and those only misogynists in an irretrievably advanced state. She was a petite figure, although clearly not suffering from malnutrition, with long dark hair, rather splendid liquid dark eyes and an extraordinarily infectious smile and laugh. Her resemblance to the popular concept of an intelligence agent was non-existent, which may have been one of the reasons why Dr Harper reportedly held her in such high regard.
Henry, quite unnecessarily guiding her by the upper arm, showed her round the tethered and caged animals and introduced her to Malthius and Neubauer, who were putting the big cats through their last-minute paces. Malthius was charming and graceful and wished her a very pleasant stay: Neubauer, though civil enough, didn’t know how to be charming and wished her nothing.
Henry then led her through to the raucous blare of the fairground. Kan Dahn was there, toying with an enormous bar-bell and looking more impressively powerful than ever: he took her small hand carefully in his own gigantic one, smiled widely, announced that she was the best recruit to arrive at the circus since he himself had joined it years ago and altogether gave her a welcome so courteous it bordered on the effusive. Kan Dahn was always in high humour, although nobody was quite sure whether it stemmed from an innate good nature or because he had discovered quite some time ago that it was unnecessary for him to be unpleasant to anyone. Manuelo, the Mexican genius with the knife, was standing behind the counter of a booth, benevolently watching considerable numbers of the young and not so young throwing rubber-tipped knives at moving targets. Occasionally he would come round to the front of his booth and, throwing double-handed, would knock down six targets in half that number of seconds, just to show his customers that there was really nothing to it. He welcomed Maria with a great deal of Latin enthusiasm, putting himself entirely at her service during her stay in the circus. A little farther on, Ron Roebuck, the lasso specialist, gave her a grave but friendly welcome: as she walked away from him she was astonished and then delighted to see a shimmering whirling circle of rope drop down over her, barely touch the ground, then effortlessly rise and disappear without once touching her clothes. She turned and gave Roebuck a wide smile and he no longer looked grave.
Bruno emerged from his little performing hall as Henry and Maria approached it. He was clad in the same Mandarin robe as previously and, also as before, looked anything but impressive. Henry made the introductions and Bruno looked at her with a kind of inoffensive appraisal. As usual, it was almost impossible to tell what he was thinking, and then he smiled, a rare gesture for Bruno but one that transformed his face.
He said: ‘Welcome to the circus. I hope your stay is a long and happy one.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled in turn. ‘This is an honour. You – you are the star of the circus?’
Bruno pointed skywards. ‘All the stars are up there, Miss Hopkins. Down here there are only performers. We all do what we can. Some of us are lucky in that we have acts more spectacular than others, that’s all. Excuse me. I must hurry.’
Maria, thoughtful, watched him go. Henry said in amusement: ‘Not quite what you expected?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Disappointed?’
‘A little, I suppose.’
‘You won’t be tonight. Nobody ever is, not when they watch the impossible.’
‘Is it true that he and his brothers are completely blindfolded up there? They can’t see at all?’
‘No faking. They are in total darkness. But you’ll notice that it’s Bruno that conducts the orchestra. He’s the co-ordinator and catcher. Maybe the three brothers share some telepathic gift. I don’t know. Nobody else seems to know either. And if Bruno and his brothers know they’re not saying.’
‘Maybe it’s something else.’ She indicated the legend ‘The Great Mentalist’. ‘A photographic memory, they say, and can read people’s minds.’
‘I hope he didn’t read yours tonight.’
‘Please. And he can read the contents of sealed envelopes. If he can see through paper why can’t he see through a blindfold?’
He looked at her in genuine surprise. He said: ‘Miss Hopkins, you’re not just a pretty face. Do you know, I’d never thought of that.’ He pondered for a moment, then gave up. ‘Let’s go take our seats for the show. Like it, so far?’
‘Very much.’
‘Anything special?’
‘Yes. Everybody’s so terribly nice and polite.’
Henry smiled. ‘We’re not all just down from the trees.’ He took her arm and guided her towards the arena. His blue-stocking fiancée wasn’t even a cloud on his rose-coloured horizon.
There was someone in the circus at that moment who was not being terribly nice and polite, but then the admiral was not a member of the circus and he certainly was not accustomed to having his will thwarted. Further, he’d had a long, tiring and very frustrating day and his normal amiability had deserted him.
‘I don’t think you heard me properly,’ the admiral said with ominous restraint.
‘You heard me, all right.’ Because the back-stage entrance to the circus was ill-lit, because it was very dark and still raining outside and because his faded eyes no longer saw too well, Johnny, the night watchman, had failed to identify the admiral. ‘The entrance for the public is farther along there. Get going!’
‘You’re under arrest,’ the admiral said without preamble. He turned to a shadowy figure behind him. ‘Take this fellow to the nearest station. Have him charged with obstructing the course of justice.’
‘Easy, now, easy.’ Johnny’s tone had undergone a marked change. ‘There’s no need –’ He leaned forward and peered up at the admiral. ‘Aren’t you the gentleman who was here when we had this bit of bother this morning?’
‘If by a bit of bother you mean murder, yes. Take me to Mr Wrinfield!’
‘Sorry, sir. I’m on duty here.’
‘Johnny, isn’t it? You still want to be on duty tomorrow, Johnny?’
