had this mad idea that I was dead. Gone to –
“Gone?... Never mind going to the afterlife darling; you’ve not even traveled out of New York State.”
“And – the others?”
“They’re all alive and well. And, by the way, do you know you’ve been asleep a whole day and a night? We didn’t disturb you yesterday, when each of us was giving our statements to the police. After hearing what had happened, the officers agreed that you should be left to rest.”
“Thank God. I can hardly believe we’re all alive. I really believed that I’d been shot.”
“You were shot. After a manner of speaking.”
“What happened?”
“Well, you’ll remember those hoodlums.”
“Of course.”
“Chisholm took them by surprise. He moved incredibly fast, and the professor and I thought that he had them both. But one of them broke free and fired a shot at you. He took careful aim, you fell like a stone. I thought – we all thought – you were dead. Shot through the heart, that’s what I thought. Chisholm was still wrestling with the other man. Then the man who’d shot you hit Chisholm on the head with the butt of the gun. Chisholm fell, and the other man pointed the gun at me. I thought: I’m for it next.
But then the two men came over, looked into the trench you’d fallen into. Both guns were reloaded by then: one pointed at me, the other at Axelson. So the professor and I – I’m sorry, but we just stood still. If we moved…”
“I can hardly blame you.”
“One of the men stepped down into the ditch, he was looking closely at you. He said something like “Soaked in blood, she’s gone.” Then he turned to go back to the car. They started up the engine, all the while pointing the guns at us. I knew in my bones that they were going to shoot us too, before they drove off. By that stage, all I was doing was praying that they might miss me.
I only understand what happened next because Chisholm told me afterwards. You see, when they were at the ditch, looking at you, he’d managed to crawl round to the back of their car, and unscrewed the cap of the gasoline tank. He had his lighter in his pocket, and he struck it. The moment they were both inside the car, Chisholm dropped his lighter into the tank –”
“So that was the deafening noise I heard.”
“Indeed. We were lucky, I guess, that none of us were hurt by the blast. After the explosion, the car blazed like hell-fire. I heard screams from inside it, for about a minute. Despite what those men had done to us, it was horrible to hear. The blaze lit up the forest, and ash rained down on us. Chisholm staggered to his feet. I called the professor, and we clambered down into the ditch. It’s funny what sticks in one’s mind: I remember seeing flakes of ash, all over your face. The professor was examining you for signs of life. Suddenly, he laughed.
“I heard a laugh. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“Well, I started laughing too. Because Axelson held out his hand and said ‘smell that’. It was wet, on his fingers, where he had been examining you.”
“And?”
“I smelt it. Brandy.”
“Of course…”
“I never had you down as a secret drinker, Agnes.”
“The little metal flask. I kept it in my travelling-jacket. I’d almost forgotten it, or maybe I’d got used to feeling it there. Inspector Trench gave it to me…”
“Saved your life.”
There’s a knock at the door. “Would you like some coffee, Miss Frocester?” The woman who enters is, I realize, my other angel. She’s tall and graceful, but not young: fifty maybe, and her black face smiles at me as if she’s known me all her life. Her eyes flash not just kindliness, but powerful intelligence and sensitivity. I realize, without being told, that she too has been informed of everything about this business.
“I’m Unity Lloyd. Mr Gilmour’s housekeeper. Thought I’d see how you were doing. So was it coffee, or have these English folk got you into their tea-drinking ways? Also, Miss Frocester, you have a gentleman who wants to see you. May I show him in?”
I nod in agreement, and the professor steps through the door.
“Thank you for seeing me, Miss Agnes. Miss Lloyd is a formidable character – but she was, I think, joking when she said I was wishing to see a young lady in a state of undress…”
“Yes, I think I was joking, professor.” Unity Lloyd raises an eyebrow: I sense that she’s already used to the professor’s seriousness, and enjoys taking a rise out of it. She carries on. “Well, Professor, Mrs Gilmour and I will leave you and Miss Agnes to talk. Un-chaperoned.”
They both leave the room. The professor didn’t quite understand Unity’s banter: he says to me “Miss Agnes, it is quite proper for you and I to talk here alone. As you know, my initial training was as a medical doctor.”
“Of course, professor. I’m not in the least embarrassed. But we all need to talk. Go and get Chisholm too, if he’s free. And bring the copies I made of Freshing’s papers.”
I’m sitting up in bed; Chisholm and Axelson occupy chairs on either side. Miss Lloyd has brought coffee for all three of us, taking the opportunity to laugh again at the gentlemen in this unusual situation. On the counterpane are spread the copies that I made at Glen Springs of Freshing’s two papers. The professor speaks first.
“One thing at least is perfectly clear. These two papers are unrelated. Their only connection is that Mr Freshing folded them up together. But they were objects of horror to him. Why?”
I play devil’s advocate. “The two papers were folded together. So maybe they do belong together.”
Chisholm, looks at both of us. “Spence can’t have given Freshing both papers, together. Because one of them, the letter, is clearly the hard evidence of the blackmail we have suspected all along. The other, the contract document, has nothing to do with the blackmail. But it clearly has a lot to do with Calvin Gilmour, who was sitting in that very same lifeboat as Spence and Freshing. And of course, Freshing’s job on their trip to England was to copy contract documents for Gilmour.”
“Let me try a little logical thought.” The professor speaks slowly, talking the problem through as his mind tries to unpick the puzzle. “Why does Freshing keep these two unrelated pieces of paper in a safe? It is like the human mind: a secret, locked chamber that he does not want to open. Only under the Hypnotic-Forensic Method can the chamber – both the mental one, and the physical one – be opened.”
“What do you mean, professor?”
“He has locked both papers away because he cannot face them. The note that Percy Spence gave him, he has locked that away, because it would recall the horror of that night. The other paper – this contract document– it is another thing that Mr Freshing cannot face up to. But, for a different reason. A reason that we do not know – yet.”
I speak once more. “But – the fact is, both papers were folded together. If they were unrelated, why didn’t Freshing simply leave them one on top of the other in the safe? There was plenty of room: apart from those two sheets, the safe was completely empty.”
Chisholm is thinking. He picks up my written notes of the Gilmour contract, and reads something out. “Supply of Two Hundred 3-inch M1902.”
I look at him. “Three inches?”
“Guns, Agnes. A three-inch M1902 is an army field cannon. It’s so called because it fires a shell that is three inches in diameter. This document is a contract between Gilmour and the British Army for the supply of artillery.”
“So – the contract would be of great interest to a German spy.”
Chisholm looks intently at the professor, then at me. “But there’s more, Agnes. Much more. Why would Calvin Gilmour have these cannons?”
“Gilmour deals in steel. Cannons contain steel?”
“Exactly.”
I don’t understand what Chisholm is driving at. He carries on explaining.
“This cannon, the three-inch M1902, is outdated, Agnes. The United States Field Artillery Branch no longer uses them. So, my gu
ess is that they are scrapping them. I think that they have sold the cannons to Gilmour to be melted down, the steel re-used. That’s why a steel magnate owns two hundred military field cannon.”
The professor nods at Chisholm. “Your reasoning is correct, I think. That’s why Gilmour has all these military cannons. But under this contract, he is not scrapping the cannons. He’s selling them.”
I’m starting to realize. “The contract negotiated by Sorensen & Baker in London… the British Army’s lawyers… I understand now. Gilmour was selling the cannons to the British. But I still don’t understand. If the cannons are outmoded… why is the British Army buying them?”
Chisholm looks grim. “My guess, Agnes, is that there has been a change of policy. The British Army buying out-of-date American field cannon can only mean one thing. We have run out of time to build new artillery ourselves.”
Axelson looks at me. “Do you see, Miss Agnes, what Chisholm is saying? The gravity of the situation – it is almost beyond words.”
Maybe I’ve not properly recovered yet, because I still don’t grasp the real importance of what the two men are saying. Until Chisholm spells it out to me, word-by-word. “The urgent purchase of these mothballed old field guns is a desperate measure by the British Army. Playing at empires is over: we are now in the endgame. Britain is preparing for immediate war with Germany.”
21.Flight plans
It’s good to be up and dressed again. I feel chilled by Chisholm’s deduction, but all the