The Satan Bug. Alistair MacLean

minimum of twelve hours exposure to air to oxidise the toxin and render it harmless. If anyone comes into contact with it before oxidisation, they’re dead men. Before midday, that is. And Clandon, had you thought of him? How do you know the botulinus didn’t get him? The symptoms are exactly the same as those of prussic acid poisoning. How do you know the two guards weren’t affected? The senior guard who spoke to you—if he had been affected, the botulinus would have got him as soon as he’d taken off his mask to speak to you. He’d have died in agonies a minute later. Have you checked that he’s still alive?”

      Cliveden reached for the phone. His hand was shaking. While he was dialling, I said to Hardanger, “Right, Superintendent, the explanation.”

      “Martin here?”

      I nodded.

      “Two good reasons. The first was that you are number one suspect.”

      “Say that again.”

      “You’d been sacked,” he said bluntly. “Left under a cloud. Your opinion of Mordon’s place in the scheme of things was well known. You have a reputation for taking the law into your own hands.” He smiled without humour. “I’ve had plenty of experience of that from you.”

      “You’re loony. Would I murder my best friend?” I said savagely.

      “You were the only outsider who knew the whole security set-up in Mordon. The only one, Cavell. If anyone could get into and out of that place it was you.” He paused for a significant moment. “And you are now the only man alive who knows the combinations for the various laboratory doors. The combinations, as you know, can only be altered in the factory where the doors are made. After your departure, the precaution of changing was not thought necessary.”

      “Dr. Baxter, the civilian director, knows the combinations.”

      “Dr. Baxter is missing. We can’t trace him anywhere. We had to find out fast how the land lay. This was the best way. The only way. Immediately after you left home this morning we checked with your wife. She said——”

      “You’ve been round at my house.” I stared at him. “Bothering Mary? Questioning her? I rather think——”

      “Don’t trouble,” Hardanger said dryly. “You’d get no satisfaction from breaking in false teeth. I wasn’t there, sent a junior officer. Silly of me, I admit, asking a bride of two months to turn in her husband. Of course she said you hadn’t left the house all night.”

      I looked at him without speaking. His eyes were exactly on a level with mine. He said, “Are you wondering whether to haul off at me for even suggesting that Mary may be a liar or why she didn’t phone to tip you off?”

      “Both.”

      “She’s no liar. You forget how well I know her. And she didn’t tip you off because we disconnected your phone, both home and here. We also bugged this phone before you arrived this morning—I heard every word you said to Martin on the phone in your outer office.” He smiled. “You had me worried for a few minutes there.”

      “How did you get in? I didn’t hear you. The bell didn’t go off.”

      “The fuse box is in the outer corridor. All very illegal, I’m afraid.”

      I nodded. “I’ll have to change that.”

      “So you’re in the clear, Cavell. An Oscar for Inspector Martin, I should say. Twelve minutes flat to find out what we wanted to know. But we had to know.”

      “Why? Why that way? A few hours leg-work by your men, checking taxis, restaurants, theatres and you’d have known I couldn’t possibly have been in Mordon last night.”

      “I couldn’t wait.” He cleared his throat with unnecessary force. “Which brings me to my second reason. If you’re not the killer, then you’re the man I want to find the killer. Now that Clandon is dead, you are the only man who knows the entire security set-up at Mordon. No one else does. Damned awkward, but there it is. If anyone can find anything, you can.”

      “Not to mention the fact that I’m the only man who can open that door now that Clandon is dead and Baxter missing.”

      “There’s that too,” he admitted.

      “There’s that, too,” I mimicked. “That’s all you really want. And when the door is open I can run along and be a good boy.”

      “Not unless you want to.”

      “You mean that? First Derry, now Clandon. I’d like to do something.”

      “I know. I’ll give you a free hand.”

      “The General won’t like it.” No one ever called Hardanger’s ultimate superior by his name: very few even knew it.

      “I’ve already fixed it with the General. You’re right, he doesn’t like it. I suspect he doesn’t like you.” Hardanger grinned sourly. “Often the way with relatives.”

      “You did that in advance? Well, thanks for the compliment.”

      “You were the number one suspect. But I never suspected you. All the same, I had to be sure. So many of our best men have gone over the wall in the past few years.”

      “When do we leave?” I said. “Now?” Cliveden had just replaced the receiver on its rest. His hand still wasn’t very steady.

      “If you’re ready.”

      “I will be in a moment.” Hardanger was a past master at keeping his expressions buttoned up, but there was a speculative curiosity in those eyes that he couldn’t hide. The sort of look he’d give a man who’d just put a foot wrong. I said to Cliveden, “The guards at the plant? Any word?”

      “They’re all right. So it can’t have been botulinus that got Clandon. The central laboratories are completely sealed up.”

      “And Dr. Baxter?”

      “Still no signs of him. He——”

      “Still no signs? That makes two of them now. Coincidence, General. If that’s the word I want.”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said irritably.

      “Easton Derry. My predecessor in Mordon. He vanished a couple of months ago—just six days after he was the best man at my wedding and he still hasn’t turned up. Surely you knew?”

      “How the hell should I?” A very testy little man indeed, I was glad he wasn’t a civilian doctor and myself one of his patients. “I’ve only been able to get down there twice since my appointment … Anyway, Baxter. He left the laboratories all right, checking out slightly later than usual. He didn’t return. He lives with a widowed sister in a bungalow near Alfringham, five miles away. He didn’t come home at all last night, she says.” He turned to Hardanger. “We must get down there immediately, Superintendent.”

      “Right away, sir. Cavell is going to come with us.”

      “Glad to hear it.” Cliveden said. He didn’t look it and I couldn’t blame him. You don’t make major-general without developing an army mind in the process and the army mind sees the world as a neat, orderly and regimented place with no place at all in it for private detectives. But he was trying to be courteous and making the best of a bad job for he went on, “We’ll need all the assistance we can get. Shall we go?”

      “Just as soon as I’ve phoned my wife to let her know what’s happening—if her phone’s been reconnected.” Hardanger nodded. I reached for the receiver but Cliveden’s hand was on it first, pressing it firmly down on its cradle.

      “No phoning, Cavell. Sorry. Must have absolute security on this. It’s imperative that no one—no one—knows that anything has happened at Mordon.”

      I lifted his wrist, the phone came up in his hand and I took it from him. I said, “Tell him, Superintendent.”