The Satan Bug. Alistair MacLean

footmarks. The ground was damp, but that was still from the heavy dew of the previous night. Whoever had cut those wires had left long before the dew had begun to settle.

      “Your eyes are younger than mine,” Hardanger said. “Sawn or cut?”

      “Snipped. Cutters or pliers. And have a look at the angle of the cut. Slight, but it’s there.”

      Hardanger took one end of the wire in his hand and peered at it.

      “From left at the front to right at the back,” he murmured. “The way a left-handed man would naturally hold cutters or pliers to obtain maximum leverage.”

      “A left-handed man,” I agreed. “Or a right handed man who wanted to confuse us. So a man who’s either left-handed or clever or both.”

      Hardanger looked at me in disgust and made his way slowly to the inner fence. No footprints, no marks between the fences. The inner fence had been cut in three places, whoever had wielded those cutters would have felt more secure from observation from the ring road. The point we had yet to establish was why he had felt so secure from the attention of the police dogs patrolling the area between the two fences.

      The trip-wires under the overhang of the second fence were intact. Whoever had cut that fence had been lucky indeed in not stumbling over them. Or he’d known their exact location. Our friend with the pliers didn’t strike me as a man who would depend very much on luck.

      And the method he’d adopted to get through the electric fence proved it. Unlike most such fences, where only the top wire carried the current all the way, the others being made live by a vertical joining wire cable at each set of insulators, this fence was live in every wire throughout. The alarm bell would be rung by the shorting of any of those wires to earth, as when someone touched them, or by the cutting of any of the wires. This hadn’t fazed our friend with the pliers—insulated pliers, quite obviously. The two strands of TRS cable lying on the ground between two posts showed this clearly enough. He’d bent one end of one strand on to the lowest insulator of one post, trailed it across the ground and done the same with the lowest insulator on the next post, so providing an alternate pathway for the current. He’d done the same with the pair of insulators above these, then simply cut away both lowermost wires and crawled through under the third wire.

      “An ingenious beggar,” Hardanger commented. “Almost argues inside information, doesn’t it?”

      “Or somebody just outside the outer fence with a powerful telescope or binoculars. The ring road is open to public traffic, remember. Wouldn’t be hard to sit in a car and see what type of electric fence it was: and I dare say if the conditions were right he could have seen the trip-wires on the inner fence glistening in the sun.”

      “I dare say,” Hardanger said heavily. “Well, it’s no damn’ good us staying here and staring at this fence. Let’s get back and start asking questions.”

      All the men Hardanger had asked to see were assembled in the reception hall. They were sitting on benches around the hall, fidgeting and restless. Some of them looked sleepy, all of them looked scared. I knew it would take Hardanger about half of one second to sum up their mental condition and act accordingly. He did. He took his seat behind a table and looked up under his shaggy brows, the pale blue eyes cold and penetrating and hostile. As an actor, he wasn’t all that far behind Inspector Martin.

      “All right,” he said brusquely. “The jeep crew. The ones who made the wild-goose chase last night. Let’s have you.”

      Three men—a corporal and two privates—rose slowly to their feet. Hardanger gave his attention to the corporal.

      “Your name, please?”

      “Muirfield, sir.”

      “You in charge of the crew last night?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Tell me what happened.”

      “Yes, sir. We’d completed a circuit of the ring road, stopped to report everything O.K. at the main gate and then left again. It would be about eleven-fifteen, sir, give or take a minute or two. About two hundred and fifty yards past the gates we saw this girl running into the headlights. She looked wild, dishevelled like, her hair all over the place. She was half-screaming, half-crying, a funny noise. I was driving. I stopped the jeep, jumped out, and the others came after me. I should have told them to stay where they——”

      “Never mind about what you should have done. The story, man!”

      “Well, we came up to her, sir. She’d mud on her face and her coat was torn. I said—”

      “Ever seen her before?”

      “No, sir.”

      “Would you recognise her again?”

      He hesitated. “I doubt it, sir. Her face was in a fair old mess.”

      “She spoke to you?”

      “Yes, sir. She said——”

      “Recognise her voice? Any of you recognise her voice? Can you be quite sure of that?”

      Three solemn shakes of their heads. They hadn’t recognised her voice.

      “All right,” Hardanger said wearily. “She pitched the tale of the damsel in distress. At the psychological moment someone conveniently betrayed his presence and started running. You all took off after him. Catch a glimpse of him?”

      “A glimpse, only, sir. Just a blur in the darkness. Could have been anyone.”

      “He took off in a car, I understand. Just another blur, I take it?”

      “Yes, sir. Not a car, sir. A closed van type, sir. A Bedford.”

      “I see.” Hardanger stopped and stared at him. “A Bedford! How the devil do you know? It was dark, you said.”

      “It was a Bedford,” Muirfield insisted. “I’d know the engine anywhere. And I’m a garage mechanic in civvy street.”

      “He’s right, Superintendent,” I put in. “A Bedford does have a very distinctive engine note.”

      “I’ll be back.” Hardanger was on his feet and it didn’t need any clairvoyance to see him heading for the nearest telephone. He glanced at me, nodded at the seated soldiers and left.

      I said, pleasantly enough, “Who was the dog-handler in number one last night?” The circuit between the two barbed-wire fences were divided into four sections by wooden hurdles: number one was the section in which the break-in occurred. “You, Ferguson?”

      A dark stocky private in his middle twenties had risen to his feet. Ferguson was regular Army, a born soldier, tough, aggressive, and not very bright.

      “Me,” he said. There was truculence in his voice, not very much, but more waiting there if I wanted it.

      “Where were you at eleven fifteen last night?”

      “In number one. With Rollo. That’s my alsatian.”

      “You saw the incident that Corporal Muirfield here has described?”

      “’Course I saw it.”

      “Lie number one, Ferguson. Lie number two and you’ll be returned to your regiment before the day is out.”

      “I’m not lying.” His face was suddenly ugly. “And you can’t talk to me like that, Mister Cavell. You can’t threaten me any more. Don’t think we don’t all know you were sacked from here!”

      I turned to the orderly. “Ask Colonel Weybridge to come here. At once, please.”

      The orderly turned to go, but a big sergeant rose to his feet and stopped him.

      “It’s not necessary, sir. Ferguson’s a fool. It’s bound to come out. He was at the switchboard having a smoke and a cup of cocoa with the gatehouse communications number. I was in charge. Never