Dread and Water

by Douglas Clark

  “Yes. I suppose I had some wild idea of being able to help in some way, or it was merely a reflex action caused by my unconscious desire to concentrate on what I subconsciously foresaw as drama. A professional with such precognition would, no doubt, have captured the fall on film. But, as I told you, I am the veriest of amateurs.”

  Amateur he may have been, but behind the dilettante approach there was still a first-class brain—one which automatically knew when and from where to take pictures. They had to wait for nearly three minutes of the reel to go before Silk appeared, but the subjects chosen and the composition of each sequence were a joy to Masters. Secretly he began to think that far from being too idle to edit his films, Roslin probably thought that not a single frame filmed by him should be discarded.

  “Here he comes.”

  Silk hitching on his rope. Silk drinking from his water-bottle before setting out. Zoom lens showing handholds—push hold, jughandle, fingers clenched on a small hold, toe-jamming, foot and knee-jamming, wide bridging with Silk astride two downward clefts, Silk on a steep slab …

  Silk cornering.

  Then it was over. The continuation piece of film slapped through the threadway before Roslin could get back to it.

  “I thought you said he was in distress,” said Green.

  “It isn’t very apparent on so small a film. Perhaps if I were to move the projector back …”

  On the second run-through it was just obvious that Silk was in physical difficulties. He was hanging on. The sideways shaking of the head was just discernible; then his head, which throughout the climb had been held high, had dropped between his outstretched arms.

  “He was bushed,” said Green.

  “No,” said Roslin firmly. “He was a fit man and an experienced climber. I know little of the craft, but I know from my own observation that there was nothing on that climb which could have challenged Silk’s power or expertise.”

  Masters switched on the light.

  “Thank you, Doctor Roslin. You have helped me more than I can say.”

  “How?” demanded Green.

  “Have I really?” beamed Roslin. “I’m delighted. I have a great deal of faith in you policemen, and I must admit to being concerned about the untimely deaths of so many of my colleagues. Being present when Silk fell was an unnerving experience.”

  “Would you mind letting me have the film? I will, of course, return it.”

  “Of course you shall have it.” Roslin busied himself putting the film into its yellow plastic cover. “There you are, Superintendent. Shall I seal and sign it?”

  Masters smiled. “Sign it by all means, Doctor, but don’t seal. I shall want to exhibit it.”

  “And you can’t tell me why?”

  “I’m sorry. It would be unethical to do so.”

  “In that case …” The little Doctor shook hands and showed them to the main door.

  “I don’t get it,” growled Green. “What d’you want to lead the little chap on for? There was nothing in his magic lantern show to help us.”

  They were walking back towards the house. The day had cleared to a bright coldness which hardened outlines and cheered the setting appreciably.

  “No leg-pull. I didn’t have time to tell you earlier, but when I visited Winter, he proudly showed me the climbing club’s store. They have a couple of dozen sets of climbing equipment. It was all there except set number six.”

  “And that’s the set Mailer was using, I suppose. It will be at the hospital with his personal effects.”

  “Right. What set was Silk using in this film?”

  “Christ! Don’t tell me it was six?”

  “It was. The zoom lens picked up the number on some of the items. Each number is writ large in white paint.”

  Green sucked a tooth, “Bit of a coincidence, eh?”

  “Or an illuminated signpost.”

  They walked on in silence for a moment. Green broke it by saying: “So I suppose we’re now going to see Bullock?”

  “It’s the obvious thing to do. Unless we can unearth some witness who can remember what the number of Redruth’s set was.”

  “OK,” said Green. “Say Bullock had set number six. Where does it get us?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not prepared meekly to accept open-ended coincidences. Are you?”

  “Am I hellers-like! And this makes Winter look even more like the man with the chopper.”

  “You’ve decided Toinquet isn’t a candidate?”

  “I’m not forgetting him. He tried to baffle me with a load of old bull this morning, and I don’t like characters who keep a watchful eye on me.”

  “I can still leave Toinquet to you, then?”

  “It’ll be a pleasure.” Green stopped suddenly in his tracks. “You know what I’ve forgotten? Widow Twankey probably has keys to every door in this laager. Or a master key. He’s the one chap who could come and go anywhere at any time.”

  “Without being questioned,” added Masters. “It’s a useful thought.”

  Green grunted. “I’ll ask around, just to make sure he’s got a pass-key. And when I tackle him I’ll make it sound so blasted significant he’ll feel the cuffs on his wrists as I’m doing it.”

  “Crome, too, might have a pass-key. Look into that, too, while you’re at it.”

  “The more the merrier. I’m beginning to feel happier about this job. It has possibilities. Pity old Winter won’t have a key to his particular wigwam, otherwise I could have given him the shakes, too.”

  Masters felt he was at a loose end after Green had left him. Everybody at the Centre seemed to be busy. To talk to any one of them he would have first to decide whom he wished to interview and then seek that person out. His difficulty was to decide. Doctor Clay? Alec Bullock? Winter again? Mailer’s immediate colleagues in Group Six?

  He stayed in the open air, strolling, thinking, and smoking a full bowl of Warlock Flake. He was personally convinced that he had a case to investigate, but there seemed to be a missing link. Means? Opportunity? Motive? The three fundamentals of murder. What means had been employed to bring about the deaths? He didn’t know. What opportunity had anybody to help the three men off their respective cliffs. There had been nobody close at hand in any of the three cases. There were guesses he could make, of course. The murderer could have hidden above each climb and dropped something—not a stone, that would have been noticed by watchers below. But what about sand or dust or a spray to blind the climber? The dead men were reported as having shaken their heads as if to rid themselves of dust … he decided this was not really a practicable idea either. To drop dust or direct a spray so accurately, just at the moment a climber had his eyes lifted would need a precision of aim unlikely of achievement. Poison? There had been post-mortems on the first two victims. No hint of toxic substances had been found. Besides, what toxic substance was there that could be guaranteed not to attack a man before he started a climb, but to strike him once he got on to the face after … how long? The man Bullock had mentioned half an hour, while Hawker had estimated thirty-seven minutes. Perhaps if he were to compare timings …

  As to motive, he was even more in the dark. What constituted a motive in a place like this, full of highly intelligent people? Outside it would be sex, greed, jealousy, envy, hate … the usual run of human subculture that grows on the surface of the soup of society, turning it sour and mouldy. But here …

  The pipe had burned itself out. The dottle gave a little warning sizzle that the end had come. He tapped it out carefully on the heel of one shoe and replaced it, bowl uppermost, alongside the white silk handkerchief in his breast pocket.

  He was half way back to the main house when he heard his name called. A car had stopped on the drive opposite the end of the narrow paved path he was taking. Partington.

  “Hello, doc! Just finished your morning rounds?”

  “A couple of patients in the village. Neurotic wives of nuclear physicists. Trying to wean them off barbiturate sleeping pills.
”

  “Succeeding?”

  “To some degree. Hypnotics and tranquillisers are the bane of my life and the ruination of most others … why? What’s up? Have I said something interesting?”

  “Only if you can tell me my three dead climbers were on sleeping pills or any other form of medication.”

  “That horse won’t start for you. I’ll be breaking no ethical silence by telling you that none of them had ever had medicines of any sort while at the Centre and, furthermore, as it is my duty to give everybody here an annual check-up, I can tell you all three were pretty healthy specimens.” He opened the nearside door of the car. “Here, get in. I can’t sit blocking the drive. Come up to my office for a coffee.”

  “You’re thrashing about,” accused Partington when they were sitting in his consulting room drinking the coffee his nurse had brought in. “That’s not like you.”

  Masters laughed. “It is, you know. In fact, I’ve just told the Director so. I always cast about. But I don’t always do it in public when I want to make great threshing sweeps.”

  “Usually in the silence of your lonely room, eh? Why the performance this time?”

  “I want to surprise somebody into doing something.”

  “Like jumping over your rope as you circle it?”

  “I’m a little uneasy. There are coincidences, but no particular pattern that we have yet discovered. I’m here because of a series of coincidences. Three scientists die. All in the same way. All from the same Centre. All from the same Group within the Centre. I could go on wringing similar examples of a concurrence of events and circumstances without apparent causal connection out of these incidents. Every nerve in my body is screaming blue murder. But I haven’t even established beyond doubt that there has been murder done, let alone the blue variety; and I have no idea as to who committed it. So I’m a bit off balance. Mostly I’m presented with a corpse and asked to discover who encompassed the death and how. If possible, why, too.”

  Partington grinned.

  “You’re a humbug. I can recall your sergeants telling me that you always go broody when you first start to fathom a case. You were broody when I saw you outside. You’re broody now. Talking for the sake of it.”

  Masters waved a disclaiming hand. “Honestly, I’m still in the dark. What can possibly make three experienced climbers who are neither pushed nor poisoned, fall from three easy pitches? Answer me that one and I’ll be a long way nearer solving the puzzle.”

  “I’d suggest drink,” said Partington, “but I know these three weren’t topers, and certainly no alcohol was found in the bodies of the first two. We’ll know about Mailer when the reports come through.”

  “Did you speak to the doctor who was first on the scene?”

  “I rang his surgery this morning. He was out delivering an infant. His receptionist said she would ask him to call me back.”

  “So I’m still marking time,” said Masters.

  “And you don’t like it one little bit, do you?”

  They congregated in the bar at lunchtime.

  “The DI told us last night,” said Masters, “that Hawker was very specific about the length of time which elapsed between Redruth starting his climb and his fall. He stated that the period was thirty-seven minutes, and Bullock said his attack of giddiness started after half an hour.”

  “Is it significant, Chief?” asked Hill.

  “I don’t know. But those are solid facts—two of the few that we have. We’ve been wondering what would cause these men to fall from cliffs. Men who were apparently one hundred per cent fit at the bottom, and yet feeble enough to fall off half way up.”

  “I get it,” said Green. “If they all took about forty minutes to fall it would begin to look as though they had been poisoned at the bottom with something that takes that long to work.”

  “Right.”

  “Come on, Chief!” said Brant. “You’re not asking us to start believing in unidentifiable South American arrow poisons are you? Those bodies had no toxic substance detectable at post-mortem.”

  “I’m only too well aware of that. I’m also aware that we’re having to cast about for leads. This could be one. I want you to ask all the eye-witnesses for estimates of time between the victims leaving the ground and falling.”

  “You lads can do that,” said Green.

  Hill and Brant nodded. Masters went on: “I have discounted hypnosis on the grounds that not only would it be difficult to find the opportunities necessary for putting men like that under unbeknown to them, but also because I understand that even under hypnosis it is virtually impossible to make a subject act in a way that he would not normally choose when not under the influence. But we do know that Silk took a swig at his water-bottle before setting out. We’ve seen a film of him doing it. And the DI was told last night that Redruth also drank from a bottle before starting his climb.”

  “Bullock, too,” said Hill. “I can remember his exact words to me. ‘I promise you I’d had nothing to drink except water from my bottle half an hour before.’ ”

  “It’s that half an hour which intrigues me,” said Masters.

  “Call it about half an hour, Chief. He was just chatting, not being specific.”

  “Near enough forty minutes,” growled Green, “for somebody not watching a clock.”

  “So what have we got?” asked Masters. “Four men. Let us call them One, Two, Three and Four.”

  “Four?”

  “Include Bullock who, according to his story, nearly bought it eight months ago. So, One is Silk, Two is Bullock, Three is Redruth and Four is Mailer.”

  “Paper,” grunted Green to Brant. “Shove this down.”

  “Dizziness.

  One—as seen in the film and testified by Roslin.

  Two—self testimony

  Three—as testified by Hawker

  “Timing—forty minutes.

  Two—self testimony

  Three—testified by Hawker

  “Drink from bottle.

  One—as seen in the film

  Two—self testimony

  Three—testified by Hawker

  “Same gear.

  One—as seen in the film

  Four—as witnessed by Masters.”

  “Everything duplicated,” announced Brant, and all men appear at least twice on the list except Four.”

  “To be absolutely complete,” announced Brant, “there should be sixteen entries on the list. We’ve got nine.”

  “That’s our job then,” said Masters with some inward relief. “To fill the gaps. Not quite as big a job as it sounds, because if you leave out Mailer, number Four, we’ve got eight out of twelve. So, gentlemen, you have at least four spaces to fill.”

  “What about you?” asked Green.

  “I’ll deal with Mailer and a few other odds and ends.”

  “I want to have a look at Widow Twankey, don’t forget.”

  “Right. Let the sergeants fill the gaps. They’ve got the list of eye-witnesses.”

  “We’ve already seen most of them,” said Hill.

  “See ’em again,” grated Green. “This time you’ll have the specific question of how long these chaps were on their cliffs before they fell.”

  “And dizziness?”

  “Try to winkle it out of them.”

  “Wait a moment!” said Masters suddenly.

  “Now what’s up?” asked Green.

  “Didn’t Hawker say that Redruth was leaning over to his right when he fell?”

  “I said he did last night,” said Green belligerently. His memory was good enough to give almost verbatim reports of lengthy conversations, and even this small fact had not been missed.

  “What about the film of Silk? He was outstretched to the right, too.”

  “Could be reasonable coincidence,” said Brant. “I mean they’ve got to be either upright or leaning one way or t’other.”

  “That’s right enough,” said Hill, “but Bullock did say he was on a traverse, flat a
gainst the rock, leaning over sideways to the left.”

  “But he was leaning over,” insisted Masters. “Find out from one of yesterday’s witnesses exactly how Mailer was placed immediately before he fell.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  “I’d like some more beer,” said Green. “Who’s in the chair?” He burped audibly and held out his tankard. “We’re wasting good drinking time.”

  As Brant got the refills, Hill said: “I followed Bullock to Mrs Mailer’s house this morning, so it looks as though his story about him being in cahoots with her is right enough. The trouble is, we’ve not seen him since. We’ve not been able to ask him any questions so far.”

  “I’d like his answers. He’s our living witness.”

  “I told him he could meet you. Will you be about if he asks to see you?”

  “I expect so. Somewhere inside the wire.”

  “You know what,” said Green. “If that woman, Clay, keeps all that kit laid out like an army Q store, she probably gets people to sign for it when they draw it. If so, she should have a book of signatures.”

  “Which would tell us who had set number six on the relevant dates?”

  “Why not?”

  “Thanks for the tip. I’ll tackle her about it.”

  His opportunity came very soon. Dorothy Clay came into the bar with Winter and two other men, both unknown to Masters. From where they were standing, they could hear her say: “My turn, I think. The usual for everybody?”

  “At least she stands her corner,” said Green. “If you’ve got to have women around it’s as well to make sure they know the form.”

  “And what form!” said Hill. “She’s got a pint of wallop for herself. The others are getting by on sherry and tomato juice.”

  “Cheers, chaps!” Dorothy Clay obviously knew the cries of yesteryear. And she knew how to drink deep. The level of the beer in her tankard fell by more than an inch at the first swallow.

  “Excuse me,” said Brant. “See you later.”

  Masters glanced at the door. Cynthia Dexter and Gerald Newsom—or so he supposed them to be—were coming in.