‘Ailsworth? I seem to have heard the name. No more than that.’
‘He’s not a person of any prominence, except among ornithologists.’
Murray made an impatient gesture. ‘For heaven’s sake! We keep on coming back to birds. What’s this supposed to be in aid of?’
‘Discovering Howard Juniper – which it’s vitally necessary to do. As you must know, his line is bugs. Stopping bugs. Starting bugs. Teaching bugs to turn inside out when he whistles to them. And any other damned crazy thing.’ Appleby was impatient in his turn. ‘And he told this Lord Ailsworth – if this Lord Ailsworth is to be believed – that he was coming to Ardray. He said he was coming to Ardray in a dinghy, as a matter of fact.’
‘Did he, indeed!’ The Admiral, it seemed to Appleby was becoming quite ominously red round the neck.
‘Just that. He went down to Ailsworth, got hold of this odd old fellow who’s mad on birds, and told him he was coming in a dinghy to Ardray to find the Great Auk. He was convinced that the bird was still extant, and that the rumours were of something that had authentically happened. What do you make of that?’
‘I make something perfectly clear of it.’ Murray had calmed down again. ‘Lord Ailsworth is not to be believed. He’s been spinning you a fairy story. It’s not my business to tell you why. But I suppose it must be out of a misjudged sense of humour. Or as a consequence of sheer lunacy.’
‘I have independent testimony that Juniper did go down to Ailsworth about six weeks ago. And I have the evidence of a thoroughly reliable girl that the old man – if only in general terms – reported the meeting to her at the time.’
‘Well, it’s all your puzzle. But I repeat that Howard Juniper didn’t tell this precious nobleman of yours that he believed in the rumour about the Great Auk.’
Appleby was silent for a moment. ‘May I ask,’ he said mildly, ‘how you can be so positive?’
‘Yes, of course you can – although I suppose that the answer convicts me of an indiscretion. I wasn’t quite accurate when I said that Juniper and I didn’t talk about birds. In a manner of speaking, that is. I told him what it was reasonable to tell him about our work here. And I mentioned my fancy for calling our confounded missile the Great Auk. He certainly took it in. I’d say he was rather tickled. In other words, Appleby, one of the few men in England who couldn’t believe the rumour about the actual bird’s being extant was and is Howard Juniper.’
In the bleak silence that succeeded this there was a tap at the door and a rating came in. ‘Radio telephone for Sir John Appleby, sir.’
Murray pointed to a telephone on his desk. ‘Here,’ he said.
‘Aye aye, sir.’
A moment later the instrument buzzed. Appleby picked it up. ‘Appleby?’ said a rumbling voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Clandon here. Glad they’ve run you to earth. Will that line of yours be scrambled?’
‘Certain to be. Go right ahead.’
‘The usher’s vanished.’
‘What’s that?’ For a moment Appleby could make no sense of this remark.
‘Your spurious professor. Your blasted Miles Juniper. Disappeared into thin air. First Howard and then this schoolmaster. Do you read Wordsworth? How fast has brother followed brother, from sunshine to the sunless land. I don’t know what you’ve gone rushing off about to Ultima Thule, or wherever you are. But I think you’d better return to civilization and clear this matter up.’
‘All right,’ Appleby said. ‘I will.’
9
It was just after midnight when Appleby got back to Scotland Yard. Cudworth appeared in his room almost at once. Between attending to reports, he had been pacing his own room restlessly for hours.
‘Grindrod,’ Cudworth said. He pronounced the name not quite impassively. It was, for him, a highly dramatic performance.
Nevertheless it was a moment before Appleby registered the name. He had been sunk in thought. ‘Grindrod?’ he repeated. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s in on this affair. In fact, he’s behind it.’
Appleby frowned impatiently. ‘I don’t know what affair you’re talking about, or why it should be keeping you here at midnight. And I don’t want to hear about it, Cudworth. The Juniper business is quite enough for me at the moment.’
Cudworth stared. ‘But I’m talking about the Juniper business. Karl Grindrod, certainly one of the greatest rascals outside gaol in this country at the present moment, is quite certainly involved.’
‘Rubbish! I don’t believe a word of it.’
Cudworth stopped staring and looked angry. ‘Do I understand, sir, that you wish me to take no further part in this particular case?’
Appleby sat down rather heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Cudworth. This rushing around in aeroplanes can’t agree with me. I know Grindrod is, in the abstract, a likely man. He’s strongly suspected of having had a hand in two or three quite tidy espionage jobs in the last couple of years. The sooner he’s locked up the better. All I ought to have said is that what you tell me appears very unlikely. Perhaps I oughtn’t even to say that. The fact is simply that the Juniper puzzle is at last beginning to arrange itself more or less coherently in my head. I’m prepared to say I’ve almost got the hang of it, although it’s quite unbelievably rum. And nobody like Grindrod has any place in the picture. But do please tell me what’s turned up.’
‘That’s all right, sir.’ Cudworth was quickly mollified. ‘When I got your instructions from that island I went down to the laboratories at once. It appeared that Mr Miles Juniper had walked out on his job – I suppose I ought to say his brother’s job – just after you had a telephone conversation with him yesterday evening.’
Appleby nodded. ‘That doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, it fits in nicely with the fact that I surprised him. I told him something that astounded him. The whole picture I’m building up turns on that, I may say.’
‘May I know what your picture is, sir?’
‘Well, Cudworth, perhaps not quite yet. You might want to have me certified – which would be a shame, if I’m really beginning to get on top of this damned thing. I’ll just say that this bolt from the laboratories is quite satisfactory to me. Now, go on.’
‘I found Dr Clandon in a great state, and cursing somebody he called the usher. Old word for a schoolmaster, it seems. He meant Miles Juniper. He supposed that Miles’ nerve had simply failed, and that he’d dropped the imposture you’d set him to and bolted. His line – Dr Clandon’s, that is – was that your bright idea had done no good, would probably cost him his job, and ought to cost you your job, too.’
Perhaps for the first time since leaving Ardray, Appleby smiled. ‘Clandon let you have all this – and perfectly good-humouredly?’
‘Well, yes.’ Cudworth appeared surprised at this piece of knowledge on Appleby’s part. ‘Dr Clandon was very upset, but you might say that he was making the best of it. Then I gave him your message. I said that in these changed circumstances the disappearance of Professor Juniper would have to be made public without further delay, and that his senior colleagues should be given the full story at once. So he had in half a dozen of them, there and then, and explained the matter. They weren’t too pleased.’
‘They wouldn’t be, I’m afraid. But I’m sure you were, Cudworth. Here were half a dozen fresh people to put through your routine.’
‘Just that, sir.’ Cudworth spoke impassively. ‘And I got results. Of course I had my photographic files in the car – I seldom go about without them – and I had them in. So I started with the foreign agents and their principal contacts. And when Grindrod’s ugly mug turned up, I got two separate recognitions straight away. And – it seems to me – in an uncommonly significant relationship. One of these fellows said he had seen Grindrod present himself on the previous evening at Professor Juniper’s room. Of course I checked up at once with junior staff, and it seemed perfectly true. Grindrod had appeared, sent in a note to Professor Juniper – to the supposed Professo
r Juniper, that is to say – and got an interview straight away. It lasted about fifteen minutes.’
Appleby had got up and walked to his uncurtained window. For a moment he appeared absorbed in the lights of a police launch going down the river. ‘And this would be just before Juniper telephoned to me?’
‘Yes, sir. That gets the timing exactly.’
‘Telephoned to me in some agitation, saying he couldn’t carry on longer with what he called the damned charade, or some such phrase. It begins to make a picture, Cudworth, I agree. That it isn’t quite the picture I’ve been making myself is beside the point. Well, go on.’
‘Another of the fellows called in by Clandon had actually seen Professor Juniper – the supposed Professor Juniper – leave the laboratories. That was about half an hour later again. Juniper had simply hailed a taxi and gone off, taking nothing with him. So this fellow thought nothing of it. Nobody did, until Clandon discovered today that Juniper had vanished without explanation. But the immediate point is this. The chap who saw Miles Juniper – our Miles Juniper – go off in this way, saw a car draw out from the side of the road and follow the taxi. Again, he thought nothing of it. But he did recognize in Grindrod’s photograph the man at the wheel.’
‘I see.’ Appleby had turned back into the room. ‘It’s a very pretty sequence, certainly.’
‘Yes, sir. Professor Juniper has vanished, and his brother Miles is – as you might say – keeping up appearances. Grindrod – whose reputation we know – calls on Miles. Miles is upset, and rings you up in obscure agitation. Miles bolts. Grindrod proves to have been lurking around, and follows. Miles doesn’t turn up again.’ Cudworth paused, evidently pleased with this succinct statement. ‘And there’s one other significant fact.’
Appleby nodded. ‘I’m sure there is. You have, you know, in your subtle way, a fine sense of climax. Let’s have it.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Cudworth looked rather suspiciously at Appleby. ‘But this further fact jumped out at me as soon as Grindrod swam into the picture and I had a more thorough look at his record. Of course there was a good deal of it that I had in my head. A dangerous chap. First turned up in an obscure affair just before the war. Shot a man called Shergold – and undoubtedly in self-defence. Pitched a yarn that it was straight jealousy stuff about a woman. But we suspected that Shergold was going after him with his own gun because Grindrod was blackmailing him.’
‘I remember all that. And didn’t Grindrod then disappear?’
‘He disappeared abroad, all right. It was the sensible thing to do. And his next adventure was probably treason. A nice quiet war in Germany, giving Goebbels a helping hand from time to time. But the end of it found him more or less innocently in Spain, and there was nothing definite enough to base a charge on. Since then, he’s just kept us wondering. But the significant fact I noticed in his record dates from farther back than all that.’
‘An association with one or other of the Junipers?’
‘With both of them, sir. And very early on. They were all three at the same public school and the same Cambridge college.’
‘That’s certainly something. You wouldn’t know whether your precious rascal was in the Cambridge boat?’
Cudworth found this question mildly surprising. ‘I’ve no record of it.’
‘Or played Rugger for England?’
‘I don’t know. But I could easily find out.’
‘Perhaps it isn’t important. At least we can say that he rubbed shoulders with our Howard and Miles quite a lot. And that he has shown a sudden revived interest in them.’
‘Well, sir, a revived interest in Howard. And, of course the significance of his early association with the brothers at school and college is obvious. He would know of their old amusement of exchanging identities. And he might well be especially able to distinguish between them. So consider the situation yesterday. Grindrod seeks out Howard – probably for no very honest purpose. He is shown in on the man purporting to be Howard. And – either instantly or after a few minutes – he sees that it isn’t Howard, but Miles. Miles realizes that his impersonation is discovered, and is upset. He is so upset that presently he bolts. But Grindrod, who realizes that he is on to a good thing, has lurked about, and now follows him. I’d put my money on all that. But I’m blessed if I can see where it leads us.’
‘To the missing brother, I hope.’
‘Well, I hope so too, sir. It seems a more promising trail than your trip to Ardray. I can’t think very much came of that.’
‘Not much ought to have come of it, I agree.’ Appleby saw that Cudworth’s cavalier reception at the beginning of the interview still slightly rankled with him. ‘But, as a matter of fact, something did. Sheer luck at the end of a hunch, you might call it. Of course I confirmed the fact that anybody’s making a secret trip out there is nonsense. But I could have done that without taking to the air. The luck was in something that I got, almost casually, from the top man there. And it slewed the whole case round for me. They call the damned thing they’re fooling about with on that island the Great Auk. And Howard Juniper knew that. So either Juniper was romancing to Lord Ailsworth or Lord Ailsworth has been romancing to me. The latter, I think. But now we’re going to find out. Get a car round. And ring up Clandon and have him out of his bed. We’ll collect him on the way, and be at Ailsworth for breakfast.’
‘Ailsworth?’ Clandon said, as the car ran rapidly through deserted streets. ‘I suppose I’ve met him. My father knew him pretty well, before he retired from the world and went dotty on birds. Harmlessly and deeply mad, I understand. I’m sceptical about his having much to do with our problem.’
‘So is Cudworth,’ Appleby said. ‘But put it this way. Chronologically, and so far as our record goes, the problem begins with Ailsworth and at Ailsworth. It begins more or less on solid ground there, and only sails into the blue thereafter. Howard Juniper – although to a lesser extent than his brother Miles – has an interest in birds. So he treats himself to a little holiday down at Ailsworth, where birds are to be observed in plenty. Nothing odd in that. It’s true that he practises a totally unnecessary petty deception, telling some story about an appointment in Edinburgh. But people on work like his do get irked by the sense of being on a string. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Great God, yes.’
‘Very well. Howard has a day or two down there, including what appears to be a chance encounter with Lord Ailsworth. And then he returns to work. There’s nothing odd in the episode except the yarn that Ailsworth himself spins about it: Howard Juniper’s divulging his intention of going to Ardray to hunt the Great Auk. We now know positively that he couldn’t genuinely have had any such plan, since he happened to know that the Great Auk is a missile and doesn’t lay eggs. So we come to our first question, which I was putting to Cudworth a little time ago. Who is telling a lie? The only motive I can find for Howard Juniper’s doing so seems quite fantastic: he was going out of his way to contact Ailsworth for the purpose of laying some sort of false trail. But why Ailsworth? The old man lives a more retired life than almost anybody in England, and his meeting with Juniper might never have come to light at all. So I accept, tentatively, the other interpretation. It was Ailsworth who was laying a false trail. He wanted to get rid of me. The old rumour about the Great Auk, or Garefowl, on Ardray came into his head, and he promptly spun me this yarn about his meeting with the man who subsequently disappeared. Of course it’s thoroughly queer – but, granted Ailsworth’s eccentricity, it’s not implausible.’
‘It’s not implausible, certainly.’ Cudworth spoke from the wheel of the car. ‘But it isn’t intelligible. It leads us nowhere.’
‘Sir John appears to think it does.’ Clandon, engaged in lighting a large curly pipe, rumbled contentedly. ‘Back to Ailsworth, it seems. At least it looks as if it may be a nice day for an outing. But go on.’
Appleby nodded. ‘Very well. But I agree that here is, for the moment, a dead end. Lord Ailsworth’s romancing
doesn’t make sense in terms of any information we’ve reviewed so far. So go on to the next thing: the real start of the case. Somebody vanishes.’
‘Quite so. And surely–’ Clandon checked himself. ‘Would you say that again?’
‘Somebody vanishes.’
‘There’s nothing like caution.’ Cudworth, as he offered this reflection, somewhat inconsistently relieved his feelings by swinging the car hazardously round a bend. ‘Somebody vanishes. But we mustn’t say who. It may have been Professor Juniper. But it may have been Charley’s Aunt. Or the Abominable Snow Man. Or–’
‘Or Miles Juniper.’ This time, Clandon didn’t rumble. He snapped. ‘It’s an idea. Yes, it’s a point of departure, undeniably. But it certainly invites us to abandon solid ground and ascend into that blue like a rocket. In fact, I never heard anything so bizarre in my life. In heaven’s name, Appleby, what should put such an idea in your head?’
‘Something, as a matter of fact, that has been haunting my ear obstinately from the start of the affair. I’ll tell you in a minute. But answer me this question first. What has been your main impression of the chap you’ve been passing off during the last few days as Howard Juniper?’
‘I’ve told you already. That he’s been a damned bad actor. Trying to back up your crazy scheme, my heart’s been in my mouth a dozen times. The fellow couldn’t act his brother for toffee.’
‘And why not?’
‘Why not!’ Words seemed to fail Clandon. ‘Because as I say, he was a damned bad actor. We’re talking in a circle.’
Appleby chuckled. ‘You may be. I’m not. Think of the history of the Junipers. They made a hobby from boyhood of their peculiar brand of Box and Cox. And they were both experienced amateur actors. Why should Miles come so near to muffing the thing when he addressed himself to it in your blessed research establishment? I can see only one answer. Because he wasn’t Miles at all. He was Howard.’
‘My dear Appleby, I never heard such a preposterous piece of false logic. Surely–’ Clandon stopped abruptly, and stared at his companion. ‘Or did I?’
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