had done the job for them.”
“They?” queried Logan.
“Birgitte and Eiler are in this together. I’m pretty sure of that.”
“But why should they, or their agents over here, knock you out and go through your cases? They would know you hadn’t got the…well, whatever it was. No, there must be someone else in this affair—someone who was either waiting here for you to arrive, or who flew over from Copenhagen in order to get to London before you. Someone else. Any ideas?”
Martin had no ideas. He was groping in a fog. None of this added up to anything.
Logan went on: “Your host, perhaps—Henning Holtesen? Could he be involved?”
“I don’t see how.” said Martin. “I suppose he can’t be ruled out, but I wouldn’t have said he was a criminal type. Certainly not a murderer.”
“There are no certainties when it comes to murderers,” Logan swiftly assured him. “But if Holtesen is not mixed up in this, what else is there? Somebody quite unknown—and we can’t cook up any theories on those lines. Or else there was a quarrel between your girl friend and her brother Eiler, and one of them is double-crossing the other. Or maybe their liaison with their people at this end—assuming they’ve got people over here—broke down. Or they were both double-crossed.” Logan sighed. “There are far too many imponderables.”
“Far too many,” Martin agreed. “But there must be a solution somewhere—and you’re the man to find it.”
David Logan emitted a thin jet of smoke between his lips. He said: “I still don’t know why you won’t see the police. I’m not touching any work for you until I know that. Perhaps you’ll explain.”
Martin was aware of Carol Dane studying him intently. He knew that they were both sizing him up—and that the woman’s assessment would be as shrewd and thorough in its own way as Logan’s would be.
He explained.
He told them, tersely and without heroics, about his work during the war.
Son of a Danish mother and an Englishman who had worked in Copenhagen for years before the war, he spoke fluent Danish, and knew the country inside out. Dropped by parachute, he worked on behalf of British Special Operations Executive in organising sabotage of industries that worked for the Germans. Railway lines were blown up, factories wrecked, and propaganda distributed through illegal presses. It was a nerve-racking life, and yet a ceaselessly stimulating one.
When the war ended, everything became suddenly flat. Life was intolerably dull.
Martin Slade went back to Denmark. He organised complicated currency deals, and smuggled everything from gold to cigarettes across the troubled frontiers of postwar Europe.
“Everything,” he said bluntly, “except drugs. I never went in for that dirty traffic.”
Excitement was what he needed. He could not relax. He found excitement in this illicit trading, founding his small organisation on Copenhagen, in its key position dominating Scandinavia and the Baltic.
And he found excitement in Birgitte Nielsen. It was an excitement that flamed high and then died suddenly—died away into petty quarrels and savage bitterness
At last self-disgust and weariness drove him back to England permanently. Music, his first love, reasserted its sway. The madness of war and the postwar turmoil faded, and he put his own madness behind him.
“But there are still a lot of police forces in Europe who would like to grab me,” he said, while Logan nodded understandingly. “I could still be dragged in by our own police. Once put them on the trail, and they’ll ferret out too many things. It would be too unhealthy for me.”
Logan stubbed his cigarette out.
“You’re quite right. They’d be bound to ask why you had been approached by Birgitte in the first place. And then they’d start asking more questions. You might make a deal with them—an exchange of your information, such as it is, for the promise of immunity—but even so, it’s a risky business. They’d keep a sharp eye on you from then on. Might even pick you up on some technicality, long afterwards.”
“That’s why,” said Martin decisively, “I want you to take this case up independently.”
There was a long pause. Logan tilted back again in his chair, teetering lazily to and fro.
“What makes you so interested in it?” he demanded. “What makes you willing to spend money—perhaps a lot of money—on something that doesn’t really concern you.”
Martin had been afraid of this question. He knew the answer would sound absurd. It sounded absurd to himself. But it was the only answer; the only true answer.
He said: “It’s all due to the torment m a girl’s eyes. Don’t think I’m crazy. It’s just the way it is. I’m haunted by Inge Nielsen’s face. I wish I weren’t—I wish I could forget it. But I won’t have any peace until that ghost is exorcised.”
CHAPTER FOUR
When, after some further discussion, Martin Slade had left, Logan turned to Carol Dane.
“Think he’s on the level?”
“Yes,” said Carol unhesitatingly.
“So do I. But this is a pretty little problem he’s dropped in our laps.”
She smiled. “Where do we start?”
Logan reached for the telephone. “With Scotland Yard, I think.”
Zoe Peters at the reception desk took five minutes to coax her way through to the appropriate department in Scotland Yard…only to find that Inspector Brisbane was out.
“On the Clifford case,” murmured Carol in the background
“I expect so,” said Logan. He left a message for Brisbane to ring him, and then sat back in absolute silence for half an hour.
Absolute silence—save for the tapping of a cigarette against his thumbnail, and the intermittent flare of the lighter on his desk.
At last he let his chair sag forward, and said: “No. No good. We’ve got to have more to go on.”
The telephone shrilled abruptly.
“Hello. Logan here. Yes. Ah, Brisbane....”
The detective’s voice became as soothing as syrup. Yes, he quite understood that the hard-worked Brisbane must have been having a hell of a time. No, he didn’t expect to have favours done for him all the time. No, he wouldn’t dream of worrying his old friend unnecessarily….
But he was curious about the Clifford murder.
Carol, coming in with a sheaf of documents, perched on the edge of Logan’s desk and exchanged grimaces with him as the voice from the other end of the line crackled busily away.
“All right, old chap,” said Logan eventually. “I know you’re curious, too. And if I learn anything about the murder,
