a look see at the latest? New set of figures you might just …’
I groaned, ‘No time now, I’m afraid.’ I just didn’t want any more of Carswell for a long time, but I just couldn’t raise the energy to transfer him. In any case, lose him, we’d lose Murray, and I wanted to hang on to the only muscular intelligent adult male we had.
Carswell came nearer and dusted off the old velvet cushion. ‘How’s things?’ I asked. I capitulated.
He lowered his creaking bones into my wicker chair.
‘Very fit, very fit indeed. Plenty of exercise and fresh air, that’s the secret – if you don’t mind me saying so, you could do with a little of the same. Overdoing it a bit, old chap. Can see it; dark here!’ He ran a finger under his large red staring eyes.
The door opened noiselessly and Alice came in to collect Jean’s file. I was getting used to having my own department. My history books, notes and unpaid bills were scattered through our only light clean office in such profusion that I had almost forgotten the rigorous tidiness it had enjoyed when it was Dalby’s domain. Alice hadn’t, however, and was constantly straightening files and hiding things in places where ‘Mr Dalby keeps them’. I found the crossword puzzle I had been working on. Alice had completed it. I had got ten down correct. It was EAT. ‘Not so funny, rheumatism,’ Carswell was saying. DITHYRAMBE had been quite wrong. I don’t know why I’d ever thought it otherwise … ‘With white horse oils,’ Carswell was saying, ‘and go straight to bed.’
I wished Carswell would stop talking and go home. He smoked his cigarette with a nervous concentration taking it compulsively out of his mouth, but never more than three inches away. Alice watched Carswell as he scratched his shoulder blades upon the carved uprights of the guest chair. She knew, as I did, that he was settling in. She gave me the rolling eyes and screwed face of sympathy. I pretended I hadn’t seen the completed puzzle.
At that moment Chico was pressing button A.
My outside phone rang. And everyone began talking.
‘Where are you speaking from? Yes, where are you now? What the hell are you doing in Grantham?’
‘Let me talk to him, sir. There are the film requisitions, he hasn’t done anything about them and they must go off today.’
‘Well, you’ve no business in Grantham. Who signed your travel form? Oh, did you? Well, you needn’t think you’re charging it on expenses.’
‘Murray,’ Carswell was going on relentlessly. ‘A dashed good trooper, mind you, without your confidence, nothing. I appreciate it. Working very closely, restraining the impulse to guess hastily. Thoroughness is the essence of a statistical operation.’
‘Just what do you think my role is in this drama of your life?’
‘Yes, sir, I know, sir, the commanding officer, sir, but when I saw …’
‘Right, Chico, that’s right, you’ve got it right for once. That’s what I am, the, and more immediately, your commanding officer. But that doesn’t worry you, does it? Would you have just minced off into the blue if Dalby had still been in charge here – would you?’
‘I’ve seen Dalby, sir, spoken with him. I’m seeing him again this evening.’
Carswell spread some sheets of paper across my desk. He said, ‘These figures I’ve brought along here are only the briefest possible extract, I don’t want to worry you with the nuts and bolts. What you want is results, not excuses, as you are always saying. There’s a lot more work if they are to be made convincing. I mean really convincing. At this stage it’s more of an analytical hunch.’
‘You have no business seeing Dalby.’
‘It’s wrong to say commanding officer on a clear line, sir.’
‘You stay out of this, Alice.’
‘An analytical hunch, but nevertheless, a hunch.’
‘You have no business going above my head. It’s a most despicable thing and it’s damned unmilitary.’
‘You shouldn’t say unmilitary – that’s a clear line. He’s on just an ordinary GPO line.’
Carswell was still talking. ‘Reading the results, old boy, is where the skill comes in, I always say. Just needs a trained mind. I know you thought some of our whims a little odd at times. Oh, I know. No, no, no, you see, you are a man of action. Pater just the same, the same exactly.’
‘I recognized this fellow, sir. In the film at the War House, sir. A friend, sir, of my cousin, and frightfully good at chemistry. It really is, sir. I’ll see Dalby again tonight. He thinks I should have a few days here, sir. Dalby said to tell no one but I knew you’d wonder where I was, and there is the film requisition too, sir. I haven’t done them for a few days.’
Carswell was folding his sheet of statistics and replacing it in the large laced file. ‘Murray will do all the action stuff, phoning and carrying on. But I want your OK to say he’s from the Special Branch Metropolitan Police. I wanted to see you last week, but Murray said without a few figures to start on we had just no case at all. We’ll have to check hospitals, nursing homes, convalescent homes – nut-houses too, old boy, I said, if they are scientists. Ha ha. But it is convincing, I want to stress that.’
Nut-houses, I thought, whatever would Carswell be on about next. Meanwhile Chico was saying, ‘Shall I phone you back tomorrow after I’ve spoken to Dalby, sir?’
‘Jean is here, sir,’ said Alice, trying to hide Jean’s confidential file under her mauve cardigan with the blue buttons.
‘Hello, my dear young lady.’
‘No, don’t ring off, I haven’t finished with you yet!’
‘I had a lot of trouble, Alice. They said it wouldn’t be ready till morning.’
‘Have my seat, it’s not awfully comfortable.’
‘They distinctly said four-thirty. It’s always the same. The more time one gives them the more unreliable they are.’
‘This friend of my cousin, sir, top ranker with the Chemical Warfare people. I knew if I spoke to him.’
‘No, I’ve been sitting down all day.’
‘How did you come to see Dalby?’
‘Dalby came in after the ad in the Stage.’
‘Well, why didn’t you tell me, Alice?’
‘I’d rather stand really.’
‘No, I was talking to Alice. How did you see Dalby?’
‘Can’t I tell Murray to go ahead then, sir, acting most discreetly, of course. Mustn’t upset the guardians of the law.’
‘Did they say what time in the morning, Jean?’
‘Just by accident. Horrid little place. It’s where he usually meets you.’
‘I’ve never been to Grantham in my life,
