* * * *

  Outside, the morning was golden with sunlight that sparkled on the waters of the lake in St. James’s Park. A cock pigeon strutted up and down on the window sill, crop puffed up, aggressive, rumbling with courting calls to the hen pigeons on the roof.

  Bush had Trader’s second letter on the desk in front of him. It had been posted in Southampton the previous day. Already Sangwill had had the letter itself checked for fingerprints. There had been none. Trader had written that he wanted the same arrangements as before. The ransom was to be paid in diamonds, and he had specified the types and qualities. When the letter had been typed blank spaces had been left for the day, time and place for the hand-over of the Archbishop. These had been filled in by uneven purple letters and figures from some cheap child’s hand-set printing kit. The typeface of the letter was the same as that on the letter to Sir Charles Medham. Bush guessed that the man had typed both letters at the same time. . . . He could imagine him typing them, and then going out, driving away in a car to ditch the typewriter somewhere. The sureness and arrogance of the man irritated him more than ever this morning. His mind went back to the hall of the Officers’ Mess of the Army Aviation Centre at Middle Wallop. The slim wiry figure coming up the steps from the night, the grotesque mask, and the cab driver grinning from his car . . . all that, thought Bush, he would have to go through again. There was no stopping it. The fiat had been issued through Grandison. There were to be no stratagems, no deceptions, not the slightest move which might in any way impede the smoothness of the hand-over or prejudice the safety of the Archbishop. The man would walk in from the night, take the diamonds and go. He, Bush, was going to stand there again and watch it all happen. And after it had happened, no matter what future was decided for the department—and there was no escaping the conventional pressures building against it already—there would be a black mark against his own name that would follow him in his record wherever he went. There would be other jobs for him, but none of them would ever be the ones he craved. And this Trader man would have done it to him, marked him before he was as developed and mature as Grandison, who already bore too many scars of past failures and triumphs for any further defeat or success to be able to touch him.

  The previous evening his wife had returned unexpectedly from Norfolk. With a calmness and self-confidence he had not known in her before, she had said that she was going back to Norfolk to begin living with her lover. She had given the man’s name—adding that she intended to change her name by deed poll to the same—and said that she was quite content to sit out the necessary time period before getting a divorce. She was happy and determined and saw clearly the way ahead of her. Her sureness and happy self-confidence were irritants to him that carried over into the Trader case. Nothing he handled was going his way. Thinking of it now, he wondered if the gods of chaos were laughing their heads off as they watched him— a man who wanted to trap and destroy Trader, their darling of the moment, a man who could not even create a moment’s unease for a wife who meant nothing to him.

  He got up and walked to the window. In a moment of human weariness he suddenly thought, what the hell did it matter? Let Trader have his diamonds, and let his wife have her divorce. It really didn’t matter. By next Sunday morning it would all be over, the Archbishop back and Trader successful. All right—and then he would walk out, let ambition die, rid himself of his wife legally, and accept whatever life offered him. Standing there, watching the young green of shrubs and trees, the colours of daffodils and crocuses in the park, his mood was one of true despair.

  It was at this moment that Sangwill came in. He handed Bush two sheets of paper.

  “We had this from the Yard a little while ago. It came from the Wiltshire police. The second sheet is the print-out from the computer.”

  Bush sat down and read the top sheet. It was a C.I.D. report from Salisbury on the suicide of one, Blanche Tyler. It gave all the relevant details, and a summary of her known movements on the Saturday prior to her discovery in the suicide car. It also mentioned that there was a family history of suicide. An autopsy had revealed that she was two-months pregnant, death had undoubtedly been due to CO poisoning, but further examination and analytical tests on internal organs had revealed small traces of a compound of sodium theopentone and chlorpromezathine. It was possible that she could have been drugged first, placed in the car and then killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, the whole act being arranged to look like a suicide. She had a lover—one, George Lumley—who could have been responsible for her pregnancy and who inherited five thousand pounds under her will. Lumley’s movements over the weekend had been cleared. Blanche Tyler’s death had occurred between nine and ten o’clock on the Saturday night. Lumley had spent the hours between eight and ten o’clock in the Red Lion Hotel bar, Salisbury. He had been interviewed by the police and it was considered highly unlikely that he had had any connection with her death. The report was forwarded as a routine matter because Lumley had already been reported to the department in the Trader enquiries. Instructions regarding any further action with regard to Lumley or the case in general were requested. The Coroner’s inquest had been fixed for the coming Friday.

  The computer print-out gave all the Lumley details already reported with a cross reference to the sodium theopentone and chlorpromezathine traces found in the blood test of the Right Honourable James Archer, M.P.

  Bush, his mind reaching forward and assessing possibilities, his frustration lifting a shade in him, said, “This theopentone stuff was used on Archer. It’s a fair bet it was used on Pakefield. It could have been used on the Archbishop on Saturday. Trader used it each time. Now we have this woman on whom it has been used—on the same Saturday. By Trader?”

  “Well, that’s what the computer doesn’t want us to ignore. Let’s face it, it’s not the kind of stuff you can walk into a chemist’s shop and buy ready to use. But it could be made up by anyone who had the necessary chemical and dispensing knowledge.”

  “Which George Lumley certainly doesn’t appear to have.”

  “Assuming for the moment that George Lumley is innocent of her death, and assuming, too, that he has no connection with Trader, and assuming also that this might be the million-to-one chance we’ve hoped, if not prayed, for. What kind of connection could there be between Trader and this woman Blanche Tyler which would make him kill her?”

  Bush leaned back in his chair. In the past he had known truth to travel strange byways to reach them, and he had gone down many byways after truth and been disappointed. But the implications here—if truth was making some faint call for recognition out of the maze of computer data in which it had been lost:—were elementary. He said, “The Archbishop was kidnapped between four and five o’clock. Four or five hours later Blanche Tyler dies. Well?”

  Sangwill shrugged his shoulders. “Assuming Trader used the sodium theopentone on her, it’s not hard to invent a reason. The most obvious one is that she got in the way, somewhere along the kidnapping line. She became more than a threat. She was a positive danger and he had to get rid of her. Or perhaps she’d been working with him all along and for some reason he found he had to murder her. Her description is nothing like that of the woman who collected the first lot of diamonds. But we have no proof that only one man and one woman have been involved in the kidnappings.”

  Bush said, “There’s only one assumption we want to put our money on. That there’s a connection between Trader and Blanche Tyler. Whether it was a long-established connection or a random one—something that happened that Saturday— doesn’t matter. We’ve got to assume that what we want to be true is the truth. So where did Blanche Tyler go on that Saturday? Wherever she went we’ve got to believe that she found or met Trader there.”

  “Nobody knows where she went. She packed up a picnic lunch and took off. Her mother doesn’t know and Lumley doesn’t know. All he can offer is that she sometimes went off to commune with nature.”

  Bush stood up. “We’re going to find out. But we’ve got to be more than circumspect about it. Grandison will be in soon. I’ll speak to him about the line we should take. But I can tell you one thing. Even if we could put our finger on Trader at this moment, we wouldn’t be allowed to do anything about it. The exchange goes through. There is to be no smallest move that might put the Archbishop in jeopardy. That really would send up the balloon.”

  “Well, that suits us. The Archbishop comes back. He’s recovered from a bad chill and takes up his duties. Nobody knows a thing. And then we deal quietly with Trader—if all these assumptions are right and if we can trace him. Tracing him is the problem. You’ve got a dead medium and a happy-go-lucky remittance man. Big help.”

  Bush shook his head sharply. This was the first scrap of hope ever offered. Now was the moment for an act of faith. Now was the moment for chaos to resolve itself into a revealing pattern. Perhaps the gods had turned against Trader at last. He said, “Wherever she went, there must be some way of tracing her movements. I’ll have to see how Grandison wants it handled.”

  When he saw Grandison an hour later, the directive he was given was straightforward.

  “You don’t do anything. The Archbishop is going to be handed over on Saturday. Until that happens all enquiries by us or the police are taboo.”

  “But this may be the lead we want!”

  “I hope it is. But we do nothing about it now. How do you know Lumley or this Blanche Tyler’s mother is not connected in some way with Trader? That’s an assumption that mustn’t be overlooked.” Grandison began to polish his monocle with his silk handkerchief. “Blanche Tyler could have been working with Trader, too. It may be a long shot—but assume it’s true. And then you turn up, making enquiries. That always makes people edgy, suspicious. So far it’s a plain case of suicide. The Wiltshire people have got to keep it that way. The Coroner’s inquest must go that way and a finding of suicide be brought in. I’ll have a word with them and fix that. Nothing must be done that might at the longest stretch of imagination reach back to Trader and make him think the game is going against him. But once the Archbishop is back we can go to work. Until we get him back, Trader, whoever he is and wherever he is, has got to be absolutely certain that he is in no danger.” Grandison smiled. “Would you like to take any step that might lead to the death of an Archbishop? Something that couldn’t be kept quiet. The papers would explode! And a lot of heads, including ours, would roll. Don’t worry. I mean to get Trader. But not until the Archbishop is safely back in his pulpit.”

  “That may be too late. He may give us the slip.” Grandison shook his head and slotted his monocle into place. “I don’t think so. I’ve been praying too hard. Prayer is often answered. The trouble is we sometimes don’t realise it. But this is plain enough. The Archbishop is kidnapped between four and five. A woman dies between eight and nine the same day. Suicide it looks. Woman pregnant and with a family history of suicide. The police are busy people. Most forces would accept that. And why not? But the real answer to the prayer is that the Salisbury chief just doesn’t take routinely to suicides. He asked for a further examination and it has brought out this theopentone stuff. If that hadn’t been in their report neither you nor Sangwill would have been interested. You’re not a betting man, are you? No. Well, if you were, you would know that there are a few rare moments in a punter’s life when he picks a long shot and knows that it is going to win. This is a long shot and every nerve in my body tells me that it is going to turn up. So, just let’s sit back and wait until after Saturday. The gods are working for us. They don’t want us interfering just yet.”

  * * * *

  Miss Rainbird put down the telephone and stared out of the window. Across the gardens by the lake some contractor’s men had felled a diseased elm and the air was full of the sound of their mechanical saws as they trimmed it. She hated to see trees go. The elm had been there as long as she could remember . . . had been standing there for years and years before she had been born. Now it was dead. There was a beginning and an end for everything.

  She felt quite shaken by what Ida Cookson had just told her. Very shaken. She turned away from the window, poured herself a glass of sherry and sat down in her chair, the chair in which she had always sat when Madame Blanche had come here for her seances. And now Madame Blanche was dead. Had committed suicide, so Ida had said. Gassed herself in her car. It was unbelievable. A big, strong, capable, intelligent woman, that you only had to look at to know she enjoyed life . . . loved it and as clearly loved what she did professionally. How extraordinary. What on earth made people do that? Just for a moment, while Ida had talked on, she had wondered if it could possibly have had anything to do with her rejection of the woman; but after a moment’s reflection she had dismissed that. Madame Blanche had been used to rebuffs and to failures. She had stood here in this room and said so. . . .

  And the dream, too. It was very odd that only last night she should have dreamt about the woman. Thank goodness Harriet didn’t bother her at night now. But Madame Blanche had been with her last night. As clear and real as though she were sitting in the chair opposite now. She’d even been wearing those ghastly artificial pearls. In some odd way Madame Blanche, in the dream, had been on very different terms with her. As though they were old friends, reunited after a long parting. It was curious how you remembered some dreams so well. The memory persisting through to wakefulness with astonishing clarity. Madame Blanche had been wearing the lambskin coat which she had often seen Syton take from her on her visits, and she had been showing her around the house.

  They were chatting and laughing like old friends. In the upper hallway at the top of the great staircase they had stood and looked out of the window, right down across the gardens to the lake, and she remembered there had been someone by the lake. It was a youth or a young man. She couldn’t make him out very well because her sight was not so good for distances. But he was fair-haired, she knew. Knew, not only because she could make that much out, but because she knew the youth, though in her dream she had no name or reference to give him. She just knew him, accepted and loved him. She recalled now that she must have loved him because in the dream it had been clear enough that he was using a fly rod from the lakeside. Not in forty years since Sholto had stocked it with brown trout had the lake been fished. The trout were her pets, fat and lazy with daily feeding, some of them five and six pounds. And in the dream the youth had caught one. She could sense from his stance and movements the bow-like bending of the rod, and had seen the smooth water surface broken by the struggles of the fish. If anyone else had invaded the lake it would have been sacrilege. She would have been furious and would have rung for Syton at once. But she had just looked at Madame Blanche and the both of them had smiled, nodding happily to one another, sharing some unwordable pleasure at the sight of the youth fishing.

  And then they had both turned out of the shaft of sunlight towards the gloom at the top of the stairs. There was no break in her memory of the dream at all. For her the head of the long staircase held bad memories, too. It was from here that Sholto had gone down to his death . . . a death which had brought her freedom although she had had to struggle with her conscience against the sense of relief and happiness when she had known he was dead, that at last she was free and alone in the house, no longer to be plagued and bullied and humiliated by his ways.

  Madame Blanche, pausing with her at the top of the stairs, had looked at her smiling and had said, as though all the family history and all her own thoughts were clear to her, “Poor Sholto . . . an unhappy man. You have no need to reproach yourself for your feelings, Grace.”

  Grace. Yes, she had called her that. And she had replied— how extraordinarily clearly the dream memory persisted with her—“He would drink so much. I’d warned him. Asked him to be careful. But I must confess, now the years have passed, that it was a great relief for me.”

  And Madame Blanche, beginning to move down the stairs, had said, “All wrongs are redressed in time by those above who control the balance of life and death.” Then she had laughed and said with that heavy, jocular girlishness of hers, “Come on, Grace, I want to see these new decorations and curtains of yours.”

  She had walked on down the stairs with Madame Blanche and out of the dream. And now, Madame Blanche, the real one, not the friendly dream one, was dead, and it was very hard to believe.

  She helped herself to another sherry. As she did so she realised that she drank rather more of it these days than had ever been her habit before. Well, old age, she thought, excuses a few indulgences. She sat there, thinking about Madame Blanche’s death, and then going back to those moments as they had looked out of the window at the fair-haired youth, recalling the intense sensation of happiness there had been for her in those moments. She had had the feeling that something had come full circle, that life had been restored to its true pattern again. Extraordinary. What extraordinary things dreams were. She sipped her sherry and came slowly to the decision that it would not be out pf place for her to send a wreath to Madame Blanche’s funeral. She must find out when it was to take place. Perhaps it might be better not to put her name to it. Mark the card simply from ca friend’. After all just for a few moments in the dream they had been friends.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GEORGE COLLECTED HIS van on Wednesday morning from Salisbury and drove it back to his cottage. He parked it outside the shed and with Albert at his heels walked slowly round it, admiring it. Albert had not taken too kindly to the new van. He clearly preferred the old car which George had traded in. All the way back he had sat stiffly on the spare front seat and growled to himself until George had cuffed his head and told him to shut up.