Circus

‘As of this moment?’

‘Zero.’

‘Dr Harper?’

‘I agree totally. No chance. It would mean putting a watcher on every one of your several hundred employees in this building, sir.’

‘And who’s going to watch the watchers? Is that what you mean?’

‘With respect, sir, you know very well what I mean.’

‘Alas.’ The admiral reached into an inside pocket, brought out two cards, handed one to Wrinfield, the other to Bruno. ‘If you need me, call that number and ask for Charles. Any guesses you may have as to my identity – and you must be almost as stupid as we are if you haven’t made some – you will please keep to yourselves.’ He sighed. ‘Alas again, I fear, Fawcett, that your reading of the matter is entirely correct. There is no alternative explanation, not, at least, a remotely viable one. Nevertheless, getting our hands on this document overrides all other considerations. We may have to think up some other means.’

Fawcett said: ‘There are no other means.’

Harper said: ‘There are no other means.’

The admiral nodded. ‘There are no other means. It’s Bruno or nothing.’

Fawcett shook his head. ‘It’s Bruno and the circus or nothing.’

‘Looks like.’ The admiral gazed consideringly at Wrinfield. ‘Tell me, do you fancy the idea of being expendable?’

Wrinfield drained his glass. His hand was steady again and he was back on balance. ‘Frankly, I don’t.’

‘Not even being interned?’

‘No.’

‘I see your point. It could be a bad business. Am I to take it from that that you have changed your mind?’

‘I don’t know, I just don’t know.’ Wrinfield shifted his gaze, at once both thoughtful and troubled. ‘Bruno?’

‘I’ll go.’ Bruno’s voice was flat and without colour, certainly with no traces of drama or histrionics in it. ‘If I have to go, I’ll go alone. I don’t know – yet – how I’ll get there and I don’t know – yet – what I have to do when I arrive. But I’ll go.’

Wrinfield sighed. ‘That’s it, then.’ He smiled faintly. ‘A man can only stand so much. No immigrant American is going to put a fifth-generation American to shame.’

‘Thank you, Mr Wrinfield.’ The admiral looked at Bruno with what might have been an expression of either curiosity or assessment on his face. ‘And thank you, too. Tell me, what makes you so determined to go?’

‘I told Mr Fawcett. I hate war.’

The admiral had gone. Dr Harper had gone. Wrinfield and Bruno had gone and Pilgrim had been carried away: in three days’ time he would be buried with all due solemnity and the cause of his death would never be known, a not unusual circumstance amongst those who plied the trades of espionage and counter-espionage and whose careers had come to an abrupt and unexpected end. Fawcett, looking as bleak and hard as the plumpness of his face would permit, was pacing up and down the dead man’s apartment when the telephone rang. Fawcett picked it up immediately.

The voice in the receiver was hoarse and shaking. It said: ‘Fawcett? Fawcett? Is that you, Fawcett?’

‘Yes. Who’s that?’

‘I can’t tell you over the phone. You know damn well who it is. You got me into this.’ The voice was trembling so much as to be virtually unrecognizable. ‘For God’s sake get down here, something terrible has happened.’

‘What?’

‘Get down here.’ The voice was imploring. ‘And for God’s sake come alone. I’ll be in my office. The circus office.’

The line went dead. Fawcett jiggled the receiver bar but dead the line remained. Fawcett hung up, left the room, locked the door behind him, took the lift to the underground garage and drove down to the circus through the darkness and the rain.

The external circus lights were out except for some scattered weak illumination – it was already late enough for all the circus members to have sought their night accommodation aboard the train. Fawcett left the car and hurried into the animal quarters, where Wrinfield had his shabby little portable office. The lighting here was fairly good. Signs of human life there were none, which Fawcett, on first reaction, found rather surprising, for Wrinfield had a four-footed fortune in there: the second and almost immediate reaction was that it wasn’t surprising at all for nobody in his right mind was going to make off with an Indian elephant or Nubian lion. Not only were they difficult animals to control, but disposal might have presented a problem. Most of the animals were lying down, asleep, but the elephants, asleep or not and chained by one foreleg, were upright and constantly swaying from side to side and in one large cage twelve Bengal tigers were prowling restlessly around, snarling occasionally for no apparent reason.

Fawcett made for Wrinfield’s office then halted in puzzlement when he saw no light coming from its solitary window. He advanced and tested the door. It wasn’t locked. He opened it and peered inside and then all the world went black for him.

CHAPTER THREE (#u9593eff5-9f46-573e-80ca-3233178146e8)

Wrinfield hardly slept that night, which, considering the recent events and the worries they had brought in their wake, was hardly a matter for surprise. He finally rose about five o’clock, showered, shaved and dressed, left his luxurious quarters aboard the train and headed for the animal quarters, an instinctive practice of his whenever he was deeply troubled, for Wrinfield was in love with his circus and felt more at home there than anywhere in the world: the degree of rapport that existed between him and his animals certainly exceeded that which had existed between him and the reluctant economics students whom – as he now regarded it – he had wasted the best years of his life teaching. Besides, he could always pass the time with Johnny the night watchman who, despite the vast gulf in status that lay between them, was an old crony and confidant of his. Not that Wrinfield had any intention of confiding in anyone that night.

But Johnny wasn’t there and Johnny wasn’t the man ever to fall asleep on the job, undemanding though it was – his job was to report to the trainer concerned or the veterinary surgeon any animal that might appear off-colour. No more than slightly puzzled at first, then with increasing anxiety, Wrinfield carried out a systematic search and finally located him in a dark corner. Johnny, elderly, wizened and crippled – he’d taken one fall too many from the low wire – was securely bound and gagged but otherwise alive, apparently unharmed and furiously angry. Wrinfield loosened the gag, undid the bonds and helped the old man to his shaking legs. A lifetime in the circus had left Johnny with an extraordinary command of the unprintable and he didn’t miss out a single epithet as he freely unburdened his feelings to Wrinfield.

Wrinfield said: ‘Who did this to you?’

‘I don’t know, boss. Mystery to me. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear nothing.’ Tenderly, Johnny rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Sandbagged, it feels like.’

Wrinfield examined the back of his scrawny neck. It was badly bruised and discoloured but the skin unbroken. Wrinfield put an arm round the frail shoulders. ‘Sandbagged you were. Come on. A seat in the office. I’ve got a little something there that’ll set you up. Then we get the police.’

They were halfway towards the office when Johnny’s shoulders stiffened under the supporting arm and he said in an oddly harsh and strained voice: ‘I reckon we’ve got something a bit more important than a sandbagging to report to the cops, boss.’

Wrinfield looked at him questioningly, then followed the direction of his staring eyes. In the cage of the Bengal tigers lay the savagely mauled remains of what had once been a man. Only by the few shreds of clothing left him and the pathetically heroic row of medal ribbons did Wrinfield recognize that he was looking at all that remained of Colonel Fawcett.

Wrinfield gazed in horrified fascination at the still pre-dawn scene – circus workers, artistes, policemen in uniform and plainclothes detectives all milling around the animal quarters, all of them busily engaged in eradicating forever any putative clues there may have been. Ambulance men were wrapping up the unidentifiable remains of Fawcett and placing it on a stretcher. In a small group remote from the others were Malthius, the tiger trainer, Neubauer the lion tamer and Bruno, the three men who had gone into the cage and taken Fawcett out. Wrinfield turned to the admiral, whom he had first called and who, since his arrival, hadn’t bothered to explain his presence or identity to anyone and it was markedly noticeable that no policeman had approached him to ask him to justify his presence there; clearly, some senior police officer had said: ‘Do not approach that man!’

Wrinfield said: ‘Who in God’s name could have done this terrible thing, sir?’

‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Wrinfield.’ It was completely out of character for the admiral to say that he was sorry about anything. ‘Sorry all round. Sorry for Fawcett, one of my ablest and most trusted deputies and a damned fine human being at that. And sorry for you, that I should have been responsible for involving you in this ghastly mess. This is the kind of publicity that any circus could do without.’

‘The hell with publicity. Who, sir, who?’

‘And I suppose I feel a bit sorry for myself, too.’ The admiral shrugged his shoulders heavily. ‘Who? Obviously the same person or persons who killed Pilgrim. Your guess as to who they are is as good as mine. The one thing for sure is that they – whoever they are – knew he was coming down here or they wouldn’t have silenced the guard in advance – he can count himself lucky that he wasn’t found inside that cage with Fawcett. There was almost certainly a false phone call. We’ll soon know. I have them checking on it.’

‘Checking on what?’

‘Every call to our office, incoming or outgoing, except, of course, on the scrambler phones, is recorded. With luck, we’ll have that recording within minutes. Meantime, I’d like to talk to those three men who took Fawcett out of the cage. Individually. I understand that one of those men is your tiger trainer. What’s his name?’

‘Malthius. But – but he’s above suspicion.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ The admiral was trying to be patient. ‘Do you think any murder mystery would ever be solved if we questioned only the suspects? Please have him brought.’

Malthius, a dark-eyed Bulgarian with an open face, was plainly deeply upset. The admiral said, kindly for him: ‘You’ve no need to be so distressed.’

‘My tigers did this, sir.’

‘They would probably do it to anyone in the country except you. Or would they?’