Free Marazan by Nevil Shute Page B

nothing about. This worried me. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do was simply to carry on as I had intended, to lay my red herrings to the best of my ability, and to get away to sea as soon as possible. At the moment the only thing I could do was to go to sleep.
    I turned over on my side and began to drowse. There was one point in the note that struck me then, and the drowsier I grew the more important it seemed, till it seemed to me that it contained the whole essence of the affair. Mattarney … goes on with the boat. What boat was that? Surely not a liner; the phraseology seemed all wrong for that. A merchant vessel of his own? A yacht? And where was she going to?
    Then, just before I went to sleep, my mind went off at a tangent. Private intelligence bureaux with a fatherly interest in criminals might be assumed to be criminal themselves. What grade of criminal was likely to needthe services of such an organisation? Secret societies have never had a very great vogue in England unless for definite purposes of gain. What sort of illicit gain? Coining? That didn’t seem very likely. It would be something more easily concealed, some business in which the risk of detection was small, the profits large, and with a necessity for numerous agents. Possibly the boat was connected with it. Could it be some form of smuggling? That didn’t seem to fit in with modern conditions.
    And then, quite suddenly, I remembered what Compton had said when I asked him what he was imprisoned for. He had told me.
    ‘Embezzlement,’ I had said. ‘Well, that’s a nice clean sort of crime. So long as it wasn’t anything to do with dope or children.’
    He had looked at me curiously and had asked rather a curious question considering that he was pressed for time.
    ‘You don’t like dope?’ he had said. And I had cut him short. I wished now that I hadn’t.
    I slept well in spite of everything. I woke at about seven o’clock, got out the note, and read it again. Then I lay for a long time trying to make a plan. The essentials weren’t difficult. I had registered in the hotel in the name of Gullivant. Gullivant had to be firmly identified with Compton, the convict, in such a way as to bring the police hot on the scent. I didn’t think I ought to do that too early in the day. Salcombe was not so very far away from Exeter; I didn’t want my Exeter reputation to follow me there before I was ready for it. I must have a bit of a start.
    I dressed thoughtfully and went down to breakfast. It seemed that I was the only person in the hotel, which was very little more than a pub in point of fact. I atemy breakfast under the eye of the waiter, lit a pipe, and turned into the commercial room. Idly I picked up a paper, and there it was.
    It shrieked at me in headlines on the front page:
    OUTRAGE BY ESCAPED CONVICT ON
OXFORD FARM
    COMPTON IN LONDON?
    Compton, the escaped convict from Dartmoor, was identified in Oxfordshire yesterday, where he was the author of a violent attack upon a young farmer, Frederick Grigger, in a field near Abingdon. The convict made good his escape, and at the time of going to press he is still at large. It is believed that he is making for London.
    Our correspondent found Mr. Grigger at his farm, where he is recovering from his injuries. ‘I was walking along the hedge,’ said Mr. Grigger, ‘when he dashed out and came at me like a mad bull.’ Mr. Grigger was severely handled. ‘I am a strong man,’ said Mr. Grigger, ‘having been runner-up in the South Oxfordshire Ploughing Championship two years ago, but he shook me as a terrier shakes a rat.’ The motive of the outrage remains a mystery, though the disappearance of a cockerel from Mr. Grigger’s farm may supply a clue.
    There was a lot more of it; Grigger had evidently made the most of his opportunity. To every man, I suppose, there comes the chance of fame of one kind or another, and one would be a fool not to make the most of it. At the same time, it