Conspiracies -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction
"And you didn't get your line on the Big Triangle?"
"No. But I learnt something else, and you know what it was. Susan
saw it--I only heard of it from her," Blaythwayt dropped his voice
impressively. "The Tunnel!"
Storm looked up.
"Oh, yes! Into the Tube. Did either of you find out where it left
the Tube again?"
"No."
"Just by the Bank of England!" said Storm coolly, and the Teal and
Blaythwayt jaws sagged limply. "The Alpha Triangle was going to
smash the Bank of England--they'd got it all mapped out to a hair!
But there was just one place where they got snookered. Tell me that
one, Joe."
Blaythwayt nodded sagely.
"The vaults are flooded at night."
Storm struck a match and applied it to his cigarette. He looked at
the other two through a long wisp of blue smoke.
"Yeh!" he murmured. "They ought to have tried an easier crib. It
must have been ... peeving to have a bloomer like that in your
calculations--even if it does compensate for having the whole balloon
burst by a police raid!"
He climbed off the settee and stretched himself. His face was
reserve itself.
"Just one other thing," he remembered. "How did you find out that
'Raegenssen' was 'Sud-Scandinavia Wood'?"
Blaythwayt smiled.
"That was easy. I mean to say, I couldn't be sure, but I Had My
Ideas. Susan told me that you had been talking about a mysterious
sawmill, and, as Raegenssen's banker, I knew that he had frequently
passed cheques made payable to the Sud-Scandinavia. So I knew he had
some connection. I found the address in the street directory."
"Thanks very much," said Storm casually. "I think that's all. Are
you going to take my tip?"
"Er--um!" Joe looked mournful.
Storm flicked a short cylinder of ash into a flower-pot. His
cigarette twirled skywards, his shoulders squared, his hands went
deep into his trouser pockets. He looked down at Blaythwayt with a
metallic hardness in his eyes, and the other shuffled his feet
uncertainly.
"That's my last word--skid!" drawled Storm in a friendly tone under
which only an ear attuned to his mood would have detected the
cast-iron core. "Give her the gun, prospective uncle-in-law, and hit
her up on all six. Chase yourself, and touch the ground in spots.
Go rubbering round Canada, or hunt butterflies in Peru--go any place
where they never see Triangles except in geometry books or on
beer-labels or the rear wings of autos! Don't forget that warning.
I'm serious! During the next two days there're going to be special
trains running to Gehenna for everyone who's got a line on the Big
Triangle, or who's ever had the chance to get a line on him. The Big
Triangle himself included--that's my contribution. You come right
into that catalogue, Blaythwayt. Give Sherlock II a rest. I guess
he needs it."
Never for one moment had that undercurrent of command broken surface;
but Joe felt rather than heard it, and a flush of half-hearted
obstinacy stole into his plump cheeks.
"Now, when do you leave?" said Storm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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