Diana's Altar Read online

  They passed small groups of chattering and laughing scientific staff on the way through the building, and Joe decided he would never be able to tell one from another. They seemed to be wearing a uniform, a uniform consisting of a rumpled tweed suit inherited from a not-very-careful uncle who’d bought it before the war intending it to give good service. Pockets bulged with—Joe guessed—pipes, smoking requisites and bags of mint humbugs. All carried notebooks. Half wore spectacles. Two wore ginger golfing plus fours. One of these was a woman. She gave a cheeky whistle as they walked by and chirruped something rude. He froze her with his police stare. Conversations broke off as they sized up the two strangers and, from the level of astonishment, Joe guessed that visitors were not frequent and police officers as rare as hens’ teeth inside their redoubt. The jibes came thick and fast as they walked along.

  “Game’s up, Hugo! They’re on to you!”

  “Just stick to your story, Julian, and remember—you can be in two places at once. Einstein says so. It was your alter ego what dunnit.”

  All seemed to be working well so far. Now for the next bit of distraction.

  The deputy director, into whose office they were ushered, checked Joe’s credentials and asked why an eminence from Scotland Yard should be paying him a visit. Joe explained that his position put him at the head of Special Branch and, as such, in liaison with the security service. His presence here today had nothing to do with general policing and all to do with national security. A problem had arisen and it required instant attention.

  Dr. Haraldson apologised for the absence of his superior. The director was away in Göttingen in Germany along with a small contingent of German scientists from the Cavendish. Good-will visit, don’t you know. Exchanges in the planning stage. Busy time of year. “Will your constable be staying? Make that three cups, Dennis.” He sent an assistant off to bring the tea tray he’d ordered and took Joe’s hat and coat with a crisp, “Take a seat. Both of you. I think we’ve been sufficiently intimidated, don’t you?” He turned briskly to Joe. “Very short notice but of course I’ll do what I can. Now, the commissioner’s problem. Can I help resolve it?”

  “It’s your problem, Doctor,” Joe said with a concerned smile. “And you have very little time to deal with it. It has come to our notice that there has recently been formed a society in Cambridge calling itself the Anti-War Group. It has fifty members, a good number of whom are at present working here at the Cavendish.” Joe hoped he sounded authoritative. He’d certainly raised the deputy director’s bushy eyebrows an inch higher on his cliff face of a forehead. The man was tugging with a finger at his over-tight butterfly collar.

  “They have in common a political affiliation,” Joe kept up the pressure. “They are communists, either signed-up members or sympathisers. It is now the fourth of November. We understand that a demonstration is planned, aiming to sabotage the Remembrance Day service being held at the war memorial in Station Road on the eleventh. Many dignitaries and distinguished veteran soldiers will be present. The anti-war brigade, aided and abetted by other fun-seeking agitators, are minded to disrupt the proceedings. Paint will be splashed. Red, of course. Eggs and tomatoes will be thrown, trumpets and jeering will interrupt the minute’s silence. The press have been invited, naturally.”

  “A deplorable scene you describe, Sandilands, but hardly the end of the world! Student capers! We are accustomed to them in Cambridge.”

  Joe had a feeling that he hadn’t broken any fresh news.

  “Not, I would hope, communist-inspired ones? The government has decided that enough laxity is enough. The Red Menace flows through our revered institutions—none more heavily affected than Cambridge—and it must be stopped before society crumbles.”

  “Not sure what you think I can do about it. Why aren’t you saying this to the city police?”

  “Better to cut the nonsense off at source. The police involvement is a last resort. I want a list of communist members of the laboratory and I want them to receive warnings that they face the full force of the law if they take part. There will be government agents in the crowd. They will take prisoners. For the sake of your reputation and the careers of your employees, I would urge you to take this request seriously.”

  “How dare you ask such a thing? In a country that upholds the right to free speech and the right of its citizens to choose their political stance? I object to compiling a list of names!” He leapt to his feet, moustache twitching with outrage. “What kind of establishment do you think this—” His words ran into the sand as he read Joe’s expression and realised where he was heading.

  “A generously democratic one. But law-abiding, I trust. Don’t be concerned. We won’t be shipping the reprobates off to an Arctic gulag without trial on the basis of information received. This is not Communist Russia after all,” Joe smiled with sweet menace. “Is it? Your objection is noted. Your objection is set aside. Ah, tea! How very welcome.”

  They sipped their tea, exchanging conversational platitudes. Business evidently completed, Joe twinkled with polite enquiry about the laboratory. He talked knowledgeably about the architecture, hinting at a dislike for the Victorian pomposity and was careful to show no interest in the world famous physical science to which it gave a stout framework.

  “I think you might prefer the starker, more modern attempt we now have here,” Dr. Haraldson said, unconsciously following Joe’s lead. “The Mond Lab, which opened last February. A daring design, rather in the Bauhaus style. It has been much admired.”

  Joe at once expressed a keen interest.

  Coming to the end of his tea and eager to see the back of his visitors, the director seized on this and said with some enthusiasm, “Look here, why don’t you take the tour? Would that suit? Good. You may leave your things here, they’ll be quite safe. I’ll have someone fetched to show you round.”

  He went to the door and stuck his head out, preparing to shout along the corridor then Joe heard, “Ah! Hey there, Page! Here’s a stroke of luck. Busy are you, Humphrey? Well, drop that for the moment. There’s someone with me who would like to take a look at the labs.”

  He came back inside leading Humphrey Page, smiling with innocent and polite enquiry.

  “I leave you in Doctor Page’s capable hands,” he said. “Come and say goodbye before you leave, Sandilands. If you take your time, I should have ready my plans for . . . um . . . the ceremony, as requested,” he muttered.

  They were in!

  It was clear that Page had performed the service many times. Showing not a sign that he had ever met Joe before, he went cheerfully through his act, gliding through the parts that he knew would not be of interest. At a point, Joe turned to Risby, sensing the officer’s boredom. “Constable—you may return to the car. Drive it back to the hotel for me, will you? I’ll walk back when I’ve done here.”

  Risby saluted and went off, retracing his steps.

  Left alone, Page grinned and continued in his dutiful tone, “Let me show you the more modern facilities, sir. You’ll have heard of the Mond Laboratory? Named for Ludwig Mond, who donated money to the Royal Society which, in turn, funded the new building. It’s just along here in the courtyard. Interestingly, this parcel of land was, in ancient times, a friary and, after the dissolution of the monasteries it became the University Botanic Garden.”

  “And is now the world centre of scientific discovery?” Joe went along with the chatter.

  “As you say, sir. Blackett, Chadwick, Cockcroft, Watson, many others . . . all at work here, off and on. The Mond is under the immediate supervision of Professor Kapitza. He’s not at work today—I believe he’s taken his boys to the zoo—but I am able to show you his latest toy. It’s just been installed—the last checks on the system were made yesterday, and it will be ready for action on Monday, following the launch.”

  “Launch?”

  “We’re going to uncork a bottle or two of cham
pagne. An informal gathering before lunch to wet the baby’s head.”

  “What! Cover everything in fizz?” Joe smiled.

  “Nothing so vulgar! We leave that sort of behaviour to the racing drivers.”

  As they approached the Mond, Page drew his attention to a wall of grey brickwork into which a design had been etched halfway up the façade. Joe stood to admire it, as that seemed to be the expected reaction.

  “Ah. Any child would recognise: a crocodile,” he said and peered more closely. “Moving forward with open mouth. I wonder if it has an alarm clock ticking in its tummy. Mmm . . . I detect the chisel of Eric Gill . . .”

  “Who is much admired and has many friends hereabouts in Cambridge,” Page said with a warning smile, sensing Joe’s disfavour. “Watch it, smarty-pants,” he hissed in Joe’s ear as they stared at the brickwork. He reverted to the guide’s tone, “It’s a tribute, of course, to our director, the illustrious Professor Rutherford, who is affectionately known as ‘The Old Crocodile.’”

  “Then I take it the artist had in mind a god of the ancient Egyptians: Sobek, Force of Creation and, equally, Force of Ultimate Chaos.” Joe ran a speculative eye over the grooves of the carving, lost in thought. “Creator and Destroyer of the Universe,” he murmured.

  “We prefer to associate it with Tick-Tock the Croc in Peter Pan.”

  “Anyone would,” Joe said dryly.

  “The swallowed clock gave, um, timely warning of his appearance. The ring of the director’s boots along the corridor performs the same function nowadays.”

  The heavy-treading director was clearly adored and respected by Page. “A formidable man,” was Joe’s neutral comment.

  “Oh, yes. The heart and mind of the laboratory. Why don’t you come along and hear him for yourself? He lectures on Mondays and Fridays at noon. Anyone may attend. You may find him a little old fashioned—the whiskers, the antique dress and Victorian manner—but his subject matter is decidedly modern.”

  “His subject is?”

  “Atomic and subatomic physics. The constitution of matter. You won’t understand a word,” Page finished, scoring a point. “And here we are. The liquefier room,” he finally announced.

  Joe was surprised that a laboratory in such a state of chaos would be ready for the undertaking of experiments, let alone the setting for an opening drinks party in two days’ time. He murmured as much to Page. There were packing cases lying disembowelled on the floor, boxes of tools standing open, even oil-covered towels.

  “It’s the morning tea break,” Page explained awkwardly. “They’re working all day to get it ready, because, of course, no one’s here on Sunday.”

  “Who’s doing the work?”

  “The Metrovick men who delivered the equipment and a team of our own. The lab staff here are first class engineers as well as top flight physicists . . . best in the world.”

  “I’ll try not to put my foot on anything,” Joe said easily. He looked about him and sniffed. “I say—has somebody left the iron on?”

  “Iron?”

  “Mmm . . . I thought I caught a smell of solder.”

  Joe moved on, his attention caught by a construction of glass and metal. “Oh, here we are! This is it? Are you going to introduce me to the machine?”

  He put his briefcase down in a corner and went to examine the helium liquefier at close quarters. His first instinct was to look for a suitable screen to pull out over the unsightly mess. Attached to the wall was a stout wooden board covered in dials of varying sizes, sockets and transformers from which wires snaked up, down and sideways and in front of this—yes!—Joe saw his auntie’s Mark One Acme Water Heater. The large metal cylinder was fixed in a housing of metal struts and connected to the system top and bottom by pipes and tubes. The most significant of these sprouted out of the top, made a sharp bend to the right and dived down into an intriguing shiny metal sphere.

  “And the moonshine comes out of which pipe?” Joe wanted to know.

  Through Page’s impenetrable outpouring of “Joule-Thompson inversion temperature . . . adiabatic expansion . . . piston lubrication . . .” Joe was remaining alert for any sound of returning workmen. He caught the new arrival clumping across the cobbled courtyard in hobnailed boots and through the window glimpsed the delivery man heading straight towards the door of the lab.

  It was the awkward grip on the package he was delivering that caught Joe’s eye. The man shifted his hold on the heavy crate, preparing to lower it to the ground before opening the door. Not many delivery men having only half a left hand would be employed as such, Joe reckoned. He looked more closely. Oh, Lord! What bad luck! From Aidan’s brisk but competent description, he had no trouble in recognising Pertinax’s lieutenant, butler and old lag: Herbert Jennings. Six feet tall, brown hair, thuggish appearance. The scar under his left ear was not yet visible. Apart from the giveaway hand, he was completely unremarkable in his brown deliveryman’s long coat. He was paying attention to the floor under his feet, muttering curses about the state of the place and hadn’t taken in Joe and his companion. He had made no appearance at Madingley during Joe’s lunch with his boss, having been below stairs leading the funeral wake for the woman he’d conspired to murder two days before, and wouldn’t recognise Joe.

  Joe was taking no chances. With a quick wink, he grabbed Page’s pipe from his breast pocket and stuck it between his own teeth at a jaunty angle. He leaned over the metal monster and, with a swift hand, messed up his hair and loosened his tie. It was a red-faced and irritated scientist who looked up moments later.

  “Pass me your screwdriver, will you, Doctor Page?” Joe bent to inspect a connection and tapped about in an exploratory way on the metal frame for a few more seconds. “Someone will have to get up there and check those connections,” he announced crossly. “I’m not happy with them. Where are your workmen, Page? I don’t expect to have to do every menial task myself!”

  Turning, he caught sight of Jennings, who was now lowering his crate to the ground, and rounded on him with a startled, “Oy! What the hell do you think you’re doing, feller?” He stormed towards the man and stood an intimidating six inches from his face—definitely a scar below the ear—and yelled again. “Deaf, are you? I asked what the hell you think you’re doing!”

  Jennings sprang upright with an old soldier’s reaction. He looked with the traditional glassy stare straight ahead over Joe’s shoulder, and for a moment Joe thought he was going to salute.

  Jennings mastered his surprise and just managed to avoid the embarrassing show of subservience. His face hardened into truculence. “Who wants to know?”

  Hermes, god of information, stepped forward and informed him. “None of your business. But as we all appreciate good manners under this roof—” this was delivered with a measure of reproof aimed at Joe, along with a restraining hand on his sleeve, “I’ll introduce Professor Cartright from Manchester. He’s representing Metropolitan-Vickers. That gleaming beast”—he pointed to the liquefier—“is the professor’s baby.”

  “And I don’t damn well want it cluttered up with crates of . . . What the hell have you got in there?”

  “Champagne. Courtesy of Sir Gregory Pertinax,” Jennings announced with a satisfied sneer.

  “Champagne? Are you having me on? Look, mister, I don’t care if it’s courtesy of Dom Pérignon himself. Take it away! This is a laboratory, not the rear end of Harry’s Bar. Good Lord, there’s another of them over there behind the door! I won’t have crates in the proximity of the equipment. It’s producing helium, for God’s sake! One of the most inflammable substances on earth. Think of hydrogen and double the danger,” Joe invented. “If you knew anything about explosives, my man, you’d keep this whole area clear of combustible material. These crates are of light wood—sawdust inside—and the contents have even been known to go pop,” he finished in exasperation.

  “Sir!” Jenni
ngs could bear the insults no longer. “Sergeant Jennings, Royal Engineers during the war! On the Somme. The Big One! Not much you can teach me about explosives, Your Professorship!” His voice had lost its London-rough coarseness and taken on a staccato military delivery that was calculatedly just this side of insubordination.

  Page stepped in again. “That’s enough! Who sent you? Give me your dockets.” He reached out and plucked a folded sheet of paper from the top pocket of Jennings’s overall. “But—be warned—I’m thinking of putting in a formal complaint . . .”

  “Yer! You do that, guv! I do as I’m told. And my orders was to leave ’em ’ere on account of the party. Compliments of Sir Gregory. This is the Mond Lab? Liquefier room?” He looked about him stagily. “Prof. Kapitza has never complained and he’s the ranking officer, I think? He may be a Russkie, but he’s a gent! Still, if it’s not wanted I can always take it away . . .”

  “Leave it, leave it,” Page said and turned to Joe. “And you can stand easy, Professor. There is a party planned to celebrate the installation. Monday lunchtime. Very informal. We’re hoping you’ll be able to extend your stay by a further day and join us.”

  This seemed to amuse Jennings. “Sounds like a spiffing idea to me!” he jeered. “Your good health, gentlemen! No offence, Professor Cartright.”

  “Not much taken,” Joe conceded. “Now, bugger off! We’ve got work to do.” Turning back to the liquefier, he grumbled on until the man was out of earshot. “Monday is it? And have they thought how they’re going to chill the bottles?”

  “With a dozen experts in cryogenics about the place,” Page joked, “low temperatures shouldn’t be a problem!”

  “Ouf! Thanks for that!” Joe said, handing back the pipe and the screwdriver.

  “Ten out of ten for aplomb, five out of ten for physics knowledge! He didn’t take a shine to you. I should avoid dark alleys. You might even consider fleeing to Manchester.”

  “Ah, yes. Cartright? Is that going to be all right? These people are nothing if not careful, and they’re quite likely to run a check.”