The Wellington Bureau: A Quartermain Mystery

word out of you and I’ll kill you!”

  A pause.

  “If you do kill me you’ll go to prison for life!”

  “I’ll kill you all!” The thug brandished his gun.

  “For goodness sake!” the tall man hissed at Anna in alarm.

  “If you give yourselves up before anyone is hurt, you may get off with a light sentence. I expect there are mitigating circumstances. I’ll help you both.” Her voice was calm and reassuring.

  The thug walked over in a few strides. “Just shut your face!” He looked at Anna and she looked him straight in the eyes. He lifted his hand and struck her to the ground.

  “No, Jack!” exclaimed a twin.

  “Shut up! You bloody fool!” He swung round to face the now cowering huddle. “The next one who speaks is dead. Got it!”

  Anna picked herself up. There were tears in her eyes. She couldn’t help it. No one had ever hit her before. Silence returned to the room.

  “Why don’t the bastards answer!” muttered the thug.

  Anna was now standing a little apart from the cluster. She wiped a drop of blood from her lip and looked at the twins with big wet eyes. They glanced at each other uneasily. They did not like to see a woman hurt. Taking money was one thing. They had not expected this. It had been fun planning the robbery. Jack had made it sound easy. It had been a game. Anna pulled herself together and wiped her eyes.

  “Why don’t they answer?” the thug repeated his question.

  “They will wait until you give up. If you kill us, they’ll shoot you. Is that what you had in mind?” Anna had spoken again, her voice only slightly unsteady.

  The huddle looked at her as if they thought she was mad. At least she was standing well away from them now. If he shot that stupid woman he would not hit them by mistake!

  The thug was incensed. “I’ve had it with you, lady!” He walked menacingly towards her.

  “Lady Quartermain, actually.”

  “What?” he was momentarily confused.

  “That’s my name. Lady Augustus Quartermain.” Now she was quite deliberately trying to rouse him. The huddle could not understand why. They had not watched the twins as closely as she had.

  “Bugger that!” said the thug. His gun was forgotten in his hand. He was not used to shooting people. But he was used to hitting women. That came naturally to him. “I’ll shut that stupid upper-class mouth of yours for good!” He struck her again. She flinched but stood up to face him again. His anger and frustration were now focused on her.

  “Will this get you safely to the airport?” Her comment was aimed at the twins.

  He started to hit her again. If he had shot her he might have maintained his tenuous control on the situation and his authority over the twins. But his slender reserves of self-control were exhausted. Even the huddle, cowed though they were by his violence, could see he had lost an important point. The twins could take no more. They darted forward and grabbed him. “Leave her alone!” He turned on them. One twin tussled with him. The other picked up the gun he had dropped. The huddle watched. The twin had the advantage of youth and he stood up while the man remained on the floor, wiping blood from his own mouth.

  Just then the phone rang. Everyone turned and looked at it. It was Anna who went and picked up the receiver.

  “We are trying to arrange a car,” the voice prevaricated.

  “Not to worry. It’s a nice day. We’ll walk!”

  As Anna was leaving the police station several hours later, she was told that a gentleman had come to collect her. She was surprised to see the Brigadier. He ushered her to his silver-grey Jaguar and opened the door for her.

  “How on earth did you know that I would be here?”

  “Your brother phoned me. I was in Town, so it did not take me long to drive down.”

  “I didn’t know my brother knew you.”

  “We spoke at the funeral.”

  “Have you set yourself up as my guardian angel?” Anna spoke without rancour. Andrew had always joked about how the then Captain Butterworth had looked after him when he was a young, rash youth.

  “Have you been to the hospital, Lady Quartermain?” the Brigadier referred to the all too obvious cuts and bruises on Anna’s face.

  “Yes. Before the police station. I’ve done my rounds of the emergency services. They look worse than they are. Just don’t, for goodness sake, do anything to make me smile!”

  There was little danger of that. The Brigadier was not in the habit of intentionally doing or saying anything amusing. He was a tall, wiry man of distinguished bearing. He might have been considered attractive had there been more animation in his face. As it was, he was what Anna described as a no-nonsense man, perfectly self-controlled. Inscrutable, even. That he had feelings could only be surmised from that fact that he had taken early retirement from a career to which he had appeared to be entirely devoted in order to nurse his wife, Helena, through the final year of a debilitating illness. She had died the previous summer. He was a man of actions rather than words; Andrew Quartermain, a man of words. Their only similarity was a mutual dislike of socializing. Yet theirs had been a firm and lasting friendship. Anna had not seen much of Harris Butterworth in her years at Quartermain House, and she could certainly not claim to know him well, yet he had been one of the few constants in her life. He had been a regular, if not a frequent, visitor.

  “You were lucky not to be killed.”

  Anna glanced at her face in the mirror on the sun-visor and winced. “They weren’t a very dangerous set of armed robbers. One of them was an ass and the other two mere lads. Quite nice lads, I suspect.”

  “Amateurs and fools can be more dangerous than clever, calculating men. Unreliable,” he added as he changed gear. Anna did not doubt that the Brigadier knew what he was talking about. “You showed courage.” This was high praise coming from him.

  “Not as much as you might think. I was the only one with nothing to lose,” Anna admitted. “Mind you, there were moments when I regretted my bravado. Indifference to life does not reconcile you to pain.”

  The Brigadier frowned. “The Inspector gave me an account of what occurred. What you did may have been right in the circumstances but there is no excuse for risking a life, even your own life, unless it is strictly necessary.”

  This comment surprised Anna, coming from a military man like the Brigadier. But then, the military was not in the business of risking lives without cause.

  “Brigadier,” she changed the subject. “Do you think we could do something to get the Bird lads off without a prison sentence?”

  “Who?”

  “The twins: William and Benjamin Bird. I asked them their names. They’re only eighteen. I said I’d do what I could.”

  “You can’t interfere with the law.”

  “But I bet you could if you knew the right people.”

  “Well, I don’t recommend it.”

  “We could sort out some mitigating circumstances surely? They gave themselves up without hurting anyone. They were influenced by an older man. Would having a good job to go to help them?”

  “As part of a probation officer’s report it might do some good.”

  “Good.”

  The Brigadier was provoked to an enquiry. “Who do you think will provide jobs for them?”

  “Me.”

  “You!”

  “Yes. A chauffeur and...and a something else when I can think of it.”

  “You can’t possibly need a chauffeur.”

  “Well, no. Although I can’t drive, so it might come in handy. But, to be honest, I had something else in mind. It suddenly struck me at the police station. I could start a business.”

  Something in Anna’s tone alerted the Brigadier to the fact that what she had in mind was something of which he was likely to disapprove.

  “What precisely?” he asked in his bleakest tones.

  “An investigation agency,” she replied.

  “What nonsense!” The Brigadier had decided tha
t her experiences that day had upset her and he had resolved not to be provoked.

  “A sort of – whatever your problem, we’ll sort it out – kind of organisation. The twins should be a great help.”

  The Brigadier humphed.

  “Well, for all the negatives in my life at present, there appears to be one positive in the balance. I appear to have the gift of indifference. I'm immune to fear.”

  The Brigadier was silent for a moment. Silent and thoughtful. After a while he said, “You have had reason to be upset recently. Your responses might well be...not quite natural. But you will start to care about things again, believe me. If I was you I’d take things easy for a bit. Go on holiday, perhaps. Then think about your future.”

  Anna did not reply.

  “Giles Banks-Enfield,” the Brigadier said suddenly as the car swung round a bend.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He’s the man for your twins. A first class barrister.”

  Three

  The judge was saying, “...and in view of their youth and the absence of any record of previous criminal activity....”

  He was a grey-haired, shrivelled man with hunched shoulders and a rather sour expression. He looked to Anna like someone whose understanding of justice was firmly rooted in the medieval concept of the Last Judgement. On this occasion, however, his sense of justice appeared to have been tempered by mercy.

  “...the favourable report from the probation officer...” the judge peered over the top of his glasses at the man in question as if to gauge from his expression or posture whether he was likely to be easily gullible.

  Anna noticed that William was shuffling a bit. Benjamin seemed almost as if