From London Far by Michael Innes Page A

– a very ruthless and horrible crime planned by people with exceptional resources. Faking the death of four people by a particularly violent form of enemy action–’
    ‘But why four?’ Meredith found himself as absorbed as he was horrified by this further new world that was swimming into his ken. ‘There must have been visitors–’
    ‘Not a bit of it. You see, it wasn’t just a matter of blowing up the hut straight away. Our men had to be overpowered, and all the best things removed, and then the incident had to be faked. Well, our men were armed, as I said. And, despite being taken by surprise, they gave a good account of themselves – which is why four bodies were finally involved… When I had eventually got all this sorted out in my mind I thought it was about time to go to the police.’
    Meredith nodded. ‘It most certainly was.’
    ‘But I didn’t. I went north again to scout round. You see, I was coming to think of it as my mystery. Just as now I’m coming to think of it as ours .’
    ‘I see.’ Meredith frowned into the fire and then turned to look soberly at the girl. ‘Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius ,’ he quoted, ‘That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me?’
    ‘Good Brutus, be prepared to hear .’ Jean Halliwell had leant forward earnestly. ‘I, your glass –’ She hesitated.
    ‘Will modestly discover to yourself That of yourself which you yet know not of.’ He shook his head. ‘A few hours ago I had nothing more momentous in front of me than a quiet journey to a great house in Yorkshire. Now you are beckoning me heaven knows where – say out of Anthony Trollope into John Buchan. But proceed. You went north.’
    ‘I went north and presently discovered a good many things. The nearest inhabited spot to the scene of the dig was a tiny village in a fold of the Pentlands, and, although it was nearly a year ago, the folk there remembered the night in question well enough. One of them told me in an incidental way that it was the night the furniture van had broken down just past the church. I was on to that in a jiffy, you may be sure. And it appeared that a great covered removal van had pulled up with engine trouble outside the village, and that the driver and his mate had been tinkering with it until after dark, and that the next morning it was gone. Nobody had thought anything of it. It had been labelled with the name of a familiar Edinburgh firm.
    ‘Well, of course I hurried off to those people – they were a big Princes Street shop – and I said that my grandmother’s favourite Aberdeen terrier had been killed on the road on that particular night, and that my grandmother was a little weak in the head and believed that one of the firm’s vans was responsible, and that for months I had been trying to dissuade her from going to law–’
    ‘God bless my soul!’ Meredith looked at the girl in astonishment. ‘For one whose profession is penetrating to the truth in a very difficult historical field, you appear to have a quite remarkable command of fibs. It is clear that private detection might be your métier equally with classical archaeology.’
    ‘Thank you very much. Well, I said various things of that sort and then the removal people obligingly looked up their books and showed me that none of their vans had been within ten miles of the place. I said that would cook grandmama’s goose all right, and left. And it was just as I left that I was tipped the black spot.’
    ‘You were threatened ?’
    ‘I got on a tram along with several other people. A couple of stops later, one of them – a man got up in the purest spirit of melodrama with dark glasses and a beard – brushed past me on the way out and hissed, “Keep out of it or it will be the worse for you.” After that you can’t blame me for rather feeling that I owned a real mystery of my own. And I told you I had been warned. In fact, I went on pushing in where it clearly wasn’t