The Mysterious Commission by Michael Innes Page B

to him too, and with much greater force, that the noises now being made by Radar were very horrid indeed. He turned out his pockets.
    The sergeant wrote everything down, so the effect was of some fatuously conducted pencil-and-paper game. Not perhaps unnaturally, he was particularly interested in the £20 notes.
    ‘Well, well. Well, well, well!’ The sergeant’s voice, as he finished counting all this highly negotiable wealth, was constrained to a note as of reluctant admiration. ‘Just think of that,’ he said to the constable.
    ‘Christ!’ the constable said.
    ‘Christ!’ Radar said. (Or Honeybath thought Radar said this. But then he was by now becoming very confused indeed.)
    ‘And now, sir,’ the sergeant said, with recovered poise and broad irony, ‘I wonder whether you would just care to mention where you have been spending these last fourteen days?’
    ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’
    ‘That’s very interesting, now. It would have been what they call magnesia, would it? Loss of memory, like?’
    ‘Nothing of the kind. I’ve never suffered from amnesia – which is the word you want – in my life. I don’t believe in such rubbish.’ Honeybath was now shouting wildly. ‘I was kidnapped. It’s what I came to tell you about – and you behave like bloody fools.’
    ‘Language, now, Mr Honeybath, language.’
    ‘Damn language. And I shall go in person to the Home Secretary.’
    ‘Yes, sir. It’s always a wise course. So you were kidnapped?’ The sergeant turned to his colleague. ‘It’s a story, all right,’ he said admiringly. ‘A deep one, he is. No wonder they’re after him bald-headed.’
    ‘I insist on telling you–’ Honeybath began.
    ‘Well, of course, sir. If you feel you must, that is. But I’d advise you to wait till they arrive.’ The sergeant had picked up a telephone. ‘They’ll be here within ten minutes, I’d say. And delighted to hear anything you have to offer. Smart fellows, you’ll find them.’
    ‘Who the devil are they ?’
    ‘Regional Crime Squad for a start, Mr Honeybath. Detective Superintendent Keybird in charge, sir. Easy name to remember, wouldn’t you say? And don’t you bother about their ranks and titles. Just call them all Mister, same as you’ve always done.’
    ‘I’ve never encountered a person of that sort in my life.’
    ‘Well, well! Now – ’ But the sergeant’s call had gone through. ‘Honeybath,’ he said briefly into the instrument. ‘We’ve got him.’
    If the rural constabulary of heaven alone knew where had got him, the Regional Crime Squad carried him off in a rapidly definable direction – straight, in fact, to the metropolis. They did this at speed. The car was a very powerful car; there was another car ululating ahead of them; he had a dim persuasion that the cavalcade closed with a third car behind. Constables on motor-bicycles performed the function of outriders; they wove in and out waving other traffic more or less into the ditch. The police were doing no more than show the flag; it is wholesome that the populace (including any criminals who may be around) should be shown the terror of the law at work. Honeybath might have been what is called a high-security felon, being whisked, through some obscure necessity, from incarceration in one corner of the country to incarceration in another. A police officer sat on each side of Honeybath. They weren’t at all like the rural constables. They would have regarded bluff insult or grim silence as equally unacceptable. They offered polite conversation from time to time. This added a final touch of the bizarre to his incredible ride. And then suddenly the car had slowed beside Honeybath’s bank; had drawn to a halt before the door of Honeybath’s studio.
    ‘So we’ve got you safely home, sir,’ one of his gaolers pleasantly remarked.
     
    Mr – or Detective Superintendent – Keybird was exceedingly civil; he was only less civil than concentrated and alert. He barely