Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page A

It’s that – but absurd, banal. The demented scientist with the vital secret in his pocket? I just won’t take it. I doubt the whole thing…your whole visit…who are you… It’s a hoax – a hoax in filthy taste.’
    Appleby allowed a minute for this disturbance to subside. ‘No,’ he said presently. ‘This is quite literally no joke, Mr Juniper. You know that, really. But I admit that it is all close neighbour to absurdity. The atom bomb in the attaché case. They made rather a good film out of that, although not perhaps a very plausible one. The bomb was certainly a bit much. And of course – inside the story, I mean – it could have been checked up on at once. One can go in and count such things, I suppose, on their racks. Bombs don’t obligingly breed for you.’
    There was a silence during which Juniper was clearly striving for self-control. ‘That assistant,’ he brought out presently. ‘Clandon, did you call him? Is he certain?’
    ‘No. He can’t be certain. The whole technical set-up, it seems, is such that he can’t be certain. Your brother is the only person who can be certain.’
    ‘I accept it. I accept your story…the situation.’ Juniper, although he spoke firmly, was like a man slightly dazed. ‘And I’ll go – I’ll go at once, and hold the fort as best I can. Although I never expected to be the cuckoo, so to speak, in my brother’s scientific nest.’
    Appleby smiled grimly. ‘It’s not a very exact image. But I’m glad you’re game. Thank you.’
    ‘I’ll need a lot of briefing. But I suppose I can get it from this fellow Clandon. He’s to be in the secret, I suppose?’
    ‘He must be. But he’s entirely reliable. I know him quite well. A man of some imagination, as well as a competent scientist. He’s absolutely willing to see you through as Professor Howard Juniper for a few days.’
    ‘You know…it’s funny.’ Juniper had come to a halt and was gazing with unseeing eyes at Splaine Croft. ‘Did I tell you how I travelled from Oxford today with a lot of young people? I was led into talking to them about all this sort of thing. The whole nightmare, I mean, of these new ways of making war – if war is not far too clean a name for the horror. I think I even mentioned having a brother who was a little concerned in it. The thing slipped out – although not, I hope, indiscreetly. It shows that my anxieties about Howard have been very near the surface of my mind. But I never dreamed of this – that my brother may be carrying round death and destruction with him.’
    ‘I’m sure you didn’t.’ Appleby, who appeared to be a born actor, meditatively stroked his false beard. ‘It would be a distinctly morbid mind that would think up anything of the sort clean out of the blue.’
    ‘But it’s true?’ Juniper appealed oddly for confirmation, as if he had a lingering hope that he had got the whole thing wrong. ‘Howard may actually have taken – have taken something almost as destructive as an atom bomb?’
    ‘ Almost as destructive! ’ Appleby paused, apparently thinking better of going on. ‘Clandon will be the man to tell you about that.’
    Juniper was very pale again. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I think my own imagination can cope with the possible dimensions of the thing. Now, how had I better get away? I’m ready this instant.’
    Appleby nodded approvingly. ‘Mr Clwyd,’ he said, ‘will take a quick look at a form room and a dormitory, and drive off. You’ll get a telegram within half an hour. It will be a genuine telegram from – shall we say Dorchester? But it will have begun its life on the short-wave transmitter in my car. Would the sudden death of an old friend serve?’
    ‘Quite adequately, I suppose. And he can be given any name under the sun. Even Miss Grimstone – that’s my secretary – hasn’t a line on my whole former acquaintance.’
    ‘Very good. You will pack your bag, and mention to the relevant people that you are an executor