Waiting for Orders by Eric Ambler Read Free Book Online Page A

sound of Inspector Denton’s footsteps approaching along the corridor. He rose to his feet. ‘Well, Doctor, now that you’re here, I expect you’d like to see something of our organization, eh?’
    Time had given the question a purely rhetorical significance for Mercer. For him, Dr Czissar was already safely under the wing of the approaching Inspector Denton. The words of introduction were already rising to his lips, the Inspector was already rapping dutifully at the door, the machinery for the speedy disposal of distinguished visitors was getting smoothly under way: and then, the unbelievable happened.
    Dr Czissar said: ‘Oh no, thank you. I will not trouble.’
    For a moment Mercer thought that he had misunderstood.
    ‘It’s no trouble at all, Doctor.’
    ‘Some other day, perhaps.’ The cow-like eyes regarded him kindly. ‘I am rather busy, you know. A text-book of medical jurisprudence. Perhaps if we could have a little talk about an important matter in which I am interested it would be better.’
    Mercer subsided slowly into his chair. He saw Denton was standing helplessly inside the door. He heard Sergeant Flecker, at his desk in the corner, say ‘Crikey!’ a little too loudly. Dr Czissar’s large, sad eyes regarded him compassionately. He strove to render his face and voice expressionless.
    ‘Well, Doctor. What can we do for you?’
    ‘Pardon, Assistant-Commissioner Mercer. It is I who can do something for you.’
    ‘Ah, yes?’
    And then Mercer witnessed, for the first of many times, the spectacle of Dr Czissar going into action. A faint, thin smile stretched the Doctor’s full lips. He settled his glasses on his nose. Then he produced an enormous alligator-skin wallet and took from it a newspaper cutting. Finally, he performed a series of three actions which Mercer was going in time to recognize and to detest. He cleared his throat, swallowed hard, and then said sharply: ‘Attention, please!’
    ‘I think,’ he added slowly, ‘that I can help you to discover a crime. Clever criminals are so stupid, are they not?’
    Mercer stroked his chin. A warm, comfortable feeling suffused his breast. This Czech was just another lunatic, after all. Unhinged, no doubt, by his experiences as a refugee. He thought of the memorandum he would send the ‘brass hat’ in the Home Office and smiled benignly on Dr Czissar. Once more he got to his feet.
    ‘Very good of you. Now, if you’ll just put the whole thing in writing and post it to me, we’ll look into it.’
    Dr Czissar’s thin smile vanished. The cow-like eyes flashed. ‘It is unnecessary. The matter is in writing and here.’ He put the newspaper cutting under Mercer’s nose. ‘Please,’ he said firmly, ‘to read.’
    Again Mercer sat down. His eyes met those of Dr Czissar. He read.
    The cutting was from a Wessex weekly newspaper dated a fortnight previously, and was the report of an inquest. The body of a woman of sixty had been washed up in Shingles Bay and had been identified as that of Mrs Sarah Fallon, of Seahurst, a village five miles from the seaside resort of Seabourne. Her husband had died fifteen years earlier, leaving her a large fortune and Seahurst Grange, with its twenty-acre park. Soon after his death she had assumed the guardianship of his niece, Helen Fallon, who had married, eleven years later, Arthur Barrington, a Seabourne coal and builders’ merchant, and President of the Seabourne Angling Society. The Barringtons had lived since their marriage with Mrs Fallon at the Grange.
    On the evening of November 4 Barrington had reported to the police that Mrs Fallon had disappeared. That afternoon Mrs Barrington had, at her aunt’s request, driven her into Seabourne to do some shopping. As Mrs Fallon had said that she might call on a friend for tea, her niece had left her at South Square at a quarter to three, put the car in the municipal car park, and spent the afternoon in a cinema. They had arranged to meet at South Square at six