The Invisibility Affair - Stratton Thomas. Страница 5

Napoleon turned to Reed. "You don't have any idea what Morthley had down here?"

"No, I never had any reason to go beyond the living room." Reed replied. "Dr. Morthley was friendly enough, but he didn't talk about his work, and it wasn't really any of my business."

"Until now," Illya murmured.

"Was he friendly with anyone—friendly enough to drop hints about his work?" Napoleon asked.

"Not that I know of. Oh, he was friendly enough. He'd talk about crops, weather, politics, business, basketball—he was quite a basketball fan. Said once that he grew up in Indiana. But nothing about his work. He'd answer questions if you asked him, but his answers never seemed to give any information."

"We had better search the house, I suppose," Napoleon said, turning to Illya. "The Doctor doesn't seem the type to leave notes lying about, and I'm certain that Thrush isn't the type, but we can always hope."

* * *

As Napoleon had predicted, the search proved a failure. The sun was nearly down as they left the house. Napoleon pulled the list of neighbors from his pocket. "I see Mrs. Cartlin's name leads all the rest; I believe you mentioned her this afternoon."

"Oh, yes." Reed walked to the side of the house next to the drive. He pointed almost directly across the road toward a grove of trees still visible in the fading light. "Her house is just on the other side of those trees. Go on down this road a quarter of a mile, then turn right. Mrs. Cartlin's is the first house on the right. If you're going to talk to her tonight, you'd better do it fairly soon. She's nearly eighty and goes to bed pretty early." He looked at his watch. "I'd better be getting back; there doesn't seem to be much else I can show you tonight."

As Reed drove off, Illya made an annoyed gesture. "What's the matter?" Napoleon asked.

"We forgot to give him back his margarine."

Napoleon shrugged. "He probably wouldn't want to park it under the sheriff's nose, anyway." He joined Illya in the car. On the way to Mrs. Cartlin's, he unclipped his U.N.C.L.E. communicator from his pocket and contacted Waverly in New York, informing him of their progress and requesting that technicians be sent to the Morthley residence.

"So it appears to be somewhat more that coincidence, eh, Mr. Solo?" Waverly said as the car pulled into Mrs. Cartlin's driveway.

"Well, we haven't really learned much so far, sir, but something heavy was undoubtedly taken out of Dr. Morthley's basement. The lab boys may come up with something there. Of course, we have no way of knowing who—oh, we're at the Cartlin house now. I'll check in again as soon as we learn anything definite. Solo out."

He slipped the miniature transceiver back into his jacket pocket and stepped out of the car to join Illya on the narrow gravel walk that led to the porch of the small, one story cottage. The front door swung open before Napoleon had a chance to knock. He stood with his fist upraised while a small crinkled face surrounded by grey-white hair peered up at him from a height of about four and a half feet.

"Hello there," the face said. "I've been waiting for you. Who are you, by the way?"

Napoleon slowly lowered his hand, smiling uncertainly. "We're special agents from U.N.C.L.E.—" he began.

"Oh, yes," the face said, breaking into a wide grin. "That's the outfit old Charlie Reed moonlights for. What's he been telling you now? I saw him out there pointing to my house a few minutes ago."

Even the normally imperturbable Illya looked a bit taken aback at this news. "You did?" he asked.

"Oh, my, yes," she informed them. "I've been watching you through my binoculars ever since you drove up to the old Adams place."

"Could we step inside a minute, Mrs. Cartlin?" Napoleon pressed lightly against the partly open door.

"Oh, of course." Mrs. Cartlin stepped back and the door swung open, revealing a living room crammed to overflowing with spidery chairs, fragile little tables, and even more fragile bric-a-brac. "Would you like to see my binoculars? They're a very good set. It's getting a little dark to see very much though. I've been planning to get a good telescope, but all optical equipment seems priced very dear these days."

"No, thank you," Illya said, edging nervously into the room and barely avoiding a porcelain kangaroo with his elbow. "But we would like to talk to you about what you might have seen with them."

"Yes," agreed Napoleon. "We're investigating the disappearance of Dr. Morthley, and we'd like to know if you've ever noticed anything unusual at his house, or if he's had any visitors in the past, oh, say three months."

"Why?" She folded her arms and rocked back on her heels, then leaned forward to Illya. "Was he a Thrush?"

"Not that we know of," Illya replied calmly, "but he might have been involved with some."

"Well, I wouldn't wonder," she replied vigorously. "That girl looked like a Thrush if I ever saw one! Bold as brass, she acted—"

"What girl?"

"Oh, there was a girl visiting Morthley almost every day for a while back in April. Haven't seen her lately, though. Not in the daytime, at least, and I can't see much at night. If I only had that telescope..."

"You don't happen to know who the girl was, do you?"

"Why, of course not! How could I know a thing like that?"

"I just thought..."

"But, I do have her license number if you'd like to see it." She turned and opened a drawer in a cluttered table near a window. Reaching inside, she pulled out a small red leather notebook with a tiny gold pen attached to it by a silver chain. "It was a 1966 Rambler Classic, four-door, light blue, license number W44-948. She was there first on..." Mrs. Cartlin paused to flip a page "...on April 17, stayed for about an hour, and came back the 19^th for the whole day. She was there every day after that until the 28^th; she was only there a few minutes that day." She snapped the book shut. "Hasn't been back since—during the day, at least. Did you get all that down, or should I run through it again?"

"I think we have it all. Thank you very much," said Napoleon. "You've been a great help, and now I think we'd better see about tracking down that license plate." The agents edged outside, Napoleon barely avoiding a jade axolotl on the way.

As they got in the car, Illya spoke. "Napoleon, do you suppose our budget would allow another part-time agent in this area?"

While Illya drove, Napoleon contacted Waverly and reported their encounter with Mrs. Cartlin.

"I'll have the license number run through our data center and contact you as soon as we have anything," Waverly said. "And I'll check with our finance department about the budget for part-time agents. Until now, Wisconsin hasn't been what you could calla productive area for our organization, but in the present situation...Well, we'll see. He ceased transmitting, failing as usual to use the prescribed closing phrase.

Napoleon returned the transceiver to his inside pocket. "Shall we talk to any of the other people on the list, do you think?"

"We might as well do something while we're waiting for a reply on that license number. Unless you want to drive back to Waukesha and deliver Charlie's margarine."

Napoleon muttered something under his breath and studied the list. "Let's see, there's a house there, just past the next corner. According to the list, it belongs to a Mr. Brandondale. He—" The road was suddenly blocked by a dark sedan that shot out of the crossroad, swerved slightly toward them, and stopped in the middle of the crossing. Illya twisted the wheel sharply, and the rented car lurched as the left front wheel dropped into the ditch. The sound of metal scraping on gravel came from beneath the car and increased in volume as Illya jammed the accelerator down and aimed the car at the narrow gap between the steel fence posts that lined the road and the blocking car.