"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 12 - Dead man's handle" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)
"If I might ask a few questions about your personal background, Doctor?"
"Well ... I do not think that I, as a person, or my background, for that matter, is of any particular importance, but I will, if you so wish, answer a few questions to the best of my ability."
"Thank you, Doctor. Perhaps you would first confirm some facts provided by our London office. As a young man you held a commission in an infantry regiment of the British Army. You resigned to take holy orders, and in due course you were ordained as a minister in the United Reform Church." Papadakis flicked over a page of his notebook. "You were the incumbent of a church near North Thursby, in Yorkshire. There you married, and later two children were born, a boy and a girl. Some years later, with your family, you turned to missionary work and were sent to Africa, to Uganda." Papadakis looked up from his notebook and said quietly, "It was there that you suffered the appalling tragedy of your wife and children being murdered by terrorists, almost ten years ago now."
Thaddeus Pilgrim sat with his head turned to gaze out of the open window to the blue-green expanse of the Aegean. "Yes. All that is correct, my dear friend," he said absently. "Quite correct."
"We have no record of your work for some four years after that," said Papadakis. "Then you founded the Hostel of Righteousness. There was little publicity at the time, and has been little since. You are on record as saying that you seek neither publicity nor growth. Does that hold good today?"
"Oh, certainly, Mr. ah ... Papadakis. We have been compelled to set up small branches of the Hostel by a mere handful of eager recruits who felt called to our particular work, but I shall be grateful, indeed we shall all be grateful, if you will be so kind as to make known to your readers that we would find further applications to join our number quite embarrassing."
"Jesus, I bet you bloody would!" thought Papadakis, nodding gravely. Aloud he said, "According to the information we received, you are now fifty-five, Doctor. May I ask if that is correct?"
"Ah, you hide your puzzlement both courteously and well, my dear friend." Thaddeus Pilgrim smiled mistily past the reporter's head. "My white hair gives the impression of a person substantially older, does it not? And indeed I am aware that my regrettable habit of Ч ah Ч circumlocution may tend to confirm that impression, but your information is quite correct."
Papadakis said slowly, "I don't wish to distress you, but I feel sure that the tragedy you suffered in Africa must have had a profound effect upon you, Doctor. Can you tell me how you spent the subsequent years before founding the Hostel of Righteousness?"
The man in the brown robe sat brooding deeply for a while, then looked up with a gentle smile. "I sought for a way to attain peace of mind once again," he said with a rather deprecating air. "To this end I withdrew from the world I had known, and travelled widely, going into retreat among wise and godly men of different religions and philosophies, both in the east and in the west. I hope, Mr. ah ... I sincerely hope you will not think me guilty of self-importance when I say that after much seeking I felt called to do the work that I am now doing." He lifted his hands and gestured loosely about him. "A powerhouse of prayer."
Papadakis sat looking at the round, benign face, baffled, striving to penetrate what he knew must be the faчade that concealed the real Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim, but unable to detect the slightest flaw in it. After a moment or two he smiled, closed his notebook, and stood up. "I won't take up any more of your time, Doctor. Thank you for agreeing to this interview and for being so helpful."
"Not at all, not at all, my dear friend." Dr. Pilgrim got to his feet and accompanied the reporter to the door. "May I conduct you to the refectory? A few of my brothers and sisters in prayer will be enjoying a repast at this hour, and you are most welcome to join them, if you so wish, since the ferry is not due for anotherЧ let me see, how long would it be?" As they moved along a broad passage and out on to a terrace he drew a watch from under his robe, consulted it for some moments, then continued: "Fifty minutes, Mr. ah ... that is assuming punctuality, of course. When I say that a few of us will be enjoying a repast, I should perhaps explain that we take turns at table, or perhaps, yes, perhaps shifts would be a more appropriate word, the reason being that there must always be some of us at prayer in order to maintain the Ч ah Ч the momentum or even the dynamic, if I may so call it, of our humble petitions."
When Papadakis was sure Thaddeus Pilgrim had finished speaking he said, "Thank you, but I won't intrude upon your community any further. It's a pleasant evening, and I shall be quite happy to sit on the quay and amplify my notes until the ferry arrives."
"As you please, dear friend, as you please. Then I shall bid you goodbye now. If you take these steps and turn to the right at the bottom, you will find yourself on the road leading down to the quay. Goodbye, Mr. ah ... Mr. Papadakis. We shall remember you in our prayers."
Papadakis kept a straight face and said, "Thank you." The two men shook hands. Thaddeus Pilgrim watched the reporter go down the steps, waved a genial hand to him as he paused at the foot to look back, then turned and retraced his steps to the study. Sibyl Pray was already there, and with her now were two men in brown robes and another woman in white. One man was half a head taller than Sibyl Pray and about the same age, olive skinned and handsome, with black curly hair and wide-set dark eyes. His name was Kazim, he came from Anatolia, and he was standing curiously close to Sibyl Pray, his shoulder touching hers.
The other man looked the part of a monk, for he was plump and burly in the stamp of Friar Tuck, and though his head was not tonsured it was bald across the dome with thick hair on each side above the ears. The brown robe seemed well suited to him, as did the white robe to the second woman, for she was a Punjabi, small-boned, of indeterminate age, with hair drawn tightly back in a bun. She stood holding a clipboard and ballpoint pen, lips pursed disapprovingly, waiting with an air of suppressed impatience.
As Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim entered the study and closed the door the Punjabi woman said briskly, "I am requiring immediate instruction, Doctor. Mr. Papadakis really must not be allowed to depart with his ill-gotten knowledge. It is my recommendation that Sister Pray and Brother Kazim be dispatched at once to break his cheeky neck damn quick."
"Patience, Mrs. Ram, patience," Thaddeus Pilgrim said soothingly, moving to take his chair. "Certainly our somewhat deceitful visitor must be Ч ah Ч divested of his cloak of clay before he can impart what you call, and rightly I feel, his ill-gotten knowledge, but it would be imprudent of us to cause him to disappear here, on Kalivari."
Mrs. Ram gave a sharp, affirmative tilt of her head. "Point taken, Doctor. At Piraeus, then? Our launch can leave after the ferry and still put executives ashore before Mr. Papadakis arrives."
"I would commend that suggestion," Dr. Pilgrim said cautiously, "but let us be double-banked, Mrs. Ram, double-banked. Far be it from me to intervene in your duties as our administrator, but if I may be permitted to think aloud for a moment or two, I feel you may well decide to have, say, our well-loved brother, Kazim, covering the newspaper offices, and our dear sister in prayer, Sibyl, suitably positioned in the hope of an immediate elimination at Piraeus, in the car park, perhaps. We were careful to obtain the registration of Mr. Papadakis's car, I believe?"
"Yes, that is most satisfactory." Mrs. Ram jotted busily on her clipboard in hieroglyphics, then looked at Sibyl Pray and Kazim. "Do you wish for any labourers to provide assistance, my dears?"
Their heads turned and they gazed into each other's eyes for several seconds, then the woman looked at Mrs. Ram and said, "No, we shall not find it necessary."
"Then I ask you to be ready to leave, and suitably dressed, in one hour from now, if you please." Mrs. Ram glanced sharply at the plump burly man. "Are you wishing to comment, Dr. Tyl?"
The man shook his head, smiling amiably in the way he had adopted to suit his friar-like persona. He was a Czech and his English was strongly accented. "No comment, Mrs. Ram," he said. As a psychiatrist and a psychologist, Dr. Janos Tyl's main duty was to assess the requests for prayer received by the Hostel of Righteousness, to consider information on the background of groups and individuals, and to suggest the action required in order that certain prayers be answered. As a doctor of medicine it was also his function to supply lethal drugs or subtle killing methods if required by executives of the community.
Dr. Pilgrim was studying the note Sibyl Pray had brought in earlier. "I do not think it would be wrong to declare that this was a considerable shock," he said, looking up. "No doubt Mrs. Ram can amplify the somewhat brief information herein contained, so I will not keep other colleagues from the pursuit of their duties. I am most grateful to you all for attending on me, and of course Sibyl and Kazim may rest assured that our prayers shall go with them in the matter of stiffing Mr. Papadakis."
He beamed upon the three of them as they left the study with polite murmurs. When the door had closed he said, "Perhaps you will summarise, Mrs. Ram."
She flicked back a sheet on her clipboard and said: "At nine-thirty a.m., before the arrival of the ferry, a member of Mr. Li Chang's security staff reported to him that a window in the private area of our establishment had been forced. Mr. Li Chang began prompt investigation, and later a brown robe was found hidden among rocks near the harbour. Assumption was made that an intruder had been put ashore by night, and had moved about by day in the guise of a male person of our order."
Thaddeus Pilgrim cleared his throat and said, "This was Mr. Papadakis?"
"Subsequent discoveries have so ascertained, Doctor. Careful but unobtrusive watch was kept on arrival of ferry boat, and Mr. Papadakis was observed to emerge from hiding to join persons from the ferry. Mr. Li Chang then advised me of his suspicions. It was my duty to greet Mr. Papadakis when he arrived for the interview as arranged, but I told him that you were deeply engaged in emergency prayer, and I insisted that he made a small tour of the island on foot with Dr. Tyl. To do so, he had to leave his case, for there was no point in carrying it, and he could not admit that it contained a camera since we had stipulated that there must be no photographs taken during his visit."
"Ah. . .and our good brother Freddie the Twirl contrived to unlock the case?"
"He said a child could have done it, Doctor."
"Freddie is, I am sure you will agree, too modest regarding his skills. But proceed, Mrs. Ram, proceed if you please."
"There was much film. I took it all to the Operations Room, and Mr. Carter made great haste to develop contact prints. These show that Mr. Papadakis contrived to penetrate certain of our private areas, though not the Operations Room or Records Section."
"Did he obtain sufficient photographic material to embarrass us, Mrs. Ram?"
"Oh, very much so, Doctor," she affirmed, nodding vigorously. "He penetrated to the armoury, also to the recreation room, where he took photographs of the bar and the what-do-you-call-them, pin up pictures, some of which are very dirty, and of course there would still be the fag-ends of grass that the Chinese fellows smoke, and the gambling paraphernalia. Furthermore, he contrived to take a sneaky photograph through a window of our Chapel of Ease. It shows two out of three resident whores in a state of dщshabille, and still furthermore he was most fortuitously fortunate to have been within camera distance at a moment when Sibyl Pray and Kazim emerged from their morning swim and were having their first sexual connection of the day on the rocks, as is their custom."
"Their mutual affection is well-known and frequently demonstrated," said Thaddeus Pilgrim benevolently. "I take it the negatives have been destroyed, Mrs. Ram?"
"Oh, certainly, Doctor."
"Good . . . very good. And we can rely upon dear Sibyl and Kazim to, as it were, tidy up the loose ends. We must also, I think, review our security system once this matter has been dealt with." Thaddeus Pilgrim leaned back in his chair and gazed at the jackdaw for a few moments, frowning slightly as if trying to collect his thoughts. "Ah, yes," he said at last, "I knew there was a matter about which I wished to ask you, Mrs. Ram. Has there been a satisfactory outcome of the project to eliminate that young Chinese woman? Ah, Molly Chen, I believe her name was. I must confess I had expected to have heard by now."
Mrs. Ram looked unhappy. "I regret I cannot give a good report on that, Doctor. I received deciphered radio communication this morning, while dealing with the matter of Mr. Papadakis, and was constrained to treat the latter subject as the more important. As you know, we subcontracted for the killing of Miss Chen, and unfortunately the contractors failed. It appears that Miss Chen was in the company of a male person in Malta at the time, and this male person dispatched the contractor's executive in what is claimed to be a remarkable fashion. It has now been ascertained that the person's name is William Garvin, more familiarly known as Willie Garvin. Our records show that he was chief lieutenant to Modesty Blaise when she ran The Network, and he is still associated with her. There is a related matter to report, Doctor."
His white eyebrows lifted. "A related matter?"
"Yes, Doctor." She turned the papers of her clipboard, darting a nervous glance at the man behind the desk. "We have had the weekly report from our undercover man at North Thursby. In general all goes well there. Being genuine cranks, the members of that Hostel have nothing to hide, and help very much to give us credibility in northern Europe, so we do not expect difficulties from that direction. But the report mentions that Modesty Blaise made a landing at the airfield near North Thursby in her private aircraft three days ago. Our man learned of this quite by chance and does not know if it is significant, but thought he should report it. May I ask if you wish me to give you a brief history of these two persons, Doctor?"
Thaddeus Pilgrim's gaze had become much less vague in the last minute or two. The mild blue eyes seemed almost alert as he said quietly, "No ... I once studied the careers of Miss Blaise and Mr. Garvin in depth and with great interest, hoping they might become valuable members of our little community, but I discarded the notion, most reluctantly, on learning that they had retired. It does appear, however, that their retirement is somewhat a matter of Ч ah Ч definition. They are a most interesting pair, and I have no doubt that whereone is involved the other will be involved also." He fingered his chin pensively. "The dispatch of Molly Chen was not of great importance, of course. Simply a matter of insuring against the small risk that she might know something and might talk about it. However, Garvin's appearance in the affair, together with Miss Blaise possibly showing an interest in our North Thursby hostel, must be given our close attention. It constitutes a potential danger that is quite unacceptable."
He was silent for a while, unmoving, unblinking, eyes not focused. Mrs. Ram watched him with breathless adoration. After a while he said, "If we send our own people to dispose of Molly Chen . . . that will set Willie Garvin seeking to discover who killed her and why. Then Modesty Blaise will certainly involve herself, which means we shall have potent enemies to distract us at the time of the Hallelujah Scenario, which is undesirable. So I think . . ." He hitched his chair forward, leaned folded arms on the desk, and looked at the Punjabi woman with a bright mischievous smile. "Yes, I think, Mrs. Ram, that we must give ourselves the exercise of devising a preventative operation against these two persons. But we must create a suitable scenario, do you do not agree? Our task is to perform acts of purposeful creation in a world of blind creation, is it not?"
Mrs. Ram clutched her clipboard to her chest and breathed, "Oh yes, Doctor Pilgrim, yes."
"Excellent, excellent." Thaddeus Pilgrim took out his watch and studied it. "Now, I must not forget that you have to brief Sibyl Pray and Kazim, and to get them away on the little mission we have given them." He looked up, and suddenly his eyes were completely and horribly empty, like holes in a skull as he said, "Tell them they would be well advised not to fail, Mrs. Ram."
She shuddered deliciously and dipped her head in fervent agreement. "Of course, Doctor."
Humanity returned to the face, and his gaze became amiable again as a nebulous smile wandered over his features. "Once you are free," he said with a courtly inclination of his head, "I should be obliged if you would attend on me here with our dear friend Dr. Tyl, so that we may, as they say, put our heads together and work out a truly interesting scenario for, ah ... Miss Blaise and Mr. Garvin."
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