Read Online The Intercom Conspiracy by Eric Ambler - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Ambler
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money was on the World Meteorological Organisation.
So I thought I’d ask. ‘Did he accuse anyone in particular?’
He gave me a beady look. ‘You do not seem surprised that he should make such statements.’
‘Why should I be surprised?’ I said. ‘He’d already made that statement about being poisoned twice before we got here, once after he’d been taken ill and then later in the ambulance.’
That did it. He stiffened up as if I had goosed him. ‘Why did you not report this when the patient was received here?’
‘Because he obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. The hotel doctor had diagnosed a heart attack. Why should I question it? What is all this nonsense?’
He didn’t like that. ‘This nonsense, as you call it, is a serious matter, Monsieur. You must realise that it will now be necessary for us to perform an autopsy.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ I had had no great sentimental regard for the General, but the idea of his being disembowelled merely in order to clear up an idiotic misunderstanding was too much. I said so in no uncertain terms. I dare say I wasn’t very polite.
The doctor bridled. ‘In cases where doubts have been raised as to the cause of a sudden death,’ he said loudly, ‘we have no choice. An autopsy becomes mandatory and we are required to inform the police.’
‘Even when the doubts are irrational?’
‘Who can say at this moment whether they are irrational ornot?’ The man in the civilian suit had chipped in now. He was fortyish, thin, with a narrow head and fish-blue eyes.
‘This,’ said the doctor grimly, ‘is Monsieur Vauban of the judiciary police.’
If I had had the sense then to keep quiet and let things take their course, I might, even at that late stage, have emerged as a fairly okay character – tetchy and lacking in tact, perhaps, but basically sane and accountable. But I was too exasperated to keep quiet. I had an irresistible urge to explain to those fatheads what had made the General tick.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know it’s difficult for people like you to understand anything outside your own immediate experience, but I’ll try and spell it out for you.
Nil nisi bonum
and all that, but the General was, to put it mildly, a bit eccentric. He subscribed to the conspiratorial theory of history, if you know what that is –
all
history, including his own. If you want to be medical about it you might say that his attitude was consistently paranoid. I’ll ask you a question. When there’s a flu epidemic, do you start suspecting the Russians of waging biological warfare? No? Well, he did. Has it ever occurred to you that the current attempts to develop electric and steam-driven automobiles are all part of an international plot to destroy the capitalist system? No? Well, the General could make out a very good case for it. He had not one bee in his bonnet, but hundreds. If he were here now, do you know what he’d be saying? I’ll tell you. He’d say that there had been a plot to murder him and that it had triumphantly succeeded.’
There was a dead silence. The policeman looked at me as if I’d been pleading guilty to indecent exposure. Obviously, he wasn’t receiving the message I was trying to send, or else misunderstanding it. I tried again, using an analogy that I thought might get through to him.
‘Don’t you see what I mean? Common sense suggests that the murder was an inside job and that the killers were high blood pressure, cholesterol, hypertension and so on. A mundane theory, I’m afraid. The General wouldn’t have given it the time of day. How can it have been an inside job when there are all thosecunning devils creeping about
outside
, plotting, planning, with phials of little-known poisons in their pockets along with their CP membership cards? And who did these fiends want to destroy most? Who else but their arch-enemy, that great Free World crusader for truth, your friend and mine, Luther B. Novak? That’s how his
So I thought I’d ask. ‘Did he accuse anyone in particular?’
He gave me a beady look. ‘You do not seem surprised that he should make such statements.’
‘Why should I be surprised?’ I said. ‘He’d already made that statement about being poisoned twice before we got here, once after he’d been taken ill and then later in the ambulance.’
That did it. He stiffened up as if I had goosed him. ‘Why did you not report this when the patient was received here?’
‘Because he obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. The hotel doctor had diagnosed a heart attack. Why should I question it? What is all this nonsense?’
He didn’t like that. ‘This nonsense, as you call it, is a serious matter, Monsieur. You must realise that it will now be necessary for us to perform an autopsy.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ I had had no great sentimental regard for the General, but the idea of his being disembowelled merely in order to clear up an idiotic misunderstanding was too much. I said so in no uncertain terms. I dare say I wasn’t very polite.
The doctor bridled. ‘In cases where doubts have been raised as to the cause of a sudden death,’ he said loudly, ‘we have no choice. An autopsy becomes mandatory and we are required to inform the police.’
‘Even when the doubts are irrational?’
‘Who can say at this moment whether they are irrational ornot?’ The man in the civilian suit had chipped in now. He was fortyish, thin, with a narrow head and fish-blue eyes.
‘This,’ said the doctor grimly, ‘is Monsieur Vauban of the judiciary police.’
If I had had the sense then to keep quiet and let things take their course, I might, even at that late stage, have emerged as a fairly okay character – tetchy and lacking in tact, perhaps, but basically sane and accountable. But I was too exasperated to keep quiet. I had an irresistible urge to explain to those fatheads what had made the General tick.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know it’s difficult for people like you to understand anything outside your own immediate experience, but I’ll try and spell it out for you.
Nil nisi bonum
and all that, but the General was, to put it mildly, a bit eccentric. He subscribed to the conspiratorial theory of history, if you know what that is –
all
history, including his own. If you want to be medical about it you might say that his attitude was consistently paranoid. I’ll ask you a question. When there’s a flu epidemic, do you start suspecting the Russians of waging biological warfare? No? Well, he did. Has it ever occurred to you that the current attempts to develop electric and steam-driven automobiles are all part of an international plot to destroy the capitalist system? No? Well, the General could make out a very good case for it. He had not one bee in his bonnet, but hundreds. If he were here now, do you know what he’d be saying? I’ll tell you. He’d say that there had been a plot to murder him and that it had triumphantly succeeded.’
There was a dead silence. The policeman looked at me as if I’d been pleading guilty to indecent exposure. Obviously, he wasn’t receiving the message I was trying to send, or else misunderstanding it. I tried again, using an analogy that I thought might get through to him.
‘Don’t you see what I mean? Common sense suggests that the murder was an inside job and that the killers were high blood pressure, cholesterol, hypertension and so on. A mundane theory, I’m afraid. The General wouldn’t have given it the time of day. How can it have been an inside job when there are all thosecunning devils creeping about
outside
, plotting, planning, with phials of little-known poisons in their pockets along with their CP membership cards? And who did these fiends want to destroy most? Who else but their arch-enemy, that great Free World crusader for truth, your friend and mine, Luther B. Novak? That’s how his
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