Read Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night for Free Online

himself firmly that he should not have another.
    ‘You had better not tell me about them. Have you got time to do all this, Sidney? In the past you have always been very quick to remind me about your duties. I assume you have other things to do?’
    Sidney looked down at his depressingly empty pint glass and hesitated. It was a busy time for visiting the sick (Mrs Maguire’s mother could not have much longer to live) and Leonard had requested guidance before taking the first of his Lenten confirmation classes. There was also the ‘annual inspection of the fabric’ to worry about. This was always testing in wintertime when the church roof was prone to leak and the current weight of snow had already made the situation precarious. Furthermore, Sidney’s friend Amanda Kendall had telephoned only that morning and threatened to pay an imminent visit to Grantchester in order to ‘hear all about the German escapade’, and this would take up at least half a day of his time. There was too much going on already.
    ‘Well, Sidney?’ Keating asked.
    ‘I think most things can wait,’ his friend replied uncertainly.
    The two men arranged to meet at St Andrew’s Street police station the following morning. Before going to King’s, Keating asked if they could make a small detour through the college. He wanted to have a look at Kit Bartlett’s rooms.
    For a moment, as they walked down Petty Cury, Sidney had the feeling that they were being followed. A man in a dark raincoat and trilby, whom he thought he had seen on the way to the Eagle the night before, appeared twice behind them and was in no hurry either to overtake or head off in a different direction. It was unsettling, but Sidney did not want to point this out to his friend for fear of seeming over-anxious.
    Kit Bartlett’s set of rooms was on the second floor of a staircase in Old Court itself. The outer room consisted of the furniture the college had provided: a couple of armchairs, a desk, chair and card-table. The single bed had been made up, the curtains were drawn and there was nothing personal that could suggest his presence.
    ‘What was he studying?’ Inspector Keating asked.
    ‘Medicine. Although I think he was specialising in radiology. Lyall was one of the great experts in the subject. Bartlett won’t be short of job opportunities either here or abroad.’
    ‘Why do you say abroad?’
    ‘I was just thinking where he might have got to . . .’ Sidney wondered if it was too far-fetched to think of Moscow.
    ‘We have no evidence that he has left the country.’
    ‘And none that he is still here. Why would a man disappear so suddenly if innocent of any crime? What could his motivation be for killing Valentine Lyall, if kill him he did?’
    ‘Before you start worrying about any negligence on my part, Sidney, I would like to say that I have already alerted Inspector Williams at Scotland Yard. He is watching all the major departure points. London airport has his details.’
    ‘He will almost certainly be travelling with false papers. I assume your men have done a full search?’
    ‘They have. The reason I wanted to come is that they have already told me the room was clean: too clean in fact.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘With a student you would normally expect to find something. There should be a little bit of evidence somewhere: an unwanted book, a scrap of paper behind a chair, an old newspaper or something. But here there was nothing. It was a professional job.’
    ‘Which means?’
    ‘He did not clear his room himself. It was done for him.’
    ‘And who would do that?’
    ‘Someone wishing to leave no trace.’
    ‘I thought there was always a trace?’ Sidney asked.
    ‘Well, the fact that there is nothing is a clue in itself.’ Inspector Keating opened the outer door to Bartlett’s rooms. ‘Dark forces, you understand: government secrecy, the national interest.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘It was so much simpler in the war, wasn’t it, Sidney? You