Well, do me a favour, Miss Walden. Write to my daughter explaining the situation. Tell her I’ll write from the States as soon as I can.’
And he had gone on into an office and from there to another office and yet another until the day was done – the 18-hour working day. And in two more days it was Friday with the conference with Matchet and the expensive lunch that was necessary to keep Matchet sweet. Then the quick drive to Heathrow – and New York in no time at all – to be confronted by Hewling and Morrin with their offers and propositions, all booby-trapped.
The sudden necessity to fly to Los Angeles and to beat the Hollywood moguls on their own ground. Then back to New York to be inveigled by Morrin to go on that trip to Miami and the Bahamas, an unsubtle attempt at corruption by hospitality. But he had beaten them all and had returned to England with the fruits of victory and at the high point of his career, only to be confronted by the devil of a mess because no one had been strong enough to control Matchet.
In all that time he had never once thought of his daughter.
The dimming light concealed the greyness of his face as he contemplated that odious fact. He sought to find excuses and found none. And he knew that this was not the worst – he knew that he had never given June the opportunity of communicating with him on the simple level of one human being to another. She had been something in the background of his life, and the knowledge hurt him that she had been something and not someone.
Hellier got up and paced the room restlessly, thinking of all the things Warren had said. Warren had seemed to take drug addiction as a matter of course, a normal fact of life to be coped with somehow. Although he had not said so outright, he had implied it was his task to clear up the mess left by the negligence of people like himself.
But surely someone else was to blame. What about the profit-makers? The pushers of drugs?
Hellier paused as he felt a spark of anger flash into being, an anger which, for the first time, was not directed against himself. His was a sin of omission, although not to be minimized on that account. But the sin of commission, the deliberate act of giving drugs to the young for profit, was monstrous. He had been thoughtless, but the drug pedlars were evil.
The anger within him grew until he thought he would burst with the sheer agony of it, but he deliberately checked himself in order to think constructively. Just as he had not allowed his emotions to impede his negotiations with Matchet, Hewling and Morrin,, so he brought his not inconsiderable intellect to bear unclouded on this new problem. Hellier, as an efficient machine, began to swing smoothly into action.
He first thought of Warren who, with his special knowledge, was undoubtedly the key. Hellier was accustomed to studying closely the men with whom he dealt because their points of strength and weakness showed in subtle ways. He went over in his mind everything Warren had said and the way in which he had said it, and seized upon two points. He was certain Warren knew something important.
But he had to make sure that his chosen key would not break in his hand. Decisively he picked up the telephone and dialled a number. A moment later he said, ‘Yes, I know it’s late. Do we have that firm of investigators still on our books? They helped us on the Lowrey case … Good! I want them to investigate Dr Nicholas Warren MD. Repeat that. It must be done discreetly. Everything there is to know about him, damn it! As fast as possible … a report in three days … oh, damn the expense! … charge it to my private account.’
Absently he picked up the decanter of whisky. ‘And another thing. Get the Research Department to find out all they can about drug smuggling – the drug racket in general. Again, a report in three days … Yes, I’m serious … it might make a good film.’ He paused. ‘Just one thing more; the Research Department mustn’t go near Dr Warren … Yes, they’re quite likely to, but they must steer clear of him – is that understood? Good!’
He put down the telephone and looked at the decanter in some surprise. He laid it down gently and went into his bedroom. For the first time in many years he ignored his normal meticulous procedure of hanging up his clothes and left them strewn about the floor.
Once in bed the tensions left him and his body relaxed. It was only then that the physical expression of his grief came to him and he broke down. Waves of shudders racked his body and this man of fifty-five wet the pillow with his tears.
Warren was – and was not – surprised to hear from Hellier again. In the forefront of his mind he wondered what Hellier was after and was almost inclined to refuse to see him. In his experience prolonged post-mortems with the survivors did no one any good in the long run; they merely served to turn guilt into acceptance and, as a moral man, he believed that the guilty should be punished and that self-punishment was the most severe form.
But in the remote recesses of his mind still lurked the nagging doubt which had been injected by Hellier’s final words and so, somewhat to his surprise, he found himself accepting Hellier’s invitation to meet him in the St James’s flat. This time, oddly enough, he was not averse to meeting Hellier on his own ground – that battle had already been won.
Hellier greeted him with a conventional, ‘It’s very good of you to come, Doctor,’ and led him into a large and softly luxurious room where he was waved courteously to a chair. ‘Drink?’ asked Hellier. ‘Or don’t you?’
Warren smiled. ‘I have all the normal vices. I’d like a Scotch.’
He found himself sipping a whisky so good that it was almost criminal to dilute it with water, and holding one of Hellier’s monogrammed cigarettes. ‘We’re a picturesque lot, we film people,’ said Hellier wryly. ‘Self-advertisement is one of our worst faults.’
Warren looked at the intertwined R H stamped in gold on the handmade cigarette, and suspected that it was not Hellier’s normal style and that he went about it coldbloodedly in what was a conformist industry. He said nothing and waited for Hellier to toss a more reasonable conversational ball.
‘First, I must apologize for the scene I made in your rooms,’ said Hellier.
‘You have already done so,’ said Warren gravely. ‘And in any case, no apology is necessary.’
Hellier settled in a chair facing Warren and put his glass on a low table. ‘I find you are very well thought of in your profession.’
Warren twitched an eyebrow. ‘Indeed!’
‘I’ve been finding out things about the drug racket – I think I have it pretty well taped.’
‘In three days?’ said Warren ironically.
‘In the film industry, by its very nature, there must be an enormous fund of general knowledge. My Research Department is very nearly as good as, say, a newspaper office. If you put enough staff on to a problem you can do a lot in three days.’
Warren let that go and merely nodded.
‘My research staff found that in nearly one-third of their enquiries they were advised to consult you as a leading member of the profession.’
‘They didn’t,’ said Warren succinctly.
Hellier smiled. ‘No, I told them not to. As you said the other day, you’re a very busy man. I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘I suppose I should thank you,’ said Warren with a straight face.
Hellier squared his shoulders. ‘Dr Warren, let us not fence with each other. I’m putting all my cards on the table. I also had you independently investigated.’
Warren sipped whisky and kept steady eyes on Hellier over the glass. ‘That’s a damned liberty,’ he observed mildly. ‘I suppose I should ask you what you found.’
Hellier held up his hand. ‘Nothing but