picture was an intended victim. The police are investigating all three of these things.’
He stared.
I went on. ‘At first sight there seems to be no connection between today’s murder and the attack on the Heath. I’m not sure, but I think that there may be.’
He frowned. ‘Why do you think so?’
‘A feeling. Too many knives all at once. And… well… do you remember Valentine Clark? He died of cancer a week ago today.’
Derry’s stare grew ever more intense. When he didn’t answer I said, ‘It was Valentine’s sister, Dorothea Pannier, who was slashed last Saturday, in the house she shared with Valentine. The house was ransacked. Today her son Paul, Valentine’s nephew, went to the house and was killed there. There is indeed someone very dangerous roaming around and if the police find him – or her – quickly… great.’
Unguessable thoughts occupied the professor’s mind for whole long minutes. Finally he said, ‘I became interested in knives when I was a boy. Someone gave me a Swiss Army knife with many blades. I treasured it.’ He smiled briefly with small mouth movements. ‘I was a lonely child. The knife made me feel more able to deal with the world. But there you are, that’s how I think many people are drawn towards collecting, especially collecting weapons that one could use if one were… bolder, perhaps, or criminal. They are a crutch, a secret power.’
‘I see,’ I said, as he paused.
‘Knives fascinated me,’ Derry went on. ‘They were my companions. I carried them everywhere. I had them strapped to my leg, or to my arm under my sleeve. I wore them on my belt. I felt warm with them, and more confident. Of course, it was adolescence… but as I grew older, I collected more, not less. I rationalised my feelings. I was a student, making a serious study, or so I thought. It went on for very many years, this sort of self-confidence. I became an acknowledged expert. I am, as you know, consulted.’
‘Yes.’
‘Slowly, some years ago, my need for knives vanished. You may say that at about sixty-five I finally grew up. Even so, I’ve kept my knowledge of knives current, because consultancy fees, though infrequent, are welcome.’
‘Mm.’
‘I do still own a collection, as you realise, but I seldom look at it. I have left it to a museum in my will. If those young policemen had known of its existence, they had the power to take it away.’
‘I can’t believe it!’
With the long-suffering smile of a tutor for a dim student, he pulled open a drawer in his desk, fumbled around a little and produced a photo-copied sheet of paper, finely printed, which he handed to me.
I read the heading, PREVENTION OF CRIME ACT 1953. OFFENSIVE WEAPONS.
‘Take it and read it later,’ he said. ‘I give this to everyone who asks about knives. And now, young man, tell me where you saw the Armadillo.’
I paid my dues. I said, ‘Someone stuck it into me. I saw it after it was pulled out.’
His mouth opened. I had really surprised him. He recovered a little and said, ‘Was this a game?’
‘I think I was supposed to die. The knife hit a rib, and here I am.’
‘Great God.’ He thought. ‘Then the police have the Armadillo also?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve good reasons for not going to the police. So I’m trusting you, Professor.’
‘Tell me the reasons.’
I explained about the moguls and their horror of jinxes. I said I wanted to complete the film, which I couldn’t do with police intervention.
‘You are as obsessed as anybody,’ Derry judged.
‘Very likely.’
He wanted to know where and how I had – er, acquired – my first-hand knowledge of the knife in question, and I told him. I told him about the body protectors, and all about Robbie Gill’s ministrations; all except the doctor’s name.
When I stopped, I waited another long minute for his reaction. The old eyes watched me steadily.
He stood up. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and led the way through a brown door to an inner room, which proved to be his bedroom, a monastic-looking cell with a polished wood floor and a high old-fashioned iron bed with a white counterpane. There was a brown wooden wardrobe, a heavy chest of drawers and a single upright chair against plain white walls. The right ambience, I thought, for a mediaevalist.
He creaked down onto his knees by the bed as if about to say his prayers, but instead reached under the bedspread at floor level,