A Dead Man in Malta by Michael Pearce

Association—’
    ‘That is what my son says. “You’re not really anything to do with the original Knights, Mum,” he says. Almost accusingly. “Not quite directly,” I say. “But in spirit.”’
    She looked at Seymour. ‘And that is surely the point here, isn’t it, Mr Seymour? Three men have died. Someone had to speak up.’
    Seymour had some sympathy for her position: although he felt that it probably took a lot of living with on the part of her husband and son.
    Down by the water he could see the remains of the German’s balloon. It had been hauled on to the land and allowed to deflate. But now the police were reinflating it part by part and studying its surface. On the shore two men, probably Kiesewetter’s technicians, were watching glumly.
    ‘For Christ’s sake!’ one of them muttered. ‘Don’t you people know anything?’
    ‘Keep off!’ the other one shouted suddenly in anguish. ‘Watch your shoes!’
    The Inspector he had previously met came across to him smiling.
    ‘Already,’ he said, ‘we have discovered something.’
    He took Seymour over to the balloon and showed him a great rent in its surface.
    ‘This is what brought it down,’ he said. ‘The question is: tear or cut?’
    ‘Tear,’ said one of Kiesewetter’s technicians. ‘Probably after it hit the water. While you guys were mucking around with it.’
    ‘Cut,’ said the Inspector. ‘With a knife or razor. Before take-off.’
    ‘Ridiculous!’ said the other technician. ‘No one was allowed near it before take-off.’
    ‘And we went over it,’ said the other technician, ‘inch by inch.’
    ‘Do you think we would let anyone fly it if it was like this?’
    ‘It probably wasn’t like this,’ said the Inspector. ‘Not while it was on the ground. It was probably very small, perhaps just a little nick. Which enlarged during the flight.’
    ‘Little nicks are what we look out for,’ said one of the technicians.
    ‘There was no nick and no tear and no cut,’ said the other technician. ‘Not before take-off.’
    ‘How do you account for the hole, then?’ asked the Inspector.
    ‘Propeller blade on the dghajsa ,’ suggested one of the technicians. ‘While it was towing it in.’
    ‘Ridiculous!’ snapped the Inspector.
    ‘Why do you think it came down?’ asked Seymour.
    The technician shrugged.
    ‘Couldn’t say,’ he said. ‘Not until we’ve gone over it.’
    ‘Could be the valve,’ said the other technician. ‘It came down slowly. I was watching it and it seemed all right at first. But then, when it got over the harbour, it began to drift lower.’
    ‘I could see something was wrong,’ said the other technician, ‘but it looked as if he could handle it.’
    ‘But then, at the end, it came down quite sharply,’ said the first technician. ‘So I reckon he was bringing it down. He knew he’d be all right on the water. One of the safest places to land.’
    ‘And he was all right, wasn’t he?’ said the other technician. ‘It was only afterwards that—’
    ‘In the hospital,’ said the other technician.
    * * *
    Seymour walked over to where the Inspector was standing looking down on the balloon. Half of it was in the water and half was on the land. The police were drawing it up inch by inch so that they could go over it minutely. They were, he thought, doing a thorough job.
    ‘You think there was an attack on his life before he got to the hospital,’ he said.
    ‘I do,’ said the Inspector.
    ‘Why?’
    The Inspector motioned down at the rent in the balloon’s surface.
    ‘This,’ he said. ‘I believe what they said, that they checked everything. They’re conscientious men. They wouldn’t have missed anything.’
    ‘But they did miss something. You think.’
    ‘I was there on the racetrack when the balloons were launched. Yes, they were keeping people away, but there were many balloons and lots of technicians. And just at that point they were running around like crazy. It would have been