I phoned the Ashford police at a call box just outside Maidstone. Later, I dropped Paulet at the Strand Palace Hotel where he was staying.
He hadn’t said a great deal on the drive to London. The sight of the dead man had shaken him. I went in and had a drink with him and he brightened up a bit. I think it was the sight of the waiters and being in an hotel. He was reminded of his old life.
I said, ‘You should have stuck to the hotel business.’
‘Yes, often I think that. Between ourselves, too, I made more money. You think Martin Freeman killed this man?’
‘He might have done. But somehow it doesn’t seem to be his style. Anyway, one thing I’m pretty certain about is that Freeman’s not in England. He wrote a letter of resignation to his firm from Florence.’
‘I think tomorrow I go back to Paris.’
‘I should do that. If you like you can tell Monsieur Duchêne that if I ever catch up with Freeman I’ll try and do something about his antique coins.’
‘Thank you. And if you come there, look me up.’ He handed me a business card.
The next morning from the office I phoned Gloriana and made an appointment to see her at twelve. I handed Wilkins the Bill Dawson letter and asked her to check on Sabratha, Wheelus, and Uaddan. You never knew when you might not pick up some small lead. I also gave her the Phs. Van Ommeren bill and asked her to check with them what travel arrangements they had made for Martin Freeman. When she raised an eye at this I said, ‘Tell them you’re speaking from the Intercontinental News Services, and it’s a question of checking for his expense account. Freeman worked there.’
When she had gone I sat and stared at the wall calendar. It didn’t help me beyond announcing that the day was Thursday.
Why, I asked myself, had old London-Scottish tie been strangled in Freeman’s cottage? Clearly – according to Jane Judd – he had been looking for Freeman and was using a thin cover story. I thought – from his condition – that he had gone to the cottage the day before I had, and met someone who resented his presence. Really resented it, too. I resented his presence too. If the police ever discovered that Paulet and I had been there, we should both be in trouble. I was used to being in trouble with the police, but Paulet didn’t strike me as the type who would handle it very well.
Thinking of Paulet, I began to go over the Duchêne antique coin angle. That sounded like Freeman, all right. Any stuff his friends left lying around he felt free to pocket. Paulet hadn’t put a price on the antique coins. But at the moment Freeman had five thousand in cash from his sister, a python arm bracelet worth another five thousand, which made him ten thousand pounds in funds, plus the value of the coins which would be… well, I didn’t know. Not knowing always irked me. I got up and went over to the low wall bookcase by the door.
Wilkins, when we had been flush once, had spent over a hundred quid on reference books, most of which we had never used. Some had never been opened. I pulled out Volume 16, MUSHR to OZON, of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and looked up the article on Numismatics. Perhaps I would get some idea of the value of the coins from that.
I didn’t. But I got something else. A shock. Leafing through the article I stopped at the first photographic plate. It was a full-page illustration of Ancient Greek coins, photographed by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Each set of coins, reverse and obverse, carried a number. There were twenty-two sets illustrated. Below the illustrations a legend was set out referring to the numbers. I began to read through this and before I had finished the first line a bell began to ring. The line went: 1. Electrum stater of Lydia. 2. Electrum stater of Ephesus. 3. Gold stater of Croesus. 4. Daric of Persia.
I read right through and by the time I reached number twenty-two I was certain. It read: 22. Gold 100 litrae of Syracuse.
The list of stolen coins which Monsieur Duchêne had given old Paulet had been copied straight out of the Encyclopaedia. For my money – none of your antique Greek stuff – it had to be a phoney. I’ve had a few startling coincidences happen in my life, but this certainly wasn’t one. Either Duchêne had given Paulet a phoney list and a phoney story to go with it, or both of them knew it was phoney. I considered the possibility of Duchêne stringing Paulet along, and then I considered the possibility of Paulet knowing the list was phoney. He seemed simple, straightforward, and a little more than inefficient. Well, that kind of act would make a good cover for whatever it was he or they wanted to cover.
I picked up the phone and called the Strand Palace Hotel. Lunch with Paulet might help to sort things out. After some hanging about, the hotel people told me that Paulet had booked out that morning.
Wilkins came back in while I was still getting nowhere.
‘Sabratha,’ she said, ‘is the site of an ancient Roman town thirty-odd miles to the west of Tripoli.’
‘It could be,’ I said, ‘that what is wanted on this job is an archaeologist.’
‘Wheelus is the American Air Force base to the east of Tripoli. Wheelus course refers to the golf course which the Americans have built there. It’s called Seabreeze.’
‘Original name.’
‘Uaddan,’ said Wilkins, ‘is the name of a hotel, which also has a casino, in Tripoli.’
‘And what about the Van Ommeren people?’
‘They were very helpful. Some of the account is a carryover from old travel charges, but the bulk is for air-booking from London Airport to the King Idris Airport, Tripoli. Via Rome.’
‘Date?’
‘He bought the ticket over a month ago and had the date left open, saying he would make his arrangements direct.’
‘He must have broken his journey and gone to Florence.’
‘Van Ommeren say they would be glad to have Mr Freeman’s present address.’
‘I’ll put them on the list. When do you go to Cairo?’
‘Monday.’
She moved to the door.
‘Until you go – and leave a note for your sister to watch it afterwards – I’d like any press cuttings you can pick up of the discovery of the body of a man strangled to death, at Ash Cottage, Crundale, near Wye. That’s in Kent.’
Wilkins looked at me. That’s all. Just looked.
Gloriana mixed me a large dry martini which I sipped at gently over the next twenty minutes in order to avoid having the top of my head blown off. She drank lime juice with soda.
She had her place of honour on the large settee, one leg curled up underneath her. She wore a short blue woollen dress and a gold band around her hair. On my way in the taxi I had debated with myself what I was going to tell her. Usually I like to keep a little up my sleeve for a rainy day. However, by the time I had the martini glass in my hand, freezing my fingers off, I’d decided to give her the truth. By now I was quite sure that there was something wrong with all this Freeman business. And let’s face it, because of my low iron and vitamin content I welcomed it. I was beginning to feel that maybe life still had something to offer. It’s instructive, too, to lay the truth out for people. Not all of them can control the reactions they would like to control.
She listened carefully as I went through the story, every detail, and I watched her carefully. The only thing I saw of interest was the gentle swinging movement of one long nylon leg over the edge of the settee.
I finished, ‘Any comments?’
She considered this for a moment, then said, ‘Only that he seems to be getting himself into the dirt again. And I’ll have to get him out.’
‘Got a photograph of him?’
‘I’ll give you one before you go.’
‘Would he murder a man?’
‘No.’
‘Bill Dawson – know him?’
‘No.’
‘Did you know about the country cottage?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever mention any girl in Paris, probably a cabaret type? Favours Oriental gear.’
‘No.’
‘We’re doing well. What about Leon Pelegrina who sends him a New Year’s card from Florence?’
‘No.’
‘Tripoli – has he been there before to your knowledge?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s better.’
‘He showed me something he did about a year ago. Some feature article which his firm placed with one of the Sunday papers. It was about the oil industry in Libya. I didn’t read it.’
‘Do you have any ideas about Monsieur Duchêne with his phoney list of antique coins?’
‘No.’
‘And you’ve never heard of François Paulet?’
‘No.’
‘And this strangled type in the cottage. From my description, does he seem to fit anyone you know?’
‘No.’
‘We’re back on the old negative routine.’
She said, ‘I know very little about my brother or his circle. That’s why you’re here. I want you to find him.’
‘Well, one thing I’m pretty sure of – he’s not in this country. How do you feel about footing first-class travel expenses all over the place? And my fee?’
‘What is your fee?’
‘It might be a long job, so I’ll give you the monthly rate which comes a little cheaper. One thousand pounds a month.’ I pitched it very high.
‘That’s all right.’
It’s nice to be rich.
‘My secretary,’ I said, ‘is flying on Monday to Cairo to spend a holiday with her fiancé. She could go via Tripoli, spend a few days there and check whether your brother is around. I’d only charge you half expenses for that since she’s going out to Cairo anyway.’ Wilkins always paid her own fare so there was no reason why I shouldn’t do her some good. Whether she would take it on, of course, was another matter.
Gloriana nodded, and said, ‘And what are you going to do?’
‘The police’, I said, ‘are going to find that body in the cottage. I thought I’d hang about for a day or so to see if they issue an identification. Could help. Then I’d like to see Monsieur Duchêne in Paris, and then Signore Leon Pelegrina in Florence. After that I’ll play it by ear, according to whatever my secretary turns up.’
‘That seems reasonable. But I’d like you to keep in touch with me. You can always phone. I’m usually here between seven and eight at night.’
‘I was hoping you wouldn’t be tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was hoping you’d have dinner with me. I’ve got a much better suit than this at home. And I won’t let you down with my table manners.’
She smiled, which I hadn’t expected, and said, ‘Just for the pleasure of my company?’
‘Absolutely. I won’t give a thought to the million stacked up behind it.’
‘I’d be delighted. Would you like another martini?’
‘Not unless you and your maid are prepared to carry me to the lift. I’m a whisky man, really.’
She nodded understanding. I got up, patted the antique Buddha on the head, gave her my little bow and went, saying, ‘I’ll pick you up just after seven.’
In this business it is important to establish cordial relations with clients. It gives them the feeling that you have their interests exclusively at heart. It has other side-effects too – not always pleasant.
I had trouble with Wilkins. I knew I would. She was very much a creature of habit. This was her holiday. Why should she spend it working?
‘All right. You can add an extra week to your leave. And don’t forget you’ll be getting your expenses.’
‘But Olaf wouldn’t like me to be alone in a town like Tripoli. He fusses, you know.’
The idea of anyone fussing over capable Wilkins was novel – but who was I to argue? I know what love can do to people.
‘You’ll probably be safer in Tripoli than you are in Greenwich. But if you want the anxious Swede to stop from worrying ask him to join you there. It must be less than an hour’s flight from Cairo. All you have to do is send him a cable, fix rooms at a Tripoli hotel – and I suggest the Libya Palace – and change your air ticket. I tell you this Stankowski thing could be a big job. With luck I can string it out to a month. That means a thousand quid in the bank and you could have that electric typewriter you want.’
‘Well…’ It was very grudging, but I knew that I had won.
‘Thanks. Anyway, you ought to do more field work. You’re miles better at it than me.’
She liked that. Not that it was news to her. She had a firm conviction that she was miles better than me at everything, except a few activities which anyway she wouldn’t have touched with a barge-pole.
After that I went round to Miggs’s place and fixed up for a chauffeur-driven Rolls for the evening. He gave me tea out of a quart-sized enamel mug, a five-minute dissertation on the state of the second-hand car market owing to the Labour Government squeeze, flipped to a quick run-down of the present state of the Roman Catholic Church and its attitude to the Unity of Christian Churches, which – if he’d had it printed – would have gone on the Index right away and which, since he was a Catholic, didn’t surprise me because they’re always the best value when it comes to running down their religion or making jokes about it, and finished by asking what the hell I wanted a Rolls for.
‘I’m taking a million out to dinner. Name of Stankowski, Mrs, widow, formerly Gloriana Freeman. I’m looking for her brother.’
‘If that was the Stankowski who was in the scrap-metal business, watch out that she isn’t like him. He was as bent as a bedspring.’
Going down the stairs, I ran into Manston at the bottom, arriving for another workout with Miggs. He was wearing a bowler hat, dark suit, and carried a rolled umbrella, and he looked as usual like a coiled steel spring, and God help you if you were in its way when it went zing!
He said, ‘Busy?’
‘Moderately.’
‘We could always give you a job. Permanently, if you like.’
‘We’ meant his Service, and occasionally they had roped me in to work for them and not once had I spent a happy moment on their payroll.
‘I like a quiet life.’
He grinned. ‘You’re getting old. Sluggish too, I’ll bet.’
As he spoke he raised his umbrella and swiped at the side of my neck with it. I ducked and let it go over my head. Then I went forward and got my right shoulder under his raised right arm, grabbed his wrist and let myself fall back so that I could use his moment out of balance from the umbrella blow to send him over my shoulder. It should have worked, would have done with most people, but in some odd way I found myself spun round, my face pressed against a wall and my right arm twisted up behind my back.
Still holding me, he said, ‘You used to be better than that.’
‘You’ve got it wrong. You used not to be so good.’
He released me, straightened his Old Etonian tie, and then offered me a cigarette. I lit it with a shaking hand. He saw the shake and said, ‘You’ve been leading too sedentary a life. You really should join us and see the world. Also you get a pension at sixty.’
‘Send me a telegram,’ I said, ‘the first time any of your blokes lives long enough to qualify for one.’
As it was a nice spring evening I walked part of the way home, from Lambeth Bridge along Millbank and past the Tate Gallery. The sky was an even duck-egg colour, and the tide was coming in fast, making up towards Vauxhall Bridge, an even brown-soup colour. A handful of gulls hung over it, scavenging. I had a growing feeling that any moment now I might feel good to be alive.
Mrs Meld was hanging over her front-garden gate, taking the air, and watching her dog take its hundred-yard evening stroll down the pavement.
‘Evening, Mr Carver.’
‘Evening, Mrs Meld.’
She jerked her head upwards to my place. ‘You’re going it a bit, aren’t you?’
‘You’ve got to be clearer than that, Mrs Meld.’
‘There’s another one up there.’
‘A woman?’
‘What else?’
‘Why do you let them in?’
‘What you told me, weren’t it? Women can go in – not nobody else. Want to alter it, Mr Carver?’
I thought for a moment and then shook my head.
It was Jane Judd. She was wearing a light raincoat and yellow beret and was standing at the window, watching Mrs Meld who still stood at her gate.
‘When that woman speaks about you,’ she said, indicating Mrs Meld as I went and stood at her shoulder, ‘there’s reverence in her voice. Also I got the feeling that she would have liked to search me to see if I had any hidden weapons.’
‘Have you?’
‘Only this.’
She handed me a copy of the Evening Standard.
I said, ‘Let’s have a drink before we settle down to the crossword. And anyway I haven’t got much time. I’ve an appointment at seven. So chat away. I presume this isn’t a social call?’
‘No. It isn’t. I just decided that I’d been less than honest with you.’
‘Don’t worry about that. It puts you in the main category of my visitors and clients. Gin or whisky, or a glass of white wine?’
‘Whisky. Straight.’
I poured it, straight and generous. She was putting on a good act but there was the suggestion of a shake somewhere in her voice.
‘How did you get my address?’
‘I phoned Mrs Stankowski.’
‘And she gave it to you, just like that?’
‘She did when she heard what I had to say.’
‘Then let me hear it.’
She sat down on the arm of a chair and toasted me briefly with the whisky.
‘I should have told you that Martin Freeman is my husband.’
I said nothing, letting it sink in. This Martin Freeman was quite a number. The more I learned about him, the more intrigued I became.
She said, ‘You don’t seem surprised.’
‘Oh, I am. But I’ve learned not to show it, otherwise I’d be going round all day with my eyes popping. Why don’t you wear a ring?’
‘It was a secret wedding, nearly two months ago, at a registrar’s office. In Acton.’
‘Nice spot. What about the fiancé? PRO at Shell-Mex?’
‘He doesn’t exist.’
‘Why did you get married?’
‘On an impulse.’
‘No question of love?’
‘Oh, that. Yes, I suppose so. But chiefly, well… I like him. He’s charming. Good company. Makes a woman feel good and pleased with herself. And I was tired of hotel work and just the odd dates that don’t develop beyond a tatty weekend in the country. I’m thirty-five, you know. You begin to think about security, home, kids. God, it sounds conventional, but that’s what all women are at heart.’
‘Freeman doesn’t sound the security-giving type. Pinching from his sister, and a few others; a spell in stir for some City company swindle. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have been taken in.’
‘I’m impulsive. That’s why I’m here. I trust you.’
‘Carry on then.’
‘He said he was on the point of a really big deal. Something that would make his fortune. The idea was to keep the marriage secret. He didn’t want publicity and he might have got some. He’s a bit of a name in Fleet Street. He told me he was going off for two or three months, but he would send for me. We’d live abroad for the rest of our lives.’
‘Where?’
‘He didn’t say. I was just to trust him and wait for his call.’
‘Well, why not carry on and do that?’
She got up and helped herself to another whisky.
‘Because, frankly, I’m frightened. For two reasons.’
‘Number one?’
She nodded at the Evening Standard on the table at my side.
‘I’ve put a mark around a news item in the paper.’
She had. It was on the back page. Just a few lines, announcing the discovery of the body of an unknown man, strangled, at Ash Cottage, Crundale, near Wye in Kent.
I said, ‘He was in the chemical closet when I got down there. The type with the London-Scottish tie.’
‘God.’ She breathed the word quietly but there was all the feeling in the world in it.
‘You don’t like being mixed up in murder? Particularly if you fancy Freeman might be involved?’
‘You’re bloody right.’ There was a flash of the forceful, competent manner I’d known at the hotel.
‘Point number two?’
She hesitated, took a sip of her whisky, and then said, ‘This afternoon I had a phone call at the hotel. Some man, foreign, I think, who wouldn’t give his name, but said he was a close friend of Martin’s. He said that if I heard in any way that Martin was dead, I wasn’t to believe it. He was speaking for Martin, and said that Martin would, as he promised, eventually send for me.’ She looked hard at me. ‘I really am frightened, you know. I don’t want to get mixed up in anything… well, as I said, one of the chief reasons for marrying him was this security business. But I don’t want that at any price.’
‘So you came to me?’
‘Who else? I mean, you struck me as being a decent sort. You’re already looking for Martin… I just had to have someone to tell this to.’
‘You told all this to Mrs Stankowski?’
‘No. Only that I was married to Martin. What am I going to do?’
‘Go home, take three sleeping pills and get a good night’s sleep.’
‘But what about the police?’
‘If they get round to you – about the cottage, I mean – then tell them everything you’ve told me if you want to be out in the clear. Mind you, if you’re stuck on waiting for Martin Freeman to send for you, then you’ll have to make your own decision how much you tell.’
‘And do I tell about you?’
‘Why not? I didn’t murder old London-Scottish, and I’m just trying to trace Martin Freeman. However, if they happen to catch on fast to you, you might stall mentioning me until after midday tomorrow. Not that I think they will be so fast.’
‘Why midday tomorrow?’
‘Because I’m going to Paris on professional business and don’t want to be delayed.’
I stood up and took her arm and led her to the door.
‘Don’t fuss. You’ve done nothing wrong. Just speak the truth and shame the devil. And anyway, you’ll have a new wad of material for the book Why I Sometimes Don’t Like Men.’
She paused at the open door, smiled and just touched my arm.
‘You’re a good guy. Thank you.’
‘If you get time, put that in writing and sign it. I’m often in need of a reference.’
She grinned, adjusted her beret with that nice little movement women have with hats, and I knew she was recovering fast. Then she held something out to me.
‘Would you let Mrs Stankowski have this sometime? You needn’t say where you got it.’
I had the gold ring with the jade stone in my hand.
‘I’ll give it to her tonight,’ I said.
I didn’t. I drove, or rather was driven, in the Rolls around to Upper Grosvenor Street just after seven. I wore a midnight-blue dinner jacket, onyx cuff-links my sister had given me, and one loop of my back braces was held on to my trousers with a safety pin because the button had gone.
I went up in the lift feeling like young Lochinvar coming out of the West – SW1, actually. This Freeman thing was developing nicely along the therapeutic lines I needed. Could be, too, that there might come a moment when in addition to my Stankowski fee, there might be a chance to pick up some side money. Oh, yes, I was recovering fast.
The Scots number on opening the door to young Lochinvar soon put paid to any nonsense about so faithful in love and so dauntless in war, and she didn’t care a damn that through all the wild Border his steed was the best. She’d have known the Rolls was hired anyway.
She put a photograph in my hand.
‘I’m to give you this and her apologies for being called away for the evening.’ That’s a translation. I worked it out while looking at the photograph – of Freeman – which I’d forgotten to take with me that morning.
‘Where’s she gone?’
‘The devil knows. I’m not told anything in this house.’ Practice made the translation of that faster.
I went back down in the lift, wondering if it were some other man, some laggard in love and a dastard in war. Frankly, I didn’t care over much. Gloriana was high-flying game, too high for me in my present off-peak condition.
I got in the Rolls and had the chauffeur drive me around for an hour. Then I went home, opened a tin of ox tongue, made myself some sandwiches and coffee and sat and contemplated a bunch of mimosa that Mrs Meld had arranged in a vase on the sideboard. I considered Freeman.
For my money he was too impulsive, too careless, too given to friends making anonymous phone calls about his welfare ever to last long in the big league. He might, with luck, get away with some small racket. But I didn’t read his character as closed, discreet, and contained enough to engineer anything that would give the forces of law and order more than a temporary headache.
I was in the office the next morning at half past nine – early for me. In the outer office Wilkins said, ‘I’ve got a hair appointment at half past ten. Is that all right?’
I nodded, hoping it would be, though what anyone could do with Wilkins’ hair I couldn’t imagine.
She went on, ‘When I got in this morning I put a call through to the Libya Palace Hotel in Tripoli.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t see why Olaf and I should go there if a simple query could be settled by a telephone call.’
‘Freeman?’
‘Yes. They said there was no one staying there of that name.’
‘He could be at some other hotel. What about the Uaddan?’
‘I’ve got a call booked through to them. If it comes while I’m out you can take it.’
‘He might not be using his own name.’
I tossed the Freeman photograph on to her desk. She examined it and handed it back. She had a trained memory. If she ever saw Freeman now she would recognise him.
I said, ‘See if you can get me a booking on an afternoon plane to Paris.’
She nodded and then handed me a newspaper cutting. It was the paragraph about the dead man at Freeman’s cottage.
‘Why,’ she asked, ‘does everything you touch start getting involved and unpleasant?’
‘Which part don’t you like? The involvement or the unpleasantness?’
She didn’t answer, because at that moment the telephone began to ring. I went into my office. She came in ten minutes later and said, ‘That was the Uaddan Hotel. I got the same answer. No one called Freeman known to them. And Mrs Stankowski is outside, wanting to see you.’
‘Show her in. Don’t forget that Paris flight.’
Gloriana was wearing a beautifully cut black silk suit, a mink wrap round her shoulders, a tiny little black hat with a black veil that came just below her eyes, and a different scent. She sat down on the other side of my desk and I reached over and lit a cigarette for her. The pearls round her neck were as large as fat garden peas, all perfectly matched, and evidence of the handsome profit margins in the scrap-metal business. One day, I promised myself, when I got tired of the high excitement of the struggle for existence, I would find a young, rich widow – beautiful, of course – and marry her.
I said, ‘You broke two things last night. My heart and a dinner engagement.’
‘Crap.’ All of old Scunthorpe was in the word. But she said it with a smile.
‘What happened?’
‘At half past six a car called for me. It was from the office of the Lord High Treasurer.’
‘Sounds like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan.’
‘In the car was a man I know.’
‘Young?’
‘Forty-odd. His name is Apsley and he’s a senior legal assistant in the Treasury Solicitor’s office.’
‘What did he want? To marry you or raise a loan to help pay back the war debt?’ As she spoke I went over to the bookcase and fished out Whitaker’s Almanac for 1965. Apsley was listed all right, commencing salary £2,391 rising to £3,135.
‘I’ve known him a long time and I think he would like to marry me – but he’s not my type. He took me back to his office where there were two other Treasury officials. They wanted to know all about Martin. Did I know where he was and so on. Apparently they’ve an idea that he may be mixed up in some currency deal which isn’t exactly honest.’
‘Did they give you details?’
‘No. They’ve no positive evidence yet. They just wanted to know where he was. Since Dick Apsley knows me they thought an informal approach to me was the best thing. I told them I’d employed you to find him.’
‘You told them everything?’
‘Practically.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I didn’t mention about his marriage to that woman… what was her name?’
‘Jane Judd. Why not?’
‘Well, I didn’t see that involving her was going to help them.’
‘But you told them about the dead man at the cottage?’
‘Yes. I thought they took that very calmly.’
‘And what did they say about me?’
‘That I could tell you of their interest – though they have their own investigators – and if I wished I could go on employing you, but they’d be glad if I passed on to them anything you found out. What the hell is that brother of mine up to?’
‘I’d like to know. How long were you there?’
‘Two hours.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Dick took me out to dinner. But we didn’t discuss Martin any more. Except that I made it clear that I wanted to go on employing you. Do you mind if I pass them any information you find?’
‘No.’
‘You look cross.’
‘I don’t like official departments on my tail. But I’ll learn to live with this one. Also, since they know about the dead man, I’m going to have the police around my neck at any minute.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I hope I’m going to be in Paris before they get to me. But I’ll be back.’
‘And you’ll keep me informed?’
‘Sure.’ But not, I thought, necessarily about everything. I didn’t like this Treasury approach, largely I suppose because it wasn’t typical form. And I’m a great one for form.
I was in Paris by five o’clock. I looked up Monsieur Robert Duchêne in the directory at the airport, but he was not listed with a telephone number. François Paulet was listed at the business address he had given me. I don’t know why, but in the taxi going to 2 bis Rue du Bac to see Monsieur Robert Duchêne I suddenly had a comfortable feeling because in talking to Gloriana, although I had mentioned Duchêne and Leon Pelegrina of Florence, I hadn’t given their addresses to her. Frankly, there seemed something a little fishy to me in the Gloriana-Treasury tie-up. More frankly, I recognised stage two of my usual client relationship – a nagging feeling that I wasn’t being told the truth and nothing but the truth, that somewhere somebody was preparing to take advantage of me.
Two bis Rue du Bac was an open doorway next to a stationer’s shop. Beyond the doorway was a narrow hall with a wooden board on the wall announcing who lived in each of the six flats that made up the building. Duchêne was listed in Number 4. I went up the bare board stairs through an atmosphere thick with the smell of ancient meals and tobacco smoke.
Duchêne had handwritten his name on a piece of paper and slipped it into the card holder on the door. I rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened. I rang again, and while my finger was still on the bell push I noticed that the door was off its catch. I stopped ringing and gave it a gentle push with my toe. It swung back and I went in. There was a little hallway, two doors either side and a door at the far end. A man’s bicycle stood against one wall, a raincoat hung on a peg on the other and there was a small side-table piled with old copies of Elle and Paris-Match. The coloured cover page of the top one was given up to a head and shoulders photograph of Brigitte Bardot, marred somewhat by the fact that someone had added in biro a pair of spectacles, a drooping meerschaum pipe and a fancy-looking medal above her left breast. I didn’t stop to work out whether it was the Croix de Guerre or the Victoria Cross. I was just thinking that this place didn’t seem the kind of pad that went with a wealthy, if unscrupulous, collector of antique coins.
The big door at the end of the hall was also slightly ajar. I pushed it open with my toe and stood waiting. Nothing happened. Inside the room I could see part of a settee and beyond it a bureau. There was a knife-slit along the cover of the settee, the material was pulled loose, and three cushions lay on the floor, with covers ripped off and some loose stuffing material which had come from inside them on the carpet. The bureau drawers were on the floor in front of the piece, and papers and odds and ends were scattered about as though a small whirlwind had hit the place.
I left a nice big interval, listening hard as a safety precaution, heard nothing, and then went in.
Someone politely shut the door behind me and something cold was pressed against the back of my neck. I didn’t try to move or turn round. Facing me from the window was a number who reminded me of a full-size model I’d once seen of a Neanderthal man, only this one wore a leather jacket and blue jeans, openwork sandals, a dirty white shirt, and had in his hand a flower pot which held a red azalea.
In the politest of voices he said, ‘Bon soir, Monsieur Duchêne. Nous sommes trés content de vous voir.’
He got hold of the base stem of the azalea and pulled it out of the pot, bringing the roots and soil with it. He then examined the inside of the flower pot, shrugged his shoulders with disappointment, and let the whole shebang drop to the floor. The pot shattered and the azalea scattered its petals.
In English I said, ‘You’ve got it wrong. My name is Apsley – Richard Apsley – and I’m from Her Majesty’s Treasury Solicitor’s office in London.’ The esses whistled a bit but I managed to sound casual. I added, ‘Also, this thing at the back of my neck is making me feel very cold.’
Neanderthal smiled and from such a grotesque face it came with surprising sympathy. In good English he said, ‘Then in that case, or any case, we won’t concern ourselves with you any longer.’ He reached out an arm about four feet long, plucked a picture from the wall and began to tear off the backing paper.
I said, ‘That’s no way to treat a Picasso, even if it is only a reproduction.’ I never got his reaction to this. The cold steel was suddenly gone from the back of my neck. I was hit hard and expertly above and just to the back of my right ear, and went down and out to join the azalea on the floor.