The Corners of the Globe (25 page)

‘How, exactly?’

‘Firstly, I’m going to telephone my secretary in Paris. I can rely on Miss Willis’s discretion if on no one else’s in the delegation. She may well know how we can contact Veronica Edwards. I have a vague recollection of her mentioning she’d gone to the girl’s wedding. We’ll get off at Reading and I’ll prevail on the stationmaster to let me use his telephone. My warrant card should ensure his cooperation. Now, we can’t go to Paddington. Political’s bound to have put a watch on all the London terminuses. So, we’ll take a stopping train from Reading and get off at Ealing. From there we can travel by Underground.’

‘I hate the Underground,’ Max objected.

‘It’s a small price to pay. And a lot of that line’s above ground, so stop complaining. Exactly where we go depends on what I learn from Miss Willis, but you may have to continue to Eltham on your own.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we have to move quickly and to do that we may have to split up. If so, I’ll give you a note to hand to my sister, reassuring her she can safely entrust the negatives to you. And I assume you haven’t lost your passport?’

‘No.’

‘Then your photograph will clinch the matter. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll know more when I’ve spoken to Miss Willis.’

At Reading station, Max waited on the platform while Appleby tackled the stationmaster. He returned after ten minutes or so with the news that agents acting on instructions from London had ransacked his desk and filing cabinet, much to Miss Willis’s disgust. She had evidently helped them as little as she could. As for Veronica Edwards . . .

‘Miss Willis’s memory holds more than my filing cabinet, so we’re in luck. Miss Edwards is now Mrs Underwood. She and her husband live in Harrow-on-the-Hill. She’s currently employed as a secretary herself, by a local solicitor.’

‘Does Miss Willis know which one?’

‘No. But I’ll visit as many as I need to until I find her. Then it’s just a question of persuading her to help us.’

‘At the risk of her life.’

‘She’s a patriotic girl. She’ll do it. But only I can talk her into it.’ Appleby handed Max a folded sheet of paper. ‘The note I mentioned for Cora. Once you’ve got the negatives, get prints made as quickly as possible. There’s a photographer in the high street Cora’s on good terms with. Use him. I’ll take Mrs Underwood to the British Museum. Meet us there with the prints for her to work on. Let’s say three this afternoon. In the tea-room. Earlier if possible. Later if necessary. Just be there waiting.’

They switched to the Underground, as planned, at Ealing Broadway. Appleby got off at the next stop, in order to travel to the northern end of the line, close to Harrow-on-the-Hill.

‘Good luck,’ was all Appleby contrived by way of a parting remark as he stood up to leave the train at Ealing Common.

‘You too,’ murmured Max.

A hunch-shouldered, hatted and raincoated figure moving slowly along the platform was Max’s last glimpse of Appleby as the train started moving again. Three people had died already for the sake of the Grey File. Max did not delude himself that they would be the last. Nor that he might not be one of those joining them.

Max stayed on the train when it reached Charing Cross, despite the fact that trains to Eltham started from there. Appleby had advised him to travel from London Bridge station instead. ‘It’s a warren and I’m betting Political’s too stretched to cover it. Use the Underground entrance, then go up to the mainline platforms.’

So it was that Max finally emerged from the claustrophobic depths of the Tube at Monument station. The London morning was cool and grey and damp. He walked out onto London Bridge, surveying the murky curve of the Thames to either side. Behind him was the City, to the west the Houses of Parliament. He was close to the twin centres of the Empire’s wealth and power. And close to the treachery that had fed Lemmer’s plot. Fear and frailty; hatred and ambition: they beat away their rhythms beneath the louder rhythm of London.

Near the middle of the bridge, a one-legged beggar was slumped by the railings, mumbling and grimacing to himself. A crutch lay beside him. His begging bowl was a frayed military forage cap. As Max drew closer, he noticed the poor fellow was wearing a military tunic as well. And then he saw, embroidered at the shoulder, the magical words:
ROYAL FLYING CORPS
.

Max stopped, his mind drawn back in an instant to the blue skies above Flanders, to the sweet song of the breeze in the rigging, to the perverse beauty of the woolly yellow smoke plumes of antiaircraft fire, to the joyous intensity of combat in the air. He delved in his pocket for a coin.

‘Max?’

The beggar was staring at him in recognition. His voice was slurred. But his eyes were gleaming.

‘It’s you, isn’t it . . . Max?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s Wilko. Don’t you . . . remember me?’

Wilko? Could the bundle of despair at Max’s feet really be Wilkinson? They had trained together at Farnborough and briefly served in the same squadron at Vert Galant.

‘Max?’

Max hardened his heart. He could do nothing for Wilkinson beyond the coin he leant forward to drop into his forage cap. On another day, in different circumstances . . . but on this day, in these circumstances, he had to play the stranger. ‘I’m sorry. You’ve got the wrong man.’

‘I have?’ The light in Wilkinson’s eyes went out. ‘Yes. I see now. You’re not Max. He’s dead, isn’t he? Like all the others. Max is dead.’

HEGG SUPPLIED THE
recumbent Sam with a commentary on the signs of looming disorder as they drove from the Majestic to the Hôtel Dieu: shuttered shops, a mob gathering on the Place de l’Alma; tin-hatted
poilus
standing by with rifles stacked; the Red Flag fluttering in the damp Parisian air. ‘Looks like they’re spoiling for a fight, Mr Twentyman. I wouldn’t mind getting back before it kicks off.’

Sam gave him no reassurance on the point. He had more to worry about than a riot.

So did George Clissold. He was propped up on several pillows in a room on his own, with a policeman stationed outside.

‘Blimey, Mr Clissold,’ said Sam upon seeing him. ‘You look as if you’ve gone ten rounds with Jess Willard.’

George had a black eye, a split lip and various other visible bruises. He also had a bulky padded bandage on his left forefinger.

‘If it weren’t for my good friend morphine, I might feel as if I had too,’ George said, in a rasping voice. ‘They broke one of my ribs and this . . .’ He waggled the bandaged finger. ‘They pulled out one of my fingernails, Sam. Confoundedly painful, let me tell you. Though not as painful as I’d make it for the fellow who did it if I caught him with a horsewhip in my hand, I assure you.’

‘You’d know them again?’

‘Actually, no. They kept me blindfolded. But they were Japanese. I recognized the language from my days out east. They’re the people you were warned about, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Sam dropped his voice to a level certain to escape the ears of the policeman on the door. ‘I was going to tell you yesterday. Count Tomura of the Japanese legation is the man looking for le Singe. And his son’s doing his dirty work for him, by all accounts.’

‘Such as murdering Soutine when he wouldn’t give le Singe up?’ asked George in a matching undertone.

‘Such as that, sir, yes. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.’

‘Ah, but I gave him something, you see, Sam. That’s why I wanted to speak to you so urgently. I’m sorry to have to tell you I don’t withstand torture very well. I named you as the party who could lead him to le Singe.’

Sam blanched. ‘You did?’

‘My apologies, old chap. Very bad form. I can only say you have to know how it feels to have a Japanese muscleman taking a pair of pliers to your fingernails before—’

‘It’s all right, Mr Clissold. They’d have found their way to me sooner or later. You should’ve told them before they did you a mischief.’

George smiled stiffly. ‘I would have. But then they might have thought there was more to extract from me. As it was, they gave up and deposited me outside this very hospital before it got light this morning.’

‘At least you’re alive.’

‘Unlike Soutine, yes. Well, he wasn’t a close friend of the chairman of Jardine, Matheson and Co., was he? That was his fatal disadvantage.’

‘And you are, are you, sir?’

‘No. But I convinced them I was. I did work for the company once, so I was able to throw around a few influential names. Happily, it seems even Count Tomura’s murderous son can’t ignore the imperatives of Anglo–Japanese commercial relations.’

‘Have you spoken to the police?’

‘Oh yes. Commissioner Zamaron came to see me. He mentioned he’d been to see you too. He suggested there was something you were holding back.’

‘What did you say?’

‘That I didn’t have the first idea what he meant. We can’t prove it was Tomura’s people who kidnapped me, Sam. Or that it was his serpent-tongued son who interrogated me. So, I prefer to keep my powder dry on that front. The account I gave Zamaron of what took place was accurate as far as it went. But I led him to believe the identity of my kidnappers is a complete mystery to me. Nor did I—’ George broke off. ‘Hello. Is this another visitor?’

Sam looked up to see Morahan filling the doorway. ‘Mr Morahan! What are you doing here?’

‘I went to see you at the Majestic, Sam. One of your underlings said you’d come here. The receptionist told me who you were visiting.’ He extended his hand. ‘Schools Morahan, Mr Clissold. What’s the damage?’

‘Aside from what you can see, a broken rib and one fingernail fewer than I’m used to.’

Morahan grimaced. ‘Nasty.’

‘He’s just been telling me what happened,’ said Sam.

‘We’ll get to that, Sam. Hold on.’

Morahan left the room. Sam could hear him conversing with the policeman in French. Then he was back, closing the door behind him.

‘Money speaks every language. I just bought us some privacy. Which we badly need right now.’

Morahan made it plain Soutine’s murder and George’s kidnapping freed him of any obligation he might otherwise have felt to protect Noburo Tomura and his father as clients of Ireton Associates. ‘Travis is prepared to overlook almost everything,’ he said. ‘But I’m not.’

George described his own experiences in greater detail than he had to Sam. After being grabbed and bundled into a van on the Pont Royal, he was blindfolded and gagged and his wrists tied together. Then he was driven away. ‘We didn’t go far; about a mile, I’d say.’ He was led down a rickety flight of steps into a cellar and tied to a chair, then left to contemplate his plight for an hour or more before the interrogation began. ‘Fellow with a youthful, arrogant voice asked all the questions. Noburo Tomura, I assume. I’m not sure the others spoke much English. He wanted to know where le Singe was and what my dealings with Soutine were. He didn’t ask nicely, as you can see. I knew I’d have to tell him something to escape alive.’ He duly explained what that was. ‘Pulling out my fingernail seemed to please him mightily. He’s a sadistic blighter.’ But even Tomura’s sadism had its limits. He evidently decided George could tell him no more and, not wishing to draw any fire from the likes of Jardine, Matheson, spared his life.

‘I had the impression young Tomura means to do whatever it takes to find le Singe,’ George concluded. ‘It’s as if he’s frightened of him. Or his father is. And from what I’ve read in the papers Count Tomura isn’t a man who’s likely to scare easily, so le Singe must know something
very
important.’

‘We need to learn what that is and use it against him,’ said Morahan.

‘Good idea,’ agreed Sam. ‘But how?’

‘Well, that’s why I came looking for you. I think I’ve tracked le Singe down.’

‘You have?’

Morahan explained about the hideaway. ‘I want you to go and wait there with me this evening. The chances are no better than fifty-fifty he’ll show up, but, if he does, we’ve got to convince him we’re all on the same side. He’s seen you before, so he’s more likely to trust you. And he’ll want to avenge Soutine, so there’s good reason to hope we can persuade him to help us.’

‘I’ll try anything, Mr Morahan.’

‘Reckoned you would. We just have to keep you out of Tomura’s clutches in the meantime.’

‘The Majestic will be safe, though, won’t it?’

‘I guess so.’ But Morahan looked unconvinced.

‘I may be able to set you off in the right direction where le Singe is concerned,’ said George. ‘While Tomura’s people were holding me, there was a lot of discussion between them in Japanese. Well, the language is a closed book to me, so I hadn’t a clue what they were actually saying. It was different when young Tomura spoke to me in English, of course. And different on one other occasion. Someone – an outsider, I assume – came to talk to him. They went into an adjoining room, but I could still hear their voices. They conversed in Mandarin Chinese. Well, thanks to my years in Shanghai, I know a smattering of Mandarin, so I was able to follow some of what they said. Tomura and the Chinaman were plotting something. “The details have been delivered,” the Chinaman said. “The conditions are right for us to move.”’

‘When was this?’ Morahan asked.

‘Last night, although I only know that now, by counting back from the time I was delivered here. Tomura asked the Chinaman if someone called Chen Sen-mao could be relied upon to “do it”.’

‘Do what?’

‘They didn’t say. But the Chinaman was anxious about le Singe. “You catch le Singe. Then I give Chen the order.” Tomura wanted him to proceed whether he caught le Singe or not. “Act soon,” he urged. The Chinaman demurred. I mean, he appeared to agree, but it was dressed up with oriental subtleties. I had the impression he wanted le Singe in the bag before he went ahead.’

‘With whatever it is.’

‘Exactly. Whatever it is.’

‘Where does this get us, Mr Morahan?’ Sam asked.

‘I’m not sure. But it sounds as if le Singe knows what they’re planning – and probably who’s planning it. So, we need to find him before Tomura does. We’ll go to the apartment this evening and wait. We’ll have to be patient.’

‘And meanwhile?’