The Corners of the Globe (33 page)

‘No wonder he’s desperate to get hold of it.’

‘Somehow he has learnt the document exists and that le Singe has stolen it. He will want to know how far my lord Saionji has taken this investigation – what he has discovered and what he suspects. And he will want to prevent anyone else finding out.’

‘The question—’

‘There is something else.’ Yamanaka sat forward in his chair, wringing his hands together, as if trying to rub something off them. ‘You should know this. Before he left Paris, Mr Maxted showed me a name on a piece of paper written in Japanese.’

‘Farngold,’ said Sam.

‘Yes. Farngold. The name is mentioned here.’

‘In what connection?’ asked Morahan.

‘In 1889, Baron Tomura, as he was then, married an Englishwoman called Matilda Farngold. Her father, Claude Farngold, was a tea merchant in Yokohama. According to Commissioner Kuroda’s report—’

‘Hang on,’ Sam cut in. ‘Your boss told Max he’d never heard the name Farngold.’

‘I cannot explain that,’ said Yamanaka, who grimaced in embarrassment. ‘Perhaps an order from Marquess Saionji compelled him to keep silent. In his report, he says it was rumoured Mr Farngold gave his daughter to Tomura for the sake of business advantages. But he died in a warehouse fire soon afterwards, so there was no advantage. And Matilda died two years later of complications after giving birth to Tomura’s son.’

‘Noburo Tomura is half-English?’ exclaimed Morahan.

Yamanaka nodded. ‘Evidently.’

‘It’s a sad story,’ said Sam. ‘But why should it matter now?’

‘Because Matilda had a brother – John Farngold, known as Jack. Marquess Saionji asked Commissioner Kuroda to find for him as much information as he could about Jack Farngold following an incident in Keijo in December 1917.’

‘What kind of incident?’ asked Morahan.

‘Farngold made trouble of some kind at Count Tomura’s place of business in the city. There was a complaint to the police about him from the vice-president of the ODC. Farngold also made accusations against Count Tomura in an interview he gave to the
Keijo Shinpo
newspaper.’

‘What accusations?’

‘It is not clear. The interview was never published. Farngold was arrested shortly afterwards on the orders of Governor General Hasegawa and confined as a lunatic. He was later transferred to an asylum in Tokyo. Presumably, he is still there, though Commissioner Kuroda reports it is impossible to confirm his current whereabouts. He suggests Farngold may believe Count Tomura murdered his father. There was evidence of arson as the cause of the warehouse fire in which Claude Farngold died.’

‘He waited a hell of a time to do something about it, didn’t he?’

‘Yes. Nearly thirty years. Commissioner Kuroda comments on the strangeness of that. There is altogether much mystery about Mr Jack Farngold. Marquess Saionji suggests in his notes it is a mystery that may undo Count Tomura. “We should find out what it is,” he says.’

‘He doesn’t say how to, does he?’ asked Sam.

Yamanaka shook his head. ‘No. But Commissioner Kuroda may—’

He broke off, glancing apprehensively towards the hall. Someone had begun knocking at the door of the apartment.

Sam glanced anxiously at Morahan, who signalled them to keep silent and headed hurriedly out of the room.

‘
Qui est-ce?
’ they heard him call.

The muffled answer seemed to satisfy him. He opened the door. Craning his neck for a view, Sam saw the bobbing, bird-like figure of the concierge out on the landing.

She and Morahan conducted a whispered, urgent conversation in French, during which Morahan appeared to grow steadily more perturbed. Then, leaving her outside, he returned to the room, with a troubled look on his face.

‘Bad news, gentlemen,’ he announced. ‘Madame Berton reports half a dozen Japanese men are waiting for us out in the street. We can’t see them from this side of the building. One of them questioned her when she came back from shopping. Judging by her description, I’d say it was Noburo Tomura.’

Yamanaka was visibly shocked. ‘Tomura Noburo? Here?’

‘Seems so.’

‘But . . . how?’

‘I’d guess you were followed. They must’ve been keeping an eye on you as Kuroda’s right-hand man. Whoever did the following would have to be an expert, though. I spotted nothing. The other possibility is they somehow learnt my address and had a lookout posted who alerted them to our arrival. It doesn’t much matter which, does it? They’re here.’

‘What did Madame Berton tell them?’ asked Sam.

‘Nothing. But that won’t have fooled them. I reckon Tomura’s capable of working out why we’d need the services of a Japanese speaker. If he suspects we have the document, he won’t let us leave with it.’

‘Then what do we do?’

‘You two wait here. I’m going downstairs with Madame Berton. She’ll let me use her telephone.’

‘Who are you going to call?’

Morahan smiled tightly. ‘The cavalry.’

WINIFRED, LADY MAXTED
, was so relieved to find her brother alive and reasonably well she forgot at first to be angry with him. George was reminded of her bedside attention when he had contracted diphtheria as a young man. The danger of infection had not deterred her in the least. Indomitability had been part of her character since childhood.

She expected – and he supplied – a detailed account of what had happened to him, but he held back the nationality and name of the man responsible for his kidnapping because he knew she would be horrified and sparing his sister’s feelings had always figured highly among the principles George chose to live by.

‘The cylinder-seals probably are fakes, Win,’ he explained. ‘But that wasn’t why Soutine proved so elusive. He was in the secrets-selling game and the people who killed him badly want a secret back that he had his boy steal from them.’

‘This Arab youth, le Singe?’

‘He’s the one.’

‘And your friends, Mr Morahan and Mr Twentyman, are looking for him?’

‘They may already have found him. I expect they’ll do their best to keep me out of it from now on. I’m not safe on the streets of Paris, it seems.’

‘Your poor finger,’ said Winifred, caressing the wad of bandaging around the forefinger from which the nail had been pulled. ‘I’d never have asked you to come to Paris if I’d had the least idea such a thing would occur.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have agreed to come if I had either!’

‘Oh, I suspect you would. You’re over-protective of me, George, and you always have been.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Now, these kidnappers. Are the police hopeful of catching them?’

‘I don’t know. I told Commissioner Zamaron as much about them as I could.’

‘Well, I trust that’s more than you’ve told me. Were they French?’

‘Er, no.’

‘What, then?’

George grimaced. The conversation had reached the delicate stage where he had known it was bound to arrive sooner or later. He had to tell her, of course. He had to tell her, however painful she would find it to hear.

But pain, ironically, was what Winifred at once thought he was suffering from. ‘Are your ribs aching very badly, George?’

‘No, no. They’re fine as long as I don’t laugh or cough, so no jokes or cigars, there’s a good girl. You’re going to have to take this on the chin, I’m afraid, Win. I think Henry had other business with Soutine besides selling the cylinder-seals. I think he wanted to buy the information that ultimately got Soutine killed. Maybe Henry too. The people who did for Soutine and kidnapped me, you see . . . are Japanese.’

‘Japanese?’

‘Count Tomura, Win. He’s a member of the Japanese delegation to the peace conference. His son Noburo led the gang I was held by.’

‘
Tomura?
’

Winifred looked shocked and dismayed. And somewhere beneath that outward reaction, George sensed, she was also deeply saddened. He had led her into a shadow she believed she had long ago stepped out of for ever. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Count Tomura is here? In Paris? His son too?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Henry engaged this man Soutine to . . . to enquire into their affairs?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘But why? Why would he do that?’

‘I don’t know. But I suspect, well . . .’ George shrugged helplessly. ‘It has something to do with the Farngolds.’

‘No.’ Winifred shook her head. ‘That can’t be.’

‘I wish it couldn’t, Win, but Noburo Tomura asked me while I was being held if the name meant anything to me. I didn’t mention it to Morahan or Sam Twentyman or Commissioner Zamaron. No one knows about it. But he did ask me. I denied it, of course. That’s actually what cost me my fingernail. Young Tomura wanted to be absolutely certain of my ignorance. I made sure he was.’

‘Oh, George, I’m sorry.’ Winifred frowned pityingly at him. ‘You shouldn’t have been dragged into this.’

‘It can’t be helped. And don’t think holding my tongue was an act of bravery. It was clear to me he’d have killed me if I’d admitted knowing anything on that front.’

‘What can there be to know – or for Count Tomura to be afraid of – after all this time?’

‘It could have something to do with Jack Farngold.’

‘Who?’

‘Matilda Farngold had a brother, Win.’ George gave his sister an apologetic look. ‘I came across him while I was working for Jardine’s.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?’

‘There seemed no cause to trouble you with it. And no reason why you should ever need to worry about him. He worked for Jardine’s too, as a captain in their Far East merchant fleet. In the ordinary way of things, I’d never have known he existed. But during my last tour of duty in Shanghai before I left the company – 1912, it would have been – I was sent to Weihaiwei to sort out a problem.’

‘Where?’

‘A British enclave on the Shantung peninsula. Jardine’s did a lot of business there. A Jardine’s employee – Captain Farngold – had been arrested after a break-in at the offices of the Oriental Development Bank. The bank was Japanese-owned. No cash was stolen, but documents belonging to them were found in Farngold’s possession. The story given to me by the police was confusing. They didn’t know what was in the documents, which had already been returned to the bank. Farngold refused to explain himself. The police rather half-heartedly suggested he’d drunk too much in one of the bars by the port and broken in as some kind of lark. It was an absurd idea, really, but there you are. They were prepared to drop charges, as was the bank, if Jardine’s guaranteed Farngold would leave Weihaiwei and never come back. Head Office had already made it clear I was to put a stop to any scandal and get him off the company’s books. So, that’s what I did.

‘I had one stilted conversation with him before he was released. He had no idea who I was, of course. The name Clissold would have meant nothing to him. I was just the pen-pusher who’d been sent to salvage Jardine’s good name. He’d worked for them longer than I had. Twenty or thirty years. According to our records, he was in his late forties, I think, though he looked older. A life at sea can have that effect. But I had the impression some other trouble had worn him down as well: the trouble that had caused him to break into the bank.’

‘Are you sure he was Matilda’s brother?’ Winifred asked suddenly, grasping at a straw. ‘The name might have been a coincidence.’

‘The police showed me what they’d found in his pockets. He was carrying a photograph of two children in his wallet. A boy and a girl. The boy looked about nine, the girl about seven. She was carrying a doll, I remember. He was dressed in a sailor-suit. Someone had written on the back,
Jack and Tiddy 1874
. The ages were right. The names were right. He was her brother, Win, no question about it.’

‘What happened to him after he was released?’ Winifred asked hollowly.

‘I don’t know. There were plenty of other shipping lines who’d have taken him on. I put him on a ferry to Port Arthur and that was the last I saw of him.’

‘You asked him why he’d broken into the bank’s offices?’

‘Of course.’

‘And what the document was he’d stolen?’

‘Yes. But he told me nothing. “I had my reasons.” That was all he’d say. After he’d left, though . . .’

‘What?’

‘I made a few discreet enquiries. One of the directors of the Oriental Development Bank turned out to be Count Tomura. It was plain to me that’s why Farngold had stolen whatever the document was.’

‘But it was in Japanese, surely. How would he know what it said?’

‘A good question. And there’s an answer. I had a word with the first officer of Farngold’s ship before it left port without him. He said Farngold was fluent in Japanese. He’d taught himself the language, apparently. This fellow had seen him reading local newspapers when they called at Japanese ports. Self-taught Japanese? That’s close to impossible, unless you dedicate yourself to the task over many years.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘There’s only one explanation, isn’t there? Know thine enemy. He had – maybe he still has – Count Tomura in his sights.’

‘Revenge?’

‘His father and his sister. He might blame Tomura for both their deaths.’

‘But what has this to do with Henry? How would he even know who Jack Farngold was?’

‘It’s not so unlikely Henry would know Matilda Farngold had a brother, is it?’

‘No,’ Winifred admitted.

‘As for how he’d know the brother was pursuing Tomura, I’ve no idea. But there must have been vital information in the material le Singe stole from the Japanese delegation – vital enough to bring Tomura all the way here. If James ever makes this connection . . .’

‘Where
is
James?’

‘No one knows. Not in Paris, though, which is some kind of blessing. But he may return at any time.’

Winifred drew a deep breath and braced herself. The shock had passed already, George judged. She had accommodated the news. She had done what she always did: accepted reality. ‘We must do our best to prevent this harming anyone else, George. Henry is dead and Jack Farngold is beyond our help. I will not allow James to waste his life on a crusade against Count Tomura.’

‘You won’t tell him the truth, then?’