The Ways of the World (42 page)

‘You saved my life, James,’ he said, his voice reduced to a hoarse whisper by the damage Tarn had inflicted on him. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

‘I saved my own too. It was self-preservation, really.’

‘That fellow … Tarn … killed Henry?’

‘I believe so. He was paid to do it by those who feared they might be exposed as spies working for Fritz Lemmer.’

‘But … Tarn was looking for Lemmer.’

‘The Japanese paid better. He said so himself.’

‘And you … thought I was one of … Lemmer’s people?’

‘Yes. I was trying to give you enough rope to hang yourself.’

‘I may be many things, James, but I’m not a traitor. The idea’s absurd.’

‘It didn’t seem so absurd at the time. Especially not when Nadia Bukayeva said her piece.’

‘So, I have my … liking for the ladies … to blame for this, do I?’

‘Someone in the British delegation was pulling Nadia’s strings, I’m sure of it. Tell me, does anyone else drive your car?’

‘My car?’

‘The Daimler. HX 4344.’

‘You know … the registration number?’

‘Does anyone else drive it?’

‘Well, since you ask …’

‘Yes?’

‘The chap I share the apartment with in Paris. I let him use it … from time to time.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Herbie Norris.’

‘
Norris?
’

‘Yes. You know him?’

Norris. So, that was it. The meek maundering Mr Norris was not at all what he had chosen to appear. ‘I know him,’ Max said dolefully. Though all that flowed from such knowledge was far from clear to him. Had le Singe set out to mislead them, acting on Norris’s orders? Or had he been misled himself?

‘Are you saying … Herbie Norris works for Lemmer?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘Good God.’

‘I’ll alert Appleby as soon as I can.’

Brigham shook his head in disbelief, wincing at the effect on his throat and coughing so badly Max had to fetch him a glass of water. ‘Thanks … my boy,’ he gasped, after talking a few soothing sips. ‘Norris is simply the last man I’d have thought capable of … spying. He seemed … straight as a die and …’ He smiled weakly. ‘And dull as dishwater.’

‘It probably suited him to have you think that.’

‘Of course. And it’s … surprisingly easy … to misread people, isn’t it, James?’ Brigham looked Max in the eye and held his smile.

‘Yes.’ Max nodded – a small enough gesture, but full of meaning, a meaning neither of them could mistake. ‘It is.’

‘I’ll make the police understand … you had no choice but to shoot Tarn. It was … him or us.’

‘That it was.’

‘What about the writing … on the wall? Will you tell them about that?’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘It was … intended for you, wasn’t it?’

‘I think it was, yes.’

‘Would you prefer me … not to mention it?’

‘Very much.’

‘I won’t, then.’

‘Thank you.’ Max nodded his appreciation, which was more genuine than he could ever have imagined it would be of any act of Brigham’s.

‘You’re not going to tell me what it said, are you?’

‘I don’t know what it said. I don’t even know what language it was written in.’

‘Japanese.’

‘Really?’

‘I think so. I can’t read Japanese script, of course, but … I recognized it. And Tarn … was working for the Japanese, wasn’t he?’

‘So he said.’

‘Now Tarn’s dead, will you … drop this?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or maybe not.’ Brigham looked at Max knowingly.

‘I should leave you to rest.’

Max stood up, relieved Brigham had said nothing, even indirectly, about the possibility that they were father and son. He no longer suspected Brigham of any responsibility for Sir Henry’s murder. But that did not mean he was no longer suspicious of him in other ways. His view of the man had become disconcertingly complicated since their life-and-death struggle with Tarn.

‘I’m glad—’ Max began. Then words deserted him.

‘When I’m back on my feet,’ said Brigham, ‘I’ll probably … go down to Cannes … for a while. They can cope in Paris without me.’

‘I’m sure they can.’

‘I don’t suppose …’ Brigham gazed up at Max and found the answer in his face. ‘No. Of course not.’

Max returned to his room and went to the cabinet where his clothes were hung. From his jacket pocket he took the piece of wallpaper he had unceremoniously torn from the bedroom wall at the flat and looked again at what had been written on it.

Was it really Japanese, he wondered. Brigham had seemed in little doubt. But le Singe was more likely to be fluent in Arabic than Japanese. How could he have written it? And what did it mean?

As to that, Max knew who would be able to tell him. And he would ask him, just as soon as he could.

MAX CHARMED A
nurse into helping him send a telegram to Appleby, warning him Norris was the rotten apple in the barrel. When Appleby arrived at the hospital that evening, however, Max realized he must have left Paris before the telegram had reached him. But, strangely, he already knew about Norris.

‘You don’t need to worry about him, Max. He no longer poses any kind of threat. I’ll explain why when you’ve told me what happened here. Inspector Denslow seems … confused.’

Max did his best on that front, admitting for Appleby’s benefit the role le Singe had played in events, but instinctively avoiding any mention of the message on the wall. He wanted to know what the message said before he told anyone about it.

‘I’ll call in at Scotland Yard tomorrow and have a word with Denslow’s boss,’ said Appleby when Max had finished. ‘I’ve already spoken to him on the blower and I’m confident there’ll be no charges brought against you. Killing Tarn could be regarded as a public service. You’ll have to appear at the inquest, of course, along with Brigham. But that’ll be a formality.’

‘I want to get back to Paris as soon as possible.’

‘I’m sure you do. And you’ll want to hear my news, as well.’

‘Is it good news?’

‘Some of it is, yes. Which is probably as much as we can ever hope for in this life.’

Appleby’s account began with Sam’s impulsive decision – inspired, as it turned out – to sabotage Brigham’s Daimler. The car’s
subsequent delivery to the Majestic garage for repairs, not by Brigham but by Norris, initiated a chain of events that led to Sam walking into a trap in Nadia Bukayeva’s flat.

‘Norris must have decided to eliminate Twentyman for fear his plan to cast suspicion on Brigham would fall apart once we discovered he had the use of the Daimler. I think le Singe was trying to tell you the driver of that car was your enemy, you see. What he didn’t know was that there were two drivers. And what Norris didn’t know was that Morahan had followed him to Little Russia, so was able to intervene before they could dump Twentyman in the Seine.’

‘How’s Sam now?’

‘Recuperating at the Hôtel Dieu. The drug they used left him pretty groggy, but he’ll soon be up and about. He asked me to say hello.’

‘Good old Sam.’

‘And good old Morahan. Why he should have bothered to involve himself I don’t really understand, but I’m glad he did. Twentyman had left me a note about Norris’s use of the car, but it would have been far too late for him by the time I read it. As it was, Morahan telephoned me from the hospital and put me in the picture.’

‘Have you got Norris in custody? Is that what you meant about him no longer posing a threat?’

‘I couldn’t have taken him into custody even if I’d had the chance, Max. Nor could the French police. I’d been warned off by the Permanent Under-Secretary and Foreign Office staff enjoy diplomatic immunity, remember.’

‘Nadia Bukayeva doesn’t, though.’

‘Good point. And one not lost on me. I hoiked Zamaron out of bed and persuaded him he should arrest her for conspiracy to murder Twentyman and probable complicity in her uncle’s murder as well. Time was of the essence, of course. I was afraid she’d already have done a bunk.’

‘And had she?’

‘Oh, yes. It looked like she’d packed some clothes before leaving. I think we can assume she’s not planning to return to Paris in the near future.’

‘She must have been the traitor in the Trust Pa was offering to identify.’

‘That’s how I read it. But working for Lemmer rather than the Cheka. Or maybe for Lemmer as well as the Cheka.’

‘Had Norris gone too?’

‘Not exactly. Though gone he certainly had in one sense.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We found him in Nadia’s flat, Max. Him and his assistant, Dobson. Both shot dead.’

‘Nadia killed them?’

‘Who else? She must have ice in her veins. I imagine she opted for a scorched-earth policy once she realized Norris’s plans were miscarrying. Perhaps she calculated he’d decide to kill her rather than risk her confessing all under interrogation, improbable though it seems to me that any interrogator could get more out of her than she was willing to give. Whatever her reasons, though, she carried it off efficiently. Two clean head shots. Bang bang, they’re dead.’

‘And she got away?’

‘Clean away, I regret to say.’

Appleby sighed and thrust his pipe, with which he had been fiddling, back into his pocket, apparently concluding that lighting it in a hospital was out of the question. But he burrowed in his bag and pulled out a bottle of whisky with a satisfied smirk that suggested he regarded it as a more than adequate substitute. A grubby tumbler also emerged, inscribed SE & CR, evidently purloined from the train. He poured himself a generous measure and sloshed some into Max’s water glass.

‘Your health, Max.’

‘Well, despite the setting, I don’t feel too bad. And being the subject of a police inquiry does get you a private room here, so I’m not complaining.’ Max raised his glass and took a sip. ‘Even so, I’d have discharged myself by now if I had a home to go to. Denslow put the flat out of bounds.’

‘He tells me he’s finished with the flat now. And you could always visit your family, of course.’

‘Not a good idea. As soon as the police are off my back, I’ll head
for Paris. Tomorrow, I hope, if you can do your stuff at Scotland Yard.’

‘You don’t really need to go back to Paris, Max. You’ve killed the man who killed your father. The man who hired the killer is also dead. And Zamaron’s confident the magistrate will approve Madame Dombreux’s release now it’s obvious Spataro was one of Tarn’s victims. You’ve done all that could have been expected of you – more, frankly, than I thought you were capable of.’

‘But Norris was only one of many spies in Lemmer’s network. And your condition for helping me, as I recall, was that I track down Lemmer for you.’

‘With Norris dead and Miss Bukayeva gone with the wind, I’d put your chances of doing that at close to zero. I could and maybe I should encourage you to persist. It’s what my boss would expect me to do. You might turn up some other spies and they might take us closer to Lemmer. But you’ve had several narrow escapes already.’ Appleby paused and looked at Max thoughtfully, then went on. ‘My son would be the same age as you, if he hadn’t been killed at Loos, you know. He was a volunteer too.’

‘You’ve never mentioned him before.’

‘No occasion to. I shouldn’t drink Scotch, really. It makes me sentimental. Oh, before I forget, you might like to know what I’ve found out about the Contingencies Memorandum. It’s keeping Carver and a few others in the American delegation awake at night. No one will give me chapter and verse, but I gather it’s a document in which President Wilson sets out variations to be made to his supposedly inviolable Fourteen Points – his much-vaunted programme for world peace – if certain contingencies arise during the peace conference. Some of those variations wouldn’t paint him in an honourable light. If it reached the press, there’d be hell to pay. So, if your father got hold of an authentic copy …’

‘It would have fetched a high price at auction, so to speak.’

‘It would. And if it was in that safe-deposit box of his …’

‘It might already be in Lemmer’s possession.’

‘Indeed it might.’

‘Doesn’t that possibility worry you?’

‘Personally, no. Why should I care if he throws a spanner in the
conference works? Departmentally, I should probably hope he does. American embarrassment equals British advantage.’ Appleby shrugged and topped up his glass. ‘Peace is almost as dirty a business as war.’

‘You should drink Scotch more often, Appleby. It mellows you.’

Appleby grunted, apparently considering mellowness an accusation bordering on the insulting. ‘Have you found out what your father was raising money
for
yet?’

‘Corinne Dombreux and a comfortable life with her, probably in Brazil. He planned to invest the money in a business venture of Ribeiro’s.’

‘Ah.’ Appleby looked almost disappointed. ‘So that was all it was.’

Or was it? After Appleby had gone, Max turned out the light and lay watching raindrops forming at intervals on the uncurtained window of his room. The sky beyond the window was black, the rain falling from clouds he could not see. The truth, it struck him, was like that, revealing itself, if at all, only by its effect on something else. He had the sense that there was a greater, darker truth beyond all that he had so far learnt. Why had his father appointed him his executor if not to discover what that was? Had the safe-deposit box hidden the secret? Or was it hidden somewhere else, still waiting to be found? If Max gave up now, he would never know for certain, never quite be able to dismiss from his mind the fear that he had turned his back on what his father had died for. And that, he knew, he could not bear.