by Mary Kelly
“No. And he was last there about six o’clock on the evening of the twenty-second.”
“Our night! He probably went along in the expectation of being met with his cut. I don’t suppose they ever intended to give it to him. After all, why waste money on someone who’s too dangerous to be left loose? They knew from their own experience how garrulous he could be.”
“So they tagged him till they could dunk him in the canal,” said Beddoes thoughtfully. “Why let him go from Vanbrugh Street at all? In fact, you’d think that was their real reason for making the assignation, to nab him. Perhaps he took fright and shot out into the Strand before they could catch him. They must have followed him to Bright’s without getting a chance in the crowds—strange luck for him. But again, why not grab him as he charged out of the house? I mean, that must have put the wind up them. An exit like a human cannon-ball means something amiss. All the more reason to snaffle him before he bubbled. Remember you thought he’d run out to tell them? I think he was making for us. You know how Russians love to confess.”
“Then why did he go to the Derby Arms? To drink himself up to it?”
“Maybe. Poor blinking scarecrow.”
Nightingale was surprised by this from Beddoes. He made no comment. “Have you heard about Richborough?” he asked.
“Tentatively. Who pipped?”
“Pink. That reminds me, I must see that he gets his paltry due.”
“Did he tell you it was the Hampstead lot?”
“Well, he made a point of the name Hampstead, and he always knows what I’m working on. Very considerate.”
“Favorites. How do you do it?”
“I overlooked him once, years ago, when I was arresting a batch. I was as green as a crocus leaf. The point is, he didn’t realize it was an oversight.”
“And he’s gone on being grateful. What time’s the show?”
“Six-thirty. Kent is going into position as soon as it’s dark. That means a long wait, but the thing mustn’t be scotched by the untimely twinkling of a silver button. Do you know Richborough? It’s part of the Stour estuary marsh, nothing but labyrinthine ditches, river cuts, derelict wharves and sheds from the old war, and a few raw factories. They’re trying to bring it to life again, I think, as some kind of port. There’s a railway, power cables, and the castle, originally a Roman fort. According to Pink, that’s where the helicopter’s due or nearby. So Kent will concentrate in that area.” He sighed.
“Cheer up,” said Beddoes. “Their coppers are better than their cricket. Alas! What now?”
“Pink. I mustn’t forget Pink. Rather sullies the purity of his gratitude, doesn’t it? One day I’ll introduce you by phone, then I can bequeath him to you when I go.”
“Boil me! Old Pink’ll be peaching on the devil by then, won’t he?”
“He’s not that old. Besides,” Nightingale paused, “suppose I were to resign?”
There was much to substantiate Beddoes’ observation on Russians’ love of confession. They seemed to free themselves of the burdens of conscience with greater ease and frequency than many, perhaps because the vast spaces of their country bred in them a sort of uninhibited expansiveness. Letters from Russian officials to the Times were usually long and diffuse, as if all Times were theirs, thought Nightingale. But while it might be possible to prove Russians statistically the greatest confessors, the urge was not peculiar to them. It was common. And Nightingale, oppressed by the matter of the cameo, which from the accretion of his knowledge and suspicions had grown to a boulder’s weight, was overwhelmingly aware of it.
“Never mind,” he said to the speechless Beddoes. “Majendie, now. Last night I heard, by chance, that he lives in Kent and that he keeps his collection there. It may be coincidence.”
Beddoes looked dubious. “He’s admitted an awful lot for someone in the soup. To clear his name in Olga’s prayer book he need only have mentioned the brooch in the twenties, which was probably true enough.”
“You surely don’t imagine I told him we’d seen that address? For all he knows, we may have found letters or drafts of letters—hers to him, I mean—and heaven knows what else. He had to cover his visit. Oh, he went, that’s almost a certainty. He knew the jewels were kept in a trunk. I suppose someone could have passed that on from Ivan, but I didn’t tell him. Anyway, he’s going down to Kent today. Takes the ‘Man of Kent’ to Folkestone, then drives.”
“Folkestone’s quite a way from the Stour.”
“The ‘Man of Kent’ arrives at Folkestone at quarter to three. The helicopter arrives at Richborough at six-thirty. Plenty of time.”
“For Majendie to drive a helicopter out of its hangar in his back garden and waft over to Richborough. That sounds nice. Have they checked what’s registered in that part?”
“He hasn’t one, needless to say.”
“Well, I don’t get this marsh melodrama. If they must be so perishing exotic as to use a helicopter, why not take the stuff to its base and load it there?”
“The stuff! Because the base, even if it isn’t Majendie’s house, will be owned by someone, and that someone could be traced. You can’t tether a helicopter in a field as if it were a goat. And that someone wouldn’t want the stuff, as you elegantly put it, brought anywhere near his property. Therefore you find a place which is lonely, but reasonably near the base and near the coast, so that you flit off English soil as quickly as possible to your prospective market.”
“Then you do think Majendie’s house may be the base?”
“Not necessarily. Kent offers other spots.”
“And what about the radar at Manston? Still, they don’t chase everything that crosses it. And is Richborough on the coast?”
“The trouble is that the name Richborough is loosely applied to a large area, apart from the castle. Here, let’s get the map out. In the drawer. You see, the castle’s on the land side of those river cuts, right behind the railway in fact. Easily accessible by road, however—I’m thinking of cars . . .”
“Taking the stuff to meet the helicopter. Well, what am I supposed to call it? Praeda?”
“On the other side of the river and the road, though, you see, Richborough is written right across the point, headland, whatever you’d call it. The land’s all golf course, so they’d find it difficult to take a car through in the dark. There’s the coast guard rather nearer than they’d find comfortable, possibly caretakers or late workers in the factories . . .”
“Christmas carousal in the clubhouse . . .”
“. . . and fewer features to guide them down.”
“Headlights,” Beddoes suggested, “if they could get cars through.”
“That’s not much. Whereas by the castle they could get their bearings from the lights of Ramsgate behind them, the road, the railway line—I know it wouldn’t be lit, but they could hang right over it to make sure—and look, those big drainage cuts. Anyway, Pink specified the fort area. And the different lettering of Richborough on the point is surely to indicate the whole area once comprised the Roman port.”
“Well?” said Beddoes innocently. “Who’s said otherwise?”
Nightingale was silent. Beddoes must know that he had been discussing the affair with his superiors. Superior Wisdom had preferred the point as a likely landing ground, had frowned on too implicit a trust in Pink, had wanted at least to split the county’s available forces to watch the places on both sides of the river. Nightingale, suffering contradiction, swallowing retorts in the grim but ultimately successful battle to have his own way, had passed an unpleasant half-hour. He had emerged feeling that a knot had been drawn tight inside him and that the atmospheric pressure had somehow increased.
“So we are watching the fort?” said Beddoes.
“Yes,” said Nightingale flushing. “You can take yourself down there in time to be in at the end.”
“In what capacity?” asked Beddoes.
Nightingale had to pause again. Superior Wisdom had taken moderate umbrage at some of Beddoes’ twitting w
hich had been wafted, as Beddoes would say, to its ears. The Superior Thumb had come down unequivocally on Nightingale’s proposal to give Beddoes a major part in handling the Richborough crisis; and Nightingale, conscious that insistence might lose him his whole hard-won position, had preferred to sacrifice Beddoes.
“Just go down,” he said. “Introduce yourself to the Superintendent. He knows you’re coming.”
“And take a ringside seat,” Beddoes concluded. “You, meanwhile . . .”
“I shall be following Majendie, and hoping also to roll up to Richborough in time.”
Beddoes frowned. “Following? On the train and by car? Why not send me, or any old one?”
“Because if Majendie has a guilty conscience, he’ll probably be sensitive to being followed, and if he looks around and sees a stranger he may take fright. Whereas I’ve already spent some time with him, and he’s used to the idea of my interest, which must appear singularly harmless and off the track. And I think it will be all to the good, if I’m to be seen by anyone, that I should not be heading for Richborough this afternoon. I don’t want anyone to take fright. I want the helicopter to go up, wherever it is.”
“With any luck the light’ll be too bad for anyone to recognize you. But why belittle your power to strike terror into Majendie?”
Nightingale shrugged. He could hardly say to Beddoes: because Majendie will think I’ve been softened by the preliminary douceur and will only smile to see me keeping up a pretense of chasing him.
“And by the way,” said Beddoes, “how do they propose to cope with a helicopter? Borrow one of Manston’s to sit on top of it?”
“No. That was suggested—not Manston’s, but another helicopter all the same. It would have meant risking entanglement and crash and fire, quite unnecessarily dangerous. Kent has something worked out, I haven’t yet had details. Perhaps you’d get them through for me—I’ve a few things to settle before I leave. They’re to let me know what car they’re providing at Folkestone. Tell them I’ll drive myself. You could ask Manston to send us a weather forecast. Oh, and just see if the Division has anything new. Give them another half-hour before you do that. All right?”
“All right,” Beddoes said patiently.
Brett drove to Fitch Street. He had half-intended to call again on Majendie. But on approaching the shop he was reminded by the sight of Kellett’s that his brother’s record certificate lay in his pocket. If he cashed it in, he would be able to play his choice at Christmas in the unlikely event of his being free. He had time to spare. The things he had told Beddoes he had to settle could be boiled down to one thing: the cameo. He was making a little free time for himself in which he might try to work out the best solution. He parked the car, walked past Majendie’s, and opened Kellett’s heavy glass door.
A rubber-backed carpet covered every inch of the floor. Behind a crescent counter, strewn with leaflets and catalogues, half-a-dozen assistants were seated at regular intervals. Behind them, a wall of pressed fibrous material extended almost to the ceiling and sides of the room. Beyond this, Brett knew from past visits, another wall was formed by what looked like grooved bookcases, which held the records. Beyond that were the stairs which led up and down to displays of perfectionists’ sound-reproducing equipment. Last of all lay the best-insulated playing cubicles in London, the only place in the capital where Briinnhilde’s Immolation could be reduced to a whisper merely by shutting a door.
Brett scanned the semicircle for the pie-eyed Geoffrey. Not finding him, he approached a rather pretty dark girl and asked for his song cycle. She disappeared around the side of the wall to fetch it. This arrangement irritated Brett, reminding him of a women’s shoe shop where the boxes are kept out of sight and salespeople trot ceaselessly to and fro in their efforts to interpret the vague demands of their customers. At least he knew exactly what he wanted.
The girl returned with his record and asked if he wished to hear it.
“No, thank you,” said Brett, drawing it from its sleeve and tilting it to the light. There were no blemishes on the silky surface. He gave it back to her. “Is Geoffrey not here?” he asked.
“No,” she said, surprised. Her face took on a slightly malign expression. “He didn’t have to come in today.”
Geoffrey, Brett gathered, received preferential treatment which made him unpopular. Brett thought he probably deserved to be. From what Stephanie reported of his instructive conversation, he sounded insolent. Brett suspected that the design behind his musical evangelism was to impress Stephanie with his cleverness, and at a well-judged moment trade on her wish not to be thought lacking in sophistication. At least Geoffrey hadn’t smirked at Majendie’s invitation to her to see his collection, which was more than he could claim for himself.
He received his record, wrapped, and as he did so a susurrus of excitement passed around the semicircle. He turned to look through the window to the street.
Outside Kellett’s a Solomon’s temple of a car had drawn to the curb. A chauffeur opened the door and a tall fat man emerged. He wore soft, mushroom-colored clothes, a large hat reminiscent of a sombrero, and dark glasses. Brett recognized Anatole Guzmann, a cosmopolitan of bewilderingly mixed origin and stupefying wealth. He was addicted to the collection of recorded music; his list was reputed to be fantastically long, interesting, and valuable, and his pursuit of phonographic rarities had reached the proportion of mania. This much was common knowledge, or, if not common, it could be acquired from anyone conversant with the record world. What was not generally known was that Anatole Guzmann had figured on the fringes of a notorious European scandal, from which he was extricated only by the influence his money could command. For Brett, Guzmann would never free himself from the unsavory miasma which seeped from the affair; but he doubted whether Kellett’s, even if they knew of it, would consider Guzmann’s money contaminated.
One of the salespeople, obsequiousness ironed out of his face, was opening the door for Guzmann, who, secure in the knowledge that he was the most valued item at present in the shop, moved across the floor with the unhurried purposefulness of a pregnant woman, with the same certainty that no one would importunately jostle the burden he carried in front of him. About eight months, Brett thought unkindly, eying Guzmann from the side as he went around the fiber screen. He would be going to the office of Mr. Kellett, if such a person existed. Would he, the manager, the director, come scuttling down in person to the shelves to find Guzmann’s choice? That choice would be, doubtless, too valuable to be kept in the main shop, even though the vulgar herd was never allowed to browse there.
“I think I’ll look over the recorders while I’m here,” said Brett on an inexplicable impulse. “They’re still displayed upstairs?”
“Yes, sir,” the girl said, bored. “Around the screen and take the stairs to your left.”
Brett acknowledged to himself that he was slightly mad. He passed the record shelves and paused for a minute at the foot of the stairs. On his right was the cash desk, which was so placed that people leaving the cubicles could not avoid passing it. If they wanted to buy a record they handed it to the cashier, who placed it on a latex-padded conveyor belt which ran from her desk to the front of the shop, where it was wrapped while the customer paid.
He ran up the stairs, which took a turn to the right and led to the display of equipment arranged on a handsome dark orange carpet and white tables. Anatole Guzmann was not to be seen. At the back of the room was an apartment devoted to the needs of those who possessed and wished to play vintage and veteran records. It was just possible that Guzmann might be in there. Brett crossed the room and looked through the glass. The apartment was empty.
He turned back toward the head of the stairs. Immediately to the left of them was a swinging door marked private giving on a corridor. Brett guessed that the rooms adjoining this corridor were offices, not, perhaps, managerial offices. But as the basement held only radios, he was sure that Guzmann would be in this part of the building, and he was determi
ned to find out.
A salesperson approached him. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked or, rather, suggested.
Brett neither paused nor deflected his course. “No, thank you,” he said coldly. That answer, in that voice, had never yet failed him; it didn’t now. The salesperson stopped in his tracks and Brett pushed open the door.
As it swung closed, he realized that the corridor was a cul-de-sac. He must either return looking foolish in front of the salesperson, so foolish as to appear suspicious, or plunge into one of the offices and concoct a fable to account for his presence. The latter would be embarrassing, especially if he burst in on Guzmann and whoever had invited him, the hypothetical Mr. Kellett.
Although he was walking as slowly as he dared, the need to make up his mind was pressing. He had already passed one door. He decided to go to the window which ended the corridor, look through for a minute, then return to the shop and get out at full speed. If challenged by a salesperson, he would imply that he was a surveyor. If someone came out of the offices, he would trust to his powers of invention. But suddenly he saw that they would not be tested. The door frame at the far end of the right wall held no door; it opened not on a room but on a downward flight of steps.
He was relieved; but in case the salesperson should be watching him through the glass of the swinging doors he paused for a moment at the window before turning to go down the stairs, in order to avoid giving an impression of nervous haste. He found himself looking out on the back alley, as Stephanie called it. And as he stood there, a sound began faintly. It came, he judged, from the room on the right, which had been truncated to make way for the stairs. Someone in there was playing a record of “O Paradiso.”
Brett moved down to the second stair, temporarily hidden from anyone. The record was an old one. Even allowing for the muffling effect of a wall, he could detect the flat background, so different from the vaulted resonance beloved of modem electrical engineers. He was puzzled that he was able to hear it at all. He studied the wall beside him and saw, near the top, a ventilating grille through which the sound issued.