by Heron Carvic
Commander Conway shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing that has got us any further. But I should like to ask, since the Murder Squad Oracle is sitting in on it, and particularly because of something we learned in a report from Heathrow only a few minutes ago, whether there hasn’t been some development we don’t know of.”
The assistant commissioner put his fingertips together and studied them. “A fair question, even pertinent, and the answer is, yes there has, but,” he went on as the commander and his inspector leaned forward, “I must hasten to add, or to qualify, that the development in question has nothing to do, at all events not as yet, with murder. I fear”—he hesitated and gave a brief smile—“that an element of farce has recently entered, I should say has been forcibly injected into the case. A Miss Seeton, a retired drawing mistress who is on a yearly retainer to us as an artist—and, I should like to emphasize straightaway, in spite of somewhat extravagant accounts of her activities in the press and a tendency which she undoubtedly has for becoming more deeply involved than either she realizes or we intend, that that is the full extent of her commitment to us—has been engaged, seconded would be perhaps more apt, to Geneva to investigate the Swiss end of the affair.”
The deputy assistant commissioner, the commander and the inspector gazed, incredulous, at Sir Hubert. Delphick, who already knew of the step from the confidential memorandum he had received, tightened his lips, awaiting an effective opportunity for protest. Finally, Inspector Borden:
“You—you must be joking, sir.”
“No, that would be most improper, very ill-timed. Her visit is to be unofficial, though officially sanctioned, and we have naturally informed the Swiss police as a matter of courtesy. Actually she has been engaged by the Banque du Lac as a private—no, in view of the fact that the whole thing had to be arranged through official channels, perhaps one should say an undercover—investigator. It was partly on account of this that I asked Chief Superintendent Delphick to attend. Although I have met Miss Seeton on one occasion, he knows her comparatively well—was indeed originally responsible for her becoming entangled in police work. I thought it might help if we all had some idea of our MissEss, of her character and of her reactions to given circumstances. I won’t say of any move she is likely to make since her gyrations have always appeared to be completely unpredictable.” Sir Hubert settled back in his seat. “To bring you up to date, MissEss—we may as well accustom ourselves to using that title since the Banque du Lac insists upon doing so; they apparently think it’s our code name for her and not, as it was, a mistake on the part of our computer—anyway, MissEss has left, or”—he looked at his watch—“to be strictly correct, must be due to leave at any moment for Geneva. Now it is a fact that whenever Miss Seeton has been in contact with or”—he glanced at Delphick—“put in touch with any form of crime, she has unconsciously, maybe one should say she has unwittingly, had the effect of one of those lawn weed killers which startle the plants into excessive growth until the plants, in this case the crimes, have blown themselves up, distorted themselves and finally solved themselves or killed themselves through their own overstimulated energy.”
“You,” Commander Conway marveled, “you really think she may get on to something out there?”
Sir Hubert was brisk. “Certainly not. She’s far too guileless, too innocent, to get on to anything, at all events in the context you’re suggesting. But she has a genius for poking her umbrella into hornets’ nests unbeknownst to herself. If that happens here our fraudulent friends may very well think she has got on to something and the consequent ructions might end by bringing them into the open.”
A strange expression had developed on Inspector Borden’s face. He cleared his throat. “I—it’s—” He stopped. Then, answering the assistant commissioner’s unspoken query: “It’s a bit funny, sir, you should’ve said all that about her bringing them into the open because she’s having a cup of tea with one of them now.”
Miss Seeton put down her cup. Not, she feared, very palatable. So very strong. Really, she reflected, that strange little gentleman next to her, in the rather colorful suit, must have that tune quite dreadfully on the brain. Though, again, of course, it might be nerves. As Elio Mantoni pushed his unfinished whiskey glass aside she noticed that his hand was shaking. Yes, nerves, she opined. Some people were, she knew, frightened of flying, though quite why it was difficult to understand, because, surely, there must be less risk of an accident in an airplane, since there was more room than, say, in a car. Room in the air, that was.
Mantoni bent, opened his briefcase, took out a notebook, closed the case, turned a page and studied it with a frown. His frayed nerve ends were raw. Why had nothing happened? Anyone could see his terrible bow tie to identify him—and then the song to make all certain. But nothing, nothing. And there might not be much time. If they called his flight . . . If he left without the forged money he might be blamed. Or had the pigs arrested someone and he did not know, and there would be no transfer, and the pigs were playing cat with mouse with him? In desperation he decided to sing the words in the hope that the password would reach the right ears and whoever it was would see the urgency. If he allowed the words to come while he was reading, searching for something in his diary, that would be natural, yes? His humming changed to words.
“Les diamants chez nous sont innombrables,
Les perles dans nos mers incalculables;
C’est l’Inde, terre des merveilles.”
There, Miss Seeton congratulated herself, she’d been right. It was foreign. No doubt the gentleman himself was Russian. So very difficult, she believed. Even the Russians themselves, one understood, admitted that it was more difficult to learn than English; in which case one did wonder a little why they didn’t adopt, say, English instead. And, then again, surely, if more countries spoke the same language, there would be, perhaps, less misunderstandings. For instance, Chinese speech, from what one had read, depended not so much upon what they said, as upon how they said it. Which must, one would have thought, lead to certain difficulties. And even, sometimes, one would have supposed, for them. For the Chinese.
“You permit?”
Miss Seeton’s attention was jerked from problems in the abstract to the particular. A gentleman from a neighboring table wished to borrow the sugar bowl. She smiled and nodded. The man put a briefcase on the floor, took the sugar to his own table, replenished the bowl there, returned, put back the sugar, picked up a briefcase, smiled, bowed and departed. Oh. Miss Seeton found herself in a predicament. She half turned in her chair to watch the gentleman’s retreat. Oh. Now that was very awkward.
On the point of leaving the phone booth, D.C. Haley paused. The old girl looked worried. What had bitten her? She’d turned round to watch that chap who’d borrowed the sugar. Actually it was that city type who’d kicked the baby. Nothing in pinching a bit of sugar to throw her that he could see. Dared he plonk himself down on the vacant chair at her table? Better not. Could queer her pitch. Might as well stay where he was for the moment, long as nobody started queueing for the phone. Gave him a chance to see without being seen. Uhuh—that man at the bar, the black man, was watching Elio’s table. Watching Elio, or MissEss? Mean anything? Come to think of it, that black man’d been at the bar for quite a time. Stringing his drinks out—didn’t remember seeing him buy another in the last quarter of an hour or so. Automatically Haley made a mental note of the man. Better include him in his report just in case.
The man at the bar, Xerxes Tolla, was the third man who had watched with interest when Mantoni had entered the departure lounge. He knew through a contact in the airport that the Italian had been stopped by the police and searched. If Elio’d been tagged he’d best keep him abroad for a while—switch things round. He’d written a note and arranged for it to be handed to the Italian when he boarded the plane, telling him to carry straight on to Geneva, catching the early-morning flight out of Genoa, changing at Milan. There was the picture deal coming up in Geneva and the litt
le clot was needed for that, and after that there’d be the Stemkos jewel theft insurance do in Paris—he could help out with that too. It would mean somebody new for London. Still it was time for a change—never push your luck. In any case Elio was no good for this present job—too excitable, and beginning to run scared. The only thing he could do was paint. But you had to keep switching the men on this money-carrying or the customs became wary. Which meant using whatever men were on tap. He weighed the problem. The French fellow’d be no use if he couldn’t make a better job of getting to Elio’s table than falling over his own feet and half a dozen children and then calling attention to himself by having a blaze-up with the entire family. Made quite a neat job of swapping briefcases at the end though. Point was, had anybody twigged? Were the fuzz still watching Elio? If so, he’d need to be ready to make a move himself if they picked up Elio again. His eyelids hooded. Rather looked as though that old woman at the table might’ve noticed more than was good for her: she’d leaned round to stare after the Frenchman and seemed a bit fussed. Yes, she was turning back to Elio. He’d stake a dollar she was going to say she was afraid there’d been a slight mix-up.
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Seeton; she hesitated. Really, it was very awkward. She was sure, but, then again, one did so dislike to interfere, or appear to make a fuss. But it could, one could foresee, prove to be so embarrassing to find oneself wearing the wrong pajamas, toothbrushes and things like that. Well, possibly not pajamas in a briefcase. But papers and things. It was so hard to decide whether one should say something. Or not? “I am rather afraid,” she informed the humming gentleman, “that there’s been a slight mistake.”
Mantoni closed his notebook and stared at her. Finally he spoke. “No meestake.”
“Oh, but really there was,” Miss Seeton insisted. “The gentleman who came to borrow the sugar was carrying a briefcase very like yours, and, if you remember, he put it down in order to take it back. The sugar, I mean. And when he returned it and picked it up, the briefcase, that is, I’m sure . . .” She faltered under the other’s inimical regard. “That is to say, I think, or, perhaps, I should say that I got the impression, that he took yours by—”
He cut her short. “No,” he repeated, “meestake.” To prove his words he picked up the briefcase beside him, opened it, dropped his notebook into it and zipped it shut, tucked it under his arm, gulped the remains of his whiskey and left the table.
The woman opposite Miss Seeton stopped in mid-cake to regard Mantoni’s retreating figure. “Non simpatico,” she summarized. She transferred herself to the chair that he had vacated, pulled her plate toward her, then bent to examine with interest the label on Miss Seeton’s case. “Genova?” she inquired.
“Yes,” agreed Miss Seeton.
The woman flashed a smile of sympathy, rummaged in her handbag and produced a small book entitled Conversazione in Inglese, ran a plump finger down a page, found what she sought and announced, “You too are delay.”
“Yes,” admitted Miss Seeton.
Her new acquaintance beamed with satisfaction. It was evident that to her a shared delay was a correct basis for amicable relations. Noticing Miss Seeton give an anxious glance at the clock on the wall, her companion waved a piece of cake in airy dismissal.
“Non si preoccupi.” She put the cake in her mouth and indicated a spot near the ceiling. “You see,” she explained through crumbs and cream, “say quando.” Again she had resource to her book on conversation in English. “Say when and where go.”
Miss Seeton’s eyes followed the directional finger. A small screen like that of a television was set upon a crossbeam. She had time to read the heading AMSTERDAM before the screen blacked out. She smiled her thanks. Now, should Mr. Penrood be, for any reason, delayed, and after all, time was getting on and there was no sign of him, and also she didn’t find the lady’s voice on the loudspeaker quite easy to follow, she would be able to manage for herself by keeping a watch for the word GENEVA on the little screen, which would also, apparently, tell her where to go.
Where to go? D.C. Haley found himself in something of a dilemma. Elio had sat down on one of the banquettes outside the cafeteria, and he was in duty bound to keep the little twit under observation. Contrariwise, MissEss seemed to have taken over and it didn’t look as if she gave a damn about Elio making off. Probably’d found out all she needed of his plans for the time being and would move in on him when she was good and ready. Anyway at the moment she was busy chatting up the fat lady with the cakes. Haley compromised by going to the bar. From here he could keep an eye on Elio, would be on tap if MissEss needed a spot of help and at the same time could get alongside the black man and try and size up whether he connected in on this or not.
“Going far?”
Xerxes Tolla took his time. He studied the fresh ingenuous face. One of those who got a kick out of dark skins? No, he surmised, an idle example of white trash asking futile questions. “Home,” he replied.
Good parry. Haley was interested. Your ordinary citizen answers an ordinary question in the ordinary way. This sounded more like a stall. Maybe he’d been right about this fellow. Instead of asking where home was, he let his jaw drop; his expression became vacuous.
“Oh, good show. Me, I’ve got to hang about till the little woman shows up. We’re off to Gay Paree for a bit of a lark.”
Not one of those, decided Tolla. He signaled to a barman and pushed his glass forward. “Again.”
“Oh, no, old man,” Haley volunteered. “On me. After all, bit of a celebration, what?”
Tolla shrugged. Let the scum pay. He believed the day would come when such white vermin would come crawling for the price of a drink. Xerxes Tolla was one of those who, having suffered oppression, would always view an alleviation of their lot, or improvement in their circumstances, not as attempts by a more enlightened age to introduce parity into an inequitable regime, but as a sign of weakness to be exploited.
When the African protectorates had taken on full responsibility for their nations and celebrated their independence, Tolla had returned to his own country and offered his services. The offer was welcomed by the new government. They had been approached by an intermediary who, although he refused to be specific, gave them to understand that he was representing a combine of powers; at first with an oblique suggestion, then more clearly and, finally, when their receptiveness was beyond doubt, with an open proposition. The ex-protectorate’s paper money was still printed in England and though of a different design, on the same paper as English banknotes. For a considerable consideration, would they be willing to demand increased supplies of notes, for which they could blame the deterioration in the quality of the paper over recent years, their own humid atmosphere and careless usage by the natives? An official at the Treasury in London would then authorize an extended run of paper from the mills. The only provable falsity to which they would be committed would be the acknowledgment of undelivered consignments of notes, since the surplus paper would be retained in England for the printing of forgeries on a scale sufficient to undermine England’s economy and bankrupt the country. The ex-protectorate government’s response was enthusiastic: there is nothing like a little matricide for stretching the wing span of a fledgling nation, and Tolla’s arrival in the midst of these delicate negotiations was opportune. Here was a man with the trading experience, the expertise and the underworldwide connections they needed to cut them in on a percentage of the market.
Xerxes Tolla had learned the elements of his trade in the kindergarten for contraband dealers, the watches run from Switzerland. He had operated principally from Geneva, where he still kept a flat up in the Old Town. Recently he had found that in England, America and Germany the police were treading hard upon his profits, though he was satisfied that no suspicion had been attached to himself. In New York he had lost a large consignment of heroin to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in Munich a parcel of stolen gems had been seized and four minor members of his organization had been a
rrested. In England on the Kent coast a group of illegal immigrants had been met upon their arrival by customs officers instead of by the Essex farmer who was due to collect them.
Tolla’s price for serving his country had been diplomatic status with its corollary diplomatic immunity. This was granted, the more readily since it cost nothing, and he became attached in a minor role to his country’s consulate in London though his main function was to act as liaison with their representatives abroad and to attend, in unconscious irony, trade delegations throughout the world. The arrangement suited both Tolla and his government: he was free to pursue his smuggling activities in comparative safety, while they would take fifty percent of the yield from the circulation of the forged notes. Their backers, too, were satisfied: the greater part of the distribution was taken off their hands by a professional with the right qualifications, which saved them trouble and also secured them against international embarrassment should the plot to break England’s economy and enforce successive devaluations chance to be exposed; inevitably it would appear to be a direct deal between the traitor at the Treasury and the ex-protectorate concerned.
In spite of the illegal immigrant fiasco, Tolla’s opinion of the English police force was derisory. His only personal contact with the police had been at a diplomatic party attended by Sir Hubert Everleigh. The assistant commissioner’s trick of qualifying every statement that he made had struck Tolla, who in common with most criminals had little humor and no appreciation of subtlety with words, as irritating and effete. Even when congratulating the new attaché upon his recently acquired diplomatic status, Sir Hubert had failed to be straightforward.
“It is notable,” he had remarked, “or at all events it is certainly worthy of note, when a man of your caliber, maybe experience would be the better word, is recognized—or should one say acknowledged?—by his government.”