‘It’s difficult . . .’
‘Obviously. So just concentrate on finding the jewellery and the gold plate.’
Alvarez leaned down and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk. He brought out the bottle of brandy and a glass. He had but recently sworn off alcohol, true, but an emergency was an emergency . . .
He’d proved to his own satisfaction that the major part of the treasure must still be intact. Yet if intact, it would be held somewhere very secure, where no unauthorized person, either by chance or design, could gain access and this indicated some form of safe-deposit abroad. Banks offered this facility as did a growing number of commercial security firms.
All five men would have demanded to be present whenever the jewellery and gold were taken out of deposit—only then could each one of them be satisfied that he wasn’t being cheated. But it was obvious from the fact of the murders that fewer than five had the right of withdrawal. In other words, the arrangement was in the form of a tontine. Survivor takes all.
All Spanish banks and safe-deposits had been checked and it was as certain as it could be that the fortune hadn’t been lodged in any of them. That made sense. Get everything right out of the country immediately. So it was abroad. The country in which it had been stored must be within quick and easy reach of where all the members of the tontine lived. So that really meant western Europe. But just how many countries did that signify? Portugal, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein . . .
He struggled to work out why the name of Liechtenstein should in this context hold some special significance. And then he remembered Vera Allen’s never-ending complaints, one of which had been that her husband wouldn’t take her on a short trip to Liechtenstein. And Tracey had mentioned a trip Clarke had made abroad on which he’d refused to take her. And Guichard had resented being left behind by Marsh . . .
Liechtenstein. He knew so little about the country that it was only with difficulty he placed it as lying between Austria and Switzerland. But it was common knowledge that it had some of the securest banking laws in the world, in some respects more secure than in Switzerland, and that therefore it offered a haven for ‘dirty’ money or ‘dirty’ deposits. So a request to the police authorities there for their help in identifying a deposit made some three years before was virtually doomed to refusal. No blanket request of this nature was ever accepted. The only possible way in which cooperation might be gained would be to identify the deposit and prove that the contents had been criminally obtained.
It was a straightforward and easy task to prove that the contents had been criminally obtained and a detailed description of the jewellery and gold plate could almost certainly be obtained from the Marques de Orlocas’s daughter. But to identify the deposit when there might be hundreds in one bank and dozens of banks and safe-deposit stores . . .
There was nothing to go on, not even a bank name.
How could any identification be made? Yet wasn’t there significance in the fact that the murders of Clarke, Short, Allen, and Marsh, (there was no need at this point to twist one’s mind into a hundred knots over Massier’s death) had taken place so close together in time, when it would have been far more sensible from the murderer’s point of view to space them out, thus decreasing the chances of anyone’s connecting them? It suggested an overwhelming need to hurry. Presumably brought about by a decision to withdraw all the remaining jewellery and plate and sell it. (When a man started to live luxuriously, his ambitions increased until he wanted to live still more luxuriously. It would prove increasingly irksome to know that this was quite possible if only . . . Three years had passed since the treasure had been recovered. Surely it was safe now to put the bulk of it on the market?) The murderer had had to move quickly if he were to secure the entire fortune for himself before the date of withdrawal.
What date? Tracey had known Clarke to make only one trip. Guichard had been with Marsh for over a year and Marsh had made only the one trip. Vera Allen, who’d lived on the island for just under three years, had referred to her husband’s trips. All this suggested that only one visit to make a withdrawal had taken place each year and this sounded reasonable because the tontine would have been drawn up with rigid rules to prevent any cheating. What chance was there of determining the date when no date of any significance had ever been mentioned or found in writing? . . . None.
He slumped back in the chair, lifted his glass, and drained it. What did he have now? A murderer, when there could be no murderer, and a date which couldn’t be determined . . .
And then he remembered that Guichard’s resentment at being left behind in the house in Pelonette had been exacerbated by the fact that Marsh was going to be away for his birthday . . . He’d get on to Danois by phone and ask him to find out the date of Guichard’s birthday. And then he’d try to explain his reasoning to Salas and persuade the superior chief that, armed with a definite date and proof that the fortune had been illegally obtained, there might be a chance of persuading the Liechtenstein authorities to cooperate . . .
Alvarez, already breathless because of the altitude, stepped out of the Hotel Rheineck and began to walk up the steep Brunnenstrasse. He stopped in front of a philatelic shop and studied several sheets of stamps, the country’s most profitable export. He must buy some sets for Juan, who’d begun collecting the previous year. That was, if he had any money left at the end of his stay. The brandy he’d had last night at the hotel had cost so much that when he’d translated the Swiss francs into pesetas he’d almost choked.
He walked on, crossing a road when the traffic was halted by lights and shivering as the icy wind dug through his lightweight clothing—winter already? Back home, it would be boiling hot He reached the far pavement and the buildings once more provided some cover from the wind.
He arrived at the ten-storey concrete and glass building and went in. A pink-cheeked man in a formal black coat was on duty in the foyer and he asked a question in German. Alvarez answered in French and then, seeing that he was not being understood, switched to English. The pink-cheeked man wished him good morning and escorted him to a lift where he indicated the button for the tenth floor.
At the tenth floor a secretary was waiting. Tall, slim, very attractive, her formal smile offered nothing. As he followed her along the corridor, he reflected that the further away from the Mediterranean one got, the colder became both the weather and the women.
They went through one room, clearly the secretary’s, into another beyond. Larger, and almost luxuriously furnished, its most noticeable feature was a sculpture on a plinth, which was all curves and had the property of completely changing its form as the angle of viewing altered.
There were three men in the room. Behind the desk was the eldest: tall, with a finely boned face that had an air of unemotional authority, he was dressed in a pinstriped suit of expensive tailoring. ‘Herr Alvarez,’ said the secretary, ‘may I present Herr Bahr.’
Bahr walked round the desk and shook hands with Continental seriousness. ‘I trust you had a pleasant journey,’ he said in Spanish.
‘Thank you, Señor, yes I did.’
‘And the hotel is satisfactory?’
‘It’s very comfortable.’
‘That is good.’ He half turned and said to the secretary: ‘Thank you, Helga.’
She left.
‘Herr Alvarez, do you speak German?’
‘I’m afraid only English and French.’
‘You speak English—excellent. I asked Herr Arendt to be present to translate, but that will not now be necessary since Commissioner Goppel speaks English. Please excuse me one moment.’ He spoke rapidly to the younger of the two men, who inclined his head in what was half-way between a nod and a brief bow, then marched out of the room.
‘Such a serious young man,’ said Bahr, ‘but an excellent interpreter. His mother was Polish and, as they say, anyone who can speak Polish finds no difficulty in speaking a dozen o
ther languages . . . Now, let me introduce you to Commissioner Goppel, head of the Security Corps.’
Goppel was dressed in the khaki coloured jacket, dark trousers with coloured stripe, black tie, and green shirt of the police force. A large man, he shook hands with even more formality than Bahr had done. ‘I am honoured to meet you,’ he said in slow, stilted English.
‘Now, do sit down, Herr Alvarez.’ Bahr indicated the armchair set in front of the desk. Once they were all seated, he said: ‘I have your formal written request here.’ He tapped a paper on his desk. ‘But before we consider it in detail, would you care to tell us as much about the background to the request as you consider relevant?’
Alvarez opened his briefcase and brought out a couple of sheets of paper on which he’d made notes and then, occasionally referring to them, he outlined the case and his reasons for believing that the jewels and the gold plate were in a safe deposit somewhere in Liechtenstein.
‘I’m sure you will have brought a document to prove that these things were stolen?’
‘Yes, señor.’ Alvarez returned to the briefcase and brought out a letter in an unsealed envelope. ‘This is from my superior chief, witnessed by a notario who has affixed his seal. I think you’ll find it satisfactory.’ He stood to pass the letter across the desk.
Bahr read the letter, skimmed through the accompanying list, then”handed both to Goppel. He waited until Goppel finished reading, said: ‘This is perfectly straightforward, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Herr Bahr,’ Goppel said. ‘We are able to accept without any reservations that the jewellery and listed gold plate are stolen.’
‘Good. Now, Herr Alvarez, will you identify the person who will be making the withdrawal and the bank from which he will be making it?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t.’
‘Oh!’
‘But I can say that the attempted withdrawal will be made on either the nineteenth or the twentieth: that is, tomorrow or the next day. So if a watch is kept . . .’
‘Please, one moment.’ Bahr paused, as if he wished to choose his words with even more care than usual. ‘You do understand that our banks operate under very strict measures of security—that is, customer security?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘This means that we are forbidden, by law, to disclose any details concerning bank accounts or deposits to any third party unless and until two requirements are met. First, the reason for such disclosure is that a criminal activity has taken place and the money or articles in question are the proceeds of that criminal activity: second, that the person and the account or deposit are positively identified. The first requirement has clearly been met by you; regretfully, I have to say that the second has as clearly not.’
‘Señor, if the murderer goes to the bank . . .’
‘If?’
Alvarez silently swore. Did this man of ice have to keep underlining the obvious—that Inspector Alvarez still didn’t know for certain what in the devil had been going on? ‘Señor, if the murderer goes to the bank, the very act of withdrawal will identify him.’
‘Naturally, I appreciate that. But the fact is, is it not, that I am by law obliged to ask for an identification from you before I may advise the Commissioner for Banks that he should request the Commission to instruct their members to cooperate, while you are asking for our prior cooperation not only to discover whether such an event does take place but also, if it does, in order to make that identification?’
‘If . . .’
‘Let me first say this. My sympathies are with you, but my hands are tied. The law is quite unambiguous.’
‘But there’s always a way round the law, isn’t there? I mean, suppose you were to have a quiet word with one or two people . . .’
Tlease.’ Bahr held up his hand. He sounded hurt, as if his character had just been put in question. ‘My terms of reference are precisely laid down by the Diet and I am quite unable to move beyond them.’
Alvarez spoke urgently. ‘It’s been an impossibly difficult case: but at least there’s now a chance to determine the truth. If in the next two days no one tries to withdraw the treasure, then the murderer is dead, having committed suicide. On the other hand, if someone does try, that someone is the murderer who’s killed again and again from the basest of all motives, a lust for money . . .’ He became silent as he realized that it might have been more tactful not to have used such words in the present company.
Bahr said to Goppel: ‘Commissioner, would you agree that, unfortunately, there is no action that we may take in this matter?’
‘Indeed, Herr Bahr, no action whatsoever.’
Bahr turned to Alvarez. He remained polite, but it was now not a cold but an icy politeness. ‘Herr Alvarez, unless you can positively identify the man who will be making the withdrawal, I have to refuse you any form of further cooperation.’
CHAPTER 24
‘The case is a pyramid of impossibilities,’ muttered Alvarez in Spanish.
‘Sir?’ said the barman in English.
‘Just reporting to my superior chief . . . Give me another brandy, please.’ He pushed his glass across the bar.
He wondered if Herr Bahr, honest Herr Bahr, realized what an appalling hypocrite he was? Goddamn it, if he’d had half a litre of blood in his veins instead of ten litres of frozen assets, he’d have agreed to turn a blind eye to the rules . . .
The barman interrupted his gloomy thoughts. ‘A brandy, sir. Some gherkins? We build a new factory which exports tinned gherkins to many countries, including even Germany.’
He ate a patriotic gherkin. He drank the brandy. Either tomorrow or the next day, a man might turn up at a bank or strong-box depository, identify himself, be taken down to the strong-room, and collect the fortune. Then he’d be away, never dreaming for one second that he’d so nearly been trapped—would have been if only this had not been a country where rules were held to be so much more important than their consequences . . .
The barman mistakenly thought Alvarez’s dejected expression meant that he was bored and would welcome conversation. ‘Do you enjoy the visit to our lovely land, sir?’
‘Not when I have to spend my time bashing my head against a brick wall.’
‘Sir?’
‘Something was impossible, yet it might well have happened. Now I’m faced with something equally impossible, but I’ve got to find a way of making it happen. How?’
The barman was a very serious young man who studied English during his off-duty time because he believed that anyone with ambition should be able to speak at least three different languages. ‘Sir, maybe I do not understand. Because if something is impossible it does not happen: if it does happen, it is not impossible.’
Alvarez thought about that and after a moment he said suddenly: ‘My God! Turn it upside down and it looks the right way up!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the barman, again not understanding what was being said and gloomily coming to the conclusion that English was a more complex language than he had thought, but polite to the end. He moved away to serve two other hotel guests.
Alvarez picked up another gherkin and slowly nibbled at it. Throughout the case, he’d viewed events, as he’d naturally been taught to do, in their known and logical sequence. Clarke and Allen had died and a possible connection between the two deaths had appeared. Short died and the connection was confirmed. Marsh died and his murder identified Massier as the murderer. So when Massier died he, by elimination, must have committed suicide even though there were one or two facts which didn’t quite fit the pattern . . .
Now turn everything upside down. Start with the premise that Massier had been murdered. Then the impossibility occurred before his death. But now, by definition, it couldn’t be an impossibility . . .
Goppel’s office was smaller and much less luxuriously furnished than Bahr’s, but it possessed the same degree of clinical neatness. Not even a single sheet of paper lay out of place on the desk. Alvarez mentally compared this room wit
h his own back on the island and he wondered if Goppel ever found life rather cold?
‘Do you wish a cigarette?’ Goppel rose from his chair and leaned across to offer a slim silver cigarette case. He grunted as the edge of the desk dug into his generous stomach.
When he was once more seated, and smoking, he began to drum on the desk with his fingers. He looked at his watch for the third time in less than a quarter of an hour. ‘The banks soon are closing for today.’
‘I know.’
‘And we are the second day.’
So what else is glaringly obvious? wondered Alvarez. They’d spent much of the past two days in each other’s company and if this had taught them nothing else, it had taught them that they’d little in common: every conversation had become stilted as they’d both struggled to keep it going from a sense of politeness.
The telephone rang. Goppel answered it. Certain it was just one more routine call, Alvarez stared through the window at the distant view of the Schloss Vaduz, set high on its crag: a view he’d come to know all too well. Then a sudden change in Goppel’s tone of voice caught his attention.
After a moment, Goppel replaced the receiver. ‘He is arrived, Herr Alvarez.’ He stood. ‘We speak with him.’
The guardia car braked to a halt in front of the post in Llueso. ‘The fare’ll be three thousand two hundred,’ said the driver cheerfully.
Alvarez, small suitcase and parcel in one hand, briefcase in the other, climbed out on to the pavement. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’
‘I’m still waiting for the one you promised me last time.’
‘Never lose hope.’ He crossed the pavement and entered the post, went up the stairs and into his office, to find it stuffy and swelteringly hot. He crossed to the window and opened it, but left the shutters closed. He crossed to the desk and sat. He must report to Salas, who would have to set in motion a request for extradition . . .
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