“That’s right,” Herbert said. “And if we find him, we’ll cut you in for a slice.”
We were making it all up, of course, but it was the only way to get past the hotel manager. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the stairs. “Room 39,” he said.
We climbed five flights of stairs, trying to stop them creaking beneath our feet. The carpet was threadbare, the walls damp and discoloured. We could hear TV sets blaring away in the distance and a baby crying. I reckon I’d have cried if I’d had to stay there. Room 39 was at the back of the hotel, at the bottom of a corridor. We guessed it was 39 because it came after 37 and 38. But the number had fallen off. The door was closed.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” Herbert whispered.
“Have you got a better one?” I asked.
“We could go home …”
“Come on, Tim,” I said. “We’ve found him now. It can’t hurt to—”
That was as far as I got. The gunshot wasn’t loud, but it was close enough to make me jump the way you do when a car backfires or somebody drops a plate. It had come from the other side of the door. Herbert froze, then tried to lurch away, but fortunately I managed to grab hold of his jacket. I didn’t want to go into the room by myself. I didn’t want to go into the room at all. But if I’d run away then, I’d never have forgiven myself.
Still clutching Herbert, I opened the door. It wasn’t locked. In the Hotel Splendide, the rooms didn’t have locks. Some of them didn’t even have doors.
The first thing I saw was a flapping curtain and a shadowy figure disappearing outside. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. There was just the flash of a leg hanging over the edge of the sill and then it was gone.
It was a small room, just big enough for a bed, a table, a chest of drawers and a corpse. I closed the door behind me. Johnny Naples was lying on the bed. He wasn’t dead yet but the big red splodge on his shirt told me that his time was running out about as quickly as his blood. I went over to the window and looked outside. But I was too late. Whoever had climbed out had jumped the short distance to the flyover and run for it. Maybe they’d had a car waiting for them. Anyway, they were gone.
The dwarf groaned and I looked back again. The room was probably in a mess to begin with but I guessed there had been a fight. There was a chair upturned on the floor and a lamp had been knocked over on the table. My eyes fell on a packet of book-matches. I don’t know why I picked them up and put them in my pocket. I knew we didn’t have a lot of time and that any clue – no matter how small – might help. Maybe it was just that I didn’t want to look at the dwarf. Anyway, that’s what I did.
Johnny Naples opened his mouth and tried to speak.
“The falcon …” he said. Then a nasty, bubbling sound.
Then … “The sun …” That was it. His eyes closed. The mouth stayed open.
D for Dwarf. D for dead.
Herbert had picked something up off the carpet.
“Nick …” he began.
It was a gun. And it was still smoking.
And he was still standing there, holding it, when the door crashed open again. The man who had been drunk outside the Hotel Splendide was standing there and he had a gun too. The Alsatian was with him, growling softly.
There were two more people behind him.
“Police!” he shouted.
Herbert fainted.
The man swung round to cover him. “You’re under arrest,” he said.
THE FALCON
Johnny Naples was taken to the morgue. We were taken to the Ladbroke Grove police station. I don’t know which of us got the better treatment. While he was carried out on his back, covered with a nice clean sheet, we were dragged out, handcuffed together and thrown into the back of a van. It had turned out, of course, that the drunk in the street had been a plain-clothes policeman. The Alsatian was a plain-clothes police dog. The Hotel Splendide had been the subject of a major police stakeout and we’d more or less had our chips the moment we’d walked in.
We were left to stew in a bare-bricked interrogation room. Or to freeze, rather. That place couldn’t have been much warmer than the morgue. There was one metal table, three metal chairs and five metal bars on a window that would have been too small to climb out of anyway. A blackboard lined one wall and there was a poster on the other reading “Crime doesn’t pay”, underneath which somebody had scrawled “nor does policework.” The room smelt of stale cigarette smoke. I wondered how many hardened criminals had grown harder waiting there.
Herbert had said little since he woke up. But after about twenty minutes he suddenly looked around as if he had only just realized where he was. “Nick …” he said.
“Yes?”
“Do you think … you don’t think the police think I had anything to do with what happened to the dwarf, do you?” he asked.
“No,” I replied soothingly. “You went up to see him. There was a gunshot. You were found holding a smoking gun. The dwarf was dead. I’m sure the police won’t think you’re involved.”
At that moment there was a rattle as a key was turned in the lock and the door swung open. Herbert groaned. The man who had just come in didn’t look too happy either.
“Herbert Simple,” he said.
“Inspector Snape,” Herbert muttered in a strangled voice.
“Chief Inspector Snape,” the man growled. “No thanks to you.”
The Chief Inspector was blond-haired and built like a rugby player, with those slightly squashed shoulders that come from too many scrums. His skin was the colour of raw bacon and he spoke with a northern accent. He was wearing an off-white shirt that had probably been pure white when he put it on and a tie that had slipped over his collar in its struggle to get away from his bulging neck. He was followed by a smaller, squatter version of himself with black, permed hair, an open-neck shirt and a gold medallion glittering in the forest of his chest. The assistant – if that’s what he was – stood there, pounding one fist into the palm of his hand, looking at us with unfriendly, muddy-brown eyes. Well, if these are the cops, I thought, hate to meet the robbers.
“Herbert Simple,” Snape repeated, drawing up a chair.
“Can I hit him?” the other policeman asked.
“No, Boyle.” The Chief Inspector smiled unpleasantly. “Herbert Simple.” He said the name a third time, chewing on the words like they were stuck in his teeth. “The worst police constable that ever served in my station. In two months you did more damage than the Kray brothers managed in twenty years. The day you left, I cried like a baby. Tears of pleasure. I never thought … I hoped, I prayed that I would never see you again.” His pig-like eyes were turned on me. “And who are you, laddy?” he asked.
“His brother,” I said.
“Bad luck, son. Bad luck.”
“Can I hit him?” Boyle asked.
“Relax, Boyle.” The Chief Inspector took out a cigarette and lit it. “Now, the question I’m asking myself is, Why should a luckless, hopeless, brainless ex-policeman like Herbert Simple be mixed up with a man like Johnny Naples?”
“I didn’t shoot him!” Herbert cried.
“I believe you.” Snape’s nostrils quivered as they blew out two streams of smoke. “If you’d wanted to shoot the dwarf, you’d have probably missed and shot yourself in the foot. After all, when we sent you for weapons training, you managed to shoot the instructor. But the fact still remains that your fingerprints are on the gun – and nobody else’s. So perhaps you’d better tell me what you were doing there.”
“Naples was my client,” Herbert squeaked.
“Your client?”
“He’s a private detective,” I explained.
“A private detective?” Chief Inspector Snape began to laugh. He laughed until the tears trickled down his cheeks. At last he managed to calm himself down, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Boyle handed him a handkerchief and he blew his nose noisily. “Now I’ve heard everything!” he said. “A private detective. And
your client’s dead. That makes sense. The moment he came to you he was a marked man. But what private detection did Naples want?”
“It’s private,” I said.
That wiped the smile off Snape’s face. At the same time, Boyle grunted and lumbered towards me. I’d seen prettier sights in London Zoo. Fortunately for me, Snape held up a hand. “Forget it, Boyle,” he snapped.
“But Chief …”
“He’s under-age.”
Boyle grunted again and punched the air. But he hung back.
“You should watch yourself, son,” Snape said. “Boyle here is very into police brutality. He watches too much TV. The last suspect we had in here ended up in intensive care and he was just in for double parking.”
“It’s still private,” I said.
“All right,” Snape grumbled. “If you want to see your big brother arrested for murder …”
“Nick …!” Herbert whimpered.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “We don’t have to break a client’s confidence.”
“He’s dead,” Snape said.
“I noticed. But he’s still our client.” I gave him my friendliest smile. “Look, Chief Inspector,” I said. “You tell us what you know and we’ll tell you what we know. That seems fair to me.”
Snape looked at me thoughtfully. “How old are you?” he asked.
“Thirteen.”
“You’re smart for your age. If you go on as smart as this, maybe you won’t reach fourteen.”
“Just tell us.”
“Why should I? How do I know you know anything at all.”
“We know about the key,” I said. “And about the falcon.”
I admit that was two shots in the dark. The Fat Man had mentioned a key and with his dying breath Johnny Naples had muttered something about a falcon. Neither of them made any sense to me, but I had gambled that they would mean something to this Snape character. And I was right. He had raised an eyebrow at the mention of the key. The other one joined it when I followed with the falcon.
He finished the cigarette, dropped the butt and ground it out with his heel. “OK,” he said. “But you’d better be on the level, Nick. Otherwise I’ll let Boyle spend a little time alone with you.”
Boyle looked at me like he was trying to work out a new pattern for my face.
“Johnny Naples flew in here from South America a month ago,” Snape began. “We picked him up when he came through passport control, then we lost him, then – just a few days ago – we found him again at the Hotel Splendide. We’ve had him under observation ever since. You and your brother were the first people to see him as far as we know. He never went out – not while we were watching.”
“Why were you watching him?” Herbert asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Snape snapped. He lit himself another cigarette. He didn’t look like a chain-smoker, but that’s the sort of effect my big brother has on people. “Johnny Naples was a nobody,” Snape went on. “A quack doctor with a run-down practice in the back streets of La Paz, Bolivia. But with his last patient he struck lucky. You already know about the Falcon, but I wonder how much you know? His full name, for example – Henry von Falkenberg. I reckon he was out of your league. To be fair, von Falkenberg was in a league of his own.
“Look – every country has its big crooks. In England the Fat Man is probably number one. America has the godfathers. In Italy there are the Fettucine brothers. But the Falcon was an internationalist. He was half-English, half-German, loyal to neither country and living, when we last heard of him, in Bolivia. There wasn’t a single criminal organization in the world that he wasn’t doing business with. You steal a lorry-load of mink coats in Moscow? You sell it to the Falcon. You want to buy a kilo of cocaine in Canada? Just have a word with the Falcon. He was the number one, the top man, the king of crime. If there was a country in the world where the police didn’t want him, he’d have taken it as a personal insult.
“Now, like any big businessman, the Falcon needed funds – a financial platform on which to build his deals. But unlike most businessmen, he couldn’t just open an account at your local building society. He didn’t trust the Swiss banks. He didn’t trust his own mother – which is probably why he had her rubbed out back in 1965. The only currency the Falcon would deal in was diamonds: uncut diamonds. The franc might fall, the rouble might rise – but diamonds held their own. In every major city he had his own little stash of diamonds: in Paris, Amsterdam, New York … and London. In fact, London was the centre of his operations, so that’s where he had the biggest stash. We can’t be sure, but we believe that perhaps only a mile from here, he’d managed to conceal diamonds to the value of three and a half million pounds.”
He paused for effect and he got it. I licked my lips. Herbert shook his head and whistled.
“The Falcon was a great criminal,” Snape continued. “But a month ago his luck ran out. He could have been arrested. He could have been machine-gunned by a rival gang. But in the end he was run over by a bus. It was a crazy end to a crazy life. It happened just outside La Paz airport as he crossed the road to catch a plane to England. We believe he was carrying the key to the diamonds with him. And the man who just happened to be on the scene, who travelled with him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, was Johnny Naples.
“So the Falcon is lying on his back with the life running out of him and he – and only he – knows where a fortune in diamonds is hidden. Now, we can’t be certain, but people who are dying tend to blurt out secrets that they would otherwise keep to themselves and we believe the Falcon told Johnny Naples where he could find those diamonds. Look at it this way. A few days later, Naples junks in his job and takes a first-class flight to London. There’s no reason why he should have come here unless you put two and two together and make …”
“Three and a half million,” I said.
“Right.” Snape stood up and walked over to the blackboard. He had produced a piece of chalk from his pocket. “So Johnny Naples flies to the end of the rainbow; in this case, England. But he’s not alone. Because all sorts of people are interested in the diamonds now that the Falcon is dead.” He turned round and scrawled a name on the blackboard.
The Fat Man
“He’s number one. The Fat Man had often done business with the Falcon. If anybody knew about the secret stash it would be him. And he could use the money. Give the Fat Man three and a half million pounds and maybe he could go international himself. He could become the next Falcon. He probably knew where the dwarf was staying before we did. Did he kill Johnny Naples? If so, he’ll be on his way to the diamonds … and that’s bad news for all of us.”
Snape wrote a second name beneath it.
Beatrice von Falkenberg
“She’s the dark horse,” Snape continued. “The Falcon’s wife – his widow – once Holland’s greatest actress. He fell in love with her when he saw her in Othello. She played the title role. From all accounts it wasn’t a happy marriage. She spent six months of the year in London and six months in La Paz. Did he ever tell her where the diamonds were hidden? If he didn’t, she’ll want to know …”
Two more names followed.
William Gott and Eric Himmell
“They were the Falcon’s right-hand men, his two lieutenants. If they could get their hands on the diamonds, they’d have enough money and enough power to take over the Falcon’s empire. Gott and Himmell are killers. Although they were born in Germany, they were both educated at Eton. During that time, the vicar and the PE instructor went missing and the assistant headmaster was found hanged with his own old school tie. They arrived in London the day after Johnny Naples. They’re here now, and they’re deadly.”
The Professor
“He’s another mystery. But if anybody knows where the diamonds are, it’s likely to be him. He was the Falcon’s technical adviser, his tame egg-head. He was brilliant but crooked. For example, he invented computer fraud five years before someone invented the computer. If
the diamonds are in some sort of safe, he’ll have probably built it. But about a year ago he went missing. He could be dead. Nobody’s heard of him since then.”
Snape turned to the blackboard and wrote a final name.
Herbert Simp
That was as far as he got. The chalk broke in his hand.
“And at last we come to you,” he said. “Hopeless, horrible Herbert Simple. You say Johnny Naples was your client. I want to know why. I want to know what he wanted. I want to know what he said. I want to know what you two are doing mixed up in all this and I want to know now!”
He paused.
Things were beginning to make some sort of sense. Not a lot of sense, mind you, but at least we knew what stakes we were playing for. Johnny Naples had come to London in search of three and a half million pounds and he had left us a box of Maltesers. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was all we had. The trouble was, if we told Snape what Naples had given us, we’d lose that too. The way I saw it was like this. A lot of people were interested in what had taken place in our office that Thursday morning. The Fat Man was one of them. And perhaps it had been Gott and Himmell who had ransacked the place that same night. Sooner or later they’d come gunning for us and if the worst came to the worst, we’d have to give them the Maltesers. Which meant we had to keep them from Snape.
And – OK – I’ll be honest. If we were really sitting on the key to a fortune, I wanted to be the one to turn it. There were plenty of things I could do with three million pounds. I reckoned I’d let Herbert keep the other half.
“Come on,” Snape growled. “It’s your turn. What did Naples want?”
There was another long silence. Boyle shuffled forward and I noticed that this time Snape made no move to stop him.
“Naples came here looking for the money,” I said. “You were right there. But he was followed. He was afraid. That’s why he came to see us. He thought we’d be able to give him some sort of protection.”
“Nick!” Herbert muttered.
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