I arrived at the dingy little office at the top of a block in Drapers Gardens to find him out, and was directed to a well-known City club. He came out to meet me, a glass of whisky in his hand and his huge face glistening with sweat. His great podgy hand wrung mine and he took me into the club and bought me a drink. ‘Now, Mr Kilmartin,’ he said, as we sat down at a little table to ourselves, ‘do you want to know what to put your savings into?’ And his face screwed itself up into a great smile.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think I know the answer to that. Calboyds is the thing to buy. Am I right?’
‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘But don’t hold for too long.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
He shrugged his wide padded shoulders. ‘Tell you the truth, I dunno. Just a hunch I got.’
‘What I want to know,’ I said, leaning forward and speaking softly, ‘is who controls Calboyds?’
His eyes seemed to narrow slightly and he pushed his hat farther on to the back of his head. ‘There you’ve got me. If I knew, I might make a lot or I might – well, I might not. There’s Ronald Dorman, of course. And then there’s two other boys by the name of Burston and Cappock. Apart from old Calboyd, they’re the big holders.’
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But who is behind them? Dorman, for instance – did he have enough capital to take up all those shares his firm got stuck with?’
‘No, but he had the credit.’
‘Well, who financed him, then?’
‘I dunno. It’s the same with the other two. They’re just dummies. But who they’re playing dummy for I don’t know, and between you and me, old man, I’m not at all sure that I want to know.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why? Because if I knew, I might be tempted to do something rash. The sort of game I play is all right so long as the people are running a racket. But when it comes to big game like Calboyds – well, I don’t interest myself. That time you got me out of that mess scared me plenty and I’m much more cautious now, even though it is getting very difficult to make a living.’
‘But you must know what the gossip is? I’m not asking for a statement of facts. Who is thought to be behind Dorman?’
‘Quite honestly, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But I do know this: Burston didn’t make a pile in Mexican oil and Cappock didn’t strike lucky in Rhodesia. They were both of them down and out before they returned to England.’
‘You mean they were both broke? Yet they returned to England and immediately plunged up to the hilt in Calboyds?’
He nodded. ‘That’s about it. Considering what big holdings they have, they don’t live over well. Burston has a little place down at Alfriston and Cappock lives quite quietly at a London hotel.’
‘How do you know all this?’ I asked.
His face creased into a smile. ‘You needn’t worry about my source of information. It’s all true enough.’
‘Why don’t you use your knowledge? I should have thought it would have been in your line.’
‘So did I – at first. But I know which side my bread is buttered.’
‘How do you mean?’
But he did not answer my question and I saw that his eyes were fixed on the doorway. I turned in my chair and saw the neat rather podgy figure of Max Sedel entering the room. Instinctively I turned to conceal my face. But I was not quick enough. For a second his small steely eyes met mine and I saw him half-check in his stride. Then, with a brief nod of recognition, he passed on to the bar.
‘My bête noire,’ said Evelyn Ward in a low tone. ‘What do you know of him?’ I asked.
‘He’s an adept at my own game. He’s in here or one of the other clubs practically every day, pumping people.’ Then he outlined for me Sedel’s story, much as Henderson had told it to me. But he added one point which I thought significant. ‘He hates Jews,’ he said. ‘That’s his weak point, for he finds it difficult to hide his hatred of them, and you know how lousy the City is with Jews.’
I laughed. ‘Well, anyway, that’s a good sign,’ I said. ‘If the City is full of Jews even when there’s a war on, things can’t be so bad.’ An American once told me that he followed the migration of the Jew from capital to capital on the principle that the place the Jews were flocking to was the place where there was money. The American had been in London in 1933 and England was the first country to recover from the Great Slump. I began pumping Ward for more information about the Calboyd control, but either he knew nothing more, or else he did not want to talk. ‘Why don’t you go and see Dorman or one of the other two dummies?’ he suggested.
‘Not a bad idea,’ I said, rising to my feet. A frontal attack might at any rate rattle them.
When I got outside the club, I found it raining. It was prematurely dark, and the lights blazed in rows in the windows of the offices on the other side of Threadneedle Street. It was like the old days before the black-out. Behind me loomed the bulk of the Royal Exchange, and as I came out into Threadneedle Street I saw the long façade of the Bank. Opposite me, dominating the junction of Old Broad Street and Threadneedle Street, stood the imposing granite bulk of Marburgs, the big merchant banking house, with its somewhat indecently blatant sign of an eagle sweeping down upon its prey blazoned in gold above the massive bronze doors. I cut down Old Broad Street, past the Stock Exchange and into Austin Friars.
Needless to say, I got nothing out of Ronald Dorman. And yet I did not feel that the visit had been wasted. The extraordinary thing was that I felt as though I had been expected. An exquisite young man took my coat and hat, and with the minimum of delay I was ushered into Ronald Dorman’s luxurious office. The whole place was ostentatiously sumptuous. From its thick-piled carpets to its heavy gilt-framed pictures, it was designed to impress. ‘Cigar, Mr Kilmartin?’ A deferential air and a glimpse of white teeth behind the little black moustache was symbolic of the whole atmosphere of debonair success that the man affected. Ronald Dorman spared no pains in the dressing of his window. But it was not only dressing. He was astute. I lit my cigar and then, as I blew out the flame of my match, I said, ‘Who is behind Calboyds, Mr Dorman?’ I put it quietly, hoping to catch him on the hop.
But he didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘What has that to do with you?’ he countered.
In the end I had to be satisfied with the assurance that he was the owner of his own holding. But not before my persistence had rattled him a bit. It wasn’t noticeable in his manner. He was charming and very patient with my thirst for knowledge, but I noticed that his long, rather artistic fingers were never still.
Ronald Dorman was my last call of the day, and in the gathering black-out I joined the rush-hour crowd that surged towards the Bank. I found an empty taxi, and within ten minutes was back at my digs. There had been no phone-calls for me, but would I join Miss Smith in her room for tea. I went upstairs to find Freya lounging on her bed, eating crumpets and reading. She seemed glad to see me and thanked me for the chocolates. She jumped up and settled me down in a chair by the gas-fire with tea and a crumpet. ‘Look,’ she said, and thrust the morning paper into my hand. ‘It’s down in black and white now for all the world to see.’
She was excited, and well she might be, for there in print was what Crisham had told me on the phone the previous day. Franz Schmidt was no longer wanted for murder. But the story explained that the police wanted to discover his whereabouts as they were afraid that he, too, might have suffered harm. ‘If he’s at liberty, I hope he sees it,’ I said. I carefully refrained from saying ‘if he is alive’.
‘Oh, I hope so, too,’ she said, with a mouth full of crumpet. ‘Mustn’t it feel marvellous, when you’ve been hunted for three weeks for a murder you didn’t commit, suddenly to find that you’ve been given an alibi.’
I was just putting the paper down, when my eye caught sight of a small paragraph farther down in the next column headed: CAR OVER BEACHY HEAD. My eye had caught the name Burston. It was my Burston all right. John S. Burston of Woodlands, the Butts, Alfriston. His car had
apparently gone over the cliff near Birling Gap. The paragraph explained that it had been a foggy night and that Burston had been to a party. Coming down the road from Beachy Head to Birling Gap, he had apparently mistaken the road under the Belle Toute and driven straight over the cliff.
Freya sensed my change of mood and asked me what was wrong. There was no point in bringing sudden death into the conversation, so I handed her back the paper and gave an account of my activities during the day. After all, people did get drunk and miss the road. But Beachy Head is associated in my mind with suicides, not accidents. I saw the sheer white cliff under the Belle Toute lighthouse and pictured the wreckage at the foot washed by the chalky sea. Death was so certain that way. And why had Burston been driving along that road at all? He lived at Alfriston. The road to Birling Gap was all right. But to get home, he had to take the track to East Dean. I knew it well. It was a terribly bad surface and not the road one would choose in thick mist.
I suppose my preoccupation was obvious as I ran quickly through the various interviews I had had, for Freya picked up the paper and began searching for the page at which it was folded. And when I had finished she said, ‘Won’t you tell me what is on your mind, Mr Kilmartin? It was something you saw in the paper, wasn’t it?’
I said that it was nothing, just a thought that had crossed my mind. But she was insistent, and in the end I told her.
She read the paragraph through, a frown wrinkling her usually smooth brow. Then she looked across at me. ‘My father once mentioned the name Burston to me,’ she said. ‘He was talking to Evan Llewellin, but I happened to be present. They were discussing Calboyds and I remember him saying that he thought Burston the weak link.’
‘Anything else?’ I asked.
But she shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘are you certain you have told us everything you know? Didn’t your father discuss the position with you?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think he knew much at the time. You see, the engine was transferred to the yacht in July. Two weeks later the old engine in his workshop was stolen. A month later he decided it was no longer safe to keep the Sea Spray in Swansea and Evan Llewellin and I ran her round to Porthgwarra. The lease of the studio there had already been taken. I took up residence and have not seen my father since. I am afraid that at the time I went to Porthgwarra he knew very little about the business. The night he mentioned Burston was just before I left. He knew that Calboyds were after his engine, but I don’t think he knew anything about the control of Calboyds. In fact, his remarks about Burston being the weak link suggest that he and Evan were just becoming interested in the control.’
We were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Mrs Lawrence to tell me I was wanted on the phone. When I got downstairs, it was to find that it was Forbes-Pallister himself ringing me. He was very apologetic. ‘I would like to have helped you in the matter, Kilmartin,’ he said. ‘But it’s out of my reach. The order emanated from the First Lord and I can, of course, do nothing.’
I thanked him and rang off. That was that. Calboyd himself had probably arranged for the order. As I climbed the dark stairs from the basement, a feeling of depression crept over me. I was out of my depth, and I knew it. I could make no headway against an organisation that could call, not only upon the forces of law, but also upon political heads of the country.
‘Bide a moment, Mr Kilmartin.’ It was Mrs Lawrence, speaking from the front door, and I paused on the stairs leading up from the hall. ‘There’s a telegram for you.’ She brought it to me and I opened it. It was from David to say that he was having an interesting time and had decided to stay the night. ‘There’s no reply,’ I said, and thanked her and went back to Freya’s room. She received my information about the boat with dark, troubled eyes. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked. ‘I’m tired of sitting cooped up in this room.’
‘Then we’ll go and have dinner somewhere and then go to a show,’ I said. I felt rather guilty at the suggestion, but as far as I could see there was nothing more to be done, and she agreed. ‘Tomorrow we will go to Eastbourne,’ I added.
CHAPTER SIX
DEED-BOXES MAKE GOOD COFFINS
That evening remains vividly in my memory as a pleasant oasis. It had something of the quality of the lull before the storm. I think I was conscious of this at the time. With the exception of the brief chase by the Cones of Runnel, we had not crossed swords with the other side. So far it had been a game of hide-and-seek. But I was not fool enough to imagine that it would remain just a game. And I think it was that thought that added an almost unreal beauty to the evening. I felt an unnatural, almost hysterical gaiety. And there was Freya. For some reason that was essentially feminine she had brought an evening frock with her. Until then I had only seen her as a rather boyish creature, striking enough with her slim figure encased in slacks and her lovely sleek head. But when she came out of her room on to the dimly-lit landing in her dark-blue frock, I caught my breath. The boyishness was gone. Where I had taken her for a girl, I found a woman. The beauty of her made me wish that I was younger. I took her hand. ‘You look lovely,’ I said.
That was one of the happiest evenings of my life. Freya was in great spirits. I wished David could have been with us to see her. But at the same time I was glad he was not. We had both agreed upon the Palladium and it suited our mood. And when we came back, she insisted on my paying the taxi off at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue and walking home the rest of the way. It was a glorious moonlit night. ‘This is the first time I have seen London in a black-out,’ she said. Her voice was low and almost husky. I looked down at her. She was wearing the heavy gabardine cloak she had worn with her slacks, but it looked different now. It gave her height and poise. And from it rose the perfect oval of her face, pale in the moonlight. She was gazing upwards. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’ she said. ‘See the way the moon picks out the steeple of that church. You scarcely even notice the moon in peace-time when all the street lights are on.’
I laughed. ‘Wait until you see the black-out on a dark night,’ I said. ‘It’s not the same at all when you walk down streets that seem like dark clefts. It gives you an unpleasant sense of desolation.’
At that she laughed and said, ‘But I’m seeing it in the moonlight so I can be happy. See how it shows up the Senate House.’ And we paused to look across the lifeless trees of Russell Square to the tall white block of the University building. As we did so I noticed out of the tail of my eye a car stop by the kerb a little way down Southampton Row. I don’t know why I suddenly had the feeling that it was following us. But I noticed that no one got out, and as we turned the corner into Guildford Street I saw it on the move again. I drew Freya into the dark doorway of a chemist’s shop and waited. The car crawled round the corner. There were two men in front and they were peering through the windscreen. Then the car accelerated and disappeared down the length of Guildford Street. I don’t think it was following us, but it had a dampening effect upon our gaiety and it was a sober, rather nervous pair that let themselves into their rooms.
The next morning I was up early and got my car out of its garage in Fetter Lane. Shortly after nine we were on the road. It was a blue-skied, friendly day, warm, with a hint of spring in the air. The drive would have been fun, if we had not both been weighed down with a sense of trouble ahead. When we arrived at Eastbourne I went straight to the office of one of the local newspapers. We were lucky, for the boy who had covered the Burston story was in. I handed him my card. ‘You may have heard of me,’ I said.
‘Why, yes, of course, sir. You’re interested in this business?’ he asked.
I told him that I was and that my own view was that it might not be an accident.
At that he said, ‘Well I’m glad there’s somebody thinks the same way as I do. I had a word with the local inspector, but he pooh-poohed the idea and told me that I was just out for copy. Do you know the Belle Toute?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Then you’ll remember the road bends sharp to the right there. Now the mist was pretty thick, I admit that. But this fellow Burston, who has lived in the neighbourhood for over four years, goes and turns sharp left. It doesn’t make sense to me. He may have been drunk, but I don’t see why he should be as drunk as all that. The air was cold and raw. It was enough to sober anyone up. And why was he on the Birling Gap road anyway? He came down from Willingdon and he lived at Alfriston. The direct way would have been to go through Old Town and straight up to the hills. Or, if he must go round by the Beachy Head road, he would have turned to the right when he got to the top of the downs and on to the East Dean road. Sedel said he had mentioned something about going over to see a friend at Birling Gap. But it was past midnight, and that’s a damned funny time to start making calls, especially on a filthy night like that.’
‘Sedel?’ I said. ‘Who is Sedel?’
‘The fellow at whose house he got drunk. Mind you, I’m not saying he wasn’t drunk. From all accounts the fellow has been drinking fairly heavily in recent months.’
But I had remembered what Henderson had said about a lovely place just outside Eastbourne. ‘Is this fellow’s name Max Sedel?’ I asked.
‘Yes, that’s right. Freelance journalist in the City.
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