James Maxted 03 The Ends of the Earth

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Let me go, Max. Pour l’amour de Dieu. I’ll tell you everything.’

  ‘You don’t need to. I have the letter to my father from Jack Farngold, remember?’

  ‘No. You don’t.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean? It’s in the study.’

  ‘Le Singe took it. I saw it in his hand when he walked past the doorway.’

  Max hurried back to the study without another word. He had seen the envelope when he picked up the gun, but had not thought to check if the letter was still inside. He cannoned against the doorpost as he went, his legs still rubbery from the drug, his movements clumsy.

  It was as Dombreux had said. The letter had gone.

  Max made his way back slowly to the music room, where he stared at Dombreux thoughtfully for a moment, before untying the rope from the lamp-bracket and lowering the Frenchman none too gently to the floor. Then he re-tied the rope, ensuring Dombreux could crawl no more than a foot or so in either direction.

  ‘Thank you,’ Dombreux murmured.

  Max crossed to the armchair he had occupied earlier and sat down. ‘Tell me the secret, Dombreux. Now.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I will shoot you if I have to. Painfully to start with, rather than fatally. You understand?’

  ‘The letter did not reveal the secret. Farngold said he could not risk writing it. He wanted Sir Henry to know he had information about Count Tomura and the deaths of his father and his sister that Sir Henry would be “greatly disturbed by. Things did not happen as you believe they happened.” That is what Farngold wrote. “You will not want to let matters rest when you hear what I have to tell you. We must meet.”’

  ‘You said it contained the whole story,’ Max protested, ‘which you revealed to my father when he visited you in prison in Petrograd.’

  Dombreux tried to roll over on to his back, but could not, his hands tied together behind him as they were. He groaned. ‘I said what I had to say to draw you in, Max. But this is the truth. It is what I told Henry that day he came to see me in my cell at the Peter and Paul Fortress.’

  ‘Why should I believe you?’

  ‘Because, thanks to le Singe, you have won and I have lost. The truth is all I have to trade with you. In the letter, Farngold asked Henry to travel to Japan and help him “undo what Tomura has done”. That is what he wrote. It was not enough to make Henry go. He can only have learnt what Farngold had found out later, in Paris, which was lucky for him. Farngold had already been captured by Tomura when the letter arrived. Henry would never have been able to speak to him. It would have been a wasted journey – or worse.’

  Le Singe’s removal of the letter meant Max could not be sure Dombreux was speaking truthfully, plausible though his version of events was. The man was a practised liar – a dissembler by trade as well as nature. ‘You informed Lemmer of the contents of the letter?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘And no doubt he warned Tomura.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  ‘So, you’re responsible for whatever’s happened to Farngold since.’

  Another groan. ‘We are all responsible for ourselves. Chacun pour soi. I do not know the secret. I cannot give it to you. But there are other things I can give you.’

  ‘If I let you live?’

  ‘It would be foolish to kill me, Max. Then I could not meet Lemmer at the port a few hours from now and tell him you are dead. Your best chance of defeating him is to have him believe that.’

  There was truth in that, Max could not deny. But there was an obvious objection. ‘He required you to supply photographic evidence of my death. You can’t do that now.’

  ‘I believe I can. It is a myth that the camera never lies. We could take a photograph showing you with an apparently fatal bullet wound in the head, using the blood from MacGregor’s very real wound. It would work. It would convince Lemmer.’

  William MacGregor. It came as a shock to Max to realize he had actually forgotten that the private detective set on him by Susan Henty was lying dead in another room of the villa while they debated what to do. ‘You’re suggesting I let you take this faked photograph to Lemmer and then … walk away?’

  ‘If I don’t, he’ll send someone after me – and you. You may not want to let me go free, but this is actually the best chance you have of gaining an advantage over Lemmer.’

  ‘How could I be sure what you’d say to him – if I let you go?’

  ‘I would be mad to admit I had failed. He does not tolerate failure. You know that.’

  ‘And what if he learnt later that my body hadn’t been found here?’

  ‘I will tell him my plan to involve MacGregor miscarried. Therefore I had to improvise. I will set fire to the villa before leaving. MacGregor’s body will be burned beyond recognition. There will be nothing to prove he is not you.’

  ‘Maybe I’d sooner put a bullet through your head and take my chances with Lemmer.’

  ‘Peut-être. But I can give you more than a faked death. I can give you a secret that is all Lemmer’s. A weapon … to use against him.’

  ‘What secret?’

  ‘He has a son. Born Berlin, 1904. The mother is dead. Suicide. Who can be surprised? The boy is at a private school, in Switzerland. His name has been changed. But I know what it has been changed to. And where the school is. What favour would British Intelligence show me for that information, do you think? What favour would they not show me?’

  ‘How did you find out about this?’

  ‘I am a spy, Max. Finding things out is what I do. Anyone who works for Lemmer is well advised to learn as much as they can about their master.’

  ‘Give me the boy’s name. And the name of the school.’

  ‘Non, non. You let me go. We fake the photograph. I take it to Lemmer. Then I take you to the boy.’

  ‘Non, non to you, Pierre. Do you seriously think I’d trust you to turn up to whatever rendezvous we agreed?’

  ‘My word as a gentleman?’

  ‘Worthless. Since you aren’t one.’

  ‘If that is what you think of me, why would you believe what I said? I could invent a name for the boy. I could invent a school.’

  ‘Convince me you haven’t invented them, then.’ Max rose, walked across to where Dombreux was lying and stared down at him. ‘Everything you have, Pierre. Those are my terms for letting you go. Remember, it’s in your best interests to be truthful. One way or another, I’m going after Lemmer. So, sooner or later, he’ll learn you failed to kill me, then lied to him about it. You need me to win. Otherwise we both lose. It’s as simple – and as certain – as that.’

  THEY HAD A deal. But it was not one Max had any intention of implementing impetuously. Leaving Dombreux trussed up in the music room, he searched the villa thoroughly. There was no sign of le Singe, though he soon found MacGregor’s body, covered by a dust sheet, in the drawing room. Dombreux had assured him he had acted alone. Lemmer wanted there to be no possibility of a connection being made between Count Tomura and Max’s death. Using Dombreux, a man himself officially regarded as dead, he had deemed the best way of ensuring that.

  Max moved the camera to the drawing room and satisfied himself as to how a photograph could be taken of him lying on the floor with his head next to the pool of MacGregor’s blood. He reckoned he could fake an entry wound using sealing-wax he found in the study. Only when he was completely satisfied did he release Dombreux.

  He kept the gun trained on Dombreux more or less throughout. But the Frenchman was disarmingly philosophical about his situation. ‘I owe Lemmer no loyalty, Max,’ he emphasized. ‘I will carry this through.’

  That was patently disingenuous, of course. He had no choice but to carry it through. The beauty of their deal was that Dombreux gained as much from deceiving Lemmer as Max did. There was no question of them trusting each other. Trust simply did not exist in the reasoning of Pierre Dombreux. But he had committed himself now and there was no going back.

  The photograph w
as taken. According to Dombreux, looking through the camera’s viewfinder, it would convince anyone he showed it to that Max was dead. He was pinning his own fate on the judgement, so Max was inclined to believe him.

  That done, there was no time to be lost. Dombreux was certain Lemmer had not set a watch on the villa, for the simple reason Dombreux had not told him where the villa was. But still Max could hardly leave the way he had arrived. He could not risk being seen by anyone who might be able to identify him.

  In a wardrobe Dombreux found a loose coat and slouch hat that served as disguise. There was, he said, a lemon grove to the rear of the villa, and a lane beyond that led to the south-eastern outskirts of Marseilles. It was vital Max draw no attention to himself, at least until the Miyachi-maru had sailed at noon.

  Their parting was soberly unceremonious, with no handshake. Their alliance was one of strict necessity on both sides.

  ‘We will meet in Lausanne two days from now,’ said Dombreux, looking Max in the eye. ‘Hotel Meurice, Ouchy.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Max declared. He might have added, though he did not, ‘But will you?’

  In truth, Max reckoned it was quite likely Dombreux would go to ground rather than travel to Switzerland. Max sensed the information the Frenchman had supplied about Lemmer’s son was accurate. But he might prefer to be far away when it was put to the test. And his freedom of movement was limited anyway. He could not be certain what Lemmer had in mind for him.

  Letting Dombreux off the hook did not sit well with Max. But reason it through however he pleased, their deal offered him his best chance of outmanoeuvring Lemmer. There were too many imponderables for him to be certain he was acting for the best. Le Singe had twice saved his life, but what he was seeking to accomplish remained obscure. Sir Henry’s elusive‘great secret’ was altogether a threat as well as a lure. In pursuing it, Max was aware he might easily be pursuing his own destruction.

  In the end, though, the imponderables could not be helped. He slipped out of the villa, scaled the rear wall into the lemon grove and headed for the lane.

  He had covered perhaps half a mile, when, looking back, he saw smoke climbing into the sky from the Villa Orseis. The breeze from the sea carried a crackling of burning timbers on the air. So far, if no further, Dombreux was as good as his word.

  The smoke was also visible from the front seat of a dusty Panhard saloon parked out on the headland at Malmousque. The driver was a smartly dressed man of sixty or so, with white, wavy hair and a slightly less white moustache. His features were soft and dimpled, his gaze contemplative. He folded the letter he had been reading in half and slid it into the pocket of his dove-grey jacket, then nodded in the direction of the smoke.

  ‘La villa est en feu,’ he murmured.

  Le Singe was sitting in the seat beside him. He remained silent, but looked at the driver as if expecting a decision or instruction of some kind. When none came he raised his hands and posed a question in sign language.

  His companion smiled reassuringly at him. ‘Non, non, Seddik. C’était bien fait.’

  Another sign.

  ‘Oui. Maintenant.’ The man started the car, swung it on to the road and drove away north towards Marseilles.

  Max took care to stay clear of the centre of the city until early afternoon, by which time the Miyachi-maru had set sail for the Far East, with Lemmer, Nadia and Anna Schmidt among the passengers, along with Count Tomura and his son.

  Max travelled into the Gare St-Charles on a local train from a suburban halt and switched there to a mainline train to Aix, where he arrived an hour later and despatched a cable to Horace Appleby at Secret Service Headquarters in London, using a pre-arranged alias and terminology.

  FAMILY ILLNESS REQUIRES YOUR PRESENCE LYONS URGENTLY. WILL AWAIT YOU THERE TOMORROW WEDNESDAY PM. GREAVES

  He had chosen Lyons for their rendezvous because Appleby could get there within twenty-four hours and no one could deduce from the choice that Switzerland was their ultimate destination.

  Max himself travelled to Lyons by an overnight train that delivered him to the Gare de Perrache in time for breakfast at the Hotel Terminus. He booked a room for himself and enquired if a Mr Brown had cabled through a reservation. He had. Appleby was on his way.

  While Max took a relaxing bath at the Hotel Terminus in Lyons, the NYK liner Miyachi-maru was steaming sedately through calm Mediterranean waters on the second day of its scheduled forty-five-day voyage to Yokohama, by way of Port Said, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Pierre Dombreux was standing by the rail on the first-class deck, smoking a post-breakfast cigarette and gazing towards the coast of Sardinia, which had recently loomed into view on the eastern horizon.

  ‘It’s too far to swim,’ said Nadia Bukayeva, causing him to start as she materialized with characteristic stealth at his elbow.

  Dombreux brushed a scatter of spilt ash off his sleeve and turned to face her, taking care to keep his back to the sun. ‘Nadia Mikhailovna.’ He smiled. ‘You are well this morning?’

  ‘Thank you, Pierre, I am. But I am worried about you. It has seemed to me you are not pleased to be aboard.’

  ‘I do not look for pleasure in the arrangements of my employer.’

  ‘How wise. But, still, we have … hopes, do we not? You hoped to be allowed to go your way, I think, after solving the Max problem so … efficiently.’

  ‘I hope only when I dream. I dream only when I sleep.’

  ‘And do you sleep soundly, Pierre?’

  ‘I have always slept soundly.’

  ‘Because of a clear conscience?’

  ‘Conscience?’ Dombreux chuckled. ‘What would I – or you – know of conscience? We were both born without one, I suspect.’

  ‘A defect?’

  ‘Or an asset.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Nadia looked at him thoughtfully. ‘We shall see.’

  ‘What shall we see?’

  ‘The real Pierre Dombreux.’ She leant towards him and added, almost in a whisper, ‘Eventually.’

  MAX DID NOT meet Appleby off his train, but was watching from the window of his room at the Hotel Terminus at what he judged would be the right time. He was rewarded by the sight of the weary old bull terrier of British Intelligence crossing the road from the station. It was late Wednesday afternoon and Max’s summons had been answered.

  He gave Appleby an hour to settle in, then called at his room with a bottle of whisky to ease the stresses of the long journey.

  ‘This had better be worth my while,’ was Appleby’s gruff greeting. ‘There’s plenty for me to be doing in London.’

  ‘It’s worth your while, I promise.’ Max poured them both a generous measure of Scotch. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘What are we drinking to?’

  ‘The snaring of Fritz Lemmer.’

  ‘A heart-warming toast. But how do we achieve it?’

  ‘I tried to inveigle my way back into his circle – the strategy we agreed with C – but Lemmer had other ideas. He had Krenz send me off in pursuit of Anna Schmidt to Marseilles, but it was a trap. The plan was to kill me in a faked suicide, attributed to remorse following the murder of a private detective who’d followed me from Orkney. You should hold on to your hat, because the agent Lemmer entrusted with my elimination was Pierre Dombreux.’

  Appleby reacted to this announcement with a measured frown. ‘You keep yourself busy, Max, I’ll say that. Dombreux?’

  ‘It was somebody else’s body in that canal in Petrograd. He’s working for Lemmer. And now he’s working for us as well.’

  ‘How did you pull that off?’

  Max recounted then all that had happened to him in Marseilles. Appleby listened patiently and thoughtfully, slowly filling and lighting his pipe as the story proceeded. He raised his eyebrows occasionally in a signal of surprise and smiled once, when Max mentioned shooting Meadows in the foot.

  ‘Lemmer is en route to Japan with Tomura,’ Max concluded. ‘He thinks I’m dead, which is how I’d like it to st
ay until I catch up with him. I believe Dombreux, with his life depending on it, will have pulled off the deception. Letting him go was a risk, but I secured more than just his cooperation in return. I secured something I reckon we can use to bring Lemmer down, scotching his plans to sell his network of spies to the Japanese and identifying those spies into the bargain.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘His son, Horace. Fritz Lemmer’s son.’

  At last, Appleby looked impressed. ‘Lemmer has a son?’

  ‘According to Dombreux, yes. Born in Berlin in 1904 to a mother now deceased. He goes by her maiden name: Hanckel. Eugen Hanckel. He’s been a pupil for the past three years at Le Rosey, a private boarding school at Rolle, on Lake Geneva, ten miles or so west of Lausanne.’

  Appleby chewed vigorously on his pipe. ‘We’ve never heard a whisper of there being a son. Lemmer’s rumoured to have visited Switzerland quite often in recent years. I saw nothing significant in that. The country was an intelligence gold mine during the war and a lot of wealthy Germans salted money away there as insurance against defeat. But a son installed at a Swiss boarding school would also explain it, of course, if we can believe Dombreux.’

  ‘I believe him,’ said Max. ‘What’s the alternative? That he made it up to talk his way out of trouble? I doubt even he can think that fast. A name. A year of birth. A specific school. And the address of a Lausanne lawyer who pays the fees and reports back to Lemmer. Marcel Dulière. Notaire of discretion.’

  Appleby took a prowl to the window and back again, then said, ‘If it’s true, we may just have him. Ties of blood are the ties that bind. A son?’ He nodded approvingly. ‘That would be more than a chink in his armour.’

  ‘Dombreux’s offered to meet us in Lausanne tomorrow.’

  ‘You think he’ll turn up?’

  ‘I don’t know. But we should.’

  ‘How did he come by this information?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say.’

  ‘No. Of course he wouldn’t. Dombreux’s clearly a slippery customer. We can’t rely on him, Max. You understand that?’