‘You look fine,’ I said absently.
‘We saw a girl I know in Sydney,’ Sarah said. ‘We watched the first two races together and talked to her aunt. And Jik and I were talking to a photographer we both knew just after he got back... so it would be pretty easy to prove Jik was at the races all afternoon, like you wanted.’
‘No sign of Wexford?’
‘Not if he looked like your drawing,’ Sarah said. ‘Though of course he might have been there. It’s awfully difficult to recognise a complete stranger just from a drawing, in a huge crowd like that.’
‘We talked to a lot of people,’ Jik said. ‘To everyone Sarah knew even slightly. She used the excuse of introducing me as her newly-bagged husband.’
‘We even talked to that man you met on Saturday,’ Sarah agreed, nodding. ‘Or rather, he came over and talked to us.’
‘Hudson Taylor?’ I asked.
‘The one you saw talking to Wexford,’ Jik said.
‘He asked if you were at the Cup,’ Sarah said. ‘He said he’d been going to ask you along for another drink. We said we’d tell you he’d asked.’
‘His horse ran quite well, didn’t it?’ I said.
‘We saw him earlier than that. We wished him luck and he said he’d need it.’
‘He bets a bit,’ I said, remembering.
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Another commission down the drain,’ I said. ‘He would have had Vinery painted if he’d won.’
‘You hire yourself out like a prostitute,’ Jik said. ‘It’s obscene.’
‘And anyway,’ added Sarah cheerfully, ‘You won more on Ringwood than you’d’ve got for the painting.’
I looked pained, and Jik laughed.
We drank coffee, went back to the motel, and divided to our separate rooms. Five minutes later Jik knocked on my door.
‘Come in,’ I said, opening it.
He grinned. ‘You were expecting me.’
‘Thought you might come.’
He sat in the armchair and swivelled. His gaze fell on my suitcase, which lay flat on one of the divans.
‘What did you do with all the stuff we took from the gallery?’
I told him.
He stopped swivelling and sat still.
‘You don’t mess about, do you?’ he said eventually.
‘A few days from now,’ I said, ‘I’m going home.’
‘And until then?’
‘Um... until then, I aim to stay one jump ahead of Wexford, Greene, Beetle-brows, the Arts Centre boy, and the tough who met me on the balcony at Alice.’
‘Not to mention our copy artist, Harley Renbo.’
I considered it. ‘Him too,’ I said.
‘Do you think we can?’
‘Not we. Not from here on. This is where you take Sarah home.’
He slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t reckon it would be any safer than staying with you. We’re too easy to find. For one thing, we’re in the Sydney ‘phone book. What’s to stop Wexford from marching on to the boat with a bigger threat than a cigarette lighter?’
‘You could tell him what I’ve just told you.’
‘And waste all your efforts.’
‘Retreat is sometimes necessary.’
He shook his head. ‘If we stay with you, retreat may never be necessary. It’s the better of two risks. And anyway...’ the old fire gleamed in his eye... ‘It will be a great game. Cat and mouse. With cats who don’t know they are mice chasing a mouse who knows he’s a cat.’
More like a bull fight, I thought, with myself waving the cape to invite the charge. Or a conjuror, attracting attention to one hand while he did the trick with the other. On the whole I preferred the notion of the conjuror. There seemed less likelihood of being gored.
13
I spent a good deal of the night studying the list of Overseas Customers, mostly because I still found it difficult to lie comfortably to sleep, and partly because I had nothing else to read.
It became more and more obvious that I hadn’t really pinched enough. The list I’d taken was fine in its way, but would have been doubly useful with a stock list to match the letters and numbers in the right hand column.
On the other hand, all stock numbers were a form of code, and if I looked at them long enough, maybe some sort of recognisable pattern might emerge.
By far the majority began with the letter M, particularly in the first and much larger section. In the smaller section, which I had found at the back of the file, the M prefixes were few, and S, A, W and B were much commoner.
Donald’s number began with M. Maisie’s began with S.
Suppose, I thought, that the M simply stood for Melbourne, and the S for Sydney, the cities where each had bought their pictures.
Then A, W and B were where? Adelaide, Wagga Wagga and Brisbane?
Alice?
In the first section the letters and numbers following the initial M seemed to have no clear pattern. In the second section, though, the third letter was always C, the last letter always R, and the numbers, divided though they were between several different countries, progressed more or less consecutively. The highest number of all was 54, which had been sold to a Mr. Norman Updike, living in Auckland, New Zealand. The stock number against his name was WHC54R. The date in the left hand column was only a week old, and Mr. Updike had not been crossed out.
All the pictures in the shorter section had been sold within the past three years. The first dates in the long first section were five and a half years old.
I wondered which had come first, five and a half years ago: the gallery or the idea. Had Wexford originally been a full-time crook deliberately setting up an imposing front, or a formerly honest art dealer struck by criminal possibilities? Judging from the respectable air of the gallery and what little I’d seen of Wexford himself, I would have guessed the latter. But the violence lying just below the surface didn’t match.
I sighed, put down the lists, and switched off the light. Lay in the dark, thinking of the telephone call I’d made after Jik had gone back to Sarah.
It had been harder to arrange from the motel than it would have been from the Hilton, but the line had been loud and clear.
‘You got my cable?’ I said.
‘I’ve been waiting for your call for half an hour.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve sent you a letter,’ I said. ‘I want to tell you what’s in it.’
‘But...’
‘Just listen,’ I said. ‘And talk after.’ I spoke for quite a long time to a response of grunts from the far end.
‘Are you sure of all this?’
‘Positive about most,’ I said. ‘Some of it’s a guess.’
‘Repeat it.’
‘Very well.’ I did so, at much the same length.
‘I have recorded all that.’
‘Good.’
‘Hm... What do you intend doing now?’
‘I’m going home soon. Before that, I think I’ll keep looking into things that aren’t my business.’
‘I don’t approve of that.’
I grinned at the telephone. ‘I don’t suppose you do, but if I’d stayed in England we wouldn’t have got this far. There’s one other thing... Can I reach you by telex if I want to get a message to you in a hurry?’
‘Telex? Wait a minute.’
I waited.
‘Yes, here you are.’ A number followed. I wrote it down. ‘Address any message to me personally and head it urgent.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘And could you get answers to three questions for me?’ He listened, and said he could. ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘And goodnight.’
Sarah and Jik both looked heavy-eyed and languorous in the morning. A successful night, I judged.
We checked out of the motel, packed my suitcase into the boot of the car, and sat in the passenger seats to plan the day.