Midnight Plus One

I gave up my pretence and hissed that he mustn't tell anybody that he'd got Maganhard – that Maganhard's lawyers must never know – that we'd both be ruined…

He flicked a hand to keep me quiet, but perhaps he went a little pale. He ended up saying rather stiffly that he couldn't say anything official I hoped the General had ended up saying that he was going to start spreading the news as from now.

I demanded an explanation, and got a brief run-down on the General's history, status, and prestige. I shrugged it off: obviously, he must go and arrest the General, as well. That should keep things quiet.

He laughed in my face.

I let Robert Griflet lose his temper and played my fifth ace: he, Lucan, would do as I said or I, Griflet, would bring down the wrath of the Republic of France on his head and squash him like a bed-bug. Montreux cops had better learn to jump when areal policeman from across the frontier said so, or By God…

It was the one thing the real Griflet would never have done; Swiss officials blow up automatically at any hint of their big neighbours saying Or Else. Three minutes after they threw me out, they threw Maganhard after me. Whether it was mostly because Lucan was scared that he'd made an expensive mistake, or mostly to annoy me, I never asked and haven't bothered to guess.

I tailed Maganhard for a quarter of a mile to make sure nobody else did, then caught him up, and told him to head for room 510 – andnow part his damn hair differently. He did it without arguing. I took the taxi behind him.

TWENTY-FIVE

We ended up back in room 510.

Harvey and Miss Jarman were already there, tucking into the champagne, and with coats off in that heat. The General was still in his fireside chair. Morgan raised his eyebrows at me as he let us in, but left it at that.

Harvey stood up. 'Christ, how did you do it?'

'I just said Please.'

'Well, I'm damned.' Then he suddenly looked at the champagne glass in his hand.

But I wasn't worried – yet. For him, champagne would be about as strong as British beer. Still, it wasn't a bad thing for him to remember that getting Maganhard back meant we were still in action.

I turned back to introduce Maganhard to the General -but it looked as if they'd met. Maganhard was glaring down at the long, shrivelled face with a look as friendly as a welding torch.

The General broke the ice: 'I suppose you're that damn fool Maganhard?'

'Don't mind the old-world courtesy,' I reassured Maganhard. 'He thinks the world's divided into two: himself, and the damn fools.'

Maganhard swung round on me. 'Why did you involvethis man?'

The General snorted. 'Don't like dealing with tradesmen, heh? I've done some good work for you in your short life. You and those damn fools Heiliger and Fiez. Don't you think I give value?'

'The information you supplied us with was valuable enough,' Maganhard snapped. 'Now I am wondering what value you will get from information about me.'

'You could always buy it for yourself,' the General suggested.

I said quietly: 'We did that deal already – remember, General?'

He swivelled his head slowly towards me. 'All right, Cane, I remember. Just thought it worth trying. The damn fool might have paid up. All damn fools, him and Max Heiliger and Fiez. Only sensible thought they had in their lives was that electronics was going to become big business after the war. Then they went off and started playing hole-in-the-corner with Liechtenstein registration and bearer shares and whatnot.'

He picked up one of the pink cards, held up his pince-nez, and started reading: 'Caspar AG. Formed 1950. Issued capital forty thousand Swiss francs.' He turned to look at Maganhard. 'Has to be above twenty-five thousand by law and if you go above fifty thousand you have to have a controller in. Wouldn't like that, would you? Always want to play secrets.' He looked back at the card. 'Controls thirteen companies in France, Germany, Austria…'

Maganhard was giving me the steely glare. 'Have you been talking about my business?'

The General said calmly: 'Most of that information is on file at the Public Registry in Liechtenstein. I know the rest because it's my business to know.'

Maganhard hadn't finished with me. 'Why did you gethim involved? Now he will spread the news of us all over Europe.'

'You mean there's somebody who doesn't know already?'

That stopped him.

The General chuckled. 'Young man's quite right, Maganhard. I couldn't make a wooden centime out of you that way. Well, perhaps there's other ways.' The pale, half-hooded eyes swung at me. T suppose you got him out of jail because the Sûretéhasn't asked for an arrest yet. What happens when they do ask for it?'

I shrugged. It was going to come, all right – just as soon as the real Griflet borrowed a few francs and got on the phone to France. Well, the first thing to happen would be that Inspector Lucan had a heart attack. But the second thing… I shrugged again.

'By then we'll be on our way.'

'You're joining the damn fools, Cane. How d'you plan to do it?'

'I think we'll classify that Secret, General.'

'Now I'm sure you're a damn fool. D'you think I could sell that? Nobody wants to know. They all know you're going to Liechtenstein – and that's enough.' He lifted a glass of flat champagne, tucked it under his moustache, gave a long loudslurp, and put it carefully down again. 'What d'you know about Liechtenstein, Cane? It's a small country. Frontier with Switzerland's only fifteen miles long. And d'you know what that frontier is? The Upper Rhine. And d'you know how many ways there are into Liechtenstein? Just six. Only six. Five bridges, and the south road through Maienfeld to Balzers. All they'll need is eighteen policemen to watch that lot. They won't waste hundreds of men trying to catch you before that. They'll wait for you there.'

There was a long silence.

Then Harvey was on his feet, looking at me curiously from under his pale eyebrows. With his coat off, the gun at his belt looked very obvious.

'I've never been to Liechtenstein,' he said slowly. 'Have you, Cane? Is he right?'

'I've been there,' I said. 'And he's right.'

He twisted his head at me in a little, quizzical look. 'You sound kind of calm about it. What had you figured to do about that frontier, anyway?'

I shrugged. 'If we hadn't stirred up any fuss, we'd have whistled across. Normally, those bridges aren't even watched.' No customs, no guards – nothing. For customs purposes, Liechtenstein's part of Switzerland, so they just don't bother with that frontier: the real one comes between Austria and Liechtenstein. And we couldn't cross that without first crossing into Austria. I couldn't see any point in doubling our problems.

Harvey said: 'So they can close the bridges. What about the south road? Can we get up close, then get off the road and walk across?'

At the southern end of Liechtenstein, Switzerland stretches across the river, so we could cross the river down there without meeting a frontier post. But then there was only the one road, heading north into Liechtenstein.

I shook my head. 'It's a fortified zone. The road's the only way through.'

Just there, the valley narrows down to about a mile wide, between sheer mountain walls. This is the St Luzisteig Pass, a natural defensive position against an invader driving south up the Rhine. Personally, I can't see why any invader would come up the river: all he'd capture in the end would be the ski resorts at St Moritz and Klosters, and I'd have thought the prices they charged there were defence enough.

But for all that, they've spent nearly two centuries fortifying the St Luzisteig, right up to the Liechtenstein frontier. Most of the old stonework is just grassy humps by now, but some time in the 'thirties they added what looks like a film set for the First World War. Trenches, pillboxes, dragons-teeth tank traps, gun and mortar pits. And barbed wire: hedges of great rusty barbed wire coils. The whole zone a mile wide and several hundred yards deep: a huge cork rammed tight into the bottleneck of the valley.