That Hiller and his boss Smith had dreams Hamilton did not for a moment doubt: what he did doubt, and profoundly, was Killer's version of those dreams.
Hiller had wanted to find out if he had been going to contact his two young assistants or other unknown parties. Perhaps he thought that Hamilton might lead him to a larger and worthwhile cache of gold and diamonds. Perhaps he thought Hamilton had gone to make some mysterious phone call. Perhaps anything. On balance, Hamilton thought, it was just because Hiller was of a highly suspicious nature and just wanted to know what, if anything, Hamilton was up to. There could be no other explanation and it seemed pointless to waste further time and thought on it.
Hamilton poured himself a small drink — the nondescript bottle did in fact contain an excellent Highland malt which his friend Curly had obtained for him — and topped 'it up with some mineral water: the Romono water supply was an excellent specific for those who wished to be laid low with dysentery, cholera, and a variety of other unpleasant tropical diseases.
Hamilton smiled to himself. When Serrano came to and reported his woes to his master, neither he nor Hiller would be in any doubt as to the identity of the assailant responsible for the sore and stiff neck from which Serrano would assuredly be suffering. If nothing else, Hamilton mused, it would teach them to be rather more circumspect and respectful in their future dealings with him. Hamilton had no doubt whatsoever that he would be meeting Serrano — officially — in the very near' future and would thereafter be seeing quite a deal of him.
Hamilton took a sip of his drink, dropped to his' knees, ran his hand over the floor under the table, found nothing and smiled in satisfaction. He crossed to the shelving, picked up a solitary cassette, examined it carefully and smiled in even, wider satisfaction. He drained his glass, turned out the light and headed back into town.
In his room in the Hotel Negresco — the famous hotel in Nice would have cringed at the thought that such a hovel should bear the same name — , Hiller was making — or trying to make — a telephone call, his face bearing the unmistakable expression of long-suffering impatience that characterized any person so foolhardy as to try to phone out of Romono. But at long last his patience was rewarded and his face lit up.
'Aha!' he said. His voice, understandably, had a note almost of triumph in it. 'At last, at last! Mr Smith, if you please.'
CHAPTER TWO
The drawing-room of Joshua Smith's villa — the Villa Haydn in Brasilia — demonstrated beyond all question the vast gulf that lay between a bulti-millionaire and the merely rich. The furnishings, mainly Louis XIV and not the shadow of an imitation in sight, the drapes, from Belgium and Malta, the carpets, ancient Persian to the last one, and the pictures, ranging all the way from Dutch Old Masters to the Impressionists, all spoke not only of immense wealth but also a hedonistic determination to use it to its maximum. But for all that vast opulence there was nonetheless displayed an exquisite good taste in that everything matched and blended in something very, very close to, perfection. Clearly, no modern interior decorator had been allowed within a mile of the place.
The owner matched up magnificently to all this, magnificence. He was a large, well-built and dinner-suited man of late middle age who looked; absolutely at home in one of the huge arm-;' chairs that he occupied close to a sparkling pine. log fire.
Joshua Smith, still dark in both hair and, moustache, the one brushed straight back, the other neatly trimmed, was a smooth and urbane man, but not too smooth, not too urbane, much given to smiling and invariably kind and courteous to his inferiors which, in his case, meant just about everybody in sight. With the passage of time, the carefully and painstakingly acquired geniality and urbanity had become second nature to him (although some of the original ruthlessness had had to remain to account for his untold millions). Only a specialist could have detected the extensive plastic surgery that had transformed Smith's face from what it once had been.
There was another man in his drawing-room, and a young woman. Jack Tracy was a young-middle-aged man, blond, with a pock-marked face and a general air of capable toughness about him. The toughness and capability were undoubtedly there — they had to be for any man to be the general manager of Smith's vast chain of newspapers and magazines.
Maria Schneider, with her slightly dusky skin and brown eyes, could have been South American, Southern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern. Her hair was the colour of a raven. Whatever her nationality she was indisputably beautiful with a rather inscrutable face but invariably watchful penetrating eyes. She didn't look kind or sensitive but was both. She looked intelligent and had to be: when not doubling — as rumour had it — as Smith's mistress she was his private and confidential secretary and it was no rumour that she was remarkably skilled in her official capacity.
The phone rang. Maria answered, told the caller to hold and brought the phone on its extension cord across to Smith's armchair. He took the phone and listened briefly.
'Ah, Hiller!' Smith, unusually for him, leant forward in his armchair. There was anticipation in both his voice and posture. 'You have, I trust, some encouraging news for me. You have? Good, good, good. Proceed.'
Smith listened in silence to what Hiller had to say, the expression on his face gradually changing from pleasure to the near beatific. It was a measure of the man's self-control that, although apparently in a near transport of excitement, he refrained from either exclamations, questions or interruptions and heard Hiller through in silence to the end.
'Excellent!' Smith was positively jubilant. 'Truly excellent. Frederik, you have just made me the happiest man in Brazil.' Although Hiller claimed to be called Edward, his true given name would have appeared to be otherwise. 'Nor, I assure you, will you have cause to regret this day. My car will await you and your friends at the airport at eleven a.m.' He replaced the receiver. 'I said I could wait forever. Forever is today.'
Moments passed while he gized sightlessly into the flames. Tracy and Maria looked at each other without expression. Smith sighed, gradually bestirred himself, leaned back into his armchair, reached into his pocket, brought out a gold coin, and examined it intently.
'My talisman,' he said. He still didn't appear to be quite with them. 'Thirty long years I've had it and I've looked at it every day in those thirty years. Hiller has seen this very coin. He says the ones this man Hamilton has are identical in every way. Hiller is not a man to make mistakes so this can mean only one thing. Hamilton has found what can only be the foot of the rainbow.'
Tracy said: 'And at the far end of the rainbow lies a pot of gold?'
Smith looked at him without really seeing him. 'Who cares about the gold?'
There was a long and, for Tracy and Maria, rather uncomfortable silence. Smith sighed again and replaced the coin in his pocket.
'Another thing,' Smith went on. 'Hamilton appears to have stumbled across some sort of an El Dorado.'
'It seems less and less likely that Hamilton is the kind of man to stumble across anything,' Maria said. 'He's a hunter, a seeker — but never a stumbler. He has sources of information denied other so-called civilised people, especially among the tribes not yet classified as pacified. He starts off with some sort of clue that points him in the right direction then starts quartering the ground, narrowing the area of search until he finally pinpoints what he's after. The element of chance doesn't enter into that man's calculations.'