Macadam shook his head. Inchball had actually dozed off.
‘Oh, there was one thing came for you.’ Macadam handed over an envelope. Quinn noticed immediately that his name and the address were written in green ink.
Quinn took out a mimeograph of about two hundred names arranged in several columns on a single sheet of paper. Some of the names were marked with a green x.
Also enclosed was a brief note on stationery headed ‘Visionary Productions’, handwritten and signed in the same green ink by Hartmann.
My Dear Inspector Quinn,
Please find enclosed the list of guests invited to last evening’s gala screening of ‘The Eyes of the Beholder’. I have marked the names of those who also attended the party afterwards, approximately 50 in number. I sincerely hope that this is of some use to you in your endeavours to apprehend the vicious attacker of that poor girl.
Your servant,
Oskar Hartmann
Quinn glanced down the columns of names, until he found his own. Then he handed the sheet back to Macadam.
‘I want you to go through that and check the names against the files.’
‘Each and every name, sir?’
‘You may overlook mine.’
‘And may I ask, sir? Are we to switch our surveillance operation to this new address of Inchball’s? Perhaps deploy the kinematographic camera again? It would have to be in a different van, sir, as Hartmann has seen the baker’s. If we could catch Dortmunder on film coming to this address it would clinch it. What possible business could a German barber have with one of these companies?’
Quinn nodded thoughtfully, without committing himself. ‘An interesting idea. First, however, I would like you to do some background checks on the companies. See if you can find out the names of the directors. Then you can cross-check them with the list of names from Hartmann. Oh, and did you have a chance to follow up on the girl for me?’
‘The telephone is just one of the many boons of modern technology that have revolutionized police work. Instead of wearing out my boots tramping the streets, I was able to make my enquiries without leaving my desk.’ There was a tone to Macadam’s voice that suggested the thought: You really ought to try it one day, sir! ‘No girl was admitted to any London hospital last night with injuries consistent with the removal of an eye.’
‘And this Doctor Casaubon?’
‘There is a Doctor Augustus Casaubon listed in Kelly’s Directory on Harley Street. Number seventeen.’
‘Does his surgery possess a telephone?’
‘It does. But no one is answering it this morning. I will keep trying, of course.’
‘In this case, perhaps it might be worth our while to apply a little boot leather to the task. I shall go there myself. Inchball …’
‘Nguh?’
‘I have a very important task for you.’
Inchball blinked and winced as he struggled to sit up in his chair.
‘Go home and get some sleep.’
THIRTY-ONE
Magnus Porrick stirred in the darkness, turning his back on fitful, flickering dreams. The four tip-up auditorium seats he was stretched out across shook and groaned in protest.
He had not slept well. His back began to ache almost as soon as he lay down. It was now locked in a muscle clench of pain. And he was cold. God, it was cold in the Palace at night, after the massed bodies of successive audiences had finally vacated the rows. Once he had started shivering, he could not stop. And every shiver sent a fresh jolt of pain shooting through his limbs.
No, he had not gone home. He had thought it best to give Edna a little time to calm down. She would come round eventually, he felt sure. He had needed time too. Time to sober up.
The plush of the seat dug into his face, stubble against stubble. He kept his eyes closed tightly though he was awake, as if dreading what the day might offer to his sight. The image of that aristocratic erection was a chastening example. Some things, once seen, are hard to eradicate from the memory, however much we might wish it. Some sights change everything.
Movement was painful. It was as if the darkness was a vice that gripped him tightly. It was fruitless to struggle. The vice held him facing the memory of last night.
Granted, it was all very sordid and unpleasant. There was nothing he could do about that. It was a question of business now. And there are all sorts of unpleasant businesses that men steel themselves to undertake. (Undertaking being one of them. Was the undertaker squeamish about manhandling the dead? Porrick doubted it.) A lesser man might give in to the natural instinct to put it all behind him. But he could not afford to take that view. The darkness would not let him take that view. He was a businessman. A businessman was obliged to look for the commercial opportunity in any given situation, and exploit it.
Business consisted of the relationships between men. That was why the handshake was so important. Last night, something had changed in the relationship between Magnus Porrick and Lord Dunwich. Both men knew it. Why, Lord Dunwich would have been amazed if he had not taken advantage of it.
But he need not be in any hurry. Indeed, it was preferable to wait for Lord Dunwich to come to him. And when that happened, the first thing to do would be to reassure his lordship of his goodwill. He must insist that he had known nothing about the Novaks’ grubby plan to entrap him; he was a pawn in their game. And if Lord Dunwich doubted it was a plan, he would reluctantly disabuse him. At which point he would offer to intercede with the Novaks. He could put himself forward as a man of influence in the motion picture business. It wouldn’t be overstating it too much to say that he could see to it that neither of them ever made another film. Certainly, if his plans with Waechter came to fruition, he could ensure that they never appeared in another of the Austrian’s films.
And so, without doing anything very much, he would manufacture that most valuable of commodities: the gratitude of a rich and powerful man.
Porrick kept his eyes closed, as if he was afraid to let reality intrude on his daydreams. And yet, what was there to worry about? It all seemed watertight. And whatever happened, he would be in the clear. He himself had done nothing wrong. What he was proposing was not blackmail. It was more a question of leverage.
Something, however, nagged at the edge of his consciousness, a vague awareness that there was something he had forgotten.
Of course, this would all take time. Things had to be allowed to unfold at their own pace. You couldn’t force it. And in the meantime, if Kirkwood’s warnings had any substance, his chain of Porrick’s Palaces could come tumbling down around him.
No, no, it’d be all right. He’d show them all. He’d turn it round. He had a plan. And he didn’t just mean the business with Lord Dunwich. He had another plan …
But there was so much to keep in mind. Everything contingent on everything else.
The other plan, the business with Waechter. Yes, that was the thing. The production company. He’d turn it round with the production company. That would be a great success, he’d show them. He had a secret weapon. He had …
And at that point he sat up and opened his eyes. The released seats sprang into the upright position. The auditorium was in utter darkness still. Porrick had no way of knowing what time it was, but the lights would not be put on until it was time to admit the matinee audience at eleven. The heavy drapes at the entrance prevented any light from the foyer from seeping in.