“Are you arresting me?”
“No. You’ve had enough for one day. We’ll talk to you next week. Like you say, the Fat Man has the Maltesers and that’s the end of it. We’ll be in touch.”
I showed them to the door. Snape stopped in the doorway and turned around. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
I’d forgotten until then. It was Christmas Eve. “Yeah . . . Merry Christmas, Chief Inspector,” I said. “And to you, Boyle.”
Boyle grunted. He probably didn’t even know what Christmas was.
An hour later I was lying in hot water with soap bubbles up to my neck and Herbert’s plastic duck floating around my feet. My body wasn’t a pretty sight just then. What with the ropes, the cement, and the general manhandling, I had more bruises than I cared to count. But it felt good in the bath. I needed to relax. It was time for some serious thinking.
What did the Maltesers unlock?
I knew the answer. I knew I knew the answer.
It had to be something near Herbert’s apartment. Johnny Naples had left Notting Hill Gate with the Maltesers and a pair of scissors. By then he’d found the answer. He knew where he was going and he went to Fulham. But he’d been followed—and rather than lead anyone to his destination, he’d come to us. So it had to be something near. But what was there near the apartment connected with the Falcon?
Four days later we’d found Naples dying. He’d managed to say two things: “The Falcon” and “the sun.” I assumed it was sun—with a u. Henry von Falkenberg didn’t have a son . . . at least, not one that we’d heard about. But what did the sun have to do with the Falcon? Nothing . . . unless he’d been talking about another falcon. Maybe not a man. A bird. Or a statue of a bird.
And then I thought about the Maltesers themselves and about a phrase that Clifford Taylor had used. The journalist had described the laser as “the shining light.” The sun was a shining light, too. But the phrase bothered me. I’d seen those words somewhere before. The Maltesers.
When the Fat Man had taken them, he’d looked on the bottom. I’d already tricked the Professor once. He’d told the Fat Man to find something, to check that they were the real ones. Henry von Falkenberg would have had to mark them in some way. And there was an easy way.
You’ll see that there’s a number with thirteen digits underneath.
That was what the journalist had said. And I knew that number. I’d read it so many times that I’d learned it by heart: 3521 201 000000. That number was the final clue.
I pulled the bath plug out with my toes and wrapped a towel around my body. Then, still dripping water, I went downstairs. It took me an hour before I found what I was looking for, but there it was—a piece of paper with another number on it. I’d written that number myself on the day of the Falcon’s funeral.
There were thirteen digits on the Maltesers box—but the last six of them were all zeroes. Cross those out and you’d be left with seven digits.
A telephone number. And I knew which telephone it rang.
That was when our own telephone rang. The noise of the bell was so sudden, so loud, that I almost dropped the towel. I went into the office and picked it up.
“Nick Diamond?”
The voice was ugly with hatred. I didn’t believe a voice could hate that much.
“Gott,” I said.
“We have your brother.”
That took me by surprise. Herbert? But that was the way Gott worked. He’d snatched Lauren, then me. Why shouldn’t he add Herbert to his list?
“If you don’t give us what we want,” Gott snarled, “he dies.”
I didn’t have what they wanted, but I wasn’t going to say that. Because suddenly I knew everything. It all made sense. I should have seen it a long, long time before.
“Come to the cemetery,” I said. I was talking even before I knew what I was saying. “I’ll meet you at the Falcon’s grave. Tomorrow at twelve o’clock.” I hung up.
I didn’t want to get into any arguments.
Then I opened the drawer of Herbert’s desk. On the day we had first met the Fat Man, he had given us a card with his telephone number. I called it now, hoping there would be someone in.
“Yes?” It was a flat, neutral voice.
“I want to talk to the Fat Man,” I said.
“He’s not here.”
“It’s important I get a message to him.”
“Who is this?”
“Nick Diamond.”
There was a pause. Then the voice said, “What is the message?”
“I know what the key opens,” I said. “And I’m willing to do a deal. Tell the Fat Man to be at Brompton Cemetery tomorrow. At the Falcon’s grave at five to twelve exactly. Alone. Have you got that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I hung up on him, too.
After that I made one last call. That was the hardest to make. It cost me five million dollars. But the way I looked at it was like this. The Fat Man had the Maltesers. Gott (and maybe Himmell) had Herbert. And I had the answer. If I’d planned things right, it would all sort itself out the next day at noon.
If I didn’t . . . well, we were meeting in a cemetery. At least they wouldn’t have to carry me far.
I just hoped it would be a sunny day.
THE SHINING LIGHT
There are only about three or four days in the year when the Brompton Cemetery is more or less empty—and Christmas Day, of course, is one of them. That would suit my plans. Witnesses were one thing I could do without. It was eleven forty-five when I walked up to the Falcon’s grave. There was nobody in sight. Fortunately it was another crisp, cloudless day. The sun had no warmth, but it was bright. At least the weather was on my side.
I stood beside the Falcon’s grave. The earth was still fresh where they’d buried him, like a sore that hadn’t healed. It would take the grass time to grow over it—but where better to find time than in a cemetery? I looked at the memorial, that Victorian telephone booth with the stone falcon perched on top. There’s an old saying I thought of. “You can’t take it with you.” But the Falcon had—or at least, he’d tried his best to. I read the inscription on the memorial. I’d read it before.
THE PATH OF THE JUST IS AS SHINING LIGHT, THAT SHINETH MORE AND MORE UNTO THE PERFECT DAY.
The Falcon must have smiled when he had that cut in. I wondered if he was still smiling in his grave.
I heard the gate grind open down at the Fulham Road. That had to be the Fat Man. Sure enough, he appeared a few moments later, wearing a camel-hair coat with real humps. He carried a shooting stick and walked at a jaunty pace, for all the world like a man taking a little exercise before his Christmas lunch.
He saw me standing by the grave, raised the shooting stick, and sauntered over. He was smiling, but only with his lips. His eyes didn’t trust me.
“Merry Christmas, Fat Man,” I said.
“I hope so,” he replied. “And I hope you’re not wasting my time, my boy. You should know by now that I don’t take kindly to—”
“Have you got the Maltesers?” I cut in.
He nodded. “In my pocket.”
“Let me see them.”
He took them out but held on to them like he was afraid I was going to grab them.
“Read me the number on the bottom,” I said.
He turned the box over: “3521 201 000000.” It was the right number. “You say you know what these chocolates meant to the Falcon,” he said in a graveyard voice. “You say you want to make a deal. What deal?”
“We’ll split the money,” I said. “Fifty-fifty.”
“Eighty-twenty.”
“Sixty-forty.”
We were juggling figures. It didn’t matter to me. I knew that once I showed the Fat Man what to do with the Maltesers, I’d be dead. But it was important that he hung on to them. They had to be out in the open.