“All right.”
“I suggest Harrods. They have excellent ones there.”
“All right.”
“At three o’clock sharp enter the small church park that’s just off South Audley Street between Mount Street and South Street. Do you know it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you might. Most Americans do. At three o’clock push your pram down to the section where it narrows and comes out on Carlos Place. There’s a bench on the left. If you’re in doubt about which bench, there’s a small plaque on it that says that it’s a gift from an American woman who spent many happy hours there. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Have the money in the pram. Sitting on the bench will be a young woman dressed as a nanny. She, too, will have a pram. In it will be the sword. You may bend over and inspect the sword for two minutes. She meanwhile will inspect the money in your pram. Is this all quite clear?”
“Yes.”
“After two minutes, you will wheel the pram with the sword back up toward Audley Street. The girl will go in the opposite direction. Incidentally, dear man, do have the money in something a trifle more convenient this time, will you?”
“Yes.”
“As for trying something clever, such as taking a picture of the girl, or finding out who she is, don’t bother. She will be hired for the afternoon and she will know absolutely nothing. Oh. One more thing. You will be watched, of course. Now is everything quite clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said the man on the phone and hung up.
I put down the phone and turned back toward Deskins. “Three all rights, one no, and five yeses,” he said. “Your telephone conversations aren’t too informative, are they?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
He stared at me for a long moment and then said, “Eddie Apex.”
“What about him?”
“You’re up to something with Eddie, something that smells, but I don’t know what.”
“Why don’t you ask Eddie?”
“I already have. This afternoon. I asked him about you and I asked him about poor Billie Batts.”
“What did he say?”
“He said you were an old and good friend of his.”
“What’s he say about Batts?”
“He said he’d never heard of him and you know what I thought?”
“What?”
“I thought he was lying both times.”
Chapter Sixteen
The cab driver didn’t like Tick-Tock Tamil’s address on Start Street in Paddington and he didn’t think that I should either.
“You sure you got the right address, sir?”
“I’m sure,” I said, handing over what was on the meter plus an adequate tip.
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t go in there, not if they paid me.”
“That’s because you’ve got good sense,” I said, but he was already driving off.
I suspected that the house at 13 Start Street had never been much of an address, not even when it had been built eighty or ninety years before. It had always been ugly, this cramped three-story structure that was far too narrow and built of dark and dirty brick that made it virtually indistinguishable from the rows of houses that had been thrown up on both sides of it.
What did distinguish 13 Start Street from its neighbors was that not all of its windows were broken out, or boarded up, as were the ones in the rest of the houses that lined the street. Across the way, old posters covered the vacant fronts of three shops that had once housed a dry cleaner, a butcher, and a tobacconist.
It looked like a condemned street, condemned by time and decay, or perhaps by speculators, or even by the ruling local politicians who may have decided that they should substitute another square mile of gloomy council flats for another square mile of gloomy slum dwellings. Everyone else on the street had moved, or fled, except Tick-Tock Tamil who appeared to be the lone holdout. I assumed that he was exercising squatter’s rights at 13 Start Street and that whoever owned the building was having one hell of a time getting him out. I understand that if you know the ropes, you can do that in London — squat. Tick-Tock would certainly know the ropes.
There was a bay window and to the right of it a short flight of steps. I went up the steps and knocked on the door. The bay window had curtains whose pattern of faded red and yellow roses was turned toward the street so that passersby could admire the occupant’s good taste. The curtain moved a little as someone peeked out. After a few moments a young blond girl, not much more than seventeen or eighteen, opened the door and let me look through her see-through blouse.
“Hello, love,” she said. “Like to come to our party?”
The blond hair had come out of a bottle or a tube, but she seemed to have spent a lot of time on it, and it hung down in carefully careless ringlets. Her face was pretty in a pinched sort of way, but she wore too much makeup, especially too much green eyeshadow. She took a deep breath so that I could have a better view of what lay beneath the see-through blouse. What there was, was fine.
“Tick-Tock in?” I said.
“I’m sure I don’t know who you mean.”
“Mr. Tamil,” I said.
“You a friend of his?”
“Of long standing.”
“You’re not the law.”
“No.”
“You know why I know you’re not the law?”
“No. Why?”
“Because you’re American, ain’t you?” The “ain’t you” came out more like “einchew” and the rest of her words had a strong London tang. She was, I decided, a native daughter.
“Why don’t you be a good girl and run tell Tick-Tock that I’d like to see him.”
She shrugged and turned her head. “Tick-Tock!” she screamed.
“What?” It was a man’s voice.
“There’s a Yank here who says he’s a friend of yours.”
He had changed. The last time I had seen him had been in the Ritz Bar and he had been wearing white tie and tails. It was one of his work uniforms then. On his head had been a white silk turban and in his pocket was a large, old-fashioned-looking watch, heavy enough to be made out of solid gold. Its back flipped open and there, in what appeared to be fine engraving, was inscribed, “To His Most Royal Highness from his Most Loyal Friend.” And underneath that was the single name: Curzon.
“I move nearly a dozen of them a week,” Tick-Tock had told me as we had sat there drinking our whiskies under the Ritz Bar’s swooping pink and cream ceiling. “They bring anywhere from twenty to fifty pounds each — the average is about thirty-five.”
“What do they cost you?” I had asked.
“Five pounds.”
“They look to be worth a lot more.”
“I have a chap in Hammersmith who runs them up for me. We use American insides and case. It’s called a Westclox Railroad Special. We tried using Swiss works, but they don’t tick quite loudly enough, if you follow me.”
“Sure.”
“Well, the engraving is not engraving at all. It’s stamped, of course. The face looks hand-painted, but it’s actually printed on special paper. And then we use a little lead here and there to give it weight.”
“What about the gold?” I had said. “I’d swear that it was real gold.”
“Oh, it is. But this chap in Hammersmith has his own method of electroplating. It spreads the gold so thin that if you just keep it in your pocket for a week or two, it will wear right through. I doubt that we use half an ounce on a hundred of them.”
“How do you work it?”
“You will change my name, of course, when you write it?”
“That was the agreement.”
“I really don’t know why I’m doing this.”
“Because you’re going into something else,” I had said.
“Yes. I suppose that’s it. But you wish to know how I work it?”