'I was stupid about the Max Ansermoz letter. I should have guessed that was what you wanted me to do. You must have enjoyed yourself.'
I said, 'Between ourselves, Max is dead.'
'Dead?'
'Yes. You want me to look unhappy about it?'
'But you—'
'No, I didn't do it. But Max is dead and I'm dry-eyed about the whole thing. I'm only interested in a motor car. So's your father.'
'Stepfather.'
'Well, yes, if you're sticking to niceties. He knows nothing. Nobody knows anything, except me — and for some things I have no memory at all. Now stop doing an ice-maiden act on me. Write it off to experience and get into gear again.'
'You have said nothing to anyone?'
'That's right.'
She was a big girl, and she was embarrassed suddenly, and she wasn't very good at carrying it off. For a moment I was afraid that she would come across and embrace me, crushing me in those lovely long strong arms. However, she got it under control and slowly held out a hand to me.
'I am very grateful to you.'
She had my hand in hers and now I was embarrassed. 'Just forget it.'
I got my hand away. She clumped to the door in her heavy shoes and paused before going out.
'I wish there was something I could do to show you how grateful I am.'
I said, 'You could try smiling again. It's a knack that comes back easily.'
'It's not easy to smile in this house. It has too many memories for me… of my mother. I have decided to go away and get a job.'
'I'm all for the job. You'll land one easier though with a smile on your face. Try it.'
It came back easily. She gave it to me, a slow warm smile that was followed by a little shake of her head and then a laugh. Then she went.
I snapped the lid of my case down, glad that Max was dead.
In the hallway, down a long perspective green and white marble slabs Durnford was waiting for me. He came up to me with the practised glide of one used to walking in marble halls, and said, 'You're going?'
'Be glad,' I said. 'Besides, I don't like staying in a waxworks. I presume you've heard from the boss that I'm reinstated?'
'Yes.'
'In that case, could I have the list of people who were staying here before Miss Zelia took off with the Mercedes.'
He handed me a sheet of paper and said, 'I think you should know that I had been given strict instructions from Mr O'Dowda that I was never to make that guest-list available to anyone.'
'Then why me?'
'That's not a question I'm prepared to answer.' I slipped the paper into my pocket and gave him a cocked-eyebrow look.
'You don't like him, do you?'
'He is my employer.'
'You'd like to see him come a cropper, a real trip-up, flat on his face?'
He gave me a thin smile then, and said, 'I'm hoping for more than that. And I've been waiting a long time. Contrary to what you imagine, I have no animosity towards you. I think you may turn out to be the deus ex machina.'
'What you mean is that if I find the car, you hope that I will walk off with whatever is in it. Or hand it over to someone else?'
'Possibly.'
'You really hate his guts, don't you? Tell me, have you ever written any anonymous letters about him to Interpol or Scotland Yard?'
'Why should I?' He was well in control.
'It's just a thought I had. Anyway, whatever game you are playing I think it's a dangerous one. You watch it, unless you want to end up in the waxworks with all the others.'
I picked up my case and went outside to my car. Standing alongside it was Julia.
She said, 'Was everything all right?'
'Fine. Your father almost trusts me, Zelia's grateful, and Durnford is full of hints. What are you registering?'
She said, 'Why is it that you can't talk to me without being cross or vulgar?'
'It's something you do to me. There's nothing I'd like better than a beautiful relationship but I always seem to knock on the wrong door.'
She lit a cigarette as I put my case in the car.
I paused at the door before getting in and said, 'Don't do anything stupid like trying to follow me.'
'It wasn't in my mind. Where are you going, anyway?'
'To find Otto Libsch. Any messages?'
She gave me a quick, almost apprehensive look. 'Why should there be?'
'I had the impression that you knew him, or something about him.'
'I don't know why you should think that.'
'No? I'll tell you. When you came to my room that first night, there was more on your mind than just protecting Zelia. When I mentioned his name in Turin, it was no surprise to you, and right now you haven't said you don't know him. Don't worry, I'm not going to force anything from you. I just want to find a car. That's my brief.'
'Did you mention him to Zelia?'
'No. The less said to her about either of them the better. But I mentioned him to your father, naturally, and his big happy face remained quite unchanged. Now, do you want to talk about Otto, or do I get moving?'
She blinked at me a little and bit her lip. Then she shook her head, and said, 'There's no point. Absolutely no point whatsoever… it couldn't change things from being what they are.' Then, her manner hardening, she went on, 'You go. Go and find your car. That is important. That's money, that's business. Things that really count in this life.'
She turned abruptly away from me and made for the house. I drove off, not pleased with myself, knowing that she needed help, and knowing too that it was no moment for me to get involved in anything else. This car business was all my hands could hold at the moment — particularly with Interpol sticking their noses in.
CHAPTER SIX
'And Laughter holding both his sides.'
I drove without hurry south from Evian. In Grenoble I went into the Post Office and found the Botin for the Gap-St Bonnet district and turned up Max Ansermoz's number at the Chalet Bayard. I rang through — it was now about seven o'clock — and the phone rang for ten minutes without being answered. That was good enough for me. With any luck the only living thing in the house was the white poodle and by now it must be damned hungry.
I had a quick meal in Grenoble, and then went south down the N85 towards St Bonnet and Gap. I didn't try to push it. This was my second night on the road and my eyelids had begun to feel like heavy shutters that every bump in the road brought down. I pulled up for a couple of hours' sleep somewhere around a place called Corps, and then drove on to the Chalet Bayard. I came to it at dawn with little wisps of mist lying between the trees and the air full of bird-song, which shows how isolated the place was because normally if a bird gives out with an aria anywhere in France some chasseur promptly blows its head off.
The front door was still open and I walked straight in and was greeted by the poodle lying curled in an armchair. A few days without food had taught it manners and it came to me, trembling and with all the bounce gone from it. I gave it some water in the kitchen — the cat had disappeared, which didn't surprise me, cats can knock spots off any dog in the independence and survival stakes — and then fed it a bowl of scraps which I had scrounged in the restaurant where I had fed. In half an hour I knew it would be its same old jaunty, face-licking self. While it was tucking in I went upstairs and had a bath and shave, and then came down and carted Max's typewriter and some of his stationery to the round table, and wrote a letter to Otto. I had to write it in English because my French would never have been good enough to fool anyone that it had come from Max. And the fact that it was in English wouldn't matter to the people who opened it because I guessed they wouldn't know much about the way Max usually wrote to Otto.
The letter read:
My dear Otto,