'Yes, monsieur. Normally it is locked but one would only have to ask the chambermaid.'
'What address did this Monsieur Ansermoz give?'
She had done her homework. It was a Geneva hotel, the Bernine, 22 Place Cornavin. Instinct told me that it wouldn't be any good making inquiries for Max Ansermoz there.
Quite genuinely, the girl said, 'I hope this information will not make trouble for Mademoiselle Zelia.'
'On the contrary. I think it will help her recovery. Her father will be most grateful to you.'
'It is a pleasure to help, monsieur. If you would wish it, some of the hotel servants might remember this gentleman. Maybe, by tomorrow morning, I could tell you what he looked like, no?'
I said I would be grateful for any scrap of information, no matter what the cost of the trouble, and then I went up to my room and sat on the little balcony, smoking, and looking across the lake to the lights of Aix-les-Bains.
So, Zelia had met Monsieur Max Ansermoz at the hotel. It had been careless of her to put a phone call through from his room, but then at that time she probably had not realized that there was any great need for care. Something had happened after leaving the hotel which had brought dull care on to the scene. After leaving the hotel, somewhere along the line, she had started losing things, her car, her luggage, her memory, and who knew what else… my guess was that Max Ansermoz knew. It would be interesting to know what Zelia's present feelings towards him were. It would be even more interesting — for this was my particular baby — to know what he had done with the red Mercedes.
I went back into the room, picked up the phone and booked a call to Paris 408.8230. It came through about twenty minutes later and I was put on to a duty officer, sitting bored miles away in 26 Rue Arnengaud, Saint Cloud, who was distinctly cagey about the call. I told him he could check my credentials with Commissaire Maziol or Detective Chief Superintendent Gerald Ulster Foley, but either way I would like any information Interpol was prepared to pass on about one Max Ansermoz, if he were on their files; either here if before nine in the morning or to my office in London if later. Reluctantly he said he would see what could be done and then rang off, no doubt to go back to reading his Paris-Match.
I didn't get my call before nine, but for twenty francs extra I had a description of Ansermoz. The hall porter remembered him well, a tall, dark gentleman between thirty and forty who had arrived with a young lady in a red Mercedes and had departed with her in the car the following morning — and he'd had with him a dog, a white poodle. He was a very nice, pleasant gentleman and was French, or at least he thought so, but, of course, he might well have been Swiss.
I tipped and thanked him, and then headed south down the Route Napoleon.
I reached Cannes late, largely because I had stopped for a very leisurely lunch and put a call in to Wilkins afterwards, which had taken over half an hour to come through.
She had had a message for me, through Guffy from Interpol. There was no one of the name Max Ansermoz on their records, but he might easily be there under another name. Would I please supply a description if possible and any other details which might be helpful. I passed the description, the name of the Geneva hotel and the fact that he probably owned a small white poodle, for Wilkins to relay.
'And Miss Julia Yunge-Brown called on behalf of her father and wanted to know where you would be staying in Cannes. I'm to ring them as soon as I know.'
'Tell them the Majestic, if I can get a room there, which I ought to do because they've got three hundred. Have you looked into the Athena Holdings set-up yet?'
'I've got someone on it today.'
'Good. I'll phone you tomorrow about it.'
Between that moment and the time I arrived in Cannes somebody, I was to discover, had kept the wires busy. I got a room without trouble, ran the car around the corner from the Rue des Serbes and found a garage for it. I had two drinks, dinner, and then a short stroll down the street on to the Boulevard de la Croisette to get a whiff of the sea breeze and then back to bed. Somewhere in the port was O'Dowda's yacht, the Ferox — which was a name that had not surprised me, knowing his passion for fishing and knowing also something now of the nature of the man… By any standards he was a cannibal trout preying on large and small fry.
In my room I dropped into a chair, lit a last cigarette before bed and began to think about Zelia and Max Ansermoz, and more particularly of the combinations of human experience and passion which, so soon after a no doubt romantic night at the Ombremont, could have made her decide to lose her memory of the events of the next two days and with it the red
Mercedes. Somewhere along that line somebody had had a change of heart. I didn't get far with the obvious possibilities because the telephone rang.
There was, the desk informed me, a Mr Alakwe to see me.
It was nearly eleven o'clock and my first instinct was to tell them to tell Mr Alakwe to go to hell. Then curiosity as to how he could have traced me made me tell them to send him up.
He came in, dressed now for the Continent in a lightweight fawn linen suit, smiling all over his face, snub nose creased up like a wrinkled black plum. He carried a panama hat with an orange-and-silver ribbon round it. His tie was pale blue with a yellow horseshoe and hunting crop, rampant, over a bilious green shirt with a fine yellow stripe. He still wore his ginger suede shoes. He shook my hand and then presented me with his card.
I said, 'Don't let's go through that ritual again, Mr Jimbo Alakwe, Esquire.'
He shook his head, his smile almost cutting his face in half, and said, 'Not Jimbo, Mr Carver. Jimbo's my brother.'
I looked at the card. He was right. This was Mr Najib Alakwe, Esquire — in the same line of business, but with an address in Cannes in the Rue de Mimont which, as far as I could remember, was somewhere behind the station. I turned the card over. The quotation on the back read: Un bon ami vaut mieux que cents parents. Well, I wasn't going to argue with that.
I handed the card back and said, 'Twins?'
'Yes, Mr Carver.'
'How the hell am I going to tell you apart?'
'Very simple. I am always in France and Jimbo is always in England.'
I wanted to ask about the ginger shoes but decided not to because it would be some simple explanation I should have thought of for myself.
I said, 'How did you know where to find me?'
'Again very simple. Jimbo telephones me with the information.'
'And how did he get it?'
'This is not for me to know. We keep our departments very separate except in peripatetic cases like yours, Mr Carver, where the subject is long-ranging. May I say already I have a great admiration for you. Man, you're a damned fast worker.'
I sat down, suddenly feeling very tired. Jimbo and Najib might look and act like a couple of clowns, but there had to be more to them than that. They had to be good for far more than a laugh. To prove it, Najib put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a gun.
I said, 'Is that really necessary?'
He said, 'Man, I hope not, because I am very bad at aiming.' He half turned and called over his shoulder, 'Panda!'
From the little hallway outside the bedroom door, where she had been waiting, a young woman came into the room. Not that 'came' was the word. She breezed in like a whirlwind, smacked Najib on the back and waltzed up to me in a cloud of some very strong scent, ran her fingers through my hair, tugged the lobe of my right ear and said, 'Whoof! Whoof! Happy to know you, Rexy boy.'
Wearily, I said to Najib, 'She's not real, is she?'
Panda gave me a big grin, 'You betcha, daddy-ho. Every curve, every muscle, genuine human and jumping with life.'