Going off like that with the Mercedes almost landed me in a great deal of trouble, and I have been very angry.
I decided to have nothing more to do with you, until yesterday it came to my attention — through Aristide, you will remember him, always two ears to the ground—
(That was safe enough for Mimi and Tony when they read it because they would assume Aristide was some genuine nark known to both Otto and Max.)
— that you in fact used the car to pull off a neat little job in your usual line with a companion who — from Aristide's description, and you know how reliable he is in the matter of police dossiers — sounds just like the Turin type, Tony Collard, you were telling me about. I presume he did the respray.
Well, dear Otto, my friend, since I virtually provided the car and as times are never as good as they should be, I've decided that I should have my cut. And no argument.
I shall be here for the next two days, and shall expect you. If you don't turn up I shall let Aristide — to whom I owe a favour — have a few details of you and this Tony Collard, and where to find you. (My love to the delightful Mimi, by the way, though how you stick that baby I can't think. Not your style.) I am sure Aristide will promptly find a market for such information with the police. So don't let me down, dear friend. I promise to be reasonable about my share — but don't think I don't know how much you two got away with.
Salutations.
I found a wad of cancelled cheques in the bureau and without much care forged the signature 'Max' to the letter. I addressed it to Otto Libsch at Mimi's flat and then drove into Gap and sent it express. When I got back I was greeted by the poodle, all its elastic reset, gave it a stroll through the pines and then shut it up in the kitchen.
Back in the main lounge I settled down with a large glass of Max's brandy and pulled out Durnford's sheet of paper, which I had already glanced at, knowing that it demanded a lot of thought. Before I could start on it, the ginger cat walked in from nowhere and came and sat in the empty fireplace and stared at me, accepting a new owner without comment.
The list of guests was in Durnford's handwriting. The château had been given over to them completely for five days. Durnford commented (the list was full of little comments, as though he were aching to say more, willing to wound but afraid to strike) that O'Dowda often let business associates and friends have the use of the château. Not all the guests had stayed for the full five days. The principal guest was a General Seyfu Gonwalla. Durnford commented that he did not have to tell me who he was. He did not. The General had stayed there in strict incognito — none of the servants had known who he was. (For my money, it was probable that he had made the trip to Europe in strict incognito, too.) He had stayed four out of the five days, missing the first, when there had only been one guest, the General's aide-de-camp, who had preceded him to see that all the appropriate arrangements had been made. And, surprise, surprise, the aide-de-camp was named as Captain Najib Alakwe. (I'd chewed that one over for a long time during the night drive, and for my money again, Najib had to be a Jekyll-and-Hyde character, though at the moment I didn't know which of the two I had had dealings with.) Najib had stayed the full five days. The next guest, and she had stayed for the middle three days, was a Mrs Falia Makse (strict incognito). She was, Durnford noted, the wife of the Minister of Agriculture in General Seyfu Gonwalla's government. Also for the middle three days there had been present a Miss Panda Bubakar. There was no comment against her name — though I could have made one. For the last two days only — and no comment also — there had been present a Mr Alexi Kukarin. And that was the lot.
At the bottom of the sheet, Durnford had added a note:
You realize that in giving you this information I am very much putting myself in your hands. I do so because I flatter myself that I am a good judge of character. The secret apartment in the Mercedes is behind the large air-intake opening on the right-hand side of the facia board. You just unscrew the circular vent with an anti-clockwise movement. You will, of course, destroy this communication. So far as the Press, etc., are concerned, no one knew of the presence of the above guests at the château.
I destroyed it then and there, burning it in the fireplace while the cat watched without much interest. That I did destroy it didn't necessarily mean that Durnford was a good judge of character. It simply struck me as a sensible thing to do with people like the Alakwe brothers, Aristide, Tony Collard and so on around.
I sat back and gave some of my attention to the rest of the brandy. The other part I gave to O'Dowda and General Seyfu Gonwalla. If I were right, Gonwalla, as Head of State, was the guy who now thought he should have the twenty thousand pounds' worth of bonds. Odd that O'Dowda thought not, yet gladly lent him the château for a five-day conference, if that were the word for it.
I reached back and picked up the phone and booked a call to Wilkins in London. It came through much later.
Wilkins said, 'Where are you?'
'France.'
'I know that, but where?' She sounded cross and clucking like a disturbed mother hen.
'A chalet in the Haute Savoie, very comfortable, with a white poodle and a marmalade cat, well, ginger, to keep me company. No women — glad?'
She said, 'I thought you must be dead.'
'Why?'
'Because that Mr Jimbo Alakwe was here this morning offering to buy out your share in this firm.' She paused, enjoying the moment to come. 'He said that with imaginative and efficient running he could make a real success of it.'
'He's a comic — but not as much as he would like people to think. Anyway, I'm alive and kicking, and I want a precis of all the press comments you can get on General Seyfu Gonwalla, Mrs Falia Makse, and possibly though I doubt it, a Miss Panda Bubakar. And I particularly mean the outer-edge comments that run near libel. You know the kind of stuff, "great and good friend of". Also — I hope you're getting all this down?'
'The tape is on, naturally.'
'Also any record you can find of dealings, difficulties or troubles that any of O'Dowda's companies, especially that United Africa job, may have had, or are having, with Gonwallas regime. Also, ring Guffy, or invite him out for a coffee and Danish cakes, and see if he'll admit that at some time or the other, meaning fairly recently, he's had some more anonymous letters suggesting that O'Dowda is worth investigating from a personal point of view, that is to say—'
'You needn't elaborate. But I doubt if Superintendent Foley would tell me anything like that.'
'You try. He goes for blue-eyed redheads. Or offer to darn his socks, the heels are always gone.'
'Is that all?' The old tartness was back.
'No,'. I gave her the telephone number of the chalet, so that she could ring back, and went on, 'And don't fuss. I'm well and happy and not lonely. In fact I've an interesting guest arriving soon who will be able to tell me, possibly under duress, where the Mercedes is located. Isn't that good?'
'You sound,' she said, 'too pleased with yourself. That means you're probably up to your neck in trouble.'
'Well, so what? That's life. Didn't the OT expert on it say that Man is of few days, and full of trouble?'
'Or else you've been drinking. Goodbye.'
She was right, of course. It's funny how you can sit in a chair occupied with your thoughts and the brandies go down unnoticed.
I had a great night, ten hours of dreamless sleep with the poodle at the foot of the bed and the cat on the spare pillow.
The cat woke me by kneading determinedly on my chest, and when I blinked at it said it was time to let him out to forage for his breakfast which I could hear singing in the nearby scrub. The poodle slept on, knowing there was no point in moving until I was down slaving away in the kitchen at his and my breakfast.