He quibbled over my terms and I stuck fast. He gave way.
He gave me a list of O'Dowda's movements, addresses and so on for the next two weeks and against two of them he had made a red asterisk. They were the names of hotels, and at these, if I wanted him, I was to make personal or telephone contact before eight at night. After that hour on no account was he to be disturbed.
I said, 'Why?'
Durnford just ignored the question.
He gave me an itinerary of Zelia's movements with the Mercedes from Evian, so far as they knew it, and her present location which was on O'Dowda's yacht at Cannes.
I said, 'Do you really think she has lost her memory?'
Stiffly, he said, 'If Miss Zelia says she has, then she has. I have never had occasion to doubt her word.'
'That's good to hear. By the way — how does she get on with her stepfather?'
He considered this, then said curtly, 'Not well.'
I said, 'How did her mother get on with him?'
Something moved in him, briefly but violently, and I couldn't miss the quick tremor of control as he held it back.
'I don't see the relevance of that question. You're being hired to find a car.'
'Which includes finding a reason for Miss Zelia's loss of memory, which might arise from a lot of things. However, let's stick to the car if you don't care to discuss O'Dowda's marital relationships.'
'I don't,' he said.
He then gave me details of the Mercedes and a colour photograph of it, and a list of banks abroad which were being informed of my credentials and on whom I could call for cash. He then stood up to indicate that he was finished with me. Although I had been going to ask him some questions about O'Dowda, about his business interests and so on, I decided not to. I could get them elsewhere. So I stood up and made for the door which he showed no signs of opening for me.
From the door I said, 'What are you going to do about that public footpath?'
For the first time, and not because he was warming to me I'm sure, he showed signs of being human.
'If you think, Mr Carver, that working for a man like Mr O'Dowda is a picnic, get it out of your mind. He expects results.'
'No matter how?'
He blinked his eyes rapidly as though I had suddenly let in too much light, and said, 'Usually, yes.' He looked at his watch. 'Kermode is waiting to take you to the station. You should get the ten-ten easily.'
I half opened the door.
'Kermode,' I said, 'will run me up to London. Otherwise the job's off. Yes, or no?'
It took him some time, and I was damned sure that the station ploy had been his idea. When you work for a millionaire it's therapeutic sometimes to pass a few of the bitchinesses off on to somebody else.
He said, 'In that case, yes.'
Kermode drove me to London in the Ford station wagon. I sat alongside him and he talked fishing, horses, shooting, women and politics all the way. Of the lot he talked fishing most, and never once said a word about O'Dowda which was other than respectful and admiring. Tich Kermode was O'Dowda's man right down to the tip of the O'Dowda cigar he smoked.
I got into the office just before twelve. I had to use my key because Wilkins was out. I didn't know where. The note in her typewriter said, Back after lunch.
On my desk was a quarter-sheet of paper with a typewritten message from her.
1. Message from Miggs, rune-thirty. Following information received by him from Guffy (Yard). Owner motor scooter JN 4839. Joseph Bavana. West African. Flat Two, Marshcroft Villa, Fentiman Road, SW 8.
2. Message from Miggs, ten-thirty. Guffy reports Sussex Constabulary report. Joseph Bavana, driving motor scooter JN 4839, hit by unknown car, Uckfield-Forest Row road, 1800 hrs yesterday. No witnesses. Bavana dead when found.
3. Message from Guffy, eleven-thirty. Please call him.
I sat back and stared at the sheet, Joseph Bavana, West African. To block a public footpath could take time, even for a millionaire. But to wipe out a human being, that was easy — if you were an O'Dowda, and had two or three private guards around the estate. You just sat working a mallard and claret along the edge of the weeds for a brown trout while Kermode passed your instructions over the radio-telephone. Durnford's eye-blinking rate must have gone up as he listened to them.
The telephone rang on the outside line.
'Carver here.'
'And it's Guffy here, dear boy. Don't bother to come round here. I'll be with you in five minutes.'
He rang off, and I stared into space. It was a thing I frequently did. You just stare into it and after a little while you find yourself thinking about absolutely nothing at all, which is, while it lasts, comforting.
CHAPTER THREE
'Youk'n hide de fier, but w'at you gwine do wid de smoke?'
Guffy was for Gerald Ulster Foley. As far as anyone at the Yard could be called a near friend of mine, he was the nearest, and even that did not put us too close. However, he was — no matter how hard pressed or frustrated by any dealings with me — always pleasant and well mannered. It's nice to know someone who would put you under the lights and grill you, smiling, and murmuring apologies all the time.
Officially he was a Detective Chief Superintendent in 'C' Department, earning around two thousand five hundred pounds a year. With his qualifications and abilities he could have got ten times that in industry — but not half the excitement and fun, I imagine. And Guffy liked excitement and variety. Just the thought of it narrowed his greeny-yellow tabby-cat eyes and made him purr. He had a lean, alley-cat look, and if his ears weren't torn and his face scarred from fights with other toms, it was because he knew how to look after himself in a scrap as well as almost any man I knew. No one that I knew at the Yard ever had cared to outline what his specific duties were. But I did know that he had done a two-year stint at No. 26, Rue Arnengaud, Saint Cloud, Paris, France, and, for all I knew, still did work for Interpol.
He sat across the desk from me, smoking one of his usual Dutch Schimmelpennincks, smiling, and looking as though he was going to believe every word I said, and in return would be equally trusting with me.
Very carefully I was outlining my interest in the defunct Joseph Bavana. I told him the whole story of my visit to O'Dowda, except that I did not mention the nature of the assignment which my client had given me, nor anything about Julia's midnight heart-to-heart talk. Also, I omitted to mention the field-glasses or the two-way radio in the row-boat on the lake. O'Dowda might have had Bavana killed, or it might have been an accident. If it hadn't been an accident, then O'Dowda was doing his warm-hearted best either to protect me or himself. Either way ethics and common sense dictated that I shouldn't indulge in speculation with a man like Guffy until my arm was forced.
When I had finished, he said affably, 'A good synopsis of the whole affair. Taut, dear chap, crisp, omitting all the relevant facts. Such as, for example, the nature of your commission for O'Dowda.'
'He wants me to find something for him. A straightforward recovery job. You feel inclined to press me on that?'
'Not immediately. Perhaps never at all. Why would you think Bavana would want to shoot you or O'Dowda?'
'No idea. Tell me about Bavana.'
'Willingly. The rifle he used was found, dismantled and packed away in one of the carriers of the scooter. He was a student over here. Not London University, but a business college. Prior to that he'd done a course in computer management. None of it meant anything. Just a cover for political activities. Any idea how many African political groups operate from London at the moment?'