"He is waiting to see you," he informed Beaurain. The man who had been looking at the notice moved towards the door. Kellerman timed it perfectly. One foot projected at the last moment, the man tripped and fell, half-saving himself by grabbing the edge of the policeman's desk.
"I will come back later. I have an urgent call of nature — something I ate this morning."
A small, weasel-faced man with a leathery complexion and the agility of a monkey. Before anyone could react he had left the office. Kellerman heaved open the door and ran into Polititorvet. He was in time to see the patrol-car which had just arrived driving away, but there was no sign of the weasel. The man had vanished. Kellerman glanced up the curving flight of steps which led to the various departments in the building. He met Beaurain coming out, holding the form.
"Disappeared into thin air, Jules. He couldn't have escaped over the square — I was out too quick. He must have gone up there."
Kellerman pointed up a spiral staircase of stone steps which disappeared round a bend. From previous visits to Politigarden Beaurain knew the staircase led to all the main police departments. He also knew that before you could enter any of the departments, there was a police checkpoint you had to pass. The only conclusion left was that the weasel-faced man was a member of one of the many departments. Beaurain explained this briefly.
"Then he must have an official position here. Has the Syndicate penetrated here too?" Kellerman speculated.
"Why do we have to suspect him?" asked Beaurain.
"Because I deliberately tripped him up, he never protested and his reaction was to get to hell out of that room as fast as his legs could carry him."
"You're quite right. Let's get up and see Marker."
Mounting the spiral, they reached the first floor. There was a barrier and a uniformed policeman behind the desk. The form was essentiaclass="underline" it was checked carefully and then they were told to continue up to the second floor and turn right along the inner corridor until they reached Room 78.
"What is worrying you?" Kellerman asked quietly as they went on up the second spiral which, like the first, was entirely enclosed by a curving stone wall.
"The Syndicate knew we were coming," Beaurain said grimly."Their organisation and thoroughness is incredible we've never been up against anything like this before. In some ways the extent of their reach is frightening. The only answer is to go over onto the offensive and hurl them off balance."
Beaurain's reaction was characteristic. Kellerman was intrigued about the reasons for his comment.
"Why is the organisation and thoroughness incredible? Have I missed something?"
"First, as I've just said, they had a man waiting for us here. But we were never supposed to get here, Max. We were supposed to be dead — gunned down near the station by that couple with the brief-case. And that means the man downstairs was simply backup — warned to keep a look-out purely on the off-chance that the assassination set-up misfired. Next point, how did they know we were on our way to see Marker? Only two possible answers — they have someone on the switchboard at the Royal Hotel or — worse still — they have someone on the central switchboard here at Politigarden. This bloody Zenith thing is encircling us with a stranglehold."
They had arrived at the second floor. Beaurain pushed open another heavy door and they found themselves out in the open air on a terrace-like corridor with a railing on the inner side. Kellerman thought it a curious arrangement: on the outside the building had been triangular in shape; now the centre was hollowed out into a huge circular courtyard entirely cut off from the outside world and open to the sky.
The courtyard, resembling the interior of an amphitheatre, was eerily deserted. They turned to the right and along their right-hand side the wall of the building continued in a circular sweep with more heavy doors at intervals.
"Weird building," Kellerman remarked.
"Unique in my experience," Beaurain agreed.
"I'll be glad when we get off this bloody platform. Anyone could use us for target practice and we're both unarmed."
"Room 78. Relax, Max. You'll like Marker." Beaurain turned the door handle and walked into the large room beyond. Kellerman was behind him when they both glanced into the room next door through an open doorway at the single object on a large desk. A knife.
"Forty million Swedish kronor worth of heroin."
The man who had spoken the words and then paused was in his mid-fifties, a man of medium height and rounded stomach whose hair and eyebrows were grey and bushy. His pink complexion and his chubby cheeks, with the brilliant sparkle in his very blue eyes, suggested the keen walker or cyclist. Amiability radiated from him. This was Superintendent Bodel Marker, Chief of Intelligence and the man responsible for some of the Copenhagen police force's greatest coups.
His guests, Beaurain and Kellerman, who had been introduced as Toxbel', were seated in comfortable chairs, smoking excellent cigars and drinking delicious coffee. Kellerman was forcing himself not to stare at the knife which still occupied the central position on Marker's desk, an object to which no-one had so far made any reference. The door to the outer office was closed and only the three men occupied the room.
"One of the largest consignments of heroin ever moved in this part of the world," Marker continued in his excellent English. "It is on the move now at this very moment following the same route as always, I am informed."
"Would forty million Swedish kronors' worth of heroin fit inside a suitcase measuring roughly something like this?" Kellerman's nimble hands described in air roughly the dimensions of the case Louise had described the man who had travelled by van from Nyhavn to Elsinore as carrying. Marker looked at Beaurain before replying.
"He is my close associate and friend and I would trust him with my life, Bodel," Beaurain replied quietly.
"Just as you did this morning!"
"Bodel?" Beaurain managed to inject just the right note of enquiry into his voice.
"Yours, I believe, Mr. Foxbel."
Marker lifted the knife, threw it across the desk so it fell over the edge and Kellerman was compelled to pick it up. He looked at the knife with a blank expression, gazed at the Dane, and then at Beaurain. Marker's amiability disappeared and his voice was thunderous.
"Less than one hour ago! Before you two arrive we enjoy peace and quiet and…" he paused, his fist crashed on his desk. '… I hear that within less than twenty-four hours of your landing we have a murder at Kastrup Airport!"
"Who was killed, Bodel?" asked Beaurain, quite unperturbed.
"George Land. Professional assassin according to Interpol. A big man. Carrying a British passport. He was found lying half-inside a telephone booth killed by his own favourite weapon an umbrella with a built-in trigger mechanism which operated a knife." Marker leaned forward over his desk and stared hard at each of his visitors in turn, "Mr. Foxbel… that's right, isn't it? Did you see anything odd when you flew in?"
"No," Kellerman replied shortly.
"It's upset you happening on your own doorstep," Beaurain said to the Dane sympathetically.
"There's more," Marker told him grimly. "Less than one hour ago while you were on your way here from the Royal Hotel two men were almost killed by a couple of professional assassins in the very centre of our beautiful Copenhagen, by God! How did the intended victims save themselves? One of them hurls this knife with great accuracy and destroys the gunman's aim."