had become very angry. `Now tell us about his retirement from the theatre. This time the truth.
What happened. How it happened. Who did what?' Dragonpol nodded, meekly. `I believe that my brother was, in some ways, insane from birth. Or maybe it was simply a case of what happened when he had that fall at three years old. It brought back his hearing, loosened his vocal cords, but left him ... oh, I don't know left him some kind of emotional cripple. A very dangerous emotional cripple.' `The retirement,' M prodded.
`In that final year I spent a lot of time with him come to that I've spent most of my life with him. But in that last year he began to crack. The strain of performing, even of rehearsing and learning, became too much. By then, of course, he was channelling a lot into his dream of the theatre museum at Schloss Drache. In the end, he did have a breakdown. Completely. Maeve and I nursed him. Lester his dresser-came with him, and we brought in the two nurses: Charles and William. Eventually, I persuaded him to stay at Schloss Drache and just work on the museum. I don't think he even realized that he had retired from the theatre.
`But he'd gone into a new line of business as well, hadn't he?
The assassination business.
This time the pause was even longer than before.
`You want to tell us about your brother's penchant for organizing public executions, Daniel? You want to tell us why you didn't even try to stop him?' `There are two sides to everything.' Daniel seemed to have gathered strength and was prepared to fight back. `Yes. Sure.
I'll tell you what happened, and I'll tell you how I tried to stop it.
I did everything I could. I.. ` `You did everything short of actually bringing it to the attention of the police, I think.' `Well, you know it all, I suppose.' Now he suddenly changed. It was the third or fourth time that Bond had sensed a sudden mood swing.
They didn't break for another four hours. M went meticulously through every suspected killing: from the February 1990 shooting of the terrorist in Madrid; the bomb blast that had killed the Scandinavian politician in Helsinki, followed by the musician whose brakes had failed outside Lisbon, right through to the series of recent deaths, ending in the murder of Laura March.
`She was your fiancee, after all,' M thundered.
`You must have known that he killed her, and you still didn't do anything about it.' `That was his revenge,' Daniel said quietly; he looked ready to drop with fatigue. `I was shattered because Laura had called off the engagement and quite rightly, once I'd told her the truth about David.' `But she thought you were David, right?' from Bond.
`Yes. Yes, I played the part of David for most people.
Especially Laura. He knew. There was no doubt about that. It was his revenge and, yes, it was the last straw. I knew it couldn't go on after that. I'd already made up my mind that David would have to disappear. To tell you the truth, I was going to do away with him.
But your Captain Bond and Fraulein von Grusse suddenly turned up.
We knew he was planning something else, and...' `You knew what he was planning?' `A December spree. He came here to make his arrangements and d? a dry run. I was sure of that.' `Tell us about it.
`You know already.
`All the same, we'd like to hear it again.
`I'm pretty certain he was planning to kill Dame Kiri Te Kanawa on the stage of La Scala; then go on and do away with Arafat in Athens.
He came here to set it up. Another day and he would have gone on to Athens.' `How do you think he chose his victims?' `Publicity. Most were famous politicians, terrorists. Now he was out for one of the great sopranos of our time, and the leader of the PLO. I think he chose at random, or when a good idea for a target presented itself. As simple as that.' `Then what? Then what was he going to do after the dry run in Athens?' Daniel stalled. You could see it. He was so like his brother, but this was real life, not acting. You could see almost into his brain, as if he were asking himself if they really knew, or if they were guessing.
`After Athens. ` M prompted.
`There wouldn't have been an after Athens. I had him pinned down this time.' `He didn't know that. Tell us about what was to happen this coming Sunday, outside Paris.' Again, a sigh of capitulation, followed by a deep breath. Then he jibbed again and remained silent.
`His notes,' Bond said. `His notes indicate Paris with the initials PD, W and H. Does that jog your memory?' Daniel Dragonpol gave a tight-lipped nod.
`Okay. Right. Yes, I think it was probably his idea of a big coup. What do the terrorists call it? A spectacular? A royal princess, together with her two children, who are direct heirs to the British throne, are to be entertained at the Euro Disney complex outside Paris on Sunday. I think he planned to kill them as a kind of public spectacle.
In his mind it would be the ultimate irony, for a princess and two little princes to die at Disneyland.' `And I wonder how you know all that?' M questioned, almost to himself. `I wonder how you both knew that she was taking her children to Euro Disney on Sunday? It hasn't exactly been advertised.'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE DRAGONS ARE LOOSE
It went on until after five in the morning, with everybody but M getting more and more exhausted. The Old Man seemed to thrive on the long and hard question and answer routine. His interrogation techniques were a copybook lesson to everyone present, and he dragged every last piece of information, and then more, from the cowed Daniel Dragonpol.
Brother David, it seemed, had carefully kept up all his old contacts, in government as well as the Arts. According to Daniel, he had informers everywhere in financial areas, big business and highly regarded social groups, as well as among his old colleagues in the theatre. He knew many friends of friends, and even had the ear of insiders within royal circles. So information regarding the schedule of the princess and the two young princes would be no problem.
`David set great store by the telephone,' Daniel told them. `We tried all kinds of tricks, but in the end there was no way we could keep him from a phone.' He made a gesture of hopelessness. `Nor could we keep him under lock and key. We knew when he was brewing up for some kind of expedition, just as we knew when he became deflected from his preoccupation with the museum.
`Did he make those silly little errors when his mind moved to other things?' Bond asked.
`What little errors?' `Well, he's got a Greek actor, four hundred years BC, putting on a Kabuki mask. Then there's the watch on..
`I haven't noticed anything like that!' A shade sharp.
`Well, the mistakes are there.
`Then they'll have to be put right before the museum is opened to the public.' Daniel seemed to stop, as though realizing his predicament for the first time. `If it is ever opened,' he added.
`But you found it impossible to keep him confined, or away from telephones? That what you're telling us?' M sounded alert and relaxed; his mind razor sharp.
`That's exactly what I'm saying.
Bond recalled the conversation about telephones which Fredericka had overheard between Maeve and the nurse Charles-who was more than a nurse, though Daniel never mentioned that side of things.
`Let's go over it again,' M prodded. `You tried to catch up with him during the terrible killing spree which included the death of your former fiancee?' `I've told you. Yes. I tracked him down, but on each occasion I was too late.' `How do you think he knew where to find Laura March?' `He listened at doors a lot: in the castle. I mean it was creepy. He moved around the place like a ghost, when we didn't have him locked in the Tower Room. When Laura was there for the last time, she told me she'd try to get to Interlaken to rest and ... well, put herself straight. We were both in a very emotional state. David knew we had spent time in Interlaken. I have photographs, and I talked to him about it. He knew we liked going up to First and sit looking at the view.' `So, you followed him on that last occasion, and tried to catch up with him. What of his other little trips?' `I didn't really find out what was happening until ninety-one. I found some notes which indicated what he'd been up to during the previous year. I did try and catch him in April ninety-one, when he did the London, New York and Dublin ones. In fact I almost got him in Dublin. He was staying at the Gresham and I really thought I had him, but that was the occasion he disguised himself as a woman. He walked right past me in the foyer of the hotel, and it wasn't until he came back that I realized what had happened.
