Blade. What would the girl he'd first met that grim afternoon outside Tresillian Manor have to tell him, he wondered.
26
Norton checked his changing appearance in the bathroom mirror before he left the apartment. After the second application of the colourant his hair was starting to look very grey. The half-moon glasses perched on his nose gave him a professorial look. He carried a large file full of business statistics which he had no interest in.
Checking his watch, he left the apartment to arrive in good time at the Baur-en-Ville before Louis Sheen turned up. The cab he flagged down swiftly transported him to Parade-platz. A short walk across Bahnhofstrasse and he was inside the Baur-en-Ville.
He entered the hotel, made certain arrangements with a messenger boy, then sat in a chair where he could see reception. The boy stood a distance away and watched Norton. It was precisely 5.30p.m. when Louis Sheen walked in with the brown suitcase attached to his left wrist with a handcuff chain.
Norton was ice cold as he watched over the top of his file. The reception area was crowded with soberly dressed Swiss men greeting each other. Norton knew they were bankers. He had phoned the hotel earlier, pretending to ask for a room.
'I'm sorry, sir,' the girl had told him. 'We have no rooms at all available. There's a convention of bankers from all over Switzerland
Sheen went up to the reception counter, perched on it the suitcase to rest his hand. His voice was loud and overbearing when a receptionist turned to him.
'Louis Sheen, Philadelphia. I have a room reserved for several nights.'
'Certainly, sir.' The receptionist checked his records. 'Did you say Sheen, sir? I fear there is no reservation.'
Norton put down the file in his lap. It was the signal the generously tipped messenger boy had been waiting for.
Norton also noticed a man in a Swiss suit who wandered in within thirty seconds of Sheen's arrival. He stared as the man checked his watch, picked up a magazine, remained standing. It appeared he was waiting for someone – but he hadn't glanced round the reception area. Norton pursed his lips. Sheen had been followed from the airport.
'Now look here,' Sheen continued at the top of his voice, 'Louis Sheen, Philadelphia. I phoned the booking-'
He broke off as someone touched his right arm. Glancing down he saw a uniformed messenger boy.
'Mr Sheen?'the boy asked.
'Maybe. Why?'
'I have a message for him. Are you Mr Sheen?'
'I am. Give it to me…'
He turned away from the counter, ripped open the envelope. A white sheet of paper without a printed address at the top was inside. The message was brief.
Take a cab at once to the address given below. Walk out now and get a cab. Lincoln Memorial.
Underneath the address the message was signed with a flourishing 'N'. Sheen had been warned this was how Norton always signed his instructions. He resisted the temptation to look around at the people assembled in the reception area.
Norton waited as Sheen left the hotel entrance leading to a side street. The man in the Swiss suit strolled after Sheen. Something would have to be done about him, Norton decided. He left by the same entrance in time to see the Swiss climb in behind the wheel of a BMW. His own limo, ordered in advance, was parked by the kerb. He climbed in the back as Sheen entered a cab.
That cab is the target,' he ordered the driver, one of Mencken's subordinates. 'Don't lose it. Just don't make it obvious we are following it – we have company. The white BMW. It will follow our target. You follow the BMW. One more thing you will not do. Just listen. Do not look at me in your rear-view mirror. See me and you're dead. Now, for Chrissakes, get moving…'
Jennie's golden hair glowed in the subdued lighting of the Hummer Bar. She sat on a bar stool and Tweed had to admit to himself she looked stunning.
She wore a deep purple suit, the jacket open to reveal a low-cut white blouse. Round her neck was a string of pearls which disappeared in the dip between her breasts. On the stool beside her lay a folded pale lilac coat.
She swung round off her stool to greet him. Her short skirt exposed her long legs. She kissed him on the cheek and a faint waft of perfume drifted in the air.
'I hope I haven't kept you waiting,' Tweed remarked as they hoisted themselves on to the stools.
'Not for one second. I like a man who is prompt. And I arrived early. You look very fresh and eager.' Her blue eyes were animated and she was giving him her full attention.
'I don't feel all that fresh,' Tweed confessed. 'I've been on the go all day.'
'Time to relax then.' She squeezed his arm. 'Sorry I didn't make it last night. But from my point of view that gave me this evening to look forward to.'
She was openly flirting. Tweed decided to hit her hard when the time came with his first question. He suggested champagne. He rarely drank but he wanted her in a co-operative mood – she might tell him more that way.
'Lovely,' she said. 'My favourite tipple. You'll join me?'
Tweed ordered two glasses of champagne from the waiting barman. Glancing along to the end of the bar he saw Philip Cardon sitting on a stool, nursing a drink as he read a paperback.
Jennie gazed in the same direction as Cardon looked up from his paperback. She waved to him, then shook her golden mane as though to say, 'No good. You were pipped to the post.'
'Cheers!' said Tweed and they clinked glasses.
Jennie drank half the contents of her glass while Tweed downed his in two long gulps. Before leaving Paula he had drunk a lot of water, hoping it would keep him sober. Jennie finished off her drink.
'Another?' Tweed urged. 'You'll join me?'
'Sky's the limit.'
She grinned appreciatively at his using her own words back at her. They consumed most of the refills before Tweed threw the question without warning.
'When did you first know Julius Amberg was coming to stay at Tresillian Manor?'
'But I didn't.' She looked at him, her eyes wide open with innocence. 'Not until we were leaving for the cottage at Five Lanes an hour or so before he arrived.'
'Then why did you think you were leaving at all?'
'The Squire said he had some friends coming he rented the manor to from time to time.'
'Did you ever talk to one of his servants, a girl called Celia Yeo? She was found dead at the foot of High Tor – which is not far from Five Lanes. Someone pushed her over the abyss.'
'How perfectly horrible.' She played with the stem of her empty glass. Tweed, you're some kind of investigator. You know something? I'm beginning to get the idea you're investigating me.'
'What I am investigating,' Tweed said grimly, 'is a series of murders…'
'You mean those poor people at Tresillian Manor?'
'Within the past twenty-four hours three more people have been murdered here in Zurich – one man and two women,'Tweed said grimly.
'You're frightening, Tweed. How does any of this concern me?'
'Where is Gaunt?' he asked.
'He's on his way to Basle…'
'By plane?'
'No, he's driving the hired BMW there…'
