to himself. Grandjouan performed a little dance of delight.
'Excellent, my friend! You have thought yourself into the part.. .'
Grandjouan himself packed the twelve grenades, the tear-gas shells in the cello case after wrapping each item in thick tissue-paper. He performed the same routine with the tear-gas pistol, the Luger and ammo. Then he took a box he had extracted from beneath one of the floorboards which was hinged invisibly. Inside was the Armalite, dismantled.
'I'll assemble that if I may,' Marler suggested.
Grandjouan watched with approval the speed at which Marler put the separate parts together. He attached the magnifying night scope, squinted through it at the skylight, pressed the trigger of the unloaded gun.
'It feels good…'
With equal rapidity he dismantled it and Grandjouan picked up the pieces, again wrapping them in the tissue-paper. He fitted them inside the cello case, added ammo. Then he took a large piece of black velvet, spread it over the case's contents. From another deep drawer in an ancient chest he took out a long slim object inside a silk sleeve. He pointed to the end projecting before laying it on top of the velvet.
'More camouflage. The bow for your imaginary cello -with the end showing.'
He closed the case, snapped down the latch. Grandjouan had been right – everything had fitted in snugly, filling the case. Marler picked it up, tested the weight as the hunchback beamed, spoke again. Marler was wearing the beret.
'Perfect,' enthused Grandjouan. 'I used the tissue-paper so there was no danger of any rattle.'
Talking of danger, why did you say I might be stopped by the police? Oh, let's first settle up.'
Marler made no attempt to haggle over the price. Producing a wad of French thousand-franc notes he counted out the correct amount on a table. He was reaching for the cello case and his cricket bag when Grandjouan explained.
'Yes, you could well be stopped by the police. I have an ear to the grapevine. Paris has received a message that a team of terrorists is crossing into Alsace.'
'Where from?' Marler asked sharply.
'From Switzerland.'
'I see. I'll be careful.'
He shook hands, thanked the hunchback for his service. As Grandjouan closed the door behind him he paused to pull up the collar of his coat. Standing on the platform at the top of the stone steps he glanced down. Inset into the stone was a square piece of rubber. Of course! A pressure pad. That was how the wily old hunchback had known someone had arrived before he had pressed the bell.
Marler was very alert as he walked back inside the alley, pausing at the exit to glance out. No sign of a patrol car. It was, of course, Beck who had warned Paris -warned them about the Americans.
A little unfortunate from Tweed's point of view – that the Haut-Rhin, where Colmar was located, would be swarming with flics on the lookout. On the other hand the news confirmed that the Americans had followed them close on their heels. Maybe it was only just beginning.
In mid-afternoon at the Chateau Noir the banker, Amberg, stared at his uninvited guest, listening, saying nothing. Gaunt had arrived in his hired white BMW without phoning first to make sure it would be convenient for him to call. Now his voice boomed in the Great Hall.
'I was a close friend of your late lamented brother, Julius. I am a close friend of your sister-in-law, Eve. I feel I have a responsibility to track down whoever murdered Julius so brutally. After all, my dear chap, the tragedy did take place in my house in Cornwall, Tresillian Manor.'
'I see,' Amberg replied and was silent again.
Gaunt sat in one of the very large black leather button-backed armchairs scattered about the vast space. The chair would have dwarfed most men, but not Gaunt. His stature with his leonine head seemed to dominate the room.
Swallowed up in another armchair close to a crackling log fire, Jennie Blade warmed her hands. If you were any distance from it the place was freezing. The Great Hall merited its name. About sixty feet square, it had granite walls and miserable illumination from wall sconces. She doubted whether the bulbs inside them were more than forty watts.
The walls sheered up to a height of thirty feet or so. Scattered here and there, as though rationed, small rugs lay on the stone-flagged floor. The entrance hall was grim enough, but this so-called living-room was pure purgatory, Jennie said to herself. There was hardly any furniture except for the chairs and two large, bulbous – and repellent – sideboards standing against a wall. Gaunt was ploughing on, as though unaware of the lukewarm reception.
'The question I have to find an answer to is why he was murdered, Amberg. I had a chat with him when he arrived. He told me he had fled Switzerland because he was scared stiff. Apparently a Joel Dyson had deposited with him at the Zurich headquarters a film and a tape. Is that so?'
'That is correct,' Amberg replied and again lapsed into silence.
Gaunt leaned forward. Jennie had the impression that he was studying the banker carefully. His voice became a rumble, his manner like that of an interrogator.
'You saw what was on the film, you heard the tape?'
'No. Dyson handed them to Julius.'
'And did he watch the film, listen to the tape?'
'I don't know.'
'Where are they now?'
'They have gone missing.'
'What!' Gaunt exploded. 'Look, Julius told me he had first stored them in a vault at the Zurcher Kredit in Zurich. He then had them transferred to a less obvious place of safety. The bank vault in Basle.'
'I know. He told me.'
'So how the hell can they be missing?' Gaunt demanded. 'I always thought Swiss banks were like fortresses, that they kept the most meticulous records of every single transaction. Now you tell me they are missing.'
'Mr Gaunt, if you can't speak more quietly I may have to ask you to leave.'
'Plenty of room for my voice in this mausoleum. You haven't answered the question.'
Amberg, perhaps to compensate for his lack of height, sat in a low-backed hard chair perched on a dais behind an old desk Jennie thought could have come from a second-hand stall in the Portobello Road. To break the tension, to get a little more warmth, she reached into a basket, took out two logs, placed them on the fire. Amberg frowned at her.
'Those logs are very expensive.'
'Oh, pardon me.'
Stuff you, she thought. Everything here is rationed. The logs, the rugs, the words Amberg allowed to escape his lips. She stood up, straightened the jodhpurs she'd worn against the cold, thrust her hands inside her pockets to ward off the chill, wandered past the dais.
At the far end of the hall, down a wide flight of stone steps, was an indoor terrace. A huge picture window gave a panoramic view across the lower slopes of the sunlit Vosges. The glare of the sun off the snow was intense. The air was so clear Jennie could see in the distance another range of mountains. The Black Forest. In Germany beyond the Rhine.
She happened to glance down and sucked in her breath. Beyond the picture window the ground fell away into a sheer precipice. At the bottom was a sinister black lake, shrouded from the sun by the Vosges. Behind her the conversation continued. Assuming 'conversation' now meant one man talking to another.
'I have no idea why they went missing,' Amberg replied. 'It was Julius who supervised the transfer.'
'I thought you were Chairman of the bank,' Gaunt threw at the Swiss.
'That is correct. Day to day business was handled by Julius.'
'Are you saying you have no idea what happened to two items given into the bank's safekeeping?'
That is correct.'
'Put that remark on a record so you can play it,' Gaunt snapped.
As he stood up, his expression grim, Jennie decided to intervene. Amberg had also stood up, small, portly, dressed in a black business suit. He turned to her in surprise, as though he'd forgotten her presence. Jennie realized
