“We must be thankful for small mercies,” I said.
“That’s the attitude.” He took a step towards me. “Turn round,” he said.
I turned. You can’t make any headway against a force ten blow when you’re in a coracle. He smacked me on the back of the head and I went out like a high-voltage bulb giving up the ghost.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE BORGIA TOUCH
Casalis took me through the back entrance of 35 Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré and left me alone in an attic room which was being repapered. There were two deal chairs in it, spotted with whitewash from the redecorating of the ceiling. My kind don’t go boldly up the front steps of the Embassy. It gives the place a bad name. Still, I’d come up in the world a little. The last time, I’d been taken through the back entrance of 37 in the same street, which is the Consulate.
I sat and watched a spider wrapping gummy threads around a fly in a web as though he’d just had the idea of inventing a golf ball. I smoked one cigarette and then Manston came in. He was in a cutaway morning coat and striped trousers, soft grey cravat with a pearl-mounted pin, and he looked hot. His hair was still dyed blond, but he was good to see.
He winked at me and said, “What did you think of the Yugoslav wines?”
“Not much. Where’s Sutcliffe?”
“Keeping well away from you to protect his blood pressure.”
I nodded. “You might be interested to know that Howard Johnson paid me a visit at my hotel.”
“What did he get?”
“Nothing.” In fact he’d gone off with my notes on the slide from Wilkins. But I had a good memory.
He looked at me for a long time while he quietly tapped a cigarette on the flat of his gold case.
Then he said understandingly, “All right. What do you want?”
“I’m hired by Malacod to follow Mrs Vadarci and Katerina Saxmann. Then I’m hired by your lot to do the same. I’ve got a feeling that I’m chasing shadows. It makes me uneasy, and slightly unreliable.”
Manston grinned. “That’s what we’re all doing. Chasing shadows.”
“Then I quit.”
“Us and Malacod, or just us?”
“You. If you want a run-of-the-mill tail, get somebody else from the correct category. I’m a big boy with a reasonable I.Q.”
“I sympathize with you. I get the same frustrations.”
“But at a higher level. Either you want me in or you don’t care a damn.”
Manston smiled. “How wise I was to keep Sutcliffe away from you. He doesn’t really understand your type. Not even after all these years.”
“But you do?”
“I think so.”
“So where do we go from here?” I asked.
He studied the tooling on his gold cigarette case and after a moment said, “This thing has a security rating which is used once in a blue moon. You ask the questions – and I’ll decide which to answer.”
I lit a cigarette and saw that the spider was still carefully wrapping up the fly. I knew exactly how the fly felt.
I decided to pitch into the middle and try working out to one end or the other.
“Old Baldy, the cook aboard the Komira?”
“He’s an East Berliner who works for Spiegel’s lot.”
“Spiegel’s lot, and you – you’re all gunning for the same thing?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you co-operate?”
He made a wry mouth. “We would if we had any common sense. But that’s a rare quality in State Departments. No trust. Professional pride. We all want to get there first – on our own. Malacod has the same idea.”
“You’re operating against private individuals?”
“Partly.”
“They have political backing?”
“Of a kind.”
“Lead packing-case. What’s inside? The missing Goya?”
He gave me a fractional smile, and then he said, “I suppose you could call it a work of art.”
“Period,” I said. “Well, if that door’s shut, try telling me something about the Siegfried type on the Komira. Scratch golfer, if I know one. And handy with his dukes as they used to say when I read boys’ stories.”
“Well, he’s also first class with foils and sabre. Wimbledon standard tennis, Olympic standard swimming, and a double-first Oxford – but not under any name you could trace. Don’t ever let him back you up into a corner. He’ll kill you laughing and pronounce your requiem in any language you want, including Sanskrit.”
“Stebelson?”
“Small beer. He could be hoping to double-cross Malacod eventually ... if he sees a chance. You guessed this?”
“My nasty mind suggested it. Katerina?”
“She might have the same idea. But she shifts her ground rapidly. My guess is that she’s waiting to decide which is really the big play. Meanwhile, she keeps you coming.”
“I’ll say she does. I’ve just followed a paper chase – big markers, half across Europe, dropped by her. I’m surprised she hasn’t given me a lead to Venice – if that’s where the Komira is going.”
“She hasn’t let you down. She wants you to keep coming.” He fished in his pocket and handed me a cablegram slip.
It read:
Lots of bridges Venice. Love. K.
It was addressed to me at the Hotel Florida, Paris – my old address.
“Long shot,” I said. “She could have missed.”
“There was one waiting for you at the airport. Same message. You just didn’t see your name on the board. And don’t think she didn’t take a chance somewhere to get them off. She’s cold steel in smooth silk.”
“Nice phrase. Sort of nineteen-twenty ring.”
“That’s when I gave up reading thrillers.”
“So what do you want me to do? Keep coming on the miserable handful of information you’ve dished out?”
“You get two choices. You aren’t going to like one of them.”
He’d got his case out again and was tapping one of his thumbs with it. I knew the gesture. It was as near to showing emotion as he ever came.
“Lay them out.”
He looked straight at me and I didn’t like the long bracket shape of his mouth.
“You’re a bloody fool,” he said. “Generally – about women. Chiefly – about the
