I took a drink of my whisky, felt in my pockets—amongst the letters and stuff I’d taken from the bedroom—for my cigarettes, and had them out when a voice said from the direction of the kitchen door behind me, ‘All right then, let us be very civilised about our behaviour.’
Before I turned I knew that he was not English. The French accent was as thick and meaty as pate de campagne. When I did turn I found myself looking at the business end of what, later, I learned was a 9 mm Browning pistol, manufactured under licence in Belgium, at Herstal, by the Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre.
I said, ‘Considering that thing you’re holding, I think that remark applies to you more than to me.’
‘I don’t trust anyone.’
‘It’s a good rule-of-thumb procedure, but it still doesn’t make you civilized. I hope you’ve got that damned thing on “safe”?’
‘Naturally, Monsieur Freeman.’
For a moment my instinct was to disillusion him. Then I decided to play it for a while. He might say things to Monsieur Freeman that he would never say to Monsieur Carver. And when he did get the name I knew that he was going to pronounce it Carvay.
I said, ‘I’m not going to give you any trouble. There’s some whisky and a bottle of soda left. Get yourself a glass.’
He hesitated quite a while and then decided to accept the invitation. He put the pistol handy on a chair near the stair cupboard and began to help himself, managing most of the time to keep an eye on me.
He was a biggish man, about fifty, and with most of his weight around the middle. He had a nose in the de Gaulle class and rather close-set, worried little green-brown eyes. Fiddling with his drink, he made flappy, almost womanly, flutterings with his hands and kept on humming to himself as though to keep up his confidence. He was all wrapped up, untidily, in cellophane, or that’s what it looked like, until I realised that he was wearing one of those transparent light-weight raincoats and a sou’wester kind of hat over his own cloth cap. Rolled up, the whole weather-protection outfit could be tucked away in a tobacco pouch. His drink prepared he stood behind the chair on which his pistol rested and took a sip from his glass and, because of the way his eyes were, eyed me narrowly from above it.
I said, ‘Why don’t you take your wrappings off and sit down. You look as though you are collecting for the National Lifeboat Institution or something.’
He considered this, then put his glass down on the chair and began to slip his things off.
‘Don’t make any mistake, Monsieur Freeman. I am here on very serious business.’
He transferred his glass and pistol to the edge of the table and sat down on the chair.
‘You’d better say what it is.’
‘I’m from Monsieur Robert Duchêne.’
He waited for me to show surprise, but I didn’t.
‘Of Paris,’ he said.
‘You’re French too, aren’t you?’
‘Francois Paulet. I’m surprised you are so phlegmatic, monsieur.’
‘It must be the weather. And why are you from Monsieur Robert Duchêne, armed with a gun and dressed against all weathers?’
‘Flippant, uh? It is an English characteristic, no? Oh, I know all about the English when I learn the language here many years ago. I was wine waiter, you know, at many restaurants. However, let us not bother with my history, considerable though it has been. From you I want what you have taken from Monsieur Duchêne. I have this—’ he touched the pistol with a fingertip—‘because of the delicacy of the matter. My client cannot call in the police because, as you know, the things you have taken were not all legitimately acquired by him in the first place. Notwithstanding, it is my duty to recover them.’
‘By force?’
‘If necessary. And do not be misled by my docile appearance.’
‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what I have to hand over.’
‘Certainly.’ He smiled, and it was quite a warm, genuine smile, touching and appealing. ‘It is good that so far we talk amicably. All business should be like that. Everyone would finish more quickly and get more money.’ He fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across to me.
I reached for the paper and unfolded it. It was a quarto sheet, typewritten, and read:
Ancient Greek coins, the property of Monsieur Robert Duchêne, 2 bis Rue de Bac, Paris.
Item—one Electrum stater of Lydia.
Item—one Electrum stater of Ephesus.
Item—one gold stater of Croesus.
Item—one Daric of Persia.
Item—alliance of Siris and Pyxus, two.
Item—Knossos with Minotaur and Labyrinth, two.
Item—stater of Thasos, two.
There were quite a few more items, twenty-two in all, finishing with:
Item—one, gold 100 litrae of Syracuse.
I said, ‘These have been stolen?’
He said, ‘You know they have, Monsieur Freeman. By you. And it was, if I may say so, a great abuse of hospitality. No doubt you thought that since Monsieur Duchêne had acquired them for his collection in . . . a devious way . . . that you would not be pressed to return them. Legally, I mean. But Monsieur Duchêne has employed me to recover them for him without the help of the law. I may say I am an expert at such matters. A large part of my business is the recovery of stolen goods.’
I said, ‘Monsieur Paulet, take a good look at me. I’m
