Jane’s eyes came back from the fireplace to me. From the look on her face there was no doubt now that she knew she was in something big.
‘It’s as serious as all that?’ she asked.
‘More than that. I suggest you forget all about Freeman.’
She began to move to the door, then paused and looked back at me. ‘You’re involved, too?’
‘A little—but on the right side. By the way, if he does get in touch with you again, let me know. But come here. Don’t use the phone.’
She nodded and went out, no longer full of the joys of spring. I was sorry for her, but I couldn’t waste much time on it. The best I could do for her was not to tell her the truth.
I went to the phone and dialled a Govent Garden number. It wasn’t listed in the directory, but it was a number I was never likely to forget.
A voice at the other end said, ‘Yes?’
‘Carver here.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve got to see him. Urgently, importantly and vitally.’
‘Tell me where you can be reached in the next six hours.’
I gave my phone number and the number of Gloriana Stankowski’s flat.
I had a bath and changed, drank two more whiskies and then walked down to the corner of the street to the Embankment and got a taxi. Any other time going to have dinner with Gloriana would have been a pleasure that would have driven all gloom from my mind. Tonight gloom was four lengths ahead of pleasure and going well on its second wind.
Gloriana opened the door to me herself, gave me a neat little kiss on the side of the cheek which surprised me, explained that the Scots maid was out—her evening at the cinema—ushered me through the narrow hall and settled me under one of the porcelain lemon trees in the sitting room, and quickly had a large drink in my hand, all with the charming expertise of a hostess anxious to please a favourite guest. I wondered what favour she was going to ask me. It wasn’t a big one, and it came almost at once.
She settled on the monster divan across the way from me, wearing a crushed-raspberry silk blouse and dark, Victoria-plum-coloured trousers, stuck an elegant finger in a large glass of gin and campari and twiddled the ice cubes around so that they chinked musically against the fine crystal. Three block-busting drinks like that, I thought, and she would be flat on her back—and I too gloomy to take advantage of it. Her hair was spun red-gold and her lips were as pretty and knowing as a Cupid’s. There was a little dimple on her chin. I took a good pull at the whisky. It was strong and it hit me, as drink always does when the mind is unsettled. Maybe, I thought, she’d been playing cards with some Cupid for kisses and won the coral of his lips, the rose of his cheek and the crystal of his brow. ‘O Love! has she done this to thee? What shall, alas! become of me?’ Maudlin, too—that’s how drink takes the enfeebled spirit.
She said, ‘You look scared to death.’
I said, ‘I am.’
She said, ‘Tell me, what is all this secret service crap?’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘what anyone has said to you.’
‘The man I know in the Treasury has told me that any communication I get from Martin must be passed on to him, and that I am to inform him of anyone who comes asking questions about him. Including you. What the hell has that bloody brother of mine been up to?’
‘That’s no way to speak of the dead.’
‘Dead?’ She laughed, a silvery sound that rivalled the ice music against her crystal glass. ‘Martin’s kind don’t die. They go on into their nineties, still making a nuisance of themselves.’
‘Sure?’
‘Dead men don’t repay a ten-thousand-pound theft in notes, delivered anonymously in a brown-paper parcel.’
‘You told the Treasury boy this?’
‘Yes. But he won’t tell me anything, except to forget Martin for quite a while. That’s why I asked you here—surely you can tell me something? If you don’t you don’t get any damned dinner; oysters and a beautiful salmon trout and a bottle of Montrachet between us. Come on, give. One thing I can’t stand is mysteries. Certainly not the kind you stupid men cook up between you. What’s that bastard Martin up to?’
‘I don’t know. He tried to fake his own death in Tripoli. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, he’s paid you back the money he took and, as I said, if you get in touch with this dusky number—’ I got up, went and sat by her and took out one of La Piroletta’s business cards—‘you can buy the python bracelet back. She bought it off Martin for two thousand quid. You’ll have to make your own price with her.’ I wrote the Paris address of Letta on the card and handed it to her. ‘She’s going to be in Paris next week.’
‘Why should I have to pay anything?’
‘Because La Piroletta is that kind.’
‘Was she kind to you too?’
‘I’m giving a strictly professional report.’
‘Then tell me what all the mystery about my brother is.’
‘If I knew—’
‘You know—’
‘I still wouldn’t tell.’
‘Go to hell.’
‘I’m halfway there. Any messages?’
‘Yes. When you meet my old man tell him he didn’t beat Martin hard or often enough.’
‘Does this mean I don’t get dinner?’
‘It depends on whether I can manage three dozen oysters by myself.’
‘I’ll have another drink while you’re making up your mind.’
I leant over and kissed her gently on the coral pink lips, briefly, and wondered if they were soft with promise or disinterest. Then I went over to the bar.
My back to her, I said, ‘Has your only contact with the authorities been this guy in the Treasury?’
There was a little pause, and she said, ‘Yes.’
I said, ‘I’ll send my account in to you tomorrow—if I live that long.’
She said, ‘You’ll live. You’ve got the
