Puppet on a Chain

CHAPTER EIGHT

Remarkably, the sun was shining when my portable alarm went off the following morning — or the same morning. I showered, shaved, dressed, went downstairs and breakfasted in the restaurant with such restoring effect that I was able to smile at and say a civil good morning to the assistant manager, the doorman and the barrel-organ attendant in that order. I stood for a minute or two outside the hotel looking keenly around me with the air of a man waiting for his shadow to turn up, but it seemed that discouragement had set in and I was able to make my unaccompanied way to where I'd left the police taxi the previous night. Even though, in broad daylight, I'd stopped staring at shadows I opened the hood all the same but no one had fixed any lethal explosive device during the night so I drove off and arrived at the Marnixstraat HQ at precisely ten o'clock, the promised time.

Colonel de Graaf, complete with search warrant, was waiting for me in the street. So was Inspector van Gelder. Both men greeted me with the courteous restraint of those who think their time is being Wasted but are too polite to say so and led me to a chauffeur-driven police car which was a great deal more luxurious than the one they'd given me.

'You still think our visit to Morgenstern and Muggenthaler is desirable?' de Graaf asked. 'And necessary?'

'More so than ever.'

'Something has happened? To make you feel that way?'

'No,' I lied. I touched my head. 'I'm fey at times.'

De Graaf and van Gelder looked briefly at each other. 'Fey?' de Graaf said carefully.

'I get premonitions.'

There was another brief interchange of glances to indicate their mutual opinion of, police officers who operated on this scientific basis, then de Graaf said, circumspectly changing the topic: 'We have eight plain-clothes officers standing by down there in a plain van. But you say you don't really want' the place searched?'

'I want it searched all right — rather, I want to give the appearance of a search. What I really want are the invoices giving a list of all the suppliers of souvenir items to the warehouse.'

'I hope you know what you are doing,' van Gelder said. He sounded grave.

'You hope,' I said. 'How do you think I feel?'

Neither of them said how they thought I felt, and as it seemed that the line of conversation was taking an unprofitable turn we all kept quiet until we arrived at our destination. We drew up outside the warehouse behind a nondescript grey van and got out and as we did a man in a dark suit climbed down from the front of the grey van and approached us. His civilian suit didn't do much for-him as disguise went: I could have picked him out as a cop at fifty yards.

He said to de Graaf: 'We're ready, sir.'

'Bring your men.'

'Yes, sir.' The policeman pointed upwards. 'What do you make of that sir?'

We followed the direction of his arm. There was a wind blowing gustily that morning, nothing much but enough to give a slow if rather erratic pendulum swing to a gaily coloured object suspended from the hoisting beam at the top of the warehouse: it swung through an arc of about four feet and was, in its setting, one of the most gruesome things I had ever encountered.

Unmistakably, it was a puppet, and a very large puppet at that, well over three feet tall and dressed, inevitably, in the usual immaculate and beautifully tailored traditional Dutch costume, the long striped skirt billowing coquettishly in the wind. Normally, wires or ropes are used to pass through the pulleys of hoisting beams but in this instance someone had elected to use a chain instead: the puppet was secured to the chain by what could be seen, even at that elevation, to be a wicked-looking hook, a hook that was fractionally too small for the neck it passed round, so small that it had obviously had to be forced into position for the neck had been crushed at one side so that the head leaned over at a grotesque angle, almost touching the right shoulder. It was, after all, no more than a mutilated doll: but the effect was horrifying to the point of obscenity. And obviously I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

'What a macabre sight.' De Graaf sounded shocked and he looked it too. 'What in the name of God is that for? What — what's the point of it, what's the purpose behind it? What kind of sick mind could perpetrate an — an obscenity like that?'

Van Gelder shook his head. 'Sick minds are everywhere and Amsterdam has its fair share. A jilted sweetheart, a hated mother-in-law — '

'Yes, yes, those are legion. But this — this is abnormality to the point of insanity. To express your feelings in this terrible way.' He looked at me oddly, as if he were having second thoughts about the purposelessness of this visit. 'Major Sherman, doesn't it strike you as very strange — '

'It strikes me the way it strikes you. The character responsible has a cast-iron claim to the first vacancy in a psychotic ward. But that isn't why I came here.'

'Of course not, of course not.' De Graaf had a last long look at the dangling puppet, as if he could hardly force himself to look away, then gestured abruptly with his head and led the way up the steps towards the warehouse. A porter of sorts took us to the second floor and then to the office in the corner which, unlike the last time I had seen it, now had its time-locked door hospitably open.

The office, in sharp contrast to the warehouse itself, was spacious and uncluttered and modern and comfortable, beautifully carpeted and draped in different shades of lime and equipped with very expensive up-to-the-minute Scandinavian furniture more appropriate to a luxurious lounge than to a dock-side office. Two men seated in deep armchairs behind separate large and leather-covered desks rose courteously to their feet and ushered de Graaf, van Gelder and myself into other and equally restful armchairs while they themselves remained standing. I was glad they did, for this way I could have a better look at them and they were both, in their way, very similar, well worth looking at. But I didn't wait more than a few seconds to luxuriate in the warmth of their beaming reception.

I said to de Graaf: 'I have forgotten something very important. It is imperative I make a call on a friend immediately.' It was, too: I don't often get this chilled and leaden feeling in the stomach but when I do I'm anxious to take remedial action with the least delay.

De Graaf looked his surprise. 'A matter so important, it could have slipped your mind?'

'I have other things on my mind. This just came into it.' Which was the truth.

'A phone call, perhaps — ' 'No, no. Must be personal.' 'You couldn't tell me the nature — '

'Colonel de Graaf!' He nodded in quick understanding, appreciating the fact that I wouldn't be likely to divulge State secrets in the presence of the proprietors of a warehouse about which I obviously held serious reservations. 'I—I could borrow your car and driver—' 'Certainly,' he said unenthusiastically. 'And if you could wait till I come back before — ' 'You ask a great deal, Mr Sherman.' 'I know. But I'll only be minutes.'

I was only minutes. I had the driver stop at the first café we came to, went inside and used their public telephone. I heard the dialling tone and could feel my shoulders sag with relief as the receiver at the other end, after relay through an hotel desk, was picked up almost immediately. I said: 'Maggie?'

'Good morning, Major Sherman.' Always polite and punctilious was Maggie and I was never more glad to hear her so.

'I'm glad I caught you. I was afraid that you and Belinda might already have left — she hasn't left, has she?' I was much more afraid of several other things but this wasn't the time to tell her.

'She's still here,' Maggie said placidly.

'I want you both to leave your hotel at once. When I say at once, I mean within ten minutes. Five, if possible.'

'Leave? You mean — '

'I mean pack up, check out and don't ever go near it again. Go to another hotel. Any hotel… No, you blithering idiot, not mine. A suitable hotel. Take as many taxis as you like, make sure you're not followed. Telephone the number to the office of Colonel de Graaf in the Marnixstraat. Reverse the number.'

'Reverse it?' Maggie sounded shocked. 'You mean you don't trust the police either?'

'I don't know what you mean by "either" but I don't trust anyone, period. Once you've booked in, go look for Astrid Lemay. She'll be home — you have the address — or in the Balinova. Tell her she's to come to stay at your hotel till I tell her it's safe to move.*

'But her brother — '

'George can stay where he is. He's in no danger.' I couldn't remember later whether that statement was the sixth or seventh major mistake I'd made in Amsterdam. 'She is. If she objects, tell her you're going, on my authority, to the police about George.'

'But why should we go to the police — '

'No reason. But she's not to know that. She's so terrified that at the very mention of the word "police" — '

That's downright cruel,' Maggie interrupted severely.

'Fiddlesticks!' I shouted and banged the phone back on its rest.

One minute later I was back in the warehouse and this time I had leisure to have a longer and closer look at the two proprietors. Both of them were almost caricatures of the foreigner's conception of the typical Amsterdamer. They were both very big, very fat, rubicund and heavily jowled men who, in the first brief introduction I had had to them, had had their faces deeply creased in lines of good-will and joviality, an expression that was now conspicuously lacking in both. Evidently, de Graaf had become impatient even with my very brief absence and had started the proceedings without me. I didn't reproach him and, in return, he had the tact not to enquire how things had gone with me. Both Muggenthaler and Morgenstern were still standing in almost the identical positions in which I'd left them, gazing at each other in consternation and dismay and complete lack of understanding. Muggenthaler, who was holding a paper in his hand, let it fall to his side with a gesture of total disbelief.

'A search warrant.' The overtones of pathos and heartbreak- and tragedy would have moved a statue to tears; had he been half his size he'd have been a natural for Hamlet. 'A search warrant for Morgenstern and Muggenthaler! For a hundred and fifty years our two families have been respected, no, honoured tradesmen in the city of Amsterdam. And now this!' He groped behind him and sank into a chair in what appeared to be some kind of stupor, the paper falling from his hand. 'A search warrant!'

'A search warrant,' Morgenstern intoned. He, too, had found it necessary to seek an armchair. 'A search warrant, Ernest. A black day for Morgenstern and Muggenthaler! My God! The shame of it! The ignominy of it! A search warrant!'

Muggenthaler waved a despairingly listless hand. 'Go on, search all you want.'

'Don't you want to know what we're searching for?' de Graaf asked politely,

'Why should I want to know?' Muggenthaler tried to raise himself to a momentary state of indignation, but he was too stricken. 'In one hundred and fifty years — '

'Now, now, gentlemen,' de Graaf said soothingly, 'don't take it so hard. I appreciate the shock you must feel and in my own view we're on a wild goose chase. But an official request has been made and we must go through the official motions. We have information that you have illicitly obtained diamonds — '

'Diamonds!' Muggenthaler stared in disbelief at his partner. 'You hear that, Jan? Diamonds?' He shook his head and said to de Graaf: 'If you find some, give me a few, will you?'

De Graaf was unaffected by the morose sarcasm. 'And, much more important, diamond-cutting machinery.'

'We're crammed from floor to ceiling with diamond-cutting machinery,' Morgenstern said heavily. 'Look for yourselves.'

'And the invoice books?'

'Anything, anything,' Muggenthaler said wearily.

'Thank you for your co-operation.' De Graaf nodded to van Gelder, who rose and left the room. De Graaf went on confidentially: 'I apologize, in advance, for what is, I'm sure, a complete waste of time. Candidly, I'm more interested in that horrible thing dangling by a chain from your hoisting beam. A puppet.'

'A what?' Muggenthaler demanded.

'A puppet. A big one.'

'A puppet on a chain.' Muggenthaler looked both flabbergasted and horrified, which is not an easy thing to achieve. 'In front of our warehouse? Jan!'

It wouldn't quite be accurate to say that we raced up the stairs, for Morgenstern and Muggenthaler weren't built along the right lines, but we made pretty good time for all that. On the third floor we found van Gelder and his men at work and at a word from de Graaf van Gelder joined us. I hoped his men didn't wear themselves out looking, for I knew they'd never find anything. They'd never even come across the smell of cannabis which had hung so heavily on that floor the previous night, although I felt that the sickly-sweet smell of some powerful flower-based air-freshener that had taken its place could scarcely, be described as an improvement. But it hardly seemed the time to mention it to anyone.

The puppet, its back to us and the dark head resting on its right shoulder, was still swaying gently in the breeze. Muggenthaler, supported by Morgenstern and obviously feeling none too happy in his precarious position, reached out gingerly, caught the chain just above the hook and hauled it in sufficiently for him, not without considerable difficulty, to unhook the puppet from the chain. He held it in his arms and stared down at it for long moments, then shook his head and looked up at Morgenstern.

'Jan, he who did this wicked thing, this sick, sick joke — he leaves our employment this very day.'

'This very hour,' Morgenstern corrected. His face twisted in repugnance, not at the puppet, but at what had been done to it. 'And such a beautiful puppet!'

Morgenstern was in no way exaggerating. It was indeed a beautiful puppet and not only or indeed primarily because of the wonderfully cut and fitted bodice and gown. Despite the fact that the neck had been broken and cruelly gouged by the hook, the face itself was arrestingly beautiful, a work of great artistic skill in which the colours of the dark hair, the brown eyes and the complexion blended so subtly and in which the delicate features had been. so exquisitely shaped that it was hard to believe that this was the face of a puppet and not that of a human being with an existence and distinctive personality of her own. Nor was I the only person who felt that way.

De Graaf took the puppet from Muggenthaler and gazed at it. 'Beautiful,' he murmured. 'How beautiful. And how real, how living. This lives.' He glanced at Muggenthaler. 'Would you have any idea who made this puppet?'

'I've never seen one like it before. It's not one of ours, I'm sure, but the floor foreman is the man to ask. But I know it's not ours.'

'And this exquisite colouring,' de Graaf mused. 'It's so right for the face, so inevitable. No man could have created this from his own mind. Surely, surely, he must have worked from a living model, from someone he knew. Wouldn't you say so, Inspector?'

'It couldn't have been done otherwise,' van Gelder said flatly.

'I've the feeling, almost, that I've seen this face before,' de Graaf continued. 'Any of you gentlemen ever seen a girl like this?'

We all shook our heads slowly and none more slowly than I did. The old leaden feeling was back in my stomach again but this time the lead was coated with a thick layer of ice. It wasn't just that the puppet bore a frighteningly accurate resemblance to Astrid Lemay: it was so lifelike, it was Astrid Lemay.

Fifteen minutes later, after the thorough search carried out in the warehouse had produced its predictably total negative result, de Graaf took his farewell of Muggenthaler and Morgenstern on the steps of the warehouse, while van Gelder and I stood by. Muggenthaler was back at his beaming while Morgenstern stood by his side, smiling with patronizing satisfaction. De Graaf shook hands warmly with both in turn.

'Again, a thousand apologies.' De Graaf was being almost effusive. 'Our information was about as accurate as it usually is. All records of this visit will be struck from the books.' He smiled broadly. 'The invoices will be returned to you as soon as certain interested parties have failed to find all the different illicit diamond suppliers they expected to find there. Good morning, gentlemen.'

Van Gelder and I said our farewell in turn and I shook hands especially warmly with Morgenstern and reflected that it was just as well that he lacked the obvious ability to read thoughts and had unluckily come into this world without any inborn ability to sense when death and danger stood very close at hand: for Morgenstern it was who had been at the Balinova night-club last night and had been the first to leave after Maggie and Belinda had passed out into the street.

We made the journey back to the Marnixstraat in partial silence, by which I mean that de Graaf and van Gelder talked freely but I didn't. They appeared to be much more interested in the curious incident of the broken puppet than they were in the ostensible reason for our visit to the warehouse, which probably demonstrated quite clearly what they thought of the ostensible reason, and as I hardly liked to intrude to tell them that they had their priorities right, I kept silent. Back in his office, de Graaf said: 'Coffee? We have a girl here who makes the best coffee in Amsterdam.'

'A pleasure to be postponed. Too much of a hurry, I'm afraid.'

'You have plans? A course of action, perhaps?'

'Neither. I want to lie on my bed and think.'

Then why — '

'Why come up here in the first place? Two small requests. Find out, please, if any telephone message has come through for me.'

'Message?'

'From this person I had to go to see when we were down in the warehouse.' I was getting so that I could hardly tell whether I was telling the truth or lying.

De Graaf nodded, picked up a phone, talked briefly, wrote down a long screed of letters and figures and handed the paper to me. The letters were meaningless: the figures, reversed, would be the girls' new telephone number. I put the paper in my pocket.

'Thank you. I'll have to decode this.'

'And the second small request?'

'Could you lend me a pair of binoculars?'

'Binoculars?'

'I want to do some bird-watching,' I explained.

'Of course,' van Gelder said heavily. 'You will recall, Major Sherman, that we are supposed to be co-operating closely?'

'Well?'

'You are not, if I may say so, being very communicative.'

'I'll communicate with you when I've something worth communicating. Don't forget that you've been working on this for over a year. I haven't been here for two days yet. Like I say, I have to go and lie down and think.'

I didn't go and lie down and think. I drove to a telephone-box which I judged to be a circumspect distance from the police headquarters and dialled the number de Graaf had given me.

The voice at the other end of the line said: 'Hotel Touring.'

I knew it but had never been inside it: it wasn't the sort of hotel that appealed to my expense account, but it was the sort of hotel I would have chosen for the two girls.

I said: 'My name is Sherman. Paul Sherman. I believe two young ladies registered with you this morning. Could I speak to them, please?'

'I'm sorry, they are out at present.' There was no worry there; if they weren't out locating or trying to locate Astrid Lemay they would be carrying out the assignment I'd given them in the early hours of the morning. The voice at the other end anticipated my next question. 'They left a message for you, Mr Sherman. I am to say that they failed to locate your mutual friend and are now looking for some other friends. I'm afraid it's a bit vague, sir.'

I thanked him and hung up. 'Help me,' I'd said to Astrid, 'and I'll help you.' It was beginning to look as if I were helping her all right, helping her into the nearest canal or coffin. I jumped into the police taxi and made a lot of enemies in the brief journey to the rather unambitious area that bordered on the Rembrandtplein.

The door to Astrid's flat was locked but I still had my belt of illegal ironmongery around my waist. Inside, the flat was as I'd first seen it, neat and tidy and threadbare. There were no signs of violence, no signs of any hurried departure. I looked in the few drawers and closets there were and it seemed to me that they were very bare of clothes indeed. But then, as Astrid had pointed out, they were very poor indeed, so that probably meant nothing. I looked everywhere in the tiny flat where a message of some sorts could have been left, but if any had been, I couldn't find it: I didn't believe any had been. I locked the front door and drove to the Balinova night-club.

For a night-club those were still the unearthly early hours of the morning and the doors, predictably, were locked. They were strong doors and remained unaffected by the.hammering and the kicking that I subjected them to, which, luckily, was more than could be said for one of the people inside whose slumber I must have so irritatingly disturbed, for a key turned and the door opened a crack.

I put my foot in the crack and widened it a little, enough to see the head and shoulders of a faded blonde who was modestly clutching a wrap high at her throat: considering that the last time I had seen her she had been clad in a thin layer of transparent soap bubbles I thought that this was overdoing it a little.

'I wish to see the manager, please.'

'We don't open till six o'clock.'

'I don't want a reservation. I don't want a job. I want to see the manager. Now.'

'He's not here.'

'So. I hope your next job is as good as this one.'

'I don't understand.' No wonder they had the lights so low last night in the Balinova, in daylight that raddled face would have emptied the place like a report that one of the customers had bubonic plague. 'What do you mean, my job?'

I lowered my voice, which you have to do when you speak with solemn gravity. 'Just that you won't have any if the manager finds that I called on a matter of the greatest urgency and you refused to let me see him.'

She looked at me uncertainly then said: 'Wait here.' She tried to close the door but I was a lot stronger than she was and after a moment she gave up and went away. She came back inside thirty seconds accompanied by a man still dressed in evening clothes,

I didn't take to him at all. Like most people, I don't like snakes and this was what this man irresistibly reminded me of. He was very tall and very thin and moved with a sinuous grace. He was effeminately elegant and dandified and had the unhealthy pallor of a creature of the night. His face was of alabaster, his features smooth, his lips non-existent: the dark hair, parted in the middle, was plastered flat against his skull. His dress suit was elegantly cut but he hadn't as good a tailor as I had: the bulge under the left armpit was quite perceptible. He held a jade cigarette-holder in a thin, white, beautifully manicured hand: his face held an expression, which was probably permanent, of quietly contemptuous amusement. Just to have him look at you was a good enough excuse to hit him. He blew a thin stream of cigarette smoke into the air.

'What's all this, my dear fellow?' He looked French or Italian, but he wasn't: he was English. 'We're not open, you know.'

'You are now,' I pointed out. 'You the manager?'

'I'm the manager's representative. If you care to call back later — ' he puffed some more of his obnoxious smoke into the air — 'much later, then we'll see — '

'I'm a lawyer from England and on urgent business.' I handed him a card saying I was a lawyer from England. 'It is essential that I see the manager at once. A great deal of money is involved.'

If such an expression as he wore could be said to soften, then his did, though you had to have a keen eye to notice the difference. 'I promise nothing, Mr Harrison.' That was the name on the card. 'Mr Durrell may be persuaded to see you.'

He moved away like a ballet dancer on his day off and was back in moments. He nodded to me and stood to one side to let me precede him down a large and dimly lit passage, an arrangement which I didn't like but had to put up with. At the end of the passage was a door opening on a brightly lit room, and as it seemed to be intended that I should enter without knocking I did just that. I noted in passing that the door was of the type that the vaults manager — if there is such a person — of the Bank of England would have rejected as being excessive to his requirements.

The interior of the room looked more than a little like a vault itself. Two large safes, tall enough for a man to walk into, were let into one wall. Another wall was given over to a battery of lockable metal cabinets of the rental left-luggage kind commonly found in railway stations. The other two walls may well have been windowless but it was impossible to be sure: they were completely covered with crimson and violet drapes.

The man sitting behind the large mahogany desk didn't look a bit like a bank manager, at any rate a British banker, who typically has a healthy outdoor appearance about him owing to his penchant for golf and the short hours he spends behind his desk. This man was sallow, about eighty pounds overweight, with greasy black hair, a greasy complexion and permanently bloodshot yellowed eyes. He wore a well-cut blue alpaca suit, a large variety of rings on both hands and a welcoming smile that didn't become him at all.

'Mr Harrison?' He didn't try to rise: probably experience had convinced him that the effort wasn't worth it. 'Pleased to meet you. My name is Durrell.'

Maybe it was, but it wasn't the name he had been born with: I thought him Armenian, but couldn't be sure. But I greeted him as civilly as if his name had been Durrell.

'You have some business to discuss with me?' he beamed. Mr Durrell was cunning and knew that lawyers didn't come all the way from England without matters of weighty import, invariably of a financial nature, to discuss.'

'Well, not actually with you. With one of your employees.'

The welcoming smile went into cold storage. 'With one of my employees?'

'Yes.'

'Then why bother me?'

'Because I couldn't find her at her home address. I am told she works here.'

'She?'

'Her name is Astrid Lemay.'

'Well, now.' He was suddenly more reasonable, as if he wanted to help. 'Astrid Lemay? Working here.' He frowned thoughtfully. 'We have many girls, of course — but that name?' He shook his head.

'But friends of hers told me,' I protested.

'Some mistake. Marcel?'

The snakelike man smiled his contemptuous smile. 'No one of that name here.'

'Or ever worked here?'

Marcel shrugged, walked across to a filing cabinet, produced a folder and laid it on the desk, beckoning to me. 'All the girls who work here or have done in the past year. Look for yourself.'

I didn't bother looking. I said: 'I've been misinformed. My apologies for disturbing you.'

'I suggest you try some of the other night-clubs.' Durrell, in the standard tycoon fashion, was already busy making notes on a sheet of paper to indicate that the interview was over. 'Good day, Mr Harrison.'

Marcel had already moved to the doorway. I followed, and as I passed through, turned and smiled apologetically. 'I'm really sorry — '

'Good day.' He didn't even bother to lift his head. I did some more uncertain smiling, then courteously pulled the door to behind me. It looked a good solid soundproof door.

Marcel, standing just inside the passageway, gave me his warm smile again and, not even condescending to speak, contemptuously indicated that I should precede him down the passageway. I nodded, and as I walked past him I hit him in the middle with considerable satisfaction and a great deal of force, and although I thought that was enough I hit him again, this time on the side of the neck. I took out my gun, screwed on the silencer, took the recumbent Marcel by the collar of his jacket and dragged him towards the office door which I opened with my gun-hand.

Durrell looked up from his desk. His eyes widened as much as eyes can widen when they're almost buried in folds of fat. Then his face became very still, as faces become when the owners want to conceal their thoughts or intentions.

'Don't do it,' I said. 'Don't do any of the standard clever things. Don't reach for a button, don't press any switches on the floor, and don't, please, be so naive as to reach for the gun which you probably have in the top right-hand drawer, you being a right-handed man.'

He didn't do any of the standard clever things,

'Push your chair back two feet.'

He pushed his chair back two feet. I dropped Marcel to the floor, reached behind me, closed the door, turned the very fancy key in the lock, then pocketed the key. I said: 'Get up.'

Durrell got up. He stood scarcely more than five feet high. In build, he closely resembled a bullfrog. I nodded to the nearer of the two large safes.

'Open it.'

'So that's it.' He was good with his face but not so good with his voice. He wasn't able to keep that tiny trace of relief out of his voice. 'Robbery, Mr Harrison.'

'Come here,' I said. He came. 'Do you know who I am?'

'Know who you are?' A look of puzzlement. 'You just told me — '

'That my name is Harrison. Who am I?'

'I don't understand.'

He screeched with pain and fingered the already bleeding welt left by the silencer of my gun.

'Who am I?'

'Sherman.' Hate was in the eyes and the thick voice. 'Interpol.'

'Open that door.'

'Impossible. I have only half the combination. Marcel here has — '

The second screech was louder, the weal on the other cheek comparably bigger.

'Open that door.'

He twiddled with the combination and pulled the door open. The safe was about 30 inches square, of a size to hold a great deal of guilders, but then, if all the tales about the Balinova were true, tales that whispered darkly of gaming-rooms and much more interesting shows in the basement and the brisk retail of items not commonly found in ordinary retail shops, the size was probably barely adequate.

I nodded to Marcel. 'Junior, here. Shove him inside.'

'In there?' He looked horrified.

'I don't want him coming to and interrupting our discussion.'

'Discussion?'

'Open up.'

'He'll suffocate. Ten minutes and — '

'The next time I have to ask it will be after I put a bullet through your kneecap so that you'll never walk without a stick again. Believe me?'

He believed me. Unless you're a complete fool, and Durrell wasn't, you can always tell when a man means something. He dragged Marcel inside, which was probably the hardest work he'd done in years, because he had to do quite a bit of bending and pushing to get Marcel to fit on the tiny floor of the safe in such a way that the door could be closed. The door was closed.

I searched Durrell. He'd no offensive weapon on him. The right-hand drawer of his desk predictably yielded up a large automatic of a type unknown to me, which was not unusual as I'm not very good with guns except when aiming and firing them.

'Astrid Lemay,' I said. 'She works here.'

'She works here.'

'Where is she?'

'I don't know. Before God, I don't know.' The last was almost in a scream as I'd lifted the gun again.

'You could find out?'

'How could I find out?'

'Your ignorance and reticence do you credit,' I said. 'But they are based on fear. Fear of someone, fear of something. But you'll become all knowledgeable and forthcoming when you learn to fear something else more. Open that safe.'

He opened the safe. Marcel was still unconscious.

'Get inside.'

'No.' The single word came out like a hoarse scream. 'I tell you, it's airtight, hermetically sealed. Two of us in there — we'll be dead in minutes if I go in there.'

'You'll be dead in seconds if you don't.'

He went inside. He was shaking now. Whoever this was, he wasn't one of the king-pins: whoever masterminded the drug racket was a man — or men — possessed of a toughness and ruthlessness that was absolute and this man was possessed of neither.

I spent the next five minutes without profit in going through every drawer and file available to me. Everything I examined appeared to be related in one way or another to legitimate business dealing, which made sense, for Durrell would be unlikely to keep documents of a more incriminating nature where the office cleaner could get her hands on them. After five minutes I opened the safe door.

Durrell had been wrong about the amount of breathable air available inside that safe. He'd overestimated. He was semi-collapsed with his knees resting on Marcel's back, which made it fortunate for Marcel that he was still unconscious. At least, I thought he was unconscious. I didn't bother to check. I caught Durrell by the shoulder and pulled. It was like pulling a bull moose out of a swamp, but he came eventually and rolled out on to the floor. He lay there for a bit, then pushed himself groggily to his knees. I waited patiently until the laboured stertorous whooping sound dropped to a mere gasping wheeze and his complexion ran through the spectrum from a bluish-violet colour to what would have been a becomingly healthy pink had I not known that his normal complexion more resembled the colour of old newspaper. I prodded him and indicated that he should get to his feet and he managed this after a few tries.

'Astrid Lemay?' I said.

'She was here this morning.' His voice came as a hoarse whisper but audible enough all the same. 'She said that very urgent family matters had come up. She had to leave the country.'

'Alone?'

'No, with her brother.'

'He was here?'

'No.'

'Where did she say she was going?'

'Athens. She belonged there.'

'She came here just to tell you this?'

'She had two months' back pay due. She needed it for the fare.'

I told him to get back inside the safe. I had a little trouble with him, but he finally decided that it offered a better chance than a bullet, so he went. I didn't want to terrify him any more. I just didn't want him to hear what I was about to say.

I got through to Schiphol on a direct line, and was finally connected with the person I wanted.

'Inspector van Gelder, Police HQ here,' I said. 'An Athens flight this morning. Probably KLM. I want to check if two people, names Astrid Lemay and George Lemay, were on board. Their descriptions are as follows — what was that?'

The voice at the other end told me that they had been aboard. There had been some difficulty, apparently, about George being allowed on the flight as his condition was such that both medical and police authorities at the airport had questioned the wisdom of it, but the girl's pleading had prevailed. I thanked my informant and hung up.

I opened the door of the safe. It hadn't been shut more than a couple of minutes this time and I didn't expect to find them in such bad shape and they weren't. Durrell's complexion was no more than puce, and Marcel had not only recovered consciousness but recovered it to the extent of trying to lug out his underarm gun, which I had carelessly forgotten to remove. As I took the gun from him before he could damage himself with it, I reflected that Marcel must have the most remarkable powers of recuperation. I was to remember this with bitter chagrin on an occasion that was to be a day or so later and very much more inauspicious for me.

I left them both sitting on the floor, and as there didn't seem to be anything worthwhile to say none of the three of us said it. I unlocked the door, opened it, closed and locked it behind me, smiled pleasantly at the faded blonde and dropped the key through a street grille outside the Balinova. Even if there wasn't a spare key available, there were telephones and alarm bells still operating from inside that room and it shouldn't take an oxyacetylene torch more than two or three hours to open it. There should be enough air inside the room to last that time. But it didn't seem very important one way or another.

I drove back to Astrid's flat and did what I should have done in the first place — asked some of her immediate neighbours if they had seen her that morning. Two had, and their stories checked. Astrid and George with two or three cases had left two hours previously in a taxi.

Astrid had skipped and I felt a bit sad and empty about it, not because she had said she would help me and hadn't but because she had closed the last escape door open to her.

Her masters hadn't killed her for two reasons. They knew I could have tied them up with her death and that would be coming too close to home. And they didn't have to because she was gone and no longer a danger to them: fear, if it is sufficiently great, can seal lips as effectively as death.

I'd liked her and would have liked to see her happy again. I couldn't blame her. For her, all the doors had been closed.