The King's Commisar

CHAPTER NINE

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The Boy on the Talking Motor-Cycle

It was not Sir Horace Malory's habit to attend the quarterly dinners of the organization known as UKUS, a society whose members, as the name indicated, came equally from United Kingdom and United States business and banking houses in the City of London. The society's twin purposes were to ease the flow of business between the two nations, and to enable Americans resident in Britain to become acquainted in congenial surroundings with one another and with well-disposed Brits. By tradition the evenings were boozy: bread rolls were thrown about, speakers hissed, practical jokes played, wagers won and lost.

Malory felt he was a little old for that kind of thing, but he went, for Pilgrim's sake. The man might enjoy it ...

He didn't though; nor did Malory. A florid actuary sitting across from them at the long table began the trouble.

'Saw you at the Turner auction the other night,' he said jovially to Malory. 'Any idea who bought it?'

'No,' said Malory shortly.

'Lot of cash for a yard of canvas and a smear or two of paint, wouldn't you say?' the actuary went on cheerfully. 'People really do toss their money around. Don't believe in it myself.'

'Nor I.' Malory, disliking this talk, wished the man would shut up. He put on his bumbling-old-duffer manner, 'Lot of damned nonsense. That's what I say. Waste of good money! I say, I was hearing about the Chancellor -'

'Funny,' said the actuary with determination. 'I did hear Hillyard, Cleef were the buyers.'

'Got more damned sense,' Malory bumbled. 'Hillyard, Cleef! Dear, oh dear. Hear that, Pilgrim?'

Pilgrim laughed harshly. 'Where'd that pile of horseshit come from?'

'And,' added the actuary cheerfully, raising his voice a little and looking around for additional attention,

'that wasn't all I heard!'

'If the rest is as puerile as that, I should concentrate on the soup,' Malory said. He sipped his own. It was scalding hot.

But the thing was started now. 'The way I heard the story,' said the actuary happily, 'it started very close to the dealer who did the bidding. He said the buyer had to remain anonymous, but it was an Anglo-American banking house -'

'Stuff and nonsense!' said Malory.

'-with a guilty conscience.' The circle of laughter round the actuary widened. The doddering-old-buffer-manner slid away from Malory's shoulders like a snake's sloughed skin. He could sense now what was coming. He reached across the table, placed his forefinger beneath the rim of the actuary's soup plate, and tipped it into the actuary's lap. As he said later to an astonished Pilgrim, 'Really it was the only gratifying moment in the whole evening. Nice to see the fella hopping about clutching his trousers, what? You do know what he was going to say, don't you?'

'No.'

Malory gave him a warning glance. 'I'm not going to let the words even pass my lips, my dear chap. Let things like that get out and they take wing.'

They were taking wing even as he spoke. The actuary had a smallish but painful scald in a thoroughly inconvenient place and he was not the kind of man to allow Malory's grey hairs to offer protection against retribution.

From his bathroom, where he sat with a bag of ice in one hand and a telephone in the other, he set about discovering the name of the current Art Critic of The Times. This established, he managed finally to reach the man and pass on what he described as 'a rumour, but from well-informed circles'. The man from The Times said he was most interested, and certainly he sounded it.

'The City Editor of The Times would be grateful for a word with you,' Pilgrim's secretary said brightly, early the following morning.

Pilgrim picked up the telephone. 'What can I do for you, George?'

It turned out not to be George, the City Editor, whom he knew, but one Valentine, the mumble-mumble, whom he didn't.

'Just one question, Mr Pilgrim, really.'

'Go ahead.'

'Is it true you bought the Turner to present it to the nation?'

Pilgrim proceeded to think very rapidly. If his answer were no, the next question would be, 'Then why did you buy it?' A 'yes' would cost Hillyard, Cleef three and a half million-plus. 'No comment?' No comment indicated slippery men in dark corners. Pilgrim disliked being rude to reporters. Fashionable theory at the Harvard Business School in his time had dictated that the Press was a friend. So what he said was: 'You're out of your skull.'

'You mean you didn't buy it to add it to the Turner Bequest?'

'I mean,' Pilgrim lied crossly, 'that we didn't buy it. That clear?'

'Perfectly,' said Valentine, 'and thank you. Oh, Mr Pilgrim -'

'You said one question.'

'I thought you'd like to know that this story has very wide currency. They were even talking about it in the bar at the House of Commons last night.'

'I see.' Pilgrim ground out a laugh. 'Wonder who's spreading this junk around? Thanks for the tip.'

'So you'll get a lot of enquiries. I should be careful with your answers.'

Pilgrim hung up. On the blotter before him lay the telex from Pepe Robizo confirming that purchase-plus-ten was acceptable.

Pilgrim winced: He now appreciated the truth of Malory's observation of the previous evening: the idea was out and was indeed taking wing. As a result, forces would be gathering. Hillyard, Cleef might be compelled to give away the Turner. And he. Pilgrim, had promised it to Pepe Robizo of all people. The thought made his back feel chill with sweat. That was like snatching its dinner away from a tiger. Time for confession, then. Malory was the adviser; let him advise. To his surprise, Malory appeared quite unconcerned about Robizo but was grimly angry that the story was all over London. 'It's plain malice,' he muttered. That oily little mongrel Sudbury's behind it - can't be anybody else. '

'We can't prove it.'

'Of course we can't. Whole point, isn't it! Fault's yours, Laurence, if I may say so. Fellas like that, they think they have a licence to bore you to death, as well as rob you. But you told him to get a move on. It's wounded vanity.'

'It's going to be all over the papers.'

'Flat denials. It's the only way,' said Malory firmly. 'If we answer no long enough, it will all go away.'

But it stayed. A photograph had somehow been taken on the pavement outside the auction room as Malory and his security men placed the crate in the armoured van. That night the picture was all over the front page of the Standard, the remaining London evening paper, along with a report of Pilgrim's denial.

'It's a lovely likeness! Sir Horace,' Mrs Frobisher remarked as she brought the newspaper into Malory's office. And it was.

Malory, knowing now what was coming, diverted himself for a while by playing a game he rather thought he could win. If Pilgrim's dangerous millionaire Robizo really was a man of strong social ambition, then Robizo was vulnerable; such people always were. It was, after all, simple enough: Robizo was not currently acceptable to a few people whose society he craved. Not the rich: Robizo was rich, so the rich would accept him. It was therefore the aristocratic, the old money. And in Florida that meant. . . Malory smiled. There was always someone. And in this case there was old Digby's daughter, wasn't there Randolph's first wife! Pretty thing, too: Malory remembered the wartime wedding at Admiralty House, even the little silk Persian prayer rug he'd given them. Daughter of one aristo, bearer of the great name of the century, and now married to God! All he needed was somebody in regular touch. After all, it wasn't a question of inviting this Robizo creature to dinner; just some charity reception or other and a large donation plus a shake of the Harriman hand. Yes, she could certainly be asked. Malory was quite busy for a while on the telephone. At last a lady promised to talk to Clarissa, who'd talk to Digby's daughter. Something would certainly be arranged.

In spite of this pleasing little triumph, however, the next few days were not happy ones for anyone except the Press. They, however, loved it! Some targets are far more satisfying to strike at than others, and very high on that list are banks. Then come greedy oil companies, profligate local authorities and corrupt clergymen. The Bank with the Golden Hoard got it very firmly in the neck. The louder the denials, the less they were heeded: 'Sir Horace Malory' [wrote a gentleman in the Sunday Express], 'has spent most of his seventy-eight years making mountains of money. He has a mansion in Gloucestershire, a town house in Mayfair and several million in the bank. Wouldn't it be nice if he devoted some of his filthy lucre to a good clean purpose and added the Turner masterpiece to Britain's great heritage of art treasures!' 'You can't take it with you, Sir Horace . . .'

'I'm not going,' Malory muttered savagely. 'Not yet, anyway.' He and Pilgrim, both by now feeling somewhat beleaguered, sat in Pilgrim's teak and steel office.

'Can't be Dikeston doing it,' Pilgrim said. 'You can't play Press campaigns from the grave.'

'No, no, no. It's the Sudbury chap,' Malory said.

'It's so damned unfair!' Pilgrim went on. 'We buy a painting - what the hell's wrong with buying a painting? Now we have to give it away - we can't even sell it!'

'Clever, though,' said Malory. 'You'll admit it's clever.'

Pilgrim gave him a long, hard look. He thumped both hands palm down on the desk and said with new determination, 'We're going to fight back, Horace. We have to. We start off with hundreds, it goes to thousands, then to hundreds of thousands - and now it's goddam millions] The next stage is tens of millions and after that it's hundreds and we're wiped out! How in hell did Dikeston get this thing going?'

'He had fifty thousand a year and a lot of time to think and plan,' Malory said. 'And at the moment, if I may remind you, we have no idea at all where the next packet of Dikeston's papers will be coming from. There were no instructions with the last batch.'

Pilgrim said, 'Look, we don't need the papers. We know what happened to the Romanovs. They were shot in a cellar in Ekaterinburg, right?'

'So it's said,' Malory said, scepticism in his voice.

'You don't believe it.'

too'It's problematical, Laurence. Some would disagree. There's a book I'll lend you -'

'I've read the damn books. The Reds shot the whole family.'

'Andso?'

'So what's to worry about?'

'We worry about the paper,' Malory said. 'To Zaharoff the secret of that paper was worth a fortune. Remember his choice of word. He warns of calamity.'

Again Pilgrim's flat hand thumped the desk. 'Calamity! The only calamity I see lies in carrying on round this obstacle course Dikeston set. He's got us paying on a geometrical progression. It'll ruin us!' He stood straight and fixed Malory with a hard eye. 'We come back to Zaharoff, don't we? Always back to him. Why does he matter so much? You knew him, Horace; you held him in high regard. You-'

'No.' Malory held up a hand to stop him. 'You're wrong, quite wrong.'

'What do you mean?'

'I held him in awe. I was terrified of him, Laurence!'

'I thought you liked the guy.'

'Like?' Malory gave what might have been a snort of amusement, I do not believe there was a man on earth who liked Basil Zaharoff. Not one. And only one woman. Respected, oh yes\ - he was respected!

He was feared, and with reason. He was listened to, he was courted as an ally. But not as a friend, I think.'

'Yet you still think his word is holy writ?'

'If you like.' Malory paused and pursed his lips. 'Tell me, have you ever played a ball game of any kind against a really good player?'

'A little squash once,' Pilgrim said, with a touch of pride. 'I had a knock-up once at the New York Racquet Club with Hashim Khan.'

'Then let me tell you what it was you noticed. First, he hit the ball both much harder and much straighter than you.

Secondly, he did not make mistakes. Thirdly, he could keep going at a very high level of performance far longer than you could. Agreed?'

'Oh, sure.' Pilgrim was smiling now at the recollection. 'But you left one out.'

'What's that?'

'Positional play. Anticipation, if you like. He was there and ready with the answer while you were still trying to set the question-' Pilgrim broke off, abruptly comprehending. Malory said, 'Precisely. All these things are games. Zaharoff's game was power, and he played it supremely well.'

Pilgrim crossed to the window and stood looking out, I realize you're convinced of it all, Horace. You know I'm not. Could you convince me?'

'Yes, I think I could.'

'I'm going to ask you to do it right now,' Pilgrim said. 'But first . . .' He pressed a button on his intercom and said, 'Come in, would you, Jacques.'

Graves came in immediately. 'What I want, Jacques,' Pilgrim said, 'and I'm afraid it will probably be one hell of a job, is a complete list of all regular payments made by Hillyard, Cleef which are or even may be pension payments. Up to and including - what year did Zaharoff die, Horace?'

'Nineteen thirty-six.'

'Okay, from, say, nineteen-fourteen to nineteen-thirty-six. Right?'

'Right.'

As Graves departed, Pilgrim settled into his chair. 'Convince me.'

'Have you ever been to Monte?' Malory enquired.

'Monte Carlo? Yes.'

'Did you visit the Casino?'

'Yes.'

'And play?'

'No, not me.'

'Nowadays, of course,' Malory said musingly, 'it's not what it was. There are casinos everywhere, even -' and his lip bent in distaste - 'here in London. But there was a time, Laurence, when Las Vegas did not exist, nor casinos in London and other cities. Rich men and women who wanted to play chemin de fer or roulette had to go to Monte. Know anything, do you, about Monaco's status?'

'It's a principality, isn't it? - What's the guy's name? Rainier?'

'The family name is Grimaldi. Hereditary rulers. Have been for centuries. Keep them in mind, will you, my dear chap, while I tell you something of Sir Basil. Oh - and the lady I believe I mentioned - she must have liked him. She waited forty years to marry him.

'Zaharoff was born in any number of places, and born poor in all of them, or so he said at different times. But effectively he started off in Constantinople as a fireman, of all things - this is the eighteen-sixties, mind, when fire brigades were perhaps a little less, er, technically minded than they are these days. Those chappies used to start a fire, then run round with their axes and chop their way into the surrounding property and see what was portable. You understand?

'He was Greek, Zaharoff was, and this was Turkey, with scrapping going on all over the place. He began to sell arms. Sold more and more. Worked for Nordenfelt, then heard about Maxim's new machine-gun, forced a merger between 'em and became the salesman for Maxim, Nordenfelt. And when I say salesman, as I'm sure you understand, Laurence, I do not mean that he drove a little Ford motor-car and made fifteen calls per day.'

Pilgrim smiled. 'What did he drive?'

Malory smiled back. 'Hard bargains. Took his commission, of course. Then came the day he sold a submarine for Vickers, I think it was to Queen Marie of Roumania, and rumour had it the deal was done à deux.Heard of Queen Marie, have you? Quite a lady she was! Well, never mind. Zaharoff quickly became Vickers' top figure. He was only a director, one among many, not chairman or anything, but his will determined everything. He started wars, armed both sides, that kind of thing. Kept the Balkans boiling for decades. When you talk about anticipation, mark this - no sooner had the Wright Brothers flown at Kittyhawk than Zaharoff set up chairs in aviation at three universities: Oxford, Paris and St Petersburg. There was a fella called Constantinescu who devised the gear which enabled machine-guns to fire through rotating propellers. He was Basil's, I seem to remember.

'But meantime, he fell in love. Oh yes, Zaharoff fell. Here comes the lady: Spanish grandee, Duchess of Villa-franca and much else besides. Married to a madman, the Duchess was, and powerfully Papist into the bargain, so -well, there couldn't be a divorce. Had to wait for the Grim Reaper. So they waited: forty-three years, I think it was. Then the Duke died and they got married. Are you still listening?'

'You have my attention, Horace, believe me.'

'So here's our poor boy from the slums of Constantinople. He's now among the richest men in the world and his wife is a duchess. Lloyd George, meantime, has given Basil a knighthood. He's quite the grandee himself. AH he lacks is a kingdom to lay at the feet of his bride.

'Now, consider Monaco. For three hundred years, from the time of the Treaty of Peronne in 1641 Monaco has been part of France. The Grimaldi prince has no true sovereignty and what's more, he has a French garrison quartered on him just in case he turns ambitious. But there were one or two things he could still do, and in 1862 he granted to a man named Blanc a concession to open a casino in Monte Carlo. Blanc was clever and also had a son who was very clever; so, before you could say Athelsgate, the place was coining money. So much that the whole of Monaco lived on it, from the prince downward. No taxes. Police, judges, public works, all were paid for. As an arrangement,' Malory said admiringly, 'it was quite lovely! But then came the war.'

'Which war?'

'Ah. Nineteen-fourteen. Am I boring you, Laurence?'

'Not yet.'

'Well, with the war going strong, business dwindled. For poor Monsieur Blanc, that is, not for Zaharoff as you might imagine. He had a small commission on many of the bullets, most of the shells and almost all the guns. But with business going down in the casino, down went the income of the current Grimaldi prince, who didn't much like it, and therefore made an approach -quietly, of course, to Zaharoff. What it amounted to was that in due course, given a secret option to purchase, Zaharoff would be able to throw out Blanc and his sons and sons-in-law, one of whom was a Buonoparte, by the way, and the other a Radziwill. Sure you're not getting lost in all this, Laurence?'

'I'm waiting for the fish hook.'

Malory smiled. 'Soon, soon. One further point to remember is the long relationship that existed, on the very closest terms, between the French premier Georges Clemenceau and Zaharoff. Forgive me if I sound like a schoolmaster, will you?'

'Goon,Horace!'

'What happened - and this in the middle of the greatest war in history - was that Clemenceau suddenly concluded a treaty - a treaty which was kept absolutely secret! - with Monaco's Prince. Under its terms Monaco was to be a sovereign principality again. The treaty was never published, I might tell you, not as such. But the terms did turn up eventually, in the small print of the Versailles Treaty, where it was damned hard to find.

'After that,' said Malory, 'it was easy. Zaharoff paid a million for the Casino and so he became the true ruler of Monaco.'

'Smart,' said Pilgrim.

'Yes, that's a fair word.'

'He was quite an operator.'

'He was indeed. Are you conv - Good gracious me!’ Malory sat as though pole-axed, mouth agape, eyes staring.

Pilgrim came quickly out of his chair, wondering if the old man might not be having some kind of seizure.

'You okay, Horace?'

Malory frowned at him. 'Eh?'

'You all right?'

'All right? Oh yes. But damned puzzled.'

'By what?'

'The date of the Treaty between France and Monaco -between Clemenceau and Grimaldi. I've just realized what it was!'

'And?'

'Basil got his kingdom on July 17th, 1918.'

'Christ,' Pilgrim breathed. 'I know that date, too. That's the day they shot the Tsar!'

The cheque, signed by Pilgrim and by Malory, and delivered by Malory when he made his well-documented visit to collect the painting, had now been paid into the auctioneer's bank. Another cheque, drawn by the financial director of the auction house, was sent to Coutts & Co., bankers to Royalty - and to the anonymous seller of the Turner. This cheque was for£2,925,000, a sum arrived at by deducting ten per cent from the auction price of three and a quarter million. The ten per cent represented what was termed 'Seller's Premium'. Hillyard, Cleef had already paid a ten per cent Buyer's Premium. The auctioneers had therefore cleared £650,000 and were pleased to act with reasonable expedition. They did not, as was their normal practice, keep the money for a month to earn interest at money market terms; the cheque was sent in a very few days.

Mr Everard Polly, the official at Coutts & Co, entrusted with all matters concerned with removal of the Turner from its vault and its subsequent sale, now proceeded to ensure rapid clearance of the auctioneers' cheque, and then consulted the instructions deposited at the bank by their deceased client. The final passage read:

. . , upon receipt of the monies raised at sale by auction, Envelope Five shall be forwarded to Messrs Dazey, Cheyne & Co., solicitors, of 199 Chancery Lane, London. Mr Polly was enormously intrigued. He had been with Coutts & Co., for more than forty years and this was infinitely the most .., he had difficulty finding the word . . , f lavoursome transaction he had been involved with. Yes, flavoursome. A great painting in the vaults, a price of millions, everything done in great secrecy. Oh yes, flavour-some! It was with some regret that he summoned one of the bank's messengers and told him to deliver Envelope Three at once, because Mr Polly knew that with that action his own involvement ended. It was a shame that he would never know . . . The messenger from Coutts took a taxi. It was not very far from the Strand to Chancery Lane, and as it was a pleasant morning he could easily have walked, but he had gathered from Mr Polly's expression and manner that there must be something rather special about the wax-sealed manila envelope with the large Roman V upon it which now rested in his document case. He decided that, having delivered the envelope, he would walk back through Lincoln's Inn Fields. With luck the girls would be playing netball, and he could pause at the new wine bar . . .

He handed the envelope to Mr Redvers Pratt, chief clerk of Dazey, Cheyne, who said, 'Right, thanks, who's it from?'

"Fraid I can't tell you.'

Mr Pratt frowned. 'Don't be daft. It must be from somebody.'

'Bound to be,' said the messenger, 'but I don't know who. My job to deliver, that's all.'

'Oh.' Mr Pratt looked at it and smiled. 'Bomb, could it be, d'you reckon?'

'Too thin.'

'Hope you're right. Thanks.'

As the messenger left Mr Pratt broke the seal. Inside lay a further envelope and, paperclipped to it, a single sheet of paper upon which was written, 'To be delivered at once to the Senior Partner, Hillyard, Cleef, at 6, Athelsgate, E.C

Unlike Mr Polly, Mr Pratt was only mildly and momentarily interested. The passing on of papers was part of his job, and he simply took a small pride in doing it efficiently. As the postal service declined, Mr Pratt had searched for replacement means and had recently taken to using a firm which had given itself an extremely unlikely name.

'Suzuki Highway,' said the girl's Cockney voice on the telephone, when he rang up. Said Redvers Pratt: 'This is Dazey, Cheyne, solicitors, of 199 Chancery -'

'Piss orf, darlin, why doncha?' The girl said amiably. 'Don't waste me bloody time -'

'We're customers,' said Pratt patiently. 'Look up the account like a good girl. We all know it's a funny name. Dazey, -'

'Cheyne. Yer, Gorrit. Orl right, I'll have a Crimson Suzuki with you in a minute, okay? Who's he ask for?'

'Mr Pratt.'

She laughed. 'By name if not by nature, eh?' And hung up. Pratt, too, was smiling. He was an East Ender himself and enjoyed his occasional contacts with the native sharpness. Several Crimson Suzuki motor-cycles were at that moment delivering packages and letters in various parts of the metropolis. Several more, parked in assorted places, awaited the call. It came always by radio.

Crimson Suzuki 7 stood at that moment outside a Macdonald's Hamburger palace in Shaftesbury Avenue. Its driver-owner, one Dave Legg, dressed in leathers of surpassing griminess, had just purchased a Big Mac and a large Coca-Cola and was settling himself comfortably on the saddle when the loudspeaker behind him squawked suddenly.

He swore, bent, placed the Coke on the pavement, and picked up the hand-microphone in his gauntleted free hand. 'Yer?' he said.

'Where are you?'

He told her.

'Outside MacDonald's again, aincher,' she said. 'Listen, go to 199 Chancery Lane, right? 'Ere you'll get fat, you will.'

Dave Legg, in replacing the mike, kicked over the Coke. He swore again. Goo from the Big Mac was dribbling down his leather gauntlet. He licked it off, crammed half the hamburger into his capacious mouth, kicked the starter, and carved up an approaching taxi as he roared through the traffic stream. Redvers Pratt greeted him pleasantly a few minutes later. Mr Pratt liked to think of himself as a student of contrasting human behaviour, and it was fascinating to think of this grubby thug entering the refined portals of 6 Athelsgate.

'This envelope is for the Senior Partner,' Mr Pratt told Dave Legg. 'Don't give it to anyone else, okay? No secretaries - him personally.'

"Sis 'andle?' said Legg.

'What? Oh, his name? He's Mr Pilgrim, you got that? Pilgrim. Six Athelsgate, that's in the City.'

'Do me a fiver, mate?' said Dave Legg mysteriously. He pulled a Mars bar from his jacket and departed, leaving the wrapper on the floor.

Seven minutes later he faced Sir Horace Malory. Already he had defied the doorkeeper, two junior employees more than willing to accept the envelope, and Pilgrim's secretary.

'It's only for this Senior Partner geezer,' Dave Legg insisted. 'Swarree said. No secketries, nobody!'

Malory smiled. 'I'm the other Senior Partner, Sir Horace Malory. You may safely leave it with me.' He could recognize the envelope, even with most of it half-concealed in Dave Legg's greasy gauntlet.

'Pilgrim, swarree sed. Mr Pilgrim, nobody else!'

'Oh, really!' Mrs Frobisher came close to stamping her foot. 'Sir Horace is -'

"E ain't this geezer Pilgrim,' Dave Legg said stoutly, and turned to Malory. 'Are you, squire?'

'Er, no.' Malory held up his hand. 'Where have you come from?'

'199 Chancery Lane.'

'Oh, I see. Dazey, Cheyne.'

'Dunno what they play, squire,' said Legg with a grin.

Malory, possessed by now of twin ambitions: to strangle this ghastly lout, and to get his hands on Dikeston's narrative, more or less in that order, was still able to force a smile. 'Perhaps if we telephone them and explain that Mr Pilgrim is out - perhaps from them you would accept different instructions?'

'Yus, mate,' said Dave Legg.

Mrs Frobisher telephoned Mr Redvers Pratt and then handed the receiver to Dave Legg with her fingertips. She rather thought he wasn't very clean.

'Geezer ere says 'e's - worrizit?'

'Malory,' Sir Horace said softly.

'Yer, Malory. Okay is it? Right, squire.'

He hung up, turned to Malory and held out the envelope. 'All yours, mate.'

'Thank you,' said Malory. 'Very much.'