The Melting Man

CHAPTER FOUR

It was a warm, gentle, late September morning, full of soft yellow light bouncing off the sea from a golden mesh of ripples.

The Ferox was anchored just outside the port, floating like a fluffy white meringue, the final threat of confection piped out to a narrow prow. For ten francs, a gross overcharge, a boy of about fifteen rowed me out in a pram dinghy. He was bare to the waist and the sight of his brown, muscular torso, not a spare ounce of fat on it anywhere, made me consider the possibility of starting my early morning exercises again.

I went up the gangway to the deck and blinked my eyes at the white and gold paint, the polished brass and chromium, did a quick sum in my head of what this outfit probably cost O'Dowda a year, shuddered, and became aware of a woman sitting in a deckchair reading a copy of Vogue. She had silvery hair, touched with a purple rinse, and was wearing red shorts and a red blouse. She was somewhere around thirty, had a baby face, a tiny pout to her full lips, and was smoking a long thin cigar.

I said, 'I have a kind of appointment with Miss Zelia Yunge-Brown. Carver is the name.'

She dropped the Vogue lazily on to the deck, studied me, and in an American accent said, 'What kind of appointment? Personal, medical, social or just hopeful?'

'Personal.'

'Well, that makes a change from head-shrinkers and social boneheads.' She looked at a small gold watch on a slender wrist and said, 'She'll be doing her jigsaw in the sun-lounge up front.' She tipped her head forward. 'Don't knock. Go straight in. If she's in a good mood maybe she'll let you stay. Before you go, come and have a drink with me. I might give you my autograph.'

'Is it worth anything?'

'Mercenary type, eh? On a cheque, value nil. On a photograph, value sentimental. But come and have a drink. You'll be helping my beat boredom campaign.'

She blew a cloud of smoke without removing the cigar, picked up the magazine, winked at me and began reading.

I went forward along the spotless deck, under the bridge-wing and had the run of windows of the sun-lounge on my right. They curved round in a wide semicircle above the forward deck. A seagull cut down through the warm air and screamed something at me in French. A man wearing a blue singlet leaned over the bridge-rail above me and nodded, and a Chris-Craft went by at speed, spewing a trail of wake like a plume of ostrich feathers.

I looked through the glass of the sun-lounge door and had my first glance of Zelia Yunge-Brown, the girl with the lost memory. She was sitting at a table, bending over a big tray on which part of a gigantic jigsaw was coming to life. At her right side the table was covered with a muddle of loose jigsaw pieces. All I could see at first was a sweep of long dark hair, the slope of a high, sun-tanned forehead, brown arms and hands and part of a simple blue-and-white-striped dress that looked like the stuff that butchers used to wear for aprons. I stared at her for a while, hoping she would become aware of me. The glass was proof against my magnetic personality, so I went in. She made a little clicking noise with her tongue, removed a piece from the tray and began searching in the loose pile alongside her, ignoring me completely either from rudeness or absorption in her work.

I walked across the lounge and sat on the arm of a blue-leather chair. There was a bar at the back of the lounge with a chromium grille pulled across it, through which I could see rows of glasses and coloured bottles. Either side of the bar were a couple of paintings of old-time tea-clippers, and above the bar in a glass case a stuffed swordfish with a stupid grin on its chops.

I said, 'What's it going to be when it's finished? The Houses of Parliament? George the Fifth's coronation? Or one of those old hunting scenes with chaps in red coats drinking port while the hunt servants pull off their boots and the inn servants are charging in with boars' heads and poached salmon three feet long. Those were the days. Everywhere by horse and coach. None of the roads stinked up with motor cars. By the way, talking of cars — my name is Carver and your father has hired me to find the red Mercedes which you carelessly mislaid.'

I said it all coolly, in my best unruffled manner, but, I hoped, getting a little hint of something not quite friendly in it to show that I wasn't in the mood for moods. Halfway through she raised her head, and that made it difficult for me to maintain my even manner because she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had this wonderful black hair, pale blue eyes, and perfect classical features, and she was as cold as ice. An ice maiden from the frozen north. There was something of Julia in her looks, but only just enough to tell they were sisters. She settled back in her chair to get a good look at me, and I saw that she was a big girl, tall, statuesque and as strong as an ox. All she needed was a winged helmet, a shield and a long boat, and Eric the Red would have gone crazy over her. Personally, she made something quietly shrivel up inside me and die.

In a voice, steely and cold, straight from the refrigerator locked somewhere inside her, she said, 'I don't care particularly for your manner, Mr Carver. And I have already given all the information I can about the car.'

I gave her a big smile, trying to get the atmosphere above zero, even feeling that maybe I had judged her a little hastily. After all she was beautiful enough to merit a second opinion. Could be I was wrong.

'So,' I said, 'you're sorry you can't help me?'

'I can't help you, Mr Carver.'

She moved forward and studied the jigsaw.

I stood up, and the movement brought her head up a little.

She said, 'I'm sorry you've had a wasted journey — but I did tell my stepfather that it was unnecessary for you to come.' I walked round her to the bar, gave a bottle of Hines a quick, frustrated glance through the grille, and said, 'I'd like to make one thing very clear.'

She had to turn a little to get me in focus and the movement showed off the splendid shoulders and torso to more than advantage.

'Yes.'

'I've been hired to do a job of work! I like to finish what I've started. It's a kind of thing with me. Stupid pride. Professional prejudice. Call it what you like. But I'd like you to know that I am only interested in the car. I want to get it back for your stepfather. But when I hand it over I don't have to give a blow-by-blow account of the recovery. Anything revealed to me in confidence by anyone along the line remains that way. You understand?'

'Perfectly. But I can't help you.'

She turned back and began to fiddle with the puzzle. I walked round the back of her and finished up full circle in the blue-leather chair. She glanced up briefly as I sat down.

'I would like you to go, Mr Carver.'

'I will,' I said, 'when I've done what I'm being paid to do. For some reason your stepfather sets great store by this car. As his daughter—'

'Stepdaughter.' The word was snapped at me, like icicles breaking.

'—I should have thought you would have wanted to help him.'

She gave me a cold stare, and said, 'I have every reason in the world for not caring a damn about him.'

'You can't really mean that, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here enjoying all the luxuries he provides. No girl with any spirit would. Now, come on, what happened to the car?'

I was pushing her, hoping to break her down a little; but it didn't work.

She got up from the table and began to move towards the bar. In the woodwork at the side was a bell-push. I was so absorbed in watching her walk, this frozen, beautiful Amazon, that I almost let her reach the bell-push.

'I wouldn't do that,' I said. 'Not if you want me to help you. It won't do you any harm to listen to me for a few moments. Then, if you want to, you can push the bell.'

She was silent for a moment or two, then she said, 'Go ahead.'

I stood up and lit a cigarette. Having her towering over me made me nervous.

'I'll be frank with you. You may or may not have lost your memory. Personally, I don't think you have. But if it suits you for good and private reasons to have people think that, then that's okay by me. But one thing is for certain — you haven't been truthful about your stay at the Ombremont Hotel. If you'd known what was going to happen after you'd left it, then, of course, you'd have naturally been more… well, discreet.'

'I don't know what you're—'

'You do. I'm talking about Room 16.'

'I was in Room 15.'

'But you telephoned Durnford in England from Room 16.'

'I certainly did not.' Big and frozen she might be, but I didn't have to have a trained eye and ear to know that she was holding something down inside, probably a desire to shout at me to clear out and go to hell. And it wasn't something that was pleasant for me to be aware of. Quite suddenly I had become sorry for her.

I shook my head. 'There was no telephone charge on your account. On the other hand there was on Room 16's account. And the person in that room — a man — paid for it without any fuss. So where do we go from there?'

She moved back towards the table until she was almost alongside me.

'We don't go anywhere, Mr Carver. I know nothing about Room 16. If the hotel desk got their accounting mixed up and somebody paid for my telephone call because they were in too much of a hurry to check their account, I'm not interested. The only thing I'm interested in is that you get out of here and leave me alone. Go back to my stepfather and tell him to forget his car.' She paused and I could see the fine tremble all over her as she held on to her control, and I knew that she only needed a push from me — the mention of Ansermoz's name or a reference to a white poodle and her leaving in the morning, laughing and happy — to go right over the edge. With a lot of people I would have happily given the push. But I couldn't with her. Julia apart, there was some barrier in me that wouldn't let me do it. Whatever I wanted from her I would have to get some other way. This job made you think of and see people as jigsaw puzzles; you had to piece the parts together and not mind what sort of dirty or unholy picture came out. But I couldn't rush it with her. She was big and dark and as solid as an iceberg but she'd come too far south in the warm currents and was ready to topple. I didn't have to be the one to give her the final push. But now I was determined to find Ansermoz. Oh yes, I wanted to meet him. I moved to the door.

'All right. Just forget I ever came.' I gave her a brotherly grin. 'But if ever you want a shoulder to cry on, somebody to talk to — just get in touch.'

She dropped a hand and touched one of the loose pieces of the puzzle and, without looking at me, said, 'Thank you, Mr Carver.'

Hand on the door, I said, 'Think nothing of it. But don't forget I've got a broad pair of shoulders.' So they were, almost as broad as hers. I went out, thinking of what Robert Burns had said about waiving the quantum of the sin, the hazard of concealing. If ever a woman had hardened all within and petrified the feeling, then Zelia had done it since leaving the Ombremont Hotel. And I meant to know why.

But first I had to get by the silver-haired, purple-rinse number in the red shorts. I didn't have a hope and in the end I was glad of it, because although I couldn't use Zelia the way I ought to have done, it was easy with Mirabelle Heisenbacher, nee Wright, stage-name Mirabelle Landers, age thirty-eight, friendly, bored, and all set to marry O'Dowda when she got her divorce from Mr Heisenbacher, a rot-the-bald-headed-bastard-of-a-shoe-manufacturer (her words).

As I stood by the gang ladder wondering where my boy with the pram dinghy was, she came down the deck, changed into a green silk beach-suit, cigar in one hand and the other reaching for my arm as she said, 'Unless you have a drink first, you've got to swim back. Come on.'

She led me up to the stern where, under an awning, chairs, tables and drinks waited. She was as friendly as a puppy and just as restless.

She said, 'Did you get anything out of Zelia?'

'No — she's still in some kind of personal deep freeze.'

'I can't think why Cavan is riding the child about the damned car. He's so loaded, what does a car matter?'

'He was tough with her, was he?'

'Originally. I thought he was going to go into orbit. Gave me a few moments' doubt. Such a temper. After all, he's the guy I'm going to marry. Then I thought, what the hell? All men have something and, unlike most, he's got millions so I didn't see why love's blossom should be allowed to wither. Why's he so stuck on getting the car back?'

'I wish I knew. You known him long?'

'Three, four years. Nice guy — except I don't like the side he's been showing since the car went. It's got to be more than the car. You know my theory?'

Tell me.'

'Sometimes I think Zelia lost the car on purpose to annoy him. She must have guessed there was more to it than the car and she ditched it to get back at him. Some kind of emotional compensation for something or the other.'

'You've been talking to a psychoanalyst.'

'Not me. Any time I spend on couches is strictly for pleasure. Not that I'm like that now. I'm strictly a Cavan O'Dowda girl these days.'

'If he got that car back he'd be nicer than he is at the moment, wouldn't he?'

'Sure. And I wouldn't be stuck here, keeping an eye on Zelia. I hate boats. She wants to be out here. She hasn't been off this yacht for weeks. What are you driving at?'

'Was I?'

'Come off it, buster, I know the look in a man's eyes when he wants something and at the moment you've got that look — though it isn't asking for the usual thing which, in a way, is no damned compliment to me.'

'I just want to satisfy O'Dowda.'

'Snap. So?'

'Is there a shore-going telephone from the Ferox?'

'No.'

'What happens about the mail? When you write to O'Dowda, for instance?'

'Now we're getting down to business. Why not be direct? You think Zelia might want to write to someone now that you've seen her?'

I looked at her over a large gin-and-tonic she'd fixed for me. She was a woman who knew where she was going and how to handle herself. She was going to marry O'Dowda. What she didn't know about men would probably make only two dull lines of addenda to a large volume of personal reminiscences. She had to be like that because I hadn't said anything of note yet and already she was with me. I gave her a wink. She tossed the end of her cigar over the rail and winked back.

'Level,' she said, 'and Mirabelle might help — just so long as it all adds up to making O'Dowda sweet and getting Zelia out of the doldrums.'

'I've mentioned a little fact to Zelia which may make her want to write to someone. If I could have the names and addresses of all the people she writes to in the next twenty-four hours it could help a lot. Difficult?'

'No. All the ship's letters are put in the mail-box in the saloon and one of the stewards takes them ashore late afternoon. Any name and address in particular?'

'Not really.'

'Liar. Where are you staying?'

'The Majestic'

'You like your kind of job?'

'I travel and meet people, and help some of them.'

'Then I wish to God you'd help Zelia to come out from under the glacier. I'm liable to be stuck here for weeks and that adds up to a lot of lost fun. It's a man, of course, isn't it, that she'll be writing to?'

'I wouldn't bet on it.'

'Why not, it's an even money chance? Anyway, it's got to be. Any girl ever needed a man, she does. My bet is she found one and he went bad on her. For the first time in her life she went into it starry-eyed and then — bam! the bastard ran true to form. They all do, even the nice ones, but she didn't have any experience to help her ride the punches. Correct?'

'You'll make a first-class stepmother.'

'Wife is all I'm interested in. I thought I had it made with Heisenbacher, but he developed nasty habits, and when I broke him of those he just withdrew and started collecting Japanese ivory carvings, netsukes and all that stuff. I gave up. You like to stay for lunch?'

I said regretfully that I couldn't and it took me another half-hour to get away. I was run ashore in the yacht's launch and on the quayside waiting for me was Mr Najib Alakwe, Esquire.

He fell into step alongside me, handed me the ignition key, and said, 'Okay, Mr Carver, wrong car. You get anything from Miss Zelia?'

'No. But why should I keep you up to date on things?'

'Two thousand pounds, Mr Carver. Damn generous offer. Cable from Jimbo this morning. Two thousand pounds you resign from Mr O'Dowda's employment now, or three thousand you go on, find car, and hand same over to us intact.'

I shook my head.

His eyes spun in just the same way as his brother's had. 'This is a serious refusal, Mr Carver?'

'Absolutely.'

He took a deep, sad breath and said, 'Then all I can indicate is that the consequences for you, Mr Carver, may be—'

'D for drastic?'

'Absolutely.'

I had lunch at the hotel and then went up to my room and lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was a boring kind of ceiling to stare at, not a crack or a stain on it, so I had to fall back on pure thought. What kind of people, I asked myself, would employ the Alakwe twins? The best answer I could come up with was probably people of their own race. O'Dowda, for instance, would never have employed them — except on an African assignment where they would not be conspicuous, though I had an idea they would still be just that even in an Accra bazaar. In Europe they stuck out like a couple of sore black thumbs. Probably their employer or employers didn't mind this. The Alakwes wanted whatever was hidden in the Mercedes, and they knew that O'Dowda knew they wanted it and — almost certainly — that O'Dowda knew who their employers were.

Then I had a think about Zelia. I was beginning to get some kind of picture of the nature of her amnesia. Max Ansermoz, I hoped, if I ever reached him, could fill in the blanks.

The phone went about four o'clock and it was Wilkins, with a list as long as my arm of companies and holding companies, subsidiaries, agencies and property investments which were all wrapped up in Athena Holdings Ltd. Most of the information I knew had never been got from Somerset House. It was the kind of stuff that came from a good city man working the pubs around Mincing Lane and Fleet Street. As I finished taking down the list, Wilkins said, 'Are you interested in any particular one?'

'Should I be?'

'In view of Joseph Bavana and a certain gentleman called Mr Jimbo Alakwe who called round here for a general chat about you this morning, I should have thought that—'

'How did you get on with him?'

'He said he could get me an electric typewriter brand new at a discount of 50 per cent. Do you want me to get more details about United Africa Enterprises?'

I said I did. It was on the list she had just dictated to me.

Half an hour later I had Durnford on the line. Mr O'Dowda, he said, wanted a progress report up to date, and with particular reference to my visit to Zelia. He assumed I had seen her.

'I've been with her, and I've got nothing from her.'

'Nothing?'

'Absolutely nothing. But I'm following a different lead which may help me.'

'Mr O'Dowda would appreciate some indication of this new line. You realize that?'

'Sure. I'll give you details very soon.'

'So, in short, you've made no real progress at all?' I could imagine his cold agate eyes blinking.

'Yes, I'd say that was a fair summary. But don't worry. I'm not downhearted. A willing heart goes all the way, your sad tires in a mile-o.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Never mind. But you can do something for me which might help. I'd like a complete list of guests, friends, or family who might have been staying at Mr O'Dowda's Evian château for the two weeks before Zelia took off on her trip in the Mercedes. Can you let me have that?'

There was a little longer than natural silence at the other end, then he said, 'Yes, I suppose so.'

'Now?'

'No. I'd have to make inquiries.'

'Okay. I'll phone sometime tomorrow or the next day. Oh, there is one thing you can tell Mr O'Dowda. I've been offered two thousand pounds by a certain Mr Jimbo Alakwe — my secretary will give you his address — to drop this job. Interesting?'

'You refused, of course.'

'With a struggle — yes.'

Around six I was still on the bed, thinking of having a shower before going down to the bar for a drink, when the phone went. The desk said that there was a Miss Yunge-Brown wanting to see me.

I was at the door waiting to greet her. She came in with a warm, flashing smile, a passing whiff of Jolie Madame, and a silver mink cape draped over one arm. After staring at a bedroom ceiling all the afternoon she gave my eyes trouble in focusing for a while. She dropped into the bedroom chair, crossed two beautiful long legs, fingered the fall of her black dress smooth, and said, 'I've never seen a man's eyes look so pouchy. Drinking at lunchtime?'

'They go like that when I sleep in the afternoons. A couple of whiskys and everything soon shakes back into place. Where shall we go for dinner?'

'We don't. Why don't you give up?'

'You've decided I'm not your type?'

'It's under review. What did you get out of Zelia?'

'Zelia,' I said, 'is a woman who needs understanding. I might make something of her if I could get her away from that jigsaw long enough.'

She gave me a cool, long look. There was in it even a hint of something a little warmer than a review-board stare. She topped the look with a little shake of her head so that one coral-pink tip of an ear showed against a raven wing of smooth, loose hair and then slid back shy as a sea anemone.

'Zelia,' she said, 'has spent most of this afternoon on her bed crying. That's something I've never known her do before. What the devil did you say to her?' The last sentence came curt and hard.

'When did you arrive?'

'Lunchtime. What have you done to Zelia?'

'Nice drive down in the Facel Vega?'

'Yes. And don't hedge. You bloody well leave Zelia alone if all you can do is to twist her up. Yes' — she eyed me with angry thoughtfulness — 'maybe I am going to dislike you a lot.'

'Pity. I'd prefer it the other way. And don't get so het up about Zelia. Between ourselves she brings out the Sir Galahad in me and I'm looking forward to going into action. I like big, beautiful girls. But I don't like them frozen. They should be warm and full of bounce. So why don't you belt up and give me that envelope you're fiddling with?'

She looked down at her right hand and seemed surprised to find the envelope there which she had drawn from her handbag.

'I wish I didn't keep changing my mind about you,' she said.

'Give it time. The needle will settle down soon and show you the right course.'

She handed me the envelope.

'It's from Mirabelle. She asked me to deliver it.'

'Now there's a woman who's going full steam right ahead, armour-plated, reinforced bows and god help any pack ice that gets in the way.' I turned the envelope over. She'd made a reasonable job of it, but it was quite clear that it had been opened and then stuck down. I raised my eyebrows at her.

'I opened it,' she said. 'I couldn't imagine what Mirabelle could have to say to you.'

'You couldn't? Well, given a million pounds, I could have her lisping in my ear for the rest of my life and I wouldn't mind at all, except that she'd have to get rid of that purple hair-rinse.'

It was a half-sheet of plain notepaper and Mirabelle had written—

I put the letter in my pocket. Julia eyed me like a child watching a conjuror. I pulled out my cigarettes, lit one, and she watched the first curl of smoke fade away.

'Thanks for trusting me,' I said.

'What makes you think I do?'

'This.' I waved the letter. 'You'd have torn it up if you hadn't.'

'Well?'

'Well, what?' I said.

'Who is this Max Ansermoz — and what's he got to do with Zelia?'

'You've never heard the name before?'

'No.'

'Then forget it,' I said, hard. 'If you're fond of Zelia, really forget it. And when you get back to the Ferox, thank Mirabelle and tell her to do the same. Okay?'

'If you say so. Are you going to see him?'

'Yes.'

'When? Tomorrow?'

'Yes.'

'I'll drive you up.'

'I've got my own car and you'll stay here. I've just told you to forget Max Ansermoz.'

She stood up and came across to me, slipping the mink over her shoulders, the diamond setting of her watch pin-pricks of brilliance with the movement. Mink and diamonds, Facel Vegas and yachts, Mercedes and châteaux in the Haute Savoie, paté de foie gras, caviare and pink champagne, dream stuff… but it didn't isolate her or Zelia or Mirabelle or any other woman from life… from the nasty little habits that some men are born with and others develop. Men were hunters and, no matter how much they kidded themselves otherwise, women were the prey. Just at that moment I didn't like the idea; wished I could be outside it, but knew I couldn't. The only consolation was that most men reluctantly observed the game laws and the close seasons. Some didn't. Max Ansermoz I was sure was one. So, I had an idea, was Cavan O'Dowda. Someday, somebody, I told myself, ought to shoot the pair, stuff and mount them, and hang them above a bar.

'What on earth's got into you?' she said. 'You suddenly look as though you wanted to hit somebody.'

'Don't let these puffy old eyes fool you.'

She came closer. 'They're not as puffy as I made out. And I'm really beginning to think that they don't fool me as much as you would like. Would you like me to break my dinner date?'

'Not on my account. I'm going early to bed. I've got a busy day tomorrow.'

She wasn't fooling me. I knew exactly what was in her mind, and had been ever since she had steamed open the letter on the yacht or wherever it was.

She was as anxious to see Max Ansermoz as I was. That didn't suit me. I wanted to see him first, and alone. In fact, I was already looking forward to it.

She said, 'I really want to come with you tomorrow.'

I said, 'I'm going alone. If you queer that I'll toss in this job — and then O'Dowda will get someone else, some fast slick operator who'll probably make a juicy story out of it afterwards for all the boys in the bar to laugh at. So keep away!'

Deep and warm inside me, heating up fast every moment, was a feeling that I didn't have very often, wouldn't wish for often, but which when it came just had to be obeyed. Somebody had to be hit… Oh, yes, somebody had to be hit hard and the name was clicking through my brain like a ticker tape. She knew, too, what was there. Slowly she put out a hand and gently nipped the cloth of my sleeve between two fingers.

'All right,' she said. 'I won't interfere… Poor Zelia.' She turned away to the door. Then, her fingers on the door handle, she turned and said, 'Do me a favour.'

'What?'

'Don't bother to be polite with him.'

She went. I gave her a few minutes, and then I called the desk. I wanted my bill made up. I was leaving right after dinner and would they send someone up to get my car key so that the Mercedes could be brought round for me. With any luck I might arrive at the châlet Bayard just about the time Max Ansermoz got Zelia's letter. One thing that I knew for sure I wasn't going to find at the Châlet Bayard was a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche.

I left just after ten. There was a light drizzle falling and I could see no sign of Najib Alakwe being on the watch outside. If he had been I wasn't going to worry. In the Mercedes I was reasonably confident I could shake any tail.

St Bonnet was about twenty- or thirty-odd kilometres north of Gap, and my route was back along the road by which I had come down from Grenoble. From the map I worked out that it gave me something over seven hundred and fifty kilometres of driving. I had time on my hands and took things slowly.

I gave myself an hour's sleep, somewhere well south of Gap, and then drove on to Gap for an early breakfast, coffee laced with cognac and a couple of crisp croissants spread with apricot conserve. Fortified, I left Gap and drove up and over the Col Bayard, thinking that if I had a troubled life, the chevalier had had the edge on me, every head of his family for two centuries having fallen in battle, and he himself likewise in the end — to an arquebus ball, whatever that was. From the top of the pass I rolled down into St Bonnet and got directions for the Chalet Bayard. It was a small, rough road, doubling back out of the village along the course of the river for a while and then climbing steeply through pine and oak woods by way of a series of virages that made me keep my eyes strictly on the road and ignore the views.

It was a wooden-built chalet, fairly new, with pink-and-green shutters, and the roof barge-boards decorated with pink-and-green stripes. It stood to one side of a steep green alp, on a plateau about the size of a couple of tennis courts. There was no garden, just trees and scrub running either side of the rough drive and then spreading back from the house itself. There was a garage beyond the open space in front of the house. The doors were shut.

I parked the car close under the verandah which ran along the front of the house, and went up the steps. There were petunias and geraniums in flower-boxes all along the front of the verandah and the front door was wide open to show me a small hall of narrow, polished pine boards, the odd rug and a grandfather clock with a loud tick, announcing that it was five minutes past nine.

There was an iron bell-pull at the side of the door. I gave it a couple of jerks and way back in the house a bell clanged, loud enough to wake the dead. But it didn't wake anyone in the house. I tolled again and still no one came to answer it.

I went in. There were two doors off the hall. I tried them both. The first led down a corridor to the kitchen quarters. It was a neat bright kitchen and there were the remains of a breakfast on the table, and a ginger cat curled in a wicker chair. The cat eyed me for a moment, stood up, stretched its legs stiffly and then collapsed on to the cushion, rolled itself into a turban and ignored me.

I went back and tried the other door. It led into a large lounge which ran the full length of the far side of the house with a view across part of the alp and away beyond to the valley peaks and crests, some of them already smudged with a patchwork of snow. It was a good, big comfortable room, polished pine boards, skin rugs over them, two big settees, four large armchairs, a wide, circular table adzed out of oak and ornamented with a bowl of multicoloured dahlias that would have had Jimbo in ecstasies. In one corner was a desk, and against the false wall that made part of a staircase that ran up to an open gallery with doors along it, was a bookcase and a long sideboard with drinks, cigarette box and a pile of old newspapers. I lit a cigarette and went upstairs. There were three bedrooms, all the beds neatly made, and a bathroom. The sponge on the side of the bath was damp, and so was one of the toothbrushes and the cake of soap. I went down to the lounge and started a more detailed inspection. The bookcase was interesting. One shelf had as big a collection of cookery books as I had ever seen in half a dozen languages. If Max were the cookery expert he had something for a guest of any nationality. There were three shelves full of thrillers, French, English, American and German. It was nice to know that Max was multilingual. We wouldn't have difficulty communicating.

The desk was neat and tidy, and contained very little. It was clear that Max didn't care to leave any private papers lying around. There were some cancelled cheques, paid bills, most of them local, a list of shares and securities, some American, most French, which had been added to from time to time. He didn't seem to have sold any for there were no deletions. I didn't try to make out what they were worth. In one of the drawers was a pile of estate agents' leaflets and they were all concerned with restaurant and cafe properties as far apart as Paris and Marseilles. Another drawer held a 9-mm Browning pistol, the magazine full, and alongside it a box of ammunition and a spare magazine. I pocketed the lot as a safety precaution.

I went across to the window, admired the view, and wondered how long Max would be. My guess was that he had gone off for his morning constitutional. He was a neat orderly type, bed made before he left the house, not a speck of dust anywhere, ashtrays emptied. Neat and — normally — regular in his habits, fond of the culinary arts to the point of already owning, or contemplating owning, a restaurant or a cafe, kind to animals — the cat seemed well content — and with a nice touch of expertise in flower decoration as the bowl of dahlias testified. Turning from the window and looking at the flowers, I noticed something I had not seen before. Lying on this side of the bowl was an envelope.

I picked it up. It had been slit open along the top and the letter tucked back inside. It was addressed to him and postmarked Cannes the previous day. I had to hand it to the Postes et Télégraphe boys. They had had five hours' start on me and beaten me to it.

I dropped into an armchair by the fireplace. It was so deep and wide I wondered for a moment if I was ever going to hit bottom. I did, bounced a bit, and then took the letter out of the envelope. It was to him from Zelia and read without benefit of any superscription, no glad 'Darling' or 'Dearest one'—

I put the letter back in the envelope and slipped it into my pocket. Nothing she had said was news to me. She meant every word she said, and I was sorry for her. That was the hell of it. I was sorry for her, but I had a job to do. If I possibly could, I wanted to do it without hurting her more. She might want what had happened to be a blank in her mind, but I had to know what had happened. Once I knew, I could pass on to my real concern, the car, I would make it a blank in my mind. I sat there, wondering how Max Ansermoz had felt when he had read the letter. Not overmuch concerned, I imagined, or he would not just have chucked it across the table.

At this moment there was a yappy bark from the open door of the lounge behind me. Something white skittered around the side of the chair on the polished boards, leapt on to my knees and began to lick my face. It was a small white poodle. I'm not going to upset anyone by saying I'm no dog-lover, but I like my dogs big, discriminating, and with a certain secret contempt for mankind. I was just about to chuck this one into the empty fireplace as undersized when a breathless voice from the door called, 'Otto! Otto — tu es fou venir ici avec cette sacrée auto? Tu voudrais que tout le monde—'

He broke off as I stood up with the white poodle in my arms and he saw me for the first time.

I said, 'You're rushing it, Max. That's not the car Otto went off with. Same colour, different number.'

I dropped the poodle to the ground and it began to walk around on its hind legs like some circus number.

'Cute,' I said. 'How is it as a gun-dog?'

He had a shotgun under one arm and a couple of pigeons hanging from his right hand.

'Who are you and what are you doing here?' He said it in English, not much accent, and his voice under control.

'Carver,' I said. 'Rex Carver of London. I think Miss Zelia Yunge-Brown mentioned me to you in a letter.'

I had to hand it to him. He didn't faint or have palpitations or collapse into a chair. He just stood there and for the fraction of a moment his eyes glanced at the big circular table. He was taller than me, slim, not an ounce of fat on him, and he had one of those dark, unhealthy-looking tans which come from chromosomes more than the sun. He wore a loose shooting jacket with a fur collar, a black peaked cap and black breeches tucked into the top of gum-boots. He had an intelligent, good-looking face and sparkling teeth and eye-whites. I didn't like the look of him at all, but I could see how in a bad light, after a few glasses of champagne, some women might have called him a dreamboat. Not Zelia, I shouldn't have thought. But there you are — when a woman finally decides to drop the barriers you never know which way the water will flow.

Calmly, he said, 'I don't know what you're talking about. Kindly get out of my house.'

He dropped the brace of pigeons on to a chair and eased the gun into both of his hands, the muzzle low, pointing to the ground. He was over his surprise now, and had me sized up. What could I do while he had a gun in his hands? I decided to see how far he would go.

I shrugged my shoulders, and said, 'You can take that attitude if you like. But it won't get you far — and I'll be back.'

I moved up towards the door and he swung slightly round to keep me fully under observation. When I was abreast of him, he said, 'Before you go I'd like the letter which I left on the table.'

I stopped moving, eyed him as though I might be going to make an issue of it — which I certainly wasn't while he stood at the ready with a double-barrelled twelve-bore — and then with another shrug I slipped my hand into my pocket for the letter and handed it out to him.

He smiled, just the faintest edge of white teeth showing, and shook his head.

'Put it on the chair there,'

I moved to the chair, put the letter on one of its arms and then gave the chair a hard push towards him across the slippery pine floor. The far arm caught him on the thigh, knocked him off balance and before he could gather himself together, I jumped him. Miggs, I'm sure, would have said I was slow, but I was fast enough for Max Ansermoz. I chopped down at one of his wrists, broke his hold on the gun, grabbed the barrel in my other hand and twisted the weapon free from him. I could have stopped there, I suppose, but a nice warm feeling flooded through me and I didn't see why I shouldn't take the opportunity to put him in a cooperative mood. I jabbed him hard in the stomach with the butt of the shotgun and, as his head came forward, I slapped him sidehand across the neck and he went down with a crash that had the fool poodle dancing and yip-ping with excitement.

He was game. He came up twice at me and I put him down each time, not bothering about the Queensberry rules, remembering Miggs saying, 'Don't be nice, be nasty, but leave 'em so they can talk.'

I let him crawl off his knees and into a chair. He flopped back, murdering me with his eyes, blood trickling from one corner of his mouth. I sat on the edge of the table and faced him.

I said, 'Before I begin the questions, let's get one thing clear. Everything you say to me about Miss Zelia will be in the strictest confidence. Think of me as a confessional. It comes to me — and goes no farther. Okay.'

He spat something at me in a language I didn't know. To gentle him down I smacked the butt of the shotgun across the top of his kneecap, just not hard enough to break it. He gasped with pain, doubled forward and the poodle jumped up, trying to lick his face. He shoved it away roughly and dropped back into the chair.

'Bastard.'

'I don't expect you to like me. I'd take it as an insult if you did. Just answer me — or I'll break every bloody bone in your body. Ready?'

He said nothing and I took it for assent.

'Okay,' I said. 'Let's start at the end. Maybe that way we can skip some of the dirty middle. Who's Otto?'

He considered this, — and he was considering more. I knew the look and that slow pulling-together movement of the body as they decide to go along with you, hoping that their cooperation will make you so pleased that you'll drop your guard for a moment.

'Otto Libsch, a friend of mine.'

'Age, nationality, description, residence and occupation.'

'Thirty-odd. Austrian. He's tall, biggish, fair hair, going slightly bald. Walks with a bit of a limp and has the lobe of his left ear missing.'

It was too glib, too fast, so I smacked him on the back of his right hand with the gun barrel. He shouted and swore with the pain.

'Try again,' I said. 'From the start.'

He sucked the blood off the back of his hand, and then, his eyes full of the comforting fantasies of what he would like to do to me, he said:

'Twenty-five. French. He's short, dark-haired, thin, weedy-looking. God knows what he does, or where he lives. He just turns up.'

'Not quite good enough. If you wanted to get in touch with him what would you do?'

He balanced that one for a moment, eyed the gun, and decided to give good measure.

'I'd ring his girlfriend, Mimi Probst. Turino 56.4578. That's 17 Via Calleta.'

Keeping my eyes on him, I backed to the sideboard and picked up the telephone and carried it to him, putting it on the ground where he could just reach it.

'Ring directory inquiries and ask for the telephone number of Probst, 17 Via Calleta, Turin. Then let me have it.'

He picked up the phone and dialled, saying to me, 'I'm telling you the truth.'

'The one thing I always check is the truth.'

I waited while he put the call in. It took a little time and I lit a cigarette one-handed, keeping the other on the gun. After a time he spoke, asking for the information, then he nodded to me and put the phone with the loose receiver on the floor. I retrieved it, eyes on him all the time. After a few moments the girl at the other end came on and my French was more than good enough to follow her. He'd given me the right number.

I shoved the telephone on to the table and said, 'Otto was here when you were here with Miss Zelia, yes?'

'Yes.'

'He stole the car?'

'Yes.'

'And her luggage and any loose stuff she had lying around, watch, jewellery and so on?'

'Yes.'

'Nice man. Weren't you worried?'

'No.' There was the faintest shadow of a smile about his lips, and I was tempted to smash it off his face.

'Was he interested in this car particularly, or was it just a car like any other, fair game if he could see a way of driving off in it?'

'Otto would steal anything. He's my friend. He's amusing — but he is a born thief.'

He was coming back fast, I could sense it.

'How long had you known Zelia before you came here with her?'

'Quite a while — on and off.'

'Where?'

'Geneva. Whenever she was staying at her father's château.'

'You read her letter carefully?' I nodded to where the letter lay on the floor by the chair.

'Yes.'

'Then take my advice. She wants the time she spent here to become a blank. That's how it's going to be. You step out of line over that and I'll do the job of wiping you out for her free. Understood?'

'Don't you want to know what happened here?'

'No, I bloody well don't. I'm only interested in the car.'

He grinned and I began to see red.

'You don't want to know what she's like, this beautiful iceberg when for the first time a man gets his hands on her and warms her up? When for the first time—'

I should have sat tight and blasted his head off from a safe distance. I should have known that he was deliberately provoking me, hoping for some advantage from it. Christ, I should have known, but I didn't care. I just went for him, to stop the dirty words in his throat, and he played my own trick on me, suddenly swivelling the chair round on the polished floor so that the arm crashed into my hip as he leaped from the chair and kicked my legs from under me.

I went sliding across the floor and almost before I had finished moving, he was standing over me with the gun pointing at me.

'Just stay there,' he said. 'You move and I'll blow your head off a little quicker than I intend.'

I lay where I was, and said nothing. It was one of those times for inaction and silence. He had a finger crooked round the lead trigger and I saw his thumb slide the catch off safety.

'And I do intend to,' he said quietly. 'You've annoyed me, assaulted me and entered my house unbidden. I shall say that I came back, found you robbing the place, that you attacked me and the gun went off accidentally. The police won't make any trouble about that.'

'Other people might.' I felt that I ought to make some case for myself.

'No. Not Miss Zelia, as you so nicely call her. Or her father — because she will never say a word about me.' He gave me a warm, evil grin. 'She wants to forget she ever knew me — or Otto. You know she knew Otto as well, of course? No? Well, I want you to know it. I want you to know everything before I shoot you. When I met her in Geneva she was ripe, you know. Ripe to explode — and she did, like a wild thing after a few drinks here, in this room. We all finished up together, upstairs in the one big bed: Otto, dear Zelia, and me—'

'Shut your dirty mouth!'

'Move — and I'll shoot you. It doesn't matter to me now when I do it. Yes, she was wild. She suddenly woke up and began to live and she tried to put all she'd missed in the last ten years into two days.' His eyes sparkled as he spoke. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. 'There were times when even Otto and I found it hard to handle her. But if she went up like a rocket — are you enjoying this? — the charred stick came back to earth eventually. But before it did Otto moved out with everything she had — the car, her luggage, everything. He didn't tell me he was going to do it. At six o'clock on her last morning he was gone from the communal bed… No, no, hear it all. It amuses me to see you hating me and every word I say. He went and she came back to earth, back to what she'd been before I met her. And she walked out too. Just walked. I didn't mind. Except when she was wild, she was rather boring.'

I said, 'It would be a pleasure to kill you.'

'Happily you're not going to have that pleasure. Mind you, I don't want you to get the wrong idea of Zelia's character. Everything was perfectly correct, all those times in Geneva. They were just warming-up exercises. And here… well, just drink wouldn't have released her to such wild heights of inhibition. Oh no — Otto and I doctored her drink. In a way, you could say it was an act of mercy, a form of therapy which she needed. You know, ever since she left I've been wondering whether to be content, altruistically, with having helped her to discover herself, or whether I shouldn't make a charge. Blackmail, I suppose you would call it. What do you think?'

I wasn't thinking. I was just aware of the twin muzzles of the gun a few feet from my face, and of a maddening pressure of rage inside me, mounting to a point which in a few moments would take me off the ground and at him regardless of what happened to me.

He said, 'I asked you what you think? I did it with other women before, of course — until I had enough to set myself up in business. After that I promised myself I would help the cold, frustrated ones like Zelia just for the pleasure of it. But with a millionaire's daughter, perhaps it would be silly not to make a charge—'

At this point I jerked the poodle at him. It had come dancing up on its toes to me as he talked, licked one of my ears and then had begun to worry playfully at my left hand. I grabbed it by its skinny loins and threw it, rolling sideways and jumping to my feet as he staggered back a few yards and fetched up against the table. But I wasn't quick enough to get at him. The gun barrel was out, levelled towards my face.

'Good, monsieur,' he said. 'Now I kill you. But first I tell you I have made my decision. I shall blackmail Miss Zelia. Yes, I shall make her pay, and each time she does it will be necessary for her to bring the money here in person. You understand? Part payment in money and part in—'

I began to move for him. There was no time to get at his gun in my pocket, no time or thought for anything except blind action. But as I felt my muscles contract, the hollow of my guts squeeze tight with die moment of taking off to get at him, there was a zip past my shoulder like the clumsy whirr of a June bug. Max's head jerked as though he had been struck violently under the chin and upwards. He stared at me stupidly, his mouth rolled open and then he fell backwards to the ground with a neat little hole drilled an inch above his nose, dead centre between his dark eyebrows.

A voice I knew said from behind me, 'Damn necessary, and no great regrets. In fact, Mr Carver, sir, no regrets at all.'

I dropped back into an armchair, shaking all over like a man with Parkinson's disease. After a moment or two a glass was put into my right hand.

'Here, lover-boy, down this and get the roses back in your cheeks.'

Panda's long fingers patted my shoulder. The glass was full to the brim.

I had to steady my wrist with my left hand to get the glass to my mouth. It was cognac and went down like lava and the shaking in my body stopped.

Mr Najib Alakwe, Esquire, stepped back from me and said, 'It is a nice little dog, but I think not right for it to lick dead master's face.'

Panda picked up the poodle and moved out of the room with it. She was wearing sky-blue ski-trousers and a short red jacket and her legs seemed to have grown in length since I had last seen them.

Najib sat on the edge of the table, one leg swinging and showing a flash of purple sock above his ginger-suede shoe.

I put the glass down, almost empty, and said, 'Thank you very much, Najib.' If any man deserved to be promoted into the first-name category he did.

He beamed at me. 'Yes. I saved your life. It is a good feeling for me since I do not often do good deeds. But also I am sad.' He looked down at Max. 'What good is damned dead body? You get much information from him?'

I said, 'How did you know about him?'

Panda, coming back into the room, said, 'That is my department, lover-boy. There is a steward on the Ferox who likes Mamma. I say to like Mamma and have Mamma like him then Mamma likes names and addresses of all people Miss Zelia sends letters to. So everything ends up very likeable. One day soon I'll show you.' She sat on the arm of my chair and twined a long arm around my neck.

Najib said, 'But there never are any letters until you visit Miss Zelia. Then there is the letter to this gentleman and you are gone from your hotel, so we come up here. We have damned fine car, American Thunderbird, hired, you understand, because I cannot personally afford to own such a luxury. You wish more cognac?'

'No thanks.'

Panda patted my cheek. 'Good. Complete recovery.' She looked at Najib. 'I shall take him up to the bedroom for some liking and then he will tell me all Mr Max tell him?'

I said, 'It's not such a complete recovery as that.'

'Nevertheless,' said Najib, 'in return for life-saving you will tell what he said about the red Mercedes. Personal details of Miss Zelia, of which I hear a little before I shoot, do not interest my good self. I read between the lines why she said nothing about whereabouts of car. But it is damned reasonable now to tell me what you know. Yes, sir?'

He was dead right, of course. It would have been only damned reasonable to repay him with the information he wanted. I wanted to do it. But, like most people who have been hauled out of trouble, once the shock of crisis has passed, I knew that life had to go on in its same old sordid, double-crossing way. Gratitude must never get in the way of bringing home the bacon. The best place for sentiment was on Christmas, birthday and get-well cards. Najib was on the other side. I wanted to help him. But I had a job to do, fees and a bonus to collect, so there was never a moment's doubt in my mind.

I said, 'I didn't get much out of him — and I don't know that what I did was the truth. I think I'd have needed a few hours to work him up into a state of frankness. You know how it is.'

Panda stood up, stepped over Max, and helped herself to a cigarette from the box on the sideboard. She turned and winked at me. 'Try, honey, try hard to remember all the lies he gave you. We'll sort 'em out. You want that Mamma takes you up to the bedroom and works you up to a state of frankness. Whoof! Whoof!' She did a couple of high kicks.

I said, 'The car was stolen from here by a friend of his called Otto Libsch. He's a pretty undesirable character, I gathered. If you have a way into police records, you'll probably find him there. Because of what happened here with Miss Zelia, he was pretty safe in taking the car. But he didn't have any idea — nor did Max here, I imagine — that there was anything special about the car.'

'This man, Otto — you have an address for him?' asked Najib, and I noticed that when he was getting down to facts his pidgin English slipped.

'No.' I decided to play hard to get, because if he had to drag it from me he wouldn't suspect, perhaps, that it was a false address.

Najib fingered his tie, took off his panama and laid it on the table by the bowl of flowers.

'Splendid dahlias,' he said. 'I am very fond of flowers.'

'Runs in the family.'

'Maybe,' said Panda, 'I should break the bowl over his head? Eh, honey?' She came back and sat on the arm of my chair.

Najib shook his head and smiled at me, his dark eyes full of understanding. 'You are, of course, Mr Carver, stuck on the horns of a dilemma, no? In thanks for your delivery, your heart wants to be generous. But your brain is a professional man's brain. Tell nothing, it says.'

'In my place, what would you do?'

'The same.'

'Stalemate, then.'

'But you have an address for Otto Libsch?'

'Well… I've an address but I wouldn't know whether Max had just made it up.'

'That we can check. The address, please, Mr Carver.'

He produced his gun from his pocket and nodded at Panda. She slipped a long arm round me and took Max's Browning out of my pocket, kissing my left ear as she did it.

'Damned big bulge these make,' she said. 'You should have used it on the late gentleman.'

'I didn't get a chance.'

Najib said, 'You get no chances now. Personal feelings are disqualified. I want the address.'

'And if I won't give it?'

I just caught the flicker of his eye towards Panda and then it happened. She grabbed me by the wrist, hauled me up, dropping her shoulders as she did, and I went cartwheeling over her and hit the floor on my face. Her weight dropped on my back and a pair of long legs took a scissors grip round my neck, almost choking me.

'For proper likings, honey,' she said, 'we begin with gentle love play.' She twisted my right arm hard and I shouted.

'Let him up,' said Najib. There was nothing phoney about him now. He was crisp, cold and determined and there wasn't a thing wrong with his Queen's English.

Panda let me get up. Najib faced me, pulling at his pudgy nose. Panda straightened my tie for me.

'You ought to meet a friend of mine called Miggs,' I said. 'You've got a lot in common.' Then, out of sheer pique, I kicked her feet from under her and she sat on the floor with a bang. For a moment she stared, disbelieving, at me, and then she began to laugh. 'Oh, Rexy-boy,' she chuckled, 'I got you wrong. You got promise.'

Najib made an impatient movement of his gun-hand.

'Give me the address. If not I shall shoot you so that you cannot take advantage of it. The situation will then be that I still do not know the address, but you will be dead, and I shall be able to find it some other way without trouble from you.'

'That'll leave two bodies here. Could be embarrassing.'

'If you have a coloured skin like mine, Mr Carver, and live in a white man's world, then you know all about embarrassments, most of them more damned awkward than a couple of cadavers. Give me the address or it is D for drastic'

He waggled the gun. Panda got up off the floor.

'Be reasonable, lover-boy,' she said. 'You gonna miss all them lovely things otherwise. That extra drink you shouldn't take. Lovin' arms around you in the night and the first cigarette with your hangover in the morning. Why, I just couldn't bear to see so much good manpower go down the drain.'

She was right of course. And anyway, I felt I had stalled long enough. I flapped my hands and let my shoulders collapse.

'Okay. I'd hate to arrive at the pearly gates next in the queue to Max Ansermoz.'

'Splendid.' Najib beamed. We were all friends again.

'Otto Libsch,' I said. The Bernina Hotel, Geneva. That's in the Place Cornavin.'

Najib beamed. 'Thank you, Mr Carver. This Max may have lied, of course. That I accept. But if I find that you have lied then you go right down the drain. Now, please, turn round.'

'Why?'

'Do like Najib says,' said Panda. I turned.

Najib hit me on the back of the head with his gun and I went down and out.

When I came to, I was lying on the floor with my head on a cushion. My face was wet and my shirt-front was soaked with water. Sitting on a chair close to me was Julia Yunge-Brown, holding a glass jug of water in her hand. She flicked half of it into my face as my eyes blinked at the light.

I said, 'If you really want to help you might find something stronger than water.' This was my morning for girls and cognac. As she moved away I sat up and looked around.

'Where's the body?' I said.

Over her shoulder, she said, 'What body?'

I didn't answer. What a nice chap Najib was. He had carted off the body to save me embarrassment. I really felt bad about lying to him. But I knew that the next time we met he was going to be anything but nice, and would want to take all the lovely things away from me.