Castle in the Air Page 2

  "Yes," Rosa said glumly. "It seems we can trust one another."

  "Our common interests," Herman said, in a monotone, "must take precedence over selfish desires."

  "I hate England," Sir Mortimer said, "but I wouldn't want to have to leave it, not forever. Everywhere else is so much worse."

  "Good," Eustace said, and looked around the table. "Any more questions?"

  Herman asked, "How much time have we for preparation?"

  "Lida tells me," Eustace answered, "that the dismantling and packing, in far-off Yerbadoro, are nearly finished, and the shipping will begin in three weeks. The parts going by sea will leave first, with the airborne sections coming later. They want the entire castle to arrive in Paris at the same time, ready for immediate reconstruction."

  Herman said, "So we have three weeks to assemble our teams. Thereafter, you will supply us with intelligence as to routes and objectives."

  "Exactly."

  "With this young lady, Fraulein Perez, as your primary source of this intelligence."

  "Through her family and other contacts in Yerbadoro, yes."

  Jean, with a little bow in Lida's direction, said, "I pray the young lady will forgive me, but how certain can we be of her information?"

  "Years ago I sold guns to her father," Eustace told him. "They're a perfectly reliable family; I guarantee them."

  "Ah," Jean said, and offered Lida a semi-tragic smile: "Do forgive me."

  Fiery, forceful, flaming, Lida announced, "My father fought the oppressors from the jungles! All his life!"

  "Of course," Jean said, taken aback. "Yes."

  Eustace looked around. "Anything else?"

  The group waited, glancing at one another, but there were no more questions.

  "Very well," Eustace said. "You will be hearing from Jean as to our rendezvous point, and we shall meet again in three weeks in Paris, after you have assembled your groups."

  ***

  After the final guest had departed-Herman Muller, in his open-top black Volkswagen beetle-Eustace turned his eyes, his attention and his hands on Lida. "My dear," he said, in a not quite fatherly way, patting her arm, holding her arm, "success is in our grasp."

  "It's wonderful," Lida agreed. "Someday, you shall be a hero of Yerbadoro!"

  "But it isn't-exclusively-for Yerbadoro that I'm doing this, my duckling," Eustace said, drawing the girl a bit closer. "I think you know what I mean."

  "Oh, but, Eustace," she said, drawing herself a bit farther away, "you know my gratitude can only find verbal expression. I am saving myself."

  "Lida-"

  "No, please, you kind, generous, brilliant, wonderful, sweet man." Now, disengaging his fingers one by one from her arm, she said, "I mustn't tempt you any more with my presence. Good night, Eustace." Watching the girl go, Eustace continued to smile until she had left the room; whereupon the smile turned rancid. "Saving herself. For what, the Yerbadoroan Army?" Turning to the armoire in which he kept his sherries, he muttered, "Here am I, the premier professional criminal of Europe who can get into any safe, any bank, any locked room, any strongbox in the world. I can get into anything, in short, but her."

  2

  (a)

  Six black taxis muttered and growled at the cab stand just round the corner from London's Dorchester Hotel. It was not raining, nor was the sun shining, and the strollers in beautiful green Hyde Park across the way mostly carried brollies, as did Sir Mortimer Maxwell, swinging his rather jauntily in the manner of a cane as he approached the line of taxis and squinted at each driver in turn. As all six drivers were deeply engrossed in studying the bikini photos in that day's Sun, Sir Mortimer's perusal went generally unperceived. Apparently content with what he had seen, Sir Mortimer strolled on to Park Lane and stood there making a lower-case "h" with his umbrella as he smiled across at the park and breathed deep of the bus fumes.

  Brreeeeett! The Dorchester's lordly doorman accompanied his blast upon the whistle with great vigorous wavings of his arm-a taxi was required, at once, no doubt for a Maharajah. The first cab left the cab stand, little diesel motor gurgling loudly, and curved around to present its right-hand door to the doorman and-a honeymoon couple from Liverpool, temporarily rich from the pools. Ah, well.

  Sir Mortimer switched his umbrella to the other hand and made a mirror-image "h."

  Brreeett-breet-breet! Another taxi was most urgently under demand, and rapidly under way to answer the summons. Sir Mortimer, about-facing on his right heel at the instant of the sound of the doorman's whistle, marched straight to taxi number three-which by attrition had become taxi number one-and entered the passenger compartment.

  The driver lowered his paper and lifted his eyes to the rearview mirror: "Yes, Guv. Where to?"

  "Hello, Bruddy," Sir Mortimer said, with a cheery smile. "Just around the park a bit while we talk."

  The driver, Bruddy Dunk by name and plug-ugly by profession, twisted around and looked with surprise-but not pleasure, nor displeasure either; merely surprise-at his passenger: "Well, blow me down," he said. "Sir Mortimer himself, in the flesh."

  "That's right, Bruddy."

  "Let me get it away from here," Bruddy said, and faced front again to put the cab in gear and drive out onto Park Lane, turning left toward Hyde Park Corner.

  A small but hard-muscled man of about thirty, Bruddy Dunk had the face of a sport who'd never backed away from an argument but hadn't in every single case won his point. His nose looked like a large peanut in the shell; his mouth when open revealed tooth gaps wide enough to slide a Ritz cracker through; and his cloth cap appeared to be sewn to his head.

  Sir Mortimer waited while Bruddy negotiated the tricky chaos of Hyde Park Corner then took the Carriage Road between the beauty of Hyde Park on the right and the grimness of Kensington Barracks on the left; then he said, "Your sister told me where I'd find you."

  "Did she?" Something about the manner in which Bruddy sounded thoroughly noncommittal suggested he was in fact a bit disgruntled that his sister should be bandying his location about.

  Sir Mortimer was uninterested in Bruddy's familial quarrels. "I thought I might have use for you," he went on, "in a very nice bit of smash-and-grab, but you appear to have turned yourself into an honest cabman."

  "To tell the honest truth," Bruddy said, "I stole this cab this very morning."

  "In that case," Sir Mortimer said, "why not drive me to my country place while we talk?"

  "Meter on, or special out-of-city rates?"

  "Ho, ho," Sir Mortimer said. "You will have your little joke."

  ***

  Cross-hatches of sunlight, Mondrian'd by the struts and supports of the Eiffel Tower, dappled the exhausted tourists walking beneath its splayed legs. Among these, none was more indubitably a tourist or more obviously exhausted-to the point, apparently, of panic-than Andrew Pinkenham. A fiftyish, mild-featured, plumpish man with a distracted manner, Andrew Pinkenham was the very embodiment of the English civil servant, but in fact he was not an English civil servant, he was something entirely different.

  However, this seeming tourist, ostensibly exhausted and worried, a putative middle-class civil servant, approached in a tentative and superbly appropriate manner a particular pair of tourists, on whom he'd had his eye for several minutes. These too were quite clearly English, but working class and probably in their forties, a married couple with a shy-but-delighted look to their faces as they gazed about at this foreign soil.

  Andrew Pinkenham placed himself diffidently in their path. "I do beg your pardon," he said, "but would you by any stroke of magnificent luck happen to be English?"

  The couple looked surprised, though they shouldn't have. "Yes, we are," the man said.

  "Oh, thank the good Lord," Andrew said. "I'm at such a loss when surrounded by foreigners."

  "Always glad to be a mate to a mate," the man said. "Got to stick together when we're abroad, don't we?"

  "Oh, that we do, that we do."

  "What's the problem, then?
" The man was definitely a take-charge sort, and his wife watched him admiringly.

  "I came out today without a farthing," Andrew confessed. "Or a franc, I suppose I should say. Whatever it was, I didn't bring it."

  The woman of the pair was instantly sympathetic: "You poor man. You have no money?"

  "I'm stony, I'm afraid."

  Becoming slightly suspicious, the man now said, "And you want to borrow some, is that it?"

  "Oh, good heavens, no," Andrew said, apparently shocked. "I'm no beggar. But if you have the cash to spare, could I possibly write you a check? On my London bank, of course. Nat West."

  "A check?" The man's suspicions were not yet entirely allayed. "For how much?"

  "Oh, just enough to see me back to my hotel." Carefully gauging the potential resources of the marks, Andrew suggested, "Say, five pounds?"

  The man relaxed with a relieved smile. "Oh, I think we could do that," he allowed, becoming expansive, while his wife beamed beside him.

  "Wonderful," Andrew said. "I'll just write you out a check here-" And he did so, leaning against a girder, pausing to say, "To whom shall I make it out?"

  "Richard Coe."

  "Right you are."

  Finishing the check, Andrew waved it in the air a second to dry the ink, then handed it over to the man, who smiled at it, withdrew from his pocket a well-worn wallet, took out a five-pound note and handed it over, saying, "And there's your fiver."

  "You've absolutely saved my life," Andrew told him clutching the note.

  "Think nothing of it," the man said. "I know how things can be on holiday. In fact, I'm on holiday myself."

  Losing interest, preparing to leave, Andrew said, "Oh, really?"

  "Yes," the man said. "From Scotland Yard." And suddenly his hand was on Andrew's elbow, and was holding very, very tightly. And suddenly the man didn't look such a fool after all. He was brisk and purposeful as he said to his wife, "You go whistle up a gendarme, love, while I keep an eye on this chap."

  "Right," she said, and she was brisk and purposeful too, as she hurried off.

  Andrew, his heart simultaneously sinking and rising into his throat, sputtered and spluttered: "What? Really, you… Surely you don't think-"

  "Yes, well," said the man, "we'll sort it all out at headquarters, won't we?"

  "But… I can't think why you'd… But…"

  Andrew was on the very brink of abandoning pretense, was in fact seriously considering kicking this officious officer in the knee and trying to make a run for it (though he was dreadfully out of condition and hadn't run in thirty years or more), when suddenly a new person appeared, and it was with utter astonishment that Andrew realized he was looking at the mangled face of Bruddy Dunk. Also, that Bruddy was dressed as a chauffeur. And finally, that Bruddy was saying words to Andrew-Andrew did his best to listen.

  What Bruddy was saying was as follows: "Yes, sir, the car's waiting right over there."

  Car? Waiting? But before Andrew could ask any stupid questions, Bruddy turned his calm-but-ugly face toward the policeman, frowning at the check still held in the policeman's free hand (the hand not holding Andrew's elbow). "What's this?" Bruddy said. "Borrowing from strangers, sir?" And he plucked the check right out of the policeman's hand, making it disappear immediately inside his chauffeur's jacket, while at the same time saying, "No, sir, not while I'm around."

  "See here!" the policeman said, letting go of Andrew in his agitation. "Give back that check!"

  "You go to the car, sir," Bruddy told Andrew calmly, "while I sort this out."

  Gratefully Andrew backed away.

  "Here, now," the policeman said, pointing at Andrew. "You just stay where you are."

  Bruddy moved, stepping between the policeman and Andrew, saying, "That's five pounds, isn't it, sir?" And from an inner pocket he withdrew a wallet every bit as old and disreputable as the policeman's had been.

  "Just a minute now," the policeman said.

  "In the first place," Bruddy told him, now sounding just as hard and brisk and sure of himself as the policeman did, "you're no more a copper this side of the water than I am. And in the second place, you don't have the check. Now, you want the five quid or not?"

  Bruddy held out a five-pound note under the policeman's nose. Andrew watched the play of thought and stratagem and frustration cross the policeman's reddening face, until finally the man said, "Garrrr!" and snatched the five-pound note out of Bruddy's hand. "I'll remember your face," the policeman threatened.

  "Gord," said Bruddy, "I'll do my best to forget yours." And he turned away, shooing Andrew ahead of himself to an illegally parked long black Daimler limousine.

  After which, it was hardly a surprise at all to Andrew to find Sir Mortimer Maxwell waiting for him in the back seat.

  (b)

  Renee Chateaupierre, the most beautiful cat-burglar in Cannes, with the longest slenderest legs and the blackest sleekest hair and the quickest lightest fingers in her profession, helped herself to all the sparkling jewelry while the movie producer snored atop his snoring starlet. Oddly enough, her snores were deeper in tone than his, but together they made a fairly pleasant harmony. Monotonous, though.

  It was also strange but true that his jewelry was more extensive and richer than hers. The starlet had been good for merely a few pairs of ear-rings, a brooch or two, a necklace, a few other trinkets, but from the movie producer, Renee had accepted rings, a platinum identification bracelet, a golden watch inset with rubies, a golden money clasp in the shape of a dollar sign (plus all the money it clasped), several valuable sets of cuff-links and a silver cigarette lighter.

  And now she was finished, without ever having made enough noise to disturb the lovers at their snoring. Moving in swift slender silence, Renee crossed the room to the window through which she had entered and smoothly slid across the sill.

  The ledge was narrow, but so were Renee's feet. Ignoring the rather magnificent view of the Mediterranean, Renee glided across the front of the wedding-cake-white hotel, a dark shadow in the pre-dawn empty night, passing dark windows toward the one-leading to an empty room-which had been her route on arrival.

  Four windows from that goal there came a sudden change in Renee's direction. An arm snaked out from the darkness of this open window, wrapped itself around her lithe and slender waist, and yanked her off her ledge, through the opening, and into the darkness.

  Renee, naturally, opened her mouth to scream, but before she could do so a hand smelling not unpleasantly of Canoe after-shave firmly pressed itself against the lower half of her face, barring her from making any vocal noise at all.

  Or breathing, in fact, since the hand covered her nose as well. And the other arm was still about her waist. Kicking, gasping, writhing, struggling, clawing at the hand against her face, Renee found herself inexorably drawn into the dark room and across it, farther and farther from the safe rectangle of the window, until she was abruptly spun, lifted and flung upon a bed. "Oof!" she said, tried to get her elbows under her so she could rise, and her attacker dropped his entire body on top of her, crushing her onto the mattress. "Oof!" she said once more, then quickly gulped in air and yelled, "Help! Police!"

  "Don't be silly, Renee," said the calm, seductive, very familiar voice in her ear. "You don't want the police any more than I do."

  Startled, recognizing the voice but not yet able to unite it with a name or face, Renee stopped yelling and said instead, "What?"

  The man lifted part of his weight from her onto his elbows-so at least he was a gentleman. Then he reached out to the bedside lamp and switched it on, and Renee, blinking in the yellow light, saw above her the smiling and well-remembered face of Jean LeFraque. "Hello, my love," he said.

  "Jean!" Forgetting all other distress, Renee said, "What are you doing here?"

  Seductively grinning at her, moving his lower torso just a bit, Jean said, "I have business to discuss with you, my sweet."

  Renee made a head gesture to indicate the bed. "This isn't my
business."

  "Surely," Jean said, his hip rotation becoming more pronounced, "we can be comfortable while we chat."

  Renee did a thing involving her knee, which Jean didn't at all like. She could tell he didn't like it by the way his face became all scrinched up and lost all of its color, and by the way he sagged between his supporting elbows, and also by the way he offered no protest when she rolled him off her onto the other side of the bed, saying, "Let's be uncomfortable."

  Renee, free at last, got to her feet and smoothed down her black cashmere sweater and narrow black cotton pants. Meantime, Jean remained on the bed, curled like a shrimp.

  Renee was standing in front of the mirror, fluffing her hair, when Jean finally uncoiled himself and sat up, moving slowly, like a weary old man. Moving painfully to the edge of the bed, cautiously lowering his legs over the side, he said, "Renee, you never did have any sense of humor."

  Looking at him in the mirror, Renee offered him a mock-sympathetic smile, saying, "Poor sweetheart, did I hurt you?"

  "Only temporarily, thank God."

  Renee turned, saying, "I'm glad to hear it. I'm ready to listen now."

  Jean looked at her, and she could see him considering the possibility of prolonging his agony in order to get some sympathy-which might eventually lead to what he'd had in mind in the first place-but then she saw him realize she was the wrong person for such a ploy, and she knew their platonic relationship had been re-established when at last he shrugged and said, "Fine. To business."

  ***

  The Bistro Chagrin was crowded tonight, though it was a Thursday. This working class joint in Montmartre, just off Pigalle, attracted a very tough, very laconic, very fatalistic clientele, who didn't give a damn if it was Thursday or not. What matters, eh?