The Python Project

by Victor Canning

  I said, ‘Why don’t you take your wrappings off and sit down. You look as though you are collecting for the National Lifeboat Institution or something.’

  He considered this, then put his glass down on the chair and began to slip his things off.

  ‘Don’t make any mistake, Monsieur Freeman. I am here on very serious business.’

  He transferred his glass and pistol to the edge of the table and sat down on the chair.

  ‘You’d better say what it is.’

  ‘I’m from Monsieur Robert Duchêne.’

  He waited for me to show surprise, but I didn’t.

  ‘Of Paris,’ he said.

  ‘You’re French too, aren’t you?’

  ‘Francois Paulet. I’m surprised you are so phlegmatic, monsieur.’

  ‘It must be the weather. And why are you from Monsieur Robert Duchêne, armed with a gun and dressed against all weathers?’

  ‘Flippant, uh? It is an English characteristic, no? Oh, I know all about the English when I learn the language here many years ago. I was wine waiter, you know, at many restaurants. However, let us not bother with my history, considerable though it has been. From you I want what you have taken from Monsieur Duchêne. I have this—’ he touched the pistol with a fingertip—‘because of the delicacy of the matter. My client cannot call in the police because, as you know, the things you have taken were not all legitimately acquired by him in the first place. Notwithstanding, it is my duty to recover them.’

  ‘By force?’

  ‘If necessary. And do not be misled by my docile appearance.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what I have to hand over.’

  ‘Certainly.’ He smiled, and it was quite a warm, genuine smile, touching and appealing. ‘It is good that so far we talk amicably. All business should be like that. Everyone would finish more quickly and get more money.’ He fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it across to me.

  I reached for the paper and unfolded it. It was a quarto sheet, typewritten, and read:

  Ancient Greek coins, the property of Monsieur Robert Duchêne, 2 bis Rue de Bac, Paris.

  Item—one Electrum stater of Lydia.

  Item—one Electrum stater of Ephesus.

  Item—one gold stater of Croesus.

  Item—one Daric of Persia.

  Item—alliance of Siris and Pyxus, two.

  Item—Knossos with Minotaur and Labyrinth, two.

  Item—stater of Thasos, two.

  There were quite a few more items, twenty-two in all, finishing with:

  Item—one, gold 100 litrae of Syracuse.

  I said, ‘These have been stolen?’

  He said, ‘You know they have, Monsieur Freeman. By you. And it was, if I may say so, a great abuse of hospitality. No doubt you thought that since Monsieur Duchêne had acquired them for his collection in . . . a devious way . . . that you would not be pressed to return them. Legally, I mean. But Monsieur Duchêne has employed me to recover them for him without the help of the law. I may say I am an expert at such matters. A large part of my business is the recovery of stolen goods.’

  I said, ‘Monsieur Paulet, take a good look at me. I’m in the same business. The name is Carver, Rex Carver, and I’m after Monsieur Freeman too, to get back stolen goods.’

  He looked at me blankly for a moment or two.

  Then he said, ‘You are not Monsieur Martin Freeman?’

  ‘No.’ I took out one of my cards and flipped it to him.

  He looked at it and his face fell.

  ‘Carvay,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Not Freeman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Merde!’ he said. ‘Why do I always get things cocked up?’ I really felt sorry for him. In disappointment he had a warm, collapsed human appeal.’

  ‘It was a natural mistake,’ I said. ‘I am in Freeman’s cottage, drinking his whisky. I could have made the same mistake. Tell me—when did Freeman pinch these coins?’

  ‘About two weeks ago. No, a little less.’ He smiled suddenly and leaned forward and held out a big hand across the table to me. ‘Monsieur,’ he said as I took it, ‘it is a pleasure to meet someone of my own profession on this side of the Channel. Enchante. And what was it he has stolen from your client?’

  He had a grip like a vice. I rescued my hand and shook it to ease the numbness. ‘He lifted five thousand pounds and a piece of jewellery from his sister. You understand, I tell you this in confidence.’ I could feel the old Gallic protocol taking over in me too.

  ‘But naturally, monsieur.’

  ‘How,’ I asked, ‘did you trace this cottage? Freeman never advertised it.’

  ‘Haaaaaa!’ It was a great gust of a knowing sigh and then he did something I hadn’t seen done for years. He laid the index finger of his right hand against the side of his big nose and winked. I knew better than to probe a professional man further. Then he stood up and said, ‘You have found many clues in this place?’

  I waved my hand around and said, ‘You’re welcome to what there is. I’ll have another drink while you look round.’

  ‘Merci, monsieur.’

  Ignoring me, he took a leisurely look around the room and then disappeared upstairs. I lit a cigarette and waited, and wondered what there was in Freeman that made him go for antique stuff, jewellery and coins. Nothing that sprang from a genuine love of the past and its craftsmanship I was sure. He was just after cash. And then I thought about François Paulet. He was a likeable number. But in my profession to keep an overdraft down you had to have more than likeableness. There was a touch of music-hall about Paulet and a self-confessed habit of getting things cocked up that marked him out for the lower rungs of the hierarchy.

  He came downstairs after a while, looking shocked, and shaking his head.

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ he said. ‘It is incredible. To have affairs of the heart is natural. But to leave the evidence lying on the floor at the side of the bed for the world to see. No Frenchman would do such a thing.’

  ‘Nor many Englishmen.’

  ‘But some of them were clearly married women. Why—’ his face cleared suddenly—‘there is enough material there to keep a blackmailer happy for life.’ Then he frowned. ‘It is a good thing that you and I are honourable men.’

  ‘Personally,’ I said, ‘I’ve never ceased congratulating myself about it.’

  I stood up.

  ‘You are going?’ he asked.

  ‘Back to London.’

  ‘You could give me a lift?’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I am by train to Ashford. Then a bus. Then I walk.’ He smiled and my heart went out to him as he went on, ‘Monsieur Duchêne is not generous in the matter of expenses.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift back to London.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He followed me into the kitchen and then paused and nodded to a door at the far end. ‘What is in there?’

  ‘I haven’t examined it because I know. It is the chemical closet.’

  ‘The toilet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah—then I will use it before our journey.’

  He went over and opened the door. I must say that for a big man he was quick on his feet. As he pulled the door towards him something large and bulky fell out, and François did a backward jump of three feet.

  I went to his side and looked down.

  ‘Merde!’ he said. ‘Is it Freeman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who is it then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Freeman is in his thirties. This man is much older.’

  ‘He was propped on the seat, his head against the door. So when I open it—out he comes, bim!’ Paulet sounded a bit scared.

  I didn’t think I had to make any comment. I knelt down by the man. I’m no expert but it was clear from the markings on the neck that he had been strangled manually. Rigor mortis had set in completely, so he had been dead for anything be
tween twelve and twenty-four hours—after this rigor begins to pass away. I went through his pockets, but either he carried nothing on him or someone had cleared them after his death.

  Behind me, Paulet said, ‘What is to do? I am in a strange country and do not wish to be involved in this kind of thing.’

  ‘Nor me,’ I said, standing up. ‘We’ll just go quietly away, and I’ll phone the police anonymously on the way back to London.’

  I looked at Paulet. He was very much shaken.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘with an effort I shall not be sick.’

  I went to the back door and opened it, letting him pass me.

  ‘For a man who carries a gun around, I should have thought this kind of thing meant nothing to you.’

  He glanced back at me indignantly. ‘But that is for show. It is never loaded.’

  We slithered down the muddy path in darkness and a thin drizzle to my car. All the way I was thinking of the man lying back in the kitchen. He wore a London-Scottish tie, a shabby grey suit and well-rubbed suede shoes. Even in death he maintained his beaten-spaniel look.

  CHAPTER 3

  Neanderthal Man with Azalea

  I phoned the Ashford police at a call box just outside Maidstone. Later, I dropped Paulet at the Strand Palace Hotel where he was staying.

  He hadn’t said a great deal on the drive to London. The sight of the dead man had shaken him. I went in and had a drink with him and he brightened up a bit. I think it was the sight of the waiters and being in an hotel. He was reminded of his old life.

  I said, ‘You should have stuck to the hotel business.’

  ‘Yes, often I think that. Between ourselves, too, I made more money. You think Martin Freeman killed this man?’

  ‘He might have done. But somehow it doesn’t seem to be his style. Anyway, one thing I’m pretty certain about is that Freeman’s not in England. He wrote a letter of resignation to his firm from Florence.’

  ‘I think tomorrow I go back to Paris.’

  ‘I should do that. If you like you can tell Monsieur Duchêne that if I ever catch up with Freeman I’ll try and do something about his antique coins.’

  ‘Thank you. And if you come there, look me up.’ He handed me a business card.

  The next morning from the office I phoned Gloriana and made an appointment to see her at twelve. I handed Wilkins the Bill Dawson letter and asked her to check on Sabratha, Wheelus and Uaddan. You never knew when you might not pick up some small lead. I also gave her the Phs. Van Ommeren bill and asked her to check with them what travel arrangements they had made for Martin Freeman. When she raised an eye at this I said, ‘Tell them you’re speaking from the Intercontinental News Services, and it’s a question of checking for his expense account. Freeman worked there.’

  When she had gone I sat and stared at the wall calendar. It didn’t help me beyond announcing that the day was Thursday.

  Why, I asked myself, had old London-Scottish tie been strangled in Freeman’s cottage? Clearly—according to Jane Judd—he had been looking for Freeman and was using a thin cover story. I thought—from his condition—that he had gone to the cottage the day before I had, and met someone who resented his presence. Really resented it, too. I resented his presence too. If the police ever discovered that Paulet and I had been there, we should both be in trouble. I was used to being in trouble with the police, but Paulet didn’t strike me as the type who would handle it very well.

  Thinking of Paulet, I began to go over the Duchêne antique coin angle. That sounded like Freeman, all right. Any stuff his friends left lying around he felt free to pocket. Paulet hadn’t put a price on the antique coins. But at the moment Freeman had five thousand in cash from his sister, a python arm bracelet worth another five thousand, which made him ten thousand pounds in funds, plus the value of the coins which would be . . . well, I didn’t know. Not knowing always irked me. I got up and went over to the low wall bookcase by the door.

  Wilkins, when we had been flush once, had spent over a hundred quid on reference books, most of which we had never used. Some had never been opened. I pulled out Volume 16, MUSHR to OZON, of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and looked up the article on Numismatics. Perhaps I would get some idea of the value of the coins from that.

  I didn’t. But I got something else. A shock. Leafing through the article I stopped at the first photographic plate. It was a full-page illustration of Ancient Greek coins, photographed by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Each set of coins, reverse and obverse, carried a number. There were twenty-two sets illustrated. Below the illustrations a legend was set out referring to the numbers. I began to read through this and before I had finished the first line a bell began to ring. The line went: 1. Electrum stater of Lydia. 2. Electrum stater of Ephesus. 3. Gold stater of Croesus. 4. Daric of Persia.

  I read right through and by the time I reached number twenty-two I was certain. It read: ‘22. Gold 100 litrae of Syracuse.’

  The list of stolen coins which Monsieur Duchêne had given old Paulet had been copied straight out of the Encyclopaedia. For my money—none of your antique Greek stuff—it had to be a phoney. I’ve had a few startling coincidences happen in my life, but this certainly wasn’t one. Either Duchêne had given Paulet a phoney list and a phoney story to go with it, or both of them knew it was phoney. I considered the possibility of Duchêne stringing Paulet along, and then I considered the possibility of Paulet knowing the list was phoney. He seemed simple, straightforward, and a little more than inefficient. Well, that kind of act would make a good cover for whatever it was he or they wanted to cover.

  I picked up the phone and called the Strand Palace Hotel. Lunch with Paulet might help to sort things out. After some hanging about, the hotel people told me that Paulet had booked out that morning. Wilkins came back in while I was still getting nowhere. ‘Sabratha,’ she said, ‘is the site of an ancient Roman town thirty-odd miles to the west of Tripoli.’

  ‘It could be,’ I said, ‘that what is wanted on this job is an archaeologist.’

  ‘Wheelus is the American Air Force base to the east of Tripoli. Wheelus course refers to the golf course which the Americans have built there. It’s called Seabreeze.’

  ‘Original name.’

  ‘Uaddan,’ said Wilkins, ‘is the name of a hotel, which also has a casino, in Tripoli.’

  ‘And what about the Van Ommeren people?’

  ‘They were very helpful. Some of the account is a carry-over from old travel charges, but the bulk is for air-booking from London Airport to the King Idris Airport, Tripoli. Via Rome.’

  ‘Date?’

  ‘He bought the ticket over a month ago and had the date left open, saying he would make his arrangements direct.’

  ‘He must have broken his journey and gone to Florence.’

  ‘Van Ommeren say they would be glad to have Mr Freeman’s present address.’

  ‘I’ll put them on the list. When do you go to Cairo?’

  ‘Monday.’

  She moved to the door.

  ‘Until you go—and leave a note for your sister to watch it afterwards—I’d like any press cuttings you can pick up of the discovery of the body of a man strangled to death, at Ash Cottage, Crundale, near Wye. That’s in Kent.’

  Wilkins looked at me. That’s all. Just looked.

  *

  Gloriana mixed me a large dry martini which I sipped at gently over the next twenty minutes in order to avoid having the top of my head blown off. She drank lime juice with soda.

  She had her place of honour on the large settee, one leg curled up underneath her. She wore a short blue woollen dress and a gold band around her hair. On my way in the taxi I had debated with myself what I was going to tell her. Usually I like to keep a little up my sleeve for a rainy day. However, by the time I had the martini glass in my hand, freezing my fingers off, I’d decided to give her the truth. By now I was quite sure that there was something wrong with all this Freeman business. And let’s face it, bec
ause of my low iron and vitamin content I welcomed it. I was beginning to feel that maybe life still had something to offer. It’s instructive, too, to lay the truth out for people. Not all of them can control the reactions they would like to control.

  She listened carefully as I went through the story, every detail, and I watched her carefully. The only thing I saw of interest was the gentle swinging movement of one long nylon leg over the edge of the settee.

  I finished, ‘Any comments?’

  She considered this for a moment, then said, ‘Only that he seemed to be getting himself into the dirt again. And I’ll have to get him out.’

  ‘Got a photograph of him?’

  ‘I’ll give you one before you go.’

  ‘Would he murder a man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bill Dawson—know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know about the country cottage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he ever mention any girl in Paris, probably a cabaret type? Favours Oriental gear.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re doing well. What about Leon Pelegrina who sends him a New Year’s card from Florence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tripoli—has he been there before to your knowledge?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘He showed me something he did about a year ago. Some feature article which his firm placed with one of the Sunday papers. It was about the oil industry in Libya. I didn’t read it.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas about Monsieur Duchêne with his phoney list of antique coins?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’ve never heard of Francois Paulet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And this strangled type in the cottage. From my description, does he seem to fit anyone you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re back on the old negative routine.’

  She said, ‘I know very little about my brother or his circle. That’s why you’re here. I want you to find him.’