by R. N. Morris
All he could do was open his jaws and let the fear and the rage snap and whine in the tensioned sinews of his throat.
He turned and twisted in the tiny black corner of darkness. There had to be a way out. There was always a way out. If you pushed with your snout or scratched with your paw, whatever was in front of you would eventually yield.
But there was no yielding in this darkness. This darkness held him in its jaws. This darkness held his howls too, and the smell of his fear. And the smell of his fear made him more afraid.
There were moments when the darkness rattled and seemed about to fall apart. But then the darkness boomed terrifyingly. He cowered down and back, away from the heavy pounding on the top of the darkness.
All he could do was scratch and snarl and whine. But the darkness was not touched by anything he did. The darkness held him.
The darkness filled and echoed with his whining. His whining wrapped itself around him. His whining pierced his ears. His hairs stood up and a shiver took hold of him. His shiver set the darkness rattling.
Then the deafening boom-boom-boom sent him cowering into the corner of the hard darkness.
THIRTY
‘So … what do we know?’ Quinn straightened tentatively. He was standing in the highest part of the attic-room headquarters of the Special Crimes Department. He knew that he should have been able to reach his full height here without cracking his head, but, even so, a habit of caution cramped his movements.
Inchball yawned and blinked. His eyes were red with exhaustion. Even the soft reflected glow from the blank wall that faced the skylight seemed to be too much for him. He held his hands in front of his face, rubbed vigorously into his aching sockets, then glared, a bewildered, ravaged wreck of a man. ‘We know where Hartmann lives. I followed him after that shindig to an address in Forest ’Ill.’
‘Forest Hill?’
‘Yeah, Forest bloody ’Ill. I will need you to sign off the taxi fare, guv. Four shillings and sixpence.’
‘Of course.’
‘I waited outside the ’ouse all bleedin’ nigh’ and then followed him back into town this morning. Fortunately, he took the train and I was not obliged to splash out on another bleedin’ taxi. I would have been in a pickle otherwise, I can tell you. I can also tell you that he did not return to Cecil Court. He took the train to London Bridge, and from there he proceeded on foot – my poor achin’ legs! – across the river to an address in the City. On St Swithin’s Lane, to be precise. You want the number, do ya?’ Inchball sighed monumentally. He then tried each of his pockets in turn until at last he found his notebook. His bemused expression seemed to suggest that he had been unaware of the very existence of that particular pocket until that moment. He leafed through the pages. ‘A ’undred and nineteen, St Swithin’s Lane. A number of businesses is located at this address.’ Inchball read from his notebook. ‘Palgrave ’Oldings. Jacobs and Jacobson, Solicitors.’ Inchball paused as if he was going to make a comment but thought better of it and continued reading the list. ‘Imperial Trading Consortium. London Nitrate Company. The Colonial Financing Corporation. The Panamanian Investment Syndicate – parenthesis London, close parenthesis. The England and Continental Finance Bank. That’s it.’
‘And which of these offices did he enter?’
Inchball rolled his eyes at Quinn’s question. ‘Do me a favour, guv! Ain’t it enough I got all this for you? I ’ad ’a be careful, you know. Din’ want him to see me. I couldn’ afford to go breathin’ down ’is neck or nuffin’. By the time I got through the front door, ’e was nowhere to be seen.’
‘Of course, Inchball. I understand. This is excellent.’
‘The way I see it, he either went into one of the offices on the ground floor, which would be the Panamanian Investment Syndicate – parenthesis London, close parenthesis – or the England and Continental Finance Bank. Or, ’e went into the office what was on the second floor, that is to say, the London Nitrate Company.’
‘How do you figure that out?’ asked Macadam.
‘I ’eard the lift come to a halt above. I took the stairs and found it on the second floor. Where this London Nitrate Company is.’
‘It is more likely that he had business with the Finance Bank on the ground floor,’ suggested Quinn. ‘I imagine that the Panamanian Investment Syndicate …’
‘Parenthesis London, close parenthesis,’ added Inchball.
‘I would imagine that they are concerned largely in raising investments for Panama specifically, and perhaps for Central and South America more widely. It is possible that Hartmann has business interests there. But if his film production business is legitimate, as it seems to be – he has after all produced at least one film that I saw with my own eyes – then he will need to raise finance from time to time.’
‘We can’t assume that any of these set-ups is legitimate, guv,’ objected Inchball. ‘Any one of ’em could be a cover for his nefarious activities.’
Quinn remembered his conversation with Lord Dunwich the night before. The peer had been at pains to impress upon Quinn Hartmann’s bona fides. He had also let slip that he had business interests in common with the German. It was likely these interests went back a long way. Perhaps some of these interests were tied up in one of the companies on St Swithin’s Lane.
Quinn sensed his sergeants watching him expectantly, like pupils awaiting instructions from their teacher. They would have to wait. There was a tangle here and Quinn set himself to tease it apart.
Dunwich had tried to steer them away from the barbershop. Perhaps this was out of loyalty to his friend Hartmann, whom he perhaps knew to be connected to Dortmunder. Dunwich’s robust defence of Hartmann last night could be put down to a self-protective reflex. If Dunwich was in hock to Hartmann, or his associates, that made him vulnerable, not to say suspect. He would naturally wish to divert attention away from an object that had the potential to blow up in his own face. Not only that, the connection meant that Dunwich would be a tool that the German could employ when he needed to. Quinn had a sense of Herr Hartmann as a very patient individual indeed. He suddenly remembered the sinister package that Lord Dunwich had been sent. ‘Did anything come for me from Lord Dunwich?’
Macadam shook his head. Inchball had actually dozed off.
‘Oh, there was one thing came for you.’ Macadam handed over an envelope. Quinn noticed immediately that his name and the address were written in green ink.
Quinn took out a mimeograph of about two hundred names arranged in several columns on a single sheet of paper. Some of the names were marked with a green x.
Also enclosed was a brief note on stationery headed ‘Visionary Productions’, handwritten and signed in the same green ink by Hartmann.
My Dear Inspector Quinn,
Please find enclosed the list of guests invited to last evening’s gala screening of ‘The Eyes of the Beholder’. I have marked the names of those who also attended the party afterwards, approximately 50 in number. I sincerely hope that this is of some use to you in your endeavours to apprehend the vicious attacker of that poor girl.
Your servant,
Oskar Hartmann
Quinn glanced down the columns of names, until he found his own. Then he handed the sheet back to Macadam.
‘I want you to go through that and check the names against the files.’
‘Each and every name, sir?’
‘You may overlook mine.’
‘And may I ask, sir? Are we to switch our surveillance operation to this new address of Inchball’s? Perhaps deploy the kinematographic camera again? It would have to be in a different van, sir, as Hartmann has seen the baker’s. If we could catch Dortmunder on film coming to this address it would clinch it. What possible business could a German barber have with one of these companies?’
Quinn nodded thoughtfully, without committing himself. ‘An interesting idea. First, however, I would like you to do some background checks on the companies. See if you can find out the names of the dir
ectors. Then you can cross-check them with the list of names from Hartmann. Oh, and did you have a chance to follow up on the girl for me?’
‘The telephone is just one of the many boons of modern technology that have revolutionized police work. Instead of wearing out my boots tramping the streets, I was able to make my enquiries without leaving my desk.’ There was a tone to Macadam’s voice that suggested the thought: You really ought to try it one day, sir! ‘No girl was admitted to any London hospital last night with injuries consistent with the removal of an eye.’
‘And this Doctor Casaubon?’
‘There is a Doctor Augustus Casaubon listed in Kelly’s Directory on Harley Street. Number seventeen.’
‘Does his surgery possess a telephone?’
‘It does. But no one is answering it this morning. I will keep trying, of course.’
‘In this case, perhaps it might be worth our while to apply a little boot leather to the task. I shall go there myself. Inchball …’
‘Nguh?’
‘I have a very important task for you.’
Inchball blinked and winced as he struggled to sit up in his chair.
‘Go home and get some sleep.’
THIRTY-ONE
Magnus Porrick stirred in the darkness, turning his back on fitful, flickering dreams. The four tip-up auditorium seats he was stretched out across shook and groaned in protest.
He had not slept well. His back began to ache almost as soon as he lay down. It was now locked in a muscle clench of pain. And he was cold. God, it was cold in the Palace at night, after the massed bodies of successive audiences had finally vacated the rows. Once he had started shivering, he could not stop. And every shiver sent a fresh jolt of pain shooting through his limbs.
No, he had not gone home. He had thought it best to give Edna a little time to calm down. She would come round eventually, he felt sure. He had needed time too. Time to sober up.
The plush of the seat dug into his face, stubble against stubble. He kept his eyes closed tightly though he was awake, as if dreading what the day might offer to his sight. The image of that aristocratic erection was a chastening example. Some things, once seen, are hard to eradicate from the memory, however much we might wish it. Some sights change everything.
Movement was painful. It was as if the darkness was a vice that gripped him tightly. It was fruitless to struggle. The vice held him facing the memory of last night.
Granted, it was all very sordid and unpleasant. There was nothing he could do about that. It was a question of business now. And there are all sorts of unpleasant businesses that men steel themselves to undertake. (Undertaking being one of them. Was the undertaker squeamish about manhandling the dead? Porrick doubted it.) A lesser man might give in to the natural instinct to put it all behind him. But he could not afford to take that view. The darkness would not let him take that view. He was a businessman. A businessman was obliged to look for the commercial opportunity in any given situation, and exploit it.
Business consisted of the relationships between men. That was why the handshake was so important. Last night, something had changed in the relationship between Magnus Porrick and Lord Dunwich. Both men knew it. Why, Lord Dunwich would have been amazed if he had not taken advantage of it.
But he need not be in any hurry. Indeed, it was preferable to wait for Lord Dunwich to come to him. And when that happened, the first thing to do would be to reassure his lordship of his goodwill. He must insist that he had known nothing about the Novaks’ grubby plan to entrap him; he was a pawn in their game. And if Lord Dunwich doubted it was a plan, he would reluctantly disabuse him. At which point he would offer to intercede with the Novaks. He could put himself forward as a man of influence in the motion picture business. It wouldn’t be overstating it too much to say that he could see to it that neither of them ever made another film. Certainly, if his plans with Waechter came to fruition, he could ensure that they never appeared in another of the Austrian’s films.
And so, without doing anything very much, he would manufacture that most valuable of commodities: the gratitude of a rich and powerful man.
Porrick kept his eyes closed, as if he was afraid to let reality intrude on his daydreams. And yet, what was there to worry about? It all seemed watertight. And whatever happened, he would be in the clear. He himself had done nothing wrong. What he was proposing was not blackmail. It was more a question of leverage.
Something, however, nagged at the edge of his consciousness, a vague awareness that there was something he had forgotten.
Of course, this would all take time. Things had to be allowed to unfold at their own pace. You couldn’t force it. And in the meantime, if Kirkwood’s warnings had any substance, his chain of Porrick’s Palaces could come tumbling down around him.
No, no, it’d be all right. He’d show them all. He’d turn it round. He had a plan. And he didn’t just mean the business with Lord Dunwich. He had another plan …
But there was so much to keep in mind. Everything contingent on everything else.
The other plan, the business with Waechter. Yes, that was the thing. The production company. He’d turn it round with the production company. That would be a great success, he’d show them. He had a secret weapon. He had …
And at that point he sat up and opened his eyes. The released seats sprang into the upright position. The auditorium was in utter darkness still. Porrick had no way of knowing what time it was, but the lights would not be put on until it was time to admit the matinee audience at eleven. The heavy drapes at the entrance prevented any light from the foyer from seeping in.
‘Scudder?’
How could he have been so stupid? So drunk! Scudder was not just a dog, he was a valuable business asset. He might even put it more forcibly than that: Scudder was his ticket to future prosperity. And he had just abandoned him, as if he was a worthless street mutt! Would Hartmann have treated his star, Eloise, with equal carelessness?
Porrick rose to his feet. The remaining tip-up snapped shut. He groped his way to the end of the row and felt for the wall ahead of him. When he had that, he turned to the right and made his way along the wall towards what he knew was the rear of the auditorium.
At last the solidity of the wall gave way to the swing of drapery. He burst through into the dim half-light of the foyer before opening.
It took a while for Porrick’s eyes to adjust, for him to realize that the silhouette coming towards him was Max Maxwell.
‘Have you seen Scudder?’
‘Scudder?’
‘My dog. The Yorkie.’
Maxwell scrutinized Porrick’s face closely, as if he were struggling to remember ever having seen him with a dog. ‘No. I haven’t seen him since last night.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
Maxwell held up a rolled newspaper that he was carrying. He used it to point at Porrick, almost accusingly. ‘You had him at the party with you last night, did you not?’
‘Yes, but you meant something, I’m sure.’
Maxwell dropped the hand holding the newspaper. ‘Did you not take him home with you?’
‘No … I … I did not, as it happens. I lost sight of him during last night’s … celebrations.’
‘That was very careless of you.’
‘I imagine he found a corner somewhere, where he curled up and went to sleep. Now he will be hungry, poor chap.’
‘That’s probably it. Try Hartmann’s place in Cecil Court. That was where I last saw him.’
There was something in Maxwell’s eye that Porrick didn’t like. An open hostility, brimming with impertinence. He had long suspected Maxwell’s hostility towards him, his hatred even. He knew that the man who had died in the fire in Islington had been a friend of his. It was reasonable that he would harbour a grudge. As an employee, Maxwell had kept his feelings close to his chest, until now. Porrick sensed that something had changed in their relationship.
‘Yes. I’ll do that. Thank you.’
/> Maxwell again lifted the newspaper. ‘Have you seen it?’
‘What?’
‘It’s all over the front page of the Clarion. It mentions Porrick’s Palace. And there’s a quote from Waechter.’
Porrick took the tubed paper and unfurled it.
Maxwell grinned sarcastically. ‘Was it right, I wonder, to have celebrations after this?’ Maxwell’s emphasis of the word that Porrick had just used was pointed. ‘Mind you, it will be good for the box office, I dare say. Unless they shut us down.’
‘You’d better hope that doesn’t happen, Max. Or you’ll be out of a job. I shall order prints of all Waechter’s previous films. Perhaps the time has come for a Waechter retrospective. I fear that this incident may indeed have excited a morbid interest in his work among the public.’
‘Which you of course will do your best to pander to!’
‘You know what pays your wage as well as I do, Max. If we don’t get them through the door and on the seats, then you and me both will be in the workhouse.’
Max held out his hand for his newspaper. As he took it back, a brief, mechanical smile spasmed across his mouth. ‘I hope you find your dog.’ But his voice was an emotionless sing-song.
THIRTY-TWO
As Quinn walked across Cavendish Square, the sun broke through a crack in the marbled clouds and ignited the shuddering foliage with a frail, green, luminescent pallor.
Quinn half-expected to see Grant-Sissons lit up in the unexpected flare, hiding ineffectually behind one of the London plane trees. He imagined the strange, bitter man beckoning him over. This time he would walk right up to him and hear him out as he divulged the secret of his father’s death. He wondered at his reluctance earlier. Why, after so many years of longing to know the answer to that mystery, he had turned and run from the first real opportunity of a breakthrough. He told himself that he was not ready to hear what Grant-Sissons had to say. It had come too much out of the blue. He had not been able to prepare himself. When he was ready, he would seek the man out and demand to be told what he knew.
