Hire Me a Hearse (14 page)

The day after the Broomwood blast, to steal from a headline, questions were asked in the House of Commons. No one could have pretended they were answered, in the real meaning of the word.

Vicars suddenly found they had fresh subjects for their parish magazine, which almost invariably turned out to be the same subject, wayward youth. No one doubted who they had in mind as a sort of inverse inspiration.

But long before the sermons were delivered on the Sunday, before the gabby-mouths at Speakers' Corner began frothing near-slander while it rained at Marble Arch, before the Home Secretary had begun to make up his mind about the answers he would give to the freshly tabled questions, two persons called at Scotland Yard. Drury was warned that one of them was coming. The Home Office had been tipped off by the Foreign Office, and even the Dominion Office and the Colonial Office squeezed into
the act, with memos circulating between the Defence Ministry and the Minister for Technology.

The visitor Drury was told to expect rang him to say the second visitor was on his way. They arrived at Scotland Yard within three minutes of each other. The first came by car, which had a passenger's door that had to be slammed and a neglected golden scarf on the shelf under the dash. The second arrived by taxi.

The first wore long eardrops through pierced coffee-coloured lobes. The second wore a sky-blue turban with a pearl-studded pin nestling in the silk. He also wore a curly black beard.

‘I'd like this interview on tape, Mr Drury,' said Vicki Seeburg.

Drury looked at the second visitor.

‘I agree,' said Janssi Singh.

Bill Hazard switched the tape recorder on and the spools began whirring slowly.

Vicki said, ‘How is Jeremy, poor man?'

‘Suffering from shock. He's in hospital and no one's been given the address,' Drury told her.

‘Good,' she approved, and looked at the man in the turban. He had a pair of large dark eyes set in a swarthy face with a strong jawline and prominent brows. There was a good deal of animal magnetism about the Great Janssi even when he was appearing simply as Janssi Singh. He was a man most other men would look at twice. Most women perhaps more than twice — those other times furtively. No one knew this better than Janssi Singh, unless it was his wife.

She usually preferred to be known by her own name of Vicki Seeburg.

When Drury was let into the secret he looked suitably surprised.

He said, ‘I was told you had diplomatic immunity, Mrs Singh.'

‘Call me Vicki, I'm used to it,' she smiled.

Across the office, Hazard grinned like a man who had been encouraged. His grin didn't flake away when he met the Great Janssi's stare. Suddenly the man in the blue turban grinned back.

‘Yes, call her Vicki,' he said. ‘Everybody does. Even the postman, though I don't
know how he came to find out in the first place.'

‘You see what an understanding husband I have,' she said.

But it was only small talk. She was worried, like him. They were not there to bandy pleasantries and names. She went on, ‘I do not use a C.D. plate on my car. Janssi, if he had a car, would be entitled to the same official recognition, but neither of us works that way. I am only telling you this to put you in the picture, Mr Drury. After what has happened I realize a killer must be caught. I myself killed a man only a matter of hours ago. He had just killed one of your own agents, Daniel Paget, and was about to murder Jeremy Truncard. I had no choice.'

Drury looked at her and could hardly believe it. She looked like a nice woman who would be good with her needle. Well, probably she was. That didn't mean she couldn't be equally good with a firearm. Or a piece of plastic and a detonator fixed to a dry-cell battery. But he didn't let his thoughts get anywhere
near the surface of his features.

He nodded and waited.

She went on, ‘You're probably a little confused because Janssi is a Pakistani. I am Hindu — at least by preference. I have only a fraction of Hindu blood in my veins. I am a mixture of Occident and Orient. I met Janssi when he was doing his act in Europe and helping Interpol break a dope ring. I was interested in another outlet of the same ring. The poppy powder came from Thibet sources, worked through both Pakistan and India, and cash credits were being built in Europe for other uses than mere trading. You understand, Mr Drury?'

‘I understand, Vicki,' said Drury carefully, ‘why you are in the Diplomatic Service with cover that will let you work at gaining information.'

The Yard man looked at the face under the turban, which was studying him.

‘I also understand how the Great Janssi is a great cover for an operator who has been cleared by our own people and Interpol.'

Janssi Singh showed magnificent white
teeth through his close curly beard. ‘You are something of a diplomat yourself, Mr Drury,' he commended.

‘The English newspapers wouldn't agree with you just at the moment, Mr Singh.'

‘There was nothing you could have done. Tell me what you could have done to stop what happened when, if you had tried, Wilma would have phoned Peregrine Porter and told him to get you off her back, as you say in English.'

‘You know Mr Porter?' Drury asked.

‘He handles the legal side of my club's business. Wilma introduced Vicki to him and Vicki sent me along.'

‘You were with Mr Porter two days before the explosion. His chief clerk said you went out with him.'

‘That's right. He had lunch with me, and afterwards rang up to say he had lost his keys. Did I remember him taking them from his pocket over the meal or in the men's room?' Janssi Singh shook his head. ‘I didn't, of course. In case you are interested, we had lunch because I have had an offer for my shares in the
‘Golden Pagoda'.'

‘Might I ask from whom?'

‘Certainly. From Peregrine Porter himself. I told him I wasn't ready to sell yet. He seemed disappointed.'

‘Did he mention Jeremy Truncard?'

‘Very much. He wanted to know why the young man visited the ‘Golden Pagoda'. I was surprised to hear that he had. So was Vicki when I phoned her.'

‘Wilma Haven wasn't. She asked Mr Porter's chief clerk in a personal letter if he could tell her why Mr Truncard went to the club.'

Janssi Singh nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, Vicki and I have been doing some checking. So far as I can tell Jeremy Truncard only went there when I was away. You see, I am only at the club when I am in London, and then not every day. I do not run the club. There is a most efficient manager. In fact, I do not interfere with the running in any way. Vicki and I have put our money into it to gain what is nowadays called capital appreciation. Indian food is popular, Indian dancing acts and feats
of legerdemain always captivate even a sophisticated audience, and they are the kinds of performance that go with supper routines. You see, properly handled, such a club as the ‘Golden Pagoda' is what you call a certainty. Besides, there could be ‘Golden Pagodas' in other cities, even other countries. Like Hilton hotels. The acts could be passed on. You follow?'

‘And they would be likely places for Orientals to forgather. That would make it easier to keep them under surveillance. I mean the ones who handle the big money,' Drury said as an afterthought.

Vicki Seeburg said, ‘The ‘Golden Pagoda' required more money than Janssi and I had. We didn't have to go to a bank for a loan. Is that plain enough, Mr Drury?'

Drury nodded again. ‘Thank you. Who introduced Jeremy Truncard to the ‘Golden Pagoda'?'

‘We don't know,' Vicki said.

Drury looked from the woman to her husband, who nodded and said, ‘It may sound incredible, Mr Drury, but it is true.'

‘You were with Mr Truncard,' Drury reminded the woman. ‘You could have asked him.'

‘I did several times, trying to take him by surprise. But the ‘Golden Pagoda' meant nothing to him unless one first said the words Russian Roulette.'

‘My God,' said Bill Hazard. ‘Mesmerized — hypnotized — some damned Oriental trick that — '

He stopped short, flushing warmly as he bit back the rest and looked at the flashing eyes of the visitors, now turned wholly on the big man who had pushed himself into the centre of interest.

‘Precisely, Inspector,' Vicki said. ‘Someone has been using Jeremy Truncard without his being aware of it. He has gone to the ‘Golden Pagoda' when, if you like, the coast was clear. That was clever, because I would never check on that club. It would be the last place I would think of. But Wilma saw him. He went in and sat at a table and wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to a waiter, who went away, came back, and told Jeremy to follow him.
The waiter stood back, screwing up the piece of paper, which he dropped into an ashtray. Wilma changed her seat and collected the piece of paper. When she unfolded it she read two words. I think you can guess what they were.'

‘Russian Roulette,' muttered Hazard.

‘How about the waiter?' Drury asked.

‘Unfortunately there is a large turn over in Indian staff who come to London, stay for a time, and move on to the provinces. I can't find out who that waiter was. I think,' Janssi Singh said slowly, shaking his head, ‘he must be one who left.'

‘Who would he take the piece of paper to?' Drury inquired.

The broad shoulders under the blue turban shrugged.

‘Again it is impossible to say. There are private rooms, and three dining-rooms. When the shows are given the partitions slide away and the main portion of the club is then a big auditorium.'

‘Rather like the way the Japanese change their rooms,' Drury nodded.

‘Very similar, except that the walls are
not bamboo, and the private rooms are what they purport to be.'

The woman said, ‘Something seems to be puzzling you, Mr Drury.' It was an invitation, which Drury acknowledged with a smile. ‘Why I asked for you to have a tape recorder when I rang up?'

‘No.' The Yard superintendent leaned forward. ‘I still can't see how it was a risk to have Mr Truncard meet whoever he did meet at the club, Vicki. In the nature of things there was always a chance that you or your husband might be there. You knew him, I believe, had met him with Wilma Haven, and — '

‘Just a moment, Superintendent,' said Janssi Singh. ‘You are covering a lot of ground. First, it is a rule Vicki and I have, never to go to the club except together. There could be danger, more for her perhaps than for me, and alone she might be vulnerable. Although she can take care of herself, as she has demonstrated several times, a word could be passed on if she was alone. With two of us it would be a different matter, and remember — I am talking about only if one. of us was
recognized by someone who feared us. By going always together the chances of a hostile act were considerably narrowed down. Another thing, we are man and wife. It would be natural for her to come with me, and we are shareholders in the business. Also, if something unexpected happened, we could act jointly. That too was important, for I have to report to one High Commissioner's office, Vicki to another. It wasn't easy to set this up in the first place, I mean our working together. There was a good deal of opposition in Delhi and in Karachi, and I may say we weren't exactly welcomed with open arms at first in London.'

When the man in the turban sat back Drury said, ‘I can understand why Vicki wanted you here with her.'

‘We have to share what we know. All the time, with no delay, Mr Drury,' she said, a new earnestness in her manner. ‘We couldn't continue otherwise. There are career diplomats in both camps who eye us with suspicion, and now more than ever.'

‘You mean now today?' the Yard man frowned.

‘No, now in the sense of recently. Neither of us has been reporting since Wilma broke the news to me about Jeremy and that Russian Roulette code password. There has been a gap while we have been going about things normally, keeping contact on my part with Daniel Paget and Wilma, and my husband fulfilling his engagements in Bournemouth and not losing contact with me or Peregrine Porter.'

Drury shook his head. ‘I can understand that, for your own reasons, you wanted things to appear normal, as you say, but — '

She interrupted, aware that Drury was overlooking a whole cluster of important points because he did not know enough, and did not realize why Paget had been shot, so that what he knew died with him.

She said, ‘Mr Drury, forget how it came about. Let me tell you what we think happened and what Wilma Haven thought happened. They are not
necessarily the same thing, but they indicate the same underlying motive.'

Bill Hazard stirred. This was getting deep for him, and when that time arrived he wanted to smoke.

‘Anybody care for a cigarette?' he asked.

Janssi Singh took a cigarette from the packet held out, the woman said, ‘Thank you, Inspector, I don't smoke.'

Drury took the opportunity to fill and light his pipe.

The woman went on.

‘Wilma was surprised that Jeremy did not notice her. I'm referring to the occasion when she picked up that piece of paper with the words Russian Roulette on it. But she was also surprised that he did not appear specially interested in his surroundings. He arrived, had a fruit drink, and passed over the piece of paper with what we believe was a special code signal. Shortly afterwards he left his fruit drink and went out with the waiter. But he did not stay in the club. He had the waiter call a taxi. Wilma was a woman who was
not easily put off when she had set her mind to find out something. I think I'm at fault for encouraging that trait in her character. I met her in Saint-Tropez when I was making inquiries about the dope ring that was shifting raw heroin from Albania to Marseilles. We took to each other and remained friends and she later introduced me to Jeremy in London, but I'm sorry to say I didn't take to him. He seemed an ineffectual young boffin, I suppose is the word, immersed in his work, and not very manly. I have since then modified my opinion. However, to modify is not necessarily to change drastically. I thought Jeremy intelligent but not bright with women. He thought he was in love with Wilma, but never got to grips with the problem of making sure if she could love him.'