Silhouette in Scarlet (26 page)
The police had no trouble rounding up the gang. They were not unarmed – Max had another suitcase of weaponry tucked away – but resistance to the death was not part
of their credo. With their connections they’d be out on parole in a couple of years, and back at the old stand.
Max asked to see me before they hauled him off to jail. Schmidt and Gus wanted to go along, to protect me, and I had to be very firm with them.
He rose with his usual courtesy when I entered the room.
‘I am glad to see you are unharmed by your adventures,’ he said. ‘I felt a certain concern.’
‘You had cause.’ I waved him back into his chair. ‘I suppose I should commiserate with you, but I’m damned if I feel any regret about Leif – Hasseltine –
whatever his name.’
‘It was a business association,’ Max said calmly. There wasn’t a wrinkle in his well-cut suit, his tie was neatly knotted, and his wig was firmly in place; he was the very
image of a respectable businessman. ‘In fact,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘his, er, premature demise opens several promising avenues of speculation for me. I might even say, Dr Bliss,
that if you should ever have occasion to call on me for a favour . . .’
I ought to have been shocked and disgusted. But there was something about Max . . . His composure was so complete that he forced you to accept his premises – for the moment, anyway.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Was that all you wanted to say?’
‘Only to express my personal regrets for the inconvenience you experienced, and to give you this.’
They had let him keep his briefcase. From it he took a piece of cardboard and handed it to me. The black silhouette had been neatly mounted.
‘I did it from memory,’ Max said, as I studied the familiar profile. ‘It is good of him, don’t you think?’
‘You always do good work, Max. I appreciate it. Did you make another – for your collection?’
‘No,’ Max said deliberately. ‘No, Dr Bliss.’
I said, ‘I understand.’
‘I felt sure you would. May I say, then, good fortune to you, and
auf Wiedersehen.
’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Max.’
And that, dear reader, is how I came to be footing it, not too lightly, around the Karlsholm maypole. It was an event I wouldn’t have missed, a memory I will always
cherish. And I’ll be back. By dint of desperate searching and ingenious invention, Gus and I worked out a genealogy that made me his fourteenth cousin twice removed, or something of that
nature. Kinfolks have to keep in touch. Besides, Schmidt had been working on Gus to permit excavation of the pasture, and Gus was showing signs of yielding.
When the dance ended, I went to join the two of them. They broke off their solemn conversation to offer me a chair and food and drink. Then Gus said hesitantly, ‘We were speaking of a
matter – ’
‘No, Gus,’ Schmidt interrupted. ‘The wound is only beginning to heal. You will rend it open again.’
‘Shut up, Schmidt,’ I said.
‘I think it will comfort her,’ Gus answered. ‘My dear Cousin Vicky, I wish to raise a stone to the memory of the brave man who gave his life for us. Here, on the shore, or on
the headland in front of the house – we have not decided.’
‘How about outside the bedroom windows?’ I suggested.
They were used to my frivolous comments; they had decided to treat them as instances of stiff upper lip.
‘We have been discussing the epitaph,’ Schmidt said. ‘I favour something like “
Dulce et decorum est –
”’
‘“To die for one’s country”? Not too appropriate, Schmidt.’
‘But it sounds so well in Latin.’
‘It is all wrong,’ Gus insisted. ‘There is a verse in the Bible – in English it is like this: “Greater love hath no man . . .”’
‘Something from Shakespeare,’ Schmidt exclaimed. ‘He is full of excellent quotations, and what could be more fitting for an English nobleman than the great English
poet?’
They went on arguing. Neither of them really gave a damn for my opinion, and I didn’t offer it. They would have been scandalized at the quotation I favoured as most apropos.
I couldn’t be absolutely certain; but Max shared my doubts, and Max knew him well. The opportunity had been too good to pass up – a chance to vanish in a cloud of glory, avoiding
awkward questions that might be asked by unsentimental parties on shore, such as the police and the surviving members of Leif’s organization. Nobody but me had seen any significance in the
disappearance of certain articles of old clothing from Axel Foger’s storage shed. In the confusion and excitement of that eventful evening, things were bound to be mislaid.
‘Of his bones are coral made?’ Not bloody likely. But it reminded me of another quotation from the great English poet – from the same play, in fact. John would have been the
first to appreciate it.
‘He hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.’
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Silhouette in Scarlet
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Published April 2008
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