The Ends of the Earth (24 page)

‘If he has any inkling we’re about to inform C he’s a traitor …’

‘Leave me to worry about Reynolds, Cyril. When will most of the staff go home?’

‘The place will be more or less deserted by six o’clock.’

‘But Duckett will be there?’

‘Yes, yes. He’s roster clerk for urgent communications.’

‘And he’ll follow your orders?’

‘Yes.’ Hodgson flexed his hands, stiffened by the unfamiliar exercise they had been given. ‘Novel though the experience will be for both of us.’

‘We’ll meet there at six, then. You bring your copy of the list. I’ll keep the carbon and the original.’ A thought suddenly struck Max: ‘Is there anyone else named here who to your knowledge is likely to be in Tokyo?’

‘Of course. I was going to mention him. A consular official at the American Embassy. I’ve met him a few times. Genial sort of fellow. Hard to believe he’s—’

‘Name?’

‘Trumper.’ Hodgson sighed. ‘Gordon Trumper.’

ON HIS WAY
back to the station hotel, Max stopped at the post office in Nihombashi and cabled Appleby with the good news.

HAVE NAMES. CABLING TO LONDON MID MORNING YOUR TIME. REPLY HERE OR TOKYO STATION HOTEL. GREAVES.

He assumed Appleby was still sleeping the sleep of the just in Evian-les-Bains and would find the glad tidings waiting for him at the post office when he called to check his box. By then the list might already have reached C. And Lemmer’s goose would be cooked.

The imminence of victory shone in Max’s thoughts even as he threaded his way as anonymously as he could through Tokyo’s crowded streets. It was a matter of hours now; a matter of waiting – but this time not for long.

Max’s assumption of a restful night for Appleby was, in fact, well wide of the mark. Nor did he pass it in Evian-les-Bains. He woke early that morning at the Hotel Meurice in Ouchy and immediately telephoned Veronica to find out what had happened since his departure from Les Saules. He was relieved to hear her sounding calmer than many more experienced agents of the Service would have done in the same circumstances.

‘The police were very solicitous, Horace. I don’t think it’s even crossed their minds that I might have misled them. Apparently, the Marmiers had a shady reputation in the area. I suppose that should come as no surprise. It means the hunt for their murderer will concentrate on the local criminal population, which rather suits us, doesn’t it?’

‘For the moment, yes.’ But pulling the wool over the eyes of the French police was only a stop-gap. If the Swiss authorities contacted them about the claim of a Le Rosey boy to have been kidnapped and held at a villa near Evian-les-Bains, their investigation would take a very different turn.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing, beyond checking for a cable from Max as soon as the post office opens. There’s a chance he may yet bring home the bacon.’

‘We play for time?’

‘That’s all we
can
play for.’

It was a game not without hazards, though. Appleby wondered if he should send Veronica back to England. She would be out of harm’s way then. But he could not afford to do anything that might make the police doubt her story. For a little longer at least, she had to stay put. ‘I need you to hold your nerve, Veronica.’

‘Of course.’ He admired the self-possession in her tone. ‘I understand.’

Appleby had arranged with Brigham to drive out early along the shore road, this time with the advantage of daylight. He had time in hand, even so, and no patience for lingering at the Meurice, so he headed down to the port.

From there he noticed some kind of minor commotion by the pier where the ferries docked. He walked round to see what the fuss was about.

A small tug was towing another boat to a mooring, with several people watching from the pontoon. Appleby recognized the motor-launch at once. It was empty. There was no sign of Eugen.

‘
Qu’est-ce qui se passe, monsieur?
’ he asked an old fellow in a sailor’s cap who looked as if he knew the lake well.

‘
Un bateau à la dérive sur le lac.
’

‘Drifting, you mean?’

‘
Oui, oui.
Drifting.’

‘How far out?’

‘
A bonne distance.
’

‘Anyone aboard?’

The man frowned uncomprehendingly, then grasped the question. ‘
Ah. Non. Personne à bord.
’

So, the boat had been found empty, adrift on the lake. It must have run out of fuel after all. And some way from the shore. What had Eugen done then? There was no dinghy. He must have swum for it. Which raised the question: how good a swimmer was he?

The British Embassy in Tokyo was, as Hodgson had predicted, thinly staffed and somnolently quiet at six o’clock on a blazing hot Friday afternoon.

Hodgson vouched for Max with the stolid policemanly fellow on the desk, who confirmed Duckett was to be found in the basement code room. ‘Should be there, at any rate, unless he’s sunbathing on the roof again.’

But sunbathing on the roof he was not. Leslie Duckett, a slightly built, sleepy-eyed young man who could have passed for a schoolboy if kitted out in blazer and short trousers rather than an ill-fitting linen suit, was lounging somewhat sweatily at his post.

‘Mr Hodgson,’ he said, whipping his feet off his desk. ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Why do we have someone on duty here twenty-four hours a day, Duckett?’ Hodgson responded, with an impressive show of testiness.

‘In case of … urgent communications.’

‘Then you shouldn’t be surprised. I
have
an urgent communication.’

‘And who’s … your friend, sir?’

‘Mr Greaves. Over from our consulate in Shanghai.’

Max gestured for Hodgson to present Duckett with the top copy.

‘Encipher this as quickly as you can,’ said Hodgson, handing it over.

‘Where’s it going, sir?’

‘Secret Service Headquarters in London.’

‘Er …’

‘Is there some difficulty?’

‘Well …’

‘Out with it.’

‘There’s a standing instruction from Mr Reynolds that he has to approve anything outgoing to non-FO addressees from staff at or below his level. Which, er, would include, er … you, sir.’

‘Why don’t you phone this Reynolds while Duckett’s busy with his cipher-book, Cyril?’ suggested Max, smiling casually.

‘Yes.’ Hodgson caught Max’s eye. ‘I’ll do that from my office.’ He glanced at Duckett. ‘I’ll leave you to make a start.’

‘I, er, will need to speak to Mr Reynolds before I can—’

‘I’ll put him through to you.’

Max followed Hodgson out into the corridor. ‘He’ll soon spot Reynolds’ name on the list,’ he whispered. ‘And he’ll start wondering what sort of a list it is.’

‘What are we to do, then?’ Hodgson looked worried.

‘Let him get on with the enciphering while you’re supposedly trying to contact Reynolds.’

‘And when he’s finished?’

‘We’ll persuade him to cable the list to C.’

‘How?’

‘Don’t worry, Cyril.’ Max smiled. ‘I’ll see to that.’

Appleby set off with Brigham as planned, though Brigham objected that there was nothing to look for now the boat had been found. ‘The boy will have swum ashore and headed for Le Rosey,’ he gloomily predicted. ‘The game’s up.’

‘It’ll be up when I say so and not before,’ Appleby retorted. ‘Drive the car and leave the thinking to me.’

‘What sort of fix is this going to put Max in?’

‘No sort of fix if we can prevent Lemmer learning his son’s escaped.’

‘How can we hope to do that?’

The answer that had occurred to Appleby was to intimidate Dulière into silence and hope Eugen Hanckel had no means of contacting his father in an emergency. But first he wanted to be sure the boy really had escaped. There was another possibility he did not wish to draw to Brigham’s attention. ‘I’ll explain later,’ he barked. ‘Just drive.’

‘Is the cable ready yet?’ Max asked as he entered the code room, with Hodgson trailing behind him.

Duckett looked at Max with a mixture of alarm and suspicion. Who was the stranger from Shanghai to be telling him what to do and demanding to know whether he had done it? ‘I’ve enciphered the document,’ he grudgingly admitted. He held up a sheet of paper on which groups of numbers were written out in an apparently random sequence.

‘Time to send it, then.’

‘Have you, er, spoken to Mr Reynolds, sir?’ Duckett asked Hodgson.

‘I couldn’t get hold of him.’

‘Then I, er … can’t send this.’

‘It has to go,’ said Max. ‘Right away.’

‘You see how I’m placed, don’t you, sir?’ Duckett pleaded. ‘Mr Reynolds was emphatic about this kind of thing. And I couldn’t help noticing his name is listed here. What exactly—’

‘Send it.’ Max whipped his gun out of his shoulder-holster and held the barrel a few inches from Duckett’s head. The young man blinked and gaped. His mouth fell open and the colour drained from his face. Max smiled down at him. ‘There’s a good fellow.’

FOR URGENT PERSONAL ATTENTION OF C. LISTED BELOW ALL NAMES KNOWN TO BE COMPROMISED. GREAVES.

With Max standing over him, Duckett added the finishing touches to his encipherment of the message and began tapping it out on the transmitter. Via relay stations strung out across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, it was on its way to the code room at Whitehall Court in London. Nothing could stop it now. Whatever happened, Max had the satisfaction of knowing he had done what Appleby and C had asked of him. From this moment on, Lemmer’s spy network would begin to unravel. It was a certainty. It was victory. Only the cost of that victory had yet to be counted.

While pulses of electricity were carrying Max’s message through submarine cables from Tokyo to London, Brigham was driving the Bugatti west along the Swiss shore of Lake Geneva, with Appleby sunk in thought beside him. Neither man had spoken for some time. And Brigham for one had made it clear he did not understand what they could hope to achieve.

Certainty was the only answer Appleby could have supplied, had he been minded to supply it. But he had no wish to explain what form certainty might take in this case. Eugen’s escape and his raising of the alarm were not in fact the worst of the eventualities Appleby had considered. The worst was what the emptiness of the drifting motor-boat hinted at.

And at Morges it acquired a horrible solidity.

A police car and an ambulance were drawn up at the side of the road just short of the village. A figure covered by a blanket lay on the lakeside path. A policeman was questioning witnesses. A woman with a small, yapping dog was crying.

‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Brigham as he stopped the car.

‘Your French is better than mine,’ said Appleby. ‘Find out what’s happened.’

Reluctantly, Brigham got out and walked over to where the bystanders were grouped. He engaged one in conversation. While they were talking, another car, coming from the opposite direction, pulled up. The driver looked every inch a doctor. Carrying a Gladstone bag, he climbed out and hurried over to speak to the policeman.

The policeman pulled back the blanket for him to take a look. And there was Eugen Hanckel’s grey, dead face, eyes closed, mouth slack, hair plastered to his scalp.

‘God forgive me,’ Appleby murmured.

Brigham returned glumly to the car. ‘Found washed up here this morning,’ he said in a gravelly voice. ‘Drowned.’

‘So I see.’

‘It is him, isn’t it? There’s no—’

‘Yes, Brigham.’ Appleby nodded. ‘It’s him.’

DUCKETT WAS TOO
intimidated to obstruct Max and Hodgson’s departure from the embassy. What he would do once they had gone was another matter, of course, although Hodgson told him he would be well advised to take no action, at least until the following morning. ‘I’ll be making a full report to H.E.,’ Hodgson said, referring, Max assumed, to the Ambassador. ‘He’ll approve our actions once he knows the importance of that cable.’

‘You can count on it,’ Max added, putting away his gun.

Outside, walking south beside the moat round the Imperial Palace, Hodgson soon shed the confidence he had displayed for Duckett’s benefit. ‘Did you really have to threaten to shoot the boy?’ he complained, in what was close to a wail.

‘Could you have sent the cable?’ Max countered.

‘Er, no. I haven’t been trained to use the machine.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Is that your answer?’

‘Well, the cable’s been sent. Frankly, that’s all I care about.’

‘H.E. will have a fit.’

‘He’ll have C’s fulsome thanks in due course. Followed by congratulations on a vital contribution to the safety of the realm from the Foreign Secretary and probably the Prime Minister. Tell him that and I think the fit will soon pass.’

‘What about Reynolds?’

‘
Persona non grata
by tomorrow morning along with everyone else on the list. There’s nothing for you to worry about, Cyril. They’re the ones who should be worrying.’

‘What do you suggest I do now, then?’

‘Make your report. In person.’

‘I’ll have to mention you.’

‘Of course. Greaves is the name, remember. Sent by C. You don’t know where I can be contacted.’

‘Well, I don’t.’

‘That’s why you’ll sound so convincing. You see? There really is nothing to worry about.’

But there was. And more than a little. Max had failed to give Lemmer the answer he had demanded, which Lemmer was bound to interpret as a rejection of his terms. How he would react Max did not know, but not to react at all would be unlike him.

A greater reaction would follow, however, when he discovered – which tomorrow he was bound to – that his spies had been identified and C was in possession of the uncoded, deciphered names in the Grey File. He would ask who had betrayed him and surely the answer would present itself soon enough.

Max could only hope that before then he was able to persuade Anna Schmidt to reveal Count Tomura’s secret. They were to meet at the Lion café at noon. The hours until then stretched out agonizingly before him.

Appleby had still not received Max’s cable telling him C would soon receive the decoded list of Lemmer’s spies. He was not in Evian-les-Bains, where the cable awaited him, but in Ouchy, standing in the outer office of Marcel Dulière’s legal practice, listening as Brigham explained to Dulière’s secretary why they needed to see him more or less immediately.