The Ways of the World (28 page)

‘Settle for a word with me, Max?’ came Morahan’s voice, floating into the room from the open doorway. ‘We can help ourselves to some of Travis’s Scotch and stoke up his fire, provided Malory swears not to split on us.’

‘And I do so swear,’ said Malory. ‘Provided I get a nip of the Scotch too.’

Morahan delivered a small glass of the strong stuff to Malory, then ushered Max into Ireton’s office, where he closed the door and poured distinctly larger measures for the two of them. Then he
tonged a few knobs of coal on to the fire and pokered it back into life.

‘Travis told me what happened at the Crillon,’ he said, leaning back in Ireton’s chair with his long legs stretched out before him. ‘I guess it looks to you like he’s made himself scarce to dodge having to answer any of your questions.’

‘Well, hasn’t he?’

‘It’s not just you. Carver’s been here as well. You met him, right?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Travis reckons Ennis is your man, based on his behaviour when you challenged him – and his subsequent bolt. But the scene you made risks Travis’s contacts with all levels of the American delegation getting more attention than he’d welcome right now. So, he thought it best to take himself out of the picture for a while.’

‘Has he really gone to Brest?’

‘I doubt it, since that’s where he has Malory telling everyone he’s gone. Deauville, maybe? Or Monte Carlo? He likes to keep his hand in at the baccarat table.’

‘I need to find out as much about Walter Ennis as I can as quickly as possible, Schools. Whether he’s one of Lemmer’s spies or not, he’s certainly up to no good.’

‘I don’t doubt you’re right about that.’

‘And Travis knows him well, doesn’t he?’

Morahan nodded. ‘Better than most. They go back a long way.’

‘And now they’ve both gone to ground. What do you make of that?’

‘Not what I get the feeling
you
make of it. Travis isn’t in cahoots with Walter Ennis, Max. He just doesn’t want Carver prying into his business and reckons being unavailable for a grilling is the best way to prevent that. He calculates Carver will lose interest in him as soon as he tracks Ennis down.’

‘Maybe so. But that doesn’t help me.’

‘No. And I’m sorry for that. But if Ennis was responsible for your father’s murder, Carver will be better placed than you to extract a confession from him.’

‘So, you suggest I just sit back and wait for Ennis to be apprehended and Travis to return to Paris?’

‘It might be the safest thing to do.’

‘But you’re assuming he will be apprehended and that he really was responsible for my father’s murder. I can’t afford to assume anything, Schools. That’s the other thing I want to discuss with Travis, you see: who the third person was he spoke to on my father’s behalf.’

Morahan drained his glass and lit a cigarette, frowning thoughtfully as he did so. ‘Travis said I was to tell you he’s convinced, based on what happened at the Crillon, that Ennis is the man you’re looking for. That being so, he sees no merit in naming the third person he approached.’

Max sprang to his feet to expend some of his irritation. He leant on the mantelpiece, swore heartily and took a kick at the fender, dislodging a coal into the grate, where it blazed and sputtered.

Morahan rose slowly from his chair, grasped the tongs and returned the coal to the fire. He stood where he was then, one foot on the edge of the grate, and aimed his level gaze at Max. ‘What do you want to know, Max?’ he asked quietly.

‘The name of the third person Travis spoke to.’

‘I can’t give you that.’

‘More than your job’s worth, is it?’

‘Travis doesn’t employ me, Max. I work
with
him, not
for
him. I think I explained that to you before.’

‘With or for, it still means you keep his secrets.’

‘If I promise to stay silent about something, I stay silent. As it happens, I genuinely don’t have the name to give you. You have my word on that, which I hope you’ll accept.’

Morahan’s earnestness brooked no challenge. Max was forced to acknowledge as much. He took a deep breath. ‘All right, Schools. I believe you.’

‘Good.’

‘Do you have any idea who he might be?’

‘No. But I can tell you this. Travis said he thought Carver would be able to identify him eventually if he sought help from Appleby.’

‘Appleby?’

‘The implication’s clear, isn’t it? The man you’re looking for must be a member of the British delegation.’

FATIGUE AND FURY
made for strange companions. Max left 33 Rue des Pyramides as wearied by the events of the day as he was enraged by them. At every turn he was blocked, delayed or deflected. He trusted what Kuroda and Morahan had told him. For the rest there was only a torrent of doubt. Ennis’s escape and Ireton’s departure stood as rebukes to his foresight. And then there were the messages from whoever had commissioned his father’s murder.
Leave Paris. Final warning
. He would not allow himself to be intimidated. He would not flee the city. But, if he stayed, what could he actually accomplish?

Max’s intention was to speak to Appleby as soon as possible. The phone call Ennis had made from his room at the Crillon proved he was part of a conspiracy of some kind. The member of the British delegation Ireton had contacted might also be part of it. In Ennis’s absence, his was the more promising trail to follow. And Appleby was the man to guide Max along it, preferably before he did the same for Carver.

But Max was flying on little more than fumes. He needed a hot bath and a good meal. The water at the Mazarin was seldom more than lukewarm and the food indifferent, but they would have to suffice. He found a taxi in the Place Vendôme and asked to be taken straight there.

‘There’s a gentleman waiting for you in the writing-room,
monsieur
,’ the clerk announced as he handed Max his key.

‘Who is he?’

‘I regret,
monsieur
, he did not give his name. He is English and known to you, he said. That is all I can tell you.’

Max was in no mood to be trifled with. He strode into the writing-room with no clear expectations of who might be waiting for him. But at the sight of his visitor he pulled up sharp.

Lionel Brigham. Of all the people Max would have preferred not to meet again, this handsome, cocksure, smooth-mannered roué was surely the one he wanted most of all to avoid. An irksomely frequent guest at Gresscombe Place during Max’s youth, Brigham had been too close to Lady Maxted for too long to ignore. There was no doubt in Max’s mind that they had been lovers. And he believed there was cause to suspect Brigham might actually be his father. It was a possibility he had spoken of to no one. It was a possibility, indeed, that he had done his level best to put out of his mind, though it was undeniable that it had tainted his relationship with his mother. Unvoiced resentments were ultimately, he had discovered, the most poisonous kind.

‘James,’ said Brigham, rising a touch stiffly to his feet and extending a hand. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘Brigham.’ Max accepted the handshake coolly. ‘What brings you here?’

‘To Paris, you mean? Or to your hotel? As to the former, I’m here with the delegation.’

God rot the man, thought Max, cursing himself for his failure to anticipate that Brigham might be in Paris. He could always be relied upon to insinuate himself into a gathering of the great and the good, even though he was neither. ‘I suppose I thought you’d retired,’ Max said, with a hint of disparagement.

‘No such luck.’

‘And what are you doing for the delegation?’

‘Oh, nothing very interesting.’

‘To what do I owe this visit, then?’

‘I wanted to offer you my condolences on Henry’s death. Such a terrible thing.’

‘Indeed.’

‘I was surprised not to see you at the funeral.’

God rot the man twice over, thought Max. Why could he not just leave the Maxted family alone? ‘I was detained here.’

‘So I gather.’

‘And I’m really rather busy, so—’

‘We need to talk, James, you and I.’

There was a faintly menacing twinkle in Brigham’s blue-grey eyes. Max ignored it as best he could. ‘We do?’

‘A confidential talk. I drove myself here. Would it be asking too much for you to step out to my car? I won’t keep you long.’

The car was a sleek black Daimler, parked just round the corner from the Mazarin. Brigham proposed they drive down to the Seine. ‘It’ll be quiet by the river,’ he said.

He filled the brief journey with an account of the funeral he had attended but Max had not. Irony, and something more sinister, clung to his words.

Max remembered a day he had tried hard to forget, when he had returned home from Eton one hot Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1907. The house had been filled with silence, the staff nowhere to be found. He had called a general hello in the hall. There had been no immediate response. Then Brigham had appeared at the head of the stairs, looking less well-groomed than usual, and had come down to greet him. ‘Your mother’s resting,’ he had said. And that was all he had said. She had joined them on the terrace a short time later, her normal imperturbability mysteriously mislaid. ‘You should have told us when you’d be arriving, James.’ Yes. He should have. He really should. And he only wished he had.

A later remark of his father’s had alerted Max to the most disturbing of all possibilities. Sir Henry had been reminiscing about life in Japan. ‘Your mother found her first Japanese summer a great trial,’ he had said. ‘I took pity and sent her to spend the second with friends in Kashmir.’ The remark had ticked away in Max’s mind like a time-bomb. It only required simple arithmetic to calculate that a child born in the spring of 1891, as he was, must have been conceived in the summer of 1890 – the summer of his mother’s sojourn in Kashmir.

Brigham drove to the river bank beyond the Palais du Trocadéro and stopped near the Pont d’Iéna. The Eiffel Tower stretched up into the night sky on the opposite bank. He snapped open a cigarette-case and offered Max a smoke. Max pointedly expressed a preference for his own brand. Brigham declined the chance to take offence and they both lit up.

‘Damnably cold for the time of year,’ said Brigham, coughing over his first draw.

‘Perhaps you’re going down with flu,’ said Max. ‘There’s a lot of it about.’

‘Yes. It carried off poor old Sykes. But I don’t think it’ll get me. You needn’t worry.’

‘I shan’t.’

‘It’s actually yourself you should worry about. I’ve heard what you’ve been up to, James. You’re playing with fire.’

‘Where have you heard what I’ve been … “up to”?’

‘There’s more gossip circulating in this city than French francs. I asked around. And learnt you too are asking around. You should let Henry rest in peace. That’s the sincere advice of someone who wishes you to come to no harm.’

‘Meaning you?’

‘Your mother would never forgive me if I let you stray into trouble for lack of a word to the wise.’

‘Did she ask you to deliver this word?’

‘No, no. Though only because, I sensed when I met her, that she feared you’d ignore any pleas emanating from her.’

‘And you think I’m likelier to heed a warning from you?’

‘I’m concerned for your welfare, James. I always have been. You’re out of your depth here. I very strongly urge you to—’

‘Give it up?’

‘Yes. Exactly. Give it up.’

‘At whose hands do you think I might come to harm, Brigham?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t say. Specifically. It’s just that I know you’re mixed up with Appleby. And he’s Secret Service. That’s dirty and dangerous work. I expect he has you running all manner of risks on his account. If you got yourself killed, he could disown you just like that. As he undoubtedly would.’

Max paused long enough to encourage Brigham to believe he might be about to give ground, then said, ‘Pardon me for asking, but why should that matter to you?’

‘As I told you, I—’

‘We’re nothing to each other as far as I’m aware. You’re a sometime friend of my mother’s, that’s all. I neither need nor desire you to be concerned about me.’

‘But I am. And there it is.’ Brigham looked round at Max. ‘I think you know why.’

‘I’d be interested in knowing why you’re so anxious for me to leave Paris.’

‘Because it’s a hazardous place to be asking the kind of questions you’re asking. Henry should never have allowed himself to become involved with Corinne Dombreux. He was courting disaster and he duly met with it. I don’t want to see you make the same mistake.’

‘You don’t think his death was an accident, then?’

‘I think it’s best to say it was. For everyone’s sake. Especially yours.’

‘When did you last meet my father, Brigham?’

‘Some weeks ago. I bumped into him at the Quai d’Orsay. I’d probably have seen him more often if I’d been staying at the Majestic, but the place is such a madhouse I’ve found an apartment to rent near by. We were both on our way to meetings. There was no time for more than the briefest of words. I regret that now, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘I gather there was an … incident … at the Crillon earlier today. Walter Ennis has gone missing.’

‘Are you acquainted with him?’

‘Slightly, yes. Just as I’m acquainted with scores of members of other delegations. I’m on more committees than I can count.’

‘What about Travis Ireton? Are you acquainted with him?’

‘Ireton?’ Brigham made a show of deliberating on the point. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve heard the name, but … I can’t say we’ve ever met.’

‘He didn’t approach you a couple of weeks ago asking if you’d be interested in buying some information from him?’

‘Information about what?’

‘If he approached you, you’d know.’

‘Quite. But he didn’t.’

‘Ennis is a friend of his.’

‘Really?’

‘Perhaps Ennis approached you. On the same subject.’

‘No. He didn’t.’

‘If that’s so …’

‘It is, I assure you.’

‘Then I’m curious. You seem to have some insight into what led to my father’s murder. How did you gain that, if not from him or Ennis or Ireton? Did someone else put you in the picture?’