The Ways of the World (18 page)

‘And were they?’

‘Hard to tell. Kuroda’s the epitome of the inscrutable Oriental. But he didn’t deny they’d be interested. He wasn’t going to ignore the matter, that was clear. You need to establish what he did – who else he consulted, for instance. Play on your role as the loyal son
seeking justice for his dead father. The Japs have a soft spot for that kind of thing.’

‘It’s not a role,’ Max snapped.

Ireton was unabashed. ‘All the better, then. I suggest you and Schools call on him at the delegation’s hotel this evening.’

‘
This evening?
What’s wrong with this morning?’

‘Schools is tied up all day. I won’t get a chance to brief him until later.’

‘I can’t wait that long.’

‘Sorry, but you’ll have to. That’s the deal.’

‘Who are the other two you sounded out?’

Ireton looked almost pained. ‘Come on, Max. I wasn’t born yesterday. Neither were you, though a lot closer to yesterday than I was, I grant you. If I tell you who the others are now, there’s nothing to stop you approaching them on your own. No, no. We see how you get on with Kuroda. And we take it from there. One step at a time.’

Max gave brief but serious consideration to grabbing Ireton by the throat and trying to force the other names out of him. He felt certain the American was stringing him along for devious reasons of his own. But he could not afford to yield to temptation. There was too much at stake. ‘Very well,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘Meet Schools here at six.’ Ireton beamed. ‘OK?’

Max left Ireton’s offices burning with impatience. His search for the truth seemed to be diverted or delayed at every turn.

His first thought was to return to the Mazarin and find out whether any message had reached him from Zamaron regarding Spataro. But a second thought saw him divert to Little Russia. Perhaps the morning would find Bukayev manning his bookshop.

The bookshop was open, but Bukayev was nowhere to be seen. The jingling of the bell as Max entered brought a sombre, heavy-featured young woman scurrying out of an office to the rear. She had raven-black hair, tied back severely, and was dressed mostly in black as well.

She addressed him in Russian, understandably enough, since the
books filling the ceiling-high shelves all had titles printed in the Cyrillic alphabet.

‘I am looking for Mr Bukayev,’ he said, slowly and distinctly.

To his relief, she switched to English in response. ‘Ah. He is not here.’

‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘A few days, maybe. He is out of Paris.’

‘
Damn it all to hell!
’ The strength of his reaction surprised her. She took a step back. He raised a hand apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I badly wanted to talk to him.’

‘What about?’

‘It concerns my late father, Sir Henry Maxted.’

‘You are Sir Henry Maxted’s son?’

‘Yes. I—’

The jingling of the doorbell and the warning look he caught in her eyes cut him off. A bulky, bull-necked man in a tightly belted raincoat and pork-pie hat entered the shop. ‘
Dobroe utro
,’ he growled.

The young woman returned the greeting in half-hearted fashion and watched the man as he began a slow prowl of the shelves. Then she looked at Max and spoke to him quietly, to his bemusement, in French. ‘
Un instant, s’il vous plaît
.’ Her expression and the change of language combined to urge caution on him.

She hurried into the office and returned a moment later, carrying a pencil and a notepad. She offered them to Max, her glance shifting to monitor the movements of the newcomer. ‘
Votre nom et votre adresse, monsieur?
’ she prompted.

‘
D’accord
,’ he mustered, taking the pencil and pad. He wrote the information down and handed them back.

‘
Merci, monsieur
,’ she said, smiling briskly. And that, her smile conveyed, was all she had to say – for now.

A brisk walk took Max back to the Mazarin. The morning was wearing on and soon, he knew, the mourners would be gathering in Epsom for his father’s funeral. There would be many muttered questions about his absence and no one would have an adequate answer. Many would assume the worst. He wished it could be
otherwise. But it could not. He had chosen his course. And he would steer it.

Vindication of a sort was waiting for him at the hotel. There was, at last, a message.
Please telephone Mr Appleby as soon as possible
. Max was only half surprised Appleby had been left to convey the news to him. Zamaron was probably too embarrassed, given his explanation for Sir Henry’s death would now be in tatters. Max hurried up to his room and put a call through to the Majestic straight away.

The switchboard left him hanging for a moment, then he was connected. ‘Mr Maxted?’ came Appleby’s gravelly greeting.

‘Yes. It’s me. I didn’t know you were back in Paris.’

‘Ah. I suppose your brother mentioned my trip to London. I returned on the sleeper last night.’

‘And heard of an unexpected development?’

‘Yes. I did. You already know?’

‘I was forewarned that Spataro was going to withdraw his claim about Corinne spending the night with him.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Corinne.’

‘Really?’ Appleby sounded genuinely puzzled.

‘That is why you called me, isn’t it?’

‘No. No, I’m afraid it isn’t. Spataro hasn’t withdrawn his claim. And he isn’t going to now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s dead, Mr Maxted. Murdered, in his apartment, the night before last. His body was discovered yesterday.’

‘
Murdered?
’

‘Yes. And the police have arrested Madame Dombreux.’

‘
I THOUGHT YOU
might like to accompany me when I take a look at the murder scene, Mr Maxted,’ Appleby went on, his tone of voice sounding bizarrely normal to Max in the light of what he had just said. ‘You won’t get in there on your own and I know you’ll have lots of questions, so do you want to come with me? It’s now or never, I’m afraid. I’m operating on a tight schedule.’

‘Yes,’ Max murmured. ‘I’ll come.’

‘What?’

‘
I’ll come with you
.’

‘Good. I’ll pick you up in … a quarter of an hour?’

‘All right. A quarter of an hour.’

‘See you shortly, then. Sorry, by the way, if this was a bit of a facer. I was surprised myself.’

Surprised? Yes, Max thought as he stared at the receiver before hanging up. He was that too. Surprised and shocked and horrified. Corinne had not murdered Spataro. He was surer of that than of most things. Good God, the man was already dead when she came to report his change of heart. He was already dead and she had not known it. A trap had been closing around her. And she had not known that either. But she knew it now. And so did Max.

‘Are you still there, Lamb?’ Appleby asked, returning his attention to the other telephone on his desk.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I think I can give you a few hours off. You deserve it after the shoe leather you’ve expended over the last couple of days. I’m taking Maxted to Montparnasse.’

‘Righto, sir.’

‘Pick up his trail later at Ireton’s. I think we can safely assume he’ll find his way back there.’

‘I should say so, sir.’

‘Good work so far, Lamb. Well done.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The hearse drew away from Gresscombe Place under a pewter sky through flecks of snow blown on an icy wind. No words passed between the passengers in the limousine that followed it. The two Ladies Maxted, Winifred and Lydia, occupied the rear seat. They were veiled and enveloped in black. The middle seat, behind the driver, was shared by Sir Ashley and Winifred’s brother, George, black-suited and sombre, although in George’s case sombreness did not extend to sobriety. Ashley could smell the whisky on his uncle’s breath quite clearly. There had evidently been more than the one stiffener he had admitted to.

Ashley, though he would never have confessed as much, would have quite liked to join George in a glass, not merely to render the funeral service and the committal of his father’s body to the Surrey earth less harrowing, but also to quench some of the anxiety his earlier telephone conversation with the family’s lawyer had left him with.

He should never have made the call, of course. Lydia had chivvied him into it. ‘Stir the fellow up, darling, or we’ll be waiting for ever to settle your father’s estate.’ It had been apparent from Mellish’s tone that he did not consider the discussion of such issues before the funeral to be entirely seemly. ‘I was going to suggest that I call at the house tomorrow morning, Sir Ashley, when I can set out the testamentary position in full.’ It had hardly been possible to argue with that. But Ashley had pressed for an assurance that everything would be straightforward – and had not received one. ‘I would prefer to say nothing further about the provisions of Sir Henry’s will until tomorrow.’

Damn the fellow. Why did he have to be so tight-lipped? Ashley knew the terms of the will as well as he did. At least, he supposed he did. But now, watching the hearse move slowly along the drive ahead of them, he was not as certain on the point as he would have wanted to be.

Max made his view of the matter known to Appleby while they were still standing in the lobby of the Hotel Mazarin. ‘I don’t believe for a moment that Corinne murdered Raffaele Spataro, Appleby. The very idea is absurd.’

‘Sometimes facts force us to believe what we can’t imagine,’ Appleby countered in his irritatingly sympathetic manner. ‘That’s why I suggested we go and inspect the scene of the crime for ourselves.’

‘Nothing’s going to change my mind.’

‘Don’t be too sure. We seldom know others as well as we think we do. I’ve often been surprised by what people are capable of
in extremis
.’

‘Corinne had no reason to kill Spataro. He was about to confirm her version of events the night my father died, for God’s sake.’

‘We only have her word for that.’

‘You think she killed the man, then calmly came here and told me he was about to retract his statement?’

‘I’ll tell you what I think on the way there. We’re wasting time, Mr Maxted.’

They walked out to the car and started away. Appleby closed the glass screen between them and the driver and painstakingly lit his pipe while Max waited impatiently for him to explain.

‘Zamaron told me of Madame Dombreux’s claim that Spataro meant to change his story,’ Appleby said eventually, ‘though she doesn’t seem to have mentioned discussing it with you, which is odd. The fact is that she has to account for being the last person seen with Spataro before he was found shot dead—’

‘
Shot?
’

‘Yes. With a revolver he owned. The poor sap supplied his own murder weapon.’

‘You’re seriously suggesting Corinne talked her way into Spataro’s apartment, grabbed his gun – knowing, presumably, where he kept it and that he kept it loaded – then … what?’

Appleby sighed. ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mr Maxted. Do you want to hear me out?’

Max also sighed. ‘Yes, yes. Go ahead.’

‘Thank you. Now, this is the sequence of events as I understand them. Three passers-by who know Spataro by sight saw him entering his apartment building at seven Rue du Verger at about ten o’clock Tuesday evening. He was in the company of a woman matching Madame Dombreux’s description. She doesn’t deny meeting him at that time, although she says they parted in the vestibule of the building and she does deny going up to his apartment.

‘Spataro was a notoriously inconsiderate neighbour. He often played loud music on his gramophone late into the night. Jazz, usually. Zamaron’s theory is that the fatal shots were fired while the gramophone was operating and hence not heard, although they may have been heard and … simply ignored. Bumps and thumps on the ceiling went with living below him, apparently. Everyone knew about the gun, by the way. There were complaints about him taking pot-shots at pigeons from his window. Zamaron gave him a ticking-off, but allowed him a good deal of artistic licence.

‘Noise was one thing, but the tenant of the apartment below Spataro’s wasn’t prepared to overlook a brownish-red stain that appeared on his ceiling overnight. He thought it looked like blood and he was right. He got no answer when he knocked on Spataro’s door. He went off to work, asking the concierge to investigate in his absence. After several failed efforts to raise Spataro, she used her pass key to enter the apartment. She found him lying dead on the floor. He’d been shot three times in the chest and stomach, causing extensive bleeding, and once in the head. Not a pretty sight, I imagine.

‘The gun was lying by his right hand and first thoughts were that he’d killed himself. But it was soon realized the shots had been fired from a distance of several feet at least. It was clearly murder, unconvincingly disguised as suicide. The murderer had
worn gloves, in order to avoid leaving fingerprints on the gun.’

‘How can the police know that?’ Max cut in.

‘Because the murderer threw the gloves on the fire before leaving the apartment. Gunpowder residue could have been detected on them if they hadn’t been burnt. As it happens, the fire died too quickly to destroy them completely. They’re a pair of fine-leather ladies’ gloves, in Madame Dombreux’s size.’

‘Is that the only evidence they have against her?’

‘She was seen going into the building with Spataro shortly before the murder was committed. She was known to be angry with him for telling the police they were lovers. By claiming he meant to withdraw that statement, she might have hoped to persuade us that someone else killed him in order to prevent him doing so.’

‘And mightn’t they have done?’

‘The someone in question being another woman, presumably, with the same glove size as Madame Dombreux?’

‘The police can’t know the gloves were actually worn by the murderer, Appleby. They may have been left there to incriminate Corinne.’

‘They may have, it’s true, but only as part of an elaborate conspiracy for the existence of which there’s not a scrap of evidence. The police aren’t looking for any other suspects. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve caught Spataro’s killer.’