The Ways of the World (43 page)

MAX HAD PERSUADED
Appleby it would be best if they went to Scotland Yard together the following morning. The doctor who had treated him on his admission raised no more than a token objection to discharging him and conjectured that Brigham would be fit enough to leave within a few days as well. ‘You should go gently, though, Mr Maxted. You have youth on your side, of course, but the body takes its own sweet time to recover from the sort of thing you’ve put it through lately, young or not.’

Max assured the doctor he would lead a quiet life for the next few weeks, which he had no intention of doing. He headed for the flat first, for a change of clothes, where he was intercepted by the head porter, anxious for a word about the events of the night before last. Max brushed the poor fellow off with an assurance that there would be no further visits from the police, then hurried on to Scotland Yard.

Appleby was waiting for him at the bottom of Whitehall, puffing contentedly at his pipe. He led Max into Metropolitan Police headquarters with the air of a man returning to his natural domain. Several people they passed greeted him cheerfully. Their destination was the office of Chief Superintendent Mappin, a genial fellow with a booming voice who also seemed pleased to see Appleby – and Max, to judge by his warm handshake and prompt assurance that his force were not about to cause problems for a young gentleman who had saved the life of a senior civil servant and despatched a foreign assassin into the bargain. ‘Tarn, you think his name was? Well, we’ll ask our French colleagues if they
know him. Then the Belgians, if they don’t. Then … Well, maybe someone will claim him, maybe they won’t. I take it we can agree, Horace, that we’re all better off without him?’

‘Very much so, Bill. We think he was responsible for several murders in Paris. A nasty piece of work in every way.’

‘And the fewer of those we have on the streets of London, the happier I am. The coroner will have the final say, of course, Mr Maxted, but we’ll tell him we’re satisfied you killed Tarn in self-defence. We’ll need a signed statement from you before you leave and you’ll be required to give evidence at the inquest in due course. Oh, and we’ll have to hang on to the gun until then. Strictly speaking, you don’t have a licence for it, but we’ll overlook that, shall we? Forgot to hand it in when you were demobbed, I dare say, like a lot of you chaps.’

‘I was certainly glad of it on Tuesday night, Chief Superintendent,’ said Max.

‘I’m sure you were, Mr Maxted. Glad and no mistake.’

Accommodating as Mappin was, Max was not able to leave Scotland Yard before the morning had stretched into the afternoon. The dictating, typing and signing of a statement absorbed a laborious couple of hours and he was also fingerprinted – ‘for the purposes of elimination’, according to Denslow.

Appleby left while Max was waiting for his statement to be typed. They exchanged parting words in a corridor.

‘If you decide not to go back to Paris, Max, I’ll understand.’ It was as close as Appleby seemed able to come to repeating his advice of the night before.

‘I’ll be on tonight’s sleeper,’ said Max. He wanted no misunderstanding on the point.

‘Then you’ll be ahead of me by twenty-fours hours. As a personal favour, try not to get into any more trouble before I catch up with you.’

Max smiled. ‘I will try.’

He returned to Mount Street to pack his bag, only to encounter the head porter again. Mrs Harrison had been and gone, considerably
put out by the state she had found the flat in and alarmed in particular by the bloodstains in the bathroom.

But Mrs Harrison had not been the only caller. A
Daily Mail
reporter had been there, asking questions. ‘We had a lot of trouble getting rid of him, Mr Maxted, I don’t mind telling you. I shouldn’t be surprised if he came back.’ Max proffered an apology and decided to spend most of his time elsewhere before boarding the sleeper.

The reporter was not the end of it, however. ‘Your solicitor’s been looking for you as well.’ Of course. Mellish was still expecting to be given some kind of instructions about the estate. It was predictable – though Max had failed to predict it – that he would come to London. Unfortunately, as the head porter revealed, Mellish had met Mrs Harrison. He therefore knew everything that had happened. He might easily take it into his head to inform Ashley, a complication Max could do without.

He hastened up to the flat and telephoned the solicitor’s office in Epsom, hoping Mellish had returned there by now. But he had not. Max left a message, asking him to take no action until they had spoken. He could only hope that would cover it.

He went to Victoria station and bought a ticket for the eight o’clock sleeper, then took himself off to the Tate Gallery, where he spent more time in the tea-room than he did admiring the art, a commodity for which he had never had much use. Rain forced him on to a bus for the return journey to Victoria. The Londoners he was jammed in with grumbled about the weather and the coal shortage and the incompetence of the government – concerns that seemed a million miles away to Max.

The concourse at Victoria was bustling with commuters and luggage-laden Continental travellers. Max bought some cigarettes for the journey – though, oddly, he had still not quite recovered his taste for them – and headed for the departures board.

‘James!’

He recognized George Clissold’s voice with some surprise and turned to see his uncle approaching through the crowd. ‘Uncle George? What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you, my lad, at your mother’s bidding. She wants to speak to you.’

‘But—’

‘She’s waiting for us in the station hotel. And she’s already waited long enough to test her temper.’

‘I have a train to catch.’

‘I know. But it doesn’t leave for half an hour yet. Shall we?’

Max had no choice but to walk with George in the direction of the hotel entrance. He was not ready to face his mother, but it seemed he was going to have to.

‘How did you find me?’ he asked as they steered as straight a course as they could contrive through the streams of arriving and departing passengers.

‘Mellish alerted your mother to your latest brush with death.’
Damn the fellow
, thought Max. Why had he had to go and do that? ‘He mentioned you got yourself shot in Paris as well. Win’s a phlegmatic character, but it’s fair to say she’s worried about you. You should have kept her informed, James, you really should.’

‘I was trying
not
to worry her.’

‘Well, you failed, I’m afraid. She’s been to Mount Street and extracted all the details from the porters. She’s also visited Brigham.’

‘She has?’

‘Let’s not pretend we don’t both know about Win and that blighter. I can only hope she doesn’t start seeing him again now he’s done something vaguely heroic. You were the one who saved the day, though, weren’t you?’

‘Well, I—’

‘Yet here you are, scuttling off back to Paris without a by-your-leave. Win guessed that’s what you’d do. It was her idea to come here. You’re a far bigger mystery to me than you are to her. Have you found out what got Henry killed?’

‘Yes. And Mother won’t enjoy hearing about it. I suppose I …’

‘Wanted to spare her the truth?’

‘As long as I could, yes.’

‘Well, my lad, the time’s come. You’re just going to have to spit it out.’

Lady Maxted was waiting, with tea set before her, in a quiet, palm-dotted lounge of the hotel. She greeted Max with a frown that blended pride at his derring-do with bafflement at his eagerness to slip back to France without telling her what he had learnt. But there was something else in her gaze as well: relief.

‘You look better than I’d feared, James. Mr Mellish said you’d been
shot
.’

‘That makes it sound worse than it was. I’m fine.’

‘And this appalling attack you and Mr Brigham were so lucky to survive?’

‘We were lucky, yes. But survive we did, with nothing worse than a few bruises to show for it.’

‘You’ve uncovered the truth about Henry’s death, haven’t you?’

Denial was pointless. ‘Yes, Mother, I have.’

‘When you left Gresscombe Place last month, you promised to tell me what you learnt before you told anyone else.’

‘I still don’t know everything. I didn’t want to …’

‘Shock me?’

Max forced himself to look her in the eye. ‘It’s not an altogether pretty story.’

‘I never thought it would be.’

‘Even so …’

‘I think I’d better hear it, James. Ashley doesn’t know I’m here, by the way. I didn’t alert him to Mr Mellish’s call. So, I’ll be free to decide whether to disclose any information you give me to him and Lydia – or not. Don’t imagine I’m unappreciative of the efforts you’ve made and the risks you’ve taken. But I’m entitled, as your mother, as your father’s widow, to be told what led Henry to his death. And don’t worry about missing your train either. George and I will be travelling with you to Dover. That should give us all the time we need.’

PROMISING THE WHOLE
truth was easier than delivering it. Even as Max recounted to his mother what he had discovered in Paris, he was aware of omitting almost as much as he revealed. Lady Maxted seemed to be aware of this as well. She did not press for information about the woman Sir Henry had planned to spend his retirement with. Nor did she ask for details of his scheme to raise money to fund their life together. It was enough, apparently, for her to know why he had been murdered and by whom – that his murderer was dead and that the man who had commissioned his murder was also dead. Justice, after a fashion, had been served. And of that she was glad in her own sombre, reflective way.

It was not as simple as that, of course. Norris was not the only agent of Lemmer’s to whom Sir Henry had posed a threat. The decision to set Tarn on him must have been a collective one. There were guilty men – and women, in the case of Nadia Bukayeva – who had escaped punishment and would probably continue to do so. Lady Maxted understood that and urged her son to accept it, as she was willing to.

‘These other people may still see you as a threat, James, may they not?’

‘They may.’

‘Then why return to Paris? Staying away would draw a line under the affair. And if what you say – and what I infer – about the sort of people they are is correct, a line must be drawn somewhere. You cannot pursue them all.’

‘There are some loose ends I have to tie up.’

‘So, you will come home soon?’

‘I’m not sure how long it will take.’

‘I can persuade Ashley to allocate the land you need for your flying school, you know. Lydia doesn’t call every tune. And the executorship gives you something to bargain with, as perhaps your father foresaw.’

‘I can’t think about any of that now, Mother. I can’t predict what I may yet learn – and where learning it may lead me.’

‘At what point does bravery become foolishness, James?’

‘When you overstep a mark you can’t see until you’ve overstepped it.’

‘Is that thought meant to comfort me?’

‘I won’t lie to you, Mother. That’s probably the only comfort I can offer.’

They parted in wind and rain on the platform at Dover Marine station. George had gone to secure a taxi to take him and Lady Maxted to the Lord Warden Hotel, where they planned to stay overnight before returning to London. Max would soon have to board the steamer for Boulogne. He thought everything had been said that needed to be said. But his mother, though she trusted her brother in all matters, had one last thing she wished to say to her son – and to her son alone.

‘I am aware what Lionel believes he is to you, James, and my conversation with him yesterday left me in little doubt that you are aware of it too.’

‘There’s no call to speak of it, Mother.’

‘You thought him a traitor.’

‘And he’s not a traitor. I was ready to believe the worst of him. I was wrong. I admit it.’

‘I am not concerned with that. A man who behaves as he does must expect to be misjudged. What concerns me is the possibility that you will credit his claim of … a blood relationship … because you now know he is not quite as bad as you thought him.’

‘I really don’t—’

‘There is something I must tell you, James.’

Max looked at his mother, her expression veiled by the shadow
of her hat and the rain-blurred glare of the station lamps. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked levelly.

‘Absolutely. Lionel Brigham is not your father. Believe me in this if in nothing else. If I had a Bible with me, I would be willing to swear upon it. You are Henry’s son. There is no margin for doubt or uncertainty. You are his son and no other man’s.’

No margin for doubt or uncertainty? How could that be? Sir Henry had unwittingly revealed to Max where his mother had spent the summer of his conception. Either she was lying to him now, which he could hardly believe, or there was something he was not being told. And this possibility was only strengthened by what she said next.

‘Honesty is always partial, James. No two people can or should reveal everything of themselves to each other. I will not be interrogated about this. Nor will I interrogate you about those many things you have chosen, wisely or not, to keep from me. But you are Henry’s son. That is the truth. Carry it with you – along with your mother’s love – in whatever trials still await you.’

It was a rough crossing and a largely sleepless journey followed from Boulogne to Paris, as Max analysed his mother’s words in search of what he took to be their hidden meaning. It still eluded him. And sleep came, perversely, just as the train was entering the Gare du Nord.

He was not required to vacate his cabin for another hour, which he dozed through, before breakfasting in the station café. He bought a copy of the Paris edition of the
Daily Mail
and forced himself to read it. There was nothing yet about Tarn, which came as a relief. The editorial was a dire warning against leniency towards Germany. Max could not help wondering if Lemmer planned to use any of the material he had removed from the safe-deposit box to win some concessions for his country. It was a worrying thought. But there was nothing he could do about it. Whatever advantage access to the box had handed to Lemmer was his to exploit.