“Who is not?”

  “Ah, but yours is true wickedness. But I understand and accept that and can deal with it. All you have to do is to come back and do a little more work for Aldo . . . poor Aldo – it would be a kindness for he is very worried for his obligations to the Mafiosi. And think – a few months and then I get the rest of my money and we are married. It is true – Aldo has promised. Before I leave I make him swear it with his hand touching the robe of the Blessed Virgin in the dining room. And after we are married but not too soon . . . well, I shall be very understanding.”

  “We are not married yet. I have to think about this.”

  Carla stood up. “Oh, no. You have had long enough time for thought. Now, you have to say Yes and swear it.”

  “At this moment. This very moment?”

  “You need time? You do not know in your heart already? You think I have changed since you left? I have thought much about this. Now I, Carla, take charge. Everything is Yes or No and black or white.”

  He grinned suddenly, and said, “Cara mia, you have changed. You are a different woman. How am I to know that I shall love this different woman?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Always you joke. No matter – I show you that I am still Carla. But different. You would like that?”

  “As a man dying of thirst in the desert yearns for water.” He reached for her hand and they went upstairs.

  Later, lying together on the bed, she reached out a hand and took his Goya-type drawing from the bedside table. She studied it for a while and then said, “Who was she?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Someone I met in England. And parted from in Bordeaux.”

  “Bene – for that I care nothing. But from now on you will keep your little mementoes somewhere discreetly.”

  “Don’t worry. There will be none. You have changed me. And now we get dressed and go and find a hotel for you —”

  “— but I already have a hotel. I have been here some days waiting for you, praying for you to come.”

  “That is good, then, You cannot stay here. Not now that we are going to be respectable. What will the villagers say? And monsieur le curé? And the gardener? Gaston will leave and my dear mother’s garden will become a wilderness —”

  “Basta – you are right. A hotel still, caro mio.” She sighed happily, stretched her arms so that her breasts rose proud and firm, and then said, looking at the painting of Sir Andrew Starr, “What is that? Not something you have done?”

  “No. Not mine.”

  “That I can tell with one eye. Who is it?”

  “Some young Englishman. I picked it up in Bordeaux. It needs cleaning. One sees that from here.”

  “Then you should do it before you sell it. You will get more money. Now that we are going to be married I shall be very careful with money so that one day we shall have a villa on Capri. Ah, there is so much to come.”

  “At the moment the next thing is back to your hotel for you.”

  “Good. You begin to have the sense of things. In your own village we must be properly behaved. In Florence, well . . . we can stay the same since everyone knows.” She raised herself on one elbow, looked down into his face, and said firmly, “You are sincere, caro mio? About all this?”

  He nodded gently.

  “Say it with your mouth, not your head.”

  “I am sincere. I say it.”

  She laughed then and said, “You would say anything to suit yourself with others. But between us, remember – always the truth.”

  “Even if it is bad?”

  “Even. Now I get dressed and go respectably to my hotel. It is good to get accustomed to that sort of thing. With me you will become somebody. I shall see to it.”

  Smiling, loving her, but knowing she had no power over him at all – only at this moment a desire to please her – he said, ‘Yes, we must get accustomed to a lot of different things. But I do not need to become somebody. I am somebody already – and I like what I am.”

  Later, on his return from taking Carla to a hotel in nearby Cragnac, Maurice was just in time to catch monsieur le curé who had called to see him.

  They went inside together and, when the priest had been settled with a glass of wine, he said, “Well, my son?”

  Maurice smiled. “I have been to England and seen my father and my mother. They are nice people, my father nearly seventy and my mother a little younger. I could have claimed what was mine and they would have accepted it. But I could see that it would never have given them real happiness – nor me. So I told them that I wished to remain Maurice Crillon.”

  “It was a good and wise thing to do. And now?”

  “Oh, I shall leave Gaston to look after things here. From time to time I shall come back. But I must go back, too – to my work.”

  “And where is that?”

  Maurice shrugged his shoulders. “Wherever I find it. But you can always get me through the Swiss address. I have told Gaston that you will let him have it if he needs it.”

  The curé allowed his right eyebrow to rise a little and said, “And anyone else who needs you? Am I to tell them?”

  Maurice hesitated briefly, and then said, “Yes, of course.” The curé said quietly, “Tell me, my son – why do you like to stand so far apart from people? Is it because you have a troubled conscience?”

  Maurice shook his head. “No. It is a matter of my nature which I could not explain to you because I do not understand it myself.”

  “Perhaps I do – not the underlying reason, but the practical one. No animal – to which I do not liken you, of course – is so stupid as to approach its hole, or earth or burrow always by the same route.”

  Maurice laughed. “We live in a dangerous world.”

  Monsieur Bonivard rose to go and said, “We live, my son, in God’s world and that is not always easily understood by us. We can only have faith and trust in His purposes and His wisdom and try to resist temptation. If we try honestly and fail and then try again and again He is never unaware of our efforts.”

  He raised his hand and blessed him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  KERSLAKE KNEW THAT the man was upset at not being able to talk to Warboys personally. When he wanted something he was accustomed to go right to the top without let or hindrance.

  Kerslake said, “I’m sorry, Sir Julian, but he left yesterday by air for America. A conference in Washington. He won’t be back for four or five days. Perhaps I can help you?”

  Sir Julian sat on the other side of the desk, black-haired, black-suited, his hands clasped on top of a heavy walking stick, gold-banded but, thought Kerslake, hiding no rapier to be drawn quickly for defence or attack. If such were ever needed others would do his work.

  Grudgingly Sir Julian said, “Well, I suppose so. You’re fully briefed about this Crillon business?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, so be it. Take a look at these.”

  He drew a small, rubber-banded package from his jacket pocket and dropped it in front of Kerslake.

  Kerslake slipped the rubber band free and spread the six photographs before him on the table, neatly as though laying out a hand of cards. He took his time and a little more over each – knowing he would be touching the raw of the man’s impatience. He was professionally interested in and emotionally disdainful of all that this man represented and would have represented if the German Panzer divisions had come rolling up the beaches of Southern England all those years ago, and was thinking, too, of the Dunkirk beaches where he had lost an uncle in the Navy – destroyers – and where his father had the fingers of his right hand blown away so that his life work as a sign-painter and decorator had come to an end. Turning each photograph and reading the details on the back, he knew where they had come from . . . In fact he, himself, still waited to receive a similar pack for Birdcage. It was no surprise to him that Sir Julian had more influence with some of the French authorities than Birdcage. His pourboire sweeteners in the right places were ethically denied to Birdcage. Finishing with them, he said, “Six Maurice Crillons. All the right age group and all artists, art masters or connected with the art world.”

  “They are. One of them could be the man I want.”

  “We both want, Sir Julian.”

  “Don’t trifle. The man could be among them.”

  “He could – and even if you checked them all in France you wouldn’t know which was the right one unless you could establish that he has or has had the portrait of Sir Andrew.” Enjoying himself behind a slow bleakness of dislike for the man, Kerslake went on. “Even if they were laid out in front of Sir Andrew you know he would give no help. His position has been defined. For him the game is over. But not for us. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “I understand from Warboys that this Crillon picked up a local Salisbury girl and took her to France.”

  “So he did. But, I gather that she is a very sentimental, romantic type. She’d do the same thing – but for a different reason than Sir Andrew. She’d just say the man she knew was none of these? Or am I wrong?”

  “No. I think you’re right. I want this thing cleared up quickly.”

  “I’m sure you do – and so do we, believe me.” In the meantime, Kerslake thought, face unmoved but the imp of joy teasing his spirit, there was a great deal of pleasure to be had from Sir Julian’s concern. He saw his father with one of his beloved pigeons sitting on his stub of a hand. But despite that he knew that nothing could alter his commitment to Birdcage. He went on, “If the man we want is amongst these I can have him identified for you quite quickly.”

  “How?”

  “If I asked you, Sir Julian, how you can get these photographs more quickly from the French than we can . . . I expect we’ll get them in a week’s time . . . would you tell me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you must trust me. If one of these is the Crillon we want then I can isolate him. Let us say, through channels which are not open to you.”

  “I don’t care a damn how you do it as long as you let me know – and as soon as possible.”

  “If he’s one of them – you shall know. We want this business closed up as much as you do, Sir Julian.” He gave the man one of his rare official smiles, and added, “It will take two or three days. Of course, I shall want to keep these.” He swept together the photos laid out neatly like a disclosed hand of cards before him, tapped and tidied them into order, and put the rubber band round them.

  Sir Julian stood up and, resting both hands on the top of his stick, stooped forward a little, black-garbed, vulture-poised, the menace and drive of the man momentarily – and deliberately – exposed, and then the illusion suddenly destroyed by a warm, friendly, yet slightly mocking smile as he said, “I could find a place for you, Mr Kerslake, in my organization if ever you felt that Her Majesty really was most grossly under-paying her servants.”

  Kerslake laughed. “I’ll bear it in mind. Thank you, Sir Julian. I’ll be in touch with you about these.” He tapped the neatly stacked pile of photographs before him.

  * * * *

  It was done quite simply and officially. Kerslake flew down and had a meeting with the Chief Constable of Wiltshire. On the way back he was minded to call on Sir Andrew Starr, but resisted the temptation. For some time now an odd feeling had been growing in him, from an almost unregarded source . . . as from a wet patch in high meadow, masking the true source of the stripling river miles distant, a winter-bourne that only once in every four years ran true from its mother spring. Put finally into words, as though he needed the direct stimulation, it came vaguely to him as he directed the helicopter pilot to take a flight line above the upper Avon on the way back and for a few moments distantly glimpsed Avoncourt Abbey and its gardens. From the flagstaff on the western side of the Abbey roof the fresh breeze was streaming out the Union Jack that flew from its tall white flag-pole. For a moment or two he wondered why, for what saint’s day, what celebration? And then it came to him. Today was the third of June – the last day of the distant evacuation from Dunkirk. No matter what the rest of the world might think – no matter the strict military interpretation – for this country it had been the beginning of victory. Sir Andrew had had a long run for his money – until now, in fact, the money meant very little to him. Why, then, at the moment when Birdcage was insisting that he should quit and he had agreed, had it happened that this Frenchman should so conveniently have come along, gained his confidence and friendship, and then so conveniently again have left taking with him the Augustus John – and from his bedroom? Surely, the worst type of Frenchman – or any other man for that – would never have repaid kindness with such an odd choice of gift taking? At the moment he didn’t know why. But it would bear thinking about. Something was wrong somewhere. With a free choice of all the other and mostly far more valuable paintings – why the Augustus John? Damned odd. Well, maybe something would turn up to throw more light on that.

  That evening a plain-clothes detective of the Wiltshire Constabulary visited the Red Lion in Salisbury, had a word with the manager, and then had a few moments in turn with the reception clerk, the head waiter and the permanent bar keeper. Each when the photographs were laid out and asked which resembled the Monsieur Crillon who had recently stayed at the hotel picked out the same photograph – on the back of which was written – Maurice Crillon, Rue des Glycines, Cragnac, Dordogne. This information, together with the photographs, was sent back the next day by special messenger to Kerslake. On that day, which was her half-day, Margery Littleton went into the Red Lion for a bar lunch and it was not long before the snack bar waitress gave her the news that the police were making enquiries about the Maurice Crillon who had stayed there. She went back to her flat and sat in some agony of mind and confusion until she remembered the kindness of Sir Andrew Starr and his warm understanding of her attachment to Maurice. After half an hour of indecision she made up her mind and found the courage to telephone Sir Andrew.

  He was kindness itself, put her at her ease, and finally smoothed away her anxieties.

  “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about, my dear. I should think your Maurice committed some motoring offence over here. Or was wanted as a witness to one and they just had his name and car number and the hotel address. Something like that.”

  As he spoke he knew that a moment or two of real thought on her part would shred to pieces the logic of all this . . . but, dear creature, she was in no state to apply logic when her romantic head held only anxious and sentimental thoughts about her beloved Maurice. To calm her completely, he said, “The Chief Constable is a near friend of mine. I’ll give him a ring and find out for you. But don’t worry – I’m sure it’s some minor thing.”

  Half an hour later he called her back and eased her fears completely, though he had not in fact rung the Chief Constable.

  He said, “It was nothing, my dear girl. As I thought – he witnessed an accident and gave his name and address at the hotel – very properly too. I told them that he’d gone back to France – and that he lived in Bordeaux. I gathered, this being so, they wouldn’t bother him to be a witness, since there were others. Don’t give it another thought, my dear girl. Nothing to worry about.” He paused, waiting for her to ask the one question which would knock his story to bits, but the question . . . dear, love-hazed child, bless her heart . . . never came. To ease her mind further, spurred by a genuine emotion, after all she was in love with his son, he said, “Matter of fact, my dear, I was thinking of giving you a ring. Wondered if you would like to come up and have tea with me sometime . . . see the pictures privately.”

  “Oh, I’d love that, Sir Andrew.”

  “Good – we’ll arrange it soon.”

  Alone – Margery Littleton’s anxieties calmed – for good, he hoped – he took the dogs for a walk and considered his own situation. Birdcage and Sir Julian Markover were both working in their separate ways-but with a common end, at least so far as could be conjectured at this moment. You never damned well knew with Warboys. But with Sir Julian there was no doubt. He wanted the promised documents in the back of the Augustus John so that he could destroy them and have final peace of mind and all possible threat of some future tribute being levied on him and his kind denied. Dear . . . dear . . . Maurice had stirred up a hornet’s nest by taking the Augustus John. However, the real point was that he must be relieved of the documents . . . Composition of the Provisional Government of the United Kingdom . . . Swastika stamped . . . Der bloody Fuhrer signed and all the bloody traitorous names appended, with Sir Julian Markover’s heading them. And, on them still, the bloody finger prints of the man he had killed to get them, scrabbling at them in his death agony, the two of them alone in the big apartment high above the Boulevard Haussmann. Dear, dear, so long ago and far away. And now here was the whole thing breaking into life again simply because that dear boy of his had made a sentimental choice of pictures. Well, he himself would have to do what he could to clear up the mess.

  That evening he made an international telephone enquiry for the number of Maurice Crillon at Cragnac. He was told that no number was listed. A further enquiry got him the number of Monsieur Bonivard, le curé. What secrets the Church had known in its time. His call was answered by a housekeeper. He was told that the curé was away at a conference and would not be back for three or four days at least. Sir Andrew gave up – a move he found which with age came easily to him. God’s will would prevail.

  That evening, too – after receiving confirmation of identification from the police – Kerslake telephoned Sir Julian Markover and told him that the Maurice Crillon he wanted lived in the Rue des Glycines, Cragnac, in the Dordogne. Their civilities were brief.

  The next morning Maurice and Carla left Cragnac in the early morning to return to Florence in their separate cars, Carla leading. After some while Carla realized that Maurice had lost touch with her. Unworried, she kept on driving. Maurice was firmly hers now. She had no fears that he would desert her. In Florence late that evening she went to Maurice’s apartment. They had agreed they would spend the night there. An hour after her arrival Maurice telephoned her.