Vanishing Point, page 10
part #7 of Birdcage Series
“Agreed. Oh, you make me so happy. When he comes back you shall have the rest of your money and you shall be married and Maurice will become one of the family and stay for ever – like a brother to me.”
Carla smiled and shook her head. “Aldo – do not run too far ahead. Maurice is like a rainbow. Now you see it and now you don’t.”
“And you would be happy married to a man like that?”
“I would be happy, yes. But I cannot give you the reasons for they are not to be laid out like the clauses in a business contract. God gives men and women love to make of it what they will. It is a contract with no small print at the bottom for the lawyers to worry over. Naturally you will see the car is full with petrol before I go. Also here is a postcard which I have just had from Maurice.”
Aldo took the card and read it. At once his gross, dewlapped face fell into the conventional lines of polite solemnity and his words matched the falseness of his appropriately masked face. “Ah, mia car a sorella. . . it is now he needs you. To lose a mother – that is terrible! We must find him. He shall come back and have happiness in our family, and he and I shall work together like brothers —”
“Cheating and forging and stealing. Oh, Aldo you are impossible.”
Aldo straightened his fat shoulders indignantly and said with a sudden intensity of feeling, “In that you are wrong. One day he will do big work. His own – he has that gift in the eyes and hands which God gives only to a few.”
“Yes, he has that. But God – for some reason – gave him something else.”
“What?”
“There is no name for it yet. Eve was tempted and from that moment it was doomed that from time to time some of her children should reach for the forbidden fruit despite any gift God had given them at birth.”
“You talk nonsense again. Sometimes I think you are a little pazza.” He put his forefinger against his head and turned it with a screwing motion.
“Maybe – but not in the head. In the heart, Aldo.”
CHAPTER FIVE
STANDING AT THE window of his room in the Birdcage Walk building, his back a little obliquely set to Sir Julian Markover, Warboys watched a mallard drake take off from the lake in St James’s Park. It banked up into the strong, almost gale-force wind and then turned to glide high and easily along the front of the Foreign Office windows and over Horse Guards Parade and then was lost beyond the ivy-green top of the Fortress, heading north, perhaps for a change to sample the summer delights of Regent’s Park. He said over his shoulder, “That’s all I can tell you at the moment, Sir Julian. It’s all we know. The stuff you wanted – the substance of the settlement that has been agreed in principle – has gone. It’s somewhere in France, hidden in the back of a picture in the boot of a car.” He turned, smiled and went and sat down behind his desk.
Sir Julian said, “You will pardon me if I say that this has happened at a very inconvenient time, my dear Warboys. The thing was all settled and now there is this hitch. For whatever was done and would have been done, we have suffered and paid. I agree that the paying was no problem – and the suffering . . . well in life there is always that. But now I have children who have children who know nothing of the sins of their father and grandfather. The others, too . . . We have always been frank, you and I. The tribute has always been paid regularly to Sir Andrew – and our services have always been at your disposal, and have been used many, many times. When I die – I want no skeleton in my cupboard or that of the others. You tell me this has happened – all out of pure chance?”
“You have my word. But we shall find this Frenchman and recover the picture and then you shall have what you want. We shall find him.”
Sir Julian was silent for a moment or two, and then he shook his head. “No – that is not how it can be.” He smiled broadly, and for a moment or two Warboys found him almost likeable.
“Why not?”
“Because this affair is now no longer an official one. Oh, naturally you can go through the motions without enthusiasm and, of course, if with luck, you get the picture – then we shall both be happy. But in the meantime those of us who are still concerned must also take steps. You have an organization which is excellent – but in times of crisis conscience sometimes mars it, or a new expediency. But we have an organization, too. In life the Fates throw up situations which make it necessary sometimes to apply drastic and terminal solutions from which you people here would turn away, knowing that this is not a commitment to which you are utterly dedicated. Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely. If the need arose you would kill this Frenchman to get what you want. Whereas, here, well. . . no. After all he is completely innocent of the situation he has caused. The picture he took was a gift. We shall find him.”
“And we shall also look for him. We need nothing from you. Already you have told me enough to begin with. And if you so wish there is no reason why this conversation should ever go further than this room.”
“I make no promise, Sir Julian.”
Sir Julian rose. “Naturally.” He moved to pick up his hat and the stick which he used to ease his limp and, glancing for a moment out of the window, he turned to Warboys and said almost wearily, “All men of vigour and ambition have dreams they strive to bring true. I had one and it was held quite genuinely – this country gave my grandfather a home and through his work a great fortune. Long before Dunkirk I could see its downfall coming – and with a few others I planned to save what could be saved. Why resist when defeat is inevitable? And it was – should have been, had not Hitler hesitated and then lost his chance after Dunkirk. Better to eat the dry crusts of shame than to die fighting a battle which can never be won. I know better now. Can God or Man blame us for being what we are? Historically, too, this country has always in the end come to accept what we would have – the Romans, the Saxons and Danes, the Normans. I see you smile – perhaps you find some fallacy in my thinking which escapes me?”
“Surely, I do. In times of war all men change. The prospect of defeat becomes a challenge and pushes logic – the kind you have just instanced – into limbo. First they are enraged and then they are inspired, some. Others lie down and feign death, hoping to escape the thundering hooves and iron wheels of the chariots. The British in crisis seldom act with logic – they become intoxicated with an arrogance which bereaves them of the power to think straight but they know – without questioning – from their own private line to God that all is not on the side of the big battalions. I am sure that it pleases the Almighty when such men defy the inevitable and turn irrefutable logic upside down. Mind you, God does not always allow this to happen. Every so often He disappoints them for their own good – what fun would there be for them if they were always betting on a certainty?”
Sir Julian laughed, and said, “Most of you are convinced that the map of paradise – unlike that of the world – is still largely coloured red.”
“Well, why not? A nation without irreverence is a police state. But now –” he broke off for a moment, rubbing a lean forefinger over the morocco binding of his desk blotter, “revenons a nos moutons. If you can find what you want in your own ways, remember that an innocent Frenchman now has what you want. Find him if you can – we shall be trying, too. Get what you want from him, but leave him free. We shall be trying to do the same thing. If we get the documents – you shall have them.”
“I give you my word. No extreme measures – unless unavoidable.”
“Thank you.”
* * * *
They spent the last few days of their time together at a small hotel on the outskirts of Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac. They had a room at garden level. They went to bed late and rose late. The weather was good and they breakfasted in the garden. Then – neither of them concerned with the curiosities and sights of the area – they drove out on excursions, buying themselves a bottle of wine and a picnic lunch, and ate al fresco wherever the fancy took them. Margery had no interest in tourist sight-seeing. She was content to drift through the days at his side. Though “drift” at the end of each day seemed a misnomer to her. The days passed too swiftly. At night they dined on the hotel’s wisteria-canopied terrace and talked, but in all their talk she learned little of him and his past, and what she did some instinct told her was not to be trusted. Once she caught him out on a contradiction and the love and wine in her prompted her to point this out. At this he laughed and said easily, “There is no contradiction. I am a man with many pasts – and sometimes I get them confused. It is not a good thing just to live one life. It gets so boring.”
His obliquity left her unmoved for she had no desire to mar her present happiness. She knew she was being silly and romantic, and had no qualms about it. One day soon he would put her on a plane at Bordeaux and it would all be over, except the glorious memories of these days. And those she knew would be enough. At dusk a nightingale sang obligingly for her and, since they left the garden door part open for the air, the hotel cat came each morning to curl up at her feet and wait patiently for the remains of their breakfast milk. Only one thing loomed ever nearer each day – the return to Bordeaux. She closed her mind to it – or for the most part succeeded in doing so.
It was during this time that Sir Julian Markover flew to Paris and arranged through his contacts there to put out the word for Maurice Crillon, painter and picture-restorer, description and estimated age, likely make of car. He knew that it would take time, but it would be done. He was content to wait. Birdcage too went to work – more on a point of professional pride than anything else. There was nothing more satisfying to Kerslake and Warboys than a completed file. Also – since no man could read the future and the exigencies it might throw up – they acted from a sense of duty, that duty to which everyone in the organization was in his or her way completely dedicated.
Sir Andrew Starr, indifferent to all this, gradually let the whole thing slip from his mind, except for the occasional moment or two when memory was triggered by sentiment after a few drinks and he found himself thinking how damned odd it all was. He had a son and he didn’t have a son. And the damned odd thing was that he damned well didn’t know what he thought about it all. And more than that he didn’t care a sparrow’s fart any longer. He had collected the last of the tribute demanded for treachery and was tired of the whole business, had no interest in it – except he hoped they would never find Maurice Crillon.
* * * *
The information which Aldo had obtained through his friends simply read – Trudi Keller, and then gave a Gunten telephone number. Carla, arriving in the early afternoon, booked in at a lakeside hotel and then telephoned the number.
A woman’s voice answered her call and when she asked for Trudi Keller she was told that Fraülein Keller was at work. Carla asked where this would be since she had an important message to pass to Fraülein Keller. She was given the number of the school at which Fraülein Keller worked and its name.
Carla telephoned the school and talked to Trudi Keller. Carla’s German was good since Aldo, though mean over many things, believed in a liberal education and when he had become unexpectedly early head of the family – and Carla then only fourteen – he had seen to it that she had learnt French and German for in his business there was a need for them and, looking to the future, he had already planned that she should work for him as a secretary, part-time, after finishing whatever regular work she decided to take.
With little preamble Carla explained that Maurice Crillon had until recently been working for her brother in Florence but had left some time ago, and that her brother was anxious to get in touch with him.
A cool voice at the other end of the line asked, “Did Maurice give him my name and address?”
“No. We got it from the telegram you sent Maurice about his mother’s death. I could explain more if you would be kind enough to see me I have my car with me. Perhaps I could meet you after school, Fraülein, and we could go to my hotel in Gunten and talk?”
There was a long silence at the other end, and then Trudi Keller said, “You know Maurice very well, signorina?”
Carla laughed. “Who knows Maurice very well?”
There was a long pause again, and then Trudi Keller said, “I think I understand. Yes, please, if it is your wish. I finish here today at four o’clock.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“It is less kindness than curiosity, signorina.”
When they met Carla was a little surprised. Knowing Maurice, she had no doubt that they had been lovers – but she was such a big girl. Not heavy or fat, but an abundant Rubensesque type, placidly good-looking and she had a deliberation of movement and speech as though, Carla thought, everything worked well but she cautiously watched herself in case she did or said something wrong.
But after a little while, during which time coffee and cakes were ordered, Carla recognized that there was no reluctance in her to talk. It was as though she had been waiting with longing for someone from Maurice’s life to come and widen the horizons of her knowledge of him. For Carla this increased her sympathy for this large, Amazonian beauty. Sympathy because, she sensed, this woman’s defences were far less adequate than her own for dealing with the arrogance of Maurice’s nature. Understanding and sympathy for one another rose spontaneously – they both loved him (there was no jealousy in Carla about this) and he treated them as pure conveniences for his own purposes. The bond was soon recognized and a relationship established but with unspoken reservations on both sides. Carla told her how she had first met Maurice and his pursuit of her, and Trudi Keller laughed.
She said, “So it was with me in Zurich. My father has a monumental mason’s business there. One day Maurice comes into the yard – I am in the little office where I worked part-time on the books and my father is with me. Maurice says to my father does he want a designer . . .”
Her father had said he did not. Undeterred Maurice had opened his brief case and pulled out a portfolio of drawings – architectural and sculptural. Her father had been impressed, but said that he had not enough business to employ a full-time designer. Maurice had said that he could also sculpt and work headstones and memorials and her father – who she sensed had taken a fancy to him – passed him a design for a Madonna and Child and told him to see what he could do with it — pointing to a small block of white Carrara marble in the yard.
Trudi said, “Signorina, he worked three weeks on it – almost day and night. It was of a beauty and craftsmanship never seen in my father’s yard before. So he came to work for us. And my father said to me that same day, ‘Trudi – you must watch him. I have met his kind before. You must keep yourself distant from him for his hands have other magic as well for a young girl! So I tried for, though I love my father, I was very much afraid of him then. . . But when Maurice wants something there is no stopping him. I am very fond of amateur dramatics – so, he also joins the society so that he can be with me. And when he is with me . . .” She spread both hands in a gesture of capitulation.
As she talked on Carla had already anticipated her story. She had fallen in love with Maurice. They became lovers, and eventually the father found out. He dismissed Maurice . . .
Trudi at this point gave a little shrug of her statuesque shoulders and said, “I went with him. For five months and then it all finished. I became sensible. I still loved Maurice but I knew it was not a good thing for me or for him. So I left him and went back home – which was terrible for a while, then, when things were quiet again, I came here to teach in the school. At home I was always thinking of him. But we kept in touch . . . and from time to time we have met here in Gunten. He is not a man easy to cut out of one’s life. I think, maybe, you know that, no, signorina?”
“I know. Oh, yes I know. And I can understand too why you still do things for him – like being a letter box.” She laughed wryly. “Once you have given him your love he uses you – and you do not mind. Why is that? Some magic? A spell he casts?”
Trudi shrugged her shoulders. “He takes and gives love – and then uses one if it suits him. And when I ask him once about all this and why I should still do things for him, like being a letter box, you know what he says – ‘If a good fairy promised me any wish in the world do you know what I would ask for?’ When I shook my head, he said, ‘The gift of walking across sand without leaving any footmarks.’ So now you know. Do not let him do it to you.”
“He already does.”
“Ah, so. And that is why you are here?”
“Partly, yes. I love him but expect nothing from him. It is my brother who wants him to come back and finish his work in Florence. He was cleaning and restoring a very valuable painting for him. All we have had is a postcard from France – with no address – saying that his mother has died.”
“Yes, I know that. I send Maurice the news. He gives my address for his people in France.”
“And you know his address there?”
“Of course. Very early I knew that from him.”
“Could you give it to me?”
“Would that be right?”
“Why not? It is not to make trouble for him. Merely to ask him to come and finish his work.” Seeing the hesitation on Trudi’s face, knowing its provenance, she added. “I would like him back, too – for my own reasons. But I have no hope, Fraülein. When he has finished his work he will go – and I shall stay.” She reached out and touched the other’s right hand. “We both know that. He is a little mad, you know. How true what he said to you about leaving no footprints. Joy and great pleasures one can have with him – but no real happiness. We both know that.”
“True.”
Trudi pulled a pocket book from her bag, tore a leaf from it and wrote the address. Handing it across she said, “I am glad to have met you. If you are in Switzerland again some time perhaps we can meet. You see – meeting you is like finding a sister I never knew I had.”
Carla laughed. “Oh, I wish I’d said that first.” Then her face clouding, she went on, “What will happen to him in the end?” Trudi shrugged her shoulders. ‘ ‘What must happen to anyone who thinks he can walk across sand without leaving prints, walk through life without real concern for anyone else? God will become angry with him.” She crossed herself and stood up. She held out her hand and Carla took it briefly, saying, “Sometime we shall meet again, I hope.”
