Puppet On A Chain Part 1

Puppet on a Chain.

MacLean, Alistair.

CHAPTER ONE.

'We shall be arriving in Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, in just a few minutes.' Mellifluous, accentless, the Dutch stewardess's voice could have been precisely duplicated on any of a dozen European airlines. 'Please fasten your seat-belts and extinguish your cigarettes. We hope you have enjoyed your flight: we are sure you will enjoy your stay in Amsterdam.'

I'd spoken briefly to the stewardess on the way across. A charming girl, but given to a certain unwarranted optimism in her outlook on life in general and I had to take issue with her on two points: I hadn't enjoyed the flight and I didn't expect to enjoy my stay in Amsterdam. I hadn't enjoyed the flight because I hadn't enjoyed any flight since that day two years ago when the engines of a DC 8 had failed only seconds after take-off and led to the discovery of two things: that an unpowered jet has the gliding characteristics of a block of concrete and that plastic surgery can be very long, very painful, very expensive and occasionally not very successful. Nor did I expect to enjoy Amsterdam, even though it is probably the most beautiful city in the world with the friendliest inhabitants you'll find anywhere: it's just that the nature of my business trips abroad automatically precludes the enjoyment of anything.

As the big KLM DC 8 -- I'm not superst.i.tious, any plane can fall out of the sky -- sank down, I glanced round its crowded interior. The bulk of the pa.s.sengers, I observed, appeared to share my belief in the inherent madness of flying: those who weren't using their finger-nails to dig holes in KLM's upholstery were either leaning back with excessive nonchalance or chattering with the bright gay animation of those brave spirits who go to their impending doom with a quip on their smiling lips, the type who would have waved cheerfully to the admiring throngs as their tumbril drew up beside the guillotine. In short, a pretty fair cross-section of humanity. Distinctly law-abiding. Definitely non-villainous. Ordinary: even nondescript.

Or perhaps that's unfair -- the nondescript bit, I mean. To qualify for that rather denigrating description there must exist comparative terms of reference to justify its use: unfortunately for the remainder of the pa.s.sengers there were two others aboard that plane who would have made anyone look nondescript.

I looked at them three seats behind me on the other side of the aisle. This was hardly a move on my part to attract any attention as most of the men within eyeing distance of them had done little else but look at them since leaving Heathrow Airport: not to have looked at them at all would have been an almost guaranteed method of attracting attention.

Just a couple of girls sitting together. You can find a couple of girls sitting together almost anywhere but you'd have to give up the best years of your life to the search of finding a couple like those. One with hair as dark as a raven's wing, the other a shining platinum blonde, both clad, albeit marginally, in mini-dresses, the dark one in an all-white silk affair, the blonde all in black, and both of them possessed as far as one could see-and one could see a great deal-of figures that demonstrated clearly the immense strides forward made by a select few of womankind since the days of Venus di Milo. Above all, they were strikingly beautiful, but not with that vapid and empty brand of unformed good looks which wins the Miss World contest: curiously alike, they had the delicately formed bone structure, the cleanly cut features, and the unmistakable quality of intelligence which would keep them still beautiful twenty years after the faded Miss Worlds of yesterday had long since given up the unequal compet.i.tion.

The blonde girl smiled at me, a smile at once pert and provocative, but friendly. I gave her my impa.s.sive look, and as the trainee plastic surgeon who had worked his will on me hadn't quite succeeded in matching up the two sides of my face, my impa.s.sive expression is noticeably lacking in encouragement, but still she smiled at me. The dark girl nudged her companion, who looked away from me, saw the reproving frown, made a face and stopped smiling. I looked away.

We were less than two hundred yards from the end of the runway now and to take my mind off the near-certainty of the undercarriage crumpling as soon as it touched the tarmac, I leaned back, closed my eyes and thought about the two girls. Whatever else I lacked, I reflected, no one could claim that I picked my a.s.sistants without regard to some of the more aesthetic aspects of life. Maggie, the dark girl, was twenty-seven and had been with me for over five years now: she was clever to just short of the point of being brilliant, she was methodical, painstaking, discreet, reliable and almost never made a mistake -- in our business there is no such thing as a person who never makes mistakes. More important, Maggie and I were fond of each other and had been for years, an almost essential qualification where a momentary loss of mutual faith and interdependence could have consequences of an unpleasant and permanent nature: but we weren't, so far as I knew, too fond of each other, for that could have been equally disastrous.

Belinda, blonde, twenty-two, Parisian, half French, half English, on her first operational a.s.signment, was an almost totally unknown quant.i.ty to me. Not an enigma, just unknown as a person: when the Surete lend you one of their agents, as they had lent Belinda to me, the accompanying dossier on that agent is so overwhelmingly comprehensive that no relevant fact in that person's background or past is left unmentioned. On a personal basis all I had been able to gather so far was that she was markedly lacking in that respect -- if not unstinted admiration -- that the young should accord to their elders and professional superiors, which in this case was myself. But she had about her that air of quietly resourceful competence which more than outweighed any reservations she might hold about her employer.

Neither girl had ever been to Holland before, which was one of the main reasons why they were accompanying me there: apart from which, lovely young girls in our unlovely profession are rarer than fur coats in the Congo and hence all the more unlikely to attract the attention of the suspicious and the unG.o.dly.

The DC 8 touched down, the undercarriage remained in one piece, so I opened my eyes and began to think of matters of more immediate urgency. Duclos. Jimmy Duclos was waiting to meet me at Schiphol Airport and Jimmy Duclos had something of importance and urgency to convey to me. Too important to send, even though coded, through normal channels of communication: too urgent to wait even for the services of a diplomatic courier from our emba.s.sy in The Hague. The probable content of the message I did not concern myself with: I'd know it in five minutes. And I knew it would be what I wanted. Duclos's sources of information were impeccable, the information itself always precise and one hundred per cent accurate. Jimmy Duclos never made mistakes -- not, at least, of this nature.

The DC 8 was slowing down now and I could already see the crocodile disembarkation tube angling out from the side of the main building ready to line up with the plane's exit when it came to a halt. I unfastened my seat belt, rose, glanced at Maggie and Belinda without expression or recognition and headed for the exit while the plane was still moving, a manoeuvre frowned upon by the airline authorities and certainly, in this case, by other pa.s.sengers in the plane whose expressions clearly indicated that they were in the presence of a big-headed and churlish boor who couldn't wait to take his turn along with the rest of long-suffering and queueing mankind. I ignored them. I had long ago resigned myself to the realization that popularity was never to be my lot.

The stewardess smiled at me, though, but this was no tribute to either my appearance or personality. People smile at other people when they are impressed or apprehensive or both. Whenever I travel aboard a plane except when on holiday -- which is about once every five years -- I hand the stewardess a small sealed envelope for transmission to the plane's captain and the captain, usually as anxious as the next man to impress a pretty girl, generally divulges the contents to her, which is a lot of fol-de-rol about complete priority under all circ.u.mstances and invariably wholly unnecessary except that it ensures one of impeccable and immediate lunch, dinner and bar service. Wholly necessary, though, was another privilege that several of my colleagues and I enjoyed -- diplomatic-type immunity to Customs search, which was just as well as my luggage usually contained a couple of efficient pistols, a small but cunningly-designed kit of burglar's tools and some few other nefarious devices generally frowned upon by the immigration authorities of the more advanced countries. I never wore a gun aboard a plane, for apart from the fact that a sleeping man can inadvertently display a shoulder-holstered gun to a seat companion, thereby causing a whole lot of unnecessary consternation, only a madman would fire a gun within the pressurized cabin of a modern plane. Which accounts for the astonishing success of the sky-jackers: the results of implosion tend to be very permanent indeed.

The exit door opened and I stepped out into the corrugated disembarkation tube. Two or three airport employees politely stood to one side while I pa.s.sed by and headed for the far end of the tube which debouched on to the terminal floor and the two contra-moving platforms which brought pa.s.sengers to and from the immigration area.

There was a man standing at the end of the outward-bound moving platform with his back to it. He was of middle height, lean and a great deal less than prepossessing. He had dark hair, a deeply-trenched swarthy face, black cold eyes and a thin slit where his mouth should have been: not exactly the kind of character I would have encouraged to come calling on my daughter. But he was respectably enough dressed in a black suit and black overcoat and -- although this was no criterion of respectability -- was carrying a large and obviously brand-new airline bag.

But non-existent suitors for non-existent daughters were no concern of mine. I'd moved far enough now to look up the outward-bound moving platform, the one that led to the terminal floor where I stood. There were four people on the platform and the first of them, a tall, thin, grey-suited man with a hairline moustache and all the outward indications of a successful accountant, I recognized at once. Jimmy Duclos. My first thought was that he must have considered his information to be of a vital and urgent nature indeed to come this length to meet me. My second thought was that he must have forged a police pa.s.s to get this far into the terminal and that made sense for he was a master forger. My third thought was that it would be courteous and friendly to give him a wave and a smile and so I did. He waved and smiled back.

The smile lasted for all of a second, then jelled almost instantly into an expression of pure shock. It was then I observed, almost sub-consciously, that the direction of his line of sight had shifted fractionally.

I turned round quickly. The swarthy man in the dark suit and coat no longer had his back to the travelator. He had come through 189 and was facing it now, his airline bag no longer dangling from his hand but held curiously high under his arm.

Still not knowing what was wrong, I reacted instinctively and jumped at the man in the black coat. At least, I started to jump. But it had taken me a whole long second to react and the man immediately -- and I mean immediately-proceeded to demonstrate to both his and my total conviction that a second was what he regarded as being ample time to carry out any violent manoeuvre he wished. He'd been prepared, I hadn't, and he proved to be very violent indeed. I'd hardly started to move when he swung round in a viciously convulsive quarter-circle and struck me in the solar plexus with the edge of his airline bag.

Airline bags are usually soft and squashy. This one wasn't. I've never been struck by a pile-driver nor have any desire to be, but I can make a fair guess now as to what the feeling is likely to be. The physical effect was about the same. I collapsed to the floor as if some giant hand had swept my feet from beneath me, and lay there motionless. I was quite conscious. I could see, I could hear, I could to some extent appreciate what was going on around me. But I couldn't even writhe, which was all I felt like doing at the moment. I'd heard of numbing mental shocks: this was the first time I'd ever experienced a totally numbing physical shock.

Everything appeared to happen in the most ridiculous slow motion. Duclos looked almost wildly around him but there was no way he could get off that travelator. To move backwards was impossible, for three men were crowded close behind him, three men who were apparently quite oblivious of what was going on -- it wasn't until later, much later, that I realized that they must be accomplices of the man in the dark suit, put there to ensure that Duclos had no option other than to go forward with that moving platform and to his death. In retrospect, it was the most diabolically cold-blooded execution I'd heard of in a lifetime of listening to stories about people who had not met their end in the way their Maker had intended.

I could move my eyes, so I moved them. I looked at the airline bag and at one end, from under the flap, there protruded the colander-holed cylinder of a silencer. This was the pile-driver that had brought about my momentary paralysis -- I hoped it was momentary -- and from the force with which he had struck me I wondered he hadn't bent it into a U-shape. I looked up at the man who was holding the gun, his right hand concealed under the flap of the bag. There was neither pleasure nor antic.i.p.ation in that swarthy face, just the calm certainty of a professional who knew how good he was at his job. Somewhere a disembodied voice announced the arrival of flight KL 132 from London -- the plane we had arrived on. I thought vaguely and inconsequentially that I would never forget that flight number, but then it would have been the same no matter what flight I'd used for Duclos had been condemned to die before he could ever see me.

I looked at Jimmy Duclos and he had the face of a man condemned to die. His expression was desperate but it was a calm and controlled desperation as he reached deep inside the hampering folds of his coat. The three men behind him dropped to the moving platform and again it was not until much later that the significance of this came upon me. Duclos's gun came clear of his coat and as it did there was a muted thudding noise and a hole appeared half-way down the left lapel of his coat. He jerked convulsively, then pitched forward and fell on his face: the travelator carried him on to the terminal area and his dead body rolled against mine. His expression was desperate but it was a calm and controlled desperation as he reached deep inside the hampering folds of his coat. The three men behind him dropped to the moving platform and again it was not until much later that the significance of this came upon me. Duclos's gun came clear of his coat and as it did there was a muted thudding noise and a hole appeared half-way down the left lapel of his coat. He jerked convulsively, then pitched forward and fell on his face: the travelator carried him on to the terminal area and his dead body rolled against mine.

I won't ever be certain whether my total inaction in the few seconds prior to Duclos's death was due to a genuine physical paralysis or whether I had been held in thrall by the inevitability of the way in which he died. It is not a thought that will haunt me for I had no gun and there was nothing I could have done. I'm just slightly curious, for there is no question that the touch of his dead body had an immediately revivifying effect upon me.

There was no miraculous recovery. Waves of nausea engulfed me and now that the initial shock of the blow was wearing off my stomach really started to hurt. My forehead ached, and far from dully, from where I must have struck my head on the floor as I had fallen. But a fair degree of muscular control had returned and I rose cautiously to my feet, cautiously because, due to the nausea and dizziness, I was quite prepared to make another involuntary return to the floor at any moment. The entire terminal area was swaying around in the most alarming fashion and I found that I couldn't see very well and concluded that the blow to my head must have damaged my eyesight, which was very odd as it had appeared to work quite effectively while I was lying on the floor. Then I realized that my eyelids were gumming together and an exploratory hand revealed the reason for this: blood, what briefly but wrongly appeared to me to be a lot of blood, was seeping down from a gash just on the hairline of the forehead. Welcome to Amsterdam, I thought, and pulled out a handkerchief: two dabs and my vision was twenty-twenty again.

From beginning to end the whole thing could have taken no more than ten seconds but already there was a crowd of anxious people milling around as always happens in cases like this: sudden death, violent death, is to man what the opened honey-pot is to bees -- the immediate realization of the existence of either calls them forth in spectacular numbers from areas which, seconds previously, appeared to be devoid of all life.

I ignored them, as I ignored Duclos. There was nothing I could do for him now nor he for me, for a search of his clothes would have revealed nothing: like all good agents Duclos never committed anything of value to paper or tape but just filed it away in a highly-trained memory.

The dark and deadly man with the deadly gun would have made good his escape by this time: it was purely the routine and now ingrained instinct of checking even the uncheckable that made me glance towards the immigration area1 to confirm that he had indeed disappeared.

The dark man had not yet made good his escape. He was about two-thirds of the way along towards the immigration area, ambling unconcernedly along the in-bound moving platform, casually swinging his airline bag, and seemingly unaware of the commotion behind him. For a moment I stared at him, not comprehending, but only for a moment: this was the way the professional made good his escape. The professional pickpocket at Ascot who has just relieved the grey-top-hatted gentleman by his side of his wallet doesn't plunge away madly through the crowd to the accompaniment of cries of 'Stop thief' and the certainty of rapid apprehension: he is more likely to ask his victim his tip for the next race. A casual unconcern, a total normality, that was how the honours graduates in crime did it. And so it was with the dark man. As far as he was concerned I was the only witness to his action, for it was now that I belatedly realized for the first time the part the other three men had played in Duclos's death -- they were still in the cl.u.s.ter of people round the dead man but there was nothing I or anybody else could ever prove against them. And, as far as the dark man knew, he'd left me in a state in which I'd be unable to provide him with any trouble for some considerable time to come.

I went after him.

My pursuit didn't even begin to verge on the spectacular. I was weak, giddy and my midriff ached so wickedly that I found it impossible to straighten up properly, so that the combination of my weaving staggering run along that moving platform with my forward inclination of about thirty degrees must have made me look like nothing as much as a nonagenarian with lumbago in pursuit of G.o.d knows what.

I was half-way along the travelator, with the dark man almost at its end, when instinct or the sound of my running feet made him whirl round with the same catlike speed he'd shown in crippling me seconds before. It was immediately clear that he had no difficulty in distinguishing me from any nonagenarians he might have known, for his left hand immediately jerked up his airline bag while the right slid under the flap. I could see that what had happened to Duclos was going to happen to me -- the travelator would discharge me or what was left of me to the floor at the end of its track: an ignominious way to die.

I briefly wondered what folly had prompted me, an unarmed man, to come in pursuit of a proven killer with a silenced pistol and was on the point of throwing myself flat on the platform when I saw the silencer waver and the dark man's unwinking gaze switch slightly to the left. Ignoring the probability of being shot in the back of the head, I swung round to follow his line of sight.

The group of people surrounding Duclos had temporarily abandoned their interest in him and transferred it to us: in view of what they must have regarded as my unhinged performance on the travelator it would have been odd if they hadn't. From the brief glance I had of their faces, their expressions ranged from astonishment to bafflement: there were no traces of understanding. Not in that particular knot of people. But there was understanding in plenty and a chilling purposefulness in the faces of the three men who had followed Duclos to his death: they were now walking briskly up the in-bound travelator behind me, no doubt bent on following me to my death.

I heard a m.u.f.fled exclamation behind me and turned again. The travelator had reached the end of its track, obviously catching the dark man off guard, for he was now staggering to retain his balance. As I would have expected of him by then he regained it very quickly, turned his back on me and began to run: killing a man in front of a dozen witnesses was a different matter entirely from killing a man in front of one unsupported witness, although I felt obscurely certain that he would have done so had he deemed it essential and the h.e.l.l with the witnesses. I left the wondering why to later. I started to run again, this time with a deal more purpose, more like a lively septuagenarian.

The dark man, steadily outdistancing me, ran headlong through the immigration hall to the obvious confusion and consternation of the immigration officials, for people are not supposed to rush through immigration halls, they are supposed to stop, show their pa.s.sports and give a brief account of themselves, which is what immigration halls are for. By the time it came to my turn to run the gamut, the dark man's hurried departure combined with my weaving staggering run and blood-streaked face had clearly alerted them to the fact that there was something amiss, for two of the immigration officials tried to detain me but I brushed by them -- 'brushed' was not the word they used in their later complaints -- and pa.s.sed through the exit door the dark man had just used.

At least, I tried to pa.s.s through it, but the d.a.m.ned door was blocked by a person trying to enter. A girl, that was all I'd the time or the inclination to register, just any girl. I dodged to the right and she dodged to the left, I dodged to my left, she dodged to her right. Check. You can see the same performance take place practically any minute on any city pavement when two over-polite people, each bent on giving the right of way to the other, side-step with such maladroit effectiveness that they succeed only in blocking each other's way: given the right circ.u.mstances where two really super-sensitive souls encounter each other the whole embarra.s.sing fandango can continue almost indefinitely.

I'm as quick an admirer of a well-executed pas de deux as the next man but I was in no mood to be detained indefinitely and after another bout of abortive side-stepping I shouted 'Get out of my d.a.m.ned way' and ensured that she did so by catching her by the shoulder and shoving her violently to one side. I thought I heard a b.u.mp and exclamation of pain, but I ignored it: I'd come back and apologize later.

I was back sooner than I expected. The girl had cost me not more than a few seconds, but those few seconds had been more than enough for the dark man. When I reached the concourse, the inevitably crowded concourse, there was no sign whatsoever of him, it would have been difficult ,to identify a Red Indian chief in full regalia among those hundreds of apparently aimlessly milling people. And it would be pointless to alert the airport security police, by the time I'd established my bona fides he'd be half-way to Amsterdam: even had I been able to get immediate action, their chances of apprehending the dark man would have been remote: highly skilled professionals were at work here, and such men always had the options on their escape routes wide open. I retraced my steps, this time at a leaden trudge, which was by now all I could muster. My head ached viciously but compared to the condition of my stomach I felt it would have been wrong to complain about my head. I felt awful and a glimpse of my pale and blood-smeared face in a mirror did nothing to make me feel any better.

I returned to the scene of my ballet performance where two large uniformed men, with bolstered pistols, seized me purposefully by the arms.

'You've got the wrong man,' I said wearily, 'so kindly take your d.a.m.ned hands off me and give me room to breathe.' They hesitated, looked at each other, released me and moved away: they moved away nearly all of two inches. I looked at the girl who was being talked to gently by someone who must have been a very important airport official for he wasn't wearing a uniform. I looked at the girl again because my eyes ached as well as my head and it was easier looking at her than at the man by her side.

She was dressed in a dark dress and dark coat with the white roll of a polo-necked jumper showing at the throat. She would have been about in her mid-twenties, and her dark hair, brown eyes, almost Grecian features and the olive blush to her complexion made it clear she was no native of those parts. Put her alongside Maggie and Belinda and you'd have to spend not only the best years of your life but also most of the declining ones to find a trio like them, although, admittedly, this girl was hardly looking at her best at that moment: her face was ashen and she was dabbing with a large white handkerchief, probably borrowed from the man at her side, at the blood oozing from an already swelling bruise on her left temple.

'Good G.o.d!' I said. I sounded contrite and I felt it for no more than the next man am I given to the wanton damaging of works of art. 'Did I do that?'

'Of course not.' Her voice was low and husky but maybe that was only since I'd knocked her down. 'I cut myself shaving this morning.'

'I'm terribly sorry. I was chasing a man who's just killed someone and you got in my way. I'm afraid he escaped.'

'My name is Schroeder. I work here.' The man by the girl's side, a tough and shrewd-looking character in perhaps his mid-fifties, apparently suffered from the odd self-depreciation which unaccountably afflicts so many men who have reached positions of considerable responsibility. 'We have been informed of the killing. Regrettable, most regrettable. That this should happen in Schiphol Airport!'

'Your fair reputation,' I agreed. 'I hope the dead man is feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself.'

'Such talk doesn't help,' Schroeder said sharply. 'Did you know the dead men?'

'How the h.e.l.l should I? I've just stepped off the plane. Ask the stewardess, ask the captain, ask a dozen people who were aboard the plane. KL 132 from London, arrival time 1555.' I looked at my watch. 'Good G.o.d! Only six minutes ago.'

'You haven't answered my question.' Schroeder not only looked shrewd, he was shrewd.

'I wouldn't know him even if I saw him now.'

'Mm. Has it ever occurred to you, Mr -- ah -- '

'Sherman.'

'Has it ever occurred to you, Mr Sherman, that normal members of the public don't set off in pursuit of an armed killer?'

'Maybe I'm sub-normal.'

'Or perhaps you carry a gun, too?'

I unb.u.t.toned my jacket and held the sides wide.

'Did you -- by any chance -- recognize the killer?', 'No.' But I'd never forget him, though. I turned to the girl. 'May I ask you a question, Miss -- '

'Miss Lemay,' Schroeder said shortly.

'Did you recognize the killer? You must have had a good look at him. Running men invariably attract attention.'

'Why should I know him?'

I didn't try to be shrewd as Schroeder had been. I said: 'Would you like to have a look at the dead man? Maybe might recognize him?'

She shuddered and shook her head.

Still not being clever, I said: 'Meeting someone?'

'I don't understand.'

'Your standing at the immigration exit.'

She shook her head again. If a beautiful girl can look ghastly, then she looked ghastly.

'Then why be here? To see the sights? I should have thought the immigration hall in Schiphol was the most unsightly place in Amsterdam.'

'That'll do.' Schroeder was brusque. 'Your questions are without point and the young lady is clearly distressed.' He gave me a hard look to remind me that I was responsible for her distress. 'Interrogation is for police officers.'

'I am a police officer.' I handed over my pa.s.sport and warrant card and as I did Maggie and Belinda emerged from the exit. They glanced in my direction, broke step and stared at me with a mixture of concern and consternation as well they might considering the way I felt and undoubtedly looked, but I just scowled at them, as a self-conscious and injured man will scowl at anyone who stares at him, so they hurriedly put their faces straight again and moved on their way. I returned my attention to Schroeder, who was now regarding me with a quite different expression on his face.

'Major Paul Sherman, London Bureau of Interpol. This makes a considerable difference, I must say. It also explains why you behaved like a policeman and interrogate like a policeman. But I shall have to check your credentials, of course.'

'Check whatever you like with whoever you like,' I said, a.s.suming that Mr Schroeder's English grammar wouldn't be up to picking faults in my syntax. 'I suggest you start with Colonel Van de Graaf at the Central HQ.'

'You know the Colonel?'

'It's just a name I picked out of my head. You'll find me in the bar.' I made to move off, then checked as the two big policemen made to follow me. I looked at Schroeder. 'I've no intention of buying drinks for them.'

'It's all right,' Schroeder said to the two men. 'Major Sherman will not run away.'

'Not as long as you have my pa.s.sport and warrant card,' I agreed. I looked at the girl. 'I am sorry, Miss Lemay. This must have been a great shock to you and it's all my fault. Will you come and have a drink with me? You look as if you need one.'

She dabbed her cheek some more and looked at me in a manner that demolished all thoughts of instant friendship.

'I wouldn't even cross the road with you,' she said tonelessly. The way she said it indicated that she would willingly have gone half-way across a busy street with me and then abandoned me there. If I had been a blind man.

'Welcome to Amsterdam,' I said drearily and trudged off in the direction of the nearest bar.

CHAPTER TWO.

I don't normally stay at five-star hotels for the excellent reason that I can't afford to, but when I'm abroad I have a practically unlimited expense account about which questions are seldom asked and never answered, and as those foreign trips tend to be exhausting affairs I see no reason to deny myself a few moments of peace and relaxation in the most comfortable and luxurious hotels possible.

The Hotel Rembrandt was undoubtedly one such. It was rather a magnificent if somewhat ornate edifice perched on a corner of one of the innermost ring ca.n.a.ls of the old city: its splendidly carved balconies actually overhung the ca.n.a.l itself so that any careless sleepwalker could at least be rea.s.sured that he wouldn't break his neck if he toppled over the edge of his balcony -- not, that is, unless he had the misfortune to land on top of one of the gla.s.s-sided ca.n.a.l touring boats which pa.s.sed by at very frequent intervals: a superb eye-level view of those same boats could be had from the ground-floor restaurant which claimed, with some justification, to be the best in Holland.

My yellow Mercedes cab drew up at the front door and while I was waiting for the doorman to pay the cab and get my bag my attention was caught by the sound of 'The Skaters' Waltz' being played in the most excruciatingly off-key, tinny and toneless fashion I'd ever heard. The sound emanated from a very large, high, ornately painted and obviously very ancient mechanical barrel-organ parked across the road in a choice position to obstruct the maximum amount of traffic in that narrow street. Beneath the canopy of the barrel-organ, a canopy which appeared to have been a.s.sembled from the remnants of an unknown number of faded beach umbrellas, a row of puppets, beautifully made and, to my uncritical eye, exquisitely gowned in a variety of Dutch traditional costumes, jiggled up and down on the ends of rubber-covered springs: the motive power for the jiggling appeared to derive purely from the vibration inherent in the operation of this museum piece itself.

The owner, or operator, of this torture machine was a very old and very stooped man with a few straggling grey locks plastered to his head. He looked old enough to have built the organ himself when he was in his prime, but not, obviously, when he was in his prime as a musician. He held in his hand a long stick to which was attached a round tin can which he rattled continuously and was as continuously ignored by the pa.s.sers-by he solicited, so I thought of my elastic expense account, crossed the street and dropped a couple of coins in his box. I can't very well say that he flashed me an acknowledging smile but he did give me a toothless grin and, as token of grat.i.tude, changed into high gear and started in on the unfortunate Merry Widow. I retreated in haste, followed the porter and my bag up the vestibule steps, turned on the top step and saw that the ancient was giving me a very old-fashioned look indeed: not to be outdone in courtesy I gave him the same look right back and pa.s.sed inside the hotel.

The a.s.sistant manager behind the reception desk was tall, dark, thin-moustached, impeccably tail-coated and his broad smile held all the warmth and geniality of that of a hungry crocodile, the kind of smile you knew would vanish instantly the moment your back was half-turned to him but which would be immediately in position, and more genuinely than ever, no matter how quickly you turned to face him again.

'Welcome to Amsterdam, Mr Sherman,' he said. 'We hope you will enjoy your stay.'

There didn't seem any ready reply to this piece of fatuous optimism so I just kept silent and concentrated on filling in the registration card. He took it from me as if I were handing him the Cullinan diamond and beckoned to a bell-boy, who came trotting up with my case, leaning over sideways at an angle of about twenty degrees. 'Boy! Room 616 for Mr Sherman.' I reached across and took the case from the hand of the far from reluctant 'boy'. He could have been -- barely -- the younger brother of the organ-grinder outside.

'Thank you.' I gave the bell-boy a coin. 'But I think I can manage.'

'But that case looks very heavy, Mr Sherman.' The a.s.sistant manager's protesting solicitude was even more sincere than his welcoming warmth. The case was, in fact, very heavy, all those guns and ammunition and metal tools for opening up a variety of things did tot up to a noticeable poundage, but I didn't want any clever character with clever ideas and even cleverer keys opening up and inspecting the contents of my bag when I wasn't around. Once inside an hotel suite there are quite a few places where small objects can be hidden with remote risk of discovery and the search is seldom a.s.siduously pursued if the case is left securely locked in the first place....

I thanked the a.s.sistant manager for his concern, entered the near-by lift and pressed the sixth-floor b.u.t.ton. Just as the lift moved off I glanced through one of the small circular peephole windows inset in the door. The a.s.sistant manager, his smile now under wraps, was talking earnestly into a telephone.

I got out at the sixth floor. Inset in a small alcove directly opposite the lift gates was a small table with a telephone on it, and, behind the table, a chair with a young man with gold-embroidered livery in it. He was an unprepossessing young man, with about him that vague air of indolence and insolence which is impossible to pin down and about which complaint only makes one feel slightly ridiculous: such youths are usually highly-specialized pract.i.tioners in the art of injured innocence.