The Ways of the World Page 15

  ‘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.’

  ‘They’re wrong.’

  ‘See if you’re as sure about that after we’ve taken a look at the apartment. From what Zamaron tells me, you may not be.’

  NUMBER 7 RUE du Verger was in many respects a mirror image of 8 Rue du Verger, though somewhat smarter in its common parts, gleaming brass and glowing marble attesting to more assiduous housekeeping. The concierge was younger and friendlier, though understandably downcast. ‘C’était épouvantable à voir, messieurs,’ she averred as she escorted them to the lift. A terrible thing to see? Max felt sure it had been.

  The entrance to Spataro’s apartment was on the sixth floor. A notice from the préfecture had been pinned to the door, forbidding entry. But Appleby had the key and official permission. They went straight in.

  What they entered was the world of Raffaele Spataro. Bright colours were everywhere, in rugs and upholstery and tapestries, not to mention the numerous huge and gaudy paintings. Leopard- and tiger-skins had been draped and strewn around as well. The man had lived in a jungle of strident shapes and tones. The paintings were a mixture of still lifes and nudes, the fruits ripe, the men muscular, the women broad-hipped and big-breasted.

  ‘I think we can safely say Spataro wasn’t keen on self-restraint,’ Appleby remarked. He stopped at the foot of a staircase that led up to a large hatch in the ceiling. ‘This communicates with his studio on the floor above. We’ll take a look up there later.’

  Appleby led the way into the drawing-room. There was no relief from the kaleidoscopic excess of Spataro’s taste in furnishings and decoration. Tableloads of liquor and disorderly piles of newspapers and magazines compounded the chaos. What were surely several years’ worth of party invitations filled the mantelpiece, with the overflow tucked into the frame of the gigantic mirror above it.

  In the centre of the room a clearance had been made, exposing floorboards darkly stained with blood. The extent of the stain took Max aback. It was at least six feet across. ‘He was a big fellow,’ said Appleby. ‘A lot of blood will have come out of him.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I gather there was a rug it soaked through that they took away for evidence. Oh, and there’s the famous gramophone.’

  The machine stood on a sideboard, flanked by a stack of records. There was one already on the turntable. Appleby lifted it off and peered at the label.

  ‘Proof the Devil doesn’t always have the best tunes,’ he said, dropping it back into place.

  ‘Where do the police think he was shot from?’ Max asked.

  ‘From just about where you are now.’

  Max looked down at his feet, though what he expected to see he could not have said. Corinne had not killed Spataro, but someone had. Someone had stood where Max was standing and gunned Spataro down in cold blood. And then the hot blood had flowed.

  ‘I imagine she stepped closer after he’d fallen and finished him off with the shot to the head. While this’ – Appleby nodded back to the gramophone – ‘was caterwauling away.’

  ‘Corinne didn’t do it, Appleby.’

  ‘So you keep saying. The police say otherwise.’

  ‘Does she have a lawyer to defend her?’

  ‘Not yet, as far as I know. Under wartime regulations, I believe they can hold her without charge, let alone legal representation, for as long as they like.’

  ‘But the war’s over.�
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  ‘Not legally. Until there’s a treaty, we’re all still theoretically at war.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘That would be up to Zamaron. And what good would it do? She’ll protest her innocence. And you’ll believe her.’

  ‘I already believe her. First my father, now Spataro. It’s the work of the same man. Surely that’s obvious.’

  ‘Let’s go upstairs. I’m told it’s well worth a look.’

  They went back out into the hall. The hatch leading to the studio was operated by a pulley fitted to the wall at the foot of the stairs. Appleby wound the handle and the hatch slowly rose until it engaged with a hook vertically above them. Then he gestured for Max to go on up.

  The studio was lower-ceilinged than the apartment owing to the angle of the mansard roof, and the windows were smaller, but it seemed larger and airier on account of its bareness. The walls were white and furnishings were few. Spataro’s paintings, on the other hand, were many.

  They were propped and stacked around the studio, the route between them leading in a series of diagonals to a far corner lit by windows from both sides of the building, where an easel was set up on a dais, next to a chair and a low table supporting a spinney of paintbrushes sprouting from old jam jars.

  ‘Looks like he painted many more than he sold,’ Appleby remarked as he followed Max in the direction of the easel. There was a clunk as his foot struck an empty wine bottle, one of many dotted around the room.

  Max stepped up on to the dais and looked through the street-facing window. There, on the other side of Rue du Verger, was the mansarded top floor of number 8, from which Sir Henry had fallen to his death. Spataro would have had a clear view of the event, if he had happened to be looking.

  ‘Zamaron advised me to pay particular attention to the paintings behind the easel,’ said Appleby. ‘The stack there.’

  There were a dozen or so leaning against the wall, covered in a paint-spattered sheet. Max moved across to them and tugged the sheet away.

  And there was Corinne. Max recognized her at once, despite the distortions and exaggerations of Spataro’s technique. She was depicted sitting on a chair, a coat draped loosely around her shoulders. She was otherwise naked, apart from a pair of shoes. Her legs were crossed to preserve a hint of modesty, but her breasts were fully exposed.

  She had not denied modelling for Spataro, but confronting the proof of it was still a shock for Max. He told himself to accept what he saw as an artwork and nothing more. But acceptance did not obligingly follow.

  ‘She’s all woman, isn’t she?’ murmured Appleby.

  ‘Why don’t you—’ Whirling round to be met by Appleby’s confoundedly bland gaze, Max fell suddenly silent. Losing his temper now would help no one, Corinne least of all.

  ‘Shall we take a look at the others, Mr Maxted?’

  Max moved the first picture aside, bracing himself for more of the same. But on the second canvas there was only a faint pencil sketch of a woman who might have become a likeness of Corinne in a finished painting but was now only a series of suggestive lines: a nude, naturally, reclining on a couch.

  The third canvas was another sketch of another nude, crouching on all fours on the low table. And the remaining canvases were blank.

  ‘Work in progress, you think?’ Appleby asked.

  ‘She only modelled for him once,’ Max said stubbornly, leaning the canvases back against the wall and replacing the sheet.

  ‘Once, twice or umpteen times, it’s proof she knew Spataro … how shall we put it? … on terms a man who loved her might resent.’

  ‘There are lots of artists in Montparnasse, Appleby, and lots of artists’ models.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like it. And I bet Sir Henry didn’t like it either.’

  ‘There was nothing between Corinne and Spataro.’

  ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it?’ Appleby pointed with the stem of his pipe at the shrouded paintings. ‘There may have been literally nothing between them.’

  Max broke away and stared disconsolately through the window. Less than a week ago, on the rooftop opposite, the drama that had led him to this place had been set in motion. He had resolved to avenge his father’s murder, but all that had happened so far was a second murder – and a second injustice. He wanted an enemy he could engage with, a target to fix in his sights before he pressed his triggers. But the sky was empty. There was no foe to be seen.

  ‘Penny for them,’ said Appleby, standing so close behind him that his pipe smoke drifted over Max’s shoulder.

  ‘I miss knowing who I’m supposed to be fighting.’

  ‘You seldom see more than the shadow of your opponent in my game, Mr Maxted.’

  ‘And what is your game, Appleby?’

  ‘I’m here to protect the British delegation to the peace conference from any threat that may present itself.’

  ‘What are you – Secret Service?’

  ‘If I were, I wouldn’t admit it.’

  ‘And you’re not admitting it, I notice.’

  ‘It’ll be the guillotine for Madame Dombreux if she’s convicted of murdering Spataro.’

  ‘She’s innocent. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know my first duty is to our delegation. And for that reason – not because I find it hard to believe a beautiful young woman is capable of murder – I have to consider the possibility … that you’re right.’

  Max turned and stated at Appleby in amazement. ‘What?’

  Appleby allowed himself a tentative smile. ‘There are suspicious aspects to Sir Henry’s death, as you pointed out. And this business with the gloves does have a contrived look about it. Also …’ He frowned. ‘I had an interesting chat with your brother on the train on Tuesday. It must have occurred to you that Sir Ashley would mention the list you found. I can’t help noticing you haven’t mentioned it to me.’

  ‘All right. So you know about the list.’

  ‘In Sir Henry’s handwriting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mind if I see it?’

  ‘What makes you think I carry it around with me?’

  ‘I doubt you’d leave it in your hotel room. I doubt you’d leave it anywhere.’ Appleby held out his hand. ‘I’d be very grateful if you showed it to me, Mr Maxted.’

  Max hesitated, then reached into his pocket. He took out the list and passed it to Appleby. ‘It’s only a copy. Corinne has the original.’

  ‘Had, you mean. The police have probably got it now. Unless they’ve sent it on to le Deuxième Bureau.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The French Secret Service.’ Appleby ran his eye down the list. ‘It’s a worrying possibility, since this is considerably more enlightening than the entries in Sir Henry’s diary.’

  For all that the admission was casually made, Max did not doubt it was carefully calculated. ‘So, you admit you removed the diary from his personal effects before they were delivered to us?’

  ‘It was a potential source of vital information. It was always my intention to return it once I’d had an opportunity to evaluate the entries.’ Appleby delved inside his coat and pulled out the diary: pocket-sized, bound in blue leather, with a lion-and-unicorn crest on the front and a small pencil in the spine. ‘Routine appointments only, I’m afraid. Nothing significant.’ He passed it to Max as he spoke. But he held on to the list. ‘This, on the other hand, could be very significant.’

  ‘Did you tell my brother that?’

  ‘Certainly not. It would only have confused him. And I assume you don’t really want him interfering.’ Appleby returned the list. ‘Made any progress interpreting those items?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Enough to know you must understand at least a couple of them yourself.’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘The Trust, for example.’

  Appleby nodded. ‘A Russian monarchist organization based here in Paris.’

  ‘And F.L.?’

  �
��They’re the initials of the man who ran the Kaiser’s spy network.’

  ‘Fritz Lemmer.’

  ‘The very same. Not a commonly known name, of course. How did you come by it?’

  ‘I asked around.’

  ‘Around thirty-three Rue des Pyramides, perhaps?’

  Max held a poker face. ‘Why there?’

  ‘Because your father recorded a few appointments at that address, with one Travis Ireton, proprietor of Ireton Associates, known to us as a broker of illicitly obtained information. According to your brother, you met Ireton when you visited your father earlier this month.’ (Max silently and expressionlessly cursed Ashley’s inability to keep his mouth shut.) ‘I assume you’ve been to see him since. He’d know who Lemmer is. I should warn you that Ireton’s the sort who likes other people to do his dirty work. I suppose that’s why the French authorities have failed so far to pin anything on him. Zamaron told me they had particularly high hopes of catching him last night in the act of taking delivery of proofs smuggled out of the conference printing works down in Auteuil. But he sent someone in his place and, as it happens, that someone managed to give the police the slip. They think he was an Englishman.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. He lost his hat climbing over a wall. There was a London hatter’s label inside the crown.’ (How fortunate it was, Max reflected, that he had not bought the hat in Epsom.) Appleby shuddered theatrically. ‘Cold today, isn’t it?’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘That’ll be why you came out without your hat, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you know what the Contingencies Memo is?’ Max asked, eager to revert to the subject of the list.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or the Chinese box?’

  ‘Not for certain. But if I had to hazard a guess …’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  Appleby smiled faintly. ‘All right. The head of the Chinese delegation, Lou Tseng-Tsiang, visited Tokyo on his way here for talks with the Japanese government. While he was in Tokyo, a box of secret documents he was carrying went missing. Stolen by the Japanese, presumably. But who knows? There are so many thieves in this world. And so many secret documents. Your father served a couple of years at the embassy in Tokyo, of course. He’d have known how things work there.’