'You all right?'
'All right? Oh yes. But damned puzzled.'
'By what?'
'The date of the Treaty between France and Monaco -between Clemenceau and Grimaldi. I've just realized what it was!'
'And?'
'Basil got his kingdom on July 17th, 1918.'
'Christ,' Pilgrim breathed. 'I know that date, too. That's the day they shot the Tsar!'
The cheque, signed by Pilgrim and by Malory, and delivered by Malory when he made his well-documented visit to collect the painting, had now been paid into the auctioneer's bank. Another cheque, drawn by the financial director of the auction house, was sent to Coutts & Co., bankers to Royalty - and to the anonymous seller of the Turner. This cheque was for£2,925,000, a sum arrived at by deducting ten per cent from the auction price of three and a quarter million. The ten per cent represented what was termed 'Seller's Premium'. Hillyard, Cleef had already paid a ten per cent Buyer's Premium. The auctioneers had therefore cleared £650,000 and were pleased to act with reasonable expedition. They did not, as was their normal practice, keep the money for a month to earn interest at money market terms; the cheque was sent in a very few days.
Mr Everard Polly, the official at Coutts & Co, entrusted with all matters concerned with removal of the Turner from its vault and its subsequent sale, now proceeded to ensure rapid clearance of the auctioneers' cheque, and then consulted the instructions deposited at the bank by their deceased client. The final passage read:
. . , upon receipt of the monies raised at sale by auction, Envelope Five shall be forwarded to Messrs Dazey, Cheyne & Co., solicitors, of 199 Chancery Lane, London. Mr Polly was enormously intrigued. He had been with Coutts & Co., for more than forty years and this was infinitely the most .., he had difficulty finding the word . . , f lavoursome transaction he had been involved with. Yes, flavoursome. A great painting in the vaults, a price of millions, everything done in great secrecy. Oh yes, flavour-some! It was with some regret that he summoned one of the bank's messengers and told him to deliver Envelope Three at once, because Mr Polly knew that with that action his own involvement ended. It was a shame that he would never know . . . The messenger from Coutts took a taxi. It was not very far from the Strand to Chancery Lane, and as it was a pleasant morning he could easily have walked, but he had gathered from Mr Polly's expression and manner that there must be something rather special about the wax-sealed manila envelope with the large Roman V upon it which now rested in his document case. He decided that, having delivered the envelope, he would walk back through Lincoln's Inn Fields. With luck the girls would be playing netball, and he could pause at the new wine bar . . .
He handed the envelope to Mr Redvers Pratt, chief clerk of Dazey, Cheyne, who said, 'Right, thanks, who's it from?'
"Fraid I can't tell you.'
Mr Pratt frowned. 'Don't be daft. It must be from somebody.'
'Bound to be,' said the messenger, 'but I don't know who. My job to deliver, that's all.'
'Oh.' Mr Pratt looked at it and smiled. 'Bomb, could it be, d'you reckon?'
'Too thin.'
'Hope you're right. Thanks.'
As the messenger left Mr Pratt broke the seal. Inside lay a further envelope and, paperclipped to it, a single sheet of paper upon which was written, 'To be delivered at once to the Senior Partner, Hillyard, Cleef, at 6, Athelsgate, E.C
Unlike Mr Polly, Mr Pratt was only mildly and momentarily interested. The passing on of papers was part of his job, and he simply took a small pride in doing it efficiently. As the postal service declined, Mr Pratt had searched for replacement means and had recently taken to using a firm which had given itself an extremely unlikely name.
'Suzuki Highway,' said the girl's Cockney voice on the telephone, when he rang up. Said Redvers Pratt: 'This is Dazey, Cheyne, solicitors, of 199 Chancery -'
'Piss orf, darlin, why doncha?' The girl said amiably. 'Don't waste me bloody time -'
'We're customers,' said Pratt patiently. 'Look up the account like a good girl. We all know it's a funny name. Dazey, -'
'Cheyne. Yer, Gorrit. Orl right, I'll have a Crimson Suzuki with you in a minute, okay? Who's he ask for?'
'Mr Pratt.'
She laughed. 'By name if not by nature, eh?' And hung up. Pratt, too, was smiling. He was an East Ender himself and enjoyed his occasional contacts with the native sharpness. Several Crimson Suzuki motor-cycles were at that moment delivering packages and letters in various parts of the metropolis. Several more, parked in assorted places, awaited the call. It came always by radio.
Crimson Suzuki 7 stood at that moment outside a Macdonald's Hamburger palace in Shaftesbury Avenue. Its driver-owner, one Dave Legg, dressed in leathers of surpassing griminess, had just purchased a Big Mac and a large Coca-Cola and was settling himself comfortably on the saddle when the loudspeaker behind him squawked suddenly.
He swore, bent, placed the Coke on the pavement, and picked up the hand-microphone in his gauntleted free hand. 'Yer?' he said.
'Where are you?'
He told her.
'Outside MacDonald's again, aincher,' she said. 'Listen, go to 199 Chancery Lane, right? 'Ere you'll get fat, you will.'
Dave Legg, in replacing the mike, kicked over the Coke. He swore again. Goo from the Big Mac was dribbling down his leather gauntlet. He licked it off, crammed half the hamburger into his capacious mouth, kicked the starter, and carved up an approaching taxi as he roared through the traffic stream. Redvers Pratt greeted him pleasantly a few minutes later. Mr Pratt liked to think of himself as a student of contrasting human behaviour, and it was fascinating to think of this grubby thug entering the refined portals of 6 Athelsgate.
'This envelope is for the Senior Partner,' Mr Pratt told Dave Legg. 'Don't give it to anyone else, okay? No secretaries - him personally.'
"Sis 'andle?' said Legg.
'What? Oh, his name? He's Mr Pilgrim, you got that? Pilgrim. Six Athelsgate, that's in the City.'
'Do me a fiver, mate?' said Dave Legg mysteriously. He pulled a Mars bar from his jacket and departed, leaving the wrapper on the floor.
Seven minutes later he faced Sir Horace Malory. Already he had defied the doorkeeper, two junior employees more than willing to accept the envelope, and Pilgrim's secretary.
'It's only for this Senior Partner geezer,' Dave Legg insisted. 'Swarree said. No secketries, nobody!'
Malory smiled. 'I'm the other Senior Partner, Sir Horace Malory. You may safely leave it with me.' He could recognize the envelope, even with most of it half-concealed in Dave Legg's greasy gauntlet.
'Pilgrim, swarree sed. Mr Pilgrim, nobody else!'
'Oh, really!' Mrs Frobisher came close to stamping her foot. 'Sir Horace is -'
"E ain't this geezer Pilgrim,' Dave Legg said stoutly, and turned to Malory. 'Are you, squire?'
'Er, no.' Malory held up his hand. 'Where have you come from?'
'199 Chancery Lane.'
'Oh, I see. Dazey, Cheyne.'
'Dunno what they play, squire,' said Legg with a grin.
Malory, possessed by now of twin ambitions: to strangle this ghastly lout, and to get his hands on Dikeston's narrative, more or less in that order, was still able to force a smile. 'Perhaps if we telephone them and explain that Mr Pilgrim is out - perhaps from them you would accept different instructions?'
'Yus, mate,' said Dave Legg.
Mrs Frobisher telephoned Mr Redvers Pratt and then handed the receiver to Dave Legg with her fingertips. She rather thought he wasn't very clean.
'Geezer ere says 'e's - worrizit?'
'Malory,' Sir Horace said softly.
'Yer, Malory. Okay is it? Right, squire.'